Part Eight

Lola is safely esconced in Denton Hall while recuperating from from her GRS

“Ow- owwwww…” I moan to myself as I wake up in my bed to discover that either my sheets had uncomfortably wrapped themselves around my torso as I slept, or I’d gone to bed last night with a boa constrictor (and not the ‘preferable’ kind). As I whip back my bed covers, I discover that neither of my assumptions was true - I am, in fact, wearing a corset that’s been laced down to about 4 nanometres and are pushing my breasts almost into my chin. However, I can’t help but smile at this revelation - especially when a glance at my phone reveals that today’s date is the 18th of December 2018.

 

Chapter 34 - Alice's Restaurant Revisited

Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant was a major hit on a campus full of guys who were only one deferment away from having to schlep halfway around the world to try and kill people they didn't even know while those people were trying to kill them. Even though the Vietnamese weed was reported to be killer stuff, nobody wanted to be a killer to get it. Well, maybe some of the ROTC guys did, but they didn't like me and I didn't like them.

 

Chapter 32 - The Dean

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised to get a message from the dean when I went to my morning class. The professor excused me with a smile and wished me good luck - a summons from the Dean usually meant you would need all the luck you could find.

The summer sun was rising as Luke stood on the cove looking towards the ocean next to his cousin Sam. Even with the bearer of the new day coming up from behind them instead of coming from the sea, the landscape was still breathtaking to Luke. The waves looked bigger, the water looked bluer, the sand was finer than the other beach Luke was at. Even with the beach being what Luke would consider paradise, this felt more like home than the other one. With how much Luke felt at one with the place, he did not even pay attention to the group of about 15 kids in the corner of his sight.

An Altered Fates Story
A second look at the 1967 film, The Graduate
and the 1963 novella of the same name by Charles Webb.
 

“I have a word for you. Are you ready, Ben? The word is: plastics. Think about it.”

Ben’s brow furrowed in confusion. “I.. uh… I don’t understand.”

Mrs Crusoe came to his rescue. “Oh, Chad!” she exclaimed. “He’s too young to get that joke! I’m sure he’s never even heard of that film.”

He didn’t dare go through it himself. He’d seen how Devi grew into a ten-year-old boy and Sashtun aged into a woman into her forties; if he went through, he could be well over a hundred, too feeble to walk back through under his — or her — own power, and prone to dying of old age at any moment.

 

Chapter 28 - Another Surprise

"Tell me again why we are doing this?" I mumbled.

It was Sunday morning. Far too early on Sunday morning since Saturday night had gone into extra innings.

"Because you're taking your parents out to brunch at eleven. You're doing this because you're a good daughter and love your Mommy and Daddy."

"And you're doing this to me because you wake up cheerful and know I don't."

 

Chapter 27 - The Wedding

When you are young, it seems that there is always some lesson to be learned. When you are old, you can look back and laugh at how many times you had to learn those lessons, because the young always think they have learned everything they need to know and don't need further schooling.

 

Sandra had arranged for our internship to start after the wedding, giving us some actual vacation time before we began to work. Besides, with a wedding in the works, two built-in assistants were a boon to the busy bride who also had to keep up with full-time employment.

A cryogenic experiment, A brave volunteer starts to dream about being the opposite sex. Is it malfunctioning equipment or intentional or something entirely different all together.

Shopping for dinner together was a new experience for both of them. Phoebe pushed the trolley into the huge Tesco’s Supermarket on the outskirts of Shoreham with some trepidation. The last time she’d been shopping like this was at the end of her first year as an undergraduate. She and Lana had raided the last of their budget for an end of year party. Sky had invited almost everyman, woman and their dogs. To Phoebe, it had been like feeding the five thousand.

This was very different. For one thing is was not just throwing lots of things into a trolley and hoping for the best.

 

Chapter 24 - Revelation

I'm not sure how I managed to study in those weeks between Spring Break and Summer Vacation. From an anonymous student trying to get a degree in business I was catapulted into an icon.

Prelude:

 

Chapter 21 - A Friendship Grows

Maggie, at first miffed that a man was doing so damn well as a feminist, eventually began to relent. Julie and I decided she needed to know the whole story, so one evening in an unused library room we took her into our confidence.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

 

“I don’t know,” Davey said. “Are you going to believe me? Mom and Dad didn’t.”

 

“I promise I’ll listen,” Dr. Menendez said.

“What the fuck just happened?” Grace had a confused look on her face.

Their SUV just shut down in the middle of the road. Anthony was trying to restart it, but nothing was happening. The next thing the two of them feel is an explosion.

All the glass on the SUV cracked from the explosion. The SUV rocks again, as another explosion hits it. Grace tries opening her door, but it wouldn’t open “my door won’t open.”

Anthony tries his as well, but it wouldn’t open as well “mine won’t open either.”

What Game Is This

Raising children was hard.
It still is.
Keeping my marriage was hard
And it still is.

I can remember exactly what I was doing one late night in late February: making life difficult for a lot people. I just didn’t know it at the time.

I wasn’t thinking about it seven minutes before.
Didn’t cross my mind an hour earlier
And it sure as nothing didn’t hit me at dinner.

Part Two

That same evening, in their main meeting room, the Assembly was having a special discussion about a more serious matter: The death - murder, actually - of John Gaughn.

"You don't think Constantine did this, do you?" said Champion, leaning back in her chair and looking thoughtfully at the glow panels in the high ceiling, though addressing the team brain.