Papers and empty coffee mugs buried the desk in Michaels home office. What space that remained was taken up by his monitor and PC tower, a frankenstein's monster pieced together with whatever spare parts he could find that would let the thing still turn on. His last rig was and old reliable machine that he had built on a small budget, a budget that he was determined to stretch to it's absolute limit. That limit was reached earlier in the week, as the scorch marks on the desk and wall demonstrated. This new computer was proving to be a major pain, but it would do for now. If Michael could just finish this project, he could buy a NASA supercomputer if he wanted.
10 years of a corporate desk job had disillusioned Michael with his choice of career. When he first learned programming, he wanted to create something big, something that would change the industry. Even if he knew he'd only be a cog in the greater machine, being a small part of something that changed peoples lives for the better was a dream of his. Instead, he sat in a cubicle for 8 hours a day, slaving away at code for some product he didn't care about, sold by a company that didn't care about him, to people who didn't need it. But this - the project he had been working on for the last months - this was different.
A knock at his office door echoed behind him. "Hey Mike, dinner's ready," his wife's voice called out, opening the door holding a plate of food in each hand.
"Thanks, Jules." Michael leaned back and smiled, taking one of the plates and setting it on the desk, returning to work without another word.
Julia leaned in and gave Michael a quick peck on the cheek. She had been supportive even after Michael had quit his job, but there was still an obvious air of doubt that lingered over the two of them. Her income from the bank she worked at was enough to give them a bit of breathing room, but if something didn't come out of Michaels project soon, there would be trouble.
"Don't forget to take a break. I can see bags under your eyes in the reflection of that monitor."
Michael nodded in response. Julia's footsteps traveled across the wooden floors of his office and echoed through the house until they were lost to distance. He turned his focus back to the work in front of him, eyes locked on the screen. Julia did an excellent job of hiding her worry, but Michael was able to pick up on the subtle clues that showed her anxiety. Over the last week especially, Michael had barely spoken to her, dedicating himself entirely to his work. The house could be burning down and he may not notice until the smoke filled his lungs. The week of hell, though, was looking to finally be producing results.
The UI was a mess, and the code was unorganized and unreadable to anyone but him. But as far as Michael could tell, it worked. A program that - using a mix of AI and facial recognition - was able to generate an avatar that would simulate a person's appearance perfectly, and create an extremely high quality 3D model in seconds. The model could then be edited the same as you would edit your avatar in a videogame, but still allow more experienced 3D artists to dive into the deeper details as they pleased. Once finished, this program could revolutionize the film and videogame industries, generating photoreal ready to use CG characters in a fraction of a fraction of the time. All that was left was to properly test it.
In preparation for this moment, he created a folder filled with picture of his first test subject, Julia. He plugged the dozen or so images in and his generate, then sat back and watched the magic at work. Like a 3D printer at work, the digital replica of his wife came to life in front of him. In less than a minute, the program had created a perfect copy of Julia, each pore, each wrinkle on the clothes she was wearing, every little detail of her face and hair was perfect.
Michael sat back and rubbed his hands over his face. He almost didn't believe it. Even having made it his self, it was hard to wrap his head around the thing in front of him. The initial generation worked, but what about editing? Michael leaned forward and grabbed the mouse, opening a side menu to reveal a list of sliders and drop down menus. With a simple click, he changed her outfit between any of those she had been wearing in the reference photos, doing the same with her hair. scrolling down further revealed the options to change things like height, limb length, muscle mass, whatever you could think of. The possibilities were nearly limitless, and Michael took the opportunity to experiment.
First, he changed her hair color, Julia's auburn hair shifting to a dark black. Her blue eyes were changed into a vibrant green. Despite not having any reference to work with, the changes still looked totally natural, as if Michael was looking at a picture of his wife's long lost twin. He tried the muscle slider next, not enough to make her look like a body builder, but a slightly visible set of abs were now apparent on her stomach. He then gave her legs a small adjustment, making them slightly longer. Her height adjusted accordingly, going from 5'5" to 5'8", Which Michael further bumped up to 6'1", just for the fun of it. Deciding that was enough messing around, Michael took a look at his handiwork. The model was still recognizable as Julia, but he had to admit the changes made her look absolutely stunning. More importantly, though, was the fact that the program worked as perfectly as he'd hoped. A week or two to clean it up a bit, and he'd have revolutionized the entertainment industry.
Before closing the program down, he started reverting the changes he made to Julia's model. He wanted to show it to her, but it was probably a better idea to show her the unedited version at first. He changed her hair and eyes back to their original hue, and was about to reset her height when the worst possible thing happened. After a few seconds of stuttering, the program froze and promptly crashed to the desktop.
"God damn it," Michael growled as he slammed his hand met his forehead. This wasn't the first time this had happened, but he was sure he had worked out most of the crashes before he finished. It was the nature of programming, he supposed. He wasn't going to let a few bugs stop him at this point.
What was more concerning was the sound of a dish shattering he heard behind him. He called out to Julia, only to be met with no response. A broken plate was no big deal, but the silence was a bit concerning. He figured he should go check on her, she may have cut herself on one of the shards.
Entering the kitchen, Julia was nowhere to be found. The shattered plate was scattered on the floor, though there was no blood on any of the shards as far as he could tell. Where could she have gone? Michael didn't spend much time wondering before he heard a gasp coming from down the hall. Julia must have run to the bathroom to clean a cut or something. Still, this felt wrong. There wasn't any pain in the gasp, it was a gasp of surprise.
"Julia?" Michael called out as he walked down the hall, stopping when he came to the mostly closed bathroom door. "Are you alright? Did you hurt yourself?"
The door swung open in front of him. For a split second, his heart stopped. Julia was there, and she was uninjured. But she was different. Her clothes looked as though they'd shrunk several sizes smaller in the wash, revealing the start of a six-pack on her stomach, and the rest of her figure was similarly toned. Her pants had also been pulled tight, and ended halfway down her calf. The most dramatic change was that Michael was looking, if just slightly, upwards to meet his wife's eyes. She looked exactly like her digital model before the program crashed, but standing here in the flesh.
"J-Jules?" Michael stammered, struggling to process what he was seeing.
"I- I'm fine, I think." Julia spoke, looking herself up and down. "What the hell is going on?"