Rain went to and opened the door, Daniele following closely behind. Standing there was a college-aged young
man with an angry look on his face. He would have been handsome, Rain noted, had he not been holding a blood-
soaked rag over his nose. "Can I help you?" She asked, hesitantly. He pointed accusingly at Daniele.
"I'm here to have a word with the redheaded bitch." He said angrily. Rain looked back at Daniele, who stared
at the man with a cold fury in her eyes. "You broke my fucking nose!" He shouted, attempting to enter the
house. Rain got in his way, attempting to block his entry. 'This sorta thing was a lot easier when I was
Sean...' she thought to herself.
She could feel Daniele pushing against her back, sandwiching Rain between the two. "You groped my sister you
shit! You deserve to have more than that broken!" The shouting continued, accusations punctuated with words
like 'cunt', 'cockstain', 'whore' and 'babydick.'
"ENOUGH!" Rain shouted, loud enough to divert their attention for half a second. "Clearly, something is going
on here that I don't know anything about, but we're going to get it settled, and I mean RIGHT FUCKING NOW!"
They both quieted down, glaring angrily at each other, but waiting for Rain to speak. "Daniele, you go
first."
Daniele smiled sourly at the boy, and started up. "Well, when I told you that I grabbed Misty and got out of
that bar after she downed all those shots? Well, the frat boys followed us outside. Clearly, they got the
wrong impression as to our intentions and got a bit...grabby. That's when this idiot grabbed Misty and
started groping her breasts! So I pulled her away and gave this shit something to remember me by." She
cracked her knuckles for emphasis.
"That's fucking bullshit!" The boy shouted, "One, common courtesy dictates that when somebody buys you a
drink, you at least say hello. That tequila wasn't cheap, and me and my bro's just wanted to get to know you
girls a little better. So, she downs our liquor and gets dragged out the door by her sister, and we all say to
ourselves 'What the hell?' We follow to find out what we did wrong, and then she fell into my arms and I
caught her! I didn't fucking grope her! And besides - even if I had, she didn't complain about my hands on
her body. She was moaning like she wanted it and giggling as she stared at me.
"So I see a pretty girl stumble in her heels, about to go down and hit the ground, and I catch her. And her
sister breaks my nose?! That's what I get for being a decent guy?"
Daniele, despite being a full head shorter than the interloper (even in her heeled boots) rushes back to him,
getting within a few inches of his face. She hissed, "Your hand was down her fucking shirt and she was so
drunk she didn't know what was happening. And then you follow us home?! In other parts of the country, that
kind of behavior would earn you a night in jail and a restraining order. Your lucky all I broke was your
nose."
Rain sighed. She was sure that the truth was somewhere in the middle of the two stories, but frankly, she was
too tired and too annoyed to even bother sorting out the details in her own mind. All she knew was what her
friend was telling her. 'You groped my sister!' rang out in her mind. And despite the fact that Rain herself
had only existed for the better part of a day, and that Daniele and Misty had only REALLY existed for the
better part of an hour or so, Rain felt a weird connection to her friends. Moreso than when they had been
Sean and Jay and Dan - like, they were truly sisters. And sisters needed protection.
"Alright," Rain said, with more than a little irritation in her voice. "We're going to find some way to
resolve this to everyone's satisfaction. What's your name?" She asked the boy.
"My bro's call me Slider." He replied, his voice calming down a bit from it's previous angry timbre. Daniele
looked at Rain quizzically, but let her continue talking. Rain was churning on the inside, hating everything
about this boy.
"Okay, Slider? Look at me - tits, pussy, long hair, fingernails and makeup. I'm not one of your 'bro's.' So
what's your real fucking name? She asked, soaring past annoyance and into genuine anger.
"Chris Smith."
"Okay - Daniele, take Chris to the living room and then meet me in the Kitchen. I'll get us all a couple
drinks and we'll talk this out. Chris, what would you like to drink?"
Chris thought about it for a second. "Miller Lite."
"We don't have Miller Lite. We drink good beer in this house."
"Okay, Bud Lite."
"Nope."
"Coors Lite, then."
Rain was getting mad. "Are you fucking kidding me? I know you're a frat guy, but fucking really? Have you
never had a good beer in your life?"
Chris seemed deep in thought for a second longer. "PBR then?" Rain massaged her temples with her fingers as
she walked into the Kitchen. "I'll find something for you...just...don't touch anything. Danni, meet me in
there once he's settled."
Rain walked towards the fridge, trying to decide which of their decent beer collection to waste on the
neanderthal in the living room, finally settling on a German Hefe - Franziskaner. She grabbed a Stone
Ruination IPA for herself and an Indian Wells Orange Blossom Amber for Daniele. "I can't believe you're going
to waste good beer on him." Daniele fumed as she stomped in the kitchen. "He's lucky I'm not calling the
fucking cops on him."
Rain sighed, handing Danni her beer. "If you called the cops, you'd be in just as much trouble for hitting
him. But it doesn't matter, because soon everything will be just fine."
"What do you mean?" Asked Daniele. She had taken a sip of her beer, admiring the orange aroma wafting up from
it.
"I mean I'm going to use the Chronivac program to fix it so that he's our friend. Remember the old saying?
'An enemy is just a friend you haven't changed yet.'" Rain grinned wickedly, taking a mouthfull of beer and
savoring the piney hop flavor and aroma before letting it flow down her throat. 'There's another saying,' she
thought to herself, 'Power Corrupts.' This thought was quickly squashed by the more rational part of her mind
categorizing how much more interesting her life had gotten since she had found the program. For her part,
Daniele looked at her friend skeptically.
"Earth to Rain: That program is impossible. There's no way it actually works - you can't just change people
and things however you see fit. YOU. GOT. SCAMMED. And besides, even if it did, Misty wrecked your laptop.
You can't use it anyways." Daniele reminded her.
Rain grabbed Chris' drink and began to start towards the living room. Feigning ignorance, she said "Well, I'm
pretty sure it does work - it came with instructions and an emitter and everything. That's a hell of a lot of
capital to invest in trying to sell a scam product. And the laptop just needs to dry - I'll check it in an
hour or so, excusing myself to 'use the bathroom' and if the laptop is sufficiently dry, I'll use to program
to change 'Slider' into something more suitable for us. You always talked about wanting a triplet, right?
Twins works so well, triplets must work even better? Or maybe a new friend in the house? Perhaps a maid? A
male sex slave? A female one? A butler? Or even a dog or a cat. Hell, if we want to turn Slider into a
shelf or a statue, we can do that too. You don't seem to understand how far we can go!" Rain was getting
excited thinking about the power she had. Well, more than excited. She was getting...horny.
Daniele was looking at her as though she had gone off the deep end, so Rain calmed down and took another sip
of beer, attempting to appear nonchalant. "Besides, if you're right and the program is a scam, then Chris
gets to spend the night drinking with two hot girls - three, if Sunny comes home early. If need be, when he's
too plastered to remember what's going on, you'll kiss his boo-boo and make it better." Daniele started to
object, but Rain interrupted. "Look, it's either we do this or he calls the cops and you get arrested for
assault. We need to keep him drinking, and that means we drink - be a big girl, bury the hatchet, and drink
your medicine!" Rain clinked her glass against Daniele's and stared at the redhead expectantly.
Reluctantly, Danni brought the glass to her lips and, in salute, drank a hearty mouthful in tandem with Rain.
They put their best fake smiles on and went back to the living room.
Several hours later...
Rain stumbled into her room. The previous three attempts to bring the laptop had resulted in nothing. 'Maybe
the fourth time is a charm,' she thought to herself. As she sat down on her chair, attempting to boot the
laptop up, she was greeted with a POST beep. She clapped her hands together excitedly (drunkenly) and waited
for the OS to boot back up.
After several minutes of navigating and ensuring that the laptop was back to working order, she opened the
Chronivac program to see the last set of changes made - Daniele. Unfortunately, Rain couldn't seem to find
Dan's original profile (or that of his drunk friend, now the new Misty), but she shrugged, figuring it was in
a recovery file or somewhere else on the laptop. 'Besides,' she thought, 'Danni seems happy. What's the
worst thing that happens if I can't find it?'
She loaded up the current active profiles - Daniele, Misty (currently sleeping), Chris and herself. She
figured that, since Sunny was out of range, she was no longer considered an 'active' profile. Selecting
Chris, she thought about what she wanted to do. "He can't remember what heppened tonight, but other than
that, the sky is the limit..."
What does Rain choose?