You smirk at the commotion you caused, but can't help feeling a little bad for Randal. You did just age him 18 years.
No, wait. 39 minus 23 equals... Okay, so you aged him 16 years. The point was, his significant other was about to leave him because of what you did to him. You briefly consider regressing him back to normal. Or, maybe something even better, now that you think back to the remote's functions.
The young woman begins marching away from Randal, obviously angry and more than a little creeped out. Randal is trying to go after her, but his clothes which are now much too small for him have become a hindrance. His ample stomach is causing his shirt to ride up and is overflowing over the waistband of his pants, which seem to be ready to burst, themselves.
You cycle the remote to the "Clothes" function and press the center button. Randal's clothes instantly resize themselves. His shirt grows a few sizes larger and pulls itself over his stomach and his pants readily jump in size for a more comfortable fit. Cool! There could be some extremely beneficial uses for this function.
You quickly change to the "Reality" function and press the center button once more. This time, you don't see Randal or his clothing change. But, you can feel a strange sensation wash over you, like the very fabric of reality shifted to make room for the new Randal. The woman stopped walking away and turned back to look and Randal, seeming a little confused, herself. Randal stopped looking distressed and pulling at his clothing. Randal walked up to the woman and the two walked away arm in arm, talking and laughing as if nothing had happened.
Huh, how about that. You now have the ability to alter people's ages with utterly no consequences. Well, except for the fact there is a sizable age gap between Randal and his significant other, but they didn't really seem to mind. You do feel a little guilty for stripping 16 years off Randal's life, but nobody seemed to care or mind. Heck, you have a magic remote. Time to have some fun!
You decide to wander the mall for a bit. You occasionally find a person or group of people you think might make for an interesting change, like a man in Radio Hut, or a woman at the shoe store, but you can't seem to be able to pull the remote out without calling attention to yourself. The food court had been empty, but the rest of the mall still seems to be bustling. The Age Changer 3000 wasn't exactly the most subtle device and couldn't really be mistaken for an iPhone in broad daylight, what with it's large antennae and all. Every time you pull it out you attract a few looks from other people in the store. One person even asked you what store you found it in (and there's no way you're going to tell people that!). If people start turning into elders or babies and there's one person pointing a funny-looking remote at them, there wouldn't be much question as to who's causing it. There was, however, one place you could go where nobody would think twice about you having this device. The arcade!
As you walk into the mall's substantial arcade room, the first thing you notice is the bright neon of the arcade boxes and games glowing in the otherwise dark room. The almost sickeningly sweet smell of soda and sugar permeates the air as electric blips and bleeps ring out at an almost deafening level. There is also a surprising number of tweens and teens here, as well. It's remained a mystery to you how this arcade gets so much traffic given this is the age of next-gen consoles and computers, but it does give you some prime targets. Wow, just thinking that makes you sound like some sort of creeper. You only want to mess with their ages using a magic remote you bought. Ugh! That's... not helping.
You find a corner of the arcade rarely frequented by the kids here, and take a seat at one of the arcade booths. The cabinet reads "Polybius," and a miasma of color and shapes fill the screen is eye melting patters. You look around neon-lit room and see three boys crowded around a single arcade booth, "Contra," if you weren't mistaken. It looked like they were taking turns, but it was difficult to tell over the din of teens and 8-bit soundbites. They were well-lit by the screen of surrounding cabinets and a couple conveniently placed lights, but were separated from the main area of the arcade. Perfect positioning.
You pull out the Age Changer and turn it on. Just as before, the screen briefly shows "SCANNING REALITY", before showing an image of one of the boys' faces, squarish with dark brown hair, next to "Devon Jones, 13". Really? What kind of name was "Devon?" Oh, well. Was there any way to expand the range of this thing? It'd be nice to change more than one person at once, or would that be too much for even this thing? Carefully turning the device over in your hands and peering at it in the dimly lit arcade, you notice a small dial set into the side of the remote. You click it forward once, and a second face appeared alongside the first, a teen with a skinny face and blonde hair named "Jeremy Henderson, 13." Well, it looked like the remote DID in fact have some extra qualities to it. You click the dial forward once more and get third child, a freckled red head with a round face named "Charles Blunt, 13." That sounded like a fairly unfortunate name. Well, now it looked like it was time to have some fun.
You cycle the Age Changer into "Physical Age" and press the Fast Forward button so it said "+0.1 years/second". You want to draw this one out and see what happens.
The results start to show fairly quickly, given the boys are already on the cusp of puberty, and now aging a year every ten seconds. All three seemed to be gaining height fairly quickly, though they didn't seem to notice because they were so focused on the arcade game. Well, they did begin to notice as they grow out of their clothes as they ticked past 14 and 15. Devon, the dark haired one, repeatedly tapped the blonde, Jeremy, who was currently playing. You can't make out what they're saying, but you can probably guess. Jeremy is quickly outgrowing the other two and becoming the tallest. The red head, Charles, wasn't too far behind, leaving Devon to be the shortest. However, you do notice that Devon seems to be developing some decent stubble, even at the age of 16.
The trio step away from the arcade booth, their game forgotten. They seem mostly amazed by their developing bodies. Jeremy seems the most excited. He is clearly the tallest, and you can hear him exclaiming in a somewhat cracked voice over the arcade noise. The other two try to quiet him, but without much success. Devon keeps running his hands over his stubbly face, which seems to be developing a goatee. Devon's too small shirt is riding up and you can see a trail of hair quickly developing on his toned stomach. Charles seems to have kept an average position between the two, not particularly tall and not having developed any facial or body hair worth noting. In less than a minute, the boys have gone from looking like middle schoolers, to being more like high school juniors.
You see the boys stripping off their shoes as they no longer fit and probably painful. Their shirts and pants are also plainly too small, but don't seem quite ready to strip them off in a public area. Despite the fact they were in a popular arcade, non of the other kids seemed to have noticed them. Perhaps because of the darkness of the room, or the other children were too involved with their own games. You see Charles, the red head, look around at the arcade. You quickly turn pack to the Polybius booth, trying your best to look like you don't notice and are much too involved with your own game.
After a couple seconds, you look back at the boys to see they are still progressing. The Age Changer says they just turned 18, and they look it. Devon has grown a pair of sideburns to go with his goatee. A coating of hair has covered his entire stomach area, as well as a generous coating on his arms. He looks quite muscular, but he's still the shortest at, you guess, somewhere around five and a half feet. Jeremy is clearly the tallest, soaring over his friends at well above six feet. His tousled blonde hair has grown out to a medium length and he has a fine stubble of a darker color coating his jawline. He is very slender, and what you can see of his stomach doesn't have much in the way of muscle tone. Charles seemed to be trying his hardest to pull his shirt down to meet his pants, but he can't seem to manage it. He seems to be straddling the border between five and six feet. He isn't particularly slender, but he couldn't be called overweight. A dusting of red hair coats his cheeks, and he worriedly brushes his face with a hand. He looks as though he's trying to urge the others to leave, but they seem too transfixed on their own changes to care.
Well, you could go farther with this, or perhaps they've had enough. What to do...