Cody snuck into Jeff and Richie's shared bedroom searching for what could have done this to his friend. The raygun like device at his friends computer desk stood out like a sore thumb in the cramped space. His friend's personal items were mostly limited to clothes, video games, and a few DVDs.
After seeing the device and the program on the computer left open it really wasn't hard to piece together that Richie had turned Jeff's attempt to be a cowboy into being a cow-boy. It reeks of the lame pedantic literalism he likes to pull to fuck with his brother, usually calling out his use of the word 'literally' to sound smart and get attention. Cody saw the duration remained of 4 hours 27 minutes. At least it wasn't permanent.
Cody's shock was suppressed as he had to focus on trying to fix things without causing a brawl and getting Richie murdered. Jeff's awareness that anything was out of place was off, makes sense, but the world awareness feature was left on which is why Cody knew something was up... But that means that over the next couple hours Jeff and Richie's parents would arrive to find their eldest transformed into a monster and their youngest... ugh... it would be a mess. Richie makes messes and frankly Cody was sick of it. Cruel and mean spirited was played off as fun and funny, but it wasn't. Jeff gets grounded, their plans get ruined all because Richie felt like being a prick, and they had to deal with it... and in this case, Jeff would lose access to the Chronivac as his parents find it trying to figure out what was happening.
Cody knew he wanted to block Richie's access to Jeff and his stuff first, that will stop his interference going forward. Until Richie is 20 or older, unless explicitly mentioned or within sight or earshot, Richie forgets Jeff exists. This should stop Richie from planning on being an asshole. Jeff won't get birthday or x-mas gifts from Richie but he also won't pick on Jeff out of the blue going out of his way to cause havoc in Jeff's life.
Cody also set it so that Richie will instinctively not use Jeff's things without permission, Computer, bed, toys, money lying out... he will have an uneasy feeling of doing something fundamentally wrong and knowing its not his to touch, strong enough to keep him from doing it, if he messes with Jeff's stuff anyway he will be assaulted with panic attack levels of anxiety playing out worst case scenarios until he returns the item to its place and stops touching it... Horrible realities of becoming an armless abomination existing in torture if he tries to use the Chronivac, being convicted of being a drug dealer if he touches Jeff's money, getting disowned and put up for adoption as all his failures come to light and other horrible things tied to his fears and insecurities. Richie will have a second or two before he is reduced to a terrified whimpering ball in the corner but it will pass as soon as he stops messing with stuff that isn't his.
Cody applied his current settings ensuring that even if he was interrupted, He and Jeff could get Jeff fixed with minimal interference from Richie. "Now to fix things" Cody muttered. Richie being aware and a package being active put Cody in a bind... User and world awareness was on, subject awareness was off... Swapping user and subject would make Jeff flip out, flipping world awareness would make him forget, and just changing user awareness might alert Richie that things were normal when he wanted his brother to be a freak...
Turn about is fair play right? Cody realized to stop the brothers from fighting he would have to do something to Richie to put him at a clear disadvantage as Jeff realized what had happened. Cody fought with the user interface slowly coming to understand the active transformation was a container that defined implementation speed, duration, and awareness settings for everything in it. It held packages which were applied to profiles. So after piecing this together all he had to do was change the current awareness settings so nobody would be aware, and then, under the "Custom package: Cow-boy", he could just swap Richie's profile with Jeff's. That sort of fixed things.
Rather than stopping there he set up a new transformation for the same duration adding the standard Cowboy package Jeff originally was looking at. The details of the transformation changed to include mannerisms, habits, speech patterns, skills, preferences, interests, knowledge, appearance, and so on. On a whim he added himself to the change, thinking this was what Jeff wanted to play with when he was invited over in the first place.
A message came up that the ongoing package has changed and recalibration was needed for the original package. Cody set both packages to implement over 10 minutes, which should give Jeff time to stay calm. Things looked like this:
"Custom package: Cow-boy" (Click here for package settings)
Duration: 4 Hours 10 Minutes (Originally 5 Hours)
Changes fully applied after: 10 Minutes
Awareness:
User: Yes (Cody) (Formerly Richie)
World: No (Formerly Yes)
Alter Reality: Yes
Subject: No
Apply to:
Richie
Remove from Package:
Jeff
"Cowboy" (Click here for package settings)
Duration: 4 Hours 10 Minutes
Changes fully applied after: 10 Minutes
Awareness:
User: Yes
World: No
Alter Reality: Yes
Subject: Yes
Apply to:
Jeff
Cody
Cody clicked accept and exited the way he came going to the front door and knocking as though he had just arrived. "Come in!" Jeff called, and as Cody entered, "Thank god you're here. I need to pee so bad and Richie is acting like its the first time milking me! He's going so slow, can you help?"
"Now don'chu worry buddy, you'll be feeling better'n no time." the minute that passed allowed the beginnings of a twangy drawl to start to show up as the packages were applied. a glance at Richie showed teats were beginning to press against his shirt. Richie's shit eating grin told Cody that he thought he set everyone to think Jeff's state was normal and was looking forward to watching his brother in an embarrassing position without realizing it, the asshole.
"Now Jeff, I need you to stay calm, I's got everything handled and we is gonna have a pleasant eve'nin' now. Yer brother turned yer cowboy 'speriment against you, and turn't you part cow. But'e fucked up all the awareness stuff and y'all'a gotten in might big trouble with yer folks if'n I didn't go fix'n things up fer ya."
Jeff looked down at his diminishing udders thinking for the first time in an hour that maybe having them was a bit strange. "Yer lookin' an talkin a might bit funny to me Cody, what all didya do tu'us?"
"I ain't rightly sure, I left the settn's be thinkin' it'us watcha wanted."
"Hey guys, I can't think straight with all this milk in me, I know you guys were going to hang out but could you milk me first?" Richie chimed in as his realities were colliding.
"You mind takin care'o my brother while I check awn things?"
Cody smirked, "Not at all."
Cody helped Richie stand and lay against the family's cushioned sawhorse. Cody altering reality made it so the house had accommodations for their youngest member's medical condition. "There there, you'll be right as rain soon enough lil one. Right as rain."
Cody began expertly milking Richie, and after a few minutes they were done. "Now scamper along, but not to your room, Jeff and I'll be usin it for the next while here."
"Its my room too!" Richie objected.
Cody pulled back his trench coat flashing his revolver, "I'm think'n you ain't want'n a fight." Richie rolled his eyes but backed down, Cody began walking to Jeff's room realizing that he just threatened a 14 year old with a gun for wanting to go to his room and annoy his brother. Maybe the default "wild west" mannerisms were a little much in this suburban setting, Thankfully, he's acting normally as far as anyone can tell. "Richie's good." he said opening Jeff's bedroom door and closing it behind him.
"Thanks." Jeff said. No longer was Jeff a 16 year old kid but he appeared to be a very weathered man in his late 20's with several days worth of beard shadow and a handlebar moustache, adorned in leather, protected by a cotton undershirt. He pulled his flask from his pocket and knocked back a shot, handing the flask to Cody who did the same before handing it back.
"I'm thinking we might want to dial back the old west mannerisms a little bit. I think I just threatened to kill your brother for wanting to be a pain in the ass and follow us into the room..."
"I dropped the cowboy speak a second ago, as you might have noticed. I made the mannerisms and habits less obvious to us so that they don't seem abnormal but I picked the timeframe to be 1970's instead of the Old West because I was 'itch'n' to take my donkey into town to buy my weekly handle of liquor and thought that was a little off..." Jeff said with a chuckle.
Cody looked down and neither were wearing revolvers. Their clothing styles were closer to modern with a light button up for sun protection jeans, boots and a hat.
Jeff now just had a short beard growing, and was more muscular looking the part of a rancher more than a cowboy. "So, you've got yourself a pretty fancy toy there," Cody smirked. "Have you decided what you want to do with it next? I protected you from your brother trying to interfere more, and figured payback in kind suited him, but I didn't really punish him as nobody knows how weird he is."
"Huh?"
"Right, nobody includes you... Your brother doesn't usually lactate, he did that to you to make you look foolish. But only you thought it was normal at the time... so when I corrected your settings, I gave him a taste of his own medicine, but corrected the awareness aspect of it so nobody would see it as freakish."
"Freakish? Like some people have attached earlobes, some people have detached earlobes. Richie has an udder and teats... sometimes he gives milk, what are you going on about, and why would I even care if Richie did that to me? Free milk for life, right?"
"I hear you, but I'm guessing that you'd feel differently when the counter ends all the active transformations... I'm just trying to pass on what I did. Maybe we shouldn't mess with it till our bodies and perception of normal, err, goes back to normal?" Cody chuckled to himself pulling out a cigarette from his pocket. "I'm going to go outside for a few, mind if I take another swig?"
Jeff handed his flask over without a second thought, and took a swig himself before putting it away.