Crystal Legacies: Rebirth

Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty:

Digging

The room was bright and sterile, but so was the young woman standing in the middle. Her clothes were fitted well, giving them a more luxurious appearance than their simplistic design otherwise would have. She stared down at the charred, cracked bones with unmoved blue. She reached a hand out to the bones and for a moment she went so still that it was like she was a life sized doll. As she touched the burned remnants of the once proud Lady Skye, Bernard walked in. He stood out in such a monochromatic environment; painfully so.

"Did the target have any idea where they might go?"

Candice shook her head. "No. But she knew other things. Many other things."

"Focus on the group; we need to get them back," Bernard insisted.

"Commander Tribelon was not the only familiar face. She's met 1-7-2 before."

"Interesting. Go deeper."

Candice continued the exploration. She looked through the impressions left upon the bones of the dead feline Anima. Those that had been with her at the time of her death. As Candice focused, her eyes glazed over further. It was almost as though she were dead too. Her breathing stilled as the voices of the dead danced through her head. Many others may have been moved by such emotion, such trauma, that came from the moment Lady Skye's life was extinguished. Candice, however, was not like the others. She felt nothing over the travesty even though she was able to witness it and to feel it first hand.

"Commander Taragan," Candice breathed out as she disconnected with Skye's bones. "That's not his real name. The target knew him by another one."

Bernard shifted his glasses as he stared at the blond in interest. After all of their work together, hearing that Lady Skye had known Commander Justin Taragan was surprising. Justin Taragan had been around the Organization for almost as long as Dante. He'd passed through every test they could think to put him under, rising through the ranks just as quickly as Dante. They had done a check on his history in light of his talents and yet they hadn't been able to find anything about him having another alias. Other than the ones they made for him of course. He wondered, vaguely, if it was perhaps one of those that Lady Skye knew him by.

"Which was?" Bernard probed.

Sometimes he regretted having to simplify 1-6-9. She took orders well now; she was everything they needed her to be with none of those pesky human ailments that affected most people. The problem was that by simplifying her, making her better to serve, they had to keep giving her orders. She couldn't really think outside of the commands given to her; she couldn't think outside the exact parameters set by those in command. It made her a bit of a liability on the field but perfect for lab work. If it wasn't for the fact that he had to keep prompting her, that was.

"Arden," Candice replied. "He went by Arden when they were young. The target was surprised when he showed up at her house as Justin Taragan."

Now that caught his attention. "When they were young?"

Lady Skye was over a thousand years old; the oldest living being as far as anyone else knew. If Justin knew her when she was young then he was far older than anyone knew.

"Yes. Her interactions with him recently were of a familiar nature to her. She was sure that it's the same man."

That was information that they didn't have before. Bernard looked down at the bones that Candice was using to draw these tidbits of information out of. It seemed like there were more secrets out there - ones that he and the others needed to research before they became a bigger problem. Commander Justin Taragan was now on that list of problems. If he was as old as, or possibly even older than Skye, then he was a threat to them in some capacity. He'd been able to keep that information from them after all - not an easy task to accomplish.

"Was he like her? Is he half Anima too?"

Candice shook her head. "No. He's a pure blood."

Bernard's eyes widened. As far as the Organization knew there were no pure blooded Anima left. They had died out or bred themselves out centuries ago. Lady Skye had been a fractional minority of people with even enough Anima heritage to measure.

"What other secrets were they hiding?" Bernard asked.

"I do not know."

That was not a pleasing thing to his ears. "How can you not know?"

"The connection with her body was weak; her soul has passed on. The fire severed the connection."

Bernard frowned. Not only was Dante still at large, someone they were very interested in getting back, but there was a complication with Justin Taragan now too. He wasn't even sure what to make of the fact that Lady Skye had known Razaria either. Without Candice being able to get more information, he knew of someone who was not going to be pleased with their little pyro.