Jeff and Adam looked for a moment at the nondescript box sitting in front of Jeff's apartment door.
"Whatever it is, it's not very big," Adam said.
Jeff picked it up. "It's pretty light too."
"Well let's see what's in it."
Jeff was about to rip the box open when they both heard a set of footsteps clicking down the hall. They turned to look, and saw a beautiful young woman in some form fitting, stylish business attire walking down the hallway towards them.
"Hi, boys!" she said as she passed, stopping at the next door down the hall.
"Um... h- hey J-J-Joanna," Jeff muttered. Adam just smirked and glanced between the two.
"Whatcha got there?" she asked, looking at the package.
"It's uh... It's... well..."
"It's top secret," Adam interrupted. "Business stuff. We can't really talk about it."
"Oh that's right," Joanna said, "You guys work at Tenenbaum. I've heard so many weird stories about that place. But I guess you guys can't really talk about the juicy stuff."
Jeff fingered the box nervously. "Honestly, they keep us in the dark a lot too," he said.
Adam smiled, "Yeah they never tell us paper pushers anything!"
"Well, I hope they gave you something fun," she said with a wink, before entering her own apartment.
Jeff sighed and unlocked his own door. The two went inside.
"Dude, I was about to ask her out if you weren't! How did you never tell me you have such a hot neighbor?!"
Jeff frowned, "I know. It's not worth mentioning. She's nice but I don't think I'm her type. She's always bringing dudes home. Let's just say these apartment walls are kind of thin."
"Whatever," Adam said, "You just need to step up your game. Anyway, open the damn box already!"
"Fine, fine!" Jeff said. They went to the kitchen table and Jeff grabbed a knife, slicing through the tape on the package. He flipped the flaps open and dug through the pile of packing peanuts inside. It took a few seconds for his fingers to feel the piece of plastic buried underneath. He pulled it out.
"It's... a toy?" Adam asked.
"Looks like it." In fact, it looked exactly like a toy - a toy gun to be exact. Silvery plastic, retro-futuristic looking laser pistol. It had a single trigger, and a small plastic lens at the end of the barrel. It looked sort of like the light guns that came with video game systems back in the 80s.
"Why would they want you to test a kids' toy?" Adam asked incredulously.
"I dunno," Jeff said, "Maybe it's a prank. Some dead-end prototype they wanted to get rid of. It probably doesn't even do anything; no way they'd risk sending out any real prototype."
"Well, that's kind of a waste. Wanna watch the game?"
"Sure," Jeff said, "Too bad. At least it looks kinda cool." He leveled the barrel in Adam's direction, closing one eye to look down the sights. "ZZZZAP!" he said, as he playfully pulled the trigger. To his complete surprise, the entire room was engulfed in a flash of white light, and in less than a second that light seemed to get pulled into Adam's body. Jeff blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision, and his jaw dropped as soon as he saw what had happened.
