The police force had dropped Ed off and instructed him in polite, if suspicious, tones to wait in line like the rest of the 'anomalies'. Ed thought it was a pretty nice way of saying 'freaks'. But then, most of the people he had met before the police had picked him up wandering the streets had been either painfully proper or completely unwilling to speak to him. The plaza had been crowded with onlookers -- most shuffling by hastily with noses in the air, trying not to appear is if they were watching the strange proceedings too closely.
City Hall loomed, cold iron and sharp glittering angles of broad windows, unlike anything he had ever seen in Amestris, or even in Drachma. Standing in the main plaza he had to lean back to see to the very top of the twin spires, and he took a step back dizzily as the clouds raced by.
The building probably measured two hundred meters or more at the highest point, but he could hardly gauge it properly when he was so close. The light reflecting off the windows made them look like a spider's eyes, and he felt as though the building were watching him.
The line in the lobby was atrociously long. He did not remember falling asleep, but he woke in an uncomfortable chair with a blanket draped over his shoulders; the sun had crawled along the floor several feet. Ed felt a pang of guilt that he couldn’t thank whoever had shown him the small kindness, and as he thumbed the edge of the blanket he thought of Al.
Wedged into the waiting room, the foyer beyond it, and now well out into the street, the mass of people larger than the one before him had grasped. The number on the slip of paper he clutched in his automail hand seemed much smaller in comparison.
Fuzzily, he realized that his number was being called. A man in a uniform -- the police who had picked him up in their sleek vehicle before had worn the same clothing -- checked his number slip and ushered him through a maze of short white boxy offices and rows of glass-paned doors with unfamiliar names printed on them.
The officer left him with a man who asked his name in an accent strange to Ed and did not look at all pleased to be there, though he was courteous.
"Thank you," Ed said, and settled into one of the open seats in front of the desk uneasily. "My name's Edward Elric."
The case worker pronounced the foreign name slowly and deliberately, it was clear that while he had some experience with the type of name, it was still not an easy task for him to sound out properly. Slipping over a small piece of paper toward Ed, he replied curtly. "Spell it here, please. Do you speak English, Elric-san?"
All personnel assigned to this task were required to know both English and Japanese. This particular case worker had studied English extensively as a young man, but had left it behind when he'd started his job in Japan. This job made more money, so he'd left his old one and picked this one up, and forgetting a bit of his English sometimes made things difficult.
The next question was normally about age. The case worker looked Ed up and down, trying to guess at a proper age for him. While he was on the lesser side of average for a Japanese male, he was certainly short for a blond foreigner. However, that didn't mean much. He'd save that question until later, when he could gauge better.
"Where are you from, Elric-san? What year is it there? Please describe in your own words what kind of place it is."
Ed looked lost for a moment, and then spotted the pens in the cup at the end of the desk. He snagged one, and printed his name for the man as carefully as he could.
He was a bit leery of explaining himself, because when he rolled the story over in his head it seemed entirely improbable -- even from a place where alchemy was the norm. He'd dealt with the suspicious looks from his colleagues in rocketry, so he had stopped telling his stories like he had lived them.
"I do know English as well," he said. And German, but he didn't say it. The Nazi party had been vicious, and he didn't know whether or not they had existed in this future. He remembered Japan, remembered Tokyo, from the maps in his father's studies.
"The year I remember last in -- in the place similar to this -- was 1925. But the calendar for my home world would have listed the year as 1919. My home was part of a country run by a military dictatorship that had no issues with conscription or starting wars to acquire land."
The pristine clean, suited worker took note of everything Ed said in the computer, and also noted off how neat Ed was, a brief description of his clothing, any odors Ed might have been giving off, and the insignias on his clothing.
"I see. Where did you learn English? Do you speak any other languages? As you speak, I'm going to just ask you to stand, and get a good look at your clothing. Please just go on as normal."
Finding the insignia on the back of Ed's jacket, the worker sketched it quickly and sat back at his desk, scanning it into the computer.
Ed was, at least, accustomed to the rapid-fire questioning, and didn't hesitate when the man asked him to stand up. He jostled his clothing back into position and smoothed down the wrinkles in his shirt, trying to look presentable. Difficult, when the last thing he remembered was muddy Munich. At least there were no stains.
"Learned English while studying in London with my father," he said, and tugged on his coat. A seam on the left shoulder looked a bit ragged, and he was surprised that it had lasted the years that he and Al had both worn it.
"The one on the back? That's the Flamel symbol," Ed said. The sleeves had ridden up a bit so he tugged them neatly back down over his gloves. "I was a -- I'm not sure what you would call it here. Chemist? Physics, too. A scientist."
He wasn't even sure if his alchemy worked here. It hadn't in Germany, after he'd been separated from Alphonse. From some of the mistrusting looks he had gotten in the street he thought he might do well to place his bets on the side of caution.
The case worker's brow flickered, and he typed furiously into the computer, eyes glassed over, not even looking at Ed. A scientist? Someone who hardly looked out of high school was considered a "scientist"? Right.
"What is the Flamel symbol? And what sort of schooling and experimentation did you do, Elric-san?" He really wanted to say "Scientist-san", but he'd be fired on the spot.
Ed caught the disbelief and rolled his eyes, but not before making dead sure that the man (and Ed hadn't even gotten the guy's name yet) could very distinctly not see him. Sarcasm wasn't a stranger to him, but it made him less willing to disclose the full truth.
"Flamel was one of the first men to search for the Philosopher's Stone -- it was said to give eternal life," Ed said. He was familiar enough with alchemy and progressive chemistry from his stint in Germany that he suspected that the history would have been similar.
He only lied a bit. "Superstition, but the symbol lasted." Most people didn't seek out alchemy as a profession, and even less looked for the Philosopher's Stone.
"My father was a chemist, as well. I was raised reading the books in his library, and discovered I had a natural talent for it. Most of my schooling is private" -- also not quite a lie -- "or military. Which was unavoidable in a military state."
The case worker looked over at Ed, trying to read him carefully. He wasn't particularly good at it, but it was something he was supposed to do. He picked up nothing of interest from Ed's movements.
"Do most chemists where you're from wear this Flamel symbol, Elric-san? Please explain precisely what you mean by 'private schooling.'"
A military student. For his age, that was about correct, and if his father was a chemist then he would have more knowledge of the subject. Considering the year he'd come from, it was not entirely unheard of. London, hmm?
Ed didn’t need to pause to think of where to start. “My father went away -- went missing on a mission -- when I was very young. I had the run of his library and research, and my mother encouraged the interest. I also apprenticed under a very well-known homeopathic chemist after my mother passed away, and then a military colleague of my father.”
He grimaced visibly at the mention of his mother. And what had happened after her death. It was a heavy lesson to have learned at such a young age.
“But, no, not many at all wear it. My first mentor had it tattooed here,” he said, tapping his left collar bone through his shirt. “I wear it as an homage to her valuable lessons.”
Words that the case worker didn't really care about.
"So your studies have nothing to do with alchemy at all?"
What the case worker had been doing while speaking to Ed was looking up Nicholas Flamel on the internet. Interesting that a chemist would use the symbol of alchemy on his jacket. Very interesting.
His smile was kind, as were his eyes. He was required to get such information out of Ed.
Ed was familiar of the stigma of alchemy, and the distinction; his father had warned him of that much. If he had told his colleagues in Munich he knew how to change lead to gold by reassembling the molecular structure, they would have laughed him out of the city.
Moreover, he didn’t like the way the man was smiling, but he smiled back like he hadn’t just mentioned that he had been orphaned at a young age.
“Chemistry,” he corrected politely. “Alchemy, if it could be considered a science, is also spiritual in nature. I am not. I wear the symbol for my mentor -- who was, you could say, a superstitious person.”
“There was a silly legend that the Philosopher's Stone, which was what Flamel was after, could give eternal life. But there was also a legend that the Philosopher’s Stone could heal any wound, and she was a healer at heart.”
"We've also heard of the philospher's stone. Of course, nothing like it exists in this place. It might exist elsewhere, however. Your teacher might have believed that."
Moving on...for now.
"How old are you, Elric-san? And how long did you serve your military? What were you trained in? Do you have any powers, special abilities? By that, I mean, can you fly, perhaps? Or maybe create forcefields? Perhaps shoot fire from your hands?"
The question sounded hilariously stupid, but what was strange and unusual to normal humans (or at least, what the case worker considered a normal human) could turn out perfectly regular to these..."anomalies."
Ed sat for a moment and stared at the man as if he had grown a second head, obviously stymied by the questions. Fly? There were people that had come through like him that could fly?
“I’m twenty -- fly? 1899 in my time, 1905 in yours. No. Nothing like any of that, no. No. Just defensive martial arts. Hand-to-hand."
He paused, genuinely thrown.
"I was in the military as a, prospective trainee, you could call it, at twelve. I passed the written and demonstrative exams required and was fostered by several men and women in my prospective field.”
He reached up and scratched his chin with a bemused expression. “Fly? Really? Had much of that?”
The case worker looked vaguely horrified at hearing that Ed had been in the military at the age of twelve.
"Twelve. Horrifying..." he murmured softly, typing all of that into the computer.
Well, first thing was a mandatory psych evaluation. Imagine what kind of horrors a military child had seen.
He decided, in the end, to believe the age. Ed spoke quite well and seemed to be one of the more normal people he'd met in his time working for the government.
"Alright. This is what we're going to do." He handed over a couple pieces of paper to Ed, one being a referral to a hospital, the second a small card, about the size of a credit card, and the last an address.
"You must show up at this hospital for an evaluation. If you do not, the police will have the right to take you under custody and take you to a hospital so that you may undergo the evaluation. This card is your subsidy card. It contains X amount of yen, and is meant to help you get your own place and food until you can find a job. For someone like you, it may be possible to take tests that allow you to get higher-paying jobs. You can apply to join the military, but that is a separate process. This address is for a place you can stay until you have gotten your own place to live. They only keep people for short periods of time, so use the time you do have wisely. Good luck, and again, welcome to Japan."
City Hall loomed, cold iron and sharp glittering angles of broad windows, unlike anything he had ever seen in Amestris, or even in Drachma. Standing in the main plaza he had to lean back to see to the very top of the twin spires, and he took a step back dizzily as the clouds raced by.
The building probably measured two hundred meters or more at the highest point, but he could hardly gauge it properly when he was so close. The light reflecting off the windows made them look like a spider's eyes, and he felt as though the building were watching him.
The line in the lobby was atrociously long. He did not remember falling asleep, but he woke in an uncomfortable chair with a blanket draped over his shoulders; the sun had crawled along the floor several feet. Ed felt a pang of guilt that he couldn’t thank whoever had shown him the small kindness, and as he thumbed the edge of the blanket he thought of Al.
Wedged into the waiting room, the foyer beyond it, and now well out into the street, the mass of people larger than the one before him had grasped. The number on the slip of paper he clutched in his automail hand seemed much smaller in comparison.
Fuzzily, he realized that his number was being called. A man in a uniform -- the police who had picked him up in their sleek vehicle before had worn the same clothing -- checked his number slip and ushered him through a maze of short white boxy offices and rows of glass-paned doors with unfamiliar names printed on them.
The officer left him with a man who asked his name in an accent strange to Ed and did not look at all pleased to be there, though he was courteous.
"Thank you," Ed said, and settled into one of the open seats in front of the desk uneasily. "My name's Edward Elric."
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All personnel assigned to this task were required to know both English and Japanese. This particular case worker had studied English extensively as a young man, but had left it behind when he'd started his job in Japan. This job made more money, so he'd left his old one and picked this one up, and forgetting a bit of his English sometimes made things difficult.
The next question was normally about age. The case worker looked Ed up and down, trying to guess at a proper age for him. While he was on the lesser side of average for a Japanese male, he was certainly short for a blond foreigner. However, that didn't mean much. He'd save that question until later, when he could gauge better.
"Where are you from, Elric-san? What year is it there? Please describe in your own words what kind of place it is."
Reply
He was a bit leery of explaining himself, because when he rolled the story over in his head it seemed entirely improbable -- even from a place where alchemy was the norm. He'd dealt with the suspicious looks from his colleagues in rocketry, so he had stopped telling his stories like he had lived them.
"I do know English as well," he said. And German, but he didn't say it. The Nazi party had been vicious, and he didn't know whether or not they had existed in this future. He remembered Japan, remembered Tokyo, from the maps in his father's studies.
"The year I remember last in -- in the place similar to this -- was 1925. But the calendar for my home world would have listed the year as 1919. My home was part of a country run by a military dictatorship that had no issues with conscription or starting wars to acquire land."
Reply
"I see. Where did you learn English? Do you speak any other languages? As you speak, I'm going to just ask you to stand, and get a good look at your clothing. Please just go on as normal."
Finding the insignia on the back of Ed's jacket, the worker sketched it quickly and sat back at his desk, scanning it into the computer.
"What does this sign mean?"
Reply
"Learned English while studying in London with my father," he said, and tugged on his coat. A seam on the left shoulder looked a bit ragged, and he was surprised that it had lasted the years that he and Al had both worn it.
"The one on the back? That's the Flamel symbol," Ed said. The sleeves had ridden up a bit so he tugged them neatly back down over his gloves. "I was a -- I'm not sure what you would call it here. Chemist? Physics, too. A scientist."
He wasn't even sure if his alchemy worked here. It hadn't in Germany, after he'd been separated from Alphonse. From some of the mistrusting looks he had gotten in the street he thought he might do well to place his bets on the side of caution.
Reply
"What is the Flamel symbol? And what sort of schooling and experimentation did you do, Elric-san?" He really wanted to say "Scientist-san", but he'd be fired on the spot.
Reply
"Flamel was one of the first men to search for the Philosopher's Stone -- it was said to give eternal life," Ed said. He was familiar enough with alchemy and progressive chemistry from his stint in Germany that he suspected that the history would have been similar.
He only lied a bit. "Superstition, but the symbol lasted." Most people didn't seek out alchemy as a profession, and even less looked for the Philosopher's Stone.
"My father was a chemist, as well. I was raised reading the books in his library, and discovered I had a natural talent for it. Most of my schooling is private" -- also not quite a lie -- "or military. Which was unavoidable in a military state."
Reply
"Do most chemists where you're from wear this Flamel symbol, Elric-san? Please explain precisely what you mean by 'private schooling.'"
A military student. For his age, that was about correct, and if his father was a chemist then he would have more knowledge of the subject. Considering the year he'd come from, it was not entirely unheard of. London, hmm?
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He grimaced visibly at the mention of his mother. And what had happened after her death. It was a heavy lesson to have learned at such a young age.
“But, no, not many at all wear it. My first mentor had it tattooed here,” he said, tapping his left collar bone through his shirt. “I wear it as an homage to her valuable lessons.”
Reply
"So your studies have nothing to do with alchemy at all?"
What the case worker had been doing while speaking to Ed was looking up Nicholas Flamel on the internet. Interesting that a chemist would use the symbol of alchemy on his jacket. Very interesting.
His smile was kind, as were his eyes. He was required to get such information out of Ed.
Reply
Moreover, he didn’t like the way the man was smiling, but he smiled back like he hadn’t just mentioned that he had been orphaned at a young age.
“Chemistry,” he corrected politely. “Alchemy, if it could be considered a science, is also spiritual in nature. I am not. I wear the symbol for my mentor -- who was, you could say, a superstitious person.”
“There was a silly legend that the Philosopher's Stone, which was what Flamel was after, could give eternal life. But there was also a legend that the Philosopher’s Stone could heal any wound, and she was a healer at heart.”
Reply
Moving on...for now.
"How old are you, Elric-san? And how long did you serve your military? What were you trained in? Do you have any powers, special abilities? By that, I mean, can you fly, perhaps? Or maybe create forcefields? Perhaps shoot fire from your hands?"
The question sounded hilariously stupid, but what was strange and unusual to normal humans (or at least, what the case worker considered a normal human) could turn out perfectly regular to these..."anomalies."
Reply
“I’m twenty -- fly? 1899 in my time, 1905 in yours. No. Nothing like any of that, no. No. Just defensive martial arts. Hand-to-hand."
He paused, genuinely thrown.
"I was in the military as a, prospective trainee, you could call it, at twelve. I passed the written and demonstrative exams required and was fostered by several men and women in my prospective field.”
He reached up and scratched his chin with a bemused expression. “Fly? Really? Had much of that?”
Reply
"Twelve. Horrifying..." he murmured softly, typing all of that into the computer.
Well, first thing was a mandatory psych evaluation. Imagine what kind of horrors a military child had seen.
He decided, in the end, to believe the age. Ed spoke quite well and seemed to be one of the more normal people he'd met in his time working for the government.
"Alright. This is what we're going to do." He handed over a couple pieces of paper to Ed, one being a referral to a hospital, the second a small card, about the size of a credit card, and the last an address.
"You must show up at this hospital for an evaluation. If you do not, the police will have the right to take you under custody and take you to a hospital so that you may undergo the evaluation. This card is your subsidy card. It contains X amount of yen, and is meant to help you get your own place and food until you can find a job. For someone like you, it may be possible to take tests that allow you to get higher-paying jobs. You can apply to join the military, but that is a separate process. This address is for a place you can stay until you have gotten your own place to live. They only keep people for short periods of time, so use the time you do have wisely. Good luck, and again, welcome to Japan."
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