Alex and the old man sat on a couch, the former braced for bad news from the latter. The visitor had arrived with a “you need to sit down before I tell you this” type urgency.
“Out with it then,” Alex said. “I was on my way to bed, you know.”
“It’s about the app.”
“Yes, of course it is. If this is about those new accounts, I’ll have you know I’ve already-”
“It’s being used by organ harvesters.”
“...bloody hell…”
“In particular, the organization in question is coming here to take control of the app from you.”
“What? Like, here here?”
“Yes, they’ll likely arrive within a few hours.”
“How’d they get my address? Actually, you got my address so I guess it’s not so hard.”
The old man grimaced. Far, far too sloppy.
“Thanks for the warning, I’ll go call the police.”
“That won’t be necessary. I can hide you from them until they give up. The main issue is that they likely won’t stop coming after you as long as your wish continues to exist in the world.”
Alex took a couple minutes to process this. He considered arguing back about the necessity of the app. The problem with that argument was that, by comparison, Bod.io hadn’t seemed to’ve improved the world nearly as much as Alex hoped it would. Between the animal thing that had been bothering him and this new bad news, the app was seeming like more trouble than it was worth. Lingering, though, was the issue of those who were genuinely helped.
Alex sighed. “This never would’ve happened if I’d just gone about this better.”
“Maybe. On the other hand, no matter what you did with this particular wish, I’d probably wind up erasing it eventually.”
“Even if it weren’t so destructive?”
“Even in the right hands it would be too powerful.”
“Nukes are powerful, are you doing anything about those?”
The old man chuckled. “No, but only because those aren’t wishes in quite the same way. I’m something of a specialist.”
“That doesn’t answer why you’d erase something just for being powerful.”
“It’s just what I do. I might’ve had a better answer a very long time ago, but these days… It’s almost a habit really. A habit and a preference for a world without the supernatural.”
For another moment Alex tried to think of a rebuttal. This didn’t last, though.
“Alright, fine. But I insist that we at least soften the shock of it.”
----------------------------------------
A full moon hung over the warehouse. Red handed criminals were escorted out of the building by the law’s army. The old man stepped forward and exchanged some quiet words with some higher-up. Then, he waved Cyborg forward.
“Your friend’s still in there. The state he’s in… it’s barely human and it’s prevented the authorities from removing him. You have a copy of his phone, yes?”
Inside the warehouse Sam was the ultimate universal donor. He had torsos on each of the many main room tables, with arms extended elbow to elbow to elbow to connect them. A computer timer conveniently detached and regrew parts at various locations. Without anyone to package them, they simply piled onto the tables. A pile of hearts grew with variety to match the various samples Walter had collected. One pointless lump had a dozen different people's heads growing off of it, mostly just to see if the idea would work.
In one moment all that spread of gross humanity was Sam. Then, a moment later, he was just a boy. Air rushed in to fill the vacuum left by his multi-body, crashing into itself with the sound of thunder. Cyborg loaded the save a second time just in case he’d been hurt.
Sam awoke to a small crowd with Cyborg at the front. “Oh, hey. How long was I out?”
“An hour or two.”
“Oh. Did… you call the police?”
“No, they were already on the way here.”
“Oh.” He looked around. Lights flickered. “Is everyone safe?”
“Yeah, they intercepted the car with everyone on it and apparently somehow changed them back.”
“Oh.” So they would’ve taken care of things without me. He sighed. “I guess it was all poin-” Hands on his shoulders. “Uh, hello.”
Cyborg glared into his eyes. “Never do anything like this again. Never go barging into something like this. Never… you gave yourself up voluntarily, right?”
“In order to save everyone else.”
“Don’t go sacrificing yourself like that! Like, what if you-”
“It doesn’t matter, I could just-”
“Use the app? These guys have the app too. What if they found a setting that made you disappear so completely that nobody could bring you back?”
“In this case they wouldn’t have. They just put me to sleep, so it really doesn’t matter.”
She shook his shoulders. “It does matter!”
He put a hand down on the table to steady himself. Pulling it up, his palm was covered in blood. Whose…?
Then he fainted.
----------------------------------------
Walter found himself in jail. On one hand he was facing jail time and a large fine. On the other hand, the fine was significantly less than the profit he’d made assisting in Fazoli’s venture.
It’s just prison. I’ve just gotta ride it out and I’ll be the real winner here.
During his first day in the cafeteria, though, he encountered a familiar face. Apparently he’d neglected to delete Bod.io off Rex’s phone when he handed him over to the police. The result had to walk crabwise to get through doors. By the time Walter’s former pocket pebble was restrained, he had a few bruises to show for it.
Just prison. Right. Fucking idiot.
----------------------------------------
The shining moon goddess Artemis stood over a table. On the table there was a mannequin with Ben’s face on it. She opened up the wooden body, pulled out a heart, and put it in her pocket. The next table over had a Helen-shaped doll. She unsewed the doll’s dress, plucked a heart from the cotton stuffing, and put it in her pocket. Sam was strapped to another table, watching this take place. When Artemis came to him, she simply reached into his chest: it was already open. After fishing around for a while, she decided he was empty. Artemis laughed at him.
Then Sam woke up. He grabbed his phone and chucked it at the wall. The screen cracked, but it had a case sturdy enough to keep it working.
Then Sam woke his phone up. He poked around for a moment and then noticed a notification. Apparently in one week the app would cease to function and all users who don’t delete their accounts by then will have their bodies reverted to the state they were in before creating said account. This fact had major implications that all got tossed out of his head like a boomerang when there was a shout of concern for
“Sam,” his mother said, “you okay in there? There was some kind of banging sound.”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Then Sam went and got breakfast.
It was Monday, but the uproar around the surprise large-scale civilian organ harvesting operation (a thing which normally can’t exist) had provided motivation for the school to take a couple days off. This was for emotional processing, but also for more formal procedures. Multiple students and members of school staff numbered among the abducted, after all.
In particular, it turned out that some of the organ shipments had been intercepted and taken into custody. This created a legal problem. Specifically, since these were spare parts, it would be best to give these to folks whose organs were missing or defective but, because they’re all stolen, that would be illegal. Thus, to fix the dilemma, the local organ procurement organization had sent out a team to gather as much consent for donation as they could get their hands on before the contraband expired.
Sam, being a minor, could not consent to organ donation without his parents/guardians.
“What do you think?” he asked.
The parents shrugged. “We’ll leave it up to you.”
“Okay, but what do you think?”
His mother thought for a moment. “Well… this isn’t about doing any additional surgery, right?”
The solicitor nodded. “We’re asking specifically about those organs which have been confiscated. The forms do not refer to anything outside that scope or to any future donations.”
“But it still feels odd, right?” his father said. “It’s not everyday someone comes knocking on your door asking to use your lungs like you’re already dead.”
There was a bit more elaboration but the conclusion remained unchanged. The parents would support Sam’s decision, but wouldn’t push either way on the decision.
Sam then asked them to leave so he could have a private word with the solicitor.
“You’re aware that you can’t consent to the donation without them present, yes?”
“Right, I was wondering what you think about this.”
“Well, you are under no obligations here but many lives could be saved.”
“Okay, but what do you think?”
The solicitor took a moment to consider. “Honestly I don’t like it. I don’t like the idea of taking organ donations from live people. I don’t like the idea of waiting for a criminal to steal someone’s heart and then asking their loved ones to sign a form afterward. Even if it is for the best, in every case but this one the process would carry such a strange cruelty to it that I wouldn’t be able to ignore it. But, at the end of the day, this is an exception to that scenario and all I’m doing is asking. The responsibility here is yours.”
Sam considered for a minute. Nobody wants me to do this… He called his parents back in and signed the solicitor’s papers. At least this way some good will come of that stupid app.
On the news the next day, it turned out a number of the abductees had made the same choice. The reports mentioned the “large number” of lives that would be saved, but didn’t give any specific numbers. Weirder, they didn’t mention the fact that there were blatantly too many organs to have come from so few visibly intact people. Weirdest, there was no mention of Bod.io or anything supernatural. It was almost as though someone was keeping certain parts of the story from going public.
Sam’s father scratched his head. “Why didn’t they ask me to sign anything?”
“Maybe yours went bad already?”
Some of them had just because the underworld supply chain wasn’t equipped to move that many lungs within the couple days they last in cold storage. That’s just kicking the can, though, since he could’ve been asked a few days ago when said lungs were still viable. Really the more complete explanation is that Sam’s father’s many lungs simply hadn’t been found yet.
Anyway, the next day the police came to collect statements from Sam and his father. Unfortunately, in both cases they got the truth. The latter had been unconscious through the whole thing so his testimony was limited.
Sam was worse, though, because his account, while more detailed, was obviously impossible. They, by that point, had a fuzzy sense of the software that was somehow instrumental in the abductions. It seemed like a very serious thing. Sam’s story, meanwhile, had him using the same software to tug some weird arcade machine, only for his friend to later be abducted by being turned into a stone. These things did not match, tonally.
“You know,” the investigator reminded, “lying to the police is illegal.”
“I’m not lying. Look, I’ll show you.”
By this point Sam had a growing collection of quick tricks to demonstrate the app. Unfortunately this demonstrated the veracity of his tall tale. The interview was filed under “look into at a later date” and the officers left to pursue other leads which better conformed to the laws of nature.
Sam still had the app open when they left. It was at this point that the boomerang hit him in the head. A clock at the top of the app counted down.
Wait, this thing’s gonna stop working next Monday. Oh no.
----------------------------------------
The school decided that three days was about enough to process being abducted and having your organs stolen, so classes returned on Thursday.
Since they were nearing the end of the semester, most classes had shifted gear into review mode. The lack of new material was convenient for Sam because he was utterly distracted by Bod.io’s sudden ultimatum.
The app is gonna stop working on Monday. If I don’t delete my account it’ll be like I haven’t lived the last few months of my life. But before then… how the hell am I supposed to pick a body?
Luckily for him, the semi-permanent substitute teacher for world history who, coincidentally, had actually been absent the last few proper school days, was also distracted by the app, or at least the consequences of it. Now he was eager to tell his fun, crazy story about getting gotten by the organ men.
“Did you get in trouble for missing school?” a student asked.
In truth he almost had, but not because of the organ harvesters. Instead, he’d been in Vegas. For a couple days he thought he’d won big enough to quit subbing, but the law of large numbers had cut that dream short. The news after he came back had simply made for the ultimate fake doctor’s note.
What he said, though, was “No, they wouldn’t dream of firing me because they know I love my job too much.”
“What was it like?”
“Well, thankfully it’s all a blur after they drugged me, but rest assured I knocked a few of them out on the way down.”
“Did you donate like those guys on the news?”
“Oh yeah, you gotta make the best out of the worst situations.”
Sam nodded. And it makes sense people would assume it’s a drug if they don’t know the app.
The substitute then remembered what he was doing and speedran the entirety of the roman empire.
Swimming, it turned out, was a class that could skip a day and remain largely unaffected. The students were made to walk a plank, dive off of it, and then review a few strokes from earlier that semester.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Sam caught up with Cyborg afterward.
“Oh hey,” she said. “Sorry for yelling at you the other day.”
“It’s fine. Did you see that notification from the app?”
“What app?”
“Seriously? ‘What app?’”
“What? There’s a lot of apps.” She got out her phone. “I know which you mean, though. I’ve got notifications turned off on everything by default so I probably didn’t see it… huh, so it’s gonna just die then? Time to delete my account.”
“That quick? I guess you already bricked yours so it doesn’t really matter.”
“And I don’t want this thing breaking my legs in a few days.”
“Oh right, I forgot about that.”
“Really?”
“Well, I mean, I guess you not having crutches just became normal.”
“Huh. You delete yours yet?”
“Nope. Kinda… I’m not sure about… Hey, who do you think I should, like, be?”
“What, like with the app?”
“Yeah. This thing’s giving me one last chance to change so I figure I ought to get it right.”
“Get it- I don’t think getting it right is a thing. Just be yourself.”
“You realize how unhelpful that is, right?”
“What do you expect me to say? Go turn into Ryan Gosling?”
“More like ideas for things to change. In principle this thing could solve all my problems if I use it right.”
“Then have it solve your 84th problem.”
“My what?”
“I mean quit worrying, you’re fine as you are.”
“Come on, everyone can-”
“Hey all,” Ben said, having joined them with lunch in hand.
“Hey,” Sam said, “maybe you’ll be more helpful.”
“I always am.”
“Are you?” Cyborg asked.
“The app is gonna stop working on Monday so I’ve gotta decide who I want to be by then.”
“Hmm, I see. Well, you were a girl for a while there so…”
Cyborg glared daggers.
“...uh… well, you gotta consider all your options.”
“Sure, that’s why I’m asking.”
“Right… well, you could go with any of those bodies you’ve got on your phone there. Any particular one. The basketball one, your current one, the one from the other day that you used to get the high score, remember that one? Just gotta consider all your options.”
“I’ve also still got all the sliders, so it’s a lot more options than just the saves. You really have no suggestions?”
Ben glanced at Cyborg. She made an “I see you” type motion with her hand. He had a suggestion but hers won out.
“Just all your options, man.”
----------------------------------------
After school that day, he went to ask a similar question to someone he trusted: his former basketball coach. Thus he put his backpack down outside the girls’ locker room and started opening up the app. Fortunately, though, a girl happened to come out at that moment and Sam was able to ask her to ask the coach to come out.
“How can I help you?”
Sam pulled up the app, explained what it could do, and strobed his hair to demonstrate. She wasn’t as shocked as he expected, partially because he’d forgotten that she’d seen him transform while confronting Rex.
“How long have you had this app?”
“Since the start of the year. School year, I mean.”
“So you had it when you were in basketball?”
“Yup.”
“Were you using it when you were on the team?”
“...yes?”
“Okay. Sam.” She sighed. “You realize that’s cheating, right?”
“I… don’t think there’s a rule that says I can’t use the app like I did.”
“That’s not how that works. That app violates the spirit of every rule around doping in every sport. Do you understand why?”
“I guess… it’s not fair?”
“Right, it’s unfair to your opponents who could never hope to compete with such a thing and it’s not fair to your teammates either.”
“Okay… Well, what I wanted to ask was… um… it’s gonna stop working next Monday, so before then I’ve gotta decide on any last changes…”
“If you want to participate in any sports in the future, get yourself as close to you would be normally and hit the gym. If you don’t do that I’ll report it to any competition you join.”
“...I don’t think I’ll be joining any sports again.”
“Alright, then do what you want with it. But if you want to be fair to everyone around you, I’d still say put yourself at normal.”
Sam spent a good chunk of the next day chewing on this. It was the kind of icy response that could have someone arguing against themself for weeks. When the end bell rang, it startled him.
I need more opinions.
The only one not fleeing for freedom was the english teacher Mrs. Doenitz so he went to her and gave a slightly more concise repeat of what he’d told the coach.
“...and since it’s going to stop working in a couple days, I’m trying to figure out what to do with it.”
“Want my advice? Ditch it and stay far away from it.”
Not the answer he was looking for. “Whaaat?”
“Yes. I know enough stories to know that kind of thing never turns out well. Symbolically, it’s power without wisdom, just a recipe for chaos.”
“Isn’t that going too far? If I just use it as a tool to improve myself then it can’t be that bad.”
“Everything comes with a price.”
“Not this. I’ve tried it out, if I use it to get bigger it just creates more of me from nothing.”
“Does it? How can you be sure it’s not taking the height from someone else?”
“That sounds crazy, why would I assume that?”
“Ever read Flowers for Algernon?”
“Oh come on. You’re talking as though it’s wrong to improve yourself at all.”
“The means are important. Studying will earn you better grades but if you just edited your grades to look higher, then that could get you suspended.”
“Well, how about this? I’ve been using the app to make myself better at studying: more focused and more detail-retain-y.”
“Your vocab could use some work.”
“That’s beside the point. The app has a place and I’m tired of everyone putting it down for silly reasons.”
His finger stroked his phone screen’s surface, tracing out the slight indentation of the crack.
Mrs. Doenitz shrugged. She gathered up her things and stood. “We can talk about this another time, I’ve got somewhere to be.”
They parted. Sam shook his head as he walked out of the school. I wish Cyborg had been there. She would’ve made the point better.
Most of the crowd outside the school had dispersed, but Helen’s small clique were still loitering outside.
Becky laughed when she saw him. “Dude, make up your mind.”
Obviously Helen was the one he approached. “App’s disappearing on Monday, any suggestions for what I should do with it?”
Helen was the first one he asked who actually felt the gravity of the question. Sam was asking her to mold the very core of his being. That’s a lot of pressure.
“Mind if I think for a moment?”
“Sure, I’ve got time.” He’d already missed his bus.
Sasha stepped forward. “If you’re looking for suggestions, I’ve got one.”
“Okay?”
“You know that body you used for basketball?”
“Yeah… in retrospect I think using the app like that might’ve been cheating.”
She took another step closer. “Well, that’s not all it’s useful for…”
Becky stepped in to separate them. “Calm down.”
Sasha shrugged. “All I’m saying is you gotta consider all your options.”
Where have I heard that before?
“Girl, you’ve only got one option on your mind.”
“You got any better ideas?”
Becky thought for a moment and then looked Sam up and down. “If we're just talking bodies… a bit more height wouldn’t hurt.” The voice she said this with sounded more honest than anyone expected her to be. After an awkward silence she burst out “What, are you the only one who’s allowed to have a type?”
At this point Helen reentered the discussion. “Don’t listen to them, Sam. Just be whoever you want to be.”
“But I don’t know who I want to be, that’s the point.”
“Right… Well, maybe you’re asking the wrong question. You remember that money trick?”
----------------------------------------
Sam poked at his dinner. His mother had cooked something up and put it on rice. She’d told him what it was, but the name didn’t stick in his mind. He sighed. Okay, I have to do this now.
“Hey, remember that app y’all told me to delete?”
His father looked up. “Uh, yup?”
“Well, a friend of mine at school has the app too and she installed it back onto my phone.”
“Oh. Huh.” He took a bite. Whatever it was, it was good. “You know, the idea was that that would be more long-term.”
“Well, it’s going to stop working on Monday, so you got what you wanted.”
Forks stopped clacking on plates. Two pairs of eyes landed on Sam.
“What do you mean ‘stop working’?” his mother asked.
“I mean exactly what you think I mean. It said the server the app is on or something is gonna shut down so it won’t work anymore. In the meantime I’ve been trying to think of final changes and nothing is turning out right.”
“Do… you think changing like that is really necessary?”
“Well, I’ve been using it to boost my grades,” Sam snapped. “I’m sure you can appreciate that.”
“Hey,” his father rejoined. “Don’t take that tone with your mother.”
She put up a hand. “So that’s why you were up late all those times?”
“Yes, I used it to make me not tired. Obviously that won’t work after it’s gone, so I’m trying to ease off relying on it in that way.”
“That’s good,” the mother said and went back to eating.
“That’s it? I thought you’d be angrier.”
“If it’s truly the case that it’s going away soon, then it shouldn’t matter that you have it in the meantime.”
“If memory serves,” the father said, “you said you couldn’t download it again. So you were lying?”
“Yes, and I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”
“Well, as long as we’re clear about that.” He too went back to eating.
Sam did not. “I was hoping you two’d have some ideas for things to change before the app goes away.”
“I dunno, make your teeth stronger,” his mother said noncommittally.
The father thought for a moment. “Well, you’d want different optimizations for different tasks. For swimmers lung capacity and arm length are important while for boxers-”
“I’m not joining any more sports, dad. And it’s probably cheating.”
“Alright, alright.” A minute was spent eating in silence before the father was suddenly seized by a sense of urgency. “Sam, come with me.”
“What? But my food-”
“It can wait, we need to get to a mirror. There’s something we’ve got to do as men.”
Once in the bathroom, Sam’s father asked about the “age” slider. Turning it up, they caught a glimpse of at least one possible future for Sam. Turning it further, they saw the hairline recede. At the father’s instruction, they planned out a graceful path through hair loss. When Sam changed back, his hair returned to normal but the genetic change was made.
“Trust me, you’ll be thanking me when you’re older.”
----------------------------------------
Sam had his eyes trained on the mirror like it was a character creation screen. He figured he’d start with the face. He curved his nose up and down. He expanded and contracted his lips. Cheekbones, eyebrows, the shape of his eyes. Is it better to have a more angular jawline, either square or triangular, or a softer more oval shape? More chin or less chin? Which eye color is correct?
After only a few minutes he couldn’t recognize himself, the one in the mirror was a sort of alien stranger. He tried pulling sliders to change himself back, but he was lost in a labyrinth with as many dimensions as there are cells in his skin. In the end he simply loaded a save.
He sighed. And that’s just the face! This is hopeless. Pulling out his phone, who haven’t I asked about this yet?
Scrolling through his contacts, he came upon the number for his doctor. Wait, that’s perfect. This guy’s in the business of deciding which bodies are correct, he must have some suggestions. Thus the call was initiated.
A couple holding tunes and a “yes I would like to speak to” with a receptionist later he had the doctor on the line.
“Hey, I want your advice on something.” He explained again for the fourth time in a single week. “What do you think?”
“Hmm.” The doctor had actually had this on his mind ever since Sam came in for an appointment as a girl. “You have a slight allergy to pollen, right?”
“Oh, yeah, true.” Sam put him on speaker phone and annihilated the allergy in Bod.io. “Thanks, that made a lot of sense. Any other ideas?”
Over the course of the phone call, the doctor went through a long list of conditions, predisposals, and small tweaks to Sam’s metabolism. He was surprised to learn that the app also reads out body information, so it can be used to detect issues as well as fix them.
The doctor asked him to check a long pair of words ending in -oma.
Sam typed it into the search. The app lagged a bit pulling it up. He read out the number.
Laughing, “Okay, with that few cells you’re not due to have any issues for the next, say, 40 years, but if you turn it down to zero you won’t have to deal with it.”
Sam was loaded up with immunity to various viruses and a couple obscure poisons. On the doctor’s recommendation he changed his blood type to AB positive, a universal recipient. Small deficiencies in his vision and hearing were found and squashed. His bones were strengthened slightly, his vitamins balanced.
Eventually the doctor’s time ran out. He checked for heart conditions, told Sam to eat right and go outside and all that, and then hung up.
Sam looked back in the mirror. Basically no change was detectable. Maybe Helen was right and I’ve been coming at this from the wrong direction.
----------------------------------------
“Hey mom, what’s the most expensive thing you own that would fit in your pocket?”
“My pocket, huh? I would’ve said the house but… I guess the deed to the house?”
Pro tip: if you copy a house deed you still only have one house. Similarly with birth certificates and car keys.
Sam explained the duplication trick with the app. “...and I’ve used it to copy money a few times.”
“Uhh… could you demonstrate that real quick?”
He did.
“Right, so you see this number that appears twice? That’s the serial number for the bill. Normally no two of these match, but they do on your copies. If anyone caught these, you’d get in trouble for counterfeiting.”
“Wow. Glad I only did it a couple times then.”
----------------------------------------
The next day Sam and his mother went out to a jewelry store. The store in question was in an area of downtown where the parking was tight, so they had to walk a bit to get there. On the walk they passed two figures of note.
First was none other than Dom Fazoli himself walking a poodle while his goons chased a brit. The dog wasn’t his. The other day, he’d left the warehouse by the time Sam had entered, so the two had never actually interacted. This was fortunate, as they weren't subjected to the cornea joke Fazoli was workshopping.
The second stopped Sam and squinted.
“Hmm… have I ever had you as a student, by chance?”
Sam pointed at himself and said “Sam.”
“Ah, right, Sam Adams. What’re you up to today?”
Once again, Sam explained the app and where they were going with it.
“Oh woah nice. You could, like, heh, grow blue hair out naturally, man. Well, see ya.”
The mother turned as the former teacher left. “You know that guy?”
“Yeah, he taught world history. I think he quit.”
“That guy’s a teacher?”
“Well, he didn’t start out like that.”
Finally they entered the jewelry store. This one was selected on the basis that it would both buy and sell. The whole interior was bright, open, glittering, and tightly guarded by strong sheets of glass. A helpful receptionist greeted them at the door.
“Can I help you find anything?” she asked.
“Yes, we’re looking for your most expensive thing,” Sam’s mother said.
The receptionist took one look at the way the mother and son were dressed and tried to steer them toward something more realistic, but they persisted with the strange novelty demand. She acceded, figuring habits of customer service were important even when it seemed like there wouldn’t be a sale.
A sturdy glass case guarded a necklace with the price of a house. The thing was thoroughly encrusted with gems, to an extent that would make someone sick to their stomach if they actually had to put the thing on.
“Mind if I try it on?” Sam asked.
At first the receptionist rejected this, but the pair once again pushed. As politely as she could manage, she brought out a pair of handcuffs for extra security. Sam put on the necklace (it was surprisingly heavy), poked at his phone a bit, and then gave it back.
“Now watch this. The necklace is back in the case, but now… I’m wearing it again.”
The receptionist was mortified for the moment it took her to realize there were actually two necklaces now. And a second pair of handcuffs, the app apparently thought those were clothes. Sam then increased his average app explanations per day to 1, having finally overcome the few days earlier in the week where he hadn’t needed to explain it.
“...and so, we would like to sell this.”
Before buying, the receptionist brought them into the back of the store where a jeweler inspected the quality of the duplicate. The copy was perfect so the value was equal. A few copies later, Sam and his mother walked away with quite a lot of money.
Sam’s mother turned to him, “What’s wrong?”
“This thing can make me into whoever I want to be but I feel like, with the way I’m using it, I’m stuck. I’ve asked so many people and it seems like nobody has strong suggestions for who I ought to be.”
“Hmm… Well, I’d say you ought to be someone who is happy and good.”
At this point Sam didn’t want to touch the emotion settings. When he checked, he couldn’t find a slider for being a good person. All he could come up with was to change his blood type to O negative, a universal donor.
----------------------------------------
Sam stood at his school bus stop on Monday watching the timer on the app tick down. In a few hours the app would degenerate to a functionless user interface.
A voice from beside him, “Time’s running out.”
Sam turned to the old man. “You were at that place with the organ traffickers, weren’t you? You don’t look like a cop.”
The old man chuckled. “I’m not one, just a citizen with concerns about the impossible.”
“Like the app?”
“The app and all things like it.” Including myself.
“So you know about this thing?”
“I do.”
“Great, I was worried I’d need to explain it again. Any suggestions for what I should do with it before it dies?”
“Hmm… I’d say do nothing, just let it die.”
Another one of those. “I’ll put it another way, I’m trying to decide who I should be, what I should make myself.”
The old man gave it serious thought. “I’m older than most things you’ve probably heard of but I can’t help you with that one.”
“Well then, maybe an example would be good. How’d you decide what you wanted to be?”
He shook his head. “Apologies, my story is too long, I cannot tell it to you. If you’ve made changes you want to keep, I’d suggest deleting your account now so that you don’t forget later. That is all.”
Sam was about to press him for more, but was distracted by the sound of the coming bus. When he looked back, the old man was gone. Sam then deleted his account.
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At the end of the countdown, the server was cut off from the internet and an instruction was received to revert everyone who still had an account. A few animals changed back into humans. A couple people who had happened to die in the past couple months were revived (the one who hadn’t been buried yet was relieved). A lump of coal in a police station turned into a guard and Rex suddenly found himself underqualified for prison.
Those who had deleted the app kept their alterations. Alex kept his beard. Cyborg kept her balance. Sam kept his blood.
The old man then erased the server’s power permanently.
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Sam and Ben sat down for lunch.
“Hey, remember when you said you met some weird old dude?”
“Hmm? When was this?”
“A few months ago, when you found the app.”
“I remember the app but not the dude.”
“What? But that was your whole point originally. Like, you saw this weird guy looking through a marble at your phone and decided I needed to hear about it.”
“Yeah, not ringing any bells. I guess it was too long ago.”