Walnut Creek, California, February, 2078, Thursday…

Paula Cranston told the computer her credit card information, checked all the rest of the information listed on the screen, and said yes when both the screen and a computerized voice asked her if she wanted to submit the order. She was excited.

Being a shy person, the twenty-three-year-old accountant had taken a bold step in her life when she joined the Pentecostals at nineteen. Partly convinced by her equally shy high school friend Judy Lorenzo, Paula left the Baptist Church and Judy left the Catholic Church, both in search of meaning in their hum-drum lives.

Paula was a frustrated Pentecostal. While Judy had claimed to see the face of Christ and others claimed to speak in tongues, Paula had never been touched by the spirit of her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The software she was downloading promised that it would teach her to speak in tongues. She wanted that badly. She didn't do snakes but speaking in tongues seemed like something she should be able to do.

The program was a virtual reality program. After downloading it, she took the IR interface unit to her computer and plugged it into the standard port on the left side of her head. The real world disappeared. She was in a rather desolate virtual landscape. Her first reaction to the arid land and the hot sun there by the Sea of Galilee was a strange feeling of thirst. The dryness seemed real.