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“Thanks...”
In fact, the whole channel had gone strangely silent since the building had been blown up. Perhaps Loir, or Warlock, was a lot more respected than she had initially thought, because the hackers, in particular, seemed to have gone from extremely chatty to completely mute. Only Nebty was still talking because she had to coordinate things, but the answers she got were brief and disheartened. Somehow, it comforted Eden a bit to think she wasn’t the only one grieving him. They may not have known the crazy punk as she did, but Warlock was truly a hacker the others looked up to.
“We can probably make it upstairs before they get to us,” declared Circé. “There must be several floors of computers, and the robots will avoid fighting there. If we can just get Ghost and me on the right floor and win some time, I bet we will be able to do some damage.”
“Wasn’t it all about getting to that sixtieth floor in the first place? Why do you sound like you’re not sure if we’re going to get this done?” groaned Tanya.
“Because we don’t know how much security they really have on those floors,” Malieka answered for them. “There might be computers for lower levels of the System, in which Ghost and Circé will have limited access to things. What we really need is to get to the Core. It’s like stepping into some random area of a maze and trying to get to the center. The closer we land, the less work we will have to do, and every minute is incredibly precious in there.”
“Agreed,” nodded Nebty. “We really need to make sure Ghost has the most direct access to our target. Go upstairs, we will see what we can do about those robots. For now, they seem focused on the fight downstairs. It’s going to start blowing up at any mi–”
Before she could finish her sentence, a loud detonation came from under them, shaking the whole building. For a second, everyone in the room froze, a bit worried.
“...nute. I guess it just started.”
“Those bastards are here!” Thao shouted.
“We noticed,” said Dante.
He exchanged a look with his men, and everyone resumed their course toward the stairs, as quickly as possible. The chatter had resumed in their ears. There was no time left to mourn now, everyone was either defending their position or trying to make their way closer to the System.
Despite her grief and her tears, Eden was doing her best to keep up, both with her group and everything that was said in her ears. The hackers were apparently struggling to get past the System’s defenses, just like they had predicted. It was a massive attack like never before, but they were like ants attacking a mountain. Eden was even starting to worry there wouldn’t be enough of them. The hackers in the System that were trying to help were exposed, and their numbers were getting reduced bit by bit. All of Nebty’s lieutenants were reporting non-stop, trying to keep up. Eden realized Loir’s absence had left a void in the ranks. She only had notions of Dive Hacking, but she could tell they were struggling twice as hard as before, some of them constantly asking for more backup. A dark feeling began to grow in her heart. They couldn’t slow down, not now. This time, she genuinely decided she’d find the time to grieve later if she got any. Right now, Loir would have been telling her to get her kitty paws going.
She climbed the stairs behind Circé, trying to hold it all in. She was comforted by the fact that Dante was right behind her, and they weren’t alone climbing those stairs. It was surprisingly narrow and empty, and with those thick walls meant to protect from a probable fire, they could barely hear the fight going on outside. They had gotten high too now that they were a few dozen floors above the ground. Eden couldn’t understand how people could possibly have the time to evacuate a building from such a height, but she kept climbing anyway. Every time they heard an odd sound, they would stop, ready for the enemy to come from above or downstairs.
Luckily, they got to the floor above, or at least, they thought so. The door to the sixtieth floor was secured with a heavy lock, and a large, yellow warning sign too. Circé rolled her eyes and stepped forward with one of her hairpins to try and pick the lock.
“Of course it wouldn’t be so easy,” she grumbled. “They probably thought they should watch out for possible spies as well... Shit!”
They heard her hairpin break. The difference in size compared to the lock was obvious, and Circé rolled her eyes, turning to Eden and Dante.
“Your turn,” she grumbled.
The two of them exchanged a quick glance, before Eden raised her leg, and immediately began kicking the lock furiously. In fact, it felt good. She could vent her frustrations on the little piece of metal, and not even feel the pain from the shock. All she could feel was the strength she was furiously putting into each kick, as if unleashing all of her anger and bottled-up feelings from before. The door was creaking loudly, even starting to bend under the pressure. The lock itself was just looking more and more damaged but still closed. After a few more seconds, Dante grabbed Eden’s arm for her to stop, and gently pulled her back. She had barely realized she was sweating and making an angry grimace. He suddenly grabbed one of his subordinates’ larger guns and began firing at the annoying lock. It happened so quickly, the closest people had to take a step back to not get hit too. For a couple of seconds, the bullets seemed to do nothing, until they heard the lock finally give up and fall loudly. Dante stopped right away.
“Finally,” groaned Circé, pushing the door.
She opened it, into what seemed like a small office, with another door on the other side. Their little group of twenty people crossed the room, Circé opening the next door again.
This time, they found what they wanted: rows and rows of large columns with hundreds of wires and colored lights on them, all protected by thin, glass doors. Eden and Circé ran inside together, looking for the best possible access point.
“What are we looking for?” asked Dante.
“Ideally, there should be a serial number that could help us find the oldest and newest units... but it looks like they erased them all. Damn it, how are we supposed to find the closest access point? How do the people working here even know what to look for? There is no classification, no alley number, nothing. Each and every one is exactly the same!”
“Can’t you just pick one?”
“No, we can’t. Remember the maze thing? We need to use the one that’s not going to take us hundreds of hours to hack once we get in. One with simple access, but deep in the System. ...Nebty, I’m putting in one of my hack keys; give me something worthwhile.”
Circé quickly found an access port, and plugged her little key into it. They waited for a second, then all the little lights on the unit she had picked turned purple.
“Access open,” she muttered to herself.
“It would have been faster if we had more Dive Hackers,” groaned Nebty, “and more Back Hackers. We’re starting to lose too many people, and that’s all the Edge has got. We really need to sort out these units quickly, it’s so infuriating. Oh, crap. You got an old one... but we might be able to do something with it. I’m on it.”
A loud sound came from above them, like something very heavy was moving. Eden grimaced.
“I think we’re really running out of time in here too. The soldier bots are right above us. Whichever one you pick, it’s going to have to be on this floor.”
