With a smirk, Jeff decided it might be funny if he changed Riley once he got here. He went over to his computer and started tinkering with the settings he had just rendered for himself...
*
Riley, on the other hand, was looking forward to seeing Jeff and his new toy. It was almost like a competition sometimes - one of them would buy a new video game, or an iPad, or a new cellphone, and they would constantly one-up each other and show off their new stuff. It was all in good fun though. Neither of them were too jealous at each other, and they always shared their new things with each other. So Riley felt it was just another day in life, another new toy - a "new program", apparently. Whatever that meant. He made the short ride over to Jeff's house, jumped off his bike and laid it in the front yard.
*
Jeff decided to do the same thing to Riley as he did to himself - being particularly careful that this time, the awareness would be set so that just Riley and he knew that Riley's ears had been changed. It took a bit of work, but the program was able to easily add and remove people from a 'list' that would include which people would notice the changes. But, instead of the measly 10%, he would change Riley's ears to 100% donkey. That should get him "riled" up, heh heh... He finished prepping the settings just as the doorbell rang.
"Hey, man," Riley said as they did their secret handshake greeting at his front door. Best buds for life. And, because he had altered reality, Riley didn't seem to notice that Jeff's ears were now slightly pointed and donkey-like. The device really did keep people from noticing (or caring) that he had changed, Jeff thought. Beautiful.
"Hey Riley."
"So what's up... a new 'program'? What do you mean?" asked Riley.
Jeff just walked away to his room, urging Riley to follow without a response.
"Uhh, Jeff?"
He walked into his room to his computer, and pressed the necessary buttons to scan for Riley's ID info. Just as Riley got to his door, the computer pulled back Riley's information, and Jeff pressed OK to begin the transformation. "Is the program on your computer?"
"Oh, umm, yeah! It's called Chronivac or something like that..."
"Never heard of it. What does it do?"
"Lots of... things..." Jeff responded, looking at Riley as his ears began to shift up the side of his head, much quicker than his did.
"... like?" Riley asked, passively reaching to his head to scratch his left ear because it was feeling suddenly itchy. And as he did, he noticed they felt weird, and almost like they had little hairs all over them. Furrowing his eyebrows in concern, he turned to look at Jeff's mirror on the wall, and freaked. His ears were pointy and were moving up the side of his head!!!!
"What the FUCK!" Riley shouted. Jeff smiled at his reaction.
"Jeff, what the fuck, my EARS!!!!! Holy shit, what the fuck, what the fuck..." he repeated in panic as he continued to watch them grow longer, get furrier, and move further up his head.
"They look like donkey's ears," Jeff said complacently. "Wonder how that... ha ha... happened..."
Riley immediately turned his head to Jeff with the widest eyes, loaded with fear and confusion. "WHAT?!?!"
The furry donkey ears were now at least half a foot long, and towered over his own head and hair. It was really cool to Jeff, as he looked back at the computer a couple times to see how far along the transformation was - it was nearly complete, all the while dealing with -
"JEFF! Help me out here!"
"It's fine, Riley! It's fine! It's my new computer program."
Riley looked back at the mirror, as the minute-long transformation finished doing its magic. He now unmistakeably had the ears of a donkey. At nearly a foot long, he looked ridiculous. And the ears seemed to move without him even knowing or trying. He was too afraid to reach up and feel the grayish-brown fur that completely covered them.
Meanwhile, Jeff's mom had come back from the store and she knocked on Jeff's locked door. She had seen Riley's bike in the front lawn. "Jeff, I've got an envelope for you!"
Riley freaked out. "OH MY GOD, Jeff!! Hide me!"
"Huh, can't hear you," he said jokingly. This was perfect - he would test it out on his mother to see if anyone else noticed the changes. Worst-case scenario, she would freak out and run down the hall to clean her glasses or something.
"JEFF. DON'T YOU DARE OPEN THAT - I WILL TACKLE - "
But Jeff ignored Riley and opened the door to his Mom.
"Hi Mom. Hope you don't mind, Riley's over."
She took a blank look at Riley and said "Hello, Riley - how's your mother doing?"
Riley said nothing - he just stood there in shock. Why was nobody freaking out with him?
"Sorry Mom, Riley's going through a bit of a rough situation right now - but don't worry, we are working on it."
"Oh, okay, hope everything's alright - well, here's the envelope. I think it's from one of the colleges you asked for information from."
"Thank ya," he said, and closed the door as she began to walk down the hall. Not a single comment about Riley's ears.
Riley, on the other hand, was still in shock, looking back and forth between Jeff and the doorway and then finally at the mirror. Finally, he spoke quietly, "What the hell, Jeff. You CHANGED my ears to look like this?!?!"
"Yep! And I made it so that nobody would notice the changes. I changed my ears too."
Riley looked at Jeff's ears and snorted. "Yeah, right. I don't notice anything."
"That's because..." Jeff said, as he walked over to the computer, sitting down and pulling up a chair for Riley, "... the program makes you think I have always looked this way."
"JEFF. Fix this!!!" Riley shouted.
"Calm down! Just come over here."
Riley walked over and sat down, still a bit freaked out about his ears, but getting a bit more curious. "Jeff, don't play games with me. And what do you mean, 'makes me'? You didn't change your ears at all."
"Riley! I... well, I don't know how it "makes" you think it, but why do you think my Mom didn't say anything about your freakish ears?"
He couldn't think of any answer to why she didn't seem to care... it was very weird. But was she different from anyone else? "You're saying... everyone thinks I have DONKEY EARS?!?! Like... this is normal to them?"
"Well... yep. And everyone thinks I have pointy ears too. They're actually 10% donkey."
"How?!?"
"Don't know. But I can change your ears back, and nobody would know the difference. Hell, I could change anything about you, and as long as I click this here," pointing to the Awareness check-box, "...Everyone will be none the wiser."
Riley just stared at the screen and read through everything, taken aback by how accurately the machine seemed to know things about himself... like his height, weight, age - everything. Even things that there was no way that Jeff could know.
"Jeff... this is weird, but... kind of cool... I hope you're not lying to me." he commented, now finally taking his hand and rubbing his new ears as they twitched a bit from the action.
"Dude, I wouldn't lie to you. Why do you think I invited you over?" Jeff said with a wink.
"Okay, well, what else does it do?"
"Haha... we're about to find out!"