Southern Hospitality

“... sure, Ma, that sounds so compelling. You propose that, and it’s worth a hill of beans. Ma, it’s not practicable for me to move back. I don’t care if you have not seen me in a month of Sundays. Besides, you have Gina to care for you and Pa. Ma, don’t talk to me like I'm still at the height of your knee. I don’t want you and Pa worrying over me. I’ll be fine. No, Ma, let me let you go.“

Waving her hand to disconnect the video call, she stood up and stretched. Being a Friday, she did wish she could have gone with her colleagues drinking. However, family time had to come sometime, and today was the most convenient for both her and her parents. Thank goodness that her parents' AR setup worked in rural Texas. The nearest town was Olton, where they could go for repairs. Was that correct? Frowning, she swiped to get Google Maps on the right side of her vision. On the left side of her eye, she checked the time. It was getting on towards midnight. Confirming what she thought she knew, she closed Google Maps.

It was too late to try and catch drinks with the colleagues now. She could take a small midnight snack before turning in for the night. Rummaging through her pantry gave her a moment to reflect. In all honesty, her family could be a hell of a lot worse. They supported her through college and her move to this job. Her siblings were good. Nothing could get under her skin like them. If she found herself in a pickle, they would bail her out. She was living on the good stuff.

There were, of course, little things that bothered her. What annoyed her about her parents was that they treated her like a little girl. If she were the youngest of their children, that might be explainable, if still infuriating. However, she was the eldest of two brothers and a sister. They treated the youngest Gina as an adult, but their nagging was persistent for her.

What did not help her case was that she was still the same height since reaching middle school. She was never very tall compared to the rest of her classmates or near peers. Still, she had hoped to be at least average height. What made it more humiliating is that her kid sister shot past her when they were in middle school. To be perfectly blunt, she was the shortest of her family. Life had thrown her a helping of stale bread in the genetics department. For goodness sake, Gina was more than a head taller than she was.

Well, there’s nothing she could do about that. She noted that she needed to refill her pantry with more snacks. Sighing, she picked up a tin of nuts her parents sent her. Opening it up was a comforting smell of spiced nuts.

Munching on the nuts, she checked her email to see if anything needed fixing. Her attention caught on an email entitled H.H. Rules - Please read. She frowned slightly at this. She did not remember signing up for a conference or convention recently. She checked the email address. The email came from her university social engagement department or whatever name they rebranded to.

She decided to take a quick look at the email. If it did not concern her well, she would not have wasted any valuable thinking on it.

As she read, she frowned. Who the hell let this through? This email was a joke. She needed to contact whoever was at the social engagement about this. An intern or student got on the university email and crapped out this mess. The only good thing is that she was the sole recipient of this disgraceful email.

As she closed her email, something in her peripheral caught her attention. The edges of her vision were pixelated. She sighed. Her AR visor was glitching. She tapped the AR visor to turn it off. Hopefully, it would resolve whatever issues it had by itself.

As she reached for the nuts, she was startled at her hand. It was coming over with small squares. She looked at her right hand. It was coming over with the same strange affliction. She tried to turn on her AR glasses to call 911, but her joints stopped working.

A creeping numbness overtook her body. Her vision started consisting of chunky blocks. Her hearing turned into sounds into bleeps and boops. She tried to scream or make a noise. That attempt resolved itself into 8-bit sounds. Her conscience faded to black.

The butler rolled on a five-foot tower of colored cubes. He carefully set the cubes down and left the stage. For a moment, nothing was happening. Then, the cubes started to subdivide into smaller blocks. An outline of a person started to appear.

Broad colors of the person's outline came into focus first. The top of the blocks was a rich cinnamon brown. The skin tone of the person was a light-tanned color. Whatever they were wearing, it was bright red and covered from the shoulders to about the knees.

Fine details came in at a faster rate. The red resolved itself into a dress. The face showed a visor ripped out of a 1980s sci-fi film. The eyes behind the eyeshade were a cinnamon brown. Face conveys a look associated with horror films. In which the first victim is captured by whatever horror stalks them.

As the finer details appeared, the boxes outside the figure shape disappeared. It got to the point where the woman’s hair swung down to her shoulders. Her raised arms relaxed down towards her hips. On her hands were thin gloves. When the woman fully transformed into a third-dimensional figure, she stood briefly before crashing into the floor. She did not move at all from that terrific fall.

Thomas suddenly stood up, “What the hell are you playing at?”

Justine gawked at the sudden movement, “What the…”

“I guess I was fine with you doing your thing since I cannot do anything. But damn it, I object to this. I was resigned to the fact that you bring any old body. What I expect is that whoever you brought would be treated with at least a modicum of whatever you call respect.”

“Don’t even.” Thomas pointed at Justine, “I refuse to be in this hogwash, where you physically and mentally gave this poor girl a terror that I doubt is fair for this competition. I will not participate in this inequity.”

“Look, Doc. It was an accident. Nothing that happened was not intentional. Look, we have treatment of the contestant right now, so if you would …”

“Absolutely not. I do not care or want to participate in this farce anymore.”

Justine flushed and stood up slowly, “Doc. I would like to remind you that you will be participating in this. Unless you want unpleasant things to happen, sit down.”

“Fine. I have seen the power you flaunt around. I refuse to give any questions to the poor girl. You can ask for that debauchery by yourself..”

Justine motioned to the butler while Thomas sat himself down again. Justine exhaled softly. That definitely could have been handled better.

The butler moved on stage next to the woman. He righted the woman on the ground to a sitting position. Out of his jacket, he drew out a jar of something. With a quick twist, he opened it up and put it under the woman’s nose.

The woman’s face showed signs of life after a brief moment. The butler quickly got her to stand up. He supported her as she glassly looked over her surroundings.

“You alright, miss?” The butler asked, putting the jar away.

“What … I don’t …”

The butler shook his head a little. Out of his jacket came a little perfume bottle. He spitz the woman with it before quickly putting it away. A slight cough emanated from the woman. Her eyes cleared up from the haze they were in. She made a small jolt from seeing the butler holding her. Then, her face slowly turned around to see everyone else.

The butler helped the woman up to her feet and steadied her. After ensuring she could stand without him, he briskly left the stage.

Justine pranced onto the stage, “Sorry for the rough transition. I didn’t think that you would collapse on us like that. I know this situation you find yourself in is strange, but could you give us a small introduction? Name, age, occupation, relationship to Dr. Haywood, and when did you lose your virginity?”

The woman tried speaking but found her voice not coming out at all. Only a wet coughing was all she could manage.

Justine patted the back of the woman, “You poor dear! What unfortunate luck you are having. Don’t worry about your voice. It will come back. It’s a side effect of the medication we gave you. That being the case, I’ll give your introduction.”

Justine giggled, “This is Mica Norwood. She is twenty-five. Dr. Norwood is a chemistry professor at the University of Deneri. She is, of course, a colleague of Dr. Haywood. Mica also shared an office with him temporarily for a year. She lost that V-card on her nineteenth with a sweet bud. Hey, if you’re into that, you’re into that. You must have been in pain, though. After all, you did a weird shuffle for a week after that.”

As Justine spoke, Mica looked perplexed at first. It transformed into a surprise look and then a deep blushing. She buried her face into her hands, and if it were not for Justine holding her shoulder, she would be rolling on the stage.

Justine smiled, “Can you speak yet?”

Mica did a sputtering cough as she shook her head.

Justine sighed and pointed to a chair, “Well, you can sit down over there.”

Not daring to look at anyone, Mica bolted to the indicated seat. She sat down, drew her knees in, and buried her face away.

Justine clapped, “Well, that was the last contestant, now we …”

A cough drew Justine's attention towards Agatha, who was standing up.

“Well, it’s fine and dandy for these younger people to ‘compete’ in this fraud of a show. However, it would be an uphill struggle for me and Mrs. Beringer to do much. This parody of a show seems to be a lot of physical activity.” Agatha spat.

She waved her hand to all the contestants, “Also, based on looks, we are on the old side. Not that we’re ugly per se. However, compared to all these twenty and thirty-year-olds, we are prunes. How exciting would this be for your ‘audience’ for a bunch of geriatrics to engage in sexual engagement.”

Thomas rose out of the sofa, “You never said anything about sex. How am I supposed to do any of that? Most of these people are young enough to be my grandchildren. It would also throw a kink in whatever you are doing if I keeled over and died in an escapade of that nature. No one that young should have to do it with someone as old as I am.”

Alexa stared at Agatha and Thomas, then towards Justine, “I’m sorry. I don’t understand anything you said. I need to get home to cook stuff for my family. They are going to be hungry and worried.”

Justine inhaled very slowly while all of that was going on. She stared at the three of them in turn.

She murmured, “Well, it's like that, eh.”

She snapped her fingers. Thomas, Alexa, and Agatha appeared on the stage next to her. The three of them seemed shocked for a moment. Then they all started moving their mouths. No sound emanated from them however.

She slowly walked towards them all. All of them felt a pressure that made them stop moving their mouths.

“Now, listen. I muted you all so I can get this episode over with. I let you talk later.” Justine whispered as she patted each one of them.

Justine spun towards the front of the stage, “Folks, I know you are expecting the reveal transformations next. However, it’s unfair to leave these folks in their present condition. After all, it may give them an unfair disadvantage for the audience. Next time, we’ll fix that in the first half of the next episode, and the latter will be the transformations. Don’t forget to put in those votes. We’ll also be doing the first impressions for everyone here next time. Till then, zàihuì.”

AN: Finally finished with introductions.