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Games without Frontiers
Chapter 35: What It's Like to be the Bad Man
Rating: T
Soundtrack: Behind Blue Eyes – the Who
His boot heels clicked as he walked down the immaculate hallways of the classified wing of Central Headquarters. He liked the sound; crisp, clean, just the way he liked all things involving himself. Crisp, clean, unsullied. Perfect.
He walked through what was, to the outside world, called a sanitarium. Created to house damaged soldiers during the many battles fought in the name of the Fuhrer, he called it a madhouse. Truthfully, soldiers still occupied some of the rooms in these whitewashed, white-tiled hallways, some soldiers beyond repair, and some soldiers who needed a place in which to forget all they had done in the past seven years. Most of the soldiers who were still here had been part of the Eastern Rebellion, like himself.
He'd made it through that police action intact. He held that fact up with pride, and used it to push his way to the rank that he'd reached thus far. Moreover, he would use it to reach even higher.
There were other facilities in this wing, quiet but for the weak cries of even weaker so-called men. There were medical facilities that participated in procedures and treatments of an experimental nature, so much so that received the intimidating label classified. Unless you needed to see Doctor Winters, you never knew that they were here.
That fatherless child, Colonel Roy Mustang, should have been in one of those rooms. Archer had reviewed the man's dossier, had gone through it letter by letter. The man would have been amazed what the Division of Investigations included inside that supposed private catalog of the man's life. Archer assumed that Mustang's lickspittle friend had included it all to show what an extraordinary person the Colonel was, in order to help him pull himself up from genteel poverty.
To have come the back of beyond to be a Certified State Alchemist for the first time at the age of sixteen (actually, to put a fine point on it, fifteen years and seven months) was amazing enough. Before that other bastard Edward Elric, Mustang had been the youngest to hold that title in history. All because he spent his day playing with whip-poor-wills, diddled with insubstantial air.
His dossier contained some remarkable facts, like the fact that, instead of sitting on his laurels and taking the rank of Major without actual work, he entered the academy when he could. It was rumored (and if the copies of entrance examinations were real, fact) that the boy would have made it into the academy on his brains alone, because apparently there was something behind those malingering eyes. Those eyes that gave Archer a lingering suspicion that the brat-Colonel was not wholly of Amestris.
At the age of twenty-three, Mustang went as ordered to front lines during the Eastern Rebellion as one of those precious special weapons that the Fuhrer couldn't do without. After that, up to his wrists in bloodshed, battle stress had been the diagnosis and two months of leave had been the treatment.
He should have been locked behind these walls and left to rot. However, because of that much-vaunted title, State Alchemist Roy Mustang got a promotion and allowed to go his own way. While his contemporaries worked, and bled and suffered their way to the ranks that they held, that man skated through, all through his ability to spark a flame with a snap of his fingers. He gathered up his own personal group of toadies and skated through the ranks as if his boot soles were made of butter. Among those boot-lickers was the singularly presumptuous, sorry excuse for a soldier that Archer had laid his eyes on.
A woman.
Women in the military; another thing that set Archer's teeth on edge. However, he allowed that there was a place for women in any army: every single force throughout history had its camp followers, nurses, whores, whatever one wanted to call them, gathered to elevate the morale, to provide healing and succor for those men, in any way they possibly could. Nevertheless, for women to wield weapons and presume to fight like men was a perversion of the natural order of things. It was something else that would have to change.
For a woman, weak by nature and design, to have such a legendary reputation as First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye was more than Archer could stand. All because she was known as the shield and right hand of a State Alchemist.
State Alchemist. The high brass put much of their hopes on these... people. Far too much, in Archer's mind. Though held above the ordinary soldiers as the pampered princes of a military tyranny, their abilities sullied the reputation of the Amestris Army, had made people fear them, and think of them as oppressors.
Many other things would have to change. Archer thought that the days of the State Alchemist were far overdue to end. That was one of the reasons he strode toward the offices of Doctor Aliah Winters. He had a situation to discuss with her. Something that would put him in the position to be able to push those changes through.
Winters was one of those women who knew her place in the scheme of things; she was both healer and whore. She never argued with him when he called her those things, therefore he gave her much more latitude than he would give any other woman who presumed that she was just as qualified as he to serve the Fuhrer was.
She also behaved with the proper amount of servility when he decided he wanted to fuck her over the metal equipment table in her examination room.
Which he always did before he did anything else, before he discussed the file he'd come to discuss, before he allowed her to amuse him with her display of extraordinary intelligence. It was an easy thing; he locked the door and gave her a single look. She lowered her eyes and removed her jacket, silent and servile, as she should be.
This time, he'd been annoyed with recent events, so it took him longer to reach his satisfaction. There was no protest from her, however. She still made those wonderful little sounds in the back of her throat while he grabbed her shoulder and pounded into her from behind, still moaned low when he crushed her breasts between his hands. Still asked for more when he sank his teeth into her neck. Still arched and fit against him perfectly when he came.
It was only after he released himself into her that he allowed her to resume her role as an accomplished medical professional. He enjoyed watching her cover that smooth, pale skin with her modest skirt and blouse and white medical jacket, knowing exactly where each bruise and red mark he'd left would develop, and how she would leave them untreated until they faded, until he returned to do it again.
When she was ready, he leaned against the examination table and asked her a simple question. He expected nothing less than acquiescence.
He was surprised; therefore, when she told him in her clean voice, "I cannot do that. That file is classified."
"No file is classified to a member of the Investigations Division."
"Classified not only through client-patient confidentiality, but classified by direct order of the Fuhrer."
Then she showed him the actual order, written, signed and sealed with Bradley's own hand. Now he added another reason that the ascendancy of the State Alchemist had to come to a sudden and swift end.
He read that, no matter the circumstance, any patient treated by Doctor Winters for a pregnancy that resulted from intimate contact with a State Alchemist, was inviolate. Untouchable. Unimpeachable, should the circumstances warrant it. Above the law. Fuhrer King Bradley didn't give a reason for this exception to years of military regulation, just produced the order and left it up to those beneath him to see it carried out.
Major Frank Archer left that office a very unhappy, but determined man. These perversions had to stop their upward climb. This corruption of the way things should be was of a level he could barely comprehend.
Not only was the bitch defying her very nature by presuming to wield her little weapons and fight alongside her betters, but she was given free rein to comport herself in an entirely disgusting manner with her superior officer, merely because that superior officer was a precious State Alchemist. A master weapon of the great Army of Amestris.
When he became Fuhrer, the only master weapons of the great Army would be men–and only men–like himself, who fought with sweat and blood, and gave everything to reach the status they had attended.
Then… he would take that little assumptive bitch that flaunted her perversion for the whole world to see, bend her over the big marble desk of the Fuhrer and fuck her until she realized what her place really was.
]o[
Riza woke the next morning to the smell of a wonderful breakfast. It was then she remembered that she was at the Hughes residence. Her stomach rumbled then, and the baby chose that second to announce its need for sustenance. She swung her legs from the bed and began to dress in the spare uniform Gracia had thoughtfully provided. She didn't even bother asking from where she got it; this was Maes' wife after all. She would go back by express train and try to look in on the office on her way home. She was sure it was in utter chaos by now.
As she slipped on the sensible shoes that went with her new uniform, she heard the phone ring, and smiled. The only person who would call this house at this hour would be the man of said house, checking on his wife and daughter. Half of her hoped that Roy would be such a father and half of her wondered if she'd finally lost the battle with her hormones and had completely gone spare even thinking of such a thing. Roy would probably faint the first time he had to change a dirty nappy, and then try to set the thing on fire to remove it from his offended presence.
As she came down the stairs, chuckling at the vision that evoked, she could hear a bit of the conversation between Maes and Gracia. She frowned, wondering why Gracia was speaking so loudly.
"Maes, you can't be serious!" her friend said, looking over her shoulder and waving at Riza to come closer to the phone. "Why would they do such a thing?"
Riza came close, wondering what happened. Gracia didn't look like her usual tolerantly happy self.
"But, he didn't do anything! He can't watch all of his staff at the same time!"
Riza frowned, now worried. What was Gracia talking about?
"Well, I realize that he's the commanding officer, but..." she paused. "House arrest?" Gracia put a hand over her mouth and looked at Riza, her eyes wide. "Yes. Yes, she's right here. O-of course..." Gracia handed her the phone, refusing to meet her eyes.
"Hughes?" Riza said. "What is going on? Why is Gracia so upset? What is this about house arrest?"
"It's not a good situation here," Hughes said, his voice slightly stilted. He sounded like he wanted to say more, but couldn't.
Riza decided that a couple of clarifying questions were in order. "Are you still at Eastern, Hughes?" she started.
"Yes. That's right."
"And is Roy there? In the office?"
"Um… that would be a negative."
"Who is in the office right now?"
Hughes' voice suddenly took on the sound of false joviality. "Man, I tell you it's been busy here! Between this investigation and the arrival of General Hakuro... what?"
"What is General Hakuro doing there?" Riza asked, suddenly feeling hot, then cold.
"Of course, once the interrogation is over, I'm sure the Colonel will be able to answer any questions you may have." Hughes said smoothly. "He's currently... ah... unable to perform his duties."
"What?" Riza exclaimed. "Is he hurt? What happened? Hughes, did he fail the assessment?"
She suddenly heard Maes sigh with relief. "Damn, I thought he would never leave... and of course I had to make sure the line was secure," Hughes voice was suddenly serious. "Riza, I need to make this quick. I don't know when the General is going to return."
Riza sat down in the chair Gracia provided. "Tell me."
"Roy is under house arrest. Confined to quarters until General Hakuro gets around to questioning him in relation to the train explosion and the library fire."
Riza was speechless. "Confined to quarters? That isn't good, Maes."
"No it isn't. You need to get back here as soon as possible."
"Are those the only subjects in which Hakuro are interested?"
"Yes," Maes answered. "The case of the thefts has been closed by Grumman."
"Is everyone to be questioned by Hakuro and his men?"
"Apparently, they think I can handle questioning the staff. However, they think because Roy and I are friends I would not make an impartial interrogator."
"Interrogation... that sounds so ominous."
"It is. They call it-," Maes' voice suddenly switched again to a light, no nonsense tone. "Ah, yes, Captain, so you can take the express train back? Good. We'll see you then at-," there was a pause. "1500 hours? Very good. Okay, thank you, Captain."
The phone went dead in Riza's hand. She placed the phone back in the cradle, her hand trembling.
She felt Gracia's hand on her shoulder but didn't register the sensation. "Riza? Are you all right?"
She turned slowly and looked at her friend. "They can't lock him up like that for very much longer," she whispered. "He'll start to... think on things he shouldn't be thinking on."
Gracia put her hand over her mouth, knowing what Riza meant. "Oh, dear."
Riza scrambled as fast as her growing bulk would allow her out of the chair. "I have to catch the express train back. Hughes is expecting me at 1500."
"I'll call a driver."