OR1-EP4: Prelude to the Millennium (7)

While McNeil had guessed that the protests would interfere with normal life, he hadn't, for the life of him, anticipated that these disruptions would coincide with yet another workers' strike. The workers who had given up resistance to the bayonets and bullets of the defense forces once again saw an opportunity to disrupt the roads leading from the Transvaal, Orange, and other places to the northern Rhodesia region once again. This was bad news for McNeil, who was planning to go to Rhodesia to meet Adalbert Herzog; he didn't have his own limousine, and since public transportation had been interrupted, he had to find another way to get to Rhodesia to meet with an acquaintance.

Young men in leather tops strolled aimlessly through the streets, lined with people holding banners and signs that read Indigenous Lives Matter.

"All lives matter." McNeil muttered and continued on his way. The weather was getting colder, and the clothes he had on hand were barely enough to keep out the cold. He was too lazy to spend money on extra clothes and planned to wait until winter descended. Looking at the young people who came out to participate in the demonstration in their thin clothes, McNeil felt from the bottom of his heart that he had grown old. Though he had regained the body of a young man, within that shell was an old and decaying soul, and he wondered when he would be able to rekindle the fighting spirit within him. He thinks he has lived again, but as a new storm sweeps around him, he finally realizes that he never regained the courage of his youth.

A young man with an exploding head took him by the shoulders from behind.

"Sir, are we wrong?"

"No problem, no problem." McNeil turned his head to look at the youths holding signs behind him, "But there's an injustice - I mean, all lives matter, and it's wrong to emphasize only one side." He pointed to the youths' chests, and then to the others behind him with varying expressions, "None of you are indigenous, is it any wonder that you all don't think your own lives are important?"

"We didn't mean that-" the youths were about to argue when McNeil was already walking away. He continued down the street and found Adalbert's car near the cafe on the side of the road. Major Herzog, dressed as an ordinary citizen, was sitting in the driver's seat with his eyes closed, and he didn't wake up until McNeil knocked on the window.

Adalbert Herzog unlocked the door and motioned for McNeil to take the passenger seat.

"You see?"

"I can't believe His Excellency would run away on vacation at this hour." There was a hint of complaint in McNeil's tone, "He knows exactly what kind of environment South Africa is currently in, yet he turns his back on the responsibility he should have."

"It's a common method of getting two difficult enemies to fight to the death first." Major Herzog looked out the window at the passing parade, "McNeil, His Excellency greatest fear is the rallying of all his opponents. Cases of temporarily putting aside hatred in order to defeat a common enemy have occurred many times in history, leaders with a little wisdom have learned to compromise, those who don't know how to back down will be eliminated in the first round of testing."

The two biggest threats to South Africa in McNeil's eyes exist: the natives and the African Britannians. By the looks of it, Governor-general Herzog was determined to suppress the latter, even though he himself was the leader of the African Britannians. In terms of status alone, Governor-general Herzog was certainly closer to those powerful people from Europe than to the Britannians, who had long been regarded as second-class citizens. Today, the Britannians are still holding on to their last hope for Governor-general Herzog, and so far, the protests have been directed against the natives, who are considered slaves by the Britannians, rather than against Governor-general Herzog himself.

But once Governor-general Herzog has completely lost the trust of the Britannians, who will these people turn to? They identified with the EU simply because it placed them in a position of dominance over the natives, and if even that psychological comfort disappeared, the Britannians would have to face the desperate reality that they had been overtaken by the natives. Of course, McNeil does not believe that the natives are capable of achieving a higher average social status than the Britannians, however there will always be exceptions to the rule, and the Britannians will then only believe that it is the unjust rulings of the EU that have harmed them.

"... They will say that it was the EU that favored the natives who should have been eliminated as the weaker ones. They will argue that only strongest should rule the country, as advocated by Emperor Charles, is the truth." Adalbert Herzog and McNeil came to the same conclusion.

The Major put his hands on the steering wheel and craned his head to look aside at McNeil.

"Don't think about that for a moment. Where are you planning to go?"

"The cemetery."

After the melee that took place in Rhodesia, the army was eager to destroy all traces of it; no one wanted the outside world to learn of their crimes. Since these unseemly mercenaries had died in the north, it was best for them to rot there and go up in smoke along with the headache-inducing natives. But not everyone could be so heartless as to do harm, and there were some upright officers who insisted that those mercenaries were heroes in the defense of South Africa, and that they deserved a better end. And so it was that the defense forces, for their part, hastily decided to build an unmarked tombstone in a nearby cemetery to be counted as a burial place for those men.

Only those who knew the inside story would understand for whom the tombstone was built. The reporters whose muscles moved faster than their brains only knew that the defense forces were on a killing spree in the North, and didn't realize that there had once been another task force here that went behind enemy lines to make money. That was a good thing for McNeil, who knew in his heart that what they were doing at the time wasn't something to be applauded, but he'd much rather not have the dead dug up and flogged out of the ground by journalists who were just trying to catch the audience's eye.

"Tell you the good news." Major Herzog, who was preoccupied with driving, didn't notice the expression on McNeil's face, "The troops sent from the mainland there to maintain order will be arriving soon. These are Scotsmen, naturally hostile to the Britannians, and when the time comes, they're guaranteed to clean up these northern clowns."

"It's been almost two hundred years since Scotland gained its independence, and I can't imagine they've been hostile to the English and Britannians until now." McNeil lamented.

"Some of the fear is caused by artificial propaganda, but that's irrelevant to us." Major Herzog wasn't worried about these Scotsmen turning on him personally, "A really smart man knows what face to put on for what occasion, it's basic survival common sense."

The car moved slowly through the congested streets towards the cemetery. Some citizens had the audacity to block off the main road in an attempt to paralyze the city's traffic. While the African Britannians believed that the Governor-general was indulging in a Native backlash, the Natives and those whites of European descent who supported the Natives likewise believed that the Governor-general was tacitly approving of the Britannians' campaign of violence. The Governor-general, caught in a dilemma by the situation, was forced to strike equally hard at both sides, a move that probably intensified the confrontation between the three parties. This was another reason for Governor-general Herzog to call for reinforcements from Scotland: outsiders who had no scruples here were best suited to act as hitmen.

If there was barely the appearance of a normal city here, those areas controlled by the African Britannians had become independent kingdoms. These citizens had rallied spontaneously and with the assistance of the police and soldiers who supported them had refused to be administered by the South African authorities, a dangerous act which had not been stopped in time by Governor-general Herzog. The Governor-general, who was sensitive to any intelligence, should have perceived this provocation at the first opportunity and attacked it in public, but the Governor-general's present behavior made it impossible to guess his real intentions, as if he were at one moment the savior of the natives, and at another time the leader of the Britannians.

The limousine pulled up in front of the entrance to the cemetery's administration, and neither man offered to open the door.

"I've heard the army hasn't been very stable lately."

"Correct." Adalbert admitted the fact openly, "Splits are occurring widely in all units, disagreements between commanders and soldiers, and I suspect the Rhodesian Garrison is out of control."

"It's suicidal." McNeil repeated twice, "They know what they'll get for doing this. Forget about rebelling against the EU, they're not even a match for the Governor-general. Even if the Governor-general falls, the other Colonial Commissions won't just sit back and do nothing."

"I also wonder why these smart guys are uncharacteristically proactive in giving others excuses." Adalbert was puzzled, "The worst that can happen is nothing more than an armed rebellion, and then we will have sacrificed many people in the war ... and it will be worth it."

Adalbert spoke painlessly of armed rebellion, and McNeil was surprised to hear elation in his words. It must have been Major Herzog's belief that launching an armed rebellion would best expose those potentially hostile forces, and that the enemy would suffer an unprecedentedly severe blow when the rebellion was thwarted. But what counted the soldiers and civilians who were thus victimized in an insurgency? As McNeil pondered this point seriously, he was horrified to realize that he had actually developed expectations as well. He was a soldier, a commander and a hero, and a true weapon of war. Only war could reflect his value; he was born for war. If the world was at peace, McNeil's fate was to be eliminated by the tide of the times.

"Isn't ... the Governor-general long ago-"

"McNeil, my father may have been dreaming of returning to Europe and taking Fontainebleau." Major Herzog frowned and shivered as he tugged at the zipper on his sweater collar, "But he'll always see South Africa as his home, and he wouldn't do anything to jeopardize his countrymen. Believe me, if even I don't know him, no one else in the world can read his mind."

Both of them opened their car doors at the same time and headed outside. This cemetery had the citizens of the surrounding area interred in it, and few prominent people would choose this place. Sometimes, those kind-hearted citizens would pool their money to send unattached vagabonds here as the final resting place for their wandering and undefined lives.

There were only a few citizens wandering around the cemetery, who must have come to pay their respects to their loved ones.

"I heard about the pension." The Major showed McNeil the way, "You handled it well. Those family members were obedient, none of them dared to leak that information to the press."

"Grief has ruled their hearts, unless they only see their loved ones as tools." McNeil sighed, "However, I've seen many dregs of society who don't care about the lives of their loved ones and only want to take the opportunity to make a large sum of money."

The two men arrived at the cemetery and scrutinized the unmarked headstone. There were no additional carvings or decorations on the headstone, just a black slab of stone with over a hundred numerical numbers densely engraved on the front and back. This, McNeil knew, was the end of the mercenaries who had come to South Africa with dreams of making a lot of money. They died like sand in the wind and no one would care.

Adalbert Herzog stood in front of the headstone and stood at attention to salute it.

"I don't have the heart to apologize to you, you should have thought about what would happen to you when you decided to do this." Major Herzog lowered his right hand, "But I remember the oath I took when I joined the army: that I would make it possible for our next generation to choose the arts and sciences instead of being forced to go to the trenches. I can't even promise that the same thing as you guys won't happen again ..."

He reached out with his right hand and tapped the top of the headstone, gesturing to McNeil.

Michael McNeil came to the headstone and gazed at the numbers without a word. A person could be replaced by a set of numbers, and a group of people was nothing more than a statistic. To the high and mighty governors and high commissioners, people were tools, resources. And in the Britannian Empire, people didn't even have either of those functions.

"... That, I can't afford to feed your family for the rest of your lives, I'm very sorry."

He felt his knees shaking a bit, perhaps from the recent cold. McNeil's mind drifted back to the faces with their varying expressions, the desperation and helplessness of the families as they heard the news, and the numbness and indifference as they accepted the check. He thought of himself as a man of integrity, and he could do nothing in the face of it all.

"There are still some people whose families have not been found. I'll give them an account one by one when I'm done with this matter at hand."

McNeil raised his right hand heavily and closed his eyes. What would Chandra have thought before the ship crashed to the ground? Would General Harkin have watched the missile hit the Philadelphia space station? All men are equal when death comes, and death shows no mercy.

"Come on, we have a lot of work to do." Adalbert Herzog looked at his watch, "Don't delay business."

Governor-general Herzog had given McNeil a mission through Adalbert. The plan to violently collect the guns of the local armed civilians in Rhodesia had sort of failed, and the Governor-general wanted to stall the other side's actions as long as possible, such as getting another group of citizens to arm themselves as well. Specifically, McNeil was told to walk the pro-indigenous side of the parade in support of radical violence and provide those people with weapons.

"And what if both groups suddenly decide to take up arms in their hands and overthrow him together?"

"... You're daydreaming, aren't you?"

TBC

Chapter Notes:

The United Nations was never born, and there is no decolonization initiative. If the EU retreats from Africa, the Chinese Federation will take advantage of the situation.

The novelization of Code Geass: Akito the Exiled depicts the EU as overly outrageous. Every EU autonomous republic here is indifferent to the invasion of their homeland, contributes nothing to the war, and only hastily resists the Imperial forces when they begin to invade, whereupon the Empire amounts to wiping out the EU by taking the republics one by one.

Nothing more, presumably the Japanese also believed they could defeat the United States of America by going one-on-one dual with each of its dozens of states.