It is a nice sunny, cloudless and warm afternoon in the month of July, 12-year-old Arthur Collins is sitting in his room on his large bean-bag, reading one of his favorite comics, titled “The lost Temple of Anubis”, which is about an adventurer who’s on the hunt for the legendary Temple. Arthur enjoys these kinds of comics, movies and novels, the kid is fascinated from treasure hunting and adventure themed stuff, his dream job is to become an Archeologist, he knows that it’s not an easy job, but it is a well paid and, in his eyes, the most exciting job in the world.
Arthur has short blond hair, light blue eyes, a pale but healthy skin tone and an athletic body, due to his many sports activities, like soccer and parkour. The boy also loves doing pranks, especially on his little sister, he is also extremely curious and enjoys exploring and investigating abandoned places either by himself or with a couple of friends. Arthur smiles as he snuggles into his bean-bag, “this is the life,” he says, letting out a sigh, “I can relax without being disturbed since I’ve got the whole house to myself for three full days! Mum and dad are both on a “romantic weekend”, and my sis is staying at a friend’s house”.
Just then Arthur hears the sound of the front door bell chime, the 12-year-old raises an eyebrow, “who could that be,” he asks himself, Arthur puts his comic to the side and gets up, he then heads down stairs to open the front door.
When Arthur opens the door, he is greeted by a delivery man, “are you Arthur Collins,” the man asks in a somewhat frustrated way.
“Yeah,” the boy says.
“I have this letter for you,” the man says, then shoves a big brown and important looking envelope into the boy’s hands, after which he simply turns and heads back to his truck, leaving Arthur no chance to respond before zooming down the street.
“Geez, frustrated and aggressive much,” Arthur mumbles, the boy looks down at the envelope in his hand, “I am not awaiting anything, and this looks like some government envelope”. Arthur then shrugs, “well, it does have my name on it,” he says, “I wonder who could be writing me, I hope it’s not some BS letter from school”.
When Arthur returns to his room, he sits back down on his bean-bag and opens the envelope, pulling out a single sheet of paper, and starts reading:
“Dear Mr. Collins,
congratulations! You have been chosen as one of only four other lucky people to receive the prototype of our literally world- and lifechanging creation. We call it “The Chronivac”! This program, which you can download for free and install on any handheld device, phone or tablet, is able to not only change YOUR life, but that of every person, including animals and even objects!
We plan to release this program in a few months to the public, but we decided to choose four random people as testers, which means that, not only do you receive the full version of the program for free, but with your help we’ll be able to make the program even better by collecting all the data. Do not worry! While we are linked with what ever device you install the program on, we only receive the data from the program, your personal files, contacts, information we are unable to touch.
Furthermore, this program is only for adults, since it is able to do all sorts of things, we decided that it would be to risky to allow children and teenagers to access this program.
If you have any questions, or should some kind of error occur, please, don’t hesitate to call our customer service.
We wish you lots of fun with the program, please make sure that you read the manual and heed the warnings listed.
Sincerely,
Anna Jenkins
Secretary of MechTech Corp.”
Below the signature Arthur notices a QR-code, the boy raises an eyebrow, “looks like they got the wrong “Arthur Collins”,” he says to himself, the boy then grins, “he… not my problem! This does sound interesting, a program that supposedly is able to change someone’s life? Sounds like something right out of a science fiction movie”.
His curiosity awaken, Arthur takes out his phone and scans the code, his phone gives of a “ping” and vibrates as a loading bar appears, “downloading App”, it says. Once the percentage reaches 100%, a new message appears, “installing App”, finally Arthur’s phone gives off another “ping”, “download and installation completed”.
Arthur smiles, he then unlocks his phone and notices a new App has appeared: a large white “C” in front of a blue background. The 12-year-old doesn’t hesitate and taps the App, a window opens, showing a gray background, at the top he notices a few tabs: files, transformation options, transformation histories, manual, scan.
“Looks like some sort of editor program,” Arthur mutters to himself, “would make sense, since the letter said “world changing” and “lifechanging”. I better read the manual, I’m curious to want to know what this App supposedly is able to do and what kind of warnings it has to say”.
The more Arthur reads the manual, the wider his eyes become, when he read the whole manual the boy’s eyes are almost popping out of his sockets. Arthur is in utter disbelief, “no WAY that THAT is possible,” he says to himself, “but… IF it’s true, and this App is able to do all those things… I could have so much fun! Hehe… imagine the cool pranks I could pull with this! But to really know if this really works or if it’s nothing than BS, there is only one way to find out,” with that, the boy activates the scanner.
When Arthur opens his file, his eyes widen in shock, “unreal! This thing knows EVERYTHING about me,” he says, “even… stuff I’d rather never tell anyone. Well, here goes nothing, but what should I do? I don’t want to be stuck as an animal or object… hm… I could change myself into an Anthro. But… I’m kind of curious what it would feel like being a girl… I kind of always wondered what I’d look like if I were born a girl. Hm… maybe I should do something a little more subtle as a test, like changing my hair color? Man… so hard to decide!”