Special Assistance Division, CIA
TDC 01/04 The CIA was protecting the world from all threats presented by the intrusions of magic onto Earth. It had been on earth ever since the Oricerans had started to visit, thousand of years ago, but had been covered up successfully until now. And it had taken two decades, after it was acknowledged, for this branch of the government to have been created. There was one thing Daniel never saw—Oricerans. No elves, dwarves, gnomes, Kilomeas, or any of the thousands of species from Earth’s sister planet. No Oriceran was trusted on the research floor, even if some worked for the Company. It was a Senate directive known to very few. For now, they didn’t even trust the magicals who were native to Earth, such as witches and wizards. The old government ways of dealing with magic had been focused on total suppression. Without that as a possibility anymore, they needed to adapt and take advantage of any resource they had. They couldn’t allow a magical gap with other countries.
The lab space for this division was ten floors down, in the extended basement facilities. . Row after row of raised black lab benches and tables lined the cavernous area. Swarms of men and women in lab coats surrounded different devices in various states of repair or construction. In one corner, ventilated hoods allowed them to work with noxious chemicals or potentially dangerous agents, but the real hardcore hazards of that nature were handled in a different room. Some devices looked exactly like a layman might expect to find in a place like a CIA lab—sleek, metallic drones or unusual guns. Others were disguised as simple objects, clothes, toiletries, and even pumpkin seeds. These labs had developed as the human answer to the entrance of magic into their world. What humanity lacked in magic, they made up for in technological ingenuity.
The back wall of the room was covered with massive metal bin-filled shelves, many reaching halfway to the ceiling. A computer-controlled arm was available to retrieve the bins far above the height of even the tallest man. Entire rows of computers lined the far walls of the two remaining sides of the room, but most of the workers used augmented reality goggles and linked AR gloves for their computing needs.
