Jeff pressed ENTER, waiting for the Chronivac to do it's thing, and finally, after a long moment, it began to type out on the screen:
ERROR: CANNOT EXCEED HAIRINESS INDEX 30 (MAX SCALE)
ERROR: CANNOT EXCEED MUSCLE INDEX 30 (MAX SCALE)
ERROR: SUBJECT "PETE" NOT FOUND IN RANGE OF CHRONIVAC EMITTER
Great, the Chronivac could apparently zap through walls in the same house, but it was probably like a cordless phone in that it had a limited range. And Pete and Simon had gone over to Pete's uncle Mike's house to drink beer.
Jeff retyped the variables into the program, putting Pete's hairiness and muscle index at 30, but held off hitting ENTER. He picked up the Chronivac and went over to Pete's place, slipping around the back and sitting down on the back porch. Pete and Simon would be inside playing Xbox, so he hit ENTER.
The Chronivac whirred and clucked, the emitter flashing, and then Jeff waited till a count of five and went and knocked on the back door. A moment later, Pete opened it, absolutely huge and covered with dark orange hair, exactly as thick as the hair covering Jeff. "Scooter!" Pete said happily. "Just the hot little bear I was hoping would come over!"
"Dude!" Simon said, protesting, "That's my little brother you're hitting on. He's, like, sixteen."
"Yeah, but he's already as hairy as me!" Pete said. "I never thought any guy would get as hairy as me, but I come back from college and find that my old friend's little bro has become a baby bear!"
"Dude, chill," Simon said. "I think you're freaking him out. It's cool you've come out and all, but I'm not into guys and Jeff sure as hell isn't."
There was a roar of motorcycles and Pete said. "Hey, that'd be my uncle Mike and his bros! Wait till they check out the cool fur that baby bear Scooter has!"
Jeff was more than slightly horrified. It was one thing to have a pass made at him by a twenty-one-year old friend, but Pete's Uncle Mike and his bros were all in their forties and fifties.
"Can I use the bathroom?" Jeff asked quickly and then, without asking, hid inside.
The scans were showing up quickly on the Chronivac: Mike, Walter, Hank, Bo and Eagle. Jeff selected all of them and tried to see if he could do a global change.
Doing a mass selection pulled up a window a lot like an iTunes menu with all blanks. In "Race" he typed in "JAPANESE," in "Sex" he typed in "Female," and under "Sexual Preference" he put in "100% LESBIAN." He checked the "SUBJECTS UNAWARE OF TRANSFORMATION" box and then hit ENTER.
The Chronivac popped and whirred and then the names changed: MICHA, YOSHIKO, HANAKO, BO & ICHI.
Jeff came out of the bathroom with Chronivac just as Aunt Micha and her gang came into the living room, five totally butch Japanese lesbians in biker leathers.
"Who the hell are you?" said Pete.
Aunt Micha laughed. "I'm your Aunt Micha, funny boy. And just because you're now a seven foot sasquatch, don't think I can't paddle your ass." She came over next to Jeff. "And who is this? My goodness, is that Jeff? You've gotten almost as furry as my Petie!"
The other Japanese lesbians made various comments about the hairiness of western men and how they were lucky they didn't much care for them anyway.
Pete was looking at them, flumoxed, because while he was now 80% male preference bisexual, the leather clad Japanese women were ringing the last 20% of his sexuality and a personal fetish.
Simon, meanwhile, was looking at the Chronivac, and Jeff realized that the latest change he'd put in, he hadn't made anyone unaware of it except Uncle Mike and his former bear bros. "Dude," said Simon, "what is up with that thing?"