The ring, part I by Junketh71

[Junketh71]

Never take strange gifts – Part 1: Rick

As soon as Rick Carrington saw the letter, he suspected turbulence on his horizon: the letter was different. It was not a plain white envelope complete with his parents’ hand-writing and colorful 20- or 50-cent stamps, nor was it an equally plain notification of his bill in one of the banks that held his money, but rather it was something else.

Well, if truth was to be told, this envelope did not differ from any other envelope that he had seen in his life – ordinary and white. The only major difference that this envelope bore were its’ signature – “from a fan” – and the fact that it had no return address either.

Now, Rick did not consider himself stupid. He knew that as an office worker, and an all-around average Rick, there was no reason for him to acquire any fans at all – he just was not glamorous enough; in fact, his life was so boring, that he often craved any sort of excitement.

Therefore, shrugging, he opened the letter. Moreover, began to read.

“Dear Mr. Carrington:
I have heard about you for quite some years from a friend of mine, and the more I listened, the more I became sure that you are a man that craves a bit of variety in his life. Therefore, I am sending you this ring in hopes that you will find it the perfect tool to achieve just that.
Sincerely,
A friend.”

Upon further examination of the letter, Rick established two things. One was that there was indeed a ring in the envelope, alongside the letter – an impressive-looking signet ring with a pyramidal crystal – amethyst, most likely. The ring itself was made out of some expensive metal, but whether silver or gold, Rick could not say; and, there was something bothering him about all this, but what – he could not be sure. Shrugging, he put the ring on. For a second, it seemed to sparkle brightly in the electrical light of his cubicle, but only for a second. Then Rick’s wall clock chimed that it was one in the afternoon – time for a lunch break – same as always.

Sighing in mild depression, yet bearing his new ring on his finger, Rick descended to the main floor – as usual. There, at the reception desk, sat Sharon – again as usual.

To Rick, Sharon was the closest thing that he ever had to a break of the routine, though a good part of that “break” lay in her family roots. Sharon had her job through nepotism – she had a relative in the upper echelons of power of their company; the only reason why she was just a lowly receptionist was because of her nature – rather then cheery and communicative to the point of slutty, Sharon was a cold, aloof snob who showed no in-terest at all in her co-workers, and too little interest in her job. This did not endear her to other members of the staff, Rick included, but because she did have relations in the upper echelons, she kept this job and continued to keep it.

“What are you looking at, Rick?” Sharon spoke with her usual arrogance, frigid energy rolling off her in almost visible and palpable waves, when suddenly…
(Unknown to Rick, the amethyst on his finger suddenly flashed once, brightly, from the inside.)

…suddenly Rick felt as if he was looking at Sharon through a computer screen, complete with bars, graphs, labels and so on. What’s more, he was sure that Sharon did not see this, let alone know about it. Feeling infinitely curious and excited about this (good-bye, rou-tine!), Rick reached out and touched one of the boxes. It instantly lit-up “Eccentricity – 45%. Up or down?” Following his initial motivation, Rick pressed up until eccentricity (whatever it was) reached 88%, and then, following a hunch, he pressed the cross in the top right corner of the screen. “Save the changes – yes or no?” lit up in the middle of the screen. Rick pressed “yes” – and the screen vanished. Rick was left looking at Sharon.

Only it was a different Sharon. This Sharon was still wearing the traditional receptionist’s attire – only now the jacket was of an icy-bluish grey color, the blouse underneath it was of a white color that was a shade too white for Rick’s taste, while her skirt, as far as Rick could tell anyways, was the same color as her jacket, with some coolly green geometrical design stitched on at the bottom.

As clothing went, so did the jewelry: new Sharon now had a weird silver ring on her finger, and earrings in shape of icebergs – and that was not all. The old Sharon had rather long (shoulder-long) hair, dyed blond. The new Sharon’s hair was short, almost G.I. Jane short, dyed, some odd shade of bluish-grade – the same as her lipstick and eye shadow. And her eyes – once bright blue and attentive – now were cold, almost black, nearly immobile – rather scary, in Rick’s opinion, so he left, rather quickly – almost too quickly to leave Sharon’s company as soon as possible. For some reason he had a feeling that when he came back from lunch break, things will be different from the routine...

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However, as Rick was approaching his usual fast-food place and things regained at least the semblance of routine once again, he calmed down. True, whenever he remembered new Sharon’s nearly immobile eyes, almost two pieces of Arctic ice, he would shiver, but mentally he regained his equilibrium.

“So what,” he told himself, “that Sharon now is even more unpleasant than before? May-be now she’ll be finally fired and we’ll get a receptionist that is actually nice, rather than an Ice Queen, yes…”

However, thinking about Sharon made Rick return about the ring. Has it enabled him to do… whatever it was that he did? Moreover, could he do it again?
Even as he approached his usual fast-food place, Rick found himself slowing down and looking around for “new subjects” – another deviation from “the routine”. He found one in a girl that was chatting at a payphone nearby…

Actually, it was the rather loud chatting that had Rick’s ear, and then his eye, for in reali-ty, the girl was rather ordinary-looking – an average teen with a rather heavy figure and a squarish, broad face, yet she had a lot of stamina and really big lungs, since she was chatting for almost half an hour now without taking any sort of a break.

“I wonder how she does this.” Rick muttered, trying to remember as to what he had done to call-out the screen that he did to Sharon.

(Unknown to him, the crystal on his finger flashed again – but because this time it was outside, the glow was practically invisible.)

Suddenly, the screen was back – this time centered on this girl, whose unceasing chatting caught Rick’s ear. Caught unaware once more, Rick instinctively touched one of the boxes. Instantly, it lit-up “Intelligence – 40%. Up or down?” Mechanically (the memory of Sharon still haunted his subconscious), Rick pressed up, increasing the intelligence to 60% before realization hit – “This is not what I want!” However, it was too late – a new screen popped-up “Maturity – 45%. Up or down?”

Now, Rick began to get nervous. This did not happen last time. Still, he had no other idea, so he decided to increase maturity to 67%. This time, fortunately, nothing else popped-up, but Rick was too nervous now to continue experimenting, so he quickly exited the screen, after saving the changes, of course.

This time the changes were not so drastic, at least for Rick’s taste. True, now the girl was a young woman, in the early twenties. Her formerly heavy figure now bloated-up even more – her breasts and butt no longer even fitted into the phone booth. Her face too did not experience much of an improvement – though it now lacked both the teenage zits and freckles, it was still rather plain, and the bright red lipstick did not make it any better either. The only thing different, really, was her hair – formerly long and rather disheveled, it was now more neatly treated.

Still the young woman chatted-on. Obviously, gaining about 4 years of age did not change her personality one bit. Shrugging in defeat – at least this was not another Sharon – Rick turned around and entered his fast-food place for his “daily special”. Moreover, outside, the ex-girl chatted on.

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As Rick continued to chew on his pizza, he kept on thinking about his latest experience. Apparently, as his second attempt has shown him, all the data on the screen was possibly interconnected with each other, and if he was not careful, he could easily create a chain reaction, something that could, no doubt, is disastrous.

However, could it, also, be beneficial? If Rick just got the hang of it and would not just go out on a limb, making people into eccentrics and what-not as he did with Sharon; well…

Almost smiling out in public, Rick looked around himself to see if he could find somebody worthwhile to do more experiments. In addition, assuredly, he found himself one such subject – a middle-age brown-haired woman in a lawyer’s attire.

Rick concentrated as he did before with the girl, failing to notice that a waitress – a blonde teen – approached the customer. “Are you ready to order, ma’am?” she said.

Then, before Rick has panicked eyes, a screen appeared.

“You have selected two subjects”, it said. “Please select the option in which you are going to work.”

Fighting to keep panic from getting out of control, Rick touched the first thing his eye caught-on: “Appearance”. Instantly, the screen was covered with boxes and charts. Rick looked at the first one: “Age – rotate, equalize, differentiate, merge…” Following his usual – namely acting-out on a limb - Rick touched the first thing: “Rotate”. Instantly, a new line appeared: “Social status – rotate, equalize, differentiate, merge…” Suddenly, Rick saw a new option – “skip”. Shrugging, he touched it. A new line appeared: “Hair – rotate, equalize, differentiate, merge…”

Rick paused, until he found a different one – “minimize” – and pressed it.

Then he took a breath. Rick was never the one for gluttony, thus his lunches never took long, and thus his lunching place was some distance away from his place of work because Rick always did enjoy a good walk after a prolonged period of near immobility. Howev-er, this also meant that he did not have much time to dawdle during his actual lunch. That meant…

Hurriedly, Rick touched to exit the screen – after saving the changes, of course, and left.

“So what it’ll be, miss?” the waitress – a forty-something woman with short blond hair asked.

“My usual, please,” replied the customer – a young brown-haired female who was at most twenty but dressed in a business attire, complete with a professional haircut.

Neither of them noticed any changes in themselves nor in anything around them…

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As Rick was slowly re-approaching the entrance to the TV studio building, he felt, his nervousness return. Sharon was there, and Rick was not sure that seeing her again was a treat. However, he was unprepared for the shock when he saw a big crowd gather around the entrance – it appeared that Sharon and her high-level relative were having a show-down.

“How many times I told you, Sharon!” thundered J.W., one of the most influential members of the Board. “If you want to be the antisocial outsider here fine, but I draw the line here at your freaky clothing!”

“And what freakishness would it be?” Sharon replied calmly and emotionlessly. “I am not breaking any clothing laws around here, am I?”

“Well now, Sharon dear,” spoke Julia Whyte, one of the secretaries, “I have you know that you are breaking one of the codes with that skirt – it clearly says “No Embroidery” in the rules, and since you’re such a big stickler for the rules-“

“Julia,” Sharon interrupted the slightly older female, unaffected by the latter’s monologue. “Is that a new hickey?”

Julia’s eyes narrowed in anger. “Sharon, you’ve insulted us so many times, and insinuated your insults even more often, so now let me get to the point: it’s better to be a slut, than a freak.”

Everybody – Rick included – held-in his or her breath, ready for Sharon’s explosion. It did not happen. “Well then,” Sharon said calmly, “if you wash away that entire gunk on your face, then you’ll be able to get that ten-to-fifteen an hour job you are obviously aiming for so hard.”

Julia’s eyes widened in outrage. “Jameson,” she said, slowly turning around, shuddering from internal anger, “I don’t care if she’s your niece. Fire her or else!”

“Julia, I can’t,” J.W. said flatly. “She hasn’t broken any of the company’s laws, she does do her job, and this time, you did start this interaction of yours…”

“Fine!” Julia snarled, and now her anger was evident on her face. “If she doesn’t go – I go, and you can take all your promises and stuff them up your ass! I need a man in my life, not a spineless, egotistical bureaucrat! Good-bye!” and she promptly exited the building.

Now everybody’s attention was centered on J.W. and his niece. “You!” J.W. was bab-bling, “You!”

“Don’t look at me,” Sharon replied, calmly. “I always thought that you should’ve married her long ago and got this over with.”

Something clearly snapped – or burst – in J.W. He closed his mouth and left the scene, obviously shaken, leaving Sharon clearly in charge. “What are you looking at?” she said flatly. “The actors are taking a break, please check-in at a later hour to see if there’s going to be a sequel.” The tone of her voice, and the look of her nearly immobile eyes, was enough for the gathered crowd to disperse.

Rick was the first to leave, but with a lot more on his mind than before.

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As Rick settled down in his cubicle to continue working, his friend Ernie came over. “So how’d you like today’s special?” he asked promptly.

“Ern, you know that I go out to lunch; so how much did I miss?”

“Not much, old chum; you probably arrived at the very climax of the thing – or whatever it is called. So, what do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Rick began, but was interrupted when his phone rang. “Yes?” he spoke into it.

“Ricky? It is your mother. You haven’t forgotten that Mrs. Parker and her daughter are coming for dinner tonight?”

“No,” Rick lied. For some reason he had forgotten that tonight was yet another night on which his mother would try to pair him off with another one of her friends. Oddly enough, he did not remember hearing about any Mrs. Parker earlier.

“Well, that’s better. Remember now, Ella Parker is a nice girl, and so she should be treated respectfully!”

Ah! That must be it! Rick thought with relief. That Ella Parker must be rather homely for his mother actually to settle on her – mom was rather meticulous; until now, anyways…

“Mom, I’ll see you tonight!” Rick promised and hanged-up.

“What was that all about?” Ernie inquired.

“My mom set me up on some dinner date,” Rick said miserably. “Just what I really needed.”

“Eh! It happens,” Ernie casually shrugged. “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. Pity – there’s going to be a real party this evening; see ya!” and Ernie walked away.

Rick frowned in anger, then in thought. For some reason at those words, he felt weird, like this was not supposed to happen, like… Like maybe, he was getting paranoid because he felt demeaned. Besides, he never did enjoy those parties of mom’s to which he was invited in the first place…

Feeling slightly better, Rick got up and looked at the reflection on his computer monitor. Well, whatever else Ernie could say, but he looked spiffing!

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As hour flew by and it was time to leave, Rick felt his concerns - rather paltry to begin with – vanish completely. After all, that new ring of his, though it did grant him amazing reality-altering powers, did not bend the entire world into new shape, now did it? No, it was just a magically enhanced plus expensive-looking trinket, whose powers were harm-less. In fact, Rick continued to self-rationalize, he was going to prove it right now!

As if on cue, the elevator’s doors opened, and in came trio of secretaries, Julia’s co-workers (or was it ex-co-workers?), chatting, naturally, about the afternoon’s showdown. “…and can you believe poor Julia?” one of them was saying; as not one of them noticed Rick for they were too busy chatting. “She really liked J.W.; she claimed he was a real man.”

“Yeah, right! If he were a real man, he would show the bitchy niece of his her proper place – the street! One must have social skills if one must advance far in this world!”

“Hear, hear!” the other two echoed.

Now, Rick never really liked Sharon, even before this morning, when she was nowhere as scary as now. However, he felt rather indignant on her behalf, for he really could not see how the chattering trio was any better than she…was

(Unseen by anyone in the shaky illumination of the elevator, the amethyst flashed once.)

…When the display came back on, Rick was barely surprised. Again, just like in the fast food joint, the display that he saw said “You have selected three subjects”, it said. “Please select the option in which you are going to work.”

This time, Rick acted differently compared to the previous times: he looked carefully, before he selected “Personality”. After that, he searched some more and found “Social Skills”. Surprisingly, for all of the trio’s big words, their socials skills were only 65%, and Rick, feeling adventurous, decreased them immediately to 15%.

A new box lit-up “Intelligence – 60%.” Rick frowned. He had encountered intelligence once, and began to suspect a pattern. He decreased intelligence to 20% and began to wait.

Sure enough, the next box that lit-up was “Sexual maturity – 65%.” Shrugging, Rick decided to go up with the numbers, increasing sexual maturity to 85%. And as before, as with the girl whom he encountered and altered during his lunch break, nothing new popped-up, so Rick exited the screen, saving the changes, of course.

Moreover, almost fainted. The three secretaries practically devolved, becoming the basic blonde bimbos, barely dressed; their clothes, originally sufficiently tasty and proper, now were practically non-existent, barely covering what they were supposed to conceal. Moreover, their make-up and appearance? Just tacky!

“Now remember girls,” the rightmost “girl” said with a giggle that was obnoxious instead of cute, “don’t forget to sneak past the White Sphinx!”

“The White Sphinx”… Rick could guess that it was Sharon’s new nickname. For some reason, this seemed both interesting and important to Rick, but he did not dwell on it – rather, using the giggling, snortling trio as a distraction, he made his own run for the door to avoid Sharon’s almost inhuman stare.

He succeeded.

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…As Rick drove home in his vehicle, he played today’s events repeatedly in his mind, and the more he thought about it, the less he grew to like them. What he was doing to people was just wrong. In addition, well, wrong. Just because his own life was boring… Well, actually, it was not. Ernie did invite him to various parties – and just because they sucked, did not mean that they were boring.

Wait. Actually they were. They sucked, and they were boring, especially if one has an IQ higher than that of an average ape. In fact, wouldn’t it be fun if they…

Rick almost slammed on the brakes in the middle of the highway – that last thought was most certainly not his! It was… evil. Moreover, Rick, though he is not a nice guy, knew that he was not evil, and he certainly did not hate the world.

So, what to do with the ring that was proving to be even weirder than originally? He could not just mail it back – the letter was no return address made sure of that. What did happen to it? He never saw it again after he came back from lunch that is for sure. It could not have just vanished, now did it?

No, that was ridiculous… just as ridiculous as his ring, no?

Slowly, Rick took a good look at his new acquisition. When it first arrived in the first half of the day, it was stone of a light, translucent purple shade. Now, however - or was it just a trick of light? – the stone had darkened and took-on a crystalline quality. Moreover, the ring itself now looked like a couple of winged dragons coiled together, with their toothy maws supporting the stone in question. This was not the case during the morning.

“That’s it!” Rick spoke in a firm tone of voice. “I’m putting you into the glove compartment overnight.”

Moreover, he did just that – even as he drove by to get something to drink for the upcoming evening at mom’s…

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When Rick arrived at his mother’s, (with the annoying ring safely secured in his car’s glove compartment), he was greeted with the most unexpected appearance: the girl. Well, rather, the woman. The same girl-woman who he encountered during his lunch break, talking on the payphone.

“Um, hello?” she said meekly. “I am Ella Parker.”

“Um, hello,” Rick replied. “I believe I was told about you earlier. So, uh-“

It was at that point that the older generation (Mrs. Carrington and Mrs. Parker) belatedly appeared on the scene, realizing that measures must be taken.

“Glad that you came, son,” Mrs. Carrington chirped and looked at her counterpart. “I and Anne Parker were so worried that you’d be late.”

Rick gave his mother a ghost of a smile and sighed. This was one ruined evening. Maybe, if he came back to the car he could change it all…

NO.

(In the car’s glove compartment there was a bright internal flash of lavender light, then nothing.)

…Rick was surprised as to from where he suddenly acquired this dedication to his decision. Mayhaps it was his inborn sense of duty and responsibility? – he neither knew nor cared. All he cared about was getting in. The future experiences would show that he was right.

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To be continued in Part 2: Ernie.