Paranormal Group Conference Room, Australian Federal Police National Headquarters, Canberra

Thylacoleo carnifex, the largest carnivorous Australian mammal known, may have hunted other Pleistocene megafauna like the giant Diprotodon. Thylacoleo was one of the first fossil mammals described from Australia, discovered not long after European settlement. It may have been an ambush predator or scavenger, and had enormous slicing cheek teeth, large stabbing incisor teeth (replacements for the canine teeth of other carnivorous mammals) and a huge thumb claw that may have been used to disembowel its prey. – Australian Museum

Sergeant Mary Antonopoulos called the meeting to order. She was in her late thirties, 1.8 metres tall, black hair and hazel eyes. Lean and fit, she exuded an air of control. Her olive skin hinted at her Greek ancestry.

“I’d like to formally recognise Joey Smythe as being responsible for this absolute pile of governmental shite we now find ourselves buried in. Against all precedent, policy and procedure, he actually found real, live, paranormal activity and, worse, recorded it. Joey, play the vid.

“This is not faked; it was recorded by Joey yesterday morning between here and the Victorian border. It’s taken me most of yesterday, but I finally unearthed the procedures that we’re supposed to follow in this situation. Behold the ‘red books of doom’.”

Mary pointed to a pile of three, red, folders stacked in the centre of the table.

The other agents around the table all looked at Joey, not sure who was yanking their chain. The fact that Mary seemed so frustrated pointed to this being real. They all had experience with that juggernaut in the AFP, red tape.

“No, people, this is real. We have evidence of real live ‘shifters’, otherwise called ‘were creatures’, operating in Australia. Anyone have anything urgent on their plate? No? Then Fancy, divide up the recordings and let’s identify everyone. This will be at a security level of Positive Vetting and be caveated information. The randomly assigned password for this case is…”

Mary looked at her laptop and snorted.

“Dinosaur. Hey, I don’t pick them, the computer does. The cover we will be using is that we suspect one of these people may have accidently taken a selfie with some information we want in the background. We will be pretending to be part of an anti-terrorist team. We do not know if they are a threat and I hope they are not, especially Junior there. What’s the big one again?”

Mary pointed to the image of a giant wombat up on one of the screens.

Joey coughed and said, “Diprotodon, known as the Giant Wombat. About the same size and weight as a female Asian elephant. Should be a herbivore. Though from a first glance, all of these seem to be either at the large end in size or even possibly oversize for their species norms.”

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Mary sighed and passed out a set of forms to each person. “Congratulations. You all have access to another, segmented, special access information. Yep, more information that you can’t wait to not share with people.”

Fancy said, “What on Earth is that?”

Joey looked where she was pointing and snorted. “Meet Dromornis planei, nicknamed by scientists as the ‘demon duck of doom’. They can’t decide whether it’s a herbivore, so the massive beak is for demolishing trees, or a carnivore, so the beak is for demolishing animals.“

Mary tapped the table and continued, “I’m opening up a secure location on our operational server so we can all store our stuff to do with this project. Let’s meet back up the same time tomorrow and see where we go from here. Joey, stay back please.”

Once everyone had left, Mary pulled out a standard looking form and put it in front of them. Opening up one of the red books, she tapped a page.

“Step one, calculate the risk, according to form AFP-BDD-v5-1."

Mary began filling out the paper form.

“Code word acquired, tick. Codeword ‘Dinosaur’ – you know that no-one will ever believe I didn’t pick that – Primary group, Paranormal Group, AFP, date, time, leading officer – that’s me.

“International threat level – I’m thinking non-existent or very low, what do you think, Joey?”

Joey thought for a moment, then said, “Ma’am, all the animal forms we’ve seen so far are Australian Native. This could mean that there are no shifters outside of Australia. If this is true, then several governments around the world may be very interested in them. I feel this rates at least a low.”

Mary thought for a minute, in the end nodding her head. “OK, low it is. Reason: potential for weaponization.”

“Next, National threat level. Again, I’m thinking very low.”

Joey again thought for a moment. “Moderate. As far as I’m aware, our security procedures allow for very few animal vectors. I think our Navy has some stuff to do with defending against trained dolphins, but that’s all I’m aware of.”

Mary again thought for a while and said, “I’m putting it as low, listing the reason as ‘Potential to compromise existing procedures’ because your points would be better against the next point, ’Insurgency threat level.”

Joey nodded.

“Insurgency Threat Level - moderate, reason ‘unexpected threat vector’. It’s going to be the same for Security threat level and Counter-intelligence threat level.”

Joey agreed.

“Right, that gives it a threat rating of 16. Bugger, that’s going to bite us in the arse.” She sighed and said, “It is what it is."

Going back to the open red book, she tapped it again, saying, “Determine action using table in Volume 2.”

Opening volume 2 of the procedures, she flipped to the correct page and looked at the threat matrix. “Right, codeword security, 15 to 20 points of threat, that makes it… straight to the Commissioner, only to be handled in person, they're allowed one additional person in the initial briefing and so am I. Must be informed within 1 day of determining the threat, asterisk. OK, what’s the asterisk… asterisk… asterisk… here it is, if unavailable, must contact the chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement instead. Failing their availability, the current Prime Minister or Acting Prime Minister is to be informed.”

Looking at Joey, Mary put her phone down on the table, selected speaker phone and dialled an extension.

The voice on the other end of the phone said, “Office of the Commissioner, how can I help you?”

“Hello, my name is Inspector Mary Antonopoulos. I have uncovered an issue which requires the Commissioner to be briefed within the next 24 hours. We have rated the issue with a threat level of 16. This is to do with a code word item.”

“Hold, please.”

A few minutes later, the Commissioner’s secretary came back on the line. “The Commissioner will visit you in your ready room in twenty minutes. She will be bringing the new Deputy Chief Police Officer for the ACT, as they have yet to be briefed on your section. She wished to deal with both at the same time. Will this be acceptable?”

“Of course.”

Once the phone call had ended, Mary looked at Joey and said, “bugger”.