Quaranteam - Boo Two (ch. 20.5)

Intermission Four -

Milagros / Jake

Operation: Funnel Cake - Case Files IB2323 & OB646

IB2323 - Feb. 1

st

, 2021 - 1

st

Contact - San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina

Milagros Herrera arrived at the tented outdoor temporary building with a certain level of trepidation, but there had been enough talk about how people were being offered a new life and being guaranteed safety from the virus that had been ravaging the country, leaving them almost entirely without men.

The sign on the side had both an Argentinian flag and a United States flag on it, and she had gotten a notice at work that she needed to report to this tent today, so here she was. Milagros was in her early 30s and had mostly been highly focused on her career at INVAP as an electrical engineer specializing in large scale mechanics and robotics, but the fact that she was a woman had been holding her back, and she had grown sick and tired of being passed over because she was good looking and single. She wasn't model beautiful, but she was prettier than she felt was good for her career. Long black hair that she usually kept up in a bun, a decent figure, a good bust and excellent cheek bones had meant that people were constantly talking about how she should get married and leave the heavy work to the men.

All of them could jump into the ocean for all she cared.

Milagros wandered into the tent and found there was a line of women there all of whom were being talked to one at a time by two people at the end of the line. The two people at the end were both military women, one from the Argentinian army and one from a United States military group called the Air Force, and both women had a laptop in front of them.

When she stepped into line, she was handed a pamphlet that seemed almost like science fiction, detailing how a vaccine had been discovered for this dreaded DuoHalo virus, but that it could only be given to women, and that women could pass on that resistance to their sexual partners. She'd seen clips from the

60 Minutes

story on YouTube, but she'd thought it sounded so silly that it had to be a prank. Now, looking at the pamphlet, she had to wonder what else she might have been wrong about.

"Name?" the Air Force woman, who had a nametag on that said 'Collins' said to her when she reached the front of the line.

"Herrera. Milagros Herrera," she said proudly. "What's this all about?"

"Survival of the country," the Argentinian, whose nametag read Gomez, said to her. She clicks a few things on her laptop and then uses her mouse to flick a file from one laptop to the other. "Here's her file."

Collins looks at the file and nods. "Potential candidate."

Gomez sighed. "Of course she is. Fine, make your case."

Collins looked up at Milagros and offered her a smile. The American woman was a small blonde with her hair cut short, but there was something warm and friendly about her. "Miss Herrera, I'm with the United States of America, and we're here to offer you an opportunity, if you're interested."

"What kind of opportunity?"

"You're smart, you're well-educated, you're attractive and I think you'd make a fine US citizen. We're offering you a chance to be a part of a program called Operation: Funnel Cake, where we are trading some of our male citizens to other countries, in exchange for some of their under-utilized female citizens," Collins said casually. "Let me guess - you've been passed over for promotion several times here at work because you're a woman and you don't have a husband."

"I mean, yes, a little," Milagros said.

"So, your choice, Miss Herrera, is this - you can stay here and be partnered up with someone here at INVAP, or you can immigrate to the United States immediately and partner up with someone in my country. Now, keep in mind, in the United States, you'll still be expected to work, but it will be in the field which you've already proven quite resourceful in, and I imagine you'll find the climb up the ladder to be significantly less fraught with problems. There's also significantly less people here for you to choose from, so I imagine that if you consider moving to the United States, you'll be much happier. As part of the Operation, we're offering free relocation and a significantly wider selection of partners to choose from."

"How does it work?" Milagros asked Collins.

"Well ma'am, we give you what we call the Oracle questionnaire, and then we run it against the database back in the States," Collins said. "It's going to be targeting a specific area of the country where we're focusing people with your particular skillset. If you agree, we'll begin relocating you to that area, and once you're there, you'll be presented with a list of men who are of high compatibility with you for you to choose from."

"Why not present that list to me here?" she asked.

Collins frowned. "Because we don't know who'll still be alive and who'll be dead by the time we finish relocating you. This virus is serious fucking business, ma'am."

Milagros had to spend a long moment considering things before she asked her next question. "Don't you expect those of us who move to get lonely in your country without friends or family?"

Collins smiled now, and Milagros wondered if she'd tipped her interest away too much. "Not at all, ma'am! See, that's the beauty about how Funnel Cake works. If you decide you want to be traded to my country, you can bring a number of your friends and family with you. Now, we don't recommend you have family members as a part of your Team, but we do keep everyone in a Cake cluster within sixty miles of each other, at a bare minimum. You can even request your friend be part of your new Team. They'll relocate with you, sharing your cabin and transportation so you'll be with them the whole time from the moment you leave here to the moment you depart to meet your new partner."

"They're..." Milagros started and then stopped, sighing. She needed to be honest, she decided. "They aren't as educated as me. My best friend, she's a chef in a local restaurant. My sister, she is a stock clerk at the local grocery store."

Collins nodded, waving her hand. "That's absolutely okay, Miss Herrera. You see, you're what we would call 'the get' in this case, and whatever it would take to ensure you'd be happy in your new home, we're going to do. Your best friend and your sister would get jobs where they'd be happy, and they'd be close by, so you could see them all the time. They don't have boyfriends or husbands?"

Milagros sniffed a little bit. "My best friend, Sofia, she had a boyfriend but he died of the disease in the summer."

"That's okay, that's totally fine. A lot of people have very similar stories," Collins said. "And I don't want to put any pressure on you, but we're only going to be here until tomorrow afternoon, so if you want to go, you'll need to show up before then, because I need to be moving on with the rest of my team, as we continue to look for candidates."

"This Oracle questionnaire," Milagros asked. "Have you used it?"

Collins grinned and nodded. "I have indeed, ma'am."

"And are you happy?"

Collins giggled a little bit and then nodded slowly. "Honestly, I met the love of my life through it, and the sex, well, they told me the sex was going to be mind blowingly good, but I thought they were full of shit until I met up with George. Fuck, just thinking about him is giving me the chills. So yes, ma'am, I can enthusiastically recommend the program without any form of reservation or hesitation, and assure you, you will not go two weeks without being sexually satisfied for the rest of your life if you decide to take part."

Milagros considered herself an excellent judge of character, and the woman, Collins, didn't show any of the telltale signs of being a liar. In fact, the sort of distant, glassy-eyed look the Air Force woman had gotten for a second when thinking about her man had only sort of reaffirmed everything she'd been reading about this Quaranteam serum in the pamphlet while she'd been waiting, and all of that lined up with what she'd see in the

60 Minutes

story last month. While it all seemed a bit too good to be true, Milagros found herself hoping that maybe, just maybe, it would turn out to be a good thing.

"If I change my mind when you're transporting me to the United States?" she asked them.

"You have right up until the moment of imprinting to change your mind, Miss Herrera," Collins said. "Now, keep in mind, if you're injected and change your mind then, you may be somewhat pressed for time in deciding on a new partner, but that'll be explained to you before you're injected with anything, and you have the right to change your mind anywhere along the way between here and there. Does that mean you're considering—"

"I'll be back here tomorrow morning with my sister, my best friend and our bags," Milagros said as she turned around. "Be ready to send us on our way to your country."

OB646 - Feb. 1

st

, 2021 - 1

st

Contact - Hattiesburg, Mississippi

Jake McCready absolutely hated his fucking life. When the pandemic had hit, he'd done his best to keep from getting sick, but he couldn't afford not to work, so he'd just done the best he could with masks and avoiding people, and so far, it had left him alive, although he almost wished he'd just fucking died instead.

During the evening, Jake was a pizza delivery driver for Dominoes, dropping pizzas off on people's doorsteps before backing away. People were a lot stingier with fucking tips when they didn't have to take the pizza directly from you, but at least some people were pre-tipping before the pizza even arrived, so the money wasn't awful. It wasn't

good

by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn't awful either.

That wasn't Jake's only gig, either. He also worked the midnight shift at the local 7-11, starting at 11 at night and working until 9 in the morning, although people very rarely came into the place. He almost thought his boss was just going to call one day to tell him not to bother coming in, but that call never seemed to come.

What pissed Jake off the most, however, was that his dealer had died early on in the pandemic, and now Jake didn't know who to score weed or meth from anymore. He didn't need the stuff to function day-to-day, but the weed certainly made the dull times easier to take and the meth made the long hours fly by faster. He'd resorted to buying skunk weed from Little Nikki Grover, the town's only hooker who had decided to start a second business selling pot when she couldn't give handies out to drunks behind the Denny's.

He wasn't a good-looking guy; he was used to that. He'd been described as slimy, skeezy, slippery, weasel-looking, rat-faced, snide, and thuggish. He kept his hair in a mullet, so it didn't get in his eyes, but didn't let anyone think he was a fucking pushover. He had a short black pencil mustache because he thought it made him look tough. He had a tattoo running down the length of his left arm from shoulder to wrist that said in stacked single letters: W-I-N-E-R. Occasionally people would laugh when they saw it, but nobody ever told him why.

Jake had been busted for minor possession charges a couple of times, but the first time had just been a fine and the second time had been community service that Jake had begrudgingly put up with just to fucking get through it.

At least Jake knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

Yesterday, a guy from the Air Force had come into the 7-11 and given Jake his personalized link to take the Oracle test. Like everyone else in the country, Jake had seen the news stories, and heard all the talk about it, and knew that once he took it, they were going to be delivering women for him to fuck not long after. He just hoped they didn't send him anyone too mouthy or bitchy, because Jake already had an ass full trying to deal with customers, so he didn't need to take that shit when he got home.

Most of the test Jake had just checked no because he wasn't interested in most of that freaky shit, although he did mark that he liked telling people what to do, and he liked being taken care of. If he was lucky, he thought maybe one of his partners might be one of the girls from one of the strip clubs up in Jackson, but knowing the sort of shit luck he usually had, he felt like he'd probably be given a bunch of women who he would have trouble even looking at.

He was torn between being optimistic and daydreaming about beautiful women being sent his way and being realistic and thinking that his two counts of drug possession and his lack of a high school diploma were going to be what kept him from getting any of the good pussy, but fuck it, he thought to himself, I'm alive and I've got a dick that works, and that's more than most of the men in this fucking country.

Jake was putting new steak and cheese rolls on the griller when he saw the Air Force HumVee pull up in front of the 7-11, his excitement completely quashed when he saw only one woman get out of the vehicle, and she was in uniform, as she walked into the store. "Mr. McCready?" she asked. "Are you in here?"

"Yeah yeah," Jake said, sliding another pizza into the oven, so there would be hot and ready slices waiting in the glass case if anyone came in and wanted them. "Something wrong with my application? I notice you don't have any trim for me with you."

"Yes, Mr. McCready, that's why I'm here," the woman whose nameplate said "Gabriel" read. "Your government has a proposition for you, one which we think is in both your interest and ours."

"Dunno if I believe some assholes in Washington give a shit about me, lady, but go ahead. Tell me what the scam is."

"No scam, Mr. McCready. Just a choice. You've got two options in front of you. Your first is that you decline what I'm offering, and I go back to the base and bring three women to be paired with you for as soon as you're off shift."

"That doesn't sound too bad."

"That's the thing, Mr. McCready - your profile has proven significantly difficult to match people up with, and so we're resorting to extremely long reaches in terms of compatibility scores with the Oracle system to even get vaguely sustainable matches."

"What the fuck's that supposed to mean?"

"Most good Teams have 80-90% compatibility scores, Mr. McCready. Those higher than that are exceptionally lucky, and when that score gets below, say, 60%, we begin to grow very concerned."

"So what's the highest match score I got?"

"34.6%."

"That sounds pretty fucking dire, lady," Jake sighed.

"That's the thing, Mr. McCready," Gabriel told him. "We have another option, one which we think will be much more to your liking. It's part of a program we're calling Operation: Funnel Cake. You see, there are a number of other countries around the world that, quite frankly, just need men for breeding stock. We are giving you the chance to volunteer to enroll in the program to become one of those. You would move to a foreign country, and you would no longer be expected, or in fact even

allowed

, to have a job."

"You're fucking kidding, right?" Jake asked, restocking the cigarette stand.

"No, Mr. McCready, I am not," Gabriel said. "You would be taken care of for life. You're likely to get much more attractive partners over there, and we expect the compatibility would be significantly higher, simply because the countries you might be sent to have experienced serious losses of their male population. Your entire role in life would be to breed with your partners, impregnating them in order to help raise a new generation."

"I don't speak no foreign languages," Jake said. "Shit, I ain't even speak English so good."

"No worries, Mr. McCready, at least one member of your Team overseas will speak English and will serve as your interpreter for the rest of your Teammates," Gabriel said. "And it's a chance for you to be regularly hooking up with the sort of women who wouldn't normally even give you the time of day, Mr. McCready."

"And they gotta fuck me, if I do this?"

"They do, Mr. McCready, and you'll have to fuck them as well," Gabriel said. "The world needs children, and you would be helping to father a new generation."

"What sorts of places y'all sending folks like me to?"

"Europe, South America, Africa, southeast Asia... lots of people are looking to get their hands on American studs."

"And I can come back here any time I want?" Jake asked.

"No, Mr. McCready, I'm afraid that if you join the program, you will become a citizen of whatever country you move to, and in doing so, will renounce your American citizenship."

"Fuck that," Jake said. "Can't be worth that."

"Well, Mr. McCready, that is your decision to make, and if you don't want to relocate, I can go back to base and get the first of your partners, who I imagine will be indicative of who you'll be paired with. Her name's Virginia Rhodes."

At the very name, Jake's dick tried to crawl up inside of his gut and take refuge. Virginia 'Ginny The Virgin' Rhodes was certainly the least attractive woman Jake had ever laid eyes on, and she was certainly even more of a mess than he was. Blane, Jake's old drug dealer, had stopped selling Ginny meth when all of her teeth had fallen out and she couldn't give even halfway decent head no more. She was ugly, she was foul-tempered and worst of all, she was strong like a fucking ox. Jake immediately wanted to lock himself in the 7-11's freezer and never come out.

"Wait, wait, wait," Jake said. "Do I get any say in where I'm going?"

"I'm afraid not, Mr. McCready, but I can tell you that the last five men I've sent overseas as part of this program have thanked me once they were settled in their new homes."

Jake knew that he was probably being sold a load of horseshit, but if it was that versus the rest of his life being stuck with Ginny Rhodes, he would take dumpsters of manure all day long. "Fine, what do I need to do?"

"Pack a suitcase and stand outside your apartment tomorrow morning, when someone'll come pick you up and take you to the relocation center. Remember, you aren't coming back, so take anything with you that you want."

"Great. Swell. See you tomorrow morning."

IB2323 - Feb. 2

nd

, 2021 - Departure - San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina

At six in the morning, Milagros, her sister Martina and her best friend Sofia arrived at the relocation center, each with a single suitcase in tow, as per instructions. Martina had been a harder sell that Sofia had, as her sister spoke poor English and had never even considered moving away from where they'd grown up, but with Milagros being completely convinced she was leaving, her sister had come around eventually, and the three had spent the night packing all their things. Milagros had told her sister they were going to have new lives, better lives, free from worrying about drug lords threatening to rape them or sell them into slavery.

There were about a dozen other women beyond them, and in each cluster of them, Milagros recognized many of her most talented and brightest coworkers from INVAP, giving them smiles and polite waves. She only knew them in passing, not well enough to consider them friends, but still, it was a welcome sight. Seeing people that she knew and respected making the same decision only helped reinforce that she was doing the right thing.

The long lines of yesterday were gone, and it seemed like the tent was packing up, but just past eight, the woman from the Air Force, Collins, came to bring everyone into the tent and into a small briefing area, with a large screen projector.

"Hello and welcome!" she said, as her words were being translated live into Spanish on the screen behind her. "My name is Major Collins, and I am the Unit Commander for this division of the Operation: Funnel Cake Discovery and Relocation Force. You are here because you have been invited, directly or through one of your friends or family, to join the United States as citizens and to be paired up with men there. Let me give you a brief rundown of what we're doing here today."