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Before she could end her sentence, the filter immediately changed from red to blue. This time, a female voice spoke, gently but firmly.
“Dear citizens. A foreign attack began this morning on our Chicago Core. Violent non-citizens have intruded on our dear Chicago Core and have begun to cause havoc, destroying our homes, robbing our possessions, and murdering our own citizens. We urge all citizens of the Core to stay home, for your own safety, and report any suspicious movement. All the intruders are armed and extremely dangerous. Do not open your doors to these attackers. Do not interact with these attackers. If you have any information, immediately report it to the Core’s emergency line. I repeat. The intruders are armed and extremely dangerous. Do not...”
“People won’t believe that,” said Eden. “We only fought with robots, they won’t believe we are really murdering citizens like that...”
“I think they will,” muttered Greed. “...Look.”
One of the elevators’ panels suddenly changed, showing what looked like a very poor-quality video. Eden immediately recognized the scene, though. It was the one they had lived just minutes ago when their group had fought and pushed through the lines of soldier bots to get into the Arcadia Tower.
There was one major difference from what had really happened, though. Instead of fighting with soldier bots, Eden, Dante, Thao, and everyone else were shown to be firing at citizens. They had digitally replaced all the robots in that frame to make it look as if their group was firing at unarmed citizens. The murder bots were still shown in the sky, but once again, the ones that had been turned over to their side were digitally erased.
“Holy crap...”
“Yep,” sighed Malieka. “They are showing their citizens a different narrative so they won’t help us.”
“We already picked up a dozen calls of people reporting Tanya’s group advancing,” added Nebty. “It won’t do much, but now, we’re really on our own.”
It wasn’t much of a change for their situation, but it was still pretty bad news for everyone. Until then, they had fought hard knowing what they were doing was for the sake of thousands of others. However, now, they were depicted as cold-blooded murderers, terrorists to the citizens of this city. Although it was not a big difference, the change of narrative was depressing, especially since the Core was doing this so easily.
“...Can we do something about this?” muttered Eden.
“I don’t think so. Hacking their broadcast would take a while, and it’s a waste of resources, Ghost. Let’s just move on.”
Eden nodded. She knew Nebty had to make the most efficient decisions, even if they weren’t always fully satisfying.
Suddenly, the elevator did a little jump and stopped its course. It remained closed, though. Everyone looked at each other with worried expressions.
“...Greed?”
“Just a minute! They are fighting to take back control of the elevators... Don’t do anything for now! I’m on it! Nekhbet, I could use some help here!”
Next to Eden, though, George didn’t look too good. He had become more pale since they had gotten in there, and now, he was all fidgety, glancing toward the doors non-stop.
When the doors suddenly opened, on what was indicated as the fifty-fifth floor, he went to run outside. However, things didn’t happen as planned. Dante grabbed him by the collar just in time, as George’s body seemingly fell past the elevator. What seemed like one of the tower’s shopping floors just a second before suddenly turned into a large, deep, black void. For a minute, it was chaos in the elevator, while Rolf, Eden, and Dante hurried to grab a part of George and pull him back inside.
“What part of ‘don’t move’ did you not understand?!” Circé shouted at him.
“W-w-what... happened...” mumbled poor George, lying in the middle of the elevator.
“They used screens to create an illusion,” sighed Eden. “There are some leisure centers in the tower; some probably include virtual entertainment rooms that are all screens. They probably stopped the elevators at one of those rooms, hoping a few of us would actually fall and die exactly like you almost did.”
“Which is why I said not to move,” grunted Greed. “I only have control of the elevators and the lower floors for now. They can put you through hell on any of the upper floors, guys, so stay inside, it’s safer. I’ll let you know when we arrive... if I can regain control of these damn things.”
Eden frowned, and exchanged a glance with Circé over her shoulder. Greed seemed to be struggling to get back control. It was only to be expected. The Core probably wouldn’t let them simply access their most important rooms like that.
“...What floor are we on right now?”
“Somewhere on the fifty-sixth and fifty-seventh, if I can trust what we have from Pan’s Map.”
“Of course you can trust the Map!” shouted Loir, sounding personally offended. “Why would you not be able to trust the Map?! This Map can even pinpoint a mole on your butt cheek, sir!”
“...Ugh, noted. My bad. Anyway, that’s where you are.”
“Do we have emergency stairs nearby?”
“Stairs? ...Yeah, but it’s opposite from your position.”
“It’s alright. Land us where you can, even if it’s on a lower floor. We should probably climb up the stairs instead of using the elevators, they will fight to the end to make sure these things don’t reach the sixtieth floor.”
