Chapter 184: Solar Centre

“Speaking of Mercury,” I said, sitting down on the hood beside her. “Isn’t this where the Sun does that weird retrograde trick?”

“Yep,” Paige said with a nod, her dark eyes flashing with excitement. “Because Mercury’s orbital speed near perihelion outpaces its slow rotational speed, the Sun appears to rise, stop in midair, travel backward across the sky for a few days, set, and then rise again. It’s pretty good sight.”

“I’m definitely staying to watch that,” I said. “Paige, hit us with some snacks.”

SNAP.

A giant bucket of extra-buttered popcorn appeared in my hands, along with two cold sodas. And they were favourite. This girl actually remembered them.

We leaned back on the hood of the car, putting on our sunglasses. Paige accelerated our temporal perception by a few thousand times so we didn’t have to sit on Mercury for actual days in real time.

Above the cratered horizon, the gargantuan yellow Sun rose slowly. Midway through its path, it suddenly ground to a halt in the sky. Then, as if someone had pressed rewind on a remote control, the giant star drifted backward across the horizon, set below the ridge, and then rose a second time.

“That is trippy as hell,” I said, tossing a handful of popcorn into my mouth. “Hell yeah of a sight. Pity most can’t see this.”

“Told you,” Paige giggled, crunching on her popcorn. “Orbital mechanics are weird.”

After finishing our snacks, I tossed the empty bucket aside, letting Paige erase it from existence. The sun would have done that anyways.

“All right,” I said, hopping into the driver’s seat. “Enough watching from the sidelines. Let me go dive into the Sun?”

“Now you’re talking!” Paige cheered, sliding into the passenger seat and swishing her tails eagerly.

I started the engine and slammed the accelerator. The convertible launched straight off Mercury’s rocky surface, soaring across the remaining distance and plunging headfirst into the star.

Normal solar physics dictated that any object would turn into ionized gas long before reaching the Sun’s visible surface. But as the car crossed the outer corona, the multimillion-degree plasma simply slid over our spatial shield like liquid gold.

We descended through the chromosphere and photosphere, entering the convective zone. Colossal cells of plasma, thousands of miles wide, boiled around us like a cosmic cauldron. The light was blindingly intense, illuminating the interior of the car in brilliant gold and white.

“We’re going all the way down,” I said, steering toward the radiative zone.

Down in the solar core, the density was unbelievable, about fifteen times that of lead, with pressures reaching over two hundred billion times Earth’s atmospheric pressure. Hydrogen nuclei were constantly fused into helium under immense pressure and temperature, generating the energy that powered the Sun.

I brought the car to a stop in the center of the solar core. Fortunately, it didn’t need a solid surface to land.

“We’re actually sitting in the middle of the Sun,” I muttered, looking around.

Despite the chaotic nuclear reactions happening around us, inside our car it was completely silent and still.

“Remember what I said earlier?” Paige said with a smirk, snapping her fingers.

SNAP.

In front of the car, a pristine white marble diving board materialized out of nowhere, extending over a pool of super-dense golden plasma floating in zero gravity. Beside it, two wooden lounge chairs and a tropical umbrella popped into existence.

I stared at the sight, laughing out loud. “A beach lounge in the center of the Sun? Really, Paige?”

“Hey! You wanted solid ground, I gave you a beach resort!” Paige said with a grin, stepping out of the car in her dark kimono. She walked over to the marble board, testing its bounce. “Come on, jump in!”

I unbuttoned my collar, kicked off my shoes, and walked onto the marble board.

I took a short run-up and leaped off the end, executing a clean cannonball straight into the golden plasma.

SPLASH!

The dense solar matter splashed around me like warm, liquid velvet. Because of my Origin authority, the multimillion-degree plasma didn’t burn me at all. It felt like floating in a hyper-dense, perfectly heated hydromassage tub.

I popped my head back above the surface, wiping golden energy out of my eyes. “Okay, I have to admit… this feels amazing.”

Paige stood at the edge of the board, holding her kimono sleeves back as she giggled down at me. “See? I told you it was a good idea.”

I reached up, grabbed her ankle playfully, and pulled her down with me. How could we come to the Sun’s centre and not have some fun?

“Hey—! Seth, you menace-!” Paige yelped as she splashed into the plasma beside me.

She surfaced a second later, her fluffy fox ears flattened against her head and her nine tails soaked in golden light. She glared at me with a pout, but her eyes were full of playful laughter.

“You wet my tails!” she complained, splashing a wave of superheated plasma into my face. “Take responsibility.”

“It’s nuclear fusion, Paige. It’ll dry off,” I said with a laugh, splashing her back.

The two of us ended up having a ridiculous water fight inside the core of the Sun, tossing million-degree plasma at each other like two kids at a local swimming pool. It was completely unreal, utterly absurd, and hands down one of the most hilarious things I had ever done.

After swimming around in the solar core for a bit, we climbed back onto the marble platform. Paige dried her tails with a single thought, and I put my shoes back on, feeling thoroughly refreshed.

“That was awesome,” I said, leaning back against the convertible’s hood.

“Where to next, Host?” Paige asked, her dark eyes sparkling.

“We’ve seen our own star,” I said, looking out past the glowing plasma wall toward the rest of the galaxy. “Now I want to see the extreme stuff out there in the cosmos.”

“Like what?”

“Pulsars,” I said with a grin. “Or a supernova exploding in real time. And, of course… my absolute favorite: a black hole.”

Paige’s nine tails swished with excitement as she hopped into the car. “Say no more. Buckle up, Seth. The real cosmic tour starts now!”

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