ONE
"All right, all right. I'm coming!"
Ricky made his way through the living room and into the hall entry still wearing his pajama's. The banging on the front door woke him from a wonderful dream involving him and a sexy professor that he couldn't stop daydreaming about since the semester started. He looked over at the couch to see Byron, his roommate, sleeping on the couch.
"Don't worry Byron, I'll get it," he said out loud to himself.
He made his way to the front door and opened it, squinting his eyes at the bright afternoon sunlight. "It's been awhile since he's been awake this early on a Saturday," he thought. Standing there was a delivery man from UPS or FedEx or one of those delivery guys, he wasn't really sure, but he could tell by the matching uniform he was wearing that he was indeed a delivery guy.
"Morning sir. Delivery for a Mr. Ricky Long," the delivery guy said.
"Yeah, that's me." Ricky said.
"Just sign here and I'll get the package out of the truck," delivery guy said, handing Ricky a clipboard and pen.
Ricky took them and watched the guy head over to his truck. It wasn't unusual for him to be getting a package, his parents have been sending him stuff ever since he started school a year ago, but the last time he spoke to them they didn't say anything about a package coming. He just signed and watched the delivery guy pull the package out from the back of his truck. It was huge, simply marked TRV on the side of it. He didn't think it was from his parents and started getting curious immediately about it's contents. He knew Byron didn't order anything, Byron was as broke as he was. The delivery guy made his way to the front door and pushed the box off of his hand truck, taking the clipboard and pen from Ricky making sure it was signed.
"Thank you sir," the delivery guy said.
Ricky looked down at the box then back at the guy. He was sure that there had been a mistake of some sort. "Excuse me, but are you sure you've got the right package or the right house for that matter?" Ricky said.
"You are Ricky Long right?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Then I'm sure," he said, looking aggravated that he was being held up. He then ripped a copy of what Ricky just signed and handed it to him. "Have a good day."
"Yeah. Thanks," Ricky said, looking at the box, confused.
He watched the delivery truck pull away and then lifted the box and carried it into the living room, noticing the Byron was awake now, but stayed laying down on the couch. He watched Ricky struggle with the box, but didn't get up to help. He simply leaned over the back of the couch and watched him place the box down.
"What's that bro?" he asked.
"Beats me, did you order something?" Ricky asked.
"Nah. You?"
"Nope."
"Well open it," Byron said.
Ricky looked around the room and found a butter knife in the mess, stabbing it into the box to break the tape holding it together. He placed the knife on the ground and ripped it open the rest of the way by hand. There was a big pieces of styrofoam on the top which he pulled away. Underneath that was what looked like a television. He reached in with both hands and lifted it out of the box.
"Dude it's a TV," Byron said.
"Clear off the TV stand," Ricky said. His arms spread apart holding the set from the bottom.
Byron got up and pushed everything off the stand, dumping it on the ground with a crash. He lifted the old television set and added it to the mess. Ricky then placed the new set on top and stepped back. The new set hung off both sides of the stand, but held it good enough for now. He then went to work on plugging it in and hooking up the cable line to the back of the set.
"Dude, that thing is sweet," Byron said.
It was sweet. A sleek, silver trimmed 52" set that looked like it could go from zero to sixty in two seconds flat if it was a car. Neither of them knew a thing about electronics, but anyone could tell that this thing was top of the line shit they had in their possession. Even though the name of the company was new to them.
Ricky stood and walked back over to the box he just lifted the TV from and found the remote. He looked it over as he walked back to the set. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. The top half of the remote looked like any other, power button, channel control button, numbered keypad, volume control. The bottom half of the controller though looked completely alien to him. There were several buttons that had weird symbols on them, a small keyboard that looked very much like a computer keyboard and a large green button at the bottom of the remote. Ricky shook this off, electronics were never his thing, so he just thought that it must be the latest in remotes.
"So, let's test the puppy out," he said and hit the power button.
The set whirred to life making a very quiet humming sound, then the picture came to life. It was the clearest, crispest picture he had ever seen. He flipped through the channels, just admiring the quality of the picture, the pureness of the sound stopping on MTV. Britney Spears's latest video was on. Not Ricky's first choice in musical selections, but he just wanted to see how much the speakers could handle. He held his finger down on the volume control, watching the meter on the screen rise. The sound remained clear, not a single hint of distortion could be heard. He was impressed. And so was Byron.
"Dude this thing is fucking awesome!" he said. "Are we going to keep it?"
"I suppose so," Ricky said.
"Let me see," Byron said, reaching for the remote.
Ricky looked down at the remote before handing it over and noticed that the big, green button was flashing. He looked over at Byron, then back at the remote.
"I wonder why it's blinking?" Ricky said.
"Beats me dude. Push it."
Ricky rested his thumb on the button and pushed down, looking up at the screen to see if it did anything. He watched Britney dancing around and noticed that the screen started getting brighter and brighter. It wasn't long before he was surrounded by the brightness, it seemed to fill the room in fact. He looked around and all he could see was the light, lifting him from where he stood. Then he felt a sudden rush of air, like he was being forced forward. He wanted to scream, but the rush of air held it back. It was like being caught in a snow storm, but it didn't last long, soon it all went calm. The rush was gone, the bright light was gone, everything was gone. He was standing alone in darkness, well, not entirely alone. Standing in front of him was Britney Spears. She was wearing the same outfit that she was wearing in the video he was watching right before the bright light. A tight pair of black hip huggers that rested snugly around her waist. A skimpy, black top that pushed up her tits into a very ample cleavage. Her hair was wild and messy, tossed in front of her face. She looked up at Ricky, rested her hands on her hips and smiled.
"Hi, and welcome to TRV. Totally Real Virtuality. I'm Britney Spears and I'll be your host as we walk through some of the basic features of your TRV television," Britney spoke in her most professional sales pitch tone.
Ricky was speechless, even if he could speak, he had no idea where to start. He decided to just listen for now, hoping that Britney would have some sort of explanation for what happened to him.