Cyberdrome Deleted Scenes
Part #5 - Maya returning to the real world
Background
In the original version of Cyberdrome, following Maya's conversation with Dr. Grey on board the Snohomish, she returns to the real world. Below is how she did it.
Deleted Scene
Maya was tempted to run after him and demand to know what he was planning, but didn't. That would be ridiculous. Mathew was her boss and owed her no explanations. Whatever he was up to, at least it did not involve additional interfacing, and that should be all that mattered.
She stepped through the doorway, took a deep breath, and headed down the hall back towards the main elevator. As usual, within five minutes, she was lost.
She passed a group of people in one hall and considered stopping to ask directions, but didn't. The Survey Vessel was filled with more than 500 people, but the fact that none of them were real made her feel alone most of the time. She wondered around on her own for a while and eventually found the elevators.
She felt light as her elevator shot straight down the glass tube, passing several open levels, then slowing to a stop in a circular room. As she stepped out of the tube, she faced six equally spaced doors along the outer wall.
She passed through the first door she came to and entered a room with a raised circular platform in the middle and seven egg-shaped chambers embedded in recessed coves along the outer wall. Judging from the bio-displays above each chamber, the room was full. Apparently, a new shift was about to wake up, which meant that she had to search through all six interface rooms until she found an empty pod.
As she stood next to the chamber, she pulled the datapad out of her pocket and slid her index finger into the reader port. She felt a slight tingling sensation as the pad transferred the contents of its memory into her body.
The idea was simple; electrical impulses from a data stream conducted through her body would be converted into sequenced DNA strands by the device, essentially storing digital data in a biological form.
The rule was; what goes out with an Avatar must come in with it; a simple conservation of mass and energy. Since part of every researcher's job was to bring back data from the simulations, all online bodies, or Avatars, had one kidney replaced with a biochemical storage device.
This was important because the bio-transmitters that moved people in and out of the simulations only worked with living material. When she woke up from the interface, the DNA patterns stored in her Avatar would be automatically converted back into readable data. In a system as complex as Cyberdrome, this method was simply the easiest way to get information in and out of the simulations.
When the upload was complete, she stored the pad away and typed her destination coordinates into the panel beside her chamber, then double-checked it to make sure she had it right. She didn't want to accidentally transfer to one of the other Survey Vessels, or even worse, wake up inside Earth-Zero, the home of nearly everyone else onboard the ship.
She had never been there, of course, but they said that Earth-Zero was a close copy of the real Earth, updated constantly with data from the real world. None of the crew of the Yakama, or the other researchers for that mater, realized the truth of their existence. They believed that they were humans like her, studying recreations of Earth. They had no idea that they were simulations themselves, designed to study other simulations.
Then she had a weird thought. What if she entered the wrong address and woke up in Earth-Zero, inside a copy of the real Cyberdrome facility. Would she know it wasn't real?
The thought sent a shiver up her spine, so she took a deep breath and pressed the "off" tab on her armband. The remnants of her outfit slide like liquid across her body and down both arms. Within seconds, her armbands had retrieved all of the nano-particles making up her clothing and she was left standing naked.
She unsnapped the bands and slid them into charging sockets in the wall, then climbed into the oval-shaped interface chamber. As soon as she was lying comfortably on her back, the top half of the chamber quietly slid down its track, sealing her in total darkness. Seconds later, she was fast asleep.
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Her eyesight was blurry when the pod opened again. The room was much brighter than before and a dark-skinned woman wearing a white uniform was looking down at her...
