Preset: “Role Reversal – Immigrant”
Noah’s fingers were steady as he pressed the button under the counter. There was no bright flash, no explosion of sound — just a soft hum, like a distant engine turning over. Barely perceptible. The kind of sound you’d miss unless you were listening for it.
But the man — the soldier — stopped mid-step. His brow furrowed. He blinked once, then twice, like he was suddenly waking from a dream that was slipping away faster than he could catch it.
Then the transformation began.
It was fast. Silent. But total.
His military-cut hair grew out in seconds, becoming thick, unkempt, and sun-faded. His rigid posture slackened as the crisp uniform jacket faded, thread by thread, into a battered blue sweatshirt with a faded “Brasil” logo stretched across the chest. The insignia was gone — no rank, no badge, no weight of institutional power.
His boots gave way to torn sneakers. The cargo pants remained, but now looked secondhand, threadbare at the knees, dirty from weeks of walking. A large canvas backpack hung suddenly from his shoulders, bulging and worn.
His skin was sunburned in strange, irregular patterns. His hands — once clean, pale, manicured — were now calloused and cracked, the kind of hands that pick oranges in silence or clean hotel toilets for tips. His accent, once gruff and authoritarian, softened — thick with fear and rural cadence.
He staggered, confused. “Onde… onde eu tô?”
James stared.
So did Noah.
The man — no longer a man of status, uniform, or homeland — looked around as if seeing the store for the first time.
“What is this? Loja de roupa? Eu… eu achei que era—” He stumbled over his English, grasping for the old power that wasn’t there anymore. “I… I need… trabalho. Por favor.”
He looked at James again. Not with disgust.
But desperation.
“Please,” he repeated. “No call police. I no have document.”
James stepped back behind the counter slowly, his voice guarded. “You're undocumented?”
The man — boy, really, no older than twenty now — nodded quickly. “From Goiás… I cross… desert. Three week.”
He looked down at his hands as if seeing them for the first time.
“I… I was… someone else?”
Noah didn't answer. He just slid the portable emitter back under the counter and locked the drawer.
The store was quiet again. But the atmosphere had shifted.
James exhaled slowly, meeting Noah’s eyes.
“Was that… the Chronivac?”
Noah nodded, jaw tight.
“Preset 7. ‘Role Reversal – Immigrant.’”
James looked down at the young man in front of him, now shaking, no longer a threat — just a reflection of everything he used to mock. Everything he refused to see.
Noah didn’t feel triumph. He felt the weight of what they had just done.
James finally spoke. “So… what now?”
Noah glanced toward the door.
“Now,” he said, voice low, “we find out who he really is, when the uniform’s gone.”