Quaranteam - the Upstart's Night

16th October 2020

The thrumming at Aoife's clit from her favourite vibrator caused her to moan in time with the hentai video she was playing. She'd finally managed to get back to her own room at some ungodly hour the night before and knew it was going to be the same again once she headed back down to work, so even a little bit of snatched release was the best she was going to manage. To say her job had been shit recently would be the king of all understatements. Technically she'd been brought on as a studio engineer, simple, keep the cameras ticking over and the lights from blinding any of the talent. But as the pandemic wore on and everyone's job description added a dozen extra lines, she'd found herself somehow in charge of almost every piece of broadcast equipment on site and a reputation as being the person to go to whenever any of Palisade Service's bullshit hardware broke. And it did break. Infuriatingly frequently. It often felt like she was being punished for their incompetence.

If she was being honest with herself, the Scottish woman hated being back here in her own room. She liked things organised, hell, she could practically edge herself to good cable management, and the mess in here was starting to really stress her out. A cartoon cat looked up, crumpled and accusatory, from a shirt at the top of the laundry pile, stacked up on the mound of washed out jeans and figure-hiding hoodies that seemed to be colonising the corner of the room. Almost as much of a priority to deal with as the bin full of empty energy drinks or the unattended smudge of green hair dye she'd spilled across the bathroom counter last sunday.

She'd made a real effort at first, framed pictures of her with her folks and sisters, an old Dario Argento movie poster from home, her favourite Bulbasaur plush that was currently languishing somewhere next to the bed, but it had all ended up feeling fucked just as quickly as the world did and the thought of finding the time to sort things out made her want to cry. Besides, it made working easier when this was a place she avoided for everything apart from sleeping and masturbating, and even then the former as little as possible and the latter nowhere near as often as she needed.

At least the porn was an old reliable favourite; cheesy, undemanding, and the girls getting railed by tentacles always seemed far more satisfied by the end than any boyfriend had managed to leave her. Who could blame her for fantasising about sex so nasty you couldn't think afterwards? All she did was over-think right now. And if anyone actually wanted that argument, well, she had an 18 month dry spell to show them along with a lot of choice words.

Knowing her favourite part of the scene was coming up, where the two girls started to make out with each other, she worked a hand up her top to find one of the rings piercing her nipples, tugging and teasing at the generous heft of her chest.

She was definitely, absolutely, 100% straight. Maybe 90%...ok, fine, 80% max on a good day, but she was gravitating hard away from anything with a dick in it right now. For the last month or more that somehow always led her thoughts back to Ethan, imagining him in situations with her that always left a nasty stain of shame and guilt that took her a few days to wash away. She hated knowing nothing was going to happen there, that he wasn't actually interested, that he was just nice like that with everyone. She knew she was just pathetically lonely and latching on to anyone who made her feel good about herself. And she would genuinely go insane locked up here if she drove him away and lost the one bit of real social contact she had. But even then she'd still imagine him pushing her down, his tall frame looming over her and...

Fucking prick. Why did he have to give her a crush and ruin porn for her!

So for now she was sticking to cartoon lesbians getting their holes filled by monsters that definitely weren't Englishmen with dirty blonde hair and goofy smiles that made her heart hurt.

She closed her eyes, climbing closer. It didn't matter that she didn't speak Japanese, she had memorised enough of the subtitles accompanying the moans and cries coming from her speaker by now that it didn't matter, each frame of porn there in her mind's eye for her anyway. Her toy thrummed her towards her peak, thighs drawing together as her muscles tensed. Aoife closed her eyes, groped at her piercings, pushed herself just that touch further towards the edge and...

Her phone rang. Not her personal one but the direct Palisade Services device she had that was for work emergencies only, the one that went off far too often and that she currently wanted to throw against the wall. She screamed with frustration, gratification well and truly aborted, hurling her vibrator to the end of the bed as she snatched up the phone.

"This better be fucking good!"

*****

"You weren't expecting me to do this, were you?"

The camera's recording light remained cheerfully illuminated, as it had been for the last half hour as Nia spoke into it, only just vocalising now what Ethan had been thinking the whole time they talked.

They had fucked several more times before his exhaustion had finally decided for them that they'd had enough. Nia had asserted herself over Evie and pushed Ethan to assert himself over both of them, something that had been a wonderfully easy fit. But even so Ethan had found himself struggling to commit fully to it at times, with the role he was expected to play bumping up against the lingering misgivings over the vaccine's inherent power dynamics. And he'd more than half expect to wake up to one, or both, of the women expecting him to get straight back to where they had left off.

Instead he'd found a worn out Evie and the neat curls of a handwritten note from Nia explaining that he should bring the camera and meet her on the smaller, more secluded, rear terrace when he was ready. It was still just barely warm enough most days to enjoy sitting outside and he found her at a table that had belonged to the spa's bistro, along with a tray of breakfast and coffee, backdropped by the autumnal colours of turning trees.

"I hadn't expected it, no," he replied, finishing off a pastry. Nia liking the idea of getting footage they could decide to work with hadn't surprised him. That she would be willing to participate herself had, even if she had reasoned that nothing had to be shared with anyone if she didn't want it to be.

"Although I'm getting the feeling you find the structure it brings helpful."

The statement was astute enough to give Nia pause to consider it. "Yes, I suppose I do. Everything about this has the potential to feel very much like we're being swept along, and I think doing something like this just gives me a sense of being able to impose myself on the situation." Someone once told Ethan he thought in metaphors far too much, but Nia talking about being swept along was a good one, and he found himself picturing them both standing in a river being pulled out into a distance they couldn't see.

"The camera gives you permission to open up?"

She sipped her coffee, "maybe. Something like that."

Ethan had tried to keep things relaxed, to talk as if the camera wasn't there, partly to keep Nia's responses natural for it, but mostly because he simply wanted to try and make the most of getting the chance to spend time with her. At first they'd spoken at length about Evie, a shared common ground that just felt easy to share. Nia readily admitted to starting to "adore her a little already," while Ethan had been able to respond in kind with how grateful he was for a chance he thought he'd lost with her. They both also shared their concerns at how hard any come-down from the Gemivax might hit her, leaving her anxious or ashamed, with Ethan already needing to use a kiss to soothe away apologies from her for getting carried away as he'd left her side earlier.

Nia had been relaxed and bright talking about the other woman, almost animated, but as the conversation now shifted to her Ethan watched as she shifted her coffee mug back to her lap where she could rest both hands upon it. It was a conscious gesture, practised, as if at the first swell of anxiety she reached for that physical focus to keep herself in check.

"Am I allowed to ask why that sense of control is so important to you? Or is that too personal still?"

There was a long exhale, a glance at the camera, the slightest drum of her fingers on the surface of the mug. "We're a little past too personal," she said, trying to joke to force herself to look anything other than uncomfortable opening up and only just managing. "And I did promise you that you could get to know me when we had the time."

"My mother is a brilliant woman who never quite pushed past the glass ceiling," she continued. "But she and my father gave me every opportunity and told me that I could change the world if I lived up to them. But she also made it clear that in almost every room I ever entered there would be those who would make judgements about me, for being a woman, for the colour of my skin, who I dated. That I would always be fighting those assumptions." She held Ethan's gaze. Her voice was quiet but full of an intensity that made him feel like he was being pressed back into his seat. "So I just told myself that every single room that I ever entered I would own."

"That sounds exhausting," he said sympathetically.

"It was." He took note of her past tense, but even so it still seemed like there was a weight on her shoulders she couldn't quite get to sit comfortably. He let her continue and she filled the gaps, sometimes falteringly, finding the words to describe how she felt as she went. "I told myself I'm going to be CEO of Averna by the time I'm 40. Most of the time it doesn't leave much space for me to feel human, but rather like I'm acting out a role I've set for myself. And believe me, I despised the notion that all someone like me needs to find completion is a good man. And yet...there's something liberating about having you and Evie there. Knowing that now there's at least two people I can try and let that guard around."

"You don't feel like you're beholden to me or anything," Ethan asked, as his own misgivings he wasn't sure if he was ever going to entirely resolve came bubbling back over.

"Ethan, Evie may already be along the way to convincing herself she belongs to you, but I assure you, you are going to find out you are in just as deep with me as I am with you." Her eyes were fierce, but there was a playful amusement on her face. When she took a sip of her drink they both knew it was to pretend to hide the smirk.

Ethan by contrast allowed himself to laugh. "Honestly, that doesn't sound so bad."

"No," she replied again. "It really doesn't. Besides, I find giving some of that control to the right person in the bedroom gratifying, which I know is a slight contradiction to what I've been saying, but it's one I've always allowed myself. And for whatever reason whenever I think about the vaccine getting in my head to give me that little extra push, to make me stop worrying about if I should want it, I get this perverted little thrill and it feels...spectacular."

He still wasn't quite ready to scratch too hard at the surface of that, not yet anyway. He briefly wondered if she was tussling with the same thing he was with respect to questions of autonomy and control of the vaccine, the sort of person he told himself he was, constantly catching against how natural it felt to go along with it all. And as he sidestepped things, shifting the conversation back a beat, he knew it was because he wasn't ready to deal with it himself.

"So, that sense of what you want to do is why we're Project Upstart?"

Her face remained brightened, as if he'd just managed to hit on a personal joke she was delighted someone else was addressing. "I was 18 and in my first semester of university when my physical chemistry tutor called me an 'upstart bitch' in front of an entire seminar after we got in an argument about how the statistical model he was using was 15 years out of date. I've been fond of the word ever since."

He made a face. The idea of an 18 year old Nia having that sort of thing be such a formative experience of the world she would find herself in was upsetting to him.

She noticed his expression, giving the barest of waves of a hand to brush the concerns away. "The old idiot taught me more in that moment than he did in any class he gave. He made it absolutely clear that I'm not just going to accept being quiet because it's safer or suits someone else. The name Upstart is a reminder for me, to be forthright, because we have to be."

Overhead a flock of geese flew by, escaping to somewhere more pleasant ahead of the cooling weather, oblivious to the complicated knots people were tying themselves into below. They called as they went, honking and hollering loudly enough that Ethan was forced to pause for the sake of the camera's audio, letting him slip back into introspection as he watched the autumnal red and orange swaying of the trees. It left him time to pick at another thought that had been bothering him, press ganged to the front of his mind by Nia's talk of being forthright. "Does it bother you that we're going to be pushing this on other people and trusting it will all line up as neatly for them as it seems to be for us?"

That prompted the slightest trace of a frown to play out across Nia's brow. "If you have an alternative then I'm all ears."

"I didn't say there was one." Ethan gave a sigh, searching for the right way to frame his feelings on the matter. "But that doesn't mean I can't be a little uneasy at my part in things, and some of the implications of what we're doing. I'm not trying to get philosophical, it's just..."

"We change what we can," Nia said simply. "And accept that there's a lot we can't. I can't change that there's a pandemic. I can't change that this is the answer I'm being told we have. But I can influence how informed people are to make the decisions they need. And I can do my best to make sure these are tools people can use to shape something positive out of their lives. The government and Averna are doing this with or without me so I intend to make sure my contribution is a good one."

"We could hurt a lot of people if this goes wrong...hell, even in the best case scenario this could do so much harm to people it doesn't work for."

"And if we don't do anything then we have the guarantee that harm will come to millions. There isn't a good choice here, any more than there really was for us. We can't just pity ourselves for these responsibilities falling to us. Asking "why me" doesn't help anyone."

He considered her answer and wasn't sure he could find a better response to the doubts himself. "I saw that you had Lukas and Laura giving input on what the Delphi algorithm should be prioritising when drawing up shortlists of people to join us."

Nia nodded, but Ethan's response was blunt. "You do realise what they're suggesting isn't going to work, right?"

He struggled to read her expression as she waited for him to elaborate, leaving him to shift uncomfortably without knowing if she disapproved or not. He respected the work that the others had put in, they'd obviously spent a huge amount of time looking at exactly what sort of skills and qualifications they were going to need to deploy something like Project Upstart, and how to model that into the matching algorithm. But to his mind there was a glaring gap.

"Well you said that if this is going to happen anyway you want to shape it into something more positive than it would otherwise be. I don't know if the one size fits all approach they're taking is the right one. No offence to Laura or Lucas, or even Evie, but they've missed that we're going to have to work a lot harder to convince and support some groups than others. I came from a poor housing estate and minority communities and people in places like where I grew up aren't going to listen if all we do is get a bunch of university educated folk together to talk down to them. Their outcomes are always worse, their engagement and trust is always worse, and they're the last people this sort of thing is ever designed to serve. If we want to make this better than it would be without us we need people on Project Upstart that can actually target this the way we need."

There was a smile on Nia's face as he finished, affection mixed with what he suspected was a decent amount of pride. "This hadn't escaped my notice, no. But it's nice to know there's someone else with an eye on the big picture."

He felt foolish for vocalising so firmly something that she'd already seen, concerned suddenly about how patronising it might have come across or forthright it made him seem. Instead she reached across and placed a hand reassuringly on to his. "You can bring a perspective and candour to this that others can't. I need to trust you, and that includes knowing you'll speak when you feel it's important."

"Thanks"

"I was already making sure different backgrounds were going to be weighted by Delphi, but I would appreciate you taking a second glance before we finalise any more recruitment."

They kept talking a while longer, shifting gradually from talk of Project Upstart to more personal topics again, with Nia moving from confessing how much more sensitive her nipples felt in the hours since the vaccine to her early struggles proving herself in the pharma industry. Ethan got to hear about how first kiss was at 16 with an older girl, and he got to hear how her libido was still peaking enough that she'd needed to excuse herself to masturbate in the shower that morning before he was awake.

In return she probed around his own past, surprising him with how easy it was to open up about a working class upbringing in a post industrial town that tried even harder to squander his potential than he had at one point. It was only once the camera gave a chirp of protest at its memory being full that either of them paused to realise they'd both finished breakfast over an hour earlier.

"I suppose that's a sign," he observed, standing to shut off the recording, only now noticing how much the temperature had dropped with the sun creeping behind a bank of clouds. "I think we got some really good footage there. Even if maybe not all of it is usable, it's definitely a start. We should probably get back to work though."

Nia stretched, having actually become something approaching relaxed as they talked. "Actually the timetable we drew up with Lukas and Sarah doesn't expect anything from us until tomorrow, giving us some time to get our heads around things. Not to say that we should waste the entire day if we can avoid it, however..."

"I can't tell yet whether a 'however' like that should scare me or not."

She chuckled. "I was able to get my hands on the key to the pool. If you're interested in joining me for a swim, that is?"

The pool hadn't been used in weeks. While the modern spa building built slightly apart from the main hall still had the odd person coming and going, with some of the site's residents being housed in additional rooms there, facilities like the pool and gym were firmly locked once it was clear another DuoHalo wave was incoming.

"My swim shorts are upstairs, I'd have to go and..."

He was cut off as Nia took his hand, raising her eyebrows at him to punctuate how dense she thought he was being if he thought she intended to need something like that.

"Oh...yeah. I think I'd enjoy that."

The contract Palisade Services had signed with the government to run the facility at Taymont was full of quirks and minor corporate frustrations. A prime example was the clause which stated that they were responsible for keeping the pool clean and functional as a minimum requirement of getting paid, while only the barest stipulations existed on minimum service levels for their actual network and recording capacities. It meant that while the company could barely incline themselves to stretch to the demands of running a complex communications operation, they were giving careful daily service to a swimming pool no-one was using.