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“That is true, but you were only the first generation of the Edge,” explained Pan with a gentle smile. “After the failure of your group, the Edge endured, thanks to new hackers who joined the cause. Not only that but not all of those you thought had been arrested are still in prison. I managed to free some of them.”
Circé’s expression changed. It was clear the hacker was stunned, and she had visibly missed her former companions more than she had let on. Her eyes were now filled with hope, and a bit of tears too.
“What...?”
Pan smiled at her but turned his head to the Dragon as if he was waiting for Old Man Long to explain things first.
The older man sighed and drank a bit of green tea before resuming. After all, there were all the other Zodiacs who probably still didn’t have much of a clue as to what was going on there, and they ought to have been called there for a reason.
“As most of you should know, the Core has decided to expand once again,” he said. “They envision extending their territory as well as wiping away a portion of ours for their comfort. The plans have been made, and they apparently plan to do so by wiping out a portion of our population.”
“The SINs,” muttered Thao. “We established they are trying to hack the SINs of all of the Suburb’s inhabitants for this... They are already tracking about sixty percent of our population’s movements as we speak. They sent Overcrafts to scan most of our territories for this.”
“What will they use that data for?” frowned Lecky.
“Most likely, this is their version of a census,” said King. “They had never been interested in the reused SINs before, but they used the Dark Reality to put them onto their radars. My guess is they are trying to count how many people are in the Suburbs at the moment. If they want to extend the Core and reduce the Suburbs, they know they can’t do so without considering the people who already live there. Population control might be their end goal.”
“The locations are re-actualized every minute now,” said A. “Maybe they want to know where we are and when we are there for a stealth operation. Something where they will have control over how many deaths they cause.”
“They don’t want to completely destroy the Suburbs,” spat Thao, “so they will only keep a portion of it? What are we to those people? Damn cattle?!”
“Calm down, Thao,” said Sanyam, frowning and scratching his beard. “All of this is speculation... Do we have any proof of that? We might be causing a big commotion for nothing! ...Not that I don’t like a nice dinner, Dragon, my respect.”
“We do have proof.”
All eyes turned to Pan, who smiled politely.
“Since Ghost uncovered this, I went on to hack the Core’s central System. Their plan is to suppress forty percent of the current population in the Suburbs and allocate the territory for new construction for the Core. The plan is that in ten years, the entire Chicago area will be under the Core’s control, with no non-citizens remaining.”
“They have no plans to let people in, of course...” hissed Tanya. “Those damn people just want us all dead and to extend their masquerade on a greater scale!”
She swore in a Slavic tongue after that, but Eden couldn’t blame her. She was just about as shocked, even more so because she didn’t doubt Pan’s words. This was even worse than she thought. To think all of the Suburbs would be gone in ten years felt absolutely insane, but it didn’t shock her. This was exactly the kind of thing the Core’s people would come up with. Most likely, Chicago could be the very first Core to do this, and all the other Cores throughout the world would follow, trapping each citizen into this manufactured, calculated, and freedomless paradisiac society.
“This is why I called you all here,” said the Dragon. “We need to take proper action to stop the Core.”
“How?” scoffed Thao. “I doubt they’ll agree to negotiate since King and Tanya already blew up their damn doors and kind of got them pissed at us enough already...”
“It is true,” nodded Pan. “They were quite mad.”
Some stared at him, confused about his strangely serious tone as if it needed to be said. Michael King sighed, rubbing his temples.
“What is the plan, Dragon? I do not mean to be defeatist, but we have an insanely poor record of going against the Core. The last rebellion attempt was sadly completely destroyed, and there is a reason we have been living next to the Core all this time, not going against it. I get the urgency, but this will be a first for absolutely everything. We ought to be cautious.”
“Funny you mention that after you and Tanya decided to attack them,” said Thao.
“Can you remind me who blew up the Red Temple again, Thao? You and De Luca got lost on a field trip, perhaps?”
“We got what we wanted,” shrugged the woman. “What did you guys get from that? A firework show?”
“We crushed two of their entry points into the Suburbs,” said Tanya with her strong accent appearing. “Now there are only six left for them, and we considered blowing those up too.”
“They will come from the sky if they can’t come by foot,” sighed Lecky, “and it’s not much better, we have nothing to fight them in the air.”
“We have hacking.”
All eyes turned to A. this time, and the Hare scratched his temple with a completely indifferent expression.
“Hacking is what prevents them from using any technology in the air,” he continued. “We can hack any of their flying vehicles, including the Overcrafts. The very first hackings committed by the Edge were meant to stop aerial attacks or recode bombs to prevent them from wiping out the population. Since the Core is constantly open and imbued into the Dark Reality, nothing they can invent should be impossible to hack.”
