David Nicolaus Scott the Third was born June 9th, 1981 as a happy little accident to parents David Scott Jr. and Elizabeth Lupescu, out of wedlock. The next two decades were a mostly white and lower-middle class upbringing punctuated by poor parenting and surprisingly generous grandparents.
Grandpa was a big subscriber to the concept of meritocracy, and he was also the tinniest bit stingy. While his son would ask for financial assistance far too often, grandpa would only grant as such when it came to his grandchild. Still, Junior often asked for money and then didn't spend it on the boy but instead on drink and drugs.
At the age of seven, David approached his grandfather one summer asking for paper and pencils for school. David Senior told the young boy he couldn't do anymore to help than he already did, to which the young child asked at that point what he'd done. At that point, David Senior realized the true extent to his son's wasteful habits, having not been witness to the abuse or mistreatment at any family gatherings.
Young David expressed his desire to get famous and then move away from his parents and explained he needed an education to do that. Only through this dialog from a child did the grandfather see a determination and wit about the boy. David III didn't want to be around his own parents not because they were poor—they truly only were because they spent all their money on booze—but that they were bad people, at least in the eyes of a seven-year-old.
It was the remainder of that summer in which David worked on his grandparent's farm doing little tasks a boy his age could accomplish. He took up residence in the basement near to his grandmother's workout equipment and it became his official home away from home. His grandparents even started allowing him to invite friends over after a summer or two. And when he came to visit one summer in his early teenage years, he found the basement renovated with corner of it now having walls and insulation... a room officially considered a 'guest room', though they really only had one guest over for long periods of time and that was their grandson.
David didn't really care much to be a farmer, but he wasn't bad at it nor did he resent it. Years of showing he could take care of the few remaining animals on the farm eventually lead to his grandparents taking more time overseas for themselves, trusting their home to a responsible member of the family. Excluding the part where David couldn't find steady employment, he was doing well by them.
After high school, David had started college but not finished it... because his father had never detached his name from his personal account, Junior ended up withdrawing most of his money. As David Junior's told the story, it was actually his own money he'd set aside for David which he now believed the boy didn't appreciate. Therefore: kindness rescinded, and money removed.
Student loans mounted up, and David took jobs in technical support starting with a summer job at his college. The next summer he wired up a few webcams around the grandparent's farm to catch foxes and cyotes, and he put in their motion-activated lights along the front drive. Whatever small jobs he could do for his grandparents lead to him constantly saving money that ended up paying for rent in the non-summer nights.
David understood his grandfather wanted him to end up on his own two feet and not take any handouts, but David certainly wouldn't have made it this far without him. The house-sitting of the summer and doing tech jobs had gone on for two decades now and David was thusly middle-aged. Every time he had a chance at a job, something would happen. Once, he worked a tech job so well the company would've had to give him a raise by their own metrics, but the corporate execs saw that as a monetary loss so even with excellent reviews, they fired him.
He'd worked for Midsouth Bell, Gamestop, Blockbuster, Taco Bell, and plenty of other places, sometimes doing so alongside people who were literally less than half his age. It sucked in a 'First World poverty' kind of way, but this was the life he had. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't going anywhere. And at the age of forty, there were still basics to living that David couldn't manage without money.
Now, he had the Chronivac.
David Nicolaus Scott III stood in front of his grandfather's computer in his study, staring at the information on the screen in front of him. The Chronivac was plugged in via the oldest USB standard imaginable, and had popped to full screen like a game might, though he had shrunk it to windowed mode. On it, a text description of himself appeared... and he read over some of the panels that revealed information about himself even he didn't know.
He had to Google exactly what 'gender-fluid' was but reading the definition of it did seem to fit. Why it listed him as "83.3%" didn't click at first, until he realized that even though somedays he imagined himself with breasts or a vagina, he usually still thought of himself as having male pronouns.
No one entry was '100%' anything, which made sense... on such a big and grandular scale it would be kind of unlikely, he thought. Still, under the Advanced Tab, he was listed as '97.3% Furry', '79.1% Pansexual' and other details. Furry he got, but Pansexual he had to look up too. Basically, it meant he was attracted to people more based on their personality than their appearance. He had to think about it, but before that moment he'd have called himself bi (54.2%)... pansexuality did make more sense as he found certain people really hot regardless of what they looked like.
"This thing knows me better than I know myself," David considered aloud, leaning back on his grandfather's reddish-brown leather chair. It had little golden half-circles holding the leather to the dark wood frame. "And apparently I know there's a viewer if not a controller out there, so these awareness settings I probably shouldn't mess with any more," he added as he shook his mouse cursor over them, pointing them out to you the viewer.
Leaning forward in the chair, he put his left hand on the mouse and scrolled through the screen. His right elbow on the desk, he hand his right hand cupping his chin as he considered his options. There were so many things to try, but was trying them on himself first the best idea? No, probably not, he considered. Technically, I already did that and it backfired a little bit...
"Chester is a true transformaniac... I could call him over," David spoke as if offering a suggestion for the next passage to be created. Picking up his phone, he was reminded how little he liked that he couldn't have a small phone like his old iPhone 4S... these new ones were just too big.
He stared at the phone for a moment, then put it down. He expanded his selection and saw that the horses, cows, pigs, chickens and others were all valid targets... though some of them were far enough away they kept entering and leaving the Emitter's range. It made the list jump around, which David thought might cause mistakes if he wasn't careful. If he was in a hurry, he might could miss-click... but, for the moment, it was fine.
Rubbing his chin still, he changed the selection to objects and reduced the range to only a few feet. Everything in the room, including the computer itself, was listed in general details. The list, however, had expaned too much. It took him a minute of scrolling to realize all the nails in the floorboards and screws were populating the list... so he went to Filters and changed dropdown to 'bigger than' a typed in 'credit card' which shrunk the list substantially.
Glancing down at his phone again, he looked back up at the screen with a smile. Alright, David... are you crazy, or does this program work? he wondered. He searched for his iPhone 12 mini and clicked on it for details. Changing the height of the device to be closer to 4 inches sounded about right, and he did that. Then, with Advanced Mode on, he made sure that the device would not lose any functionality or data. He set the transformation to take one minute, then made a last minute change to increase the memory amount to ten terabytes before almost hitting 'Change'.
But he didn't, because he was still being cautious. Instead, he looked over at the Awareness Tab. The "unaware" option was on for everyone but himself. He blinked. "Wouldn't this mean that everyone with this same model phone and probably newer would't notice the difference?" Nodding, he went to even further logical conclusions. "It would advance technology... in size factor, memory density, and indeed social acceptance of smaller phones... probably? Yeah. So... no, just do this only on my phone," he said, making it so everyone would be aware of the changes.
Then, he clicked 'Change'.
At first, David watched it on his desk... the almost melting, somewhat fake-looking CGI effect of the phone shifting on the desk. Pixels scrunched up closer together, breaking the logic of most modern technology. Poking it with a finger as it shrunk, David wasn't sure what that would feel like. It wasn't cold or hot, it was just changing shape. He picked it up and held it and moved it around in his one hand as it altered size. The camera had shifted, as had all the buttons, but it looked largely the same... just smaller.
Using his right hand, he removed the Emitter from the computer and brought it close to his phone. Realizing in that moment the USB had shrunk seamlessly to USB-C, he plugged it into his improved device. The instance of the Chronivac program on the Win'98 machine blipped out of existence instantly and immediately appeared as an open, more mobile app on his phone.
"Well, shit," he smirked. "What do I change next?"