Intermission Nine - Billy (revisited)
September 3 rd, 2021 - Athens, Georgia
"Go 'Dawgs," Molly giggled as she crawled off the top of Billy, her crotch still leaking his spend, her legs a little wobbly in their stance. "I think you needed that more than I did, Billy boy."
Billy smiled shyly, tilting his head to one side. Despite the fact that they'd been sexual partners for nearly a year, he still felt Molly was far out of his weight class, and that he was pulling above his station. From her long black curly hair to her gymnast's physique, he thought she was easily the most beautiful woman he knew. In fact, the only time Molly had complained about how she thought her tits "weren't big enough" he'd made enough of a stink about it that she'd finally laughingly backed off before he'd tickled her to the point of exhaustion. That wasn't to say any of his other partners were slackers - just that she was the one partner he'd specifically chosen himself, and that they were kind of perfect for each other. He was going to have to ask her to marry him sooner or later, but he wanted them to have at least a year before that conversation came about.
"I'm nervous, Mol," he said, getting out of bed, realizing he was going to have to take a shower before doing anything else. He stunk of fresh sex. "It's our first freshman orientation. I'm expected to give a speech to everyone."
"You're the Bulldog's Bodyguard, love," Molly giggled. "They're going to love you. Hell, half of them are here because of you, because of how much you personally did to keep everyone safe."
"Everyone's blowing that so out of proportion, Mol," he sighed. "I was just--"
"You were just taking charge, and keeping everyone sane and safe," she said, "and I won't tolerate any more discussion on the matter, you hear me?" She moved over and kissed his cheek, taking his hands within hers and holding them for a long moment. "You're going to do great, Billy. You know it, I know it and everyone on the Team knows it. So go out and there and knock'em dead."
"Can I shower and put on pants first?"
"Oh, if you must."
As much as he didn't want to, he went and took a shower before getting dressed in his Sunday best. He wanted to make sure to make a good first impression on all the incoming students, and to set the tone of what was expected of them. He was nearly out the door before Molly tossed bowler hat at him, and he put it on.
It still looked at jaunty as ever.
Over the last year, Billy had taken on a lot more official responsibilities on campus, and he'd also completely changed what he was majoring in, moving more towards administration and facilities. He'd been a bit directionless when he'd arrived at UGA, but now, he'd figured out what he was doing and how he was going to do it.
His place was here, protecting the Bulldogs.
Outside of the door, his partner Alice was waiting for him, although he was fairly certain he'd be referring to her as Colonel Hickman for most of the day. She'd be doing her own briefing for anyone with designated 'protector' or 'guardian' status on campus, which they were going to have a few hundred, all of whom were legally allowed to carry concealed weapons on the university's grounds, in order to keep their primary safe. But in addition to that briefing, she was also going to be following him around all day, as she did most days. He had a secondary guardian, Daniela, or Warrant Officer Marquez, but Dani most often kept watch on the night shift or when they were in transit.
When he'd crossed over to twelve partners, Dani had been lucky number thirteen. It felt like a lot of partners, but he'd done the research, as he'd spent a good deal of time looking into both DuoHalo and the Quaranteam program once it had gone public, and the fact that he was over ten partners meant he was in the ninety-fifth percentile in terms of personal safety. The average male American was managing somewhere between five and ten, which was still enough to virtually ensure their safety, as long as they took precautions if they were exposed to DuoHalo, which was still going around, although the prevalence of it seemed to be falling off quickly. People were reconnecting with their partners often enough that most people had been infected by DuoHalo multiple times now, in some cases, even dozens of times, while being cured of it before they even realized they were infected.
It was the day that the first new students arrived on campus who weren't paired with previous residents. Most of the folks that Billy and the others who'd stayed on campus had been paired with were students from other campuses, or recent high school graduates who'd not gone to college because of the pandemic, but none of them had started classes, simply because the university wasn't up and running. The 2020-2021 academic year had been a lost cause, and that meant everyone needed to hit the ground running for 2021-2022.
In the spring, the President had implemented Project: Alexandria, and as part of that, anyone who wanted to go get a 2-year trade school education in any of a dozen mission critical professions, or anyone who wanted to go and get a 4-year education majoring along one of the other professions that the country was in dire shortages of, and the government would foot the bill for tuition. If a Team of five or more people were signing up as a group (with all of them being educated), housing would also be covered for the duration of their education.
That meant there were a lot of twenty-something people who had been aimless and adrift at minimum wage jobs before the pandemic who were signing up to be trained to do bigger and better things with their lives. Signups had begun in April, and the first wave of new students were starting now, with a new class starting this fall, and the old guard who'd hung around starting their sophomore year of studies.
By no means was the University running at full capacity again - UGA had had about 40,000 students each year during its prime, but the 21,349 was a far cry from the less than 400 that they'd been operating with for most of 2020. A few members of the original faculty had survived, but many of the teachers and staff were new as well, and Billy had given most of them the tour and shown them the lay of the land last week. Most of them were now living on or around campus as well. Many were given free houses as part of their compensation for coming to teach at UGA.
"You all set for this rally?" Alice asked him as they headed to the elevator.
"I just think it's weird they want me to do it," he told her.
"Billy. Babe. You're the face of this college, for better or worse, for the foreseeable future," she said with a laugh. "You know when that 'Rolling Stone' feature about you went to print, I was turning down requests for women who wanted to be paired with you for months."
"How do you know there was nobody I might've said yes to?" he asked, cocking his head to one side as they exited the elevator on the ground floor. In the lobby, he saw his good friend Charlie and three of his partners playing an Admiralty game of Endless Empires. Charlie's team were going to be part of the welcome group to introduce some of the students to their new housing, but until the rally was over, they didn't really have much to do, so they were just killing time. Charlie had always been a Timmy-style of gamer, so while his deck had lots of powerful creatures and locations in it, it often got beaten for not being fast enough to get early defenses up.
"I believe when Dani showed up, you said, 'the next new partner shows up over my unconscious body,' so I figured you meant it," she said with a smirk. "Why, was there somebody I should've been keeping an eye out for?"
"I mean, if Sydney Sweeny wants a boyfriend, I wouldn't say no," Billy said as they exited the dorm. "But I'm betting she got snapped up early."
"If you want someone who just looks like her, Billy, some of the ex-Russian states are trading blondes who could get pretty damn close, and the government still owes you a few favors," Alice teased. "I could put a word in..."
"I said thirteen was plenty, and I meant it, Alice," he grumbled.
"And I'm just saying, as one of your blonde bombshells with big tits, a man can never have too many blonde bombshells with big tits," Alice laughed.
"I think Hailey brings enough cleavage for two, if not three women, don't you?"
"Sure, but won't you think of the children?" Alice teased.
"I am thinking of the children," he joked back, "which is why I'm saying thirteen women is enough. If my family gets large enough that I have to ask my own children to wear nametags, I have failed as a father."
"Speaking of fathers, how's Papa Monteiro doing these days? You talked to him last night on the phone, but I didn't get a chance to ask you after the call."
"Doing the same thing it seems like a lot of men are doing these days - bitching about having too much sex," he said with a grin and a shrug. "He's lucky; he's only got six partners. I'm sort of expecting to hear back from him again today telling me Mom's pregnant again. Dad apparently missed the part of the special last year that said the serum has a tendency to reverse most vasectomies, and so I think I may have a baby brother or sister bound for this world."
"Your folks are young," Alice said. "They can handle it just fine. What was your dad thinking, getting the snip in his thirties?"
"He was thinking he and my mom were both young, liked a lot of sex and he didn't want her to have to bear all the burden of birth control, nor did he want to spend a shitload of money on condoms. He was happy with me being an only child, and so was mom, so he got snipped when I was like, five, so hell, Dad was in his late twenties when he did it. Now he's in his forties, and the thought of being a dad again scares the crap out of him."
"He did a pretty great job with you."
"Heh, that's what I told him," Billy said. "He told me that back then he was young and full of energy, but now that he's older, he's wiser but less quick on his feet. He's worried about keeping up with a new kid."
"He'll do fine. He's got a small village to help him raise new kids, and y'know, the President is watching and all that."
"God, not literally, I hope," he joked. "I've said some truly horrible things in bed, but that's to get Jaqui's juices going. I certainly don't mean any of it. She likes the degradation stuff, and I like keeping her happy. So, who gives a fuck what we say in the privacy of our bedroom?"
"Nobody, at least, I hope nobody," Alice said. "I sweep our suite once a week, just to be sure. Never can be too careful."
"C'mon, Billy, you can't be late for this," another of his partners, Gail, said to him, as they were about halfway across campus to the stadium. Gail was a brunette southern belle in her late twenties who'd sort of taken on the role of den mother for their team. She was very much all about hospitality, making a good first impression and social nuances - basically, all the things that Billy couldn't be bothered to give a shit about, most days. "You probably should've been there half an hour or so ago, even if the event's not supposed to start until 10. What about soundcheck?"
"We did it yesterday," he said to her as she was picking at and adjusting his outfit while they were walking beneath the cover of trees. There was plenty of sunshine and heat for an autumn afternoon. "Besides, I'm just the fluffer. I do the introduction, welcome everyone to campus, tell them what they need to hear to feel good about going back to college, then I get off the stage and let the people who actually have business to attend to talk, letting students know where they can go to get food, how to navigate between the campuses and all the important stuff that a student needs to know to survive. I'm still not sure we should be doing it like this. We didn't when I arrived as a freshman."
"When you arrived as a freshman back in the fall of 2019, there were less than six thousand new people showing up on campus. We've got over triple that and they're all going to want to see the Bulldog's Bodyguard up front before they split off into their smaller groups, where they can hear about housing, commuting, where to get books and syllabuses, and all the other supplies they'd need," she said as they walked up to a small group that looked lost. "You're looking for the front entrance of Sanford Stadium. It's just over there." She turned back to him as they continued walking, as they were heading around to the back of the structure. "Anyway, that part's all covered. Your job is just to remind them that this is a good idea, that childcare on campus is free as part of Project: Alexandria and that we're in this together."
"That reminds me... Alice, did you find out--"
"Yes, both Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails are still alive, so no need to worry your head about it," Alice said. "I called 'Rolling Stone,' and they checked in on him. They're both fine. Your precious little favorite band made it through unscathed. Before the end of the year, the White House says it's going to have a website called 'The Remembrance Project,' and you'll be able to enter a person's name and find out if they died during the DuoHalo pandemic. They claim they're working on some sort of giant memorial, but that's still under development... and it's a lot of names."
They headed towards the back of Sanford Stadium, and a couple of the women on campus security detail - who had decided for themselves to be called the Bulldog Bruisers - saluted him as he walked by. It was better than The Bulldog's Bitches, which had been their first suggestion, one that the campus administration had rejected, and which he would've also suggested they change. He offered the Bruisers a salute in return, just strictly operating on muscle memory. Once they were past them, he heard Alice giggling. "I've tried explaining to them, like, a dozen times now, they don't report to me," he told her. "No cap. They legit refuse to listen, so it's easier just to salute and keep on moving, you know?"
"Oh, I know," Alice said. "And I get it. But that doesn't make it any less funny to witness, you know? Are you sure I can't get you to start smoking stogies like Winston Churchill?"
"God no," Billy bemoaned. "I fucking hate cigarettes. You remember how when I found out Iona smoked when she showed up and I told her it was a complete dealbreaker - either she quit smoking, or she could go get paired with somebody else. It was one of the few things in my dealbreaker section and she lied about it, because she thought it wouldn't be a big deal, only to find out that it was. To me, anyway. She stayed because she committed to never touching a cigarette again. And she hasn't. That's what it takes."
"Mmmmm... discipline... kinky," Alice teased, as they headed into the back entrance.
"Oh, stop it."
"Can I ask you something, Billy?"
"Of course, Alice. What's up?"
"Your dealbreakers section was one of the most unfilled in sections I'd ever seen on a screener, so forgive me for being kind of blunt about this. You were open to any race, any background. You were probably the most flexible I'd ever seen in terms of age range, even though you didn't get any cougars for your Team. Hair color, any. Tattoos, any and/or none. Piercings - zero to a hundred. No smokers, I get that. But other than that, all are welcome nearly five by five, across the board."
"What are you getting at, Alice?"
"You seem pretty content to let your partners do whatever they want religiously, as long as they don't try and convert you. So why the absolute hard no on Jehova's Witnesses?"
He chuckled, clicking his tongue in amusement. "Caught that, did you?"
"Stood out like a flamethrower against the cover of darkness," she said. "We haven't really talked much about your religion--"
"I'm probably what you could call an Easter/Christmas Catholic," he replied. "I'm glad that the Pope approves of what I'm doing, but it wouldn't have been a dealbreaker if he didn't. I believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, but I'm also not going to let them dictate that I can't eat meat on Friday because of something that happened a few thousand years ago that doesn't have anything to do with me. But I like most of the Bible and think it's got a lot of good morals in many parts of it. But y'know, Leviticus, so... can't trust all of it."
"What's that--"
"Nothing, I'm just providing some background," he replied. "Setting the stage, if you will. Anyway, when I fifteen, I dated a girl named Virginia."
"Like the song?"
"You gonna keep interrupting, or you wanna hear this story?"
"Sorry, go on," she said.
"A'ight. Anyway, Virgina and I went to the same high school. She and I had American History together. After a few months, we started dating and became a couple. We were cute together. Even went to Homecoming our sophomore year together. Except, that was when the trouble started."
"What happened?"
"Her cousins happened," he sighed. "They saw her and I dancing together and reported back to the church that she was 'having dalliances with the Unclean,' and when Monday morning after Homecoming happened, she stopped talking to me. Told me the church had decided I was a bad influence on her, and they wanted me to leave her alone. Even sent a couple of big bruiser guys to tune me up so I'd get the message."
"No! They sent goons to beat up a high school kid?"
"They take 'corruption' pretty damn seriously, it seems, although I've heard since then that not all Jehova's Witnesses are like that. But hey, I know what I went through, and I'm never going to forget that, so, no need to get caught up in that mess again."
They set foot in the locker room that they were using as a green room and staging area, and a couple of women with make up descended upon him like piranha, although he only let them put a minimal amount on his face, especially since he knew there were going to be camera crews there, not only for the big electronic screens in the stadium, but for all the news media, who were covering this as a big news story, which he supposed it was, as UGA was one of the first universities to be opening under Project: Alexandria, and as such, the eyes of the world were eager to watch history being made.
"You put guy liner on me," Billy warned, "and I'll throw hands, I don't care who you are. I'm not going out there looking like Robert Fucking Smith or Lil Nas X."
"Who's Robert Smith?" the girl putting foundation on him asked in all seriousness.
"Really? 'It's Friday, I'm In Love?' 'Close to Me?' Fucking... 'Boys Don't Cry?'"
"Oh, I remember that song from 'How I Met Your Mother!'" she chirped happily. "I liked that song."
"Bloody cover version," Billy grumbled under his breath as the girl walked away from him. "Are they ready out there?"
"We've got someone warming them up for you now. They've been told to vamp until you're ready to go out and talk to them."
"They're really picking this up on CNN?"
"CNN, MSNBC, Fox, BBC, Al Jazeera and a couple of overseas correspondents I didn't recognize, but they've been cleared," Alice told him. "I told you, babe. This is a Big Fucking Deal. You're making history here."
"This is a whole lot of pressure to put on a kid who's not even old enough to do a keg stand yet, y'know?"
"You turn 21 in less than a year, Billy, and you grew up fast, the hard way, forged in the fires of adversity," she said, grabbing his shirt, making him stand up straight. "Now put your big girl panties on and get your shit together. You know you got this."
"You been practicing that in the mirror?" he asked her with a smile.
"On and off. Was I too forceful? I was worried maybe I came on too strong."
"No no, strong's what I like, what I needed to hear."
"Thank you."
"Still never gonna wear your panties, though," he teased.
"Aw, but you'd look cute in'em."
"You just don't like wearing them yourself," he countered. "Why the hell should I?"
"But going commando suits me," Alice said.
"Oh, after your speech, there's a trio of military folks here who need to talk to you," Gail said to him. "Wouldn't say what it was about, only that it was of high importance, but that it could wait until after the event."
"Great, well, I'll try and not worry about it now." He glanced at Alice, tilting the bowler just slightly. "How do I look?"
She straightened the bowler back to level and then leaned in to kiss him. "Like the boss. Now get out there and knock'em dead."
As soon as he was visible on stage, there was a massive roar of applause, an audience that cheered him so hard it nearly knocked him off his feet. For the next thirty minutes, he was able to say two or three lines of his prepared speech before having to hold for loud and thunderous cheering. He started a little awkwardly, nervously joking about how the Billy of two years ago wouldn't even believe what his life looked like now.
Towards the end of his speech, when he talked about the fallen, and their sacrifices, the crowd grew a bit more respectfully quiet, as everyone missed their own private list of fallen and lost. But they rallied up when he started talking about how they were going to put together sports teams again, this time with a focus on women's sports, but how men were still going to play 'contactless sports,' which meant golf, mostly, with even baseball being considered 'too risky' for men to be allowed to engage in. There were a few boos at that, but for the most part, people seemed to understand why, and when the crowd did boo, Billy pointed out that those mandates were from the office of the President, and that if they wanted to complain, they should run for office next fall, and how important civil service was going to be moving forward.
"If you want a stake in how our country moves, you'd better get into office!" he shouted, as an applause line.
He also spent a bit of time talking about how everyone was just going to have to 'get used' to sex being a lot more commonplace, and a lot more public. While people were being asked to 'keep it tactful,' several supply closets and study nooks had been converted into 'quickie stations,' with an 'occupied' or 'vacant' switch on them. Sex couldn't be stigmatized anymore; it had to be normalized, and people just needed to get over their hangups.
"Do not neglect your needs or your partners' needs," Billy stressed. "It's a weird time, but one of the things I learned when I was trying to hold this campus together is that you do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, whether anybody's asking you to do it or not. To use the parlance of one of my partners, 'Men, do not let your women go unfucked.' It will only hurt you both in the long run."
The crowd had a good sense of humor, and nobody gasped at the swear word, which made him feel better. In fact, most people laughed, appreciating how much the environment had changed in just a few short years. When he'd come onto campus as a freshman, they'd been handing out free condoms in droves. Now, condoms were newly regulated items, only available by prescription. In fact, getting a condom was harder than getting a gun under the current administration. Lots of women had gotten IUDs or implants, including many of his partners, but lots of people were just 'rolling the dice,' and getting ready to have kids whenever they came up in the natural scheme of things, which was what the government was encouraging.
He took his time explaining to them that they would be brave new pioneers in a world that wasn't sure what to do with them, with any of them, and how for perhaps the first time in a hundred years, there were more questions about what the future held than answers, how science was having to be developed at breakneck speeds, with survival outweighing safety. They were, he said, in a sort of new wild west, and their generation was going to be looked at very heavily to help define the future that lay before them. He was doing his best to try and give them a motivational speech, and it felt like it was working, because the audience's enthusiasm swelled as he tried to bring his little rally to a climax, and they cheered and cheered when he shouted, "Go 'Dawgs!" before he headed off the stage and back into the underground tunnel behind the constructed stage, as a coordinator headed to the podium, to begin the coordination of where all the new students were supposed to be going for their individual orientations.
"How was I?" he asked Alice, who was grinning from ear to ear.
"Absolutely excellent," she said, wrapping her arms around him, kissing him firmly. She stroked the back of his neck, as she smiled back at him. "They were lapping up everything you were telling them, they were hanging on every word, and they didn't interrupt you once. Everything's coming up Millhouse!"
"Mr. Monteiro," a woman in an Air Force uniform said to him. "Now that you're done with your speech, if we could have a few minutes of your time?"
She was a very uptight looking woman in her early forties, her blonde hair up in a tight bun, her uniform immaculate and without even a stray hair on its surface. She was flanked by two enlisted women who were in camos instead of their formal uniforms, one of whom was carrying a large bulky case with her.
"Sure, Lieutenant Colonel Frears," he said, reading the officer's nametag and uniform pips. "What is it I can do for you?"
"I have two Executive Orders that have been issued this morning that I'm here to inform you about, as both of which concern you," she said, holding out a piece of paper. "The first requires you to take on at least two additional partners from the remaining incoming Operation: Funnel Cake refugees from China and Russia, as you are already a man in good standing with a partner who speaks both Chinese and Russian, as these women are unlikely to speak English upon their arrival. You may take up to seven more if you like, and doing so will confer with it additional benefits, but you must take on at least two more partners by the end of the month. We will be in contact to update your Oracle profile, if needed."
"Who speaks Chinese and Russian in our Team?" Billy said, looking at Alice in confusion.
"I do," she said, as she was reading the piece of paper that Frears had handed her. "Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Spanish, Farsi and German. I specialized in language studies in college when I was considering getting into military intelligence before I realized that those two words are a contradiction. I thought the President wasn't going to dictate how many partners any individual man was going to have, as long as they were above the minimum. That was what she told Congress a few months ago."
"The view from the ground has changed, and so has the President's response," Frears said. "We're going to up anyone in lynchpin positions to at least fifteen members if we can get is. Having fifteen partners conveys upon the male in the Team a certain level of physical safety that we feel it would be foolish not to take advantage of, especially when China and Russia are giving up so many people to ensure their countries survive. We are retrofitting the Selective Service System to manage this, as being a living male in this country is now considered a specialist profession."
"And the President just decided this? Without asking permission from Congress?"
"Madame President is doing what she thinks is necessary to keep this country safe," Frears said coldly, as if she wasn't used to people questioning her orders. "It's being done because it needs to be done. When the President says, 'this needs to happen,' I don't argue whether or not I agree, Colonel Hickman - I do my damn job."
"Fine, I get it," Billy grumbled. "I'll prep the team to take on an additional couple of partners before the end of the month. I'll check in with the local assignment officer and we'll be up to quota by the deadline. That's the first Executive Order. What's the second one that concerns me?"
The enlisted woman with the giant heavy case moved to set it down on top of a nearby table, unlatching it and opening the top of it. "Starting immediately, you are to have this tracker affixed to your ankle at all times. It does not transmit, but allows us to detect your location at all times via the use of GPS satellites, cellular towers and WiFi. It is non-removable, waterproof and shock resistant, and you will need to charge it daily."
"No fucking way," Billy said. "I'm not fucking wearing that. I'm not a fucking criminal. I haven't done anything wrong."
"Nobody's saying that you are, sir. This is being done for your own security. We have been getting numerous reports of foreign operators attempting to abduct men from our country, in order to rebuild their own stockpiles."
"Unsubstantiated reports, and you fucking know it! There isn't a shred of proof that we've had a foreign country abduct an American to use to repopulate their country! If there was, we'd already be sending troops to invade that country and send the message that nobody takes Americans hostage."
"I'm doing my job, Mr. Monteiro, and if you don't like it, you can take it up with my superiors."
"I thought Congress had rejected this idea earlier this year."
"It did," Frears said. "The President felt strongly enough about it she decided to override them. As for the legality, well, that's for the courts to decide. You'll need to take it up with them."
Billy lifted his left leg to put it up on the table and winced as one of the airmen clipped the anklet around his ankle with a loud click that felt like it might as well have been a gunshot. "You better fucking believe I will," he growled. "Nobody fucks with the Bulldog's Bodyguard and gets away with it."
"If it makes you feel any better, Mr. Monteiro, every man in this country will be wearing one of these before the end of the week. We've brought enough to put one on every man here at the university, be they staff or student. It's being done for your protection. For everybody's protection."
"Such is always the excuse of fucking tyrants."