The Core: The First Guest

37. A spark in the dark

Regeth and I quickly made it to the inner wall of the Core. I slowed down considerably the closer we got, wondering how we were to get out and if Magus the 2nd would try to cause trouble for us. The inner wall of the Core was not made out of cr, as I had expected, instead, it was an interesting mix of technologies that allowed them to harvest as many sources of energy as possible from the sun.

"So... there is an energy field here to protect the panels of matter underneath?" I asked as we flew around the curved wall towards a gateway. The curved wall seemed to sparkle and buzz with some kind of energy. I wasn't sure what it was doing. It almost acted like a bug zapper, crackling every now and then.

"Yes, clever isn't it? It is using the power of the sun to harvest power from the sun. It is one of the things that the Tela have always done even before we became virtual beings." He replied

"Harvesting power from the sun?" I asked.

"No, using the power of something to gain power over it."

"I don't understand," I said as I morphed down into a human form with my cr. I was just more used to moving as a human, not as an eight-legged stop sign. It was comical to me seeing that I was now the same size as a Barbie doll. Since I was three times the size of Regeth I was wearing him like a backpack while we moved closer to a circular gateway.

"What should I expect beyond this point?" I asked as we drew near. I wasn't too worried about getting caught, I just didn't want to cause too much damage on my way out. It was one thing to fight an evil dictator and another to blow up every home and hospital in his country just to get to him. Bad analogy, I need to work on those. - I thought as I hovered closer to the edge of the opening. There was an iris, currently open, built into the gateway. I half expected it to slam shut the moment the System registered that I was too close to it.

"Beyond here? It is just the normal housing districts and the occasional business that requires the heat of the sun to process ores or cause reactions in creating elements." He said as I looked around through the portal. Nothing.

"So. Why isn't Magus trying to stop us?" I said as I drove us through the opening and out into the large open space that divided the inner layer from the next section.

"I... I really don't know." Regeth said softly, almost as though he was fearful of tempting fate.

"Is the quickest way out of here straight through these gateways?" I asked as I spied the next one. For miles and miles around us, all I could see were those bubbles that made up Citizen VR homes.

"So... what is the deal with the bubble wrap design?" I asked as I pointed out the vast expanse of bubbles.

"Hmm? Oh, that is what we originally looked like. I thought you knew."

"What? You all looked like bubbles?"

"Well yes, we sensed through our outer shells and on the underside we had all of our appendages, eating mandibles, and other sensory tentacles." He replied as I picked up speed, only slowing down through each of the many portals. There was no sound in space beyond our vocal transmissions being piped to each of us through our interfaces. This made the surroundings seem dead, lifeless, and barren. So what was the sound made from earlier concerning the energy field around the interior of the Core? Electrical emp bursts? I had no clue.

"Something must be happening in VR that is drawing his attention away from us," Regeth said as I started to see a glimmer of stars through the next portal. Sure enough, we had finally made it to the outer surface of the Core!

I would never get over how stunning it was out in space... how absolutely vast everything was. I could feel my need to explore growing.

Everything was dark around us, save for the very distant speckles of stars and the occasional flare of a trash port opening up on the Core behind us. I felt like something was wrong with this area of space. It was just too empty.