Code Mistborn

Chapter Three

No one questioned the two soldiers who exited Clovis's headquarters moments before it exploded, or stopped them from making their way to the nearest residential building. There, Lelouch changed back into his school uniform and Vin scavenged what clothes she could find. Lelouch didn't know if the original residents had gone into hiding, or if they were dead, but either way, they didn't object.

After that, it was a literal walk in the park from the ghetto to the settlement, and they spent the evening at a five-star hotel, ordering room service. He thought about taking her to his home at Ashford Academy, but he dismissed the idea immediately. As much as he enjoyed treason, terrorism, and regicide as a hobby, it wasn't the sort of thing that he wanted to take home with him, not while Nunnally remained happily uninvolved.

"So," Vin said, picking at her meal. Lelouch had been surprised when she ordered the prime rib, but she seemed more interested in the steak knife than the steak itself. "What happens now?"

"Now we watch and listen. With the Viceroy dead, the different factions will attempt to seize power. If we keep them at eachother's throats, we should be able to keep this Area in chaos until the next Viceroy arrives. Meanwhile, I'll build a name for myself throughout the Japanese underground just in case I need their assistance in the future. And, of course, I'll look into acquiring the exact metals you need."

He could probably take advantage of one of the clubs on campus. He wouldn't be surprised if metallurgy was one of the one-hundred-and-eight clubs at Ashford, but if it wasn't, he'd talk to Milly and make one. Or he could order the metals online. That worked too.

Vin nodded. "Before we make our next move, I'd like to get out a bit and … adjust."

She hadn't told him how long she had been a test subject, and he hadn't asked. "Fair enough," he said. "I'll come back here tomorrow afternoon and give you the grand tour of the settlement. I imagine you've seen enough of the ghetto already."

He'd have offered to come earlier, but he had school the next morning. The thought almost made him laugh. He had just murdered the Viceroy of Area Eleven, he was talking to a girl with supernatural powers, and he was worried about school. Still, it was best to appear as normal as possible for the next few days.

"Until then," Lelouch said, "I advise you to avoid interacting with anyone. There are racial tensions that could attract attention."

She raised an eyebrow. "What sort of tensions?"

It was Lelouch's turn to be confused, but Vin had probably not known freedom since before she came to Area Eleven. Hadn't she said that Clovis had stolen her from the Emperor? There was a chance that she didn't even know what part of the world she was in. "Here, the Britannians and the Japanese don't get along very well, as you may have noticed. You don't look like either." What was she, then? She didn't look Chinese or Indian. European? Australian? "The Britannians will recognize you as not one of them, and will assume you are inferior. The Japanese … they will also recognize you as not one of them, but they might understand that you aren't Britannian either. Or they might not."

"And of course, you're Britannian."

Lelouch nodded. A Britannian prince, confirmed by Clovis himself. There was no way he could deny that to her now.

"But not a very patriotic one," she added.

"It is one of my few virtues." She didn't ask the question he knew she was thinking, so he didn't answer it. "Well, you seem tired, and it's been a long day, so I'll see you tomorrow."

WWW

Vin waited until he had left before following him. She trailed him out the hotel and down a few streets, but she lost him when he went into a tunnel and got on one of the many machines that riddled this world.

Well, even if she had managed to keep up with him, he was probably taking the most convoluted route he could imagine back to wherever he lived. That's what she would have done. No matter. She'd follow him another night, when she had more metal reserves and a better understanding of the culture.

As things were, too many people were noticing her, and far more often than she liked. Not that she ever liked being noticed in the first place. Still, it was a hundred times worse when she was weak than when she was strong.

It was her clothes, she guessed. They were old and ill fitting, stolen from the … ghetto, he had called it? And now she was in the settlement. Interesting. Anywhere she went, she would be noticed until she found something less conspicuous, and Lelouch would be able to come and go without anyone giving him a second look.

Was that deliberate? Vin assumed it was. Lelouch had made it plain his intention to use her, and it only made sense that he would try to control her as much as he could, despite what he had said. Still, the Emperor had held her and hadn't managed to keep her. Clovis had studied her, and that had worked out even worse for him. If Lelouch wanted to try his hand at this game, let him. She had played before.

WWW

It turned out that there was a metallurgy club at Ashford. There were two people in it, and they insisted that the fumes from the smelter weren't as toxic as everybody said. They were more than helpful when Lelouch introduced himself as a member of the student council, and he left with a one pound ingot of iron, zinc, and tin, along with a steel file.

After that, he stopped by the chemistry lab and smuggled out a few grams of Cadmium. It was a toxic metal that was once used in batteries, and these days was sometimes used in lasers. In Vin's case, she used it for for time dilations. The rest, he decided, would have to wait.

He was wondering how he could acquire specific alloys of the remaining metals without arousing suspicion when he ran right into the Glasgow pilot from the day before. At least, he thought she was. He had only caught a glimpse of her at the time, while hiding behind a container marked as toxic gas, but she seemed the same height, build, and had the same red hair, even if it was styled differently now.

But what kind of person wrecked havoc in the ghetto one day and went to the most prestigious school in the settlement the next? Besides him, of course.

By the time he caught himself, he had already stared at her for two, possibly even three seconds. She hadn't noticed, thank goodness, but Rivalz had.

"Hey, Lelouch, I see you're enjoying the scenery, am I right?"

He started to deny it, but for once, his friend's assumption was actually more innocent than the truth. "That girl over there, she hasn't been in class for a while, has she?" If she had, he would have recognized her on the spot. He wasn't paranoid, he just liked to keep track of everyone he knew. Still, that didn't mean he had researched half the school, which was why Rivalz sometimes came in handy.

"Nope. She showed up the first day and hasn't been back since. Health problems. Still manages to email her assignments in on time and gets top grades despite, you know, never coming to class."

"And, how do you know this?"

Rivalz smiled. "You have your secrets, I have mine."

You hacked her GPA, didn't you? "Why, then?"

He drew a curvaceous silhouette in the air and shrugged. Fair enough.

"And I'm guessing you already know her name."

He laughed. "Lelouch, bro, I know her bra size."

Knowing Milly, that was probably next to her GPA on the school records. "I'll settle for her name."

"Kallen Stadtfeld, you know, from the Stadtfeld House."

He recognized the name. The Stadtfeld family wasn't aristocratic, and had foregone power and prestige to go straight for the money. It didn't explain why Kallen would moonlight as a terrorist.

"Impressive. And of course, you already know her home address."

Rivalz gasped. "Lelouch! That would be creepy and stalkerish!"

"And?"

"And it's at 1909 Forty-Seventh Street."

He smiled. "Now for the challenge round. Phone number?"

Rivalz hesitated. "No, but I can find out. One sec." He approached Kallen where she sat chatting with her friends. Lelouch wondered briefly if they were all at Shinjuku the day before, but he doubted it. "Hey, gorgeous!" Rivalz said. "Can I get your number? It's for a friend."

"Um, do you promise to never call?"

"Like I said, it's for a friend." He came back a moment later with a broad smile on his face. "So who has two thumbs and tons of game? This guy!"

Lelouch smiled politely. "You know that number's fake, don't you?"

Rivalz rolled his eyes. "Is that your usual cynicism, or your newfound jealousy talking?"

"I am far too cynical to admit my jealousy for your ability to acquire fake phone numbers."

Rivalz laughed. "But seriously, if you want to get to know her better, just let Milly know you're interested, and Kallen will be on the student council before the day is out."

"Oh really." That could be useful if he wanted to keep an eye on the one member of the Japanese underground he knew by name. "Why would Milly do that?"

"She's desperate to get you laid."

He nearly coughed. "What?"

"Yeah, she has this weird obsession about getting you to lose your virginity."

"What?"

"How do you think I got invited?" He paused. "She also told me not to tell you that. So forget it."

"I am already deleting this conversation from memory."

WWW

After school, he made his way to the hotel where he had left Vin. He was half sure she would have run, but if she had then all that meant was that he had been wise to not give her his home address. And there were still all the possibilities that Kallen offered.

He knocked before entering, and when he opened the door, Vin was still there with a knife in her hand. He pretended not to notice. "Good afternoon, Vin. I got you a present." He pulled the bars of metal out of his bag and handed them to her. "Your specific alloy of steel is more common than I thought, and I should have it for you by tomorrow with the rest within the week. Also, I got you a file."

He wasn't sure how well a steel file would work on a steel bar. Perhaps he would need to invest in a diamond saw. That … that sounded expensive, but no one ever said that overthrowing and empire would be cheap. He had saved up a fair amount from his chess games, but he would need a new source of funding.

Vin took the materials, but she eyed him suspiciously, wheels turning in her mind. "That was awfully fast."

Lelouch tried to figure out what she meant. Did she think that he couldn't bring her the metals? Or that he wouldn't? "You're not much good to me without your magic tricks."

Vin studied him for a moment longer. "Fair enough." She spent a few minutes filing bits of each metal into a cup, her hands moving back and forth with practiced efficiency, before drinking it down with water. She smiled, half to herself. "You have no idea how much better that is on your throat than swallowing scrap metal."

WWW

The world Vin was in was a world of machines, she knew, but before that it was a world of builders. The city was full of their creations, structures that put Kredik Shaw to shame, and reached up into a sky unstained by ash. A blue sky, the sort that Vin had only heard about in pre-ascension myths. And below, between patches of asphalt and cement, she saw green plants and flowers, just like from Kelsier's old picture, that testified of a world unbroken by cataclysm.

She had seen most of it the day before, but she had been too busy surviving and killing and running to see much of anything. Now she knew why Lelouch had so easily given her those metals. Even with Allomancy, as long as she didn't understand the customs of this world, as long as she couldn't blend in unnoticed, she would need his help.

It was ironic, in a way. She had first joined Kelsier in his mad plan to overthrow the Final Empire, not because she thought he had the slightest chance of defeating the Lord Ruler, his armies, and his immortal priests, but because she needed to learn something. Then it had been Allomancy; now it was what clothes to wear to avoid looking like she was from another world.

Fortunately, one of the first things they did was go shopping for clothes. Vin let Lelouch pick them out, knowing nothing about the current trends, and ended up with a pair of shoes that fit (finally), an outfit he described as "dressy casual," and another one he called "normal casual." She saw a few dresses that almost looked like the gowns she had worn to the balls back in Luthadel if more sleek, but they didn't get any. After all, she wouldn't need to infiltrate the upper echelons of Britannian society, would she?

Still, she picked one off the rack that looked different from the other dresses–like most of it was missing. Maybe if someone wore something else over it or under it, the dress could be considered decent, but none of the clothes in the store came with instructions.

"Do people actually wear things like this around here?"

"Rarely," he admitted. "Though I suspect that specific style will come back into style quite viciously, and then be totally forgotten."

Vin frowned. "Why is that?"

He glanced over his shoulder to make sure he wasn't being overheard and said softly, "Clovis designed it."

Vin blinked. "He designed dresses?"

He nodded. "Clovis was a man of many, well, perhaps not talents, but hobbies."

Vin looked back at the dress, and the silk felt like slime in her hands. "You'd think that a ruler would have more important things to do with his time."

"Like responsibilities?" he said with a smile. "That's for the help." He paid for the clothes and they left the store. "We shouldn't speak of him, though. They're covering up what happened and I don't know why. A dead prince should be all over the news, but no one reported on anything from yesterday, not the massacre, not the terrorists, and certainly not … you know."

Vin thought back to her time working with Kelsier. He had killed his share of noblemen, but he had always dropped the body somewhere public, like in a rival's garden. For the old Luthadel nobility, a death in the family wasn't a tragedy, it was an embarrassment.

"After him," she asked, "who's in charge?"

He took a deep breath. "That is still up in the air. Another Viceroy should be appointed in a few weeks, but until then … The Golden Throne currently has the most power, or at least the most wealth, but I doubt they will assume control. The Pureblood faction has always been more … cutthroat, shall we say, and if people believe that Clovis was killed by Japanese terrorists, that will only help their cause. Blaming an Honorary Britannian would be even better."

Vin didn't understand most of that, but she hadn't expected to. "Who would blaming a Britannian prince help?"

He gave her a sardonic look. "Don't be ridiculous. Why would a prince of Britannia commit such a crime?"

"You tell me."

He looked around, as though peering at something in the distance to make sure no one was close enough to overhear. "I'm not a prince."

"He called you his brother."

"I was armed, and he was frantic."

"So he was lying?"

"Exaggerating."

Vin considered using zinc on him, but she decided against it. She only had her metals because he had given them to her, and she wasn't going to betray that trust. "So who are you then?"

"I could ask you the same question, Vin. Who are you, that you can metabolize metal in ways unheard of?"

She shrugged. "It's far from unheard of where I'm from."

"And where is that?" He had piercing eyes of a shade that Vin had seen only once before. He would use anything he gave her in any way he could, but she couldn't think of how that piece of information would help him. If anything, it would serve to make him underestimate her.

"Okay," she said finally. "But you first."

He hesitated, as though weighing the value of what his secret compared to hers. "Fair enough," he said at last.

He led her to a nearby park and they sat down on a bench. There were several parks scattered throughout the city. In Luthadel, plants that weren't brown were cultivated in noblemen's gardens, and they were tended to constantly so they wouldn't drown under the continuous ashfalls. Vin had heard that the finest gardens of the Final Empire paled in comparison to an abandoned, pre-Ascension field, but she had assumed that to have been a fantasy as wild as green plants themselves.

Now though, seeing the park–Lord Ruler, seeing flowers bloom out of cracks in the sidewalk–the stories seemed less ridiculous.

"Have you ever seen a pit fight, Vin?" Lelouch asked. "You take two hungry dogs, put them in a pit together, and a cheering crowd bets on which dog makes it out alive."

"I haven't, but I've heard of them." In Luthadel, they were called blood fights, and to not offend nobles fond of dogs, they used skaa instead. That had ended when the Lord Ruler died and the Final Empire fell.

"The Emperor does that with his children. By surviving their siblings, the princes and princesses of Britannia prove themselves worthy of their father's throne. What is a matter of life and death for his flesh and blood and the sovereignty of nations is but a game to that man, and not one that he is in a position to lose."

Vin raised an eyebrow. "And that's why you killed Clovis? To win his game?"

Lelouch shook his head and smiled with bitter lips and hungry eyes. "No, I've already lost. I offended him in my childhood, so he sent me as a hostage to the ruler of this country before he conquered it. It's an old political tactic, where the ruler wants to forge an alliance with a less trusting one, so offers a close relative as collateral. Since any betrayal would result in the hostage's death, the alliance may proceed. Of course, as soon as the Prime Minister of Japan let his guard down, the Emperor set this country on fire–but on the bright side, the airstrikes, chaos, and wanton destruction made it child's play to fake my death.

"But I digress. If the Emperor were to suffer a happy, fatal accident today, the Empire would fall to the First Prince with the Second Prince pulling the strings, and the rest of the Royal Family either resisting in futility or accepting the inevitable. However, if they all die, every prince and princess spawned by his lust and indifference, and then the Emperor himself follows them into his well-deserved grave, then the Empire falls apart, his goal of finding a worthy successor to his throne fails, and suddenly, he has lost the game. Oh, and with the Empire gone, the world will be free of the threat and reality of Britannian oppression, so that's good too."

Vin nodded slowly. It made sense, in a callous, logical sort of way. The Lord Ruler, confident in his immortality, had never declared an heir. No one had thought he could die, so his death had left his Empire shattered. Still, the chaos that ensued with skaa not knowing what to do with such an alien concept as freedom and warlords anxious to find out had ended only when she had helped Elend conquer it all back again, recreating much of what Kelsier's crew had hoped to destroy.

No, Lelouch's plan would need to be molded, and Lelouch himself would need to be watched, even assuming that he had told her the truth (which was doubtful) and that he had left nothing out (which was laughable).

"Okay," she said. "So you're going to slaughter his children, assassinate him, and watch the world burn."

"Yes. That is the plan."

"I'm not sure how I feel about it," she admitted. "Clovis had to go, and the Emperor …" He was meddling with powers beyond his ken. "He's even worse, but destroying the entire Empire would be a massacre."

"No. Submission is a massacre. You saw it, Vin! Nearly an entire ghetto slaughtered for one man's whim, and all over the world it's the same thing. Not only did the Empire put Clovis in a position where he could do as he wished, but it is a basic Britannian creed that everything he did was right, simply because he could. No, destroying Britannia isn't a massacre, it's justice." The fire in his voice cooled and he continued. "But I understand if you're hesitant. I'll tell you what. There won't be much we can do until the next prince or princess arrives to assume the role of Viceroy, and after they get here, you can watch them and judge them to be worthy of life or death. If you deem them worthy of life, then you may leave and I won't stop you."

Vin doubted that, but Kelsier had made her a similar offer when trying to recruit her to his impossible plan. Lelouch wasn't Kelsier, but by the time she had to make her choice, she might not need him anymore.

"Fair enough," she said. "So now it's my turn, is it? I'm from Scadrial."

"Scadrial?" he repeated. "I'm not familiar with that."

"It's another world." She waited for an expression of shock or incredulity to cross his face, but she was disappointed.

"Fair enough. If people with your abilities occurred naturally, they would need to be kept secluded. And this world Scadrial, it has more people like you?"

Vin nodded. "Allomancers aren't common, but we're well known."

"And your civilization has spacecraft? Interplanetary travel?"

"Spacecraft? No, of course not. As far as transportation goes, we have horses and canals."

He frowned. "Then did you get to this world with magic? Some sort of Allomancy?"

Vin hesitated. "It's complicated." She didn't understand most of it herself. Under the bench was a patch of dirt uncovered by grass. She knelt down on the ground and drew a circle with her finger. "Let's say this is reality as you understand it, the body of existence, and your world is here and Scadrial is here." She drew a mark at the top and bottom of the circle. "If you go deeper, you get here." She drew a second circle within the first. "This is the mind of existence. In the body, you can look up at night and see the stars, but in the mind, distance is more condensed, and instead of seeing the stars, you could walk there."

Finally, she drew a dot at the center. "If you go deeper still, you reach reality's soul. Here, distance means next to nothing and time … time gets weird. I found my way to the soul, but instead of coming out on Scadrial's side of the mind, I ended up on Earth's side."

She thought. She had been holding the power of divinity at the time–no, she had been the vessel of divinity at the time, with infinite comprehension seeping into her mind second by second in a realm where time had no meaning. She had been focusing on stopping another god from destroying everything she knew, but collected a few scraps of knowledge like the Allomantic properties of four metals she had never before heard of.

"I see," Lelouch said slowly. "So instead of faster-than-light travel, you traveled to another dimension where the fabric of spacetime was condensed to a manageable level. A wormhole? A black hole?"

"Sure." She didn't know what worms had to do with anything, but if Lelouch understood it, good for him. She might need him to explain it to her later.

"But if you weren't planning on traveling to another planet, what were you doing in the center of reality?"

"Oh, the same thing I do anywhere else." It wasn't a lie. Technically. She needed to change the subject. She pointed at the Earth-side point of the inner circle. "But what should really interest you is who I met when I got here."

Lelouch frowned. "Did you meet anyone? If people from this world had the technology for interdimensional travel, I think I would have heard of it."

"You do," Vin insisted. "Your world has at least one Perpendicularity."

"And that is?"

"Something that draws a perpendicular line from the Physical to the Cognitive. But because they act as elevators to the Realm of Thought, your father called them Thought Elevators."

And with that, Lelouch lost all interest in Vin's brief stint as a god.

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The next day Lelouch returned with a bar of Allomantically pure steel, and they spent the next few hours trying on sunglasses and looking at mask designs.

"I can understand how this is useful," Vin said, trying on a pair of glasses designed for watching a solar eclipse. Earth had a moon encircling it, and sometimes that moon blocked out the sun, which made people … want to look at it, for some reason. Earth people were strange, but they built quality eye protection. "But what good is a mask?"

With the sunglasses on, she could see little except for the sun itself. Even burning tin until the background noise of the cars and buildings became overwhelming, the world still seemed dark. She took them off and tried another pair.

"Do you see that?" Lelouch asked, pointing at a small black dome on the ceiling of the store they were in.

She could, even without tin. She frowned at it. She might have thought it served some aesthetic purpose, but now that she looked right at it, it seemed like one of the countless devices that cluttered the world. "What is it? It feels like it's watching me."

"It is, actually," Lelouch said. "It's a security camera. Practically everywhere you go, you will be in sight of one of them."

"What?"

"That's no cause for paranoia, of course," he continued. "There's too much information to process, and anyone looking for you would need an army to rifle through the footage, but if you were to draw attention to yourself and, say, rob the store, the police would study the recording, find your face, and show it to everyone they meet until they find you."

The little black dome loomed overhead. If she burned iron or steel, she could rip it from the ceiling, but that would only arouse suspicion. "Sounds dangerous. Can it hear us too?"

"Some can, though I doubt that one has audio. But wait, it gets better–because everyone you meet is likely to have one these in their pockets." He pulled out a device, one that Vin actually recognized. It was a phone, used to communicate across long distances. He pointed it at the store clerk, and it clicked. He handed it to her, and the phone had the clerk's image frozen on its screen.

"What? How?"

He shrugged. "Technology. Even if I understood it better, I doubt I'd be able to explain it. Besides, all you need to know is that everyone is watching, everyone is listening, and if you ever draw attention to yourself, they will remember you."

Vin swallowed. Elend had always teased her for being paranoid, but she was the one who had to deal with all the assassins sent after him. This, however? This was nearly as bad as knowing she had the mind of a mad, homicidal god in her head.

Almost.

"So, masks," she said finally. "Masks are nice."

They spent the next few hours discussing masks, cameras, and anything else Vin had a question about until it started to get dark. Lelouch hailed a taxi, but not to take her home.

"1909 Forty-Seventh Street, please," he told the driver.

"You got it, boss," the driver said, smiling. Vin wasn't good at telling them apart, but she suspected that the man was Japanese, if only by the service he provided. Britannians sometimes worked as taxi drivers, but they were usually more indignant about it.

"Where are we going?" she whispered.

He smiled. "I have a mission for you. I'd like you to meet a new recruit."

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Kallen stepped out of the bathroom wrapped in a fluffy white robe and a towel around her head, and saw a stranger sitting on her bookshelf. She sighed.

"Why does this always happen when I'm in the tub?" she asked. "I swear, the mailman rings the doorbell, I'm in the tub. Little girls selling cookies, tub. Strangers lurking in my bedroom, tub!"

The sun had set while she was taking a bath, and the only light in the room came in through her bathroom door. The stranger didn't look very intimidating, and if anything was even smaller than she was.

"Is this a bad time?" the stranger said, her voice soft and feminine. "This seems like a bad time."

"Oh, no," Kallen said, trying to figure out what sort of intruder would be lurking in her bedroom but not attack her outright. "Didn't you hear me? I always entertain guests in my bathrobe, so why don't you tell me what you want, and then get the hell out of my house."

She cocked her head. As Kallen's eyes began to adjust, she determined that the woman was wearing her hood up. "Your name is Kallen Stadtfeld, right?"

No. "Yes."

"And you were at Shinjuku two days ago piloting the … Glasgow, correct?"

Kallen's blood froze. "Glasgow? That's an old model Knightmare frame, right? Sorry, I can't remember the last time I've been to Shinjuku, and I've never piloted a Knightmare."

"Oh," the woman said. "I'll be on my way, then. Sorry for disturbing you." She dropped off the bookshelf and started towards the window, which was the last thing Kallen wanted.

Idiot! If she even suspected Kallen of being involved with the Japanese Resistance, then there was no way she could afford to let her leave alive. "Wait! In a, um, hypothetical situation where I said yes, what would you have done?"

She stopped and turned slowly. On the ground, she seemed even less intimidating, but she carried herself with the grace of a cat and the confidence of … an even bigger cat. "I would have offered you a spot in our crew. My friend, who's putting this together, said that you followed orders without question and had such control over your Knightmare, you'd put the finest Britannian knights to shame, despite piloting a trash heap. His words, not mine."

High praise indeed, but she knew she was only an ameteur with an inordinate amount of beginner's luck. She decided to let the trash heap comment by. Barely. The Glasgow may have been a clunky, outdated, and poorly maintained piece of machinery, but it was hers, darn it! And now it was dead.

"This friend of yours," Kallen said, moving over to the light switch. "Should I know him?" She flipped the switch, and the ceiling light exploded. There was a flash of light, and then shattered glass sprayed across the room. In that instant, though, Kallen caught a glimpse of the woman mid-flinch, stretching out her arm toward the light.

She was wearing sunglasses. Sunglasses. Who wore sunglasses, inside, at night, with the lights off?

She straightened as though nothing had happened. "Yes. He told me that when you two last spoke, he named you Q-1."

Kallen's eyes grew wide. Him! Two days ago when she was being hounded by Sutherlands and everything had gone to crap, a voice had come out of nowhere on their radio frequency, confident to the point of being condescending, and turned the battle around like it was child's play. Until that white Knightmare frame came out of nowhere and cut through them like a chainsaw through butter.

"So he made it out okay? And what was with that ceasefire order? Was that him too?" She started to step forward, but remembered that there was shattered glass all over the floor and she was barefoot. Crap. She considered putting on her slippers, but dismissed the idea. She was already being contacted by another resistance cell in her bathrobe, she was not going to throw fluffy bunny slippers into the situation as well. She stood on the far side of the room, pretending like that was exactly what she wanted to be doing.

"Yes, he's fine. We stopped by to see Clovis on the way out, persuaded him to withdraw his forces, and he shot him in the head."

Kallen blinked. "Clovis shot him in the head? But you said he was fine!"

"No, he shot Clovis in the head."

"What? What?"

"Which no one knows about yet for some reason. You'd think news of a dead–what was he?–a dead Viceroy would have gotten around, but it's been kept real quiet."

Kallen felt her head spinning. Clovis, the slimy, disgusting little rat, had been the face of Britannia to her for years, and now he was dead? Just like that? It seemed too good to be true, but everything about that voice had been. She had trusted him then, so she would trust her now.

"Alright," she said finally. "You said you were going to offer me a spot on your crew? Count me in." Ohgi sometimes called her reckless, but when she saw an opportunity, she lunged for it, and this one had fallen right into her lap. "But I just want to make one thing clear. You and your friend seem like really clever people, but you got my name wrong. I'm not Kallen Stadtfeld. That's my Brit name. When I want to be able to look at myself without throwing up, I'm Kallen Kouzuki."

"I'll be sure to pass that along." She tossed a small object to Kallen. A phone. "He'll keep in touch." With that, the woman jumped out the window.

When Kallen finally relented, put on her slippers, and looked outside, the woman was nowhere to be seen. So the mysterious voice is a secretive mastermind, and he has his own ninja. That was actually one of the more believable aspects of the situation.

She set down the new phone, pulled out her old one, and dialed Ohgi's number. He was going to want to know about this.

WWW

A/n And once more, chapter three ends at about the same time as episode three, only without the cliffhanger where Suzaku gets arrested. Thank you to everyone who left reviews, and thank you again Magery for editing this.

I hope the crash course into Realmatic Theory wasn't too much of an infodump, but it's part of my grander scheme of making Code Geass Cosmere. Also, I've been reading Arcanum Unbounded, where along with containing a whole bunch of short stories, Brandon Sanderson actually explains how the universe works from an outsider's perspective. For example, did you know that Scadrial has no moon? I didn't, but there's a whole bunch of nifty little maps that show you that.

Anyway, that's my book advertisement, and I promise not to try to sell you anything else, at least until the next chapter.