Note: "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" (c) Hoagy Carmichael

Chapter 29: Panic

The rural trains stopped at every town, hamlet and cowshed in the west, and it took Roy thirty-one hours to get from Lesser Marlburg to Haverton, the second of eight stops on the Express from West City to Central. Only when he was safely aboard, his kit bag stowed in the wire berth above him and his second-class ticked punched by the conductor, did Roy once again allow himself to think.

The floodgates opened, and suddenly he was floundering in the offal of the past weeks. Terror and consternation and a deep, nauseating shame. His spine seemed to lose its cohesion, and he melted backwards into the corner where the bench met the window. The glass was cool, and Roy pressed his forehead against it, staring blankly out at the forest speeding past. He tried desperately to focus, to pull himself together, back into the safe, constrained military shell and the devil-may-care mask that had served him so well in the field.

It was useless. His three years at the Academy had included rigorous training in controlling these emotions. Fear and horror... they could be deadly in a combat situation. If a soldier let himself go to pieces just because he was surrounded by gunfire, or cut off from all support in the midst of no-man's land, or isolated in a remote railroad camp with a depraved, unnatural, murdering alchemist, then he didn't stand a chance. Losing control was an open invitation to death.

So the military employed psychologists to educate its cadets in coping strategies, and set seasoned vets to the task of devising practical exercises in compartmentalization and disassociation. Roy tried futilely to think back to the week of interrogation training. That had not been so very different: to succeed, to survive, he had had to keep back the apprehension, to control the stress and the strain and channel it into something useful. He'd done the same thing with his fear of Kimbley; put it from his mind, refused to allow himself to give in.

But when the training with the Special Ops had ended, it had been over. There had been no baggage, emotional or physical, to carry away. Whereas this... Roy wasn't sure that this would ever be over.

Worse than Kimbley's cruelty was the fact that his behaviour flew in the face of everything Roy believed in. Maes had often teased him about his naivety, and he was right. Roy believed in the military. He believed that it was a force devoted to serving the Amestrian people. And he believed – or he had believed – that its officers and especially its alchemists took that responsibility seriously. He thought about his instructors, about Lieutenant Colonel Brighton and Captain Casperia – and even that arrogant Armstrong woman. He thought about Brigadier General Grumman. They were what officers were supposed to be like. Pedantic at times, strict and maybe a little abusive, but dedicated to the uniform and to the nation that they served, and considerate of those under their command. They did not threaten the lives of their subordinates. They did not strike up inappropriate and immoral relationships with them. And they did not murder them.

But Kimbley had, and the draught of disillusionment was a bitter one. He had betrayed every principle that the military taught, every principle that Mustang valued and admired. He had threatened at least two subordinates with death, and... and... and... A convulsive shiver coursed through Mustang's body, and he thought what had happened to Bathory. Certainly he had not been particularly fond of her, but he had to some degree empathized with the helplessness and hopelessness of her position, and whatever her personal failings, no one deserved that... to be used as material in a deadly transmutation that served no greater good but only satisfied the bizarre carnal appetites of a demented, twisted...

Pale eyes glinting with madness, and cool, bony palms on either side of his head. Roy could feel the power in those absurdly simple arrays; the power to kill, to destroy, and...

He choked back the bile that was rising in his throat. He hadn't eaten since leaving the camp, and there was nothing within to vomit up, but the urge was still there. Slowly Roy opened his eyes, focusing intently on the trees that whipped past. He tried to count them. One, two, skip a few, ninety-nine, one hundred... They were moving far too swiftly to be counted.

Alchemy was to be used for the good of all. Alchemists, be thou for the people. What was the point of practicing alchemy if one kept it locked in a dusty study the way that his sensei had? But how could he aspire to do anything more, when a State Alchemist used his art to arbitrarily execute soldiers under his command?

He didn't have to be like Kimbley. He could be better than that. He could aspire to something more. Without realizing it, Roy straightened his spine, peeling away from the bench as his resolve hardened itself. Of course he could be better than that. Why, there were crazy doctors who killed patients on the operating table, but the vast majority of physicians were caring and altruistic. There were farmers who beat their wives to death, but most men of the land were quiet and peaceable. The same had to be true for other professions, too. The fact that one man with a silver pocketwatch was a perverse and unbalanced lunatic – a murderer – did not taint every alchemist in the State. The others had to be better men than Kimbley.

There was that optimism again, Roy thought wryly. Maes would've made some crack about it if he were here. But he was glad that Maes wasn't here. He would've seen right through all Roy's attempts to equivocate, and there were some things that Maes did not need to know...

Now that he had made up his mind, Roy had work to do. He got to his feet, his legs quivering a little with enervation, and hauled one of his texts out of his kit bag. He sat down again and balanced it across his lap. He would study. If he kept busy, maybe he wouldn't have to think about... He would keep busy. He had two days left before the exam, and he still wasn't confident that his literacy skills were up to the challenge.

The train rattled inexorably towards Central.

discidium

Roy needed a quiet place to study, and hopefully sleep a little. He could not return to the Academy: he was not expected for another twenty-four hours, and though there was no way that news of his AWOL departure from the rail camp could have reached Central before him, he wasn't going to take any chances. Besides, the last thing he wanted given his current state of mind was to return to his room with Mark Zlotsky, the world's most nepotistic cadet.

The university library was out: for one thing, it was anything but quiet, and for another, anyone caught sleeping there would be tossed unceremoniously into the street. And as much as he wanted to rise above that kind of petty servility to his body's needs, Roy knew that he had to try to sleep. He hadn't had more than the odd catnap on the train, because every time an axel squeaked, or a car door opened, or another passenger sneezed, he found himself jolted awake in a brief instant of panic. There was a word for that, though Cadet Mustang didn't know it: hypervigilance.

He might have had enough money to get a room in a hotel, but Roy couldn't quite justify that. There was a nagging fear that the worst would happen: that he would fail the exam, and be expelled from the Academy for his display of defiance in the rail camp, and find himself at once without prospects, employment or shelter. It was the worst-case scenario, but despite his innate optimism, he could not help but think how well it would fit with is recent streak of fortune.

He had no friends in Central, or at least no friends with the means to harbour an AWOL cadet. But there was one place where he had passed a difficult night under the auspices of an empathetic entrepreneur, and in the numb and bewildered frame of mind in which Roy disembarked at Central Station, it seemed like the most logical place to go.

He had been very drunk when he had been shown the way to the place, and very hung-over when he had found his way away from it, and so it took a while for him to find the building again. It was a storefront with red velvet drapes occluding the window, and a tastefully painted sign declaring it to be The Purple Myna, a "private club".

There was a bell hanging from the lintel so that it rang when the door was opened. Roy thought that that had to be a new addition. The room was busier than it had been on his last visit: several girls and their escorts were lounging around the bar and the chaises. Only the bartender looked up as Roy entered.

"Can I..." the cadet began. Then he cleared his throat and forced a lazy grin. "I'm here to see Christabelle," he said smoothly.

Wordlessly, the man jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the arched opening that led to the lounge. Sauntering as best he could with his heavy kit bag over one shoulder, Roy moved into the other room.

There was less activity here: a scantily clad brunette was massaging the shoulders of a reedy-looking man with thick spectacles, and a pair of girls were draped over the top of an ornate upright piano. Before it sat the generously proportioned woman with the over-made face, her silk robe pooling at her feet. She was tickling the ivories with a fair bit of skill, and singing raucously as the girls joined in:

I'll come down and let you in.
I'll come down and let you in.
I'll come down and let. You. In.
Cried the fair young maiden.

Well, hurry before I bust in the door!
(Barnacle Bill the Sailor!)
I'll rare and tear and rant and roar!
(Barnacle Bill the Sailor!)
I'll spin you yarns and tell you lies!
I'll drink your wine and eat your pies!
I'll kiss your cheeks and black your eyes!
(He's Barnacle Bill the Sailor!)

Then the older lady swung into a raucous ragtime improvisation. The girls exchanged an amused glance and began to clap along. When Christabelle finally concluded with a long chromatic scale, all three women burst into merry laughter.

Roy cleared his throat, and the pianist swivelled on the stool, one hand finding her generous hip. "Well, well," she said wonderingly. "Look what the cat dragged in. What're you doing here, honey? I didn't figure I'd see you back here again, a nice boy like you."

Roy glanced sidelong at the two girls, who were eyeing him like predatory cats. They probably thought he was a client, and that he wanted to...

He shivered a little, and shrugged lazily. "I wondered if I could have a word, ma'am," he said politely.

One of the girls tittered. "Madame," she corrected, sotto voce. Her colleague giggled.

"Why certainly, hon," Christabelle said, getting to her feet and swaying forward. "You want to do this in private?"

"Yes," Roy said earnestly. The two girls whooped and whistled, but Christabelle ignored them and steered Roy towards the wall and pulled aside another curtain, revealing a narrow back staircase.

Upstairs, a corridor full of doors met Roy's eyes. He felt suddenly very nervous. He had absolutely no proof that he could trust this woman – save that she had refused to take advantage of him when he was drunk and miserable. As she opened the first door on the left, he braced himself, making ready his excuses so that he could beat a swift retreat if she...

It wasn't a bedroom, he realized with a flood of relief. It was a tiny study – and quite an ordinary one, too. There was a plain pine desk equipped with a blotter, an inkwell, a mug full of pencils, and a slide rule. Behind it stood a shelf full of ledgers. A battered sofa occupied most of the right-hand wall. Christabelle draped herself over it, and patted the cushion next to her slippered feet.

Roy hefted his bag off of his shoulder and eased it to the ground. "I was just wondering if..." He gestured futilely. "I need a quiet place to study."

The woman stared at him from beneath garishly painted eyelids. "Study?"

"I'm taking a very important exam the day after tomorrow, and I can't go back to the Academy, because – I can't go back to the Academy tonight. I need somewhere quiet where I can practice my..." He flushed a little, but he might as well admit the truth. "My reading."

"Don't take it personally, child, but you look like you need a lot more than that. You look like my late husband. Duong, that is. Not Tom. Or Jack. Listen, the room across the hall is empty. Why don't you go and have a bath, and lie down for a while, and when the house closes I'll fix you some breakfast."

Roy let out a small laugh of disbelief.

"Something wrong?" asked Christabelle.

"I didn't really think you'd agree," he admitted.

She regarded him quizzically. "And yet you came," she said.

discidium

Mustang bathed, luxuriating in the hot water that was almost foreign after five weeks of cold showers in the field. He would have scrubbed himself raw, but suddenly he thought of Bathory and her compulsive hand-washing, and he couldn't bear to. Instead he soaked until the water was cold, and then got out and put on his other uniform: the one that he had worn during the journey to Central needed laundering in the worst way. A large four-poster bed occupied most of the small room adjacent to the bath, but Roy couldn't help imagining what it was usually used for. He returned to the little study, wondering if he was turning into a prude.

He decided that he just had better things to do than sleep. The papers from the examination board claimed that spelling and grammar were not graded in the written portion of the exam, but Roy had a sneaking suspicion that if he was spelling the names of common elements incorrectly it would be held against him. He sat down at the desk with his periodic table and a fresh piece of paper. It proved a welcome distraction.

At five o'clock in the morning, Christabelle came upstairs. She had traded in her negligee for a gaudy polka-dot frock and a string of freshwater pearls. She had a pot of coffee in one hand and a plate of sausage and scrambled eggs in the other.

"What's the big test?" she asked, setting the food at Roy's elbow.

The cadet looked up from his copywork. "The State Alchemist exam," he admitted.

She whistled softly. "You don't aim low, do you?" she asked. "How old are you, anyway?"

"Almost twenty," Roy said defensively.

"Hah! You're a year younger than my daughter," Christabelle said.

Roy's eyes widened a little. Somehow he had never thought that prostitutes could have children. "You've got a daughter?"

"Three," said Christabelle proudly. She opened the top drawer of the desk and took out a leather frame. Three girls grinned out at Roy, arms throw affectionately around one another's shoulders. "That's Gloria," she said, pointing to the eldest, who was at least eight years older than her next sister. "Her father was my late husband Jack. And here's Polly. She's Tom's, God rest his soul. And Vanessa."

Roy racked his brain for the name of Christabelle's third husband. "Duong's?" he asked.

"Good lord, no!" Christabelle laughed. "Duong was over the hill long before I caught him. And we were only married eighteen months. No, Vanessa wasn't born in what you might call the bonds of wedlock." She smiled mischievously.

"They're lovely girls," Roy said politely. "Are they..." He looked towards the door.

"No," Christabelle said softly. "I'd never have them live here. They're at finishing school in North City." She shrugged. "Say what you will about the lifestyle: at least it pays well."

"I suppose..." Roy said.

" 'Course, what I'd really like to do is set up on my own. A nice little lounge, maybe a stage. A billiard table, and a bar, of course. And an apartment upstairs. A private apartment." She winked pointedly.

Roy nodded appreciatively. "You never know," he said. "It sounds doable."

She laughed. "Well, you're not the only one with lofty ambitions. When's this exam of yours?"

"Tomorrow," Roy said.

"You'll be staying here 'til then?"

He shook his head. "I'm expected back at the Academy this afternoon," he said. Assuming Kimbley hadn't yet had a chance to rat him out. "Listen, I really appreciate—"

"No problem, honey. Any time. My house is your house. Well, the house I own a quarter share in is your house." She ruffled his hair fondly. "I like you, Roy Mustang. You're a good boy. Now. Eat your breakfast."

discidium

When Roy returned to the Academy that afternoon, he did so with bated breath. He checked in, and the sergeant at the desk greeted him amiably. He supped in the mess hall with the other cadets, all of whom were more than happy to see him. There was no summons from the faculty offices waiting in his room, and no one stopped him when he went to have his uniforms cleaned. Evidently Kimbley had not yet filed a report on the cadet who had absconded despite a direct order to stay.

He pressed his shirt, polished the silver on his uniform, and buffed his boots until they gleamed, and studiously ignored his roommate's obnoxious interrogation about his placement. But then, at last, he was out of busywork. He sat down on his narrow bed in the darkened dorm room, and pressed his knees together to keep them from trembling. The physical response came in advance of the thoughts, and Roy tried to brace himself against the onslaught of horror.

It didn't come. The first thought to surface had nothing to do with Kimbley, or Bathory, or the consequences of running away. Roy almost laughed aloud in sheer hysteria: he was quaking with exam nerves. He was sitting the most important test of his life tomorrow, and if he failed then he had jeopardized his career and his future for nothing. It was perfectly natural to be nervous. All around the city, aspiring alchemists were probably going through the exact same throes of anxiety.

Oddly, that thought was comforting. He rolled under his standard-issue blanket and fell into an enervated slumber. He dreamed of base metals and noble gasses.