Ausburg, administrative capital of the Western Provinces, had seen better days. Under a century ago, it had been a favoured retreat of the wealthy and idle class, famous for its spa waters, its beer cellars, its ballrooms and its high-end gambling houses. Two decades of war, and the consequent economic downturn, had dried up the flow of wealth, and the city had lost one third of its business. The administrative functions for the region, under a civilian deputy of the Fuhrer, had moved into a former palatial house that had been seized by the government after its owner had declared bankruptcy. Bedrooms had been converted into offices, by the simple expediency of exchanging moldering four-poster beds for desks and chairs, and the ballroom had been converted into a huge canteen, the ceiling still decorated in a pastel-coloured fantasia of cherubs and plump deities frolicking among clouds. Paint and gilding flaked off regularly, and fluttered to land in the unimpressed soldiers' rations.
Mustang was assigned a suite of offices in what had once been the ladies' quarters – he decided not to interpret this as a slight, and set about having the pink damask walls stripped and repainted utilitarian white – with an office for himself in the centre, flanked by a larger staff office, where a parlour and boudoir had been knocked together, and a gaudy marble bathroom converted to a small canteen. The windows were huge and draughty. The floors, once stripped of plush, dusty carpets, were polished wood in decent condition, and the walls were pleasingly thick and solid. His view looked out over what had once been ornamental gardens, now bulldozed into a parade-ground, and from there down the slopes of the hills to the city itself.
He had met his civilian boss, Governor Walter Bruhns, once for a briefing, at which the small, bad-tempered man had made it clear that he did not approve of sharing office space with a military unit – Roy and his staff were to have responsibility for a squadron of a hundred and twenty infantrymen, which Bruhns interpreted as a hundred and twenty more idle mouths to feed – and that his own police and guard could do a fine job of defending and administering the western outpost. Mustang knew better than to disagree, but told the man directly that he was just following orders, and that any complaints should be directed to the office of the Fuhrer. Bruhns was even less thrilled that the new CO was a State Alchemist, with a reputation for massive destruction and huge loss of life. He instructed the captain to keep his recruitment and training responsibilities in this department to a minimum, to focus instead on the paltry amount of work assigned him as assistant to the Governor, and to be advised that there would be a zero-tolerance policy towards any burned or destroyed property.
Roy considered this warning unnecessary; what could possibly go so far wrong in a regional administrative brief that it required fire to be brought in? If there was one advantage to this achingly-boring posting, that was it; he would never again have to execute a captive enemy, attempted deserter or treason by fire.
So he settled in, and began to profile the staff he would need. First to identify was a right-hand man; he wanted an old NCO, nearing the end of his career and in search of a cushy office job in the country. A hard-bitten old Sergeant Major who would be unfazed by anything that this posting could bring, and who could advise Mustang on management of his staff and his squadron. That would be his Lieutenant.
Then, he needed somebody with street-smarts, a local boy perhaps. Somebody junior, but competent, with connections to interests in the city, both legal and less-legal.
Another would be a tactician, perhaps a wartime recruit from the civilian sector, a little older and experienced in politics. Somebody who could decode the dense civil service jargon, and identify connections invisible to Army eyes.
After that, the team needed a brain. Radio and encryption technologies were developing quickly, and – as he had spent the past seven years far from civilisation – the march of progress had largely left Roy behind. He wanted somebody plugged in to all that, so that he could use it to his advantage.
Finally, they would need a foot-soldier. In the bluntest possible terms, a pawn who could be traded for intelligence, or used to draw out a threat, if it came to it. This would need to be somebody with strong personal loyalty, a young recruit, perhaps.
From his new office phone, he dialled the operator, and asked to be put through to Central 153 – Hughes' line. Surely he would be at home in the evening. The phone was answered within four rings, and his friend's voice came through, cracked and tinny, from hundreds of miles away.
"Roy, my boy! How are you settling in? Have you been to the spa baths yet?"
"No. They stink of sulphur. I want to talk to you about my staff. I know what I need, but I don't know who they are yet."
His friend turned businesslike in an instant.
"Okay, give me what you've got."
Roy ran through the list, sharing everything with the intelligence man, secure in the knowledge that he would protect this information.
"Riiiiight…" he said, considering, "I can definitely help you with the Comms operator. There's a kid who served in HQ during the last three years of the war, he wasn't fit to be sent to the front line, suffers from asthma or something such. But when it comes to technology, he's a genuine wunderkind, and he's been overlooked for promotion in repeated rounds. He'll leap at the chance. Private Kain Fuery. You can request him by writing to Major Kye Golding in Logistics."
"Thanks. Anyone else?"
"Hmm… for your tactician, you could do a damned sight worse than Second Lieutenant Heymans Breda. He was in the War Office for almost the entire first and second Iqbal campaigns, as a strategic advisor. Since the war ended, he was bumped all the way down to Military Police, guarding some godawful outpost near Dublith. He's bored, he's resentful, and he'll take the offer of unofficial strategic advisor to the Western Governor's office in a hot minute."
"Excellent. I'll have to enquire locally for my local boy. The foot soldier shouldn't be hard to find locally either; I'll just pull up a keen kid from my squadron. What about the NCO?"
"I'll have a look, leave it with me. Should be plenty of the old boys kicking about."
"That's what I thought. How's married life?"
He could almost hear the man beaming down the receiver.
"Heavenly! She's a great kid, Mustang. She can dance, she can entertain company, she knows how to run a household, she can bake, she speaks three languages, she keeps the accounts for the kitchen…"
He lifted the phone away from his ear, and waited for his Hughes' ecstatic raving to tail off. He was drawn back into the monologue by a question addressed at him.
"What was that?"
"Bad line. I asked when you're going to get married! You're only a year younger than I am, and my mother said I'd left it late. Another three years and you'll be thirty! At the very least, you should be seeing somebody, with a view to engagement."
"I'm really not the marrying type, Hughes. Thank you for your concern, but if you try to set me up with a friend of Gracia's, or a single cousin of yours, or anybody except the NCO I've asked for, I will kill you in your sleep."
"Huh. Fair enough. But I should tell you that I'm going to hang up in a moment, because I've got a beautiful home-cooked, three-course meal waiting for me in the dining room, followed by a few hands of bridge and maybe some light canoodling with my lady love. What do you have planned for this evening? A tin of beans and a single mattress? Get on board the marriage train, my friend!"
Mustang rolled his eyes, and hung up the phone.
The following day, and long before Hughes could respond to him about the NCO, a member of the guard knocked on his office door, and announced that he had a visitor. Irritated to have been interrupted while writing a letter to obtain Private Feury, he frowned at the Second Lieutenant who strode through the door, and saluted.
A girl. A familiar girl. He tried to place her. Willowy build. Light hair neatly pinned back. Bright green eyes in a desert-tanned face. Expression like a pool of clear water. Hawkeye.
"Sir. Forgive the intrusion." She spoke first. Cocky.
"It's fine. At ease."
He gestured to a chair on the other side of his desk. She removed her cap and sat down, studying his face with an intensity he thought almost insubordinate.
"I wanted to speak with you," he began, surprising her, "I was sorry to hear about the death of your father last year. I'm sure you know that he endowed his property and assets to me. I want to rectify this. I want you to have it all."
She shook her head, with a smile.
"That's kind of you, sir. But I wouldn't go against my father's wishes. I don't need a house, or money, I make enough to support myself. His alchemical materials are worthless to me, and rightly belong to the one who inherited his title."
"I see. Here's what I'm going to do. I'll transfer the books and writings to my own property, have the house cleaned up and let out at a reduced rate to a returning veteran and his family. The proceeds, minus what is required for maintenance of the house, will go to a savings account. If you ever change your mind, the house and the contents of that account are yours. If not, they will both pass to the ownership of the tenant in twenty years."
She nodded her thanks.
"Now what did you come to see me for?" he asked.
She hesitated, anxiety and determination in conflict.
"I have information for you. It's somewhat sensitive."
"We're secure here. I've checked the office for taps, and the walls are thick. We can't be overheard."
"Close the curtains, please."
Puzzled, he did so. She walked around the desk to stand before him, and he stood to look her in the eye.
"You may be aware that my father's life work was to produce a perennial energy source, to replace coal and gas, and reduce the health risks and high mortality rate for miners and boilermen. He experimented with creating a plasma – an electron flame – that would radiate energy without consuming matter. Even I know enough about the principle of Equivalent Exchange to appreciate that this is impossible. Energy can't come from nothing, it can neither be created nor destroyed."
Mustang nodded, impressed and intrigued, and gestured the girl to continue.
"Obviously, he was unsuccessful. But he managed to create a controlled plasma, which he called luminiferous aether, under experimental conditions, sustaining it by accessing energy stored in the bonds within the hydrogen atoms in the air. He found that each of these atoms, individually holding very low energy, produced a phenomenal amount of energy when split. And there was virtually no bi-product. I believe the pan-spectrum radiant energy produced damaged his body, and contributed to his early death. The housekeeper reported that his hair and teeth fell out, and his skin was badly blistered. He suffered massive organ failure, and effectively drowned from the inside. These are symptoms consistent with radiation poisoning."
"Wait. How do you know about radiation poisoning?"
"It was described in the translated Treatise on the Nature of Matter, an Iqbalan alchemical text, on the properties of refined pitchblende ore."
"Right," he remembered now, glancing through the book, one of hundreds consumed during his study, "So I assume that the formula is included in your father's writings?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"No. In plain speaking. Is it, or isn't it? This is important, because if this formula got into the wrong hands…"
"That's why I'm here. I believe you will be able to use this responsibly, and then help me to dispose of the record."
To his further astonishment, she began to unbutton her overshirt. He stepped back around the desk, averting his eyes. When he looked up, she sat on the edge of the desk, her naked back toward him. The skin was white, the tan covering her arms, neck and face only, where her torso had been covered by the standard-issue vest. The skin was emblazoned, from shoulder to shoulder, and hip to hip, with an intensely detailed alchemical circle. He came in closer again, reading the lines with his finger-tip. The design was inked in black, the skin slightly raised and scarred. This had not been tattooed, it had been burned.
He was momentarily speechless, as he interpreted the symbols, and considered the feasibility of the formula.
"He used this successfully?"
"Yes. I left home so that he couldn't use this design, as he had originally intended. Unfortunately, he had another copy on paper, which was destroyed in the heat of the flame produced. But to my knowledge, this is the only remaining version."
"This is extraordinary… It's an energy source, certainly, but it could also be a powerful weapon."
"That's what I'm afraid of. I want you to burn it."
He looked up from the design, at the back of the woman's head. Her voice was steady, and she did not shake.
"I can't do that without burning the skin," he clarified.
"I know," still calm, without a trace of fear.
"I'm not going to maim you, Lieutenant."
She turned to face him, and he kept his eyes fixed on her face, to avoid taking in her bare breasts. She appeared entirely committed.
"I can do it by myself using oil and matches, but there is a much greater risk that I'll die in doing so. You can control the flame, to ensure that it only burns the skin, and leaves my spine and organs intact."
"No. I can't control it so precisely. Do you have any idea how much pain this will cause you?"
"I can guess,"
Still so calm. How was she so infernally calm?
He sighed.
"Who else knows about this?"
"Nobody."
"You've managed front-line fighting in a mixed platoon for four years without anybody seeing your back?"
"Yes, I'm confident."
He looked skeptical.
"Well, I'm not going to burn it off for you just yet. I'll put in some research into how I can do it safely, but in the meantime, you mustn't do anything rash."
She pulled up her vest, and the shirt over her shoulders, and began to button it again.
"I don't act rashly, sir. I have considered this."
"Very well, then it's out of my hands. If you want to get rid of it, then by all means set yourself alight."
She stood again, facing him without a hint of deference.
"I want to volunteer for your staff. I hold the rank of Second Lieutenant, and I have been offered promotion straight to Captain if I will join Van Aalten's Iqbal cleanup mission. Let me join you, and I'll settle for Lieutenant."
"I don't need a Lieutenant, I already have someone in mind," he was irked to have been asked so blatantly, especially by a young woman. She was not remotely disturbed by his rising temper.
"I am an excellent marksman, I have sound tactical knowledge, and I know how to manage a staff. I have experience of leading a platoon, when my CO was killed in action and we were without reinforcement for six months. I also know people in the State Alchemists through my father, and I can assist with your correspondence."
"I'm not interested."
"Why not?"
Now he really was angry, considering that 'No' should have been the end of the conversation. She should have given up and left. Why was she still here, wasting his time?
"Do you want to make me a laughing stock? How will it look if the SiC to the Provincial Governor's squadron is a girl barely out of adolescence? You'll make me look weak. People will think I've recruited you to a top post because you're pretty."
This surprised her somewhat. But she quickly recovered.
"You can use that to your advantage. If people think you're slightly seedy, they won't keep as close an eye on whatever else it is that you're doing."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he wondered briefly if she was an agent of Major General Armstrong's, and he was making a terrible mistake.
"It means that I will be an asset to your office. People underestimate me all the time, which gives me immense leverage. You can take advantage of that, or you can make the same assumption as everybody else, and you'll lose."
"Get out of my office!"
She paused for a moment, considering whether to say anything further, and then thought better of it. She saluted, turned and opened the door, closing it gently behind her. Perfectly controlled.
Mustang paced, then sat at his desk to complete his letter, then cursed loudly, paced the room again, and picked up the phone. A timid, well-spoken woman answered the phone, on behalf of the Hughes' household. From her, Mustang obtained Maes' office number, and then rang up.
"This is Captain Hughes, Intel."
"Hughes, Mustang. I need to know where Hawkeye's currently placed."
"Oh, hey Roy. In a box, six feet under, I gather."
"Not the old man, idiot. The girl."
"Ah, I believe she's on leave. Her most recent posting ended a month ago, and she's under requisition by Van Aalten in 1st Battalion, 7th Infantry Brigade. They march for Iqbal in two weeks."
"Get her for me, Maes."
"Are you nuts? It's bad protocol to poach somebody else's man, especially when they're going to need all the sharp-shooters they can get!"
"I can't explain right now. I'm coming up to Central next week for a State Alchemists briefing and a hearing by the resourcing panel at HQ. I'll catch you up then."
"Great! You can come round for dinner."
"Sure. Ring me when you've got her."
He hung up, abruptly, and scribbled the last of his letter. Then drafted another, requesting the service of Second Lieutenant Heymans Breda. These he sealed, and left these in a tray for his secretary to post. He rose to his feet, donned his coat, and headed into town to find a trouble-maker.