"Come on, just a little bit more," said the jogger to herself as she saw the end of the trail just meters in front of her. This new jogging route was almost twice as far as her old one! It was worth it, though, to get into even better shape before her upcoming high school reunion.
Latisha Carlson was a 38-year-old software debugger with long hair, large glasses, and an excellent figure. She knew how easy it was to put on weight when your job mainly involves sitting at a computer, so she had taken up jogging several years earlier. She had also graduated from high school almost 20 years earlier and was going through something of a midlife crisis. Latisha hoped that her old friends and enemies would be too distracted by her body to question her too intently about the fact that she was unmarried and childless, still living in the same small apartment she'd scraped up enough money for when she first moved to Lomak City, and hadn't been promoted in almost a decade.
"Hm, what's that in the grass?" she thought, noticing a metal case blinking in the reddish light of the setting sun. Slowing down as she approached, she stopped for a moment and picked up the box. Opening the case, she was looked at the emerald lining and the blue wand with the silver button. What could it be? Picking up the wand and pressing the button out of curiosity, she instantly dropped it back into the case as she felt an electric shock go up her arm. The device started making screeching noise, then seemingly speaking in human-like languages which she didn't recognize. At last, it said something in English: "Bioneural analysis and genetic microsampling successful. Subject identified: Latisha Carlson, human, female, adult. Linguistic output customized to: Modern English, until further notice."
Latisha's heart was racing, both from her exercise routine and from the realization that the device seemingly knew who she was. "What are you?" she asked the device. "How do you know my name?" she tried again. There was no answer, and no indication of what voice commands or other inputs the device recognized. Latisha had no idea what else it might be able to do, or what she might have accidentally used it for already. She nervously closed the case and looked around before finishing her jog with the item in hand. She placed it in her bicycle basket and started making her way back toward the apartment building. Maybe, being a professional tech whiz herself, she could figure out what it was and how it worked. Maybe doing so would finally get her promoted or at least give her something to brag about at the reunion. Or maybe, Latisha should simply hide the thing away somewhere and try to forget she ever encountered such an unsettling object. Regardless, since her personal information had already ended up in the device somehow, Latisha felt she ought to take it with her rather than leaving it unattended again out in the park.