PAMNAC

(According to Germany and Prussia)

From Germany's iPhone, 3rd September.

NAPPA, the National Anthropomorphic Personifications' Privacy Assessment, was established in 1945 as an office of the nascent United Nations. In 1971, it was re-established as PAMNAC, the Magical Non-Aging Citizens' Privacy Assessment, so as to include all immortal beings ushered into the accelerating post-war world. My brother says this is proof vampires exist, though we have yet to encounter any.

PAMNAC is both an assessment and an organization. It conducts empirical research, and it aims to create a comfortable and accessible modern world for immortal beings. All of this is under relative secrecy. The only European PAMNAC offices are in London, Rome, Berlin, Copenhagen, and Minsk. Vienna was considered, but as the location of a UN office, it would have been a conflict of security.

It comes with conveniences. I appear human. At the interval of my choosing, I receive a new driver's license, passport, and even a birth certificate identifying me as a human citizen. I have a financial agent and a trained attorney. My health records are confidential. If I wish, I can appoint a guardian or request a privacy assessment of my home. Any information on living in the twenty-first century is readily available. I designate who will know of my true identity, (close friends and government officials,) and thus, transitions of power in my government are made easier.

Most of us know humans simply want to understand us. I have been a proponent of trust between humans and nations since the UN was founded. I am thankful for the ability to live a safe and private life. I am thankful knowing I have resources if anything is overwhelming. However, I am also aware that with curiosity comes passion, and with convenience comes a lot of red tape.

I know red tape better than any modern nation.

Every set interval, PAMNAC sends a summons to its registered entities. They must report to one of the offices and complete the full assessment. It's essentially a census. For my brother and I, this means driving to Berlin, filling out several stacks of paperwork, taking pictures for IDs, deciding whether to opt into a physical examination, and driving back home to wait for the confirmation email. Every few hours, I'll find my brother scrolling through real estate listings, and after a few days in the city, he'll try to convince me he's found our new home for the next hundred years. He'll also decide we're taking a day trip to Potsdam, upon which he'll shout at me in front of all the tourists and kick me if I sit down, even on the train. He'll laugh like a madman in every room of Sanssouci, until finally, when we're placing our potatoes on Fritz's grave and asking for a blessing, he'll look sorrowful and ask me to buy him ice cream.

We've taken this trip enough times for me to know the routine.

My brother finds the whole experience exciting. While I take the PAMNAC paperwork back to the hotel room, he'll stay at the office and complete it all without even thinking of a dinner break. He's a true Prussian. Preciseness and thoroughness are in his blood. At the same time, the thought of writing down everything about himself for the world to know is fun. Even if it's only to a small group of examiners, he will readily give the specifics on every triviality contributing to his existence. He writes his height and weight in calligraphy. It's good calligraphy. Then, because the trivial is hardly worth anything to the "Great Prussia," he'll expound upon his entire life story. By the time we leave Berlin, PAMNAC will have a volume of Prussia's diary that he wrote overnight.

We have to tell them about his powers.

Back in the P Continuum...

Getting a PAMNAC summons in the mail is like getting invited to SMASH. Yes! I know SMASH! But that's because I'm an unbrushed twenty-something in a pilled old hoodie! It's well-known that every unbrushed twenty-something in a pilled old hoodie knows SMASH. The only difference is that I actually wash my hoodie. And I wash my body. Though I've had some trouble with this lately on account of my bathroom not having a tub anymore. Germany lets me use his tub upstairs, but with his hair and my hair clogging the drain, it's not long before I'm taking a bath instead of a shower, and of course, with a bath you need candles and oils and a little volume of French poetry to read, and Germany's getting annoyed with having to piss in a dungeon full of French gremlins.

PAMNAC's this organization that keeps track of all the immortal beings lurking in the corners of human society and helps them fit in. It used to be called NAPPA, just for the nations of the world, but now it supposedly includes all the weird creatures, and goddamn it, Germany, vampires are real! That's what that propaganda man was, a vampire! He had to be a vampire!

So when Germany and I get the PAMNAC summons, we have to drive to Berlin and go into this top-secret office where the super-secret agents ask us all these questions about what life is like as an immortal. Then if we want, we can get our physicals out of the way. (A lot less awkward than seeing the nation doctor. Mine keeps asking me if I do my stretches. I'm here to get poked and leave, not create a stretching plan!)

And if we're good, we get our new fake human IDs in as little as a year because Germany's bureaucracy is garbage, even for magical citizens! This way to the dragon's blood tape! (Honestly, it's like they think we can wait forever because our bodies don't age anyway. Well, I waited a whole year to see Beatrice Egli live, and every day was torture!)

But half of it won't matter anyway. This time, I'm gonna find the awesomest house in Berlin, and I'm gonna make Germany move in there with me, and then we'll have to do the PAMNAC stuff all over again so the UN knows where its favorite Germany and Prussia are. That's right! Germany AND PRUSSIA, YOU FOOLS!

But first we have to get to Berlin, and so far that's involving a few stops for snacks and Germany continually reminding me he doesn't want the car to fly, even if it makes us go faster. I'm just happy looking out the window as we nyoom down the A2. My right pocket's filled with gummy bears, and my left is Gilbird's little hidey-hole. Of course I had to bring him with! He's my little spirit guardian, and he keeps me from looking too menacing when I take Germany to Potsdam and shout at him in front of the tourists. You don't want to be overly menacing in that instance. Just slightly menacing. There's a clear difference. England could tell you. He knows all the levels of menacingness.

Germany hasn't spoken in over ten minutes. I saw him journaling in his phone while he waited for me to get out of the bathroom stall at the last stop. I accidentally morphed the toilet into the shape of a table, but if Germany was making an account of objective reality, he was immune to my nonsense. He told me his therapist wanted him to journal objective reality more often. It might help him come to terms with my nonsense being real. But he didn't ask me why the toilet was flashing through the slit of the stall door. Maybe that's because he knows not to peep.

"Hey, Germany."

"Mm."

"Like… did Roddenberry or John de Lancie or anybody ever explain why Q's dimension is called the Q Continuum and not the Q-niverse?"

"It sounds less stupid," he replies.

"Well, that episode with the butterfly people was stupid, too."

"The Q Continuum exists within the Trek universe. It's a different dimension of time and space, but not a different universe entirely. That's a concept you're familiar with, right?"

I consider it, then nod. "You're right. But Q-niverse still sounds like a missed opportunity. Do you think there's a P-niverse, too? A dimension for Prussias with powers like mine?"

"Now, see, that sounds stupid. Don't call it that."

"What? Oh, HA! The Pee-niverse. Germany, you're not completely annoyed with this trip yet. In all seriousness, though, do you think there's a P Continuum?"

He decides to gas and pass a guy's ass. "Don't be unleashing any more chaos on this world than is necessary."

"I wonder if the P Continuum knows I exist. Oh! What if there's a way they could teach me more about my powers!? I still can't get the hang of this thing," I tell him, cupping my hands and manifesting a miniature Mandelbrot. The booty-bug spirals into oblivion and distorts the air around it into little patches of grayish void.

"Put that away."

I swallow it. It tastes like a hydrogen bomb went off in a cotton field.

"You're hangry," I tell Germany. "We gotta stop and get you a sandwich. You up for Döner? I want some Döner. Let's stop in Essen! I want to Food my Food in Food!"

"We're past Essen. We can get a late lunch in Hanover."

"I can hear your tummy, though. Luddy needs a sandwich."

I narrow my eyes toward my hands and focus. I've manifested things out of nothing before. It takes an incredible amount of concentration, but I can make the perfect physical. Now, the ideal of sandwich, descending from Apeiron… converging with the world of matter… wrapping itself up in imperfect little atoms that take away its ethereal glow…

"Bestehen."

It pops into my hands, hot and ready. A turkey on rye with horseradish cheese! I have to take a bite first to make sure it's safe. Eh… got some grid and spacedust in there, but Germany doesn't know what static void tastes like.

"Here. Eat," I command, shoving it in his mouth while he considers passing another guy's ass. He munches and relaxes his shoulders.

"That's good."

"What big brothers are for. Man, I'm so excited for PAMNAC! I'm totally gonna write it out so I can pass in society as a 90s kid!"

"Oh, that's what you're excited for? Creating a new human alias?" Now his eyes twitch over to me. "I could see it. You just have to stop wearing suspenders to your meetings with the church ladies, and then maybe people will realize you're albino, not old."

"The suspenders stay on. I'm just gonna start using gel like you. Hehe, I know about the 90s! Finally I can be true to my appearance!"

"Are you going to change your human name, then? Because no one was naming children Gilbert in the 90s."

"AWESOME people were. And I'm Gilbert Awesome Beilschmidt."

"Yeah, you can change that this time."

"You should have a middle name!"

"No, I'm fine with my name."

"I made you change your surname to Beilschmidt."

"So we could have the same one."

"Man, you were just Ludwig for the longest time! When did you first have a surname?"

"It was Ludwig, then Ludwig Kaiser, Ludwig Stein, and Ludwig Beilschmidt."

"You should change it back to Stein. That was hilarious."

"Gilbert Stein would be more humble for you."

"Nobody was really naming kids Ludwig in the 90s either. What if we—"

"I'm not making it Ludwick or Ludisius or anything stupid."

"You kind of look like a Gregor."

"What if you went by Quentin? It starts with Q."

"Germany, you are a genius."

"I wasn't serious."

"You know, I was thinking. How am I even going to classify myself? We have to tell the PAMNAC people about my powers. Am I still Nation of Prussia, or is there a Ps and Qs category?"

Germany grips the wheel with white knuckles. He looks like he's about to lose his cosmic sandwich.

"I… was thinking about that too. Brother, we've been keeping it a secret. Your condition. There's no way we can hide it. They'll ask you to demonstrate your magical abilities. You have more than just the nation strength and EP."

"So? We'll tell 'em. I have CRAP now."

"No. See… they know what a nation is. They know nations, and they know to leave us alone. Prussia, your powers… are not normal. This is the stuff that makes humans agitated. Plus, I've been lying to our bosses for over a year now. You know what would be bad PR? Learning the most powerful being in the universe lives in Germany, and he's been hiding it."

"But… we have to do the assessment. If somehow word of my powers does get out there, PAMNAC will protect us. I'm a Magical Non-Aging Citizen! My rights are valid!"

"You once told me that in the Middle Ages, people thought you were devilspawn. I have a reason to want you safe and happy, and I'm concerned that telling PAMNAC about your transformation is going to result in some changes you might not like."

"I am invincible as long as I'm alive."

"Stop quoting that damn song."

"Whatever you say, mon capitaine. But you just admitted you know the words."

And now it's another hour of only the rumbling of the A2 Autobahn and the peeping in my pocket.

~N~

Man I love those scenes where it's banter in a car. Today I learned people actually put potatoes on Fritz's grave when they visit Sanssouci palace in Potsdam. Also, Essen = food, eating, and a city in NRW. So you can food your food in food.

And seriously, why is it not Q-niverse? That should at least have been an episode title with all the other puns they were using.

Ordered my Prussia prayer shawl yarn, and it already shipped! I'm using Lion Brand Scarfie in the color Cream/Black. It's going to be so warm and cozy!

Updated by Syntax-N FanFiction . Net September 3rd, 2020. Drink water. Don't repost.