Karyn opened up a web browser window in her shared space, and surfed to this world's Google. Or at least she tried. "Huh, I can't get Google to open." She double-checked her browser settings, and verified that google.com was her normal default search engine here, just like at Home. "It exists here, so what's wrong?"
Jon pondered for a moment, and then laughed. "Sure, it exists here, but you're gonna have to wait a loooong time for it to open at 1000 times slower than normal! It might not even open at all, if we're moving too fast for an outside computer to keep up with our clicks."
Just then, her browser window underscored his words by timing out with a "site not found" error.
Jon noted this. "Yup. We, and our implanted computer chips, are supercharged when compared to the rest of the world, and they're not compatible."
Karyn rolled her eyes at the reminder. "Oh, right, the ARDs. Hmm, we'll have to go back to normal time before we can surf the outside web, I guess. But if we do, your mom arrives right away, and there were more things I wanted to find out."
"Like what?" asked Jon, curious.
"Like what 'dressed up nice' means in this world," replied Karyn. "It might not be the same thing as Home."
"How would Google help with that?"
Karyn rolled her eyes again. "Dumb-ass! You know, fashion sites! Youtube and video clips of current TV shows! I bet there's gotta be a version of Seventeen magazine or something like that online.
"I didn't think you cared about that stuff."
"Well, I don't, but that doesn't mean I'm blind. I just need to look around."
"Maybe you've got something stored on your implanted computer. Pictures or something. I'll search mine too."
Karyn poked around on her desktop some more, and then grinned broadly. "Oh wow, I wonder if the other 'me' is more of a fashionista than I am... 'Cause she has the last 10 years of Seventeen, Glamour, and Cosmopolitan stored right here, and some other fashion mags that I don't recognize. I think I've bought maybe one copy of Cosmo in my entire life. Oh! And stored TV show episodes! Thousands of them! Literally... Wow, how much local storage capacity do we have??"
Jon was finding similar things. "Humph. The other Jon likes Teen Beat for gawdsake. Sheesh. Well, at least he has good tastes in TV shows... Buffy, Angel, Ripper, 6 different incarnations of Star Trek, Wormhole X-Treme, 6 seasons of Firefly, 4 seasons of Veronica Mars, MCO-Files, Super Team AEGIS, XX-Flight, Tales from the Blind Pig, Eight Worlds... I haven't heard of half of these shows, but the animated cover icons look fun.
"Good thinking, Jon," said Karyn. "I think between the magazines and catalogs and TV shows that 'I' had stored, I can get a pretty good idea of what's currently In."
She expanded her shared workspace to cover the entire wall above Jon's bed. Soon, she had dozens of pages from catalogs and teen magazines open, and was simultaneously displaying several clips from current popular TV shows.
Jon watched her work on her 'screen' for a while in companionable silence.
Karyn finally sat back and said, "OK, I think I got an answer..."
