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“...I am not sure,” sighed Pan. “I believe they went dark for a while, but the emergence of the Core also meant each country tightened its borders, and there are some files even I couldn’t get access to. It is most likely that they fought on a much safer scale, or caused enough trouble that it was hidden by the local authorities. Either way, your friend eventually found himself in a very high-security level prison, again. Sadly, some people from his group ended up there as well and received the death penalty after their judgment.”
“Oh, shit...”
Pan sighed and slowly nodded.
“I felt sorry for them too,” he muttered. “In fact, his fleeting identity was most likely what saved his life. Because they couldn’t find Yulian in the records, they considered his arrest as his first, and he got a more lenient sentence... Life imprisonment in that same high-security prison. According to the archives I found, it wasn’t just any kind of prison, but one where they also mentally broke down people to then turn them into their own spies...”
“Into their own hackers.”
“Exactly. …I am unable to explain how Yulian... I mean, how Loir resisted the treatments he received. The information I found in his file as a patient of theirs is frightening even for my mostly insensitive self.”
“He was tortured,” whispered Eden.
“Yes. When Father found his trace, he was already much more like the Loir you knew than this young boy. At least, mentally. I recall he barely passed most of the psychological tests they put him through before admitting him into the Edge. Yet, Father was adamant about recruiting him.”
“...He knew a broken-down Loir would never work for the Core.”
“That was his bet.”
Eden tried to recall what Loir had told her, but from what she could gather, their father had most likely been right about him. That whole story about Loir being the one that got the Edge captured was completely wrong; they hadn’t been caught because he had been an idiot and called the Governor, but because the Governor actually knew about the Edge all along. It was all mixed up, even perhaps because he had willingly taken the blame rather than defending himself.
“Wait,” she said. “So... the Governor captured the Edge, and forced some to work for them, killed others, but... Dad thought Loir would be able to escape?”
“Oh, he didn’t just suspect he would be able to,” chuckled Pan. “He actually knew. See, I told you Loir had worked for many different groups, alienating or befriending them. He even managed to make enemies here. Enemies whom, once they knew the most wanted criminal would be in the Chicago Core...”
“...Were eager to get him out and punish him,” said Eden. “It was the Russian Mafia, wasn’t it? Tanya helped him break out of the Core’s prison, and, uh... punished him herself. He was captured and physically tortured by rival groups, but he eventually was among the ones who made it out.”
“His jailbreak didn’t just free him,” chuckled Pan. “It caused the perfect distraction to free the survivors next to him. Not only the Edge hackers but a few people who had been arrested by the Core. It was a perilous plan, but Father had calculated everything precisely so key people would be able to use Yulian’s jailbreak to escape too.”
Eden took a minute to let all that sink in. Not only had her father not actually betrayed the Edge all along, but he had even ensured some of their survival. Loir was a much deeper and more complex hacker than she had thought, with a past darker than all of the tattoos on his skin. It turned out that there had been such a crazy and complicated conspiracy going on against the Core all along... That was just an awful lot to take in. She knew time worked differently in that room, in a reality that Pan was controlling, but she still needed a full minute to calm down and quietly take it all in. She took a deep breath, and let herself sit down, her head in her arms and her arms crossed on her folded knees. After she felt her heart calm down a bit, she raised her head.
“So... I was right,” she finally said, covering her lips. “Dad was on our side, right? On the Suburbs’ side.”
“Father was always on the side of life,” smiled Pan, lowering himself to her level with a gentle smile. “He was one of the smartest humans, right? He had that crazy plan in mind, all just to save you.”
“Okay, so... what went wrong? Why did Mother and I have to run all of a sudden?”
Pan’s expression sank. He sighed, and slowly got back up, turning to the mugshots of the Edge again.
“It was a risky plan... A very risky plan, with low rates of success. When Loir and some of the others managed to escape, things went awfully wrong here. It was clear it had been an inside job, and the Core’s leaders immediately sought the culprits. It didn’t take them long to point to me and Father.”
Eden felt herself choke up a bit. Now that she had seen her father as a man loving her baby self, she couldn’t help but feel much more attached to him, and fear for his final fate. It wasn’t so much because he had, according to Pan, changed because of her, but because he had once been that man in his office, completely devoted to the two of them. She was even mad at herself for having doubted him; he was nothing but a hero who had tried to save both of his children with all he could.
“...What did they do to him?”
“They knew they couldn’t touch me, and if they touched Father, I would still be able to retaliate; so, they threatened the ones that were most vulnerable and dear to us: you and Mother. Father saw it coming long before it happened. He knew things would eventually take a turn for the worse, so he had a plan to have you both run. He had prepared everything. Fake identities, even your Ghost SIN, and he knew I could locate Loir and the other Zodiacs anytime and compel them to help us hide you.”
“But what about Dad?” Eden cried. “Didn’t he try to save himself? He had you, and you knew they couldn’t get rid of you. Couldn’t you and Dad have worked something out...”
Pan slowly shook his head.
“Dad was a scientist, Eden. If anything, he knew his chances of survival, how hard it would be for him to escape... You know, a part of him really wanted to be with you, but he was also very... consumed by guilt.”
“Guilt?”
Pan sighed and extended his hands. The mugshots disappeared, and meanwhile, they were suddenly projected into the air, far above the Chicago Core. It was so abrupt that Eden almost lost her balance, her feet seemingly standing above nothing but air, and below them, the smaller-scale version of the Core. It was a live feed of the ongoing battles on the ground. Eden felt dejected once again. It was a horrible sight. From the height, they were probably seeing what was gathered by the cameras at the top of the Arcadia Tower or from drones, but it was all too precise and real for her. Several portions of the wall between the Suburbs and the Core had been blown up, and near each hole, dozens of bodies were lying on the ground. It was a war scene on every street she laid her eyes on. Their groups had already spread inside the Core. Tanya and Michael’s group had clearly decided to take the fight into multiple streets, hiding between houses and trying to hold their ground until they reached Thao. The Rat Zodiac was also doing her very best; Eden could see thick clouds of smoke coming up from the entrance of the Arcadia Tower, which had most likely been blown up already.
That wasn’t all; far in the Suburbs, the skyline wasn’t the same anymore. So many buildings she used to see from the roof of her own were already gone, reduced to a ridiculous mountain of bricks and rubble. The Core’s Overcrafts were everywhere in the Suburbs, shooting at random and collapsing two more buildings while she watched, helpless, the city she knew completely ravaged.
