Chapter Time Delay

Josh held the door open as Sheri walked into the virtual program. “Its raining, isn’t it?” he said.

She didn’t say anything, just stared at it.

“I want to check on Yancy and bring Pete here. Can you stay by the door and keep it open?” She could barely hear but gave a thumbs up.

Josh went back and looked in the classroom. He couldn’t see any difference in their positions. “Slow like molasses. Come with me Pete,” talking to himself, he grabbed his arm and pulled him along. Pete seemed to be getting worse and it worried Josh.

They hung around the new open door and tried to figure out what kind of world it had inside. Josh noticed some movement out of the corner of his eye in the hall on the other side of where the classroom was. He squinted trying to focus his eyes on it. “Oh, no.”

“What is it,” Sheri came out and saw what he was looking at. “More Viruses?”

“Could be. Lets get Pete inside then we will wait until they are right on top of us before closing the door.”

Sheri, “What will that do?”

“If we close the door for a second or two, an hour will pass in the hall and the viruses should be gone.”

“Or we could close the door now, lock it and explore this virtual environment for a while,” said Sheri interested in seeing more.

“Normally I would agree with your choice, but how can we monitor our classroom situation and Yancy from being in there? What if it is not safe in there?”

Sheri thought for a moment then said, “If I understand your theory of these virtual worlds correctly, while inside this program our time passage will be similar to Yancy’s, right?”

Josh thought or a moment, “Yes, that’s my thinking.”

“So if we are in the hallway we wait hours for Yancy’s eyes to blink, but in here our time passage equals his.”

“Ah, yes. I see where you are going. Come on Pete inside,” he closed and locked the door with all three inside starting another adventure. “Lead the way,” he said to Sheri.

“Maybe it would be better if we left Pete here,” she said.

“What if he wanders off?” Josh looked at Pete who stood staring emotionless at the door. “Never mind, let’s go.”

They approached the rainfall by the buckets only to find out it wasn’t raining just beyond it. Josh looked up determining it might be a waterfall and one side had a clearing. He grabbed Sheri’s hand and led her along a path. It was so loud they couldn’t communicate. The cool darkness cleared as they left and a sun shined brightly with abundant blue skies on the other side. A vast sandy area bordered a light turquoise ocean beach setting. They stopped and looked at each other amazed. Sheri took off running toward the breakers not thinking about any danger. She struggled with speed through the deep fine sand until she reached the waters edge where the sand was packed and wet. She turned and glanced at Josh who was walking toward her. Then she ran into the breakers up to her waist. She could feel the water currents pushing from all directions on her body and a slight under tow pulling at her ankles. It felt wonderful.

“Come on in and join me she shouted over the sound of the water turbulence.”

Josh examined his options. He wasn’t as quick to give into the temptations exposed in front of him. “I don’t want to get my clothes wet,” he shouted back at her.

“Then take them off,” she laughed. Then she walked back through the waves to meet him. “I’m not wet. Feel me. It’s like our digital twins are covered with water repellent like a duck. It still feels good. The water is warm.”

Josh felt her arm, it was dry, “Wow, that is so cool. Come to think of it, there I no way the virtual world can simulate us getting wet,” he laughed. She held out her hand and they both went back in up to there necks and started swimming out above their heads and floating on their backs.

“You know ducks float because their feathers don’t absorb any water. It feels easier floating in this environment, maybe because we don’t get wet,” Josh said.

“Yeah and we couldn’t do this in the real world because of the suns damaging rays, but it feels so good and we don’t have to worry about ultraviolet here.” Sheri closed her eyes with a smile blooming.

Josh swam under water and looked around. Salt water would have burned his eyes but there was no sting and the water was so clear he could see pretty well what was below. Mostly light colored sand with darker rocks and other debris covering small portions. The water was around ten feet deep and he dove down again to have a closer look. He swam to a large rock and circled around it. There was something moving near the bottom. It darted and caused a puff of sand to cover its location. His breadth got short so he pushed off from the bottom and broke the surface right next to Sheri with a splash. “Its incredible down there. Dive down with me.”

She flipped over with her belly facing down, pulled her head down with feet reaching out and up and down she went with him right behind her. Mid way to the bottom they stopped and looked around. She pointed to something dark in the distant and they surfaced. She put her arms around his neck looking worried, “What was it?”

“I don’t know. You wouldn’t think there would be anything dangerous programmed in here. I’ll have another look,” and he went down. She plunged her head under so she could watch. He swam toward the object. She noticed he didn’t seem worried as he got closer.

He saw it was a sea turtle and he grabbed a hold of the shell from its rear as it whisked by him and it pulled him along. It was a big turtle and it didn’t have any trouble pulling him. It broke the surface and looked around and then continued swimming. It went right towards Sheri as Josh was laughing while water was splashing in his face and he let go when he neared her. “That was great,” he said with excitement.

“You don’t think there are any sharks here do you?” Sheri worried.

“Now that you mention it, look.” There was an ominous site of a large fish coming closer with a surfaced fin.

“Let’s go ashore and check on Pete,” Sheri said. They swam back until they could feel the bottom and walked the rest of the way.

“We can dry off on the beach in the warm sun,” Josh joked.

“Dry off, were not wet,” she looked at him grinning at her. “Oh, funny. That was refreshing wasn’t it?” She was dripping water onto the dry sand like water off a ducks tail but totally dry.

Josh looked at his watch, “I hope this is water proof. Its been about an hour.” They walked back to Pete still staring off. “I’m worried about him.”

Sheri said, “Me too. We need to exit him from this virtual environment.”

Josh nodded in agreement then unlocked the door, slowly opened it and poked his head out. “Seems clear.” They filed out to the hallway with Pete in tow and closed the door.

Sheri tested the knob and looked at the window to get the room number. “XFH9. I’m gonna remember that one,” she said to commit it to memory.

Yancy was getting antsy about Miss Ursbrook sitting in the front of the class. It was almost as if she knew something more than she let on. He had to do something. He had to make a bold move to get her out of here. She had sat there for around an hour which he knew translated to many hours for those now stuck outside possibly in peril. Why was she here. “Excuse me Miss Ursbrook.”

“Yes, what is it,” she looked up.

“Well you see I come here everyday to do my homework. To be alone so I can concentrate and well…”

“Get to the point,” she said in an authoritative manner.

“Its just that I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here and I have never seen you here any other day. You might be drawing my attention from my studying by sitting here.”

“Oh, I see. You want me to leave. Is that it?”

“Is there some way I could say that nicely,” his shoulders hunched up on him showing his discomfort.

“No but I will leave. I don’t want to be a distraction that you can later claim is the reason for your poor performance.” She stood and gathered her belongings, looked around her desk and then walked to the door and opened it. Standing in the door way she said, “With my departing I expect your grades to be high.”

“Yes Ma’am,”Yancy replied.

Josh reached his arms out stopping Sheri and Pete from moving, “Quick, back inside.” They went back inside and Josh peeked out. He saw someone coming out of their classroom. It was Miss Ursbrook. Pete stood still seemingly not understanding.

Sheri looked bending down to peek below where Josh’s head was. “Oh, look!”

The teacher transformed into an ant-like robot as she walked, going from walking on two legs to six in just a couple of steps. They waited until she was out of site and entered the hall again. They saw Yancy peek out of the door cautiously. When he saw them he stepped out and said, “You are not going the believe what happened.”

Sheri said, “We saw you in slow motion, but why was she here?”

“I dunno. I got here to leave by telling her she was distracting me,” he laughed.

Josh said, “Good thinking buddy.”

“So did you meet with Mike and was he any help,” Yancy felt left out by obeying his Dad. Before they could answer he noticed Pete. “Whats wrong with him?”