It was the beginning of November and the first trip after the two-month suspension of Envy's vacation, and Linke frowned. He had just realized that he was hearing a tiny buzzing sound from the back of the off-road automobile where Envy was sitting. He turned his head at Envy. "What is that sound?"
Envy lifted its eyes from its hand and gave him a small glare without moving its head. "I'm changing the structure of my skin." In reality, it was designing transmutation circles by changing its complexion.
"Okay..." It took him a small moment to realise that he still did not know what the sound was. "But how about the sound?"
"Alchemical reactions usually make that sound. And so it happens also when I shapeshift." Envy shapeshifted its arm to have multiple joints so that it could pat Linke on the head from the front of the car. The shapeshifting produced the exact same sound as just a moment before, though slightly louder, and small bolts of red lightning flashed around Envy's arm.
Linke was a little surprised but remembered now that he had always heard the sound and seen the lightning when Envy shapeshifted. "Ah."
Envy shapeshifted its arm back to normal and continued fiddling with its hand, making the same little buzzing sound as it kept changing.
"Oh, I see. Sorry I bothered you."
Envy kept its face neutral and said nothing derisive since he had apologised. It went back to thinking about the little circles and then wondered how small it could make them.
Linke, then again, decided to talk to Shrike. Shrike was driving the car down the mountain road.
"Did you meet your father yet?"
"Yeah, just a week ago actually."
"How did it go?"
"Pretty well, I guess."
"Did you find out if he has a hobby or something like that?"
"Yeah... He told me he likes to go to restaurants and eat different foods. And that he sometimes goes to the theatre. He took me to eat at a nice diner that had this most awesome char, bread and corn I ever had."
Linke almost smiled. "That's splendid."
"And I guess understand better now that parents have a tendency to ask their children about them getting a family. He asked me, but he was really non-assertive about it. Said I should only think about having a family when I'm ready. He said that he probably wasn't when he had me."
"Oh. Well, perhaps that was a correct assessment if he failed to be there with you when you were growing up."
"I sort of turned the question around at him and suggested he could get another child too."
"Hah! That's... That would be really insensitive if I said that to MY parents, since my mother is too old to have any more children. I guess it is much less insensitive in your case."
"Hm, he seemed a little shaken by that though."
"He did? I suppose he had a hard time getting over your mother and has difficulty finding another woman."
"Maybe... Anyway, he didn't really grill me about getting a family."
"I'm jealous." For understandable reasons, that got Envy's attention and it started following the two men's conversation now. "My father just telephoned me a few days ago and gave me a long talk on how I should act around women. Apparently this sermon was triggered by Charlene – that's the woman from North City I was seeing – saying she didn't want to have to always wait for me to come back, and so she had told my family that she was leaving me." Envy sniggered. "I do not think that's very funny."
"Think what you want," said Envy and grinned at him widely.
Linke tried to ignore Envy and continued. "Then he said something about wanting grandchildren and spoiling them rotten, and I told him I was on duty and had to go, even though I wasn't."
"Well, now you can go for Northrop. She hasn't started with anyone new as far as I know," said Envy. "Hmh... Linke, do you even want kids? If you don't, you should say that bluntly to your daddy's face. That ought to make him stop bothering you."
For a moment, Linke was speechless. "Huh. No one ever even asked me whether I WOULD want any children. My parents and sisters just assumed that I should and would without a second thought. But I guess that wouldn't matter so much since I'd still be working in Briggs and my hypothetical wife would be at home taking care of the children."
Shrike gave Linke a glare. "If you do get married and have children, please don't do that, sir," he said.
"What? You do know I'd have to earn a living for them, correct?"
"You should request a transfer to North City then. Just... don't have your children grow up virtually fatherless if you can avoid it. Seriously, sir."
Linke frowned at Shrike and continued after a short pause. "Oh... I see your point. Still, I'd get week of vacation every six weeks like everyone else so I could go home to them pretty often."
"It's still a long time, especially for a child."
"Hm. Maybe. Well, I'll see if it ever happens." Linke shrugged. "I guess I do want to have children at some point. I don't want to disappoint my parents."
Envy rolled its eyes at Linke and his playing by his parents' will. "How about you, Shrike? Do you want to get a family at some point?" came its comment from the back.
Shrike's hands tightened around the steering wheel and he went a little pale. "W-what? With you?"
Linke looked surprised and somewhat disturbed.
"Ha ha ha! Ahaha! No, stupid! I meant in general."
"O-oh... um, well, no. I mean... not now at least! I'm just not ready for that kind of stuff, at all. I'd have no idea..."
"But eventually you would like a family?"
"I... I really can't say right now."
"I can already see it... Little annoying miniature Shrikes running around and climbing into the ventilation pipes and getting stuck there, heh heh!"
Linke laughed a little and Shrike felt very embarrassed. "How about you then, Envy? Do you want to get a family?" Shrike asked, trying to turn the question around.
"WHAT?" said Envy amazingly incredulously and proceeded to laugh. It did not stop any time soon, and in fact laughed so long that Shrike and Linke had time to start wondering why it was laughing so much.
"Is that normal?" asked Linke. Shrike looked quite stunned and could not reply anything. "Do you have any idea why he found that so funny?"
"No... really, no," mumbled Shrike.
After laughing at the absurdity of Shrike's idea for another moment, Envy suddenly amused itself with the ridiculous idea and imagined having children. How would it even be possible? It was impossible! Envy chuckled a bit more before the thought dawned on it that while homunculi could not breed like humans, they could be created with alchemy.
Envy could perform alchemy.
Therefore, Envy could create new homunculi.
It suddenly sat back up and stared at the back of the front seats of the car extremely intently.
Shrike and Linke noticed that it stopped laughing, and Linke turned to look at it.
"Envy?" he asked. "What was so funny? Envy?"
Envy was not willing to acknowledge the existence of any kind of interference at the moment.
"Envy?"
"Linke... stop," whispered Shrike. "Be quiet."
"What is he doing?"
Shrike glanced at Linke and whispered "shh" again. Linke looked irritated but sat quietly.
Envy kept on thinking about its new idea. It had some knowledge about the way it had been created and could recite the instructions, but it did not truly understand them itself. It surmised that true understanding of the procedure would require extensive knowledge of alchemy and particularly human transmutation. It had nowhere near enough information of the issue past knowing the composition and physiology of a human body. The fact that no human in Amestris had ever successfully created a homunculus did not make Envy concerned. Father had been able to create homunculi and the humans could not manage it because it was both forbidden and Father had not let information of that particular area of alchemy get out at all.
Envy spent the whole trip thinking about the issue with nearly inhuman concentration, though it had to reprimand Shrike when he drove too carelessly and made the car bump too forcefully. It did not care at all when the men started talking again.
Linke spoke after an hour of concentrated silence. "Envy?" He got no reply. "Shrike, what is going on with him?"
"I don't know... Envy gets like that sometimes when it comes up with something or is angry. Then it's really better to just let it be."
"I should hope he isn't angry."
"Probably not."
When they arrived in the forest where Envy usually had its vacations, they got out of the car and Envy seemed quite normal again.
"Um, Envy? What was with all that laughing and silence?" asked Shrike.
Envy looked at him a little irritatedly. "The idea of me breeding is just ludicrous. Not not mention yucky. It's downright revolting! Then I happened to think of something else and had a really great idea but it turned out that it's impossible." It shrugged. "Then I was quiet for two hours because I felt like it." It grinned and walked off to eat some plants.
Shrike and Linke accepted the explanation without hesitation.
Envy, then again, continued thinking about its idea. Creating a homunculus was not impossible. It was doable. Envy still did not quite know how it would go about the creation, but at least it started to figure out what kind of knowledge it would need to find out.
Envy spent about a week gathering what it knew and remembered of creating a homunculus and figuring out what kind of information it still lacked. It knew the basics of alchemy and the final steps to making a proper homunculus, but everything else in between was missing. As it collected its data, it naturally did not write anything down but kept all its findings in its head, which was annoying at times since it had to always recall its previous thoughts about the issue. It also thought about how it would get the information it needed and became very annoyed. Was there any way it could get all what it required?
For the moment, Envy's only chance to learn more alchemy was to secretly read the alchemy books. Shrike had a few books of his own and occasionally went to North City to borrow or buy more. The library still had the few basic books, but the librarian Corporal Harbin had acquired a couple more at Shrike's request. Being so secretive about reading them was irksome, and it could not get its hands on every book Shrike brought in because even though he held onto the books for a long time, he mostly kept them in his room or his study room and Envy did not have any business visiting them.
Since Envy could not learn the theory of alchemy fast enough for its own liking, it also thought about the practical things. It was obvious that it would tell no one of its attempt to create a new homunculus. Therefore, it would have to hide everything it did, which meant that it needed a place where it could perform the transmutation unobserved. While there were some remote and rarely visited corners in the Fort, no place inside would be a private enough space. The only conceivable place was outside, in the forest where the trees would cover all possible traces, or in a cave. There was plenty of forest in Envy's vacation spot, but it also required privacy from its escorts and achieving that was much trickier. The only way would be to convince Shrike and Linke to not tell Armstrong of its going off on its own or Armstrong giving it permission to run around alone. Envy figured that the latter option was more probable since Armstrong had previously said she would be willing to let it out on its own. It only needed to wait.
Another practical issue concerning the creation of a homunculus was the making of the body. That task Envy considered to be the simplest part because it thought it understood human physiology perfectly, or at the least almost perfectly, and better than any human in any case. Envy could create the needed mass using its own Philosopher's Stone, but doing so would be needlessly fancy when it could just as well get the substances on a market. Of course, Envy buying the substances for a human body on a market would be the epitome of suspiciousness, so the more convenient option was to capture animals and transmute their bodies into their basic elements and then transmute the body using those substances. It did not consider breaking a body down to its basic elements difficult since it occasionally did similar things when it shapeshifted.
The new homunculus would naturally need a Philosopher's Stone. Since Envy had no way of suddenly making it without anyone knowing, it decided to just split its own Stone in half. It was not sure how big a Philosopher's Stone it really needed, but it was sure that half and even less was enough to sustain its current body.
One thing that Envy was very unsure of was whether creating a homunculus would count as true human transmutation. A homunculus was an artificial human and not a real one, but it had to admit there were similarities. It knew Father had not been taken in front of the Gate just to create it and its siblings, but was that just because he had perfect control over alchemy and a massive Philosopher's Stone or because creating homunculi was not really human transmutation?
If creating homunculi was human transmutation and Envy needed to pay something for performing that, would it have enough Philosopher's Stone to both create the homunculus and pay however much the toll would be? Envy did not know and had no way to find out. Its uncertainty discouraged it.
Envy lost the initial enthusiasm for its grand idea once it realised that it might not have enough energy in its Philosopher's Stone. After that, it proceeded in its alchemy studies in a much calmer manner. That helped it come up with ways to get the information it needed.
Days and weeks went by as Envy tried to learn what it could about human transmutation. While it did not tell Shrike about its endeavours, it designed some complex questions and innocent-seeming remarks that did not reveal the actual subject or reason behind them but that still helped it advance its own research when Shrike explained the issues to it or did research in its stead.
Finally, after the year had changed to 1916 and January had went by, Armstrong gave Envy permission to go walk by itself during its vacations, though other soldiers still accompanied it to the forest. Envy immediately used that to its advantage. Even though its private time in the forest during the vacation was rather restricted as well, it made good use of that time. It searched the thick woods for a suitable place and eventually found what it was looking for: a long since abandoned farm. The farm had previously been a part of a tiny village only a couple of kilometres away, but as far as Envy knew, the village was dwindling as well, its inhabitants moving off in search of better land and living conditions, if it was not already completely abandoned.
The farm looked like it had before, though the fields around the farm were not really fields any longer but thickets with a variety of young trees, bushes and undergrowth – and currently, a thick layer of snow. The two remaining buildings that were still relatively intact were shaded by taller trees and covered by climbing plants. One of the buildings was the main building and the other a barn built mostly with stone.
Envy inspected every spot of the area by eye since it did not want to leave too obvious tracks of its presence. After it had made sure the area was empty, it changed into a snake-like shape and slithered under the snow to get into the buildings. It found no traces of humans, but it did find a family of three lynxes in the attic of the main building. The animals were terrified of it and would not stop growling, so it ate them. It wondered how its improved digestive system would handle the hard parts of their bodies: the bones, teeth and claws.
Once it had made sure that the place was secure, Envy promptly got to work and did some larger-scale alchemy tests. It cleaned up the interior of the barn and changed the building's layout back and forth.
Envy noticed that while it had been able to clean the barn's interior by moving and reshaping the stone material, it had some difficulty transmuting the plant material. It thought that maybe transmuting organic material had a some kind of special trick to it that it did not yet know fully even though it was able to shapeshift and thus effectively apply alchemy to itself, and it was sure it was living and organic. It then studied the plants and got better at changing their structure.
Envy continued with its studies and experimented more boldly in the abandoned farm, but eventually it ran into a wall. Envy was very frustrated that the larger-scale experiments did not really help it understand anything new. There was no way it could learn to understand the missing links to creating a new homunculus, no matter what it did. It needed information from several different areas of alchemy and really needed to ask Shrike about some things that it just could not understand for whatever reason, a fact that it resented incredibly, even if it knew that there were things about alchemy it and no one else in the world knew.
Envy went over its options again. It had to tell Shrike about its alchemy skills to get any useful help, but it had to also make sure that he would not tell Armstrong anything. It pondered what was the best way to achieve that. It could either threaten his life, claim that Armstrong would kill it if he told her or just ask him seriously to keep his mouth shut. It came to the conclusion that all options were effective and risky in their own ways. Shrike would be certainly quiet if Envy threatened him, but he would be stressed and very nervous when dealing with Armstrong, which would make it more likely that Armstrong would draw her own conclusions and start bothering Envy or just force Shrike to speak. If Envy claimed that Armstrong would kill it if she learned of its abilities, it guessed that Shrike would be incredibly torn between his silly love for it and his loyalty to Fort Briggs, since he would understand that the issue was very important, so much so that even he would figure out that Envy was up to something. If Envy merely asked him to keep it secret, he would not be stressed and probably would not think that Envy's alchemy skills were that important an issue, but then he would be more likely to tell it to Armstrong casually if she asked about it.
In the end, Envy decided to just ask Shrike to keep quiet and perhaps imply that Armstrong would get her panties in an imposing tangle if she found out about its alchemy skills before it had managed to make it clear that it was not going to kill everyone with them.
It was the beginning of March, and Envy once again watched boredly how Shrike prepared to fuse a patch on a broken pipe.
"Wait," it said.
"Hmm? What?" asked Shrike.
Envy grinned rather widely and shapeshifted its hand so that its palm depicted the same kind of transmutation circle that Shrike always used to fuse the patches on the pipes. "Look at this." It then pressed its hand on the pipe and melded the patch to the pipe exactly in the same manner as Shrike.
Shrike started at the pipe and seemed rather confused. "But... didn't you tell me that you were sure you couldn't do alchemy?"
"Well, it turned out that I was wrong. I have no idea how this is possible, but here we are."
"Huh."
"Anyway, listen. I really, really want you to not tell about this to Armstrong. I'm worried she might lose it and tell me to not study alchemy at all or do something even worse. So can you PLEASE try to keep this a secret?" it asked, managing to sound both pleading and frustrated as it spoke.
"Ummh..." Shrike seemed shifty. "But... It's... I think she would be just interested. I mean, she was when I told her that I could perform alchemy, at least sort of. And if you want to study more, she would probably allow you to spend more time on it too."
Envy stared at Shrike and saw that he obviously did not understand the threat of it knowing alchemy. "It's not about that kind of stuff. She'd get her panties in a knot because she would think that I was going to do something really dangerous with alchemy. You know alchemy can be really dangerous, right?"
"Well... yes, but couldn't you do that even without alchemy? You can shapeshift into a horrible beast and do pretty much anything. And seriously, even a regular person could kill large amounts of people just like that. All they need is a machine gun or a large car in a crowd."
"Oh. Yeah, sure," said Envy agreeably, not challenging what Shrike had said. "I suppose, but she'd still act irrationally about it because of what I am and what I've done before. I just want to study alchemy and I'm sure she'll at the least prohibit me from studying it at all if she learns that I can perform alchemy."
"Um... But... I can't keep this a secret if she asks me."
"Of course you can! Seriously, Shrike, the only thing you need to say is 'What? No.' That's all! The shorter you keep it and the more clueless you look, the better. You're fairly decent at looking clueless."
"Oh..."
"And if she doesn't ask, just don't bring it up. It isn't so hard."
"Uh. Well, maybe I can try it... But... what if she finds it out anyway and finds out also that I've been keeping this a secret from her? I don't want to – –"
"Come on, she wouldn't do anything to you. You're loyal and harmless. It's not that big a thing. Well, maybe you'd get some extra laundry duty or whatever but don't tell me you'd reveal everything to her just to possibly be spared from a few laundry shifts."
"Eh... Yeah, I guess you're right."
"So you'll do your best to keep this a secret?"
"Yeah."
Envy made a considerably less creepy grin. "Okay, great. Anyway, I pretty much wanted to tell you this because I've been studying alchemy for a while on my own but I'm stuck now because there are just some things I don't get. So, can you help me?"
"Ah, sure. Um, was that why you wanted to read my alchemy books during the vacations?"
"No. First it was exactly what I told you back then, it wasn't so boring to read and I got some shapeshifting ideas from them. I figured out this performing alchemy thing later," it said with a shrug.
"Oh. Well, I can teach you some things but I don't really know all that much either..."
"But you can get some books from North City, unlike I."
"Yeah. Um, where could we study? I mean, if we're supposed to keep this secret, we'd need to hide or something."
"Don't you have that study room where you do alchemy experiments?"
"Well, yeah, but it might be suspicious if you started coming in there too."
Envy was irritated. "Darn it. Well, at least you can smuggle me the books so I can read them on my own and we can talk about stuff while we do this stuff."
"Hmm, yeah."
Yet more days, weeks and months went by as Envy tried to learn what it could of human transmutation without making anyone suspicious of what it was doing. At the same time, it ate a lot and tried to add as much energy to its Philosopher's Stone as it could. It spent so much time thinking about creating a new homunculus that it did not even sleep any longer except an hour or few during its short vacations.
This time of studying was one rare period in Envy's life because it could not just blindly jump in and do what it wanted. It knew that if it did not have enough energy in its Philosopher's Stone, it would probably just die. Or worse, its transmutation would fail altogether and it would be reduced back to its pitiful true form.
Shrike brought some more alchemy books from North City and studied them with Envy. Most often it was he who read them thoroughly and then he explained the subjects to Envy, which improved his knowledge quite dramatically.
Envy wondered why the example transmutation circles were so different to what it remembered from the material the homunculi had most often seen, but it figured out rather soon that it was because the homunculi had mostly concerned themselves with human transmutation issues or the creating of Philosopher's Stones, and the readily available library books naturally did not touch the subjects. After a few arguments with Shrike about the shape and content of the circles, Envy kept its knowledge of human transmutation circles to itself.
Shrike did not know why Envy became so concentrated on alchemy, but since that was obviously beneficial to him as well, he did not complain. He studied alchemy alongside Envy and put more effort in it since he wanted to and had to stay ahead of Envy, mostly because its patience wore very thin very quickly if he did not explain alchemy to it in a concise way.
Shrike gradually grew to accepting the idea that maybe it would be possible for him to become a state alchemist after all. He started getting more interested in thermodynamics and wondered how alchemy would be able to affect it. Once Shrike had reread the theories of thermodynamics and finally understood the basics of the subject, he saw how alchemy could be easily used to manipulate the thermal energies involved. Heat was the presence of movement and vibration in matter, and alchemy manipulated energy in a way that would be possible to apply to thermal theories. Shrike figured out that to apply alchemy to thermodynamics, matter would not even have to be deconstructed and re-constructed.
Figuring out what kind of transmutation circle the manipulation of thermal energy would require turned out to be a lot trickier to find out and Shrike grew very frustrated with it. He battled with his ideas for a week. Eventually he just snapped at Envy and heatedly explained the whole of his problem to it. Doing that took him nearly an hour.
They were studying in Shrike's study room, where Envy occasionally went even though that could be seen as suspicious. It only made sure that it had a good reason to be there and did not do it too often. While Shrike explained his issues, Envy just stared at him and listened quietly to his ranting. It did not interrupt him or even try to ignore him by continuing with the book it had been reading before the ranting had started.
Once Shrike had calmed down and realised what he had done, we could not believe that Envy had said absolutely nothing, had listened to him and apparently had also understood what his problem was.
"I don't know why you think there's something so difficult with your issue," said Envy once Shrike had calmed down enough to understand what it was saying. "Even though you just spent an hour explaining your troubles! I kept waiting for you to explain why you couldn't figure it out and you didn't even tell," it continued indignantly. "The solution, in case you're wondering, is obvious. The transmutation circle focuses alchemy properly. The runes and other shapes direct the deconstruction and reconstruction of matter. The circular shapes control the flow of energy. Just draw a transmutation circle that only has circles! Use an eccentric ellipse if you want to be really bold. It can't be that hard. If that doesn't work, draw a simple line through it, that ought to direct the energy wherever you think you want it."
"...Wha-what..." Shrike stared at Envy and could not believe what he had just heard. Now that he heard it and had a few quick thoughts about it, it made perfect sense to him as well. But why had he not thought about it himself, if it was that simple? And if it was not that simple, how did Envy know of it at all?
Envy just frowned at Shrike and wondered if he was getting it.
"How can you know something like that?" he asked finally.
"How can you not know it? That was obvious to me even before I started studying alchemy!"
Shrike stared at Envy for yet a moment, but then he started for his working desk and spent a moment drawing some circles. Envy went back to its book and did not really pay attention to him until it heard the sound of something catching on fire and Shrike shouting something about success.
"I did it! I transferred energy from this piece of paper into that, and now this is extremely cold and the other just combusted!" Shrike tried to grab the cold piece of paper into his hand but it disintegrated because of its frailty. "Oops..."
"Uh-huh, cool," mumbled Envy and continued reading its book.
Shrike made some notes and wanted to tell about his achievement to Armstrong and offer to make something of his discovery so that it could benefit the whole Fort. However, he started dwelling deeper into the implications of beginning to use alchemy in the Fort and spent a few more days organising his thoughts before he was ready to talk to Armstrong.
Shrike sought out the Major General and met her and her secretary Major Rodney in one of Fort Briggs's corridors.
"Sir, do you have a minute?"
"Depends on what your issue is."
"It's about an alchemical idea I came up with... and about using alchemy here in the Fort."
"Hm. Go ahead."
"I discovered that it's possible and rather easy to transfer thermal energy in order to chill or warm objects. I suspect that isn't a very new discovery, but it isn't mentioned in any of my books in the exact manner as I do it. Using the technique I came up with, I don't need to transform the material at all, only manipulate the energy. There is a possibility I could use that to warm or thaw or chill places that are difficult to get into here."
"Congratulations on explaining your issue understandably. However, we can already warm up or chill the Fort adequately. Why would we need alchemy for that?"
"That is related to the other issue I was thinking about, sir. If I come up with an idea of utilising alchemy that would be very beneficial for the Fort, would we then become dependent on alchemy? I think it's important that whatever we do here should also be achievable without alchemy. Because if something depends only on it... then it would depend only on me. I really shouldn't become that irreplaceable. Placing so much responsibility on one person feels... well... irresponsible, sir."
Armstrong stared at Shrike for a moment. "You're right. Nonetheless, do consider this point of view: If we find a flaw of some sort in the Fort, a hole in security, and the only way to fix it is with alchemy, then we should use alchemy before we are compromised. Correct?"
"Y-yes, sir... of course we should. But I just don't think alchemy should be the first solution even if it seemed obvious."
"Hmph. Perhaps the trouble is figuring out when is the last chance to not use alchemy and when it must be used."
"Yes, sir."
"Your idea of the transfer of thermal energy sounds useful. If you need to train for that, go out and practise until you're sure enough that nothing can go wrong if you do it at a critical time in the Fort."
"Yes, sir."
"While we're on this topic, have you heard of alkahestry?"
"It's... some form of alchemy from Xing, I think, sir."
"What do you think of it?"
"I don't really know much about it."
"Find out anything you can about it and tell me if any of it would be useful to the Fort."
"Acknowledged." Shrike stood quietly for a short moment. "Uh, is there anything else, sir?"
"No, you can go."
Shrike turned and left, wondering how he could get his hands on information concerning alkahestry. He had only seen it mentioned briefly in some very new book about the history of alchemy. He also was not personally interested in it.
