"It could be worse," had become a bit of a mantra for Ryan Searle. The formula was always the same, "Yea X, but hey at least Y." Yea I'm not popular, but at least I have some friends, Yea I'm chubby, but at least I'm not fat, Yea I'm not good at sports but at least I get good grades and so on like that. He thought up more "it could be worse's" as he rode in the back of the family truck home from school that Friday. His family lived in Bucktail, Nebraska If you've never heard of it you're part of a select group of people called "everyone." Its a town of about 700 people in western half of the state close to absolutely nothing. His parents were farmers. His Grandfather had owned a big chunk of land and then Ryan's father and his four brothers (Ryan's Uncles) each got a share as part of their inheritance. Each brother now had a house on his land and the families (4 uncles, 4 aunts, 18 cousins) spent a lot of time together. Yea there aren't a lot of people in Bucktail, but at least I never seem to be alone. He wasn't sure if that one followed the formula correctly.
At 16, Ryan was the youngest of three boys. His brothers Mike and Aaron were identical twins and had just turned 18. Ryan was a fairly average sophomore in high school. He was 5' 7" dark blond hair, with blue eyes. He was overweight and it showed in his face, baby fat his mother called it, made him look younger than he actually was. As they approached the turn off towards home, Ryan looked across at Aaron and Mike. For all intents and purposes they looked exactly the same. There were some little differences; Aaron had a scar across his knuckles from some accident long ago, but mostly the same. All three boys had dark sandy blond hair and blue eyes but thats where the similarities ended. They were taller than he was; even when they were younger than him they were taller than he is now. At 6' 2" they towered over him. They were athletic and good at most sports. They were outgoing and made friends easily. They were closer to each other than they were to him. Yea but, they weren't as smart as him, they were going to end up farming for their whole lives, and well he couldn't think of another. He was think that maybe if he started working out with them, he'd have abs too and maybe lose some face fat and have a nice defined jaw. Then the truck stopped and Ryan snapped back to reality.
They weren't at home; they were parked on the three blocks that constituted "town" in Bucktail. Aaron and Mike needed to "get some things" from the store, which was code for alcohol. The clerk at the store graduated last year and was a friend of theirs, being under 21 wasn't an issue. They were a few weeks away from graduation and the parties were already starting. Ryan hoped out of the back and into the second hand electronics store next to the liquor mart. He looked around for some new toy to entertain himself with while the twins were out partying with friends and he was left back with his parents when he came across the Chronivac Version 4.0. It looked kind of like a PSP but a little bigger. The price tag said $40. He went to the cashier to pay for it, was told that all electronics were sold as is and there were no returns. He slipped it in his backpack and when he got back to the truck, the twins were there waiting for him. They didn't say anything, he knew he if he told on them for getting booze they'd make him pay for it. When they got back to the farm the twins went left and Ryan went right to check out his new game.
Ryan went up to the hayloft and turned on the Chronivac. It booted up, "Battery at 100%, Hello and welcome to the latest piece of hardware from Chronivac Industries, the world-wide leaders of genetic research and development. What lies before you is the pinnacle of genetic engineering, a device with the ability to transform the world around you and yourself into any form you desire. With version 4.0 comes the new ability to manipulate targets other than the user. Simply select a person and you can transform them in just the same way you may transform yourself." “This game is odd”, he thought to himself as he flipped the device around and checked for a game slot. There was none, it must be loaded onto the system. He decided to go along with it. He looked at the screen and hit the scan button, a simple map popped up with a red dots and name tags visible. The name was his. “what the” Ryan uttered out loud, trying to remember if he entered his name in at any point. He clicked on his dot on the map and it expanded to a really accurate picture of him. This was weird, he clicked on the ‘popular stats’ option and it loaded up
Age: 16 Years 2 months 16 days
Height: 5 foot 7 Inches
Weight: 185 Pounds
Gender: Male
Sexuality: 75% Heterosexual
Body Fat: 29%
Penis, Hard: 3.2” Inches
Penis, Soft: 2 Inches
Eye Color: Blue
Hair Color: Dark Blonde
As he clicked around more it had accurate numbers on all portions of his body and after he clicked on each section he would be prompted with a box asking if he’d like to make a change. Ryan was thoroughly freaked out, he assumed it had some kind of scanner, but still it was weird. He decided to play around, I mean what’s the worst that could happen?