Coup d'�tat

November 3rd, 2022 a.t.b.

Brunch had been a hasty affair as there was still the matter of Nina’s distressing package. Nunnally was exploring the Palace with Sayoko in attendance and Euphemia had volunteered to sit in on the briefing.

In one of the conference rooms that had been just swept for bugs, Nina’s purloined CPUs and schematics had been plugged in, attached to monitors and rolled out on a long table respectively.

Lloyd was ecstatic. Over the moon, in fact. “Nuclear fission!” he had exclaimed as he poured over the schematics. A revolutionary concept that had not been explored fully--until now. Nina’s grandfather had pioneered certain theories decades ago, but there had never been much development until now.

Professor Bolton, after having a chance to clean up and drink several cups of strong coffee, did not look so much like a mad scientist anymore as he puttered around the machines. They had been in such a hurry to leave that they had no other clothing besides the ones they wore on their backs. The stolen plans had taken top priority and they had several close shaves on the way to Cornelia’s fleet anchored in the South Pacific.

More confident now that she was in her own area of expertise, Nina explained that her doctoral thesis research had been on developing nuclear fission using certain enriched elements. Schneizel had been interested in funding the research on sakuradite and so Nina had been under the mentorship of Professor Bolton for the past two years.

They had managed to develop a protocol for releasing vast amounts of energy from enriched sakuradite. The direction of their research had taken a sudden turn at that point. It was the creation and mass manufacture of the remotely deployed missiles and its destructive potential that had driven Nina and her mentor to defect after the war.

“Wonderful! This is fantastic!” Lloyd waved his arms excitedly as Nina finished explaining how a supercritical mass of sakuradite in such a missile could be detonated to produce a thousand kilo-tonne thermonuclear explosion that could wipe out a medium-sized city in a matter of seconds. “The possible applications of nuclear fission are immense--”

“Can we focus on how to stop . . . something like that?” Suzaku asked, already tense from the first hour, where terms like “blast radius” and “hypocentre” had been bandied around along with the estimated death toll.

“For instance, can a warhead be forced to detonate before impact?” Lelouch asked, leaning forwards with a frown on his brow. “The delivery system sounds fairly straightforward.”

Further down the table, Euphemia looked equally unsettled, but she and her brother had been children of the Imperial household and they knew that one did not get up to go hold the Emperor’s hand at times like this, no matter how justified the cause. It would be different, later in private, but for now, they would have to maintain decorum.

“That’s a very good question!” Lloyd declared before launching into another lengthy technical discourse with Professor Bolton with Nina chipping in now and then. Cecile was probably the only one who was sensitive to the mood in the room and she tried to steer the discussion towards actual solutions.

They finally agreed that having more specialists looking into the matter would not hurt. Lloyd had bristled at including Laksharta in the group, but had admitted at last that her contribution would be useful. This was too big and urgent and their rivalry would have to take second place.

There was a lull in the conversation then, when everyone looked expectantly at Suzaku. But he was staring into space, as though he was looking at something only he could see.

Euphie stood up before Lelouch could and cleared her throat delicately. “It’s been three hours and I’m sure you must be parched from explaining in so much detail . . . Professor, Nina, Earl Asplund, we should adjourn for a late lunch.”

“As you wish, Madam,” Lloyd said after looking at her thoughtfully and wincing slightly when Cecile kicked him discretely in the shin. He was still partially tuned into the intricacies of the Imperial Court, and he could tell which way the wind was blowing.

“Ah--of course,” Nina said hastily. “But we shouldn’t impo--”

“You did the right thing. We’re very grateful,” Euphie said, going over to her and giving her arm a gentle squeeze. With the all attention of the others on her, no-one saw Lelouch nudge Suzaku out of his daze and whisper into his ear.

As Nina blushed and stammered like the school-girl she used to be, Euphie guided her through the door. “Now won’t you all join us? His Majesty would like your presence at the table.”

Said Emperor was now on his feet and echoing her request. Euphie would cover for any of Suzaku’s potential lapses at lunch, Lelouch knew. Trailing behind, he produced his mobile and dialled a number.

“Kallen? Can you get me Ougi and whoever is in charge of the armed forces at the moment? Toudou? I see . . . Laksharta will be conferencing with Lloyd soon. All right, put me through to her now please.”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

June 15th, 2017 a.t.b.

“Thank you for the meal,” C.C. said in Japanese when the pan was empty. They were in no danger of being overheard in the corner booth they were in. She burped genteelly behind her hand. “We’ll try the seafood pizza next time. Though I don’t know about clams and squid on pizza . . .”

“Now you said you’ll tell me about what happened to you,” Suzaku said, leaning over the slightly greasy tabletop.

“What? After dinner?” C.C. asked. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll throw up?”

“Now,” he insisted, not about to be put off again.

“Whatever,” C.C. muttered and touched the palm of his hand. “You asked for it--”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

It had all boiled down to timing. She had stayed just a minute too long that day at the barracks.

Her entrance and exit depending on precise timing so that she could slip out during the lull between the manned patrols at the perimeter. The primitive security had been her undoing in the end.

The soldiers had opened fire upon seeing her crossing the perimeter. As this was a restricted area and they did not need to give warning before shooting. There had been a brief spurt of gunfire, bullets striking with enough force to swing her around as they peppered her body.

Blackness--her old friend--came again as death overcame her. Perhaps they had taken away her body for disposal and discovered that she was still breathing or that her heart had resumed pumping. Whatever the case, she had been discovered.

When she came to, when her body had repaired all the neutral networks that told her that she was alive, she was in a sterile white room under harsh glaring lights. There were men in white coats around her, jabbering excitedly.

Scientists.

There had always been a risk of discovery. In the past, they had thought her a witch or a demon. They did not believe in witches now, but they were curious to dissect everything. She knew they would find it difficult to quantify this power in terms of their easily-explainable science. It was not something that their measurements and technology could comprehend.

It did not mean that they would not try. Humans were nothing but persistent.

Day after day of the same sterile rooms and endless testing. Blood tests, cell samples and genetic sequencing apparently revealed fascinating things about her DNA. They found her brain waves to be of interest and measured them while she was awake, when she was asleep and once when they gave her a deliberate overdose to kill her so that they could observe her revival.

After that, they became more daring and some of their tests started resembling the torments of the past. Until the day her Code activated while they had been carrying her back to the holding cell.

They had not been able to revive those two men afterwards. But they had been interested in provoking another event like that. They had been unsuccessful until the day they had to transfer her from their secret laboratory to another place.

The witch had not cared either way. Wherever they took her, it would be the same.

All she knew was that it was a curse and it was in effect even now.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

He was glad that C.C. had warned him from seeing this in the hospital. If the IV needle was still in his arm, he would have torn it out. Skin still crawling with the memory of too many needles and too many invasive things done in the name of human curiosity, he looked up at the witch blearily.

“That . . . that was awful,” Suzaku croaked, feeling the garlic bread and soup churning in his stomach.

“Don’t get all angsty on me,” C.C. said. “The Inquisition could have showed them a thing or two about making people uncomfortable. The food was boring, but it’s not worth quibbling about small things like that.”

Levering himself upright, he glared at her across the table. “It’s not a small thing. People shouldn’t do that to other people.”

“But that’s what people do,” C.C. said with a shrug. “They’ve been doing it longer than I’ve been alive.”

And she had been alive for a very long time. Suzaku had tried not look at the other memories, but he had seen certain things that had frightened him badly when he had been younger. They frightened him still now.

“It doesn’t make it right.”

“So you want to change the world?” Her amber-gold eyes challenged him from across the table. “Then what will you do to achieve it? Will you finally use it and live by your own decisions from now on?”

She did not need to specify what it was.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

June 18th, 2017 a.t.b.

The tide had turned. Again.

It had been going so well despite the startling beginning when Zero had told them baldly that the Britannians had them surrounded and they could either fight with him or die. The Black Knights were about to win a battle. An actual win.

And then their forces had been routed. The reports were garbled and cut-off but there was a new kind of KMF out there, wrecking havoc and unravelling Zero’s bold stratagems.

“R-5 here! On the western ridge. Britannian reinforcements are on the way!”

“Zero! You heard R-5,” Ougi said. On the field, it was codenames only. The objective of the plan had been to capture the Governor as Cornelia li Britannia was more of a hands-on kind of leader and could be found in the thick of the action.

There was a slight pause over the comm before Zero replied. “Retreat is the only option now. Relay the message to the flank guard and have them cover our retreat. I’ll get the others to withdraw.”

As far as piloting skills went, Zero was about average. Maybe less in a skirmish. He was better off planning their moves in the background, but he had been adamant about being on site for the battle.

“P-3? Come in! P-2?” Ougi resisted the urge to swear. That meant that the south side was compromised. Maybe even the eastern perimeter was gone. At the rate they were going . . .

“Kallen--get him out!” Casting caution to the wind, Ougi abandoned the codenames as more of the symbols representing their own people blinked out on the tactical screen.

“Roger that!” She knew what to do and if anyone could get Zero out, it would be her. “Watch yourself, Ougi.”

“We’ll rendezvous back at the appointed place.” If they got out of this alive.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

July 9th, 2017 a.t.b.

“Good work, Suzaku. That’s all for today.” Cecile’s voice over the communicator was warm with encouragement.

Behind the controls of the Lancelot, Suzaku did a final systems check before powering down and disengaging the ignition key. Taking a deep breath, he popped open the cockpit and swung down on the pilot’s line.

“These sync ratios are fantastic! Ninety-five percent with a point six percent deviation across all the tests!” Lloyd yelled excitedly as he gestured at the readout screen. Cecile smiled tolerantly--she would not hit Lloyd when Suzaku was looking directly at them--and suggested that he could get changed.

Suzaku did so and signed out as soon as he could to avoid Cecile’s tea-time snacks. He ate her onigiri to be polite, but no power in the world could make him like caramel-mocha-redbean paste in a riceball.

Speaking of food, he had to take C.C. out for pizza again. She would tease him about his fancy new position and the promotion that the new Governor had granted him, but it was better than the things that the Britannian soldiers said.

He had not been that surprised to see her standing behind her sister, Cornelia li Britannia, during the inauguration. C.C. would have said that he should read the newsfeeds more often.

Euphemia li Britannia smiled at him apologetically as the royal party completed the ceremonial inspection of the troops. He tried to maintain a straight face until the point when the summons had come from the Governor. The rumours had really started flying then.

An Eleven had been singled out for promotion out of the blue. There was something about a special project . . . And the less savoury tales that were bandied around.

It was a load of rubbish anyway. He had hardly met with the Princess personally since his promotion and the Governor had barely acknowledged his presence--her mistrust of Numbers was well-known. His status as a KMF pilot was still a classified secret in the military.

The mystery of the white KMF was not as hot a topic as the identity of Zero, masked vigilante and declared enemy of Britannian rule. The chat-rooms and internet websites were full of speculation and theories.

Suzaku knew he had issues to resolve. He only wished that he could find the will to go forwards with it.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

July 12th, 2017 a.t.b.

“That’s it for this batch, then?”

They had been screening applications in shifts--even Lelouch had been roped into it. Recruitment had been on the rise. The Black Knights were the largest and most well-organised resistance cells in the region, not to mention popular, thanks to Zero and their campaign of bringing drug dealers and corrupt Britannians to justice. But events had accelerated when Cornelia tried to flush Zero out at both Saitama and Narita.

Behind his prescription-less glasses, Lelouch Lamperouge was a slightly bookish hacker-type on the lower rungs of the organisation. He was one of the few Britannians allowed into the organisation to the rest of the Black Knights and it was not surprising that most of them steered clear of him. If not for Zero’s policy of non-discrimination on the grounds of race, he would have been viewed with even deeper suspicion than usual.

“These are the ones we rejected because they don’t fit the profile--”

“Wait, let me see those,” Lelouch said, reaching out for the folders.

“They’re a bit young,” Ougi said. “Only sixteen and seventeen years old--er--”

“No offense taken,” Lelouch murmured, leafing through the dossiers. “Tanamura Reika . . . Murata Akihito . . . orphaned? No, they have younger siblings and at least one parent . . .”

“They have families that need them,” Ougi explained. “Nor do they have any of the skills we need.”

“We might have other places for them to fill in,” Lelouch said, looking up. “There is still the matter of getting people into the Honorary Britannian programme.”

That had been the other plan--the long term one at any rate. Their manpower shortage and the issue of their logistics meant that they needed more resources and people in the right places. Meaning in the Britannian settlement.

“So you think they’ll fit the bill?” They had been trying to get their people into strategic positions, but so far, only Lelouch and Kallen could enter the settlement at will and even their movements were limited to the civilian areas.

“They are young, adaptable and likely to be looking for a better life. It would not look suspicious if they enrolled in the programme.” Lelouch flexed his fingers and made a few more notes. “Ask them if they are willing to go undercover for a while.”

“They probably will,” Ougi predicted. “They were . . . keen.”

“They’ll do better with proper schooling and better nutrition,” Lelouch said, referring to the appalling conditions that most of the ghetto-dwellers lived in. “We might even have to persuade them to rebel later on.”

“Maybe not.” Ougi knew that the teenagers would be more than just a little flattered that Zero had asked them to fulfil an important mission. But it was not going to be easy--not with the way Honorary Britannians were treated now. There was the issue of their youth, but they were not going to be KMF pilots in a sortie against the Britannian army. Ougi could get behind the idea of sending the younger ones to be Honorary Britannians even though some of the others did not. It would be his job to convince the other members that there was some merit in that idea.

“Any more potentials?”

“That’s the last of them . . . There’s the issue of the new prototype seen at Narita.”

“Aa--it could prove to be problematic. We may have to advance our specs to keep up. I have informed Laksharta.” The Indian scientist was a competent and competitive devicer, but her loyalties ultimately lay with her own people. Just as long as Zero could help India gain their eventual independence from the Chinese, she would be on their side. “What was the total damage?”

“No lives lost--thank goodness for that. But it’s kind of odd, isn’t it? That KMF disabled all our machines but all the pilots got out alive. It was as though it could strike at exactly the right place without damaging the ejection mechanisms . . . But that’s just impossible, isn’t it? No machine or pilot could be that precise,” Ougi mused. “And no Britannian would be that considerate . . .”

“No Britannian would . . .” Lelouch had spoken aloud, brow furrowed in intense thought.

“Do you know something about that new KMF?” Ougi asked, watching his face carefully.

“I suspect something,” Lelouch said at last. “I will need to confirm it.”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

July 14th, 2017 a.t.b.

What’s the total damage?

Shirley . . . Her father.

If that had been the only problem Lelouch had to contend with in his covert war against Britannia . . .

No Britannian would be that considerate . . .

It had not been a Britannian pilot, Lelouch knew this instinctively. The KMF in question had not been part of the regular army. Cornelia did not trust non-Britannians to guard her back in a fray--though she might be forced to concede this time. And Lelouch knew only one person who was soft-hearted enough to spare the enemy and had the physical ability to do it.

If only he had the time to find Suzaku and . . . well, he would get the answer out of him, somehow. In between maintaining his image as a shiftless student and pretending not to be Zero while being Zero with the Black Knights, he was well up to his eyebrows in work.

Lelouch had expected it, but it had taken a while to get used to it. Being a terrorist was hard work and if it had not been the summer vacation period, he would have been swamped by the initial influx of duties, tasks, plans and occasionally running for his life. To top it all off, Milly had called for a series of meetings during the holidays to plan for the term ahead. Coping with the President’s outlandish schemes was actually harder than coordinating raids on secret weapons caches. Doing both at once was like juggling fish and chainsaws.

Case in point on the day when he had endured a meeting on the annual student body dance in the afternoon, coupled with a planned operation in the evening with the Black Knights. It was probably Milly’s way of distracting Shirley.

“So it’s all arranged,” Lelouch murmured as he leaned over to collect his notebook from the desk.

“Right. Six-thirty tonight. Meet me at the gate,” Kallen replied as she shuffled together a stack of notes for filing.

“Eh? You’re going out on a date?” On the other side of the desk, Shirley jerked back in shock. Before her father’s death, she might have flailed and made an almighty racket, but now she only looked sad as she backed away. “Oh . . . well, you have a n-nice time!”

Kallen looked frantic and flustered as she watched Shirley retreat out of the Student Council Room. She looked like she had half the mind to chase after the girl. “Lelouch! What the hell? You know she’s soppy on you. She’s going to get the wrong idea--”

“It’s better if she does,” he said, cutting off her tirade abruptly. “She doesn’t need to get hurt again.”

Seeing the look on his face, Kallen closed her mouth. She had not attended Mr. Fenette’s funeral. “Maybe you’re right,” she said after a long pause. “But I don’t want it to be known that we’re going out.”

“So you’d rather it be known that you’re a wanted terrorist and I’m Zero? That ‘going out’ means something other than dinner and a movie?”

“You know what I mean . . . Aaah, at least my step-mother will get off my back about acting like a normal girl,” Kallen sighed.

Seven o’clock found them at the docks in their school uniforms with their communicators switched to the private channel the Blacks Knights were using that evening.

“This is as distasteful to me as it is to you,” Lelouch stated when they ducked into the shadowed cul-de-sac between two warehouses.

“Right, you don’t need to tell me that. Just make it look more convincing than the last time, okay?” Kallen rolled her eyes and undid the first two buttons of her blouse.

Lelouch did not waste time protesting his acting skills. When the security guard swung around the corner, he was just in time to catch them in the middle of a pseudo-passionate snog.

“This is a restricted section!”

“Oh! We’re sorry!” Kallen exclaimed, swinging around in affected surprise. “We didn’t know! Really!”

When his eyes were drawn to Kallen’s unbuttoned blouse and the contents thereof, Lelouch’s hand was pressing the small handheld reader against the key-card dangling from the guard’s belt.

“Hey! What’s going on back there?” Another guard had poked his head around the corner.

“They’re just students messing around,” the first security guard said over his shoulder.

“So sorry for the trouble,” Kallen said, trying to do up her blouse and causing both guards to unwittingly focus their attentions on her.

“Won’t happen again, sir,” Lelouch added, dragging Kallen away.

They ran off like the skittish students they were pretending to be and met up with Ougi and the others in the battered van that served as a temporary base. “Temporary” was the word for it. Everyone was complaining about having to change into uniform in the back of the van in shifts.

“This is the fifth raid we’re doing this month. It’s a miracle we managed to squeeze in any Student Council work,” Kallen said, pulling on her uniform jacket. “Much less the vacation homework we had to do.”

“What? Maths homework?” Lelouch asked, his back turned in an attempt to make the best of a sad situation as they got changed. “Literature reading assignment, history essay--”

“Well I did mine. I have to catch up or catch hell for all those missed days,” Kallen replied, buckling on her boots. “Sorry--just bitching in general.”

“Tell you what, let me copy your maths homework and I’ll include nicking a new van in the schedule. Make it a truck.”

“Quit being lazy--you can do your own maths homework and nick a new truck in your sleep. This wouldn’t happen to be a truck-nicking operation, is it?” Kallen asked in jest.

“No,” Lelouch said, pulling the now-distinctive mask over his head. “Our intel says it’s an illegal racket involving arms-smuggling and drugs. Refrain, by the look of it. All right, one last briefing . . .”

* * * * * * * * * * * *