Jeff ran back to his computer... panic was pulsating through him and he couldn't make a cohesive thought as he stared at the screen and the words blurred together, he was feeling more overwhelmed by the second. 'Jeff! OW! Stop that!'
'What?' Jeff asked, pulled out of his panic by the sheer surprise of his dad expressing pain.
'It's like you were slamming me with waves repeatedly and I was being thrown against rocks.' came dad's haggard sounding reply. Seconds passed. 'Jeff? Why is it getting cold? How is it getting...'
Jeff realized that his mind was the environment his dad was currently existing in, and stable would not be a good descriptor of a teenagers emotional state. A tear escaped his eye, thoughts like 'I've replaced my dad's personality with a robot.', 'I'm going to murder him while he's trapped inside my head.' among countless others, all blasting him from different perspectives. Unlike the tumultuous heaving of hope and despair he felt seconds ago, realizing he has no idea what to do and is doomed to commit patricide depleted his hope and left his emotional state a constant inhospitable blizzard of inescapable depression.
'...eff? Jeff? Jeff, can you hear me? JEFF!? C'mon Jeff we're gunna get through this if you stick with me.'
His dad's voice actually sounded far away as if his consciousness had been physically moved away from his dad when his focus was sucked away. Jeff had spent the last 5 minutes unable to escape the nightmare scenarios his brain was cooking up and shoving into the center of his attention. Things like his mom's inevitable divorce from the robot father, his real dad slowly going insane stuck inside his head forever, or dying from his emotional overload, him having to live with his dad's murdered personality in his head or slowly not being able to live with himself after his father... 'Dad?'
'Oh, thank god! I thought I lost you there buddy! Hey, I know this is scary, I'm scared too, but if we work together we can get through this.'
Jeff never knew his dad to be this... encouraging, but maybe it was because he didn't have a body of his own to control... 'Dad! I ruined everything, I've doomed our family, and you're going to DIE! ...' Jeff unleashed all his fears consciousness to consciousness communicating and passing along complete ideas as quickly as he could formulate them. It was as easy as wanting his dad to have the thought and it was suddenly his dad's to examine and know as if his dad had thought it himself. This was infinitely faster and clearer than communicating via mental speech.
Equally fast, his dad's personality was able to take all of that and respond instantly, 'Oh buddy, you don't know any of that will be true. We have a ton of options we haven't even begun to explore, and its silly to admit defeat before even trying, right? Let's look at the simplest solution and work our way up from there, you said this was a computer program right? Maybe there's an undo button?'
Jeff wiped the tears that had formed from his eyes and sniffed heavily, moving his mouse, the screen popped out of energy saver mode and the Chronivac program was waiting for him. instead of his profile, which he had been in, he was now on the main screen presumably due to inactivity. Icons of his parents and himself representing links to the profiles appeared, he was about to click on his own but noticed a red triangle with a white exclamation point sitting on his dad's icon in the lower right corner.
He opened up his dad's profile, and an alert came up. "Error 08x50736-2 detected, please authorize correction immediately!" There was a hyperlink to details which Jeff clicked desperate to know what happened. Up came a website with a description of the error.
"This machine is in beta mode and security protocols only allow the intended subject to be intentionally modified. Certain functions rely on data from non subjects and the act of acquiring that data can impact them. When post scan changes are detected in non-subjects, normal procedure is to restore them automatically but current security settings are preventing this. User authorization is required."
Jeff closed the page, went back to the popup, checked the box that said "Always apply my choice" and selected "Fix now!" A bar immediately whizzed across the screen, and Jeff, equally fast, whizzed down the stairs to his dad's office, "Dad? Dad? Where are you?"
"Whoa Jeff! Where's the fire?" Mike asked.
"Dad, is it really you? Are you back?" Jeff asked laser focused, watching every movement he made, gauging it's fluidity.
Mike chuckled, "Back? Jeff, I didn't go any..." he noticed Jeff's face contorted in emotion, "OH! Hey! Jeff,..." Mike stood up from his chair in alarm, Jeff ran to his arms burying his face in his dad's shoulder and apologizing. "... what's the matter? What's all this about?"
Jeff pulled away deeply confused, "You don't remember? But you were..." he stalled unsure what to say or how to say it.
Mike was now beyond confused and unsure if he should be alarmed, protective, or anything else, "I was what, Jeff? You came down ten minutes ago and now you're acting like... I don't even know what... like I disappeared or almost died or something."
Jeff's eyes went wide, "You're okay, obviously... and I'm okay, so we're okay... Obviously." Jeff backed toward the door.
"Jeff." Mike called, but it came out like "JEEeeeefff" a little irritated, worried, and confused.
"See you at dinner dad!" Jeff called retreating to his room before Mike could say anything else.
Jeff looked back at the profile of his father sitting on the screen before closing it. He leaned back in his computer chair letting out a sigh of relief. "It was some weird form of brain damage," Jeff almost chuckled moving to his bed, "The computer scanned him, damaged his brain while it copied his personality, and couldn't fix him." He laid back on his bed relaxing after quite the emotional rollercoaster, "Everything's back to normal."
'I'm just a figment of my son's imagination...' came Mike's disillusioned voice from within Jeff's head.
'Oh, Right... I never meant for my father to be my extra support mentor... the machine must have looked to my real dad for those skills or how to talk to me? Then it must have accidentally made you sound like him and ultimately think you are him. I suppose I should probably try again and pick someone closer to my age? I mean, when I get older and I'm ready to have sex, it will be really awkward with someone who identifies as my dad watching from inside my head, right?'
Not being the real dad stung, 'I... I guess so. But...' but he didn't want to die! or un-exist... Whatever this would do to him. He didn't care if he was a tailor made personality made to think he was this kid's father, he does love him and want to guide, counsel, and lead Jeff to become a great man! '... You're not ready to have sex tonight are you?'
'Uh, no?' Jeff gave an embarrassed chuckle.
'So we can try this out until you ARE ready, right? I mean, I'm tailor made to fill the role you wanted me to fill, right? So I'm actually probably a bit different from him but don't realize it yet because I have some of his memories.'
Jeff contemplated this, 'I, uh, guess so?'