Is This the Real Life? Is This Just Fantasy?

Ike stumbled over the box in front of his apartment door. He'd been heads down on his phone, surfing through the emails that had come in since he left the office. Although only in his early 20's, he was already an executive at Greil Technological Solutions, which is easy to do when your last name happens to be Greil. Never one to take the easy way out though, Ike worked twice as hard as the other exes, desperate to prove himself. Only his dark blueish hair indicated a touch of low-level rebellion to the formal business-ness of his life as he prepped to follow his father.

The box's return address said "R.A.N. Industries". Ike stared at it blankly. He hadn't ordered anything that he could remember but the name looked familiar. It suddenly clicked. It was from the young start-up founder he'd met a few months before. In his mid-to-late twenties, Ike remembered him as almost bubbly in his enthusiasm for the project they were thinking about buying in on, the use of artificial intelligence in a variety of applications. Ike pulled the R.A.N. Industries proposal from a stack of similar ones based on that energy and vision that the CEO projected. With a little pushing, the other executives bought in to the vision and took the project from him, claiming credit for finding the man. Ike didn't care too much who took credit. It would help both companies so that was all that mattered. However, he did find the CEO interesting. It wasn't often he got to talk to people his own age. Dr. Greil, the CEO, had teal hair and an exuberant manner made him definitely look like the head of a tech startup, one of those cool California geniuses that somehow was hanging out in New York. Even after their short initial meeting, he'd intrigued Ike. But business always came first. Ike signed the deal, transferred the inventor to work with the R&D department and sadly, considered it closed. There wasn't a reason for him to reach out again.

Now, however, was a box. Ike scooped it up and punched in his code to open the front door. Dumping his briefcase by the door, he set the box on the kitchen table before going to shed the business suit and emerge as the weekend Ike. Weekend Ike liked to be comfortable.

After microwaving something that reasonably approximated dinner, Ike cracked open the box and pulled out the instructions. "Hologram House Manager" read the first page. Under the title clung a scrawled Post-it note. "Latest thing in development. Thought you might like one of the first ones. -- R".

Well, he knows the way to my heart, Ike thought. Ike loved tech toys, the newer the better. His house teemed with every automated tchotchke that caught his eye. Most ended their short lives shoved in drawers after the shiny newness wore out. Flipping through the sixty page instruction book, Ike picked up the basics of the system while he downed his almost-food dinner. Then, dumping his dishes in the sink, he emptied the box and hunkered down with the strange equipment pieces.

5 hours, 3 diet cokes, and multiple tiny screws later, Ike powered up one of the multiple two-foot tall cylindrical devices. It began to glow a soft hazy blue. After another hour of getting the wifi hooked up and navigating pages of command line statements, it came to life.

Words formed inside the cylinder while a calming female voice recited them out loud.
"Welcome to the R.A.N Industries House Manager. Would you prefer a male, female, or automated voice? Please speak your answer."

Verbal, yes, much better than this command line stuff, he thought.
"Male"

The voice emitting from the device changed to a deep bass.

"Would you prefer a young or mature voice?"

"Ummm....youngish?" Ike hoped they didn't mean childlike and were just too nice to say 'old'.

Again the voice altered, this time to a more tenor level. Still male sounding but not so much like his father.

"Please choose an avatar. Swipe to see the choices."