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His tone was even colder than the Rat’s. He glared at Thao with his golden eyes, warning her not to ask anymore. There was no trace of the smile he normally used to pacify Eden... The young woman didn’t care for the Rat’s curiosity, though. She was more intrigued by the enigmatic A...
“Can we get back to business?” sighed Tanya. “A. Explain.”
The man finally stopped staring at Eden, slowly going back to his map.
“...The Edge got this last week.”
“‘Got this’?” repeated Tanya, raising an eyebrow.
“You mean they stole it from the Core,” smirked Thao.
Ignoring the two of them, A. pressed a button on his device. This time, the blue area expanded considerably. Eden frowned. What did that mean? It was now going all the way into the Suburbs... about halfway in. Everyone in the room froze, visibly disturbed.
“A... What the hell is that supposed to mean?” hissed the South-East Asian woman, not smiling anymore.
“...The Core’s expansion plan.”
A few seconds of silence followed, everyone speechless. Tanya said something that sounded a lot like a slur in Russian, and Thao looked absolutely disgusted. Eden felt Dante’s hand stiffen too. She was in the same state. This couldn’t be good...
“It can’t be,” said Thao. “That thing is at least five times the size of the actual Core!”
“Their population is growing,” calmly said A. “The Edge found this during a ride inside the Core’s System... These plans are to be implemented next year.”
“This is ridiculous. They can’t expand that much in just one year! What of the Suburbs?”
“Something tells me they had no intention of sharing this with us,” groaned Tanya. “So that’s why you called us, A.”
The man slowly nodded. He raised his finger, following the border of the blue area. Eden felt her head spin just looking at the line. This was huge, and not good at all. If the Core had decided to expand, they wouldn’t care one bit about the locals already there. If the Edge hadn’t found this and given it to the local Zodiac, what would have happened? Would the Core have marched on them, gotten rid of all the people living there without a second thought, overnight...?
“They plan to expand all the way to Oak Lawn, Cicero, and Wicker Park.”
“This is almost all of Chicago from the twenty-first century,” said Dante. “It looks like they are tired of the Loop...”
“We didn’t move when they got past the river and built the wall on 90th fifteen years ago,” hissed Tanya. “Now this? They already treat us like vermin, now they want to take our land too?”
“I feel like they had no plan to ask for permission anyway,” said Thao. “If this is for next year, they probably just put the first step of their plan into action with those Overcrafts they are sending to the Suburbs... I don’t care about them scanning the buildings, but with what the Tiger said, it is clear they plan to use the reconditioned SINs against the population.”
“...They are preparing some sort of attack,” nodded Dante, very calmly.
“What else did the Edge get?” asked Tanya, turning to A.
The man sighed.
“Nothing. They said this was all they could get us... They are busy with another Core. We are on our own...”
“What?! They can’t leave us like this, those bastards!” said Tanya, adding a lot of angry words in a foreign tongue after that.
“...This is plenty enough.”
The Tiger had his golden eyes on the map, and Eden was sure he was thinking about the one they had back at the headquarters too... The three other Zodiacs had all their eyes on him.
“We know what the Core is after,” he said, a wry smile appearing on his face. “Now we can act.”
“We know nothing, De Luca!” retorted Tanya. “This isn’t enough!”
“We have our own hackers,” suddenly muttered Thao, strangely calm. “We can dig for more information on our own, now that we know what to look for. If De Luca has Ghost, we can investigate for ourselves. Who else has hackers?”
“Mine are not good,” said Tanya, clicking her tongue, “ever since that rat fled...”
