Chapter 2: Frisky

The morning after Rad's group arrived the adults called a meeting to share what they knew with the new members of their group. After the kids were fed, the infants placed in a playpen, and the older ones sent to have some fun in the morning before they'd start lessons, the adults gathered around the fire pit in the center of the camp.

"What we say to you cannot leave this circle. It's only because Bandit and Stripe are vouching for you that we're even saying this." Wendy said, pointedly looking at each of the three new faces.

"Understood." Rad nodded.

"Got it." Frisky stated.

Jeff mimed locking his lips.

"Very good. Nate, when you're ready go ahead." Wendy stepped aside to show the teen.

Nate cleared his throat and inhaled deeply. "My older stepbrother Max and some of his friends were my pervious group. I never really fit in with them, mainly because I'm not a total jerk, but also because of the fact that I'm gay." He paused; there wasn't any reaction from the three, so he continued.

"Max decided that he wanted to take over this camp, raid it, kill the adults, and use the kids as his personal slaves. I wouldn't stand for that, but I was too much of a coward to stand up to him or share what he was planning when he was nearby. So, one night I tried to sneak out…"

Nate swallowed the bile rising in his throat. Trixie placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. He smiled appreciatively at her.

"You don't have to go on if you aren't okay to." She offered.

Nate shook his head, "No, I'm okay. Thanks Mum."

Rad raised an eyebrow slightly at the remark, but didn't voice anything.

"When I was sneaking out of camp I was caught and, well, they did this to me." Nate gestured to his lack of genitals. "Then they poured zed blood over the wound, knowing that one way or another I'd end up dead." Nate could feel his blood pressure rising as he spoke, "I survived though, and I made it here. Trixie and Janelle, God rest her soul, fixed me up. But I should've turned. I'm immune somehow, I can't become a zed. At least, not with the strain in Ranken."

Trixie and Stripe hugged Nate, he burrowed his head into the crook between theirs and after a moment, when it was clear that he was no longer in a heightened emotional state, they separated.

"It's okay mate, it's over now." Stripe said, rubbing the collie's back one final time before releasing.

Nate smiled slightly, "Thanks dad."

"You're immune to the virus?" Jeff asked in awe.

"As far as I can tell." Nate replied. "Trixie has a few of my blood samples and we've tried analyzing them. Apparently I have really active white blood cells, but that's about all we've been able to determine with the limited equipment we have here."

"Our goal is to try and develop a vaccine eventually, but at the moment we can't." Trixie said.

"None of us have the knowledge to do so, and we lack the technology necessary to try." Wendy added.

"Frisky, didn't you work in a medical research firm? You know anything about making vaccines?" Rad asked, turning to his wife.

Frisky paused a moment, "Well, yes, I did. But I was in marketing…"

"Oh." Rad said, his face falling slightly.

"Um, though I do know a bit because of Bosco…" She admitted, a slight hesitance visible on her face.

"Who's Bosco?" Rad asked.

"My ex-fiancée." Frisky winced. "He was a medical researcher at the same firm I worked at."

"You never told me you were engaged before!" Rad declared.

"It doesn't matter now."

"It sort of does!"

"Rad, mate…" Bandit attempted to cut in.

"Bandit, not now." Rad turned to Frisky, "Why didn't you ever bring him up?"

"Rad…" Chilli tried to intervene.

Rad held up a finger to motion her to be quiet. "Why didn't you ever mention him?"

"Because he fucking died! Okay? What do you want me to say?" Frisky said on the verge of tears.

Rad's ears folded flat against his head as he realized he'd seriously overstepped. "Woah, um, oh… Frisky… I didn't mean to…" He reached out to try and comfort her.

"Not now Rad." She pushed him away as she left the circle.

Rad stood silently as she left. After a moment he followed, leaving just Jeff with the others.

"Um… So… while they deal with that, would you like to make a plan?" He asked, trying to diffuse the tension.

"Yes, let's." Wendy said, happy that someone made a suggestion to take the attention off the situation that had just unfolded.

Frisky stopped halfway across camp, sitting on a large rock not far from the cabin where they'd spent the night. She tucked her head into her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs, curling into a tight ball as she wept. After a moment she heard a familiar pair of footsteps.

"Go away." She muttered. "I don't want to talk to you."

Rad sighed. "Okay, would you mind listening then? You don't need to talk, I promise."

Frisky looked up, a clearly irritated look on her face. "Fine."

"I'm sorry, I guess I got jealous. You know I'm not good at the whole 'emotional sensitivity' thing, but I've been working on it. I just," Rad spun his hands as he though, "just didn't know what to think. I thought I knew everything about you. When we were on the island, when we made love under the stars… I shared my whole fucking life with you. You're literally the first person I've ever done that with. So when I heard that you didn't tell me something, something that I thought was pretty fucking big, I guess I didn't know how to handle it. You're right, it doesn't matter. It happened in the past. I shouldn't've brought it up, especially because it's clear that it hurt you when I did." He stooped down to Frisky's eyeline, pulling out the biggest please face he could manage. "I don't want to hurt you, ever. Please forgive me. I promise I won't bring it up again."

Fisky met his gaze, "Goddamn it." She swatted at his chest. "I forgive you, you big bogan galah."

Rad crinkled his face slightly, "Hey! I'm not a galah!"

"You are a FLAMING galah." She retorted.

"Fine, I guess I am." He conceded, happy to see she wasn't terribly mad with him any longer. He paused, "So, does this mean we're still on for tonight?" Rad raised an eyebrow, knowing that Tuesday nights were normally when the couple had more amorous interactions.

"Just for that, no."

"Damn."

***ST***

By the end of the day the group had come to the conclusion that in order to preserve the future of canine kind they had one of two options.

They could A: give everyone who had a matching blood-type a transfusion from Nate in the hopes that his body's antibodies would work with theirs and create immunity. However, given that Nate had AB- blood, something less than 1% of all Australians had, and which only Chilli had a confirmed match for within their group, it would be impossible to create herd immunity. Or B: travel to a place that had medical equipment and scavenge it in order to attempt to develop a vaccine.

"While I don't mind giving Chilli some of my blood, how's that gonna help everyone else?" Nate asked.

"It won't." Chilli replied. "Especially considering that I'm not having any more kids and none of Bandit and mine's are AB-."

"Both girls are A+ and Lee can't be either, he's gotta be negative, but I'm O+." Bandit replied.

"I really should've paid attention in biology." Stripe muttered.

"It's Punnett Squares." Trixie explained.

"So, what, we're going to track down medical grade equipment to create a vaccine and somehow operate it, despite none of us having experience?" Wendy asked.

"Not none of us." Frisky stated. "I never used it myself, but Bosco explained it to me a few times. I have a general idea of how it works. If we can manage to get some more information on vaccine development, as well as the use of the machines, I think we could do it."

"How would we do that?" Rad asked.

"We'd have to go to somewhere that worked in medical research." Frisky stated.

"And how are we going to do that without Google to look up labs?"

"I know all my old company's competitors, the closest one to here would be in Darwin."

There was a collective apprehension in the group.

"Darwin's a city. There's bound to be thousands of zeds there." Bandit stated.

"It's a suicide mission." Nate stated. "No way, we've gotta try something else."

"Does anyone else have an alternative?" Frisky asked, genuinely hoping that someone might have an idea.

The group was silent.

"If we're going I'm leading." Bandit stated.

"Bandit…" Chilli warned.

"I have the second best target scores and we're a couple. If anything happens to me, you're still here for the kids."

"That doesn't mean you need to risk your neck!"

"Hon, this is the fate of canines everywhere. If I don't risk it, we're dooming our entire race to extinction. There's no way in hell I'm doing that."

Chilli frowned, "You really get dramatic when you're serious."

"He's always dramatic." Stripe interjected.

Both glared at him, causing the youngest brother to tuck his tail between his legs and scooch closer to his wife, who rolled her eyes.

"I'm going too." Frisky stated, "I'm the only one who knows the equipment."

"That means I'm going." Rad stated.

"Rad I don't need you to protect me."

"Bullshit." Rad crossed his arms.

She rolled her eyes, "Fine."

"I'll go." Jeff volunteered. "You all have family here. I have no one left to worry for me. Not that I want anything bad to happen, but I'd rather lose my life than let someone else lose theirs and ruin their family."

"Okay." Bandit nodded. "We'll prepare in the morning, then we head to Darwin."

***Author's Note***

Hello everyone! Thank you for reading! Sorry this one's a little short-the next two are massive, so I wanted to try and lighten the lead-up. I hope you liked this chapter, I wanted to give Frisky a bit more to do here, and I figured having her knowledgeable on a niche topic that happens to be what is needed would be a good shout. In any case, please feel free to comment to let me know what you think! If you liked this I'm also working on two other pieces at the moment. I'm doing a collab with Kodiwolf321 called "Project New Era" (which is really great and just reached 15 chapters), and working on "Motherhood", my sequel to Brandy (new chapter coming this week). Thanks again!