Disclaimer in previous chapters. Please see Author's Notes at the end.
Special Plugs Time!You guys did such a good job guilting Silverfox2702 into posting a fic that she did! It's called Between, a one-shot divergence from canon. And it involves Ed. And Mustang. Playing chess. And it's fabulous. You should go read it while you wait for me to post the chapter after this one. (Which really will be up within the next hour. Would I lie to you?)
- x -
"Thank you," he started without preamble, folding his hands on the table. The white cotton looked a little thicker than usual, but there was no tell-tale red array stitched into the backs, and Alphonse blinked tired eyes, wondering if perhaps he was just seeing things.
He almost had to be. The Prime Minister was sitting there at the head of the table, alive and well, and there was no colonel at his side.
In her place stood Goodman, back to the wall, watching not him but Russell Tringum.
Alphonse blinked again, taking a deeper breath to fight off the sudden urge to yawn. He didn't look toward Tringum, though. He'd done enough babysitting on the train, and if Russ looked a little out of sorts it was to be expected. To say he'd been unhappy about the traveling arrangements last night was an understatement.
Beneath that mask of exhaustion was an intense rage. He wasn't surprised Goodman had noticed it, even if Roy was being cordial. For the safety of the people of Jannai, the moment the train had arrived Al had ordered an automobile escort for Avram Blane back to Central. It was the only way to be certain that Blane wouldn't get his hands on one of the townsfolk, but it had also meant that Russell hadn't had the pleasure of questioning the man all the way back. Instead, they had sat across from one another in a cramped car for six hours, then another four on the transfer leg of their journey. They hadn't even disembarked before a sergeant Al had never seen before was ushering them off the train and into a State car, and they'd been in this conference room ever since.
No information on Blane. No information on Ed. No information at all. The sergeant was the first young woman he could remember who didn't linger to chitchat, and he was starting to wonder just how bad he looked, and how bad he smelled.
He already knew how much his shoulder hurt, and he was a little angry himself that he and Russell, after knocking themselves out and possibly saving hundreds of lives, were being treated as little more than prisoners by their own government. A breakfast of bagels and coffee was all well and good, but a visit from Patterson and a nice syringe full of something that induced fuzzy feelings would have been far preferable.
And that tone, despite the words, told him more clearly than if Mustang had shouted it that he wasn't about to give them anything but a headache.
"Your actions and quick thinking may very well have saved an entire town." He almost looked as if he wanted to go on, and then a wry look crossed Mustang's face. "I'll spare you the spiel."
The little warning bells, the ones that had gone off when Blane had been buddying up to him, clanged halfheartedly.
"Alphonse, as soon as you're feeling up to it, turn in a full report. Your current mission has been completed. The temporarily increase in rank will go into effect permanently as of the thirtieth of the month."
Al floundered for a moment. "Did Blane confess to arranging the assassination attempts?"
There was motion to his left, but Al didn't bother to glance. So long as it wasn't a clap, it wasn't any of his business. What Russ needed right now was sleep, but he doubted the other man was going to sack out after this any more than he was.
Not until he knew where nii-san was.
In a way, they were both looking for the same information.
Mustang gave him a surprisingly bland look. "Avram Blane has not been forthcoming up to this point," he finally murmured.
"Give me a key to the motherfucker's cell and twenty minutes." There was a lot of emotion packed into that quiet voice, and behind Mustang, Goodman shifted slightly.
Getting a better line of sight on Russ, Al realized after a moment. And that was just stupid. No matter how angry Russ was it wasn't like he was going to attack Roy.
Mustang, for his part, raised an eyebrow. "As you are well aware, the administration prior to mine, and the administration prior to that were less than completely observant of all policies and procedures involving enemies of the state. General Hakuro has served under all of those administrations, and as such, I have complete trust that his methods will be the most effective at getting the information we need."
There was a brief silence, and Al turned to Russ without thinking. The other man still looked as bad as he had an hour ago. His ribs had been re-taped on the train, quite a long time ago, and the troop's medical officer had managed to get him to take the drugs Patterson had prescribed, noting they were a hell of a lot better than anything he had in his field kit. And that had included the morphine. But physical pain and exhaustion aside, Russell was still in another kind of pain, one that Mustang needed to be a little more sympathetic to.
When Russell had found out what Al had done regarding Blane, rather than get a car of his own and pursue the only man they had in custody that might have known what had happened to his brother's remains, he had sucked it up and done his duty as a State Alchemist, and assisted with the evacuation of Jannai. Which was a hell of a lot more than Ed would have done.
Which was more than he would have done. Roy needed to acknowledge that, and he hadn't yet.
Tringum was staring at Roy almost expressionlessly, not twitching a muscle. "I want to sit in."
"That is quite impossible," Mustang responded coolly. "I would be attending myself if an audience would not have a negative effect on the method of interrogation."
That was certainly not something Al had expected to hear, and he turned it over a few times before he decided that Roy was being this distant with them because he was as angry as they were.
And that was a comforting thought.
Russell didn't seem to make that connection. "I wasn't asking your permission." He leaned forward slightly, hands flat on the table, and Goodman took a step off the wall. Roy raised his left hand only a millimeter or two, and the burly bodyguard stopped in his tracks. Tringum had noticed it, and he let his fingers splay across the finished hardwood of the conference room table. Showing them to Mustang. Either he'd already prepared a transmutation that would take him three stories down to the holding cells in the building proper, or he was demonstrating that he wasn't quite that serious yet in an effort to get Mustang to capitulate.
Mustang's gaze became a bit more chilly. "Don't think for one second that I am overlooking the sacrifices you have made," he said quietly, voice tightly controlled. "But let's be honest. You weren't on that train because you knew that Avram Blane was manipulating Sorn. You were there to manipulate him yourself."
Al would have gaped if he'd had the energy. Instead, he turned back to Russ, feeling a bit like he was watching a ping-pong match and knowing that Patterson would be screaming about his neck.
Russ didn't even flinch. "Al already told me that was the going theory. That I'd transmuted my brother, or I was going to nick the Stone from Sorn when he showed up in Jannai." He somehow managed to sound almost disappointed that they'd thought so little of him, and Al found himself looking down at the table. "When that bastard came to my door the day after- . . . the day after Fletch died, I knew he knew something. If that pisses you off, maybe you should reconsider having dismissed me earlier."
Roy took the criticism in stride. "Perhaps," he conceded in the same modulated tone. "However, it was a valid concern. Outside of Alphonse and Edward Elric, you and your brother are the only other alchemists in the world that should know how to create a Philosopher's Stone."
Al ran through the list in his head. Armstrong knew what a Stone was made of, but had never seen the array and probably wouldn't be able to come up with one on his own, seeing as his interests in alchemy had never included biological transmutation of any kind. Mustang obviously knew, and he'd done work on his own array after Liore, if Hughes was to be believed, but he wasn't sure Roy had ever seen the human transmutation array either. It was possible he saw the one in their basement, though, the night they'd tried to bring back mom . ..
"Are you saying you think Blane knew that when he singled out Russell?" How would he have, unless he'd known that Nash had done work on purifying Red Water for use in construction of Stones? Then again, he also knew how to create a homunculus, but he'd never done so, or he would have performed alchemy without an array.
Al blinked again. He vaguely recalled having that thought on the train, but he'd been far too concerned with getting everyone out of Jannai and then preventing Russ from jumping train to get to Blane.
Russell's eyes narrowed slightly. "What are you getting at?"
"There's a lot of unexplained income showing up in your accounts." Well, when he'd said he was going to save the spiel, he hadn't been kidding. "How are you generating that revenue?"
Russ's breathing caught, just barely, and Al wondered whether he'd put two and two together. "I'm not." His voice was bitter. "Fletcher. He doe- . . . he did landscaping, greenhouse construction . . . lent his services to nurseries."
"And why was the money deposited into your accounts?"
The bitterness didn't fade, just changed flavors. "I've managed the money in our family since I was a boy." His face darkened slightly, apparently lost in memories, and his knuckles whitened as if he was trying to crumple the surface of the table like a piece of scratch paper. "What the hell did you think?"
"It doesn't matter what I thought." Roy felt comfortable enough with the change in atmosphere to steeple his fingers again. "The State military was investigated, and all alchemists with suspicious activity were flagged as possible informants for the assassins. I put Alphonse in charge of those investigations within the Academy."
"So what?"
"If you were an informant, giving away our position in the investigation would have been inadvisable." It was as close to an apology as Russ was going to get, and clearly he didn't find it nearly satisfactory enough.
"So you don't trust me," Russell's voice was low. "Then it shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm not going to go home like a well-trained dog because I might be underfoot. That son of a bitch knows what happened to my brother, and I am not leaving until he's told me."
Al glanced back at Mustang, surprised to see the consideringly look was being given to him, and not to Russ. He didn't know what it meant, not even when Mustang spoke again.
"Alphonse, did you see Avram Blane transmute without an array?"
"No. And I think he would have if he could." That was an understatement. The guy would have pissed an array if he'd been given half a chance.
Mustang spread his hands. "Then he obviously did not transmute your brother's remains. If he knows, it's because another alchemist completed the task and told him. We know Franklin Sorn is moving to create a Philosopher's Stone, and we know he had access to incomplete Stone. I believe we can agree," and his gaze flicked back to Al, "that is sufficient to raise a homunculus if provided in correct quantity."
To speak so openly about forbidden transmutation in front of Goodman was . . . unlike Mustang. Not unless he had all the cards. "So you're sure it was Sorn?" The only way he'd know for sure- "I take it nii-san caught up with him?"
Mustang's considering look hadn't left. "Edward has yet to report back."
"You don't know that he's even been - you don't know that he didn't take the remains," Russell interrupted. "You're assuming Blane didn't take them just to create the possibility. And even if that bastard said it was Franklin, I'll believe it when I see it."
"Then as soon as Franklin Sorn is in custody, I will notify you," Mustang promised smoothly, and Al heard the door closing. They were both too tired, and he hadn't seen Russ walking right into that. "Until that time, I believe it would be prudent for you to go home. You look dead on your feet, and while I don't doubt you could transmute a tunnel to Blane's cell, you would be able to accomplish little else."
Tringum had gotten off easy, just like he had, in that neither of them had really used Irving's amplifier for any length of time. Even without that problem to contend with, Mustang probably wasn't far off the mark. Russell was too exhausted to pull off that scope of transmutation and still expect to get up and walk afterwards. He would be easily subdued by the guards even if he tried it, and Hawkeye's absence in their meeting seemed even more obtrusive.
She was probably down there, making sure that Mustang's interests in the interrogation would be protected.
Russell may not have come to the same conclusion, but he was clearly looking for a way to argue the point. Unfortunately, logic was an excellent weapon against a Tringum. Russ was pragmatic and down to earth, he was a scientist perhaps more than he or nii-san. His knuckles were still white, but some of the intensity had left his eyes.
"Did he say that Sorn transmuted my brother?"
Mustang's eyebrow raised again. "If he did, would you leave Central to assist in locating him?"
Tringum was silent for a long time. "If I thought I knew where to look, yes."
"Do you?"
A bitter look. "I sure as hell wouldn't be here if I did."
Roy pursed his lips, his visible eye narrowing slightly. "I appreciate your honesty."
"Not enough to tell me what you're hiding, though, right?" Russell's almost-smile was enough to recapture Goodman's attention. "You're going to do it again, aren't you. Kick me out of the goddamn loop and talk to Elric about it."
Roy took a deep breath, expelling it without an audible sigh. "That had been my intention," he admitted outright, and this time Al stared quite openly at him. He'd just won, for all intents and purposes, and now he was going to give Russ more ammunition? "However, you've shown considerable self-control, more than I expected."
This served to surprise both of them enough to straighten slightly in their seats, and Mustang's expression became wry. "Alphonse, are you in as pitiful shape as you look?"
Obviously not pitiful enough, if the sergeant Mustang had ordered to pick them up was any indication. "My arm is killing me, and I'd love to spend a few minutes with the doc, but I'll live."
Oddly, a dark look crossed Roy's face, so briefly that Al wondered if he'd imagined it. "I was presented with a unique problem last night. I could use your expertise."
Al inclined his head. "And Russ?"
"If you'll agree to be one of my well-trained dogs again, and not get underfoot, I would value your opinion as well."
It was the most obvious baiting that Mustang had done yet, but whether Russ realized it or was just so relieved to be included, he simply gave Roy a particularly unpleasant look before also jerking his head in assent.
And then Mustang got smoothly to his feet, and without another word, proceeded out into the hall.
Al exchanged a glance with Russ, then stood. They were both probably only going to get that invitation once, and Mustang's line of questioning had made his expectations pretty clear. Roy expected him to keep Russ in line, on the off chance he tried something. And if he didn't manage to keep an eye on Russ, it looked like Goodman would.
Of course, Goodman was probably not going to take any chances, considering the country was going to war on one front or the other, and if anything happened to Mustang on his watch, Al didn't want to even contemplate Hawkeye's reaction. Not that she would take it out on Goodman.
She'd take it out on herself.
They followed Mustang silently down the long flights of stairs to the main hallway, and from there they took a sharp left down a service corridor Al had never seen. It was quite narrow, allowing them single-file only, and Goodman remained between the Prime Minister and them. A few more twists took them to a hall that Al was pretty sure was continuing parallel with the main hall a story above them. They stopped before what appeared to be a regular, unlabeled door, and Mustang opened it to reveal an elevator shaft.
An empty one. The car was currently not at their floor.
Mustang hit a button on the inside of the doorframe, and they waited a moment as the wire started to turn. Al tried to calculate where the shaft went above their floor. Was this one of the entrances Pride had used to gain access to the city below Central? Had a human transmutation circle been found there after all?
Russ, too, seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "Where does this lead?"
Roy's look was much more serious than he'd been in the conference room. "As I said before, the previous administrations handled things differently. This is the service elevator to the sub-basement, and has direct access to the high-security branch that doesn't seem to show up on building schematics."
He did not say how he knew about them, and they did not ask. Though it was probable Mustang was either asked to join the previous administrations in their torture of key witnesses, or Sheska had found out about the elevator on some obscure report.
Al turned to Russ. "Hey, when you pretended to be us, where did Pride put you, that Maria let you go?"
"Basement," he muttered. "I didn't realize there was a floor below that one." Then again, there was a damn city below that.
The car arrived with a healthy clang, and the four of them piled on. It was a remarkably short trip to the sub-basement, in that this elevator worked on a system by which the passengers in the elevator controlled the speed of descent and ascent. Goodman had apparently been there more than once, and he dropped them a bit faster than one might usually descend. Mustang didn't appear to care in the slightest, but the feeling of falling was a little unpleasant to Al, possibly for the first time in his life.
Fantastic. One bad fall and now he was afraid of elevators.
They arrived with the same clang, and stepped out into what appeared to be a perfectly normal hallway. Mustang took a right and they followed, through several locked doors and nods from security personnel Al had never seen before. Goodman seemed familiar with all of them, though true to himself he never gave anyone so much as a ghost of a smile, and shortly they found themselves in a copy of the cells above, the ones that resided in the basement. A long hallway of bars.
Mustang proceeded through them without pause, despite the fact that two of them were inhabited, and Al glanced into the dark cells uneasily, noting blazing eyes staring back out of gaunt faces.
"Alchemists incarcerated by Bradley." Mustang's voice was clipped. "Kimblee was an angel compared to them."
Despite his voice and the probably unusual fact that there were visitors at all, the prisoners didn't make a sound, and they were ushered through another door, into a hallway exactly like they'd left.
Only this hallway had lots of doors, with only tiny barred windows in each. And this hallway was a bit more active than the last.
There were uniforms everywhere, as well as several white-coated doctors, and Alphonse cast a glance back at Russ. The older man looked wary but not like someone about to transmute a big steel trap around them and hurry on to find Blane. He seemed content, for the moment, to see where Roy was going with this, and Al had to admit the same curiosity. Who could be down here that would require either the level of security or secrecy?
Did it have to do with Blane's partner?
"You found Avram's contact, didn't you."
Mustang continued to walk, ignoring the sharp jerks to attention and salutes he was receiving. "I'm hoping you can tell me."
They stopped about halfway down the hall, entering one of the cells, and Al found that the first cell was in fact a staging room, and at the end, directly across from the first door, was a second one just like it. They went through this door as well, and found themselves staring at a large room containing three barred cells. One of those cells had an occupant.
Timothy Patterson was huddled at the end of a tiny cot, his back to the stone, and his eyes flickered open at the sound of their entrance. Then they widened. "Russell?" His voice was heavy and almost –
Reluctant?
Russell stared at him a moment, confusion evident on his face, and then he turned to Mustang. "Are you serious?"
Goodman had come into the room with them, and he gave a nod before two other soldiers entered as well. They pulled the door closed behind them, leaving them all staring at one another in almost perfect silence. Patterson had eyes only for Russ, so Al quietly studied Mustang.
He looked as he always did, upright and somber, and he had a quality about him that reminded Al a little of the time Roy had hunted them down, after Liore, to yell at Ed for not trusting him. Coiled. Ready for a fight. Or ready for something unpleasant.
What could be unpleasant? Patterson was . . . well, he was Patterson. What the hell was he doing in a ten by ten cell with a cot, sink, toilet, and rather fetid drain in the floor?
Al turned it over even as Mustang was silent. Patterson was in the hospital, and he had the time. He insisted that the first body he examined was real, but the second was a doll. Conceivably he could have been lying, which possibly meant that Fletcher was in fact alive and well-
Patterson wasn't in an alchemist's chair, though. How could he be the contact and not be an alchemist?
"What the hell is he doing in there?" It was Russ again, frustrated at having to ask twice, and Roy finally replied.
"Last night on his way to a routine medical examination he was attacked and incapacitated. The circumstances were questionable, and more attention was given to him than usual by my security staff." Patterson was still staring at Russell with a look of . . . something indescribable on his face, maybe mostly concealed dread? Though Russ was oblivious, still glaring at Roy.
"Included in his medical bag was an unlabeled vial of liquid. Upon closer examination, that fluid turned out to be a commercial drug known as Raplon, an instantly acting paralytic. It had been combined with an unknown substance that caused it to break down in the presence of air. Nitrogen, to be precise. During the breakdown of the compound it would form smaller molecules that would bond with the Raplon, rendering it inert and disguising it from even intensive blood screenings."
Mustang paused, apparently waiting for questions, and Al's brain tried to focus. A paralytic, combined with something that would make them both break down in the presence of nitrogen. So the paralytic would only work for as long as it took to be exposed to enough nitrogen, at which point it would no longer work as a paralytic, and it would no longer be detectable.
Of course, a paralytic in a vial wasn't meant to be ingested orally, so the only way it would come into contact with nitrogen was in the blood –
Al actually shook his head. No. That was insane, that would imply-
"No," he heard himself say aloud. "No, that's-" But it wasn't impossible. He was famous for his med school concoctions. He was supposed to have been in the apothecary when the nurses sent Fletcher down there. The doll, at any rate, seemed to have died of heart failure, and of course a sufficient dose of a muscular paralytic would fit that bill. "How much?"
"Enough to kill several people of Alex Armstrong's stature."
"He was coming to treat you, wasn't he." It went without saying that an attempted assassination of the Prime Minister would land someone in a cell like this, and throughout Mustang's speech Patterson hadn't uttered a word, and hadn't taken his eyes off Russell.
Waiting for him to get it. Waiting to see what he'd do.
"Despite evidence and opportunity, the doctor has not given us a motive," Roy continued, almost mildly. "Outside of knowing that he was born in Arturu, later named Jannai, we have no other links to Sorn or Avram Blane." Basically meaning they couldn't charge him unless he confessed. Or course, it also meant it was illegal to hold him, and while Roy had mentioned the previous administrations' lack of respect for those rules, that had seemed to indicate that he didn't agree.
"He has been very tight-lipped on the matter, and I suspect that the two of you could prove to be helpful in relieving him of his reluctance."
. . . that very much sounded like something Mustang knew better than to ask of either of them, and Patterson seemed to agree, because he appeared to grow a little more pale. Still, he didn't say a word.
"The paralytic . . . what was it for?" He would ask questions, maybe Mustang was alluding to their relationship with the doc. God, he'd sat oblivious in Patterson's office, not a day ago, if Patterson wanted to eliminate threats to Blane then why wouldn't he have killed him then and there? A paralytic would prevent any type of alchemy but especially his –
Especially Fletcher's.
Patterson opened his mouth, finally tearing his eyes off the stock-still Russell. "As I told the Prime Minister, I keep it there at all times as a treatment against seizure. Particularly for the alchemists that had been exposed to Irving's amplifier." It was hoarse but otherwise perfectly logical. Perfectly calm.
It sounded like the truth.
"Did you kill my brother?" Clearly Russ was having as hard a time dealing with this accusation as he was. Okay, so the doc had opportunity and a paralytic that would kill. He was a doctor, his answer was reasonable, why would Mustang make the leap based on so little evidence?
He wouldn't. He had to have something else.
Patterson looked back at Russell, taking a breath to speak but hesitating. "Russell, I-" But then he stopped.
Al's stomach plummeted.
To his amazement, Russell remained where he was, as if part of the ground himself. "If I ask Blane where he got my brother's body, will he tell me it was from you?"
A little tremor of something seemed to cross the doctor's face. "I-"
Russ finally moved – he took a step back, towards the door to the staging room. "Because I would be happy to do that," he continued, voice brittle. "I've been meaning to catch up with him since last night, and this is a perfect excuse to go do so."
For a moment, it looked like Patterson had forgotten to breathe. When he spoke, it was not to Russell, though.
"He's really here?" It was just a whisper, and it was directed at Al. The doctor was searching his face desperately for something, and feeling a little uncomfortable with the admission, Al nodded once.
Patterson continued studying him, for so long that Russell lost interest and took another step toward the door.
"What happened?" It was no louder than before.
Al hesitated, then looked at Mustang. Roy gave him nothing, and it occurred to him, much like the sudden realization of hunger after a prolonged period of focusing on research, that Roy was manipulating them again. He'd brought them down there for a reason, but that reason was to prove something to Patterson, not to him.
"Blane told Russ if he helped him find Franklin, the three of them could resurrect Fletcher." It was so weird to say that when Russ was standing practically behind him, still in the room. "Russ didn't trust him, but he played along and went. I caught up with them, and Blane called our bluff." He wasn't sure what other details the doc would want. "He lost." Then it clicked. "His threat to take out Jannai – that's been eliminated. The town was evacuated . . . "
The doctor actually leaned forward, more obviously tense than he had been the entire time. "I . . . I see," he said carefully. "Was he traveling alone, or –"
"His wife is fine." She was also from Jannai –
The insurance policy.
"The bracelet is off. She's fine."
But the news didn't seem to relax the doctor in the least. "That's good, that's great. Is she with them now, or was she kept as a special witness?"
It was an odd question to ask, and Al turned to glance again at Mustang. "I don't know," he admitted. He assumed she went to the barracks, since the people of Jannai were still under guard. Against the partner. Against maybe Patterson. His line of questioning was suspect, if he was an alchemist he could get out of the cell instantly, track her down-
"The only information I have is what I was given by you," Roy answered the unspoken question quietly. "That the bracelet was removed successfully and that she was resting after receiving a mild sedative."
The doctor swallowed, nodding though it was clear, for the first time, that he wasn't feeling the motion, and Russell's voice was positively acidic.
"Unhappy that your latest concoction didn't manage to kill her?"
"It wasn't mine," he murmured, almost distractedly. "I don't even think it was Avram's, not originally." He looked up, not at them but at Mustang. "Keep her away from them." It was imploring. "There's no guarantee that she wasn't exposed-"
"She wasn't," Russell snapped. "I removed it myself. Nothing escaped."
Patterson gaped for a moment, then quietly laughed, shaking his head. When he looked up, Al was stunned to see that he was close to tears.
"The bracelet is the plague," he said, more quietly still. "There's no incubation period because she already has the virus. They all do, the entire town." He took a deep breath. "Me," he added. "The contents of the bracelet were a protein marker that would exude from her sweat glands and signal the virus to become active again. Once exposed to that protein, death would be almost immediate. Seventy-two hours at best."
Al took a breath to clear his head. "You knew about it?"
The doctor gave a single nod, then swallowed. "I found it in my own blood. In med school," he added, with a trace of a broken smile. "I didn't realize – I knew it had been engineered, but I thought that was part of the reason Avram couldn't really cure it. I presented my findings to him only to find out he was the engineer." Another soft laugh. "You can imagine how that went over."
"Why?" Al was surprised that his voice was still so matter-of-fact. "Why infect the town?"
"He's afraid to die," Patterson said with a shrug. "Same reason he wants the Stone, I expect. He was experimenting with ways to change the composition of human cells, to stop aging. A virus is the only thing small enough to affect a cell at a time, but eventually all of them, and if he could affect the way cells replicate . . . he'd risk cancer, of course, but it could significantly increase his lifespan."
Al had a terrible feeling he knew where this was going. "You said the virus wasn't Avram's, though-"
"No. He wasn't brilliant enough for that. I don't know where it came from."
"Busse," Al murmured, then glanced at Mustang. "I remember thinking it sounded similar to the virus we saw in Busse, that Dante was using to turn the people to stone." Then his eyes widened. "That may have been why she was pursuing that research in the first place. The longer she could keep a body alive, the fewer Philosopher Stones she'd need." It also explained how Blane could know about homunculi without having ever transmuted one. He'd been working for Dante, at least indirectly.
Roy didn't really respond, and Al realized it was rather moot. He turned back to Patterson, dreading the answer. "Fletcher figured something out, didn't he."
Figured something out because he'd asked him to look up records on Blane.
Russ had been right. His investigation had had something to do with Fletch's death.
The doctor hesitated, then turned back to Russ. "I'm . . . I didn't think . . . I didn't think Franklin would get caught in time." His looked like he wanted to continue, but he didn't, and he met Russell's gaze directly. Al didn't turn; he did not want to have the memory of what Russ's eyes must look like.
"You thought Franklin would bring him back?"
Patterson took an unsteady breath, starting to speak before shaking his head helplessly. "At the time, I thought Sorn was too far ahead of you. He wanted . . . to change history, to take the cure to the plague back before it even started. If he succeeded, none of . . . of this would have happened. Would have mattered. He was so sure, and he's such a smart kid . . ."
This news was almost as staggering. Sorn wanted a Stone . . . so he could time travel? It sounded like something out of a Jules Verne novel, though Al knew no such books had been written here. Still, it was a hell of a way to get around the problem of resurrection being impossible.
So Patterson thought there was no consequence. If he could help Franklin, everything he did wouldn't mean anything. Avram would never take the town hostage, he would never have to move to protect the man. He would never have killed his own patient.
Except that would cause a paradox, of course. Al carefully modulated his voice, glancing at Roy. "If that's what he intends, we need to stop him at all costs."
Roy just inclined his head, once. "I agree."
Al shook his head, unsure how much to say. A paradox in time would cause the timelines to branch . . . or to rupture altogether. Life as they knew it would end. "I'm not sure you really know what I'm getting at, here." Screw protecting West. Find Sorn.
Mustang waved a hand. "Brief me later." His jaw was set, eye hard, and Al knew he wasn't liking what he was hearing.
"So you killed him," Russ finally ground, voice hoarse. "Fletcher asked you a question you didn't like, and you killed him."
Patterson licked his lips. "I did. I did," he insisted, again in Mustang's direction. "I stayed with him and confirmed. No pulse, no pupil activity. The paralytic would have stayed in his blood for at least eight minutes. Even if someone had found him in that time, resuscitation would have been impossible. After, damage to his brain would have been too extensive. "
For a moment, the insistence rubbed Al entirely the wrong way. Clearly he wasn't proud of himself – then it fully sunk in. That was why Patterson had insisted the body was a doll. He knew the body should not have been a doll because he'd made damn sure Fletcher was dead. That's why he'd been so bothered by the discovery that the body had been replaced.
But that would mean – "Do you know who replaced the body?"
Patterson shook his head. "No. No I don't."
"Was it Blane?"
The doctor looked back at Russell. "I – no. He was just as conce-surprised about it as I was."
Of course, Blane could have been stringing him along. Either way, there wasn't much more information to get from him. "And Blane told you to kill Mustang?" There was a third click, and this time Al was almost afraid his brain was going to break altogether. "The phone call-"
He'd been sitting in the room when Patterson had gotten that order.
The doctor swallowed again, watching the floor as if he expected to see it moving. Then he looked up, once more to Mustang, and he smiled.
"I know I have no more favors to ask, but please don't tell them."
Roy's expression gave away nothing. "You're right," he simply replied, then ignored the doctor completely, focusing on the two other alchemists in the room.
"Was there anything else you wanted to ask?"
The exchange was highly suspicious, but for the life of him Al couldn't think of anything Mustang could know - if he hadn't known any of this - that Patterson wouldn't want them to know. Russell was completely silent, so Al turned to the cell again, not surprised to see that the doctor was still watching Mustang.
"Were you the informant? For the assassins?" But then it occurred to him that it could have been more. "And how did you meet Breda?"
Patterson's head dropped fractionally. "I guess I didn't realize . . ." he muttered, almost to himself, then coughed. "I gave information to the Cretians once, before Mustang was appointed, on behalf of Blane. And yes," and he looked up, "I arranged to meet and befriend Heymans to get closer to Mustang. But the two of you showing up . . . that was like ten birthdays rolled into one for Avram. It gave me respect, station, information . . . everything that he needed."
The entire time. The entire time they'd known him, Patterson was working for Blane to plunge the country into war.
The entire time they'd known him, he was operating under the threat of his hometown being exterminated if he interfered. No wonder it had been so easy for him to continue working as if nothing was wrong. He'd probably been doing it a quarter of his life.
"Did Blane tell you why?"
The doctor shook his head. "Not for a long time," he answered. "If not for treating you and Edward, I would never have been more than an informant for the Cretians . . . and it is Creta," he added suddenly, as if it had just occurred to him. "Franklin means to transmute them before they attack-"
"We're aware," Roy interrupted, in an incredibly dismissive tone. Patterson's words trailed off, and then his eyes fell to Russell's feet.
" . . . I'm so sorry."
A thick silence descended, punctuated by their quiet breathing, and finally Russell shifted.
"I've got one more question. You said you were coming here to kill Mustang, right?"
Patterson hesitated a moment, then nodded.
"So who attacked you?"
- x -
Author's Notes: So there you have it! Patterson's reveal. And before you ask, as of PAA: The Fusing Alchemist, I had already decided that Patterson had another motive, and it linked to Franklin's desire for a Philosopher's Stone. You can all blame Silverfox for this if you want. :evil grin: And while you're at it, read her fic Between! Second half of this chapter will be posted shortly.
Standard typo disclaimer applies. Thank you all for pointing out some of the glaring ones last chapter. Fixing this monster may take me as long as writing it has. ; ) And I don't think I say it enough, thank you also for the kind words. It's interesting to note so many of you like graphic torture. ; )