Chapter 4: Emma M. - A Matter of Confidence

It seems that after unlocking the laptop, it no longer disappears after my birthday – as if I have now claimed it.

It’s been two weeks since I originally figured out how to access it. Since then, I’ve worked to take advantage of the situation while maintaining my covertness to avoid situations like I had with Holly. I’ve done some testing here and there for simple things like increasing my allowance, changing plans to fit my schedule, and helping people with their problems to offset my bad karma.

Unlike Holly’s Thought Stream where I was only allowed to edit 1 word, I found my family each had 2 edit points which quickly grew to 3 three after some use. It appears that the more that I use the Thought Stream, the further I can grow my abilities. From my further testing, I’ve discovered that it recharges after they have had a full night of rest.

Well, I’ve definitely done more selfish acts than selfless ones with my powers so far. But still, that doesn’t mean that I’m not trying! Just this week I made my younger sister Emma study for her test and she aced it! And I helped my older Kenny win a game of poker against his friends! And-... eh I guess that’s it. With the amount of testing I’ve done with this new tool, I probably have a lot of bad karma to offset.

Speaking of which, what stands out to me from the more “selfish” half of my research is how willing people are to accept new truths. Even if what’s presented to them is completely contrary to what they experienced before, few have any good reason to question the authenticity of their mind unless the difference is impossible to ignore. This makes implanting surface-level lies fairly easy.

However, there are always unexpected consequences. For instance, this week is our long-anticipated family beach trip – an annual ordeal which requires a significant amount of planning. And it was just yesterday that I was able to change the date of this trip from this Saturday to this Friday. My main goals were to 1) test if I can manage a memory rewrite across multiple people at once and 2) avoid light rain that might have caused my older sister Cherie to wear a less revealing beach outfit.

I have to admit, I know that the second part is a bit weird. However, it’s impossible not to be honest with the darker thoughts of my inner mind. I’d be lying to myself if I said that possibly missing out on one of the rare occasions that I could see Cherie’s near nude body in the flesh wasn’t a valid excuse to test out this power.

If I’m being completely honest, the first time I ever saw Cherie’s developed body in a bikini was the closest thing I had to a sexual awakening as a kid. Cherie doesn’t mind a trip to the beach because it’s an opportunity to sunbathe her naturally pale skin, so the type of bikinis she wears exposes an ample amount of flesh. Even though I know having those feelings over Cherie is wrong, I can’t deny the fact that she has bombshell tits and a set of curvy hips that acted as a prelude to her juicy ass. It’s incredibly uncomfortable knowing that I am capable of having those intrusive thoughts over my sister, but I reason that it’s harmless as long as I keep it to a few peeks.

This experiment of changing the trip’s date worked relatively well besides the fact that Cherie got in trouble with her girlfriend when she abruptly had to cancel their Friday dinner reservations. Of course, as Cherie couldn’t explain this lapse of foresight, she just had to take all the blame.

I do feel a bit bad about that, but the consequences were mild enough that I can’t help but feel Cherie had a little bad karma coming her way anyway. However, I quickly brush off any feelings of satisfaction to maintain some sense of decency.

The main takeaway from this is that editing multiple minds at once to cover for 1 lie is manageable as long as the lie being implanted isn’t overly complex. For something even as simple as changing a date, I must be mindful of everyone’s individual circumstances that could get me in trouble.

But with that taken care of, the thought of soon being able to catch glances full of Cherie’s side titties is enough to settle any impulsive urge to keep messing around with the laptop selfishly. In the meantime, I really oughta use this thing to do some good so that I can stay true to the third rule I set for myself.

I think of who I can help next. Mom and Dad aren’t home, and I had just helped Kenny over the weekend. I could help Cherie, but she lives with her girlfriend so I don’t have the opportunity to implant helpful nudges into her mind right now.

I’ve also been giving Holly some space since our incident, so that really only leaves my sister Emma by default. That’s also somewhat convenient as Emma is much more open to my random presence than anyone else listed. She had turned 18 earlier this year, so she is only a few years younger than me while being much younger than both Kenny and Cherie. Despite the four of us behaving fine as one unit at larger family gatherings, this age gap often caused us to split into two smaller groups of siblings when at home.

Because Emma and I are comfortable with each other, it would be easiest to take a direct approach and ask if she needs help with anything rather than snooping in her brain. I head over to her door and knock. There is some quiet commotion from the other side as I hear her footsteps shuffle closer.

After it softly opens, I see my teenage sister standing 5’ 1” with her jet black hair, which stops just a few inches below her shoulders, damp from a recent shower. Being over a head taller than her, I have to look down just to maintain eye contact.

Unlike Mom and Cherie, Emma is built more similarly to women on my Dad’s side of the family: smaller and more petite in stature. Though even if her allure would surely benefit from her bust being just one size larger, that doesn’t mean her current body isn’t womanly in its own right. This fact is made clear to me with the way her B cup breasts protrude daintily on her chest. She is wearing a white, cherry print pajama set that emphasizes this – the teasingly loose fabric skimming over her subtle curves.

Emma has a squarish facial structure but her Asian genetics leads her cheeks to be slightly chubby in a cute way that rounds her face off perfectly. When combined with her soft nose, she overall looks very delicate and feminine. There is no better word than cute to describe my little sister.

“Hey Caleb,” she says with a sleepy voice that matches her groggy face as she finishes the final button on her shirt. She must’ve been in the middle of changing. “What’s up?”

“Nothing really,” I say. Emma and I have the type of relationship where boredom is just a reminder to bother your sibling. “I’m just bored. What are you doing?”

“Same same, not much,” she yawns, fully opening the door. “I was just trying on some new swimsuits I bought, but I don’t like any of them.”

She must be preparing for this Friday’s beach trip.

“Oh, what was wrong with them?” I ask.

“They’re just too small,” she says with a disappointed look as she repackages what I assume was her new swimsuit. “I was really looking forward to these too. They looked so good on the website.”

“Can you still exchange it for a size up?” I ask.

“I mean, I guess,” Emma mutters. “But the beach trip is in a few days! I’d need to return and wait for them to ship the replacement back- it’s not gonna arrive in time.”

Sigh… an issue that could have easily been avoided with some foresight but I’m sure she wouldn’t want to hear that right now. Hearing stuff like this is nothing new from Emma. She is extremely into soft, minimalist fashion but is also extremely picky due to thinking a lot of clothes aren’t flattering on her smaller frame. This is especially the case when it comes to revealing clothes like swimwear.

I can understand how she gained the mindset as she grew up alongside Cherie's much more voluptuous build, but it’s not like Emma doesn’t have a very attractive and feminine figure herself. From what I’ve been able to see over the years, it’s just that Emma hides her mildly adequate chest under cute and uncontroversial minimalist clothing.

But still, whenever we go to the beach Emma always has a difficult time picking a swimsuit. And despite all her energy spent deciding, she ends up wearing either a white linen dress to take social media photos in or a very boring one-piece swimsuit to swim with the family. My own perviness aside, Emma should feel confident enough to wear what she wants at the beach because I know fashion is so important to her in all other aspects of her life. I can tell that her inability to find something appealing that lies within her comfort zone makes her upset.

So I’ve found my problem to solve, but I hang around a little longer to try and read more into the situation. The conversation stays centered around our upcoming family beach trip.

“I can’t wait to see Samantha! I hope she brings her digicam,” Emma says, referring to our older brother Kenny’s girlfriend.

Despite Kenny and Samantha rarely hanging out at home, Samantha has always gotten along great with the family due to her long and consistent history. She’s been dating Kenny since his freshman year of high school. It’s been so long that she often treats Emma and I with a subtle older sibling energy – a role that our real older sister Cherie often neglects to perform.

Samantha was the hot cheerleader type in highschool, so having her be nice to me was a pleasant surprise that I was often a little nervous about growing up. However, Emma and her self indulgent nature was quick to begin looking up to Samantha.

“Don’t you already have a digicam?” I ask Emma, referring to the 2010 piece of junk camera which cost her a hundred dollars more than the price of a modern consumer grade camera.

“Yeahhh, but the photos from mine don’t come out with the right nostalgic dreamy aesthetic like the pics from Samantha’s,” Emma says as she picks up her relic of a digicam from a nearby shelf. She opens it up and begins clicking through the photo library. “Here look. These all look like they could’ve been taken with an iPhone.”

No way she’s complaining that the photos from her camera are TOO clear. I’ll never understand teenage girls.

Luckily, my intuition leads to valuable insight as the topic shifts once again. Emma begins to scroll through a series of selfies taken on the camera. The pictures themself are all pretty tame selfies, so I don’t have too much input. But at least this is a good starting point on figuring out what I can do about her self image.

“How are these? I was thinking of posting them today,” Emma says as she pushes the camera to my face. “All of my friends said I looked SUPER cute in these! Except Julie, she said something was off.”

“Yeah, those look post-worthy,” I say, but I must not sound enthusiastic enough since Emma quickly rebuttals.

“Come on! You aren’t even looking!” she prods. “What do you like about them? Nothing seems weird?”

Hmm… If I’m being honest, I can see where her friend’s skepticism is coming from. The photos look exactly like the rest of her existing social media page. Sure, it matches the aesthetic of her other posts but it also adds nothing new. To me, these selfies are just plain and unadventurous.

“I mean, they do look a little bit similar to your other posts,” I say, wincing in anticipation of her reaction which is unsurprisingly sharp.

“But the dress I’m wearing literally just arrived this week, how could it be the same!” Emma says in a defensive tone as she starts to grab her camera back. I take a second look at the picture and I could swear I’ve seen like 5 identical dresses in her closet. “And wouldn’t it be weird if I just posted a super random photo compared to the rest of my feed?”

Ugh. She’s not getting my point. Even if she’s wearing something slightly different, all her photos come out looking the same. Luckily I have other means to try and nudge her in the right direction, so I don’t worry too hard about it.

“I mean, you asked for my opinion,” I say as she gives me a surprisingly painful punch in the arm. “Ouch- hey!”

“Oops!” she says with an apologetic pout. Emma delicately pulls her arm back, staring at her first with ditzy caution. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hit you that hard.”

Sigh… That’s Emma for you always wanting things her way and never wanting to discuss other opinions. Even though she is pretty open with me, that doesn’t change the fact that she can rarely ever delve into her feelings. I’m no psychiatrist but as someone who’s grown up with her, my unofficial theory is that all this bottled up emotion and energy causes her to act recklessly. Then she underestimates her strength because she’s small, but I can’t even get mad about her because she acts oblivious and apologetic as if she made some reasonable mistake.

Even though it did hurt a bit, I do exaggerate the damage some more as I rub my shoulder a bit longer than I need to.

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, knowing damn well I can do nothing back. “Well, I do think it’s good to spice things up sometimes. But the more important thing is if you personally feel like you want your page to feel more adventurous or more consistent.”

“Hmm,” Emma ponders for a moment. “I guess my page could be more adventurous, but I still haven’t found anything adventurous to wear recently.”

“I mean, it doesn’t have to just be clothing, you can do something cool or go somewhere new,” I say.

“Yeah true, but traveling is expensive and I haven’t done anything cool recently, so clothing is probably the easiest option for me” she says, dismissing my advice.

“Why don’t you wait until the beach trip?” I offer. "Then Samantha could help you take photos.”

“Ehh, I don’t knoowww,” Emma says with uncertainty. She seems discouraged by the idea of having her body perceived in a revealing swimsuit by somebody she looks up to like Samantha. “I’d rather post something today because all my friends just posted! And I haven’t even found a cute swimsuit to wear on Friday yet!”

She is definitely paying too much attention to what her friends think about her. While Emma’s friends are undoubtedly attractive, I’m sure none of them can compete with her pure and cute charm. Maybe jealousy is the reason they often single her out like this – the reason Emma feels so much pressure. If she could just have some confidence in herself, this would all be a non-issue. Maybe that would even help her decide on a swimsuit. And since she doesn’t seem interested in outside help, I guess this is a good opportunity to use the laptop for a good deed seeing as the problem mainly exists in her head. With the right nudge, I can convince her that her comfort zone is a little bigger than she thinks.

After we both entertain each other's presence for a bit longer, I head back to my room and lock the door. I pull out the cold, hefty device from underneath my bed. Even though it’s only been a few days since I’ve used it last, it somehow already has a layer of dust settled over it. Booting up the laptop, I lock in with my biometrics and open up the Thought Stream option. I only see Kenny’s and Emma’s names since no one else is home. I select Emma.

Emma’s Thought Stream - EDITS REMAINING: 3

“Ughhh. Why can’t I decide on anything to wear? I want my social media feed to be more adventurous! To do that I need to wear sexy things and act sexy, but I’m embarrassed to show off my body. What if people think I’m flat chested? What if people think I’m being slutty? Aghh!!”

See, even her mental stream is indecisive on the matter. Luckily, I think about how I can alter Emma’s mind to help her with her problem. She shouldn’t dictate her fashion based on what other people think. I formulate some ideas. Just because I have 3 words to use doesn’t mean I want to waste all of them, especially since they take a while to recharge.

I decide to just alter the line saying she is embarrassed to show off her body. After I hit enter, I see the entire block of text change to accommodate the new thought.

Emma’s Thought Stream - EDITS REMAINING: 3 → 2

“Hmm I need to decide on something to wear. I want my social media feed to be more adventurous! I need to wear sexy things and I need to act sexy, and I’m NOT embarrassed to show off my body. I don’t care what other people think of my body! I don’t care if people think I’m slutty!”

Yes! That’s exactly what I wanted! I stay and watch her mental stream for a bit.

“Hmm, what did Collin mean when he told me to be adventurous… I get it now! I need to take a second look at this swimsuit! I don’t remember why I wanted to return it.”

I give myself a pat on the back for a job well done. Hopefully Emma will be able to find more confidence in her body and judge her new swimsuits with less bias. I’m zoned out trying to skim around her thoughts for a bit, but the sensation of my phone buzzing in my pocket pulls me back into reality. I reach for it and rub my eyes. It’s a series of texts from Emma.

Emma: “OMG! I get what you mean by being more adventurous! How are these?”

Emma sent me 4 photos in a gallery, and from the first photo my jaw is already on the floor and my thumb is already slamming on the download button. I click on the first preview.

While it's definitely a “social media safe” photo, it is also risky for Emma’s standards. She is wearing a simple white two piece which is already out of the ordinary for Emma, but she also has a translucent beach robe that conceals her shoulders, back, and butt which makes the purchase more on character.

Her shoulder straps each have a decorative bow tied from thin, white lace. Across her chest, there are two circular cups that seem almost like white linen. They are held taut around her back with a giant bow made out of silky thread. This bikini seems to be the perfect combination of minimalist fashion aesthetic and adventurousness for Emma! For a moment, I let myself simmer in relief choosing to ignore the obvious weirdness of Emma feeling comfortable sharing these photos with me directly.

The second photo is a pretty similar angle as the first, except the robe is removed showing off a much clearer view of Emma’s body. I can definitely see why she would feel like this outfit is a bit small as it’s showing off side boob that I didn’t even know Emma had. I should definitely tell her to keep the robe on for any photos as this is a step further than what she wants to be comfortable sharing, but it’s definitely fine for a private trip. Also, the selfish part of me obviously would like to see Emma wearing this on Friday for the same reasons I am excited to see the rest of my family.

Unfortunately, this is where my blind relief is finally shattered. The third photo, taken on her bed, is even more ****. Way more fucking ****. The phone is positioned in such a way that she’s turned facing off to the side, so the pure amount of side boob practically overflowing from the tiny bikini top is even more noticeable. It’s very obvious that Emma should’ve gone up a size or two as each cup is only able to handle three quarters of her mild breast mass. She is knelt in an upright position with her crotch resting on a pillow between her folded thighs. While her pillow is seductively blocking her crotch, her thighs have a surprisingly inviting amount of meat to them so the view isn’t a complete tease. To top it off, she’s pulling her hair into a tight ponytail with a scrunch in her nose and her tongue sticking out playfully.

This is further than edging the border of normality. This is blatantly something Emma would never do. She’d never take this photo! Not wearing that outfit, in that position, or making that face! And most of all, she’d know better than to send it to me–her own brother! I didn’t mean to make her do this, I just wanted to help her! My mind is instantly thinking about the scary possibility of her posting this before I can stop her. I know I have to do something, but I still slide to the last photo first.

The framing is in the exact same position on the bed, except Emma is turned around kneeling the other way with her elbows on the ground. From the background of the shot her nose is scrunched into a cute expression as she playfully pokes her tongue out of her mouth and throws up a peace sign. However, that small detail is barely noticeable because the foreground is entirely taken up with a close up of Emma’s ass.

I spend so much time frozen in shock that it takes me a moment to realize the reason this photo is even more wild than the previous shots is the fact that she switched her bottom into a thong–she owns a thong?? It’s nothing crazy like a g-string but with the way she is leaning forward, her ass cheeks naturally spread and leave way for her thong to dig deeper against her sex and anus. I can pretty much see all of the bare, darkened skin surrounding her most private regions. Not to mention, I have never seen Emma’s dainty cheeks like this. As I turn my phone brightness to the max to get a better look, I can clearly see the tan lines of her skin showing the vast amounts of flesh that Emma normally keeps covered. I stare thoroughly at each pixel, trying to decide if I can classify any bit of skin showing as nudity. I don’t find anything definitive, but the fact that this is even a question is madness.

What the fuck. Emma, my quiet and reserved younger sister, just sent me a close up photo of her ass spread eagle in a thong. Smiling. How did this happen? I only made one tiny change. One word.

I text her, failing at not seeming overly frantic.

Caleb: “Are you gonna post these?”

Emma: “Idk what do you think?”

She’s asking for my opinion as if this was some random arbitrary decision. As if these aren’t crazy fucking photos to ask your brother to judge.

Caleb: “I think they’re not the best”

I mean these are great. She’s my sister and even I can’t deny these are really fucking great. But of course she can’t post any of these besides MAYBE the first one! I didn’t mean for it to go this far!

Emma shoots back: “ :((( WHAT! WHY! YOU SAID TO BE MORE ADVENTUROUS?! HOW DID I DO IT WRONG???”

Shit! I need to try to defuse the situation.

Caleb: “Okay okay!” How about you just sit on it for a couple days? See how you feel about them”

A few minutes go by without a response to which I spend anxiously refreshing Emma’s social media page, waiting to see if she makes a huge mistake. Though finally, she responds.

Emma: “Yeah okayyy. I’ll think about it until tomorrow. But I have to post soon! Or else my account will get shadow banned!”

I don’t even know what that means, but at least I know I have until tomorrow to fix things. Some edits I make to people are straightforward – like changing the date of our beach plans. The effects of that edit barely propagated through people’s minds. However some changes, like when I made Holly kiss me, have a much greater radius of effect. Much more of their thought streams change than just the one word I edit. It’s as if the computer has to deal with contradictions between what I write and what was already there.

I skim the area around Emma’s thought stream that I edited and notice a few things that I didn’t previously.

Emma’s Thought Stream - EDITS REMAINING: 2

“…I need to buy more skimpy clothes. All my clothes are so boring! I want to have more fun! My social media will get way more engagement if I act sexy! I need to act more slutty!”

Suddenly it hits me what’s happened.

Even though I have limited words to alter personality, each word can still be insanely powerful depending on the situation. Each thought a person has acts as a layer of their overall personality. All of your experiences and opinions right now are equally built on your past and as they will be built on by your future. To change one word could cause the entire structure of your personality to shift to accommodate the change.

That would also explain why some edits have varying degrees of ripple effect. If we continue with this layer analogy, it makes sense that some thoughts are deeper ingrained in a person’s character than others. The date for the family beach trip? That’s not super important so it’s probably an outer-thought that doesn’t have much effect on Emma’s personality as a whole. But just directly forcing her to feel comfortable sharing her body? There’s probably a whole load of personality shifting that had to take place in order to execute that change.

And it is BECAUSE I don’t have many word-edits that each of these changes are so dangerous! If I had unlimited edits, I could write entire personality traits with **** precision to have only my intended effect. But if I’m only working with a few words, I can’t give context to any of my changes. The laptop has to make random assumptions in order to keep the whole thing stable–AKA the ripple effects I have been noticing.

From what I can tell the laptop did its best to preserve as many keywords as possible, but the sentence structure and meaning changed completely from the original.

I have two edits left, and each change I make risks reshuffling Emma’s entire personality if I’m not careful. Even if I were allowed to undo the change, it would have unexpected outcomes because I can’t control exactly how the laptop will interpret my text — certainly not in the exact configuration that Emma had originally made up for herself.

I know I already fucked up, so ideally I should take some time to consider my options. That would also give me the opportunity to analyze how drastic the change is and maybe come up with an alternative idea rather than gambling another big edit to fix things.

I head back to Emma’s room and notice the door is already cracked open. I peek inside and see Emma still dressed in her bikini taking more lewd photos. This is not good. I’m tempted to watch closer, but the shot she’s taking right now has her facing the door. I decide to retreat away and gather my thoughts.

I head downstairs to think, but I’m dealing with the problem of using the wrong head to think. My entire mind is just echoing the raunchy photos my cute little sister just sent me and the idea of trying to get a sneak peek of tomorrow's potential social media post. Her ass… her tits… oh my gosh I have to apologize for any slander I gave towards Emma's tits. Yes, they are smaller than Cherie’s, but they’re still magnificent in the way they seem to perk upwards with antigravity. As if they know how cute and supple they would be to grab at. That even at that smaller size, Emma’s womanly body is still reaching out to be played with.

This whole episode has placed me in such a shock that in imagining one sister’s tits that I didn’t notice I was walking directly into another’s.

“Ouch- watch it!” my older sister Cherie screams the moment we collide paths. My mental image of Emma’s tits is replaced by the very real and fast-approaching cleavage of Cherie’s massive bosom as if its gravitational field is pulling me in.

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