Chapter Fifteen

December 19 th, 2020

Sleeping had been difficult, but before they’d crashed for the night, things had looked like they were stabilizing in New Zealand, even as disastrous as it was. Current estimations were that the New Zealand population would end up somewhere between 15-20% of what it had been two weeks ago, and that was an improvement upon how terrifying it had looked just twelve hours earlier.

Even while they’d been traveling, Team Rook had done everything they could to keep track of what was going on overseas, someone on their phone or laptop, hooked into the plane’s Wi-Fi, streaming CNN, MSNBC or the BBC, unable to look away from the latest news coming from halfway across the world. It wasn’t like the death tolls were massively higher than the rest of the world – especially now that the Air Force was pushing the serum into every female arm of age it could find – but because New Zealand had gone from zero to sixty within a couple of weeks, it was an easier visual display of what the whole world had been dealing with for months and months. And the sudden severity of it meant that they hadn’t time to adapt like most of the rest of the world had.

As individuals had died off across the globe in key logistics or support positions earlier during the pandemic, the deaths had been spread out enough that new people had been brought on, trained up and, as soon as it was available, vaccinated with the serum. And if the keystones in terms of utilities and services were being upheld, it was easier to overlook the massive number of casualties. In most cases, it had been men dying and women being trained up and/or promoted to fill in the slack.

There had been some shortages, naturally, as certain things dwindled in the supply, but by working to keep ahead of the problem, the Air Force had done a remarkable job in keeping all the major industries needed to keep the country functional running, although many of them were operating only at a fraction of what they once were. That was okay, though, as the demand had also dropped, for obvious if depressing reasons.

Less people meant less demand for power, water, food, toiletries, etc.

The ridiculous thing to Andy was that it was all basically just a bunch of dials, and the decreased production for, say, meat, hadn’t resulted in anywhere near the sort of panicked shortages people would’ve expected was because the demand had dropped accordingly.

The bigger challenge had been distribution and transportation, but the Air Force had thought of that too, which was why the watchword of surviving the pandemic was consolidation.

As it turned out, the people who’d most noticed the pandemic happening in America were those who’d been in smaller to mid-size cities in the United States. It was something Andy had been doing a bunch of reading on. The top 300 largest cities in the US all had populations over 100k (or at least they had before the start of the epidemics), but there were loads and loads and loads of cities across the country with populations between 10k and 100k, and those were the ones that were getting hit the hardest. As such, much of the population of those smaller towns were being consolidated upwards into larger cities.

Consolidation was something people had been advocating for in the United States for literal decades, long before the virus. High density housing hadn’t been happening across the country because rich people had pushed for single-home land development to be the only kind of thing that was being allowed to be built, which led to the suburbs.

(There were lots of reasons, but the common denominator was, of course, racism.)

As the sprawl expanded, the problem worsened.

The suburbs made up only 25% of the population of the country, but they accounted for more than half of the greenhouse gases being released in the US. Too many people were just taking up too much space and using too much energy to do it. Public transportation also had a harder time making inroads to usage there. Single family houses were infinitely more expensive to heat and cool than centralized towers or even midsize complexes. The United States had needed to consolidate down into more efficiently designed and constructed cities, so with the dramatic reshaping they already needed to do because of the pandemic, the government agencies in charge of relocation and social pairing started pushing toward more efficient clustering.

All of the zoning laws had been completely gutted and thrown into the trash.

A completely new United States was rising from the ashes, and it was generally going to look a lot more European, a lot more centralized and a lot more focused. Mixed use structures were going to become way more prevalent, with stores and shops on the ground floor, and residences on the several floors above that. The sprawl was going to stop going outwards and start going upwards. That meant changes would be hitting every level across the board.

To keep supply lines from running üzümlü escort too thin, many men and women in those smaller towns that were dying out had been offered free relocation to larger cities, chances to move into more centralized locations. Often these were existing metropolitan areas, but in some cases, it was taking key smaller sized cities and scaling them upward, essential crossroads points in the supply chain getting reinforced by being built out as quickly as possible. Anything which was determined to be a keystone in a logistics chain was immediately marked for reinforcement and development.

Andy’d been reading about some of the so-called ‘culture clashes’ that had been happening in some of the bigger cities. People who used to live in towns of ten or twenty thousand were now living in modified downtown highrise apartments and condo buildings, surrounded by a bunch of people who had been living in the city for decades. That had been by design, too, apparently. If people were going to be forced into new villages, the old tribal political lines had to be broken, and the tribes had to be intermingled, left wingers and right wingers sharing a building, sometimes even a floor.

Farming, agriculture, and livestock were still incredibly important, but again, in newly adjusted proportions. There were plenty of farms that had simply been abandoned because their owners had died, and they weren’t needed to keep the supply line within scale. Those who hadn’t chosen to move into central city hubs had also been offered a chance to take some of these farms over. The existing farms had been redirected to drop off to new, more centralized redistribution centers. It seemed like a lot of farms had nominated one or two women from their Team to be designated ‘drivers,’ delivering their goods to the bigger centers before being sent upstream even further.

So, while states like Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Oklahoma and the like had previously had several smaller towns that would feed up to bigger depots, now the middleman was being cut out and farm deliveries had further to travel to reach larger centralized hubs. It was a bit inconvenient, but a little inconvenient was better than everything suddenly shutting down, or farmers having to give up their land. In some cases, they’d actually expanded to take over the land from neighbors who had died, as much as they could manage.

That was how the United States was adapting.

But because everything in New Zealand had collapsed all in the span of two weeks, there hadn’t been time to employ any of those lessons to help manage the fallout. All the systems had basically shut down at the same time, and instead of being able to shift resources around to manage the problems until the demand for resources decreased accordingly, the dam had just given way, and everything was spiraling out of control.

One thing Andy did have to admit that gave him hope was that injected women were being allowed to leave New Zealand in search for partners abroad, if they wanted. Obviously, the New Zealand government was encouraging people to stay and find partners locally, but they also understood the need to get paired with people they trusted, which meant some women were leaving on boats or even planes, trying to get to Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan or even Honolulu, although none of those were guaranteed to make it, or even to be allowed to land if they did.

The media was reporting that only between ten and twenty percent of New Zealand women were attempting to leave in search for partners in other countries. When they were trying to depart the country, the women the reporters talked to said they simply couldn’t bear to be in New Zealand anymore, as everywhere they looked, they were reminded of exactly how many people had died in such a short period of time. They needed to start over, start fresh, start something totally new. Not that anyone could blame them.

One of the moments of levity Team Rook got, somewhere over Idaho, was when one of the reporters had been talking to a New Zealand man who’d chosen to just wait at the far end of the stadium, so that all the women who’d just been injected would walk past him. When the reporter had interviewed him, he had six women, all of whom seemed wildly out of his league, waiting for him to pick two more before taking them all back to his place. Men were being asked to pair up with as many women as possible, so they’d asked any man to wait until he had at least eight partners before leaving. The man being interviewed said he’d just been talking to any woman he thought looked attractive as they exited, and while loads had turned him down, many were thrilled to have found a partner so soon that they leaped on their first opportunity. He’d even been holding up a sign that read “available cock” and it had brought a smile to many of the women’s faces as they trundled out of the arena. And while the man admitted that they didn’t have access to the Oracle system, uzunköprü escort the standing and waiting allowed them all to get to know each other first. A couple of women had left after standing with him for a while, only to be replaced by others who seemed better fits, so he considered the whole thing a success, even if it wasn’t optimal. The women had all collectively agreed that while the man, whose name was Zed, wouldn’t have been their first choice, he was friendly and he was intelligent and he had a sense of humor, and they were hoping that would be enough to last.

It was hard to turn off or look away from the news for too long, as if they were looking at a window into what had happened worldwide over the last few months under the cover of darkness. So much of the catastrophe had happened while people weren’t looking.

Andy had wanted to cancel the signing in Seattle, expecting no one would want to show up, but had been informed by the store that there were people lined up outside, waiting for his arrival. Loads of people were either not watching the news or were looking for something to escape from it with. As such, Andy agreed to donate all the proceeds from his appearance to New Zealand support.

They’d chosen to have the signing at The Elliott Bay Book Company, which had been around since the 70s, and was always a welcome home to visiting authors, and the event itself felt like it went relatively well, although someone from Andy’s Team was always on their phone, keeping tabs on the news, trying to stay up to date with how things were going in New Zealand. The gathered crowd was a lot more subdued than the previous events had been, though, so Andy knew that many of them were also still keeping tabs on the situation abroad just as much as they were. But they wanted Andy to distract them from all of that, and so he did his best to keep them smiling and laughing.

One of the things Andy had decided what felt like lifetimes ago but really had only been earlier that year was that he was always going to be moving forward, thinking about how to improve things as he lived his life. That meant learning how to detach himself from tragedy and not letting himself be consumed by loss.

He’d done that by reminding himself of the sense of scale. Death, in such large numbers, had mostly become a statistic, and while he could put names and faces to dozens, if not hundreds of people he’d known who’d died between February and December of 2020, they had all basically blended together, and through consolidation, he’d found detachment.

Consolidation wasn’t always a good thing, but its use as a survival tool was undeniable.

So if he didn’t focus on any one person, face or memory, he could keep his mental sanity drifting a little bit above the sea of melancholy and depression that he was sure had infected every living survivor on the planet.

The problem was that the section of the upcoming book he’d chosen to read today was inspired by his late brother, and Andy had to work to hold it together so that he wasn’t thinking about Matty the entire time he was reading it. It took effort, but he got through it.

It was when things got to the Q&A portion when things got a little bit crazy. Andy was used to having to dodge questions about politics, his appearance on 60 Minutes, his partners and everything else that had sprung up, but several people wanted his opinion on the situation in New Zealand, something Andy hadn’t prepared for at all.

He found that after a few questions, though, the crowd was willing to back off, simply because Andy wasn’t sure what he could really add to the conversation, other than to hope for the best for the people of New Zealand. He didn’t know any more than what was on the television, even though he had a partner from nearby Australia. Someone asked if he would consider expanding his family further if it meant saving the life of a New Zealand woman fleeing the country, and he said while he’d happily do his part, he was certain there were closer eligible men who would hopefully take care of those women in need.

Sarah joked to the crowd that “no” was Andy’s least favorite word, which brokered a few more empathetic laughs.

After the questions about New Zealand, things had suddenly gotten politically sticky, but Andy had already used up most of his tricks in getting out of the New Zealand questions.

“Mr. Conrad, what do you think about the continued push for the Men’s Protection Act? Are you in favor of taking severe actions to limit the rights of men in order to provide for women’s safety, to ensure a Team’s increased survival odds?”

“It’s a complicated issue,” Andy sighed, feeling like he was cornered and was going to have to provide a real answer. “I fully understand women’s desires to want to feel safe and secure, but I also think we have to be very careful not to go around stomping on men’s civil rights in order to do so. It’s the classic ‘society’ versus ‘individual’ concerns, van escort and yes, I think we as men are going to lose a little bit of the freedoms we’ve been accustomed to over the years, but that’s part of the price we’re going to have to pay for being so integral in the new society moving forwards. I’m not against some of the ideas behind it, but I also want to caution anyone from taking it too far. So, minor actions, maybe, but severe actions, probably not. Let’s just say if my government wants to tell me I can’t go skydiving or mountain climbing, I’m fine with that. But if someone tries to get in the way of me having my weekly cheesesteak, well, let’s just say I don’t envy that person. That’ll wrap it up, so let’s get to signing. Remember, if you want a selfie, you have to stay on the other side of the table, and I’m only signing stuff that I wrote. Since a couple of people have asked, yes, both Sarah and Emily have volunteered to sign copies of ‘Neon Stonehenge’ since they’ll be appearing in the film, but only if you’re making a donation to the New Zealand Survival Fund. There’ll be someone walking the line, taking donations and giving tickets to those who do. Anyone without a ticket can’t get a signature from the ladies. Okay? Let’s get signing!”

The signing portion went off without a hitch, and Em’s idea to take donations for New Zealand for hers and Sarah’s signature had raised nearly a thousand dollars. Also, several women had wanted to get selfies of themselves with Em or Sarah, and as long as they’d made a donation, they’d been cool about it, although Melody was keeping a watchful eye on both women for security purposes.

The staff of the bookstore was thankful he’d come out, everyone desperately in need of some distraction from the madness of the news, even if it sounded like New Zealand was starting to stabilize. Early reports were starting to come in, and it looked like most of the people who’d gotten the serum had gone on to build semi-stable teams, at least that was how it had looked on first glance. The initial impression had been the worst possible starting point, but the diligent work of the Air Force doctors had been getting jabs into arms as quickly as possible, and the hope was that, by the end of the second or third day, they might have gotten somewhere between half a million and a million people in New Zealand with the Quaranteam serum running through their veins, directly or indirectly, although those numbers were still targets, not confirmed finishing points. It would be weeks, if not months, before they had concrete information about the survivor count, as well as how many people had relocated to other countries.

They closed off the line around 9 p.m. and Andy was finishing up the last couple of signings for the staff, when one of the people running the event said there was a small group of people claiming to be friends of his waiting outside for him afterwards, if he could spare them some time.

“They’re cleared,” Lexi said to the store manager. “You can go ahead and let them in.”

“I wasn’t aware we were expecting guests,” Andy said to Lexi, a smile creeping on his face. “Hell, I don’t really know many people in Seattle.”

“Yeah, well, when you decided you wanted to spring this little surprise trip on us, we built a few surprises of our own into it, and this is one of them,” Sarah said, waving at the group of people coming in, heading towards them quickly, as Sarah moved to hug a short, round woman somewhere in the center of the pack of them. “You came!”

“You told me you were only going to be three hours by train away and you thought we wouldn’t make the trip up to see you fuckers?” a boisterous familiar voice said, cutting through the air, as Andy began to laugh. “Rook! Get your bony ass over here!”

“‘Ris, what the fuck are you doing in Seattle?” Andy said, signing the last of the books before standing up from the table, heading over towards the group. As Sarah moved to the side, he could see the familiar face of his friend and fellow author Larissa Cotton, someone he’d extended an invitation to join his family a month or so ago, only to be rebuked because she already had a husband, the massive chunk of meat and muscle standing a few steps behind her, Will. ‘Ris and Will had gotten married in late 2018, some six months after he’d seen her last, but they’d sort of kept it quiet. Will had even taken her surname.

Larissa wasn’t even 5′ tall, portly, with the silver septum ring still staunchly in place. She was, as she’d told him, Mestizo, the daughter of a Mexican mother and a second-generation Cajun father. Her hair was dyed a shade of bright green that could only be described as ‘atomic lime.’ And despite how Andy had thought of her as “covered in tattoos” when he last saw her, they’d only proliferated, having grown to run up along her neck all the way to the underside of her chin and behind her ears, as well as all over the backs of her hands. Her goth Lolita look had been dialed up even further, with bright orange and green striped leggings that would’ve made Jhonen Vasquez proud. They were beneath an overly frilly black poofy dress that only complimented the black leather bustier that was holding on for dear life against Larissa’s more than ridiculous bosom, the material propping her boobs up into the kind of shelf an entire drinks platter could safely rest on.