"D-Dad? Where's Jenny?" Jeff looked around frantically trying desperately to come up with an explanation that didn't include her dying or dematerializing.
"Who?" Matt asked grabbing an increasingly disturbed and agitated Jeff by the arm.
"She was here just a minute ago, you saw her, she was right here." Jeff said barely holding back from full on panic.
"Who are you talking about? No one else is here." Matt said beginning to become concerned.
"My Girlfriend, she needs me!" Jeff said dejectedly accepting Jenny wasn't hiding behind his bed or in the bathroom.
Matt chuckled, "Aww, yes she does need you, and she's right here sweetie."
Jeff looked up excitedly to be met will a mouth to mouth kiss from his dad. Jeff was statuesque as he could recognize Jenny's passion but could also smell dad's coffee. Simultaneously hopeful and sickened Jeff stood there frozen.
"Left you speechless, love it Babe." Matt cooed before walking out, "Dinner should be ready soon."
Jeff scrambled to the computer and looked for Jenny's profile for a hint of where she went but even her profile was gone. Then he examined his dads profile noting the obvious changes to hair color, eye color, and being in his mid thirties instead of early 50's, oh yeah, and the open incestuous relationship with his son!
It was at that point Jeff realized he needed help, thankfully the help menu had an emergency assistance number which he dialed immediately.
"If you can speak please state your name, otherwise please press any key to indicate that you are seeking assistance with a Chronivac device." an automated voice said.
"Jeff Moore" Jeff said anxiously.
He was immediately routed to a person, "Hello Jeff, you have reached the emergency assistance hotline, is anyone in immediate danger of dying?"
"Um.. No? But my girlfriend is missing and my dad thinks we are dating." Jeff said starting to feel better since someone is here to help him.
"Okay." the voice said, "Usually emergency implies impending death or torture situations, but since someone is missing this call can continue. I am connecting to the nearest Chronivac device from your current location. This should only take a moment."
"Oh." Jeff said taken aback. "I'm sorry, I was panicking here and felt that a teen disappearing would be considered sort of an emergency."
The help desk person sighed heavily, "Like I said Mr. Moore, I AM looking into your concern. Just keep in mind that USUALLY this number is reserved for actively saving someone about to die or stopping torture scenarios. AH, I'm connected. Let me see..." There was a brief pause.
"Okay Mr. Moore. You selected the Relationship Convergence package. It merges two people and the relationships they have with you, into a single person. You opted to keep Matthew Moore's body and life in tact, and append Jennifer Miller's relationship statuses. Ummm, reality change is active, Awareness for user is on, subjects awareness is off... Uhh, okay, so there you have it, Jennifer isn't missing, she is part of Matthew. If you have further questions at this time I will have to connect you with..."
"I DIDN'T set that up! How do I undo this, I was just trying to change Jenny's hair color!" Jeff said in horror.
The agent was perturbed but seemed eager to prove Jeff wrong. "I do see the request right here in your history... and it shows you accepted the acknowledgement which states that it would be an irreversible change due to merging the physical form out of existence. I mean, we could probably restore Matthew to a significant extent but Jennifer has no body and her personality and preferences have been reduced to a smattering of impulses and ideas that Matthew feels... You should have read the warnings more carefully, Sir."
"No, no, no, no, no! I ONLY requested one change, and that was for hair color, not for erasing anyone..." Jeff said appalled.
"Mmhmm." The agent said disbelievingly. "I'm checking the logs but you should be aware that memory modification is possible and you or someone else could have set a transaction like this up..."
"But..." Jeff stammered. "I... we... I didn't... there wasn't time!"
"Oh!" The agent remarked in surprise. "I agree, something looks off. The request for the Relationship Convergence, acceptance of its acknowledgement, and request for hair color modification all were made within 8 milliseconds which isn't possible as separate requests, as the log indicates they were. So that does explain why the hair color change failed and why the restore process returned Matt's hair color to Blonde."
"He started as brown." Jeff said flatly, wanting to make the agent know the logs aren't explaining everything... "But that doesn't explain where the Converting request came from, it had to be a software error from your machine! I need you to fix it and get my girlfriend and dad back!" Jeff said angrily.
The agent fell silent presumably reviewing more logs. "An unauthorized request being processed is taken seriously by Transdem and we appreciate you bringing this matter to our attention. I, as your help desk operative, will walk you through our process as we work to rectify this issue. First I will take a snapshot of the state of your device as well as a collection of the log files. I will submit that with an error report to our development team describing the issue and desired outcome." The agent went silent and clicking noises in the background could be heard. It was obvious they were reading a scripted message. The emitter lit up and the monitor flickered.
"Now I will perform a complete reset of the firmware and software for your device." The emitter went dead and the monitor went black.
"While this is happening I would like to explain..." the agent paused trying to find the next appropriate script. Jeff listened agitated. "... although your desired outcome of... restoring a person who has been erased from existence... cannot be immediately accomplished, we can help you immediately in a number of ways..."
"If any of these options appeal to you, please interrupt me. We can make you unaware that anything has changed. We can remove the unwanted feelings of... affection from... Matt. We can make you more compatible to reciprocate the feelings of affection. Or we could swap the gender of Matthew or yourself. Do you feel that any of those options would make the situation any better for the time being?"
"No!" Jeff nearly yelled.
"Jeff Honey, Dinner is ready." Dad called
The line clicked and a robotic voice came on. "I'm sorry none of our solutions appealed to you. Your preferred outcome has been noted and should that outcome become available, your Chronivac device will notify you. If you find an option that you feel would make your situation better while waiting for a full resolution, feel free to continue using our product as the restoration of your device has completed successfully. Should you need help, our non emergency helpline is available to you free of charge, for the next three days. At this time, if you don't have any more questions, please disconnect the call, otherwise your call will be automatically routed to the next available non emergency help desk operative." Jeff pulled the phone away from his ear, his mouth agape. The emitter and monitor flashed back to life, the program was loading as if for the first time. "That mother f..."
"Jeff did you hear me?" Dad called again.
Jeff hung up as he replied, "Yeah! On my way."