Balance of Power: Eden Gate--Chapter Three
Balance of Power: Eden Gate--Chapter Three
"Why, Sometimes I've Believed As Many as Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast."
"To have faith only in what your eyes can see and your hands can touch is to have no faith at all." The Ishbalan Prophets, Anthropology and Antiquarian Press, 1878.
Central City, Amestris
September 5, 1919 -- 10:42 am
Someone was pushing a heavily-loaded cart through the hallways of Military Investigations. Vato Falman heard the squeak of an unoiled wheel before he picked up the grunts of the soldiers pushing it. He put a foot in the elevator door and flattened himself against the wall of the elevator car.
"Thanks for holding it," a woman's voice said from behind the dusty boxes stacked on the cart.
"No trouble," Falman answered. "What floor?"
"Archives," the woman answered.
"Is that you, Falman?" Denny Broche's blond head popped up from behind the loaded cart.
"In the flesh. What are you two doing hauling cargo back and forth? Shouldn't you be processing reports?"
"These are reports," Maria Ross's voice answered.
"Really old reports," Broche sighed. "General Grumman gave the order the day he took over Investigations--clean out the storage basements under Headquarters and index every piece of paper we find."
"Since no one knows what's in the boxes, they have to be handled by officers with intelligence clearances," Ross explained. "The General himself is down there supervising."
"Sounds like he's shaking things up," Falman observed.
"He wants every report we have cross-indexed," Ross said. "It's a good idea, but a massive job and he wants it done as quickly as possible."
"As Breda might say, 'On time. No mistakes. Pick one.'" Falman grinned as the elevator doors clanked open.
"What brings you here?" Ross asked. She grunted, and the cart began to move.
"Snooping, of course." Falman answered, his face perfectly straight. "What intelligence officers do when they're not working as baggage porters."
"Very funny," Broche said sourly. "Snoop through the security doors and hold 'em for us, okay?"
The security doors were guarded by a latch that could only be opened from the inside by a young soldier with a mirror-peephole and a gun. Once inside, Falman headed straight for an indexing desk stacked high with musty paper and surrounded by boxes of more paper. He looked over the piles and down onto a head of frizzy brown hair. "Read any good books lately?"
"Have you learned any new lines lately?" The owner of the frizzy hair looked up from the logbook spread on the desk. "Seriously, Falman, I hear that one three or four times a day."
"Sorry. It comes from working for my boss."
Schieszka's eyebrows rose, then she laid down her pen. "I heard you aren't really working for him anymore."
"Grumman decided to 'make use of assets sitting idle'," Falman answered. "I must have done something to annoy him--because he's assigned me to updating the maps of every sewer tunnel under the city."
"If you want someone to go with you and hold the light, forget it." Schieszka waved at the pile of paper on her desk, then at Broche and Ross, who were adding their cartload of boxes to a stack in the little remaining space left in front of the ranked rows of shelves. "At the rate they're going, I'm going to be here making indexes until I retire."
"At least you won't be wondering what you just stepped in." Falman grimaced. "I just want to copy whatever maps we have, so I don't spend more time stumbling around ruining boots than I have to."
Schieszka got up. "Wait here. Move one piece of paper and you're dead."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
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Dank, drafty, everything one could expect from a sewer. The smell--his brief torture sharing space with Hayate after the dog ate his way through a box of rancid rations had been more charming. Shaking the creases from the heavy paper in his hands, Vato Falman squinted past the glow from his lamp. Aged markers had faded to chalky and unidentifiable numerals on the walls- more like code than anything else. While ordinarily enough to pique his interest, at the moment it was simply annoying. Sighing as he scanned over the paper again, he was forced to hold the document within a hair's breadth of brushing his nose before he finally found a likely match for the pale lines. According to the lines he'd copied from a map drawn before the city had been electrified, the tunnel dead ended fifteen meters from where he was standing. Still, much as he would like to skip this section for more promising exploration further on, he'd be derelict in his duties to do so. He shifted his boots to the right, grimacing at the rodent that scurried across the once shiny leather, leaving miniature footprints behind, and started down the dark tunnel.
Flaking, damp walls, just like every other tunnel he'd explored. Nothing much of interest here either - no secret doors or unusual architecture - just crumbling concrete and ancient paint. And the stench and slime marring his uniform beyond recovery. A turn of his head revealed a wall about six meters away. Continuing to scan the tunnel as he went, he confirmed that this really was just an ordinary dead end. Odd. Why build a path to nowhere? Again, there was no reason for suspicion, and yet something continued to niggle at the back of his mind. It didn't feel right. And Falman hadn't dedicated his career to ignoring niggles.
He finally stopped at the back wall. Solid and unremarkable, just as it had appeared from a distance. He frowned as he ran his fingers over the surface. Huh, now this was interesting. Even this far down, most of the tunnel-work was concrete rather than brick. However, the wall before him was different. Not noticeable from a distance and in poor light, but up close it was clearly not covered in man-made material. It was, in fact, raw stone. Though similar in shade to the surrounding tunnel, the difference in texture was striking. Long grooves were gouged into the solid rock - almost as though they'd been clawed. Very interesting. Digging the stub of grease pencil from his pocket, Falman made a quick notation on the map. Then, after another look around, he turned back the way he'd come. He'd explore for another half hour, then head back up to meet with the rest of the mapping party. Fury would no doubt find this a fascinating discovery. Breda, however, would not. Serves him right, thought Falman, allowing the tiniest upturn of his lips. He'd phrased it to General Grumman as a request to work with a team he was comfortable with, but in truth...maybe next time the Second Lieutenant would think twice about salting the coffee.
Content with this minor revenge, Falman adjusted the light on his head lamp and continued down the tunnel.
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Their apartment had exactly two rooms. One room--actually more like a closet--held a set of bunk beds and a bureau--top bunk and bottom drawers for Fletcher, bottom bunk and top drawers for Russell. The other room, which had at one time been a good-sized bedroom in a wealthy family's "town house", now served the purposes of kitchen, dining room, lab, and more recently, kennel and library. Most of the time, Fletcher didn't mind the cramped quarters. He and Russell spent most of their time working, and a person doesn't need much space to sleep, after all. Now, however, it had gone from cramped to claustrophobic.
Getting the books out of the underground city had been easy, once they'd settled the argument about the method to use. Fletcher still found it incredible that it had worked. But then, as he had argued, bureaucracy was easy to fool. No one ever thought to check inside the boxes that the Tringhams logged in as soil samples, nor did any of the harried clerks manning the field office set up in the old cathedral have time or the interest to do more than take a cursory glance at the rucksacks the teenaged contractors carried out every night.
So their tiny apartment was crammed to the ceiling with priceless books--and someone was knocking on the door. Fletcher's heart jumped into his throat. They'd paid Mrs. Murphy the month's rent, and they weren't expecting any deliveries. Fletcher opened the door a crack.
"Hi Fletcher! I've got a few more copies for you two--" Schieszka stopped, looked puzzled. "Fletcher?"
Fletcher slipped out the door as fast as he could, pulling it mostly closed behind himself. "Hi Schieszka. Um--the place is kind of a mess right now."
"Oh that's all right, I'm kind of untidy myself, I just never get around to picking up, I'm always so busy with work or these little side projects people ask me to do--" she broke off, her eyes widening "--not that I mind, of course! I mean, I can always use a few more Cenz, who couldn't, right?" A heavy thump, then a rumble and several crashes, stopped Schieszka's monologue.
"Stay here!" Fletcher darted back into the apartment, and nearly fell over the pile of books, broken crockery, and brother.
"Wait," Schieszka's voice sounded from the hall, "I know that sound--"
Without proper space to brace himself, Fletcher could do little more than shuffle awkwardly around the mess on the floor as Schieszka pushed the door open. Her big green eyes widened behind her thick spectacles as she took in the state of their apartment. "Russell?"
Fletcher's older brother had been headed from the bathroom through the kitchen to the bedroom--wearing only a towel after his shower. Now he was half-buried in the books he'd knocked over and the remains of the dishes he'd broken--with two puppies investigating his rump. He moved, lifting a hand to rub over the back of his head, groaned a low curse, then started to get up, pushing the puppies away. "Dammit, Fletcher, you've got to find homes for these damn dogs. One or two would be okay, but six--" He stopped as he looked up and caught Schieszka's eyes on him. His face--what of it wasn't bruised and starting to swell--immediately flushed bright red, and he dug into the pile for the towel. "Schieszka! Ah--what are you doing here?" Before Schieszka could answer, he wound the towel around his waist and all but ran for the bedroom. "I'll be back in a minute, Fletcher fix the dishes so we can have dinner!" The bedroom door slammed shut.
Schieszka hesitated, then swept bits of a mixing bowl toward the sink and set down the thick binders of pages she'd copied for the Tringhams. She bent and started picking up the volumes sprawled on the floor. "What are these?" She took a book in her hands, gently opened it and flipped through some of the yellowed pages. "Fletcher--this isn't a copy, is it?" She lifted a puppy away from a leather-bound tome and opened it, too. "Naturae Universalis Elementae--this is priceless." She lifted questioning eyes to Fletcher. "Where did you get this?"
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"It was only a teaspoon of salt." Breda had been complaining for the last forty-five minutes as he walked through the tunnel with Fuery and Falman. Rather than remind the Second Lieutenant, for the third time, that it had been at least four teaspoons of salt, Falman lifted the map to his eyes to confirm that the network of lines matched the picture his memory produced. Only ten yards to go.
"It wasn't like I didn't make another pot." Grousing more the deeper they traversed, Breda finally fell silent altogether as they rounded the next turn. Even Falman hesitated just a moment at the large rodent blinking in the intrusion of light. Whispering thin squeaks of complaint, it nuzzled the base of the concave wall before plodding off towards the dark just beyond the reach of their head-lamps. Falman heard the rapid shudder behind him from both of the men at his back, though it was Breda that voiced his disgust. "Did you see that thing? I've seen smaller beavers!"
Fuery whimpered, crowding a little closer towards the center. "Do you think there's more of them?" Fuery was well known for his sometimes irrational fears and Falman wasn't the least surprised that Breda pounced on the opportunity.
"I wouldn't doubt it. Probably thousands, hundreds of thousands in the whole sewer system. Did you know that a single female rat can produce over 300 offspring in her lifetime? And if you multiply those offspring by all their offspring..."
"Stop!" Clapping his hands over his ears in juvenile attempt to hide from the equally juvenile teasing, Fuery bumped hard into Falman's back when the older man stopped abruptly--though not to follow Fuery's command.
Once more Falman pulled the map in front of his face. No, this wasn't right. Behind him the squabbling continued--Breda was making a passable attempt at sqeaking. With most of his attention focused on the map, Falman allowed himself a heavy sigh. Far easier to have left these two behind and conscripted a few civilians instead. He went on a bit further, and ran his hand over a clammy wall. It was smooth, cool concrete. His lamp lit a solid, unremarkable dead end.
"It's gone?" Falman checked the map again. His pencil-mark was still there, showing the rock-cut tunnel.
"What's gone?" Breda came into the pool of light cast by Falman's lamp to look at the map, then look at the wall. "You made a wrong turn, didn't you?"
"No...it's..." Falman touched the concrete again, mystified. "It was right here. And now it's not."
Breda grunted. "My prank was funnier--and it didn't smell so bad." He turned and grabbed Fury by the arm. "Let's get the scaredy-cat topside before he decides he's claustrophobic, too."
Falman stared at the stolidly ordinary concrete wall a moment longer, then followed his comrades back up to the open air.
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September 6, 1919, 10:22 pm
The best thing about a regular poker night, aside from the booze and cigars, was the great cover it provided for activities other than losing money to Havoc. Such as tonight, when they had elected to meet at Fuery's, which lacked Breda's giant picture windows, Falman's understated decor, and Havoc's enormous couch--but did boast an ultra-secure phone line. Kain had cobbled together a communications cabinet not much different from the one he used at Headquarters--and he'd done it with military-surplus parts. The kid was a mechanical genius.
Three-man poker wasn't much fun, so Breda, Falman, and Fuery were in the middle of a rousing game of Go Fish when Fuery's phone rang. Fuery reached over to the miniature switchboard on the kitchen wall, flipped some switches, then nodded to Breda, who picked up the receiver as Fuery and Falman donned headphones.
"Hey. Where are you?"
"Do you remember Evelyn's friend Wanda? This is her kind of place." Fuery was pleased with how clearly Hawkeye's voice came through, but she sounded exhausted. What the hell was going on?
"And...?"
"Regina did it. Evelyn and Alice arrived today."
"My God." Breda threw a look at Falman and Fury.
"Yes. They've been... somewhere. I haven't heard the full story yet, but somewhere... else... There's been a lot of confusion, and just getting Regina in place to open the door for them -- there's been a lot of confusion." It wasn't like Captain Riza Hawkeye to repeat herself.
"Is anyone hurt? You sound..."
"Nothing significant--some buildings were damaged when they drove into town. But there are -- complications. Some other people were with them, but...it's complicated, Heymans." The three men exchanged uneasy looks. Hawkeye didn't forget Mustang's standing order about real names in phone calls, either.
"OK, Elizabeth, now you're scaring me."
"Remember Regina's good friend? The photographer? I think her name was Mary Harman." Kain looked at Falman and mouthed, Maes Hughes? Falman's eyebrows lifted.
"Yeah...?"
"She arrived with Evelyn and Alice."
"Whoa, what?" Falman's munching stopped and Fuery felt himself go pale. "I thought Regina never expected to see her again."
"None of us did, but she's here."
"I'm not sure I understand you. This is the Mary that Regina knew in school? The one who was always snooping around?"
"Yes. That Mary." Hawkeye's voice steadied. "Needless to say, we're all surprised. Regina's annoyed that she was gone for so long without even a postcard."
Fuery slowly drew his headphones off. Maes Hughes? Maes Hughes was dead. He'd been to the funeral, watched the coffin lowered into the ground. Mustang had lost an eye and almost his life, and had spent years afterward rebuilding his career, all to avenge Maes Hughes.
An alive Maes Hughes had a lot of explaining to do.
"Yeah...I heard you...No. It's taken care of...Got it. Get some rest." Breda hung up the phone, then turned to his fellow soldiers.
"Well, I think that calls for another round of beers." Breda waved at Falman, who was nearest the refrigerator, as he plopped back into his chair.
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