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She nodded and ran to the end of the balcony. Eden quickly pushed the star into her sports bra, the only available pocket she had, and grabbed the rail of the balcony, jumping over with perfect form. Her body did a 270-degrees flip into the air, and she used the strength of her spin to launch herself onto the balcony right under that one. As Loir had said, this floor also had bots waiting for her. Instead of climbing up, Eden let go of the guardrail for a second, and let herself fall so she could catch the one on the floor below that. This time, she used the strength in her arms to pull herself over and back onto a solid floor.
“On your left. Emergency exit.”
Eden ran, following Loir’s instructions. Although this wasn’t a real building, the system always had an emergency exit, in case any actual human employees had an issue that prevented them from leaving. The Core would never let one of its working citizens be trapped inside the system. Luckily for Eden, that emergency exit was made to let all humans through, regardless of their right to be there or not.
“Now?” asked Dante.
“Now, Kitty had better run, really, really fast back home, or we lose both her and the information she got... Run, Kitty, run, run!”
Just as he had said that, Loir played some techno music that matched her heartbeat. Eden rolled her eyes. He really could have fun anytime, anywhere... Although, that musical beat was actually somewhat welcoming. It gave Eden an extra adrenaline rush, while not letting herself panic over the fact that about two or three dozen Core bots were on her tail. She ran toward the emergency door, and just as she put her hand on the handle, a huge explosion happened behind her.
Eden closed her eyes and was thrown against the door by the blast. She grimaced, feeling her shoulder hit it, as more emergency alarms resonated within the building.
“Loir?” she asked, coughing from the smoke that was coming from upstairs.
“That was your master’s file going up in an incredible firework explosion. Ha, I’m really too talented for this... Don’t miss your stop, Kitty!”
Eden nodded and got back up, barely glancing at all the unconscious bots that were close to her. Like puppets, many had been thrown across the place by the blast and were now lying in unnatural positions. One even had a leg hanging off the balcony rail, while the rest of its body was a few steps away, and not a drop of blood in sight. They were like figures made of silicone, or toys. More importantly, they were already twisting their bodies back into their original shapes and trying to get back up to chase after her again.
Eden glared at them and pushed against the emergency exit door. She fell onto a set of stairs as she had pushed too hard. Ignoring the pain, Eden got back up and ran down the stairs. She was going extremely fast, almost flying down them. She had to. She could hear them coming from upstairs, their steps resonating with a scarily synchronic rhythm. Eden was almost glad for the techno music Loir was playing; it made the situation a bit less stressful and a bit more game-like. She kept running as fast as she could, but they were fast too. The stairs even began trembling from so many bots stepping on them. Eden was getting out of breath; she began jumping down over the rails whenever she could to get to the next row of stairs faster.
“You’re almost there, Kitty,” said Loir.
“Are they close?” she asked, out of breath.
“You don’t want to know!”
She frowned but didn’t ask again. That kind of response was more than she needed to know already... Eden kept going, but she was starting to get out of breath. She hoped her real body could endure the mental stress...
Still, she was incredibly fast, and soon enough, she saw the stairs turn into a tunnel instead.
“The toboggan slide?”
“Get ready for a new ride, Kitty!”
Eden nodded and jumped in feet first. More often than not, she had to exit through the same place she had entered from. Sometimes, Loir would find another back door for her if something happened to the first point of entry, but it was still simpler to sneak out using the same door she had already used previously.
“Can’t she just unlock it?” asked Dante.
“This isn’t a shopping mall, darling,” sighed Loir. “If they make it hard to get in, it ought to be hard to get out... especially for sneaky little intruders like us. They are too attracted to the possibility of trapping us to not leave a few traps here and there... and no highway out.”
Eden was still amazed that Loir could talk to one of the Zodiacs like that, but she certainly didn’t have time to discuss it. She was sliding down the tube, keeping her arms crossed in front of her chest, and trying hard to ignore the sounds she heard from above. Instead, she was focusing on the music and trying to take deep breaths to keep herself calm. She knew her condition during a Dive was directly linked to her body’s condition in real life. It wasn’t by accident that two hackers out of three died of a heart attack during a Dive; although her body was perfectly fine, just like her mind, it was entirely focused on this Dive. Anything Eden experienced, the SIN transmitted to her brain, and thus her whole body took this as reality, even though she knew it wasn’t. If anything happened, she’d feel it. She felt pain because the SIN transmits the shock to her brain, which triggers all of her pain receptors. There would be no blood or bruises, but if her brain believed she was dying, she would. There wasn’t anything complicated about it.
“Loir, play my music.”
“So selfish...” he chuckled.
Still, he obeyed. A powerful piece of rock music resonated in her head and Eden focused on that as if she had headphones on. It was easier for her. She could focus on each instrument, each sentence of the lyrics, and refocus for a few seconds. The slide was still going down and she leaned back to accelerate.
“Prepare for delivery of the package...” said Loir.
Eden lifted her knees and prepared herself for the landing. She knew the speed at which she was going down was dangerous, but she shouldn’t slow down from what she could hear farther up in the tube.
As expected, after a few more seconds, light started to appear, and right after that, the end of the tunnel. Eden braced herself and rolled outside on the ground. Her feet hit the ground hard, but she was already trying to stand before she had even finished falling through the tube. Pushing her paws against the ground, Eden began running.
“Where to now?!” she yelled.
She was back inside the abandoned park, except this time, the park was open. The rides were running, the twinkling lights were up, and she could hear movement in all directions. There was some creepy music too, but she was more focused on hers. When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw more silhouettes coming out of the tunnel in such large amounts that they were falling on top of each other, their bodies piling up. The bots weren’t pretending to look human anymore. Their body parts had begun to grow out of proportion and weren’t as defined either. The jelly-like humanoid characters were chasing after her. They didn’t even have faces anymore. She could only see their black suits and all their ties that had turned red.
