“...Hi, Eden.”
She froze. That voice. Was that a trick, again? She hesitated, staring into his bright eyes and gentle smile.
“...Pan?”
CHAPTER FORTY
He chuckled and nodded, slowly stepping forward as if not to scare her.
“Yes,” the child smiled. “I’m surprised you even recognized me in this form!”
“What are you... How did you get here?”
“Ah... Sorry, I only managed to find this way to interact with you. The System’s archives are always useful, aren’t they? You can dig some old things out, and just when everyone was thinking they wouldn’t be useful again... But here we are.”
“What are you doing here, Pan?” frowned Eden.
“I said I would help you, didn’t I?” he smiled. “I’m not really here, sadly. I only took this physical appearance temporarily, to speak to you... I’m so glad you made it this far, Eden.”
“...My friend is dead,” she suddenly blurted out, angry. “Loir is dead, Pan. He’s dead and I couldn’t do anything to save him.”
His expression fell, and he nodded, lowering his head with a sorry expression.
“I know... I’m really sorry I couldn’t prevent it. I know he was a really good and close friend of yours... He was one of my friends too.”
“Why weren’t you there?” she asked angrily. “Why didn’t you come out to help us sooner? This plan was half yours, so why are you only appearing now?! I needed you, Pan! Why weren’t you there when I really needed you? They killed Loir. They even killed Old Man Long, the Eagle, and so many other people! ...Even now, there are people out there, still fighting, risking their lives, and dying as we speak. Everyone is in danger. ...It was your plan, Pan.”
He took a deep breath, and nodded again.
“I know... I knew there would be lives sacrificed, and I am... really sorry about that. But... I truly will do what I can, Eden, but it’s not much. In fact, I’m taking a huge risk just to speak to you right now. If they discover what I am up to, they could get rid of me before you even get to me. I don’t really care about my own death. I was ready to die as soon as this plan was launched, but... it’s true you still need me. I don’t want to go before I’m sure you’ve succeeded.”
Eden hesitated. She couldn’t even check she was actually talking to the real Pan right now. She had a gut feeling it was him, but a gut feeling was never enough.
“...Greed?” she called out. “Hey, Greed!”
“Oh, finally! I was worried sick for a second, I couldn’t hear you... Where are you?”
Eden blinked twice, surprised. She looked around, but nothing had changed. How come her Back Hacker couldn’t see her? He should have had eyes on her at all times!
“I’m... in the same space, looking for the green box you told me. ...You really can’t see me?”
“No, nothing. It’s like you’re in a Blank. The whole area is invisible to me, and... Damn, the whole coding is getting wonky. Whoever’s doing that is good... Give me a minute, I’ll try to bypass it!”
Eden turned to Pan, who nodded. He had created a Blank to talk to her? Blanks were like a safety bubble, something some hacker pairs had invented to try and throw people off their trail; it was creating a sort of intended glitch generated from the Dive Hacker’s SIN, a hole to create a gray area where the code was impossible to see for any external eye or messing with the other hackers in there. It usually required an extremely high-level Back Hacker, and the connection to the SIN of the Dive Hacker they were trying to hide in this Blank. If Greed couldn’t see her, then it means Pan was behind it and doing an amazing job too... It looked like the conversation was even muted.
“You don’t trust Greed?” she frowned.
“Oh, no, I don’t trust anyone. But, to be fair, no one should trust me either. I’m so symbiotically linked to the System that I’m a threat to everyone else. It’s also how I can move around the archives so easily like this... although it won’t be long before it finds me. I’m like a virus that lives in its body and does a bit of damage once in a while.”
He chuckled, visibly proud of whatever mess he could cause. Eden hesitated. She was still mad at him, but the more she spoke to him, the more she felt like it was no use; Pan knew his wrongs and limits perfectly well.
“...Can you help us or not?” she muttered.
“I will do my best,” he said with a low, sad voice, “but I told you, I’m limited. You too. There’s only so much you can do by messing around in these archives.”
“I saw my dad.”
Her sentence seemed to truly surprise him. The boy opened his eyes wide and, after a second, a faint but genuine smile appeared on his lips.
