3/19/2022 CIA official briefing, EXTREMELY URGENT
Mr. President,
Over the past several weeks, it has come to the attention of the CIA and several other global intelligence agencies that certain individuals have been displaying inexplicable paranormal abilities. Observing these individuals has yielded interesting results.
Many of them appear to be as confused as we are, having only just discovered their abilities. A few say they have had these abilities for as long as a half a year, and have honed them through trial and error. There is a third group. At least half a dozen of the observed claim to have had their abilities for longer. Substantially longer, in fact. The oldest among them maintains that he was worshiped as a god in Ancient Mesopotamia. While we have been unable to evaluate the truth of their claims, their abilities are indisputable, and are of such a nature that some at the Agency have taken to calling it 'magic'.
The Affected vary widely in ability type and strength. Observations and interviews reveal that there is some kind of semi-hard limit on the strength. Most Affected are relatively weak, even given a great deal of practice and knowledge. One common trait to the weaker Affected is that they tire quickly. One subject quickly knocked herself unconscious due to the strain of lifting a SWAT team van for several seconds. Another (in an attempt to evade a capture team) held the shape of a small dog for a full minute. A third nearly convinced one of our operatives to shoot himself before tiring. This reflects the power level of the middle 30% of Affected we observed.
The abilities of the Affected are channeled through either: a. verbal commands (the most popular option, do not resemble any known language and are rarely shared between Affected), b. hand gestures (occasionally used in addition to verbal commands, not necessarily hands), or c. written runes. Denied of these, the Affected find it difficult if not impossible to use their abilities.
While the most powerful Affected are not necessarily ancient, the ancient Affected all appear to be extremely powerful. All attempts to capture the ancient Affected were terminated with laughable (occasionally contemptuous) ease. We were only able to interview two of them, who volunteered. If they are to be believed, magic was intentionally eliminated from the world roughly three thousand years ago. The Affected who survived either went dormant or had previously altered themselves to become immortal. One of the ancient interviewees spoke very poor English and was having significant difficulty adapting to the modern world.
Since 'magic' has returned to this world very recently (at most a year ago), few organizations of Affected have been able to form. The most common form of organization is created when a small group of very confused Affected seek each other out over the internet and begin to trade discoveries. Other organizations we have observed include: a. 'the Keepers', a group of several dozen moderately accomplished Affected who seek out lost artifacts from the ancient age of magic, and b. an as yet nameless group of Affected environmentalists who use their abilities to replenish natural areas. We note with some distress that the Mafia and the Zetas drug cartel have begun to develop sub-organizations of the Affected.
Finally, a note on the abilities we have observed more than once:
Precognition, teleportation, shapeshifting, mind control, healing, gravity manipulation, telekinesis, transmutation, and memory erasure.
Mr. President, what the hell do we do about this? Do we alert the public? start a witch hunt (no pun intended)? The CIA awaits your instruction.
When answering, please state your intention before your course of action. Bonus points if you can answer from the perspective of multiple world leaders. #Resurgence