Kuai looked at the pendant in his hands, again trying to see any signs of something, anything, unusual about it, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. "How does it work?" he asked.
"Lemme explain," Nick answered. "First, it always needs to be worn around your neck in order to function properly, got it? The back of the gold necklace has two tiny sensors that tap into your nervous system via your spinal chord, reading your brainwaves and able to detect and interpret your thought patterns. So if you want to use it, make sure you're wearing it properly. Got it?"
"Okay," Kuai stammered in reply, still not sure if he was believing what he was hearing. "But wait! How… I mean, I guess I understand how it can read my thoughts, sorta. But how does it make the changes? Like to Sean and stuff?"
Nick started to laugh. "Remember the nanotechnology I told you I was working on? That 'Fairy Dust' you were always making fun of me for? Well… that's what makes the changes."
"What?" Kuai asked incredulously. "How?"
"Each time the pendant detects a thought, it will emit a wave of nanites, little subatomic robots that can make changes to everything around you. They reproduce at a seemingly near-infinite rate, and can build up, change, and tear down any matter, organic or otherwise, in seconds."
"Wait!" Scrunching his nose up, Kuai thought for a moment. "Wouldn't that be dangerous? What happens if the nanites get out of control?"
Nick breathed in deeply. "Yes, Kuai, there is some inherit danger in nanotechnology. But don't worry, I've programmed in so many safety checks and redundancies that nothing can get too far out of hand. Whoever holds the pendant is always in control. The software it runs on has a self-destruction algorithm that makes sure all nanites are totally destroyed within a certain period of time after leaving the pendant. That defaults to five seconds, but if you think about the time delay, you can increase that up to a minute. If you want to go longer than a minute, you have to make sure you keep focusing back on your subject once a minute so that the pendant can emit a new strain of nanites."
This was all too much for Kuai, who shook his head, his breathing starting to increase. "So-- what does this mean?" he asked. "What can the pendant do?"
Kuai could almost imagine Nick's broad smile. "Almost anything you want it to, Kuai. Remember how we talked about some of your fantasies last year of having some of your students tower over you? This could make that happen. Or perhaps your basketball team needs a bit of a boost. I'm sure a few extra inches or feet or yards in height will help them out. The nanites can change people's memories to make them believe the changes you've made to the world are the way things have always been, so they don't see anything out of the ordinary. And since they're subatomic, they can even, through the principles of quantum physics, go back in time and affect history to line up with your changes. This pendant honestly gives you the power of a god."
Hearing these words, felt his knees weaken, and he stumbled back, landing on the kitchen table, luckily not breaking it in half under his weight. This seemed all too good to be true. If he hadn't seen what had happened to Sean with his own eyes, he wouldn't believe it. But Nick was an extremely smart man, and he had never lied to Kuai before. Kuai realized this was something to be excited about after all.
"Now, Kuai, there's one more thing. I need to tell you about some of the controls and rules."
"Controls?" Kuai asked. "I thought you said it reads my brain waves."
"It does, and that's how the changes start and is defined, but there are some settings you can change regarding the different ways the pendant can go about making those changes. Do you see that button on the bottom of the pendant? Give it a double-click."
Kuai grabbed the pendant in his left hand and did what Nick said. Instantly, the side facing towards him lit up, and five images of small switches appeared on the screen, all marked to the up position, which Kuai guessed by the "I" label above them and the "O" label below indicated the switches were all on.
"Each of those five switches on the screen can control something about the pendant," Nick continued. "The one marked 'one' is sort of a locking mechanism. When that's turned on, no one will be able to take the pendant away from you; it gives them a shock if they do. The only way you'll get rid of it is by voluntarily taking it off. Switch two will actually make the pendant unnoticeable to anyone but you. With it on, no one can tell that you're wearing it, even if you're in bed naked and they're lying right on top of you. The third switch affects the subject, or subjects, and their minds. Whoever you transform will be unaware of any changes you make to them if that switch is on, and will think they've always been that way. Four works pretty much the same way, but instead of the one experiencing the change, it will affect everyone else in the world, except you of course. Finally, switch five affects how the various inanimate objects and environment around the subjects are changed. If it's on, clothing, buildings, desks, chairs, whatever, will change with the subject, just as if they had been designed for them at their new size. I know, based on how much you like the idea of clothing ripping to shreds, that's a switch you'll probably enjoy playing with." Kuai chuckled at this.
"Now, you can turn any of these switches on or off at any time, just by bringing up this screen with a double-click of that button. Any switch you change will not be retro-active, meaning that if you want to undo something you did, you need to make sure the switches affecting people's memories are turned on, otherwise, they'll still remember the changes you made., and if you grow somebody and cause the building they're in to grow because of it, if you turn off the switch and shrink the person back down, you'll still be left with a huge building. Got it?"
Kuai nodded, giving each switch on the screen a little tap, flicking them on and off. When he was finished, he made sure they were back on their defaults, saying, "Got it." As he flicked the last switch, he noticed a long slider bar at the bottom of the screen below all the switches. "Hey, Nick," he asked. "What's the long red bar at the bottom do?" He heard hesitation come from Nick's end, with a long pause. "Nick, c'mon. I'm your closest friend. Tell me."
Finally, Nick answered, "That's the slider to override the safety protocols. It'll ask you for a passcode to do so, and I can't give you that, Kuai, I just can't."
Kuai sighed. "I understand, Nick," he said, accepting it, but a little hurt that his friend wouldn't give him the information.
"Hey, don't be disappointed. There's only a few things that the safety protocols control that affect you. First off, and I know this sounds like a biggie, but whoever's wearing the pendant can't change themselves. If I know you, though, I don't think that's gonna matter much. Am I right?"
Grinning, Kuai answered, "Sure, Nick. That's fine. What else?"
"Well, the only other thing is that there's a limit to how much you can change someone. It varies from subject to subject and in different situations, but there might come a time that you won't be able to grow or transform a subject anymore without taking them back to normal. If that seems to be coming too early or too soon, let me know, and I might be able to log-in remotely and adjust some of the parameters."
"Okay," Kuai said. "Anything else I should know?"
"That's about it." Nick chuckled slightly. "I know you're gonna have a lot of fun with it tomorrow at school with your students, big guy. Make sure you call me and let me know all the details."
"Will do," Kuai smiled, excited about all the possibilities that were in store for him. "I'll talk to you tomorrow then. And, thank you so much for this. It means a lot you shared this with me."
"Don't mention it, big guy. You deserve it."
"Bye, Nick."
"Bye," Nick repeated, then hung up.
That night, Kuai couldn't sleep much, too excited, both in his head and elsewhere, for what the next day would hold. When his alarm rang in the morning, he jumped out of bed, into a quick shower and shave, and after eating breakfast, he was on the road to the school. After getting his lesson plans finalized for the day, the first bell rang, and the students filed into his classroom.
His first class was 7th grade Honors Pre-Algebra, and it was a small class, consisting of ten girls and six boys. Kuai looked at each of the new students as they walked in, each one nervous and excited at the start of a new school year, with new books, fresh backpacks, and clean uniforms, friends to make and experiences to have. As they all took their seats, Kuai fingered the pendant. Finally, he made sure it was in the 'invisible' mode so no one could see it, draped it around his neck, and then stood up, ready to face the class.
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