Five more minutes passed, and Jeff lost his patience.
"Forget this," he said and pressed Ctrl + Alt + Del to shut off the Chronivac warning message. He started the Chronivac program up again on his computer ignoring the red light flashing on the Chronivac itself.
Pulling up his stats and his sisters stats, he changed her body's age to 10 years old again and his body's age back to 16. Down the hall, he heard his sister say, "Jeffy? You okay in there?" She was walking towards his room. He executed the changes as she reached his door.
A tingle passed through him again. He hopped off his chair and turned to look at his sister, expecting to see her body shrinking back to normal, but that isn't what was happening. Her head appeared to be maturing. She looked like a woman with a teenager's head. Seconds later, her head matched her 20-year-old body.
"What the...?" he said, but stopped when he heard his own voice. It was all high-pitched and squeaky, just like a little boy's voice. He looked down at his body. It was unchanged. He still looked to be about 8 years old.
"You okay, Jeff?" said Jamie with a grown woman's voice.
"Oh, no," he said, and started for the door, but he tripped over something on the ground. "Ow," he said, rubbing his shin. He looked back at the floor. He had tripped over a yellow Tonka truck. Where had that come from? Looking around the room, he realized that it was now furnished for an 8-year-old boy, with toys and cartoon posters on the walls. At least, he still had a computer and the Chronivac on his desk. Maneuvering around his new toys, he slipped past his grown up sister and ran to the mirror in their parents' room.
"Shit," he said staring at the 8-year-old boy reflected in the mirror.
"Jeffy!" his shocked sister yelled from the down the hall. "Watch your language."
"Got to fix this."
He passed his upset sister in the hallway as he ran back to his room.
"Hold up a second. You can't just go around saying things like that. It's rude," she said, but he didn't even slow down. "Jeffy, wait a minute."
He shut his door and locked it. As he sat down on the new kid-sized chair at his kid-sized desk, he heard a hand trying to turn his doorknob. "Jeffy, don't lock your door on me." She thumped her fist on his door a few times. "I'm your big sister. I'm supposed to be watching you. Unlock it right now." Ignoring her, Jeff reread their stats. She was completely 20 years old, and he was completely 8. He checked the log of changes in the Chronivac program. Instead of changing their body's ages, the log said the Chronivac had just made Jamie's head twice it's age and made Jeff's head half it's age.
"Still fucking broken," he said, sounding a bit silly in his boyish voice.
"Jeffy!"
What would he do? If he left things the way they were, he would have to grow up all over again. If he tried to fix things again, the broken Chronivac might just make the situation even worse.
His sister thumped and thumped on the door again. "You know," she said. "I can open this door with a screwdriver. There's a hole out here in the knob. If I stick it in there, it will pop open. Open up now, or I'll get that screwdriver, and you'll be in big trouble, Mister." She waited. He tried to think of something to do. No ideas came to him. "Fine," she said. "I'm getting it. You're in it deep now. Wait 'till Mom and Dad hear about this. Grounded for life, Bucko. That's you, grounded for life." He heard her walk away.
He looked at the computer screen: 8 years old. He sighed. Eight years would be a long damn time to wait to be back to normal. The red light flashing on the Chronivac caught his eye. It was warning him, he thought. To him, it was saying, "It could be a lot worse than eight years."
He grabbed the mouse. What would he do?