As postings went, being Sorcerous Sacrilege Investigation organization's man on the inside in Kennedy Space Centre was a pretty cushy one, mused John Smith, the 37th John Smith to serve in KSC since its appointment.
It had the right combination of being important and well away from any danger. After all, the danger of Heretic Gods was a mostly local concern, with no examples of truly extra-terrestrial divinity on record so far. Even if the supernatural only walked the Earth, the same needn't be true for their observers and so thousands of mechanical eyes were orbiting the planet, blind to the divine, but all to ready to spot the waves left in their wake.
And yet, the cataclysms they caused by their mere emergence were often cause of abrupt, significant changes in local weather patterns visible from space. Each Descent sent ripples across the whole world. Where in the ancient times the mages had the near-monopoly on the long distance communication and surveillance, now it was the right and privilege of every random mortal on the street. The internet really changed things.
Before, it took days, weeks, months for information to proliferate. When a cataclysm happened, it was unlikely that any but the closest regions would be moved into trying to help. After all, by the time a more distant state responded, the whole situation would be long over. This suited the mages just fine. If no one was coming, then it was easy enough to round up everyone that thought they saw a God raining fire upon the countryside and alter the tales into merely a volcano eruption.
Things changed with the technological advances, of course. Faster couriers. Cheaper paper. More people able to read. Greater urbanization leading to faster assembly times for responding groups… But it was the world wide web that almost broke the masquerade. Instant transmission of information! Unchecked, unfiltered, and often containing information and even sometimes proof of things that needed to stay secret.
And then, satellites entered the picture and every mage association leader in the world blew a gasket. Because now, the merely hellishly difficult situation became almost impossible. Because now, the entire world was watching the entire world.
At any time. At every time.
Enter John Smith. It was not his real name, of course. It was however the name on his papers, which were very real.
Getting a ranking job in NASA before turning 20 was not normal, but then again neither was John. The result of special "sponsorship" program, he was the smartest, most intelligent, most charismatic of his class, which itself has been selected out of a truly vast pool of candidates selected for those traits, he was almost like James Bond, except not British.
No, he was American, born and bred, and tasked with making sure that the American public would not be exposed to anything they were not ready to see. Equipment malfunctions, radiation, heat mirages… A thousand explanations, all said with confidence and an easy smile of someone who knew what he was talking about… which he did, because the last thing the Sorcerous Sacrilege Investigation needed was one of its agents getting caught in ignorance. No, best lies had a basis in truth and thus the truths were an important part of John's education.
All the better to twist them.
The day started like any other - that is, John arrived for his shift, received a report from his night shift counterpart which thankfully amounted to "nothing happened". After, he drained a cup of coffee, booted up his computer, and got ready to look busy while playing Solitaire.
First disruption came when his phone vibrated, the screen showing a standard warning ping for "Magic level spike, watch out for anomalies".
"All right, probably a Descent" he thought then. He could handle that. He closed his game, brought up live feeds from meteorological satellites aimed at the planet and settled for a wait. That was, perhaps not fine, but at least routine. He'd spot the disturbance, notify his superiors in SSI and then make up some plausible-sounding bullshit to convince others that it was a sensor malfunction. The data would then be used to mount a response, or, if the USA were so lucky, get some favors from whatever unlucky region would be stuck handling that mess.
Sure enough, John managed to locate a few problem spots, then by the process of elimination narrow it down to Tokyo, Japan. He sent his findings as well as the raw data, he was a professional after all, and then settled to watch the Tokyo news and wait for confirmation. Early enough warning could generate some serious concessions… And a nice, fat bonus for John.
Except, things couldn't stay calm, could they? No, instead whichever divine bastard wasn't content just causing trouble for Japan. No, they had to cause some for John as well. The readings on one of his instruments spiked, indication an extreme rise in temperature over Japan, and then… John looked at the live feed.
And there, in the highest quality, was immortalized a girl. A girl with lilac hair, a fetish cosplay armor and a large round shield the size of a table.
A girl that was desperately holding onto her shield as it was continuously impacted by some manner of incandescently radiant projectiles.
A girl that was propelled right outside the Earth's atmosphere and into low Earth orbit where the cameras could pick up the tiniest detail, from her determined expression to the soot covering parts of her body.
A girl who, while directly in front of one of the floating eyes, decided she was done being pushed around. Who somehow absorbed the bolts of light striking at her shield. Who somehow arrested her momentum, in complete disregard of Newton's 3rd law. Who became engulfed in a brilliant blaze and rocketed back down to Earth, leaving behind a visible trail of super-heated air that only grew wider and more visible when she decided she had not broken the laws of physics enough yet, and accelerated.
The cameras caught it all, from multiple angles.
While he was busy gaping at the second Sun being born right before his eyes, the delay on the feeds ran out and footage became available on the internet.
John was on shift. He would need to be the one to explain it all away.
He would need to round up the witnesses and have his handler modify their memories.
He would need to coordinate the modifications to the databases.
He would need to clean this entire mess. One hour into his shift!
"Fuck my life" said John Smith, no longer feeling like James Bond.
In fact, in that moment, he felt very much like a sucker.