Realizing that asking anyone else would be unethical, James knew he had to be the first test subject.
It terrified him. He absolutely trusted in the integrity of his work, but the near-limitless potential available at his fingertips sent an existential shudder down James' spine. And while not its intended function, there was a workaround to allow for the Chamber to operate without a second person standing outside offering confirmation. All he had to do was input the correct sequence to unlock the hidden feature. And having done that with a series of taps on the touchscreen, that left figuring out what to do with himself. James imagined it’d be easier if he had a genie, then at least he’d be limited to three wishes.
So, to make things more manageable, James began to logically break down what he hoped to accomplish. First off, he wanted to test as wide a variety of features at once as was possible to see The Chamber’s limits first hand. If it had any. Both personal modification and the reality altering effects. Next, he had to set up for new test subjects. Not like he could kidnap someone and stuff them in The Chamber, and limiting himself to his friends wouldn’t exactly work either. A steady stream of new and returning subjects were needed.
He racked his brain, coming up with a number of ideas, but one especially appealed to him: A Luxury Spa Resort.
It’d be a massive departure for himself. The staff he would’ve needed to hire to run things and construction, and the massive chain of events that spawned from that. Also allowed him to experiment with reality perception, tuning it back and forth, with some of the physical and mental changes easily explainable as a natural result of the visit. And while the test subjects stayed at the resort, James could monitor them for any side-effects that may crop up.
So, with things decided, he started to chain the flurry of inputs needed to change both himself and reality. He hadn’t exactly wasted his time studying, but pushing on forty-five James had missed out on a fair deal. You couldn’t do everything in one lifetime anyway, but the chance to try out things his younger self may not have done felt intriguing enough to explore so slashed his age in half to twenty-two. Another large change was altering his sex, turning himself from a man to fully functional hermaphrodite was just outside the realm of human possibility. A perfect opportunity, in other words, to see if it had any wider implications for the world.
James freely admitted to himself that vanity had crept into then sculpting his body. Turning it from a fairly average twenty-something to a blonde and tanned toned beauty only a year long stay at, as it happens, a spa resort while pampered by professional and expert beauticians, masseuses, health and fitness coaches, nutritionists, tattoo and piercing artists, and a few visits to a plastic surgeon could achieve. With an even longer list of modifications under the hood to make things stick. James intended to be the face of his company. Cheating a little, a lot, around the edges was only natural. He did this to have fun too, after all. He’d leave the world conquering to other Mad Scientists!
Next came the reality altering changes.
James decided to emerge a month or so prior to opening in this altered timeline his memories would produce. Letting him conduct the final interviews, and introduce the hybrid test subjects/lab assistants/staff to The Chambers. Multiple Chambers. From there, James worked backwards and changed elements of his memories to fit with a woman opening a spa resort. Investing smartly in fashion, makeup, modeling, and even a porn company, to build up a vast fortune to independently fund his luxury resort project. This coming on the heels of educating himself as a beautician, and studying for a minor in business in college. Trying to make his own DIY line of makeup, soaps, and perfumes in High School with a stint as a model, streamer, and social media influencer. At an even earlier age, an eager James had played around his mother’s makeup box after finding it for the first time to spark his interest.
Like with his body, there were too many changes to list. But he also left spots in his memories to see how this new reality would paint in the missing pieces of his new life. Lastly, as he imputed his new name, Jacquelyn, spinning it from his nickname ‘Jack,’ which he supposed would now be ‘Jackie’ or possibly ‘Lyn,’ James felt his arms groan and fall slack at his side. Checking the time, he found that he had been here for almost half a day. And his throat was absolutely parched.
He could really go for a drink. It’d take all of five minutes before he was back here.