OUR LIVES, CHAPTER 8: A BOOT UP YOUR GEARS

By The Binary Alchemist 2012

In the end Roy made no comment at all. He thanked Sheska sincerely for her hard and dedicated work, nodded to his furious lover and anxious children and walked quietly out of the office, out the back door and disappeared. Sheska stuttered out her apologies. Ed told her simply she had nothing to beg pardon for.

"It could be worse," Maes suggested. "A lot worse." Ed would have snapped out an angry retort, but he knew that his son hadn't seen what he himself had seen—including what Roy could not have seen himself, having been blinded by Truth at the time. It was clear to Maes and Nina that their father was deeply upset and Maes bit off his impulse to start babbling and protesting. If he learned nothing else from Nana 'Zumi it was to know when to shut the hell up and when to speak up, at least around their hot-tempered father and mother. Nina shook her head, looking understandably agitated.

Finally, Edward laid his hand on his son's shoulder. "There's much she doesn't know—and that 's good. There's no detail about the battle with Father, since any survivors were military and debriefed before leaving the field. But the information about the national array, the undead army and the killing of Bradley…she's linking it all back to Roy, and she's doing it so well she had to get help from someone."

"Or someone's records, maybe?" Maes impatiently yanked at the elastic that held his hair until it tumbled loosely around his shoulders. "That Old Guard geezer who tried to kill me when I was a little snot. "

"Edison," Nina echoed.

Sheska rubbed tired eyes behind her heavy lenses. "Could it have been anyone else, Ed? And how did she get a copy of his journal if he's dead? Didn't Intelligence confiscate all his stuff when he was arrested?"

Ed scowled. "I don't know. I'll have Hawkeye find out. In the meantime—" He turned his eyes towards the door his lover had just exited through. "We better give Roy some time to get hold of himself. At least we haven't heard any explosions."

"Yet," Sheska amended.

"Yeah. I'm gonna give him some space, let him cool down and then—"

"We got night jobs at Dickon and Howe." Nina blurted out.

Maes rolled his eyes. "Ohhh, tell the fucking world, Nitwit!"

Ed's head jerked towards his son, mouth dropping open. "You WHAT?"

Maes' hands shot up as if to shield himself from an incoming missile. "We haven't done anything. I…I mean, I heard they were hiring cleaning people and—"

"—we dressed up and gave them false identities. We got a rinse-out tint for Maes' hair from Gracia and some colored eyeglass lenses to hide his eyes—"

"—oh, and I'm getting some brand new corneal lenses from Dr. Feinbloom—Dad, they are amazing! They aren't glass—we've got this new polymer called polymethyl methacrylate and they don't even have to cover the whole eye surface! Mine won't have correction, but he could make some so you—"

"—Tinker, you're waffling again—"

"—well, he might want to give up his specs if these work out—"
—and I made myself look pretty grim and dowdy—and—"

"—we got taken on the cleaning crew. We start tonight…sir." Sheska scooted her chair back several feet. If Maes was addressing his father as 'sir' the boy already knew himself to be neck deep in serious trouble.

Nina's green eyes were glistening. "Daddy, it's not like we were planning to blow the place up." She glared at her brother. "I wasn't, anyway. Just to reconnoiter, see what we can find out. Nothing more illegal," her finger tapped the galley proof, "than Ruby borrowing a review copy that shouldn't have left somebody's office. Daddy, we can't let this…trollop—"

"—oh, call her a cunt and be done with it," Maes snapped.

"TINKER! Language!" Nina looked offended. "This…person…we don't want her to undo all the good that Poppy's done. "If we can get inside that office-Daddy, it…it's something you would have done, right?"

"And maybe we can find a way to buy us some time to come up with a better solution?" Maes offered. "Some way to…I don't know… stop her from publishing it…or maybe get her to edit it for the sake of national security?"

Sheska nodded eagerly. "It does sound like something you and Al would have done, Ed."

'Yeah," Ed looked bitter. "And we all know how fuckin' great my judgment is. Let's see-transmuted my mother, stuck my brother's soul in a suit of armor—gee, the list goes on and on and on-"

"-you raised us. We've turned out rather well." Nina glanced at her older brother. "Mostly."

"And you know," Maes added, "if you hadn't followed your gut instincts, every damn man and woman and child in this country would still be dead-and Uncle Al would still be in the Gateway. So stop beating yourself up."

Ed studies the two earnest expressions that confronted him. For all their mad schemes and collaborations, his children had a remarkable amount of common sense—something they sure as hell didn't inherit from their impulsive biological parents. Izumi and Pinako had a hand in that, to be sure, but it was Roy who taught them to think and plan. If they had already gone this far, he hoped, they wouldn't do anything that might get them killed or thrown in jail. "All right," he said slowly. "I don't like it worth a damn, but maybe some good can come out of it. But," his frown deepened, " if I even think you've done something that hurts anybody-"

'Dad!" Maes looked shocked.

"The very idea!" his daughter huffed. "We're not even planning to damage property—"

"—much," Maes corrected. "I mean…hell, I'm not above putting the ol' boot up the gears that might slow or halt production until they figure out a technical problem-nothing spectacular; y'know. "

Ed looked confused. "Boot up the gears?"

Nina looked smug. "In Aerugo there was a labor revolt in the silk mills back in the 1500's.

The workers weren't happy that the new technology might take away their livelihood so they threw their boots—their saboti—into the wooden gears to break the cogs and stop the weaving machines. They coined a term for it—"

Maes was grinning now. "Yeah. Sabotage."

Their father was silent for a very long time. "Elrics," he finally murmured, " aren't known for their bright ideas, son. Maybe you should stay out of this." His son and daughter didn't answer. After a time he rubbed his face wearily. "But you won't. How could you? You're like me. Too goddamned much like me, the pair of you." He rose slowly, shaking his head. "If anyone gets hurt—in any way-I won't bail you out. This is your decision-you're going to have to live with it. And we Elrics," he added over his shoulder as he walked out of the office, " live a very, very long time."

###

Breda and his team of image crafting strategists ringed a table piled high with memos, notes, half-chewed pencils, stale donuts and half-empty coffee cups. He scrubbed at his rusty brush cut and ruefully mused that the fact that the silver hairs that were out-numbering the ginger these days was due in a large part to the individuals listed on the program in front of him:

Donal Samuelson, Master of Ceremonies. Donal knew everybody who was anybody. Hosted Midday Amestris weekdays on Radio Capital, penned a column syndicated by the Times in all five areas, and was now doing feature interviews with the politicos and celebrities of the day for the Radio Capital weekend program Monitor and on the nightly news digest show Eye on Amestris. Looked good in a tux, had a huge fan base and could be counted upon to keep things lively and entertaining without crossing the line into the sort of crass nudge-and-wink sort of roasting that Mustang wanted to avoid. "On the down side," Breda admitted to Havoc, "the man's in his drink so much he's grown gills, so coffee in the green room and have the stagehands check for liquor stashes." Havoc agreed to keep Samuelson on point and off the sauce.

Maestro Leopold Williams, conductor of the Central Symphony and Chorus. Affectionately referred to as 'the old fossil', Williams was a notorious martinet who was rumored to have pressured one high strung soprano to jump off the roof of the music conservatory with his scathing evaluation of her voice. "I wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole," Nina Elric had said, having narrowly survived a summer session of youth orchestra under his baton. "I would," her brother had answered tartly, " but only if it had a very sharp point on the end." The Hohenheim Institute Youth Orchestra would perform magnificently, even if they might need months of therapy afterwards. His composition for Mustang's inauguration, Fanfare for the Common Amestrian, was magnificent and even tone deaf Havoc said it sent chills up his spine. The piece would be reprised with full orchestra and children's choir and as far as the Boss was concerned would be the high mark of the event.

"Not the most agreeable person you may have dealt with," Falman observed. "I'll volunteer to assist the Maestro. Hopefully we won't encounter any unpleasantness."

Duke Brubeck, jazz pianist. One of Mustang's personal favorites, and one of the most critically acclaimed artists of their day. Mustang tended to prefer the more complex, sophisticated forms of popular music. High brow intellectual who never took his sunglasses off and whose rambling diatribes were possibly fueled by some rather peculiar smelling tobacco that he imported from Xing that tended to make him ravenous and incoherent after a few pipefulls. "I'll work with him," Fuery offered. "Maybe I can get him to sign one of his records for me."

The Altoid Sisters. Radio stars Margi, Maci, and Mazi Altoid sang popular songs in close harmony, sported upswept hairdos and high heels. They had marvelous voices but got a little touchy about propriety, being strict Letoists and having been carefully shepherded through their recording and radio career by their father Lloyd. Mr. Altoid's over-protectiveness of his three virgin daughters went to gun-toting extremes even Hughes would have found excessive. "I'm sure there won't be any problems," Maria Ross assured them. "I'll meet with Mr. Altoid tomorrow and assure him that his daughters won't be exposed to any undesirable company, or anyone," here she glanced pointedly at Alphonse," likely to seduce them."

Alphonse sat up, looking hurt. "Likely to seduce them? Ohh, I like that!" he snapped.

"I'll just bet you would, you letch!" she shot back. "That's why you're with Gladys Turlough. You can't break something that's already broken—if you catch my drift! And you can also keep your paws off the girls from Ballet Vaginanova—"

"That's Vaganova," Alphonse corrected. "Not Vaginanova. Vaginanova is lesbian political satire performance art troupe out of Stoltovgrad that—"

"Back on track, people!" Breda clapped his hands. "So, we've got the symphony and chorus, Brubeck's jazz quintet, the ballet, the Altoid sisters, Professor Sherman Lehrer—"

"You've invited him?" Havoc blinked in surprise. "Have you actually heard any of the songs he's sung about the Boss? Some of them are outrageous!"

"That's the point," Breda explained patiently. "He's a full fledged professor at the Hohenheim who does political satire and song parodies. After all the songs he's targeted about Mustang, inviting him is proof that Roy Mustang can laugh at himself."

"Did you hear his song about Mustang during the war-'Hold My Purse While I Save The World"?" Havoc stubbed out his cigarette. " I swear, if the Prof had written something like that about Bradley, he'd have cut off Lehrer's nuts, transmuted them into two chimeras and let them eat the Prof's asshole out!"

"Roy's agreed to it," Alphonse pointed out, "so we can't un-invite him. So that leaves us with Gladys Turlough."

Havoc's ears turned crimson at the mention of her name. "She's great!" he blurted out with more enthusiasm than the situation warranted. "I—I mean, she's a really great addition to the show."

Breda caught Alphonse's eye. "Any trouble with her, Al?"

Havoc wasn't fooling Alphonse, who could detect female pheromones percolating a kilometer away. Gladys Turlough oozed musk whenever Havoc was around and while it wasn't his place to advise another man to keep it in his pants Alphonse didn't like to think about what this would do to Hawkeye when she finally got wind of this little affair. He genuinely cared for both Riza and Jean and the last thing he wanted was to see them break up. "No trouble at all," he admitted. "I've seen the gown she's planning to wear—it's within the bounds of public decency, and she sings pretty well. Oh, by the way, she says that there's going to be an executive from PanAmestris Studios in the audience at the gala. He's negotiating with her to do a historical drama—her first serious film, so she's pretty excited. She's got too much riding on this to misbehave."

Breda looked serious. "I'm counting on you, Alphonse. Keep her out of trouble." He looked exhausted. "We gotta keep Donal off the booze, Brubeck off the—the—well, whatever the hell it is he's smoking, keep the Maestro from traumatizing the kids in the orchestra, keep the ballerinas in their tutus and the Altoids intact-and pray to whatever that Professor Sherman doesn't rip out another song like the one about 'millitary doggie-style' like he did after the Press Corps gala two years ago. Now if Miss Turlough can keep her knockers moored inside her dress and her hemline below her ears….we'll have a show. Meeting adjourned!"

###

She fretted and fussed over forgetting to put the cream cheese on the dainty cucumber sandwiches she offered him. She spilled her tea, apologized profusely for the sweet biscuits being slightly burned on the bottom. "Selim made them very nicely. He just forgets to check the oven when the bell goes off," she explained.

Roy nodded graciously, assuring them both that everything was fine. "The biscuits are very good, Selim. And you made them yourself?"

The young man nodded eagerly. "I used measuring cups and everything," he told the President gravely. "I didn't spill. I didn't make a mess at all. But I let them cook too long."

"Next time you might put the timer in your pocket so you can hear it ring," Roy suggested kindly and Selim beamed at him. "And if you are learning to cook I believe I have my daughter's cook book in the kitchen at Rose Hill. The recipes are very easy and simple and there are lots of pictures. I'm sure she would be glad to lend it to you and you will be able to make all sorts of nice things for your mother's tea. Would you like that?"

Selim turned excited eyes to his mother, who nodded her permission. "You must take very good care of the book, son," she told him. "And you can write a thank you note to Miss Nina for letting you use it. "

"I will! Oh, I will!" The expression his face was pathetic in its gratitude. Inwardly, Roy was dismayed. It was good that Selim was learning new skills, but it was clear Mrs. Bradley was having a difficult time caring for the house, let alone her son. He sipped his tea, bitter from over-brewing, and chose his words very carefully. "Selim, your mother tells me you like to read to her. I think she would really enjoy a story—and I would too. Would you like to get one of your books?"

Waiting again for permission, Selim happily dashed down the hall, leaving his adopted mother anxiously twisting her linen napkin in hands that trembled with more than age.

"Don't kill my son. Please…I'm begging you!" She blurted out the words and was unable to suppress the sob that followed them. "He's everything—he's all I've got left."

That wasn't strictly true. She had King Bradley's generous pension. She could have had servants at no hardship but had dismissed them, preferring to care for the house and her son by herself. Roy admired her self-sufficiency, but it impaired her ability to care for herself and her son now that age was taking its toll on her mind.

Roy put down his cup. "Mrs. Bradley, I'm not here as your son's executioner. The only—the only—conditions that might warrant…measures…would be if Pride reasserted itself through him—in which event he would not only be a danger to himself and to you but to all of mankind. And I have been observing him since before Fuhrer Grumman retired and I have as yet to see any indications that Pride is returning. What I observe," he leaned forward for emphasis, "is a young man who is trying very hard to take care of his mother-and a mother who has not let her son's disadvantages prevent him from living a useful life." He took her hand gently. It was chilled with fear. "The only pride that is at issue here is your own, Madame. It is time you agreed to let someone help you. Someone who can take over the cooking and cleaning and help you manage Selim."

She looked genuinely alarmed. "I couldn't! No—there's nobody I could trust-"

"—even if I personally vouch for them? Someone whom I trusted with the safety of my own children?"

That made her pause. "This…this is someone you know?"

Roy nodded. "A boy who once took a bullet to save the life of my son. Out of gratitude I arranged work for him so he could support his sick father. He began running odd jobs and eventually came to Rose Hill to train under my butler and manservant Sebastian. This," he gestured around him, "is too much of a house for you to manage now. You never should have tried on your own. And there's no sense uprooting you and Selim to a smaller home. Collins has been serving in our household for the past two years as concierge—which means he not only has been trained to manage a household efficiently but under Sebastian he has been cross trained in security. Above all," Roy added, glancing over his shoulder to see if Selim had returned, "he is nothing if not discreet. He came up the hard way in the streets. He's done well and I have no qualms about putting him at your disposal. In fact, it would be one less thing to worry about." A charming, boyish smile played briefly across his face. "You are a very brave and compassionate lady, Mrs. Bradley, and your country owes you much. I would consider it an honor to assign David Collins to your service. Are we agreed?"

David Collins. They called him Dogshit Davy once upon a time, before Chris Mustang caught him poking at a dead man with a stick in the alley behind her restaurant. On the day that Edison took Elycia hostage it was Davy Collins who pulled Maes out of the line of fire when the madman tried to kill him. Roy had given him employment and he'd turned out well-and utterly loyal to Roy and the Elrics. Having Collins at close range, observing Selim, would be one less thing for Roy to worry about. And thanks to the years of polish under Sebastian's tutelage Collins could observe and report and serve with gracious effortlessness. Mrs. Bradley and Selim would be under surveillance, Collins would gain experience and the question about what to do with the last surviving homunculus could be held off for a while yet.

After all, Roy thought grimly as Selim began to slowly read them "The Seven Xingese Brothers", I have enough blood on my hands—enough to last a lifetime.

###

'Tell me, have you ever hunted a bear?" A measure of best brandy splashed in a simple soldier's tin cup. "Hunting bear and plotting a political strategy are much the same. You begin, if you have any sense, observing the behavior of the cub. Is it cowardly? Does it risk danger? Does it cower when its mother cuffs it? Can it fend for itself? Or does it turn predator and steal the catch of its brothers?"

"I'm not sure I follow you…"

"Oh, I think you do. Watch the cub. Watch it reach adulthood. Learn its habitats and its habits. Observe it through the seasons."

"That would take years."

"It does take years. Sometimes it takes the best part of a lifetime. At first it will catch your scent on the wind, but as the years pass it takes your scent for granted. You become an afterthought. And that's when you strike."

"And how long have you been watching Roy Mustang?"

"Long enough. He's stepped outside his own hunting habitat and he's stretched himself very, very thin. Now," the glass lifted in salute to the man currently holding the presidency, "let us see if he's up for one last battle. Let's see if he's willing to fight to sit behind that grand desk of his a while longer." The companions swallowed after clinking their cups together. "Let the hunt begin."

###

"Bit o' nasty gunge under there, see those vats, mates?" The tall feller with the cloth cap dunked his mop in to the filthy water and wrung it out. " Must be a leak in that ink vat. I'll get down there-oy, Jamie! Gimme a fresh pail full, will ya? No sense makin' it worse."

As soon as the other mop boy had gone to rinse out the bucket, Maes whipped out his chalk and the work gloves with the arrays embroidered inside. "Carbon…water…ethyl alcohol, lac resin," he whispered under his breath. "Let's see what we can make of this, hmmm?" There was a brief flash of bluish light, and by the time Jamie got back all he could see was a very grimy "Curtis" scrubbing dutifully at the dried crusted stains, dusty from head to toe.

Meanwhile the typeset plates for "Fire and Vice" were stacked vertically on several pallets in the warehouse near the supply room. Nina slipped into the shadows,, a stick of chalk clutched in her sweaty fingers. She was angry enough to want to transmute the whole mountain of metal into a pile of slag but that wouldn't solve anything. Instead, she modified the crystalline structure of the plates so that the weight of the stack would flatten out the characters enough to make them print illegibly. When the rubber print rollers were impressed by the plates the resulting pages would have to be discarded.

The slim phantom with the dust rags and the grimy mop boy went home by different routes and Nina helped her brother scrub the brown rinse out of his mane. "The ink's not going to adhere to the rollers," Maes crowed.

"And the plates will have to be melted down and recast. Good. Now what?"

"That's going to buy us a little time."

"Little time is all we have left, brother," Nina fretted. "And don't forget we need to make sure we're off for the gala. Poppy's going to need our support."

"Yeah, well, 'Poppy' would tan our hides if he knew what we were up to." Maes toweled his locks dry. "Anyway, good night's work, Nitwit. Now, let me tell you what I've thought of for tomorrow night…."

###

"Scoot over."

Ed cracked one eye open. "So I'm taking my half of the bed in the middle. You got a problem with that, Mustang?"

"Fine. I'll have to lay on top of you."

Ed rolled onto his back and burrowed his face into his pillow. "You won't be comfortable. Suit your damn self."

Roy did as he'd threatened. It took a bit of shifting until he fitted against his lover's back—and, holy of holies, found precisely the right spot to nestle several inches of annoyingly heated flesh that needed exactly the right soft of place to nestle into. "Mmmm?"

'Hmmmmph!"

Roy's hips began to churn slowly, rocking up and down along the heated cleft. Beneath him, Edward parted his thighs. "Mmm?"

"Ummmhmmmmm!"

Roy shifted again, pushing thin fabric out of the way. Foraging in the bedside drawer he found something suitably slick. He generously slicked what needed slicking. "Hm?"

'Um!" Then, "Ah!", followed by "Ohhhhh….."

Ed arched back, then tightened wickedly in rhythmic pulses, something he'd learned in one of Al's weird sex manuals he'd rather die than admit having flipped through. Granted, the trick known as 'The Snapper" had been an instruction for women…but if his theory was correct…

"AIIIIIEEEEE!AHH-ahh!Ahh!"

Apparently it was. He did it again. And again. Arms laced around his chest and the breathing in his ear was ragged and hot. "Hhhhnnnnnn….hahhh…ohhhh…ohhhh…oh..FUCK! FUCKSHITAAAAHHHAAHHHHFUUUUUU CKKKKKKK!"

Warm wet towel cleaned him front and back. Warm dry towel followed after. Ed let his blissfully limp body be rolled so a fold of dry, clean sheet was under him. Roy curled against his side, one arm and leg curled possessively around him. The other eye cracked open. Ed smiled in the dark. "Okay, so today sucked. Tomorrow will be okay, old man. Get some rest."

"Mmmmmmm…..mmm…mm….snzzzzzzzz….snzzzzz….zzzzz"

…..TO BE CONTINUED….