Chapter Infections

“If he asked you to jump of a bridge would you jump.”

“He didn’t ask me to jump off a bridge. He got you to jump off though. That’s why you are here with me.”

Pete, “Not true. I decided. By the way, weren’t you going to ask your father if we could actually get hurt in here?”

“Yeah I was going to. I guess I forgot.” said Yancy.

“That is why I call you stupid.”

Yancy started to get angry, “You can call me dumb, but not stupid. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, sorry dummy,” he smiled at Yancy reassuring him he was joking.

Yancy grabbed Pete’s arm, “It stopped. Lets back up a little.” They took steps backward until it was barely in view. The virus opened a door on the right and entered a room.

Pete said, “Keep your eye on that door while I go and get the room ID,” he ran down the hall but was disoriented and wasn’t sure which door it was. He looked back at Yancy for help.

Yancy still had his eyes focused on the correct door. “Come this way one door,” he motioned with his hand.

Pete did so and pointed at it, “This one?”

Yancy nodded. “Get the room number.”

Pete touched the door knob and saw a long number ending in XG99 displayed on the window. He read it out loud so Yancy could also commit it to memory. Neither found this number significant. “Let’s get back and mull this over with the others.” They ran back to the classroom.

Josh decided to check the other room window. He said to Sheri, “I’m going to step into the hallway. Whatever happens don’t leave this room or we could all be locked out again.”

“Do you have to. I was happy when Pete took your place so you would be safe.”

Josh did a double take when his eyes met hers at close distance. He couldn’t look away. “I’m not going anywhere except across the hall. I want to look inside the other class only through the window for 20 seconds.” He continued gazing in her eyes. It was a wonderful feeling, “OK?”

She said, “Sure,” and stood in the door way holding it open. She slipped off her right shoe and put it on the floor in the way of the door closing. This was the first time she realized she had both her shoes again after logging off and back on. She watched as Josh walked over and activated the window and looked in. He looked all around and he was done in twenty seconds as he said. He turned and joined her back in their room. She wondered what he was checking out. “Did you see what you were looking for?”

“Yeah, I did,” he didn’t say anything else. He was thinking hard about seeing the other class stopped. The clock in the other room appears stopped. It’s 30 minutes behind the clock in the original room and his watch. About the amount of time since the door was opened and Yancy and Pete left. The mirror across the hall showed just himself and Sheri. Josh’s theory was if either room changed its contents, in this case them, the program would almost stop while dedicating all it’s processing time to analyzing, comparing and attempting to repair the discrepancy. He assumed the other room was trying to make it’s contents the same as the original. When they close this door with them all inside the mirror will add Pete and Yancy back into it’s contents and when the door shuts the rooms will be duplicates again. The clocks will probably synchronize as well.

Sheri seeing him in deep thought tried to get his attention grabbing his arm, smiling and asking him what he’s thinking about.

He said, “I don’t know, just trying to make some sense out of whats going on here. They sat down while the door was cracked open with her shoe and waited.

Pete and Yancy piled into the room both out of breath. “We saw where she went,” said Pete.

“Did she see you at all?” said Sheri.

Pete, “Don’t think so.”

Yancy blurted out, “XG99.”

Josh questioned, “XG99, are you sure?”

Pete and Yancy looked at each other and Yancy said, “Yeah, we are sure.”

Josh, “That’s Mike’s office on the knoll. We sat on that grass remember. Brutus and Mike.” Then his concern grew. It seemed no information could be completely trusted.

Yancy asked, “How do you know his room number?”

“Mike told me before he left. You all had already taken your seats in the duplicate classroom. Tell me, was it checking for open doors as it moved?”

“No, it seemed to know exactly where it was going,” said Yancy. Pete agreed.

Sheri, “What does it mean Josh?”

“I wish I knew.” Josh stared at the door wondering why the virus would go directly to Mike’s room. Mike was a virus killer or was he. Was Mike a double agent?

Yancy said, “I’m gonna exit now. Enough excitement for one day.”

Josh spoke fast, “Remember to talk to your Dad and mention Mike and the application running a mirror program.”

Yancy was pressing his button while saying “Yeah, bye,” before Josh could finish.

Sheri, “What’s that about a mirror program?”

“Mike told me about it, that’s what the duplicate classroom is all about. It’s very confusing.”

Pete was curious, “Do you understand it?”

“Not really.” He wanted to try one more test before exiting. He closed the door and then reopened it. “Sheri guard the door for me again,” he went into the hall and looked into the other room. The clock was updated to his watch time. Just Sheri, Pete and himself had duplicates in the room and they were not moving. “Now close the door with you and Pete inside and reopen after five seconds.” He forgot that five seconds would translate into something longer in hallway time.

She closed the door. Pete stepped between her and the door and said, “How about we leave him out there for a while, you know let him think something went wrong. Let him squirm.”

“Why would we do that?”

“So you and I can have some fun together alone,” Pete grinned.

“Get out of the way,” she tried to move him but he was too strong for her. She tried stomping on his foot with hers but she had no shoe on that foot and it hurt her. He laughed again. Then she lifted her leg bending at the knee and placed a well positioned blow to Pete’s jewels. He buckled over leaving the path clear. “They taught us that move last year in gym class to protect ourselves from strangers.” she opened the door.

Josh had been standing outside the door for an hour in hallway time. “What happened? I was beginning to worry.”

Sheri, “Pete was being stupid and wanted to leave you out there for a while. I took care of him though.”

Pete was buckled over with a face that showed the nausea that he was suffering and didn’t say anything.

“Well done,” Josh gave her a hug that neither released causing Pete more distress.

“I wouldn’t trust him going forward,” she said looking over at him.

“Oh I didn’t trust him before. That’s why I had you here.” They both laughed at Pete.

“Did you get what you needed?” she said.

“Well, what I figure is that the mirror or dual classrooms keep one reference room and when the main room sees a difference and both doors are closed it copies the changes to the reference room. If the main room completely crashed the backup room could be used to recreate the main room. I guess this is a case of building in redundancy. There seems to be some funny rules that it follows that I don’t fully understand. That’s all I know.”

Peter recovered from his nausea and stood up, “What is going on with the teacher and Mike?”

“That was a big surprise to me,” said Josh. “I am hoping Yancy can clear it up by talking to his dad.”

Sheri, “I’ve got to go now, bye,”she pressed her button and disappeared.

Josh did the same.

Pete stood alone for a moment processing every thing that had taken place since he hid in the closet with them. Then he exited as well. The room became empty.