With a stomach full of microwave dinner and a few too many beers, it wasn't long before Jeff was snoring away in the recliner, while Ryan cautiously flipped the channel of the TV away from sports to some afternoon cartoons. After a few minutes of that though, Ryan found himself getting a little bored, and so he decided to snoop around his dad's house a bit, since he didn't get to come over here very often. As he wandered the house, he noticed that everything felt rather...new to him, it ways that were a bit unsettling. Each room was something that he remembered, but seeing it always felt like a dull little surprise somehow. Eventually, he made his way to the bedroom, and noticed something a bit out of place, among his dad's dirty work clothes. There, on the table, was a laptop, and connected to it a strange device that Ryan didn't recognize.
He went over to it and after shaking the mouse to wake it up, wondering it his dad had a video game system he wasn't telling him about, he saw that the program that was open looked rather boring--at least, until the little device shot out an odd light that swept Ryan up and down. The program changed, a window popping up that said, "New User Detected," and then, something that looked like a profile sheet from a video game popped up, which had Ryan's name at the top. Underneath, there was something odd that said, "Status: Non-Permanent - Product of Temporary Reality Shift" and then proceeded to list all kinds of things about his mind and body that Ryan saw were, well, mostly correct as he understood them. This had to be some kind of weird video game, he thought to himself, mad that his dad had tried to hide it from him. Why would his dumb, poor redneck dad have something this fancy, anyway?
He got up on the chair, and quickly discovered that all of the fields about him, his body, his mind, were editable. Curious about what might happen, he found the age box, where it said "8" and changed it to "21", and hit the submit button, which made a window pop up:
"Some required components of change have not been addressed, begin walkthrough tutorial to complete requested change?"
Ryan figured a walkthrough might be helpful, and clicked yes.
"Preferred rate of change?" it asked, with an option for instantaneous, and then a slider below that went from five minutes to twenty-four hours. Ryan clicked the instantaneous box--why would he want to wait for the game to change his character sheet? That didn't make any sense. He clicked continue, and a second window appeared:
"Submitted change modifies a major character feature. Adjust other character features to reasonable levels in line with submitted change? (Recommended: Yes)." Ryan wasn't sure what that meant, exactly, but the computer said to click yes, so he did, only for another window to appear. "Should all subjects be aware of changes made to subjects and reality?" There were two checkboxes, one for the subject (himself, Ryan guessed) and one for other subjects. He clicked his own box, but left the second one unchecked, and hit continue, hoping he'd be finished soon, but another window appeared.
"Submitted change modifies a major reality feature. Adjust other reality agents and features (both permanent and non-permanent) to reasonable standards in line with submitted change to reality? (Recommended: Yes)." Vaguely annoyed, Ryan clicked yes again, only to be overwhelmed by a massive sense of unease, like the world around him was tearing itself apart and putting itself back together faster than he could even begin to grapple with it. Reality eventually slowed, and stopped. Judging by the clock on the computer, no time had passed, but something had clearly happened. Ryan was looking down at himself, at his body, and gone was the slightly husky child he'd been, replaced by, well, that of an adult.
Ryan shot up from the chair in front of the computer and rushed into his father's dirty bathroom, clicked on the light, and looked at himself in the mirror. There, before his eyes, was a face both shocking and intimately familiar. His same shaggy brown hair, but now with a scruffy beard all over his chin. He was tall, a couple inches over six foot, with a modest paunch from some underage drinking, and a decent amount of muscle from his time playing football in high school. He could remember everything, from the last nine years of his life, or at least, the important bits. He knew he was an adult now, but he also knew, somehow, that a few moments before he'd been a kid--even if he couldn't quite remember what it was like, to be that kid, all those years ago now.
He left the bathroom and crept back to the living room, noticing that his father's house seemed to have aged a bit as well, looking worse for wear. There was his dad, still in the recliner asleep, but now, instead of being in his early twenties, he was over a decade older himself and nearly forty. The years hadn't been especially kind to his waistline or his hairline, but it was clearly him. It hadn't been a computer game at all--whatever program that was, whatever that device was, it had actually changed reality, and made him into an adult.
Ryan crept back to the bedroom. Judging from what he'd checked when he'd made that last change happen, his father wouldn't know anything was different, but he didn't want to wake him up either if he could help it. He saw that his own profile was still up, with all the updated changes now in place. Again, he noticed the bit at the top, under his name, where it said non-permanent. He didn't know what that meant, but he found a dropdown menu that promised a manual, clicked it, and shuddered as all the detailed instructions to work the chronivac were downloaded directly into his brain.
Non-permanent. Fuck, that...that meant he'd been literally created by the Chronivac after another modification to reality, one probably made by his dad. A change that...wasn't permanent. If the change reverted, that meant that Ryan would just cease to exist! He quickly opened up the recorded history of the chronivac's recent changes, and saw what his dad had done--the chameleon clothes, the changes to reality, the changes to his mental state. There were still a few hours left in his dad's mental recalibration to reality, but it was the changes to reality that concerned him. If his dad took off the ratty plaid shirt he always wore, then the chameleon clothes effects would disappear immediately.
Well, that was an easy fix at least. Ryan went into the advanced settings of the chronivac, and found the "set new default reality" setting. He calibrated it to the current reality, and hit execute. There was a warning that popped up, saying that all temporary changes would be made permanent...and Ryan hesitated. Just in case, he went in, and saved his dad's old life--his real life, he supposed--as a backup subject file, so he could at least pull it up if he needed it. He went back in, and ended the mental shift preemptively. He could always adjust his dad's mind again once the new default reality was setup, and Ryan was safe from being wiped off the face of the earth, but it wouldn't be nice to destroy his dad's old self just to save himself. He went back in, triggered set new default reality function, and felt an odd tremor through the surface of the desk. He went back into his profile, and sure enough, it now read that he was a permanent subject.
Good--now that matters of life and death were dealt with, he might as well have some fun with this thing, right?