Chapter 6

It was 2am before everyone in the mansion was asleep. Skyler was careful not to wake April as she left the room. Without making a sound Skyler crept down the hallway to the main stairs. She was hoping to leave earlier, but she had to be sure that the professor was asleep. If he wasn't asleep he would easily sense that she wasn't in her room. Skyler made it to the front doors successfully without a single sound. Her luck would not last for the front door was very old and it creaked as she opened it. Skyler winced at the high pitch sound. Slipping out the front door Skyler ran to the shed that was located next to garage. Dirt bikes and four wheelers were kept in the shed and provided perfect transportation. The shed had an impressive lock on it that would deter most thieves, but it wouldn't stop Skyler.

Skyler removed a paper clip from her pocket and picked the lock. It did not take Skyler long to pick the lock and get into the shed. She walked over to one of the three dirt bikes and walked it out of the shed. Skyler did not lock the shed back up because she wanted to be able to put the dirt bike back fast when she returned. She walked the dirt bike to the front gate where she propped the bike up. Skyler open the gate slowly just enough for her to get herself and the dirt bike through. Once she was through the gate, she walked the dirt bike far enough away so she could start it up without waking anyone. It would take her 30 minutes to reach the county morgue and she only had 3 ½ hours before she need to be back at the mansion. Skyler kick started the dirt bike and took one more glance at the mansion behind her before she drove down the path she had drove up on one month ago.

X X X X X

Skyler parked the dirt bike in a bank parking lot that was next to the morgue. She took the time to survey the building, looking for cameras and security guards. She found out that the building had three cameras. One camera was located on street lamp in the parking lot and other two cameras were located at each entrance to the building. Skyler was beginning to sense that entering the morgue undetected would be harder than she anticipated. At that moment a security guard exited the building to do his walk around. Skyler quickly ran to the side of the building out of sight of all cameras and hid behind a shrub as she waited for the guard to pass by.

The guard walked around the side of the building with a flash light in hand. When the guard passed Skyler, she jumped out of the shrub and knocked the security guard out with a blow to the back of the head. Taking the guards gun and keys, Skyler quickly hid the guard behind the shrub. She then walked over to the corner of the building and pointed the gun at the parking lot camera. One shot was all it took to destroy the camera on the street lamp and Skyler proceeded to the front door. Another single shot to the camera above the entrance hid Skyler's presence from any security guards that were undoubtedly inside the building. Using the keys she stole, Skyler entered the building with easy.

Upon entering the building Skyler surveyed her surrounding looking for the next security guard that would come to investigate the camera malfunctions. Hiding in the shadows of the entrance to the build the second security guard never suspected he was not alone. Again Skyler took out the security guard and hid the man behind the front desk. With speed Skyler made her way through the building going down various hallways until she found the desired room.

As Skyler walked into the room, that she assumed was the examination room, she felt a shiver go up her spine. This room reminded her of her reoccurring nightmare she had about Mara. Shaking her head to dislodge the unpleasant memories, Skyler continued until she found the area where the bodies were kept. Skyler remained emotionless as she looked for the particular body she had seen on the news. She opened up one of crypts and pulled out a metal slab that had a body covered by a white sheet on it. As soon as Skyler removed the white sheet covering the body there was no doubt in her mind that it was Jack. Skyler was disturbed by the condition of the body. Jack's eyes had been removed and his left ear cut off. When Skyler opened his mouth she found that his up incisors were missing. Located on his chest were several knife wounds which appeared to be the cause of death.

Who ever had killed Jack took great care in cover up the fact that he was a mutant. They had taken his eyes because, like Skyler's, his eyes were blood red. It was also the same reason they took his upper incisors, but the cutting off of his left ear was important clue that could indicate why Jack was killed. Any mutant hating nut could have killed Jack and removed his eyes and incisors to throw off the authorities of their true motive for killing him. The cutting off of his ear showed that they knew Jack's true identity. Tattooed on the back of Jack's ear would have been a sequence of numbers. This sequence of numbers was similar to the sequence of numbers on the back of Skyler's left ear.

Skyler was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of someone coming into the examination room. She quickly covered Jack with the sheet and put him back into the refrigerated crypt. Skyler sprinted and then slid behind a large trash can that would conceal her from whoever was entering the room. A man's voice filled the room before Skyler could see who it was.

"I find it odd that there are no security guards at this place. They are people's loved ones. You would think they would hire someone to look over the place at night." The man said.

"Maybe they went on a cigarette break?" A female voice replied.

"I hope that is not true. It's so pathetic. We just walked into this place with no problem. And did you see the cameras? They need to fix them."

The two individuals finally came into Skyler's line of vision. The man looked to be in his late teens. He was tall with brown hair and sky blue eyes. The woman with him looked to be around his age. She was shorter than the man, but taller than Skyler. She had long black hair with the bright purple eyes.

"Yeah…It looked like someone messed with them. Lets just hurry and do what we came here to do." the girl replied to the man's question.

"Someone did mess with cameras." Skyler said stepping out from behind the trash can. Both the man and the woman jumped and turned to face Skyler. "If you had been paying attention you would have noticed the unconscious security guard behind the front desk."

"Skyler?" The man said it disbelief. "What are you doing here?"

"Nice to see you Shawn. Emma." Skyler said nodding to Emma.

Emma smiled, revealing her elongated canines, and rushed over to Skyler giving her a hug. "It so nice to see you Skyler. How long has it been? Three years? Man, you have grown!"

Skyler stepped back from Emma and smiled at both of them. "We can catch up later, but for now we should talk about why we are here. I'm assuming you guys are here for the same reason I am."

Shawn nodded. "We wanted to see if the teenager on the news was Jack."

"Is it?" Emma said with trepidation.

"It's Jack." Skyler said somberly. "They've taken out his eyes and upper incisors. They also cut off his left ear."

Emma looked as if she would be sick and Shawn placed his hand on his hips while taking a deep breath. "Damnit!" Shawn yelled startling Emma and Skyler.

"We've got to get out of here. Those guards are going to be waking up soon. We should talk about this somewhere else." Skyler said becoming ever more anxious.

"Let's go to my truck. We can talk there." Shawn said as he started to leave.

"Let me stop by the bank that is next door to this place. My dirt bike is there. I can put in the back of your truck and we can go anywhere after that."

Shawn nodded and the three of them left the morgue as quickly as possible.

X X X X X

After Skyler and Shawn put her dirt bike in the back of the truck the trio drove off into the night. Within the truck everyone was silent and each lost in their own thoughts.

Skyler finally broke the silence with a question. "Where are we going?"

"A place Jack told me to go to if he ever was killed." Shawn said in a matter of fact tone.

"What?" Emma said.

"I got a call from Jack a couple of weeks back." Shawn began to explain. "He was very cryptic and quite frankly he freaked me out. He told me that if he was ever killed to go to this underground bunker in the woods. In that bunker would be a computer. Once I turned on the computer I was suppose to type in the numbers 379521. He wouldn't tell me anything else. I thought he was just goofing around."

"Where is this bunker?" Emma asked completely perplexed by Shawn's story.

"It's about three hours from here. I don't know about you guys, but I want some answers."

"I'm up for an adventure." Skyler said. She had planned to go back to the mansion that night, but I guess fate had other plans.

X X X X X

Almost three hours later the trio was getting closer to their destination. Emma slept leaning against the window of the passenger side as Skyler sat pensively in the middle. It had been three years since she had seen Emma and Shawn. She was happy to see them even if it was under tragic circumstances. Three years ago Skyler had been apart of a secret government plan to make the perfect assassins. Using their knowledge about mutations and genetic engineering they created people born to kill. Skyler wasn't sure about the specifics, but they some how cloned animal DNA into them so they would exhibit heighten sense and above average strength. Skyler's eye color and long canines was a product of a sick joke by the scientist who created them. They had been obsessed with vampires and used genetic engineering to create a vampire looking warrior. Shawn and Emma had been lucky. They may have elongated incisors, but at least they did not have blood red eyes. Emma and Shawn were from a different generation. Each generation of kids had a different eye color.

The military program known as Dante1321 was named after the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. The genetically modified soldier's from this program were known as Dante's assassins because of their demon like appearance. Skyler and the rest of her troop had escaped three years ago diffusing to various parts of the United States.

"Hey, Skyler how are you holding up?" Shawn asked Skyler who seemed to stare blankly out the front windshield.

"I'm ok. I'm glad to see you and Emma. I wish it was under better circumstances." Skyler replied to Shawn without taking her eyes off the road.

Shawn nodded. "I know you and Jack became pretty close towards the end. Especially, after Mara died. This can't be easy for you. I just wanted to let you know that I'm here if you want to talk."

Skyler shifted in her seat. "I hadn't talked to Jack in three years. I always liked him. I remember is fondness for computers. They may have built him to be a warrior, but he was destined to be a computer wiz. He didn't deserve this fate."

"None of us deserve this fate."

Skyler and Shawn again sat in silence. Skyler wanted to talk to Shawn about how Mara kept appearing in her dreams. Skyler had always looked up to Shawn when they were in the program given that he was 5 years older than her. He was like a big brother and she needed some brotherly advice. "Shawn…do you believe people can haunt your dreams?"

"I guess it is possible. Why do you ask?"

"I keep having these dreams." Skyler began. "And in these dreams Mara always appears in them. Sometimes she is giving me advice about the situations I'm in at the time and other times she telling me to avenge her death. For example, I was having a hard time at this place I was staying at and I really pissed of one of my friends. Mara said I was afraid to settle down because the fact that my past could catch up with me. And she was right. It's like she is watching over me."

Shawn said nothing and absorbed what Skyler was saying. "I don't know the answer to this question. It could be that Mara is watching over you or it could be your unconscious taking the form of Mara. Either way it doesn't matter. What seems to matter is that you take some of Mara's advice. She seems very wise."

Skyler liked Shawn's response. It pacified her if only for a moment.

"So, what is this place you are staying at? And do you like it?" Shawn said with a smirk.

Skyler smiled back at Shawn's gentle probing. "I've been staying at this school for mutants. The staff is really nice and most of the kids are cool, but I can't seem to let myself enjoy the place. Well, that's not true. Yesterday I had a lot of fun. I almost felt normal."

Shawn's smile faded as he sympathized with Skyler's situation. "It's hard to leave the past and start a new life when the past is constantly chasing you."

X X X X X X

Shawn parked the car as Skyler woke Emma.

"Emma, we are here. Wake up." Skyler said as she shook Emma.

A very groggy Emma muttered something about stupid turkeys.

"What?" Shawn and Skyler responded to Emma's strange utterance.

"I had a dream that turkeys were taking over the world." Emma said with a sheepish smile.

Skyler and Shawn laughed as the trio exited the vehicle. "We have about an hour walk ahead of us. Follow me." Shawn said taking off down a dirt path.

The group followed this dirt path for approximately 30 minutes before going off the path into a heavily wooded area. After 30 more minutes of fighting through the thick underbrush they stopped in a small clearing within the woods.

"Ok. We need to find an open that leads underground. It is somewhere in this clearing." Shawn said to Emma and Skyler. It took a proximately 40 minutes before one of them found the opening to the bunker.

"I found it. It behind this bush." Emma said I she push back a small bush.

The trio entered the bunker and because of their excellent night vision they did not need a light in the dark bunker. In the bunker there was a small arm chair, a book case, and very impressive looking computer. Shawn walked over to the computer and turned it on. The light of the computer filled the room giving it an eerie glow. Shawn typed in the number 379521. On the screen Jack appeared.

"Well, if you typed in this number into my computer I must be dead. I know this may seem a little creepy…"

"A little?" Emma said.

"…but there was no way for me to pass on this information without a little bit of a creep factor. I can't go into great detail on this message since any computer nerd could hack into this computer. Let's just say I stumbled down the rabbit hole and I can't get out." Jack then began to talk in what sounded like a foreign language. It was a language that Skyler's troop had made up so they could have conversations without their superiors knowing what they were saying. Only people from their troop would be able to understand this message. In the language he said "With in this room lies the key to my death." Jack then spoke in normal English. "Oh, just so you know. This computer will self destruct in 10 seconds."

"He's got to be kidding with this James Bond bullshit." Shawn said in slight annoyance of Jack message. But Jack was not kidding. Ten seconds later the computer had a violent death complete with sparks and smoke. All three teen had stepped back and put their hands in front of their face to protect themselves from the machine breakdown.

Skyler put her hands down in a huff. "Jack, you major drama queen was that necessary?" Skyler said as if she was talking to Jack's spirit.

"What did he mean by the key to his death was in this room?" Emma said as she coughed and fanned the smoke away from her face.

"Well given that he is a computer freak I'm going to go out on a limb and say it some sort of data file." Skyler replied as she began to look around.

Shawn, Emma, and Skyler tore the place apart. Finding the file was looking hopeless. That is until Shawn turned over the arm chair and ripped off the legs. Out of one of the legs a memory stick fell to the ground.

"I found it. Let's get out of this hole." Shawn said as he picked up the memory stick. The trio exited the bunker and then came up with a plan. "Well, thanks to Jack and his tendency for flare we can't use his computer to find out what is on this thing." Shawn said as he held up the memory stick.

"And we can't take it to some local coffee shop. Who knows what on that thing." Emma added.

"I've go an idea." Skyler interjected. "Let me take it back to the place I'm staying. They have really good computers and I will have the time. Because knowing Jack he probably has some crazy ass encryptions that we will have to figure out. So if I take it I can work on it and let's say in two weeks we'll meet up again."

"That sounds good to me. You should be safe at the place you're staying at since there are a lot of people there." Shawn agreed with Skyler.

"You two should lay low for awhile. Who ever killed Jack may come after you. Let's meet at the mall two weeks from today." Skyler confirmed her plans with her friends.

Both Emma and Shawn nodded their head and the trio walked back to their car.

X X X X X

Skyler walked her dirt bike up the road that led to Xavier's school for gifted youngsters. It was around 1pm and Skyler stopped to stare at the mansion. With everything that had happened in the past 24 hours Skyler just wanted to sleep, but she knew that sneaking out and staying out all night was going to have some fall out. Skyler was not looking forward to the lecture that awaited her as soon as she entered the mansion.

I finished Chapter 6. Yay! Sorry it took so long. I've been busy. Chapter 7 should be up soon...because I'm on holiday break. I will go into more of Skyler's background in later chapters. Also, the X-men are going to play a bigger role later in the series. Please review. If you have any question ask so I can address them in later chapters.