Spiders are the most powerful and influential Brokers working the High Atlantic Information Exchange. They typically spend almost every waking moment directly interfaced with the network, trading information at the speed of thought. Each Spider has cultivated for themselves a vast web of connections and information flows, and, by using these as leverage to obtain further knowledge from others like them, they have managed to achieve near-omniscience, aware of almost everything going on across High Atlantic.
The price they pay is steep, however. Spiders must heavily modify their bodies to cope with the rigours of processing such enormous quantities of information, and they are rarely able to enjoy the fruits of their labours. They have little time for pleasure or recreation - it does not take long to fall critically behind the curve - and will never again see the sky, remaining near-perpetually in DeepDive from the moment they plug in until the moment they die.
Clearly, then, Spiders are not exactly normal people. Where most Brokers are in it for the money, Spiders have no time to spend any cash they might earn, and are in any case far more interested in acquiring yet more information. Many of them are possessed with an insatiable thirst to know more and see further, obsessed with gathering knowledge for its own sake and passing it off only if they might learn something new in exchange.
Despite this disconnection from reality, they are a crucial element of High Atlantic’s criminal underworld, facilitating rapid distribution of knowledge across the planet and ensuring that no one can stay hidden forever.