At first, Cody didn't really know what to do. His eyes were deceiving him, surely?! What he was seeing truly couldn't be his good ol' friend Jeff?! He scratched his head in confusion. And Richie, his younger brother, was... milking him? The spectacle was too real to be fake, and he thought he could hear faint moo-sounds coming from inside through the glass.
Then, with a subtle warning, Jeff turned towards the window just as Cody ducked down below to catch a breather and to hide from view. He realized how heavily he was breathing. Hopefully he wasn't seen! A half-minute passed, and Cody realized he must have barely hid in time.
It was at that point that he wasn't really sure what he was going to do about this. It wasn't Halloween! Did Jeff suddenly enjoy dressing up as a cow? That didn't seem like him at all. He had been called to come over. But... there he was... getting milked. MILKED.
He sighed, scratched his head a little bit more, and decided he had to call Sarah back to pick him up with her car - he was just going to go out with Sarah tonight and forget about this whole thing, because obviously what he was seeing was some weird charade Jeff had set up on him and he wasn't going to be fooled by Jeff that easily. Plus, he really did miss his girlfriend and if this was some prank...
Cody dialed Sarah back on his phone and waited for her to pick up. A couple rings later, her lovely voice came online. Cody answered first. "Hey again. Sorry to call back so soon, but I'm... yeah, I'm fine."
He looked around for a little bit at the houses and the neighborhood, while there was silence on the phone, he was trying to gather his words to explain his situation. "Hello?" she said anxiously.
Upstairs, in a closed-off room, the Chronivac was still whizzing away, searching for new information about the people nearby. In the smaller home that was Jeff's house, and with Jeff's room and computer desk facing the front of the building, Cody - sitting outside under the window - was just barely within proximity of the machine. Decoding the specifics of Richie's quick but unjust transformation, the still-active window began to readjust the mental preferences that were specified, now that there was somebody new within that proximity.
"Listen, honey, I do wanna see you tonight. I got carried away a little before. I didn't want to cancel on you and I miss seeing you."
"What? Really?! Oh, okay, great!!! Didn't cancel the reservation yet. I can't wait! ... but why did you cancel before? You just hung up on me before I could even say anything."
"Yeah, well..."
And then he blinked. He... well...
His scratched his head again. Huh.
He couldn't remember why he had canceled.
"... Umm, it must not have been... too important? Wait, sorry. Umm... I'm at - no, I'm not at home, no. I'm at Jeff's house. Probably to pick up some more..."
His mind trailed off again, suddenly all fuzzied up from his recollection. Something about this conversation he was having wasn't feeling right, but he didn't know why.
Sarah spoke again, "Hello? Is there a bad signal or something? You keep fading away --"
"No, sorry, I can hear you clearly. I'm just ... very confused. I came over to Jeff's to pick ... to pick up some milk."
He thought to himself, how weird, I don't remember doing this before, but it wasn't something he hadn't done before... right? "Does that sound right to you, Sarah?"
"I don't care where you get your groceries from, Cody - it's convenient anyway that Jeff lives just down the block. He guarantees it's fresh, right?"
He remembered seeing Richie and Jeff in the window -- AHA! That must have been why he was there. He just wanted proof that he was getting it fresh.
On Jeff's computer, the screen read "Transformation 100% complete. Closing out application." And it reverted back to the desktop.
"Oh, yeah. Anyways - back on for 6:30?"
"Mmm-hmm! I'll grab my finest dress for you - the one you picked out for me. Remember?"
Cody said his I-love-yous and ended the call. He got back up from below the window sill and rung the door bell. Within a few moments, Jeff was at the door with Richie looking on.
"Hey, Code-man! Glad you could make it." They did their secret handshake and padded from the doorway to the living room. The air smelled of sweat, milk and farms. It was an odd mix, Cody thought, but it made sense. Richie had just finished Jeff's latest milking. "HEY RICHIE, go do something else for a while."
With an amusing smirk, Richie walked creepily over to the living room couch and sat down to watch TV, all the while staring down Jeff and Cody.
"So I suppose you're over here to grab some of the fresh stuff - " Jeff said. " - but I wanna show you something awesome I got in the mail this week. You wouldn't believe it!"
"Uh-huh. Another game?" They started to walk down the hall to his room.
"You could say that..."
Shit! Richie thought, and his eyes widened. They're going to mess around with the Chronivac and find out he changed Jeff! He's got to stop them! Richie bolted around the corner and to the door just as Jeff and Cody closed it on him and locked the bolt.