OUTBREAK: ZERO is a semi post-apocalyptic pandemic roleplay set in the fictional city of Lethford, USA. Current season: Winter, 20/21.
March 2020. The world is in pandemonium as one month ago, GHNv-20 was confirmed, five months after the beginning of norovirus season. The number of the infected are in the higher hundred thousands, and the death toll is at an estimated 250,000, with about seventy percent of the rest of the population experiencing mild to moderate illnesses connected to the S. pyogenes bacteria.
The fear of the unknown has caused mass hysteria and panic.
In an attempt to provide a semblance of safety and control, military personnel patrol the streets, even here in Lethford City, and the police force is trying to keep up with the rising street violence, assault, and theft.
Welcome to OUTBREAK: zero. Will you survive?
HAYANA
SITE OWNER + HEAD ADMINISTRATOR
Hi! I'm Haya. I'm pretty much your girl for everything! If you have any questions regarding our plot, membergroups, etc. don't hesitate to ask me. I'm also in charge of coding, graphics, anything skin related, and advertising/affiliates.
GENERAL INQUIRIES
CODING
GRAPHICS
ADVERTISING
CHARACTERS
ADDI
ADMINISTRATOR
Hey! I'm Addi. Hit me up if you need help with anything. I'm always for plotting so don't be shy. I like coffee, booze, and working out. I'm back from a long hiatus the dead so if you need anything, best ask the others until I get back into the groove of things!
GENERAL INQUIRIES
APPLICATIONS
THREAD MODERATION
MEDIATOR
CHARACTERS
FINNLEY
GLOBAL MODERATOR
Hi hello! My name is Finnley, or Finn, call whichever and I'll be there for you (yes like the FRIENDS theme song). I am in charge of the claims and helping with miscellaneous things. Let me know if you have any questions!
GENERAL INQUIRIES
CLAIMS
DIRECTORY
CHARACTERS
STAFF NAME
OPEN MODERATOR POSITION
outbreak
/ˈaʊtbreɪk/ zero /ˈzɪərəʊ/
a sudden occurrence of something unwelcome, such as war or disease. number, no quantity or number; nought; the figure 0.
It was a thought that passed through his mind as he worked. It was fleeting, leaving a slight pang in his chest. He used to think cancer was the scariest thing that could happen to a person. After seeing what his mother had gone through, he had understood how horrible the disease was. How it could ruin a person and their family. But then he had met GHNv-20 and he knew that it could get worse. There were ghosts in these halls, and not just his own. The worst part was they were growing with the increasing number of cases. It only fueled his drive to find a cure, the sooner they found a cure the sooner this would all be over.
Thomas kept his head bent trying to keep to himself. His identification badge hung around his neck from a black lanyard. It bumped against his chest as he moved. He went about gathering the various charts and documents he had been sent for. He had to wait on a couple of doctors to finish off on the charting, for the hospital to remove whatever they saw fit from the charts before he was allowed access to them. He had been there since seven am and all he wanted was a coffee.
The smell of disinfectant stung his nostrils even though the mask he wore. He had been provided a new one when he had walked through the doors. His hands cleaned, temperature checked, and screening completed. This was his new normal. Every precaution was being taken. He had adamantly refused the escort from the hospital back to the Prism Biotech building. But he had been shot down, the information he was gathering was important. If it was stolen or went missing it could set back the vaccine. That wasn’t a risk anyone was willing to take, but it didn’t mean he had to like it.
Glancing down at his watch he silently swore. He shoved the remaining files into the brief case for transport. He was forty-five minutes over his scheduled pick up time. He had lost track of time in the records room. His escort was supposed to be here at 1300, and now they had been waiting for forty-five minutes. Making his way to the door he exited, the lock activating behind him. The room was secure, hospital security had been watching him through cameras the whole time.
He quickly walked to the long bank of windows overlooking the downtown core. This was also where the new spread out staff room was for the floor. Social distancing was in place with chairs and tables six feet apart. Bright neon signs assaulted him, reminding him to wash his hands and wear a mask. He could see the person that was waiting for him, it was hard not to spot her. The uniform gave her away.
He was coming up on her from behind, he announced his presence with an apology that doubled as a greeting. ”Sorry I’m late. I lost track of time and started to analyzing the data instead of just packaging it-“ Thomas’s words trailed off as she turned. Even with her own mask on he knew who she was, Brooke. He felt all of the things he was going to say leave him as he stared at her for a long moment. ”I didn’t know you were back?” She had been on the same mission Charles had been, the biggest difference was that she had lived.
The task came in over email and she read it over: escort a Prism nerd back to the lab. It was pathetic, Brooke knew. She’d faced down the barrel of automatic weapons but now she was walking at the back of a scientist while he struggled to lift a filebox of medical records. She could see them struggling to push their glasses up their nose, little beads of sweat from the heavy box of data at their side, and she’d let it happen. After all, in all the movies the guards never carried the precious cargo. That made far too much sense.
So she was posted up in the staff room, arms crossed and watching expectantly for the dweeb to make his way toward her. But 1300 came. And then 1315. She found herself opening the email, checking and rechecking the time and then tucking it back in. At 1330 she texted her CO to check in and get further instructions. Should she go in and find them? Her face felt warm under the mask as her mind raced to try and work out what had them delayed. She could picture it in great detail, the interception of data, the corporate espionage, the riot? Brooke found herself checking her person. She touched at the gun on her hip, the knife on the other side, and closed her eyes to settle herself from the rising feeling that there would be action coming.
It was the one feeling she could never quite get a handle on. She had spent so much time in a constant state of readiness that slipping out of it in the civilian places was hard to do. It was different when they were off duty and hanging out. With other soldiers everyone lived onthe edge of a knife and so everyone shared the same energy. Civilians never saw anything coming. They never expected the unexpected. It was why so many were dead when the world turned upside down. Humanity had placed themselves at the top of the food chain, developed weapons that could destroy the world, and then relaxed as though the world couldn’t develop weapons of it’s very own to do the same.
She heard someone approaching, he spoke behind his mask. It muffled the man’s voice but he was apologizing about being late. Brooke turned and her heart stopped. She tensed and watched the ghost start toward her. It felt wrong to have his face masked. Charlie had avoided the world going to shit, he’d gotten out before it got bad all over, and here was his face covered in the N95’s that every professional wore. She tried to keep her breathing steady and the demons in the cage she kept them in when the sun was up. Because it wasn’t all bad. It was good to see him. Tommy was just as much her friend as Charlie was, but Tommy wasn’t dead.
He spoke up, he recognized her, and she reached up to touch her face but reminded herself halfway there that they weren’t supposed to do that. She lowered her hand down gave a little bit of a shrug, ”Transferred home. Lucky me, right?” He’d phrased it like a question, though, and after a second she knew that he deserved more than that, ”It’s only been three weeks. A lot of it has been a blur of chain of command and orienting myself with protocols.” To keep her hands from playing with her hair she crossed her arms. She wanted to say that she’d thought about looking him but that felt like a copout and Brooke didn’t want to explain to him that seeing his brother’s face was going to be difficult or that she wasn’t even sure he wanted to see her. So she just cleared her throat and motioned to the door on the far side of the room opposite from where he’d come in. ”The car’s on the street, hopefully we haven’t gotten a ticket with the delay. Ready to go?”
There was a stunned feeling that settled over him when he saw her. She was like a blast from the past. After their mother had died he had parted ways. Left cadets and went to university. Brooke had followed his brother across the pound. Sure he had gotten updates, photos, and emails. But they had lived very different lives. Sometimes he would leave the emails unopened, sometimes he wouldn’t know what to say to his jar head of a brother. It was hard to compare the excitement of battle to beakers and math. They had been twins, but they couldn’t have been more different. Seeing her made his heart ache for his brother. She had been there with him when he had died, while he had been behind a microscope.
He hadn’t known she was back in town. He couldn’t help but ask, had she purposely not sought him out? He watched as she struggled not to touch her face, or her hair. Her discomfort showing. He didn’t know what he expected. She had been in town for three weeks and he had no idea. He tried not to feel hurt by this. The world wasn’t exactly right, things were crazy. The last three weeks he had been at the lab late. His life revolved around his work. Work, caffeine, work out, sleep, and repeat. This wasn’t exactly the best time to have a social life. Maybe he should have answered her last email, maybe than she would have texted him when she came to town.
She gestured, telling him about the car. The reality of what she was here to do came crashing down. ”Oh yeah, of course.” She was here to escort him. It felt weird to know that she was supposed to be protecting him and the documents. The brief case felt heavy as he started towards where the car was, he felt inadequate. Like something fragile that needed to be protected and he hated it. ”I told them that I didn’t need an escort. But they wouldn’t exactly take no for an answer. They had the final say and now here we are.” He informed her, feeling like he had to say something about the situation. ”Who did you have to piss off to get baby sitting duty anyways?” He couldn’t help but ask as they walked. Staff eyeing her uniform with both concern and interest. ”Or is this somehow a sick privilege?” He jutted a brow up, not sure what this all meant for her.
She motioned and he took a step and suddenly she was transported back 11 years. They were seniors, they were facing down finals and futures. The twins’ mom was sick and adulthood was rushing up toward them. She could remember feeling like she couldn’t wait to get away, to leave and make a way for herself that didn’t involve her sisters. Her oldest sister was pregnant with her first baby that year and the look in her parent’s eyes when they eyed their four other daughters and hungrily anticipated a houseful of little mormon babies popping out of each of them it turned her stomach. She couldn’t get out fast enough.
But it had been easier then because when they finally smashed into adulthood it had nothing good for any of them. Tommy got to deal with his right away. Brooke knew about his role in that, how he had been there and the others hadn’t. She had held Charlie’s head against her chest as he drunkenly sobbed and confessed to her that he felt both glad and guilt that he wasn’t there, that he didn’t have to see the last breath collapse her chest in and give her body the uneasy look of stillness that came over it in death. The two of them had seen that last breath in war, whether from starving children, abused women, or battered soldiers. That last haunting image of a vibrant breathing body turning into a cadaver would never leave the mind. Charlie had that image for strangers. Tommy endured it with his own Mother.
Easily she took her place beside him, not bothering to let him walk ahead of her like she had anticipated this would go. They were friends, or had been. As the awkward silence invaded the sacred space of their reunion she wondered if that was true anymore. Brooke had been the one to pull Thomas into their life overseas. She would send him snaps from bars, both her and his brother drunk and calling out that they missed him, selfies in bathrooms with her hip cocked to the side, hair pulled to one side, peace sign up and a sleepy drunk droop to her eyelids. And then there was the letter writing. A lot of what she sent him was stream of consciousness bullshit that didn’t make sense. And when he didn’t respond she had assumed that it was because whatever she said had been too much or hadn’t made sense. Brooke never would have thought that good, kind Thomas would ignore her.
But then she’d let his brother die and there weren’t responses to her last emails.
He spoke up about not wanting an escort and she smiled at him. It was worthless, though. The mask wouldn’t show any change in her features except maybe the skin under her eyes wrinkling a touch. ”Maybe next time you should kick their ass or something, show them you really don’t need it. You could probably take me right now, this new gig has me soft.” And it was true. When she was in the combat zones her body was leaner, her muscle more developed and defined. Now that she was filling the role of hulked-out police officer she’d regained a little more roundness to her hips, her breasts hung a little more full, and there was a layer of padding that took some of the definition from her abdomen. If the masks weren’t mandated she would go running, she told herself. But there was no breathing in the things and it didn’t make a lot of sense.
Brooke laughed, feigning offense to his accusation, ”How dare you, I would never piss someone off!” She was teasing, of course. With the people that didn’t matter to her whatever came to mind slipped right past her pale pink lips and into the world to wreak havoc and cause offense. ”No, this is just my job now.” How did she say that the reason she was there was because her mental health made her unfit for duty in a more high-risk zone? Could she say Actually, I’m here because I watched the back of your brother’s head explode. I think I even got some of his brain matter in my hair. Not like this, she couldn’t. ”The world went crazy and they had to call in people like me to do the grunt work while people like you save the world.”
And he would be able to tell she meant it. Brooke wasn’t teasing him. Thomas was one of the smartest people she had ever known. ”You’re gonna do it, right? Close? To finally putting all of this to bed?”
She was walking beside him. It was a noticeable difference than what the other escorts in the past had done. Most of them had walked behind him, not saying anything and no doubt praying the whole ordeal ended quickly. He saw the crinkle around her eyes as she smiled under her mask. It was the subtle differences in people features that gave away emotions now. He had gotten good at spotting them. She joked, admitting that he could no doubt kick her ass. He knew he should take it as a compliment but he shrugged. ”What is it that my brother called me? A squint? I’ve been out of Cadets for years. Besides if you wrestle like you did when you were a kid I have no chance.” Nothing like having to tap out because a girl had you in a head lock. His brother had never let him live that down. He worked out but wasn’t the same as what he had gone through in Cadets.
He cracked a smile as she pretended to be offended. She teased him right back. She admitted that this was just her job now. He wondered if the change suited her. This wasn’t exactly a combat war zone. This was different, more towards police style work. He wondered if she was mad, if this wasn’t what she wanted to do. If she had any complaints she didn’t voice them. Thomas couldn’t help the sideways glance at her as she proclaimed that he was saving the world. His eye brow was cocked up at that and his pace had slowed. There was sincerity to her words that made it worse, maybe he could have let it go if she had been teasing him. ”No pressure.” He half joked with a little laugh. There was hope in her next words, as she asked him if they would solve it. She had to be asking that? Because he was just one person, there was no way he would be the one to solely solve it.
”You know that we aren’t heroes right? We aren’t saving babies and running around in capes? We aren’t going to save anything. If anything we will prolong lives. That’s all we’ve ever done as scientists.” He wasn’t sure why he was being a jerk about it. He tried to ease up a little bit. Looking forward finally as they walked. ”The company I work for is doing everything possible to create a successful vaccine. What that will look like, I don’t know. I’m just one cog in a very big machine.” Thomas lifted the brief case a little, ”you aren’t the only one doing grunt work today.” Was the break from the lab nice? Yeah, but this wasn’t exactly his idea of fun. ”And no, I didn’t piss anyone off either, just drew the short straw at the morning meeting.”
Grief was weird. It was taught to be linear but it didn't work that way. She bounced between the stages sometimes minute to minute. And the shock that had assaulted her at the sight of him was fading. The more time she spent with Thomas the more the differences in the twins would show themselves. He carried himself different when he walked, and his hair was different. His voice was so close she could close her eyes and see his brother speaking, but physically there were tells. Least of all was his slighter build for the people closest to the two of them. The shock had faded and was moving into acceptance again and then he broke some unspoken taboo and used that word.
My brother.
She glanced over at him, trying to see if he was ok talking about him or if this was for her benefit. It had been years and she had grieved and was trying to sort out of survivors guilt and all of the overthinking that came with running that scenario over and over again in her head to try and suss out what they could have done differently. But it was fresh again as she faced it down with Thomas there. She had been at the funeral, granted leave to recover from the event, but that had been different. They were all so blind with the trauma that the whole thing felt like something she had watched on television or read about, not done herself.
He was protesting but she scoffed and rolled her eyes, not taking it or accepting it. Brooke reached out and punched him in the arm, "it wouldn't be me you're wrestling, just other squints. And you definitely have a leg up on them." she had felt in that punch that his muscle was still lean, could see from beneath his sleeve that there definition. Those were not the slabby arms of an ex-cadet. Whatever he got up to, he still used them. But he definitely still did plenty of squinting, she could see the wrinkles dug deep between his eyebrows from the glaring he probably did at samples and data.
The questions about his work earned her snark and she smirked, "I am thrilled to now pass that buck onto you, young one." she said it dramatically, teasing like it hadn't been three years since they'd last seen each other. Being in the Army, morale was kept high by reminding people that the work they were doing was there to keep the world safe, to make it better, and to protect the vulnerable. Now that was all in the scientist's hands. She couldn't infiltrate and shoot the newest threat to humanity, as much as that might make everything a lot easier. But he wasn't teasing or thinking about it like that at all.
Brooke rolled her eyes at him and shook her head, speaking seriously, "You can't fool me, I've seen the motivational posts online." her hand reached out and gripped his shoulder, "Not all heroes wear capes, Thomas." She was only half-teasing. It was cheesy and it made her roll her eyes every time an aunt would share it, but they were at war and he really was one of the ones that could successfully combat it. But when he went on and gave her a line that sounded like something out of a PR statement she scoffed, stopping her walk forward and reaching out to grasp his bicep so that he was forced to stop too. "You did not just PR me! Oh my God! Did they make you all memorize that statement? Are you being brainwashed? Blink twice if you need help."
He proved quickly that he wasn't, though, referring to his own grunt work and she gave a little bit of a shrug at all of that before she spoke up softer, "At least you weren't relegated to it because you're unfit to do anything else." there it was. That was the truth she'd kept out before. But they had reached the door and she reached forward, pushing it open so that he wouldn't have to touch the surface. And when he was through she pulled sanitizer from her pocket and put some on her hands, rolling them together as the alcohol evaporated and hopefully killed whatever had gone from the door to her flesh at the touch. "Pretty wild that this stuff is part of my distributed equipment for being in the field." she waved the sanitizer at him before tucking it away and motioning to where she had parked the car. "so does your NDA preclude you from telling me what you're gonna do with all those records?
The punch was light but proved her point. He wasn’t defenceless, but he always wasn’t a trained combatant like her. ”Half a leg maybe.” He refused to take the compliment fully. He could be better; he was skipping workouts in order to spend more time at the lab. He knew he was little his own health slip for the sake of others, but he couldn’t help it. Helping to find the cure had become his priority. There was a hum of unspoken pressure in the air at work. They all knew they needed a vaccine, there was this mounting pressure with each day that passed with no progress. But maybe that was just him setting his own expectations too high.
He crinkled his nose under the tight-fitting mask. It felt like the whole world was looking at them. Holding their breath and waiting for them to come out with a cure. Some protested it, said it went against their rights and that they refused to get it. While others were pressing the companies to do it faster. He knew his boss was feeling the pressure to deliver and that was passed down to them. There was this guttural fear inside of him that they would somehow fail. That they would leave the world unprotected and people would die. What if they couldn’t come up with something? What happened if it mutated? His mind was going a mile a minute when she stopped him.
Her teasing broke him out of his spiral. He rolled his eyes at her. ”No, and no. I didn’t have to memorize it. Its just an honest answer. Prism is doing everything it can to create a vaccine.” Maybe the words were partially memorized from all of the emails that were sent out. There were countless reminders about what they could and couldn’t say. The company had rights to the knowledge, and the research. He knew how a slip up could ruin someone’s career he had watched it happen to a co worker. He wasn’t about to ruin his life over a conversation.
But her next words told him all he needed to know. She had been unfit for anything else. He had no doubt they had tried to reintegrate her, and she had failed, or maybe her injuries had been too severe. He had never stopped to ask her. The last time he had seen her was three years ago when he had buried his brother. He hadn’t been in a state that day for polite conversation. In fact, he was pretty sure he had avoided her. In retrospect he had been insensitive. Maybe she had needed someone that day. He didn’t know how to respond and for a moment he didn’t.
He went to open the door and she stepped ahead of him, doing it for him. Then she was sanitizing her hands, a fluid well practiced motion. She joked about the hand sanitizer and it eased the tension. ”You seem to be settling in okay all things considered. You need a little holder for your belt for quick drawing.” Yeah he had just made a hand sanitizer gun joke. It felt as lame out loud as it had in his head. She inquired about the files and he glanced down at them. ”I think you know the answer to that. They have us keeping pretty tight lipped over it all. Its not just about the vaccine, the company that makes it first will make bank. It would be huge for Prism.” He would be naïve to think that this had nothing to do with money. It made the world go round after all.
”But, what I can say that its better than the last company I worked at. This one has a lot more research funding, its bigger too. It has resources and staff I couldn’t have dreamed of.” It was amazing how going from a small pharmacological company to Prism had changed his life. His attention shifted to the people lined up outside of the hospital. He didn’t miss the looks there were thrown at Brooke. People had mixed feelings about the military stepping in to help. Especially now with the home raids happening. ”Maybe you’re the one who needs an escort. How’s the vibe on the street?”
He didn’t have anything to offer her in the way of information. And that was to be expected, Brooke was a glorified grunt. After her combat disaster she’d been flown to Germany with a bullet wound in her hip and her shoulder and a psyche that was broken. Her new job was a demotion, as much as they insisted that her rank did not change and she would maintain some responsibility even in this new role. But it wasn’t the same. She wasn’t at Charlie’s side as his number 2, following and listening and echoing commands or giving her own when they’d split the unit. But she kept it a little light, despite his lack of information, ”You’re doing good work, Tommy.”
It was a strange time to be alive. Sometimes it felt a little bit like the rest of the world was getting a glimpse into what her life for the last 8 years had been like. It was regimented, dangerous, exhausting, and scary. There were little bursts of reprieve that came when someone broke into song riding in a humvee or when the sun would go down and it would get deathly silent at base so that when you went outside to look up at the stars you could almost hear the sound of those distant celestial fires burning. Humanity found ways to make joy out of dire circumstances. Unfortunately, in current times people were choosing stupid ways to find joy, like trying to gather and that early trend of having GHNv-20 parties to ‘just get it over with’.
Her job was to stop that kind of joy. And so when they stepped outside the people in line did a cursory glance around to make sure that they were properly distanced just in case the mean soldier got out her measuring tape. If Brooke saw it she didn’t make a comment or let it bother her. No one liked it when she did her job, she had learned that long ago. But she’d still find those little bursts, she’d keep going in search of the next little boost of serotonin. He wasn’t at first, but when he spoke up and teased her about her hand sanitizer and the quickdraw there was the feeling that Thomas could be her next burst. She laughed easily, Brooke was always easy to pull laughter out of, and she nodded, ”That’s a good idea, maybe I could go full mounted pump action.”
She popped her hip out to the side a little and mimed pumping sanitizer and then offering her hip to him. ” Hands-free sanitization distribution. It would be a promotion compared to what they’ve got me doing now.” Brooke smirked, straightened to walk again, and tried one more time for information about the vaccine, their progress...anything. And when he mentioned money she wrinkled up her nose at that, scoffing, ”It’s awful that things like medicine and war are an industry, isn’t it?” There was a tone to her voice that said it was something she had talked about before. Those were the other things that came up out in the desert. There was no topic off limits and she could remember the conversation swinging wildly from bathroom and sex jokes to political hot topics in a matter of seconds. But that’s how things went with family.
Brooke gave a nod and somewhere in that line someone coughed. She glanced over at them but no one was making eye contact. A cough those days was like distant gunfire for her. It put her on edge, reminded her that the world was not right. And when he spoke up again she glanced over at him, ”Oh, you know, just fulfilling my role in maintaining a safe and controlled military state. Working for the man and keeping the free people down.” But after a moment she sobered, ”I knew coming home would be hard, but it’s made harder when most people don’t want you here. So, things are tense. Sometimes it feels like we’re one bad day from riots and the next we’re singing High School Musical and insisting that we’re all in this together.”
They reached the car and, as it was her job, Brooke opened the door for him and waited for him to climb inside. Only after he was in did she move around and into the driver’s side. She didn’t make much small talk as she backed out of the spot, eyeing the line again and watching for pedestrians as she started away from the hospital. After a moment she spoke up again, ”I miss movie theaters.” Brooke glanced over at him, ”Sitting in the dark with a bunch of strangers. I used to go alone when I was in Germany, before all of this started. There is something so empowering about going to dinner and a movie alone. Now who knows if that industry will even survive.” She had her eyes back on the road as she went on, ”And tinder. No one with any human decency swipes anymore, you’d be crazy to!” She shifted her gaze over to him, ”What about you?”
He couldn’t help but advert his eyes when she informed him he was doing good work. He had never liked the attention being on him. He had grown up in his brothers shadow and had grown used to it. No attention was better than his fathers eyes on him. Even now, the attention made him uncomfortable. He was employee 167577 and that was how he liked it. He was one of many, he didn’t have to be special or stand out. He could stand on his own and be content. His work was all he needed to feel accomplished, he knew he did good work and that was all he needed.
She was joking about her future hip hand sanitizer and he couldn’t help shake his head. The chuckle was muffled by the mask. Even the joke was laced with real words. It was clear that she felt that this was all a demotion. He couldn’t help but agree on some level. He had assumed someone of far lower rank would be stuck escorting him. Or even a rookie police officer. But not a Staff Sargent. They both knew what her presence here meant.
She shifted the conversation with ease. There was something to her tone. As if she was giving him permission to talk about it openly. He couldn’t help but give her a side glance. ”Everything is for profit if you really think about it. If medicine wasn’t who would fund it? The government? People can hardly afford to pay their taxes as it is.” He knew it was a broken system, but all he could do was operate within it. He was just trying to do the most good as possible while ignoring the red tape of the system. ”Its the red tape that bothers me more. The rules and regulations that halt progress. Do you know how long it can take to get government approval on medical trials? Or how they can cut your funding at any moment?” He seemed to realize how much he had said and pushed the conversation onto her.
Martial law wasn’t something the citizens of the United States took lightly. Having the military here had only seen a rise in tensions. Than there were the people who thought this was all some kind of government lie. That the virus wasn’t really real and that the government super powers were trying to pull one over in everyone. He didn’t envy the position it put her in. She was doing a job that no one wanted her to do, he had no doubt that most of the military members didn’t want to be doing it either. He watched her survey the line of people as someone coughed. Everyone seemed on edge, nothing was innocent anymore.
His eyes drifted back to her as they continued their path to the car. ”Sucks to be shit on for doing your job huh?” He wouldn’t never truly understand what she was going through. People hated the police and military and they couldn’t do anything about it. No matter what they did the public would protest it. ”I have a feeling it’s only going to get worse. I heard you guys are doing home raids too.” He wasn’t even sure he believed in what they were doing fully. He was one of the essential workers the papers he carried were a get out of jail free card if he was caught after curfew. ”Kinda feels extreme some of the stuff that’s happening. But I also get that we kinda have to be, the R factor of this virus is crazy.”
He paused as she stepped in front of him, opening the car door for him. He couldn’t help but stiffen a little, he forced himself to relax. He stepped past her and into the car, ”guess chivalry isn’t dead.” She closed the door for him before stepping around the car and getting in. He settled in, looking at the line of people waiting to get in. How many of those people were symptomatic? How many of them were super spreaders. Some of them weren’t standing six feet apart, some had their noses sticking out of their masks.
He seemed to remember that he wasn’t in the hospital anymore. ”Give me some of that.” He gestured to the hand sanitizer, but before he took any he stopped. Pulling a brown paper lunch bag out of his back pocket, with a hard jerk he opened it. Than he carefully removed the N95 he had been wearing, plopping it into the bag. He closed the bag and reached his hands out for the hand sanitizer. His face free of the mask she would be able to see the hard indents in his face from hours of wearing the mask. Faint bruising was present on the bridge of his nose, he flexed his jaw. Satisfied his hands were clean he reached into his other pocket and pulled out a normal medical mask donning it. It was a hundred times better than the right fitting N95. He plopped the paper bag on the floor next to his brief case. ”Im pretty sure I now understand how women feel when they take their bra off at the end of the day.”
She spoke and he glanced at her as she confessed she missed movie theatres and why. He was reminded how much their lives had changed, how they would continue to change. What would survive this pandemic? Not everything that was for sure. It was a sobering thought, one he was avoiding. He didn’t want to think about it, he just wanted to find a cure and have some semblance of normalcy return. She went on and he watched her as she drove. He shook his head as she mentioned tinder.
She wanted to know what he missed. He shrugged. ”Well I haven’t been jumping on tinder if that’s what you’re asking.” He knew that she was asking more than that. ”I hated going to the theatre, you always had some wise ass who would laugh or clap. It ruined the movie.” He went on, ”I miss going to the pub. It’s not exactly the same sitting and drinking alone at the bar.” He didn’t realize how sad it sounded until he spoke the words out loud. ”Book stores too. Can’t exactly go and sit and read a book and have coffee. Nothings the same with these masks on.”
”Speaking of coffee, we should get one on the way.” If he got push back he’d push on. ”Common, it’ll take what? Five minutes and it’ll save me a trip when you drop me off.”
He spoke about red tape, agendas and budgets and taxes and profits. In all of that a secret passion bubbled up out of Thomas. She recognized it as the same sort of thing that would pop up in the cadets when they had to do the science projects. Her and Charles would stand beside him trying to keep up, but he’d be so excited and it was all in a language Thomas spoke. It was important to him. And the bureaucracy and his disapproval of it all was important to her. She knew a little bit about that. She had met plenty of men and women who profited off of the war that she fought, the war that had killed his brother. The civilian contractors made lots of money off of the deaths of soldiers and foreign citizens alike.
But all she could do was let out a heavy breath of air and shake her head at all of that. The world was fucked up, they each just had different angles of it. He saw the cleaner corruption. She saw the blood and death side. Or she used to. Brooke hadn’t been in an active war zone in three years. He changed the subject and she actually laughed out loud when he pointed out that people like her weren’t the most popular. She shook her head and grimaced when he mentioned the home raids. ”I haven’t had to participate yet...it’s..a lot.” Their hometown was one bad day away from becoming a warzone, with visible enemies that fought back rather than an invisible viral one.
Brooke let him into the car and when he teased her she gave him a wink, ”It’s part of the job, don’t get too used to it.” She climbed in and his request for sanitizer had her waving for him to go for it. But then he stopped and took off his mask. It was only for a second but there he was and she found herself watching him, trying to get a glimpse at his face despite the marks from the more secure mask. It was so brief but it made her feel warm and ache all at the same time. He joked about bras and she smiled, shaking her head, ”It’s close, but it still only takes second place. The first time i got to take off my full fear set overseas...I’ll never forget that feeling. It’s like my body hurt from the lack of weight and pressure on me.”
They were off and she was talking about how different the world was. He wasn’t seeing anyone, she took note of that. She’d have to tease him later about it. Then again, they were in the middle of a serious global pandemic. It was so serious, in fact, that she’d recently seen a medical journal passed around the base from a publisher in Canada that suggested intimate partners wrap up their faces as well as their genitalia in order to help prevent the spread of the virus. In Brooke’s opinion, there were far more worrisome things to think about during the exchange of those kinds of fluids. She scoffed at him at the theater remark, though, and rolled her eyes, ”Me. That person you hate at the movies is me.” She glanced over at him with a glare, but softened a little as she went on, ”Next time call me, I’ll socially distance and drink with you.”
He wanted coffee but Brooke hesitated, ”I don’t know, I’ve got orders. No detours.” But he was appealing to her and it really didn’t take too much convincing to persuade her. After all, what was the rush? All he had were records, no samples, and the paper wouldn’t deteriorate. She gave a nod, ”Fine, coffee. But only the drive thru, you can sip and I can drive.” Brooke used to hate coffee. Before she joined the army she drank the stuff as a glorified milkshake, always in the form of a frappucino and sometimes without any coffee at all. After her tour, though, she took it black and couldn’t have it any other way. The other stuff made her feel sick and privileged and knowing that her friends would never again know the luxury, the least she could do was drink her coffee black and keep herself from the sweet stuff. It was a twisted sort of way to honor them, and one that only she knew about.
”When are we going to drinks? Some place safe, and I’ve got to be out of uniform. I’ll never hear the end of it if someone photographs me at a bar or restaurant or even a park taking any sort of leisure time in uniform.” Brooke made a face at him. It had been ingrained in her that every single thing she did in uniform was a reflection on the military, and in the current climate a soldier with a beer might cause an uproar. ”Or we could always go the old fashioned way and steal a half-empty bottle of liquor and go walk out into the woods to drink it.” She smirked at him, teasing about their more reckless adventures as teenagers. They were lucky to be alive with some of the things Charles dragged them into.
There was so much he wasn’t telling her. So much he wanted the tell her. The time apart had done nothing to dampen his friend ship towards her. They were older, they had both led very different lives the last few years. But it felt so comfortable with her. He hated how at ease he felt, he hated how much he wanted to tell her. What would she think of him if he told her the truth? What would she think of the lengths they were willing to go to in order to find a cure? Would she still tell him he was doing good work than? He wasn’t so sure. He believed in what he was doing, but he knew people would push back if they really knew the truth.
She spoke of home raids, how she hadn’t participated yet. He felt like he was testing the water with his next words. ”Is it really so bad? The home raids are meant for those who are breaking the rules. Those who are gathering in an unsafe manner. Don’t get me wrong it sucks that you have to enforce them. But aren’t they a good thing?” He saw people gathering for parties, and weddings. It was hard to feel sympathy for them when they were being so unsafe. They were gathering with no precautions. Was if so bad the police and military were stepping in? He took off his mask with a joke. She commented about how it had felt to take off her armour. He felt it again. How different they were now, how much they had changed over the years. She had fought in a war while he had hide behind a microscope. He felt like he owed her something, but nothing felt good enough. ”Ill keep that in mind.”
He couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose as she admitted she was the person he hated. But than she offered to drink with him the next time he felt the need to pound back a couple. He smiled under his mask, his eyes wrinkling slightly with the expression. ”Ill keep that in mind.”
He brought up coffee and he could feel the tension at the request. He knew it was a divination from the plan. But he hadn’t eaten since at least 7 am. He needed something, coffee sounded like the best option. He pressed a little harder, it didn’t take much before she caved. ”Fine drive thru it is.” He agreed quickly before she could change her mind. He knew he was adding more risk to what they were doing, but they were in an unmarked car. He wasn’t exactly high profile in the company. It all felt like minimum risk. If anything having an escort felt extreme.
She wanted to know when they would have drinks. She seemed to press that it would all be done safely. She seemed to be hyper aware of her uniform and what it looked like when she was in it. He shrugged, glancing at her. ”Pretty sure that I could extend my social circle to include you. It’s not like I have friends I interact with outside of work. Besides I think it’s fair to say that both of our jobs require a high level of cation. If anything I’m safer hanging with you than some chick off Tinder.” He couldn’t help but shake his head, clearly amused at her reminder of the past. ”Cant say I’m the same kid I used to be.” It was hard to remember the past, a past where his brother had been alive. ”If you’re going to be in my circle than I guess the least I could do is invite you over for a movie. But be warned, I will throw pillows at you if you talk during the movie.”
He paused, glancing out the window beside him. There was nothing interesting to see. The streets were bare at best. Most people were being cautious. ”I should have given you his dog tags at the funeral.” He spoke the words as he looked back to her, they both knew what he was talking about. He didn’t know where it had come from, but he had needed to say it. ”I hardly talked to him after mom died. I should have, but I didn’t.” He paused, glancing at the road a head of them. ”They always tell you that they could die in combat. But I never though it would be him. I thought he was better than it.” He had never stopped feeling the loss of his twin brother. Like someone was touching a raw nerve at all times. ”I never thought I would lose him to a gun fight.”
Was it so bad to invade people’s homes? Was it so bad to halt the search for human connection? There were justifications for all of, there were points on both sides. No answer was the right answer. And Brooke didn’t respond right away. Because it wasn’t so easy as to say that raids were good or bad. Raids were...necessary. They were trying to save lives. She gave a noncommittal shrug and glanced over at him, ”Are they a good thing? I don’t know. I get it, people are lonely and they want their lives back, I can understand why they want to be together but..if we aren’t all in this together no one is going to make it out unscathed.” Brooke gave a groan and went on, ”Or maybe it’s natural selection. But then it’s like drunk driving. It’s not just the drunk in danger, it’s everyone they see after the party is over. But people don’t get that part.”
She leaned against the window, elbow there on the door and hand propping up her head. He was up for drinks and she was grateful for the distraction from the kinds of decisions the Government was forced to make. He mentioned drinking, letting her hang out with him, and she laughed at how exclusive it all sounded. The reality was sadder than that, though. He didn’t have friends. Brooke thought back to school, to how the people they spent time with were more inherited from Charles rather than someone that Brooke or Thomas brought in. She might be one of the few that could settle in beside either twin and be perfectly content in the company of thomas or charles. Only the former was an option anymore, though.
Brooke glanced over at him, eyeing him and giving a wink, ”Did you just netflix and chill me, Tommy?” She smirked and teased him for a second, letting that hang in the air before she sobered and held up two fingers, ”I promise I won’t talk through the movie. Scouts honor. And if I do I’m a good catcher.” The comfortable quiet settled between them and she was touching at the buttons on the door when he spoke up and made her go still. Brooke didn’t look at him even when the feeling of his eyes on her was overwhelming. If she looked at him she wouldn’t be okay anymore. Both hands went to the wheel and she listened to him speaking. And when he said again that he should have given them to her she shook her head, ”No, hey, he’s your brother. Your twin brother, those are yours. He would want you to have them.”
Her own tags hung around her neck, beneath the layers of uniform and against her chest. She didn’t even really feel them anymore. And she could remember when they had folded up the flag over the casket, handing it to his Father and then offering Thomas the dogtags. It was military ceremony. If she wanted anything it was that flag. His shitty Dad didn’t deserve it. Brooke and Charlie knew what kind of man they had left Thomas with. Charles would get drunk and talk all about the guilt he felt for leaving Tommy to their mother’s death, but also to his father’s choice in living. There was significant dysfunction in their family and she watched it all unfold from the sidelines.
Her heart raced when he spoke about how Charlie died and in her mind the image of the back of his skull exploding out to spray it’s contents on the unit behind them played again. She had been at his side, she’d watched it unfold. She had seen the way his body folded unnaturally and hit the ground. And then she’d hit the ground with him, crawling over his lifeless form and feeling for any signs of life as she tried to drag him and herself into cover. It didn’t make sense but she didn’t register that she was dragging a dead body until she looked back on all of it.
She was quiet for too long and then cleared her throat as she pulled the car over abruptly. They weren’t at the coffee shop, this was a detour that he hadn’t agreed to, and when she put it in park Brooke sat back, eyes down in her lap, ”I should have said this sooner, Tommy..” Brooke shifted in her seat to face him and tried to hold his gaze but every time she looked at his face her words wouldn’t come out. So she lowered her eyes to his chest and spoke, ”I’m so sorry. I should have done more. I play it over and over again in my head, I could have seen through the ambush but he was leading the unit, I was watching out six..” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, remembering how the army-appointed therapist had told her that she needed to be kinder to herself and that these things happened in times of war. ”I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.”
He could tell that she was on the fence about what was happening. He couldn’t blame her, she was in a different position than him. She had to deal with it all firsthand and enforce it. He could see where she was coming from, it wasn’t something that was easy. People were gathering against government and scientific advisement. They were putting people at risk along with themselves. He missed people, he missed all of the things he used to do before the pandemic had taken hold. He missed pubs, and organized sports. He missed Muay Thai and the dudes he used to spar with. He missed it all, but he wasn’t willing to throw a party and possibly infect them all.
He tried to glaze over the fact that he had just admitted he didn’t have that many friends. He knew people, but it didn’t mean they were his friends. They were people he knew, interacted with. They didn’t hang out very weekend, he had skipped all those meaningful connections. Focusing on work instead. He offered to have her over and he couldn’t help the half panicked look he shot her as she mentioned Netflix and chill. ”What! No. That’s not what I meant.” He felt the need to defend himself, his offer had been innocent. Charles had been the one to want in her pants, bro code had stopped him from trying. Besides, Charles had always seemed like the clear choice.
He watched her hands go to the wheel as he spoke. It was hard not to think of his brother with her. She had been a functional part of there lives. They had basically grown up together. She had been beside his brother over seas. She had been through it with his brother, he felt like he owed her something. She affirmed that Charles would have wanted him to have the dog tags. They felt heavy in his pocket, he had attached them to his keys when his brother had died. He hadn’t felt like he deserved to wear them around his neck. But he always had his keys, it felt like a good place to keep them.
He didn’t know where all of this was coming from. But he needed to say it. Maybe this was his only chance too. But he had to get it off his chest. Silence followed and he worried he had said something wrong, he was trying to figure out what to say. He had to say something to make this better. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything at all. She cleared her throat, the first noise since he had stopped talking. She pulled over the car and he felt like he had said something wrong. An apology was quick to his lips as he looked over at her. ”I’m sorry I shouldn’t-“ Her words cut off his, she wouldn’t look at him. He felt like all of the air was being squeezed out of his chest.
He didn’t know how to take in what she was saying. He could see the guilt in every word she spoke. Her eyes were anywhere but on his face. How hard was it to look at him? Was it like seeing a ghost? He had his brother had been carbon copies except for Charles build being more muscular. He didn’t know what to do with the apology she was offering. To hear her say she was sorry she couldn’t save him. Thomas dropped his eyes, feeling grief bloom in his chest for his brother. ”I don’t want you to be sorry.” Thomas focused on the dash of the car. ”No one could have stopped it, you guys were in a war zone.”
Thomas cleared his throat, struggling through the emotion that seemed to sit in it. ”I knew he was dead before they called.” He cleared his throat a second time, he brought his hand up. Scratching at his neck, the need to do something. ”They say twins can sense when the others hurt, I felt like I had been hit by a bus all that day. I haven’t felt the same since he died, I don’t know if I’ll ever feel completely like myself again.” Thomas couldn’t help but sniffle, fighting back the emotion that threatened to over take him. He tried to pass it off with a chuckle, but it didn’t sound right. ”I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable. I just miss him. You’re one of the few people left that knew him.” He swallowed hard, ”I can leave. It’s a couple of blocks.” He reached down to grab his brown bag and his brief case. Readying to leave.
She wasn’t ready for this conversation. This one was supposed to happen when she was drunk, when there was something other than harsh reality to deal with. At least with a drink in her hand she could numb the panic and the pain of remembering that day. Brooke had felt an immense amount of responsibility when she and Charles had ended up, not just in the same branch but then the same unit. She was to keep him safe so that when their service was through the three of them could get back to being the same tightknit trio. But it hadn’t gone that way, she had let him die right there beside her. And now Thomas was talking about it.
Brooke had assumed that he wouldn’t want to see her. That was the main reason she hadn’t reached out and told him that she was back in town. Why would he want to see the girl that got his brother killed? Because whether or not that was true, that was how it felt. Especially when he stopped responding to her emails or answering her facetimes and wouldn’t even speak to her at the funeral. In all of that she had lost both brothers. And now Tommy was there beside her and chatting again and not just chatting, but chatting about Charlie! She shouldn’t be apologizing, he said, but she couldn’t shake that feeling. But Brooke didn’t correct him. She had tried correcting people, like the therapist, but that just made it worse and made them refuse to let it go until she pretended to agree with them.
Thomas explained what that day was like and it felt like he was sharing something sacred and special with her. They had always been the best of friends, but she hadn’t been the long lost triplet. She was best friends with twins, they would always be connected on a level that she couldn’t be. And it was fun that way, the two of them sharing secret glances that made her watch in wonder at their silent communication and the wavelength they shared. It must have been an abrupt end to that connection. He explained it that way and she gave a little bit of a nod, ”I tried to be the one to call, but I was shot too and..” she just stopped, shaking her head and her voice broke so that when she went on she had to whisper around the emotion, ”I couldn’t have gotten through that call anyway.”
But then he moved to leave and a new kind of panic gripped at her. It had only just begun and he was trying to end it...because she was uncomfortable. That had to be it. He reached down for his bag and she reached across quickly, grabbing ahold of his arm with a firm but gentle grip, ”Thomas, stop.” She looked at him now, wouldn’t look away no matter the intensity of the moment. ”You just said it, I’m one of the last ones left that knew him. There’s no one here that I can talk to about it either I just...I wasn’t sure that you’d...want to talk about him.” Brooke paused for a second before she let go of him, aware that the touch was probably inappropriate in a pandemic. ”Sorry..you can’t go, though, I’ve missed you. And we still have to get coffee, right?”
He wasn’t sure he would have been able to get through the call that day if it had come from her. He hadn’t heard most of what the man on the other line had said anyways. It had been like hearing underwater. Even after three years he could still remember it, the emotion was still so strong. Like a deep ache in his chest. People had told him that time would heal him, but he still felt it. He had a feeling he would always feel it. ”I don’t know if I could have either.” He admitted, glad that she felt the same.
Running away. It was the reason he hadn’t talk to her at the funeral. It was the reason he had stopped answering her, because if he ran away, he wouldn’t have to deal with it. Putting it off seemed like a better solution than facing it. Her hand was on his forearm. He stopped, he hadn’t even reached his bag before she had grabbed him. He froze, he couldn’t look at her even though he could feel her eyes on him. It was amazing how she used his name, how the variations of his name meant different things. It always felt so natural coming from her.
She spoke, there was pain in her voice too. He hadn’t approached her, but he hadn’t stopped to think where that had left her. It was only him and his father left. His dad had turned into a drunk while he had stepped away. He had left her to wallow in his own grief. She let him go, like simply touching him could possibly infect either of them. She informed him that he couldn’t go, that they still needed coffee. She informed him that she had missed him, he felt an ache in his chest. He swallowed hard, glad half his face was hidden from her.
He was steeling himself enough to look at her, he took another long second before he did. Her gaze on him seemed intense with emotion, he knew it was mirrored in his own. ”I should have talked to you the day of the funeral. I wasn’t the best person, I thought that if I didn’t talk about it I wouldn’t have to accept the fact he was dead.” He shrugged, dropping his gaze from her. Lips pressed tightly for a moment before he pressed on. ”I miss him. But I thought you wouldn’t want to see me, that it would be like seeing his ghost. I was just trying to run from it. Three years later and it still sucks.” He let out a sad sort of chuckle as he glanced down at his lap.
Clearing his throat, he forced himself to look up. ”Coffee sounds great though.” He tried to push forward, trying to throw some cheer into his voice as he spoke. Clearly trying to push past all of the emotion that he was feeling. ”Where are you staying? Did they put you up somewhere?” From what he had gathered she had been in town for three weeks. She had to be settled by now, but he couldn’t help but ask. He had no idea what she had done with all of her belongings when she and his brother had shipped out. Charles had thrown a lot of his belongings at Thomas.
