Jeff pulled back up the screen where he'd seen the 87% bar which oddly showed that a transformation was already in progress. Odd, Jeff didn't recall initiating a transformation, but one look at the transformation "already in action" showed a log which detailed everything that the Chronivac had altered to "reset reality" around one central change that shook Jeff to the very core of his being--that Mike and Jeff had switched ages and roles--Mike had 12 days ago been the awkward young teen thirteen year old son, and Jeff had been the middle-aged forty-six year old father.
Jeff blinked several times to be sure of what he was reading. It stated that the transformation swap was nearly complete with Mike being forty-three currently and Jeff being sixteen. The transformation had been programed to occur slowly over the course of thirteen days, with roughly two and a half years being exchanged between Jeff and Mike each day.
Jeff read on, his mind still trying to wrap around the fact that he could have been a father in so short a time as twelve days ago, or further still that he was continuing to get younger now as he was sitting here. There was no way--he remembered being young and his dad teaching him how to play catch, except the man he first saw wasn't Mike... until he tried focusing on his face, and then his face changed to Mike's.
Jeff suddenly began to panic, if he was still transforming, still getting younger, it had to be obviously noted--even if it was moving at a slow rate. Immediately, Jeff launched from his computer and hurried over to the mirror, tripping along the way over his feet, causing him to fall face first into his carpet at the foot of the mirror. That's one thing that Jeff hated about being fifteen, his hands and his feet were all out of proportion to what he was used to, making him really clumsy. Dad said that he would "grow into them, given time, but--"
Wait a minute, fifteen? Wasn't he sixteen? No... his sixteenth birthday wasn't due for another month, or so. What was he doing over here by the mirror again?
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While Jeff struggled with the shifting nature of reality and puberty, Mike cracked open a beer and took a long draft of it as he settled on the lounge chair. Soon the transformation would be complete... though in a lot of ways it already was complete, and then Jeff would know what it would be like to have the shoe on the other foot, to be small and scrawny, and powerless. Meanwhile, Mike failed to notice a button pop on his shirt as his beer belly inflated a little more.