The Twenty-First Century is where everything changes...and I like to reference Torchwood.

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Chapter 01: Brave New World

TRSM ENCRYPT: ATB

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Canberra, Australia – 22nd March 2018

The first thing Valerie Grey noted about Canberra was that it did not look much like a capital city.

From her window seat on the plane, she had been able to make out a palette of greens and browns, broken up by clusters of urban greys and blues scattered almost haphazardly across the valleys below. There was no sign of any of the hallmarks of a global city – no metro lines, no towering skyscrapers; there was barely even a railway station. And yet this was the capital of Australia, the nucleus of the massive and sparsely populated southern land.

The airport wasn't that much more impressive. It seemed to consist of two different parts – the long, wide series of gates in which she arrived, and a two-storey section with Arrivals on the bottom and Departures on the top. While far from a country landing strip, it still wasn't quite what she'd expected from a capital city.

Now she sat in the back of a black car, weaving its way out of the airport parking lot and towards the centre of the city. She glanced over the file in her hands – her employment papers.

It had all began two weeks ago, when she had received a job offer from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation – ASIO for short. They were in need of a professional ghost hunter, citing something about 'the changing world' – and the pay they were offering was quite the eye-opener. Naturally, her father had been against it, but she had managed to argue that she was an adult now, capable of making her own decisions – and besides, one did not simply pass up a pay check like that.

Of course, they'd never properly explained why they needed her – and Valerie had to admit, that was bugging her.

"So, you're the new ghost hunter Mr. Blake's been talking about," said the driver.

Valerie looked up from her file.

"Uh, yeah," she nodded, "The Red Huntress."

"Well, welcome to Australia, Red Huntress," said the driver.

"Please, call me Valerie," replied Valerie.

"I probably won't need to call you anything after this," shrugged the driver, "All I do for ASIO is drive people around and deliver messages. You'll be dealing with Blake and Monroe."

"Mr. Blake's the guy who hired me, right?" asked Valerie.

"The very same," nodded the driver, "He's styling himself as quite the go-getter among the spooks. He's a bit of a tool, just quietly, definitely not the brains of the operation. He basically just does what Williams tells him."

"Williams?"

"Christine Williams," replied the driver, "The Defence Minister. You'll never need to worry about her; she's too far up the chain for the likes of us."

Valerie nodded.

"Okay, so what about Monroe?" she asked.

The driver grinned.

"Captain James Monroe," he replied, "Now that is a good fellow. You get him off duty and he'll – hang on, do you drink?"

"Not really," replied Valerie.

"Well, if you did drink," continued the driver, "He'd have you under the table in twenty minutes. Great bloke. He doesn't work for ASIO, technically, we borrowed him from the army. He's Blake's military liaison. You'll like him, trust me."

He crossed over a roundabout and headed up a road towards a large monolith with an eagle on top.

"That's the American War Memorial," he explained, "Don't get it confused with the Australian War Memorial, that's further up the road. You should check it out if you get time. Anyway, just in front of that is your new office – ASIO headquarters."

The building wasn't especially impressive – a stone-and-glass brutalist structure surrounded by smatterings of gentlemen in suits attempting to look discreet. The driver pulled up on the curb in front and applied the handbrake.

"Well, that's as far as I take you," he said, "You're in Blake's hands now. Good luck, miss."

Valerie nodded and climbed out of the car.

Getting into ASIO was a tediously long process. She'd had to pass at least four checkpoints to get to her new post – the Department of Spectral and Paranormal Defence, or the 'Ghostbusters Division' as the receptionist had disparagingly called it – before eventually arriving in Mr. Blake's office for preliminary briefing.

Mr. Blake was a man entirely devoid of charisma and charm, looking for all the world like the greyest accountant in the world had had a terrible hair product accident. The wild-haired, white-collared man had arranged his office into a picture of perfect tidiness – everything tucked away in drawers and boxes save for a desktop computer and an old, bulky telephone.

"Welcome to ASIO, Ms. Grey," he said, sitting down at his desk, "I understand you have experience in the paranormal?"

"This is my sixth year ghost hunting, Mr. Blake," nodded Valerie.

"Good, good," nodded Mr. Blake, "Then filling you in should be fairly easy. We just need to wait on Major Hohenbecker…can I offer you a coffee? It's decaf, but…"

"Mr. Blake. Ms. Grey."

Valerie turned in her chair. A dark-skinned American military officer strode into the office, stopping next to the desk and crossing his arms – clearly this was Major Hohenbecker.

"Major Hohenbecker!" greeted Mr. Blake, "It's an absolute pleasure, I assure…"

"I found nineteen potential security breaches on my way in here, Blake," snapped Hohenbecker, "Four of which can be described as 'depressingly obvious.' In addition, three of you security personnel acted in a suspicious nature and the man who runs your cafeteria is confirmed to be passing information to the FSB."

There was a long silence.

"Heh, nothing gets past you, does it?" Mr. Blake gulped, sweating slightly, "Ms. Grey, this is Major Edward Hohenbecker Senior, U.S. Army…"

"Former U.S. Army," corrected Hohenbecker, "I work directly for the Department of Defence these days. I take it you're the Red Huntress I've heard so much about?"

"That'd be me, sir," nodded Valerie, shaking Hohenbecker's hand.

"You came highly recommended," added Mr. Blake, "Mr. Masters said you were the finest ghost hunter he'd ever met…"

Hohenbecker glared at him and he shut up.

"You understand I'll need to see proof of your abilities before I trust you completely?" asked Hohenbecker, "Not to belittle you, ma'am, but I've been burned by civilian 'paranormal enforcers' before."

"Major Hohenbecker, I dunno who you've worked with," replied Valerie, "But trust me, I'm better than they were. Just sit back and watch."

Hohenbecker raised an eyebrow.

"Tough talk," he noted, "It'll be interesting to see if your field performance matches it."

"Um, Major?" interrupted Mr. Blake, "Don't mean to interrupt, but can we get to the point?"

The Major nodded, closing the door to the office.

"What I am about to tell you," he said, "Is classified at the very highest level. The world has changed, Ms. Grey, and we have maybe five years before Joe Public realises it."

"Changed?" asked Valerie, "Is there some kind of ghost plot I need to know about?"

"Yes and no," replied Hohenbecker, "We'll start at the beginning. Back in '82, there was an…incident in the state of Oregon. Ever since then, we've had a slow build-up in paranormal activity worldwide."

Valerie scratched her chin, deep in thought. She was reasonably sure that the Wisconsin Ghost had appeared towards the end of the 1980s, and that was the earliest real ghost sighting she knew of – perhaps they were connected?

"In August last year, a similar incident occurred, also in Oregon," added Hohenbecker, "Do you keep up with the news?"

"Was that the Northwest Manor explosion?" asked Valerie.

Hohenbecker nodded.

"That was caused by a build-up in supernatural energy," he added, "Caused by a would-be Napoleon and a bunch of incompetents called the All-Seeing Eye. Ever since then, paranormal activity has spiked by two-hundred percent – we're talking magic use in England, time anomalies in Mexico, the whole nine yards…"

"Wait, magic? Time anomalies?" quizzed Valerie, "You're kidding, right?"

"I am deadly serious, Ms. Grey," replied Hohenbecker, "Deadly serious."

"So how am I connected to all this?" asked Valerie?

"You," replied Mr. Blake, "Are helping us with damage control."

"We still have a chance to save our world," explained Hohenbecker, "To do this, we need to reign in the weird, to put a stopper on the flood of the unknown – and we've been given an opportunity to do that."

Valerie glanced between Hohenbecker and Mr. Blake, eyebrow raised.

"Danny Phantom," said Mr. Blake, "Has been sighted in Australia. You are here to bring him in."

AN: Conspiracy intensifies.