“BREAKING NEWS”

At first it was just on one TV, then the banner came up on more and more, until the whole wall was filled with the image in multiple languages and styles. Everyone in the office was fully alert, their job was about to get real. No more scenario planning, no more rehearsals this was the real deal.

“What have we got?” Jo’s boss, Grand Sorcerer Magniof apparated in front of the bank of screens.

“Central already has a time dilatation spell up; we have a 50% difference in time against non magical users.” Someone from the technical department piped up from the back of the room.

Jo looked out of the window, at the civilians down below, at first they were walking at normal pace but they were clearly slowing down, it was as if a great invisible force of inertia had been placed on them, slowing them down to a crawling pace.

“We have confirmation that it is the Brighthearts and the Sons of Malicth” A female researcher two rows in front of Jo spoke up.

“The Brighthearts and the Sons of Malicth? Why wasn’t I briefed that they were a threat?” Grand Sorcerer Magniof questioned

“We had no actionable Intel. The Sons of Malicth have been underground for years, since the riots of 2011. We understood they had disbanded and splintered into negligible sized groups..” Adam, who was sat next to Jo spoke up. It was their tasks to monitor potential threats and either de-escalate and prevent or to take direct action.

“OK. Let’s look into that afterwards.” Grand Sorcerer Magniof gave a death stare to Adam, Jo was very happy that she hadn’t said anything.

“Right, as far as we are concerned this is a terrorist event. Conceal the magic users, wipe the memory of anything that saw the start of this and project a couple of brown people in, let’s play with a mix of suicide bombers and machete nuts.”

At this command several sections of the room started chanting, the room grew hotter from the amount of magic being used.

“Jeez Julian, did you have to have them wearing fucking towels on their heads?” Grand Sorcerer Magniof chuckled.

Jo sat horrified. This was not what she had imagined her job would be. They were meant to hide the presence of magic users to norms by first preventing incidents like this, then by actively acting and finally by creating a narrative for the civilians to comprehend the destruction of a magical battle.

She leant over to Adam “What is going on?”

“Normal procedure. We can’t contain this, so we have to create a narrative.”

“A terrorist attack?”

“Yeah, standard procedure.”

“Is this ethical?”

Adam slurped on his Drastically Dragon Extreme Energy Merlo “What?” Adam only now turned to look at her.

“Is this ethical?”

“What you rather we do? Expose ourselves?”

“But why terrorism? Why not an industrial accident? Isn’t this just stoking mass hysteria?”

“An industrial accident? Are you living in the 70s or 80s? No, safety is too good now. No one would believe an industrial accident. It must be terrorism, it’s the most acceptable thing for the Normies to believe. Besides by the time we have finished a dozen different groups will have claimed responsibility. The mirage will be taken as truth.”

“But we are only projecting people into the battle, there are no actual terrorists there. It’s all fictional.”

“You are naïve aren’t you. The civilians don’t need there to be someone there, they will find someone to hang this on.” Adam turned away from Jo and back to the screens.