Jeff decided to take a fee minutes to read the instructions provided with the Chronivac (now Anya), and its online help. He found the part about transformations reverting in one hour, unless "save" was pressed a second time. Can't have that, he thought. At least, not yet. He went back to the log, selected the entry where Anya merged herself with the Chronivac, and pressed "save".
Anya suddenly realized that her transformation had been made permanent. While that had been her original intent, now she no longer wanted it. Shit, she thought. I need to convince Jeff to revert me, or trick him into it. But how? She couldn't even talk to him.
That problem was in Jeff's mind too. How could he fully enjoy Anya's predicament unless he could communicate with her? He continued reading the online help. There was a section on voice control. Apparently it could be turned on in the program settings. He found that setting, and enabled it. He tried a command suggested in the help, by saying, "Chronivac, report status." Nothing happened.
After a moment, he realized his mistake. He tried again, "Anya, report status."
He heard Anya's voice, though in a dull monotone rather than her usual white, say "Anya status: online. One subject in range."
"Anya, change my hair color to brown." He felt the tingling, and verified that it happened just as he asked. Cool! He'd never been able to order her around before.
"Anya, open a new window, and show yourself." A new window appeared on the screen, and he saw an avatar of her, though with her new eye color and larger breasts. There was a "chat" area at the bottom. He typed in, "How's it going?"
She quickly typed, "Jeff, please help me! Change me back!"
"Oh, I don't think so," Jeff typed. "You've always been shitty to me, and you did this to yourself, trying to be an asshole to me again, so I think I'm going to have some fun with this."
"Please! I'll do anything!"
"Oh, I know you will," Jeff typed. "You're programmed to!"
Having to type to chat with her was annoying. Out loud, he said. "Anya, enable voice mode for chat."
"Confirmed," her voice said, in a robotic fashion, then, in a more normal tone, "Thank you for letting me talk! What can I do for you, to get you to transform me back?"
"I don't know," Jeff relied, "I guess I'll have to think about it. Unless you have some idea."
"What will our parents do when they discover that I'm missing?" she asked.
"Good question," Jeff replied. "Maybe they'll think you ran away."
"Oh, no!" she said, "You have to turn me back, so that they won't be hurt!"
Jeff asked, "Are you finally thinking about someone other than yourself? No, it's just a ploy."
Anya was on the verge of tears. "You can't just leave me trapped in your computer!"
"Oh, can't I?" Jeff countered. "How long were you going to leave me as a five year old? Or as a newt?"
"Not permanently," Anya said. "I just wanted to have some fun with you."
"Right," said Jeff. He pulled up the settings page again, then the security tab.
"What are you going to do to me?" she asked, terror evident in her voice.
"Just making sure that no one else can mess with you, as a program, the way you did behind my back." He set up access restrictions, to prevent program operation by anyone other than himself. "So if you don't want mom and dad to think you ran away, maybe I should just show them what you've become."
"Oh, please no!" she begged.
He went back to the log, to her first changes, of her own eye color and breast size. He clicked "cancel" on both, and saw her avatar change. "Gotta make sure mom and dad can recognize you!" he said, grinning.