The Core: The First Guest

38. 336 years later

I felt Regeth unclasp his robot arms from around my shoulders and waist before hopping down to the inner hull and turning back in place to look at me.

"Very funny, you realize that we are still in real life, yes?" He said before scurrying over towards a travel disk that I hadn't noticed when we first came in. He stopped next to it as though waiting for me. "It probably is best that you go first. I don't trust your AI anymore. Not with what I have seen you do... it could possibly truly delete me if it wanted to. Remember back to right after we caught you? None of that should have happened. Magus is a 2nd. I don't think you understand what that means in terms of Authority. It isn't just that he has spent countless ages building up enough wealth to make his own Core... the very fact that your AI denied him is beyond scary. What I have seen your cr do is impressive, but I know that it is just time until we figure out what makes it stronger than ours. Your AI on the other hand... is just broken. It almost seems that you took away safeguards that should be in place, and no one is that stupid." He said as he looked at me, possibly wondering if I really was that dumb.

I walked over to the disk, feeling like a toy compared to how large I had been before. As I was about ready to step on it I got the strangest feeling that I was missing something. What was I missing?

...

...

"Dang it! I forgot to pick up that ball of 5 million CR!" I yelled out as I stood there for a moment before shoving my regrets aside and jumping on. I sure wasn't going to go back to that Core any time soon.

When my feet touched the surface a block of text formed before my eyes.

-Welcome home! Transferring to VR home in 5...4...3...2...1-

All of a sudden I was back to my full height of 6 feet and back in the same clothes that I had originally left in, all the way back when I had headed out to go shopping at Magus the 2nds Core. I looked down at my body, the skin and hair on my arms, and just how real everything was.

"Wow. I had begun to forget just how it felt to be flesh and blood." I said as I reached my right hand up to my chest to see if I could feel my heart beating. Sure enough, the realism didn't fail to impress. I looked around, wondering where I would arrive back after all this time.

Everything had changed. The travel disk that I stood on was surrounded by a small area that seemed to represent the empty hull that Regeth and I had just entered. I could see a small harvester robot frozen in time a few feet away from the travel disk. It seemed that this small area near the travel disk also showed what I had stored or collected inside my habitat, including visitors. Directly at my feet, there was a barbie doll-sized version of me standing on the disk. As I watched the barbie doll's form began to clump and curl up into a perfect sphere.

"That is interesting. I wonder if I can direct its movements while in my VR space." I mused as I tried to move the ball a little to the side, off of the surface of the disk, and into a good storage parking spot. Right next to two bricks laying on the ground.

"Huh..."

"Kevin!!!" I barely heard before I was barrelled over by a fast-moving body. We both fell down and I quickly found a giggling Tutor choking me nearly to death in a strong hug on the ground. Behind her was a brightly smiling George standing a couple of feet away. He looked different, to say the least. He seemed to have obtained a tan somewhere and was wearing a flowery Hawaiian shirt of all things. His hands and forearms had spots of grease in various places and he even had a small smudge on his cheekbone. I shifted a little to get a good look at the woman on top of me. Her dark brown hair had grown quite a bit longer, now it lay partway down her back and was splayed out all over the place from having jumped on me.