Deadly Secrets

7. A Secret Revealed, part 3

America's POV:

I sat down and was immediately greeted with surprised expressions and questions, lots of questions. Britain was first, "America, what on earth happened to your arm?!" he shouted, of course he would have to ask me that, " I was shot," I replied bluntly, I was too tired right now to care about how they would react. My answer was met with shock by some of the countries and very quiet chuckles from others, "Wha- who shot you?!" Aussie yelled. "Listen, it'll make more sense if I tell you what happened first," I began, my statement was met with relative silence so I took that as a request to continue, "A few of my states were in the woods and-" "Wait, you mean your states have personifications?!" New Zealand yelled, interrupting me. "Yes they do and so do 5 of my territories," I said calmly "Why didn't you tell us?! How many are there?" Britain asked, I sighed, " There are 56 including my capital and I didn't tell you because I wanted to keep them safe. Which is pointless now because these Phobos dirtbags found them!" I said raising my voice as I said the last part. They all fell silent after I mentioned Phobos, UN was the first to speak," Did Phobos attack you at your home? Is that why we heard so many gunshots?" he asked cautiously. I took a deep breath before replying, " Yes, and yes,"

"How many of them were there?! From what we heard it sounded like there was a mini war! And what about that big boom?!" France said with some other countries muttering in agreement. I chuckled lightly before saying, " There were ten of them but there were so many gunshots because about thirty of my states were firing at them. The, 'big boom', was probably Florida firing the grenade launcher," Britain looked like he was about to pass out, "You let your states use weapons that dangerous?!" a bunch of the other countries looked like they shared Britain's reaction but didn't say anything about it. "Of course," I responded, "how else are they supposed to defend themselves against a large threat?" the countries continued to ask questions to which I gave as vague of answers as I could think of, after all, I didn't want them having too much information about my babies. After a few minutes UN managed to get everyone back on track, thank god.

"America, did you manage to get any information regarding Phobos?" I smiled at him before responding, " You bet! All of the people who attacked us were wearing all black everything, no bulletproof vests though which is kind of weird-" UN cut me off, "America, I was asking for any useful information, not just-," "But the weirdest part was," I cut him off continuing slightly louder than before, " their ski masks. They had a white symbol on the forehead, sort of like crosshairs." UN sighed, " And this is relevant how?" "They aren't the first people to use this symbol," that got everyone's attention, "This symbol was used in, oh, at least the late 1960s to the early 70s in California by a man who called himself the Zodiac killer."

"Well who was he? Was he ever caught?" Britain asked, his curiosity clearly peaked, " He wasn't caught, no." I responded. EU spoke up, " Are you trying to say that 'The Zodiac Killer' is the one orchestrating these attacks?" "No, no, no," I reply, my smile growing, " he would be too old by now. No, what I'm trying to say is that the people or person who is orchestrating these attacks is not creative at all, they're copycats! They are relying on strategies and other things that other criminals have used in the past then repurposing them for their own use. This means if we can figure out what other strategies or methods they are copying we can find a pattern and anticipate their every move!" by now I'm practically jumping up and down in my seat, probably would be if it weren't for my damn arm. The other countries seem surprised and almost... impressed, they probably believed in those stupid stereotypes about my people, hmph. "We will keep that in mind, America," UN said a slight smile on his face, barely visible but still there, " is there any other information you collected?"

"Um, I got photos of the attacker's faces and was able to find passports on two of them and drivers licenses on a different four of them. I'm sending you the photos now, some of them were shot in the head but you should still be able to get an ID off of 'em." I said as a matter of factly while messing with my phone to send UN the photos. "Another thing I think is worth mentionin'," Dixie says as he moves closer to the computer, leaning on the arm of my chair with one arm and my desk with the other, " is that none of the people who attacked us looked to be from the same country," as he said that I grabbed the passports and licenses off of my desk and looked through them, " Yep, and these confirm that," I add on, holding up the two passports for the others to see, one of them was Austrian and the other was Cuban. "That means that the group, Phobos, must not be from one specific country, citizens from most of our countries are most likely part of it," Dixie finished, his statement was met with gasps and shocked expressions but at least no one could point fingers at each other anymore.