Not at all.

Tara didn’t flinch, or move at all besides her typing. Guess I didn’t miss anything when Jennifer had been stereotyped, George thought. He turned away from Tara and faced his desk, then checked his phone.

Stereotyping Complete!

+ 5 EXP

You have added Tara to your Subject list by Stereotyping her.

The message appears briefly before disappearing in a flash of animation, same as before.****

Subject: Tara Clay

Stereotype: Wallflower

Additional Traits: Smart

That also made sense. George realized that was probably something he would be thinking quite a lot going forward. There was only one trait though, was that really all there was to her? Or did the app only include additional traits if they were really significant to the person? It would make sense with only two of them.

George saw another notification in the top right corner, and selected it, triggering an even more extravagant animation than before.

Level Up!

+ 1 Point

Current Exp: 12 / 20

Level 2

Congratulations! You have now reached level 2. Leveling up will give you access to more features in the app. It will also reward points, which can be spent on both long term and one time use bonuses. Choose wisely!

Perk Store

Quest Access

You now have the ability to accept quests! These are offered once per week, and give bonus EXP upon completion.

Quest “Completing the Tutorial” has been added.

Objective: Swap Stereotypes

This quest has been automatically accepted as part of the tutorial. Pressing the confirmation button below will implement a Stereotype Swap between your current two subjects. Upon completion you will have full access to the app’s available features.

What?

WHAT?

You could swap people’s characteristics with this thing? No, you apparently HAD to swap Jennifer and Tara’s stereotypes.

George looked up from his phone. Jennifer was gone, and Tara was still working away silently at her desk.

I’m going to have to turn Tara into a bimbo, George thought. He could have chosen anyone else here to stereotype first, but he just had to rush in and do it to her without understanding everything. It should have been obvious something like this would happen, it was clearly a tutorial, and those often make you do things to prove you know how.

He would have to ruin Tara’s life.

Well, he’d also have to turn Jennifer into a wallflower, but that wasn’t really much compared to Tara’s fate. It would probably even do her some good.

No, George thought. He couldn’t. He couldn’t do this to Tara. Or Jennifer, for that matter. Having your personality rapidly changed couldn’t be pleasant after all, even the end result wasn’t as bad for her. He shouldn’t have been treating them like toys anyways, he wasn’t going to put them through any potential pain just for his own selfishness.

George turned off his phone. Except, the screen didn’t go black. It refused to turn off, no matter what button he pressed. He couldn’t even just turn the screen off. It just sat there, shining brightly as the pretty animations played, waiting for him to press that damn confirm button.

George shoved the phone into his backpack and hoped no one had noticed him screwing around on it while he was supposed to be working.

George had never before been thankful that the call center was busy, or that it could make time pass so quickly. Normally, when it was busy, he just felt stressed by how behind they were, or how understaffed their department was. And yeah, it made the time pass quickly, but that just made him think about how he was wasting his life away and losing precious time he would never get back.

Finally, the last call of the day ended. Thankfully the man hadn’t cursed him out like the previous caller. George instinctively pulled his phone out of his backpack to check for any texts.

The screen was still on, shining brightly, having drained it to a critically low battery level. Six percent, specifically.

There was a new pop-up on the page, however.

Tutorial Notification

In order to make sure that our users see all that this app has to offer, the tutorial will be completed automatically even if the user does not initiate it.

This will occur at 10pm local time, or at 5% battery strength, whichever comes first.

George slumped down in his chair. The app was clearly magical, of course it didn’t care that he didn’t want to use it. It would **** him to anyway.

He realized he could delay the inevitable though. The phone wasn’t at five percent yet, he had a charger in his backpack, all he had to do was plug it in and he would have more time to think of a way-

The screen dimmed slightly, still on but not shining as brightly. A new pop-up appeared on the screen, surrounded by a slightly more muted confetti animation.

Stereotype Swap Complete!

+5 EXP

You have swapped the main Stereotypes of Jennifer and Tara.

The message only stayed for a few seconds, before disappearing in another flash of muted animation.

Quest “Completing the Tutorial” Complete!

+ 1 Point

+2 EXP

Congrats! You have now completed the tutorial. A new quest will be available tomorrow, please be sure to check it out!

In the meantime, remember to check out the Perk Store! As you level up and complete quests, you will get points you can spend there, as well as access to more features in the app.

We look forward to seeing how you progress!

George didn’t plan to. He was finally able to exit the app and turn the phone off. He was going to go home, take some heavy sleep medicine, and hopefully wake up to find out this was all a nightmare. And if it wasn’t he’d throw away his phone and buy a new one.