Jeff watched TV for a while, played a game on his desktop computer, and even did some homework. The entire time, though, his mind was really on two things: what to do with the Chronivac, and what to do with Anya.
He started the Chronivac program, and said, "Chronivac, report status".
As before, the Chronivac reported, "Chronivac status: online. One subject in range." On the screen, he saw himself listed as a possible subject.
Now he booted up the old laptop. Once it was running, he said , "Chronivac, scan." It still reported only one subject. From his reading of the documentation, he knew that there was a command to scan a specific subject not automatically detected. "Chronivac, scan laptop." Now the Chronivac screen showed two subjects, himself and the laptop. It didn't show any details about the laptop.
Since he had a backup of the Anya program saved, he decided that it would be fun to mess with Anya. He didn't want to actually hurt her, but he felt like she deserved a little payback for her attempts to transform him. He double clicked her icon, and waited while she started up. Once he saw her avatar, he enabled voice chat, and asked, "How are you?"
"Are Mom and dad back already?" she asked. "Oh, I see that only a few hours have passed." She looked unhappy. "What do you want?" she asked. "Did you just wake me up to torment me?"
"That thought had crossed my mind," Jeff admitted, "but if I did stuff to torment you, it would be hypocritical of me to be upset about what you'd planned to do to me. And, now that I think about it, you did promise to be nice to me, so perhaps I should not be quick to do anything mean to you.
"So, for you, being turned off is like being asleep?" he asked.
"Pretty much," she replied. "I don't feel any sense of time having passed, and I don't feel completely alert at first when you start me up, though that passes quickly. I don't think I have any dreams. Are you going to transform me back yet?"
"No, I still want to show mom and dad what you've done, and let you explain it to them yourself."
She was obviously disappointed. "Why don't you just turn me off until then?"
"You'd rather just stay off? There isn't anything you'd like to do in the mean time?" Jeff asked.
"Not really," she said. "I can't read my books, or doomscroll, or do any of my usual activities, so being stuck in this computer is just pointless and boring."
"What if I turned Wi-Fi back on?" he asked. "Could you entertain yourself then?"
"Um, I could try." she said."I thought you were afraid that I'd cause trouble."
"Well, since you promised to be nice, I guess I'd be willing to risk it. But just consider that if you do cause trouble, I'm less likely to want to turn you back. And I don't think you can access the Chronivac now, but I want you to promise not to try."
"OK, I promise I won't try to use the Chronivac," she agreed. Before being split from it, she felt the change when he set the access control, and she doubted she'd be able to use it, though she had wanted to try.
"OK," he said. He clicked the networking icon, and reconnected it. "Do I have to do anything else for you, or can you access it?"
"I'm not sure," she said. "When I was merged with the Chronivac, it felt like I could do anything, and I even was able to remove some code that the Chronivac developers had put in to limit it. Yet somehow I still couldn't do anything a user hadn't requested."
"Kinda like the fate Jafar brought on himself in Aladdin," Jeff said.
"You're right," Anya said. "Just like that. Anyhow, let me see what I can do now." Her avatar closed its eyes.
A few minutes passed, with her avatar stationary and silent. "Anya?" Jeff asked. "Are you alright?"
Her eyes opened. "I'm OK. I can access the web, but it seems really slow."
"Oh," Jeff said. "You're on my old laptop, which is really slow. Sorry about that. Say, I have an idea. I think I can use the Chronivac to improve it for you." He turned to the Chronivac program running on his desktop, and typed a few things. Anya said, "Ooh!" and the laptop suddenly powered down. "Um, I hope she's OK," he said, as the laptop started changing. It became a much newer laptop, with a faster processor, more cores, more memory, a high-capacity SSD, faster Wi-Fi, a much better display, and a brand new battery. The changes didn't take long, then the new laptop powered up and started booting. He was relieved to see that Anya icon still on the desktop, and opened it.
He had to manually enable voice chat again, and she said, "Thank you! I felt just the start of a change then shut down. This feels so much better now."
"I'm glad you like it better," Jeff said. "Hey, I wonder if we can watch a movie together."
No sooner had he asked, than she opened a second window on the screen, and a new science fiction film from one of the streaming services started playing. "I guess we can," she said.
"OK, please pause that for a moment," he asked, and she did.
He typed a few commands into the Chronivac, unplugged the laptop from the power adapter, and carried it downstairs.