499 The Flood, Ch. 14



Chapter Fourteen


Before we built the immersion tanks, our earliest student experiments were conducted in one of the university's swimming pools. These were five and ten minute forays into our virtual realm. This was long before the student we forked to create Sonia Red, and the swimming pool equipment was definitely connected to the internet. 

This is what Dozer showed me. He saw a vision of the student's forked alter ego connecting with another student in the swimming pool. In the past. She was of course unable to alter the situation, she was trying to interrupt. It was was only a  recording. But I saw if I can get back to that swimming pool, maybe there's a way I can open a window to reconnect with the present via whatever connection she had. It's worth a try.

---

The air cab was waiting on the skydeck by the C-suites. "Take me to the San Francisco University practice swimming pool," I said as I entered. "Dogs, come on." 

"Remember to fasten your seatbelts," said the autopilot, and we were off.

--

There's nothing here. The pool is empty, surrounded by yellow caution tape.

"What happened here?" I asked the security bot who responded to my breaking in.

"Budget cuts," said the bot, "We lost our corporate donor, so the pool is closed. But you can use our main pool, just over that way two hundred and fifteen meters."

---

We got back in the air cab, "Home."

Nothing happened.

"Please," I said, and we took off.








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