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January 25, 2034.
Paul McCulloch arrives at the 'Justice Center', or more appropriately the Coven Director's Office, Primary, Warlock Hunters. Everyone but Joe just calls it the 'Primary'. Joe calls it the 'Justice Center.'

"I'm in before Joe, right?" Paul called to a security guard as he swiped his badge and underwent a mana signature check.

"You are. He called in today to say he'd be late. Didn't say why."

"Good," Paul replied as the door opened. That meant he had time to do something he didn't actually much like doing. Not that he liked a whole lot of the work involved in being Director of Ops. The truth was that Paul hated being stuck behind it desk. It made him crazy. Made him feel trapped. Only by enduring it for years had he even grown accustomed to it, and he still spent most of his time at the office standing, pacing, or walking. He got out of it whenever it was possible, going on the operations he himself set up.

Today, though, he wasn't that lucky. He opened the door to his office, flicked on the light, and sat down with a sigh at his computer terminal. He fired it up, logged in, and checked his mail inbox. Fifty new messages, overnight, that his secretary had found important enough to forward to him. Son of a b***h. But it had to be done. Later, though, Paul told himself suddenly. Yeah, it wasn't e-mail time. Instead... instead he'd review the operation lying on his desk.

He pulled it up on the computer, which kindly projected a map for him of the planned strike area. A team of skeleton soldiers was apparently lined up to do this job, and while that didn't technically fall under his command, mal'Reist had an odd habit of submitting his operations to Paul for a sort of editorial process. mal'Reist had been around a lot longer, and his soldiers were of course more experienced than Paul would probably ever live to be, but it was true he'd found flaws in their plans. Rarely, though, and reading a well-thought-out plan was actually very relaxing. Almost as though mal'Reist knew what Paul needed at the office - a productive excuse to not do much.

Paul leaned over the map, running the plan through its timeline. The squad would insert there, out of range of the observed enemy air guns. It'd be a trick getting a craft in there, but the area was protected otherwise. They had a good work-around involving dragging a few light vessels underwater for a while. A risky proposition, but it'd been done before, and these varieties were waterproofed. Paul smiled. Always good to read a well-thought-out plan.

Paul smiled up at Joe, only half out of obligation. For all the problems Paul had with Joe's ways of going about things, Paul did like him. They just had professional disagreements, and Paul always found it difficult to bend to Joe's will, particularly when he knew that Joe was right.

"Green-lighting one of mal'Reist's ops. Sent it straight to me like he always does. Weirdo," Paul concluded, closing the map and signing his name in order to approve the plan. "Brilliant plans, though. If I could get him out of that deal with Ma'krogeyna, I would. Stop him from having any attachments but us." Paul shook his head, then stood.

"There were a few things in the mail today that I think we ought to get the Heads to look at with us." The Heads were, of course, the heads of the various departments the Warlock Hunters had divided into. "Something came up recently about a spy turning up something interesting in Shanghai, and there's the recent counter-offensive in Eastern Russia."

"Ah, right." Paul stood. "Well, you'll recall that we let the forces advance a little, particularly in the air dominance war. The Tyrg apparently have something of value in the area, because they turned it around. We're giving ground, because it's their ground and we have a plenty-large beachhead. Still, there's discussion of committing more forces to the area, or trying to draw the offensive into some sort of trap. The big deal for us is the committing of forces, though. We, of course, have troubles with the Outlanders right now, which makes it difficult to justify. But we don't want to lose the beach-head, either, and - well, you see where this is going. Not exactly a detailed explanation, but as good as I can give you for now."

Paul and Joe left the office they sat in for a meeting Paul liked slightly better. It wasn't answering e-mails, and that was pretty much what made it so nice. The Heads were his friends, too, so it was a pretty big bright spot on the day. Joe wasn't acting out yet, either, which had Paul in a good mood as well. Actually, today wasn't turning out to be so bad. Hell, Joe could shout about Justice a little bit today. That might even be a good thing, somewhere along the line. Maybe.

"There are some other things I think the Heads wanted to discuss, but we'll see," Paul pointed out as they entered the conference room. A variety of men and women, almost all dressed nicely enough and not looking a terrible load like the absurdly powerful magicians they were. There was Linda, of course. She and the human-shaped shadow figure behind her, a thaumaturgically-maintained shadow-body for her Warlock Soul Arturo, nodded simultaneously as the door opened. The rather unfortunately-named Greg Stoner off in the corner waved hello, and Paul waved back. The various other Heads said their greetings or entered behind Paul, and they all sat down, looking to Joe to start the meeting. It hadn't originally been his job, but the fact was his enthusiasm was ideal for heading an otherwise boring meeting. Plus he just... kind of lead anyway, so they all let him. Rather convenient.

Paul quietly ignored the thought of the exact price of the destroyed item. That would be something not to be discussed with Joe. Instead Paul let him get caught up in Joe's enthusiasm.

"Right. So. The meeting being convened, there's an agenda that I believe you're already all looking at. We're going to reverse the order a little bit - the Russian front is the first matter there, but it's inevitably going to take the longest. We're just here to decide our policy for when the whole Coven inevitably demands a meeting, particularly the Angels. They're not going to be happy being asked to devote more air resources - but as I said, that's for later.

"The first matter, then, is probably the matter of this gentleman... calls himself 'Zero'. Not particularly original, but we're not looking at anyone particularly interesting. He's apparently kidnapped some people, dumped himself in some hidey-hole. Might be associated with the Cabal. Seems like a indie, a dumb one too. I was thinking of hunting him down myself," Paul pointed. "Hate to shirk my duties," blatant lies "but it'd be something good for me, I think." Paul shut up, waiting on opinions.

The relationship between the Warlock and Demon Hunters and the Angels was getting rough. The big problem was that they rarely agreed on a course of action. The Angels called Paul weak, and called Joe even weaker, while Joe and Paul both felt the Angels were overstepping their bounds, regularly. They still, however, put up with them and tried to stay on their good side - the Angels were a very important contributor to the Coven cause.

The rest of the Outer Circle of the Coven raised enough problems on its own, too. cyNet3 got very little love from the Druids, of course, and Ma'krogeyna refused to give a straight answer. It was a task, really, being more or less at the head, but at least Paul wasn't the only one. The Demon Hunter's DirOps and the Mundane Human's equivalent officer each had to deal with the exact same stuff.

Ah, Osiris X. Head of the Investigations Department, once the head of the CIA, the ID's predecessor. Loved acronyms just as much as they did, which was why it was the ID instead of Investigations. Paul might have complained about such things, but it occurred to him he almost certainly used some similar verbal tic that drove everyone crazy, and so he kept his trap shut. Mostly.

The problem here, then, was that Osiris X was actually more qualified for taking up the job. Obviously nobody up here should even be considering such a thing, and by the looks he was getting the others were well aware of that. Nobody said anything, though; when Paul wanted something, he as often as not got it. That was the benefit of being Director of Ops. He was on top.

Osiris, though, Paul couldn't afford to have him annoyed and offended. This thing wasn't important enough for two heads, and Paul needed time to get out of the office. He might even have to call in the secretary for the first time in a long time.

"Alright, Osiris," Paul suddenly decided, "you can have this one. I should stay here. He's probably gonna be an easy catch, so have a good time with it, alright? Okay, other than that..." The conversation went on, until they arrived at the matter of the Russian front.

"So. The Russian front. We need a policy, and whatever our policy is we need arguments for it," Paul said. This wasn't going to be a fun one to decide on. "I say we put the forces in. We'll have to do our best to ensure naval domination once we're on the ground, and of course the Outlanders always make that disgustingly difficult, but they're tied up in Australia. Not a long shot, but far enough to make it seem less like a problem."

"We are going to have to ask the Angels for the air force involved there, though," the Commander in Chief, Air Force, told Paul. Alyssa Reynolds was a rather young Commander in Chief, in her late thirties. She was good at what she did; CICAF was a difficult post to achieve, especially since in her case she had to survive piloting air superiority fighters. "We don't have the kind of personal air power to commit any useful actions. I mean, we could divert a squadron, maybe, but then we're weak in Europe, and that's just a stupid decision."

"I understand that," Paul replied. "I am still of the opinion that we recommend more forces to the area. Any other opinions?"