Chapter Four: The Shadow

Villetta Nu was very happy.

The Purebloods were being pressured. That meant that Villetta had the opportunity for advancement. In times of crisis, there were always opportunities, and Villetta meant to take hers.

Looking through the one-way mirrors, Villeta gazed at a grubby, simpleminded eleven. She glanced at Kewell, whose arms were crossed as he glared at her.

"Are these them?" asked Villetta, brushing aside her silver braid.

"Yes, I got him like you requested Villetta," said Kewell. "I don't see what you mean to do with these scum, though."

"Come on, Kewell, you can use anyone," said Villetta with a smile she knew people found seductive. "You just have to know how."

"Whatever you say, half-breed," said Kewell.

Villetta turned and made her way into the cell. As she entered the door, she deliberately moved her legs with a sway in her hip. Pulling the seat back, she sat down across from the eleven and leaned in. One of her advantages was her body, and using it had helped her gain an advantage easily. "Well, you seem to have gotten comfortable here, haven't you, Akira?"

"What do you want, you negro bitch?" snarled Akira in weak English.

"Racist slurs already?" asked Villetta, drawing up her file and setting it down. The case she'd brought in her other hand was on the table. "And here I am coming to help you."

"Meaning?" asked Akira.

"...The police have you here on charges of robbery and breaking and entering," said Villetta. She flipped through the file for effect. "You did this during the protests that have been cropping up lately. I have here an order for your execution." She smiled.

"Yeah, that's what I figured it would be," said Akira flatly. "So what?"

"I'd like to give you a chance to save yourself," said Villetta, taking out a sheet of paper and reading it. "The protests going on outside the Viceroy's Palace are a problem, and we need to break them up."

"Why not fire into them with a machine gun fire?" snapped Akira. "That's what you do to us elevens?"

"Yes, that would be our first reaction," said Villetta. "Unfortunately, the protestors are Britannian and growing. Such an act would be controversial, to say the least. If we opened fire on them unprovoked, it could be lethal to our reputation.

"Fortunately, they've been letting elevens, albeit Honorary Britanians, into their ranks.

"It's quite possible that terrorists might decide to infiltrate them and attack. If the protestors were massacred while the police defended themselves, well...

"That would be good cause to force them to disperse. For public safety."

"You want to murder your own kind?" asked Akira.

Villetta leaned forward and shoved the paper across the table. Let him think her a totally evil murderess; she was giving him what he wanted. "They're moderates and pacifists. I'm a Pureblood. They're not my kind." Then she opened the case and drew out two stacks of bills and set them down.

"I have here a thousand dollars and orders for your release. And I have here another two thousand, to be given to you once you complete this assignment." Villetta leaned back. "Of course, you'll have to escape in the confusion on your own; if you're caught by the police we'll have you shot."

"So, you want me to shoot a policeman, so you could kill a couple of hundred Britannians and their lapdogs?" laughed Akira, sounding like someone hearing something too good to be true. "And you're paying me for this?"

"Wiping out these protests benefits my faction and through them, me," said Villetta. "If you want to do it for free, I don't mind."

Akira glared at her. "...I'll take the money."

"Good," said Villetta. Then she motioned, and the two men she'd picked came through the door. They unlocked his handcuffs. As they did, Villetta shut the case and file and took them away. "These men are your probation officers. They'll accompany you until you get it done. Take the money and spend it on whatever you like. You'll be provided your weapon when it's time."

Akira snatched the money and moved out, escorted by the men. Villetta made her way out and met Kewell, who was watching. He eyed her. "...Are you really going to pay him for that?"

"Of course not," said Villetta. "We'll make a big show of his execution after the manhunt. But he hates us enough to do the job anyway."

"Well, either way, Jeremiah wants to talk with you," said Kewell. "He's got something else for you to deal with."

"Well, I guess I'm having a busy day, aren't I?" said Villetta, moving off.

"Go ahead and show your heritage, why don't you?" called Kewell after her.

Villetta suppressed her contempt for the man. Kewell was a living microcosm of the Pureblood faction worst elements. A young noble, he'd joined the military for glory, and been lucky enough to be part of the spearhead into Area 11. There Lord Jeremiah had won undying glory, while Kewell had merely followed orders.

Villetta had followed orders to and, in her mind, done a better job of it. So her, a half-breed, being at the same rank, was an unforgivable insult for Kewell.

Villetta just liked living in the man's head.


Lord Jeremiah's office was within the Viceroy's Palace. To get there, Villetta had been forced to take a side entrance. The protests seemed to be growing in number now; there were even a few reporters. Villetta made a mental note to arrange them to be absent on the day.

She had to take an elevator up to the lowest floor in the palace. There she entered, ignoring the dark looks of her compatriots. Being of African descent on one side was not something Villetta enjoyed. But, when she got into his office, she didn't get any such thing.

Lord Jeremiah was the leader of the Purebloods, but he also had a more ideological approach to purity. The man looked up and nodded as Villetta came forward. "Lord Jeremiah, you wanted to speak with me?"

"Yes, Villetta, I did," said Jeremiah. "We have a problem."

Villetta sat down and looked out the window to where the signs were being waved out the gates. "You mean the protests."

"More than that," said Jeremiah, passing her a folder. "Look at this."

Villetta opened it and looked through the pictures of a statue. It showed a Glasgow standing triumphant over a broken tank, guns raised. However, pictures had been posted all over the base of it. They were showing pictures of the remnants of a destroyed eleven settlement. Broken jars and shattered stands were all over it.

That again? Villetta had seen and heard all she'd ever wanted to about that massacre. That sort of thing happened all the time anyway.

"Zero has defaced the victory monument from the Conquest of Japan this time," said Jeremiah. "Pictures of those filthy elevens homes were posted all over it. Now we've got pacifists and moderates turning out in force to protest all over the Empire.

"There have also been several other instances of pictures cropping up.

"Copycats, from the looks of things. The pictures didn't have the same level of quality, and they aren't nearly as provocative."

Villetta checked the copycat pictures and saw what he meant. Zero's pictures were all set up to elicit emotion. They showed destroyed places where people once lived, now bloodstained beneath the twilight. Meanwhile, the others looked like they'd been snapped offhand in a driveby. Probably with a cell phone, and none of them were actually in the ghettos.

"And Prince Clovis wants us to take care of this, I take it?" mused Villetta.

"That is what I wish would happen," said Jeremiah. "Unfortunately, Bartley seems to think that Prince Clovis is better served by idiots. He's assigned one of his own men, Milner, from the Royal Guard to deal with it."

"Milner?" asked Villetta. "The man's a thug." His solution to every problem was to kick in an eleven's home and shoot them. He substituted brutality for investigation. He wouldn't even let the shoot the officers who performed that massacre. Even now, when they were just a liability.

Milner, like so many others, had been chosen for loyalty to Clovis. Or, if you were in the know, loyalty to Bartley.

Villetta didn't actually care about the massacre itself. But the police officers were worth more in prison than free at this point. Public perception was a valuable thing.

"I know," said Jeremiah. "He'll go out there and give the moderates even more ammunition without finding anyone. He'll shoot a bunch of the monkeys, call the case solved, and then let Zero walk away laughing."

"So what are we going to do?" asked Villetta.

"Officially, we're shipping out to the front lines," said Jeremiah. "The JLF has become far more aggressive since the protests started tying up the front lines. Prince Clovis is hoping for some victories to distract public attention.

"However, I want you to stay behind."

Villetta blinked. What? Why would Jeremiah be leaving her behind? Had she done something to endanger her career? "Me? But why?"

"Officially, it's because one of your parents was African," said Jeremiah. "In the eyes of Bartley, I don't trust you.

"In practice, you are going to stage an investigation of Ashford Academy."

"Why there?" asked Villetta.

"The pictures that went viral originally came from a school prank," said Jeremiah. "Some photographer, Zero I guess, caught sight of a police massacre on camera. They put it all over the walls of the school during the middle of the night. Then someone took a picture, and the rest is history.

"From the looks of things, whoever it was enjoys celebrity status. So they've been going for a repeat performance."

"Why didn't we realize this before?" asked Villetta.

"Because I only started working on the case this afternoon," replied Jeremiah. "Bartley is a scientist, Milner, a thug, and Clovis has other things to do."

"But surely Prince Clovis knows about this," said Rey.

"Of course he does," said Jeremiah. "However, staging an investigation of a school for nobles would be politically inconvenient. If Zero is there, then arresting him would make a scene, and he might be the son of someone important.

"Milner is dead wrong in assuming the monkeys came up with something this creative. But that doesn't matter because his plan doesn't pose any political risk, and won't upset the status quo.

Maintaining the status quo is the only thing Bartley cares about. He'd rather embrace a plan doomed to fail than admit dissent and endanger his experiments. So Bartley's just going to keep up the holding pattern and hope Zero goes away.

"If you want to know how that plan will work out, you can look out the window behind me."

"So how are we going to handle this?" asked Villetta.

"Well, fortunately, Prince Clovis is open to alternative solutions," said Jeremiah. "Zero is probably nothing more than a high school brat out of his depth. A one time prank we'd have tolerated, but now we'll take action. We'll find him, make some menacing noises to shut him up, then pick an appropriate scapegoat.

"But first, we have to find him.

"I want you to start your investigation right away. Reuban Ashford has been asked to cooperate, and the man is going to. He wants to get his title back, and Kewell should be enough for me to deal with the JLF."

Villetta nodded. "Yes, Lord Jeremiah."


This was a real chance for power and prestige, Villetta realized.

If she could resolve all this, she might come to Clovis' attention. Villetta was already practically Jeremiah's righthand, but why should she stop there? If she kept going at this rate, she might even be made a noble. Or failing that, Prince Clovis had never chosen a Knight to serve him directly.

Villetta had a respectable record, and she was a very beautiful woman.

But for now, Viletta had to stay calm and focused.

Reuban Ashford was an old man with long white hair and a bald patch. He looked across the table at Villetta, who did her best to appear humble within Ashford Academy. She had nothing to gain by antagonizing him or throwing her weight around.

"Reuban Ashford, I'm very thankful you could meet with me," said Villetta with a nod.

"Yes, well, I can hardly afford to refuse a meeting with a member of the Pureblood faction," said Reuban. "Many of my own students have parents who are part of it.

"So, how may I help you, Ms. Villetta Nu?"

Villetta paused, considering how best to approach the situation. "Forgive me for being blunt, but there isn't an easy way to say this. We have reason to believe that a member of the student body started the recent disturbances."

"You mean the recent display in the halls?" asked Ashford, who was a moderate.

"Yes," said Villetta. "No doubt you've heard of the protests, they are disrupting business a great deal. Prince Clovis has actually been put under pressure to declare the protests as riots. If that happens, violence could break out in the settlement.

"The Pureblood Faction desires a return to normalcy before the situation can escalate. We don't want any Britannian bloodshed over a misunderstanding."

Ashford eyed her, and Villetta remembered that this man was a member of the moderates. Had she come on too strong or too weak? "Do you have an opinion on the content of the pictures?" asked Ashford suddenly.

"Although regrettable, violence is a common occurrence in the ghetto," said Villetta. "The police are often forced to be ruthless. Taking their actions out of context as Zero did is bringing harm to our society."

"Perhaps," said Ashford doubtfully. "What exactly is it you want?"

"I'd like to take a look at the student records if you don't mind," said Villetta. "I have a warrant to that end."

Ashford paused. "...I'm in no position to refuse you."

"We appreciate your cooperation," said Villetta. "Could you show me the records? And I'll also need all your security records and other matters."

"Of course," said Ashford.

And so began the research.

And it was miserable. Ashford was kind enough to provide Villetta with some coffee, and it was very good. Still, the record room was poorly lit. Flipping through records of brats while watching video feed was not high drama.

"Uh, this is the absolute worse," muttered Villetta to herself. "Well, I can probably discard most of the military brats for a start. Moderates, pacifists, I could be working at this for a month and find nothing. Let's see, whoever it is got in when the academy was locked down for the night.

"Although they could have jigged the lock."

The Villetta realized something. She'd watched the entire night on fast forward and hadn't run into anything. There were no pictures on the walls at the end, and checking the date, she realized the footage had been misfiled. It was actually from the previous day.

In frustration, she checked the night that she'd come from and found the footage wasn't there.

Had it gotten lost? Or just copied over?

Well, that was one easy way out. Villetta doubted Reuban was going to help her anymore. Chance are he more or less approved of the protests and would want to make her job as miserable as possible. The worst part was that he was the only one who could press charges about the school break-in.

So that was one possible crime out.

Villetta took a break and ate lunch, checking the news while she did so. As she did, she watched a program. It was about Jeremiah and the Purebloods conducting operations in the Narita Mountains. Clovis had actually located the JLF's areas of operation years ago. However, he was purely concerned with day to day operations. A concerted invasion wasn't considered worth the effort when you could bottle them up.

Finally, Villetta finished her meal, vegetarian, of course. Then she made her way to a window, pushing aside the blinds to look at the campus below. It was actually quite nice; she'd have liked to go to school in a place like this.

"Well, that's a dead-end," said Villetta with a sigh. "What now?"

Then she glanced down and saw something. There was a pretty, orange-haired girl handing out stacks of pamphlets. The people taking them were several other girls. Glancing at them, Villetta saw the girls rushing out during lunch break. One of them offering a pamphlet to someone passing by, and he took it.

"Pamphlets?" mused Villetta.

Then it clicked. Someone was advocating a cause, and Villetta had a feeling she knew what it was.

It was at this point that Villetta realized the girl was making her way out of the school. If she disappeared, Villetta could lose her lead. Quickly, she opened the window, pushed aside the screen, and dropped down onto the lawn. Racing up to the girl, she got to her just as she was opening a door to another building.

"Excuse me, girl, who are you?" asked Villetta.

"Oh, I'm Shirley Fenette, nice to meet you, Ms..." began Shirley, eyeing her like a crazy person.

"Villetta Nu," said Villeta. "Can I ask what you're doing? I mean, those pamphlets you handed out?"

"Oh these, um, the recent prank in Ashford Academy made us realize how bad things are in the ruins," said Shirley. Right, they hadn't yet changed the language so they were called ghettos. "So we've been doing research on things and trying to raise awareness of how things are working out.

"Do you want one?"

Villetta looked at the pamphlet and took it. "...Yes, I'll take one." She flipped through it and realized it was quite complete. "These pictures are from the pictures that went viral aren't they?"

"Some of them," said Shirley. "But Madam President has had us taking pictures of the ghetto from the highway. Like this one, Rivalz put it up."

"Wait, you'd just admit to that?!" said Villetta, incredulously.

"Yeah," said Shirley, looking confused. "Why wouldn't I? Prince Clovis likes numbers that serve the Empire. And the people who were killed weren't terrorists. And it's not like I'm doing anything illegal."

Villetta... didn't actually have an answer to that. She was used to a world where the nobles got what they wanted; law be damned. Being limited by the law was a new experience for her. Clovis could send in a SWAT team to seize the Student Council. But doing so would alienate the entire nobility and could wreck his aspirations. Anyone who wanted to become Emperor someday would need that support.

So he wouldn't.

Which meant the Student Council could keep the national policy with impunity. Well, maybe this wouldn't spread-

"So I got these pictures from Babel Tower of this guy. He was exploiting his female employees," said a student as he walked by. "I posted them online and got like a million likes. Now all these other people are coming out with all these stories of what a scumbag he is!

"Classic, right? Justice is served!"

Okay, so it was spreading. Villetta looked around. "I uh...

"I need to go make a phone call."

Villetta fled the field. Rushing to a place where she was alone, she drew out her cell phone and made a call. There was an answer, and Jeremiah picked up. "Villetta, I wasn't expecting a call this soon."

"Lord Jeremiah, we have a problem," said Villetta.

"What is it?" asked Jeremiah.

"This investigation is totally pointless," said Villetta simply.

"What do you mean?" asked Jeremiah.

"Well, there is no law against taking pictures," said Villetta. "There's no law against showing them to other people. The only crime that has been committed is breaking into the school, and even if we catch Zero, it doesn't matter. Reuban is sympathetic to the protests and isn't going to press charges.

"And it's all a moot point at this stage."

"What do you mean?" asked Jeremiah.

"The Student Council is distributing pamphlets to raise awareness," said Villetta. "One of them, Shirley Fenette, flat out admitted it to my face, and people are reading them. She's already got a posse of friends distributing them on the field.

"We have nothing to arrest them for, and they're doing Zero's work.

"And even if we catch Zero in the act and throw him in jail, he'll be a martyr. At the end of the day, his supporters won't care about putting pictures on monuments. It'll do more harm than good the way things stand."

Jeremiah remained silent for a moment. "I see your point.

"Killing the messenger isn't so important as killing the message. Fine then, we need to discredit what's going on here. Your solution to the protests should solve immediate propaganda. As for the ideological war, I've got some recommendations for Prince Clovis. We should publicize the destruction of the base near Narita.

"Give Mr. Reid something worthwhile to talk about. We can interview some of the people who lost family there. Tell some sob stories for the tabloids."

"How will that help?" asked Villetta, curious.

"Because it will turn a fad into sabotage," said Jeremiah. "Once it becomes clear that Zero's actions have led to the deaths of soldiers. No one will mind an arrest. Clovis can make a show of mercy; then we find the mastermind.

"By that time, tragedy strikes the protests; this movement will be well and truly dead."

"Alright, so what do you want me to do?" asked Villetta.

"Continue your investigation. But try to find something that would make a good story," said Jeremiah. "Some angry youth responding to past trauma or failing that, someone with an identity crisis. Maybe they've got number blood; I don't know.

"They need to be bad, but not so bad that people won't feel warm fuzzy feelings when they are pardoned. We don't even need the real Zero, just somebody who could pass for him."

Villetta blinked in surprise and realized how pragmatic Lord Jeremiah was. "...Lord Jeremiah, did you ever consider going into media before you went into the military?"

"I made an oath of loyalty once, so I don't think it would be a very good fit," laughed Jeremiah. "Just find Zero, and then we'll decide to do once we do."

And that was how Villetta went back to the student records and flipped through them. This time she was looking, not for Zero, but for a story. Information on each one was weak, Villetta doubted much of it was accurate. It was mind-bendingly dull, and it was made worse when she ran out of coffee.

Then something stuck in Villetta's mind.

It was a picture of a beautiful, red-headed girl with amazing grades, even though she was hardly ever in class. Villetta had gone through classes on facial structure as part of her education. Kallen Stadtfeld's was not a pure Britannian, even if her record said otherwise. It was something about her eyes, and the vacant expression she put forward didn't match up with her grades.

She had also recently joined the Student Council.

"Kallen Stadtfeld," mused Villetta, looking over it. "Usually absent from class for long periods due to a wasting sickness. Has an exemption from PE." Quickly Villetta decided to find her and stood up, making her way out to the courtyard. There she saw Kallen Stadtfeld in her school uniform.

The girl had a very nice figure, and her bared legs were toned and athletic—hardly that of a frail, ill girl. Observing from the doorway, she saw Kallen being talked at by other girls. And then a bee appeared out of the nearby bushes. The other girls scattered and ran away, crying in fear. Meanwhile, Kallen looked around in surprise. As if she was putting so much effort into an act that she couldn't account for the unexpected.

As a delayed reaction, Kallen broke and ran away, before being followed by the bee. Then, when everyone else had fled, Kallen struck. Her hand shot through the air and knocked the bee dead.

Then Kallen went back to eating her sandwich.

Villetta realized she might just have a lead. She smiled and faded into the shadow of the school before anyone saw her. "Kallen Stadtfeld. Well now, it looks like I'm going to have to investigate her. Won't I?"