“Well, and the right to retain Miss Smith, as stated earlier.”
“How did Miss Smith react to being put up as stakes in a poker game?”
Andy frowned. “I didn’t exactly tell her that before hand, and when I came clean about it, there was a bit of a rift, but one which I think we’ve worked past. Sheridan understands that I was in a rather untenable situation at the time, and back then, I didn’t know anything about her. In fact, I wasn’t entirely certain she’d had any interest in me at all.”
“Why do you say that, Mister Rook?”
“Because of how women were being presented to men in the early days… we had the impression that the survey we’d taken was shaping those decisions, but we certainly didn’t have any real insight into how they were being selected, or how they were being redirected to us,” Andy said. “We were told the conditions were favorable to us, but beyond that, we were basically told nothing about how or why women were paired with us men. Everything that I learned about the selection process was basically passed on as second-hand information from the women who joined the Team. We were never formally told any of this, beyond the survey we took at the onset.”
“And I understand your household has grown quite sizable since then.”
“I think most of us feel that way,” Andy said with a weary smile.
“How did you come across the additional members of your Team?”
“Recommendations from other members of the Team, generally.”
“Generally?” Rep. Engle asked.
“I sent out one request of my own, and that person accepted, but also wanted to bring someone else along with her.”
“That would be…” Sen. Giancola said, searching through her papers. “…Miss Fiona Smith and Miss Moira MacLeod?”
“That’s correct.”
“And you and this Fiona had a prior relationship?”
“We were college sweethearts,” Andy replied.
“But you had not been in contact since college?”
“Her career took her one way and mine took me another.”
“And you and Miss MacLeod were familiar with each other?”
“We had been briefly intimate when we were in college. The three of us.”
“And I assume that both Miss Smith and Miss MacLeod were interested in resuming the prior relationship?”
Andy nodded. “They both came willingly and have seemed quite happy and content since their arrival, so I think that’s a safe assumption.”
“Who else has joined your family since your arrival in New Eden?”
“Well, there’s the staff – Katie is our groundskeeper, Jenny is our cook, Nicolette is our housekeeper, Whitney is our informational security and support, Lexi is my personal bodyguard and Mali, who should be arriving tomorrow, will be our financial manager.”
“Do any of them have any relationships outside of the one with you?” the General asked.
“Katie and Jenny are married, and I think Nicolette and Whitney might be developing a relationship, although I haven’t pried.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged with a smile. “It’s not really any of my business? They’re both adults.”
“That’s staff,” the Senator continued. “You have additional partners who aren’t staff?”
“Sure,” Andy answered. “There’s Lauren’s no-longer ex-girlfriend, Taylor Morrison; Tala Jordan, Sheridan’s friend; Jade Dillon, Lauren’s friend and former co-worker; and Maya Steele, Emily’s director friend.”
“How many women does that put you in sexual relations with in total, Mister Rook?” the General asked.
“Once Mali is here? Twenty-one women in total. In excess of the twelve to fifteen that is currently being recommended by the government.”
The Senator laughed, shaking her head a little. “That sounds like quite the mental and physical load, Mister Rook. My own household is only at thirteen other women, and I’m barely able to remember everyone’s names. How do you keep track of it all?”
Andy offered her a sympathetic smile. “Well, we spend a lot of time with each other, so that helps, but Whitney also developed an app for my phone so I can easily keep track of when everyone was last dosed, to ensure everyone’s needs are being addressed in a timely and prompt fashion.”
“Ever had days where you simply didn’t want to have sex, Mister Rook?” the General asked him rather bluntly. “No one would blame you.”
“Of course, but all of these women, their very health relies on me having sex with them, so I do my best to never let them see me feeling like that. And besides, they are such a widely varying group of women that I find myself drifting from one style of encounter to another very regularly. My time spent sexually with Emily is dramatically different than my time spent sexually with, say, Tala.”
“Would you like to elaborate on that, Mister Rook?” the Representative asked him.
“I would not,” he replied curtly, “nor do I feel it is any business of this tribunal’s how I and my partners enjoy each other’s company.”
“Would you consider the women in your household happy where they are, Mister Rook?”
He folded his hands on top of the desk, his eyes drifting between the three women. “Let me be exceptionally clear on this point, ladies. When it was discovered there was a way to reassign women to another man without the man being dead, I made sure to offer that option to each and every woman in my household. The last thing I would ever want is any woman feeling she’s trapped by being with me. Each and every one of them declined to engage in reassignment. I’m sure you knew that already, though, considering you’ve been interviewing most of the members of my house individually for the past week.”
“Not ‘most,’ Mister Rook,” the Senator said. “All. And I have to admit, either you have somehow convinced nearly two dozen people to tell minor variations of the same story, or your story, as implausible as it seems, is mostly true.”
Andy spread his hands. “I have nothing to hide. I’m not especially pleased with my own behavior regarding the poker game, but I was also the one who insisted that Katie Couric reach out to the government to fix the problem rather than telling her to just run what she had gathered and letting the chips fall where they may.”
“Mmm,” the Senator said, reaching into her pocket to grab a tube of lip balm, applying some to her lips. “Quite the hornet’s nest you kicked up with that one conversation.”
“Yeah, well, I think Covington was trying to throw the blame onto me to cover his own shitstorm, and I wasn’t going to allow that to happen,” Andy said, annoyance plain in his voice. “He made his own fucking mess, so he can stew in it. How’s that going, by the way?”
“We’ll talk about that in a little bit, Mister Rook,” the General said. “Are you willing to bet your freedom and your life on the fact that every woman who is part of your Team is there of her own free will and volition?”
“I am,” he replied confidently. “And if any of them would like to leave, I will be the first in line to help them make that happen. After all the shit I’ve witnessed with Covington, the last thing I want is to be anything at all like that shitheel. I’m guessing because you’re in charge, General, that the previous head of the base has been relieved?”
“Major General Fielder is currently in the brig, and will be facing a tribunal of his own in the immediate future, and he’s not the only one. A total of seven different men here on the base are either in our brig or have been arrested by federal authorities for their part in circumventing the legitimate and lawful pairing system that we have in place. We’ve also helped federal authorities arrest a number of people in the local government in and around New Eden, including the former Mayor of New Eden, Mister James Haunton.”
“Hopefully his wife, Major Peters, is being taken care of,” Andy said. “She was the one who welcomed us to New Eden when we first got here, and she seemed very nice.”
“For the time being, Mister Rook, Major Peters will be assuming the role of Mayor of New Eden, and stepping down from her military posting,” the General replied. “She is also considering whether or not she and the other members of Team Haunton want to be reassigned, or simply keep Mister Haunton here in a local jail for their needs to be tended to.”
“Considering what your day has been like, Mister Rook,” the Senator said, an amused tone to her voice as she leaned back in her chair a little. “I’m a little surprised to see you giving any kind of a damn about any member of the Air Force.”
“They’re mostly good people doing a hard job,” Andy countered. “Even these people who stormed my house with machine guns at the ready have got families to go home to at night, and they’re just following your orders anyway. If they’re not a bad egg, I’m not going to hold a grudge. They’ve got enough shit on their plate without me adding on to it. While you folks may have come in a little bit hotter than I think you needed to, a certain amount of paranoia involving everything that’s going on in New Eden isn’t entirely unwarranted, you know?”
“That’s the difference between me and Andy,” Niko added. “He’s very good at keeping a clear head no matter the circumstances. Me, I tend to put the health and safety of the primary before everyone and everything else, because that’s my job.”
“And your diligence is appreciated Miss Redwolf,” the Representative said. “Thank you for your service.”
“I’m more concerned about my friend, Dr. Marcos, and his Team,” Andy said.
The three women of the tribunal turned off their microphones and discussed among themselves for a moment, leaving Andy to turn and look at Niko with a shrug. Andy turned back to look at the them as they started to turn their microphones on once more. “While it isn’t entirely finalized yet, we have been unable to find any flagrant violations in Dr. Marcos’s actions, and considering the number of human lives that he has saved, a small amount of leniency is probably warranted,” the Senator said. “Some of his actions, such as his intervention in the reassignment of Jenny Carnero to Mister Yang’s house, are, shall we say, rather unorthodox, but they’ve also resulted in improvements in the Oracle system itself, so we’re going to cut him some leeway.”
“Nothing would be gained by punishing Dr. Marcos for being human, Mister Rook,” the General said. “And quite a great deal would be lost if we did impose retributive measures upon him. In the early days of this disaster, people were playing fairly loose with the rules and regulations, but we’re past that phase now, and I think Dr. Marcos understands that. The research that Dr. Merriweather brought with her from Russia when she was fleeing her ex-husband, Dr. McCallister, has been incalculably valuable, but there are only a handful of people who even understand what we’re looking at, so we can’t afford to lose him from his research. With all that on record, however, I can also stress that we’re going to be putting a lot more guardrails to prevent anyone from going completely cowboy on us anymore. The last thing any of us want is Dr. Marcos accidentally fucking things up by trying to do the right thing at the wrong time.”
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