Chapter 36: Teleportation, sort of
"What about teleportation?" asked Madison.
"Huff, Huff, What?" asked Jack between wheezes. Madison had complained that she wanted to go for a jog, but didn't want to run on a treadmill and didn't want to run through his, unfamiliar to her, neighborhood. So, Jack made a small simulation that included a local nature preserve that had running trails. He had also configured it so that the simulation boundary projected a fake sky, so it still looked like they were outdoors instead inside a glowing white dome.
He had neglected physical fitness while Fran was dying so he could spend more time with her, but now he had no excuses, so he joined Madison for a jog. And while he wasn't completely out of shape, he wasn't exactly in shape either. But Madison was in shape, very fine shape indeed, and the pace they were maintaining was difficult for him, but a breeze for her. She was literally running circles around him.
As she circled him again, she said, "What about teleportation? You said the pen ink stayed next to the pen if you only exported the pen changes, but stayed on the paper if you exported both the pen and paper changes. So, would that also work if you, I don't know, moved a ball from one box to another? If it works, it would effectively be teleportation."
Jack came to a wheezing stop. She'd done it again. It was an obvious possibility, given what he had already discovered. He just hadn't thought of it. But Madison did.
Still out of breath, he paused the simulation and pulled both of them out to the real world. He wasn't using parallel self because he wanted to export the effects of the run out to his physical body.
The transition from winded to normal wasn't as jarring as he had expected. When he'd left the lottery simulation after that first encounter with the cops, he'd been shaken, even in his soul space. So, maybe emotional state was included when Genesis Heart was maintaining his continuity of mind, but didn't include other physiological state.
He got up from his bed, walked out to the kitchen, grabbed a glass and two plastic containers, then walked out to the living room and sat on the couch. As he sat, Madison came out of her room and sat next to him, while giving him a look that said, "Really? Now?"
He just shrugged his shoulders, then pulled them into his soul space.
"You have to do this now? Why not wait until we finished with our run? I don't want to get cold and have to warm up again."
Her mind was truly a mystery. She could think of teleportation, but didn't remember that the simulation was paused.