A/N : I'm so sorry for not updating. Finals were followed by a major writerblock AND artblock.
Introducing a new OC – you don't need to learn everything about him, I just need him to make the story more realistic. But do you know how hard it is to invent a character without making any mistake with his career !? (Mainly since I'm not familiar at all with the American scholar system... Sigh... If I made any mistake please tell it.)
Ryan Adkins hurtled down the stairs, panting heavily from the long run he had been doing in the corridors of the White house. At the end of the stairs, he tried to take the bend but wasn't able to slow down – where are the breaks when you need them ? - and raised his forearm before his face to avoid a painful collision between his nose and the wall. His shoulder met the partition with a thud. Ignoring the light pain in his arm, he went on running, hearing the blood drumming at his temples.
He was in the sh*t up to the neck.
Ryan was born during the winter of 1976, in a hospital of Boston. Smart and dynamic, he was a resourceful boy who always knew who he had to call to solve his problem. Only child, loved and spoiled by his parents, he had very soon developed an immoderate egoism. Why should he work when he could get somebody else do it in his place ?
As soon as he had entered elementary school, he had used all his creativity finding some new ways to cheat during tests, copy his neighbor's homework, or make his classmates do all the work when they had to work in groups. He had went on with this lazy lifestyle for three years, driving his successive teachers nuts.
But at the age of nine, something had happened.
It was Christmas. All his family had come to their house because it was the bigger. He was having dinner with his cousins when he had spotted a candle within easy reach. To impress his younger relatives, he had quickly passed his hand in the flame – he knew it wasn't dangerous as long as he didn't let his fingers in the flame for more than a second. The trick had had the desired effect; his cousins had asked him to do it again. He did. And had knocked the candle back on the tablecloth. Which had ignited.
And with that, in this cold night of Christmas, his house had burned.
Because of him, his grandfather had died, three of his cousins had been seriously injured, and his mother would have those burn scars tattooed on her face until her death.
This day, while the firefighters had brought him and his family to the hospital, he had sworn something to himself.
From that day on, he would never make anybody else pay for his errors.
He began to work. That wasn't easy; working was something completely new for him. But he made some efforts, clinging everyday to that promise he had made this day. Happily, his intelligence and good memory allowed him to recover the three years of school he had "missed". During middle school, he had become passionate about history and geography and, later, laws. After leaving high school, he had entered university, and four years of efforts had been rewarded : at the age of twenty-two, he had got a diploma of Master of Laws, and had begun his career as a lawyer. There he could defend people against the twisted world of laws and judicial procedures, and therefore be useful.
But that wasn't enough. Ryan not only wanted to be useful, he wanted to change the way the things were – in a way that most of the people would call ambitious. Only three years later, he had decided that the best way to fight uselessness was to take the place of incompetent people. Obvious result, he had ceased all his activities as a lawyer and had thrown himself headlong into politics. Active, obstinate and sociable, he had quickly climbed the ladder and in the previous year, he had eventually ended up Director of Communications at the White House, as well as Good Friend of the President, which wasn't exactly an official position but which was often useful.
And right now, said Director of Communications at the White House was in the sh*t up to the neck.
Ryan was spending the worst day of work of his life – well, two days, but since he had barely managed to sleep it was just like one day from his point of view. It had begun the morning before, when a bunch of self-proclaimed freelance journalists had contacted the most serious newspapers of the country – and foreign journals as well.
They were offering an article which revealed that Alfred F. Jones, a young guy working God-knows-where at the government, was actually the incarnation of the United States of America. Supporting evidence. Same treatment for half of the countries in this world. No need to say that the editorial boards of the concerned newspaper had jumped at the scoop.
And after that, a few dozens of governments had to give some explanations.
In theory, as the Director of the Communications of the White House, it was Ryan's job to answer the public's questions. In practice, he had to give the media something to write without giving any real explanation. Well, even if he had wanted to give some information, he would have been unable to do it. About this nation representatives story, he was as ignorant as a five-year-old kid – and he hadn't gotten the slightest piece of explanation from his superiors. For once, it was a good thing that journalists were very good at inventing crazy-but-yet-credible stories to fill their pages.
To make short, the day hadn't really begun well. Far from it.
But the situation had been getting worse at breakneck speed since the next morning. The next morning, when the hand-picked mediator who had to deal with the bunch of armed, edgy nations, had found himself to be a traitor. Not only they had lost the little control they had on the situation, but their diplomatic relationships with the Austrian Government had become quite... tense.
In the afternoon, the atmosphere reigning at the white house could only be described by one word : panic. Total, authentic panic. Ryan was seeing his colleague arguing over futile things, bombarding each others with questions, trying their best to keep their cool when they didn't receive any answer. Phones were ringing continuously, orders were launched by God-knows-who, swears and yells could be heard from the other side of the building, people were running everywhere, more than once jostling each other and dropping heavy heaps of paper which scattered across the corridors.
The icing on the cake was what had happened in the evening, when the SWAT had been sent to arrest those so-called "nations". Officially, the government had taken full responsibility for the massacre which had followed. In truth, nobody had ever given such an order. It had taken twenty minutes to the CIA to find out that the President's telephone line had been used by somebody else.
There was a mole at the government. Or a bad apple among the higher officials. More likely the latter.
Add to that a broken coffee machine, a far-too-zealous security, and a heavy headache due to the lack of sleep, and you get ? You get ? A complete inability to concentrate. Muuuch needed right now.
Splaf. A collision with something (or was it somebody ?) brought Ryan back to reality. He managed to keep his balance and not to drop the file of confidential data he held in his left hand, but the same couldn't be told about the poor secretary he had collided into. The young woman had slid on the tiled floor and had broken one of her high-heel. Quickly apologizing, Ryan ran past her, ignoring the colored string of insult she was launching at him out of exhaustion and nervosity.
Finally, the young politician caught sight of the man he wanted to see. "Mister President !" he tried to shout from the other side of the corridor, but because he was completely out of breath it just came out as a pitiful croak. He was about to yell again when a feminine voice interrupted him. "Is there something you need, Mr. Adkins ?" it asked with a cold tone.
Ryan turned around to see a tall old woman staring at him like if he was some sort of insect.
"Sorry, Mrs. Lindsay, but I'm afraid that I might talk to the President in person. Not to his secretary." he answered, hiding the fear in his voice. Even though he wasn't a coward, the personal secretary of the President was indeed scary. Brown hair beginning to turn gray, cold piercing steel eyes, a permanent scowl which showed how much she despised the world, a voice which made you feel like a paralyzed rat about to be eaten by a snake. A snake. That was it. She made him think about a dust-colored cobra staring at him from the top of a rock.
"Well then," the reptilian woman answered. "you can try talking to him, but good luck with obtaining an answer. He's completely overwhelmed by the situation." she added before walking away, probably to terrorize some of her subordinates. Poor ones.
After this brief and useless conversation, Ryan turned back to where he had seen the President, only to find that he wasn't here anymore. Bitch, he said in his inner self, thinking about the detestable secretary.
In the right pocket of his pants, his mobile phone began to ring, giving him another reason to sigh in annoyance, which he didn't stop himself from doing. He grabbed the electronic device and brought it to his ear. "Hello ?" he groaned, leaning against the wall and rubbing his temples with his free hand.
"Mr. Adkins !" Ryan straightened up when he recognized the voice of his own secretary. Maybe he could finally get some good news. "I'm sorry, but I think I'll have to add some bad news to the list..." Or maybe not.
"No need to apologize, you're not responsible of this avalanche of troubles. Just go straight to the point." he answered. Oh, how much he wanted to be in his bed right now.
"Well... The FBI didn't manage to find who used the President's phone line. The young man taken hostage at Washington had been found dead in the stolen car, in a forest. An airport not far from it got it security system hacked. It was later attacked by some unknown persons - the cameras were inactive and the only witnesses are dead. But in my opinion, it was the same persons which took the boy hostage. They took flight with a stolen plane and crossed the border half an hour ago. The rest of those... incarnated nations hadn't been found yet. That's all."
Ryan stood still a few seconds, assimilating the information he had just heard. "Wait a minute. You said that they had crossed the border half an hour ago, right ? Just how much time it took you to react and call me ?"
"It took quite some time to check everything - the police didn't want to communicate questionable information. And the director of the airport wasn't very cooperative. He's probably afraid for his post and reputation..."
Ryan nodded. "And did you find what I asked you ?"
"Alfred F. Jones' phone number ? Yes. I'll send it to you later on a secured line."
"One last thing... the medias are strangely behaving, did you manage to invent an explanation ?"
"Ah, yes ! I'm quite proud of it for once. We said that the SWAT were after a bunch of terrorist, that it was confidential, that we managed to arrest most of them, and that the hostage-taker were the ones who managed to escape. Big lie that everybody will take, as usual."
"The bigger the lie is, the easier the people will take it." Ryan answered.
"You should avoid quoting Hitler, boss. It's not really good for your reputation."
"I know, I know. But you have to admit that it's pretty adapted to the situation." And with that, he hung up.
A/N : Review anyone ? *puppy eyes*
Hetalia © Hidekaz Himaruya.
This fanfiction © me.