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“...So what happened?”
“We all came here to Chicago to try and get the thingy done... and things went aaaaall the way south. I don’t mean south like a nice spot in Louisiana, I mean south like underground prisons, toasting your toes until they fry and all that smelly crap!”
“You were arrested then?”
“Yes, as soon as I landed a toe in Chicago! Oh, I miss my poor little toes... They were really cute, you know!”
Eden grimaced.
So that was Loir’s story... A hacker baited by the Architect to come and beat his own creation… Was that what the Cores had planned all along, to trap rebellious hackers? It was plausible, and actually, Eden herself knew she would probably have gotten cold feet when half of the Edge did. Who wanted to risk getting captured by the Core? Moreover, if the Architect had invited them himself, why did things go wrong? Unless something had happened to him...
“Wait... So that’s when the Architect disappeared?” she asked. “You guys were arrested... when the Architect vanished from Chicago, right?”
Loir made a sad expression, putting his chin on his knee.
“Maybe? The authorities got us right when we arrived! So disappointing... I really wanted to meet the old man... I can’t believe I missed the opportunity of a lifetime to meet one of the few geniuses smarter than myself! And my prize...”
“What would you even do if you had control of the Core?” chuckled Dante, visibly amused.
“Oh, a ton of things! I would make Taco Tuesday mandatory, banish yellow shirts, and add another season to all my favorite shows!”
“Of course,” sighed Eden.
With Loir as its head, the Core would definitely end up like some very strange amusement park, being the weird character he was... She couldn’t even imagine it.
“My holo-luminescent keyboard...” he whined. “I could never get my hands on one, even when I tried to sell my kidney!”
“Don’t sell your kidney,” retorted Eden without even thinking twice. “Now, where is the Edge, Loir? Can we contact them or something? Someone warned A., I mean the Hare, about the Core expanding, expanding physically beyond the current wall. We need to know what else they know.”
“Oh, no, no, no,” said the hacker, shaking his head. “I told you they are still mad at me! Why would they talk to me...”
“Why are they even mad at you, what did you do? If it’s been two years, perhaps they have let it go by now.”
“You think?” asked Loir, his eyes suddenly shining with excitement.
“...Loir, seriously, what did you do?”
He scratched his head with his black nails.
“I only asked a friend if he knew a nice place we could stay at when we arrived?” he said in a small voice.
“Who was that friend?”
“Well, the President, of course!”
“Oh Loir, you crazy piece of sh–!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Eden was pacing back and forth in her room after she had finally changed into something more comfortable. She had thrown the pink strass top across the room and instead, put on a black turtleneck and some comfortable denim pants with black leather boots. She definitely liked this outfit a lot better than the one from before.
As usual, Dante was watching her from afar, leaning on the kitchen counter and following her movements with a complex, indecipherable expression.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she muttered. “The Architect died years ago, way before two years ago. I get that Loir has no concept of time and he was already hiding in a basement before I met him, so he’s probably got it all mixed up… but even if that was four, five, or even six years ago, way before I met him, the Architect was already long gone. How could he have given instructions to the Edge? Moreover, why would he have instructed them to attack his own creations, the other Cores?”
“...Unless it wasn’t the Architect,” said Dante.
Eden stopped. She had thought the same, but it didn’t make sense either. Who else but the Architect would have been able to pull off such a thing? No one had ever come close to attacking one of the Cores before that, but once this strange contest from someone posing as the Architect surfaced, and some keys were handed to young hackers like the Edge, several Cores almost fell or were without power in the span of only a few years… According to Loir, at least. If they believed the crazy hacker and considered all the major attacks against the Cores as the Edge’s work or part of that competition, the challenges had lasted over several years. A lot of the most impressive hackings must have been kept under wraps by the victim Cores...
