Special Agent Field Reports, January 2020

Secret Agent Avia Jiutai spent the month undercover in a New Cairo high school to investigate a mysterious missing persons case. Shamsa Seif was reported missing by classmates and teachers after not attending class for two days in a row without notice. However, local authorities were baffled when, upon investigating, no person with that name or description was found on any official record. Her name wasn't found on any official papers within the school's network for its entire history, nor was she included in the census data for the city, and no relevant social media accounts matched her age or physical description. In essence, the girl never existed: yet many students and teachers at the school swear to knowing her, missing her, and being sometimes intimately familiar with her. Agent Jiutai's investigation reports that no tampering of memory is evident, nor is there any indication of a hoax or misunderstanding. A psychology expert was contacted for advice and mass hysteria was suggested, but the agent has found this theory unsatisfactory and is remaining on site for further investigation.

An exceedingly strange sinkhole opened up in a suburb of Gujiao, China, Secret Agent Gedat Rakkin was sent to investigate. A 21-meter-wide hole opened up overnight in the middle of a city street among local shops and stores. According to city maps, directly where the hole opened up there should have been plumbing, power lines, and a tunnel recently dug for the planned pan-China subway. However, none were found within the incredibly deep hole, nor was any evidence of the various naturally occurring tunnels and caves in the region. Agent Rakkin went with local authorities into the subway tunnel, traveling to where the hole should intersect its path, but found no evidence of the hole, nor any other subterranean disturbances. From the surface, the sinkhole seems impossibly deep, with viewers from the surface unable to see the bottom, even at high noon. A robotic probe was sent into the depths to gauge an accurate reading of the tunnel, but at roughly 500 meters down it suffered mechanical failure and ceased operations. For now, the city block has been evacuated and blocked off to the public, both for fear of the sink hole spreading further and to ensure no supernatural occurrence is to blame for this impossible hole.

Special Agent Cat Zirka was sent to the African desert to follow rumors of cult-like behavior. Photos had spread across the internet of a Stonehenge-like structure appearing in the desert constructed of stone. This area is normally avoided by travelers and is almost entirely devoid of life due to the heat and dry, shifting sands. Upon arriving, Agent Zirka quickly met the responsible party: seven farmers from a settlement several kilometers away and two tourists, revealed to be botanists from a European university. The agent describes the group as not an aware cult or hoaxers, but that they seemed compelled to do what they were doing. Despite suffering in the heat and badly dehydrating, they slaved over the task of hand carving and transporting giant rocks into the circle of stone. In investigating their camp, Agent Zirka found samples of a rare fungus found in a South American rain forest known to infect the brains of ants and force them to become easy prey for birds. The container for these samples were broken, and the agent theorizes that the architects of this desert Stonehenge were somehow infected with a mutated strain of the fungus. This was the last report Zirka sent to SIU HQ before going silent. Another agent was sent in for extraction and found that Zirka, deranged and dehydrated, had joined the others in the carving of the stone slabs. Both agents, and all surviving victims, have been transported to a secure location for medical attention and study.

An unusually large fish caught off the coast of Madagasgar caught the attention of Special Agent Chaz Gates, as large animals tend to do. Sports anglers caught a swordfish weighing in at 656 kg (just shy of a world record) in late January. While not "monstrous", by SIU standards, the fish was still a curiosity: when carved open for cooking, a strange book was found in its stomach. This book, unusually well‑preserved within the stomach, is estimated to have been hand-written in the late 1600s and concerns the studies and practices of North American witches. Among the stained, tattered pages are many runic symbols and writing in an unknown script. Agent Gates has reported several strange happenstances on the trip home, including a freak accident with a coffee maker on her flight (the flight attendant was injured but has quickly recovered) and the unusual presence of ants within sealed food containers. The book has been passed to occult experts within the SIU and the agent has been assigned a mandatory session of "de-hexing".

The sound of horns or trumpets is being reported in several small towns in Brazil. According to Special Agent Arukino's report, evidence of these sounds (loud, low, brassy noises seeming to come directly from overhead) were posted online in late August but were assumed to be a hoax: a callback to a rash of "apocalyptic trumpet" hoaxes that made the rounds online in the late 2010s. However, reports from Brazil kept coming regarding odd overhead noises, ignored by the rest of the world. After a week spent exploring the outskirts of Manaus, Agent Arukino heard the sounds himself and caught a high-quality field recording. With no visible source, a loud sound was heard from overhead, though exact location is hard to pinpoint due to reverberations cascading across the landscape. The agent describes the sound as closer to machinery and the scraping of metal and, indeed, some locals who hear it claim that massive machines, used by the government to control weather, must be to blame. The Brazilian government allowed SIU access to their geostationary satellites and, after some adjustments to sensors and cameras, evidence indicates a massive thermal presence in the upper atmosphere. Infrared cameras suggest a large, stationary form visible only by its heat signature: it seems to have a large body and potentially many long, thin legs touching the ground. Whether this presence is mechanical or biological remains to be confirmed, and no extra-terrestrial government in contact with the SIU has claimed responsibility. Several more agents are being sent to Brazil to investigate.  

In an effort to investigate a report of ghost written messages, Special Agent Kouroth has accidentally awakened the latest in a long hereditary line of spiritual mediums. Vaguely flirtatious messages have been appearing on film photography taken in an old French mansion for the past several months, and Agent Kouroth was finally sent to discover the source. The mansion was owned by a young woman who had inherited it from her grandmother and was struggling to sell it due to a history of murders and hauntings. The woman, Yvette Autry, claimed that psychic powers ran in her family, and have for countless generations. Indeed, her great grandmother, Avis Autry, was renowned in her time for the popularity of her seances. Claiming no powers of her own, Yvette was persuaded by Agent Kouroth to attempt a seance in the mansion long owned by her family, to help contact any spirits that may be manipulating the photographs. This plan worked too well: now, several days after the seance, Ms Autry claims she is unable to stop herself receiving messages from the dead. The SIU has pledged to help her retain control of her powers and some semblance of normal life, and to avoid any unnecessary lawsuits.

Special Agent Neo spent some of his time off visiting a small art gallery south of Cairo. A local artist was displaying his life-sized statues, which were extremely realistic figures in poses of distress and pain, evidently made in protest of war. Bothered by the lifelike detail in the faces, and the apparent lack of carvings, scrapes, or other maker's marks, Agent Neo investigated the statues more closely during a quiet moment in the gallery and found traces of hair and blood. The agent decided to track down property owned by the artist and found a remote plot of land under his name, where Neo uncovered several bodies. Evidently, this artist was using people, alive and in pain, to cast the molds with which he made his art, killing the victims in the process within the hardening cases. In his investigation, the agent was caught by the artist, overpowered, and nearly suffocated in the same casting process the artist had used for his previous victims. Agent Neo escaped and the artist fled. This situation was handed over to local police, who recently caught the artist: from the sheer number of figures on display, it is suspected he may be one of the regions most prolific serial killers in history. The half-finished cast of Agent Neo has been used to create a statue, which is now on display in the SIU headquarters.