PWP: 4.3 Seal (Patreon)

Seal 4.3

2010, November 22: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

Tutoring James netted me an awe-inspiring sum of… forty bucks… Truly, I was the embodiment of wealth and prosperity…

Sarcasm aside, it was refreshing to have someone who was willing to listen and didn’t brush me off like some kind of chore. I promised myself I’d put in the work for him.

As much as I wanted to jump right into alchemy practice after mom and Sierra fell asleep, I could not. This time, it was my own conscience that convicted me. I didn’t want to become a monster like so many researchers in Amestris. SAINT had acquired plenty of rats, even fed them and kept them in individual cages mass-produced through the fabricator, but it was ultimately my responsibility to treat them humanely. I didn’t doubt most of these would die, but that didn’t mean they ought to suffer needlessly.

Which was how I found myself riding across the Brockton skyline, completely invisible to the world below.

I was out to commit some larceny, but not for my own gain. I was after a chemical compound called xylazine hydrochloride, a commonly administered anesthetic used by vets and researchers. Thirteen milligrams per kilo of rat would be enough, which meant about four milligrams per rat since they seldom weighed more than .35 kilos. As far as reasons for theft went, research ethics and animal welfare seemed like pretty good ones, at least not one Amy could condemn out of hand.

To avoid fucking with vets, I even headed straight for the biggest pharmaceutical supplier in the city: Medline Pharmaceuticals. Not only did they supply hospitals and pharmacies, they also acted as the distribution arm for many varieties of animal medicine, which presumably included xylazine HCL. That they were the distribution arm of Medhall and their president just happened to be James Fliescher, also known as Krieg, made them a particularly guilt-free target.

This wasn’t a “Creed” job; I sure as hell hadn’t told Amy where I’d be tonight. Paradoxically, that meant I needed to bring more of my gear with me, not less. I didn’t want a reputation for theft so I had everything with me, from my invisibility shroud to the bug-box I’d made for Faultline, the Pledge Regalia, and of course, SAINT.

Finding Medline’s headquarters was as simple as a quick google search. I alighted on the roof and decloaked before calling SAINT to my side. He popped out of my helmet cam with an eager trill.

“SAINT?”

“Pory?”

“Please stop humming the Pink Panther theme song.”

“Pory…”

I leaned down from the roof and pointed out a security camera. “See that? I need you to go down and enter their security network. Disable all cameras then replay a loop of the footage so nothing seems amiss.”

“Gon.”

I waited atop the building for a few seconds before SAINT reconnected with my suit. I then skipped down to the rear entrance. It was secured with a mechanical lock so I deployed the Pledge Regalia. Information flooded my sensors as the seven cross-shaped amplifiers expanded around me, all easily visible to the naked eye.

They were the main reason I needed the cameras offline. Despite my best efforts, my invisibility module didn’t encompass most things away from my person. Keeping the tombstone-like regalia shrouded while it wasn’t deployed was the best I could manage.

The regalia let out a series of soft vibrations that pervaded through the door. By analyzing the way sound interacted with the air, it created a 3D model of the lock’s internal mechanisms. After that, I had the lock open in a matter of moments. I was no locksmith, but since I already knew the lock had six tumblers and I could see the internals in real time, I just replicated a raking pattern using compressed vibrations until all the pins slotted into place. No fingerprints, no signs of forceful entry.

I collapsed the Pledge Regalia and reactivated the cloaking function. I whispered into my internal mic, “I’m inside. You can drop the loop, SAINT.”

A helpful floorplan posted next to each elevator pointed out the records office. The locks here were more sophisticated, requiring an electronic pass to enter. Paradoxically, that made things simpler for me. Instead of busting out the Pledge Regalia again, I just had to slip a bug-box onto the lock and wait a few seconds as it ran through combinations on a proxy server.

From there, I had SAINT go through their files and locate the xylazine HCL. Apparently, Medhall didn’t directly manufacture it. Instead, it was one of the chemicals imported from out of town. I had SAINT fudge all records to indicate that the chemical had never been ordered in the first place. So long as SAINT followed the electronic trail to edit the logs on the other end, it’d hopefully be chalked up as a clerical error.

Having located what I wanted, I headed back out to a Medline supply depot before breaking into that one as well. Within two hours, I had enough anesthetic to drug the Pied Piper’s whole entourage.

I wasn’t done with my little outing however. Before I could start experimenting on rats, it’d help a great deal to know just what Mr. Azimi was sick with. If it was something like a slightly misshapen pacemaker or maybe a constricted aorta, fixing it should be relatively simple. But if it was something genetic with underlying causes that would resurface in a year or two no matter what I did, I feared only Amy could help him then.

That was why I snuck into Brockton Bay General Hospital at one in the morning, though “snuck” was a bit harsh for what I did. I just trailed a patient and used them to mask my entry into the ER. After that, going to the records room was just a matter of stropping into the stairwell.

“SAINT, go. We’re looking for a Hamza Azimi, late-thirties to mid-forties in age. Male. Iraqi,” I told him. While I sent him off, I headed back up the stairs and ducked into a supply cabinet to nick a syringe and a set of needles. I needed a way to administer the anesthetic after all and medical supplies hadn’t been big on my list of priorities during the Hillside Heist.

I returned home after my less than legal escapades. SAINT was off in the lab, drawing a transmutation circle for organic matter based on a picture I’d shown him. Circles were a lot easier to draw on MS Paint than by hand with chalk. He’d have the lab ready for me so I could hop right to it right after school.

All told, not a bad way to start the Thanksgiving week.

X

2010, November 23: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

I looked over the organic transmutation circle one more time. It looked rather different from inorganic transmutation, which in turn looked different from Roy Mustang’s gaseous transmutation.

The circle before me had been engraved by one of Big Rig’s construction drones into a sheet of metal with exacting precision. It consisted of a set of concentric pentagons and circles, with each circle formed by connecting the corners of each pentagon. This was the formula used by Marcoh and his associates in the creation of a philosopher’s stone, but could also be adjusted for healing and the like.

I put on my costume, I forgot to grab an apron, and pulled a rat from the cage. Now that I knew what was wrong with Mr. Azimi, I could work on my own control, slowly refining the process until I could reconstruct a heart.

Unfortunately, that meant I’d need to find rats with the same condition. Or, as it turned out, make rats with the same condition.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered as I sank the needle into the rat. It squeaked in distress for a moment but its protests quickly died out as the drug kicked in.

I laid it out on its back and shaved its belly fur so I could cut it open. Then, with a reluctant sigh, I reached in and grasped its heart between my fingers; it was about the size of my thumbnail. A part of me wanted to ask SAINT to do this instead, to give each rat crippling heart damage so I didn’t have to, but I couldn’t.

Equivalent. Exchange.

There was always a price to pay. In life. In alchemy. In the pursuit of knowledge. I wouldn’t feel right if I asked SAINT to do something I couldn’t.

The heart squelched in my fingers and I suppressed the desire to vomit.

“Right. Heart reconstruction alchemy: test one. Begin,” I stated clinically for the recorder.

I pressed my hand onto the metal sheet and channeled my aura into it. Unfortunately, Fullmetal Alchemist was frustratingly vague about the mechanics of alchemy and what about it made it a science as opposed to “sorcery with chalk.” Yes, it was the manipulation of tectonic energies, but how did a person use chalk outlines to access and shape that energy?

That vagueness also ended up my saving grace. I didn’t know if the chi Mei Chang talked about was at all like aura from Pokemon, or if my power simply decided they were one and the same so I could use it, but I had no trouble catalyzing the alchemical circle.

My aura flowed into the circle and reached out, connecting with something below, a massive pool of energy born of the planet. It was indescribable. A part of me expected it to feel like roiling magma, or maybe the immense grinding force of tectonic plates. It was dense and heavy, warm, with the promise of unstoppable violence lying beneath the surface.

I tugged upward, drawing it out like one might water from a well. Tectonic energy filled the circle, flowing through the markings as if they were irrigation channels and I was watering a farm. In a way, I was. There was an expense, a price to pay in the form of energy. The rat wasn’t magically getting better.

I marveled as the rat’s heart slowly reformed. Tiny muscle fibers that looked like bits of string came together again. The heart inflated like a balloon and, for a moment, I thought I’d succeeded.

I could officially add “bumbling alchemist”  to my admittedly pitiful list of accomplishments!

And then the rat exploded. It was as fascinating as it was revolting just how much fluid was in a single rat.

I sighed. On the plus side, I had a power washer I made using a soda engine way back when I first sluiced out the hold to use as my lab. Cleaning wouldn’t be any more complicated than the first time. On the down side, I had rat intestine splattered on my helmet.

X

2010, November 25: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

I let out a dejected sigh as Lily #... I lost count… died on the operating table. I had the day to myself before I had to attend Thanksgiving dinner, not that that was a hardship.

I didn’t know how many rats I’d gone through, but I did know SAINT had restocked the holding cages more than once. For my own sanity, I chose not to confirm the numbers. Even in grad school, dissections were the absolute least favorite part of my curriculum, and what ultimately convinced me to switch from the surgical track to pediatrics. Kids didn’t usually need slicing open, and if they did, they were the problems of someone far better paid than I was.

Despite my distaste, I’d made a lot of progress. For starters, my rats weren’t exploding into meat confetti anymore. I’d gotten to the point where the rat would survive for a time, only for its heartbeat to progressively weaken and expire.

I wasn’t entirely sure what it was. I’d narrowed things down to some sort of chemical imbalance as opposed to mechanical error. The formula was right; the heart was physically perfect. My understanding of anatomy and physiology was, frankly, a hell of a lot better than Edward Elric’s, arguably better than Marcoh’s too. Maybe I was missing something, a signal that reminded the brain’s systems, “Hey, you have a heart again. You can stop shutting down now.”

For only a few days of work, I was mostly satisfied with how far I’d come. Because the formula was already verified to work, and because I could throw in medical knowledge from my past life and Google, operation of the circle was an exercise in control and focused imagination as much as it was technical know-how. Which was likely why I needed to actually practice this rather than simply build a single model and be done with it.

I picked up the rat carcass and tossed it into the trash to dispose of later. The bay was great for that. The phone rang so I wiped down the circle, what I’d been calling a transmutation slab, and checked the caller ID: Amy, which meant this could be good or bad.

I tapped the voice modulator in my helmet and answered the phone with a blubbering sob. “P-Please, I have the money… Just let him go!”

Amy’s nose scrunched up in confusion before she barked out a laugh. “Ha! Alright, I needed that. What’re you up to right now?”

“Dumping a body into the bay. How’s turkey day going?”

“Sure you are. I’m getting ready to head to the hospital. Was home. Vicky’s going to be here in a few minutes to ferry me there.”

“I thought you skipped major holidays?”

“I do, just not this time. Check the news, alright? I think Creed might need to make an appearance.”

I frowned. She’d only called me to act once, but if she thought it was worth me moving… “Is that an order, oh mighty GOAT?”

I could see the worry on her face. Whatever this mess was, she thought it could get bigger. “No, not yet. I just… It’s complicated and I want to talk about it after, okay? Keep a line open for me?”

“I always do.”

“Yeah, later.”

“Later.”

Curious now, I had SAINT pull up the local news on my HUD. A burly man in a fitted suit stood outside what could have been a small apartment building, or perhaps a scaled down office space that doubled as a storage depot that was common in the Docks. Whatever it used to be, it was all rubble now. A cordon had been set surrounding the disaster. I could spy six patrol cars and four ambulances. More were arriving as the reporter spoke into the camera.

“-ht, Hookwolf raided what has now been confirmed to be an ABB brothel. This attack was met by Oni Lee and the two capes engaged in an explosive battle across the street, completely demolishing the brothel and killing more than a dozen people by the most current count. This is the latest in a string of gang violence between the two biggest gangs in the city.

“What’s worrying is that this is a clear escalation from their usual posturing and occasional firefight. So far, every conflict has been incidental as two parties met on the street. This is the first time in months that one gang actively struck out against one of the other gang’s affiliated establishments.”

I frowned. That certainly explained why Amy was called back to the hospital. The body count seemed low too; brothels weren’t exactly known for having alert defenders. I couldn’t imagine the ABB would sit still after this, they’d lose way too much face for that, which meant I could expect more violence, maybe even Lung stepping up himself, exactly what I was supposed to stop. Amy wasn’t stupid; this was probably what she meant when she said Creed might have to make an appearance.

Question was, why? Why did Hookwolf hit a brothel of all places? What did he gain out of it? Money? No amount of loot he could have gotten would have been worthwhile. Women? No, Hookwolf wasn’t the type as far as I knew. He sure as hell wasn’t doing it for the sake of women’s rights.

I thought back to the things that had been happening so far. Did… Did Hookwolf think the ABB were responsible for hitting his dogfighting rings? Surely not… He had to know about Bitch; her lizard-rhino-dogs weren't exactly subtle.

But… But it’d be good enough to use as justification anyway… I knew little about Bradley Meadows as a man, but he was ultimately someone who lived for the fight. He truly enjoyed the violence, enough to consider the Slaughterhouse viable employment. Paper-thin as it was, I didn’t think Hookwolf needed much of a reason.

I tried to insert myself into Kaiser’s shoes. I imagined that I had a battle-hungry lieutenant who could potentially act out if left unsatisfied. I imagined that said lieutenant had his holdings attacked, something he took as a personal insult. I imagined that his men would think the same, that Bitch’s actions were a direct callout against the Empire.

As far as the Empire was concerned, they weren’t the ones who escalated. Whether the Undersiders were working with the ABB or not was irrelevant. By harboring them in their territory, the ABB made themselves targets.

I could see Hookwolf’s twisted reasoning and I hated it.

“Porygon. Pory,” SAINT trilled. He opened up the Brockton Bay PHO, often as reliable a news source as any traditional media.

I ignored the wasteland that was the cape-fic section and moved on to the news. And there it was, blowing up at the top of the thread, someone with footage of the cape fight. I watched as Hookwolf made zero pretense as to his purpose in the brothel, charging in mid-transformation. There was a lot of noise, more screaming than I was wholly comfortable with, and not enough people fleeing.

Then, almost a minute later, Oni Lee appeared, grenades already primed. The fight was mostly off-screen, Sergeant_Cricket had enough sense not to go into the fucking brothel with a murder-blender and a teleporting terrorist.

Whatever happened in there, the building didn’t last long after that. But what caught my eye was another thread, one that had nothing to do with the ABB.

♦ Topic: Guys? I'm afraid of the dark.In: Boards ► United States ► New England ► Brockton BayMaking_Orphans (Original Poster)Posted On Nov 25th 2010:So... To add yet another to the pile of reasons to consider moving, [this] is going on outside my house. I heard gunshots in a building across the street. When I looked outside, that giant column of smoke covered everything. The smoke's been getting larger and wider and I can't see the building anymore because it now covers a good third of the block.

You'll also notice the eerie silence... I don't know if that worries me more or less.Anyone have a clue what the fuck's going on? Preferably while my sanity's intact please?

(Showing page 1)

►Cock_My_DoodleReplied On Nov 25th 2010:Cape shit. Cape shit is going on.

►Making_Orphans (Original Poster)Replied On Nov 25th 2010:No shit, fuck-nugget. Anyone with something to contribute? Because shit's seriously freaking me out.[Smoke] is spreading. It's getting close to my apartment and I'm not sure if I should evacuate or hole up.

►White Fairy (Veteran Member)Replied On Nov 25th 2010:Personally? The silence would creep the hell out of me too. For the record though, you're probably not in much danger, at least not from the smoke. The only smoke-using cape in the city is Grue of the Undersiders. They’re a gang of petty thieves that started out in July.

[Here's] his wiki page for reference. Keep low and avoid the windows and you should be fine.

►Making_Orphans (Original Poster)Replied On Nov 25th 2010:General shooter protocols, got it. Thanks, Fairy. Good to know I'm not going to get gassed to death in bed or something. Still, what the fuck are the Undersiders doing near my house?

►AcreeReplied On Nov 25th 2010:Dunno, where is it?

►Making_Orphans (Original Poster)Replied On Nov 25th 2010:Bayview Drive, near Coral Cove Park if you know it. Sorry, but I don't really want to list my specific address on the internet.

►AcreeReplied On Nov 25th 2010:Understandable, sir. Do you know who the Undersiders are fighting? They've been fairly low-key in terms of violence so far.

►Making_Orphans (Original Poster)Replied On Nov 25th 2010:I mean, this is technically Empire territory? Kind of the outskirts though so I can keep my head down and be left alone for the most part. But come on, there's no way they'd fight the Empire, right? They're not Lung.

►White Fairy (Veteran Member)Replied On Nov 25th 2010:Who says they had a choice?

►Making_Orphans (Original Poster)Replied On Nov 25th 2010:Shit... I'm going to pretend I saw nothing.

►White Fairy (Veteran Member)Replied On Nov 25th 2010:You do that. Stay safe, Orphan.

End of Page.  1

I let that sink in. The only reason I could think of for the Undersiders to be in Empire territory right this moment was that Coils was using Hookwolf’s own raid as a distraction to get the Undersiders a clean score. Was it a dogfighting ring again? Or maybe a drug distribution point? Firearms? I didn’t know, but it didn’t really matter in the end. They were intentionally fanning the flames.

I was reminded that reputation was a double-edged sword. I’d been using Kaiser’s reputation against him while stoking my own as a mercenary rogue. Now, that same reputation forced me to act or I’d be labeled a paper tiger.

I waffled on what I should do. No matter what I told Amy, I wasn’t a precog; I didn’t actually have all the answers. When forced to confront situations like this, I had nothing to draw on save for my own questionable intelligence.

In the end, I tabled the subject and headed home. If nothing else, I could expect a call from Amy, today if she wasn’t burnt out after the hospital and tomorrow if she decided to head straight to bed. We’d go over our options then and perhaps putting our heads together would give us a solution.

This night ended with more questions than answers. Just about the only upside to Thursday was that I’d programmed the fabricator to make me sets of throwing knives and had begun to read into the Xing Empire’s notes on alkahestry to augment my experiments. It was cold comfort not knowing what might be going on in the background.

X

2010, November 26: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

As I’d thought, Amy didn’t call last night, likely exhausted from running damage control. I took a shower, grabbed a Pop-Tart for breakfast, and threw a banana into my backpack before heading out to the lab for the day. On the way, I opened up my phone and browsed through the PHO threads I’d followed the night prior.

Nothing from Amy, but I had two private messages, one from Faultline and another from the GiverofGifts. Naturally, I checked out what Faultline had to say first.

Creed,

I’m sure you’ve heard the ruckus tonight. I’m also sure you’re aware of how I feel about getting involved in this city’s affairs. Please keep that in mind and know that I do not enjoy being used as a messenger by the ABB.

Yes, the ABB. No, it’s not your fault in the strictest sense, but I would appreciate it if you made some other means of contacting you available. You have a PHO account, but your inbox has been full to bursting since your debut and you have already built a reputation as being nearly unreachable save to capes who catch your interest.

As neither Lung nor Oni Lee have accounts, one of their unpowered lieutenants felt that using me to pass on a message to you directly would be the fastest way to catch your attention.

In short, Lung would like to inform you that he has placed a bounty on the Undersiders. He would like them brought to him alive so he can make an example of them for their actions. He will offer $30,000 per member. Should that be infeasible, he is also willing to pay a consulting fee of $10,000 for the location of their hideout should The GOAT be capable of discerning such. He also promises favors, protection, and future prospects.

I don’t have to tell you what will happen to them should they be taken to him.

I admit I am somewhat grateful to you as without your presence as an independent mercenary, Lung may have seen fit to press me to act. I would not have regardless, but your presence saves me the inconvenience. Still, you have taken it upon yourself to be the keeper of the balance of power within this city. Now you must make a choice.

On another note, I too would like to speak with you concerning The GOAT. Rest assured my query is independent of the current chaos in the city. I would appreciate an introduction with your enigmatic sponsor and would be willing to pay a consulting fee for the chance.

If you don’t see this until tomorrow morning, call me back in the afternoon; I’ll be awake by then.

Regards,

Faultline

PS: Labyrinth really enjoys her shawl and would like to say thank you again. The bug boxes and expanded bags have likewise made our jobs much easier.

I hummed in thought as I continued walking. On one hand, that Lung of all people reached out to me through Faultline implied he took my claim seriously. Or at least, he didn’t want to deal with whatever nuisance I’d cause for him if I decided to attack on top of the Empire. Considering the lack of capes loyal to him, this wasn’t entirely unexpected.

On the other hand, Faultline was clearly annoyed with me. She had warned me against being too flashy and felt I’d bitten off more than I could chew. It wasn’t even strictly about my ability to fight either; as she’d made clear in her letter, interfering here would mean influencing the lives of the Undersiders, maybe to cut them drastically short.

Then there was her final note. She wanted to meet The GOAT?

For the briefest moment, I considered giving Amy a voice modulator and setting her up on a phone call with Faultline. Then I stabbed the idea to death and buried it in the furthest reaches of my mind. Letting the two meet could only end in disaster.

Or, they might actually get along and decide they both needed to keep a leash on me.

I wasn’t sure what possibility scared me more.

Still, I did respect Faultline a fair bit. She’d been the one who first guided me as a cape. She dealt with me in good faith when she held all the cards. I felt I owed it to her to answer.

At the very least, it was easy enough to tell what she wanted. She only really cared about one thing, finding the truth behind Case-53s. I supposed she could be reaching out for some thinker help on an upcoming job out of the city, but seeing how The GOAT’s exact powers were a mystery, that was unlikely.

On paper, it was a noble thing, what she was doing. She wanted to find answers for her friends, the family she’d adopted. Problem was, I couldn’t give them to her. I knew where Case-53s came from. I knew who was responsible. And if I told them, that information would get them all killed.

I’d have to lie to her as The GOAT for her own good.

I skimmed the second message I received, this one from the GiverofGifts. She was Othala, I’d verified that back in September. Seeing how it was already compromised, it made sense that the Empire would use the account to contact me.

The details differed slightly, but the proposal was in more or less the same vein as Lung’s. Krieg, who’d adopted Othala’s account for the purpose, called the Undersiders “instigators” and “disruptors of the balance.” He then offered $45,000 per head, alive or dead, as well as facilities and resources for my cooperation, claiming that working together was the fastest way to return things to the status quo.

As if their help wouldn’t come with a noose around my neck.

No, neither path was right, morally or for my own continued security. With the beginnings of a plan going through my mind, I set myself to work.

Author’s Note

You know, I still have no idea what to call whatever the fuck the Pledge Regalia does. Is it still “sonar” if it lets the user view the internals of the human body and complex machinery like an x-ray machine?

I decided that any fantasy energy source is going to be compatible with aura from Pokemon. Bleach’s reiryoku? Fine. Naruto’s chakra? Great. Dragon Ball’s ki? Super (heh). I don’t care because keeping track of half a dozen different “mana pools” is silly. That also means Bryce’s control exercises and constant sparring against SAINT helps out immensely, even if that wasn’t my motive for consolidating it all.