16

Relevant Cast List:

Team Knight

- Ethan Knight: A junior producer at the North England Broadcast Corporation and member of Project Upstart

- Aoife Ryan: the long suffering and increasingly burnt out head broadcast/studio engineer for the NEBC

- Nia Clarke-Mills: VP of Marketing at Averna Pharma, responsible for the PR of the Gemivax rollout

- Evie Kimura: Civil servant from the Department for Culture Media and Sport, permanently attached to support the NEBC and Project Upstart

- Farah Hassan: Former England Women's cricketer turned media personality, headhunted to be the face of Gemivax for Project Upstart

- Jessica (Jess) McNamara: An online artist and designer hired to help produce graphics and animations

- Alex McNamara: a programmer and coder who was falsely matched with Team Barclay and paired with Ethan following an adverse reaction

Team Barclay

- Rhys Barclay: A former editor of a tabloid paper brought on to Project Upstart despite his dubious personality

- Dr Eleanor (Nell) Armstrong: A public health doctor working as a consultant with the NEBC, now assisting Project Upstart with the Gemivax rollout

Team Kaminski

- Lukas Kaminski: The most senior producer working on Project Upstart

- Laura Cooper: Evie's boss, civil servant attached to the NEBC

- Sarah Ainsworth: NEBC camerawoman

Unaffiliated

- Beth Collingwood: an inspector with Yorkshire police's special branch investigating things at Taymont

Chapter 15

28th October 2020

Tomorrow always comes after a happy ending.

The words drifted up from the back of Ethan's mind as he stirred. It was something his first boss at BBC News had been fond of saying, a reminder to the crew that it didn't matter how well a broadcast had gone, the cycle didn't stop and they'd still be back the next day having to work just as hard. Evidently he'd taken the phrase to heart enough for it to have stuck.

He felt the pleasing weight of her body, half on top of his own, before registering anything else - felt it shift against him with shallow breaths perfectly in time with his own, warm air blown softly against his chest. One of his arms was around her and he drew it tighter, content to lie there barely aware for as long as he was going to be allowed, only waking further with the dim realisation that he didn't know exactly how he'd got there.

The last he remembered, Aoife had been on top of him, her face bunched tight in the giddy moment before his climax had hit. His own eyes had closed, and something warm and wet had coated his thighs. Then nothing, just the familiar haze stretching out and only finally lifting now as he woke alongside her.

Someone had put a blanket over them both, which he discovered as he moved just enough to disturb it, leaving a cool draft to tease his side and rouse him enough to finally open his eyes. He peered past the splay of green hair that filled half of his vision, out into the grey of the room illuminated by a single splinter of daylight sneaking past the edge of one of the curtains. He realised that they were still in the cinema room, although not on the same sofa he was sure they'd been on before. Instead, they'd been moved further back, to a different pair of couches that had been turned to face each other and pushed together in the approximation of a bed. Whoever had done that had also taken the care to clean the mess from his crotch, as well as gathered up the clothes that he and Aoife had discarded, folding them into two neat piles nearby. Ethan began to sit, but a soft exhalation from alongside him sounded enough like a sigh to make him stop.

There was just enough light for him to see Aoife, although her face was half veiled by her hair, and he gently brushed it aside to look at her properly. Enough time had obviously passed that she'd stopped saying imprinting, but she didn't move - although he could convince himself that the corner of her mouth quirked at the touch. He'd never seen her look this content, catching her without any of the frustrated energy he was so used to her carrying, and as he watched he realised how relaxed the knots under his own skin suddenly felt. The cliche would have been for things to not feel real, but he wasn't sure if anything had felt more real in his life than the sense of her body against his and, after a few moments, it was more than Ethan could manage not to lean in and ease a kiss on her forehead.

What sort of idiot would have risked losing this?

He rested there with her a while longer, until the sounds of activity outside the window began to creep across his awareness and joined the questions he had; about how he'd seemed to have lost several hours and just who had found and tended to them? Even then he had to fight his reluctance to move for several stretched out minutes before leaning in and mumbling an explanation to the Scottish girl, just in case she could hear it.

"I'm going to find out what happened. Try not to get into too much trouble while I'm gone this time, ok?"

Aoife didn't move as he carefully lifted her off himself, but Ethan still did his best to slip from the blanket and scramble free of the pushed together sofas without disturbing her. As he did so, he felt a throbbing pain in his left forearm that he was sure hadn't been there before he slept. More familiar was the aching stiffness in his knee, that he still got any time he slept in an odd position or over taxed his body, the consequence of an old ACL injury playing football at university. He frowned as he considered the implications there, but quickly became distracted, more focused on the woman sleeping in front of him than how it felt to put weight on his bad leg.

He had to stop himself from standing and watching her, heading instead for where his clothes were waited nearby, newly aware that whoever had been here had seen (and left) them both nude. Pulling on his sweatpants after his boxers, he felt the telltale shape of his phone sitting in one pocket, and instinctively reached to check it, only to immediately curse himself for doing so.

The clock said it was late afternoon, which meant he'd lost more than twelve hours since he'd paired with Aoife, and the volume of notifications and emails waiting for him was ample proof of just how little the world cared to slow down and notice. He swore to himself and rubbed a hand across his face as the constant background flicker of stress returned. Rhys had attended the meeting with the foreign broadcasters in his place, and a secure link to a server's worth of footage from the Germans did its best to jump out at him; something that was now Ethan's responsibility to start wading through, along with the rest of his back-logged schedule. At some point, he realised, he was going to actually need to focus on his job again. There were enough other questions lingering, however, that the first thing he did was to open his group chat, looking to follow the trail of messages left there in the direction of wherever the others had ended up.

Stepping back out into the corridor, the sun was low enough through the windows to leave him blinking, and he traced his way back through Taymont, feeling like the building itself was watching him with a sort of detached indifference as he surfaced. At some point, he pushed past the unmarked boundary between the quieter parts of the hotel no-one seemed to visit and the spaces used for production, emerging into the familiar background pattering of noise and occasional mask clad runners moving from office to studio. He made a brief stop at his room to grab a jacket and a pair of half-worn slacks from his laundry pile; however, he ultimately made his way to the side of the building, heading out through the exit reserved for transmission cables and onto the terrace beyond.

The smell of smoke from the grounds staff burning leaves lingered in the air as Ethan stepped outside, quickly noting that the Special Branch presence seemed to have dwindled to a single marked police car near the front of the building. It wasn't hard to find at least three of his team members where their group chat had suggested they'd be. Days earlier, he had made a request to Pallisade's site manager that they might be able to return some of the outdoor heaters and cushions that had been taken from the patio during the enhanced restrictions, looking for small things he could push through that would make a difference to the newly forming Teams. He hadn't actually expected it to go anywhere, but then the sudden, uncommented appearance of several tall heaters that captured the near-new furnishings in a pocket of red-tinged warmth was particularly on brand for site management's sense of priorities. Jess and Alex sat together on a two seat sofa, the sisters inclined familiarly towards each other, with the sense that the only thing stopping the pair from leaning against each other was the presence of Moxie having curled herself up in the small space between them. The dog's head rested against Jess's leg, half-regarding the screen of one of the laptops the two redheads were using, with work on the project seemingly already insistent enough to be a feature of their downtime.

Farah occupied an identical seat across from them, casually striking in a black leather jacket that Ethan was sure he'd previously seen Alex wearing, which might have begged more questions were it not for the fact that Sarah, the camerawoman from Team Kaminski, was there with her. The pair's body language was similarly close, but with none of the familiarity of the McNamara sisters, instead replaced by a flirtatious intensity as Farah leaned forward towards the glasses-wearing brunette, propped up against the back of the seat with one arm that was practically wrapped around the other woman.

The four of them weren't entirely alone, with a small group made up of researchers, editors and a make-up artist from both Teams Barclay and Kaminski having claimed the space beneath another heater a short distance away, giving the whole scene an odd sense of normality that hadn't felt present for weeks. That alone was enough to briefly unbalance Ethan as he approached however, almost like he'd been stepped sideways as he slept, finding himself somewhere parallel where everything had been moved a couple of inches in different directions.

Moxie was the first to notice him, with a curious prick of the jack russell's ears followed a second later by a short bark. Quickly, several sets of eyes were on him, though Ethan was grateful that the members of the other two teams did their best to keep things to an idle glance in his direction before returning to something a couple of them were watching on a phone. Sarah shifted away from Farah with a subtle embarrassment that went unnoticed by the other woman, with the presenter instead giving Ethan a broad smile. Meanwhile there was an unexpected, self-conscious fluster from Jess and the hint of a blush as the younger of the two sisters glanced away.

Something tugged at the back of Ethan's mind in response to the gesture - a compulsive little note that stirred, semi-erect, through the constant background hum of his libido and caused his attention to catch on her. He watched her bite her lip, and felt the unusually strong urge to go and kiss her, enough that even briefly he felt his questions and thoughts about Aoife slip. She hadn't been dosed by him in several days and logically, he knew the serum would be making her feel the need, but, for an instant, it felt as if there was something in his mind alongside him driving him to feel it too. Telling him how hot and sore that need was.

Pressing.

Urgent.

Insistent.

...but it only lasted for as long as it took Alex to be the one to speak.

"So, what time do you call this?"

The older McNamara's words were filled with an increasingly familiar sarcasm, but he still had to blink the foreign sensation away before he could be sure who's voice he'd heard. And it took him just a little too long to grasp at a response.

"Oh you know how it is. You hit snooze on your alarm a few times and suddenly it's the middle of the afternoon."

Evidently the quip was still hesitant enough for Sarah to feel like she was in the way, and the camera woman awkwardly began mumbling her own excuses as she pulled herself from whatever was going on with Farah. She waved away the polite protests that she could stay if she wanted and made to leave, although not before Farah pulled her in close and whispered something in her ear. Whatever was said had earned Ethan's partner a playful shove to the shoulder, leaving Farah grinning as the other woman edged away. Again, Ethan's mind slipped as it tried to find solid ground, and again, it was Alex that pulled him back.

"Are you ok?" Her voice had a genuine concern this time, and he realised how carefully she was watching him.

Ethan took a second to find an answer, but a grin came with it as he did. "Yeah...I think I'm good. Just..."

A sound came from a short distance away, before he could finish the thought - a rising moan that spilled out of the phone which the group behind were clustered around. It was followed by several more, each more obviously pornographic than the last, although the women from the other Teams made no attempt to turn the volume down, or bothered to show any shame in whatever x-rated video they were watching. What was odder however was how Ethan's own embarrassment didn't surface. It wasn't that it felt usual, but the emotions that should have told him it was unusual simply weren't there. And even after a blonde-haired editor from Team Barclay slipped her hands down her jeans, while casually talking to the woman next to her, he still found himself able to turn back to his own team, and finish his thought.

"I just feel like there's a few gaps and my head can't quite catch up."

He did, at least, manage to feel foolish for how understated that sounded.

There was a flicker of attention from the others in the direction of the sound too, although only Jess' lingered for more of a moment, causing her cheeks to colour further. Alex appeared to be too busy watching him, as if she'd not quite decided if his answer was enough to ease her concerns, while Farah just smirked.

"Did you miss Armstrong?" the Indian woman asked, with a relaxed stretch out into the space Sarah had left next to her. "She's been checking on the pair of you a couple of times an hour since it became clear you weren't going anywhere."

"Must have done. I'll admit to not being sure how we even ended up like that."

"Evie was the one who found you both, after you weren't answering any messages this morning." Farah replied. "It was obvious that Aoife was in an imprinting sleep but you were even more of a dead weight than she was, so she came and got the rest of us to help. The pair of you had made a real mess of the sofa you were on but we couldn't exactly move you back through the building like that either so the least we could do was to get you cleaned up and comfortable. I'm just jealous you didn't make me squirt as hard as she obviously got to."

"Seriously?" Alex quirked an eyebrow at Farah's over-candidness, before seeming to catch how Ethan's mind was still pulling at some of the implications of what had just been said. "Armstrong's best guess is that you've had one of these regenerations that have been talked about."

Outwardly, it seemed as reasonable a conclusion as any. Ethan had seen some of the before and after footage from Veraxiontic of people in the US who'd supposedly recovered from significant health conditions after receiving the vaccine, with beneficiaries entering an unconscious state following pairing, similar to an imprint, as something triggered their bodies to heal. That was something Project Upstart still hadn't quite worked out how to present to the public, knowing how hard it was already going to be to accept that this wasn't all a hoax without getting their heads around the impossibility of re-grown limbs and the blind being able to see. Personally, he'd become desensitised enough to feeling like science was suddenly being written by a bad pulp author, but even so the regen was the first thing he'd considered after he'd woken up, and the longer he'd spent with the idea the more his gut protested against it.

"I've never had any health conditions to recover from and my old ACL repair is acting up as badly as ever from sleeping on that couch. I don't feel any different."

Or at least no different to the changes he'd been noticing anyway such as his appetite slowly increasing, or the way the extra inch he'd been carrying around his waist had toned up in the days since things had started. It was certainly possible that there was something undiagnosed he didn't know about, but that felt unsatisfying as an explanation. Nor did it address the new feeling in the back of his mind, straining against his self-restraint as he looked again towards Jess.

He stretched his arm, reminding himself that the unusual throb he's woken up with was also still there. "Plus I've got this weird pain along the bone here."

"Not a doctor, Ethan. She just said it was obviously a response to the vaccine so we should try not to worry." Her tone however, suggested that they had worried, and Ethan watched as she quickly tried to shift the conversation before he could dwell on that. "How's Aoife doing?"

"She's still sleeping off the imprint."

"Riiiight, because that's what I meant."

He caught Alex's eye, and for a second Ethan could see something strained there, barely buried under the outward humour. It wasn't just him that she'd been concerned about. But then it wasn't just Aoife who could say that she wasn't part of the plan.

"She's...finding some parts harder than others," he settled on eventually. "I don't know how easy it's going to be for her to come to terms with a lot of what's going on, or to find the answers she wants. But then maybe that's not unreasonable of her. She can be stubborn, so I'm just glad she's trusting me enough to help her through it." Alex glanced down briefly, as he spoke, and he waited for her to look back and let him hold her gaze before continuing, his voice low but earnest. "I don't think anyone should be made to feel like this is meant to be easy."

Alex gave a weak smile and, for once, he couldn't tell how sarcastic she was being. "Lucky her."

He'd have pressed a little further, if it wasn't for another, particularly loud moan coming from the other group's phone, slicing through the atmosphere enough to cause Mox to give a confused little yap. Jess only fidgeted and blushed further, prompting Ethan to turn back to Farah in search of an explanation.

She shrugged. "I don't know if you've noticed, but I think most people are at least a little bit horny most of the time now. I think some people have just decided it's not worth dancing around the fact that everyone around them knows it too."

"There's still a lot of people on site working on normal production who don't know about the vaccine and Project Upstart though."

"Actually, Delphi questionnaires went out to the rest of the staff this morning. Evie said something about management aiming to have the site fully vaccinated by the end of the week."

Ethan paused, the news surprising enough to briefly distract himself from picking at the odd sense of disinhibition around him. He was pleased, thrilled even; but the thought of the rest of the colleagues he'd arrived at Taymont alongside getting vaccinated, quickly stumbled over the realisation that he wouldn't be able to ignore the gaps others had left for much longer either. Instead, he fought back a sigh, and gave a practiced step around the thought.

"Was that what was up with you and Sarah," he asked, settling on a return to the topic, and received a half-proud grin from Farah.