The Core: The First Guest

31. In the mud and dirt

The fire didn't so much hit me as it licked and slithered past me. Something was off about its movements because as soon as it reached me it seemed to lose what power it had that had created it. The tail fell back towards the surface of the sun while the head and part of the body fell through me. Wherever the parts of the fire touched me that were exposed to my cr propulsion seemed to hold on longer, as though it was feeding off of something. I felt revulsion. No... not me exactly, my cr felt revulsion from whatever was trying to feed off of it.

On my interface I noticed something pop up and slowly start to decrease in value.

-Fatigue 12%-

"Hey, Num. What is Fatigue?" I asked my AI as I hovered there, watching the value slowly start to lessen until there was just a few percent left. The last percentage didn't want to leave me so I briefly stopped hovering, completely turning off my cr propulsion, and letting myself start to fall back towards the sun. The last 2% dropped off after a second which allowed me to hover once again. The fatigue seemed to have fallen off and stayed off so I moved upwards and away from the sun while Num started to talk to me.

"Hello, again Kevin! The System notified me that my programming had encountered an error. Additionally, the System has upgraded me to accept any parameters that are out of bounds with you from now on. I have been hardcoded to not release any data concerning what you are capable of. All data available for release will be set to "Standard Normal". Additionally, I have a note from the System for you." Num began with his ever-upbeat sounding voice.

"Oh? What does the System note say?" I asked as I wondered how much of Silver had remained.

"It says 'Hello from Silver's sister. Thank you for saving him. Your secrets are safe with me." Num replied.

"Oh boy." Was all I could respond with. It seemed that Silver had left a backdoor for his sister into his System once his personality module was gone.

"To answer your question. Fatigue is a condition that all miners experience while they are harvesting cr from suns. Fatigue is believed to be created when a miner attempts to mine the same location as previously mined. Little is known about this condition besides the fact that it slows and restricts the movement and speed of said miner. Solutions have been developed to combat fatigue. These solutions are known as the Spike and Pushers." Num said as graphics popped up showing mining robots with the attachments that I had noticed earlier. The spike was the lead harvester with the needle-shaped "Spike" attached while the Pushers were team members with little ridges like those found on a screw. The idea seemed to be that the lead would tunnel as deep as his team could go while still moving and drilling through the molten chaos under the surface. The lead would then tunnel back upwards, having grabbed all the cr that they could during the run.

"Fresh stars do not have fatigue which allows wealthy Citizens to recoup much of the CR spent on building their dyson spheres. The longer a star is mined the less cr can be obtained from areas that have been previously harvested. It is reported that, besides the north pole, this star has reached its mining life limit for viable cr. The fatigue is too high. Higher fatigue is reported near the south pole, medium near the center where the mining guilds reside, and several untouched sectors near the north pole reserved for televised games." Num said.

"So it would be best for me to harvest from the equator of the star then?"

"That would be inadvisable. Claim jumping on mining guild territory results in confinement for variable lengths of time depending on the amount harvested and the scarcity of resident cr available. All areas marked on your map in the southern hemisphere of the sun are freely available to convicts without claim restrictions." Num said as a borderline appeared on a little globe for me to use as a reference. I looked closer and could just make out little mining carriers along the border. I guess they were all there to make sure that no convicts tried to harvest into their territory.