June 1, 2440
The Meyers Show Podcast
Recorded via Zoom from Krieger Littleton’s new community
After interviewing Rayya Chakrobarty, Journey Chakrobarty, and Jimnah Chakrobarty, Doug Meyers’s next guest was not another member of the family.
It was fifteen-year-old Krieger Littleton.
Littleton is one of the young Freehold residents whose surname has recently appeared in arguments about whether a small collection of old local families are disproportionately represented among the people helping establish new settlements.
He is also assistant activities director for a newly forming community of 142 families, 134 of them V’ren.
And, as he informed Meyers immediately, he knew this was coming.
Doug Meyers: You look thrilled to be here.
Krieger Littleton: I knew this would eventually come back to me.
Doug: The surname article?
Krieger: Everything.
There are reporters calling people in my community. They’re calling my friends. Somebody called my twelve-year-old sister.
Stop doing that.
If you want to ask me something, ask me.
Doug: Your sister apparently had opinions about one reporter.
Krieger: I am usually somebody who has to tell Alice to calm down.
But to whichever reporter she called a “sleazy fucking twat waffle,” you had it coming.
For this one moment, I am very proud to be her brother.
Doug: I don’t believe I’ve ever heard sibling pride expressed quite that way.
Krieger: It won’t last.
Doug: Let’s start with why reporters are interested in you.
You’re fifteen, you’re a Littleton, and you’re now assistant activities director for a new community.
Krieger: Yes.
Doug: Population?
Krieger: One hundred forty-two families right now.
One hundred thirty-four are V’ren.
Doug: And you got the job because you’re a Littleton?
Krieger: No.
I got it because I performed well when we were organizing people before and I’m good at organizing events.
This isn’t even new work for me.
I’m in the project-management track at school. Jimnah Chakrobarty and I are in the same class. We both turned fifteen this year.
This is the kind of thing I’m studying.
So when they needed somebody helping organize activities, schedules, common spaces, events, clubs, introductions, and all the little things that make a bunch of houses into a community, I was there.
They already knew I could do it.
Doug: Which sounds suspiciously similar to Freehold HR’s argument.
Krieger: Because they’re right.
I understand why people want hiring to be fair.
But we are putting communities together while people are moving into them.
If somebody already watched me do the work, why would they pretend they haven’t met me and make me submit a résumé?
Doug: Eight interviews.
Krieger: If you make me do eight interviews for assistant activities director, I no longer want to work for you.
Doug: Strong negotiating position at fifteen.
Krieger: I have options.
Doug: Does the Littleton name help?
Krieger: Of course it helps sometimes.
People know my family.
I’m not stupid.
But there are a lot of Littletons here.
There are a lot of Marmadukes and Harts and Chakrobartys too.
People online are acting like there are six of us sitting around a table dividing Missouri among ourselves.
I have relatives I’ve never met.
Doug: And now we arrive at the Chakrobartys.
Krieger: Unfortunately.
Doug: You spend a lot of time with Jimnah, Claudia and Buella.
Krieger: They’re my friends.
That’s apparently a difficult concept.
Doug: There has been speculation.
Krieger: I know.
Please stop.
I am spoken for.
Quit asking me.
And especially quit asking Buella whether there was something between us.
There wasn’t.
I was around those three a lot this year because Jimnah, Claudia and Buella are my friends.
We also spent a lot of time supervising Alice and three of the twelve-year-old Chakrobarty boys.
Doug: Your sister Alice.
Krieger: Yes.
Who was very definitely not playing hard to get about becoming their friend.
Doug: Diplomatic wording.
Krieger: I’m learning.
They became this little group that wanted to do everything together, so a lot of the time one of us older kids ended up keeping an eye on them.
That meant I was around the Chakrobarty girls constantly.
Apparently photographs of teenagers standing near one another now require an international investigation.
Doug: You have thoughts about the V’ren boys showing up at Chakrobarty Farms.
Krieger: I understand the attraction.
Doug: To Claudia?
Krieger: To Jimnah’s cooking.
Doug: Ah.
Krieger: The V’ren need a lot of calories.
If I were a V’ren boy, I would absolutely consider Jimnah’s cooking one of my top qualifications in a future wife.
Doug: Jimnah is going to love that.
Krieger: She knows she’s a good cook.
Everybody knows she’s a good cook.
It’s not classified information.
Doug: Claudia has admirers too.
Krieger: Claudia has admirers because she’s Claudia.
She doesn’t understand half of what is happening around her until somebody makes it impossible to ignore.
Jimnah understands everything and pretends she doesn’t.
Buella has selected the smartest strategy.
Doug: Which is?
Krieger: Minding her own business.
Doug: She has said exactly that.
Krieger: Because Buella is not stupid.
Doug: What about the V’ren girls?
Krieger: That is much more interesting.
Doug: Why?
Krieger: Because I am told those three twelve-year-old Chakrobarty boys have all become infatuated with V’ren girls.
Doug: All three?
Krieger: That’s what I’ve heard.
And somehow nobody is writing fifteen articles about that.
We have actual first-contact social integration happening among kids who met each other less than a month ago, and everybody is still asking whether I secretly dated Buella.
No.
Please find a more interesting question.
There are many available.
Doug: Are the human and V’ren kids integrating that quickly in your community too?
Krieger: Yes.
That’s half my job.
Not dating.
Doug: Thank you for specifying.
Krieger: You’re welcome.
Activities.
You don’t put 134 V’ren families beside eight human families and just assume everybody magically becomes neighbors.
So we organize things.
Food nights.
Games.
Sports.
Things for little kids.
Things for teenagers.
Things for adults.
We’re figuring out what V’ren games translate well and which human ones they like.
Some things work immediately.
Some absolutely do not.
Doug: Such as?
Krieger: I am not explaining the volleyball incident until everyone involved agrees.
Doug: Now I desperately want the volleyball incident.
Krieger: No.
Doug: You understand how media works very poorly.
Krieger: I understand it perfectly. That’s why I said no.
Doug: Fair.
Do you see what you’re doing as unusual for someone your age?
Krieger: Not particularly.
I’m studying project management.
I like organizing things.
They needed somebody.
I’m not running the settlement.
I’m the assistant activities director.
People hear fifteen and suddenly imagine somebody handed me sovereign authority and the nuclear codes.
Mostly I’m making sure people know when dinner starts.
Doug: That is how government begins.
Krieger: Don’t say that.
Matt might hear you.
Doug: Ah, the local rule. Identify a problem and receive a job.
Krieger: Exactly.
I have enough jobs.
Doug: You sound like Claudia.
Krieger: That’s insulting.
Doug: I’ll tell her.
Krieger: Please don’t.
Doug: Last question. What would you like people outside the Freehold to understand about all these young people suddenly appearing in positions of responsibility?
Krieger: We’re not suddenly appearing.
That’s what everybody keeps missing.
Jimnah didn’t wake up last week knowing how to organize a kitchen.
Claudia didn’t get handed a clipboard after first contact and magically learn how records work.
I didn’t get this job because somebody discovered the Littleton name on a genealogy chart.
We’ve been doing versions of this stuff for years.
School is part of it.
Internships are part of it.
Families are part of it.
Clubs are part of it.
Jobs are part of it.
Then the V’ren arrived and suddenly there was a ridiculous amount of work to do.
So people asked the kids who already knew how to do some of it.
That’s really the whole conspiracy.
Doug: You realize “the whole conspiracy” will now become the headline.
Krieger: Of course it will.
And now I really have to go.
Doug: Work?
Krieger: Yes.
If I don’t keep an eye on her, Sira is going to feed Pedro hot dogs and slightly ash-covered marshmallows and call it supper.
Doug: Are Sira and Pedro V’ren?
Krieger: I’m not giving reporters any more children to call.
Goodbye, Doug.
Doug: That may be the smartest answer anyone has given me this week.
Krieger: Goodbye.
Doug: Krieger Littleton, fifteen, project-management student, assistant activities director, friend of the Chakrobarty sisters, emphatically spoken for, and apparently responsible for preventing marshmallows from becoming a balanced meal.
Krieger, you’re still connected.
Krieger: I know.
Doug: Tell Alice I admire her vocabulary.
Krieger: Absolutely not.
Doug: And there he goes.
