"JON, GET DOWN HERE!" Jon's mom, Linda, yelled up to him from downstairs, "THE PRODUCERS JUST PULLED INTO THE DRIVE!!!"
Confused, Jon hurriedly stowed the wishing stone in his bedside drawer and skidded out of his bedroom, heading for the stairs. He had no clue what his mom was talking about, but by the tone of her voice, she wanted him downstairs in a hurry. Rushing down the stairs, he was surprised to find the rest of his family, Zoe, his dad Roger, his mom Linda, little brother Mikey, and most surprising of all, his best friend Karyn, all gathered in the den. All five seemed to be waiting for something, casting glances through the front window, so Jon hesitantly asked, "Karyn, what are you doing here?" He was hesitant because that wasn't the question he really wanted to ask with everyone hanging around; more confusing than her presence, was the fact that Karyn was back to being a modestly endowed redhead, showing no signs of the supposedly permanent wish they'd accidentally made that morning.
Karyn rolled her eyes, "Stop joking around, Jon-boy. I'm here for the start of production, just like you asked me to be." The redhead had on her favorite green hoodie and a pair of jeans, and was lounging a bit on the sofa, seemingly the least jittery and excited of the group.
"Oh, and thank you again for joining us, Karyn," Linda said, patting the girl on the shoulder, "the producers said we needed more than just the five of us to participate and I really didn't want to have to invite my sister for this. She'll have to settle for watching us on TV once the show airs." It was a poorly kept secret amongst the family that Jon's mom was low-key pretty jealous of her younger sister, Jon's aunt Melissa, and it seemed she was excited to get to be more the center of attention for once. The 42 year old woman had obviously dressed up a bit for the day, wearing a nice if conservative blue dress and a pair of low beige heels, her shoulder length straight brown hair freshly brushed.
"Producers?" Jon asked, again confusedly. He had no clue what the family was talking about, what had caused Karyn to revert, and a sinking suspicion this was the something interesting already at work.
"Yeah, producers, you idiot," Zoe sniped at him. The goth was clad in a deliberately torn Crying Demons band t-shirt, a dark miniskirt, fishnet leggings, spiked leather bracelets, a black choker, and her trademark combat boots. Jon couldn't tell if she was angry about whatever was going on, or just her usual brand of pissed off. "We already met them like a week ago when mom signed us up for whatever this dumb show's going to be, and today they're here to tell us what we'll be doing."
"I bet we're going to be flown to one of those crazy islands with all the challenges and those super cool obstacle courses," ten year old Mikey said excitedly, almost literally bouncing with energy.
Roger shook his head, "from what they told us, it's not going to be that kind of show. It's more of a social experiment of some sort." Jon's dad was a man of average height, and mostly average everything else. He had the beginnings of a beer gut, though it wasn't that obvious under the loose polo he wore, and a pair of the tan slacks he usually wore to the office where he worked as an accountant. His own brown hair was starting to gray at the temples, but thankfully for Jon's future prospects, wasn't already receding or anything.
Before Jon could ask another question the front door opened and a trio of smartly dressed people walked in. At the front was a tall handsome African American man in a pinstripe suit, smiling widely at the family. Next to him on his left was a short and petite pale blonde haired lady wearing a tight pencil skirt, matching grey blazer, and a ruffled white blouse below it, her height even in heels only coming to the man's shoulder. Finally there was a somewhat plain looking Asian guy wearing a noticeably less expensive suit than the other man, more the kind of department store off the rack thing the Gibson's themselves would wear. He had short dark hair verging on a bow lcut, and was carrying a big bag of equipment over his shoulder and a tablet of some sort in his hands.
"Hello, hello, Gibsons!" The lead man said enthusiastically, coming forward to shake each of their hands in turn, "we are so excited to get started today! Everyone have a good morning, get something to eat?"
"Oh, yes," Linda answered for the group, "we're all totally prepped to go!"
The man chuckled, "well that's what we like to hear! I'm glad you're taking it seriously and once again, let me thank you for deciding to take part in our inaugural season! Now, Ms. Cane here is going to go over a few particulars with you and Kenji here will be getting the technical side of things set up for us before we begin."
"Where are the cameras?" Zoe asked, looking around, "don't you like, want footage of this?"
The woman giggled and replied, with a hint of condescension, "we're running a very modern show and we don't want big camera crews breaking up the immersion. The point of our program is to capture real moments, and television cameras just distract and disrupt that. Instead we use tiny nano drones, no bigger than a fly, to capture the action."
"Wait, you can do that?" Jon asked, surprised by such advanced tech, before realizing, as the rest of the group nodded along, this technology and the whole show they were about to be on in general had to be a part of his wish. He was pretty sure he'd remember them having been signed up for something like this after all. Still, he couldn't help but breath a sigh of relief; his accidental wish had been so open ended, something really crazy could have happened, so just being on a reality show couldn't be too bad, could it?
