STARR BLOG LoRE #2 The Rae Twins & Coda

Long before the library incident, Evany and Emma Rae were already tied to the edges of the Coda Network – two resourceful kids surviving inside a system far larger and more dangerous than they realized.

Like many children who fall between the cracks, the twins survived by working inside the city’s underground economy. They operated as low‑tier hawkers and runners, moving through Coda‑controlled spaces: rollback storefronts, storage depots, flea markets, side‑street venues, underground clubs, and temporary exchange points scattered across the city.

At first, the work looked harmless: moving packages, selling jewelry, keeping lookout, running deliveries. But over time, the girls began seeing things they were never supposed to see.

The twins gained limited access to parts of Coda’s internal communications. Most low‑level workers received only fragmented instructions through disposable devices, rotating frequencies, encrypted message boards, and dead‑drop routing systems designed to keep operatives isolated. The network was intentionally compartmentalized.

Emma, however, became obsessed with the patterns hidden inside the network. She was unusually good at navigating fragmented systems – tracing repeated routing behavior, signal timing, reused identifiers, and abandoned access points most operatives ignored. What began as curiosity slowly turned into unauthorized access. She never fully breached the network, but over time the sisters learned how to monitor local traffic: shipment reroutes, safehouse warnings, burn notices, broker circulation lists tied to private auctions, and operative movement alerts.

Evany used this information differently. Where Emma focused on patterns, Evany focused on survival. She memorized transport routes, understood which sectors belonged to which crews, learned how contraband circulated between rollback zones, and recognized how quickly operations shifted whenever something important surfaced.

By the time of Issue #1, the twins possessed something extremely dangerous inside the Coda ecosystem: partial operational awareness. Not enough to understand the full structure. But enough to move through it without permission.

This eventually leads Evany to intercept a distress transmission connected to a coded Delegate emergency channel – revealing that the sisters had been listening to parts of the system they were never supposed to hear.

Evany adapted faster than Emma. She learned how to navigate the streets, negotiate with vendors, repair equipment, and survive around dangerous people without drawing attention. Emma struggled more. Certain locations affected her differently. Rollback zones made her disoriented, exhausted, or emotionally unstable in ways neither sister understood at the time.

Neither girl knew anything about Acolytes, Vein Cores, or convergence. They were never important enough to be trusted with real knowledge. That was the point. Coda survives by ensuring most people only ever see one piece of the machine.

By the time of Issue #1, the twins were already beginning to distance themselves from the underground world they grew up inside. Then the library incident happened. And suddenly, the system they spent years surviving began shifting around them in ways neither fully understands.

​-YGA

Ledger – Their Link to the Underground
The man in the photo is Ledger, a Broker Delegate within the Coda Network. He doesn’t run the streets himself – he runs the people who do. Evany and Emma are two of his many low‑level operatives: street vendors, hawkers, lookouts. They move jewelry, trinkets, phones, and whatever else passes through Coda’s hidden channels. Ledger provides the product and the instructions. The twins provide the anonymity. Most of his crew never sees the bigger picture. Neither do the girls – not yet.