OR1-EP4: Prelude to the Millennium (19)

Let's start by going back in time to two hours before Michael McNeil discovered Andreas Darlton.

As European colonizers continued to explore the vast expanse of Africa, the rich resources of the land immediately caught their attention. The harsh environment of Africa prevented the formation of giant cities like those famous historical capitals in mainland Europe or East Asia under natural economic conditions, which posed a problem for the colonizers to settle. The Industrial Revolution and the rapid growth of productivity offered a possible new model of development: relying on local minerals, Europeans opened factories and built industries, sending a steady stream of raw materials to neighboring colonies or to Europe itself, while outsiders imported products to the colonies. Since then, the inhabitants of South Africa have considered this status quo to be natural, and as long as trade between the colony and mainland Europe is not cut off, even though the necessities of life are still dependent on the outside world for their supply, these are ultimately only minor problems that money can solve.

Once a prosperous and fertile land, Rhodesia is now about to experience a bloodbath. The African Britannians, who have been reaping the rewards of their natural resources for a long time, have shown their true colors, ignoring the fact that they have been relying on the natives of the region for more than a hundred years to live a prosperous life, and have arbitrarily decided that they can get out of their current predicament by wiping out the natives that have been seizing the resources. As a result, the South African authorities, who were trying to mediate between the two sides, and who were indeed favoring the indigenous side in some respects, were inexplicably seen as enemies. The South African leadership, including Governor-general Herzog, were not good people, and they simply thought that there was more to be gained by assisting the natives - an answer that McNeil came to realize later. Nonetheless, the African Britannians could not tolerate even this minimal concession, and they were even more irredeemable than the Governor-general and the increasingly corrupt EU.

Nito Mariam parked his car in front of the gate and eyed the guards who patrolled back and forth. They had managed to muddle through with McNeil's foxy tone and demeanor, but their ability to blend into the chemical plant with this skill had yet to be tested by reality. His eyes were a little blurry, and he was only able to judge the movements of the guards by the shifts in light and shadow.

"They were blind to send you as an assassin." McNeil leisurely pulled out a few cards from his purse, "You, of all people, can only kill your employers with the convenience of your status. If they ask you to fulfill some more dangerous tasks, you will fall into the roadside trench and drown yourself because you can't see well."

"That kind of demoralizing talk is better left unsaid; we're on the same side, Mr. McNeil." Nito Mariam wasn't about to actively expose his target. Until they figured out a strategy to deal with this group of guards, they couldn't afford to have the guards realize something unusual was going on here and come forward to check out the situation.

They might be able to get past the inspections on the highway with no surprises, but near the chemical plant, no one could be easily fooled. An accident at the chemical plant could be a smokescreen used by the African Britannians to keep the public in the dark, or it could be that the situation was so critical that it was impossible to control public opinion, and McNeil didn't dare take a gamble on the matter. If he lost the gamble, he would be hitching not only his own life and that of Nito Mariam's, but also those of the residents of the neighborhood.

"The price of necessity ..." he muttered to himself, "what is necessary?"

"Man, it's time for you to talk about our ploy." Nito Mariam reclined in the seat in front of him, "The police won't let us into the scene of the accident, even if we are officers of the colony's governing body."

"I know." McNeil was still rummaging through his briefcase for his magic props, "So we have to convince ourselves: we are the people here. Owners or cleaners, we first have to convince ourselves of the forged identities so we can figure out how to deceive others."

The news that the public was told was that there had been a fire at the chemical plant. Similar accidents have not been uncommon in the past, and it is not at all worth anyone's surprise to see an accident at a factory in their name, whether it be a European entrepreneur or a local African entrepreneur. If they create an accident that causes enough panic, the public's fear will be enough to set off a boycott of the entire EU, and even the most powerful businessmen will have to think twice before acting. As long as the calamity didn't come to them, most people would selectively forget about these elephants in the same room as themselves.

Nito Mariam opened the car door, put on his white gloves, and walked very gentlemanly toward the guards. The similarly modeled suits showed the opposite effect on him and McNeil, with the former looking like he was wearing tights and the latter looking like a child who had stolen an adult's clothes - even though Nito Mariam had already been tortured in various prisons, he still had a physique capable of intimidating people. The guards saw a strong black man suddenly appear in front of them, and even though they knew that no one would dare to attack the police officers blocking the chemical plant in broad daylight, they still felt a little fear inside. People would always cower in the face of characters who appeared to be stronger than them, especially when the contrast manifested itself especially visually.

The black driver, wearing a pair of sunglasses, walked up to the guards, and asked in a calm tone:

"This place is on lockdown, right? So, may I ask when will you lift the blockade?"

The guards stole a glance at the limousine behind the driver, guessing that there was probably some big shot sitting inside. They were just minor characters running errands for other people, and if the price for abiding by their duties was to offend bigwigs with their hands full, then they might as well take the opportunity to sell the bigwigs a favor, so that they could later brag about meeting certain socialites who were on TV.

"Do you need to do something?" One of the guards politely asked back.

"Me? I'm not doing anything." The black driver put on that usual sheepishness and caution when confronted with Europeans, "It's just that ... my master has business to attend to, you see ..."

Even among slaves there was such a thing as a master's will, not to mention the fact that the natives were at the moment legal citizens in the EU and not slaves. After seeing the driver's attitude, the guards hesitated, they couldn't say the identity of the other party, they neither dared to speculate nor venture to cross-examine. Yes, it was true that there would be a group of bigwigs coming here to inspect today, but the chemical plant had already been in danger, and it was unknown whether those people's itinerary would be changed. Perhaps the owner of this sedan was one of those big shots, then they couldn't afford to offend the executioner-merchants of the Rifle Association whose hands were stained with the blood of the black, white, and yellow-brown races at this critical moment.

Nito Mariam walked quickly to the car, knocked on the window and said something to McNeil in the back seat. A few minutes later, McNeil, also wearing sunglasses, got out of the car, and moved to the front of the blockade. He slid his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose slightly and scanned the guards, who had varying expressions, from above. He was also speculating on the other man's motives; had there been an accident here, or was the Rifle Association attempting to cover up their true intentions with an accident? Either way it was possible, McNeil couldn't take it lightly, his priority was to act out the play with Nito Mariam and successfully blend in before he was done.

"I can't believe this accident happened." McNeil didn't even look the guards in the eye, he just peered behind the blockade, "Is the fire under control? Have the workers been evacuated? When will the fire department arrive?"

"I don't think the schedule will be affected too much if you plan to come here for your inspection as planned." The guards said in a chorus, "But there did appear to be some accidents here ... To be on the safe side, we have evacuated the workers."

If there was indeed an arsenal in this chemical plant, the fact that the guards or the Rifle Association were able to evacuate the workers instead safely and boldly of letting them continue to work overtime (and that there was the possibility of leaks from the workers who left) could only mean that their plans for the insurgency had reached the point where they were about to surface, and that whether or not the preparatory aspects had been sabotaged was no longer relevant. McNeil squeezed the coin in his pants pocket uneasily as he pondered how to get two birds with one stone.

"When did the fire start?" He increased his tone slightly so as to create a sense of oppression in the guard's mind.

"Yesterday night." The guards replied, "Don't worry, the goods had already been sent away by then."

The cargo had already been sent away. It had long been a known fact that the security system in the Rhodesian region was in cahoots with these African Britannian merchants. The guard could have meant that the dangerous goods ostensibly produced by the chemical plant had been sent away, or it could have meant that the last shipment of weapons had been sent away. The guards assumed that McNeil, an inner circle, understood what was going on better than they did, and McNeil must not expose his ignorance in front of them. Otherwise, he would have to resort to force to kill his way out, and then all plans would all fall apart, and no one would get anything of value out of it.

It was up to him to convince himself that he was the figure with the corresponding status and majesty, and to convince the others of that as well.

"I should go in and see what's going on without delay." McNeil said in a tone that brooked no argument, "Wait here a moment."

Nito Mariam drove the car in front of the group, and McNeil volunteered that they search everything in the car. As it turned out, the guards were a little wary instead, pushing back and showing their reluctance to search such a high-class sedan, but in the past, they were used to just pressing down and searching suspicious-looking persons after forcing them to a stop directly on the highway.

"I don't want you to be cornered." McNeil said at length to the guards, who were his age, "I know that your job is to prevent people from passing through here. That being the case, none of the formalities that should be done should be missing."

After saying that, McNeil took the briefcase out of the car, opened it in front of the guards, and took out the contents one by one for the guards to inspect. The guards panicked, discouraging Nito Mariam, who was about to open the trunk, and explaining to McNeil that they didn't really have that strict of a vetting procedure. It was only after the guards had exhausted their talent of speech that they were able to get McNeil to give up the idea of putting all of his belongings on display.

"You don't have to be so serious ...," the sweaty guards were practically incoherent, "Go on in! Perhaps you are a shareholder here ..."

McNeil nodded in satisfaction, greeted Nito Mariam as he loaded the clutter back into the car, and got in. The car took off, the guards covered in a thick layer of dirt and dust. They watched with envy as the car entered the factory, from time to time looking regretfully at the uniforms on each other that symbolized duty and poverty, and sighed helplessly. If eating the dust brought up by the luxury car could make them rich overnight, they would have cleaned the car cleaner than a car wash.

"Young and promising!" A guard said half-jealously, "If I had that much money ..."

"Hell, where would you have that kind of money? In another life?"

Instead, Michael McNeil and Nito Mariam drove their car into the factory and were not stopped along the way, apparently the workers had indeed been evacuated. Michael McNeil couldn't help but feel thankful, if those guards were carrying metal detectors or similar devices, they would never have been able to blend in easily. According to the pre-arranged plan, they were to investigate and collect evidence, focusing on obtaining decisive evidence that the African Britannians or the Rifle Association were using the chemical plant as a cover to manufacture weapons and ammunition. With no guards willing to stay in the plant until the fire department arrived due to the dangerous situation in the plant, the two men followed the map to the vicinity of the office building and began to discuss their options.

"The data on goods and materials coming in and out can only be taken as circumstantial evidence." McNeil pointed to a warehouse off to the side, "Assuming we can find the weapons they're stockpiling, they won't be able to escape their crime anyway."

"That's right." Nito Mariam agreed, "But since the reactor over there is still burning, what should we do if there's an accident?"

"Since they don't care, there's no need for us to care." McNeil said firmly, "We'll just pack up the evidence while conducting an ambush at the main gate. We'll evacuate as soon as the mission is accomplished. As for whether or not this damn thing will have a big explosion and how many people will be killed, it's none of our business."

However, what the guards were saying might just be the truth: the warehouse was empty, and the two men found nothing. Violently breaking into the office and accessing the statistics could spell trouble, so McNeil improvised another plan to sabotage the surveillance system. He drove his car around the corner, opened the hood to hide the cameras, then disguised himself as a factory worker in pre-prepared clothes and waltzed into a nearby factory building, then gradually approached the office building by following the walls of the building. Meanwhile, Nito Mariam broke the glass outside in order to confuse the public. Half an hour later, McNeil climbed down from above with a video camera, returned to the vicinity of the car, changed his clothes, and, continuing to pretend to be a businessman who had come to inspect the plant, conversed with the driver about what he had seen.

"They probably realized the danger coming, and we can't get anything but these forms." McNeil shook the book in his hand, "But it's better than nothing, and it's better to have evidence than to catch a glimpse."

"You white people are really hooking up with each other." It was Nito Mariam's turn to taunt McNeil.

"And you're starting to kill each other over concepts we've made up." McNeil's left eyebrow arched upwards in a look that was half helpless and half sympathetic.

"You're-"

Realizing that now was not the time for infighting, Nito Mariam dutifully obeyed McNeil's command to pull into a nearby empty warehouse and, dressed as a janitor, began to plant the sakuradite bomb. McNeil would snipe from the safe zone - that is, the workers' quarters - and the blast would not reach him. In any case, the members of the Riflemen's Association who had come to this place were certain to die, and they could never hope to get away with it, and McNeil had enough evidence of his crimes in his hands for Governor-general Herzog to officially declare that there was a rebel force in Rhodesia.

That is, if Governor-general Herzog quickly resolves the hold the Assembly has on him.

There was a fire going on inside the chemical plant, and even if outsiders noticed an apparent sakuradite explosion here, perhaps they could delude themselves that it was the result of a reactor explosion. Those who slipped through the cracks would be eliminated one by one by McNeil's sniper rifles, the fiends who ordered the assassination of Jorge Dias for their own selfish purposes, who undermined Governor-general Herzog's cause of defending the rights of the natives, and who brazenly fomented rebellion in the already bitterly conflicted South Africa, the demons of the ten evils.

But when McNeil saw Darton, as a Britannian officer, among that line of men, he was somewhat shaken. There was no doubt that Emperor Charles had once again torn up an agreement, or that Emperor Charles had no intention of keeping any agreement at all. The Britannian Intelligence Agency was still active in South Africa, and since Darlton was hanging out with people from the Rifle Association, he thought that the Rifle Association must have long been an important den used by the Britannia Empire to infiltrate South Africa. He couldn't shoot, he had to watch these people walk into the trap step by step, and then kill them with a single blow at the most opportune moment.

"There's no time." Nito Mariam reminded him, "When exactly do we detonate?"

McNeil put his right index finger on the trigger. Andreas Darlton's head appeared amongst the crosshairs, the officer with a scar across his face was dressed in a businessman's suit and was laughing and joking with the bigwigs of the Rifle Association on the sidelines.

"Now."

Almost at the instant of the great explosion, McNeil pulled the trigger. Immediately he left the window and hid in a corner, waiting for the mind-shattering shockwave to die down completely. A dozen seconds later, he poked his head out of the window once more, opened his infrared scope, and searched the sea of flames for the still-running figure. McNeil had ordered Nito Mariam not to move, so any target in view was an enemy, just kill it on sight. He skillfully cracked the head of one of the fleeing fellows, and sent another businessman, who was on fire, to an early grave. After he had fired his fifth round, McNeil realized that there were no more targets in his field of view, so he put away his sniper rifle and prepared to return the way he had come. At that moment, there was another sudden explosion, and caught off guard, McNeil took immediate evasive action with conditioned instincts and waited about two more minutes before coming to the stairway. He watched the distant plant through the window here, and it appeared that the reactor, which had not been properly handled by the guards in the first place, had had a near miss on a much larger scale in the party's explosion.

Michael McNeil ran quickly to the bottom of the building as a round grazed his shirt, leaving a scar on his left arm. He quickly ducked back into the building, allowing the other side to fire at will into the area and not return fire. Guessing that the other man didn't have an explosive weapon, McNeil had his dagger at the ready, and as soon as the man dared to appear in the doorway, McNeil would simply slit his throat.

"Unidentified gunman, step forward or I'll shoot him now." Darlton's voice came from outside. Though the voice was faint amidst the crackling and burning, McNeil heard the other man and drew his pistol from his belt, taking one step at a time out the door of the dormitory building. Nito Mariam, as strong as a buffalo, was being held hostage by Darlton, who had a pistol pointed at his head and was sneering as he faced McNeil, who had stepped out of the bunker.

"It's you."

"It's you?" Darlton increased his strength and Nito Mariam gasped as he was strangled, "I remember you; I can't believe you're still alive."

"It seems your Emperor's Majesty has broken faith." McNeil didn't dare to slack off for a moment, he took aim at Darlton and was nervously thinking of a strategy to free his teammate as fast as possible and at the least cost, "But he promised us that he would withdraw his intelligence officers in South Africa and stop infiltration activities as long as the EU would support him in the war for the throne."

Darlton laughed out loud as he gritted his teeth and looked at McNeil, replying in a slightly sad tone:

"As a matter of common sense, that's what happened. But the brothers who came with me to South Africa are dead, and now I'm going to throw away the gains they made with their lives because of a single order from my superiors?" He could no longer contain the anger that filled his chest, and did not even notice his left arm relaxing slightly, "They don't have the blood of nobles in their bodies, they are all poor people who came to the fire in order to change their fate. Even if I put this life of mine on the line, I will still circle you to the end."

The fire was still burning, and deafening explosions came from the distance from time to time.

"Coward." McNeil sneered back, "You're just tools, just like me. There is no honor in blood, and bloodshed is never something to boast about."

"Whatever you say, in any case you don't seem to see him as a tool." Darlton took a few steps back with his hostage, trying to retreat to the back of the building. McNeil watched the distance between the two men widen, and he had the option of just killing Darlton along with Nito Mariam, but he eventually gave up on the idea.

"Hell of a world."

TBC

Chapter Notes:

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion Lost Stories' most recent storyline reveals that the terrorists who assassinated Bradow von Breisgau were from the Order of the Eclipse, the same cult that Shin Hyuga Shaing believes in.

Nobles in Britannia are generally addressed by title instead of military rank in preference. Therefore, it is likely that Darlton only had the title of Knight.