CAD's First Submersion

After overhearing a couple of fellow technomancers at The Hotspot quietly discussing what he thought was a new Matrix game, CAD mentioned “submersion” to Tony Benett, his friend and the club owner. Unaware of what it meant to submerge, CAD agreed to revisit the club at the owner's behest when he had a few evenings to spare. Shortly after, Pixel contacted NRE and told them about an officer on a warpath to arrest her and subsequently the rest of the group. This delayed his return to the club, but eventually found a break in the group's investigation of Grindhaus.

Once back at the club, Tony led CAD to a soundproofed room that he claimed many technomancers had submerged for the first time in. Still oblivious to what submersion was, Tony sat him down and explained that the Resonance Realms were real and that him and others of his ilk could access it via submersion. Unbelieving at first, CAD followed Tony into the Matrix. There, Tony urged him to look between the devices in the next room to find the path to the other plane.

An hour of meditation passed with nothing more than a slight headache. Another hour's meditation brought hints of something deeper. A third hour found a breakthrough; CAD became aware of faint trails passing between the nearby devices, finally confirming Tony's declarations. Nearly at his mental capacity, CAD became desperate to understand more. Risking losing all progress he had made, CAD decided to push onwards to see if there was anything further he could glean from this new discovery. Eventually, he realised that some led from one device to another, but a few of them led away into the distance. Desperate to learn the source of these streams of data he now felt so in tune with, CAD pushed on. Carefully following the delicate streams, he arrived at a doorway in space into which the trails were leading.

Half expecting the door to be a trap, CAD opened the door anyway.