Rush Valley had been the window of opportunity Winry had never realized she'd desired until she was here. The busy streets teemed with her favorite types: automail connoisseurs, automail users, and those who needed automail still. Everyone in this young, booming city was drawn together and united by those tap and die threads. It was as though all of Rush Valley had reached a mutual understanding and harmonized around it. Rush Valley was a place Winry saw herself someday owning her own shop, taking on her own apprentices, retiring, and eventually dying.

"The modifications are finished," Winry said, bending to take the appointment log from beneath the counter. "When can we schedule connecting?"

Becker, one of Mx. Garfiel's clients, tapped a finger on the counter. "Any openings for Saturday?"

"Mx. Garfiel can see you that morning."

"Alright then, Winry, pencil it in."

She nodded obligingly as she did, then saw Becker out the door before locking it. The shop across the street turned their sign from OPEN to CLOSED as she did, and the shopkeep gave her a wave. Rush Valley had welcomed her with open arms — real and prosthetic alike. Leaving Resembool had always seemed like such an insurmountable idea until she had actually done it. She hadn't even been trying to leave her small town when she first came here with Edward and Alphonse, but once she'd arrived and seen the high quality work, Winry had known she needed to stay to learn as much as she could.

"Everything is locked up," she announced as she headed to the workshop in the back of the building, but hushed when she saw Garfiel on the shop phone.

She took a hand broom from its hook and began to sweep down the surfaces, catching the dirty and slivers of metal shavings in the dustpan while she waited for them to finish.

"What do you mean no one] is accepting the job? I'm offering premium pay," Garfiel lamented.

"Find someone or else return the advance I paid for your services."

Winry glanced up as Garfiel return the phone to the receiver, and gave a weighty sigh before waving a hand at her.

"Nothing, nothing," Garfield dismissed. "I hired a headhunter to find someone to go on a business trip for me, but they haven't found any interested candidates and it's been weeks."

"A trip to where?"

Garfield looked abashed, dark eyes averting to one side while biting their lip. "It's an overseas voyage to the United States of Saherta."

Her eyebrows furrowed, dumping the dustpan of debris into a bin before perching herself on a corner of a workbench. She idly took the wrench from her pocket and let it swing from her fingertips. "I haven't heard of it. Why won't anyone take the job? Is it that far away?"

"The position is listed across Amestris, but most often I hire someone from Xing — the trip is shorter from there. It's two weeks by ship to port."

"I see. That's not great, but it isn't the worst. Are you paying enough?"

Garfiel's nose rose into the air, and their arms crossed over their chest in offense.

"I'm actually offering almost twice what I was last year, but the person hired by the agency last year died and word got around. No one is willing to take the job now." Her wrench ceased in its pendulum sway.

"Was the death…violent?" she asked hesitantly.

"Ah—" Garfiel covered their mouth with a hand, eyes roving up to the ceiling to think before responding. Winry frowned. That face didn't bode well. It was Garfiel's expression when trying to lighten the blow.

"They were attacked for reasons unknown. The cause of death wasn't able to be determined, even by the coroner in Central. No one's really even sure what happened during the attack. My envoy fought with someone the day before leaving, but then immediately began to grow weak. They died on the ship back to Xing. We thought it was probably poison, but there was no sign of a cause when the remains were evaluated."

"Well, I could go," Winry offered. "I'd been thinking about going to Central to see Ed and Al, and the Hughes' anyway. I wouldn't mind going to Saherta for you instead." "It's too dangerous," Garfiel objected with a shake of their head.

"How so? It sounds like whoever you hired last year just got into trouble with the wrong person. I wouldn't get into anything." She offered what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "What do you send them to get anyway?"

"The United States of Saherta isn't like Amestris, Winry. Their technology is different. I haven't gone myself, but I'm told that they have carriers that fly through the sky, and towers higher than anything that's been built here or in any of the surrounding countries." Garfiel's tone took on a note of warning. "Their science is different, too. They don't use alchemy, but…something else."

Winry's eyes went wide and sparkling. Ed and Alphonse always told her about the new places they'd gone and the things they'd seen while traveling with the military, and already she could imagine herself boasting to them in return. The next time Ed would come in to replace his arm — again — she could tell him about the flying crafts of Saherta, and everything else she'd see there. Goosebumps rose on the nape of her neck.

"Are you sure you're trying to talk me out of it?" she teased. "What were you having someone go there for?"

"There's a silent street auction that goes on. I have someone go to pick out items that might translate into automail designs I can use. I also have them watch for any automail that goes up for sale, but none has been found there yet. It seems no one in Saherta uses automail at all."

"No…automail?"

The color and joy drained from her face. She couldn't imagine life without automail. What did people do instead when they lost limbs? Surely their culture had something as an automail equivalent. Garfiel laughed at her expression.

"I knew you wouldn't want to go when you heard that."

"No! I'll go," she said quickly, brightening. "It just means I'll be the best automail builder there."

"Are you sure?" Garfiel's brow perked high. "You'd need to travel on a trade route through the desert area to reach a port in Xing — it would be at least another week of travel on top of two weeks by ship."

"If you think you can handle the workload without me, I have no objections," Winry said. "I can see my grandmother when I pass through to Xing."

Garfiel waved a hand. "You'd better get packing then. I'll call the headhunters and tell them to cancel the ad — not that it was working anyway — then make travel arrangements. I'll give you money for a hotel while you're there, too, but if you want someplace nicer it'll come out of your own pocket."

"That's fine!"

"You'll want to convert currency in Xing, too, before you leave port. They don't use Cen in Saherta, they use Jenī instead."

Winry was already nodding again though as she hopped off the workbench, sliding her wrench into her pocket. She sensed none of Garfiel's apprehension as she slipped by him, heading to her room upstairs, wondering already about what things she would discover across the sea.