There was no keyboard.

Gary sat on the floor, cross legged and hunched, surrounded by packing foam that clung to his ratty clothes like snow.

The StoryGenius 3000 too sat on the concrete floor. It looked like an old TV, the kind from a century earlier, with the rounded corners to the square screen, and the oak casing. No wonder it had been so heavy. The wood was rounded, too, and lacquered so you could see the grain. It was all very retro. Very expensive.

But, there was no keyboard.

Gary realized he had no idea how it worked. He reached back into the box, fumbling for the manual, that glossy, white booklet. He found it under his butt, bent from his negligence.

The second page of the manual had pictures, those little stick drawings foreign companies use to give instructions without printing the same pages in a thousand fucking languages. Somehow, though, the pictures were always 20% guess work, particularly when putting together that book case with a thousand tiny pieces. These pictures weren’t that, though. They were pretty simple.

Gary needed to plug it in.

He peered over the back, and saw two thick black cords. One had prongs for an outlet. The other looked like a computer cable the type of which he’d never seen. Gary grabbed the pronged one, and snaked it underneath his desk. The power strip there was full. He picked a random plug, and pulled it. Above him, he heard the abrupt clunk of his computer shutting down.

Goddamn it. Of course the one plug he’d pulled was his computer. Why didn’t he just label this shit?

The StoryGenius cord was so much thicker in his hands when he plugged it into the computer’s place. The thing must draw some serious power. He plugged it in, and scrambled back.

The manual was left open to the startup instructions. The stick figure, smiling of course, was flipping a switch with a lightning symbol. It was a metal switch, the kind with the rounded top, and shiny chrome silver. There was a matching switch laid into the front wood paneling.

Gary flicked it.

The lights in his basement dimmed, and there was a distinct humming sound that grew inside the device, reach a peak, and then began to fade away. Gary realized it was the screen warming up. He’d never seen a tube TV, they’d disappeared long before he was born, but he’d seen old recordings of them, in movies and online. It sounded like that. Like circuitry warming up. The screen was black, but not dark. It was backlit. More gray, really.

A green cursor lit up. Flashed. He held his breath. The cursor began to move, with bright green letters left in its wake.

How can I help you, Gary?

It knew his name. How did it know his name?

Gary looked around, wanting to respond, but not sure how. Where was the fucking keyboard? Had he forgot to take it out? No, the box was empty after a hasty search that scattered more of the packing foam bits. Maybe they forgot to send it to him. That thought nearly sent him on a spiral, but he remembered the manual just in time and moved his eyes over to step 3. The stick figure had his smiling mouth open, with three lines coming out of it, the universal symbol for “speak.”

He was supposed to speak to it.

“…Hello?” he said.