It was the day after the incident at Henry Bautista's house. We'd already had a clean-up crew investigate the household, and had Henry and his caretaker's bodies sent to A.X.A.'s Biolab for autopsy. When conclusions were finally drawn, Kyra was sent a detailed document of all the results pertaining to the incident. She gathered us together to tell us about what was important.
"First off, how are you feeling Garren? Are you okay now?"
He nodded his head slightly. "Yeah. Sorry about losing my composure during that fight. I just… remembered some things and it caused a crazy flare-up…"
"Don't worry," Kyra assured him. "In fact, you were the one who won that battle for us. Thank you."
I recalled seeing his ability to slice through the roots like they were nothing. It was massively impressive. Even my sharpened knife couldn't do the trick.
"Anyways, I have some things to go over with you guys concerning yesterday's confrontation. To start, Henry's caretaker was named Russo Imani. His Fractal was listed as 'Sow.' It was the ability to instantaneously sprout and grow plant seeds that were collected inside his digestive system."
"He had seeds inside of him?" Cynthia was astonished. "How did they get there?"
"The seeds developed inside his body as a byproduct of having 'Sow.' We also learned that the seeds took years to develop, meaning every time he'd sprouted one to use as an attack against us, he was using seeds he'd accumulated over the course of multiple years."
"So it's like he'd been saving them up?" I wondered.
"That's a possibility. But the reason could also be as simple as not wanting roots to spill out of his mouth. I'm sure you'd have to wait for a pretty specific reason to use a Fractal like 'Sow,' and we probably triggered his reasoning to use it."
"But why…? I still don't understand why he did what he did. He killed Henry, and then chose to go all out with his Fractal to kill us. There has to be a pretty big reason behind all of it. One that completely contradicted what he stood for."
Cynthia agreed. "Yeah. He literally killed Henry just after telling us he was there to keep him safe. What a switch up…"
"That brings me to the next crucial piece of information." Kyra laid out some physical documents on the table in front of us. "The clean-up crew found this inside a locked safe in Henry's bedroom. It's the paperwork that Russo had Henry fill-out to assign him as a caretaker." She then pointed at the name of the caretaker program that was written in the corner. It read 'Star Caregiver Organization.'
"This organization doesn't even exist."
"Wait, what?"
"Star Caregiver Organization is not a real organization. All this paperwork is fake. Russo was never a certified caretaker for seniors. He didn't even have a degree or a high school diploma. Most of his records from when he was younger don't even exist."
My face was scrunching with confusion the more Kyra said. None of it had been real. From the moment Russo had greeted us at the door and told us he was Henry's caretaker, he'd been bluffing the entire time.
"So Henry was manipulated. Russo made him believe it was real," I said.
"Yes. Most likely."
"What was the date that they signed the papers? When did Henry assign him?"
"In 2206. Russo wasn't lying when he said he'd been assigned 3 years ago."
I looked at Kyra, searching for the concern in that very detail. "He'd been 'acting' as a caretaker for Henry for 3 years…?"
We all realized how disturbing that was.
"For 3 years, he took care of Henry. But only in the moment that we came around was when he decided to kill him," Garren said. "It can't have been a coincidence."
"You're right," I built off of him. "Henry's old, and Russo had a Fractal like 'Sow.' He could have easily killed Henry at any point in those 3 years of caretaking, but he didn't. That means he'd been waiting. And somehow, something that happened while we were there signified the moment he'd been waiting for."
"Heathen. Order in chaos." We all looked to Cynthia. "That's what he said right after killing Henry."
"Wait. Right…" Kyra had a moment of realization. "He killed Henry right after we started talking about Heathen. Then he himself mentioned Heathen after doing so. That must mean he knew about Heathen too…"
I was starting to understand. It was coming together. "Russo provided false documentation to specifically take care of Henry 3 years ago. Journey's article where Henry mentioned Heathen was also 3 years ago. And now we might assume that Russo knew about Heathen all this time… That can't all be a coincidence, right?"
They all looked at me as if I'd just spoken some big revelation. The thing is, it was.
"That timeline adds up," Cynthia said.
Kyra immediately shot her down. "No it doesn't."
"How?"
"There's an inconsistency in it. Russo was born way past the Filtering. Only people who lived during the Filtering knew about Heathen. How could someone like Russo, who was born 7 years after the Filtering, know anything at all about a secretive place like Heathen?"
"I don't know, but he did know about Heathen," I reminded Kyra. "Why else would he mention it?"
"Because it still exists even today," Garren said. "I mean that's the whole point of Operation Zenith, isn't it? We're trying to find the Sin of Discrimination using 'Heathen' as a clue, and that name has only ever been present when encountering the Sin."
"So Russo was directly connected to Heathen all this time… If that's so, then it would make sense why he killed Henry after we started talking about the place. It would also make sense why he would take up a false caretaker job to look after Henry after he simply mentioned it in an article. It's almost like Russo was keeping watch of Henry in relation to Heathen."
Cynthia was unravelling my own thoughts. I continued after her. "We've always known Heathen to be some exclusive place, almost like it was secretive, right? Maybe Russo was there to prevent Henry from spilling any secrets about Heathen. So the moment he was about to start talking about it, Russo stopped it."
We went silent for a moment, mourning, in reminder of Henry's sudden death.
"We need to investigate Russo Imani," Kyra said. "Henry may have been associated to Heathen, but it seems like that was only during the Filtering. On the other hand, Russo seems like he was connected to the Heathen today. There might not even be a difference between Heathen back then and Heathen now, but we're looking for Heathen in the present day. Russo was closer to that."
"How can we investigate him if he's dead and doesn't even have any past records like education?" I asked.
"We investigate his present private life. Maybe find his mutuals, or any family, and search his home."
"No one from A.X.A.'s done investigations on his home yet?"
"No. They were all too busy with investigating Henry's house."
"Then let's go there next." We all stood up, understanding our next objective.
"There must be something Russo was hiding in his home."