The Cable Guy
Chapter 2 — It’s Not Heaven...It’s Iowa
“A true freshman? You’re letting a true freshman into the dorm of the 4077? Have you lost all respect for what we stand for?” the senior frat boy said, outraged and waving his arms angrily.
“He brought something extra to the table,” the blond in sunglasses replied.
Both wore black and gold; on the frat boy, it looked imposing, while the blond made the bright yellow look elegant and suave. The frat boy leaned on the table in the center of the room and went on, “There’s nothing, and I mean nothing, big enough that a true freshman can bring in to gain entry to the most secret society in Iowa.”
“You’ll see. This can make Skull and Bones look like some cheap urban legend. Yeah, you heard me,” Teddy noticed.
“You better be right—” The ding of the elevator interrupted the frat boy in the middle of his threats, and he turned around to stare open-mouthed at the giant television that Thomas pushed out of the elevator on a hand truck. “Holy shit. He was right.”
“’Scuse me. This Fry Hall? Section 4077?” Thomas asked.
“Sure is. So nice to have you join us as a true freshman. My idea, of course. I’m Doug. Your TV will fit in here just fine. Don’t know where we’ll put you. The bathroom would be about right, but Herky may not want to share with a freshman,” the frat boy said with a laugh.
“Whatever, dude. I thought I was dealing with Teddy,” Thomas replied with a knowing smile.
“Oh, right, we told him to deal with you. Teddy, get your pretty blond ass over here. Be careful, kid. You know what they say about blond men.”
“Very funny,” Teddy grumbled. “There was a reason I was your orientation leader, kid. Welcome to the 4077. It isn’t heaven. It is Iowa.”
“Not bad. Less beer and more hotties than I thought. So I see you have room for the TV- am I gonna have to sleep with it?”
“Oh, don’t worry. We own the second floor. Actually, we own the building. Secret society, you know. We have a bit of money. You’ll be right by the stairs, though. Freshman, after all.”
Thomas whistled when Teddy unlocked the door to his room. “Wow! I think this has more space than my old bedroom. And is that a queen-size bed? I don’t know if I need that much room, and what’s with the pink?”
“If you’re here, you’re gonna need that much room or you’re doing it totally and completely wrong,” Doug said with a leer that made Thomas very uncomfortable. “First true freshman we’ve had in I don’t even know how long- you’re lucky we didn’t break out the paddles.”
“All freshmen get pink dorm rooms. It’s part of the school tradition. You had better be worth it- we spent four thousand on the furnishings.”
“And took all my stuff! The nerve of them!” a high-pitched female voice exclaimed from the hall, bringing with it a bubbly blonde with a nice set of curves.
“I guess you’d have to meet Britney anyway,” Teddy said with a sigh.
“Oh, go outside and evaporate, Vlad.” The blonde turned to Thomas and said, “My real name’s Cassandra D’Sallait. I’m the president, treasurer, secretary- oh, this is the 4077, who am I kidding? I’m the owner of the glee club!”
“Oh. Hi. So is that why he called you Britney? Or was it the hair? But, um. Hi. Thomas Farnsworth,” Thomas said nervously, trying not to stare at the way Cassandra’s breasts strained against her tight t-shirt, but doing that led him back to her manic and unsettling smile.
“Freshmen are so cute! Teddy, we need another one next year!” Cassandra squealed.
“There are rules about pets in the dorms,” Doug chipped in.
Thomas’s head swiveled back and forth in confusion. Cassandra giggled. “Yeah. Hair. Welcome to the 4077, freshman!” she said, waving backwards as she headed out the door.
“Don’t mind her. Ex factor,” Teddy explained, coloring slightly. “You’d better finish moving in- you’ll meet everyone else later, and you’ll be a bit busy after that.”
Thomas didn’t have much to unload, and once all of that was squared away, he spent some time relaxing in his dorm room, knowing that things would pick up the next day when classes began.
“Hey! Freshman! How does this thing work?” Doug bellowed.
“Somebody’s on athletic scholarship,” Thomas said to himself. Poking his head out the door, he shouted, “Hook it up to your cable box, plug it in, turn it on, and use the remote to choose your channel. We get ESPN, right?”
“Very funny, freshman. How does it work?” Doug yelled.
Thomas frowned in confusion. Cassandra came back through the common area and said, “Don’t tell me he’s such a freshman that he doesn’t even know what the 4077 is! Oh my God, Teddy, please can we have another one?”
“Cassie, you got enough pretty songbirds to keep any sane woman satisfied. So be sensible. Why would anyone reveal our secret? Who would, anyway? Vampire boy? Boob tube boy? You?” The deep bass belonged to a thickly built black man whose body screamed “football player”.
“In front of other freshmen? And parents? Of course not! I’m cute, not stupid!” Teddy said
“That’s debatable,” the dorky-looking girl with frizzy brown hair said with a roll of her eyes. The two girls behind her, who looked like something out of a B-movie in their witchy attire, nodded their approval with wicked smiles.
“So, genius, how does your machine work?” Doug asked impatiently.
Now Thomas understood what he had gotten himself into, and he got ready to run. “You set me up? You’re controllers? Shit, guys, it’s just a television!”
“Unless you’re a baseball player, no one, and I mean no fucking one, with the last name Farnsworth has just a television,” Doug snapped.
“And Doug over here’s banging Amy Bryant, so don’t be so sure he doesn’t own one,” Teddy added with a wink. “Maybe he’s a distant cousin.”
“Dating, yes. Banging? Highly doubt it,” one of the witches said with a cackle.
“Easy! It’s only the first day, and I am not living with you guys if you’re all going to fight!” Cassandra said with a singing howl that knocked Thomas back and scrambled his brain for a moment.
“Well, of course you’re going to scare the poor boy back to California if you behave like the animals in the movies,” a voice from the back said. Everyone fell silent and looked at the imposing middle-aged man who had spoken. “Thomas Farnsworth, I presume. You don’t look much like your father, but you appear to invent like him. Oh, yes, I knew your father- we were classmates, and both members of this, the Spiral Eye club, an Iowa tradition for over seventy-five years. I am the group’s faculty advisor, Professor Ivan Douglas of the chemistry department. The 4077 nickname is this generation’s way of tying back to the school’s roots, a nod to our esteemed mascot. I find this generation’s false name a bit better than Field of Screams.”
“Wait. So you have your own group of controllers?” Thomas asked. “I’m going to wake up at the airport, aren’t I? This can’t be real.”
“Far more real than anything you’ve seen,” Professor Douglas assured him. “It’s a matter of campus safety. Most controllers don’t find Iowa the most interesting of destinations, but those that do come here by choice or by force. This way, you can be productive instead of predatory and leave her upstanding citizens, or something resembling them.” The last was said with a nod towards Doug. “So how does your version of the Farnsworth device work? Simple subliminals, or something more advanced?”
“Frequency generator. But the television won’t produce them without the card. Safety and anti-theft precaution,” Thomas admitted.
“Fancy shit,” Doug said with a whistle. “But can I hook my DVD player to it?”
“The TV? Sure. Call it a gift to the house. It’s just a TV without the card to complete the master connection. The card? That’s mine, so no, not unless someone asks nicely and without using control. It stays with me. Besides, there’s one other little thing about that card. It’s most attuned to the way my brain works, and it picks up just enough of those frequencies to make the unit portable enough to lure someone back here to watch on the big screen.”
“Someone’s territorial,” Doug grumbled. “How did you guess I was a subliminalist? But thanks for letting me use the big screen. All right, the rest of you louses introduce yourselves, I’ll set up the TV.”
“Antoine,” the black man said. “Look at me, now look at your adviser, now look at me...” He stopped and started laughing as Thomas’s head swiveled back and forth. “Cassandra suggests every so often that I try out for one of the choral groups, but it’s one thing to have a compelling voice and another to have a singing voice.”
“We’ve already been introduced,” Cassandra said with a giggle. “I was totally serious when I said I owned the glee club! You can guess what I can do, then!”
“Brenda. I make things sparkle,” the nerdy-looking girl said with a smile. “What happens after that all depends.
“Daria. I’m a witch,” the taller of the witchy girls said.
“Don’t put yourself down,” Thomas said in a friendly tone.
The girl next to her cackled again. “No, really. We’re from Salem. Yes, that Salem.”
“So watch out, or Harriet will hex you in your sleep,” Daria said, pointing at her sister.
“Teddy Andersson, two esses, and two pretty blue eyes for fine asses,” Teddy said with a leer at Cassandra.
“Now that you’ve been introduced to our little collection of misfits, here are the ground rules. Catch and release only- no harems for you, young man. No duplicating- there are more than enough attractive students here of both sexes and all preferences to go around. You can go anywhere and do anything, but the final act needs to be photographed and put on the wall in the basement. All of us are responsible for finding anyone using serious control and bringing them here,” Professor Douglas explained.
“We have to know just how long you can go, after all,” Cassandra said with a giggle.
“Sounds fair. But I’m here to learn, not just catch girls.”
“One look at some of the tube tops and short shorts in class will fix that,” Antoine said with a laugh.
“Hello! Women here!” Brenda protested.
“Yes, and that stops him from being right how?” Harriet asked.
Everyone rolled their eyes, and Daria grumbled, “Third sister’s always the strange one.”
The group headed downstairs to show off their wall of conquests. Tens, if not hundreds, of pictures lined the wall next to the Iowa Hawkeye logo. When Thomas looked closer, he saw that the eye of the logo was a spiral. That brought him closer to the pictures, allowing him to see the range of explicitness and nudity showcased for both men and women. “Man, you guys keep busy. The blank part’s mine, I take it?”
“Yeah, and we need to get rid of that ugly yellow, so you better stock up on condoms, freshman. Of course, that big screen does me a lot of good if you pussy out on us,” Doug said, pointing at his part of the wall, which was by far the most extensive.
“Boys will be boys,” Brenda muttered, rolling her eyes and indicating her section of the wall, which began and ended with the football team’s skill players- and one cheerleader. Thomas raised an eyebrow, and Brenda blushed. “Harriet dared me, all right?”
“I, uh... okay. You guys aren’t going to do that to me, are you?” Thomas asked with a nervous chuckle.
“Who, us?” the group chorused with angelic looks that made Thomas run to his room with their laughter ringing behind him.