Chapter 17: Lelouch

I was staring at a mirror. Cold water dripped down my hair and face. I relaxed my eyelids to quell the panicked look that reflected back at me, only to remember how useless it was. Correcting your body language to fool someone who can read minds is a little like adding an extra tassel to a bikini and calling it a parka.

I took a breath and left the bathroom. The sink was still running.

Mao was waiting for me.

He stood in a rather poorly lit hallway. Maya lay a few feet away, bound and gagged with duct tape. I racked my brains for our exact location, but for some reason, I couldn't remember NERV's layout as clearly as I usually did. Electric lamps flickered. Wherever we were, the architect had coated it with a layer of ugly yellow linoleum.

Fortunately, I was out of mindreading range. For now.

Mao shouted across the gap. C.C. gripped my arm.

"Come into my parlor, said the spider to-"

"Oi," I said. "Mao, is it? When you get close enough to read my mind, d'you think you'll be able to come up with cleverer threats?"

"You little—"

I tsk'd loudly.

"Tell you what," I said. "I'll come up with a half-dozen witty rejoinders for you by the time I cross the hallway."

Mao snarled and kicked Maya in the ribs, hard. C.C. winced.

"You armed?" he said.

I opened my coat.

"Nope."

A smile spread across his face. He crossed his arms and waggled the pistol at me with a loose wrist.

"Well, Lulu….Since you just pissed me off, I'm changing the deal."

"Hostage-taking?" I said.

"Bingo."

I shrugged. It hadn't been the most obvious move in the world, but—Scratch that. It had been the most obvious move in the world. I wondered for a moment whether his strategic thinking would improve after he had access to my mind, and suppressed a shudder.

"You'll release Ibuki?" I said.

He took a step forward. Perhaps it was my imagination, or maybe it was the hum of the fluorescent lamps reverberating through the corridors' odd geometries, but I could swear I felt a slight buzzing at the edge of my consciousness as Mao moved closer.

His eyes widened.

"Uh…Yes! Yeah…" he said.

So…Mao must have come close enough to hear my thoughts already: Gendo knew that the jig was up if Rits didn't get Ibuki back in time. And if the world was going to burn anyway, what difference would it make if a prince died when Gendo flooded the hallway with bakelite to kill the telepath responsible…?

Besides, my own escorts had already arrived. Sayoko brandished a rather elaborat blade that looked like it may have seen medical use at one time. I held out my hand and motioned for them to stay back.

Mao kicked Maya once more for luck.

"Start rolling, girly," he said. "And you!"

Here he turned to me. He was panting, and I thought for a moment that I could see his irises shaking.

"Give me C.C.!" he roared.

And really, who am I to argue with a snub-nosed revolver?

We descended. In silvery elevators. In escalators jutting into the black rock of the NERV underground. On steps cut so crudely into the granite that they might as well have been hewn by Union Pacific laborers. Mao stood between us, prodding me in the back with his pistol and giving an occasional grunt when he wanted me to move faster. Guided by my memories of NERV's tunnels, Mao clip-clopped through floor after floor at double time.

C.C. trailed behind.

"P-please don't hurt Master…" she said.

Uh, oh.

Mao whirled around. C.C. "eep'd" and cowered behind a steel pillar.

"Did you say 'Master'?" Mao said.

His head swiveled from C.C. to me.

Ever try to hide something from your parents, even when you're sure they'll notice? Same emotion, but substitute "telepath" and stir. In the quiet of the corridor, I could hear his teeth grind.

His hands found my throat.

"You BROKE HER!"

In the next moment, I felt a shooting pain in my gums as Mao's pistol was shoved up my mouth. I soon realized why: Blood dribbled down the barrel. The bastard had knocked out a tooth…

The hammer clicked.

"Oral hygiene is the least of your worries," Mao growled.

The elevator arrived with a cheerful ping! that rather ruined the mood. Not that I minded.

"Get. In. Now." Mao said.

I moved to comply. Pain. Mao hit me in the ribs. I doubled up and gasped for air.

Hey! Welcome to NERV. Please press your preferred floor and GET THIS BABY ROLLING!

Even as I painfully gulped air, I found myself sharing a look with Mao.

"…Who designed this elevator, again?" he said.

"You don't wanna know," I wheezed. "Just pressh 'B-12'."

He did, and we spent the next five minutes in silence. In the first ten seconds, I realized that my missing tooth had added an unwelcome whistle to my "s's".

The elevator itself was plain enough. Its walls were encrusted with thick bluish-green paint. Occasional globs had hardened, which gave the surface a bumpy feel. Nor did the elevator music add to the ambiance; I could have done without a drunken karaoke rendition of "Disco Inferno" in the same voice that had greeted us earlier.

On the other hand, I absolutely loved the anguished shrieks that Mao gave in accompaniment a few moments later. C.C. clutched her ears and shot me a wild, startled look. The pistol clattered to the ground. As I picked it up, I finally began to remember what had happened.

My reminiscing stopped when the doors opened and I saw the face of our "rescuer".

It was enormous: EVA-sized, but broader. A white torso hung by nails through its hands on a giant red platform that resembled a wispy letter Omega, writ large. After a moment, I realized that it was the Geass sigil. The thing had no legs: just a series of bulges and whiplike extremities that looked like roots. All were white. Orange liquid dripped from the figure. It ran down the sigil into a sea of LCL below.

Everything seemed hazy down there. The lamplight showed up as a whitish fog, as if particles in the air had caught the light. Yet the place seemed dry. Dead. Waves of LCL lapped against the floor of our elevator. The figure on the sigil stared back at us through a purple mask with far too many eyes.

Mao's screams redoubled.

As Mao writhed on the ground and bawled his head off, I reflected on the cruelty of a world that had condemned me to a bitter three-way choice: forgo my usual gloating victory speech over a fallen foe (impossible), deliver the speech whistling like a third grader with a missing tooth (unthinkable), or extemporize a monologue without any "s's".

And then, I remembered a fourth option. I concentrated very, very hard.

Hiya, Mao, I thought.

Maybe – just maybe – his anguished wail had been a reply. For now, I would proceed on that hypothesis. I continued my internal monologue.

You're probably wondering how I beat you…

Scream.

It was simple, really. Want to hear it?

Gurgle.

So glad you asked. See, Mao, when C.C.'s mind linked up with the Tenth, I figured that whatever power allowed Geass to affect human minds probably did the same to our extraterrestrial visitors.

Screech.

Well, yes. That's true. I couldn't be completely certain, but let's just say I've been conducting a few experiments on my own that all but confirmed the theory. Anyway, I realized that I needed to get you close to Terminal Dogma, where the Second was restrained. If the Tenth fried C.C.'s mind as badly is it did, I could only imagine what would happen to a full-blown telepath…you are still listening, aren't you?

By now, Mao was lying on the ground whimpering. Drool ran down his chin. Every muscle in his body had seized up, frozen at maximum tension.

…It's just that I couldn't help but notice a pronounced lack of interest when I first introduced you in my little tale. What's the matter? Not obvious enough? I thought I'd laid the groundwork with the exposition and all, but perhaps you didn't notice that I was referring to you when I mentioned the telepath-

"Urk."

Well, perhaps you're right. In any event, I knew that I could never trick you into going to Terminal Dogma voluntarily. Telepathy, remember?

"Eughhhhh….." Mao replied.

His face was turning an interesting shade of purple. Even C.C. poked her head out from behind a symbolic-looking pillar to spare him a worried glance.

Heh. Silly me. Of course you remember. Anyway, I was stuck. What to do…? Well, as it turned out, Mao, it wasn't that difficult. I just headed to the nearest bathroom mirror and geassed an alternative map of NERV into my memory. One where the "exit" lead straight down to Terminal Dogma. Really, Mao…I know that NERV's hard to navigate and that you tend to rely on telepathy rather than common sense, but seriously: You didn't think it was a TEENSY bit odd that the exit route led downward?

No response. Mao was frozen with a look of terror on his face. Not that I blamed him - what with the "thoughts no mortal should think" running through his mind. Mao's muscles had gone from "really stiff" to "My, that looks like rigor mortis".

Well, no matter. I had a backup plan anyway, on the offchance that you figured it out. In any event, I gave myself a final order to forget my own plan until it reached its climax. I knew you'd need a hostage to navigate NERV, so I placed myself at your disposal. When you released Ibuki, you lost the only other mental map you had. From then on, you were mine.

No clapping.

Ta-daaah? I tried.

Just in case he was waiting for a bow, I dipped low and swept my hand across the ground. Nothing.

Really, Mao? Really?

I sighed. As I reflected on the sad decline of the theatergoing public, I flicked open my cell phone and hit "send". The number was already waiting for me.

"Ritshuko?" I said.

"Who is this?"

"Take a wild guessh"

"Oh. Lelouch. Your voice sounds a little…different."

"Yesh…I'm aware of that, thanksh…But shouldn't we be focushing on the more esshential thingsh? Like…oh, I dunno…SHAVING THE WORLD?"

"Er…"

"…On shecond thought, don't ansher that."

I paused for a moment and reconsidered my options. C.C. stared at Mao's motionless body. I wasn't particularly worried; the bastard was still breathing.

"Ahem…" I said. "All right, Ritsuko. Why don't we try that again? Report on your progresh—er...on the degree of completion of your attempt to deshtr—eliminate the Angel."

If anyone could convey gloom over a phone, it was Ritsuko Akagi.

"We have a plan," she said. "We know that the Angel evolves depending on what we throw at it. Maya and I figure that we could design a program that would set it on a course to its own suicide."

"Exshell—um, very good," I said. "But…?"

She sighed.

"But we can't figure out its adaptive system quickly enough. If only we knew how it thought, we could…"

"Ritsh?" I said.

"What?"

"Would the good doctor like to examine a patient?"

It's almost uncanny how the universe gives you just the right tools for a job. All it takes is a little improvisation.

By the time NERV security dragged him to the entry plug, Mao had almost recovered from his earlier run-in with the origin of carbon life. I mean, sure: he might have been walking on rubber legs and speaking in tongues, but at rock bottom he was still the same Mao we'd come to know and love. As they strapped Mao into the entry plug and attached the A-10 clips, I ran my tongue through the hole in my teeth and wondered how long it would take for NERV's dentist to fix it.

Technically, adults aren't supposed to synch with EVAs. The process usually produces a puddle of orange goop, a lot of aggravation, and a shortage of pilots. Fortunately, we weren't going to make Mao synch. Instead, we would use our machinery to feed Mao's mental data directly into Ritsuko's computer, where she could analyze it. In short, we'd spare Mao the agony of synchronizing with the artificial deities that lay in the EVA cages.

…After all, why settle for artificial when you can get the real thing?

If you haven't figured it out by now, I'll summarize.

NERV security wheeled Mao's entry plug right up to the Pribnow Box. We'd wrapped our saboteur up like a birthday present: he was loaded with A-10 clips, wires, a plugsuit, and Rits-only-knows what other sensors. The Angel's mental patterns flowed like a torrent into Ritsuko's computer, courtesy of Mao's mindreading and a particularly hardy pair of A-10 clips. The software spat out lines of nonsense, which Ritsuko transformed into a strategy to retake our computer system. Slowly, inch by inch, Ritsuko fought her way back across NERV's biological supercomputers. The red wave had crested a while ago; now it began to retreat. She waited until all three computers had been freed from the intruder's control before she sent the virus.

The Angel obligingly died.

As for me, I just enjoyed watching Mao convulse. The restraints held him in place. Over the next hour, his A-10 broadcasts became fainter, until the only signal flowing from the clips was white noise. By that time, though, we'd already harvested the information we needed. This was just as well. Mao's body had begun to dissolve into a soupy orange mess: a flesh-and-LCL sculpture with the consistency of Jell-O.

Can you hear me, Mao? I thought.

His hair dripped into his lap. I concentrated harder, focusing as much hatred as I could into my last communication to him. I thought about my Knight's hollow expression as she looked up at me without giving any indication that she saw me. I recalled the cuts on her wrists.

Asuka says hello.

Perhaps it's just wishful thinking on my part, but I could swear I saw a final blip on Ritsuko's machine.

I chose to interpret this as applause.