(Seven)

Erwin had warned her not to go there, but she kept bugging him about it. When he realized that she wouldn't stop asking until she saw what it was like for herself, he relented and allowed her to accompany Moblit on one of his missions in the city buried deep underground.

They found a pair of thick-rimmed glasses for Moblit to wear and special shoes to make Inez appear taller than she actually was. They pulled their hoods down over their eyes and wore their plainest clothes beneath their gray cloaks. Moblit guided her through the maze of pubs and brothels, and grabbed her hand tightly as they hurried past some of the sketchiest corners of the city, where people were exchanging pouches of money for even smaller bags of-what looked like wilted or dried up fauna.

Inez didn't understand the Underground so she tried not to look upon the prostitutes with disdain and tried not to be scared when a haggard old man reached out as if to touch her. But when the barkeeper handed her a card and informed her that his customers preferred women of shorter stature, with small, tight breasts, and could pay her better than any other whorehouse in the area, Inez emptied a pitcher of beer over his head, hopped back to where Moblit was sitting as quickly as she could and angrily recounted what she'd heard.

But to her surprise Moblit started to laugh. "You do look mature for your age," he said. "Sorry, I don't mean to laugh. Sometimes it's easy to forget that you're only fifteen." She rolled her eyes at him and grumbled that that was the wrong message to get out of her story.

"I'm not kidding," he said. "You're incredibly young to be doing the things you're doing. I've seen you pull all-nighters for an assignment since you were twelve years old, no wonder you haven't grown any taller."

He glanced around, making sure that no one was paying them any undue attention, listening in to their conversation, and lowered his voice even more so he was certain no one could hear him.

He whispered: "Every few weeks I come down here, carrying a bag full of papers that will get me indicted for treason if I get caught. Papers, containing words that you wrote, claiming that the royal family cares about no one's survival but their own, and must be overthrown. I hand these over to the owner of this pub, who then distributes it to as many people down here as possible. He might not look it, but he can keep a secret..."

Moblit sighed and straightened back up in his chair. "When I was fifteen, I was just barely making it in the Training Corps. It took me, let's see, two weeks before I learned how to use the ODM gear properly. I didn't even place in the top ten of my class when I graduated. I think I finally got my act together when I was nineteen but by then it was too late to apply for any of the more respectable positions. Honestly, I don't know what Hange saw in me, but all I can say is thank goodness for Hange. Hange plucked me out of a meaningless military career and shaped me into the soldier I am today." He took a swig from his mug and continued, "The kids they're recruiting now are a lot younger than they used to be. How old are they now? Twelve? I can't imagine what the parents must be thinking, sending their kids to that boot camp at twelve years old. Don't they know that people can get killed? I was a small kid at that age, probably not that much taller than you are now…"

She had stopped listening to him a while ago. This was nothing new. She'd already heard the stories of twelve and fifteen-year-old Moblit many times before. She glanced back at the barkeeper, the feelings of disgust she'd felt before lessened slightly.

"Are you sure he's someone we can trust?"

Moblit nodded. "We're in the Underground, he didn't want you to come here for a reason. What did you expect?" he continued. "There's all kinds of shady things going underfoot. It's the kind of place where crime runs rampant and you don't see any MPs here to enforce the law, so it's just left to fester on its own, powerless to do anything."

"How come the government just leaves it alone? How come they turn a blind eye to it instead of making things better for these people?"

"Well, it's exactly the government that benefits from this arrangement, right? This way they get to confine everything negative in one specific area so it'll be easier to deal with when the time comes." He threw a few coins onto the table and adjusted the brown bag he was carrying over his shoulder. "Come on, it's been fifteen minutes, we should get a move on."

They left the pub and walked around for nearly twenty minutes when Moblit suddenly picked up his pace. Inez had to break into a light jog to keep up with him. As they dove into a dark alley, he put his index finger over his lips and pointed at a dark hooded figure, moving his head left and right like he was searching for someone he'd just lost sight of.

"Do you see that person?" whispered Moblit.

"Yes," said Inez softly. "Who is he?"

Moblit shook his head. "He's the last person we want to see these pages. He's also the one who's most eager to find out who we are and who we work for," he said under his breath. "He's been following us for the last twenty minutes. I think he caught on to us when we left that pub." Moblit's voice filled with frustration. "How did he notice us? Drunks whisper among themselves all the time, don't they? And I haven't done anything that'll arouse suspicion. Did he notice something strange about you? If so, why?"

Inez caught sight of something gray and metallic hidden inside the man's cloak. It resembled the ODM gear that Moblit had been teaching her to use, that every soldier in the Survey Corps knew how to use.

"Who is he?" she questioned Moblit.

"Erwin reckons there's a secret organization that wants to keep us from the truth. They'd just love to get rid of us because we stand for everything they're against. If this guy is tailing us, he might be part of that circle."

"So...if we catch him, maybe we can get him to spill his secrets?" Inez said, suddenly excited. "We could extract useful information that'd help Erwin, couldn't we?"

Moblit shook his head, pushing her back, deeper into the dark alley. "Don't be reckless! For all we know he might just be a pawn and know nothing about truth. In any case we have to let Erwin know how close we were to getting caught. It will ruin everything you and he have worked for if we get caught."

"He's not leaving. He knows that we're hiding. Can't we just capture him first? We can question him to see how much he knows about us," she insisted, as though she knew what she was talking about.

Moblit looked a bit disappointed to hear her say this. "I think you've been trapped in your room for too long," he said. "And stop ordering me around. You don't understand how these things actually work."

Inez pouted. "So, what do you propose we do? We can't just hide here until sundown."

"I have an idea."

Moblit took one deep breath and stepped out from the shadows of the alley.

Inez couldn't believe her eyes. He was acting like a complete goof. He was tripping over himself, muttering random nonsense under his breath. His dance moves were too awkward to watch. He called the cloaked figure a pervert and then he grabbed her arm, pulled her close to him, and stuck his face close to hers so they were almost touching. He made some odd noises and Inez was thankful that the weirdness didn't reach his eyes-it was only for show. He let her go and fell onto the moist cobblestone pavement, face first, and she kneeled down to check if he was hurt. "Mister, you've had too much to drink! You're going to make the missus suspicious! The missus will kill me if she finds out about us!" she shouted, as she helped Moblit get back to his feet, supporting him as he hobbled out into a dim plaza with slightly more people around.

The figure remained in the shadows and did not follow them out into the plaza. Slowly, the figure receded into the darkness and disappeared. By all appearances, he had lost interest in them.

"I can't believe it worked!" Inez exclaimed once they made it back to the surface. "I've gotta change my impression of you, Moblit! You are really amazing!"

Moblit, still looking a bit shaken, leaned against a stone wall and evened out his breathing. "You were pretty convincing yourself," he grinned .

"Can I go with you on the next mission?" she asked, savouring the rush of adrenaline flowing through her veins.

Moblit hesitated. "I thought it was going to be a one-time thing. Did Erwin give you permission to go again?"

Inez nodded enthusiastically, knowing full well that Erwin never intended for her to step underground more than once.