Before Mustang could think it through, Allen asked first, "Do you know Dr. Marcoh?"
Mustang thought for a moment and nodded. He had a clear impression of Marcoh. Using alchemy to treat disease wasn't unique in itself, but doing it purely with transmutation circles without adding any other materials had surprised Mustang a little. Healing is also a form of gain: without materials, there should be no price—or at most a negligible one—skirting the realm of the divine and ignoring the law of equivalent exchange.
Besides, as a State Alchemist you could get away with not knowing the Führer's name, but there was no way you didn't know that Marcoh's name appeared on the list of designers for the silver pocket watch. His contribution to the amplifier in that watch wasn't large, but several of his proposals were adopted—talented, all the same.
Mustang was a little confused. Marcoh counted as a rather important alchemist; he should have stayed in Central serving the bigwigs, not shown up at the front. If a hundred Marcohs came to the front, maybe that meant the government was preparing for wartime casualties. But what could a single medical alchemist do? By the time he saved one, ten others might already have succumbed to their wounds.
"I know him, but not well. Is there a problem with him?" A sliver of suspicion rose in Mustang's heart. Allen hadn't said much, but every word hit the mark.
Allen shook his head with a faint smile, kept his eyes on the list in his hands, and said, "Makes sense. You report directly to the Führer now—you're military. Marcoh proposed a new alchemical amplifier that can directly bypass equivalent exchange. It should still be under study. And right now, Marcoh—and nearly thirty alchemists, openly and covertly—have come here. Doesn't that hint something is about to happen?"
Mustang's face darkened. Being moved like a pawn never felt good. After a moment he jerked his head up, stared at Allen still skimming the list, and asked gravely, "You're saying this is an experiment? An experiment conducted with civilians' lives and soldiers' honor?"
"No."
Allen waved him off, closed his dry eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose a few times, then slid a cigarette between his lips and lit it. He glanced at Mustang, who looked ready to blow, and said evenly, "Sorry. I don't know anything, and I never said anything to you. I'll take my leave." He tossed the list onto Mustang's bed, pushed the door open, and walked out—leaving behind a bewildered, adrift Mustang and that stack of names.
It wasn't that Allen didn't want to tell Mustang. He had suddenly remembered something: a short passage in Dorian's alchemical notes, marked as "legend," which Allen had never paid much attention to. Only when Mustang said the word "experiment" did it click—Dorian had run experiments too, failed, and then consigned that thing to legend: the Philosopher's Stone.
The Stone went by many names—Philosopher's Stone, Red Stone, Sun Stone. In Ishval, the sun symbolizes God, a sign left by the divine. Ishvalans believe alchemy is mankind's theft of God's power, but incomplete: God is omnipotent, able to create without paying a price; alchemy can also create, but it demands one.
Philosopher's Stone, Sun Stone, and a people who take the sun as a divine sign—link these seemingly unrelated keywords and the answer leaps out. Perhaps the Stone hasn't been born yet. Maybe Marcoh brought so many different kinds of alchemists here to look for it—or for something related.
He hadn't even been here twenty-four hours, yet what he'd encountered already shattered all his prior assumptions—it gave him a headache. Behind what looked like a simple war lay a snarl of the military, State Alchemists, and that inexplicable Philosopher's Stone. In Allen's eyes, the situation behind Ishval had flipped on its head.
He took a deep breath to steady himself, then a bright smile returned to his otherwise calm face. Whether it was a straightforward war or that damned Stone—so long as he could scoop up enough benefits, they could play whatever game they wanted.
Sorting through the list of alchemists, Allen found the one who best fit his needs: the Crimson Alchemist. Eccentric, mercurial, fond of stuffing explosives into things and detonating them. Arrested after a string of human explosion cases. Asked about his ideal, he'd said it was to keep making explosions—a pure madman.
By the time Allen left Mustang's quarters, daylight was full and the streets were busy. In a less-than-cheerful mood, he sat down at a roadside stall, ordered a casual breakfast, and pondered how to get the Crimson Alchemist to go blow up the Ishvalan temple. It would be a delicate job: no one could suspect Allen was behind it, and no one could discover he'd ever had contact with the Crimson Alchemist. A troublesome business.
The steaming milk, grilled sausage, and two slices of toast had just been set down when the whole table thumped. A moment later Allen felt a powerful wave of resentment at his side. The "scent" was familiar. He ignored the half-spilled milk and the toast soaked through, threw a few bills on the table, snatched up the sausage, and tried to bolt—too late. A small hand had already seized his belt: Riza Hawkeye's.
Riza Hawkeye was furious. After washing up and stepping into the military's temporary command post, her former colleagues had all given her an indescribable look. If they'd simply stared, she might have thought her charm had surged, but their eyes held a guilty, furtive edge—especially since the room, noisy a second before, had gone dead quiet the moment she walked in.
Hot-tempered as she was, she didn't care about appearances. A rather scrawny guy fell into Riza's grasp—and she knew exactly why those looks had been so weird. Word was she'd spent the night at Mustang's place, and the one who had said it, out loud, was Central special investigator, Captain Allen.
Which led to the scene just now.