An [Extra]Ordinary Briefing
Incident Log: UW-0828
Year: 20XX
Month: [REDACTED]
Day: [REDACTED]
Location: San Francisco
Description:
In the early hours of [REDACTED] CCTV footage recorded a mysterious giant tearing down the storefront of [REDACTED], stealing upwards of a one hundred thousand dollars worth of goods. The giant was found to be accompanied by a John Doe dressed in a red hoodie, and wielding a glowing staff of some kind.
…
Incident Log:ZX-0132
Month: [REDACTED]
Day: [REDACTED]
Location: Las Vegas
Description:
During peak hours at [REDACTED] casino, a middle-aged man identified as being a former researcher [REDACTED] was caught in the act of rigging slot machines. Instead of going over with the authorities quietly, the researcher converted one of the slot machines into a humanoid one that then lashed out and slaughtered the guards.
Casualties totalled to about a dozen victims, incident covered as another mass shooting.
…
Incident Log:OM-827
Month: [REDACTED]
Day: [REDACTED]
Location: Tokyo
Description:
A strange serpentine ghost has been reported abducting passengers in the middle of the night. When scouts were sent to the scene, the serpentine ghost was found to be fighting a mechanical monstrosity that was similar in build to a scorpion.
Property damage was estimated to be between six to seven billion yen.
…
In a room with no windows, a single door and hidden in a remote facility so unknown that not even the most predatory of data brokers could locate, a rather unusual debrief was taking place.
This debrief was between a well-dressed man who clearly had the bearing of an intelligence field agent veteran, and a scientist fellow that looked entirely too young to be working in a facility as remote as this.
The latter was inducting the former into a facet of society that had always existed but never really shown.
The reason for this action?
This facet was about to become incredibly public...hypothetically.
"Bloody hell," the agent cursed while reading through the data files. "All of this has been happening underneath our noses the whole time?"
"Yes, it has," the scientist answered with a grim nod.
"How…how the hell has none of this been exposed or leaked to the public yet?"
"If I hadn't brought you in and gave you the rundown, would you believe any of this to be real?," the scientist asked, tapping on the tablet while doing so.
With this little action, he pulled up several videos of even more "incidents".
"Fair point."
"As far as we can tell, this war between these two factions has been going on since the dark ages," the scientist explained.
"Which one?"
"All of them."
"Oh."
"But in recent years, for reasons we have yet to determine, their conflict has been becoming increasingly more and more unhinged and obvious. We have done our best to cover up these incidents, but social media memes and video editing can only go so far. The release of generative art programs has also helped to an extent, but the consequences of that have been...sure in other ways."
"That...makes sense," the agent nodded.
His children have shown him these nonsense videos before, but now he was worried about whether or not they were truly artificial. "But why debrief me about this now? Do you guys have a solution on how to prevent this war from going public? To neutralize the threats?"
"Not exactly, no," the scientist said before producing a tablet from a hidden compartment in the room and presenting it to the agent.
The tablet itself was displaying a map of the world, with several glowing red and blue dots on it. Some of which were, decisively, a little too close to home.
"This is..."
"We haven't been able to figure out a proper way to combat these forces, but we at least figured out a way to track them."
"Why haven't you attempted to neutralize them?"
"There were...attempts in the past...they didn't end well."
With a couple taps on the tablet, the scientist produced several videos that showed fully kitted soldiers and law enforcement officers getting absolutely slaughtered by nightmarish beings. Making the footage worse, was the fact that many of the soldiers managed to open fire before they were taken out.
"Mundane weapons we know can't seem to scratch them. The only things that we know could potentially work on them are each other and nuclear weapons. Granted, that last suggestion is based on a hypothesis. More so than anything else."
After reviewing the footage a couple more times, the agent returned to the map.
"So...you believe that once these two factions, whomever they are, finally collide for real, it will lead to the end of the world?"
"As we know it, yes."
"Is there truly no way to put a stop to this?"
"Well..."
Trailing off their sentence, the scientist took back the tablet before inputting a series of codes that caused the map to change ever so slightly.
There was now a singular yellow dot, blinking like a beacon on the west coast of the United States of America.
"What the heck is that?"
"We don't know, to be honest, but...we think it might be our last chance."
"Huh...wait to beat these guys?"
"To survive."
"Damn."