Ben, a lonely guy trying to not be evil

Ben was still speechless, nearly catatonic, when his doorbell rang. He jumped up, slammed his laptop shut, and panicked.

Like a passenger in his own body, he felt himself walking to the apartment door, and pressed the button on the intercom, which opened the front door, and then opened his apartment door. "Dammit, she's here!", he thought. "What should I do?"

Tea, he decided. They always had tea, so he was basically running on full-auto, as he started the kettle. By the time he had done that, Anna had walked up the stairs to his apartment and entered. "Hi!", she smiled at him, and they hugged. Then she frowned. "What's up? You seem seriously shaken."

Ben didn't say anything at first, and just looked at her. She was a little bit shorter than him, and very slight. Her straight medium brown hair was falling on her shoulders, the blonde highlights hadn't been renewed for some time. Still with worry in her hazel eyes, she removed her winter coat and boots. "Please, come in.", he finally said, and they went into his kitchen, where the kettle was already boiling.

Ben sat down heavily on a kitchen chair, and Anna opened his tea cupboard to prepare a large pot with the water he had boiled.

"Alright, out with it!", she said. "Whatever it is, you know you can tell me. And you will feel better, afterwards."

"I really don't know how to explain it.", he began. "Suddenly, a new app appeared on my laptop."

"Oh no, did you get hacked? Some Ransomware? Did you lose money?"

"No, nothing like that. It is really strange. It may sound crazy, but this software lets me control stuff."

"Ok....like that smartphone app you use to control your lights? That sounds like something that would normally excite you, not leave you borderline depressed."

"No, no. This app claims to control everything. People. Reality."

She began to laugh. "Ok, that could be a nice prank. But you are not a prankster, and your jokes are normally better."

"It is real. I tried it. I used it to change my hair colour to blonde and back. It worked. Or maybe I'm hallucinating. That would be the saner alternative."

"Ok, now you have to show me. Either we have to confirm that you are suffering from delusions, or I have to see that magic app first-hand."

In the meantime, she had filled two cups with tea, milk and sugar, and then sat down next to him and nodded to his laptop.

Ben sighed, opened his laptop and entered his password. He grabbed the wireless mouse and opened the app named "Master PC" from his desktop. A popup appeared.

"Welcome to the Master Command Center... where the Master allows you to become a virtual god to the people around you… Now, you possess the power to bend their reality to your specifications. You are the Master's representative.", read Anna. "Well, they sure aren't afraid to raise expectations."

Ben clicked the popup shut, and his screen filled with multiple windows, looking a bit like a 3D CAD software, but everything was greyed out, except for a search bar.

"Ok, so what now?" Anna asked.

"You enter the name of a subject in that search bar."

Anna turned the laptop to her to type, but as soon as she touched it, a red window opened. "Unauthorized access. The Master Command Center is only to be used directly by the chosen representative. While limited accounts for other users are a planned feature, this function is disabled for now."

"Ok, now that is creepy AND impressive.", she said. "Looks like you will have to show me. Enter my name."

Ben hesitated, but then started typing. As soon as he entered the first letter, Anna's name already showed up in a pulldown list. After the name was an entry showing "1m", and an arrow pointing to the bottom right of the screen, indicating that Anna sat to his right, and at most 1 meter away from the laptop. He pressed Enter, and the 3D viewer showed Anna exactly like she was, in a sitting position, wearing her slightly washed out black jeans and her maroon hoodie.

"Wow! That is amazing!" she shouted.

"Yes. And very scary. I mean, look at these options." he said, and glided with the mouse cursor over all the menus that now had filled with sliders and checkboxes. "It has options for every kind of physical change. Height, weight, muscle mass, body fat, countless values for every single body part and organ. And the mental changes, look at it: Extraversion, Courage, Intelligence, ... You could really fuck someone up with this. And this console window here just takes free text prompts, so you could just type any change you want, without having to fiddle with the tiniest details."

"Ok, just one last thing to do. Change something small, so we can be really sure it works."

"No, I shouldn't do this", he protested. "I shouldn't change anything with you. Let's switch to my profile."

"Come on, it is okay. Nothing that seems dangerous. How about this: Try to touch up my highlights, so I don't need to go and have them redone. Simple."

"I don't know if that is so simple, that hair menu looks very complicated."

"Then use that console box. You just told me that's what it's for."

He sighed. "Ok, that probably is the best way.", and then started typing.

As he pressed Enter, another popup opened. "Enter time intervall over which the changes will take place. Default: 10 seconds"

After one last glance at Anna, and a nod from her, he clicked ok.

Anna had already jumped up and ran to the bathroom to look at herself in the mirror. Ben followed and watched as she stood there open-mouthed, as her hair color shifted and changed until it looked just like it had the last time she went to the hairdresser, except the length was still like it was before, as he had only given instructions to change the color. "That is absolutely amazing. Magical. This has to be the proof that magic exists!" she said.

"Very non-romantic form of magic, to rely on modern technology, but you are right. It is beyond everything we can explain without relying on something like magic."

"So, as you seem to be the only one who can use it, what will you do now? Will you accept a wishlist from me?" she laughed.

Ben's gloomy mood returned. "To be honest, I don't think I should use it at all. I know, slippery slope arguments are kinda weak, but I don't think I should be trusted with this. "

Anna frowned. "Don't try to fish for compliments with me, you are definitely one of the few people who at least think about being responsible with this. And to be honest, you kinda deserve something good happening to you. This could help a lot with that."

She had a point. Ben's life was kind of a mess right now. He worked as a nurse, having dropped out of med school where he met Anna, who had since become his best friend. They met pretty regularly to drink tea, cook and watch movies together, until Anna left and went back to her boyfriend Michael. Michael was also a good friend of Ben, but he was always a bit closer with Anna, which tended to get a bit awkward between them. It was no secret to anyone that Ben had pretty intense feelings for Anna, but she was very happy with her relationship, and Ben also knew rationally that she was happier this way. So he was glad that she and Michael were happy, but that left him a bit stranded.

"I think...." Ben began, steeling himself for what had to follow. "I think you should leave."