He wasn't quite sure what to make of the package which had arrived, an unmarked brown package wrapped up in paper, no return address or any indication where it had come from, but with a clearly labelled recipient, and that recipient was him, Benjamin. He blinked, glancing up and down the street before looking at the package again- something was indeed very off about it, the thing looked battered and beaten as if it had been floating around in the post offices for a decade, if not quite a bit more. With a slight hesitation he picked up the box from his porch and shook it, the small package about the size of a good hardback book rattled, but otherwise sounded innocuous as he took it in with a shrug. Perhaps some long lost thing he'd ordered but never received, it had happened more than a couple times over the years, with the reliability of the postal service leaving much to be desired.
With the edge of a pair of scissors he carefully opened the side of the battered, faded paper package and slid out a similarly unlabeled cardboard box. Opening up that interior box, Benjamin was greeted by a curious sight- a CD-ROM in a jewel case, and a strange grey device that looked something like an old web-camera, made of chunky plastic with a thick USB cable. Pulling out the device he looked it over closely, the thing was definitely old, round in shape with a clunky power button and triangular base. It clearly wasn't a camera though, as it lacked any sort of lens, merely possessing a ring of what resembled LED bulbs on the front, with a small spiked attachment in the middle. Raising a brow he sets it aside to look at the CD case, reading the label to himself slowly.
"TransDem Labs Chronivac 4.0; Personal Immersive Reality Alteration Software, optimized for Windows 98 and Mac OS 8.6! Wow..." He muttered to himself. "I definitely never ordered this... bloody hell is it?"
Benjamin looks over the CD further, but it seemed to lack any more information than that, as if it were some production prototype that had never been fully released, he couldn't even find a copyright date. Curiosity was getting the better of him though, and he cracked the jewel case open and plopped down in front of his computer to slip it in the CD drive. After what seemed to be an eternity an error box popped up on the screen. 'Read Failed: System incompatibility.' With a frown he pulled the CD from the drive and stroked his chin, pondering. Clearly Windows 10 was too modern to use this relic of a piece of software, whatever it was. But... he did still have his old computer packed away at the back of his closet!
Digging through old shoes and boxes for a few minutes, Benjamin unearthed a heavy monolith of a computer tower from the darkness of the closet, sliding it out followed by the CRT monitor and peripherals which had been stashed away with it years and many computer upgrades ago. Dragging them into his living room he sets them up on his coffee table, plugging in the monitor and computer, the old ps/2 mouse and keyboard, and then tentatively flipping the power switch behind the machine and pressing the button to turn it on. With a gasping chug the venerable Packard Bell churned to life, groaning softly and buzzing into boot-up. WINDOWS 98 flashed on the screen, the nostalgic sound playing out before shifting to the old blue-green desktop. Success!
Benjamin pressed the CD drive to open, which slowly pulled out with a grinding sound, placing the Chronivac CD-ROM inside and pushing it back in. In a few moments an installation window popped up, slowly loading toward 99% then flashing into a basic grey window. 'Welcome to the Chronivac 4.0! Please connect your Portable Emitter now...' it said, with a continue button below. Ah, right, that must be the other thing... He retrieves the odd device and plugs it into the computer's singular USB port, setting it to the side and hitting continue.
'For best results, please place the Portable Emitter with antenna facing toward you, and remain within 20' of device.'
Benjamin blinked, a rather odd statement, but he positioned the strange little device on top of the old monitor facing toward him, shrugging as he continued.
'Scan User Data Y/N?'
Benjamin idly clicked yes, not sure what it would mean but it couldn't hurt, and it might be able to help explain whatever this thing was. The computer seized up for a moment before continuing, a blinking red light from the Portable Emitter kicked in followed by a low hum, and the sensation of static coursing over his body before it all ceased, returning to a loading bar in the Chronivac program. Slowly it finished, suddenly filling out a text sheet of information-
'User Detected ; Case : Benjamin ******. Instance 1, continue ...
Sex: Male
Age Appr: 23 yrs. 2 m. 12 days.
Height: 5' 8.1"
Race: Caucasian
Weight: 133.56 lb
Hair/Eyes: Light Brown/Blue-Green
Instance: Unmodified
Correct/Continue... Y/N?'
"What the..." Benjamin muttered to himself. How could it possibly have gotten that information, he wondered? It must have pulled it off his computer somewhere, he rationalized. "Yeah, continue, whatever..." He murmurs, clicking on and reaching an initial screen of options laid out before him;
'Select One to Continue: ... '