THE FAN INVESTIGATION

CHAPTER ONE

A CAGED EAGLE

Every age yearns for a more beautiful world. The deeper the desperation and the depression about the confusing present, the more intense that yearning.

Johan Huizinga

(In every world meeting there was a blinking LCD screen broadcasting a never-ending series of rules. These rules were pure-white branded onto a black background, constantly scrolling like a bizarre series of end credits, so that anybody who happened to glance up instantly received a white-hot reminder of just how taxing it was to be a nation.

There was nothing half-hearted about those rules. Those rules had governed the movements of the Anthropomorphic National Personification (or ANP) of the United States of America for so long, it had become an integral part of his existence, akin to a limb.

There were always rules; rules on what to do every time their economies affected one another – various governments desperately trying to balance out the global market to avoid another Great Depression – and rules on how to treat one another in polite conversation. In the business of bettering international relations, where every casual comment could be misinterpreted as a national secret, where every complaint could be considered a threat, there could be no such thing as friendship, no favouritism, no love and no hate between the ANPs. It had been decided that this was just how the world needed to work.

The total control over the ANPs had been decided at the peace talks following the Second World War. There had, the politicians decided, been too much freedom before; nations had formed their own private friendships with each other, become lovers, rivals, killers and criminals. These relationships had jarred with international politics, to say nothing about the effect it had had on the people they represented. Emotional responses that mimicked those of the people had no place in the ANPs lives.

It was a lonely business, and it had to be tightly controlled.)

They were everywhere. There were copies of The Rules printed on immaculate white paper scattered around the low-lying tables, there was the ever-present screen, there were even lists backed up on some of the ANPs phones. Personalities that had been long cowed by the force of The Rules were far harder to spot, but they were there; South Korea's glasses slipping down his nose as he slumped in his chair, Canada chewing nervously on the end of his pencil. America met his gaze across the table, and Canada ducked his head down.

Nothing strengthened authority so much as silence.

The meeting room was arranged mostly by geography, the handlers finding it easier to keep track of everybody by arranging them by their respective areas: West Europe, East Europe, Scandinavia, Asia, Middle East, the Americas, etcetera. There were approximately eleven nations to each table, interspersed by their respective entourages of translators, handlers, attendants, politicians and stenocaptioners to bring the grand total up to around twenty-five.

Germany was sitting at the West Europe table with his translator – a dour-looking man named Stehler, wearing the immaculate black suit standard to all ANP translators – blue eyes wearily scanning the room until they focused on America's.

"Good morning, America," America's translator whispered in his lazy Californian drawl. Dresden was a spiky-haired multilingual brunette man who had been the ANP of America's translator for a good ten years, his Californian easy-goingness contrasting the stark efficiency of the ANPs and their rules.

Colonel Reed, America's attendant – a white-haired man who had served in the US Navy before being reassigned to the ANPs – dropped his hand onto America's shoulder, rumpled the starched suit shoulder. "America…" it was only a name, but the voice that said it was none the less steely, and America turned away. Relationships between the countries were utterly forbidden, and no two ANPs were allowed to be alone together. In fact, the ANPs weren't even allowed to be alone together as a group, instead accompanied by a never-ending stream of translators and attendants 24/7. At world meetings, at functions, at dinners, at elections, they were not allowed to sit next to one another, constantly separated by guards.

They were allowed to speak to one another, but everybody knew it was best not to – in their world, there were too many things that could be casually let slip: national secrets, news of elections, political movements, and countless others. They were forbidden to speak at a level which could not be heard by their attendants, and some topics were outright forbidden. They were not allowed to touch each other, save the occasional handshake, not allowed to give another anything, and phone calls were prohibited.

The life of an Anthropomorphic National Personification was a lonely life.

America switched his attention to the front of the room. England was standing tall and sullen beside the bent-backed body of his attendant, a blonde woman named Hallwright, as she droned on and on about international relations. England was one of the ANPs who had probably had the most difficulties, at least personality-wise; there was his constant arguing with the rest of the UK ANPs. Yesterday, America had seen him come to the meeting wearing a spiked earcuff in open defiance. It hadn't lasted long.

What society giveth, the government taketh away.

Hallwright stepped down from the lectern, and the ANP of England took her place. A quick flash of those acidic eyes around the room, and half the meeting quietened. Rebellious as he was, England was the ANP of the former British Empire.

"Thank you, Miss Hallwright," England's voice – the trademark ANP one of countless regional accents meshed into one – sounded cold and clipped as he panned his steely gaze around the room. "We now think that the situation in Egypt…"

America lowered his gaze to the wooden tabletop. To his left, one of his stenocaptioners was busily transcribing the words down onto a miniature notepad, to be read and memorized later. All around him, the attentive façade that had been maintained for over three hours was slipping; the ANP of China hid a yawn behind his hand, to the angry glance of his attendant Dao Lai Xu, and Australia had his head tilted back, staring up at the ceiling with a vacant expression in his green eyes as he toyed with a pencil.

Nobody, America thought miserably as England's voice washed over him like a wave, wants to be here.

Somewhere, outside the window, a bird began to sing.

0110111001101111

America's house was the epitome of style. It was everything a house should be: spacious, white, elegantly furnished, with the designer unlived-in look that only came from not being lived in.

That was because the ANP of America did not live there. Not really. It was simply a place he came back to at the end of each day when he was in Washington D.C. The beds were always made, the fridge was always stocked, the windows always clean – the cleaners and housemaids were paid well, straight from the government, with an additional 5k for their silence, and they were happy. The lounge contained a huge flat-screen television, two black leather sofas, a DVD player, an answerphone, two telephones – the answerphone line, and the private line (a number so far undiscovered by the legions of telemarketers who persisted in trying to sell him double-glazing, which he already had, or life insurance, which he didn't need) – and a black matt sound system so exquisitely engineered America was almost afraid to go near the thing.

There was an unconnected fax machine with all the intelligence of a computer, and a 1943 ENIAC computer with all the intelligence of a retarded goldfish. The computer had come by default with the house; America normally used his Linux laptop, because he felt that such a sleek, slim object was the type of thing people naturally expected him to have. In the end, it would take either an expert in surveillance or a person of Sherlock-Holmes-like capacity for deduction to realize all was not quite as grand as it seemed inside the ANP of America's house.

The first thing that would tip any aspiring spy off would be the number of security guards – they were stationed all around the house with utterly no regard to privacy, a black-suited, sunglasses-wearing network of man mountains. But it was more the subtle stuff that America had to be wary of; the phone taps, the multitude of security cameras rotating unobtrusively in their hidden corners, the microphones hidden absolutely everywhere, the restrictions placed upon his laptop, the spontaneous security checks, the confiscation of certain belongings his attendants deemed 'inappropriate'.

"All part and parcel of being an ANP," America had once heard Canada mutter at a charity dinner when he thought nobody would hear, and he agreed. But that didn't mean he had to like it.

As always, the cold, plastic superficiality of the room never failed to start a shiver trailing icy fingers up the back of his neck. The ANP of America loosened his tie as he descended into the sofa, releasing a sigh that came out as a puff of hot steam.

He reached for his laptop. He was tired, deathly tired, that was true. But still, duty called, loud enough for him to check his emails, despite already knowing he would receive a barrage of scanned political documents. Another part of being an ANP – an anthropomorphic national personification of the people of the United States – was the knowledge. America knew exactly who had sent the emails – Colonel Reed – how many there were, even what mindset Reed had been in when sending them. He knew every security guard that patrolled his flat by name even though they had never been formally introduced, knew that one of the cleaners suffered from a gambling addiction that had led to a divorce with his wife of seven years, America even knew the location of the President without asking anybody (he was attending an official dinner in the White House, enjoying a matured Sauvignon Blanc).

Any normal human would think the influx of information constantly swirling around his head was nothing short of overwhelming, but for the ANP of America, it was normal. It was like having an arm or a leg – he couldn't imagine not living with the information, the constant knowledge of each and every one of his people's goings-on.

Yet, when America had first become an ANP, he had hated it. He had done anything to try and make it go away, from visiting doctors to bribing occultists, and had continually suffered from blackouts and headaches. Back then, England had told him, in his empire voice that brooked no argument, that it was all part of being a country and you just had to live with it.

And so America did. It wasn't so bad anymore.

Fingers of light bled through the angled Venetian blinds, dripping purple-blue shadows onto the plain white walls. Outside the sun would be just starting to sink steadily towards the horizon, he knew. It was just something about the quality of the light as it reflected off the TV screen, spinning pale flecks onto the white plaster ceiling.

Trying his hardest to ignore the security guard sitting in the corner – Richard Montague, African-American, husband to Victoria Montague and father of two children, one a six years old girl, the other a four year old boy – America logged in to his laptop and waited impatiently for it to load. Outside the window a cicada whined in the bushes, bringing to life the illusion of a hot, sunny day, as the Windows screen touched his face with an eerie blue glow.

The Google homepage greeted him with a burst of colour and light; keeping his head low and his laptop deliberately tilted away from Richard the security guard, America unobtrusively typed Gmail into the search engine, and waited with bated breath for it to load.

All the emails he received from the government came to him via a private email provider that ran independently from the main email groups Yahoo, Gmail, etcetera. America had set up a Gmail account himself under the name of Alfred F. Jones, his pseudonym when out and about amongst the people, and spent the majority of his spare time praying it wouldn't be discovered. America had lived longer than all his politicians put together; he was fairly confident he was perfectly adept at using a combination of various hacking to erase all records of his Internet history from the prying eyes of various handlers assigned to monitoring the ANPs records.

Tumblr was another guilty pleasure of his, and so far undiscovered as well. America scrolled through the forbidden Gmail account, clicking his tongue impatiently as his eyes darted along the cramped lines of black unread text. Richard Montague was sitting, bored, in the corner, fiddling with the holster of his Glock, and America averted his gaze.

The first unread mail in the list caught his eye, jettisoned to him by somebody named François Bonnefoye, with no subject. Intrigued, America opened it. All of his emails were primarily from Tumblr, and they normally all had subjects. The email read: This might amuse you, followed by a link.

America closed his eyes quickly, and mentally sorted through the myriad of information buzzing around at the back of his skull. The quick mental scan of his people revealed nobody by the name of François Bonnefoye who knew Alfred F. Jones' tumblr account, but that didn't mean anything. The ANPs only knew the people they represented; the sender could have been Ukrainian, for all America knew.

He clicked on the link.

What appeared made his brow furrow. A homepage dominated by a bright red logo written in some strange script resembling Japanese characters, followed by a caption reading 'Hetalia'. A quick mental scan of a nearby Japanese-American language club revealed no word that matched 'Hetalia'. What he did find, however, were two other Japanese words, 'hetare' and 'Itaria', which apparently meant 'hopeless Italy'.

So if you combined the two…

America felt his skin prickle with something akin to dread. Racism was a part of life, and nobody knew that better than the ANPs. America had met the two ANPs of Italy – North and South – and respected them both highly, with their charisma and designer suits. They had often awed him; the two ANPs of Italy seemed to make stylishness seem effortless, with the combined forces of their expensive clothes, immaculate tastes when it came to the arts, and suave, lyrical ways of speaking.

America tried to calm himself down. As far as he knew, the public worldwide had no knowledge of the ANPs; their awareness restricted to infrequent sightings of tall, world-weary people standing at the side of their respective Presidents or Prime Ministers at official events. It was a testament to the government's seamless organization that whenever anybody did ask, they were met with either vagueness or political titles so long and complex the asker soon lost interest. A popular theory where the people of the US were concerned was that the ANP of America was nothing more than some sort of high-ranking politician, and for that, he was grateful.

America took a breath and, telling himself that what he was about to see couldn't possibly get any worse, entered the site.

"What the hell?"

Sitting in his green deck chair by the kitchen door, Richard Montague jerked out of his lethargy and half-rose from his chair, hand going automatically to the gun at his hip.

"Stay where you are, Richard Montague!" The ANP's raised hand stopped him in his tracks and, rather like a bewildered bear, he slowly turned around and sank back into his seat again.

"Thank you." America exhaled slowly and returned to the site.

Standing before him in high-definition were the Allied Forces, clearly personified, clearly anthropomorphic. America's blue eyes darted from each person in stunned silence as he tried frantically to process what he was seeing. The 'people' – people being the operative word, as he had no idea what he was really seeing – resembled the real-life ANPs in every possible way, except for certain significant differences.

Firstly, America. Or at least, the person he presumed was meant to be a personification of America. The caricature was crude, to say the least, nothing more than a series of scribbles depicting a short, bespectacled figure in what looked like an aviator's jacket.

The ANP of America didn't wear glasses. In real life he was tall, moderately well-muscled, with tanned skin, cropped blonde hair and blue eyes, and his clothing was normally restricted to whatever variety of suits his handlers thought would be appropriate. Despite the change in clothing and the glasses, the cartoon figure resembled him in every possible way. And, scrolling down the page, he even found his pseudonym.

Alfred F. Jones.

A shiver trailed up his spine. Shit, this is like Inception.

America took a breath, trying to calm himself, even though his thoughts were whirling like autumn leaves in a tornado. Who could have found his pseudonym? He didn't have that many followers on Tumblr! Could maybe the author of whatever he was seeing had decided to use his name? But if so, he or she would have contacted him!

Maybe it was a coincidence.

Steeling himself, he read the description beneath.

America is a cheerful, energetic and somewhat conceited young man who is obsessed with heroes, justice, and freedom.

Conceited? He wasn't conceited. And, by the way the handlers kept restricting the ANPs, he was a long way from cheerful and energetic. In fact, he couldn't remember a time when he had ever been 'cheerful and energetic'. The 'heroes, justice and freedom'… the memories of the times when he believed in such things made a sick feeling rise to the back of his throat. He shuddered and kept reading, despite the feeling of foreboding rapidly swelling in his chest.

He has the habit of sticking his nose into everyone's business, which causes him to have difficulty making friends.

He swore under his breath. If that was somehow an implied slur against his government's decisions involving Iraq and Vietnam…

He loves hamburgers and junk food, to the point of obsession, and can even eat strange and inedible things due to inheriting England's sense of taste (or lack thereof).

England had a great sense of taste, America thought, picturing the slender, red-blonde man. Granted, his food could be slightly bland at times, but…

America is also known for not being aware of how "the atmosphere" is when he is around others (which, at one point, he was told to read it), but it has been noted that it is not that he lacks the ability to "assess the situation", he simply chooses not to.

By about the third paragraph in, America had had enough. Afraid of Marmite, ghosts and weighing scales? Able to swing a fully-grown buffalo around by the horns? Friends with an alien named Tony? America had never seen an alien in his life, no matter how hard he had searched the NASA records. Who was the idiot who had dreamed up this garbage?

The other 'nations' only increased his anger.

In real life, the ANP of France had short black hair with a pencil-thin moustache he normally curled at both ends, and embraced English as a 'cool-sounding' language, not some type of gold-haired pervert! Granted, France was considered one of the more rebellious ANPs by many of his handlers due to his incessant flirting, despite the fact that all ANPs were infertile and unable to become sexually aroused in any way. This, now that America thought about it, was rather contradictory, as France was supposed to be the 'country of love'.

The ANP of Germany… America gaped at the caricature for several moments before shuddering and moving on. He could find no difference, and the bland, flat similarity between the cartoon and real life made his skin crawl.

The real-life personification of China was black-haired, short and bespectacled, with a type of pushy politeness that had often been misinterpreted as threats. The cartoon China, for all intents and purposes, seemed to be a girl with long brown hair, who carried around a panda and said 'aru' at the end of every sentence for no particular reason whatsoever.

The ANP of England was tall and slender, more girlish than anybody else, with short red-blonde hair, bright green eyes, and all the stereotypical English upper-class politeness, the likes of which America had only ever witnessed elsewhere in Pride and Prejudice and other such works. While England's caricature still had the green eyes, there the similarities ended – his hair was yellow and he was foul-mouthed, for heaven's sake. America had never heard the ANP of England swear in his life; instead of flying into a rage, England had a tendency to become scarily passive-aggressive, one of the tactics that had made him so frightening as an empire.

The list of extremes only seemed to grow after that. America scrolled through the list with a growing sense of disbelief. The sun was fully submerged beneath the horizon now, layering the outside in dense shadows and sending fingers of darkness through the thin curtains. Ricardo had stopped moving on his chair now; head lolling back as he snored faintly. America wondered vaguely if that could be considered a breach of duty.

Finland was a taciturn, scary machoman who'd had to be banned from meetings due to bringing a knife and a bottle of vodka into one of the summit conferences, not a shy little boy who loved Christmas and Sweden. Sweden, for God's sake! The last time America had seen them together, it had resulted in Sweden getting smashed over the head by a hockey stick, ending up in hospital with a cracked skull and a black eye. The months of political red tape made him shudder to remember.

Deciding it was high time he figured out what this 'Hetalia' really was, and if it really was as potentially treasonous as it appeared, America went to Wikipedia. Possibly not the best source he could have chosen, but he needed answers fast, and the free encyclopaedia normally delivered.

Hetalia: Axis Powers is a Japanese webcomic, later adapted as a manga and an anime series. The series' main presentation is as an often over-the-top allegory of political and historic events as well as more general cultural comparisons.

From what little America had seen of the original comic, it was about historical as a can of beans.

Characters are personifications of countries, regions such as Hong Kong, and micronations such as the Principality of Sealand. Both positive and negative cultural stereotypes form part of each character's personality, since the series is based on Japanese cultural views of the world.

Fuck. America started to panic. Deciding it was best to get an outside opinion, and wondering with some trepidation what he would find, America opened YouTube and typed in 'Hetalia'.

It was… bad. Not that America had really been expecting anything else, from what he had already previously seen, but this time, just the names of the videos were enough to put him off. Prussia's rape laugh, 5 minute challenge? Prussia, as far as he could remember before the dissolution, had been a proud man of enviable accomplishments whom he respected highly, and did not deserve to be degraded in such a way, be he living or dead! An angry growl inadvertently slipped past his lips.

Then he found it.

It started off all right; a black screen with the name of the video and the beginnings of the song 'Cannibal', by Kesha. The black screen quickly faded and gave way to a picture of the England caricature. The cartoon figure was wearing a pirate hat and apparently seemed to be licking a sword.

That can't be good for your tongue, America thought, before the next series of pictures flashed up and he nearly leapt out of his chair.

The cartoon England kissing the cartoon America. The cartoon America in bed with the cartoon England. And more, getting progressively dirtier, over and over and over, replaying in a filthy montage again and again.

America slapped the laptop lid shut with a strangled yelp and lurched to his feet. The force and speed of his movement upended the coffee table, sending it crashing onto the floor with a bang that seemed to shake the foundations of the entire house.

Richard Montague didn't stir.

What was that? America thought shakily. His gaze went to the laptop on the floor, and he felt bile rise to his throat. What the hell was that?

This was serious. Somehow somebody had gotten hold of information about the ANPs – information that had remained secret for millennia – and had distributed it, though misinterpreted and incorrect, to the masses, who were then making… making… America thought about what he had just seen and nearly gagged. Him making out with England? England was the British Empire! The guy was practically his father! They were both representatives of countries!

America felt his head whirling so much it produced a dull throbbing. The room was spinning, forcing him back down onto the couch. Like cartoon England had been straddling cartoon him… America shut his eyes. "Oh God." He whispered hoarsely.

He needed to tell the other ANPs about this. Who knew what other treasonous filth had been produced? Not only that, but if more and more of that stuff got out, and if people starting connecting cartoon America to the man who stood beside the President at official occasions, it could potentially compromise the ANPs security, and send all their lives crashing down.

America is a cheerful, energetic and somewhat conceited young man who is obsessed with heroes, justice, and freedom…

But how? All forms of communications between the ANPs were intensely monitored, and anything that didn't directly pertain to politics was almost instantly terminated, normally by means of incinerator. There was no way America would be able to send each of the countries a letter or an email. He didn't even know their email addresses – he didn't even know if any of them even had private email accounts.

Heroes, justice, and freedom…

No. He was not going to allow some twisted little video get to him like that.

Kissing England, biting…

"No!" the word exploded from his mouth in a loud, ragged yelp, but still Ricardo Montague didn't move.

Why doesn't he wake up? America thought hysterically. The walls seemed to be spinning now, white and black bleeding into a vast, melting felt dizzy and disoriented, and swayed in time with the walls as he got up. Why hasn't anyone noticed me yet?

An energetic and somewhat conceited young man…

There was still one option, and that was to go out as Alfred F. Jones and see if he could reach the ANPs that way. There was little chance that he would be able to – the security guards were notorious for not allowing anybody to see their precious charges – but he had to get to them some way, he had to.

Why? A small voice said in the back of his mind. It's just a comic. If you ignore it, it would probably go away and fall into obscurity. Nobody really pays attention to these types of things.

The whole thing hinged onan 'if'. If the comic became popular, if more and more people began to grow suspicious, if, if, if…

He was the ANP of the United States of America. There were probably a dozen more pressing political issues that required him to resolve. But what he had seen had scarred him, and pushed him into the path of a more serious potential threat. If people found out about the ANPs…

If that happened, there was no telling what would happen next.

He grabbed his laptop. Heading for his bedroom produced a vague sort of lethargy, as if he was fighting his way through air that had suddenly become molasses, but his feet were moving, and the carpet seemed to be moving along with them, so he kept at it.

His bedroom wasn't exactly a breakthrough in interior design, the attendants only fitting him with the necessities; a bed, a wardrobe, a lamp, a shelf containing various books that had been heavily censored, and an armchair.

But there was something they didn't know.

America couldn't remember when he had gone out and purchased his disguise, only that it fit him remarkably well and seemed to attract no attention. He had been required to move it around from place to place within his room due to the various spot checks, but he was fairly confident that, by using a combination of 'the knowledge' and intuition, he had been able to fool most of the guards.

He peered into the top shelf of his bookcase. After finishing the pills, he had tipped most of the hair dye into a bottle of aspirin tablets his attendants had gotten him to help with headaches. As a rule, America was not allowed to own anything without it being inspected by the attendants first. The ruse had worked; everyone who saw the little bottle instantly assumed the attendants had purchased it for him which, technically, they had, and that it was therefore allowed.

The clothes were a little harder to smuggle in. America wasn't permitted to wear anything but a variety of dark suits; the attendants didn't expect him to go out among the public except on official events, so, naturally, he didn't possess any casual clothes. America had eventually concocted a form of black suit jacket, that wasn't too formal that it would arouse suspicion, but not too informal that it would be instantly taken away. Combine that with shoes and relatively nice jeans, and America's disguise, as far as clothes went, was as good as complete.

It was the hair dye that was the main factor, however. Once, when James Bond was reaching a boom in popularity, England had managed to tell him that disguising yourself was a relatively simple affair; all you needed to do was to possess something that instantly distracted anybody from your image as a whole.

Blue hair normally did the trick.

America grabbed the clothes, hiding the bottle in his hand, and walked casually out into the hallway. His heart was thundering in his ribcage, seeming as loud as a herd of buffalo; he was surprised the guard patrolling the hallway – John Walsh, former juror, unmarried, lived in 22nd Street - did little more than nod politely to him as he passed.

America slipped into the bathroom and shut the door, placing the laptop down near the sink. The bathroom was the blindspot, the only room in the house that didn't have a security camera, out of respect for the ANP of America's privacy. The attendants had compromised this by placing an almost ungodly amount of other cameras in every room.

America's breathing came in tense, nervous gasps and his palms were sweating, making unscrewing the cap of the bottle difficult. As he changed into his other clothes, America kept a careful track of the guards and their patrol circuits in his mind, calculating when would be the best time to make a dash through the house to the door. If he used that potted plant in the front hallway as cover while Fred Peterson made his rounds…

He scrubbed the dye into his hair as the laptop sat on the sink like a vessel of retribution, whispering words into the mirror to practise the southern twang he used when out and about in disguise.

When he touched his hair, his fingers came away blue. It took several minutes for the dye to dry; it would wash out within a few weeks, but America preferred not to think about that.

Disguise in place, America slipped out cautiously, laptop under his arm, heart hammering. Even as he ghosted silently through the corridors, a million worries gathered and swelled to fill his mind. Even if he did make it out of the house, what then? Most ANPs houses were too well-guarded for him to sneak in; it was only detailed memorization of all his guards and their personal lives that made it so easy for him to sneak out. America's mind ticked. If he could find an Internet café, he could probably be able to hack. He had no other meetings scheduled for today; as sometimes unrealistic their expectations could be, even the handlers knew 9 o'clock at night was hardly an hour for the ANP of America to be up and about. America's timetable required him to be up at six o'clock in the morning for the mandatory health check, followed by a dietary-regulated breakfast and another doctor's test, this time of physical abilities.

So, the way I see it, I have nine hours to let the others know, America thought grimly.

Why? His conscious piped up in the back of his mind. America's shoes made no sound as he made his way down the stairs in tense silence, eyes darting around. It's just a stupid little comic.

It's treason! America mentally yelled back at it. Besides, if word gets out and people start getting suspicious, who knows what will happen to us?

You'll be free, his conscious murmured. Free, for the first time in your life…

Stereotype dictated security yell "Halt!" or "Freeze!" or "Drop your weapons!" but this one was soundless, hurtling noiselessly up from behind to confront him. The security guard was wearing full Kevlar body armour complete with an earpiece to radio higher authority should the need arise, with a M41-A 10 millimetre automatic sheathed in a shoulder holster. So caught up in his thoughts, America found himself being tackled backwards, breath exploding out of him in a loud gasp. The ground rushed up to meet him, his head cracked back against the floorboards, and the world went black.

0110111001101111

Notes:

Dun dun dunn! *listens to the sounds of people screaming in frustration across the country* Don't worry, don't worry, America's hardly going to get killed. Main characters almost never do. Unless… *grins evilly and starts plotting*

If I was to say this fic is like anything, it would probably be something like a weird mash-up of Inception, Another Brick in The Wall, Dark City and a good old 'the Hetalia characters reactions to fanfiction' fic. With Hetalia thrown into the mix, it creates this seriously strange fic that I'm honestly feeling more optimistic about with each passing day, considering the way it started off was completely different from the way I planned :) I guess there's a lesson in this: if things don't start off the way you plan, stick with it. It might surprise you. :P

*hops off inspirational soapbox*

Trivia Time!::D The scene separators are binary code for what word? And also, who originally said "Nothing strengthened authority so much as silence," (paraphrased)?

- Note: Some of you might have noticed England mentioning a 'situation in Egypt'. Around the time I was writing this, I'd just learnt of The Arab Spring, and figured I might as well make a reference to it. 'The Arab Spring' is essentially the media term for a series of protests that occurred throughout the Arab region, 'springing' from one Arab country to the next. These protests mainly occurred because the citizens wanted to overthrow their various governments, because the politicians there were corrupt. The Arab Spring essentially started with a 26 year old fruit vendor named Mohammed Bouazizi setting himself on fire in Tunisia. I won't spoil it for anybody who's interested, but I find it fascinating :P Of course, I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to such things, so…

*stops to take a deep breath*

Thank you all for reading! :D My backburner's growing by the day, but I will get around to posting the next chapter! Someday…

(gaaah, this author's note is long. Sorry guys)

Xxx

Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the aforementioned works.