Note: A thousand apologies about the inconsionable delay in posting! Real life strikes again. A thousand thank-yous to those who reviewed during my lengthy absence: it was so encouraging to come back and still have reviews. Thank you SO MUCH! I only hope it's worth the wait...
Chapter 26: Working on the Railroad
None of the men working on the north-western line liked Major Kimbley. They did not trust him. They feared him. He was not one of them, and that was painfully obvious even to the lowliest soldier and the densest of the convict-labourers. Fortunately, none of them had much need to work directly with the alchemist. Most of the work was overseen by Master Sergeant Vernon, the military engineer in charge of the project, and any issues of discipline were managed by Captain Bathory, who on most days did her job very well.
Roy quantified her performance with on most days because she was not quite reliable. There were mornings when she was not seen outside of the tent she shared with Major Kimbley before eleven hundred hours – and on those days she was easily distracted and quick to lash out at anyone and everyone. More than once Roy had seen her at one of the troughs around the encampment, scrubbing her hands compulsively and muttering to herself. Had he been a little more sure of himself – or a pathological snoop like, say, Maes Hughes – he might have made some attempt to figure out what was eating her on those days. As it was, he had problems of his own.
Unlike most of the others, he couldn't avoid the occasional run—in with the strange State Alchemist. Major Kimbley was, after all, his preceptor, and though the man was generally content to ignore Roy, he came by occasionally to breathe over his pupil's shoulder. Oddly enough, he didn't seem to have any interest in whether or not Roy was completing the tasks set by Captain Bathory. Instead, he preferred to push the boundaries of the cadet's patience and comfort.
Roy was grading ore samples one afternoon when a cool hand descended on the back of his neck. He stifled a startled gasp and fought the urge to turn around – though he couldn't help dropping the rock he had been holding.
"Did I frighten you, Cadet?" a gleeful voice queried right into Roy's ear.
"Please don't do that," Roy said in what he hoped was a suitably annoyed voice. He had a sneaking suspicion that he sounded more like the other Roy Mustang, though – the one who still had inexplicable dreams of empty night skies, and of a valiant young girl in sombre mourning clothes; the one who was neither cocky nor self-assured nor charming. The Roy Mustang he wished he could obliterate entirely in favour of the new, improved model. Maybe.
Kimbley's low chuckle confirmed Roy's worst fears. "Please don't do that what?" he asked pointedly.
He was angling for an honorific: reminding Roy of the chain of command, which placed the cadet entirely in the older man's power. Mustang had noticed that the Major liked power games. It was one of the reasons that the older enlisted men had such contempt for him, guarded with fear though that contempt was. To them, rank was something to be earned, step by step. They had infinitely more respect for Warrant Officer Saunders, who was forty-two and would never rise any further than his present station, than they would ever have for Major Kimbley; for Saunders had worked hard for his rank, and paid for it with years of loyal service. Kimbley was a major only because he had a specialized skill that the military needed. In the eyes of the men, that made him no different from Alexander Lane, the elderly geologist who didn't even have a commission... and who was now watching the two alchemists warily from the next table.
"Please don't breathe in my ear," Roy said, boldly (and perhaps stupidly) refusing to give the man the satisfaction of the mandated "sir". "It tickles. Like having a fat old cat on my shoulder."
"So now I'm a cat, am I?" Kimbley said, coming around and leaning on the worktable, resting one thigh upon it and swinging his booted foot languidly. "Does that make you the mouse?"
"I'm halfway through if you want to look at the log," Roy said resolutely. "You haven't shown much interest in my work yet. I only have three weeks left."
"Why would I be interested in your work?" Kimbley asked, eyes widening a little in feigned surprise.
Roy gritted his teeth. "You're my preceptor, sir," he said. "Why ask for a student if you didn't want one?"
"Oh, I didn't say I wasn't interested in you..." the State Alchemist crooned, grinning unpleasantly. He reached out and placed his index finger under Roy's chin, digging the nail into the soft flesh behind the jawbone. Applying just enough pressure that Roy had no choice but to follow his motion, Kimbley turned the cadet's head to one side. "You know, cadet, you do have a very pretty face."
"Oi!" exclaimed Mr. Lane sharply, getting to his feet with remarkable speed for one of his age. "Leave him be. He doesn't like that."
"How do you know what he likes?" Kimbley hissed, sudden menace flashing in his eyes as he turned on the old man. For a moment, Roy thought, the alchemist looked... well, not quite sane. Then, faced with the geologist's outthrust jaw, Kimbley removed his hand, buffing the index fingertip with the side of his thumb, and he grinned at the cadet. "Now, then, Mustang... your letter of intent says you want to become a State Alchemist."
"That's right, sir," Roy said as levelly as he could, hating the slight tremor that warped the first syllable. "I'll be taking the exam this year – that's why my placement ends two days early."
"Who says your placement ends early?" Kimbley asked, sitting back a little and surveying his charge with a critical eye.
"Lieutenant Colonel Brighton," Roy said, suddenly apprehensive. The colonel had been very clear on that point: since Roy wouldn't have weekends away from his placement like those of his classmates in closer proximity to Central, it was not unreasonable for him to terminate two days early in order to return to the city for the State Alchemist exam. The officer had, in fact, been quite receptive to the proposal and Roy had only assumed that he had written to inform the Major...
"Who?" queried the alchemist innocently.
"The staff advisor at the Academy... he said—"
"Oh, Brighton from the Academy!" Kimbley said, snapping his fingers. "That must have been what was in that letter."
"So you got it?" Roy asked.
Kimbley looked at him blankly. "Got what?"
"The Lieutenant Colonel's letter..."
"No, I didn't," Kimbley said happily, picking up the piece of paper on which Roy had been recording his findings for the last three hours.
"But you said..."
"Must've got lost in the mail," Kimbley said, folding the paper carefully into halves and then quarters. He then laid it on one palm and pressed the other on top of it, sandwiching the sheet between his tattooed hands. "These things happen."
He turned his wrists and pulled his hands apart. For an instant the paper seemed suspended in midair. Then, before it could begin to fall, it exploded in a small burst of flames. Roy's eyes widened, and he almost cried out in amazement at the show of alchemical prowess before he realized what Kimbley had just said.
"But if you knew there was a letter you must have... I mean, it won't be a problem, will it? I've been waiting for years to write the—"
"The papers from the Academy say you're mine until the twenty-first of May, little baby soldier," Kimbley said with obvious relish. "I have no intention of releasing you from your duties, State Alchemist exam or no."
He got to his feet, smoothing the front of his uniform. "Back to work, now, Cadet," he said. "Unless I'm much mistake, you're half a day behind."
Roy looked down at the ashes of his morning's work. When he raised his head again, Major Kimbley was gone, and Mr. Lane was regarding him regretfully.
"I'm sorry, lad," he said quietly.
"For what?" Roy choked out. "He'll let me go. He has to."
"Aye," muttered the aging geologist. "And he had to let her go, too. But he didn't."
Roy was too distracted to wonder at that assertion. He had bigger problems: Kimbley had to let him leave early. Otherwise he wouldn't reach Central in time to write the exam, and he wouldn't be a State Alchemist, and it would be another three years before he could raise the money to retake the test, and Riza would be so disappointed...
discidium
His prior encounters with his preceptor should have taught Roy that he was better off as far from Major Kimbley as was quite feasible. But however he derided the insatiable curiosity of his best friend, there was one department in which he was even more pathologically inquisitive than Maes: alchemy. After hearing the rumours of Kimbley's circus career, and seeing the brief demonstration of the alchemist's abilities, Roy was dying to see what else the man could do with those two exquisitely simple arrays on his hands.
So, three days after the incident with the log papers, Roy filled his canteen, snagged a pair of field glasses from the surveyors' tent, and set out for the worksite.
The walk took just under two hours, but Roy didn't want to advertise his departure by taking one of the handcarts. He passed the convicts, breaking gravel with heavy mallets, and he passed the engineers overseeing the laying of the latest section of the track. Neither group seemed to notice him, pass as he did some three hundred yards east of the track, and at last he reached the foot of the cliff face through which the State Alchemist was carving a tunnel.
There was a surveyor present with a team of three men waiting to shore up the new workings, and a sergeant with a rifle under whose watchful eyes a group of four convicts cleared away the rocks of prior blasts, loading them onto a cart to be hauled back to their compatriots on the chain gang. Roy approached, reaching out to lend his shoulder to a bearded man hefting a particularly large stone onto the pile.
"Thanks," the con grunted.
"Don't mention it," Roy said, nodding towards the tunnel. "Is he in there?"
"The human detonator? Yeah, he's in there." He wiped the perspiration out of his eyes with the sleeve of his grey pajama-like prison fatigues, and then stumped off to the mouth of the alchemist-made cavern. Roy thought that this was all the information that he was going to get out of the man, but halfway to his target the convict turned. "Kid?" he said, then looked askance at the sergeant, turned away again and started to walk much more slowly, jerking his head to indicate that Mustang should follow him.
"Yes?" Roy said quietly, knowing better than to whisper. He knew the sergeant's type: any hint of a secret would have him breathing down their necks like a totalitarian schoolteacher.
"Keep away from 'im. He's trouble."
Of course, the New Mustang had to smirk. "Trouble is my middle name," he said saucily. Then to prove it, he swaggered forward towards the first of the lanterns hung from rappelling hooks at intervals in the tunnel.
"Hey, you!" The nonchalant move was ruined when the surveyor came trotting after Roy. "You can't go in there without a hat."
He thrust a miner's helmet into Roy's hand, and the young alchemist reluctantly settled it on his close-cropped hair. "Thanks," he said coldly, turning back towards the darkness. This time no one stopped him.
As he walked, his head swept from side to side, taking in the blasting work. It was imprecise, almost impulsive: the rocks neither smoothed nor particularly uniform. It was obviously Kimbley's job to reduce sheer granite to rubble. Someone else would smooth and perfect the tunnel – most likely with picks and chisels, not alchemy. Once again Roy wondered why this was a posting requiring a State Alchemist, when surely a couple of techs with a carload of dynamite could accomplish the same thing. The obvious answer did not even occur to him.
He heard Kimbley before he saw him: the State Alchemist was humming to himself. Roy slowed his approach, hoping to catch sight of his preceptor without being seen himself. As the alchemist's elongated and emaciated shadow appeared, looming up the wall of the cave, Roy ducked behind one of the thick wooden shorings. Like his younger self peeping into his sensei's study unbidden, Roy peered around the wood until he could see Kimbley.
The State Alchemist had shucked his uniform jacket and shirt, and was standing before the rock face in his trousers, combat boots, and undershirt. He paused to consider his approach, and then squatted, rearranging one of the leafy branches settled against the stone. He knelt down and planted both hands against the mass of foliage.
Roy braced himself for the explosion, but it did not come. The transmutation glow was brief, and nothing happened – save that the green leaves seemed to take on a greyish cast. Kimbley clicked his tongue against his teeth, and then rose and turned around. Wary of being seen, Roy shrank against the wall, but the older man had not heard him: his attention was focused on a small wicker cage, in which cowered a bedraggled grandfather badger. Kimbley picked up the cage with one long hand, and with the other he opened its door.
Instantly the captive creature bristled, fur standing on end as it bulked up into a hissing ball. It bared its razor-sharp teeth, prepared to bite its captor if the alchemist moved that threatening, patrician hand any nearer.
"Cease!" Kimbley hissed imperiously, a chilling smile tugging at the corners of his thin lips. Roy's jaw went slack as the badger whimpered and shrank away, scrabbling futilely at the wicker bars. Slowly, smoothly, Kimbley reached into the cage and drew the creature out. The badger tried to writhe free, but Kimbley tightened his grip, making a threatening noise deep in his throat. He tossed the cage carelessly against the wall opposite Roy's hiding place, and then gripped the animal with both hands, taking three long strides backwards.
He was nearly parallel to Roy now: one more step and he would be able to see him. The cadet held his breath as Kimbley carefully adjusted his hold on the badger, which had in its terror lost control of its bowels. Then it happened – so quickly that Roy nearly missed it.
The transmutation was blinding in its power. Alchemical energy crackled in the air as the energy radiated through the arrays tattooed to Kimbley's palms. The badger let out a shrill shriek that sounded almost human. And then, as easily as if it were a baseball, the alchemist hurled it at the wall. It bounced off and landed, dazed upon the floor. Disoriented, bewildered and terrified, the badger headed for the nearest cover it could see: the pile of branches. The instant its fur brushed one of the altered leaves, badger, branch and rock face all exploded with sundering force.
The ground rocked. The pilings creaked. A wall of air was forced out by the shock wave, jarring Roy to his bones. He crouched instinctively as rocks rained down around him, only dimly aware that Kimbley had not even flinched: he stood still, eyes closed as if in bliss.
Silence fell. A good eight feet of rock wall had been reduced to rubble that would be cleared away by nightfall. Roy looked warily at the smoking remains of flora and fauna, getting slowly to his feet.
That was when Kimbley turned. His ribs flailed in and out with each rapid breath and his eyes were glazed with exhilaration. "Did you see it?" he gasped victoriously. "Did you see it, little baby alchemist?"
Roy nodded frenetically. He had never seen anything like it. Never. For a moment he felt a wave of guilt for wondering at the wanton destruction of an innocent creature – but look at the result! The transmutation – its precision, its perfection, the careful directing of the explosion... unlike anything Roy had ever seen before.
Kimbley hardly seemed to see him, lost as he was in the afterglow of his transmutation. "Magnificent," he went on breathlessly. The veins in his temples pulsed in triumph. "I never get tired of that: every time is as good as the first."
"Ye—yes—" Roy said, his teeth stammering a little in response to his own rush of adrenaline. "I've never seen... I've never seen anything..."
"Of course you haven't!" Kimbley crowed. "But this... forest creatures. Chickens. It isn't the same. It isn't the same as..."
He turned with ominous slowness, and his cold, shining eyes fixed on Roy. Almost vacant with euphoria, they glinted with that madness that Roy had thought he'd glimpsed once before. A wicked grin spread over the alchemist's face, so enormous that his canines shone in the lamplight and Roy could see back to the second molars. "It isn't the same..."
Roy's every instinct cried out for flight. He tried to turn as nonchalantly as he could, intending to bolt up the tunnel towards sunlight and other humans – sane humans – but Kimbley was too quick. A long hand closed on the cadet's wrist, twisting it up into the middle of his back while the other arm wrapped around his throat, pulling him backward against Kimbley's wiry frame. The hand spread itself and planted its palm on Mustang's cheek.
"I could, you know," Kimbley hissed. His chest was heaving with anticipatory. "You're not supposed to be in here. Caught in the blast – a miscalculation on my part. After all, the alchemist can't be held responsible for every idiot who wanders into his transmutation – careless, careless cadet... easiest thing in the world..."
Roy closed his eyes, trying to keep his heart from pounding out its betrayal of his fear. He didn't dare to move, and with the sinewy arm crushing his larynx he could neither speak nor cry out. He could feel the alchemist's hot, predatorial breath on his neck.
"Easiest thing in the world..." Kimbley breathed. His exhalations were slowing. He was coming down from his elation and, Roy prayed silently, recovering his sanity.
What he was still too naive to realize was that Zolf J. Kimbley had no sanity to recover. There was only the thin veneer, the facade that made him a socially acceptable monster. It was that which he was now recovering as he talked himself down.
"But there's plenty of time for that. Lives worth less than yours that'll be ripe for the taking. Another year, perhaps. Eighteen months. Soon. So very soon." The hand on Roy's wrist released, and his arm sprung back to the configuration nature intended. The free fingers crept up his ribs to the buttons on his jacket. "Of course, I need some release for my natural... exuberance."
As agile as a cat, he moved in front of the cadet, shoving Roy backwards against the rock wall. The young man kept his eyes screwed tightly shut, not trusting them to keep his secrets. It had been a long time since Roy Mustang had felt so alone – so frightened and powerless. The hands closed on his head, one over each ear.
"Of course, I can still do it," Kimbley promised. "Not even the delay it would take to draw a circle. Something you need to learn if you want to become a State Alchemist, young one. Be prepared. Understood?"
A convulsive shudder ran down Mustang's spine. "Yes, sir," he said, as quietly as he could. The lack of volume kept his voice from trembling. "Be prepared."
It was useless to struggle, it made everything worse, but the New Mustang was stubborn. It was the first time he locked horns with Kimbley, but even then Roy knew, with a tiny pang of despair, that it would not be the last.
