The Heist

AN: I have to admit, I'm really impatient with this story. There's this one scene I just want to get to, but I have to write a million chapters before I get to it.

Ling tipped the clear bottle against the sunlight, inspecting the crimson liquid it contained, which was translucent despite its thick viscosity. He still had his reservations about its ridiculous price and mysterious source. He and Lan Fan had made their trip back to the post office she used as a trading spot with her private vendor. True to his word, in place of the money that Lan Fan had deposited five days ago, was a glass bottle wrapped in a soft, blue handkerchief. Identical to the one that Lan Fan owned, the bottle was as big as his palm, only a little wider than his thumb. Lan Fan insisted that a bit of the antidote was usually enough to quell her grandfather's symptoms.

"If you give him more than a few drops at a time, would that make him a little better?" Ling felt short of stupid asking something like that – after all, he had once downed an entire bottle of cold medicine, and it didn't make the cold disappear. In actuality, all it had done was give his mother a heart attack and a quick, dangerous drive to the nearest hospital. For her heart attack as much as his overdose. Still, it was an odd little medicine with its own set of peculiarities, that he was reluctant to dismiss other strange possibilities.

"I've tried that. It relieves him of his symptoms for some days, but the sickness comes back. Unfortunately, it's not even linear in its effectiveness... it takes more of the medicine to keep him well for longer consecutive days, than when I administer it twice daily," Lan Fan explained, swirling her straw in the plastic bubble tea cup, aiming for a dark tapioca pearl. "Just a few months ago, we could still afford enough to have him up and running about for three days at a time."

"What happened then?" Ling asked, returning the bottle to her. They were sitting in an outdoor food court, having just come from Ling's last class of the day. He bought them a quick snack, and although Lan Fan didn't ask him to buy bubble tea, her longing look at the small kiosk near the sushi bar was incentive enough for him to get her two more stamps on her Tealicious card. It was ten sens well spent; he could understand why she was addicted to it.

"Price went up," she answered.

Ling could only whistle. He believed that part, at the very least, to be true. Lan Fan did not seem to be a good liar. Or at least, the part of him he trusted to be a good judge of character thought that she wasn't. Then again, he wasn't sure how much he should trust it anymore. Lately, he had succumbed under an emotional itch he couldn't quite name nor scratch, and for the first time in his life, he did not have the words to explain it, let alone figure out how to solve it. Lan Fan was a good keeper of secrets. But she was no liar.

Still, he had an inkling about something, and he didn't know what.

"And you're sure that you can't get it anywhere else?"

She sent him a small frown, unnerving with her dark bangs framing the top of her eyes. Unnerving because it reminded him of the enigmatic beauties in movies that would seduce a man then stab him in the back. And to add to Ling's miserly pile of things to be confused about, he had no idea whether it bothered him more that he just likened her to an actress, or that he could end up with his back spliced open.

"I'm sure," was her curt reply, and she looked away.

"You say that this medicine eases his symptoms, but it never really cures his illness," Ling said. "What exactly is your grandfather sick of?"

Lan Fan's fingers tightened on her Tealicious plastic cup. Her frown deepened. "I don't know," she whispered. "And I don't really want to talk about it."

Part lie, Ling thought. The first part seemed odd, but the second was plenty reasonable.

"Lan Fan," he began again. "Is there... a hindrance of any kind that would prevent you from performing the job I employed you for?"

She stilled, eyes gazing through the bottle of medicine, staring at a distant middle. "What do you mean?" she asked at length.

Ling had no idea what he meant. He didn't even know if he was asking the right questions. No doubt that if he was his father, he would have figured this out by now. And that particular shortcoming burned. He had to be smarter than this.

He stayed with his question. "I mean, is there going to be any conflict of interests?"

Lan Fan looked back at him, and shook her head slowly. "As long as my grandfather is well taken care of, I'm okay." She placed the bottle inside her small backpack, in a pocket stitched to the inner lining. "Oh, and..."

"And?"

Lan Fan bit her lip, eyebrows drawn in a frown. "Well, I guess it's pretty self-explanatory, but I can't get caught by Chu."

Well, that was also understandable. "Don't worry," Ling said, offering her a reassuring smile. He felt he owed her that much after his obvious prying. "I can't get caught by him either."

She didn't return it and between them settled a cold awkwardness.

"I'll throw this out," she said finally, grabbing the trays that still held the styrofoam containers of their finished snacks. Ling watched her maneuver her way through the maze of tables and chairs and dining guests, heading for the garbage bins at the edge of the court.

With a swiftness that matched the quickening pace of his heart, Ling grabbed Lan Fan's bag from the chair opposite him, careful to keep his eyes on her walking form, and he snatched the Red Stone from its home. He pulled the stopper from the top, and searched for some spare piece of cloth on himself. His sleeve? No, too obvious. The hem of his shirt? She might still be able to smell it. He looked up and found her pushing the contents of the tray down the mouth of the trash can, then placing the tray on the rack, and finally spinning gracefully to head back to him.

Grunting, Ling bent down and spilled a couple of drops on the garter of his left sock. He closed the bottle, and placed it back in the pocket where he found it. He stood up quickly, almost knocking his chair over, and waved the bag outwards to Lan Fan who was just coming into their little sector in the court.

"Come on, time to go," he said, hoping that she would mistake his gesture as a sign of restlessness, rather than an act of covering up his nosiness. When she took her bag from him and slung it over her shoulders without eying him in that suspicious way of hers, he relaxed a little, hoping his nervousness was imperceptible.

They headed towards the parking lot where he left his car before they went to campus. Lan Fan insisted on carrying some of his books, flipping through one of it even as she expertly dodged fellow pedestrians.

"So..." she began, after they had crossed an intersection and she had stowed his accounting notebook inside the tote that hung on her arm. "I think it's my turn to play the 20 question game."

"Alright, seems fair."

"Do you know why your father does these things?"

"Things as in screw people over, and when they retaliate, throw a tantrum that gets those same people killed?"

"Well, yeah."

Ling shook his head, not because he didn't know the reason, but because he did and found it completely insufficient to warrant his Dad's atrocious behaviour.

"Dad was knocked off the throne," Ling explained simply. "He was supposed to inherit, you know? But when the Fifty Wives system was eliminated at the end of the Oblique Era, grandfather died before establishing the protocol to determine the next heir. The throne went up for grabs and– "

"W-wait, wait!" Lan Fan exclaimed, putting a hand against his chest to stop him from walking. "Your grandfather is the Everlasting Jewel of the Orient?" It was the respectful moniker given to the last emperor of Xing; 'everlasting' was just an appeasing term to signify that he was to live on metaphorically, rather than to symbolize the end of Imperial Xing.

"Yes," Ling nodded, shrugging his shoulders in nonchalance. "It doesn't mean anything anymore. I don't think it ever did, really, considering how many people can claim noble blood in that country."

Lan Fan scoffed. "Doesn't matter to you perhaps, but let me remind you that there were ten times the number of citizens with no noble blood to speak of, yet the top ten percent seemed to think that the entire country was theirs to do with as they pleased!"

"Which was why the empire fell," Ling added, agreeing with her own source of frustration. "It wasn't meant to be sustainable forever. Plenty of traditions didn't survive the reform." The Oblique Era had been a harsh, confusing fifty years to the Xingese people, as modernization bled through its political fixtures. His father was born in its midst. In his father's youth, the Fifty Wives system was still in place, and he had been named crown prince.

Until thanks to Everlasting Jewel of the Orient, the concubinage system collapsed and the lazy man fell in the embrace of the ancestors before setting up a new regulation.

"So you're a prince!" Lan Fan exclaimed, arm waving about, causing the tote of textbooks to windmill around her.

"There's no such thing anymore," Ling insisted.

"Well you still have noble blood from your father," she pushed.

"From both parents actually. Ma is the fourth daughter of the Yao chief." He paused, "Chieftains are defunct now too. What do they call him now? Governing minister of the Yao province, I believe."

His bodyguard stared at him, eyes wide with a melted blend of emotions; her stance seemed torn between bowing down or running away.

"Lan Fan, don't ever think I'm different from you."

A large man rushed by, trying to make it across the next intersection before the lights went red, and in his haste, he collided against Lan Fan's shoulder and knocked her from her bewildered stupor.

"Watch it, cripple!" he yelled as he bounded across the crosswalk without checking for passing vehicles, which earned him a good, angry honk from a driver.

Ling's outrage came in an electrifying burst. "You watch it, you bastard!" Seething, he watched the man disappear down the next street.

"Forget him," Lan Fan said, nodding her head towards the parking lot where they had left Ling's car. He tried to assess her emotion from her expression, but whatever she felt from being insulted, if she felt anything at all, did not show on her face. "So, your Dad... basically he's a bitter old man trying to make everyone as miserable as he is?"

"It's more than that, I think," Ling said. "Many people experience losing things they want, and a lot of them grow up to be decent folks. I don't know... seems to me as if growing up in that kind of anarchical environment, having to be cutthroat from the moment you're born, does things to your head, you know what I mean?"

"So you don't think he's completely sane?"

Ling let out a chuckle. "Is anyone really?"

They approached his parked car, and he settled in the driver's seat, pulling the keys from his pants pocket. Lan Fan stowed the bag in the back seat, before going back to the passenger side to sit beside him. While he waited for her to get comfortable, he flipped through his email on his phone. He never liked having so many unread messages in his inbox; it made him feel disorganized, left behind. He almost bypassed Ed's message, subject titled with the hilarious epithet of 'Ugly Face'. Ed so loved to send him random messages that had about as much importance as a pair of swimming trunks in the summit of Mount Briggs, but it was a quirk he had become quite accustomed to. He clicked on it anyway, and was intrigued to find a link to an article.

Arson at the Warehouse District

Eh? Below the link, Ed wrote a one-word message: "Daddy-o?"

Ling followed the link to a news site, reading about the unfortunate and violent demise of a stock broker and his daughter.

"What's wrong?" Lan Fan asked beside him, probably wondering why he hadn't started driving yet.

"Somebody died," Ling said, passing the phone to her so that she could read. She scanned his phone briefly, then looked at him.

"Well, that's some freak accident. But what does this have to do with anything?"

Ling's mind whirled; he asked himself the same question when he opened the article. "Ed thinks my father might have had something to do with it."

"Oh... so what are we going to do about it?" she asked again, clearly confused.

Ling shook his head, and turned to her. "I don't think it's something we have to do. I think it's something we did. The man who was killed, Thomas Kady, I recognize his name. He appeared frequently in my research and my snooping as one of my father's business acquaintances. They had a falling out several weeks ago, when my father bought Kady's office in Tobha from under his nose. It's the one we went to actually. Kady felt as if my father ingratiated himself for the very purpose of taking ownership of the building." The building was small, but it's a strategic place for people who didn't want to drive to the urban sprawl in the South.

His frowned deepened, trying to connect the dots given the things he knew. If Ed suspected that his father had something to do with their deaths, then that meant that his father was after something, or he was trying to eliminate something. Chu had a one track mind after all: win. Which he did already; the office was his, completely bought with his own money. Kady, on the other hand, was forced out.

"Lan Fan, I think father might have thought that Kady had something to do with the break-in." Not only the one from the week prior, but perhaps also the one that Ling performed many weeks ago, very early on in his father's acquisition of the real estate. Given how paranoid his father was, he must have thought that the break ins would escalate to something more damaging to his business or his own personal welfare.

Ling gulped. A man in his prime and a six-year-old. His father didn't even hesitate to eliminate them. Ling started the car and pulled out of the parking lot, paying the toll on his way down the ramp. It was just a building, a collective lump of bricks, and two grown men had to fight over it. Ling didn't want to imagine what his father would do to a person who competed for something a little more valuable than sturdy walls with a nice view. He tried to ease his nerves, telling himself that at least his father didn't even for one moment suspect that his own son had anything to do with it.

"We're safe though," he said, smiling a little at Lan Fan. "No getting caught this time around."

"Ling, Kady's daughter was six," Lan Fan said, piercing him with a cold glare that unearthed the emotion he kept at bay, and his heart lurched with the weight of guilt.

"I know," he said. And he would do something. He'd talk to Winry, talk to Mustang. Contact the wife, whatever. But he couldn't consider his trips less than necessary when they produced clues that would help him. Nobody else in this damn country, this damn continent wanted to fight this vile excuse for a man. No, all of them would rather grovel and appease, because that was easier, wasn't it?

"Ling!"

Her cry brought his mind back to the road, and Ling managed to swerve in time to avoid a left turning truck. When they had eased into the highway, Ling took a calming breath, letting it out in a slow, steady whoosh.

No, what was important was that they didn't get caught. They couldn't afford to, not this early in the process. Two lives. No matter how expensive it seemed, more people would pay with their lives if Ling didn't do anything, if he failed yet again. And he wasn't going to, not this time. That was the best he could do.

-o-

The basement of the night club was a good a place as any to meet the rest of the crew. Apparently Colonel Mustang's mother owned the club, and some of his sisters worked the place. Lan Fan didn't get a very good look around the main floor, packed with people as it was. It was only midnight, the fun was usually at its height at this time. It would be a few more hours before the night club would close, which would give them enough time, hopefully, to sort everything out.

Ling wanted to have the final stage of the plan outlined in detail before they all greet tomorrow's sun. Aside from the difficulty of getting everyone together, Lan Fan was sure that the news of the Kady's death spurned him to impatience.

She sat down on a short stool, after helping her grandfather take a seat at the plushier sofa beside it. He said he was good enough to come, and Rosé didn't mind accompanying them. After their little trip to Tobha, Lan Fan had finally gotten hold of the girl she once met as a bodyguard. Rosé hadn't been her client, just a friend of someone else Lan Fan had guarded. Only a couple of years older than her, Rosé utilized Auto-Mail occasionally to help pay for fees on her way to becoming a registered nurse. It was quite a surprise when she'd shown up on Ling's doorstep, recognizing the boy immediately as a friend of Ed's. Apparently she'd met the Elric brothers some years before.

Lan Fan guessed that it was all for the best. At least she didn't have to fear about involving Rosé in the operation. She seemed to be even more well acquainted with everyone else than Lan Fan was.

In any case, her grandfather was curious about The Big Plan, as he liked to call it, and wouldn't want to miss a single detail. Lan Fan had a feeling that he suspected she might keep something from him. Considering how disastrous the last time she hadn't told him something about her job, she was willing to relay as much information as she could, given of course that Ling would tell her everything. Lately, she had a notion that Ling was feeling a little suspicious of her, and sometimes she wondered as well if he had a reason not to. She hadn't exactly been forthcoming with many things, and at the end of the day, her loyalty was to her family, not employer.

To her right, Yuna Yao lay with her legs outstretched on a longer futon grabbed from one of the rooms upstairs. If Lan Fan has seen her like this only a few days ago, she wouldn't know how Yuna could make a baggy sweater and a matching pair of sweatpants look formal and elegant; as it was, being the fourth daughter of a man who was once a Clan Chief probably had something to do with it. On her lap was a tablet, where she was typing furiously. Yuna winked at her when she saw Lan Fan watching. Lan Fan blushed, and looked away, waiting for the others to come.

Slowly they trickled in. Ling came with Edward to his left trailed by a blonde girl, all three of them carrying trays of drinks and confectionery. Lan Fan had to admit that Ling had been quieter and less spontaneous after receiving the news of Kady's death – and knowing what it meant for the both himself and her – but tonight he wore a bright smile as he escorted his friends toward their meeting area. Setting the trays down on the tables to the side, he waved her over excitedly.

"I believe you've never met Winry Rockbell yet, have you?" he asked.

Lan Fan's head snapped to the pretty girl standing close to Ed. Though very young, Winry Rockbell was infamous throughout all of Auto-Mail as the best, most efficient admin, having a track record of 94% successful matches. It was impeccable considering most black market matches were either a hit or a miss. Some said that she came from a long line of covert informants.

"Hello, Lan Fan!" Winry chirped, giving her an excited smile. She extended a hand, and Lan Fan tentatively shook it, unsure what to say to someone who was part of the reason she and her grandfather were able to get by the last few years.

"Nice to meet you," was all she could muster at first. Then with a nervous chuckle, she gripped Winry's hand eagerly. "Thank you for helping run Auto-Mail. You don't know how many times it has saved my life. And my grandfather."

Winry's grinned widened, "I'm very humbled to hear that. I'll have you know that it's also a great pleasure on my part to finally meet you. There's a lot of rave about you."

"Rave?" Lan Fan stilled. Did someone speak against her? Had she disappointed a client? How many people knew about her and her Grandpa, knew her whereabouts now?

"Don't look so frightened! The talk's nothing bad," Winry reassured her, patting her shoulder. "You just left a trail of five star recs the moment you appeared in the Auto-Mail databases some years ago."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I'm surprised that you haven't requested placing your name in our admin newsletters. You know, more people would ask for your services if they knew it was available. You're doing pretty well in terms of word of mouth from your previous clients, but requests would probably multiply if we announce it continuously."

"Ah, no that's okay," Lan Fan said. Bodyguarding was a tricky job to handle. It was true that perhaps for someone doing business she should market herself as much as possible, but she knew that a lot of people who would require her services weren't people she would gladly provide protection for, people that might even be a threat to her if she'd protected a rival or if she refused to do what they wanted. She knew the type personally. If more people knew her, it was just as likely that she would attract such customers, and really, at this point she'd be content if she took home girls from clubs to their affluent houses for the next few years. "I like things the way they are now."

"Well whatever floats your boat," Winry nodded. "Let me know if you need anything."

The door to the basement opened up, letting in a blast of loud pop music. Lan Fan looked up to see a dark-haired man in an ironed white dress shirt tucked neatly into his pants. He was well built, taller and a little stockier than Ling. Behind him, a woman walked down the stairs in sync with his steps.

Beside Winry, Edward expelled a low groan at the sight of the pair even as more men came in.

"Shush Ed, control yourself!" Winry whispered in a reprimanding tone, and took his arm around her own, pulling him in the direction of the chairs. Lan Fan stared after them, wondering at the way Edward tensed when she placed her head on his shoulder.

Ling leaned in, and whispered at her ear. "They too are sort of an item."

"Too?" Lan Fan raised an eyebrow. "Along with your sister and Ed's brother, huh? Anyone else?"

Ling smirked playfully, and sent a small nod towards the stairs and the pair who had just descended onto the landing.

"Really? But they're in the State Military."

Ling smiled widely and suggestively at her. She felt her cheeks burn with the rush of blood, then when a prickling sensation tickled the back of her neck, she realized that she and Ling had also earned the curious gaze of her grandfather. She stepped away, and looked instead at the approaching guests.

"Nah, just joking," Ling said before stretching his hand out towards the well-dressed man. "Colonel Mustang, it's been a while."

"Yes, well... one can never take many breaks if one has to climb the ladder," Mustang said with an undertone of exasperation, though Lan Fan noticed that the woman behind him gave him a look of disbelief and a disapproving shake of the head.

"Hey!" Lan Fan exclaimed, when she finally saw the woman's face in full view. "You're the lady from that night!" Strange that on the rare occasion she ran about in the city half dead, her mind still had the impudence to record even the minutest details. The lady didn't look that much different, perhaps a little less ragged and sweaty tonight. But she could probably say the same thing about Lan Fan herself.

The older woman looked at her face, eyes sharp, then took one glance at Lan Fan's left shoulder before gasping in recognition. "You! Wait, how did you... where were you..."

"You know her?" Mustang asked, turning to his comrade. Ling once mentioned her name before, Lan Fan remembered. Hawk... Hawk something?

"She was the girl Ling asked me to help two years ago during the first Operation Greed," she explained. Then turning back to the Xingese girl, she stretched out a hand. "Riza Hawkeye. I don't think we ever got a chance to be properly introduced. By the time I came back to check on you at the hospital you were gone." She ended on a factual note, but Lan Fan could tell that it was a perfectly articulated question without having asked it.

"Yes, I... yes, I was gone," was all Lan Fan could say in return, because she knew these State militants were probably well trained in the sensitive art of lie detection. Ling filled in the awkward silence that followed – no doubt already used to the ones she forced him to suffer through – by indicating the drinks and snacks at the table beside them.

"Lan Fan here is helping me out with the new Operation," Ling explained. "She's watching my back."

"Good," Mustang stated, flashing Lan Fan with a smile so charming he could battle Ling in the department. "The next time he faints, he won't dirty his shirt."

Lan Fan chuckled, feeling a bit of the tension seep out from her.

After waiting for several more people to arrive, she settled back down on the stool by her grandfather and watched as Ling took to the center of the meeting area to begin. He motioned for Winry to come up, and in her hand she held a brown folder. Ling cleared his throat and everyone quieted down from their separate conversations.

"Winry and Edward made a trip to XYZ Ltd. last week to negotiate a deal with my father," he began, and motioned for Winry to continue.

"Ed and I were able to seal a deal of four million sens," she began, opening the folder and bringing out a piece of document. "In return, Henry Chu requires a weekly meeting with me and Ed in which we are liable to answer all of his questions regarding Auto-Mail."

It wasn't news to Lan Fan who had heard about it several days earlier from Ling after Edward phoned in the results, but she heard gasps emanate from half of the group.

"How many Auto-Mailers know that you accepted this deal?" Colonel Mustang asked, leaning against the table of sweets and pocketing his hands.

Winry shrugged, "I've told all of the Auto-Mail admins all over the country. They're the only ones who really need to know. As for our clients... well, it's hard to say who our clients even are. We get new people every day, others drop out to never be heard from again after one request, and some crop up every now and then. It's almost next to impossible to figure out who among them we should provide the news to. I was actually hoping that once we've figured out what we're going to do, then perhaps I could contact some of them specifically for help, but at this point... I don't see why we should spread the news. Especially when we run the risk of actually informing one of Chu's own men. Even successful businessmen make use of the black markets every now and then."

"I don't think many of your clients would like the idea of their information leaking out to someone like Chu," Mustang added.

"It's the black market!" Ed barked. "If they were worried about something like privacy, they should have never come to the biggest underground info hub in the entire country."

"Besides, if we're quick about this plan of yours, Winry wouldn't have to maintain the meetings for very long," grumbled an old man tucked away into the corner. His graying hair was shorn short, and beside him sat a thin, gangly young man with large plastic-framed spectacles sitting comfortably on the bridge of his nose.

Lan Fan felt Yuna shift from her spot. The woman leaned down to her and said, "Those are the LeCoultes. The old one is Dominic, and his son is Ridel. Consider them that IT backbone of Auto-Mail. Without them, we'd still be working with snail mail and pigeons." Lan Fan nodded, then turned her attention back to Winry.

"...and I will be hanging on to the contract until we have figured out how we want the Colonel and his team to stumble upon it by 'accident'."

"And the money?" Yuna piped up beside Lan Fan.

Edward pulled on a black strap from beneath the couch he was sitting on, and out he dragged a large traveling suitcase. "Here. Four million sens entirely in cash." Lan Fan eyed the bag wondering how four million sens could fit in such a small space, then tried to suppress the shudder brought by the not-so-distant memory of herself last holding a bag filled with so much money. Or so she had thought.

She shook her head, and instead focused on the two other occupants of the couch, a taller man with hair of the same shade of gold as Ed's. His facial features were so similar to Edward now that she really looked carefully, but the first time he came into the room, his gentle disposition hadn't given her a reason to associate him with the ill-tempered boy. Beside him, writing furiously in a packed notebook was a Xingese girl with long braided hair slung over one shoulder.

"Mei?" she whispered to Yuna, giving a soft nod to the girl on the couch.

Yuna smiled and nodded excitedly. "You two should get to know each other! I bet you have much in common."

Lan Fan didn't think so, so she put it out of her head. She doubted there would be any opportunity for her to hang out with the girl anyway, unless Ling was the type to hang out with his little siblings. She didn't think so either.

"Here is what I propose," Ling said. "Finding the contract and the money right off the bat would be the biggest alarm we want to avoid ringing. Not that I don't believe the Colonel could do it in a real investigation, but it's too much of a lucky coincidence to not raise anyone's suspicion. So, I think we should first have an encounter between the Colonel's team and a group of Auto-Mailers. This group would get away cleanly, which would show that they had sufficient preparation to evade your venture."

"I would suggest two encounters," Mustang said. "And if possible, perhaps my team and I don't find the contract and money directly, but are tipped off by some Auto-Mailers themselves."

"That would make sense," Winry assented. "There isn't always a lot of loyalty in the black markets."

Lan Fan listened as Ling, Mustang, Edward and Winry worked out the details of the plan, occasionally punctuated by suggestions from Edward's brother or from Hawkeye. Ling had pinned up a large construction paper on the wall, and scribbled studiously as the ideas came flying his way. She wondered if he expected anyone else to understand his notes, as after only several minutes of brainstorming, it looked like an amalgamation of a theorist's flow chart and an ancient Xingese cookbook, written in the penmanship of a five-year-old. Then she wondered if that perhaps was the point. With Ling, she might never know.

There would be three hoaxes overall; the first two would be pseudo investigations resulting in carefully crafted series of clues. The first would involve infiltrating the business sector of Rush Valley where many people were involved in the black markets to make quick bucks. One of Auto-Mail's warehouses, home to some fifty servers, was located in the heart of the sector. Auto-Mail would relocate all the servers, but would leave behind sufficient personal trails like shoe tracks and fingerprints in their haste. They couldn't appear to be spotlessly prepared, since they had recently just borrowed the money. These clues would also lead to the second hoax, which would require the Colonel and his men to sniff out the individuals indicated from the first one. Riza suggested that this second investigation be a complete failure on their part, which would hopefully imply that Auto-Mail was milking Chu's money for all its worth, and getting the results they wanted because of him.

And the third would appear to be a combination of luck and progress. They would pick an Auto-Mailer to volunteer as a tattler whom Colonel Mustang would arrest. The tattler would then reveal what he or she supposedly knew of Auto-Mail, as well as how they had been able to evade all of the investigative advances. Included in this confession would be the location of the greatly reduced four million sens and the original copy of the contract signed by Chu.

"By next week, you should send me the names and the contact information of all the Auto-Mail volunteers who would be involved in the operation," replied a man with silvery hair, yet who didn't look to be very old. Yuna whispered that his name was Vato Falman, and that he had a memory that could rival a computer's.

Alphonse took the responsibility to collect all of that to free up some time from Winry. Looking around, Ling eyed each of them, encouraging people to add notes to his already webby diagram. When his eyes locked onto Lan Fan's, she shook her head, but he sent her a disbelieving smile, and she hated him the exact moment when he put on her on the spot, asking her what she thought.

Everyone turned to her, and their gazes aroused an itchy feeling of wanting to curl up behind something opaque. She scowled at Ling, but figured she might as well ask what many of them were probably afraid to, or haven't thought deeply about yet.

"What happens after?" she said. "I mean, I don't see anyone who would willingly volunteer to be arrested for conspiring with the black markets. And I'm still worried about Auto-Mail. It's true that we might get Chu successfully framed, but wouldn't the government still push to have it dissolved?"

"It would be easy enough to bail the Tattler," Ling replied, and Lan Fan saw the Colonel nod along with him.

"As for what happens afterward, that would highly depend on our next orders," Mustang added. "You are right that the investigation would not stop there, and though the government may be sidelined by more important things, purging the black markets is one of the goals they have in the years to come. I can't say for sure what we need to do after Chu is hopefully behind bars. They told us to investigate, and we'd give them this saucy discovery, but after that it's better to keep our minds open and not assume anything."

Lan Fan nodded solemnly, wondering not for the first time in the weeks since she had become a member of the operation, what she would do after everything was over. While Ling's generous offer of a million sens would keep her and her grandfather alive for some time, it was almost as if she didn't know what life would be like without Auto-Mail.

"Anything else?" Ling asked her.

"Yeah... uh, what exactly is my role in this entire operation?" Lan Fan asked reluctantly, hoping that she didn't sound too clueless; everyone else seemed to know what they were intended to do, even without anyone mentioning it. People like Winry, of course, had specific jobs that nobody else could carry out, so theirs were a given.

"You would help move the servers, and help guard the fake culprits. Auto-Mail databases are highly coveted, so I wouldn't be surprised at all if a pack of wolves come barging in while we're on the move."

Ah, she hadn't considered that angle. Feeling a small ember of pride, she sat up a little straighter, knowing that she wouldn't be shoved to the sidelines. After all, in the last few weeks the only thing Ling did that was worth bodyguarding was his little stunt at Tobha. She kept her attention trained on her periphery whenever they went out to school or the mall or wherever else Ling wanted to drag her, but so far as she could tell there were no boogey men hounding them like vultures. There were no boogey men at all.

Unless...

Unless the whole 24/7 bodyguard job description wasn't exactly for his physical protection from someone else. Perhaps it wasn't even for physical protection directly. Maybe what it really was, was insurance.

His words that first time – er, second time they met – rang in her head. He had refused to tell her about Operation Greed 1.0 until she took the job, because the entire operation had been confidential. And so was this new one.

Lan Fan blinked. Well... how dimwitted she was to realize this so belatedly. He was keeping her in a leash, because he was afraid she would go off revealing his plans, intentionally or not, to someone else. Yes, it was bodyguarding in a twisted sense – Ling was protecting himself from the chance of being betrayed.

She looked at him, smiling and downing pieces of pastry as he began to wave their team members goodbye. Part of her reveled that this was the best hostage situation anyone could wish for – free food, free house, free clothes, school, five-star hotel treatment, and medical attention for her grandfather. Another part of her sulked, confused at why this new realization about her situation disappointed her much more than it should have.

-o-

Ling snatched Mei off the sidewalk as she was about to make her way to the waiting cab in front of the club entrance. It wasn't like he was trying to be extremely stealthy, so when Alphonse exclaimed at his alarming behaviour and decided to follow them, Ling let him. He'd be helpful too. There was only one person he didn't want around, and he'd since told Lan Fan he'd be off annoying his little sister. He made sure his mother was occupying her attention for now, introducing her to the other people involved in their little game, but he knew that she had eyes sharp enough to rival the Lieutenant's.

"No hi or hello? What, did they go out of fashion or something?" Mei asked as she thrashed in Ling's arms. "If kidnapping is what you're planning, you might want to cover my mouth. Or, you know, not leave any witnesses," she gave a pointed stare at Alphonse who was jogging right along beside Ling.

"I'm not trying to kidnap you," Ling said. "I'm trying to enlist your help with something."

"Oh right, how stupid am I not to have realized that the best way to ask for help is to grab someone and run away in the most suspicious way possible?"

"Yeah Ling," Alphonse said. "Mei is right. What exactly are you up to?"

Ling finally stopped a block away from the club. He released his hold on his sister, flinching away just in time before one of her flailing hands smacked him in the face.

"Whatever it is, would you make it quick?" Mei said, impatience lining her tone. "I left Xiao Mei alone at home. I want to be back as soon as possible."

"Lan Fan's grandfather is sick," Ling began, fumbling with the contents of his pocket. The irritation on Mei's face eased away a little. He knew that Mei held an incurable interest in medicine, which was why she was the first on his list to ask about the ever elusive truth behind the Red Stone. That, and sure, even he had to admit that for all her feistiness, Mei had a caring heart deep, deep... way deep down in her chest. Somewhere. She couldn't be all that heartless, especially when it came to sick people.

"Lan Fan said she didn't know what it is that is making him sick," he continued.

"She didn't go to a doctor?" Mei asked incredulously.

"She probably did, because she got some prescribed medication for him. But here's where the weirdness starts. She pays five thousand sens for every bottle of the medicine, which lasts about a month."

"Five thousand?" Mei gasped, Alphonse in sync with her.

"Yeah. She says that there is only one person who can provide her with this medicine, and that as far as she knows, she cannot get it anywhere else."

His little sister snorted, eyes narrowing in wariness. Ling nodded to indicate that he thought the same.

"Let me get this straight. She doesn't know what illness her grandfather had succumbed to, yet a doctor had prescribed her some medicine that she can only get from one source..." Mei said. "What are the chances that the doctor she'd gone to knew exactly that this medicine would be the fix to a nameless disease if the cure is so rare?"

"Exactly, right? That's why I'm hoping you and Alphonse could look into it for me." He pulled out the sock from his pocket bearing the few drops of Red Stone. Mei let out a shriek, shying away from the sock as it dangled between them like a dead rat.

"Is that a sock?" she squeaked. "Why are you waving a used sock in my face?"

"Calm down, Mei! Gee... now look here. See this red spot? That's the medicine Lan Fan uses."

"Why is it on your sock?" Mei grimaced with the full onslaught of disgust, as if Ling had had the audacity to throw his cookies at her feet.

"I was in a hurry! It was the only place I could think of that she wouldn't notice. Now I hope this is enough for you, because poor Grandpa Fu might just lose his life if I grab more of the medicine."

"I'm not touching that thing!"

"Here," Alphonse spoke up, pulling an army knife from the bag he carried. "Ling, snip that piece off, and we can carry it to the lab next week."

"What do you expect us to find?" Mei asked, watching Ling hack the top portion of the sock's garter.

"Whatever you can that might indicate where this comes from," Ling replied, finishing off his task and handing the implement back to Alphonse. "A rare chemical that comes from very few places, or some interesting mixture of ingredients. We can start with that, and investigate who buys those ingredients together."

"Why are you interested in this?" Alphonse asked.

Mei answered before Ling could. "Well if the bodyguard I hired can't even tell what's wrong with her grandfather, I'd be a little worried about my personal welfare too." She rolled her eyes at Ling, indicating just how silly she thought he was for hiring Lan Fan. "Why don't you just get rid of her?"

"She just spent three hours in a meeting that detailed a potentially treasonous endeavour on behalf of the State Military, and met the most important authorities in Auto-Mail," Ling replied. "There is no way I can get rid of her now."

"Is that really so?" Mei batted her eyelashes at him coyly.

"Mei, stop it. You've been reading too many romance novels."

She smiled triumphantly as if he'd just confirmed something he wasn't aware of. "Whatever. Al and I would look this up, and tell you whatever we find. Until then, that would be twenty-five sens an hour."

-o-

Saturday came, and Ed was looking forward to it about as much as he looked forward to eating lemmings.

The room Chu led them to was paneled in dark wood, bare except for three single plush couches in the middle. On the far wall was a large translucent glass window, overlooking not the narrow alley that Edward expected to see, but an adjacent room. It was slightly larger than the one they were in, populated with various equipment.

"Sit down," Chu said waving at the seats in the room. "Can I get you anything? Wine? Soft drinks?"

Ed frowned in distaste, knowing full well that all the niceties were misleading displays, and that no, this wasn't going to be a benign interview with a friendly conversation over biscuits and tea.

The door opened, and a man came in bearing a tray with biscuits and tea.

Eh... well, at least Edward was still sure as hell that this wasn't going to be a nice interview. Actually, the food and drinks were making him think that Chu would be more brutal with his questioning. It would be like eating a savoury stew, only to find out that there was milk in it. He scowled even more, earning himself a questioning look from Winry.

"Well, suit yourselves. You two will be here for the next two hours, and it's really not my intention to babysit you," Chu added, as he plucked a few slices of crackers from the platter on the tray. "We'll start off with you, young lady. When did you start working for Auto-Mail?"

"When I was eleven," Winry replied, shifting in her seat, looking as if she couldn't be comfortable enough. Ed couldn't blame her.

"And how did you come by it?"

"A friend told me about it."

"Friend?" the older man quirked an eyebrow at this. "And why did you join? What were you, a mere eleven year old, hoping to accomplish by joining an underground network?"

"I... I wanted to help people."

A smile crawled across the Xingese man's face, one so carefully crafted that even Ed had a difficult time trying to determine if he was genuinely amused, or if it was a facade for something more troubling.

"Help people? That's very altruistic of you. When I was eleven years old, I was grappling for a piece of metal to wear on my head, if you get my drift. But I must admit that you, being the nice and thoughtful girl you are, would be making this entire ordeal very easy."

"...ordeal?"

In front of them, through the tinted windows across the room, the door opened up in the adjacent quarters, and a bruised, disheveled man stumbled inside, followed by two men and a woman. They pushed him roughly, and he slipped on the tiled floors, landing on his head roughly. Through the window, Ed could hear his groans and the shouted orders of the people who brought him inside. For his part, the struggling man paid those in Ed's room no heed.

"He can't see us," whispered Winry to him, and he finally realized that the glass must be a one-sided mirror of some sort. A heavy feeling dawned on him.

"What is this, Chu? What are you doing?" Ed snarled, eyes not leaving the scene in the room opposite theirs.

"Accommodating your tastes," Chu shrugged. "Winry mentions how much she loves helping others, so why don't I give her the opportunity to help someone out today?"

Ed's eyes widened when he saw the woman place a cloth bag over the injured man's head, and the other two men tied him with cords on a lone wooden chair.

"What's going on?" Ed yelled, standing up, sweat moistening his palms. His heart hammered in his chest, and even though he wasn't the one tied to a chair, claustrophobia roiled from within him, sickened as he was by the close proximity of the walls surrounding him. "Who is this? What does he have to do with us?"

"Nothing," Chu simpered, completely unphased. "At least nothing as of yet. He's a disgruntled old employee, who didn't go quietly even though I'd pardoned his disastrous failure that caused me thousands. Now," he turned to Winry again, charming smile plastered on his face once again. "What were you saying again, young lady? That's right, you were telling me all about how you discovered Auto-Mail through this friend of yours. What was his or her name?"

"I..." Winry stuttered, attention half locked on the ominous position of Chu's old dog. "I... don't remember. It was a long time ago. I..."

She recoiled in shock, when the man's chair was tipped back, and his covered head was submerged in a continuous downpour of water as one of his tormentors held a gallon jug above him.

"What the hell?" Edward rushed to the window, disregarding Chu's blocking presence in his path. He could have crushed the man's toes in his hurried steps, but for all its worth, he would have cared more about a flattened snail. "You're going to drown him!"

"Oh, I won't," Chu stated a matter-of-factly. "How can I when I'm all the way over here?"

"Stop it!" Winry shouted. "Why are you doing this now?"

Ed turned around just in time to see Chu lean on his chair, eyes studying Winry's distraught expression closely. "You see, Ms. Rockbell, you have a chance to help this poor tool today. All you have to do is say the truth. That's it. It's that simple. Your honesty in exchange for this man's well-being. You think that's a fair trade?"

Winry blanched.

"You're not the only one with gigabyte sized connections, Rockbell. I have ways of finding things out. You're here to make it easy for me, but don't think for one second that you can feed me unfiltered lies."

A smoky silence blanketed the three of them when Chu sat back in his chair, crossed his legs and waited for his clients to let his thinly veiled threat sink in. The tips of Ed's fingers tingled with an angry coldness. Within two short steps, he'd closed the space between the window and Chu's chair, delivering him a punch so savage that Ed actually felt something crack beneath his knuckles. The man tumbled backwards over the arm of his chair, falling to the ground with a hand on his face, but quickly rolling back to his feet. He stood straight, staring at Ed as if he'd just been pinched by an ant. When he moved his hand away, blood trickled from his nose and dripped down to stain the white dress shirt beneath the suit hugging his body.

A blood-curling scream tore through the air, and Ed spun to watch blood splatter the window behind him; his eyes blurred with fury so raw that he didn't even see what they were doing on the other side anymore. All he saw was the dark red drops, trailing a chilling path down the glass.

"Stop it!" he heard Winry yell behind him. "Don't kill him! I'll tell the truth!"

"Winry, shut up!" Ed yelled back. The last thing he wanted was for either of them to get to their knees and appease this rotten bastard. There was no way. No way he'd flatter him with one more word.

"Oh, he's not dead yet," Chu said, his voice muffled by the handkerchief he was using to staunch his own bleeding. "That would defeat the whole thing. I apologize though, I must not have been clear earlier. I will add that in addition to your truthful answers, it would also be in the best interest of this man that you two be in your best behaviour."

Ed heard the unspoken message clearly; they were being watched. Any move they make, anything they say that Chu could consider offensive, orders would be given to hurt the hostage.

"You think you're going to get away with this?" Ed asked. His heart felt like catapulting out of his chest, so charged he was with adrenaline.

"Think?" Chu asked, wiping his bloody nose with the handkerchief. "Who's going to come and get me? The State Military? And how would you two look as you confess how you came to be in this room, how you've signed a deal with me, how you're using the funds I gave you? No, the question is, how are you going to get away with this?"

There were plenty of ways, Ed thought to himself. Unfortunately all of them involved revealing their association with a small echelon of the State Military. Though the scales were tipped unevenly, the Colonel and his team were good acquaintances, and they didn't deserve to be branded as traitors to their country, not when what they were doing would actually make things better in Amestris.

Winry yielded. "My grandmother introduced me to Auto-Mail. At first, she suggested that I just work on the easy stuff, forwarding mails and organizing requests. I never made matches then. I was never introduced to many of the underground workers until much later."

Winry answered the next questions in much the same way. Ed remained by the window, seething with angry impatience. At least she attempted brevity, but Chu knew what questions to ask and how to corner her into revealing what he wanted to know. What were the names of her co-admins in South Area? What was the most recent request she received concerning the government? Why doesn't Auto-Mail accept requests for assassination or robbery when it's completely within their guidelines to reveal a person's address? That would defeat the point, wouldn't it?

By the time their two hours were up, Ed's head was a turmoil of irritation and fear. Winry had been forced to provide the names of some of her clients and network members. Now the responsibility to protect these people would fall on his hands. He needed to call the Colonel immediately. Ling too. The brat didn't need that girl of his as much as he pretended to anyway. Perhaps she wouldn't mind guarding a few more people. What happened to that man back in the room was bad enough. Now there were potentially a dozen more lives on the line because of what they said today.

And it was only the first meeting. Damn it.

Winry was quiet on their trip back home. He could tell, by the way her shoulders tensed by her sides, the way she bit her lip and blinked her eyes a little too frequently, that she was trying not to cry. Damn her too.

He stopped the car, parking it on the side of a street. He didn't say anything, but just waited. After a few minutes, Winry buried her head in her hands, leaned against the dashboard of the car, and sobbed. He didn't say anything. He got angry and she cried. That was how it had always been with them. And like his temper, her tears flowed and left. That was all. At least her crying never made things worse. He on the other hand...

"I'm sorry," she sniffed, pulling back from her position. She wiped her eyes, and drew a deep breath.

"No, Win. I'm sorry," he said, and truly he was. "Ling warned us." He'd expected that the questions were going to be difficult, that they might place themselves in a tight spot, torn between their deal and their allegiances, but Ed never thought things would be that bad.

"I felt like I was in a pressure cooker," Winry whispered.

Ed looked at her, reaching out to pull aside a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "You look quite well for someone who'd just been steamed quite thoroughly."

She laughed a little, then sniffed and shook her head. "Wow, and to think I'd had to be cooked to hear a little sweetness from you."

He shrugged.

"What are we going to do? This would happen all over again next week."

He was thinking the same thing. Even if they gave up their part of the operation, it wasn't like they could appear on Chu's doorsteps next week with the four million sens, tell him that nevermind, Auto-Mail had decided not to do anything about the government investigation after all. Even if they could withdraw, they would have to do it smoothly, and doing a one-eighty within the span of seven days was the opposite of that.

From his pocket, he pulled his phone and dialed the number that redirected to Ling's encrypted line.

"Hello?" a soft, low tone answered after a couple of rings. A tone that could never sound like Ling even if he'd been attacked by three different cases of the flu.

"H-hello? Is this Lan Fan?"

"Yeah."

"Get me Ling!" Ed barked. Where was that shifty-eyed imp when he needed him?

"He's taking a shower."

"Okay, when he gets out tell him to call me back immediately. We might need to start the operation sooner than we planned."

AN: I'm thinking of editing the genre for this story. It was supposed to be a fun, cute adventure, and I have no idea how it's taken this turn. I don't know, I feel like I'm dropping bombs of clues, and you will already know the twist, hehe.