LCU, start a revolution (part 1)

LCU, fall semester, 2082 (part 1 of 2). Last semester, spring 2082. *optional soundtrack, "Volunteers," by Jefferson Airplane.*

Keri Riley-Kim is different from her big sister Mariah in many ways, most notably maybe in that Keri always knows exactly what she wants. She knows what she wants, when she wants it, how she wants it, and even who's going to give it to her. Some people might say this makes her a bitch, but Keri just thinks she's a proud, sure woman. There's nothing wrong with being sure. Keri has been raised to get whatever she wants, and she usually does, one way or another.

But there's one thing Keri knows she doesn't want, and that is to work retail! So when Justin suggests it as a possibility for her senior year internship, she says, "Do you see me putting up with all that 'customer is always right' bullshit?"

"I think I'm growing up," she says. "Or at least I'm going to have to be a grownup, and I've never really thought about what I want to DO with my life, you know, besides spend my dad's money and everything. What am I going to DO? I don't want to go into business like my dad, it's all about ass-kissing. Then there's politics like my mom, which is just some more ass-kissing. I just can't do the ass-kissing. But I've kept my grades up lately, and even gotten GOOD grades..."

Her voice trails off and she starts to get up from the bed. "I have to eat something," she says. "Like now."

They go downstairs.

Pretty much all she does anymore is sleep, eat, and pee. She was working on a very important train of thought, but she kind of lost it.

***

Justin and Keri were kicked out of their old apartment for "updates." Just as they're expecting their first child, Lake City University decides to remodel the family housing apartments. So instead, they'll spend their last year in the newly built Student Village, but that's okay because they don't figure their newborn would have made much use of the playground anyway.

Keri is already getting off to a lovely start with their new landlord. All he said was, "Nice to meet you."

And Keri comes back at him with, "No, it's not nice to meet me. I'm six months pregnant and I can't even believe I'm still in college!"

Keri misses all her friends. She's left over at the tail-end of their little posse after everyone graduated. Mariah and Stephanie have both moved out to the suburbs and had their own babies, and Keri and Justin will follow suit as soon as she finishes this last year.

She is managing to make it to her classes though, and actually doing quite well in between snacks and naps. Who knows what she'll do next semester when she has an actual baby in the house. Pregnancy is easy, her sister tells her. Pregnancy is a cake-walk compared to having a newborn.

She tries to ask her professor, Aurora Miguel for some career advice, but she doesn't really get anything useful.

All Aurora says is, "What you want to do with your life is really a very personal decision."

Keri can't find much common ground with these young kids she's studying with. At the ripe old age of twenty-two, Keri has moved on past keggers and night clubs. Instead of shopping for cute new cleavage sweaters and skinny jeans, she's just hoping for something stretchy and comfortable. After her drafting class, she sits down next to some girl and tries to make small talk. "So, I'm due in February then..."

"Uh-huh," the girl says without even looking over.

Then she gets up to throw away her can of juice.

Keri is wondering, who are these rugrats anyway? Will her ass ever be little and tight like that again? When her boobs deflate back down, she hopes they don't look like bloated raisins.

She isn't as enthusiastic as her husband about having this baby. She knew he wanted one, and she figured she'd have to pop one or two of these suckers out eventually. She wouldn't say she was exactly ready, and certainly not as ready as he was, even as soon as their honeymoon. But she's doing it. She can actually do it, she has found. Maybe there are a lot of things she can actually do.

Justin is excited about the baby. If it's not too effeminate, he's even started collecting nursery furniture. He's hoping for a boy, and maybe that's a little obvious. Hopefully all the blue will subliminally influence the sex of the baby, because he's not really sure the world is ready to handle Keri Junior just yet!

But if not a boy, the paint will be easy enough to redo.

Keri has awful nightmares lately when she's napping. She dreams that her mother is in trouble, and she has to try to save her. She has to be strong and grown up and mature. She has to be a hero...

A hero? Does anybody really get to be a hero when they grow up?

She hears Justin's voice in her sleep. "Babe, dinner's ready, and your mom called."

She picks up the phone immediately and calls back. "Mommy?" she says. She hasn't called her mother "mommy" since she was ten. All her mother wanted was to warn her about flying this late in pregnancy, and she does know not to fly, doesn't she?

"Yes, Mom, I know," Keri says. "I'm not going on any airplanes. I know pregnant women shouldn't fly."

"What if I did an internship in the military?" Keri says.

"You don't do an internship in the military," he says. "You just join it."

"Hey, you know, we never did get to do it on the beach," he says.

She doesn't blame people, really, for not taking her seriously. She never took herself seriously until now either.

"I think I'd be really good at it," she says. "I'd be great at giving people orders!"

"You're pregnant," he says. "And besides, you don't get to start out as a General. I couldn't see you lasting a minute in boot camp."

"I played soccer in high school," she says. "I'm no wallflower."

"Are you really serious about this?" Justin says. "Did you even consider asking me what I thought about it? We got married! We're having a baby! We never talked about you going off and leaving me with this baby. After Takemizu, we agreed that we never wanted to be apart ever again."

"Never?" she says. "Not even for a while? Not even for something important? Babe, that's not realistic."

She goes to bed before him that night - mostly because she's tired, but maybe because she's frustrated too. She thinks she can do this. She can feel herself growing up, and she just wishes he would believe her. For once in her life she feels a calling to be of use, to be a part of something bigger than just her spoiled little self.

***

You'd think these days they'd have robots built to go to war for us. They're headed in the right direction with the shuttles, space stations, interstellar cruisers, military bases set up on the moon. It's not like she'd be wading through jungles or bunked down in trenches. She'd likely never have to hold an actual gun even. But still, why send off actual people? Actual people with lives and families? Justin wants to know, why does it have to be his wife?

Justin invites Corbin over for darts, and war is just about all anyone can talk about anymore. Corbin hears about it from Andy, and now Justin is hearing about it from Keri. Corbin listens as Justin goes on and on all night. He doesn't say much but just lets Justin vent. "She can't go off to war," he says. "She can't even walk through seaweed."

"Andy says they've called up some units out west already," Corbin says. "Maybe they won't even need our people. Maybe it will all be over soon."

"Yeah," Justin says. "Maybe they'll sign a peace treaty or something."

This discrepancy is all about the baby, isn't it? She thinks if they weren't expecting this baby, he wouldn't be so opposed. This is what they debate that night before bed. "But you're having a baby," he says. "They probably wouldn't even let you join."

"Of course they would," she says. "After the baby is born. Plenty of fathers join the military. It happens all the time."

It is about the baby, to some extent, but that isn't all of it. Justin knows their marriage can stand time apart, because they've done it before. But this isn't like him studying abroad. She would be in real danger. This baby might never even get to know his own mother. They've only been married a year now, and he isn't ready to lose his wife.

"If not me," she says. "Then it'll have to be somebody else. Somebody who doesn't even want to go. Somebody who's not a fighter."

"You're not a fighter," he says. "You can't even walk yourself through seaweed."

"There's no seaweed in space."

"Let it be somebody else then," he says. "I don't want it to be you. You could get hurt."

"Fine," she says, with a long pensive pause. "If you don't want me to, I won't do it."

"I don't want you to," he says.

"I can't believe you said that," she says.

"I don't want you to! I don't! I'm not going to say I'm okay with this!"

He knows this conversation is far from over. Debates like this don't end with Keri until she's gotten her way. He wonders sometimes about her stubborn one-mindedness, how when she gets something in her head, she just doesn't let go of it. Would there ever be a line she crossed with him that he couldn't let slide? Have they actually found it?

"I can't even believe you're really serious about this," he says.

She doesn't look at him, but just says, "We're saving the planet, babe. Get with the program."


Report Cards for 2082, Fall

Keri, senior, economics: A-

*****

notes: and so it is revealed my first potential volunteer of the three...

Keri's LTW has always been to become a Military General, by the way. I never knew how she would get into it, being as spoiled and entitled as she is, but I think she's felt her calling. She certainly wouldn't stop going on about how grown up she thinks she is. She does have a point though, she would be great at bossing people around ;)

Something funny (and fitting!) about Keri I just noticed - whenever she meets someone new, she starts off with a -1/-1 relationship with them - I haven't ever seen that before. Chip on her shoulder much?

Beau, Tyler, and April will have a separate update. The freshman just became so involved, and had so much fun (!), and were so wildly different in lifestyle to what Keri and Justin are living right now, that I just felt it easier to split them apart. Easier for me to write too ;)

Both of these posts are inspired by my Forrest Gump soundtrack, and some classic 1960's rock :)

And, on a completely different tangent...

*** in frosh hall - a love story ***

This is Fenton and Iris. You don't know these two. They're one of my dormie couples (like Micah and Blossom when they were still dormies, except with actual solid chemistry, lol).

Sometimes, over the course of many years together as dormies, they'll hook up with each other, like Fenton and Iris. Fenton likes to work out, play basketball, and wants to have a big family some day. Iris is very smart, earthy, and wants to be an ecological guru. They have 132 ACR, a huge three-bolts together, and that pretty much makes them unusable to any of my playables. Tyler was farting hearts over Iris (she and Tyler have a pretty hefty two-bolts), but then I remember that she kind of has this boyfriend who she's insanely hot for, lol! Sorry, Tyler!

She's dying to get engaged to Fenton, so maybe I'll move them into a house somewhere and let them graduate and become a non-playable family. What do you do when two dormies (or townies) hook up with each other and become crazy in-love?

Part 2 with Tyler, Beau, and April will follow shortly :)