As soon as he locked me in place my vision was pressed up against the ceiling inside the slot, leaving me only a couple of millimeters to survey the glowing chains around me. I wasn’t sure why this was the case but I began to suspect that what I really was looking through was a tiny hovering camera. I felt nothing, none of the falling or the insane heat that probably now surrounded my perfectly encapsulated prison module.

Not having a hud or interface to call up was really troublesome. Without anything to see besides the glowing chain buttons around me I couldn’t tell how long I had been falling for. My mind started to wander the more I waited for something bad to happen. I had expected to hear something when I got closer to the sun. I didn’t think that something that big wouldn’t generate at least some destructive noise. Perhaps it was true that sound didn’t really travel that well through vacuum or maybe it had something to do with the fact that cr was supposed to be impervious to everything. That, to me, made more sense. I mean… how impervious would something be if you could vibrate the person inside to death?

I felt out with my senses at the cr around me. Being this close to it had changed my interaction with it in a subtle way. Instead of always needing to respond with an agreement and acknowledgment when I willed it to do something it now felt like it was part of me. It felt good.

I spun in place, looking at the surface of the disk that I was trapped in from my limited perspective. I couldn’t remember which chains did what and I figured that in the end, it didn’t really matter. All I needed to do was to turn them all off. Unless there was a chain that turned me off, effectively killing me. That was not a pleasant thought to have. There might be text somewhere around the edge that I couldn’t see, but that wasn’t helpful as well if I couldn’t understand or translate anything without an interface.

I already knew what five of the total six chains around me did. Sight, Speech, Hearing, and the last two that Regeth mentioned right before Magus locked me in here were Linking and Interface. I guessed that Linking allowed me to control the little robot I was inside and Interface was something to do with an AI that would teach me how to actually harvest cr while I served my time.

Turns out I was wrong about what both of the chains did. I went around and poked each of the chains in turn with a finger pad I created out of the surrounding cr, turning them off one by one. It didn’t feel like the walls were solid, they flowed easily to my every thought as though I was just moving my hands. The moment I touched the fifth chain an interface popped up in the corners of my vision. It appeared to be a stationary hud that stayed relative to wherever I was facing. It had a simple built-in feature that would identify what I was looking at if I stared at it for longer than a brief moment. I glanced around the little text blocks and soon found that I had yet to enable the Linking function. The chain that I hadn’t known the name of earlier was called the Control chain and it allowed me to control the robot I was inside. I laughed at this little block of text until I realized what it really meant. They sent convicts in robots that were built from cr that was not owned by the convict. That meant that the convict would never be able to change the configuration of the robot in any way in an attempt to escape. It was just as effective, if not more so than a prison collar and outfit. Additionally, this meant that they were locked inside their robot until the owner of the cr chose to let them out.

The more I read the little blocks of text the more I understood just how evil Magus’s final actions really were and why I had seen the look of horror on Regeth’s face when he realized what Magus had done.

Magus had left every chain locked in place when he shoved my prison module inside the harvester robot.

He had sent me into the sun to suffer a horrible unending torment.

Speech was the only way to interact with the AI once I enabled the Linking function. Hearing was the same unless I could suddenly learn how to read lips. Sight at least was a given after the System stepped in with the Detainee legal clause. This meant that I would have only had the shallow insides of the coffin robot to stare at for an eternity. Just the glowing chains around me.

I really didn’t know how to feel at this point. I had never experienced such an evil person before. To do something to another being so easily. It just blew my mind and I knew that I would need some time to come to grips with what it all meant.

I stared off into space for a while, just lost in my own thoughts and the realization of what sort of hell I could have found myself in if just a couple things had been different. It took me a while to get back into gear and to read the last chain's description.

“Linking” would connect me up with the resident AI in control of mining operations and management of miners and detainees. I wondered briefly why there was a distinction between the two. Possibly because there were Citizens who chose this as a profession while the Owners enforced prison sentences with similar labor? I guess I would find out.

Before unlocking the last chain I decided to see what this interface was capable of. I tried to imagine a VR space with no success. It seemed so completely underpowered compared to my VR home. The most that this interface could generate for me to see was static models with only rudimentary animation. I could imagine a 3D image of Tutor and George but I couldn’t make them do or say anything, just rotate or spin the image in place. For a second I felt bad that the first people that I thought of were my two AI assistants. Why didn’t I imagine my family back home? My parents or my brothers? I didn’t know. I did miss them, I just felt like I had made new friends since leaving home. I decided to shelve those thoughts for now. I had things to do and needed to focus completely on escaping.

I pressed the Linking chain and immediately had a window pop up in front of my vision.

Welcome to Prison Detainee!

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

My name is A3T3-R-NUM, but you can just call me Num. I am this Core’s prison Guide. It looks like you are a new convict. I have a tutorial lined up for you to enjoy. Let us get the formalities out of the way.

Please enter your name: _

What? That was not what I was expecting at all. I guess it made sense though since the Tela race lived mostly in VR. There wouldn’t be any bus rides, cavity searches, or cells to walk to. I had already been through all that just to get here. It made me wonder how the normal legal system went and how long detainees had to serve for crimes in VR. I was going to see if I could find out.

I typed Kevin into the name block and willed it to accept my entry.

Greetings Kevin.

Please wait while I search through your criminal records to determine your length of time to serve.

…

…

…

I waited for about five minutes before I started to get a little worried that the AI was broken. Finally, Num’s text came back.

I am sorry Kevin, there seems to be an issue with your records. The System does not have you registered with any known crimes. However, clearly, there is a reason for you to be here, I mean, it is not every day that someone gets installed into a prison module. Please wait while I contact the Head of Security for a resolution.

“No no no! You don’t have to do that!” I said aloud to the AI. It was good to be able to hear my voice even if it felt like I was talking inside a dixie cup.

The AI paid me no mind and I waited another few minutes until it came back. In my free time, I created small photographs of all of my friends in the Core and my family back home. I placed them outside of my vision so that if I needed to I could spin around and look at them.

The Head of Security was busy and unable to answer my queries. He has responded with a short message to you and notified me that your prison sentence since there was a failure “at the highest levels” to assign one, has been set to the lowest amount of cr needed to be gathered before your prison term will expire. His message is as follows:

“Kevin, I don’t know how you did it but I just wanted to say that I am sorry. Escape and get away from here as fast as you can.”

-Error: Message was redacted upon receipt. Message does not exist.-

-Error: Prison sentence term Authority changed from Regeth, Head of Security to General Penitentiary Admissions System Authority.-

The brief note from Elaya’s dad blinked away, leaving just the memory of it in my mind. It was a slight comfort to know that he wasn’t all evil. It was interesting to see that he was also covering his tracks after the fact. I wondered if he actually had the power to delete the records that he had set my prison term to the shortest amount of time? After seeing what Elaya could do when her hand changed colors, blocking data from being recorded or being sent to the Core. I wondered what the names of her other two keys were. If I could get a hold of something similar it might be able to help me to remain hidden from people like Magus in the future.

More text blocks popped up in front of me, it appeared that Num was finally giving me options to edit my personal preferences before the full tutorial started. I clicked that I would like my interactions to be with voice along with a subtitle record of spoken words, just in case I needed to go back and reread something that was explained to me at a later time. There was even an option to skip the tutorial if I wanted to. I had no idea what I was in for so I skipped pressing that button. There were music options to choose from while mining, the choice ranged from soothing sounds that kind of sounded like rain falling all the way through rhythmic insanity music tracks. There were no words or vocals, just pure rhythm or natural sounds. It would have to do. I was beginning to think that the System and the Core’s prison society really wasn’t all that evil. They didn’t want to cause the inmates to suffer too much, just to serve their time and to get them back to life once they were done. There was even a hibernate option to let the prisoner enter a state of inactivity. It might have been Tela’s version of sleep, which was odd to me, wouldn’t you just want to get your sentence done with?

Once all the options were clicked that I wanted the light around me dimmed and slowly brightened again. No longer was I peering around inside the tiny space inside my robot, I was now able to look around my surroundings outside of the robot. I looked around and found that my robot body was there, just translucent. It was as if Num had taken whatever I was looking through and made a little command viewpoint directly in the middle of the octagon. I mentally messed with the see-through settings to see how it would affect visibility and quickly found the reason why they made the body of the robot seem to be see-through. It was due to the current design of the legs. They closed like a hand downwards. If the robot wasn’t see-through I wouldn’t be able to tell if I picked anything up. Not only that, it was really cool to be able to look around with a clear view of my surroundings.

“Ahhhhhhh!” I screamed as I looked upwards, or rather down towards the surface of the sun that I was rapidly rushing towards. It looked like instant death. Solar flares were happening everywhere, flaming ropes and spirals of fire shooting upwards, all over the surface of the sun. In my mind's eye, it was comparable to me skydiving like I had done earlier if I was diving towards true death at the hands of a burning star. I think my vision of the sun was part of the tutorial because Num started to talk right after I began to calm down.

“Ha ha ha, now wasn’t that scary? Truly our sun is a beast to behold!” Num said as if he was standing 5 feet away from me. For a prison AI, he sounded really happy to have his job. “Don’t worry Kevin, you will be launched upwards any moment now before we get too close to the Chromosphere. I just enjoy giving new inmates a dramatic close-up look at their source of employment for their detainment term.” Num said as my fall was not arrested and we continued to fall towards the ever-growing ball of fire.

“Error detected. I am unable to control this harvester robot. The cr is not registered to the System.” Num said as we continued to speed up, diving towards a massive flare that had just appeared beneath us. It was actually very pretty, like a huge fire serpent rising up to devour us. I wasn’t worried, I was pretty sure it was all part of Num's shock and awe tutorial.

“Haha, good joke Num. You can get us out of here any moment now. … … any moment now Num!?!” I said as the raging flame grew to fill my vision. I really had no idea of how big this Prominence flame serpent was. It just kept getting larger and larger, filling up my vision. It was so much bigger than my tiny little earth.

“Num? What is going on?”