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“Then I’ll get the same one.”
Eden smiled bitterly, but her heart wasn’t ready for his kind words, this time. It didn’t make much sense anyway... That place was probably a grave and a mess right now. No comfort Dante could give her would be enough to take away her pain, and Eden just couldn’t help but feel like crying again. She closed her eyes, and as soon as Greed gave her the signal, she connected her SIN.
She reopened her eyes in an elevator. Her reflexes taking over, she put one knee down, checking her surroundings; she was in a very old-style elevator, like in those old movies with a manual door, and a simple grid to cut her off from the outside world. A ding was heard, and the little list of numbers next to her had the number five lit up. Eden frowned, but as nothing happened, she opened the door and stepped out. This place was far from what she had expected. In fact, it looked a bit like Dante’s building’s ground floor, with very old-fashioned decor; this time, it had a monochrome theme, all in shades of beige, brown, and camel, with thick mats, and leather and suede furniture. What caught her eye first, though, were the impressively tall bookshelves. Eden’s lateral vision was filled with oakwood shelves. Most of them were packed with boxes or thick notebooks, all perfectly lined up.
“...A data archive room,” she muttered.
“Yep,” said Greed. “It’s a more recent room than it looks, though, I promise. You’re in one of the most recent archives rooms of the System, but the security is lower here. We couldn’t have found a more recently saved version of this room without triggering a whole bunch of security... but at least, the central room of the System is very close. We only need to get to the latest version of that place to get there.”
“What about C.?”
“She landed two floors below you, she’s on her way to the elevators.”
“Alright... Where to now?”
“Third aisle on your left, the one with the boxes that start with a B. We need to navigate through this archive to jump to another, more recent one... Normally, they isolate each archive, but because they take up so much space on the server, they tend to delete the rooms they have no use for. Which means the old rooms have lower security but using them, we can get to another room that’s more recent with the access we–”
“Greed, stop chatting, just tell me where to go,” said Eden. “I know how archived data rooms work...”
Having a different Back Hacker than Loir was making her nervous and a bit annoyed too. It wasn’t Greed’s fault, though. Dive and Back Hacker teams generally worked better after years and years of cooperation. If anyone other than Eden had worked with Loir, they would have gone crazy with his antics, but she knew he was more reliable than he let on. She forced herself to take a deep breath and pushed those thoughts aside to find said box.
“Got it,” she said, opening it.
“Get the red folder... No, the dark red one, sorry. I need the numbers inside.”
She opened it up, and as soon as Greed saw it, Eden heard a snapping sound, and the environment around her changed. It looked like exactly the same room, but this time, the shelves were made of black metal, the floor was all wood, and there was no other furniture, only more shelves.
“...More recent version,” she guessed.
“Nope, older. 2104, but I promise we’re getting closer. Just a few more jumps... Oh, I need you to go upstairs this time.”
Eden hesitated, looking around her. Meanwhile, Circé appeared next to her, in her hacker appearance. She was wearing a more modern version of her usual kimono, with swords crossed on her back, platform heels, and twin high ponytails. Her face was covered by a strange demon-like mask.
“Catching a break?” she asked Eden.
“No, it’s just... This is the backup of the server from my birth year.”
“Oh...”
“Do you want me to do a quick check, Ghost?” asked Malieka’s voice. “Just in case.”
“Yes, please.”
Meanwhile, Circé and Eden began to head upstairs, going back to the elevator they had come from. Navigating through the archives to find an access point they could exploit could take a while, but Eden couldn’t help but get an odd feeling from knowing that this was her birth year’s archive. This place contained everything the System had twenty-three years ago... The world her father had created at its early stages. More files here than in the one before meant a lot of it had been wiped out afterward, to make space for more, surely.
“I got something. Keyword Newman... Oh, right next to the one we were headed for, actually. Same shelf but on the far left.”
Intrigued, Circé and Eden headed there. She couldn’t help but walk fast, curious.
“Everything alright outside?” asked Circé.
“Girls, you’ve been in there less than a minute,” said Greed. “Relax. It’s going to get really annoying soon enough...”
Eden didn’t listen to him, only focused on the box. She found it. It looked strangely older than the others, like an old cardboard box, with a serial number on it. She grabbed it without hesitation, opening it.
“It’s all video files,” said Greed. “Surveillance videos... from what looks like a house.”
“Show me,” said Eden, her heart beating fast.
