No Girls Allowed! … or put another way: Only boys allowed! Before Scott stood the three other mystified, temporary residents of this peculiar and sensationalized house… three men… who were certainly too old to be called boys, at least in the most conventional “dictionary” sense of the word, which the show’s creators subscribed to as a matter of making a name for themselves. Their whole brand, the entire shtick of this insane game show, was their proprietary technology that they used to turn men back into boys… for entertainment… not for life-saving therapeutic interventions, but for an online audience’s meager likes and laughs.
“AND HERE WE GO!” Barrie shouted, signaling the beginning of what was sure to be a very long, exhausting, and unforgettable week.
Scott’s body stiffened, his muscles tensing as he braced himself for the incoming regression. Pushing past his anxiety, he scanned the room carefully but subtly, not wanting to draw attention to his covert purpose: to seek out and secure NGA’s technology for the United States government. All other objectives were secondary to ensuring the safe extraction of the tech. His many years in intelligence had honed his uncanny prowess for infiltration assignments, making him the ideal agent for this particularly high-stakes job. What was interesting about this operation was that the risks were entirely well-known and accounted for. Scott knew precisely what failure could look like for him. The whole online world knew about it. It was exactly what it would look like for all but the show’s one winner: a ticket home at whatever age they ended up as at the end of the week, with only a pat on the back and a few well wishes to enjoy their second childhood.
“Whoa, guys! I think I’m feeling it.” Jackson announced, his attention totally focused on the changes happening to his body and not to the unseen fountain of youth that had begotten them.
Ernesto had been inspecting his own body in much the same way but stopped when he observed the notable changes in the show’s first subject of the season. “Yeah, I suppose now the show really begins in earnest, and you’re the lucky one to get us started.” He huffed, in obvious distaste for the show’s choice of firsts.
In a way that he couldn’t accurately articulate, it had become clear to Scott that the athletic blond was now at least three years younger, hovering around 24 or 25 now. The TV’s age display confirmed as much.
Scott had already witnessed the phenomenon, like much of the rest of the world, during the airing of the previous pilot season of the show, and was more interested in the changes’ source, but his inconspicuous investigation of his surroundings would yield no truly useful information. He could hardly make out where in the living room the hidden cameras had been tucked away, let alone the producers’ prized possession. Scott knew he would have plenty of time later to do some reconnaissance; he may as well observe the miracle at work for now.
Being the youngest of the group, Jackson would have the quickest journey back to wherever it was the producers decided to take him. If the first season was anything to go on, the men would likely all be sent back to various ages in tweendom, leaving plenty of wiggle room for the audience to partake in the show’s interactive portion, where impromptu age changes, decided by popular vote, could be issued mandatorily or as optional challenges to win the favor of the folks back home. As Jackson reentered his early 20s, his face looked ever more like the dopey frat bro he surely was at that age. Scott was impressed, but not surprised, to see that Jackson’s muscularity hadn’t changed much in the last 8 or so years; the man clearly took a keen interest in maintaining his figure. The booming biceps, on full display thanks to the man’s tank top, would only begin their inevitable vanishing act as Jackson descended into teendom, reclaiming the remarkably smaller build of a high school junior.
“This is wild, you guys! It’s actually working, and it’s, like, so relaxing.” Reinforcing his assertion, Jackson appeared to be totally at peace, his eyes glazed over in an utterly content transfixion as the show took from him, potentially permanently, the muscles that he’d worked so hard for.
Scott shifted his attention to Kai, who appeared, like himself just moments earlier, more engaged in a task not related to the modern spectacle before them. His gaze, without too much of a discernible head turn, darted leisurely around the room, resting for a second or two on Jackson’s descent from adulthood, as if to feign a real interest, only to resume their wandering a second later. The two locked eyes in a fleeting instance, and Kai offered up a smile. He was as normal and congenial as his file made him out to be, but something still felt wrong about the man. Scott had developed a trustworthy intuition for things like this, and he was seldom mistaken in that regard. He noticed that, after their little exchange, Mr. Howard (his file indicated that he often went by the anglicized version of his legal surname, Haoa) and his curious gaze had calmed down, suspiciously focusing solely now on young Mr. Woods, as he passed the driving age in reverse. Scott tried not to dwell on the matter of Kai, wanting to avoid suspicion himself, so he turned back to Jackson.
The man, if he could even be called that anymore, looked to be just out of 7th grade, maybe about 14 years old. It was clear he’d just been hit by a train of hormones at this age, evidenced by the ample acne retaking its rightful place on his teenage face. His limbs had all thinned out, especially his legs that had once filled out his board shorts perfectly. The image of the buff California beach boy had been morphed into his natural middle school predecessor, but the changes weren’t over yet. One last round of sweeping modifications to Jackson’s teenage form would usher him back out of puberty: stripping away his peach fuzz, removing his armpit hair, one last substantial crunching of his stature to put him well below 5’, cleaning up his hormonal acne, and brushing up his facial features with the familiar softness of boyhood.
Jackson’s voice, rather comically, held onto its rather peculiar obtuseness, but in a pitch more suitable for a body his size. “That was awesome, dudes! You’re gonna love it!”
“THAT’S RIGHT BOYS, YOU’RE GONNA LOVE IT! 1 DOWN, AND 3 TO GO!” Barry chimed in.
“Sure seems like you enjoyed yourself there, buddy!” Scott and Jackson bumped fists of markedly different textures and sizes. “Whaddya think a 5th grader like you benches now, huh?” The two laughed, Scott noting Jackson’s current age on the massive TV. Eleven years old… consistent with the last season; Scott was hopeful they’d all end up around there as a start. He wouldn’t be of much use to the assignment in too young a state.
Jackson rowdily situated himself comfortably on one of the couches with a running dive that perfectly accentuated his newfound youthful boisterousness; though, Scott could just as easily envision the adult Jackson performing that same maneuver just a minute ago. In this stunt, the boy’s board shorts lost whatever tenuous purchase they had on his waist, nearly taking his boxers with them before the boy managed to save himself from being exposed quite so early in the show. As the boy, with his big, blue eyes, found a cozy spot on the sofa, the men found themselves preoccupied with one heavy, lingering question.
Kai murmured, not quite to himself, his curiosity reemerging. “I wonder who they’ll choose next.”
“Well, I’d have to guess they’re going in reverse age order based on the looks of it.” Ernesto offered. “That’s what they did last season, and it seems they’ve taken a liking to that formula.” Saying this, he noted something on the TV. “Kai, I guess that makes you—oh… yep.”
The 30-year-old’s keen, prying eyes had, just like Jackson’s before him, almost completely glazed over. For the first time since his arrival, Scott wasn’t getting an uneasy feeling from the leaner man. He also felt completely at ease giving the man a thorough once over, now that he was entranced by his transformation. Essentially to the letter, the man’s physical description mirrored his dossier’s: slender; 5’11; short, dark hair done up in a neat undercut; decently handsome but not rising past “above average”; even his clothes matched the description—almost too well—he sported a neatly pressed, white, floral-print, short-sleeve button-up tucked into a pair of gray, washed out chinos, an exact outfit they’d noted for him in the file. Scott watched on as the man’s height dwindled as he dropped into his teen years, when most of the changes really became apparent. Unlike, Jackson, despite the man looking to be quite relaxed in the eyes, his body looked to be ensnared by a gripping, nervous tension. His arms were folded in neatly, and both of his fists were clenched. For knowing full well what he would be going through, this Kai character seemed awfully on edge… Every layer that Scott could discern of the man piqued his professional interest more and more, but what could possibly be ruminating beneath the surface? Scott figured he best focus on keeping his own secrets for the time being, rather than uncovering others’.
“Fuck…” Scott could see the word uttered softly on Kai’s lips, aligning with what he noticed as the most drastic height loss thus far for the man. Kai had been quite smooth faced before the regression, so the only majorly pronounced differences were the softening and rounding of his features as he descended closer to boyhood. His sharp cheek bones lost their edge, and the previous harshness to his eyes took on a more unintrusive, inviting quality. Sitting at 12 now, according to the TV, Kai maintained his uncomfortably stiff stance, not even bothering to save his belted chinos from collapsing to the floor. Fortunately for the boy, the waistband of his boxer-briefs had clung on just long enough for him to snap back to alertness, catching them just in time and saving himself at least a semblance of modesty in front of the eager audience. Kai hastily sat down alone on the other sofa next to Jackson’s, not really giving much of a reaction to his regression for the audience to latch onto.
Scott approached the boy from behind the couch. “Hey, man, that looked kinda rough. You all good?”
As if flipping a switch, Kai’s apparent discomfort with the regression was immediately overtaken by that familiar, disconcerting aura. “Yeah, all good!” Despite wielding the voice of an obviously prepubescent boy, Kai still exuded that same sly confidence. “Thanks for checking, Scott.”
His name was right there on the screen: Scott Redfield… but it felt so deliberate, so intentionally familiar, the way Kai had just used it. It was a completely normal thing for him to do… but it was that precise, apparent normality of his demeanor that was what caught Scott’s attention, or at least the attention of some basal instinct of his, telling him that this guy was trouble. “Anytime...”