The Core: The First Guest

5. Time to explore

I stood there for a moment in thought before walking back over to the computer by the massive library. It was so surreal to walk out of the door to my apartment and out into open space before approaching where I had entered this whole thing. Or had I even moved at all? Had everything moved around me when Xa created the apartment? I guess it didn't really matter if I was to start to understand and think of this reality as it was, a digital one.

I froze and stared off into space again when I had gotten up close to the standing computer desk terminal. "Could it really be like that?" I mumbled to myself as I turned around and walked back into the fake apartment. Yes, I knew that what I wanted to attempt didn't need me to walk all the way back but I didn't care, it was where I wanted to start. I turned around once I was standing next to the coffee table with the empty mountain dew can and looked back out through the door at the computer terminal. "Here goes nothing." I said under my breath as I imagined standing where I just had been standing, two feet away from the terminal.

I looked around with my eyes wide open as I waited for something to happen. I blinked and was there! In the moment that it took me to blink I was standing exactly where I wanted to be. Just going from nothing changing to instantly appearing right where I had imagined myself was a bit startling. I jumped back a step and gave a amazed chuckle.

"I wonder what would have happened if I had accidentally imagined myself standing too close to the desk?" I said as I imagined appearing with it merged with me. The whole area around me instantly had a deep red tint shrouded over everything and I heard Tutor shout at me from a couple feet away. "STOP!"

I widened my eyes, trying to keep them from blinking and turned to look at her. It was the first time I had heard her shout and the ambient red tinge was freaking me out a little. "What? How do I cancel that thought?" When I looked over at her I also noticed words appearing next to her in the air.

Guest Kevin almost cut himself in half.

Guest Kevin's instant environment manipulation reconsidered.

Implementing double check safeguard.

Guest Kevin credited 380 cr for IO.

Guest Kevin Cr account balance: 400 cr

Tutor glanced at the writing in front of her and said "You may blink now Kevin. The system just anticipated you doing something very bad to yourself and stepped in to stop it. This is what was just going to happen." She said as an exact copy of myself and the computer desk appeared in front of her. It was the exact moment when I had just teleported myself in front of the desk, my copy jumped back a step and chuckled. He was exactly the same height as me and everything. It was so weird to see. I walked around to stand next to Tutor to get a view of myself from the front as I listened to myself say "I wonder what would have happened if I had accidentally imagined myself standing too close to the desk?"

My other self blinked and instantly appeared with my stomach embedded with the table surface clear though me. A look of shock and utter horror filled my copy's face as his legs buckled and sagged and fell to the floor. There was a strange tearing sound as the lower half of him fell and I gathered that it was caused by the skin that tried to bond to the table that had part of my midsection embedded inside it and failed. A blood curdling scream left my copies lips as he tried to hold onto the top of the table.

"Ok! I have seen enough!" I said as I mentally willed the tragedy in front of me to pause and be washed away. I came up against something in my mind, almost as if it was a click or type Yes to continue screen on a computer before I agreed with it and it all vanished.