Now back at her desk at the office, Karla smiled with no shortage of satisfaction as her files had finished uploading to her computer and were being automatically backed up in multiple places. And the photos Donavan took were perfect. All she had to do now is write up her story, and-

“Karla, I know you’re excited to get this published, but the police called,” spoke her editor, who came over, looking way more haggard than he had been twenty minutes ago. Kevan Shearer’s eyes had nearly popped out of his skull when he had saw the photos, but the excitement from the reporter and photographer had been enough to infect him with optimism, which had now drained away. “They’ve got a court order to stop any publication of this story, for the sake of ‘public order’ or some nonsense.”

Karla’s jaw dropped. A court order? Already? It had only been maybe an hour since she and Donavan had left the university. “You’re joking.”

“I wish I was,” Kevan shook his head. “Someone from the government wants to talk to you. He’ll be here in five minutes. I’ve already got a meeting room ready for you. I’m just as annoyed as you are, but take it up with them, I don’t want to get this paper shut down over this.”

“These guys really want to cover this thing up,” Donavan said. “No point trying to get around it, they’ll just throw us behind bars instantly.”

“Fine. I’ll talk to this guy trying to shut down my story and see what cock-sure justification he has for all of this,” Karla said.

❖

The government agent who walked into the office meeting room was an Asian man, short black hair, blue eyes, professionally dressed in a rather nice suit. He didn’t look the hardened government agent type that Karla assumed he’d be, if anything he was all smiles as he extended a hand to her, “a pleasure to meet you, Miss Thurman. Agent Lim Yang, Australian Paranormal Activities Commission.”

Karla shook his hand, but the agency he mentioned blindsided her as he moved on to shaking hands with Donavan. “Paranormal… There’s no such commission. I’d know if there was such a government commission.”

As Lim sat down opposite the pair, he just chuckled, with no crack in his demeanour, “yes there is. Look it up. Go on, I’ll wait.”

Karla looked it up on her laptop, and her eyes widened when a website appeared on her search results, with an official federal government URL and everything. She clicked the link. If it was some kind of trick, it sure as hell looked extremely convincing. She looked Lim in the eyes. “How? How has this not become public?”

“Because it’s impossible to find unless you know to look for it. A complex web of charms, really. Difficult to do with modern technology and the internet, but it was necessary, no matter how hard it was,” Lim said. “We have people who use magic on our payroll, Karla. Our Commissioner uses magic. If you still don’t believe it exists, the Home Affairs Minister can confirm it does.”

“Dude, you’re just casually saying magic is a thing. What’s the catch?” Donavan asked, with a wary tone. Karla realized that he was right. If Lim was telling the truth, but also wanted them to stay quiet rather than expose evidence of the paranormal…

“The catch is that you’re not going to tell anyone else. Every single person in this building is going to forget the incident ever happened, or be legally bound to secrecy,” Lim said, his demeanour suddenly shifting, his hands coming together as Karla realized he was now all business. “I understand why you want to break out such a sensational story, and I totally sympathise with that, but exposing the paranormal knowingly has been illegal as far back as even before Federation, and we have authority to suppress such knowledge by any means necessary.”

“Why?” Karla asked in a hushed tone. “You’re suppressing information about monsters threatening people’s lives!”

“There are several good reasons why, Miss Thurman. If people knew magic existed and was potentially easily accessible, scientific progress would be stunted. And that’s not some theoretical thing that could happen, we have living proof of it happening, but that would take me all day to explain, but trust me, we know it would happen without a doubt,” Lim replied sternly. “Then you have magic potentially becoming widely available - while it’s a good thing we don’t have the same gun problems as the States, imagine what people could do if they could just shoot fire or lightning out of their fingers at any time. And teaching everyone magic isn’t necessarily an option, either.”

Just to prove a point, he casually snapped his fingers, and a large flame appeared in his hands, causing Karla to freeze in shock, wiping any remaining doubt from her mind. She glanced to the side, and from Donavan’s expression, she had little doubt he was feeling much the same way.

He sighed, leaning back in his chair as he put out the flame just as easily, “as for the monsters, that’s why the Commission exists. There are agencies like mine all over the globe - the United States has its own Extranormal Activity Department that dwarfs the Commission in terms of age and manpower. We’re not just for information suppression, we handle the paranormal threats that the public doesn’t know about and shouldn’t know about, at least, not yet. We already have people jumping at shadows when it comes to mundane threats, can you imagine the panic being caused if people knew for a fact that actual supernatural monsters existed?”

“Why are you still talking about this? Aren’t you just going to pull a Men In Black and make us forget what happened?” Karla asked warily. She was starting to understand where this guy was coming from, at least, what he was saying did make at least a bit of sense, even if it was a lot to swallow all at once.

“Oh, yeah, I could do that, and convince you to turn over and erase all the data you have, that wouldn’t be much trouble,” Lim said with a wave of his hand. “Not that I need magic to compel you to do that, I already have a subpoena. But the Commissioner is concerned about what’s going on here, and wants more evidence to help understand what exactly what kind of threat we’re dealing with so he can better narrow it down. Australia is a continent of ancient spirits, Miss Thurman, and there’s a lot of them, both benign and malicious, and there are some that even the native peoples have forgotten, despite their best efforts otherwise.”

“So you want us to help you gather evidence and help you with your investigation,” Donavan said.

“Of both the monsters and the ‘heroes’ who suddenly came out of nowhere to stop them,” Lim said. “Don’t get me wrong, they saved lives today. But the fact that they didn’t come to us means they either don’t know we exist or don’t trust us. Granted, I can definitely understand why if they didn’t trust us, but they’re still basically vigilantes. You two, however, might be in a better position to talk to them without them immediately bolting.”

“So you want us acting as normal but as your eyes and ears, basically,” Donavan said. “What’s in it for us aside from not getting our memories wiped immediately?”

“I’d joke about the pleasure of serving your country and such, but seriously, you two will be properly and rather significantly compensated, especially considering you may be putting your lives at risk doing this. Let me be clear, this is a serious national security issue. If this gets out of hand, the Defence Force can and will completely quarantine the town to make sure the threat is contained,” Lim replied, his hands coming together again. “The government is literally a step away from considering the situation essentially equivalent to a hostile enemy force infiltrating and occupying the town.”

“That’s not so surprising, really,” Karla sighed, arms crossed. Her instinctual mistrust of the government’s motives were immediately clashing with the fact that the man in front of her was making a lot of sense. She had little reason to even suspect that he was being at all duplicitous with her. Then another point hit her. “You want people from a smaller paper in on this because people from the big media outlets with full camera crews and such would be too high-profile.”

“Not necessarily, but that’s a good potential point in favour of getting your help, yes. There will be reporters from the big outlets, but they’ll be covering the ‘gas leak’, nothing too out of the ordinary,” Lim said. “But a local town reporter chasing down rumours of monsters and superheroes, on the other hand… Who would bat an eyelash at that at first glance?”

Damn it he was right, and Karla hated it. Not that she disliked Lim in particular, he was being reasonable and not condescending. “Okay, you win. We’ll go with your proposal.”

“Excellent! Just keep doing what you’re doing, make sure the information you get your hands on doesn’t go public, and I’m sure we’ll have an excellent working relationship,” Lim smiled, looking quite satisfied.

“Okay, sure, but one question - are vampires a thing?” Karla said. She wanted to milk this for all its worth.

Lim blinked, evidently no expecting the question, but he chuckled, leaning forward, “maybe we can talk about these sorts of details later over coffee in private, but yes, vampires are real, but rather recent comparatively. You can blame Bram Stoker for that, really, we classify them as pseudo-demons due to having demonic heritage but pretty much otherwise purified. Now, werewolves, I could go on about all day, they’ve been around since antiquity, and there are multiple types of them. I actually have a couple of friends who are werewolves. Funny thing is, the whole thing about silver and the moon is little more than a footnote purely because that was basically an invention of Hollywood, but still became a thing because it was so ingrained in the public perception of them, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish. Silver really only irritates them at best and the full moon’s effects are also relatively low-key, though not insubstantial. Nearly all werewolves can change at will, they’re resistant to magic, and the vast majority of werewolves are productive, civilised members of society.“

Karla wasn’t sure how exactly to respond to all of that, partly because she’d need a while to mentally digest it. “Um… Okay?”

"I think we probably should talk about the elephant in the room - you know, that giant ‘planetary shield’ or whatever they’re calling it,” Donavan said.

That got Karla’s mind back on track. “That’s right, what’s up with that thing?”

Lim pinched the bridge of his nose, evidently frustrated, but not at them. “No fucking clue. Our best guess is that it’s some kind of planetary energy field. Either something is trying to trap everyone on Earth, or protect us from something outside, that’s my best immediate guess. Aside from that, I got nothing.”

“You do realise that is literally impossible to cover up, right?” Donavan asked, his gaze transfixed on the sky outside.

“Not completely. You’d be surprised at what people are willing to believe, but there is a good chance that we may not be able to properly cover up the reality of the situation,” Lim said. It might be the worst case scenario. We’re just hoping it’s there for a good reason.”

Karla frowned. “For all our sakes, you bloody better be right about that… And about needing to conceal the truth about all of this.”

“Miss Thurman, you’d be doing up against a global consensus on the matter that has been re-evaluating that question for many centuries as the times changes,” Lim said. “One day it’ll probably happen. But because of a single person. This is confidential information, maybe not on the level of the United States nuclear codes, but still something we need to conceal by any means necessary. You’re not going to be breaking this story, not without out say-so. I can’t change that, and neither can you.”

❖

Karla was still staring out the window even after getting back to her desk, rapping her fingers on its surface, completely lost in thought. Nearby TVs and computer screens were still showing various live news programs about the planetary shield. The whole office had been in an uproar over the whole thing that morning, even if their boss was trying to maintain some semblance of order and productiveness.

“So what’s the call, Karla?” Donavan asked, relaxing at his own desk. “You’re really gonna trust them?”

“Not entirely,” she said, a little absentmindedly. “We’ll go along with what they want us to do for now. Keep the evidence around, and write a story in line with the ‘gas leak’ narrative, but maybe write something on the side about what we saw in our ‘hallucinations’. Sow a little doubt about how much of it was real or not that only serious conspiracy nuts would take seriously. If things become too difficult for the Commission to properly cover up, we’ll report things as we see them, maybe tweak the facts a little so it’s all related to just aliens if that’s what they want us to do.”

“Ah, okay, make it look like fancy advanced tech rather than, well, you know,” Donavan chuckled, nodding. It was one of those things Karla liked about him, while he wasn’t as smart as her, he could at least keep pace with her intellectually and easily grasp the situation around him. “Yeah, sounds like the smart thing to do. Stay in contact with Yang, run everything we do by him first so we don’t push our luck too hard. Speaking of the Commission, did you actually do any real deep dive into those guys? Who even is in charge, anyway?”

That immediately sparked Karla’s curiosity - she had been so caught up in everything else that she realised she had forgotten to actually look into the Commission itself. She turned to her computer, going back to its website, and started reading.

The first thing she did was find out who was in charge. The man in question, much to her surprise, was an Aboriginal Australian man - Commissioner Danian Gurumarra, who was roughly in his fifties. But then again, she realised it made some sense for an Aboriginal Australian to be in charge, considering how much innate knowledge the native peoples of the continent had about the paranormal elements also native to Australia. She wouldn’t be surprised if the Commission had the highest number of native Australians in the public service on its payroll.

The man himself had short graying hair, green eyes, a well-kept beard and was well-dressed in a proper suit. Not much else one could tell about the man, other that his website bio spoke well of his professional achievements. Though even with the professional photograph that would otherwise hide blemishes, she could see a sense of exhaustion in his eyes, of a man doing a mostly thankless job that most of the world wouldn’t or couldn’t know was even being done.

“That guy looks like someone you really don’t want to mess with,” Donavan commented, looking over Karla’s shoulder.

He had a point. Gurumarra looked like someone hardened by years of experience in the mundane sense. The fact that he likely had spent his career fighting all sorts of horrors, and with magic, no less, meant that he could be surrounded by men with guns and still be the most dangerous thing in the room. She couldn’t help but feel some measure of respect for the man. One day, she wanted to sit down with him and interview him, but that would be for another time.

“Alright. Investigation later. Let’s just write this story,” Karla said.