Diaspora pt. 2
They picked up other stuff for him - underclothes and socks and a hairbrush (which he wouldn't have though of, on his own), and Alfons said something about taking him to get his automail looked at the next day, to see what could be done to fix it.
Alfons picked up some food on the way back, but didn't get anything for Edward. They had natural-grown food at home, and they would fix some lunch for Ed from that. Too much synthesized food, even if he could bring himself to eat it, would probably make him sick, Alfons explained.
Back at Alfons', Ed was rather surprised to discover that Alfons knew the rudiments of cooking, even though he exclaimed with delight over the vagaries of vegetables and their various inedible parts. Ed found the whole thing rather ridiculous.
"How the hell do you know anything about cooking and you don't know potatoes should be peeled?" he asked.
"My mom likes cooking," Alfons explained sheepishly, twiddling a bit of peel in his fingers. "She would get our synthesizer to make vegetables, and then cook them up. But most home sythesizers aren't fancy enough to get the texture completely right, and everything that comes out of a synthesizer is completely edible, otherwise it would be wasteful."
"Well, you're peeling them all wrong," Ed snorted. "You need to hold the knife lightly, don't cut away all the potato!"
"I wasn't!" Alfons protested, but did as Ed said, and tried to be more careful.
"Don't cut in, run it gently over the-"
"Oh for goodness' sake, stop being a backseat pilot!" Alfons complained, but the effect was ruined by the half-smile on his face. "Let's see you do any better!"
Ed sniffed. "I'll have you know that I'm wonderful at peeling potatoes, when my automail isn't busted."
Which reminded him exactly why his automail was busted, and the smile dropped off his face. He's not Al, Ed reminded himself savagely. He might look like Al, and sound like Al, but he wasn't, and Ed needed to stop treating him like he was.
"Edward?" Alfons must have seen his sudden serious expression, and looked worried. "Is something-"
"I'm fine," Ed snapped, and turned savagely to chop what Alfons had peeled. Al was gone. He could never allow himself to forget that.
He didn't speak to Alfons any more until lunch, when looking down at the makeshift stew (which had potatoes in it) reminded him of the girls from the store. Which brought up another interesting question.
"How old are you?" he asked Alfons. The guy looked startled - probably because the question had come right out of the blue.
"Eighteen," he answered, and Ed felt a little miffed, yet at the same time unspeakably relieved. Alfons being two years older than him bothered him, but wasn't it just proof that Al and Alfons really had nothing to do with each other? If Alfons had been a year younger than him, it would have been downright creepy.
Yet.... For some reason, it had been easier, thinking Alfons was younger than him, or at least the same age. Ed looked down at his white plastic plate, and pushed the stew around with his fork, watching the liquid pool.
"Is... is there something wrong with that?" Alfons asked in a small voice.
"No," Ed answered glumly, still not looking up. At least Alfons being two years older made the fact that the guy was fucking tall just a bit easier to stomach. "I need to wait a week before I can ask for a transfer, right?"
The clatter of Alfons' fork against his plate made Ed look up, and the expression on Alfons' face abruptly made him feel like an utter dick.
"You really don't like me," Alfons said, sounding miserable. "Can you at least tell me what I'm doing wrong?"
"It's not..." Ed hedged, then rushed in with, "I don't understand why you're doing this anyway. Don't you have better things to do with your time than take care of me?"
"Oh no!" Alfons said quickly, as if he really was that happy to have Ed with him. What the hell.
"I get two weeks off from school while you're integrating," Alfons continued. "And getting to host an Sp.D is really difficult! I've been waitlisted for months, and I never expected to be approved so soon. It's only right to take care of Sp.Ds, it's our fault people are torn away from their homes, after all."
What the hell. Now Ed was listening. He was definitely listening. Shzzdzya hadn't said anything about this.
Alfons looked down at his plate, a half-smile quirking his lips. "I'm hoping to get accepted into the Ecolé Polytechnic hypernautics department, so I feel especially responsible. It's the least I can do."
Before he knew what he was doing, Ed was standing, leaning over the table, gripping the edge so tightly his knuckles turned white. "What do you mean, it's your fault? What's hypernautics? How are you responsible?"
"Aiya," Alfons blinked up at him, guileless and worried. Shit, how did he manage to look so innocent with that crazy line of rings through his eyebrow? "I don't think I was supposed to say anything, yet." He bit his lower lip. "We have a meeting with somebody's from the Ministry of Displaced Persons to explain everything, either tomorrow or the day after. Do you think you could wait until then...?" He trailed off hopefully, and Ed knew he would wait.
Sighing, he sat back down (forgot to be careful about it, and nearly jumped out of his skin when the chair shifted under him, then was embarrassed at his reaction). Alfons looked so vulnerable, and he couldn't bring himself to demand. If it were Al in such a situation, volunteering to take care of some poor sod who had lost his home, he'd bloody well want that sod to treat Al right.
Not that this is Al, he thought, and felt a lump in his throat.
Apparently taking his silence for acquiescence, Alfons started chattering about something else, and Ed did his best to tune him out. He was so tired, and a glance at the clock (conveniently equipped with normal, recognizable numbers as well as bizarre symbols) told him it was barely past one o'clock. Painkillers wouldn't be amiss, either. He thought about asking Alfons for something, then remembered that he had been drugged once already, and decided not to.
"So what do you want to do after lunch?" Alfons was asking brightly. "We can..." The translation deteriorated into fizzes and squeaks. Waving away the options, he wondered just a bit weakly if maybe they could just stay here, and if Alfons had any books...?
"No..." Alfons said, looking apologetic. "They're all on screens. But," he added, "I bet you can watch the set without any real side effects! Mine is pretty small, but the resolution is decent."
According to the explanation and demonstration that followed, the 'set' appeared to be some form of very fancy, home-use, movie theater. Only the movies had sound, and weren't in black and white, and were in fact three-dimensional, just like the strange semi-transparent people Ed had seen earlier.
"It was invented by a team of geeks with an awful sense of humor," Alfons explained, while fluttering his fingers which apparently flicked through the channels (so many channels, far more than even the radio back home had). "The official name is Surround Holographic Image Transmitter, but well, companies could hardly market something whose acronym was 'shit', could they? So they called it 'surround television', or STV... or just the set. Here we go, TFX movie channel. Is this okay?"
"I, uh, I guess," Ed said, distracted by the small, moving figures floating against the white of the walls in the set viewing corner. Fascinated, he sat down on the conveniently placed chair, and watched the story unfold, not even noticing when Alfons left.
It didn't take him long to decide that the story itself (something saccharine about two young lovers) didn't interest him in the least, but that here, finally, were some answers. During the two hours of that movie he learned more about this world than he had in all the time since he had arrived, and found his mind opened to things he had never dreamed of. For example, he realized that the story was taking place on the moon, and people apparently lived there. Strangely enough, though, the longer he watched the less things seemed to make sense. More words were blipped out of his translator, and some sentences were just nonsensical.
He should ask Alfons about taking out the translator, and learning the language properly so he could -
No, what was the point of that? He wasn't planning on staying here. Hopefully he wouldn't be here long enough to actually learn anything, anyway. The movie ended in the expected manner, and Ed found himself drifting, watching program after program, for sheer lack of will to get up and do anything else. He slumped in the chair, which shifted under him, actually becoming more comfortable. Uncanny these chairs might be, but maybe they had their uses. He sank into a sort of stupor, not even caring when the movies were intensely boring or impossible to follow. Getting up would take too much effort.
He watched the set until his eyes were burning and his mind felt fuzzy, and he could practically feel his brain oozing out of his ears. At that point he decided that enough was enough and dragged himself away from the latest program (what appeared to be a documentary about somebody called Caroline Wessom). Standing up he staggered, tried to catch the back of the chair, and ended up flailing because the chair did not actually have a back. He recovered, shot a glare at the useless piece of furniture, and aimed a kick at it. The material gave way before his foot, a shallow dent appearing in the chair, which inflated back to its former shape as Ed watched. Made kicking furniture bloody useless. Just another reason this world was fucked up.
Yet another reason this world was fucked up was that he couldn't figure out how to turn off the set. After a few minutes of fruitless searching for anything resembling an 'off' button he gave up with a curse and just walked away from it. As soon as he was about a meter away the sounds of the program vanished abruptly from the machines in his ears, though he could see that the set itself was still on. Must have a limited range.
Alfons was sitting by a desk in the living room, absorbed in his work. The surface of the desk was a screen which he was writing on with some sort of pen. As Ed watched, he put the pen down and raised his hands, staring off into space, and making strange finger movements which looked frankly insane. Though... he was beginning to see a pattern. Those rings on his fingers, could they be some sort of ... interface that allowed him to... well, whatever it was he was doing. But what the hell was he looking at? People here could listen to voices seemingly out of thin air, because of the machines in their ears. Maybe there were also... no, no way people also had machines in their eyes.
He shuddered at the thought.
"What are you doing?" he finally asked. Alfons immediately refocused his eyes and looked right at Ed, dropping his hands.
"Homework," he replied. "I know it must look strange to you-"
"The rings are some sort of controller, aren't they?"
"Why, yes," Alfons said, sounding impressed. "Did you see computers on the set?"
Ed rolled his eyes. "It's sort of obvious." How stupid did Alfons think he was? Though, he had heard people mentioning 'computers' several times.
Nonplussed, Alfons looked at his hands, then back at Ed, and smiled. "I suppose it is," he said. Then he shook his head in bemusement. "You know, you're really not what I expected."
All Ed could do was laugh bitterly.
Thankfully the hour was late enough that contemplating going to sleep was not out of the question. Ed discovered that Alfons slept naked, which he found disturbing as all hell, and had absolutely no intention of emulating. He would just sleep in his clothes, thankyouverymuch.
The next shock came when they were cleaning their teeth (Ed trying very hard not to ogle Alfons' very many tattoos. He couldn't help but remember other people with tattoos, and what they could do-). Alfons took out a small case from a cabinet, then leaned over in front of the mirror and stuck a finger in his eye. Ed nearly dropped his toothbrush in sheer horror, and stared as Alfons removed something thin from his eye and dropped it into the case. He repeated the process with his other eye, and Ed just stood there with his toothbrush (which, by the way, brushed his teeth all on its own) in his mouth, staring.
Then Alfons straightened up, and against all biology he nearly swallowed the toothbrush, because Alfons' eyes were gray.
No way. No fucking way.
"Oh, I forgot," Alfons said sheepishly, correctly interpreting his look of horror. "My lenses are tinted. Most people have tinted lenses, though some get implants if they want to jazz up their eye color."
No way. All the pain he had managed to suppress, all the longing, came bursting suddenly to the surface. This was Al, it was really Al, and if he didn't get out of here he was going to start crying or something even more embarrassing. Ed spit into the sink, dropped the toothbrush, and fled to his room.
Slamming the door behind him, he paused for a moment against the door, gasping. He knew nothing in this room was real, it was all a 'holo', but... it looked real, and it felt real. It felt like home. The surroundings weren't his, but they were normal; they could have been his in another time or place. Soothed in spite of himself, he crawled into the bed, and stared across the room at the window, and the landscape beyond it.
If only that world were real! Being an exile would be so much easier if things weren't so alien. He felt the beginnings of a pathetic, self-pitying sob, and clenched his teeth until the urge went away.
He fell asleep, and dreamed of Alfons calling him "Brother".
----------------
Fixing his automail turned out to be far easier than he had expected. Wonderful as Winry's work was, it didn't hold a candle to what they were capable of doing here. He felt guilty even thinking it, but found himself wishing they would replace his entire arm and leg. The technician just took apart the casings and replaced them with some amazingly light alloy, but even that little probably dropped five kilos off each one.
But the highlight of that day was definitely the part where Alfons took him to some sort of 'comfort group' of other spatially-displaced. From the moment Alfons told him about their plans for the evening Ed found himself incapable of thinking of almost anything else. He couldn't decide if he was deeply insulted by the whole idea, or burning with curiosity at the prospect of meeting others like him. What kinds of worlds did those people come from? Would they finally get some answers as to why the hell these people apparently thought that it was their fault that Ed had shown up here?
Finally six o'clock rolled around, and he could barely contain his impatience as Alfons closed up whatever he was working on with his little eye-screens and was ready to go.
Alfons led him to the same skipper station they had taken the day before (god, it felt like years ago). It was a shorter ride this time, only two stops, but then they switched to a different skipper and took a tube, before finally Alfons told him that they were almost there.
Then down a corridor that looked pretty much like all the other corridors Ed had seen (outside of Shinakihabara), and he was starting to get an inkling why everybody here seemed to dress like a rainbow had vomited on them. There was such a horrible lack of color around, the least people could do was wear it.
Alfons did something fluttery with his hands in front of a door marked with a large '1872', then motioned for Edward to show his bracelet to what looked like a small electronic eye that appeared suddenly from behind a panel in the wall. The door slid open, and they entered into a cheerful round room.
It was immediately obvious who were the spatially displaced and who weren't. The people looking ill at ease, standing silently while casting wary glances at everybody and everything were obviously out-of-dimensioners, while the gaudily dressed people watching the pile of fruit set out longingly and trying to look as if they weren't, were obviously local.
Until that very moment, Ed hadn't even admitted to himself that he'd been hoping that at least one of the people would be from his world. Not a carbon copy like Alfons was, but another displacee, someone he actually knew. Hell, he wouldn't have cared if it was someone he hated, just so long as he could see a familiar face. He felt like an idiot, because what would somebody from his world be doing here anyway? Nevermind the fact that he was here - that was just his rotten luck.
Not only was nobody from the same world as him, but they didn't even look to be from a similar time period. Though, it was hard to tell because almost nobody was wearing what Ed would have called "native clothes." People in clothes that were familiar to them didn't normally look so ill at ease.
Alfons was watching him warily, probably waiting for him to do some other crazy thing. Ever since he had stormed out of the bathroom last night, Alfons seemed to have given up trying to expect what Ed was going to do at any given moment, which Ed would have found amusing under different circumstances. Well, no point in standing around like an idiot like everybody else was. There was free food, and the one thing that Ed had learned wandering around in Amestris for all those years was you never turn down free food.
He walked over to the table and was unsurprised that nothing looked terribly familiar. Those purple fruits looked like strawberries, but they were purple. They might not be strawberries. Or they might be strawberries from the moon or something. He thought maybe he was finally beginning to figure things out.
The moon strawberry, when he bit into it, tasted a pretty much like a regular strawberry, which Ed found a little disappointing. What was the point in having a moon strawberry that tasted like a regular strawberry?
He wished somebody would just say something and not stand around waiting for the executioner, and he wished everybody would stop watching him like he's done something wrong.
"Hey," he poked Alfons. "You take a strawberry also."
Alfons looked scandalized. "But I'm not supposed to take anything! It's for you."
"How do you know?" Ed asked. "There's no sign that says you can't, is there?"
"No, but…"
"C'mon, just take a fucking strawberry."
Alfons caved like Ed knew he would and took a piece of fruit also. Immediately, all the attention in the room focused on him, as if watching someone eat a piece of fruit was the most interesting thing these people had ever seen. This was driving him crazy.
He was right on the verge of picking up the table and just throwing it across the room when his and everyone else's attention was drawn to the door that opened in one of the walls.
"Hello everybody!" somebody announced in an overly-cheerful and terribly familiar voice - of course. It just figured that none of the other spatially-displaced would be from his world, but he kept on running into parallels in this one.
He turned to Alfons just because looking at parallel Al was still less painful than looking at parallel Hughes.
"Let's go home," he said. Hughes must have heard him because next thing he knew, the man was right next to him looking entirely too jovial - and alive - for Ed's peace of mind. He wouldn't wish death on anybody but he really wished that this Hughes could've been somewhere else. Preferably as far as possible from Ed. Like on the other side of the planet.
"Now, now! We can't have that!" Hughes said, still sounding hideously cheerful.
Not Hughes. Not Hughes.
"I'm sure that all of you are very curious as to what exactly you are doing here. I'm here to give you some explanations. Surely you don't want to miss that?" And yeah, not-Hughes had him there. He could use some explanations. With some cheerful cajoling, not-Hughes herded everybody into the room he had come out of and here was the first sign that this person actually had a clue what he was doing. The floor was flat and even, the walls far more geometric than anything he had seen in this world yet aside from his holo, and there were chairs - real chairs! With backs and armrests and everything. Ed saw unfeigned relief on some of the other displacees' expressions, realized he must be making the same face, and stopped.
"Sit down, sit down!" Not-Hughes said, waving his arms enthusiastically. "Hosts, sit next to your Sp.Ds. We'll start off with introductions. Go around the circle and everybody will introduce themselves and say a few words."
Fucking great. Why couldn't they skip straight to the explaining part? He didn't care who these people were.
"A few words about what?" one of the Sp.Ds asked. She was a young woman whose long red hair was her most remarkable feature.
"Why, anything you'd like!" Hughes said cheerfully. Nobody seemed particularly interested in volunteering to be first, avoiding Hughes' expectant gaze like the plague. "I'll start then!" he said cheerfully, absolutely undeterred by the silence. Ed wondered how many groups of sullen out-of-dimensioners he had dealt with.
"Maes Hellinger, at your service, and here to answer all your questions!"
And then, of course, Hugh-Hellinger turned right to them. "Why don't you boys start?"
Alfons, the traitor, cleared his throat and started to speak, ignoring (or not noticing) the glare Ed shot at him for cooperating so easily.
"My name is Alfons Heiderich, finishing a year at Yáo Center of Technology. I hope to get into Ecolé Polytechnic next year."
"Hypernautics?" one of the locals asked softly, sounding impressed. Alfons nodded.
"Wonderful to meet you, Alfons! I'm just sorry we had to meet under such difficult circumstances for our friends, here." In his gaze, he included the entire room, and then turned to Ed expectantly. Shit.
"Edward Elric," he mumbled grudgingly, trying to look away from those vivid green eyes. Were they brighter than Hughes', or had he simply forgotten...? "Come from Amestris."
"Tell us a bit more about yourself," Hellinger prodded. "What year are you from, locally? Is your world anything like this?"
"Nineteen sixteen, and no, it's doesn't look anything like this place."
At his words the other locals around the tables suddenly perked up, murmuring excitedly.
"Twentieth century? Parallel our twentieth?"
"Quiet down, now," Hellinger admonished. At least he wasn't looking at Ed like a lab specimen. "Let's listen to the others."
The next to speak was another Spatially-Displaced, dark-skinned like a Lioran and wearing a suit. "Gopal Chandar, Section Manager at Monosen Ltd., India branch. I don't know what I'm doing here, but these games may cost me my job." He spoke in clipped, grim tones, and his words created just the tiniest spark of interest in Ed, which he quashed quickly. He refused to consider the lives of the rest of these lost people, to get involved in their problems. He had enough of his own. Resolutely, he tuned them out, wishing they would cut the crap and get to the part where the explaining started. Who wanted to hear about their sob stories, anyway?
"Okay! Now we'll get to the part which I'm sure you all are waiting for. If you'll direct your attention to the screen over there - don't worry, it's specially calibrated not to cause you any problems! - we have a short movie to explain everything."
Ed straightened up in his chair. This was what he had been waiting for. It had better be good.
The movie appeared to be with real people, but there was something... off about them, that led Ed to believe they weren't actually. A round, blue globe which the narrator described as Earth was shown, and then little space ships left it, heading for the stars. Apparently in this world humanity had started colonizing other planets approximately 500 years before, but in those days colonization took years and years. Ed wasn't quite sure why, but apparently flying through space was very difficult. He was fascinated by the concept - airplanes? Spaceships? How did they work? - but relegated the curiosity to the back of his mind, to ask Alfons about later. For now he wanted to get to the real issue.
After a while, somebody invented something they called the hyperdrive, which allowed ships to move between planets really fast. Only apparently there was still some glitch with it, because it tore through the dimensional barrier and made people from other dimensions appear in this one. Which was why the Ministry of Displaced Persons was created, to deal with all the people who got lost, and send them to their home worlds. Just hold on, people and we'll send you home! No harm done! The end.
Then the movie blinked off and the lights were turned back on, and Ed just sat there in shock. That was it? All this because of a spaceship glitch? What kind of crappy half-assed explanation was this?
"But why does this happen?" he demanded, jumping to his feet. "How does the hyperdrive work, what's wrong with it? Why don't you fucking fix it instead of tearing people away from their homes and-"
"Edward, calm down," Hellinger said, and Ed suddenly saw that behind his jovial expression he was just as smart and calculating as Hughes. When the people in charge knew to watch you, it made doing what you wanted more difficult; he had learned that early on. Still, he couldn't contain the fury of the scholar within him at being thwarted, fuck that, the fucking Fullmetal Alchemist's fury at having the answer waved tantalizingly in front of his face.
"Fuck you," he snarled, "why won't you give us any more information?" Far off he felt Alfons' hand on his arm, trying tentatively to calm him, but it was easily ignorable. He couldn't move his eyes from Hellinger's know-it-all green ones.
He was surprised to hear a rumble of assent from the other Sp.Ds.
Seeing how keyed up everybody was, Hellinger sat back with a resigned sigh. Ed suddenly noticed that unlike Hughes, this man didn't sport glasses. How had he missed that earlier?
"Come on, Edward, please sit down," Alfons pleaded, tugging at his arm again, but his voice tugging on Ed's heartstrings was the stronger incentive. He sat down, and relished the thanks Alfons breathed.
"As far as we know," Hellinger began abruptly, "this is the only dimension to have this particular glitch in the hyperdrive. Even when encountering people from other space-faring versions of humanity, even humanity that has developed a faster-than-light drive similar to ours, we have yet to discover another universe which suffers our difficulties." He looked around the circle, meeting their eyes with practiced earnestness. "The havoc unethical and unmoderated use of the hyperdrive can wreak is unbelievable. Even here, only a select few are chosen to learn how to build disruptors, and the physics behind the engines are a closely guarded secret. We can't risk letting people spread this knowledge to other dimensions. I assure you that our greatest scientists are working as hard as they can to solve this problem. It's not something you need to worry about. Even as we speak people are working on finding your worlds, and you should be getting departure dates within the next two weeks."
So they were hiding it. Now that he knew the knowledge was out there, though every part of him rebelled against sitting by passively to let somebody else solve his problems. But right now he didn't have even the most basic know-how to try and figure it out on his own.
He would have to remedy that. Now that he knew what Alfons' field of study meant....
There was nothing more he could learn here. Decidedly, he stood up and turned to leave.
"Where are you going?" Hellinger asked, a sharp tone in his voice. Ed knew this was a bad idea, but he just couldn't stand being here any longer.
"Come on, Alfons, I want to leave." He pinned Alfons with his gaze, watching as the man looked between him and Hellinger, flustered. What if Alfons decided to stay? He could storm out on his own just as well, but he wouldn't get very far before getting lost.
Alfons still wasn't moving, and Ed's heart sank. He couldn't leave him here, couldn't leave behind his only support-
"Okay," Alfons said quietly, standing up next to him. "I'm sorry, Mr. Hellinger."
For a moment Ed was so shocked he nearly forgot to follow, then stumbled after his host, his heart fluttering strangely. Alfons had defied Hellinger for him! Such a small thing, but surely it meant Alfons was on his side, that he could be trusted? Until how his heart had told him they were connected, but now Ed felt his mind gleefully join in, crying out completion. Surely... surely the fact that Alfons was Al's double had to mean something, and if Alfons could feel it too....
He sped up, catching up to Alfons' brightly-clad form, and looked up at him. Slight worry was on Alfons' face, discomfort at what he had done. Ed felt the overpowering need to make him smile again.
"Hey," he said gruffly, punching him softly on the arm. "Thanks."
Alfons missed a step, and looked down at Ed in slight surprise, then his face softened. "You're welcome," he said, and Ed's heart flipped over again. How many years had he waited to see that smile-
Stupid, Alfons wasn't Al. He wasn't, and there was absolutely no reason for Ed to give a damn whether Alfons liked him or not. He knew that.
"Did something there upset you?" Alfons asked hesitantly, wary after all of Ed's explosions of temper.
"I want to understand," Ed said, before he could think of lying. Matching his stride to Alfons', he instinctively lowered his voice. If this issue was truly such a taboo here, no sense in getting in trouble right off. "How does it work?" He looked up at Alfons sharply. "You want to learn about the hyperdrive, don't you?"
"Well, yes," Alfons hedged.
Perfect. Excitement building, Ed realized that his initial thought - that setting him up with Alfons was some kind of sadistic cosmic joke - was completely wrong. Rooming with Alfons was a blessing in disguise, because all the information he needed was right at his fingertips. "So you can teach me!" he said enthusiastically.
Except Alfons didn't look nearly so taken with the prospect. "I'm really sorry but-"
"Please!" Ed said, almost desperately. "Aren't you supposed to help me out?"
"I can't do that." Alfons looked unhappy, his eyes sliding away from Ed's. "It's too much of a risk, Edward. I want to help you any way I can, but that is just too much."
Or not. His eyes fell to the ground and he followed Alfons silently, trying to clear disappointment from his mind. It had been too good to be true, anyway. On the other hand, Alfons had admitted that he wanted to help Ed; that was something. With the right amount of cajoling, maybe he could be brought around to Ed's way of thinking....
Uncomfortable with the silence, Alfons fidgeted all through the skipper ride, every so often opening his mouth to say something but aborting at the last minute. Alfons seemed to be chronically helpless concerning him, and it made Ed uncomfortable. Was he so strange, so impossible to deal with? So abrasive Alfons didn't even want to try?
Sudden terror: had Al ever felt that way?
When they reached their corridor, Alfons finally cleared his throat and spoke. "Eh, Edward? If you really want I suppose I could try teaching you some physics..."
Hope flared, powerful and frightening.
"... because I'm not actually learning hypernautics yet, I wouldn't be giving away anything..." he sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than anything, but that was okay, Ed was absolutely fine with that. He nodded vigorously to show his absolute agreement, already wondering to himself how far he could push Alfons' boundaries.
"Just, not tonight, yes? I think we've had enough excitement for one night."
The slight patronization grated, but Ed was willing to overlook it for now. If Alfons taught him the rules of this world and set him on the path to understanding this hyperspace business, he would be more than willing to put up with a little shirtiness. Besides, Alfons had nothing on Colonel Shit in the smugness department.
Barely two minutes after they had entered, Alfons emitted a strange beeping sound, and suddenly started talking animatedly to the air like an old friend. Tension Ed hadn't even known was there seeped off Alfons' face, and he flopped down on a chair, relaxed and cheerful. Ed figured it was some kind of telephone, probably another function of Alfons' ear-machines. He wondered if his had the same capabilities.
Uncomfortable with eavesdropping, Ed wandered off to look for something to do, but there wasn't really anything. Nothing around even to draw with. He ended up in his room, and sat down next to the window, watching the outside. The "outside". The (fake) lady who lived across the (fake) street was leaning against a windowsill, a man beside her. They appeared to be chatting. Down on the street an urchin ran by with his dog, squealing in glee. Everywhere he looked it seemed there was new detail, added depth. He had to look away. Had to leave this lie of a window, this nonexistent world constantly tempting him. But he couldn't help but want to keep watching for just another minute... couldn't help but wonder where that young woman was going, what was written in the letters the postman had just delivered....
The door behind him open, and the scuff of footsteps drew near.
"Sorry, Edward, that was a friend of mine, haven't seen him in a while... He wanted to invite me out, but I told him it would have to wait for another time. Are you very bored?"
"You can go," Ed said dully, feeling strangely betrayed, which was stupid. Of course Alfons had friends, and family, and a life outside of Ed. A wonderful life where he didn't even have to worry about vanishing into another dimension.
"I wouldn't leave you here alone," Alfons said quietly, coming closer.
"Yeah? Well, I don't need a babysitter."
"I wasn't implying that!"
Ed looked over his shoulder to where Alfons stood, indignant, and sighed. Alfons was so... emotional, he made such a big deal out of everything. Why, imagine what Ed's life would have been like if every time he blew up at somebody for calling him short they stood there with a wounded look in their eyes and made him feel all guilty.
"Edward." Alfons stepped closer, determined. "I know that you don't want to be here, and it's totally justified. You lost your home and your family-"
Ed closed his eyes against thinking of his lost home and family. He didn't even know if Al was still alive, and that knowledge suddenly stuck in his throat.
"Shut up," he grated. "You don't know what it's like. My brother might be dead, do you understand?" He rose to his feet in a smooth movement, furious, and hating the fact that he was stuck looking up at Alfons. "Until I get back I won't even know what happened to him! Everybody I care about might have gotten killed, and I don't even know!"
Alfons looked taken aback, silent and shocked.
Holy hell, how dare he be surprised? "What, you don't expect people who lost their homes to be pissed off?" he sneered. "Shut up about your understanding," he was unable to stop himself, had to say it, "and just get out!"
Face stony, Alfons spun and left, leaving Ed to watch his retreating back. It had worked this time, it had definitely worked. He stood there alone, shaking, and tried not to think of the fact that he had probably driven Alfons away for good, this time. Better this way, he told himself bleakly, but he didn't really believe that life without any Al at all could be better than life with Al's double.
--------------------
One of the things that just drove him up the walls was the fact that there was nothing for him to do. Apparently he was expected to hang around for the month or whatever until they sent him home doing... nothing. Watching the set (which could be educational, but he much preferred learning from books), eating, and playing various games and wandering the corridors with Alfons. Oh, and the "group sessions" that he was supposed to go to thrice weekly, where they explained their rights and some of the basic Dos and Don'ts of this world, while simultaneously telling them as little as possible. Their point was supposed to be some kind of group support or some shit. Maybe the others enjoyed sharing their misery, but Ed wanted no part of it. Why should he care about these other people? Why should they care about him?
Yet at the same time he found himself tempted to go, because listening to the others talking about themselves was starting to give him the feeling that something was very wrong.
"I just vanished!" Rinnatya (conspicuous with her wide skirts and modest clothes) said often, shaking her head each time. "I heard my son crying, and I was just going to him - and then everything warped around me and I was in the middle of somewhere completely different!" Then she would cover her face with her hands and sometimes sob, "Oh dear, what happened to him? I hope to God he's okay."
Everybody would nod stonily at that, and Ed wondered. What about the Gate? Where did that factor in?
The first few times he had refused when they asked him to speak of when and where he had vanished from, but Hellinger wore him down. It would help them pinpoint him, he said. Help them set him right back from where he had left, didn't he want that? Except Ed wasn't sure he entirely trusted them to get him back. Doubts niggled at him despite Hellinger's assurances about how many people had been sent home easily. Nothing in his life was easy, nothing was simple, and the price was always heavier than imaginable.
Convinced against his will to speak, hope winning out on cynicism, he finally cleared his throat on the third meeting and gave in.
"I was in the underground city... beneath Central." His throat was dry, and he swallowed convulsively. This was a bad idea, and he would have stopped but for the sudden encouraging and intent silence that followed his words.
"I was fighting Envy - he's a homunculus, that's an artificial human being - nevermind, it's complicated," he added at the blank looks. Just his luck that he seemed to be with a group who mostly came from boring worlds (except for Jonas, who was apparently a dragon tamer). "So I fought him, and..." oh god, was he going to say it? Was he really going to say it? If he never saw these people again, would it matter? "And I died." The words sounded strange in the silence, and everybody was staring at him now, like he was some kind of freak. Envy's gloating, disgusting face swam before his eyes for a second, he felt a flicker of memory of the feeling of a blade sliding through his stomach, and tried to ground himself in the present. Skip ahead.
"Al brought me back. Al's my brother." He blinked a few times to stave off the emotion thinking of him evoked, and wondered what the hell had possessed him to spill all this to a bunch of strangers. "But then he was gone." He wished everybody would stop looking at him. Wished Alfons wouldn't look so compassionate and worried, because it threatened to undo him. Skip to the end. "Then I was gone," tell, don't tell? Tell, see what the reaction was. "There was this huge eye thingy, and then I was here."
Recognition? He scanned the faces around him, desperately hoping one of the others had seen, or heard of somebody who had seen the Gate, but nobody was clicking. They looked uniformly horrified and disturbed, but that wasn't what he needed. Looking to Hellinger for help was no improvement.
"An eye, you say?" he sounded perturbed. "This was after you left your world?"
Ed nodded, but all Hellinger did was flick his fingers in a note to himself and shake his head.
"I'll look into it, don't worry," he said, and that was the last useful thing that happened that night. Ed roped Alfons into an escape as soon as he could, his mood bleak. Stupid, why had he spoken? He felt like an utter moron, ashamed to meet anybody's eyes, as if they could see on his face how pathetic he was.
For a change, Alfons had to hurry to keep up with him, he was walking so fast. The sooner he could close himself in his room the better.
"Edward?" Alfons said. Oh shit. Now Alfons was probably going to say something mushy and embarrassing.
"Yeah?" Best get it over with as soon as he could.
"I'm glad you talked, today," Alfons said softly. "I hope that your brother is safe. I had no idea you were in the middle of something like that, when you were taken away."
Ed looked up at him sharply to find Alfons' expression achingly honest. No discernible pity, though. At least that.
"Yeah, well..." he looked down, feeling suddenly drained. If Alfons had been Al, maybe he could have confessed more, admitted his panic, but Alfons wasn't, and right now Ed couldn't pretend he was. No matter how similar they looked, he didn't speak to Ed the way Al did.
"It's pretty strange that your brother's name is so similar to mine," Alfons said, trying to keep the conversation going.
And how, Ed thought bleakly. Aloud he said, "You also sort of look like him."
"Oh." Alfons was quiet the rest of the way, which should have made Ed happy but for some reason didn't. He wanted to talk to Alfons, but had no idea what to say.
It took a while, but he ended up managing to convince Alfons to skip the next session. He couldn't stand seeing the others so soon, not after what he had blurted out. The downside was that it meant still more hours of attempting to amuse himself and usually failing. There was just nothing for him to do, but Alfons seemed to have no such troubles. It became quickly obvious that Alfons was almost desperate for Ed to give him some time alone, because Alfons had important things to do. Oh, he wouldn't say anything, but Ed didn't miss that any time he wandered off, Alfons was immediately seated at his desk with a pen in his hand and writing away industriously, or staring into space and fluttering his fingers, or talking to people on the other side of his earpieces....
Most exasperating was the fact that Alfons was sitting there writing formulas and solving problems that Ed was absolutely dying to learn. Even without the incentive of trying to figure out a way home on his own, the prospect of putting his mind to better use was utterly tempting. Alfons had promised to teach him, but a few days had passed and he had yet to make good on that promise. Ed would have liked nothing better than to remind him of it (several times, possibly loudly), but felt too uncomfortable to say anything. He was a burden, he could feel it, though Alfons had practically begged him to stay.
He pretended he was going to watch the set, waited a few minutes, and then sneaked back into the living room to watch Alfons' back bent over his work.
Would Al be so serious, so studious? Would Al have that atrocious posture, hold the pen against his third finger in what looked like an awkward angle, but which seemed to work for Alfons? Was Al a pencil-chewer like Alfons (whose pens were all ruined at the tips from teeth-marks), or a doodler like Ed? He must have known these things, once, he had spent hours and days and weeks closeted with Al when they were learning alchemy years ago... but all he could remember of those days was a dim haze. When he thought of Al, he remembered a hulking suit of armor who clanged when he walked, and a gentle, echoing voice. Now when he imagined Al's human body, he wondered if the hair wasn't just a bit lighter than he remembered, and how tall would Al be, anyway?
Guilt choked him, then, but suddenly realized that it didn't matter. If Alfons was Al, what did it matter? Was there really something wrong with finding the similarities, just to remind himself of what he had lost?
He had walked forward without even noticing, until he was close enough to touch, and only then did Alfons turn around, and looked startled to find him there. Startled, with just a hint of tiredness. It was what, a week, and Alfons was already sick of him. His stomach twisted in a kind of panic and he wondered what he could say to make it better. What would make Alfons pleased with him?
"Do you need something, Edward?" And no, he wasn't imagining it, Alfons did sound sort of tired.
"I, uh." He couldn't think of anything. "If, I..." he swallowed, had a brilliant idea, and rushed ahead. "I do want to stay with you." Alfons had seemed so worried about that, surely this would make him happy?
"Oh." Alfons looked rather surprised, then understood what Ed was getting at, and looked if possible, more surprised. "Ei? You mean that?"
Ed nodded vigorously, then wondered if that didn't make him look too pathetic, and stopped. What if Alfons didn't want him around anymore?
But that didn't seem to be a problem, because Alfons suddenly looked all kinds of relieved and the tension suddenly leaked away from Ed.
"Yeah," he said, and didn't say anything about the fact that he was sort of afraid of what would happen if he were relocated, who (if anybody?) he might end up with. A familiar face was always better.
"I'm really glad, then," Alfons said, and smiled at him - though, there was a sort of edge in that smile that Ed wondered at. There didn't seem to be much more to say, and Alfons looked like he was just itching to get back to his work. The work that Ed desperately wanted to learn about, and now was maybe his only opportunity to ask. Agreeing to stay was pretty much his only marketable commodity since that seemed to be all Alfons wanted from him. If he was to plead, it had better be now.
"So... so... can you please teach me some physics?" He could hardly breathe with anticipation. Something about Alfons' expression dulled a bit, and he looked away. Shit, he was going to refuse, and then what would Ed do? In this bookless world, without a screen of his own he couldn't do anything.
Before he could say anything, though, Alfons gave him a sunny smile that made Ed wonder if he had only imagined the shadow on his face.
"I don't mind trying," Alfons said, "but come here, sit down for a minute." He gestured next to him, and Ed took a seat quickly. "Look, you come from more than three hundred years ago, in our time. Do you really think you can learn so many years' worth of physics so quickly?"
"You're only two years older than me!" Ed protested. "It's not like you spent the last three hundred years learning physics! What, you think that just because my world is less developed technologically I'm stupid?"
Alfons opened and closed his mouth, then swallowed. "Of course not," he stammered, and Ed was furious. These goddamn superior-!
"Just because I haven't ever learned this doesn't mean I can't! The only major difference should be alchemy. And I don't think that anything you learned is more difficult that deconstructing materials in your mind!"
Alfons gaped. "Ah! You're an alchemist? I know your world has alchemy, but you didn't tell me you could do it! What is it like?"
Ed preened just a bit, and thought, maybe he did have something to offer Alfons. "Teach me some physics, and I'll tell you about alchemy."
"Hm, okay..." Alfons looked down at the desk, then back at Ed. "I just don't want you to be disappointed," he said nervously. "Look, there's loads of things Twenners can't do. I got this whole file of diseases to watch out for, and there's the thing with the food and the screens and all sorts of materials you might be allergic to. You might really find it difficult to learn this stuff."
The most insulting thing about the whole speech was that Alfons honestly believed it, and was trying to be nice. What kind of stereotypes were rampant about people like him, that they even warranted their own cutesy little fucking nickname? Ed couldn't keep the disgust off his face.
"How about if we just start and see how it goes?" he suggested, keeping his temper in check with an effort.
With a soft sigh, Alfons flicked his fingers at the desk a few times, and it shimmered to life, abruptly becoming a hazy blob of color in Ed's vision. He swallowed, trying to fight down the nausea, and keep his eyes focused on the shifting thing at the same time.
"This is another problem," Alfons said, his voice sounding far away. Ed gripped the edge of the desk until his knuckles stood out and his hand was aching, and the desk protested at the scrape of his au--- mech's fingers.
"I'm fine," he snarled hoarsely. Several convulsive swallows later, and he was pretty sure he wouldn't be throwing up. He let go of the table edge long enough to wipe his streaming eyes, and clenched his teeth. No stupid screen was going to get the best of him. He had stared down the myriad eyes of the Gate, he would conquer - this - stupid - fucking - screen!
"Okay, talk," he managed. "This isn't getting any easier." Concentrating while trying to keep his eyes focused on the screen and attempting not to upchuck wouldn't be easy, but he could do it. He would do it.
"Hm, if you're sure..."
Ed nodded stiffly.
"Right." Alfons paused, and Ed resisted the urge to scream at him to start talking before he couldn't take this anymore. "So. How much math do you know? Can you use variables?"
"Yeah."
"What about vectors?"
Ed shook his head, and grunted when he realized what a horrible idea that had been.
"Vectors then." Alfons drew an x, y axis on the tabletop. "Every force has a direction," he began, and started explaining how to calculate the components of a given force.
Ed listened in fascination. What Alfons was saying resonated with knowledge he already had, with all sorts of calculations he had always done in his head, instinctively. Of course instinct was necessary for rapid application; when transmuting a cannon he hardly had the time to sit and start calculating the force of the explosion against gravity to figure out exactly how much force he had to exert on the cannonball to achieve his desired trajectory. Knowing how it all worked would be cool, though.
After a bit he lost track of time, immersing as much of himself in the math as he could, disassociating himself from the burning in his eyes and stomach. It was feasible, though he would certainly pay a price for this later. As it was, he only lasted a few hours before he couldn't stand it anymore. Finally he gave up and closed his aching eyes, pressing his forehead down on the cool tabletop. He had made progress, though. He was learning new things, and all the pain in the world couldn't make him lose the glow of happiness at putting his brain to good use again.
"Are you okay?"
He felt a hand on his shoulder and flinched, not expecting the contact. The hand vanished abruptly, and he felt a sense of loss. "Head hurts," he grunted, which was a sort of summary of everything that was wrong with him. "Did good, though." He smiled against the table.
"Come on, it would probably be better for you to lie down a bit," Alfons said, helping him up. Ed allowed himself to be dragged to his feet, suppressing a groan at the brightness of the lights. The world spun around him, a blur of color, and the curvature of the walls just made it worse. Fucking stupid architecture.
The spinning stopped after a while and he found himself on his back, in his room, staring up at the plain ceiling. Harsh light came in from the window, and he squinted instinctively and rolled his head to the side to protect his eyes, for once completely uninterested in checking what was going on out there. The movement made the world roil again, and he groaned pathetically.
"You're very smart, you know." Alfons' voice was faraway, but Ed could hear that he was impressed. It eased his misery, in some small way. "But there has got to be a better way to do this." The last was said more to himself than Ed, who didn't bother answering. There was no other way; in his life the painful way was always the right one.
Life had a routine, if a terribly boring one. The highlight of his days was easily the few hours Alfons was willing to devote to coaching him in physics, though for some reason his easy advances of the first day were not duplicated. Alfons' explanations, which had seemed so clear and obvious at first, started becoming strange. Whenever Alfons manipulated the numbers they did his bidding, but whatever Ed tried seemed to come out wrong, to his great frustration. He was doing what Alfons told him to do, but it kept out coming out wrong!
And Alfons, damn him, accepted it. Every time Ed got something wrong he did this little thing with a sigh and an eyeroll that said clearer than any words that it was to be expected. At any other time he would have exploded in anger, but mustering the energy for it was beyond his abilities these days. Hellinger had commented on his red eyes once already, and Ed had mumbled something in response about having difficulty sleeping. The man didn't push it at the time and Ed thought his excuse was accepted. Later when he saw Hellinger grilling Alfons about it, he knew that it hadn't been.
"Hellinger says I'm supposed to keep you away from screens," Alfons told him afterwards. “He said they could do you permanent damage if you're not careful."
"Screw Hellinger," Ed mumbled. Alfons had better not back out of it now. "Look, they're my eyes, right? I can use them how I want."
Alfons took a different tack. "Is it really worth the risk? I know you did really well at first, but it's just going to get more complicated from here, and you've been having difficulties."
Ed didn't deign to answer. He had to learn as much as he could about what was behind his appearance here, because he was really feeling that something was wrong. It was nearing two weeks, and there was no date for him, not even a hint of one. Two weeks, and he caught Gopal and Ben talking about their scheduled departure dates, and then Helen was gone, yet every time he asked Hellinger told him to be patient, some matches took longer than others.
A glance in the mirror one morning told Ed that in addition to the puffiness around his eyes, his skin was sallow and sickly looking. He decided to stop looking in the mirror, and turned his attention to figuring more ways to make staring at the screens more bearable. Spacing out the study sessions helped, though as the days passed it became clearer that Alfons wouldn't be at his beck and call indefinitely. Alfons had work of his own to do, so sometimes Ed found screens on his own and practiced looking at them, just to build up tolerance.
Alfons still taught him, though his heart was clearly not in it. At first Alfons had been excited at his apparent intelligence, and Ed himself had no idea what was wrong with him. The fact that Alfons thought he was dumb spurred Ed to try even harder, causing him to push aside his frustration to try again and again. It was bad enough that they kept on stumbling across basic concepts he wasn't familiar with, having never studied any of this properly, but there was some further obstruction he couldn't pinpoint. Back home he could inhale books, no theorem was too complicated for him to solve, no technique impossible for him to master. So how could this world's pathetic little beginner's physics stump him? Yet stump him it did, and the quality of his work teetered on the edge of abysmal.
Something here was really fucked up, and it was driving him up the wall. He was making idiotic mistakes, and every time he got something wrong Alfons looked so damn smug and pitying, occasionally making noises about how Ed "shouldn't feel bad".
"Fuck that!" he snarled after trying to multiply two vectors for the fifth time and getting it wrong yet again.
"You're supposed to do an absolute value on the product and then multiply by the tangent squared."
"I did!" Ed had to restrain himself from breaking the pen. He had a feeling they were more expensive than the ones he was used to back home.
"No you didn't." Alfons covered his face with his hands and slumped in his chair. "Bloody hell, Edward, can you please admit you have no talent for this? I'm sorry, I tried to help, but this is too much!"
It made no sense. No sense at all. What the hell was wrong with him? Could there actually be something to what Alfons was saying, and he was just incapable of learning this stuff?
"One last time, c'mon Alfons," he pleaded, wiping the screen of his latest attempt. "Multiply by the tangent, right?"
"No!" Alfons groaned, "I said tangent!"
"That's what I just said!" Ed slammed his fist down on the screen, ignoring Alfons' yelp.
"Edward, please be gentle with the screen. I said to multiply by a tangent, you're multiplying by a cosine."
What the hell. He felt his mouth hanging open and closed it. "Are you fucking with me?" he howled, leaping to his feet. "I fucking know the difference between a tangent and a cosine!"
"But you keep doing it wrong!"
Ed would have probably enjoyed getting into a towering rage if he wasn't so damn frustrated. Right now Alfons' face was looking like a really attractive place to plant his fist, and that would not be conducive to further learning. Inhale. Exhale. Try again.
"Tell me again what I'm supposed to multiply by." There, he didn't even sound like he wanted to kill something.
"Tangent."
"That's what I've been doing!"
"No, you're multiplying by a cosine."
"I've been multiplying by a fucking tangent!"
Alfons raised both his hands. "Hallelujah!" he shouted. "That's the problem!"
"But you just said that I've been multiplying by a cosine." Do not punch Alfons. Do not punch Alfons.
Who now looked completely bewildered. "No I didn't. Are you sure your translator is working properly? I'm pretty sure I said cosine."
"Write it." Ed snapped, suddenly getting a sick sort of feeling. It couldn't be, could it? "Write it in Amest- English. Right here."
"I don't think that's going to change anything."
"Just do it."
With a long-suffering sigh that said he didn't think it would change anything, Alfons took the pen and in a clear, distinct hand wrote 'cosine'.
"Motherfucker," Ed breathed in disbelief. "Okay, read that word aloud."
"Tangent."
"Motherfucker."
"Stop cursing," Alfons snapped. "What is it?"
Ed sat down, his entire body shaking. This was worse than anything Mustang had done to him, more insidious than those freak-of-nature homunculi. "The translator is fucking with me. You say 'cosine', I hear 'tangent'. Those sons of bitches fucked with my translator!" Impotent fury burned through him, lacking any decent outlet.
Alfons didn't understand the enormity of it. "That can't be," he said, sounding honestly confused. "I'm sure it's just a glitch in the programming."
"Really now." It was cute how innocent Alfons was, but no way this was a simple mistake. "Read this aloud, then." He wrote 'tangent' on the desk.
"Cosine," Alfons said.
"And this?" He scrawled 'derivative'.
"Integral."
"My point is proven. No program is going to glitch enough to call derivatives integrals and fuck up sines and cosines, and get everything else right!" He twirled the pen in his hand idly, then shook his head. "You heard Hellinger. They don't want us Spuds learning this stuff. It's gotta be on purpose."
"Edward, there's no way they would do something like that!" Alfons sounded horrified, but didn't believe what he was saying. He was trying to convince himself. Ed knew the tone, knew how it felt; he had tried it often enough.
"Can we shut off the translator and see?" Ed asked quietly. "I have to know."
Biting his lip, Alfons raised his hands and flicked his fingers a few times, then shook his head. "I can't access the programming, it's blocked. You can't take the earbuds out, either, that needs a code too."
"Shit." Ed leaned back in his seat, clenching his fists at his sides to try and keep from lashing out. "What are we going to do?" His breath hissed between his teeth, as he entertained a highly satisfying but ultimately unrealistic fantasy of punching Hellinger several times with his mech, Hughes' face or not. He was used to fighting the system, but until now he had always done so with some knowledge, and some power of his own. In this world he had no defenses, no alchemy, not even the basic rules to assist him. He was helpless, and the bastards in charge of this whole farce of a program probably knew it.
"We could get you a hack," Alfons said slowly, eyebrows furrowed in discomfort but looking determined nonetheless. Ed stared at him, hopeful because despite the fact that he wasn't quite sure what he was talking about, it sounded like help.
"What's a hack?"
Alfons' eyes abruptly refocused, meeting Ed's, and at that moment he knew they shared something. "I can't break through this, but I know somebody who can."
Between them was solidarity, a kind of bond, because maybe he was trouble and maybe Alfons didn't really like him all that much, but Alfons wasn't going to leave him helpless.
"We'll figure this out," Alfons said. "I promise."
----------------------
"I don't get this. Something is really wrong here."
"What is it?"
"It's our Twenner. He's -"
"Have you shut down the information leak?"
"I hate when you interrupt me. Yes, we closed the leak. For a while there we got a real high concentration of technical terms, but I put in a scrambler and now the pings have pretty much vanished. But that's not the thing. I'm not getting a match on him."
"... That's not good."
"No, it's not. And it's not like the others, where I get near misses on the variables. I'm turning up blank on him. The lab did a search three times, and came up empty. Zip. Nada. It's like his world doesn't exist."
"The media has been sniffing around him. They want an interview."
"You've been heading them off, right?"
"Of course. Especially now that you tell me he's not getting any matches."
"Keep an eye on him, Maes. I don't want to lose another one."
----------------------
tbc....