Jack got dressed in record time and stepped into his improvised clean booth. It was a small square right before the front door, enclosed by thick vinyl sheets from ceiling to floor, where he kept his improvised hazmat suit: fishing wader, rubber boots and a thick jacket with waterproof lining. He wore all that and covered his hair with a rubber swimming cap, his eyes with cheap plastic goggles, his lower face with an overused N95 mask. He carefully secured the upper edge of an acetate sheet under a sweatband around his forehead to use it as a face shield. Finally, he put on his thick rubber gloves and grabbed a big kitchen knife, fastening the improvised strap around his wrist.

He breathed as deep as the mask allowed him and walked out of his apartment, his little lot in hell, the only safe spot he had left.

The streets were empty as usual. After the Third Wave, there wasn't much of a difference between day and night anymore.

The new strain would have required to test everybody, down to the last nutjob in town, in order to spot the infected. But after two years fighting the virus, with a decimated workforce and no assistance from the government whatsoever, health centers saved their resources for those who could still afford them. A last-generation test was anything but cheap, and unless tested weekly to prove otherwise, everybody was assumed to be infected and an asymptomatic carrier.

People who still had something to lose stayed behind locked doors as much as they could. The only ones that roamed freely were those who couldn't afford the antibodies tablets anymore and had just given up trying to avoid infection. Or just couldn't, because they'd already lost everything.

Like he was about to, if he didn't come up with some genius way to make money for his rent by Monday morning.

Sometimes he wondered why he didn't just give up, like all those asyms gathering around their campfires at the corners and the parks, searching the trash for food, simply waiting for the virus to find them. But he just couldn't. It wasn't in him.

Had he not been in such a hurry, worried about keeping his heart rate down, he would've enjoyed that night walk through the quiet city, that still kept all of its raging beauty.

Riots had started and died away over the first year of lockdown, so had the looting. It'd taken them some time, but eventually, protesters and agitators put two and two together, and understood that every time they took to the streets and breathed and yelled on each other's faces for hours or days, they brought the virus back to their homes with them, and the number of infections spiked out of control within two weeks.

No gangs waged war over turf either, because those who had survived the street battles had fallen to the virus. There was nothing left to loot worth the risk of going out. All illegal trade was conducted online and indoors. Criminals had learned to strike close to home, where they knew they wouldn't get infected while lurking around in search of victims to burglarize, kill, assault.

In the end, the virus became the ultimate police force that kept everybody in check.

The only vehicles out that late were first responders: the popo, firemen, ambulances carrying the lucky ones that showed symptoms and still had money to afford the ride.

Jack walked into the side alley up to the restaurant's backdoor without coming across a single soul. He rested his back against the brick wall and mustered his patience. He couldn't knock to let Steve know he was there, and he didn't dare to take off a glove to text him. He could only wait, hoping Steve would show up soon and he could go back home. To eat something warm and tasty on his one meal of the day.

A bunch of dogs trotted into the alley. Jack knew them. That alley was in their territory. He'd always loved dogs, and would've liked to pet them or even play with them while he waited. But the virus, of course. The damn thing could also be clinging to their furs. And if Steve brought out his food while he was still with the dogs, they'd forget about playing pets in a heartbeat to jump on him and steal his food.

So he just clicked his tongue at them.

"Hey, buddies," he said inside the mask.

The dogs looked up at him and wagged their tails on their way to the other corner of the alley. Two asyms rummaged the trash container there, looking for dinner like him. They retreated the moment they heard the first growls from pursing snouts.

Jack watched the dogs push and bump until they overturned the container and started to rip the bags open, carefree and oblivious to anything else. The asyms would surely come back as soon as the dogs were done and gone, to pick up whatever they might have left.

Humans waiting for scraps from the dogs plate. Just one among the zillion ironic twists the virus had brought upon humanity.

"Hey!"

Steve's whisper startled him. His friend's shielded head showed out the door, his arm followed to hand out a small plastic bag. His eyes looked past Jack.

"You better bail before they smell it."

Jack hurried to grab the bag, pressing his friend's gloved hand.

"God bless you, Steve."

Steve's eyes smiled over the face mask, behind the face shield. "Fuck you."

They shared a quick chuckle and Jack hurried away. Lucky him, the dogs didn't follow.

He was five streets away from his apartment when his phone buzzed in his pocket. The muffled ringtone surprised him. Daryl? Weird. He'd been AWOL for the last three weeks, ignoring all his calls and texts. Jack pressed on as the phone kept ringing in his pocket, pushing him to forget about his heart rate to start trotting and finally run. It was only obvious he wouldn't make it back home before the call skipped to voicemail, but he kept running anyway.

He was totally out of breath by the time he walked into his apartment. Damn, he'd used to be a good runner before the virus. The thick, rigid mask didn't make it any easier either, its filters almost blocked after months of use.

The phone rang again as he closed the front door. Shit, he still needed a few more minutes before being able to pick up.

He took off his marshmallow-man suit, forcing himself to stay focused. He couldn't screw up this part. His life literally depended on it. He hung the wader and the jacket, placing boots, gloves, cap, goggles, face shield on the shelf by the coat rack. Then, he opened the showerhead he'd installed there, connected to a small drum of watered-down antiseptic, and sprayed everything thoroughly. Next, he sprayed himself and his clothes. Only then he walked through the vinyl sheets, and his heart rate was still high.

He checked his voicemail while changing his street clothes for a sweat pant and his last clean tee.

"Hey, Blondie, it's been a while. Ring me asap."

Daryl's first message made Jack frown. What was he up to now, to call so late at night with his merry talking-business voice?

"Dude, quit fapping and call me. I've got a good one."

Jack emptied the contents of the bag Steve had given him into a glass bowl and put it in the microwaves, already dialing Daryl. The agent didn't pick up and it was Jack's turn to greet the voicemail inbox message.

"Hey, Daryl, it's me, Jack. What's up?"

He grabbed a fork and sat down to eat straight from the bowl the steamy mix of chicken, cannelloni, veggies, at least three different sauces. He swallowed mouthfuls, not pausing to chew, enjoying the flavors and the feeling of something other than air in his belly. He dialed Daryl again as he logged back on. The next message he left wasn't so nice.

"Fuck you, Daryl."

The phone rang still against his face.

"There you are, pretty face," Daryl greeted him.

"Hey, man, what's up?"

"Tell me, how desperate are you?"

Jack narrowed his eyes. Such a question couldn't be the introduction to a good offer. Well, define good. "Five days away from eviction."

Daryl's chuckle sounded like the agent was rubbing his hands together.

"Then I definitely have something for you, my boy."

A beep from the laptop caught Jack's attention. "Gimme a sec," he muttered, approaching the bed.

Charlene, another regular. A big old southern lady with a taste for spying on her young neighbors with her field glass. Looked like the local show was over too early for her fidgeting fingers and she still wanted more. She was letting him now she would access his stream in ten minutes. Like he didn't know her.

"You there, Blondie?"

"Yeah, yeah. I said gimme a sec."

"Please don't tell me you're working as we speak."

"No, but just about to."

"Yuck."

He couldn't drop Charlene. That would send him down to the bottom of the available operators list, and even with his regulars, it'd take him a couple of days to climb back up. Good thing she liked roleplaying, and her message suggested she was in the mood for it that night. So he could play the unaware stud indulging in self-love for her prying eyes.

"Look, I've got a client about to pop up, so I may not be able to answer, okay?"

"Drop it at least for a while, Jack. You really gotta hear this out."

"Sorry, man. The devil you know."

"Dude, really." Daryl let out an exaggerated sigh. "Fine! Just keep it down, okay? Don't make me hear anything I can't unhear later."

While they talked, Jack moved his small TV to place it by the tripod, facing the bed, turned it on and killed all the lights. He started the live stream, the cam showing nothing but the vacant bed in the changing glow of the muted TV. A heartbeat later, a yellow sign on his laptop warned him that Charlene was accessing his stream ahead of schedule. Just like he'd thought: she wanted to catch him off guard.

A soft click told him Charlene was online.

"Well?" Jack said on the phone, two steps behind the cam, and walked by it to sit on the side of the bed, phone to his ear.

The woman didn't say a single word, surely pleased she'd found him like that.

"Have you ever heard about the Ludus?" asked Daryl.

"Nope," replied Jack, bringing up his legs as he rested his back against the wall, piling up the pillows behind him, eyes on the TV.

"The Villa? The Arena?"

"Nope."

"Well, the Ludus belongs to the company that provides the best gay escorts in the Seven Hundred Islands. They run the Villa and the Arena, the most exclusive brothels in Bahamas, but thet also offer other sexual services to the Islanders."

Jack kept his eyes on the TV as he pulled his tee bottoms out of his sweat pants. "Go on."

"One of the Ludus recruiters contacted me today. They're open for hiring."

The words Bahamas and hiring were enough to trigger an adrenaline rush and send his heart rate through the roof, but a part of Jack's brain remained firmly anchored to the present, to real life. He wouldn't neglect an actual client about to pay him actual money.

"And you happened to think of me," he said, as his spare hand slipped under his tee. He brushed it halfway up, exposing his abs as he stroke his chest in a casual way.

"You know you're my boy."

"The only one. Go on."

"Sit tight. A six-month contract that includes food, accommodation and healthcare, with an option to extend it for six more months."

Jack teased one of his nipples, commanding himself to stay put. Daryl did have a thing for grandstanding. "Too good to be true. What's the downside?"

"Looks like tight asses are hard to come by in the Islands after two years."

His hand slid down to his crotch as his brow furrowed. "You know I'm not into that," he said, his fingers closing loosely around his cock over the pants.

"That's what makes you a good prospect. They're looking for virgin asses. Hot straight studs to turn, they said. And that's you, my boy."

Jack stroked his cock through the cotton fabric. Slowly. The longer he made it last, the better his chances of getting tipped. Real money. In the real world. A thousand miles away from the Caribbean paradise where the lucky one percent had retreated after the Second Wave.

"No."

"What? Haven't you heard a fucking word I'm saying? Six fucking months of free food, accommodation and healthcare! It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance, man! Didn't you just tell me they're about to kick you the fuck out? You gotta be fucking nuts to turn away from this!"

Daryl's heated words didn't make Jack flinch, but he pressed a little tighter his hardening cock.

"Forget it."

"Plus a share."

Jack felt his cock wag slightly. Real money on top of all that? Really?

Daryl got his silence correctly and let out a mocking chuckle. "Do I have your attention now?"

"How much?" Jack asked, his fingers sliding along the growing bulge to outline it against the fabric.

"Their best performers get up to a five percent. That means one grand a fuck."

Jack's lip parted as he spread his legs open, still stroking and pulling in no hurry.

"Is that even possible?" he muttered. He left his crotch to pull up his tee again.

"Dude, it's fucking Bahamas. D'you think an Islander cares about paying twenty grand for a good fuck? That's pocket change for them!"

"Fuck," Jack grumbled, fondling his pecs.

"The recruiter said a quick learner can hit five percent in three months. Don't you always say you're a quick learner?"

His cock throbbed, demanding attention. Daryl's words worked better than any pill.

"And there's something more."

"Really?" Jack mumbled, forcing himself to keep his hand from sneaking into his pants. He stroke his cock again and teased his nuts over the pants.

"If they sign you in, you get the shot."

A suffocated moan escaped Jack's lips as a wet dot appeared on his pants, over his nodding tip. A shot? They would give him the vaccine? That alone was worth a lifetime of slave laboring!

Daryl scoffed, half-amused, half-disgusted. "Hey, wait until we hang up to go off!"

Jack needed a moment to find his voice. "I'm in."

Yeah, he was. He didn't care what they'd ask of him. If the vaccine was on the scale, he'd sell his soul and never regret it.

"Not so fast, pretty boy. First they gotta try you. I don't mean fuck you, not yet. But they do want to check you up."

He stirred on the bed, shouldering the phone to roll up his tee while he kept stroking his throbbing cock. It'd been a long while since he'd last gotten so built-up on only fumes of a pill.

"Explain yourself."

"Consider them job interviews, three of them."

Jack held the phone again as he pulled his tee over his head. He didn't take it fully off, and left it rolled up against the back of his neck. He wanted it out of the way because Charlene liked him to show off his pecs and abs. His hand raced back to his crotch.

"What do I have to do?"

"That a boy." Daryl sounded pleased as if he were sitting with Charlene in front of her computer.

Jack didn't bother to reply, his chest pumping air that fueled the flames down below.

"The recruiter will call you tomorrow morning about nine for a little face time. Expect him to request some kind of performance. If he likes what he sees, he'll tell you about the next step."

"Okay. See you."

He just disconnected. As soon as he dropped the phone, he grabbed the waist of his pants with both hands and pulled it down all the way to his ankles. His cock rose like a pounding ram. His eyes darted around. Shit. He'd left the oil on the other nightstand. Never mind. He spat on his hand and grasped his cock with another muffled moan, as his other hand petted his nuts. He hoped Charlene had already had enough, because he wasn't holding back any longer.

He stared straight into the camera, his fist down to expose all of his cock. His lips shaped the words quietly.

"For you."

Then he let his head fall back, breathing heavily, and stroked harder and faster, ignoring the soft gasps coming from the laptop speakers, his mind full of daydreams and his crotch on fire.

He shivered from head to toes, grateful for the relief. The sound of the credited payment went unnoticed while he still tried to catch his breath. He wished he could ignore the buttery voice as well.

"That was gorgeous, dear."

Jack tried to look up and smile, but failed. All he could do was raise his free hand a little.

The second payment notification did pull his head up. Charlene had just tipped him two hundred. He gave the cam the finger. Like he cared about tips anymore.

The only reason why he fought to sat up was logging off for the night. And since he'd achieved such a feat, he stood up and dragged his feet to the bathroom, still holding his cock, now limp and slick. He noticed he walked keeping his inner thighs apart like a cowboy after a whole day on horse.

"The devil you know," he murmured, opening the hot faucet, to fight back the need of a long, restoring shower.

That was what had kept him alive ever since he'd been discharged from the hospital: betting on the devil he knew twenty times out of ten. So he washed his body with the efficient speed he'd acquired after the last rise of the water tariffs, to be done right before it got too hot and he needed to open the cold faucet too.

He crumbled down on his bed five minutes later. But no matter how tired he was after two jobs with a four-mile walk in between, sleep eluded him.

There was no way to stop Daryl's words from playing on an endless loop in his head. They filled the dark apartment with irresistible depictions of bliss in the forbidden paradise of the Bahamas. An oceanic realm of small private islands, easy to keep in check and clean, where American millionaires and billionaires had retreated to led virus-free lives, while they still held the reins of what was left of the global finances and industry.

Jack didn't think he'd ever catch a glimpse of one of those closed islands. That Ludus was surely based on one of the so-called service islands, home to the host of workers required to keep the fancy lifestyle of the Islanders going. Whatever. It was virus-free land anyway. A thousand miles away from the Rotten Apple.

Six months in the Caribbean, with a gentle tropical weather. Food, accommodation, the healthcare he so desperately needed. A chance to make extra money! And the vaccine on top of all that?

Good Lord! The simple thought was upsetting.

An effective serum against such an efficient virus had proven to be a heck of a challenge for scientists. Even if it was record time to develop a vaccine, it'd taken them two full years after the First Wave to come up with something that blocked the three known strains of the virus by the time they'd started working on it. But the technology and resources required to synthetize it made it impossible to produce at a mass scale. And it turned out to be ridiculously expensive. Right from the start, only the wealthy were able to afford it. And as the virus mutated, the price of the latest versions skyrocketed.

Hardly a five percent of Americans had been able to pay for the first vaccine. And only a point-five percent of the whole world population could afford the last version, that promised protection against the new asymptomatic strain.

And he was going to get it?

Damn! He could have logged back in and worked on that thought alone for three days straight.

After one hour tossing and turning, his survival instinct came to the rescue. The devil you know, Jack, it whispered in his ear. Three interviews, Daryl had said. And he still haven't even gotten through the first, so he'd better chill.

Some kind of performance, Daryl had said. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to wonder what the recruiter would ask him to do. Nothing pleasant, that much he could guess. But if that gave him access to the vaccine, he would totally do it. No use in turning his stomach with projections. He'd cross that bridge when he came to it. That was it.

Like that determination was a hammer hitting his head, he fell into a deep sleep deprived of any dreams.