NOTE: This part and the next part have several scenes that are direct parodies of Video Girl Ai. (I'm not sure why I did that, since I only ever watched it two or three times.)
Rick had returned from the video store. He sat on his bed, and then pulled the video tapes that he had rented from a plastic bag.
He sighed. "Aw, man... These aren't the Three Stooges tapes that I rented. Mara must have given me the wrong bag."
He held up one video tape. "'Goddess Films: Sexy Dynamite! Part Two'? That sounds like some cheesy late-night cable-TV soft-porn flick— or some weird anime show. I'm not gonna watch that."
Then he held up the other tape. "Huh. The cover is fading. Oh well. Let's see what it is. Maybe it is a Three Stooges tape, after all."
He turned on his television and VCR, and started the tape. Then he turned away, to open up his take-out sandwich, allowing the tape to play through the FBI warnings that no one ever watches.
The movie began. But something was wrong with the tape. Static both filled the picture and obscured the sound.
Rick fidgeted with the tracking buttons on his remote control, and sighed again. "Must be an old tape. Well, I wasn't going to ask for a refund, or a free rental in exchange, but I can't let this go."
The picture cleared up enough to reveal the silhouette of a young woman's head and shoulders. And the sound cleared up enough to allow her voice to be heard.
"Hello. What's the matter? You don't seem so happy. Oh, I see... you lost your love. Hey, don't look so sad..."
Rick took a bite of his sandwich, and spoke to himself again, through a mouthful of food. "This is the worst Three Stooges episode I've ever seen."
The woman spoke again. "Am I not good enough to fill the role? But, I'll do my best to cheer you up... So, you really need me sincerely?"
Rick sighed yet again. "Man... this is really creepy..."
The woman also seemed to sigh. But then she spoke once more. "Fine! From now on I'll always be with you. I'll be with you!" And she seemed to reach forwards, through the screen.
Rick whistled. "Wow. I wish the picture was better. It looks like she's reaching forwards, through the screen..."
Despite himself, he leaned forwards, and brought his face close to the television. Soft warm hands slowly extended from the static-filled screen, and lovingly caressed his face.
Then, they suddenly grabbed his head, and pulled it forwards, whacking his forehead against the glass of the screen, making a dull pinging noise.
Rick fell back, flat on the floor, dropping his sandwich. "OW!"
"Aw, nuts," the woman said. "I was hoping that I could download myself out of here, through this virtual reality link."
Rick looked up at the screen again. It suddenly cleared up, and he gasped. "Mara? What's going on? Why are you—"
"There's no time to explain," the TV image of Mara said. "Let's just say I didn't read the fine print. But I'm in trouble, Rick. I'm so deep in hoopla that you're the only one that can save me, from a terrible fate worse than—"
"Can I finish my sandwich first?" Rick asked, as he stood up. "It's Italian beef and sausage. They're a lot better when they're still warm."
Mara scowled. "HELLO! Damsel in distress here! Remember the last time you tried to walk away from the girlfriend contract!"
Rick wrapped up his sandwich and put it in the mini-refrigerator. "Okay, okay. But where in the heck are you?"
Mara blinked. "How did you know I was in heck?"
Rick blinked. "Huh?"
Mara sighed. "Oh, never mind. Just look for the inconceivably beautiful blonde with face tattoos and fangs when you get here."
"But I can't go through the television," Rick said. "And I can't teleport through mirrors or CDs, you know—"
He looked down, in front of the television. He leaned over and picked something up. "Mara? Is this your bracelet?"
Mara grinned when she saw it. "Yeah! That's one of my goddess bracelets! It must've gone through, after all. You can use that to find me. I can download the coordinates into it from here."
Mara seemed to concentrate, and a small bolt of electricity flew from the television to the bracelet. Rick winced, and held the bracelet in his other hand, and shook his fingers. "Ouch! That stung! Hey, is this thing properly grounded?"
"Never mind," Mara said. "This link is about to fail. Just come and get me, quick. It's incredibly dull and boring here, even more so than it is there."
The picture and the sound began to fade to static again. "Mara? MARA!" Rick called out. "What am I supposed to do?"
Mara's voice came through, one last time. "Use the bracelet. And use your head."
The picture and the sound faded away completely. And then, the VCR spat out a plume of unwound video tape, and shut itself off.
Rick looked at the loose video tape with a worried expression. "I hope I won't have to buy a replacement for that tape...
"Now, let's see. 'Use the bracelet, and use your head.' Okay."
Rick stood in front of the television, held the bracelet in both hands, closed his eyes, and concentrated. Then he leaned forwards, throwing himself at the television.
He whacked his forehead against the glass of the screen, making a dull pinging noise.
He fell back, flat on the floor, dropping the bracelet. "OW!"
Rick sat back up, and picked up the bracelet. "Well, that didn't work... oh. Of course."
He put the bracelet on. "Don't use your head. Use your head. Well, let's try again."
He held his bracelet-ed hand up, to the television screen. He closed his eyes and concentrated again, and touched the screen.
As his hand went through the screen, and as Rick was pulled out of the mortal plane, his eyes widened, and he clenched his teeth. "OUCH! OUCH! OUCH! PINS AND NEEDLES! PINS AND NEEDLES! MAN, THIS STINGS! THE MIRROR WASN'T NEARLY THIS BAD!"
As the link to Rick's television failed, Mara sat back from a computer on the desk in front of her with a worried sigh.
It was the only movement she could make. She was bound to a rolling office chair with dozens of computer power cables, bundles of loose wires, and hundreds of meters of phone line. Only her head was visible above the tangled mess.
She heard an evil chuckle, and turned her head to see Phil, standing at the entrance to her cubicle. His spoon gleamed at his side, even in the insufficient light.
"And so it begins," he said, smirking in an annoying way.
"Aw, nuts," Mara said again. "You let me make that link, and that download, didn't you? You've set this whole thing up."
"Indeed," Phil said. "You've saved me the trouble of bringing your young man here."
Mara sighed. "Well, in that case, the least you could have done is to have left my hands free. You have no idea how hard it was to type all of that with my nose."
She squirmed in the rat's nest of wires. "And you didn't tie me up right, anyway. You've cut off the circulation in my arms."
Phil raised an eyebrow. "How would you know? Have you been tied up regularly?"
Mara blushed heavily, and stammered. "Yeah— well— never mind that! Just tell me how you've managed to tie down a first-class goddess! I ought to be able to—"
Phil held up her job application again. "Why, Mara. You signed your job application. And this document is—"
Mara groaned. "Oh, no. Here it comes—"
Phil completed his thought. "—legally binding."
Mara hung her head. "Well, I just asked for that one."
Phil continued. "Unfortunately, your girlfriend contract is legally binding, as well. Both your young man and I have a valid claim of ownership."
Mara groaned again, still hanging her head. "Aw, man... I might be a post-feminist goddess with low self-esteem, but I am a person. At least, Rick doesn't treat me like an object..."
"Ah, but he won't not do it for much longer," Phil gloated. "I've elected to resolve our conflict of interest with a test of his devotion. It was that, or throw this mess at the lawyers...
"If he passes the test, your employment contract with me will be voided, and you can return to your happy life with him—"
He was interrupted by a derisive snort from Mara.
"But," Phil continued, "if he fails the test, your Yggdrasil girlfriend contract will be voided, and you shall serve me. Forever.
"And I shall win. My domain is one of annoyance, and tedium, and incomprehensible boredom. The only way to overcome these terrible forces is to employ imagination, and silliness, and an incomprehensible sense of humor.
"Only one with a fantasy life rich and varied, to the point of social awkwardness, may have any hope of defeating me."
Mara let this sink in, and then she remembered her evening talk with Rick in the cafeteria. She remembered what he had said.
"Oh, you're goin' down, Spoon-Boy," said Mara, with a big silly grin on her face. "You're goin' down hard."
Rick fell, and screamed as he fell.
He continued to fall, and continued to scream.
He finally ran out of breath, and stopped screaming.
He pondered his current situation. It sure is a long ways down to wherever I'm going, he thought. It takes a long time to get there, even falling at terminal velocity.
There wasn't anything else to do, after Rick got his breath back, so he decided to scream some more.
Somewhere, in a place that wasn't a place, the pendulum of a huge clock stopped swinging.
Time had stopped for Rick. The visual metaphor had been shown.
Rick sat up. He opened his mouth to scream again, but then he realized that he must not be falling, since he had just sat up.
He looked around him, and saw a slightly out-of-focus replica of the college campus. It was eerily silent and still.
He spoke out loud to himself. "What's this? Where am I?"
"It's the world of your imagination. The one you, yourself, created. When you followed her into the video, your desires inspired it."
Rick looked around again, to see who had spoken. He found a man standing beside him. The man wore a short scarf and a light jacket over a sweater covered with question marks. He also wore a banded light straw hat, and he held an umbrella in one hand.
"Doctor Who?" Rick gasped. "Er, I mean, the Doctor? The Seventh Doctor?"
Then he sighed. "Is this an out-of-context fantasy sequence? I hate it when they ruin a story with—"
"The one you seek is near," the Doctor said. "Mara is near."
Rick gasped again. "How do you know that? I never told you—"
"That's she's a Yggdrasil goddess? Well, I am the Doctor!" The Doctor dope-slapped Rick with the shaft of his umbrella.
"Do you know where she is?" Rick asked, wincing and rubbing the back of his head.
"Of course." The Doctor smiled an enigmatic all-knowing Season-26 manipulative-Doctor smile. "You never asked."
Phil and Mara watched Rick on the monitor of the computer on the desk in Mara's cubicle.
"Interesting," Phil said. "A human has never entered the video world before. And you made it happen."
"So what do you intend to do?" Mara asked.
"Indeed," Phil said. "What do I intend to do?"
Mara sighed. "I just asked you that."
