Earlier that night, while everyone was watching some cheesy reality show and Bryan kept complaining about how
thin the people were, Mark excused himself to go to the bathroom. But really it was just a cover-up to sneak
into his dad's bedroom to use the Chronivac. It had been playing on his mind just how powerful this machine
was. Whatever change he wanted to make, it had to be quick or else they might get suspicious downstairs. It
booted up quickly and showed the last change made, him becoming part of the family. He navigated through the
reality related pages before quickly coming across what he wanted, the ALTERED REALITY ADJUSTMENTS options.
Jay had shown it to him earlier, to prove that he'd tampered with the temporal qualities of the world,
everyone now aging at a rate of 5 years every day, and nobody seemed to notice. But come to think of it, Mark
had been paying attention to everyone around town throughout the day and noticed that nobody else seemed to be
aging, only his new family. The friends he had back in high school were still in high school, while he had
graduated and got a job in hours. However he was already aging before Jay had shown the device. Perhaps the
Chronivac was sentient, knowing he was going to eventually join the family and prepared him for the change
before they'd even been introduced. The thoughts made his head hurt. It didn't matter how it worked, as long
as it did.
He'd already been upstairs longer than he intended, so he had to make this quick. Mark clicked on the option
titled Temporal Flow, and a box appeared that said "1 DAY = 5 YEARS", along with a few sliders. He meddled
with the sliders a bit to see what they did, before eventually settling on "1 DAY = 10 YEARS". That sounded
just about right, wanting to age even more over the next couple of days. But Jay might become suspicious once
he realises he was 32 by the end of the day instead of 27, so Mark clicked on the advanced options, finding a
whole array of limitations he could induce. Sure enough, one of the ticked boxes said "ONLY APPLY TO CHRONIVAC
USERS IN DATABASE". He didn't want to untick that, not wanting to be the cause of a global massacre of elderly
people. Then he thought about his grandfather. He was already in bad health at the moment, his heart problems
didn't seemed to be improving. Maybe he shouldn't continue with this. Glancing over the options to see if he
could find a way to not include his grandpa, he spotted another box. "TIME ACCELERATION WILL NOT LEAD TO
DEATH". It was currently unticked. That sounded like a solution for the time being, clicking on the box. If
anything were to happen, Mark could always get back to the Chronivac and fix things.
Finally he found the section titled "AWARENESS OF TEMPORAL FLOW EFFECTS". There were sliders for how aware
people were of the time acceleration. Worldwide awareness was all the way to the left, signalling that nobody
would notice them aging. Bryan's awareness was also at the same point. Simon's awareness was under halfway,
making him notice something was wrong but not enough for him to question it. Mark and Jay's sliders were on
the opposite side, making them both aware of the acceleration in time. He grabbed Jay's slider with the mouse
and dragged it to a similar point that Simon's was, figuring he didn't to make him completely unaware of what
was going on, especially because he was the one to make the change in the first place. Making one final check
over the options he'd selected, he noticed a timer that, once reaching the end of its countdown, would
initiate the changes. Looking at his watch, he decided to set the timer so the changes he made would start at
midnight.
Mark was finally finished with his meddling and hit enter. The timer appeared on the screen, counting down to
midnight. Pleased with what he'd done, he left the room and finally went to the bathroom, wanting to relieve
his bladder after his nerves built up with the excitement. He flushed the chain and grabbed a nearby air
freshener, spraying to cover up a non-existent smell. He went to the sink and splashed water on his face to
calm himself down. His stared at his face, taking in his trimmed beard and receding hair, wondering how
different he'd look come tomorrow. Mark made his way back downstairs, hearing his grandfather still moaning
about the show. "..ing that she'd look better with a bit more meat on her bones!"
"Yes, we heard you the first time. You don't need to keep saying it" Jay sounded a bit annoyed at his
grandfather's persistence on the matter. It's not like he could change it. Well he possibly could with the
Chronivac, but he didn't want to. He heard his brother come into the room. "Hey, you're back. You were up
there for a while. Hopefully you didn't stink the place out".
"No, I sprayed the stuff. Like you can complain anyway, yours smell like somebody died". They all laughed and
got back to watching the TV. At midnight, the Chronivac the timer reached its end and the words "COUNTDOWN
COMPLETE. INITIATING RIPPLE EFFECT. PLEASE STAND BY..." flashed up on the bright screen lighting up the room.
A pulse of energy escaped outwards from it, managing not to disturb Simon who was fast asleep, out cold for
the night. The Chronivac eventually switched off, letting darkness envelope the room again.