It was a cool spring afternoon, the sun slowly melting the snow from the winter, and birds beginning to chirp and fly about. For Jake, the most exciting thing about the spring was finally getting a break from school. He was in his final year of high school, and needed this spring break to relax more than anything else right now. To help him in his cause, he called his friend Nathan to stay the night with him, play some games, and have fun. That plan was nearly perfect until he got a strange package early in the morning. It was in a sleek, black painted cardboard box, with a glossy green "4.0" on the top of the box. He decided to wait until Nathan was here to open it.
After some idle scrolling on his phone, Jake heard a knock on the door. He jumped up, ran over, and let his friend in.
"Hey! Right on time! Let me grab your stuff..." Jake said to Nathan, taking his bag inside to let him take off his boots and jacket.
"Yeah, the roads weren't too bad..." Nathan replied as he shook the slush off his boots.
The two boys walked downstairs to the basement, as of course, that's where Jake's video game consoles were.
"Actually, I have something to show you." Jake said as they made it to the basement.
"Oh? A new game?" Nathan said with curiosity.
"Not quite... At least, I don't think so..." Jake said, puzzled.
Jake grabbed the black box which was resting on the table, placing it front of them.
"Here it is. I got it in the mail this morning... But I didn't order anything, and I don't recognize this package at all." Jake flipped the box around, inspecting every side. The box was unmarked except for the tab to open it.
"Come on dude, lets see what it is!" Nathan said excitedly, intrigued by the strange package.
Jake jumped up and got a boxcutter from a nearby drawer and then came back. He drew the blade, and swiped it along the edge with that tab and tape over it. He set the knife down and lifted up the top of the box, revealing the contents. Inside was a CD-ROM and a small device that ended in a USB. Both had a mid-2000s 'gamer' aesthetic, black with shiny green highlights.
"It's a disk...?" Nathan seemed a little disappointed.
"Still no instructions or anything either." Jake said, puzzled. "Hold on, let me get my laptop." He yelled, already up the stairs and out of the room.
Jake came back downstairs, clutching his laptop in one hand. He inserted the disk into the computer while Nathan looked at the small USB device. The disk spun up, and a prompt popped up on screen.
"WELCOME TO CHRONIVAC 4.0. Please connect emitter device to begin installation."
"Emitter device? I think that's what I have here." Nathan looked down and plugged the small device into Jake's laptop, flipping the USB around three times before it worked. The emitter's front faced towards the two boys, now glowing with a small green LED.
"INSTALLATION IN PROGRESS." The prompt now read.
"Huh, I wonder why it needs that thing anyways... this software seems real dated too." Jake poked around his computer as the installation progressed. After two minutes, the installation finished, throwing the window to the front. The UI was just as dated as the CD looked, clunky and trying much too hard to be sleek.
"SCANNING, PLEASE STAND STILL." It said under a rotating green sphere.
Before the boys had any time to react to what was happening, the program outputted its scanning data.
"2 ENTITIES DETECTED, DISPLAYING BASIC INFO":
ENTITY 0:
Name: Jake
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Race: Caucasian
Age: 18
Height: 1.77 m
Weight: 55 kg
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Colour: Brown
See more info -->
ENTITY 1:
Name: Nathan
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Race: African-American
Age: 18
Height: 1.80 m
Weight 62 kg
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Brown
See more info -->
The two boys stared in awe. This program just somehow scanned them and reported detailed information in the blink of an eye. A small tooltip popped up to the side of the information.
"Welcome to Chronivac v4.0! To use program, please select a valid entity, and then change fields in order to transform. Once finished, click save to start the 1 hour timer." Read the tooltip.
"W-wha? H-how did it get all this information? Transform?" Jake stammered, in disbelief.
"Hold on, let me check something..." Nathan, being the more composed of the two, slid the laptop over to himself. He clicked on the tooltip to advance it.
"This program can use either textboxes or sliders. Sliders are only accessible from the 'More Info' menu. To begin, change a field and click 'save'." The tooltip now read. Nathan curiously clicked in on the info data under Jake's name, revealing that they were editable textboxes.
"Alright, this program is crazy, or I'm crazy, or you're pranking me." Nathan said to Jake in disbelief.
"Huh? Honest, I'm not pranking, what does this thing do?" Jake was equally as confused.
"It says you can edit these text fields... And it 'transforms' you?"
"That sounds more like magic than anything else..." Jake whispered, heart beating strangely fast.
"How about this, try a small thing on me to see if it functions. Don't do anything weird... If it works, we can take turns with it." Nathan said, passing Jake the laptop.
"O-okay." Jake was a bit of a prankster, and upon seeing the various options, his mind overflowed with possibilities, ignoring Nathan's plea to keep it simple. He clicked on Nathan's profile and then...