*rises from the grave, ready to spook your pantaloons off*
*sees the date and realizes Spooktober is over*
*shrugs and zombies into civilization because every day is Spooktober on AO3*
Trigger warning for medical torture and much longness because if I was going to make y'all wait this long, I was gonna make damn sure it was worth it.
"I see you through the right wall."
Maes quoted the words Fuery had scribbled onto the slip of paper before the "corrupted" translation had been destroyed. Roy grunted and took a sip of his soda water. His stomach was still roiling from the contest he'd lost the night before.
He was surprised by the lack of… well, anything that happened as a result of his… expulsion… in such a controlled space. Roy didn't question it, and not just because he knew he should be grateful for the impunity. If he asked seemingly unnecessary questions, certain individuals might think he was interested in certain specifics.
He was broken out of his reverie by Maes pushing his now empty glass to the side and tapping the word "right" with his finger.
"Doesn't really tell us anything," Roy said, watching his friend run his finger along the words like a child struggling to sound out the letters. "We know he's in the Translation room and that it's to the left of the Transcription room, so our left would be his right."
"It tells us a lot," Maes countered, in a voice heavy with the exasperation of a teacher explaining a simple concept to a simple student. "We can communicate with him and he wants to contact us." Maes raised his eyes to Roy's as the waitress refilled the glass. "He wants us to find him."
Roy was feeling simpler by the second.
"Well, he's not exactly hiding -"
"Is he?" Maes picked up the glass and gulped down half of the contents. "Have you seen him? Spoken to him, other than telepuke?"
Roy cringed.
"Don't call it that."
Maes's mouth was set in a serious line but his eyes were twinkling with amusement.
"But no," Roy conceded after a moment of awkward, defeated silence.
"Hmm," Maes hummed, as if the paper held a shopping list and he was trying to decide if he should add something to it. "The question is, is he hiding or being hidden?
Roy noticed that Maes did not include the word "why."
XXX
The fresh bit of wall covering the space of where the door used to be was nearly flawless.
The disqualifying flaw was out of necessity. There had to be a way for the teams to contact each other when the message being sent wasn't one of words. Roy would not have thought anything of it, if it weren't for the fact that, when one truly thought about it, the system was rather impractical.
There was a window, but the only thing anyone could see in it was blackness, like the lights on the adjacent room were off, which was improbably because it was no secret that the Translation team was in the room. More likely, the window was visible through only one side, if only temporarily, for security purposes. Beside it, a kind of dumbwaiter had been installed. It was the dumbwaiter, more than the blacked out window, that gave away the discrepancy.
If the purpose of separating the two rooms was for security, why include the window at all? Windows were points of weakness, breakable and as open-faced as an X on a treasure map.
If the purpose of the dumbwaiter was for connection between the two rooms, why have the wall at all? Wouldn't it be far easier to reinstall the door or simply do away with the wall altogether?
Roy and Riza shot each other conspiratorial glances, then both looked ahead to Maes, who answered with a firm blink. In his turn, he tapped his foot, causing Havoc to look up from where he was collecting files of research notes - he didn't bother reading them, they all knew they were thoroughly coded - and the second lieutenant made a confirming clearing of his throat.
Sandwiched among the files was an alchemical scheme that Roy had designed himself, placed there by Havoc's purportedly clumsy hands. It was simple array, combusting oxygen by catalyzing hydrogen to make a small but strong spark.
Maes had snuck in the letters, curving around and intertwining with the runes.
A technician swiped the stack of files from Havoc's hands without so much as a thank you the instant he lifted them. She busily walked to the dumbwaiter, her shoes clacking on the marble floor, shoved the door up and stuffed them into the metal box and slammed the door back down as if the contraption had personally insulted her.
Roy sent a second glance to his companions, within impromptu. They had noticed as well. The Transcription team seemed to be on edge today, rifling through files, cleaning instruments, and snapping at the soldiers at each other.
Something was going to happen today and it was either going to be terrible or incredibly important. Very possibly both.
The dumbwaiter popped open with a clang and the intercom came on with a buzz of static.
"What the hell is this?!"
Colonel Dorsey snarled and grabbed the radio, swinging it up to her face like it was an apple she was going to take a bite out of.
"Relevant circuit logs and collateral schemes, like the general ordered. What else is it supposed to be?"
As she answered the question, the technician who had placed the files in the dumbwaiter reached inside the box and pulled out the false scheme. She stared at it for a moment, turned it sideways, stared at it some more, then raised her eyes and glared at Havoc.
"I told you to get the files labeled 'Cross Sustainability' and 'Collateral Regeneration' only."
Havoc shrugged innocently, his lips twitching like he was chewing on a cigarette that didn't exist.
"I did."
"Why is there an inoperable scheme in the logs?"
Havoc shrugged again, not looking the slightest bit guilty. Dorsey sighed and pinched her brow in a way that was unfortunately very familiar to Mustang.
"Never mind it. We'll dispose of it."
By us, she had apparently meant Havoc, because she shoved it into his arms and pointed angrily at the metal door that led to storage. Jean shrugged a third time and took himself and the scheme out of the theatre, not looking sorry in the least.
She hung up the radio and went back to clacking her shoes and barking orders to her orderlies.
Roy resisted the urge to glance at Maes and Riza a third time.
"Oh, God damn it!"
No one could resist the urge to glance at the door leading into the theatre from storage. The technician wheeled in the gurney bearing the Transcriber. Havoc stepped aside to let them pass, then crossed the threshold, his expression shifting from nonchalant to something less readable.
Maes couldn't resist the suck of air he made.
The Transcriber's eyes were wide open.
He was shivering as if he was freezing - something Roy could completely believe - and his bulging eyes were rolling like a startled horse's.
He was completely silent. Roy found himself wishing he would make a noise.
The technician who had so readily pushed blame on Jean pushed her way across the room to the gurney, reaching for the Transcriber with eyes almost as distressed as his. She stopped herself at the last second, reached her into pocket and pulled out the runes gloves that would prevent the Transcriber from reacting to her touch. She pulled them on messily and started running her hands along the boy's face and through his hair, making what were probably supposed to be soothing sounds but were more akin to an angry parent shushing their misbehaving child.
Dorsey rolled her eyes. A couple of technicians looked at the Transcriber sympathetically while the rest looked just as annoyed as Dorsey.
The Transcriber's shaking did not abate as he was moved from the gurney to the table. Neither did the technician's mothering. She was still doing it as the cables were installed and the Transcriber stiffened, his shaking replaced with minute trembling. When the transition didn't stop the cooing and coddling, Dorsey's patience reached its limit.
"For the High Commander's sake, Brady, the nerves are just priming! You know he's not actually conscious when he's in circuit."
Brady stopped her shushing but didn't take her hands away from the Transcriber's face. Roy was alarmed to see that she looked close to tears. Another technician took her by the arm and gently pulled her away, muttering reassurances to her.
"He doesn't feel things the same way we do. If he did, we would see it in the brain." He nudged Brady none too gently as he spoke and jerked his head at Roy and Riza, reminding his colleague that they had an audience. Brady stared at Mustang like she was only just realizing he was there and then schooled her face, wiping any traces of anxiety save for the slight wrinkles in her brow.
Everyone save the Transcriber jumped when the radio crackled to life and Raven's voice roared through the speakers.
"Are preparations complete? The Sewing Alchemist will be here any minute."
Dorsey sighed and picked up her radio to answer.
"Just about. We just have to do some test transcriptions to make sure everything's connected correctly."
"You should have done that ten minutes ago."
"Yes, sir. We've been dealing with… priming technicalities."
Roy was sure that Raven was swearing colorfully even though nothing came over the intercom.
XXX
"Left… top…"
The voice was hoarse and small and Roy and Maes stared at each other in a mix of wonder and confusion.
The Transcriber had spoken.
None of the technicians seemed to notice, Dorsey making the corresponding move on the tic-tac-toe board on her clipboard as the the technicians handled gauges and needled machines spitting out trains of ink-covered paper.
They waited a moment, then Howard's voice crackled out, "Center bottom."
Dorsey snickered as she made the mark on her board and then pressed the Transcriber's hand onto the empty square that she had chosen for her countermove.
The Transcriber's jaw wiggled, then his voice came out, barely more than a whisper.
"Right… top… diagonal complete."
"I win again," Dorsey crowed, brandishing the board at the Transcriber as if she thought he would react to it - a very strange thing to do, considering she herself had said that the he was incapable of reacting to anything outside of the Conduit.
She picked up her radio and spoke into it smugly.
"Tests complete. We're ready."
"About time. Sewing Alchemist got here five minutes ago."
The triumph on Dorsey's face shriveled up like a tomato left in the sun.
"Affirmative. Send him in."
She shoved her radio in her pocket like it was a soiled handkerchief and pushed herself up against the wall like a cat trying to avoid a hungry fox.
The door swung open with the solemnity and silence of a coffin being opened at a wake. Roy fully expected some sort of specter or undertaker to glide across the threshold, robes billowing on a phantom wind.
The reality was the epitome of anticlimactic.
Roy had heard of the Sewing Life Alchemist but had never met him. The man himself was unremarkable as far as appearances went - city clothes, receding light brown hair line, glasses in front of his blue eyes.
A common middle-aged man, walking into a clinic for his appointment.
The man smiled pleasantly at the technicians, who shrunk away from him like he had spat at them, and then at the Transcriber, who's trembling had returned to shaking.
General Raven and another soldier Roy didn't recognize - a second lieutenant, according to his uniform - followed the Sewing Life Alchemist into the theatre.
Mustang could have sworn the Transcriber's eyes flicked towards the soldier, then back towards the ceiling.
The Sewing Life Alchemist clapped his hands as if he had already finished what he had come to do.
"Good morning. Let's get started, shall we?"
General Raven smiled.
It was never good when General Raven smiled.
XXX
"Let me do this, Brother."
Brother refused.
"I can't let you stay when… let me talk to them."
Brother refused.
He resisted the urge to force the switch. The only choice either of them had left was whether or not they were present.
"Please, Brother. Think of your brain."
They could fix that.
"I know they can fix it, but you can't really leave when it's your brain. Your brain is… well, it's you."
This was Brother's responsibility. He was Brother's responsibility.
He sighed, the air coming through his mouth and the sound echoing through his hollow body.
"Can we compromise?"
Brother hated compromises.
Brother hated them because they worked.
XXX
Shou Tucker loved his job.
The whole in his heart where his wife had been would never fully heal, but it had been mostly filled with this new love: the love of being recognized and appreciated for his contributions to his country and humanity. His daughter wanted for nothing, his every request was granted as long as it was prefaced with, "By the High Commander's authorization."
And it was all thanks to Colonel Roy Mustang and his discovery.
Shou had been forbidden from speaking to the soldiers but he made sure to give the colonel a long, acknowledging look. Mustang stared ahead, pointedly avoiding Tucker's eyes.
Ah, well. He didn't need to be appreciated by all as long as he was appreciated by enough.
Today's experiment was crucial. There was a very real possibility that the situation they would be recreating would befall them in the near future. Even the Transcriber seemed to sense the importance of this rehearsal, he was shaking with excited energy. Shou's assistant - the officer had never given his name and Shou had never asked - watched the Transcriber wriggle on the metal table with shining eyes.
Tucker made history every day and yet the thrill of it never dulled.
XXX
"Is Translation ready?" Colonel Dorsey said flatly into her radio.
"Affirmative, Transcription. We have schemes and fresh charts standing by."
Dorsey swallowed before giving the order to her technicians.
"Begin transcription."
One of the technicians pushed a small medical cart bearing carefully sorted and cleaned surgical instruments lined up in a neat row, then scurried away as the second plain-faced silver-eyed second lieutenant stepped forward.
It was not an alchemical scheme that touched the Transcriber's skin.
It was a scalpel.
XXX
One had to be standing in the right light to see them.
There was no need for paint or ink to mark where the cuts would be. They had been made so many times before and healed so many times before that even with the extraordinary capabilities of the Conduit, scars had formed.
Faint, gray and leathery, splitting his torso in two with the perpendicular line that connected the parallel ones, like someone had been trying to draw interconnected rectangles and had been stopped before they could add the furthest left and right sides.
They split open easily beneath the knife, the reddest blood oozing out and sliding down the protruding ribs and pooling on the metal table. The sound of rattling filled the theatre as the Transcriber's shaking strengthened and was stifled by the restraints the technicians had tightened around his arms and legs.
The veins in Riza's neck bulged as she held in her scream. Roy hated how he chose to study the pulsing of her face and the contained horror in her eyes than what was going on in front of him.
When he couldn't look at that any longer, he turned his attention to the technicians.
They all looked to be at different levels of uncomfortable. Some were looking away with grimaces, like they were trying to ignore a particularly bad smell. Others looked more sympathetic, the way someone might frown sadly when seeing the gravestone of a child.
Brady was beside herself, swallowing down sobs and furiously wiping away tears.
Roy looked at Maes, glancing over the Transcriber - flashes of white and pink, he didn't dare let his attention linger - and saw the green shade to his friend's face, the same face he made when it was his turn to change his daughter's diaper.
They spoke to each other silently, agreeing without ever beginning the debate.
They lowered their gazes and forced themselves to watch.
XXX
Riza did not look away.
Being a sniper, she enjoyed the privilege of not having to actually be present when she murdered.
She was never sprayed with blood. She never felt bones break beneath her bayonet. She never smelled the flesh as it burned or heard the posthumous moans of the body as it died after the brain.
So she had refused to look away.
She had watched their ribs implode, watched their brains flee their skulls like uncaged doves, watched them take those few steps before they realized, stop, then their faces rippled with horror, then fear, and finally regret before they fell, their lives cut like the strings of a puppet.
She did not look away as the Transcriber's eyes rolled and overflowed, beads of sweat and tears sliding passed his ears and mixing with the blood pooling on the table, even when those circles of gold paused on her.
When their gazes broke, he was the one who looked away.
XXX
Dorsey hated configurations.
She hated the sounds of bone crunching, the smell of blood and other things, depending on what particular part of the Conduit was being configured. She hated Tucker, his shifty eyes darting around the theatre, making sure that the Transcription team was watching him, appreciating him and the work he did. She hated the second lieutenant that had been assigned to him as an assistant, the way his eyes gleamed as he locked the restraints in place, the way he smiled when the scalpel made its first cut, how he watched the blood soak into his gloves and white surgical coat the deeper he reached.
She hated it when the technicians couldn't hold it together.
It wasn't uncommon for one of them to vomit or faint during a configuration, but Brady always cried. She knew it was unfair of her to be annoyed with the girl, knew her reaction was involuntary and would be reasonable in any other situation, but what the Infiltrator and their… guests, Dorsey was already wrestling with more than she could handle.
"Oh, would you calm down, Brady!" she snapped, whirling on the major with such ferocity that Brady shrunk away and her colleague next to her raised his arms as if to catch her. "The Vessel is empty. It can't feel anything."
Brady whimpered something and Dorsey scoffed, turning away from the major with undisguised disgust.
"It certainly doesn't look that way."
Dorsey whirled in the other direction and stared at who had spoken - the woman guard, the muscles in her neck pulled tight and her eyes glowing with something that wasn't quite anger. Dorsey curled her lip.
"You have not been given permission to speak."
"Oh, don't be that way, Colonel," Tucker crooned, his voice like slugs crawling into one's ears. "Curiosity is healthy." He smiled patronizingly at Riza. She did not return it. "The Vessel is exactly that - a container for the knowledge we need in that moment. Once the knowledge has served its purpose, the container is emptied. His consciousness is dissolved into that knowledge. He only knows what we focus him on. Right now, he's focused on the chemical reactions we are inducing so we can collect data on how the elements react to the changes as they move through the Conduit. The only thing he knows is equations. I assure you, he is not in the slightest bit of discomfort."
The silent second lieutenant had finished cutting along the lines of scar tissue and was pinching a flap of skin with his fingers, pulling it up and away from the rest of the body. With his other hand, he stuck the scalpel beneath the skin and started slicing beneath. As he sliced, the skin came loose and he lifted it further, revealing buttery fat on the underside of the skin and the white and red of the muscle and bone it was meant to cover.
The Transcriber's fingers were scratching at the metal of the table.
"Then why is he shaking?" Riza's voice was cold, but her eyes were hollow.
Tucker waved a bloody, gloved hand dismissively and took hold of the freed skin, pulling it fully out of the way and holding it in place by stabbing a pin through the flap and into the torso.
The Transcriber spasmed.
"The peripheral nervous system is distinctly separate from the central one. His body is reacting to stimuli, as it should, but the stimuli is not reaching his brain. I assure you, he feels nothing."
"This isn't a university lecture," General Raven barked. Multiple people looked at him in surprise, he had been so quiet up to that point that many had forgotten he was there. "The visiting officers are to remain silent. Continue the configuration."
He shot Hawkeye a glance that was supposed to be withering. If she noticed it, she showed no sign of it.
The second lieutenant was studying the unwrapped ribs like he was contemplating how best to roast them.
"Now, be careful with the gristle," Tucker told his assistant, his benevolent smile briefly replaced by a serious frown. "It is much, much harder to reconstruct connective tissue than most others. Cut straight through the bone. The pieces can be melded back together easily enough."
The scalpel was discarded for the bone saw Havoc had sharpened earlier.
XXX
Brother always tried to bear it himself.
Sometimes Brother succeeded. He hated that he preferred it when Brother failed.
"I'm here, Brother. I've got you. I won't drop you."
Brother was going to fall.
"I know. I'll go with you. I won't let you go all the way down."
Brother didn't want him to do this.
"I'll be fine. I'll only be there for a second. Then you can be first again."
Brother hated compromises.
XXX
"We have lacrimation, Transcription. Merge is confirmed. Ready to proceed."
XXX
Fuery knew Mustang was coddling him.
Kain was the youngest and, with Roy's protective tendencies, he knew it wasn't meant to be insulting or degrading when the colonel made special allowances or assignments for him.
He did not wish the colonel would stop. He wished that he wished the colonel would stop.
Then again, on days like this, perhaps being babied had its advantages.
With the excuse that Fuery was "less experienced" than the others - Kain tried to ignore the sting of that description, even though he knew it was true - the master sergeant had been given the least present job and was stationed at the least visible posts.
He had been going over the circuit logs of the past few days when Havoc arrived in the corner of the storage room that had been repurposed as Kain's office.
"I was told to dispose of this," he said unnecessarily, handing over the fake scheme. Kain took it silently, then equally silently took took the freshest roll of paper on his desk - which was actually a spare surgical table covered with equally spare trays to cover the dips of the engraved runes - and pulled the end of it flat against one of the trays so he and Jean could study it.
It was the circuit log from earlier that day and the section Kain had lain flat was the transcription of the fake scheme.
"Yup. Definitely inoperable," Kain said, nodding sagely. "Best to get rid of this, too." He used the scissors to cut the useless section away and handed the waxy swatch to Jean, then turned back to his work as if this had been the most boring conversation of his life.
Jean gave his friend a playful salute and walked through the rest of storage, using the orderlies' halls to take the long way to the reception hall.
He was surprised to find Breda and Falman standing at the entrance to the hall rather than on either side of the viewing window inside of it.
"Mustang's orders. Apparently they're doing sensitive work today. The less eyes, the better," Falman said, looking straight ahead instead of at Havoc.
Jean studied the wrinkles on Vato's forehead and the nauseous expression on Breda.
Sensitive work, indeed, he thought as he made a pointed effort to not look through the threshold at the viewing window.
"I've been ordered to dispose of this," he said, offering the cut end of the paper train to Falman.
Vato did not take. He stared at it for a long moment, his slanted eyes roving over the lines and dots Fuery had circled and underlined, then looked up and straight ahead again.
"Sensible. This is utter nonsense."
Havoc nodded, hearing what Falman didn't dare say, and turned away, walking down the corridor towards the door to the outside square. He needed a smoke. He also needed to burn the message from the Translator.
As soon as the second lieutenant was no longer in earshot, Falman made a comment towards his fellow guard.
"He will fall and I will be freed. Do not come to me. I will do the coming."
Breda grunted as if Falman had made a less than savory joke, then unhooked the radio from his belt.
XXX
Fuery's radio crackled to life.
When Havoc came back from burning tobacco and the "utter nonsense," Kain passed along what Breda had told him.
When Havoc opened the door the theatre, Hawkeye was there, blocking the way and his view.
She looked like she had just chugged an entire vat of raw whiskey.
"If there is anything you need to say, say it to me," she said, her voice hard. Havoc recognized the voice and knew not to ask.
"Something's gonna go down. Said not to do nothin', just wait and let things happen."
Riza's face twisted like Jean had told her to she would have to flirt with Colonel Dorsey.
When she ordered him to stay in storage, he did not ask why.
XXX
The Translator would come to them.
The rib snapped like a broken branch.
The nameless second lieutenant set it with the others, their formation on the tray mimicking their places in the body.
The blade of the cage came away easily, the severed muscles trailing like ribbons.
Shou gave himself a moment to appreciate the unburied treasure they'd found, the potential they were about to unlock. He took it in his hands, feeling the movement, the pulsing pressure, the warmth of life and the slickness of freshness.
"Confirm with Translation for compromise."
Colonel Dorsey spoke into the radio. A tense answer came back. Dorsey relayed.
"The logs are primed. Compromise the Transcriber."
Shou did not take his eyes off the living jewel in his hands as he gave the command to his second lieutenant, then the rest of the room.
"Cut the aorta. Stand back, everyone. It's about to get messy."
XXX
Brother fell.
He went with him.
They spun through the darkness, swimming through the lightless ocean, letting the current push and pull them, guiding them to what they knew was on the other side.
The light bubbled beneath them.
They broke the surface.
Then they floated, fighting the gravity pulling them towards that light, and looked down on it.
The light looked back. It said the same thing it always said.
"I'm sorry. I never meant this for you."
"We know," he said, as he always did.
Brother said nothing, as he always did.
XXX
The Transcriber's head lolled to the side, his mouth falling open and his eyes falling closed.
Shou Tucker lifted his prize, its contents squirting out of the holes as it pulsed around nothing, like a bird trying to fly with broken wings.
Brady had stopped crying. She simply stood with her eyes pressed shut.
Maes swayed on his feet, his composure failing him. He managed to push himself against the marble, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor with his knees bent in front of him. No one payed him any mind.
"Measure vitals," Shou said, stepping away from the corpse he'd made and taking its key component with him. The second lieutenant followed him, his silver eyes shining like sharpened knives. A trail of scarlet drops followed them.
Colonel Dorsey moved first, snatching up a vial and collecting the blood that flowed from the gaping wound that had once been the transition from vein to heart. Another technician followed, then another, using simple transmutations on printed cards to measure oxygen levels, hooking sensors to the forehead and pulling paper from a machine that started drawing spiking lines with a jerking needle.
Tucker and the second lieutenant stood to the side, watching the heart as its frantic beating slowed to stuttering.
"Skipped a beat," Tucker said with a laugh. "I wonder who the lucky girl is."
The second lieutenant grinned toothily and raised a hand to stroke the gasping lump of flesh with his fingers with a reverence a mother might have for a firstborn child.
Roy felt his legs turn to liquid.
Riza did not move.
The heart gave a final desperate jump and fell still.
"All right. It's gotten repetitive. Time to reconstruct and end transcription."
Tucker nodded satisfactorily and slowly carried the cooling lump back to its body, submerging it in the bowl of blood that had formed in the hollowed out cavity where it had once been.
"Time to put everything back together. My turn."
Shou was called the Sewing Life Alchemist for a reason. The transmutations flashed and fizzled, blood bubbling with heat as he pinched the severed veins together and melded them into one, the second lieutenant stuffing a trocar into the into the major vein so that the pooled blood would be pulled back into the tubes it was meant to be in.
"Tell Translation I'm reactivating."
A fizzle of alchemy.
Another.
A third one.
It wasn't until Tucker pulled the bloody array out of the open chest and frowned at it that Roy realized this wasn't meant to happen. Raven seemed to realize it, too, because he began to sweat heavily.
Dorsey realized it and her face, already the color of milk, paled to the color of snow.
"Confirmed for reactivation. Standing by, Transcription."
Tucker ignored the staticky voice and replaced the array and his fingers into the blood.
More fizzling and more bubbling, but nothing else.
The Transcriber's teeth seemed to grow whiter in his open mouth. Roy realized that it was actually his gums growing darker.
Dorsey realized it and broke away from her technicians. From the affronted look on Tucker's face, Roy guessed this was not something she was supposed to do.
"What the hell did you do?!"
Tucker's frown deepened.
"Manually crank the blood into the vena cava and pressurize the lungs."
Dorsey obeyed, her scowl murderous. The technicians swarmed around the dead boy and started forcing life back into him.
"What's taking so long? Compromise is supposed to only last two minutes. It's been two and thirty seconds. Another sixty and we'll have to reconstruct the brain."
Dorsey's hands were covered in blood. It was Brady who grabbed the radio and held it to the colonel's face.
"The Sewing Alchemist's stitching is tangled."
"You're not making sense, Dorsey -"
"Tucker killed the Transcriber!"
The speakers crashed as if the person on the other end had dropped their radio, then rattled as whoever had dropped it scrambled to pick it up.
"I'm sending over the Translator -"
"No."
It was the silent, until now, second lieutenant who spoke. His voice was like sheets of steel being torn apart like paper. The inherent wrongness of it felt like ice water had been poured down Roy's back.
The Transcriber's empty body might as well have disappeared for all the attention everyone was giving it. They were all staring at the second lieutenant in variants of surprise and horror.
For some reason, the fact that even Tucker, covered in blood and bits of muscle, looked disturbed at the breaking of the silence made Roy realize just how serious it was that the man had spoken.
As Roy was quickly realizing, it was Dorsey who ended the awkward moment.
"If we don't we'll lose the Transcriber and then we'll lose the Conduit -"
"It is forbidden to see the Translator."
Dorsey shuddered, like she had just felt phantom hands run through her hair, then stiffened as she remembered she was the head of the Transcription team.
"It is forbidden for the Transcriber to die. Which do you think the High Commander would prefer?"
The second lieutenant's eyes flashed - literally.
One moment they were their established nondescript silver, the next they were a crimson so deep that it made the blood lying stagnant in the Transcriber's chest cavity look pink.
Maes, who had only just managed to get back to his feet, swayed dangerously again.
Roy took a step back.
Riza refused to give anything away.
They knew who the second lieutenant was.
The Fourth Highest Emissary of High Command did not blink for several seconds, making sure everyone saw the new, true color of his eyes, then spoke in his unnatural voice.
"If anyone moves, I'll kill them myself."
With everyone's attention on the Emissary, no one noticed General Raven slipping out of the theatre, his legs propelled by terror.
XXX
The wall melted away like softened butter. The edges were not smooth, crooked and curved like the space had been splattered.
If Roy had been expecting to see something that looked worthy of being forbidden, he would have been disappointed. The Translation room looked no different from Transcription, save for the glaring absence of the surgical table. In its place stood what looked like a statue of some kind of golem, like the room was an exhibit in a gallery rather than a laboratory.
Roy and Riza might have thought that, if it wasn't for the fact that they recognized the statute.
Neither of them so much as twitched when the statue creaked into motion, lifting a metal leg and setting it down a step forward, as if testing whether or not walking was allowed.
"The Sentinel is active," said Colonel Howard, his voice clear without the proxy of the radio.
"Yes, Allen, we can see that," Dorsey said, not trying to hide her exasperation with the whole situation.
The armor took a second tentative step when no one protested, then a third, then clanked the rest of the way to the oddly shaped hole in the wall. When it reached the separation between the two rooms, it paused, turning its helmet to and fro like it was looking for something.
It seemed to find it because the helmet stilled when the empty eye holes were pointed at Mustang.
It was a good five seconds before the helmet turned away with a small screech.
"Can I come in?"
It was a small voice, weak and nervous. He sounded like he was asking his sick mother if he could come into her bedroom and check on her.
The Fourth Highest Emissary made a cat-like hissing noise.
"Touch anything and I'll snap your hands off your wrists."
Several of the technicians, most likely the more devout ones, glared at the Fourth Highest Emissary with expressions of horror and unadulterated hate. To them, speaking to the Translator, half of the Vessel of God, with anything other than respect was sacrilegious. To threaten him was the epitome of foolishness.
The armor did not react to the promise of violence. It did nothing at all. Instead, a tiny, skinny body stepped out from the other side of the ruined wall.
He was almost a twin of the Transcriber. His hair was more lusher, his eyes brighter and his limbs plumper, but they were the same soft gold and his skin was peppered with freckles, like he would have been three shades darker if he hadn't been hidden from the sun for months.
The boy glanced around nervously, an imitating of the hulking armor behind him, including holding Roy's gaze for an uncomfortable five seconds.
Roy found himself searching his gaze, thought for what, he had no idea, and he was certain he didn't find it.
The boy broke his start with Roy, turned his head and saw the Transcriber.
The first expression Mustang saw on the Translator's face was horror and the second was grief.
The armor raised its giant arms and laid its leather gauntlets on the Translator's shoulders, like it was trying to comfort him.
When they first started moving, Roy thought the armor was pushing the Translator forward. It took him the first two steps for him to realize that the boy was leading and the armor was following like a humanoid cape.
The boy's legs moved shakily, though not from weakness. Roy could see the panic in his eyes. The armor was probably the only thing keeping him from throwing himself at the Transcriber's body, which had faded to an eerie shade of icy blue. The inside of his mouth had turned black, the blood in the flesh having stagnated and thickened.
The Translator reached the Transcriber and reached for him, his hands slipping beneath the head and cradling it behind the ears, a twin mourning his other half. He closed his eyes and lowered his head, pressing his brow to the other's.
It happened so slowly, Roy didn't notice until the skin had ripened from a cold blue to a lukewarm white. Tucker must have seen some kind of sign of something because he started moving, snatching the ribs from the cart they'd been placed on and sticking them to their corresponding stubs. He held each bone in place for a heartbeat, then let go.
Each stayed obediently in place.
Tucker set the septum, the final piece of the puzzle, and pulled the pins holding the cut skin away. The flaps folded over gracefully like closing wings and fused, new, shining scar tissue zippering the cuts closed.
Nothing happened for awhile. At least, nothing Roy could see.
The skin darkened to a somewhat healthy tan, the gums lightened to a cherry red, and the thighs twitched with tiny shocks in the muscles.
The eyes snapped open and the chest inflated as if the newly formed ribs were being pulled upward by an invisible hook, a grotesque gargling sound bubbling up the throat and spilling out of the mouth. The chest slammed down and pink foam drooled passed the lips and onto the operating table.
The Translator didn't so much as lift his head as the Transcriber coughed up the fluids that had built up in his lungs and pulled in hungry gulps of air. When the gasping had slowed down to panting, the Shou Tucker broke the reverent silence they had all wordlessly agreed to.
"How is the brain?"
The Translator waited so long before answering that Roy started to think he wasn't going to.
"Both temporal lobes are gone. The left parietal lobe is badly damaged."
Tucker ran a hand over his face in frustration.
For a moment, Roy could have sworn the Fourth Highest Emissary smiled.
Any expression he might have had vanished when the unmistakable scowl of panic replaced it.
"Separate them." When no one moved, the panic moved from his face to his voice. "Separate them now! They've been in contact too long, they're -"
Both the Transcriber's and Translator's eyes popped open.
The eyes weren't their own.
They shared the same gaze, the same person staring into their own face, but whoever was staring was neither the Translator nor the Transcriber.
It was someone else in entirely.
Roy realized who it was with a sickening lurch, then everything happened in the same moment.
The other-person inside of the two bodies turned both of their heads and Mustang knew it wasn't his self-discipline that kept him in place.
The voice that came out of their mouths was the furthest from human.
"I know you see what lies ahead. Turn back before it's too late."
Some of the technicians were staring at Roy. A few had dropped to the floor, whispering what sounded like prayers. The rest had pressed themselves against the wall, trying to get as far away from the Conduit as possible.
Tucker was watching the scene with a tilted head, his eyes sparkling with curiosity. The Fourth Highest Emissary was snarling, baring his teeth like a tiger that had been dunked in ice water.
"Pull away," the Emissary growled at the armor, his teeth sharpening to predatory points as he spoke. "Pull away now."
The armor stuttered, as if considering obeying, then hardened as it made its decision.
The Emissary made a sound like a knife scraping along a sheet of metal.
"It's already too late."
The eyes of the Conduit flicked away from Roy and focused on Riza as she spoke.
They studied her with their bottomless stare.
Riza stared back, not wavering, not so much as blinking.
The technicians who had been praying had stopped. They were looking up, staring at Hawkeye in a mixture of disbelief and horror. If either noticed, neither showed it.
The Fourth Highest Emissary stepped up to the surgical table and raised his head to glare into the armor's empty helmet.
"Pull away now or I will cut open his skull myself."
The armor came to life with no transition from stillness to motion, taking a large step backward and pulling the Translator with it. The instant the Translator's hands left the Transcriber's body, the Transcriber went as limp as wet wool, his head rolling to the side.
His jaw did not slacken and his ribs rose and fell as he breathed, but his eyes did not open.
The Translator fell to the floor with a painful sounding cry. He lay there, sobbing, at the feet of the armor, which was staring sightlessly at the Emissary. He stood up shakily, still sobbing rough, shaking sobs, and set his eyes on Riza.
The believers had looked away again, refusing to look the Vessel of God in the eye.
The Translator wobbled for a moment, then took slow, pain-staking steps towards Hawkeye.
Mustang and Hughes looked at each other, silently asking if they should intervene, then unashamedly readied themselves to grab the boy, Translator or no.
The Emissary's opened his fanged mouth, presumably to demand that the Translator stop, but Tucker shushed him.
"I've never seen him react this way. We must observe this phenomenon."
Roy didn't know which made the Emissary more furious, being told what to do or realizing that he couldn't actually do anything to stop the Translator.
When the Translator stopped in front of Riza, his sobbing having diminished to quiet tears, he raised his arms slowly in a gesture that made him look ten years younger and pressed his face into her uniform.
The technicians gasped, devout and otherwise.
Dorsey looked like she fully expected Hawkeye to implode where she stood.
The Emissary looked like he was thinking about growing claws on his fingers so he could rip Riza's throat out.
Tucker's expression suggested that the Winter Solstice had come early.
Roy and Maes held their positions, waiting for any indication that Hawkeye was in danger.
When she finally did move, it was to lift her own arms and wrap them around the Translator, pulling him closer. When she met Roy's eyes, he saw they were glowing with triumph.
They had made contact.
And now Riza was trapped.
I was going to write the next chapter of this, but everyone's been asking me about Fester - I never once thought that it would be as popular as it is - so I might update that first instead.