Quaranteam

November 20

th

, 2020

While most of the girls had insisted on getting dressed up in their best formal attire, Andy still wanted to be himself, so while he had on dark slacks and a crimson button up shirt, he left the top couple of buttons undone. No suit, no tie, and he was still wearing his combat boot style shoes, and not loafers. Aisling had tried to give him grief about it, but he'd told her that if she wasn't wearing high heels, he didn't have to wear loafers, which she agreed was a fair trade.

When they came down the stairs, Andy noted with amusement that next to the front door, someone had set up a small table with a massive stack of name tag stickers and a handful of black Sharpies. It was a very smart move, because Andy knew that as bad as he was with names, there was literally

no

way he was going to remember the names of all of his friends' partners and staff, and having name tags to fall back upon would be extremely useful.

Also, just behind the table, he saw his camera bag, his tripod laying down behind it. Like a lot of writers, Andy had gone through a photography phase, and he'd actually been pretty good at it, finding that he had an excellent eye for shot composition and lighting, but he just hadn't kept up on it. It would be good to get photos to commemorate each household, though.

"C'mon ladies, everybody out onto the front steps," he called out to the house. "It's group photo time! House Marcos is going to be here in just a few minutes, so let's get this done before they're here!"

That got all the girls laughing, even as Sarah and Emily made sure to round up the staff, who had also gotten dressed up for the night, except Nicolette who had staunchly refused to ditch her French maid's attire, and everyone moved out to the front of the house, where there were four steps leading up to the front door.

Andy brought his camera and his tripod out, setting the stand up at about the right place to get everyone in frame, as he affixed the camera while the girls seemed to be lining up how they wanted to, leaving space for him front and center, obviously.

The front row was Piper, Emily and Sarah, space for him, and then Aisling and Niko, with Alexis next to her. The second row was Jenny and Katie together, then Fiona and Moira directly behind him, then Maya, and finally Lauren and Taylor. The third row was Nicolette and Whitney, then Sheridan, Jade and Tala, then Asha and Hannah.

He made them do a various handful of shots, some serious, some playful, some flirty and at least a couple absolutely ridiculous, and he felt like they'd gotten what they needed when he told the girls to head into the house and put nametags on themselves. Niko was one step ahead of him, though, and placed her name tag atop one of her breasts, a wonderfully racy two stripe gown leaving much of her flesh exposed, although Andy had no doubt that she had still managed to conceal a pistol or two somewhere on her. She also slapped one on Andy's chest with his name on it, as she giggled. "You have

no

idea how hard it was to resist the temptation for that to just say 'Daddy' instead," Niko told him. "Also, get used to me being by your side all night, and I do mean the whole fucking time, got it? You need to piss, I'll hold your dick for you. That's how glued to you I am until this party is over."

"I was about to ask if you really thought it was necessary, but if it's what you're doing, then it is, and I get that," Andy chuckled.

Just as the rest of the girls were filing into the house, a small fleet of Tesla Model Ys pulled up the long driveway to the house, parking one at a time in the large open space in front of the garage, four in all, but Andy knew there would be loads more cars before the night was through. It was likely going to be the largest party he'd ever thrown.

The first people to get out of the first car were Linda and Violet, followed immediately by Phil, as the rest of Phil's family and staff exited their cars, heading up the front stairs, Emily and Sarah standing at the top of them, waving for people to come on in, and Phil and his two warrior Valkyries moved over to see Andy first.

Phil wrapped his arms around Andy, and Andy did likewise, the two men sharing a big hug, brothers-in-arms in the new new world. "How'd it go?" Phil asked him. "Everything about how Eve said it would be?"

"Mostly," Andy told him, "but there's a couple of caveats that I don't know if she told you that you'd better know about." He did a quick headcount of the women Phil had brought with him, and it looked like the House of Marcos, including both partners and staff, as well as Phil himself, was at 18. Phil's chef, Winnie, and her partner, the majordomo and executive assistant of the House of Marcos, Valerie, unloaded a couple of armloads of covered trays of food to help feed the mass of people expected for the night. "She seemed to think you didn't know as much about what she was offering as you should, and so I figure I better stress these two details before I hand everything over."

The Filipino man immediately winced. "Tell me they're minor ones and not things like, 'oh, it only works for women between the ages of 26 and a half and 27.'"

Andy laughed, shaking his head. "Nothing

that

bad, but still important things to take note of. First, it's a one-and-done thing, and can't be done a second time. Now, Eve seems to think you might be able to get past that particular wrinkle with enough time and research, but as it stands right now, you need to set expectations that it's not going to let people keep hopping back and forth between partners all willy-nilly. You might eventually be able to get it to that point, but this isn't

that

, okay?"

"Okay, that's one," Phil said. "What's the other?"

"The other is that the process itself is no cakewalk," he told his friend. "I watched as Eve got reset, and it sent her into a sexual frenzy that I've only seen once before, and that was with Piper when I first met her, and Covington had kept her from getting primed and imprinted for over a week. Eve went from rational, sane woman to lust-filled fuckbeast like that," Andy said, snapping his fingers. "She'd even warned us, so we were holding her arms and legs but if we hadn't been, I think it was just as likely that she'd have gone for me as she would've Nathaniel. It didn't really matter to her

what

cock she got at that point, as long as she got

a

cock,

any

cock. That's something you're definitely going to have to prep for before you reassign anyone."

"What about her claims that it could be used to pair two women together, or two men?" Linda asked. "You get any proof of that?"

"Well, other than the fact that Sergei and Andrei seem like they're imprinted on each other, no, but considering Eve Merriweather seemed to be right on just about everything else, she's probably right on that too."

"Merriweather?" Phil asked.

"Yeah, she doesn't want to use the last name McCallister anymore," Niko said. "Who can blame her?"

"That makes a lot of sense, yeah," Phil said. "Just didn't know that was her maiden name. I'd only met her a handful of times over the last couple of years. She'd always looked like she was just barely tolerating his shit. But barring those things, it works? I mean, it really works?"

"She seemed like she went through the imprinting process again, yeah, with her saying the word and everything. Nathaniel and his family took her back to her new home, but we got blood samples of every step along the way, and Niko'll give'em to you when you decide to leave for the night," Andy said. "As far as I can tell, though, you have your starting point for everything you want it to do, that'll let women remove from one person and put onto another, should they need to. But it needs to be used carefully and sparingly, because it doesn't work a second time, although Eve said the necrotized approach would still work, even after reassignment, so there's a failsafe."

Phil clapped Andy on the shoulder, nodding. "Thank God. We need that win right now, something to make this hellscape that's out there seem a little less horrific. I know the President's convinced that the death toll is going to have people keeping themselves in check, just out of very fear for losing their lives, but I suspect we're also going to see some major blowback. Riots, chaos, the kinds of things we want to avoid, although maybe the fact that if they go out and riot they'll be more likely to die will cause it to keep managed a bit. The last thing any of us want is people going out and mixing with other people until they've gotten immunized." He glanced around, seeing storm clouds just on the horizon. "Yeah, that's not ominous at

all

. Anyway, let's get inside."

"Actually, why don't you get all your House out here, and we'll take a group photo," Andy said. "I think we've been doing a pretty shit job of documenting all of the changes around here. I mean, I took a photo when it was just me and Ash, then me and Ash and Lauren, then us adding Niko, but I don't know that I did another group photo between then and the whole family now, up until the one we took just before you got here."

"Okay, Rook,

okay

," Phil said. "Violet, why don't you get everybody back out here and we can let Andy take his little picture?"

"Quit pouting, babe," Linda said, poking him in the side. "You're just mad you didn't think of it yourself."

"She's not wrong, hon," Violet laughed as she jogged up the steps.

A few minutes later, she came back out with all the women Phil had brought with him, and while they took a bit deciding who would stand where, eventually they all got into place and Andy took a handful of shots, like he did with his own family, ranging from serious to silly, taking time in between to show them to either Phil or Linda, depending on if they were stoic or lighthearted.

After the photos were done, Andy found himself extremely glad they were all wearing name tags, and that his Canon Rebel 8Ti was high enough resolution that he could zoom in on some of them to read those tags later. Phil took his family inside while Andy and Niko waited outside, knowing that more people would be arriving shortly, and they didn't have long to wait.

Xander and his clan pulled up next, only needing two Tesla Model Ys to get them over, as each vehicle could seat seven, and the House of Baker was far from fourteen people strong, clocking in only at nine, although the first thing Xander told Niko as soon as he stepped out of the vehicle was that he understood more were on the way, despite his objections, while the newest member of Xander's family, a short and athletic black girl named Samantha, greeted Niko like they were old friends, clearly the member of the Security Forces that Linda had handpicked to be Xander's bodyguard.

By this point, Sarah and Emily had realized that it would be far more useful to have people put the nametags on before the photos, so rather than redoubling on labor, they'd just brought out the Sharpies and name tags before anyone even set foot in the house. The two of them took turns cozying up to Andy while Xander's house got their name tags on, with Xander also thanking him, insisting that at the end of the day, he send at least one photo of each house on to everyone, so they could learn names on their own free time. Andy agreed, especially since it seemed to put Xander more at ease. His brawny oldest friend had

always

had difficulty remembering names, and he was a big part of the reason that Andy had taken up the photo chronicling of everyone.

Getting them all situated for the photo didn't take long, and as soon as they were finished, Niko told the lot of them to get into the house, because she fully expected the next guests to arrive any minute. Andy suspected that Niko and Linda had coordinated arrival times so that no group would arrive at the same time, but that there wouldn't be long gaps in between them either. To Andy it felt like a

very

strict way to do party planning, but if it kept the security details happy, he would learn to cope.

Xander, however, refused to head in, wanting to spend a bit of time talking with Andy as well as spending a little bit of time fanboying out over Em and Sarah. But a few minutes later when a trio of Model Ys started headed up the driveway, he headed into the house, so as to not crowd the front driveway too much.

The doors opened and Andy's old board game group buddy Ari Friedman stepped out first, followed by the rest of his household, which counted at twelve, including Ari himself. He was a tall, lean Jewish guy, with a completely shaven head and thick circular glasses, the oldest member of the board game group at 47. Ari was a former professional golfer who had sustained an injury about five years ago, and since then had been bumming around various tech companies, doing whatever he sort of stumbled into. It wasn't that Ari was useless - far from it, as the man seemed to be able to pick up any skill very quickly with minimal effort - it was that Ari kept getting hired away by one friend or another at a tech start up, usually to do things that had nothing to do with what he'd been previously doing.

By this point, Sarah and Em had gotten it down to a science, having name tags and Sharpies in the hands of all the girls before any of them had even made it to the steps, corralling them into position on the stairs, where Andy repeated the process and took photos of all of them. Ari's original wife, Gwen, had seemed a little annoyed by additional women being added to their household at first, but now, months into the disaster, she seemed like she'd gotten used to it.

Andy realized that either Niko or Linda had to be prompting people on when to arrive, because now just as the House of Friedman was moving into the house, the House that Jenna had hooked up with was rolling up next, the House of Wilson, who counted at thirteen.

Jenna Jones (now Jenna Wilson) was a large rotund woman, overweight but not unattractively so, as the heavyset woman had always made it work for her. In the very early days of the pandemic, she'd been paired up with an FBI agent named Dale Wilson who looked more like he would be a linebacker for the 49ers than in government work. Jenna had been the second woman Dale had been connected to, but they'd all gotten along great. She'd made a point of stopping by over at Andy, Eric, Ari and Mel's places regularly, just to make sure she wasn't getting completely consumed by her new insular social family.

It was rinse and repeat as the group got their name tags, got lined up on the steps, got their photos taken and then they headed into the house. Andy felt his pocket vibrate and pulled out his phone to glance at it, as Niko nudged him. "What's up?"

"Looks like Mel and his clan won't be here," Andy told her. "Sherrie isn't feeling well, and they're worried she might have picked something up and so they don't want to bring it over."

Niko nodded. "Probably for the best then. So that just leaves Eric and Lily and the rest of clan Yang," she said to him. "And it looks like that's them now."

Despite the fact that they'd shared a condo for the better part of a decade before moving to New Eden, Andy and Eric weren't all that close of friends, more of just comrades in arms. Eric hadn't been part of the board game group, but since moving to New Eden, Eric had been coming over regularly. The House Of Yang was the closest to his own house size, with the exception of Phil's House, clocking in at 16 people. Lily had been adamant that she wanted to keep the house small just so that she had the most time with Eric, but as it became clear he would need more partners to keep his immunity strong, Lily had gone all out, and expanded until they were where they were now.

Niko broke from his side to run over and hug Lily, who yelped a little in surprise before hugging Niko back. The two had gotten to be decent enough friends in the final days of the old condo, and had kept in contact just as much as Andy and Eric had since they'd arrived in New Eden. "Heya troublemaker," Niko said to her. "You keeping him safe? And letting Rita do her job?"

Lily nodded with a rakish smile. "Rita's a fuckin'

badass

, Niko, so when she bosses us around, we know it's for our own safety and we get our shit together and follow her orders without question," she said, kissing Niko's cheek. "Do we have you to thank for her?"

"Nah, that's all Linda and Phil," Niko said. "Talk to them. She basically set up all the security personnel at all the houses, with the aid of the Oracle program. She wanted to make sure everybody actually liked the people who were going to guard them. She said it was the sort of challenge that she liked doing, like a wild puzzle with people. And since nobody's complained yet, she's proud to consider the challenge beaten."

"Well, get your name tags on and then get lined up on the steps, so we can get a group photo taken and then everyone can get inside," Andy said, as the girls hurried to get name tags on, although Lily had to have one slapped on her, she was that against having one on. Once Sarah had swatted it onto Lily's chest, though, the Asian-American coder didn't peel it off of her dress. Andy was a little surprised that Lily even had a dress, as she'd always struck him as too punk rock to wear something so upscale, but there she was in a long blue dress that made her dyed pink hair stand out even more.

Andy was a little surprised to see exactly how much the House of Yang had grown in the short few months since they'd moved to New Eden, considering how adamantly Lily had been that she wasn't going to share Eric with anyone. Jenny, Eric's Jenny, had been a sort of emergency exception, but since they'd gotten to New Eden, Lily had been told about how much more Eric was at risk if he didn't take on additional partners, and Lily had acquiesced to having additional people added, as long as they were clear on who the head of household was, and that she was always going to be Eric's First Wife.

The house dynamic over there was

very

different, but Eric didn't seem to mind, and while they weren't close friends, they still

were

friends, and so Andy had gone out of his way to make sure that Eric was happy. In fact, each of the group photos had an unique energy about them that reflected the houses themselves.

After the photo, everyone filed into the house, and Andy was astonished how different the feel of Rook Manor was now that the population had gone from 21 to 89. There was music playing throughout a lot of the house, speakers hidden in the walls clearly blasting stuff from his Spotify playlist, a wonderful German band called Fury In The Slaughterhouse the first thing he heard when he stepped back through the front door.

In just a few years time, there would be a decent number of children running around the place, but for now it was all adults. Andy wasn't even sure how the world was going to be by then, or even if he'd still be alive then, but for the immediate future, he was planning on being around with his new, weird, strange family.

He hadn't really gotten a chance to eat since breakfast, so he made a point to maneuver his way over to the fingerfood, making himself a couple of miniature ham sandwiches, in addition to wolfing down far more of the Swedish meatballs than he probably should've, but his appetite felt like it was mostly out of control.

One of the things he'd definitely noticed since the whole pandemic had started was that while his caloric intake had gone up, he was actually still losing weight and getting in better shape. Whether that was a result of all the sex he was having or some side effect of the Quaranteam serum, he couldn't be sure, although he noticed most of his friends were going through some level of changes as well, even Xander, who was already far too ripped for his own good.