Things came back slowly. Pain, of course, was always at the forefront of all the other sensations. It came trumpeting in like a standard bearer into battle ahead of an army. He could see the backs of his eyelids, ignoring the pounding in his head as he traced the dark veins outlined against salmon colored skin. Finally, he opened his eyes, and he sucked in a big breath.
He immediately stood up, already in a battle stance. Every nerve was shouting, and adrenaline seethed in his system at a froth. He remembered being hit with something. It'd felt like a bee sting to the neck, and he'd only had a second to question what it was before blacking out. Now, he was sure that he'd been captured, which meant he must be in a prison cell of some sort, but...
This was an awfully plush prison cell.
Ed began to relax a little, despite keeping his stance. Soft carpet, fine as moss, rustled under his feet as he shifted his weight between both legs. The walls were made of opaque glass, which seemed to be a popular thing in Patron City. He had no doubt that the opacity was actually a controlled illusion. He'd been lying on a couch in the middle of what looked like some sort of high tech living room. There was a wall screen, this one made of glass rather than plastic, and there were small, black boxes spread around the room on stands. He could only guess at their function. There were no doors, no windows.
Ed straightened up, and he further investigated his surroundings. He saw a couple of other couches, each containing one or two of his companions. Despite the seriousness of their situation, Ed couldn't help but wish he had a camera as he snickered at Alice and Zhang cuddling with each other in their sleep. She'd be mortified if she ever found out.
Ed sighed to himself, scratching his head. He wished he knew what was going on...
He could hear noises outside of their glass walls. He had contemplated breaking the glass in order to make an escape route, but he also remembered just how hard glass happened to be nowadays. Funny - he'd never thought that something like the hardness of glass could change from one century to the next. Ed pressed an ear against the glass, hoping for a better idea of their location. There had to be more outside of this room.
He could hear a dull roar, but not much more. It could be some sort of machine outside, but that gave him no clues. He sighed as he began to search the walls for some sort of panel for the glass opacity.
A gasp rang in the still air, and Ed jerked his head towards the sound. He watched with amusement as Zhang blurrily blinked and realized he was sleeping next to Alice.
"Wait... am I dead? Is this heaven? It looks like heaven. Please tell me this is heaven," Zhang whispered loudly to Ed, and Ed smiled. The perky Xingese emissary never ceased to make him grin. He shrugged, and he said, "Sorry, bud." Zhang fell back against the bed with a light groan. He looked at Alice and made a face, though Ed could see under the grimace a trace of satisfaction. Zhang pushed himself off the bed, getting up with a wince. He rubbed his legs, and he said, "Man, I'm sore. What about you?" Ed took a deep breath, also wincing as he did so. His back was still in pain from those cuts, but it didn't seem like they were open. In fact, they felt as if they'd already healed quite a bit. Mostly, his muscles felt overworked, but other than that he felt fine.
"A little. Any idea where we are?" Ed asked, and Zhang shook his head. They both looked towards the sleepers.
"Should we wake them up?" Ed wondered. He scratched his head, feeling along his scalp for any surprise bumps or telltale marks of intrusion. He didn't find any.
"Nah. Might as well let them sleep a while. It'll definitely make Nirvana less cranky when she wakes up. You can guess what she'll do the minute she cracks open her eyes," Zhang said. He mimed picking up one of the boxes by its stand and smashing it into the window. He made the corresponding sound effect quietly, and Ed snickered. He'd contemplated that himself, honestly, but at least he was smart enough to know that was a bad idea.
They sat on the couch and tried to figure out the glass wall screen while the others slowly came back to life one by one.
The first thing Alice said was, "I'm starving. Got any chow?"
"You just woke up in what could be a prison cell, and the first thing on your mind is food?" Ed asked incredulously, and Alice shrugged.
"I've got my priorities straight. Problem?"
Thaddeus woke up next. He immediately leaped to his feet, much the same way Ed had, but his results were far less favorable. He collapsed to both knees holding his stomach, and all three teenagers helped him to his feet.
"What's the matter? Are you sick or something?" Ed asked. Thaddeus looked pale, even paler than usual, and he sweated as he made himself stand on both feet.
"I'll be fine in a minute. I just... must not have taken well to being dosed. Sedatives have unwarranted side effects." For a few minutes, they'd been afraid that he'd throw up, but he managed to keep his breakfast in its designated location. Nirvana wasn't far behind him after that, and her revival was a lot less dramatic than Zhang had thought.
"Freaking Father, leave me for a minute. Can't hardly get any air with you guys spitting out your carbon dioxide all over me. Get out of here already! Good night I have a headache..."
Hohenheim woke up last, nearly thirty minutes after Nirvana. They'd been afraid he'd succumbed to some sort of coma, due to his age, but when he got up, he was exceedingly chipper.
"That was the best sleep I've had in years! Remind me when we leave to pick up some of that sedative. I've been having issues falling asleep for the past few decades. Man, I feel like new!"
"Dad, that was a heavy soporific! You don't just take it like it's some sort of sleeping pill!"
"Why not? It worked, didn't it?"
For the next hour or so, they discussed their possible location, reasons for being in such a nice cell (but a cell, never the less), and who had captured them.
Nirvana winced at the last question. "I know who kidnapped us, actually. Some relation of Don's named Kade. The guy ran a minor slave ring under Don alongside the boss's prostitution gambit. A guy came at me in the metro, had a knife to my back. I think Kade only wanted me, but knowing that he had another couple of alchemists on his hands was probably too much of a catch to pass up. He doesn't know which of you guys are alchemists or not, though, from what I understand. That's the only reason why he's kept us together rather than just wasting the lot of you."
"Do you think he's out for your head?" Zhang asked. "Why didn't he just kill you while you were knocked out?" Everyone stared at Zhang with sardonic stares. It took Zhang a moment to process what he'd just said. He slapped his forehead.
"Duh. Never mind. Forget I said anything."
"So you have no idea where this Kade fellow might have stashed us?" Hohenheim asked seriously. His fingers drummed against his leg, and Ed couldn't help but feel irritated by the noise. He, too, was developing a headache. He figured that it was a side effect from being dosed. Nirvana shrugged.
"No clue. My target was Don, not Kade. He was a small fry, nothing major. That might've changed, though. For all I know, we're in a penthouse right now at the top of the Eyrie section of the city and there's no way we're getting back down unless we want to jump," Nirvana admitted. She looked slightly shaken. Her face was ashy as leaned against Thaddeus. The other man had recovered quite well, but he still looked sick. His face only fell grimmer after Nirvana's input.
"I don't know. Something tells me they couldn't have moved us far," Ed stated. He wasn't sure how he knew this fact, but it seemed plausible to him in some strange, instinctual way. Alice nodded in agreement.
"Those CCTV cameras are everywhere in this district, just in case smugglers try to bring things into the city through the loading stations. The homunculi would know in a heartbeat if someone was trying to smuggle people. You can fool the CCTVs every couple of feet by doctoring the running footage, but it'd take too long to get out of the district. He can't have gone far," Alice reasoned.
Suddenly, the glass wall screen came to life, and the prisoners jumped to their feet in surprise. A face appeared on the wall screen. The man was wearing a gray, charcoal suit with a silken tie, and he looked well-groomed. Ed thought he was reminiscent of a slimy business man, the type that came knocking at your front door on a Sunday morning to bother you with his brochures on prime real estate near Creta. The man smiled, displaying long, white (obviously bleached) teeth. His nose was thin, and his eyes were suspiciously merry. His hair was overly lustrous, as if someone was constantly shining a light on it. All together, he exuded a sort of phoniness that set Ed's teeth on edge.
"Rise and shine, lovelies! Ah, I see all of you are already up," the man stated, and Ed assumed this must be Kade. Something whirred, and Ed caught a glimpse of a black dome camera out of the corner of his eye.
"Sorry I couldn't greet you properly, but at the moment I'm a little busy. However, I decided it wouldn't be right to leave my guests without a little entertainment, so I decided to whip something special up for you all while you wait," Kade said, his voice grating on Ed's ears. His voice was phony, too. It sounded plastic and flat, as if someone had taken a human voice and removed the timbre and vibe to it. It gave a sense of inhumanity through its humanness, though if it had sounded like a normal voice it would've been incredibly pleasant to hear.
"Enjoy," Kade said, making a gesture they couldn't see, and the opacity of the glass walls began to fade. Ed frowned as the opacity disappeared in regular, circle shaped patterns, revealing -
He stepped back from the edge of the wall in surprise. There was a massive arena spread out before them made of varying terrains set inside of an oval track nearly a mile long. Walls that looked nearly fifty feet high rose on all sides, and stadium seats ringed the arena.
They were in a penthouse glass-box. Nirvana, Zhang, Alice, Hohenheim, and Thaddeus joined Edward as they also realized just how high they were in the air. The glass was so clear, it gave the illusion that there was nothing between them and the air below. Zhang swallowed, and he said, "This looks... like fun?"
A crowd roared in the seats as music thrummed through the glass, and Ed noticed that a pedestal had risen from the floor near the wall. He grabbed the shiny black instrument, turning it over in his hands. Alice immediately plucked it out of his hands, and she pressed a few buttons.
"Fancy. This is definitely newer than our sound system models back home," Alice said with a tone of awe as she flipped through different channels. Ed realized that the black boxes on stands were actually speakers. He could hear the crowd through them, as well as the music.
Suddenly, a cool announcer stated, "The games begin. This round will be a standoff in an anti-grav environ between Habin Clorick and Crater." All six prisoners looked down into the arena, noticing a miniscule door open on either side of the wide arena. The wall screen came to life with a live action image of the first contender, Habin Clorick. He was a large man of nearly seven feet with dark skin and three scars across his back. He gave a deafening roar, and the crowd roared back in reply. The man seemed to be enjoying himself.
The other door opened, and a young, very scrawny man stepped out with slow, hesitant steps. His eyes shifted like those of a rat as he cautiously entered the light of the arena. The crowd instantly turned on him, booing and jeering at him. He was obviously not a favorite. The bets flashed across the top of the screen as the two squared off on either side.
"50,000 cc's per unit (CLOR) : 5,000 cc's per unit (CRAT)"
The odds didn't look good. At least, not for the skinny guy.
"What is this? Some sort of competition?" Ed wondered out loud. Hohenheim looked grim as he said, "Yes, unfortunately. I hadn't thought Father would bring back the games."
"What are 'the games'?" Thaddeus asked, though he looked like he had an idea. Hohenheim sighed through his nose, long and drawn out, before explaining, "They were fight matches between slaves. It wasn't uncommon for them to happen once or twice a year. It was a contest between owners to see who had the best slaves in the city, possibly the nation. I was never a participant, but my father was. He survived, but only because he'd lost a hand and his owner was afraid that further competition would deprive him of his ability to work. From what Nirvana's told me of this Kade fellow, I'd say that Father sanctioned this himself in order to feed the circles with power by using this man's business sense."
"What does that mean for us?" Alice asked with a hint of panic. She unconsciously covered the bar code on her arm. Ed felt dread drift into the pit of his stomach as he came to the realization of what that could mean for them both. As a man who knows the slave trade, Kade could easily get rid of the tracker ink and brand them both as his instead. It was possible they would end up in these games as well once Kade was finished with Nirvana.
"I don't know," Hohenheim admitted, and silence ruled the air.
They turned back to the events unfolding below. The opponents were circling each other, sizing the other up, when the larger rushed the smaller. However, Crater was much faster than the lumbering ram of muscle with whom he contended, and he easily circumvented him. Crater skidded across the ground as he fell into a slide near a dark colored panel on the ground, and he quickly tried to flip it open. It sprang open easily, and he snatched out a rod made of fake wood. From where Ed sat, he could see the little, pale man curse under his breath at his bad luck, and he followed the smaller contestant with his eyes as Crater dodged Clorick a second time. This time, though, instead of just dodging, Crater brought the rod down on the back of the other man's knees, and Clorick let out a loud yelp.
Crater edged farther away, stumbling over the uneven ground beneath him, and Ed noticed that his clothes actually looked like they were moving in slow motion, as if he were in water. Finally, Ed noticed the silver, shimmering dome made of thin wire strapped across the top of the arena. It must be the device that caused the strange gravitational distortions. It disappeared from sight as Ed shifted his head, and he frowned.
"How long do these things last?" Ed asked. Crater ducked a swing at his head.
"Five minutes, at the most, when I was a kid," Hohenheim guessed. Crater landed another hit, but the tip of his rod broke.
"When do they quit fighting? How do they choose the winner?" Ed asked. Clorick kicked pebbles into Crater's face, and Crater was momentarily blinded. Clorick landed a sickening punch to the other man's head.
"In this fight, I'm not sure. The original games lasted until first blood was drawn to keep the slaves from being too banged up to work. This doesn't look quite as forgiving," Hohenheim pondered, rubbing his stubble.
"I didn't even know this existed," Nirvana said in horror-struck awe as Clorick twisted one of Crater's arms. The little man screamed in pain before managing to stick a foot in the other's face, breaking the other man's nose. "I had no idea this was even here..."
"It must've come up in the years you left," Zhang muttered. "Stuff like this can crop up fairly quickly." Crater stabbed the broken end of his rod into Clorick's thigh, but at the cost of getting backhanded nearly ten feet. The anti-grav restricted just how far Crater could go, a possible godsend.
"Did you know about this, Thad?" Nirvana breathed, and Thaddeus stated, "No, I didn't. This is all new to me." Finally, Clorick got his hands on a dark panel, pulling up on it. A jet of fire roared out, searing the man's left side with a blast-furnace flame. He roared in pain as he backed away, looking like he'd been half-cooked. Ed felt his stomach roll.
"Not all of those panels have weapons. It's a crapshoot," Ed muttered.
"What's a crapshoot?" Alice asked, sounding just as sick as Ed felt.
"A crapshoot means chance. Craps was a dice game. You take a risk by opening the panels, just like you do rolling dice," Ed explained. Crater took his chance, and he barraged Clorick's wounded, burned side with a series of kicks and punches. The larger man wasn't going to hold out much longer, not with wounds like those. Ed felt a thrill of hope for the littler man as Clorick fell backwards. Crater lifted a foot to smash into Clorick's face, which would immediately put him out of the game by knocking him unconscious, but Clorick was quick enough to grab the man's ankle.
Ed watched dully as the little man was lifted off the ground. Clorick stood up, the larger man's grin a sight to behold with its charred half-lips and its nasty blisters. Crater struggled, but he couldn't get out of Clorick's grip. Clorick walked over to the blast-furnace panel, and he switched to his other hand to hold the little man. Crater screamed and fought as he put two and two together. Ed suddenly grabbed Alice, holding her head to his chest as he covered her ears. She gripped him as, through Ed's hands, she heard a muffled, dying scream and the sound of flame going fwoooosh. Everyone turned away as the larger man held up the charred, small body in his grip like a trophy, roaring to the world his challenge. The crowd cheered with vehemence.
On the wall screen, a childish, video-game like sign read "CLORICK IS VICTORIOUS."
Grayson's face was somber as he stared at the damning evidence. Or, rather, the lack of damning evidence. This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all.
The signal that the tracker ink Ed and Al had in their systems had quit transmitting, but it didn't look as if the transmission had died. It was more like, something was blocking it. Imal was working hard to figure out a way to get around the transmission block, but unfortunately the lack of information on the block itself was proving to be a large obstacle for them. The others, who were no doubt with them, were just as firmly hidden.
"What does this mean? Think, Grayson, think," the man muttered to himself, mussing his white-blond hair into a veritable cloud. He'd been working on a little project of his when Georgia had interrupted him. She'd expected him to figure out an answer - after all, he had experience with the city. Shouldn't he know what was going on? Unfortunately, anyone that Grayson might've known was either dead, wasted, in a prison, or currently unavailable by normal means. His network consisted of people from the sewer lines, and those weirdos didn't pay attention to what lay above their tunnel systems as long as they left them alone.
He paced up and down, up and down. Richie had just been in here, interrupting Grayson's train of thought. The usually excitable man was even more unstable and active, seeing as the deadline for the launch happened to be in the next forty-eight hours. If they couldn't find Ed and Al by then, they'd have to leave roughly half their team behind. There was no way the Oasis government would allow an infiltration in the city just to save four measly lives that weren't worth much more than any other worker drone in the compound. That was all they saw sometimes, numbers. It was a failing that was inevitable when it came to politics. A person was a statistic, not a living, breathing, sentient being.
And Grayson knew he was on the verge of an idea. He had everything right in front of him! All the information was right there, sitting on his table, while he paced here like a maniac with a gnawing sensation on his brain. It was there, it was all there if he could just force his brain to-
He stared at the map of the city again. He retraced Ed and Al's journey carefully, noting the stops and starts. He'd thought those were strange, but he'd attributed it to the group trying to keep from getting lost. Now that he looked at it, he realized that they were very regular, not at all the sporadic pattern of someone stopping every so often just to look at a map or gather their bearings. This was a systematic path.
"Bertrand, show current nebula of signal," Grayson commanded strongly. He crossed his arms, biting a finger as he stared at the nebula of signals emitted from the city. There were dozens upon dozens upon dozens of them. They were all different hues, their names floating inside the clouds they belonged to. They were Web signals, they were car signals, they were camera signals, but there must be somewhere, a dead zone, that was not giving off signals. Grayson had something forming in his mind as he retraced Ed and Al's final steps before they'd disappeared.
Here. The trial stopped here, where there were only two signals, a wireless Web signal and a usual phone signal. However, these signals...
"Bertrand, give me the sine/cosine functions for the following signals: WPA55093 and PPA424240."
"Apologies, sir. Can not retrieve sine/cosine configurations." Grayson cursed. He paced again. Systematic starting and stopping... signals that couldn't, or didn't, have sine/cosine configurations... disappearing signals from tracker ink... Something wasn't right here. He'd been mulling it over for so long that he hadn't thought to add other factors into the mix. What was it like on the ground?
"Bertrand, give me topographical visuals of this section of the city." The Widget program responded in kind as best it could, a grainy tridemigraphic of the city streets and their store fronts. He had a miniature model of that section of city right there. It wasn't live action - there was no movement in the streets - but it would do. Grayson analyzed it carefully, thinking and thinking and think-
The door slammed open, and Georgia asked gruffly, "Do you have any-"
"Shut. UP." Georgia was taken aback by how vehement Grayson sounded. The man was leaning against the table, his bony shoulders sticking up as he hunched over it with his head hung low, examining the mini-model of the city displayed on the tabletop.
"I. Need. You. To. Shut. Up." Grayson punctuated each word with a single pound of his fist on the table, causing the entire model to shake. Georgia stood there, stock still, before finally saying, "All right."
She should've expected this. Hilary was a fool to let Grayson come. Yes, he was an amazing human documentary device, but Patron City held so many bad memories it was a wonder he didn't break down. He tossed and turned at night, and she could hear it through the walls. This place held bad blood for him, and it was affecting his very personality. His bouncy behavior had become one of erratic neurosis and irritability. His cheery personality was being stripped down to an optimistic core that was constantly surrounded by grim gallows humor and single-minded focus on tasks. No doubt the loss of his compatriots within the city decades prior were what was driving his current obsession with finding Edward, Alice, Zhang, and Nirvana. She could hardly say that she empathized, but at the least she could sympathize. She left quietly.
Grayson rotated the city picture around and around, even so far as putting it upside down. There was nothing about it that was extraordinary. It was a few city blocks with light poles, buildings, windows, sidewalks -
Light poles. Grayson frowned as he stared at the grainy shots of the light poles. He chewed the tip of his finger again, biting so hard that he almost couldn't stand it. His fingers, needless to say, were a mess by this point.
"Bertrand, zoom on block 2A." The Widget complied, and the grainy photo became a little clearer, but not by much. Grayson sighed to himself. Light poles had CCTV cameras. CCTVs had film, which meant that they'd seen the troupe of people. He was an idiot! He should've figured the CCTVs in. He called out loudly, "IMAL! GET OVER HERE! CHOP CHOP, WASTING DAYLIGHT, MOVE MOVE MOVE."
Imal burst in the door, looking irritable and haggard. The loss of his adoptive sister was taking a toll. He too had fallen prey to the city's ability to strip personalities to their core elements. He was more taciturn than ever, only ever muttering two or three words a day. He crossed his arms, and his eyes glowered. He didn't bother with a question.
"Get me the footage from these CCTVs," Grayson said in a distracted tone as he continued to look up and down the street for anything he'd missed. Imal left without a word, the strong presence leaving the room feeling much bigger. Grayson stood back up and sighed. He sat down in a chair, bouncing his leg. Kojak stepped in the doorway, but upon seeing Grayson in his unkempt state, he decided it wasn't worth asking about the mission detail on the pickup vehicle for their departure. Guun entered the room mere minutes later, and he was less perturbed by Grayson's strange intensity.
"Any luck?" Guun asked. Grayson shook his head, and he bounced to his feet again. The tall, gawky man paced back and forth, suddenly spewing information.
"I don't understand it. I just don't understand it. I can't get the sine/cosine configs for the signals, and I can't locate any of their tracker ink sigs from Imal's program, and there's this thing with the light poles. I need that footage from the CCTVs, and there's something wrong with the pattern that Al and Ed took. They're not lost, they're not moving, and they're not currently emitting a signal, which means they're somewhere in a dead zone or they've been captured, but that means we can't go and get them, not in forty-eight hours. There are no dead zones within a fifty mile radius, and there are only so many places they could go for them to hide, and they should still be emitting signals, but there are none. This isn't making any sense," Grayson stammered out at a surprising velocity. Guun lifted his thin, black eyebrows at the man's continued stream of words. He hadn't thought that the tall man could talk quite that fast, but then again, he'd seen him get heated during conferences over historical monuments within Oasis.
"Perhaps they have been captured, in which case their signal could be masked. Isn't there a way to look for something that doesn't exist? After all, a hole is seen because there is nothing in it," Guun stated calmly, piecing things together in his mind. "But then again, thinking that they've been captured is merely an assumption. They could be lost as well. Maybe there is a dead zone for a different kind of signal that is also blocking theirs." Grayson suddenly stood stock still outside the window. Looking down, he could see slaves milling about on everyday duties, carrying loads and messages whilst conversing with fellow slaves for only moments at a time. Pad loaders were interspersed with the slaves, gray dots in the midst of a blue-purple sea.
"Something that doesn't exist..." Grayson breathed. He suddenly snapped his fingers and spat out, "Bertrand, give me the signals for every single bit of tracker ink that's emitting right now. I don't care what they are, just do it! All signal types, all companies, everything." The Widget fought to keep up with the command. Grayson watched in anticipation as red dots bloomed all over the city block in his model. Soon, most everything was covered.
Except for one large square. There were absolutely none in that one square or around it. Just like that, the Widget gave up on the command, its energy completely consumed trying to comply with Grayson's command. It fizzled out, and the model of the city disappeared. Grayson stood there, the image ingrained in his head, as Guun picked up the smoking Widget.
"I think you broke it," Guun stated calmly. Grayson began to smile.
"Not important. I'm thinking we're beginning to get what we need." Imal suddenly came back, and he shook his head.
"No luck on the CCTVs. Shows nyet for the time frame. Just the same stretch of street," Imal said dejectedly. Grayson's smile grew bigger, and he clapped Imal on the shoulders with a smile.
"Good!" Imal was confused at the man's jubilation as the wild-haired man moved around with birdlike mania.
"Good?" Guun asked. Grayson walked up to the big man and plucked the smoking Widget out of his fingers with his own long, thin digits. Grayson gave a massive smile, like a small child on Christmas, and he said, "Very. Good." He started to peel the Widget apart, inserting a new battery pack from one in a drawer. Luckily, he'd had the foresight to buy more.
"What does this all mean?" Guun asked, his deep voice rumbling in his chest with a touch of his accent. He leaned against the wall. He was beginning to see what Grayson was getting at, but this was still as perplexing as finding a rabbit with its foot stuck in a window fifty feet off the ground covered in icing. Grayson turned his Widget back on, and it started to return to its original task before Grayson gave it a new one.
"Locate 672nd and Harkseth Street," Grayson said, and the Widget gave a close up of a large, warehouse-like building with no windows but plenty of doors.
"It means that someone is deliberately jamming Ed and Al's signal, but not just them. There's a signal jamming every single slave's transmission as well, making them impossible to find individually. But if you get enough people together that you have to mask..." Grayson trailed off, looking up at his companions. Imal understood immediately.
"You end up with a large hole in a signal map of slave transmissions," Imal finished. Guun smiled.
"A hole can be seen because there is nothing in it," Guun restated, and Grayson nodded.
"Exactly. Now, all we have to do is figure out who is in this building, why they're jamming the signal, and what he could possibly want Ed and Al for," Grayson said, leaving the other two in his dust. Guun and Imal stared, dumbfounded. Their brains fought to keep up with the other man's racing thoughts.
"You mean, they've been kidnapped? Not just lost or wandering around?" Guun asked, and Grayson nodded quickly. His long, white fingers drummed the table, making the image of the city shake like jello.
"Yes, they have to be. Those cameras didn't have footage because someone replaced them, painstakingly replaced them, in order to cover up a kidnap. I think it's safe to say whoever took Ed and Al probably took Nirvana and Zhang, too, because they would've managed to find us or rendezvous with us at some point. Nirvana's smarter than just to lay low and do nothing, after all. She has informants," Grayson explained. He began pacing again.
"Are you sure you're not just overestimating Nirvana's abilities in navigating the city?" Imal asked suspiciously. His dark eyes were shadowed slightly by a heavy, darkened brow. His patience was being worn thin, especially with all of Grayson's pacing, drumming, and constant movement. It was chafing his nerves.
"Positive. I've seen her work. I know how she works. I used to work the city like she did, for years even, before I got out. Believe me, she would be able to find us," Grayson said, finally stopping at the window. He stared out. Somewhere out there, in a large warehouse big enough to hold a football field or two, Ed and Al were captured. For whatever reason, they were there, but he wasn't sure why. He just had to-
Football field.
The phrase smashed into him like a sledge hammer to the head. Warehouse big enough to hold a football field... Grayson stared at the tridimegraphic with a look of question. For some reason that thought had struck a chord, and he didn't know why.
"Go get Georgia. We know where they are. Now let's fetch them," Grayson said, his words sounding far away and soft spoken. Stumped by his sudden trance, the two men walked out of the room. There was no time to waste.
Grayson walked to his chair and collapsed into it, staring at the image. Entranced, he continued to examine it, wondering for the life of him what it was that had him so confused as to think that he'd actually ended up stumbling into a bigger mystery rather than having just solved it.
A/N: Shew, it's been a long time since I've posted for this story, but I finally have another chapter out! It's been, what, two months? Anyways, I have another chapter that's steaming hot and ready to go right after this one, so you guys won't have to wait long. All you gotta do is sit tight while clean up goes on, and it should be up and ready to go in the next day or so.
So, recognition time! I'd like to thank my reviewers, FMAlcheholic, FullMetalWizardNerd7, Dashita Tichou, TailsMoon, Hikari Hellion, and rainstripe for their input on the last chapter. I'm glad you all liked the break from the story, and hopefully you don't mind getting back into the swing of things with more sci-fi goodness.
To my favoriteers, I'd like to thank Germo103, the only new favoriteer that I've got. But hey, one is always enough. Quality, not quantity!
To my subscribers, I'd like to thank Ambarwen, another single newbie out to face the world on their own. You brave, brave soul.
I don't mean to complain about reviews (after all, I love reviews) and it seems unfair seeing as I kind of did it last chapter, but I'd like a bit of personal input on thoughts and such about... well, anything about the story, such as what it might remind you of, or what you'd like to see, what you don't like at all, that sort of thing. I enjoy incredibly in-depth reviews, but just a short ditty on how you liked a specific part is nice as well. As such, I've got a few discourse questions just to get you started.
Do the games remind you of anything? Are they too derivative? Are the OCs sufficiently realistic? Are there parts that made you laugh? What about parts that made you angry? How well do you think the characters are characterized? Is Ed in-character? Or does he need to wander off to the land where OOCs go to die in regret? What do you think of the latest OC? Are there too many in this series? Would you like to see more of already established canon characters in some way, shape, or form?
Well, that's about it. God bless, and Merry Christmas!
-Doctor Yok