Disclaimer in previous chapters. Please see Author's Notes at the end.
- x -
Al hated lying to Ed.
He wasn't really sure why; his older brother had lied to him as long as he could remember. He cheated during races, cheated during chores, cheated during games – particularly card games – and generally would say innocent things like "I'm going for a walk" when he meant "I'm going to hunt down Scar and get my automail destroyed, back in a jiffy!"
Maybe it because Ed, almost universally, didn't catch him at it.
And maybe that pissed him off, just a little. What, he was so honest, all the time, that no one could believe he'd lie to them? Was he some sort of poor wandering innocent that couldn't fathom how the occasional fiction would work to his advantage?
But then, if they did suspect him more, he'd probably get away with it less often. And he didn't do it that frequently, and in this case he was forbidden by the leader of the country to spill the secret if he did get caught, so he supposed he probably should just be grateful.
But he hated it just the same.
Al swung the vehicle into Division Circle, following the large circular drive with its centerpiece of bronzed children at play. The statues were interspersed throughout a fountain that had been there probably as long as Central had, though its current metallic residents were much newer.
It had been added sometime in the years they'd been absent, possibly the same day he'd been certified posthumously. A memorial to the children that had died during the Thule Invasion.
As always, his gaze was drawn to the statue forever clambering over the lip of the main pool, clutching her worn teddy bear by one stuffing-less arm and accidentally bonking its wide-eyed face against the stone in her excitement.
With a little shake of his head, Al dropped his eyes to the steering wheel, upon which he was holding the coverpage of the report he'd been issued.
Where to start . . .
Well, he'd have to do some research on Breckhart. As soon as he'd gotten back to the academy, he'd gone to find Ed, so he hadn't had time to look anyone's address up. He knew where his brother lived, obviously, but he also knew why every suspect activity was listed and what it had been. Two sudden disappearances during official meet-and-greets, one due to barely contained rage and the other having something to do with his stomach. One visit to Resembool that wasn't reported on his expenditures, which was undoubtedly related to his 'automail.' Large chunks of his funds disappearing at regular intervals –
Okay. He had to admit, he had no idea what nii-san was spending his money on. Since he was doing his own research, currently in airships, Al could only guess it was for that. And he was sure Edward would hide that from him. If he got wind of a zeppelin in the works, he'd obviously tell Winry, who would come back to Central and never let him hear the end of it.
Of course, nii-san was probably constructing a plane, but that wasn't the point.
Al consulted the list again, guiding the car in a wide circle. He really wasn't sure where he was going yet, and technically he could just circle the plaza all night if he wanted . . . so, next on the list was Morris. He was pretty sure Morris was still living in the dorms, which would make him both easier and harder to track down. Visiting a residence wouldn't seem too out of the realm of possibility, but lots of people would see him if he visited the dorm. So . . . he'd have to use that to his advantage. Wait until Morris indicated in the Academy that he'd been singled out by the military.
Sorn's residence he knew; they'd made it a point when they'd heard he had no family in the city. Of course, they'd lived alone at that age, and the four years previous, but they'd had some money left from Hohenheim, and Aunt Pinako besides. Then the military had taken care of them. The fact that Sorn did not live in the dorms sort of indicated he also had some kind of nest egg, though he was apparently much less afraid of spending it than he and nii-san had been.
Of course, Franklin was brilliant, and arrogant to boot, so it wasn't surprising that he wouldn't be thinking of his future. He could do anything he wanted. Hell, he could go down to Resembool and let Winry use him as her next automail-forming alchemist, assuming Fletcher didn't get jealous. As such, he owned a modest but sizable home just off Treewell with his own sunroom and likely a proper laboratory inside.
Swolls was an alchemist he didn't know that well. Darr was fairly quiet, and appeared to have a bit of Ishbal blood in him; his eyes were a very reddish brown, almost like mesa clay, and he was usually pretty tanned. His name also gave away his lineage, though his mother had married into a bloodline that might as well have been in Central since before the fall of the city beneath it. There was no telling which section of the city he'd choose to live in. As a certified National Alchemist, he had plenty of funds, but might deign to live near the people his mother named him after.
Or he might hate their guts. Al didn't have any classes with the thirty-something alchemist, and didn't even know if the man was married or not. He'd have to wait till tomorrow as well.
That left him Tringum. And since he'd helped them move in, only a couple blocks from their own home, he was pretty sure he knew where they lived.
He also knew where both of them were, and had a dinner date with them in less than a week. He also knew for a fact that Russ was not plotting to overthrow Mustang.
What he didn't know was where Russell was getting all the money that had been reported in his dossier. Unless that was Fletcher's income from helping Winry under the table, which he highly doubted. The Tringums had separate accounts, since Russell's was provided by the State. Fletcher had still not sat for the State Alchemy exam, and apparently had no desire to. He was the only exception to the 'only Nationally Certified Alchemists can attend the Academy' rule, thought Mustang hadn't really put up much of a fuss when Ed had insisted on it.
Al privately suspected that Mustang liked the Tringums very much. Russ could be abrasive and arrogant at times, but Fletcher was pretty much a walking column of amiability. It was impossible not to like the younger of the Tringums.
Which made it all the sadder when their apartment – not only the lab, but the entire building – had been brought down around their ears.
They'd taken the loss of their research pretty hard. When the apartment had fallen, weeks of work – and irreplaceable Red Water – had been destroyed. They were still researching alchemic amplifiers, but had taken a turn and followed a weaker lead they'd found long ago, when they'd been studying plants as a means to concentrate Red Water. And technically, there was nothing wrong with the amplifier their father Nash had concocted, at least not until it was mixed with a crystallizing powder that rendered it unable to be modified by alchemic energy . . .
And god only knew where Johann Irving had gotten that stuff. Nii-san's original – and chilling – assumption that it had come from the Gate itself was probably more likely than either wanted to admit.
And either way, Nash's formula was still incredibly unstable. He wasn't sure what the brothers were doing with it, but he figured it would be a topic of conversation at the table, so it stood to reason any investigation into them could be put off for a few days.
As if Russell would be selling information for cash. He was a National Alchemist! Al snorted, taking his third trip around the circle before exiting on Cobalt. The only address he knew was Sorn's, and at least he had a good reason for dropping in.
It took a lot of courage to skip nii-san's classes. It really wasn't good for one's health.
Al took Cobalt to Treewell, turning left after traffic had passed, and looked over the homes there. It was a residential area, and had mercifully been spared both during the Irvings' visit and the Thule Invasion. It was one of the few mid-aged residential areas left in the city, and its architecture reminded Al very much of how Central had looked when he and Edward had first arrived by train, wide-eyed and not at all prepared for what they were about to get themselves into.
He was rather disappointed to see an empty driveway laying across the well-kept lawn of number 812. He knew Franklin had a car; most of the city did too. It was the only one like it in all of Central, and every bolt and shred of rubber tire had been transmuted by the Mechanical Alchemist himself. Which was probably why he was allowed to drive it.
That and it ran on water, so it couldn't technically even be taxed, let alone regulated. He legally didn't need a license to operate it.
And wherever he was, he was not at home.
So much for being sick.
Al pulled smoothly into the driveway, putting the car into reverse before reconsidering. Franklin's report showed several suspect incidents, including repeated absences from Academy classes, two hospital visits that had apparently not been reported, and money sliding into and out of his account frequently and in large sums. Al would bet half a year's wages that the absences had to do with radiation sickness, and the hospital visits hadn't been reported because he didn't want anyone to know he was working double-time on the feedbacking areas. The money was . . . possibly the reason he owned a house at fifteen. Possibly illegal, even possibly transmuting gold, but it was unlikely the focused, do-gooding fifteen year old was attempting to overthrow the government.
Still, if he was transmuting gold, he was probably doing it in the privacy of his own house, and it would be easy enough to confirm. Particularly if the young alchemist wasn't home to hide it.
Al backed the car out of the driveway, taking it back towards Cobalt. Three houses up, 809, was a fairly large estate, and it wouldn't look amiss to have a Parliament car parked in front of it. Sorn – and any other passing traffic – wouldn't think anything of it.
Al determined entering through the back would be best, and nonchalantly walked back to 812, taking the walkway around the back of the pleasant brick home. The sunroom took up almost half the same footprint as the house, and was crammed full of ferns and other humidity-loving plants.
The Tringums would probably love it. He wondered idly if they'd ever taken up with Sorn, considering they'd all certified at young ages.
Some, of course, younger than others.
Wary of a Pinako-like housekeeper despite the lack of other automobiles, Al knocked politely on the whitewashed back door. The curtains were drawn, hiding the room behind, but his cocked ear heard no footsteps, no shifting of the floors. Al tried a little louder, but the response was the same.
Looked like no one was home.
The door was locked with alchemy, of course, so he simply transmuted a new one out of the siding and brick. He did it neatly, and was sure to put the brick – and the mortar – back in its original pattern. No sense in leaving a gaping hole in the side of the house. If he needed to make a run for it later, he could always just transmute it again.
It wasn't his first time breaking and entering, but it was the first time he wanted to hide his tracks. It felt . . . not as weird as it should have.
Nii-san's bad habits had rubbed off on him.
Al found himself in a large and sparklingly clean kitchen. So clean, in fact, he wasn't sure it wasn't a laboratory. He stepped almost gingerly over the white-tiled floor and ran an admiring finger over the green-mottled granite countertops The sink was double and deep, some kind of stainless steel, and the refrigerator was large enough to store cadavers.
Not that he thought Franklin was, but he opened it anyway. Just to see what current fifteen year old geniuses ate for dinner.
Then he wrinkled his nose. They ate the same things past fifteen year old geniuses ate for dinner. Only this genius didn't believe in eating leftovers or throwing them out. There was dead stew in an earthenware bowl that appeared to be older than Franklin was.
Then again, he didn't really remember having to take care of too many leftovers with nii-san. Any, actually . . .
The cabinets yielded things cabinets usually contained – non-matching dishware, glasses, mugs, dried goods. No gold. Al ducked his head into a hallway that seemed to stretch the length of the house, with closed doors on either side of the hall. He shrugged, then chose right.
The first door on the right turned out to be the library, which was a huge room stuffed with very inviting-looking texts, but unfortunately as far from the driveway as he could get. Getting settled in here would be dangerous; Franklin could march right up to the front door and he'd have no idea until the key turned in the lock.
But oh, the shelf nearest him contained what appeared to be first edition copies of Transcendental Alchemy, Basice Alchemie For the Seriouse Pupil, and oh, Geometrics of Molecular Design In Nature. All classics, they'd first found them in Tucker's library and easily a quarter of the questions on the written exam had come directly or indirectly from them –
Smiling, he withdrew another familiar yellowed text. Beginner's Guide to Alchemy. Sitting next to the other, far more complex books, it was so out of place . . . maybe it meant as much to Franklin as it did to them. The beginning of a road that had taken them . . . well, farther than they'd ever imagined possible.
Maybe the emotionless kid was a little sentimental after all.
Al shook his head, replacing the text but not before noting the deep creases worn into the spine. It had had some serious use at some point. Just as their copy had.
Regretfully, he turned from the bookshelf, taking in the room at large. An enormous desk, nearly trembling beneath the weight of all the notes and reams of paper crouching upon it, was stationed near the largest window, facing west. Good place to get evening light. A very comfortable looking green velvet chair was barely visible over the massive piles of paper, and beside that sat an enormous steamer chest.
It was the chest that attracted his attention, and he headed for it immediately. It, too, was locked with alchemy, and he transmuted a small hole in the center of the lid.
He did not catch sight of anything gold. It appeared to be filled with just as many notes as the desk was.
Or the papers were just stacked over the gold.
Al glanced around, then found a pen on the desk. Picked it up, he poked it into the hole, rearranging some of the top notes. More notes, and a red-bound book swam into view.
Nope. This was probably Franklin's private research. Why he kept it in a steamer trunk, though . . . he'd owned the house for over a year. Had he spent most of his time before that traveling extensively? There were far better containers for such things.
Bookshelves, for example.
Al frowned and repaired the hole, glancing around from his new vantage point of the center of the room. The desk really was covered with a truly massive amount of paper, and Al curiously picked up what appeared to be a geographical survey. It was in great detail, but not a portion of the country he recognized; of course, he was likely to only recognize Central, Lior, and Resembool by geography alone. Beneath it was a diagram of a steam-powered engine, though the scale on the bottom right indicated it was far smaller than anything they currently had in production. Beneath that was a treatise on . . .
Al frowned, then gingerly sat in the green velvet chair. A treatise on fern spores.
Franklin had pretty far-reaching interests.
Al continued going through the pile, finding an even wider selection of subjects. They didn't seem to be sorted into any particular order, and some were far more complex than others. He found what appeared to be two chapters of an unfinished mystery book for children sitting beside a theoretical physics worksheet attempting to calculate what would happen if a stream of fast-moving electrons smashed into a molecule.
Al rubbed his scruff absently, tearing himself away and glancing over the room once more. Almost an hour had gone by. He was getting sucked in.
It was easy to see why Franklin would skip Ed's classes, considering the only subject Ed was teaching the alchemists was physics, and Sorn had already obviously surpassed the class material. He might be worth tutoring directly, if he was really this bright. If that physics worksheet was Sorn's work, and not someone else's, he was only about twenty years behind German understanding of theoretical physics.
A pity Amestris didn't have minds like Einstein, Lorentz, or Gerber. Doubtlessly their 'doubles' were around somewhere, but they just didn't have the same foundation to build upon as they did in Europe and the United States. Sorn could use a good conversation with the geniuses themselves, rather than him and nii-san, who only had access to the published findings.
Al surveyed the bookshelves, looking for any indication they were able to slide like Mustang's, and rubbed his right arm irritably. He'd been leaning on it funny; now it was tingling as circulation was restored. Walking around the room seemed to help, and he checked the walls and floors for any signs of anything amiss.
He really wasn't sure what he was looking for. Franklin Sorn was the Mechanical Alchemist. He could very well be buying raw materials, transmuting things like that steam engine model, and selling them for profit. There was nothing prohibiting him from doing so.
And there was the rest of the house to survey.
He headed back out into the hallway, cocking his ear to any noise, and then paused.
Something was different.
He wasn't even sure what it was. The sun was setting, of course, so the lighting had shifted to reds, but this was . . .
Confused, Al stepped back into the library.
And nothing happened.
He studied the doorframe a moment, as if he expected it to offer up a clue. There was no sound, the lighting was just the same in here as it was in the hallway, albeit brighter because of the window . . . glancing back over the large desk, Al made visually sure there was no evidence of his presence there.
The chair.
He crossed the room again, not being able to shake the feeling of something having changed, and put the chair back at the angle it had been when he'd first entered, which was more facing the door than the steamer trunk. He'd replaced the light dust on the steamer trunk lid, so there was no evidence he'd transmuted a hole in it . . .
He rubbed his cheek again, noting the unpleasant tingle was returning to his arm as well –
Al froze.
It was faint, faint enough and familiar enough that he didn't really pay it any attention. The moment he'd stepped out of the library, it had stopped.
He was feeling feedback.
Franklin had been stupid enough to accidentally contaminate his own home? No wonder he was always looking so ill! Al dropped to his knees, looking for some work clothes tucked under the desk, boots, anything that might have tracked contaminated dust or debris into the library. It was clear Sorn spent a lot of time here . . . but the feedback was pretty faint, all things considered. He'd been here over an hour, and it was just now becoming detectable –
They hadn't done any studies on sustained, low-level feedback exposure on alchemists. Just the citizens. This level wouldn't be considered harmful to the average human, but if this had happened in the beginning, and some little rock or piece of gravel had been slowly poisoning him over the course of five months –
It felt just slightly above what the alchemists considered a 'safe' level of decontamination. But even so, the alchemists were more sensitive to it than the average citizen. There was no telling what five months of continuous exposure could have done to Franklin. Maybe not enough to make him obviously sick, and if he was as engrossed in his notes as Al had been, he might not have even been aware of it. But five months into studying the feedback, they all knew it was going to have far-reaching effects . . .
Here on his knees, and concentrating, he could feel it more clearly. It was still very low-level, but Al had learned, like all the alchemists working on shift, how to detect it. He could still feel it to his right, and he turned until he could feel a slight tingling in the tip of his nose. Then he crawled forward.
Directly into the side of the desk.
Al opened his eyes and frowned, then scuttled around it to the front of the desk. Once more he oriented himself –
It really felt like it was coming from below him.
Slightly unnerved, Al clapped his hands. Accidentally tracking it in, he could see, but what was feedback doing in an area that had avoided literally all the fighting?
The wooden floorboards beneath his hands were not resistant. He dug deeper, into the foundation of the house, finding the dirt very easy to part. Despicably easy, actually. Its molecules were lined up nice and neat, with none of the usual layering that occurred over hundreds of years of weather and settling.
The ground had been transmuted recently.
He kept going, until about twenty or so feet. That was when he began to feel resistance. Al frowned, lifting his hands and looking at the neat cylindrical hole he'd transmuted, through not only the wood floor and subfloor, but also the crawlspace of the house. It was much easier to feel the feedback now, whatever it was had not been decontaminated, had been put there on purpose –
Surely not.
Al clapped his hands once more, forcing the suddenly stiff ingredients to the surface. He raised the column of dirt about two feet into the room, wincing a little as it came so close to his face. In the setting sun, it didn't look all that suspect. Dirt. There were a few dead worms hanging out of the column, which meant it had been there at least a few hours. Al reached out, brushing the cold, wet earth back down into the crawlspace as he sifted through it, trying to find the source.
The source was a small, corked glass vial.
Al wiped the dirt off the tube as soon as he found it, holding it up against the sunset light of the large window, to see about a quarter of an ounce of a powdered black substance rolling around freely inside. His chest and face were tingling quite unpleasantly, and the vial started to tremble slightly in his grasp.
It was astonishing, that such a tiny amount of matter could be giving off this level of feedback. It would have had to have been transmuted, with that damned amplifier, two dozen times to give off feedback this strongly. Even at the site of Ed's fight with Craege, it hadn't been quite this bad –
Well, it had been a lot worse, but it had been a hell of a lot more mass giving it off. This tiny little sample shouldn't have been capable of it. It was too pure black to be dirt, and as Al rotated the vial, trying to focus through suddenly tired pupils, it seemed to leave a fine powder in the vial itself.
It looked like . .. carbon.
Of course, it couldn't be straight carbon, since if it was there would be no compound bonds for the alchemic energy to reinforce, thus no breaking down of the alchemic energy, thus no feedback. It was heavily carbon, though, no doubt. A substance that was mostly comprised of carbon . . .
Well, one immediately came to mind, but a background in human transmutation made any of the elements of the human body leap out at you. Could it be a piece of a much-transmuted building? Or the site upon which Craege Irving had died?
Again, the though tugged, and Al put the vial down, leaving the room and closing the door behind him. With some plaster and wood between him and it, the feedback level settled down significantly, and Al took a deep breath, ignoring slightly shaky knees.
Were those actually pieces of the remains of Craege Irving?
What the hell were they doing buried beneath Franklin Sorn's house?
Away from the feedback, he took several deep, slow breaths. Look at things logically. Think this through.
Sorn had been looking ill since the Irvings attacked.
Sorn had been moving large sums of money in and out of his accounts.
Sorn had been semi-frequently visiting the hospital.
There was a piece of something – not necessarily Craege Irving's remains – buried in a vial twenty feet under his house. Giving off detectable amounts of feedback.
It hadn't gotten there accidentally. It had been transmuted, with alchemy, to a place directly under Sorn's study.
Franklin Sorn was missing.
It didn't add up to anything. Was someone trying to poison the kid on purpose? Where was he? Was he missing or just hiding in the hospital again, having been too sick to attend class? Should he notify Mustang of the weirdness, or continue researching on his own until he either found Sorn or figured out who might have placed the feedbacking materials beneath Sorn's study?
If someone was weakening the kid on purpose, with intent to capture him . . . but why?
The steam engine idea, perhaps? It would be worth a ton of money, and a weakened alchemist could much more easily be kept under wraps . . . but again, by whom? The company or party he was doing the previous large-sum business with?
The bank should have information on the transactions, and a call to Patterson would likely net him Franklin, if the kid was in a military clinic. Which he seemed to favor, since the last two 'hidden' appointments had been there . . .
But maybe those were the only two the military investigation had turned up. What if there were more? Franklin hadn't looked the same since . . . well, since Mustang's inauguration. But then again, he'd nearly been killed by the blow he'd received, and jumped right into the cleanup efforts, so he'd likely not had much of a chance to heal-
And not everyone was nii-san. Not everyone bounced back from this kind of thing.
Al was more than half-afraid that even Edward hadn't bounced back this time. It was kinda hard to tell; with his current philosophy of 'less alchemy is more' there was no way to tell if his lack of large transmutations was due to principles, limitation, or fear.
Though it bothered him that, from everything he'd heard, Armstrong hadn't done anything gargantuan recently, either. That could have been because of his impending promotion, but that could also simply be a clever excuse.
As for Mustang . . . he had no need to transmute. Which was probably a good thing, since anything large enough to prove his recovery would burn down an eighth of the city.
And none of this speculation was helping him determine whether or not this was significant enough to inform Mustang.
Tracking down the kid was either going to be really simple or impossible. He could just make the call to the hospital and find out –
And risk alerting someone that Franklin was missing. If someone really was after the kid, that might be just the signal they were looking for. He'd also give away his position as investigating the alchemists, if someone was watching closely. Franklin had been sick several times, but it had never warranted a visit from one of his professors and colleagues before. It would be very convenient indeed if Al was taken in by the government and then just happened to want to stop by to visit Franklin that evening and find him missing.
Damn, this had gotten complicated in a hurry.
Al headed back into the kitchen, where a cream-colored phone with brass accents sat on the countertop. When in doubt, ask Hawkeye. It seemed a good philosophy. She'd given him a private number for the purposes of reporting in, so there was no risk it would be traced. But then again, using Franklin's phone when the kid might be missing could come back to haunt him –
He was too unsteady at the moment to walk back to the car. To hell with intrigue. Franklin Sorn could be in serious trouble.
Al sat heavily in one of the stout pine chairs, dialing the phone carefully with still-trembling fingers. It only rang twice; either the colonel was working late, or the line had been forwarded to her home.
"Hello?"
"Elizabeth," he greeted casually, making sure to keep his voice from belying the shakes he was still feeling. "Just thought I'd check up, see how you were on this lovely summer evening."
"Working," she replied carefully. "The line's secure. What can I do for you?"
Al blinked. He didn't like the sound of her tone at all. If it was a secure line, why was she sounding so . . . cautious? Then again, she probably wasn't too happy to be hearing from him so soon either. "I think we have a problem."
"Details, please."
He took a deep breath. "Ah, Franklin Sorn is absent and possibly missing, and there was a piece of heavily contaminated matter placed about twenty feet below his home."
A slight pause, and an odd little click. "When did he go missing?"
"I don't know if he really is, yet. Nii-san said he didn't show up for afternoon class, so no one at the Academy's seen him since . . . yesterday?"
"When you say heavily contaminated, what do you mean?"
Al blinked again, momentarily nonplussed. It was one thing to be given a private line to Hawkeye, but to have Mustang on the same line . . . were they both still in the office? Al glanced out the kitchen window, noting the sun had completely set. He'd been under the impression that the Prime Minister had dinner dates scheduled back to back until at least the winter solstice holidays.
"Less than half an ounce, detectable through twenty feet of dirt." At least there was no question about that. "I'd just be guessing if I told you what I think it is."
"Guess."
There was some . . . tightness in his voice that Al didn't like, either, and he tried not to sound irritated when he replied. "Mostly carbon, transmuted at least a dozen times. I'd guess debris from the spot where Craege Irving fought his last battle, or a piece of the remains."
There was a brief silence. "Ignore the rest of the list," came Mustang's clipped tones. "Center on Sorn. Anything you can find on business partners, possible enemies, and any links to the activities in the report. You might consider visiting his hometown, looking up any family or friends that may have information on his whereabouts."
That was an awful lot of concern over something that could be nothing. "I . . . didn't mean to alarm you," Al started. "It's possible this was just a plant by another alchemist to . . . slow Franklin down, make him sick -"
"Unlikely."
His tone was so final, and so sure, that Al found himself standing without really knowing why. Something was going on. There was a reason they'd both been in the office, and whatever it was, it was a big problem. "What aren't you telling me?"
Unsurprisingly, it was Hawkeye who spoke next, and a bit more gently than she had previously. "Alphonse, have you seen Edward recently?"
Those six words had been said to him in the past, many times. Some of those times, by the very same woman who spoke them now. Never once had they ended with anything Al really wanted to hear.
"What happened?" He figured it was an answer in of itself.
"There seems to have been a disturbance in the area he was assigned to decontaminate this evening. He's wanted for questioning in relation to a large underground explosion."
Al sucked in a deep breath, bringing with it a whiff of garlic. "Is he okay?" If he was wanted for questioning, at least he wasn't dead. They wouldn't have said that if they knew he was dead.
"We don't know," came the colonel's steady voice. "But preliminary investigations have turned up dead chimera."
An explosion and chimera. Well, that definitely sounded like Ed. "When was this?"
"About forty minutes ago. Master Sergeant Brosh thought he saw Edward in the First Library arguing with one of the librarians twenty minutes after. He hasn't check himself into the military hospital, and he didn't return to the Academy. A car was sent to your home but Jean hasn't checked in yet."
Twenty minutes. Ed could have made it to the library on foot from grid twenty-seven in that amount of time. Hell, in half that amount of time. He had no vehicle, unless he'd commandeered one – which he couldn't do, since he'd been stripped of military rank. Then again, as an alchemist and the director of the Academy he had some clout with Parliament, but twenty minutes, no matter how it was sliced, meant he must still be near the center of the city.
Dead chimera? Near Lab 5? He was about to open his mouth, and ask how long they'd been dead, but he closed it again. She said she only had preliminary findings. She wouldn't have that level of information yet.
He sighed quietly, eying the darkening kitchen for the offending herb he kept smelling.
Of course. Laboratory Five – and this explosion - was right next to the prison. Which was why Mustang and Hawkeye were back in the office, since someone would have to release a statement assuring the city at large that a prison break was not underway, and then a coverup would need to be put into place to avoid making the incident look like an alchemic screw-up-
Which it likely wasn't.
Did Mustang think it had something to do with Franklin's disappearance?
Did it?
There was the faintest creak behind him, from the direction of the hall, and despite the lethargy he'd gained since handling the radioactive material, Al whipped around, dropping the phone in lieu of bringing his hands together –
The smell of garlic was quite a bit stronger, and it wasn't coming from the braid of the spice hanging over the sink.
It was coming from a somewhat surprised-looking Edward Elric.
- x -
Edward watched his brother relax, and with a nasty glare, he bent and retrieved the dropped phone. Even before he'd put it back to his ear, Ed could hear a voice on the other end calling for him.
"He's here." The voice sounded unusually weary for Al. It wasn't late enough for him to be so wiped. There was a brief pause. "I'll ask him."
Then Al simply hung up the phone.
Edward opened his mouth, but Al beat him to the punch.
"Well?"
Again, the angry tone. What the hell had he done to deserve not only the glare, but the voice? He shot his brother a glare of his own. "Hello to you too." Let's see how he liked getting his own words right back.
Al sat gracelessly at the table, propping up his head up with one arm. He did not seem at all abashed about having been found in Franklin Sorn's kitchen, nor did he seem concerned that the young alchemist was going to return at any moment and wonder what the hell he was doing there. Instead, he was openly looking his older brother up and down with a disapproving . . . everything.
"You reek. Trying to ward off vampires, nii-san?"
Ed frowned at him, and leaned against the doorjamb, crossing his arms. He was lucky to still have arms. He was even luckier to still have eyebrows. He was pretty sure he had Patterson's magical anti-feedback elixir to thank for that.
Not that his hair wasn't singed. Not that all of him wasn't singed, actually. He felt very much like he'd spent a day at the beach in Greece and sunburned the crap out of himself. And he knew he had no right to complain about it.
The square corridor had saved him. That and the distance between the skylights he'd transmuted. He was centered in the hallway, with the ceiling as tall as the corridor was wide, and the wind from the shifting air pressures had swept directly over him, carrying the majority of the heat and fire with it. He hadn't transmuted enough phosphorus in any one area to really get going, so while the initial flash had been intense, that had really been it.
That and a truly wicked headache. "Thanks. What are you doing here?"
Strangely, his brother seemed to hesitate. "Phosphorus," he said finally. "It's not garlic, it's phosphorus."
"No shit," Edward snapped grouchily. They weren't following their normal rules. Instead of answering each other, they were just asking more questions. And he had plenty. Al was the last person he'd expected to find in Sorn's house. "Who was that on the phone?"
"What did you blow up?"
Despite the obvious lack of energy in his posture and voice, Ed could see quite clearly that Al was irritated. Which wasn't like him. Neither was the lethargy. Something was off with his brother, and as bad as he felt, this was a battle he didn't really want to have.
"Someone's been mining Red Stone," he announced abruptly. "Guess who's been working grid twenty-seven for the past several weeks."
Al sat up a little straighter, dropping his hand from his chin to the table. "Franklin."
Ed nodded once. "Found a tunnel stretching from what I thought was the prison to the ruins of Lab Five. Had definitely been transmuted. It was filled with dead chimeras."
Al's eyes widened considerably. "Nii-san-"
Ed dropped his chin a little, staring at the Al's legs instead of his face. Where the extra trouser fabric behind his calves was trembling, just a little. "You weren't supposed to work shift today, Al."
His brother grimaced, and had the good grace to look slightly less accusatory. "I didn't really intend to," he admitted. "I was worried when Franklin missed class again, and I had time after I dropped you off, so I came to see him."
So much for Al and Franklin not being buddies. "You do that often?"
Al laughed, almost hollowly. "No. First time."
Ed cocked his head to the side as something clicked in the back of his mind. "His car's not in the driveway."
"You noticed."
"Then why are you in his house?"
"Why are you? Why the hell aren't you checking yourself into the HQ hospital?"
Ed stared at his brother for a long moment. "Al . . .?"
A fleeting look passed over his little brother's face. Consternation, maybe? "Look, Miss Dueys was concerned when the military announced its investigations, so she was going over the books, and she said that she was worried about Franklin's account. Large sums of money moving in and out at regular intervals. You and I both know a house isn't cheap, and he's only fifteen. I thought maybe . . . he was transmuting his own gold." Al shrugged. "I don't actually care, even if it is illegal, but if Hakuro's men get ahold of a rumor like that . . ."
Ed leaned back further on the doorjamb, considering. "Large sums of money . . . " Could he have been making the chimeras for someone? Selling them? If so, his current status of being absent from both his home and his class could mean he was meeting with the buyer . . . or worse.
He could have been in the stomach of that chimera in the tunnel.
Of course, without more information, they wouldn't even know where to start looking for the fool kid. "Al, is there an office or study here?" Maybe there was a day planner, or at least a calendar –
Al shot to his feet, taking a step towards Ed before he seemed to really know what he was doing. "Don't go in there."
Ed had leaned up off the doorjamb in surprise, and gave his brother another look. Things were starting to fall into place . . . "You left something out of your story. The part where you were exposed to feedback," he said slowly. It sounded like an accusation, now that he'd heard himself say it.
Al heaved a large sigh. Almost defeatedly. "Can't you feel it?"
Ed blinked at his brother, then stopped, and thought about it.
His face was tingling, ever so slightly.
Ed's expression must have changed, because his brother correctly interpreted what he was thinking. "I didn't find gold. I found a piece of . . . I don't even know. Maybe Craege Irving. In a corked glass vial about twenty feet below the house. I could feel the feedback in Franklin's study."
Edward stared at his brother a moment. "But that doesn't make any sense . . ."
Did he have it all wrong? Maybe it wasn't Franklin mining the Stone after all. Maybe he'd been unlucky enough to stumble on the tunnel himself. Maybe that's why those chimera had already been dead-
But then, where the hell was Franklin?
He took a step forward, towards the main hall, and he heard the unmistakable clunk of a lock breaking.
Ed didn't even spare Al a glance. Almost as a single unit, they dove for opposite sides of the front door, a large wooden one with a decorated oval window that took up nearly half of its middle. It gave them a pretty good silhouette of the person on the other side, and the thin, scraping noise told of tools being removed from the lock.
The door was recessed into a small foyer, about eight feet from the corner Ed was hiding behind. Across the way, a thin stripe of light from the streetlamps outside crossed Al's face. His brother was looking at him.
Sorn wouldn't be breaking into his own house. And the sun had just set, so this couldn't be a simple burglary.
For the first time that evening, Edward was actually glad he'd had to get a ride from someone, rather than having a car of his own to have left in the driveway. Maybe now they could finally get some answers
The door opened quickly but silently, giving both brothers a better view of the intruder. The frame was thick, slightly taller than Al's, and the clothing bulky. Hard to tell body type. He was holding something, though whether a weapon or a bag of tools Ed couldn't tell.
Not that it mattered.
The intruder entered swiftly, and Ed brought his hands together sharply, both halting the man in his tracks and preparing a transmutation of cellulose.
"That's far eno-"
It wasn't a bag of tools.
The flash of the muzzle showed him the position of the gun, and the whine of a bullet passing uncomfortably close had him throwing himself back before he really thought about it. Across the hall, Al was charging the man, but he had several yards to cover and the intruder was already turning toward him –
He was weakened from the feedback. He might not make it in time.
Ed slammed his left hand against the wall, causing a thick spike of wood to shoot out from the interior foyer wall, directly at the pair. It had the desired effect; the gun was knocked cleanly from their attacker's hands. Unfortunately, Al couldn't stop himself in time, and the rod was too high to vault.
Al did the only thing he could do – he fell back, his feet outstretched in a sliding sweep. It was a thing of beauty; Al caught the hallway runner at just the right angle, bunching it beneath his shoes and crashing into the intruder with nearly as much force as he would have with the original attack. He took the guy's feet right out from under him, and the two crashed into the foyer corner.
Ed darted around the wall, preparing another transmutation, this one of plaster, when he caught sight of the front yard through the wide-open door.
His eyes widened.
"Get do-"
The problem with these guys, Ed decided suddenly, was that they never let him finish a sentence. It was downright rude.
He counted three flashes of light, though two of them could have been from the same gun, or a single person holding two pistols. It didn't matter. The entrance to Sorn's house was suddenly exploding with bullets, and the large wooden rod he'd transmuted not thirty seconds ago saved his life. With no runner to interrupt the smooth wood floors, he lost his footing, twisting in the air to avoid falling flat on his butt. A quick somersault brought him out of direct line of fire, and with a clap, he erected a solid wood wall where the door had once stood.
Cleanly separating Al from the man he was wrestling.
"Damnit!"
Ed heard another clap, and he watched in disbelief as Al deconstructed half of the wall he'd just transmuted, with a flash of red light. More bullets rained in, causing both men to duck for cover, and it didn't lessen, even as they heard tires squealing on the pavement outside.
"Al!"
His brother had prepared a transmutation, but there was no getting out the door to touch the ground outside. The hail of bullets continued, even as the car swung crazily onto Cobalt. With a wink of brakelights, the car took the corner, and disappeared from sight.
Ed stood slowly, shaking out his arms and shoulders. His skin was still pretty numb from the brief but intense searing it had sustained earlier, but he was pretty sure he wasn't hit.
"Al, you okay?"
With a brief blink of red light, the remaining obstacle in the front door was removed. "Fine. Nii-san-"
Al didn't even need to finish the thought.
The guys were fast, well-armed, and probably not there to give Sorn a get-well-soon card. Just what the hell was going on?
- x -
Author's Notes: Well, it was long, because I was afraid that if I didn't include the gunfire I'd get made fun of some more. ; ) So, oo, mystery! Intrigue! Slightly cooked Edward! (You didn't really think he was toast, did you?) I found a ton of typos in this chapter, which means there are more. If you see any, let me know! Next chapter, we'll have . . . exposition! It's like explosions and gunfire, only . . . not as noisy. Sort of.