"Where's Kallen?" Suzaku asked.
"She called just a little while ago," Cecile answered. "She's on her way over from her hotel. She shouldn't be too long."
"Why don't we get started until she gets here. We can fill her in on any details she needs to know about later," Cornelia urged. It wasn't hard to imagine she was probably interested in getting this briefing out of the way so she could head home. Her mind would undoubtedly be on getting back here to the capital, but the respite back home was going to be a great relief. It had already been delayed from the previous evening anyway.
"Alright, I guess we'll change the order a little," Lloyd accepted. His penchant for having unsettling grins at inappropriate times said that he was equally pleased regardless what order the business went about. "I suppose we can start with the search results,"
"You're not going to tell me that my trips through the countryside were wasted," C.C. jokingly poked.
"Have you turned up anything about who is responsible for all of this chaos?" Suzaku asked.
"That we don't know yet. But, we do have a better understanding of who these Alters are," Lloyd said, shifting between annoyance at being asked about a question he couldn't answer, and one he was excited to talk about.
"And what's that?" Suzaku asked.
"We're likely not dealing with three women who've come back from the dead," Rakshata answered.
The woman behind the Gurren piloted by the ace of the Black Knights in the last war, the professional rival of Lloyd Asplund, Rakshata Chawla was definitely one of the top minds in the world scientific community. Although her penchant for pushing scientific boundaries was not too dissimilar to Lloyd's, her sense of social boundaries was more tactful.
Typically, however, it was generally not a progressive function to have the two working together on a project. Rakshata and Lloyd's approaches varied, their theories diverged, and their personalities tended to clash somewhat. If not over their differing concepts on how to proceed, they often ended up arguing from that personality friction. And when they didn't argue, their interests could run wild and they could end up so deeply immersed in pursuing a theory that their original purpose becomes lost.
Even so, the urgency of the situation pulled these two into a cooperative project. Cecile for the moment was the primary chaperone keeping them on track if they started to wander. Nina was something of a check valve as well, but she was a little too similar to them, and generally too soft spoken, to be really counted on in that role. Kallen was probably the best bet now that she was going to join the team.
"We don't have time to waste on pointless nonsense," Cornelia said shortly, her general impatience with their long-winded explanations showing.
"It's no surprise that there've been questions in public about the possibility of these women returning from the dead, even without their knowledge of Geass. But we've determined it's highly improbable these women were revived; they must not have died in the first place."
"That's impossible!" Suzaku angrily interjected. "I saw Shirley's body. I held Euphie…"
"As I'm sure C.C. could help explain, that may not mean a whole lot. Our belief is that they gained their immortality prior to their supposed deaths, reviving sometime afterwards," Rakshata explained.
"Based on what?" Cornelia asked.
"Based on what we know, immortality is like a reset button. More precisely, it's like a backup file on a computer network. The information of the physical body is preserved in the saved file at the time immortality is attained. But the file is never updated. It's locked and preserved in that original state. When trauma is received, the new file damaged, the original file is reloaded.
"You have a scar right here, don't you?" Rakshata said, poking C.C. with her pipe, just below C.C.'s left breast. C.C. glowered at her. "My guess is that you received that scar prior to becoming an immortal, right? Other than healing small or superficial wounds, the immortality process probably retains the state of the body at the time immortality is achieved."
"What does that have to do with the Alters?" Suzaku asked.
"Don't you see, my dear boy? That makes it impossible that they were made immortal after they died." Lloyd stated with a grin. "If a corpse lying in the ground was to be made immortal, it would simply be an immortal corpse. It wouldn't be a living person. Any decay over that time between their death and whenever they were made immortal would be cemented in place.
"The injuries they received that claimed their lives were, by definition, fatal. They obviously couldn't survive. In the best case, granting immortality to someone in that state would be incredible pain and torture; they'd have a wound that will never heal, constantly bleeding out. It's an interesting prospect to consider what that would exactly look like, how a body in such a state responds. I mean, C.C. can apparently bleed like anyone else. But if someone who bled to death was made immortal, what happens when they lose all the blood in their body?
"But as I said, it's not a particularly likely or probably enjoyable experience. I doubt she would be running about fighting the way she has if she still had severe bullet wounds constantly oozing blood.
"Quite simply, even imagining a being existed that could repair the damage caused by death, as well as grant immortality, it makes no sense for them to do so if they could merely grant immortality ahead of time and avoid the rest of the process entirely."
"But that would mean they've been around for close to five years already. Is that even possible?" Suzaku questioned.
"I'm glad you asked." Lloyd exclaimed, exuberantly outstretching his arms. A multitude of holo-screens flew up, each one showing a map or an image.
"What is all this?" Suzaku asked, stepping closer to examine the screens a little better.
"C.C. was sure there was likely a sighting or two of the Alters before Euphemia Alter attacked the castle,' Rakshata explained. "After all, popping up out of thin air isn't one of the alleged powers she holds. We were preparing for an exhaustive search, but she lucked out pretty quickly. Still, we did keep up with it.
"Sorry to say, but the other girl, Ms. Fenette, isn't so famous that there'd be too many people claiming to have seen her. But the princess is another story. So, we've collected all the alleged sightings of the princesses going back at least until their deaths, removing those that were obviously phony or mistaken identity. Wherever possible, we also pulled security camera footage, or other visual documentation.
"From this, we were able to get a solid pattern, whereby Euphemia Alter was seen in public about six months after her apparent death."
"All of the credible ones were in close proximity to one another, which diminishes the likelihood of misidentification. That's not to say it's not possible there was a person masquerading as the princesses, or something else along those lines. But that still gives us the clarity that whoever has been behind this has likely been preparing for these attacks for a number of years. We should probably assume they've planned out numerous additional attacks and countermeasures to manage our attempts to locate and capture them."
Suzaku's eyes scanned the images in wonderment and shock. The clothes were different, hair trimmed much shorter or hidden beneath a hat in some, but in every case even he couldn't be sure it wasn't Euphemia he was seeing.
"In as many cases as we could get enough data, we compared physical data to what we knew about the princess," Rakshata explained. "These images are those which we were able to confirm within 95% certainty that the subject is a match for the princess' measurements.
"All that really tells us, however, is that this person is a convincing match for the princess. It doesn't tell us if she actually is the princess. It also tells us that the plot behind all this has most likely been building for some time now. As Lloyd mentioned, the oldest sighting was a mere six months after the public acknowledgement of Princess Euphemia's death."
"Someone… with my sister's face, for that long…" Cornelia softly muttered. The fury blanketing her face laid her thoughts bare. The fear setting in that the Alter was the genuine article, the hate anew for the one sharing Euphemia's appearance, the want to see her…
"And Marrybell?" Suzaku asked.
"The first sighting was much more recent, about a year ago," Lloyd answered. "Given how much we've found so far, we haven't stopped searching just yet. We still haven't satisfied our original goal of determining who is behind all this. Looking for patterns in terms of who was around or near them is gonna be a much more laborious process you know," he sighed, not shy about his disinterest in that last bit.
"Do you have enough resources for this?" Cornelia asked.
"Nina has graciously helped us procure what we need on our behalf," Rakshata said with a touch of bemusement. "She's more reclusive in her curiosity than most."
"She was the one to really tune the research algorithm to get us this far," Lloyd said, like a proud father tickled pink at his daughter's accomplishments.
"What's the location?" C.C. asked, inspecting a couple images more closely.
"It varies a great deal," Rakshata explained. "France, Italy, England, Japan, Korea, Argentina, Madagascar… it's almost impressive how many sightings there actually were once we started looking."
"We can assume at least some of those aren't really connected," Cornelia surmised, her tone betraying that she wasn't really very much into this at all. Her mind was consumed with other thoughts now; thoughts she didn't want to share.
"We presume so," Cecile agreed. As she was talking, Suzaku was receiving a call. He stepped aside to take it. "That's why Nina is working to further refine the algorithm to make sure we aren't getting false positives. There are also the additional inspections and investigations of the areas to consider, which will tell us with better certainty whether anything actually happened in those locations."
"It looks like they're ready to escort you when you're ready," Suzaku said to Cornelia after completing his call.
"I would think I could manage a trip to the airport without you," Cornelia dismissed. "Why don't you remain here and see what else you can learn. I'll go see Nunnally before I depart."
"Well, in any case, there's no point continuing with the rest until Ms. Kouzuki arrives. Might as well take a short break for the time being."
Cornelia had expected that she would merely say a short goodbye to Nunnally, head off to a waiting car, and be off to the airport for the relatively short flight home. She hadn't at all expected the sort of escort she once enjoyed as a true royal, the pomp and circumstance of a caravan of cars and Knightmares to take her wherever she went when she herself wasn't in her own Knightmare, at which point she would be surrounded by numerous elements of her own military units. She'd thought she'd miss it a little more than she did. Not in a reliant sense – she was never reliant on the protection of her unit or of hired guards, as strange as that might sound as a former head of such military details. But she thought it would be more awkward than it had been to surrender that formality. So when it was thrust back on her as it was she had a twinge of awkwardness in falling back into that routine for however briefly it was necessary.
Cornelia had never been as kindly to her other siblings as she had been to Euphemia and Schneizel. Even between the two, she was never as kindly to Schneizel as she was to Euphemia. In reality her awareness and familiarity with Nunnally was rather tertiary prior to Nunnally's ascension. She knew Nunnally as one of the closest siblings to Euphemia, the two close enough to argue with one another. Cornelia had been ever so slightly jealous of Nunnally at that youthful time, loving her little sister Euphie so much that it made her jealous that Euphie would be so naturally comfortable with Nunnally and Lelouch to bicker with them, while being so intimidated by Cornelia that she rarely spoke up to defend her own words. Yet she found Nunnally's spark, her willingness back then to argue and fight, endearing in a sense that likely didn't match with most people's view of an endearing child. As young as she herself was, Cornelia could see Nunnally being a frightfully commanding officer. But that changed after Marianne died.
It had emboldened Cornelia in the years afterwards to be even more protective and motherly towards Euphie, fearful of Euphie's future being dashed the way Nunnally and Lelouch's had when their father banished the two to die in a foreign land. When years later Nunnally and Lelouch turned out to have survived, Lelouch had become an enemy to their homeland, she couldn't help but figure that it was an obvious outcome. She had entertained the thought at the time that Nunnally was a cooperative commander of a division of Lelouch's Black Knights before finding out the reality of it.
She wasn't sure how to act with Nunally when they reunited. It had been after Euphemia's death, so she had a naturally conflicted emotion. This was her sister, formerly one of, possibly the, best friend of Euphemia for a period of their childhood. She had an affection for Nunnally back then. At this reunion she had much less of an affection. Her anger and rage over Lelouch's role in Euphemia's death tainted her ability at first to feel anything for Nunnally besides disdain. Nunnally's gentle affect threw her off too. This Nunnally wasn't as feisty as the one she remembered, so it was harder to see her in the same way. Now she seemed more foreign and like a stranger.
But Schneizel's plan to push Nunnally into a puppet's position under his control of Britannia gave the first glimmers of the old Nunnally. Nunnally's determination to stop her brother's actions was the resoluteness in her own ideals that made her argue with Euphemia as kids. And now that same Nunnally was the Empress. Cornelia couldn't allow herself to be doting even if she wanted to, no matter how many pangs of sisterly affection she might feel from time to time.
Nunnally was not just her sister anymore. Nunnally was her empress. So when Nunnally insisted on escorting her sister to the airport, Cornelia could only protest so much. It wasn't a foreign thing to argue with a monarch in private, but there was always great deference given to the fact that the monarch asking was an invite to pleasantries. Typically telling a monarch flatly no was not possible. Their father never did such a thing as emperor, ask to escort anyone on a relatively routine trip, because he never had any interest in travelling anywhere with anyone. If he ever had, who would tell him no? He made it clear he had no qualms sending his children of less than ten off to enemy hands to fend for themselves for questioning the awkwardness of the circumstance of their mother's death. What person would think they could escape anything less for saying "no" to him?
It was alright either way. Nunnally had been holed up in the temporary palace for days now. Getting out for a little drive was no harm. In fact, it was probably something that should have been considered some time ago less the stress break her mind in two. Cornelia had to admit to herself that she was getting such a respite by travelling home right this moment. It was hard to fault Nunnally for wanting to take a car ride with her only living sister to get a taste of that freedom.
Kallen arrived while Nunnally was away. Her flight in last night had been delayed a couple hours due to weather, and as a result she got to Camelot much later than originally expected. She slept in a little that morning as a result, an allowance from all involved. She'd been offered a room at the temporary imperial residence, but she declined. The very idea felt awkward to her. It was true enough she'd be spending plenty of time there, but even so…
Kallen used the ride from her hotel to the palace to go over some of the classified intelligence that had been delivered to her upon her arrival in Camelot last night. To call it shocking was an understatement. She hadn't realized quite how dire the situation was. She knew there were things she hadn't been told yet, that was to be expected given her civilian status and general attempt to remain out of the loop. But the scale of the problem was much bigger than she imagined. And the details were… bizarre.
"Is this for real?" she asked Suzaku doubtfully when he met her at the gates.
"It's good to see you again too, Kallen," Suzaku replied, leading her inside.
"Cut the bullshit," she glowered. "If you thought it would be funny to…"
"I can assure you there's nothing in that file that has been fabricated," he answered her, more morose this time.
"But that's… I mean…"
"I know. Thanks for coming to help us out, Kallen,"
"S-sure…"
"If it's not a problem for you, we'll head straight to one of the labs Lloyd and the others are using for now. Princess Cornelia's already left; the empress is escorting her to the airport. I'm sure she'll want to spend some time with you when she returns."
"How's she holding up?"
"She doesn't show it most of the time, but I know she's pretty exhausted. I'm not sure she's sleeping very well."
"Y-yeah, I guess that makes sense," Kallen agreed moodily. Having read that report she wasn't so sure she'd get a good night's sleep for some time.
"You guys have any plans yet?"
"Not really. We've been on the defensive mostly."
"R-right, right, that makes sense…"
"Are you alright?" he asked her. Her stilted speech was uncommon for her.
"Not really," she readily admitted. "I can already see how daunting this problem is… I'm worried you all haven't realized it yet."
"What do you…"
"Well, hello Kallen," Rakshata said with some exuberance.
Kallen hadn't seen Rakshata face-to-face in a couple years. While a student she'd leaned on Rakshata a lot for help with her course work and later her senior thesis. They had become something like friends, in a strange sense. They talked often enough, despite being consumed with their own work.
"Hey, Rakshata. How're you?"
"Fine as ever. Good to have you aboard. Honestly I don't know that I could tolerate only having Lloyd to talk shop with," Rakshata jovially remarked.
"The feeling's mutual," Lloyd groaned as he passed into a room on the right. "Good to see you, Ms. Kouzuki."
This was the room they were heading to, and Kallen followed along inside. The door was rather unassuming, just a plain door off the hall that you might otherwise have ignored entirely. Inside was an array of computers and large tables placed symmetrically to create what clearly looked to be a rushed space. It had bits and pieces you would assume for a science lab, the only problem being that there was no cohesion – a science room for bits and pieces of any number of different disciplines. It was clear enough that the room was more for show than actual work, which struck Kallen as odd. Its use had to be for convenience outside of practicality.
Kallen made eye contact with C.C off to a side of the room. These two hadn't seen each other in a very long time. Their relationship was cold. Not in the sense of one hating the other, but in that they didn't really engage, make any effort to engage. If pressed neither could likely put into words how they saw the other. They didn't fight, they weren't friends… they were closer than strangers, but it was a real struggle to actually define their relationship in any meaningful terms. Still, they each had a knack for annoying the other. C.C sat sipping some carbonated drink from a glass bottle through a straw. There was nothing outwardly odd about it, yet for whatever reason the two had an unfaltering sense of aggravation that the other was there at that moment. Not hate, not anger, just… like a mildly grating feeling.
"I've just spoken with Nina," Cecile said as she was staring down at a tablet, walking into the room without paying much attention to what was going on. "She expects we'll have the next revision of the algorithm done by tomorrow evening. Oh, hello Ms. Kouzuki. So good of you to come help us."
"Hello, Ms. Croomy," Kallen replied with an awkward smile. Of everyone in the room right then, these two were the second closest in age, only Suzaku closer as a contemporary. Yet Cecile was so much more mature that it was a little imposing. It was like she was a big sister. That's why when Cecile showed up as a guest lecturer for a couple classes while Kallen was earning her degree, it made for a slightly surreal experience. Cecile was another ear Kallen tugged on while working on her thesis. They also got along fairly well, though Kallen didn't like being around when she was drunk. Cecile could get clingy and whiny. Kallen knew right away it had to be a release of stress from dealing with Lloyd and his eccentricity all the time, which only made Kallen more frustrated that Cecile had chosen to stay beside Lloyd all these years.
"Well then, now that we're all here, let's get started, shall we?" Lloyd proclaimed, clapping his hands together. "With any luck we might be able to complete our origin story today."