In all of yesterday's excitement, Peter had almost forgotten that he still had a fair share of his own stuff lying in his room at Fandom. He wouldn't have time to collect it anytime soon -- so he stole away in the few hours he had between press appointments to rush to the school and start cramming stuff into various packs and suitcases ( Read more... )

Most of Fandom's students were coming back replenished and relaxed after a week's worth of vacation. Peter was coming back exhausted and drained off of a week's worth of campaigning, taking him from South Africa through Namibia up along the coast, before flying back to Haiti. Where he had spent at least two days being scrutinized and lectured by ( Read more... )

"'The stability of our world--' no. 'The balance of power--' no, too on the nose. This can't be too obvious. It has to be all vague promises. Ah-- 'We have lived in peace for a hundred years, yes, but also in fear. Now that that fear has passed, we must regain our footing.' Better? Yes, better ( Read more... )

Happy birthday, the email opened.

Peter squinted at it.

Happy birthday, he read again.

Happy birthday.Was it? His birthday? Happy-- well, anxious and on top of the world and plummeting down to the depths of the earth on a daily basis, yes. Happy, probably not. But it was apparently his birthday, and his parents had pointed him to that fact ( Read more... )

( In which things are about to go down, world wide web-style. )

It was almost time. Almost. Almost time. Peter's palms had been sweating a little, and in response his own emails had gotten decidedly more snarky - you looked more in control when you were joking than if you were babbling. Right ( Read more... )

Peter pushed send on the email urging Pakistani prime minister Ghaffar Wahabi not to go through with his invasion of Iran. He sat back in his seat, running his fingers through his hair. Things were starting to come to a head: Bean was now in Burma, hassling Indian supply lines with his troops-- salting the earth. India was overextended; it wouldn't ( Read more... )

Another day, another vast barrage of email messages. Peter had just closed off his teleconference with the people back on Haiti and now he was looking forward to a productive afternoon of going through his remaining emails. In the dorms. No way in hell was he doing any of his work while sitting anywhere that bounced, let alone in proximity of ( Read more... )

Everything had finally calmed down to the point where it was back to where it used to be. And that would have been a relief for Peter, if 'where it used to be' wasn't such an epic international clusterfuck and he didn't need to make sense of it. Ngh ( Read more... )

It was morning by the time physical exhaustion set in in earnest for Peter - he might have hustled Natalie to sleep, but that was the only sleep anyone in his room had been getting. His arms burned, his mind was slowing and his eyes were starting to ache. Mentally, he felt a lot better: what fires there had been had mostly been managed or put out, ( Read more... )