Chapter Three: Announcements and Preparations
Lincoln sighed. His prom was that weekend. But for now, the SATs. He sat down at his desk, taking deep breaths, checking his supplies. Calculator, pencils, erasers, extra paper, which the proctor checked over to make sure that it wasn't covered with answers. The SAT people didn't give her a black light. But she always had a small one that she used. She understood why a student might bring extra paper in case the test booklet wasn't enough paper to write their essay. Lincoln had ten pieces of paper. She sighed and went over each piece. Some people really did over prepare.
But she let him sit down.
"The exam will begin in twenty minutes. Please hand in your cell phone." She said. Lincoln handed her the phone. She looked it over, trying to figure it out. It was unlike any cell phone she'd seen before. Lisa had made it for him specifically. It was programmed with him in mind. It had ten terabytes of space inside and had a battery that could last for over a week on a single charge. It also had other special features.
"Here. I'll turn it off." He said, typing in the command to turn it off.
She nodded and he sat down, doing some drawing on the paper while he waited. More students came in and finally, the exams were handed out.
"When I say go, you may turn the tests over and begin." She said. Lincoln sighed, taking a few final deep breaths, going over everything that Lisa had worked on with him. He could easily have cheated on the test. He could have used his bionic abilities to copy others' answers.
But he had confidence in his ability to answer the questions on his own. He began filling in the bubbles. He never cared for multiple choice tests. But that was a major part of the SATs. He filled in each answer, going back every few answers to make sure he didn't skip anything and that he wasn't filling in the right answer for the wrong question. He did that the last time he took a multiple answer test and it was a disaster. Fortunately, the teacher let him take the test over when he proved that he knew the answers to the test that he'd just skipped a single answer by accident, not realizing he had.
He may not have liked multiple choice, but he got through it pretty easily, going to the essay section next, writing a long, very eloquent essay before turning his test over. He still had ten minutes before the test ended. So he just daydreamed for a bit. He could have gone back over his answers. But he knew that he didn't have enough time to go over everything. So he just relaxed until the teacher told everyone to bring their tests up to the front and to have a good day.
-0-
Lincoln sighed as he got home. He was anxious. He was sure he'd done a good job. And the prom was the next weekend, where he'd be bringing both Stella and Jordan. He tried on the suit another time to make sure that it fit. Unfortunately, he had built a bit of muscle, or maybe he was just thicker because of his ultra-dense bones. He would need to talk to Leni about modifying the suit a bit. He sighed. Leni was really busy these days. At 22, she was spending most of her time working and making new prototypes of clothes. She had sold one fashion line already.
It was being featured in the "Up and Coming Designer" line at Reininger's. Over a hundred potential designers had submitted a number of clothing for consideration. Leni's clothes were chosen and were being sold at Reininger's now. Soon, the line would go out of season, but Leni had gotten her name out and her success despite being so young had gotten out as well. Other stores were talking to her about sponsoring her. But he needed to talk to Leni. His suit would be too tight if he didn't get it modified. He dialed up Leni's number. The fashion prodigy picked up on the second ring.
"Hey, Linky!" Leni said cheerfully. She was over the moon today. She'd found out she was pregnant, about to have her first child and she was ecstatic.
"Wow… You're really happy." Lincoln said.
"Totes! I have great news for the whole family! Scott and me are gonna come over and tell everyone all about it!" Leni said excitedly. She was already getting ready to go over to the Loud House with Scott. He'd come from Scotland to have an in-person relationship with Leni.
The two had been together since she was 17 and he was 18 and when she was 20, he came over from Scotland and continued his college career in Communications. He wanted to make a career as a media critic. He was already reviewing movies. She was helping him get his website started with financial assistance. He already had a page on YouTube and a that were both doing pretty well. His Scottish accent and charming demeanor were getting him some real fans of his reviews.
-0-
Less than an hour later, Leni and Scott came over to the house, calling everyone down to the living room. Currently, only Lynn, Lincoln, Lucy, Lana, Lola, Lisa and Lily. But they all came hurrying down. Leni sighed as she saw that the whole family wasn't there. But she smiled.
"I just want to say that Scott and I are pregnant! We're having a baby!" Leni said ecstatically. Lola immediately squealed excitedly, hugging Leni.
"Oohhh! I'm so excited!" Lola said.
"I can offer my services during your pregnancy. I can give you the same serum I gave Lori to accelerate the pregnancy from nine months to nine weeks." Lisa said.
"Furthermore, a child that benefits from said serum may show mildly to moderately enhanced abilities. Don't expect your child to be Supergirl, but they may develop exceptional physical or mental abilities or show exceptional abilities in various other areas. It's difficult, nay impossible to fully predict the direction that your child's talents will take.
"But in 97.5% of cases, the children born of my serum have had noticeably enhanced abilities." Lisa said. Leni looked at Scott, who sat down with Leni.
"What do you think, Leni? Should we accept Lisa's pregnancy accelerant? I'm not sure that we'll be ready in just nine weeks. But I'm certain that you have all the help you could need from your family." He said. It's ultimately up to you. You're the mother here." Scott said.
"But what do you think, Scott?" Leni asked. Scott thought for a long moment.
"I'm not opposed to the idea. I have too little to go on to really have an opinion. But Lisa's experiments have worked in the past. The truth is that I didn't know she did chemistry. Most of her inventions seemed to be mechanical. But if you trust the serum as she calls it, then by all means." Scott said. Leni nodded.
"I'll take it, Lisa. And I'll also accept those bionic organs that you offered…" Leni said.
"Once you give birth, I'll give them to you. For now, I'll inject you with the serum and we'll go from there. I strongly recommend that you drink one of these shakes every eight hours to ensure that your child gets the nutrition that they need." Lisa said, taking Leni upstairs and injecting her stomach with the serum, then giving her a large thing of powder.
"Mix a tablespoon of this in with whole milk and whatever else you desire. The taste is terrible, but it's highly nutritious and will ensure that your child is growing properly in utero." Lisa said.
Leni nodded, writing down the instructions. She was much better able to keep track of conversations now. She still wasn't exactly smart. But she'd improved over the years, partially thanks to growing up a bit more, but also due to nanomachines that Lisa gave her that helped her improve her focus and other aspects that increased her IQ from an 85 to a 98.2. She still was slightly below average. But she didn't get lost in conversations like she used to anymore.
"Should I like, drink one now?" Leni asked.
"You can if you want to. But you don't have to." Lisa said.
"Do you have any idea what you want to name the child?" Scott asked.
"Well… Do you have any name ideas?" Leni asked.
"Well… If it's a boy, I'd like to name them after me uncle, Alastair." Scott said. Leni smiled.
"Oooh… I like that name." Leni said happily.
"But what if they're a girl?" Leni asked. Scott shrugged.
"We can figure that out together." He said, heading downstairs with her and sitting on the couch while Leni's siblings peppered them with questions and gave name ideas.
"Hold on! If it's a boy, we're naming him Alastair. We're open to girl names." Leni said.
"Leanne? Liena?" Lola suggested.
"Do they really need to be L names? I know Lori continued the tradition of L names, but that doesn't mean Leni has to." Lincoln said. Leni nodded.
"We might give them an L name if they're a girl. But we'll think about it. Oh, Linky! I've got some suit designs ready for your prom outfit. Come over to our house with us and I'll show them to you." Leni said. Lincoln nodded, going with Leni to her house.
"Alright, the suits are all up in the sewing room." Leni said, taking him up and showing him a number of possible suits. She'd measured Lincoln several times just to make sure she had the numbers down and she loved the designs she'd made. They were all sleek and fit his strong, but slender body well. One was a Mod Suit design. One was a tux, one was a blazer and matching pants. The tux had a vest with it. All of them were quite handsome. Lincoln sent Leni out and tried each of them on. They were all a good fit, but gave him enough room to move around in so that he wouldn't rip the clothes.
He didn't want that after all. Ultimately, he decided on the Mod Suit. The theme of the prom was the 60s after all. Luna and her band were doing the music for the dance and would be playing some music on a computer and other music, they would be playing on stage. They'd taken time out from their band's schedule to play the school prom as a favor to Principal Rivers. After all, how many of her students actually became famous music artists? It seemed the right thing to do.
Lincoln thanked Leni. The Mod Suit was great. It had a charcoal grey jacket and pants, an orange shirt and a black tie.
"Ooh, Linky. You look so handsome." Leni said, checking him out from multiple different angles. He looked great in his suit. It was a slim fit, but it gave him room to move around in it so he could dance with both his girls at prom. Leni didn't know yet that Lincoln would be taking them both.
"So… Have you decided which lucky lady you're taking as your date to the prom?" Leni asked.
"I'm taking Jordan and Stella." Lincoln said. Leni smiled.
"Ooohh… I'm sure you'll have a great time." Leni said, letting Lincoln drive home and get his suit put up in his closet.
-0-
Lincoln called Jordan and Stella on conference call.
"Hey, ladies. Have you gotten your Prom outfits ready yet?" Lincoln asked.
"Yeah, totally. I'm looking forward to going." Stella said.
"Me too. I've got my outfit ready." Jordan said. She had a yellow and blue dress with no sleeves with striped stockings and flat shoes for the 60s theme. She was excited about going with Lincoln and Stella. She had a good feeling that Lincoln was partially showing off. She didn't mind letting him show off that he had two girlfriends, especially to Chandler, who'd been really getting on Lincoln's case lately. Jordan still didn't understand why Lincoln didn't just kick Chandler's ass. She was sure that he could. She'd seen him sparring with Lynn. She'd gone on morning runs with him.
He was a machine while he was running. He never seemed to get tired. He took her on a ten mile run and kept a pretty consistent speed the entire time, even when he was going uphill. She didn't know how a boy who had once been a stick figure had turned into such a beast physically. She'd seen him play soccer and perform impressively agile maneuvers on the field. He was on Track and Cross-Country. He seemed to have picked up an athletic bent from Lynn. Or at least she assumed that Lynn managed to get him into athletics. If he had chosen to get into it on his own, that was cool too though.
"I can't wait to see your outfits." Lincoln said happily.
"Well… We can't wait to see yours. Maybe we can get together for a reveal of our outfits." Jordan said.
"I kind of want mine to be a surprise." Stella said. Lincoln nodded.
"That's fine. I'll look forward to seeing it." Lincoln said.
The three hung up and Lincoln went down to the basement and began working out. He'd lost a little bit of his ability in the two weeks that he'd been largely lounging after the surgery. But he was eager to get himself back into full shape, and Lisa had impressed and excited him when she said that his abilities could now theoretically go beyond normal human limits with the regenerative nanomachines, bionic organs and UDOM. He was excited to see how far he could go.
The basement was a full gym and had absolute top of the line machines in it, all made by Lisa herself. She had created machines that were advanced beyond anything currently on the market. She had already patented them and was selling them to high end gyms that could afford her prices. She didn't patent her cures, feeling that the world had the right to her cures and vaccinations for diseases and conditions. As a result, she made sure that they were available at low prices.
Her treatments for dozens of strains of HIV were saving millions of lives all over the world and she didn't charge a dime for it. Some saw her as foolish for not capitalizing on such a revolutionary invention. But Lisa felt that she was doing the right thing. She often was not very ethical. But science was supposed to benefit the entire world, not make people wealthy. Some of her inventions, like the Advanced Combat Suits she'd made for the military, she was gouging for. None of them had much weaponry built into them. They were designed to protect the soldiers rather than to make them better at killing.
However, the military even couldn't afford to buy many, especially when she asked for 50,000,000 dollars per suit. And it was worth that, given how high tech each suit was and the fact that they wouldn't be able to obtain such a suit from any other scientist. But for now, Lincoln worked out and then took a shower before sitting down to work on the comics he was drawing up.