“Everyone was quite excited when we told them Ghost was going to be participating,” added Malieka with a smile. “I’m part of the third generation, but even I know how much of a legend you are to everyone. Most of the hackers present admire you.”
Despite her words, Eden felt ridiculously small in her chair.
Outside of her father’s heritage, she was pretty much a young woman like any other. She had always hidden and done her best to survive one more day for the past ten years or so. Never had she hoped to lead anyone, not even the Edge. Dante was a leader, but Eden was fine remaining in his shadow. She was used to hiding and running away. Even as a hacker, her ability was tied to her unique SIN and Loir’s support. The Eden outside of the Ether and Dark Reality wasn’t special at all. She was just… a Part, and without her SIN, she was disabled.
As she kept fidgeting and getting more nervous, Pratiti noticed and sighed.
“Having doubts, Ghost?”
“…Ghost is just a codename,” muttered Eden. “I don’t know if I… if I can handle this. It’s a lot of responsibility, and I’m not sure I’m the right person to…”
“Look.”
Slowly, Pratiti began to undo the bandages around her face, revealing terrible scars. Eden frowned, but this wasn’t enough to shock her. It would have made most people shudder, though. It was clear nothing was natural. Pratiti’s skin had been burnt to the third and fourth degree, leaving rosy, bloody-looking patches of flesh in unnatural ridges on her face. Eden didn’t avert her gaze, but she did feel sorry just imagining the amount of pain that had come from this.
“They are still painful,” said Pratiti, as if she’d guessed her thoughts. “You know who did this, don’t you? …I bet Circé and Warlock went through the same shit. I’m not putting you in this position because I blindly trust you, Ghost. Not even because of the Architect. I’m asking you to do this because you’re the only one who can. Nobody cares about who you are outside of the Dark Reality. To over a hundred hackers, you’re Ghost, the most talented hacker of our generation. Your special skills and your knowledge are what we need, right now.”
She began re-wrapping her bandages, slowly and meticulously.
“We are hackers, Eden. We do what we can with our set of skills, and we only take responsibility for ourselves. All of us know what is at risk every single time we Dive. If we fail, we die. If we succeed, we move on to the next mission. This is our life and our motto. Although they do look up to you, none of the Edge hackers are doing this solely because they are blind with admiration for you. They know who you are and what you’re capable of. We might be talking in generations, but even the younger ones are used to risking their lives daily. They will partake because they can take that responsibility. You don’t have to take it for anyone but yourself. I will be the one to lead them because I’ve got what it takes to do this. You’ll infiltrate first because that is what you do best and you’re the best at what you do. You’re Ghost, and that’s all we’re asking from you right now.”
She stepped forward, offering her hand to Eden, in a solemn gesture.
“I’m asking you as Nebty of the Edge. …It’s like any other contract, Ghost. Forget the stakes, focus on the mission.”
The two women looked into each other’s eyes, understanding each other like equals, peers of the same background. This was a language Eden easily understood.
Ghost had become like a second skin to her. Ghost was strong, swift, and smart. Ghost had no gender. A nameless hacker with perfect skills and the best success rate. If she put it all back into that perspective, Eden had little to worry about, nothing else but succeeding. In fact, this wouldn’t be very different from what she had done so far… It was all about survival. It always had been.
Eden took a deep breath and shook Pratiti’s hand, who smiled.
“Good.”
She then turned to Lecky and A., crossing her arms.
“I’ll take it the Zodiacs agreed, then?”
“Everyone’s in, surprisingly,” nodded Lecky. “We’ll prepare the evacuation soon…”
He went on to explain, in a few sentences, how the meeting with the Dragon had gone. It sounded like he and A. had been involved since the very beginning, just like Old Man Long and their predecessors, and referred to Pan as the orchestrator of all this. They went on, detailing everything they had about the security system of the Core to Eden, which they had apparently attempted to hack a few times, mostly to test it. They hadn’t been able to find any weaknesses, except for the fact that Eden’s blank SIN would indeed be the only way to go in. They had even tried to steal a blank SIN from one of the original providers, from a factory in the European Cores, but the hacker had been found and killed. Then, Pratiti quickly explained the current layout of the Edge to Eden, although it was quite easy to understand: the system of generations made it so that the latest hackers added were at the bottom of the chain, with short and quick missions and little information given, while the older ones like her or Malieka were handed the most important data, and organized the missions across the teams, with several third or fourth generation hackers acting as captains.
Eden liked that the generations were completely independent of the hackers’ real identities and ages; each new group had formed the next generation of hackers to join the Edge, and so on, making it grow exponentially even if some hackers had been captured or killed. It was like a tree that had expanded branch after branch; even if a twig was found and cut, the Core could only go so far back up that branch, and the other members of the Edge were always safe. Each mentor kept their mentee’s identity to themselves, so even Pratiti had no idea who most of those people were outside their aliases. Only the very best of each city were invited by more experienced hackers to join, and the Edge’s common knowledge was so advanced that being invited to join the Edge already put the newer hacker a step ahead of any other… Pratiti was like a spider at the center of her web, gathering all the information.
Quickly, Eden understood that A. had only been getting information he had about the Edge from Pratiti. Unlike what she had initially thought, he wasn’t an experienced hacker himself, barely average. He only knew what he needed to; perhaps he was even more of a Back Hacker, not a Diver. The Hare was clearly mostly doing the field tasks that were potentially dangerous, like transporting their equipment or relaying information physically when it was too dangerous to do it through the Dark Reality.
Lecky, on the other hand, was in charge of protecting and hiding them. The Goat’s territory had been the perfect center of operations; the farthest from the Core, not involved in territory wars, and with a population diverse enough that no one would pay attention to people of different backgrounds moving around. The slums were the perfect hideout for hackers in need of secrecy…
“So, you two have been working together since the beginning?” Eden asked the two Zodiacs.
For a while now, she had been intrigued about the relationship between Lecky and A., which seemed quite unusual for two Zodiacs… She’d never seen Zodiacs acting like this toward each other, almost friendly. The two glanced at each other.
“When you’re the weakest, you have to make allies to survive,” said Lecky with a smile. “Like our predecessors before us, A. and I have been involved together by none other than your master. Every time Prometheus freed or found a hacker, it was up to me to hide them, until Pratiti could add them back into the Edge…”
“And I would make sure of their security,” nodded A. “The Goat having no firepower, he needed my help to secure some necessary tasks in the Suburbs, or even help evacuate a hacker whose position was compromised…”
It meant they had been somewhat led to work together to preserve the Edge, and their predecessors’ will to see her father’s plan through. Seeing how Malieka acted familiarly and relaxed around both men, Eden suspected she had a similar backstory before she’d become the Hare’s wife. Eden had only ever interacted with dangerous Zodiacs, but it made sense some of them would not be all blood and guns.
Suddenly, something rang in the room, and Lecky grimaced, taking out an antique model of a cell phone and reading a text.
