Ty and Josh were sitting on the bed that they shared, both naked and watching a pretty boring porn video. It featured one of their favorite performers; however, he was paired with a really unattractive guy who was also a really bad actor.
Ty slid off the bed and put a pair of shorts on. He decided that he was done watching the movie and should go out to get the mail.
He stepped out of his room and walked down the hall past his roommates. They lived in a four-bedroom house that was rented out by eight young men trying to make their way in the world. Tulsa, Oklahoma was not the easiest place in the world for a gay couple to live, but Ty and Josh had found acceptance among their housemates.
Nick and Andrew had gone to the university with Ty and Josh and they were fraternity brothers together. Both of them were ladies’ men and spent many evenings continuing their college traditions of finding cute girls at bars and parties, moving on quickly after evenings of passion. Both boys were attractive, but beginning to lose their physiques as age and responsibility began to set in.
Dylan and Scott worked in the IT industry and had responded to the call for new roommates put out by Ty a couple months ago. Both of them had moved into the area recently, Dylan from Salt Lake City, and Scott from Jackson, Mississippi. Both were private, introverted people who mostly kept to themselves except for meals (which all 8 housemates ate together).
Conrad and Michael were the last two roommates. Conrad paid rent on time and cooked dinner twice a week. Other than that, he was pretty unpleasant to be around. He would play loud metal or hip-hop music late into the night and he was constantly smoking or drinking. He also made life pretty miserable for Michael, a small man who was pursuing graduate studies at the university. Michael spent about half of his time outside of the house, though his parents insisted in him having a place to stay. When Michael was not home, he was usually studying or sleeping in one of the university libraries or study halls.
Ty opened the mailbox and removed its contents. The usual bills and notices for various people, some ads, coupons… Ty cringed at the brown envelope containing what was likely one of Conrad’s girly magazines. But there was one more item in the mail. And it was clearly addressed to Ty.
Ty opened the envelope and pulled out a CD-ROM. As a software developer, he was quite used to receiving new software to review, but in these modern days it usually arrived via download links on his email. The disk read: “Chronivac version 4.0 – TransDem Labs”. It included a CD-ROM and a USB portable emitter. This seemed odd, as Ty thought it was simply a flash drive.
Making his way over to his computer, Ty decided to pop the disk in and see what this was all about. He had never heard of TransDem Labs. The envelope did not include a return address or any written documentation. As the computer read the disk, it did all of the usual procedures of scanning for viruses, then prompting the program installation. Once this was complete, Ty clicked on the icon to start the program.
Some batch processes began to run. A command box came up quickly.
“Please insert scanner/emitter into USB slot. Continue?”
Ty picked up the flash drive and inserted it into the USB slot. As soon as he clicked “Continue”, the device began to blink and flash light across the room. Eight options came up on the menu. Ty grew quite anxious when he realized that the menu options were the eight people in his house!