Thankfully, you arrive at your house.

You unlock the front door to your house and walk inside, turning the living room light on as you do. You're so grateful to be home that you fling off your coat, pull off your sweatshirt, and collapse onto the sofa in your jeans and T-shirt, dangling your right leg over its arm. You look at the silver Manipulator on your arm, its dime-sized light glowing its soothing emerald green color: both the most amazing blessing, and the strangest curse. At least it isn't going off with every stray thought now, you think, and shudder to think of what might've happened with Emily if it tried to act on some of the other thoughts you've had about her since your meeting...

Your mind drifts to the note included with the package. P.K., you think. Who the hell could it be? Is it some sort of code name? A nerdy reference to 'Earthbound'? You rack your brain to come up with any possible answer, but come up empty. With no return address on the box, and a postage stamp saying it was mailed from one of any number of U.S. Postal Service mailboxes around town, it's a dead end.

The thing obviously has some sort of computer in it, you muse, still studying its shiny curves, trying to find any clue that might shed more light on things. And that information that popped into my head when it updated... that means it must have some sort of interface outside of just reading my desires. You start to think about what you do whenever you get some new game that you want to explore the workings of. Some way to access cheat codes, or a hidden settings menu...

...or a debug interface.

That's right, the note said this thing was a prototype! And what do programmers do when they put out beta versions of things? They usually give themselves some sort of debug interface, in order to test it out, make tweaks, and gather information. This thing has to have something similar. You lean forward, scrutinizing the device more closely, lifting your arm up to see its underside, twisting it around to look at all the angles, pulling at the band to look underneath it, but find nothing -- no seams, no breaks in the metal whatsoever, other than where the segments attach to one another. You consider taking the device off to have a closer look, but a sudden, overwhelming revulsion to the idea washes over you.

You sigh, frustrated, and slump back down in the sofa. There must be a way, you reason. Nobody would turn an experimental device capable of wirelessly transmitting desires to other people into the wild without--

Wait, that's it. Wirelessly. The Manipulator's whole deal is to work wirelessly. Could it really be that simple? Closing your eyes, you intone the words: enable debug interface. The instant you finish, you "remember" the reply:

Debug interface enabled.

Like before, the sensation is uncanny, and a bit unsettling -- artificial "memories" just popping into existence in your head. Okay, so I have access to this thing, you think, now, what do I do with it? How do I get its status? Unexpectedly, thinking the word "status" causes a new flood of information within your brain:

Project Purple Man
Software Revision 1.4.1
Last Commit 30 March 1998 by kessel
Trigger threshold: 1.0
Enabled features: Remote view, remote update, remote debug, local debug, bioelectric charging, beta power regulation algorithm
Disabled features: Beta thermoelectric charging, beta photoelectric charging, trigger confirmation

"Shit," you blurt out loud, as you're caught unprepared by the device's helpful report. Then a smile spreads across your face. The 'K' stands for 'Kessel', you realize, and he or she must be the one who updated it today. That would explain the "remote update" and "remote debug" features listed. You're slightly apprehensive about the "remote view" part, realizing that this person has just witnessed everything you did for nearly 24 hours... but you concede that if you're using their device, it's only fair that they see what you're up to with it. You even get a small thrill at the thought of being a bit of an exhibitionist, surprising yourself somewhat.

You also note the "beta power regulation algorithm" being enabled, something else which you remember happening during that update. You wonder what that's all about, but of course this simple status update doesn't provide many details. You wonder what else you can discover. Closing your eyes again, you intone details, but nothing happens. help... nothing. source code...

An absolute torrent of information floods your memory, so much that it threatens to overwhelm you. You gasp as you try to comprehend the information flooding your brain, but it flies by so quickly you have trouble grasping it all. And yet, as time goes on, you seem to gain an intuitive understanding of the software. It's in a language you've never seen before, but the syntax is simple enough that you're able to get the gist of most of the code, other than some of the lowest-level stuff -- hardware interface code, you figure, probably some sort of assembly language.

Most of what you discover isn't anything new -- you've encountered it over the course of the day -- but one thing catches your eye, or brain, or whatever: "multi-target mode". Apparently, instead of needing to look at each person and voice your desires, you can look generally at the room, and address your request to "you all", "all of you", or something to that effect. The software will seek out and manipulate everybody in the immediate vicinity -- that is, it does a sort of "flood fill", searching for people until it hits walls, doors, or simply exhausts its range. You can see how this might be very useful, in case you need to affect an entire group of people.

You continue to pore over the "code" in your brain, requesting the full source code a few more times until you think you have a grasp of its operation. Apparently, the "beta power regulation algorithm" significantly decreases the power consumption of the device, with the tradeoff of seriously decreasing the device's range. Since the original range of the device was a bit over a mile (!), you think this is a very acceptable tradeoff; this way, it uses ten times less power, while limiting its range to 500 feet, which (as far as you're concerned) is still quite a distance.

Why the hell would you need to affect a person a mile away, anyway? you wonder, and it doesn't take long before the answer comes to you: the military. This thing was designed to act as a sort of "mind sniper", being able to affect people from a distance. You shudder to think of what could be done if it fell into the hands of a fascist government.

Your pondering is soon interrupted by the sound of the front door opening: your sister, getting home from school. Holy crap, is it 3pm already? you think. You got so carried away exploring the device's software, you forgot to eat! (This isn't the first time this is happened, nor will it be the last.)