Suddenly I found myself in an elevator heading up the lab where I had just been. There was no sign of Professor Smith or the vortex. The elevator reached the top floor and I proceeded to walk to the lab as I had done less than an hour before. As I approached the lab I saw something quite astonishing. The class had already begun! Furthermore I was already in class! I saw myself or someone that looked like me sitting in the exact place I had been before the vortex had appeared. I looked at the clock on the wall and it said that it was only 11:15. I listened and heard the teacher giving the same lecture he had ealier. Then I noticed someone looking over my shoulder. It was Professor Smith! He seemed quite calm despite his disheveled hair and tattered clothes. He kept mumbling something about not running programs that he didn't know the origin of, while looking over the lab and its occupents. Then pulled me back into the hallway and told me his plan.
The plan seemed like it would work, so I went along with it. If we failed there was a risk that time would continue to repeat itself over and over forever, so we would have to be careful. At 11:28 Professor Smith left his class to try to find a way to turn on the monitors which would display his presentation. After he left, the Smith from my time went in and ask the other version of me to come help him with something. Then I then sat in place of the other version of me. After a minute Professor Smith returned to his class and continued his presentation, and I went to work on my computer. Using the system password that my teacher had given me I accessed the servers maintenance system. Time was running short, in a couple minutes Professor Smith was going to run the file that initiated the time vortex. I worked quickly and initiated a system wide defragmentation of all network drives. As a result all files on the server became inaccessible. Unable to open any files, Professor Smith excused the class and went to administration to complain about the poor timing of system maintenance procedure. During that time, I cancelled the defragmentation and gave my teacher access to the files again. He immediately deleted the file he had run before causing the virus.
Suddenly I found myself in the elevator again, heading up to the lab. At first I thought all our effort had gone to waste, but when I got to the lab everyone was gone. I looked at the clock and it read 12:15! I guess the time I spent outside of time was added to the time at which I was returned. So I quickly ran to your class, and that's why I showed up at 12:20.
Ian Chase
4-2-97