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Loir sighed.
“Well, some of the greatest heroes are anonymous. The hack actually lasted some mere five to six seconds too, so it probably never made it into the records... or they didn’t want it to be known that something had happened. But in our world, Peter Pan is a legend!”
“So you’ve... never met him?”
Loir looked at Dante as if he was crazy.
“Of course not! Do you know how shocked I was when Kitty showed up at my door? I hadn’t seen a living human being in years! That pretty Kitty found me and showed up just like that, it was such a scary experience! I soiled my diaper, mind you! And guess who sent her to me? None other than the legendary Pan! I mean, this guy is a living god! Damn, I would share my cheese with him without thinking.”
Dante turned back to the screen. Eden was still staring at the box, completely lost in her thoughts. Now he was curious about that master of hers... Was she missing him? Was he working against their interests? More importantly, what file did the Core have on that strange Pan character, and was it a possible threat?
“Kitty, I wouldn’t open that thing if I were you.”
Eden suddenly raised her eyes from the box, as if Loir’s voice had woken her up. She sighed, but her hands were still on the cardboard box. She just couldn’t let it go. It was her master’s name, right there, on a different box, older than the others. Why was this even here? Eden tried to slow her breathing, and the strange adrenaline rush in her veins, but she just had the hardest time trying to calm down. This was her first clue in... almost forever.
“Loir, it might be my only clue to Master.”
“Yes, Kitty, but it might also be a mean trick-or-treat box with a huge tricky mean bug inside. I want to find that old schmuck as much as you do, but this sounds fishy. Like fishier than the fisherman’s shop next to the old sewers.”
Eden rolled her eyes.
“You’ve never been out to actually smell that. Also, my master isn’t old.”
“He’s been in the system since before even I ever touched a keyboard, Kitty. That’s very, very old.”
Still, Eden didn’t want to let go of that box. Of course, she wasn’t so foolish as to completely ignore that this might indeed be a trap; yet, she just couldn’t abandon her first potential clue like that. She glanced behind the glass walls. Aside from those automated men in suits, it looked like she was pretty much alone, and nothing had been triggered yet. Eden took a deep breath.
“...Alright. I’ll check the computer; meanwhile, can you try and see that box from... the outside?”
“Kitty, I don’t have my full safety-check kit on me. I know I’m a genius, but that’s–”
“Loir, I’m not going to leave without having opened that box. So either you check what you can now or we’re all in for a surprise in a few minutes when I open it.”
She heard him groan.
“Oh good Lord, this is why they say curiosity kills... Alright, fine, I’ll try to work my magic somehow. Check the other boxes in the room, though, you never know. There might be one with Candyman written on it...”
“...Who is Candyman?” asked Dante.
Eden chuckled, shaking her head while going to inspect the other boxes.
“My other favorite sugar daddy,” chuckled Loir.
He was obviously making fun of the Italian which, in Eden’s opinion, was a nice change. She went to the other boxes. There were other names, but nothing she nor Loir took any interest in. It was all about that PAN box... Eden couldn’t believe it was so full either. What did the Core possibly have on her master for them to have such a large box about him? She knew there was also a possibility for it to be on a different person, or just a codename used for something else, but somehow, she doubted that. Pan was a rather specific three-letter name...
“That’s it,” she said after reading the last box.
She turned around, making sure she hadn’t missed one, but all the boxes were lined up in such a symmetrical and precise order that she couldn’t have possibly overlooked any. She heard Loir still busy typing, so she walked back to the desk. The only things left on the table were the PAN box and the computer. Unlike those boxes, it was probably going to be much more difficult to get into the computer. They were usually used as an internal form of protection for the most sensitive data. Eden could get through most programmers’ levels just fine, but those were another thing. This time around, Loir was going to have to do his share, the bigger of the two.
Hence, she couldn’t act without his go-ahead. Eden simply decided to sit down behind the desk, staring at the box as if some clue would suddenly come out of it. It was torture to have to watch that stupid box when she was just so close to opening it...
“Loir,” she called again after a while, tired of waiting.
“Yes, yes... I mean, I haven’t found anything... The code looks old, actually, just... very basic. I don’t want to say it, but this just doesn’t look like something the Core would create.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means whoever put that box in there, Kitty, they were not playing on the Core’s team. This is... artisanal work. Beautiful work, if I may say so myself. It looks like whoever did this knew... their thing.”
