"So, where do you we start?"
Terra looked up as Celes entered her bedchamber. She smiled. "Good morning."
Celes sat in a chair beside the massive bed and returned her friend’s smile. "It is today."
"You must have talked to Locke last night." Celes nodded, and Terra set aside her breakfast tray. "Good for you. Communication is very important for a marriage, you know."
Celes grimaced. "Enough with the lectures, Terra."
"Sorry," Terra said with a blush. "I get carried away with this mother/wife role sometimes." Terra sat up in bed. "All right. Now I talked to Edgar last night and found out a few very interesting things."
"What kind of things?"
Terra slipped a book out from under her pillow and turned to a marked page. "When the Empire was doing the major Esper infusion research, they promised unrealistic things for volunteers. Babies, women of all ages, men, children." Terra reread a couple paragraphs before handing the book to Celes. "Unfortunately, the historian wasn’t able to get access to the people involved with the experiments. Once they entered the Magitek Research Facility, they didn’t reappear."
"I did," Celes reminded.
Terra wrinkled her nose in thought and tapped her finger to her lips. "Where were you raised?"
"Vector, the Magitek Facility, and some cities that didn’t have names. My training began when I could form intelligible words."
"Hmm. I wonder if their records survived."
"How do we know they even kept records of families? What good would it have done them?"
Terra threw off the covers and dressed in a pair of burgundy leggings and a long, pale green shirt. She wrapped a wide belt at her waist and then put her green waves up in a ponytail. Then she stepped into her thigh-high leather boots. "Edgar and I both think Gestahl was enough of a power-hungry maniac that he would have recorded everything, for the chance of using it later."
Celes looked down at the book in her hands and glanced through a long list of names. "What are these people listed? Was it a census year or something?"
Terra shook her head and took the book from Celes to reread the list of names. "Edgar found this book last night. These are actually the people in the Figaro kingdom - and its surrounding neighbors like Kohlingen, Narshe, and South Figaro - that were approached by the Empire."
"Approached? You mean these are the ones the Empire tried to get into the Magitek Esper program?"
Terra nodded. "Exactly. I couldn’t find the list of names for those actually involved, but Edgar’s in the Library this morning looking for it. Once we find it, we can cross-reference it with the Empire’s records. Once we find them, that is."
Celes stood. "Well? What are we waiting for?"
Terra laughed. "Nothing, I guess."
The two headed from the room toward the Library.
"If Edgar doesn’t find it," Terra went on with a sudden look of seriousness, "we should send a note for Setzer to come and take us to Maria’s."
"She still has the books she bought from Strago?"
(inserting here)