Cambridge Campus was far different than Jaclyn had imagined. Sure, the architecture was there, buildings that had become the backdrop for much of the Harry Potter movies, the wide open fields of grass that any modern campus would doubtlessly have dismissed as a waste of space.

But it was empty and felt desolate in a way that seriously put her hackles up. Her mental image of what a place like this was supposed to look like might have been heavily based on film and television, but even then, was this really what it was supposed to look like? Empty, with there being more security than students?

So far, there had been no sign that the jungle or any of its weirdness was spreading, but that hadn’t stopped that from being a concern. People were moving where they could, trying to gain distance from the zone where nothing made sense anymore. That alone was going to be a mess already, though admittedly, fewer people in London would probably make things easier for her and the others.

Overall, the anomalous zone hadn’t really directly affected anything outside itself, but indirectly? It had made quite a mess. One did not need a degree in economics to see a depression coming in with all the force and inevitability of a falling meteor.

Hopefully, this meeting was in some way about addressing some of the other knock-on effects of the jungle’s appearance, ones she was actually qualified to deal with.

She’d left Granger with the car, where he was currently fiddling with random pieces of metal to try and learn more magic. Ever so slowly, he was working his way up to real magic. According to both him and Gula, it was very safe to play around with magic sigils outside the transformed zone since there was no ambient magic that could power them. And apparently, doing any of this in the jungle could easily result in an explosion.

Her assistant was mostly safe at the moment, unless he somehow managed to break the fundamental rules of magic.

While she was going to a mysterious meeting. It was about “the future of law enforcement”, but that didn’t really say much.

Who was even still around to hold the meeting? Most of the government had been lost in the initial change, and the same went for most of the police higher-ups. There was a reason Owens was running the entire city’s law enforcement apparatus and left her dealing with the precinct’s day-to-day when she wasn’t out in the jungle.

As for the government, the ministers for defense and agriculture were the highest officials still in play, but both of them were in Bristol, to the best of her knowledge. Certainly, she doubted any of the people responsible for their security would be particularly happy about their charges going anywhere near the jungle that had wiped out the rest of the government.

But until an entirely new center of government had been set up, most people would be stuck at the university, taking advantage of the countless available conference rooms, nearby hotels, and solid internet connection to keep some semblance of government going.

She left behind the old, traditional, parts of the university and entered one of the modern buildings. That was somewhat of a relief. While having a meeting in one of the fancier rooms would probably have been “cool” to a certain extent, it wouldn’t have seemed particularly professional to her. As though someone had chosen the room to impress her, rather than for its function. Ugly as utilitarian decor was, it also demonstrated a certain no-nonsense attitude.

Now she just had to find the room …

***

Jaclyn found the conference room in question after half an hour of searching, asking several passersby, and silently vowing to murder whichever architect was responsible for creating a building this confusing.

In the end, it was the heavier security presence that let her know where to go.

“Can I see some identification?” a mountain of a man wearing the stereotypical black suit of a government “unobtrusive” guard asked her. He was currently standing in front of a door whose sign had been covered up by a simple printed page that simply said “Rowan Frye”. At least now, she had a name.

“Inspector Jaclyn Abrams,” she introduced herself, slowly reaching into her pocket to withdraw her warrant card. Sure, they weren’t quite as fancy as the badges that American cops used, being closer to a passport, but they were also more informative due to containing a picture and all necessary information to immediately establish one’s credentials. Though she had to admit that, in private, she wouldn’t have minded having a badge of solid metal to wave around.

Most people, especially ones she met out on the street, barely glanced at a card, taking it at face value. But this guy looked it over carefully, likely comparing not only her name but also its specific spelling with a list on his phone, also making sure her picture matched and that she was supposed to be here in the first place.

While he did that, Jaclyn returned the favor and scanned him. Her Inspect Skill was literally at Level 1, and she was half convinced that the System had given her that out of pity, but she did have it. And it could do some small, infinitesimal amount of work. Which it did, showing her that the man in front of her had no power, no stat boosts.

She could, however, smell the gun oil on him, indicating that he was armed. Having an enhanced sense of smell could be annoying, even with how quickly she grew scent-blind to things she didn’t want to smell, but it could also come in handy quite often. She’d even dropped by one of the police dog training centers, gotten her hands on a list of what drugs and explosives could be detected by scent, and used the samples there to do her best to memorize them.

Of course, she had no intention of competing with Fido for a job, but deploying a police dog took a frustrating amount of time. And she enjoyed getting creative with her powers.

“Thank you, Inspector,” the guard said and handed her back her warrant card.

Then, he knocked on the door.

“Sir, Inspector Abrams is here. Do you have time?” he asked.

“Come in,” a voice called from inside, the guard opened the door and she entered.

The first thing that struck her about the scene inside was how much it reminded her of Owens’ office around thirty-six hours after the jungle had appeared, during peak-chaos. Initially, it had been a mess with calls flooding in and a desperate struggle to keep on top of things, but as things stabilized, he’d actually gotten more work piled on as he became established as “interim boss”.

Only when everything had somewhat settled had he been in a position to start properly delegating.

This office, however, was in the middle of peak “tons of work, zero help”. Three phones, four computer screens, two additional desks covered in folders and loose papers. And two corkboards sat at one wall while a series of marker-covered whiteboards practically blocked out all light coming in from the windows.

The man behind the main desk was probably around her age, possibly a handful of years younger, or maybe slightly older, though he had a lot more gray hair than she did. Her scalp might have had the occasional light streak, but almost a third of his head was gray. Genetics, or stress?

He got up as she entered until he was standing in front of her, and introduced himself.

“Thank you for coming to meet me, Inspector Abrams. I’m Rowan Frye, current head of an agency meant to deal with the supernatural.”

“Inspector Jaclyn Abrams,” she said, shaking the proffered hand. He already knew that, but an introduction was usually the correct response to someone else introducing themselves.

“Can I ask what this meeting is about?” she asked, glancing around at her surroundings. One board had what seemed like name ideas for the agency, though most of them had been crossed out with enough force to deform the head of the marker.

Frye gestured towards one of the boards.

“Take a look. What do you think you bring to the table?”

That statement could have many different meanings depending on tone, and Frye had made it obvious that he wasn’t being dismissive, or lamenting her lack of understanding.

A test, then.

The board in question showed designs for, well, people desperately trying to punch above their weight class. A sketch of a person in riot gear, various pouches with labels like “pepper spray” or “large caliber handgun, armor-piercing bullets, make and model?” covering it.

Next to it, there was what looked like a design for a custom handgun built to fire heavy slugs meant to hit like an elephant gun, without breaking the user’s wrist. It was clearly unfinished.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Another design was for a vest meant to resist not bullets, but blades and blunt impacts, while also being resistant to heat, cold, corrosion, and repelling all manner of liquids. How that was meant to work wasn’t entirely clear, there were more question marks than concrete statements, but the purpose of everything was obvious. Protecting the wearer from as many kinds of magic as possible.

Finally, there was a mess of dots and arrows that looked like attempts at planning tactics, that had run straight into the issue of how many kinds of magic there were. Too hard to create concrete plans when there were literally hundreds of potential enemies that the plan would have to take into account.

“You need someone to play the red team while testing out gear and tactics,” Jaclyn suggested. “I can do that, but I hope you understand I won’t play the part of ‘target’ for those guns of yours.”

Frye let out a surprised chuckle.

“That’s actually a great idea, and I’ll be taking you up on that offer, but I was mostly hoping to pick your brain about magic. And maybe poach you from the Metropolitan Police Service.”

“Poach me for the …” Jaclyn trailed off, waiting for him to respond.

Frye gestured at the list of names. “We don’t know yet. Any name needs to be approved, obviously, but we haven’t really gotten anywhere. My favorite is ‘Bureau for Supernatural Affairs’, but I’m quite not in a position to make that choice outright. I have to present some options.”

Her eyes roamed across the list, zeroing in on a few of the crossed-out options.

“Association of the Awakened? I think someone’s been reading too many Manhwas,” she observed.

“What’s that?” Frye asked.

“Comics from Korea, basically,” she said. “People gaining powers and being governed by some kind of Association is pretty common in those stories.”

“And you’re a fan?”

By this point, Frye had his eyebrows raised to the point where they looked to be a few millimeters from outright crawling off his head.

Jaclyn laughed and shook her head.

“I had someone look into stories about this kind of thing to see if we could head off any bad ideas someone might get from them,” she explained. “If we were dealing with cosmic radiation granting powers, we’d know exactly how people would react, but this is a bit more … niche.”

“Bold of you to assume that the world turning into a video game is gonna stop people from wanting to play superheroes,” Frye commented dryly before turning around and grabbing a few sheaths of paper from a desk.

She looked them over when he handed them to her and to her surprise, they were, well, superhero costume designs. Flames, ice, and snow, electricity, a few jungle-themed ones, plants, a couple designed after animals … none were revealing or impractical the way many of the suits she saw on the covers of comic books were, but these were still superhero suits more suited to the silver screen than real life.

“We’re not going to go with those, of course, but one of the design teams felt like it was a good idea.”

“Well, it’d make for some good press,” Jaclyn pointed out, jerking her head in the direction of the completely practical design. “You don’t want to go with that outfit. People already don’t like the police, but they only really see riot gear on the news when it’s being used to beat down protestors.”

Frye sucked in a breath between clenched teeth.

“Well, that’s a perspective I could have used a week ago. By the way, do you think I could get that report of yours?”

“Sure,” Jaclyn nodded, taking a mental note to ask for his email address later.

Finally, Frye returned to his desk and gestured for her to sit on the chair there.

“Fundamentally, there are a few different ‘Systems’ currently affecting humanity. The one you’re borrowing from the Worldstrider Tribe, there is a colony of intelligent manatees that can grant a set of powers meant for underwater exploration and combat, and rumor has it the American midwest can grant elemental powers if you can demonstrate that you’ve ‘mastered’ that element in some way.

“We need a way to make sure the world does not go to pot as a result. You’ve already seen the result of what happens when someone with magic decides they’re above the law. An agency to handle the supernatural.”

And Jaclyn had the scars to prove it. Two of them. One on her stomach, and the other on her back, with a direct line between them. The results of getting run through with a sword. The rest of the shallow cuts she’d gotten during that fight had been healed away almost completely by magic, but that big injury had been too great to completely erase with the limited magic available.

“Define ‘handle’,” she asked. “That can mean either actually enforcing the laws, or making sure that the public image of the supernatural stays intact while strong-arming people into government service behind the scenes.”

“The first one, definitely,” Frye immediately told her. “At least once we have laws in place.”

Oh yeah, that would take a while. Right now, they were just running off of “morality”, making gut decisions for what and wasn’t illegal, and using whatever existing laws even remotely fit the bill, but how long would it be until they encountered something that was beyond mundane legality?

Ideally, the Venn Diagram of law and morality and law was a circle, but unfortunately, things didn’t quite work like that.

The difference between morality and law was that while most people had a decent picture of what they considered moral or not in their minds, the definition they gave for it could change from one moment to the next.

For example, the statement “hurting other people is wrong” could be countered by bringing up self-defense, the fact that surgery was literally assault with a deadly weapon, or someone would mention that BDSM was very much consensual. Which example someone gave also told you quite a bit about who they were as a person.

And eventually, a group of people trying to achieve consensus on violence would settle on some variation of “hurting people is usually wrong, but there are certain exceptions”. All over the course of a single conversation.

But when something was written into law, that was the law until it was changed. And changes always took forever. A law that prohibited hurting others without the necessary exeptions would shut down ERs all over the country, land people in jail for defending themselves, and, well, render certain sexual practices illegal, though that last one wasn’t exactly an issue. The first two, though, those would cause utter havoc.

Sure, a reasonable person would want to implement exceptions like self-defense no matter what, but people in the legal system, judges in particular, couldn’t just ignore laws, especially ones as straightforward and impossible to misinterpret as “no hurting people”.

Therefore, laws needed to be crafted with exceeding care, and creating a proper legal framework for anything surrounding powers would take forever.

“For example, I heard you managed to lock down that cultivator of yours and the lawyers kicked up a titanic stink. What exactly happened there?”

“Basically, Mr. Fields was told that he could either sign a magical contract that would make him extremely itchy if he attempted to use Qi or escape, disrupting his concentration, or he would be kept in a medically induced coma until a prison capable of holding him can be constructed.”

“I’m guessing that went down like a house on fire?” Frye asked.

“I wasn’t there, but apparently, enough charges and exemptions for national security were thrown at the matter until the lawyer backed down.”

Frye winced.

“We’re working at a breakneck pace, but it’ll take months before we’ve got a basic framework done.”

“I’m surprised you got this much done already,” Jaclyn commented.

“One of the few benefits of most of the government having been wiped out,” Frye shrugged. “As long as you know one or two reasonable people in charge, you can get a hell of a lot done with minimal red tape … until things get authoritarian, at least.”

Now, it was Jaclyn’s turn to wince. Sure, a small government could get a hell of a lot done in a crisis, but it also lacked many of the checks and balances that the regular government did.

“But it is what it is, and I’m trying to get this agency set up before anything really bad happens.”

They continued to bounce ideas back and forth, largely concerning legal ideas and operational strategies, until eventually, she asked an important question.

“If I were to join your agency, what would my role be?”

“Strike team leader,” Frye said.

“Strike team? That sounds aggressive,” Jaclyn noted.

“How many high-powered supernaturals are there going to be?” Frye asked. “We’re not going to be in a position to patrol the streets like regular police, we’ll likely deploy when there’s trouble from one of a handful of bases in the country. You’d be responsible for training the people on these teams, and leading them into combat. We’ll figure out something to make sure you’re not stuck doing paperwork all day.”

That was … that was a lot. She’d known she’d be in a position to get promoted in a few years, and she’d been working as Owens’ second in command for years, but this seemed like a massive step up. However, she immediately saw a big issue with the whole affair.

“Would I be the only one with powers on this team?”

“Ideally, no. We’re trying to get a proper deal with the Worldstrider Tribe set up, and if all else fails, draw on the Systems the Americans can access. But for now, you’re it.”

Jaclyn tapped her chin. “Would this agency have a research division? Because I know someone who’d be perfect for a role like that.”

“If you have someone qualified, by all means,” Frye grinned at her. “But if they’re a researcher, it might be for the best to not put them in charge of it, so they don’t get stuck with all the paperwork.”

The conversation wandered once again until eventually, the guard outside opened the door to remind Frye that he had another meeting coming up.

“One last question,” he asked. “What do you think of the security setup? If you had to fight your way in, for some reason?”

Oh, that was a hard one. Was it a trick question, or just someone concerned for their personal safety taking precautions?

Jaclyn decided to go for full honesty.

“Lacking. Very lacking. I’m vulnerable to bullets the same way an African Elephant is. They hurt me, but unless they’re incredibly powerful or I get shot a lot, I’ll walk them off. You’ve got a lot of security around the building, but I only got asked for identification right outside the door. At that point, there’d be nothing stopping me from breaking in here and doing whatever I want until the guards at the ends of the corridor arrive.”

Frye winced. Again.

“I’ll … take that under advisement. And when it comes to building and designing this agency’s headquarters, I’ll definitely borrow you to try and break in. If you’re not already working at the agency.”

Jaclyn bade Frye goodbye and left, mind awhirl. She’d spent most of her adult life as a cop and enjoyed the work. In fact, part of her had been dreading the possibility of a promotion and getting stuck in a purely paperwork-based job.

This was a great opportunity in many ways. But in others, it represented an even greater change than even gaining her powers had been. She’d really have to think about this.

Eventually, she reached the car, and saw its insides utterly stuffed with loose papers, covered in weird scribbles.

Yeah, Granger was probably a good choice for a researcher in the new agency, but she’d have to make sure that his office was reinforced to the point of withstanding anything short of a nuclear blast. She could practically picture the scene already, him standing over a soot mark, nervously dry-washing his hands, looking like a kid caught doing something naughty.

But as long as he could avoid blowing up himself or his lab, he could probably do great things.

And until then, they’d have to dip into the jungle occasionally to see how well his runes worked.

Jungle operations had slowed down after that idiot intelligence agent had vanished, presumed to have been killed by some critter. But now, the military presence was enough that the powers that be felt comfortable pushing into the magic zone again.