CBURA

### Those Who Bump Back

Technological developments flowing into the United Technate of the Americas come from many sources. While it is true that many of these developments come from the research of scientists and inventors within the Technate itself, equally many of the advances present could not be made or implemented without the help and power of the Technocratic Combine as a whole. Deals are made with Sprawl-based companies even if with distaste, and regular, albeit often heated discussions with Allied-affiliated teams are held. Shipments of eugenically-produced plants and mutated beasts plow the Atlantic to and from League and Technate ports, and occasionally even Australian and Combine planes share airspace with each other. And, though they may be unaware or unappreciative of such information, quite a few developments in Combine technology comes from the dark underground secret societies themselves.

The scattered, often fragmented and isolated, and often over-confident nature of the Talon, Black Hand, and other secretive organizations is a great advantage for them, but it also provides a definite disadvantage when it comes to counter-infiltration by outside sources. Entire branches of the Covert Bureau of Underground Reconnaissance Activity are dedicated towards combating such groups both openly and in secret, and the years and experience of its members combined with clandestine help from no small few members of the Columbia Future Society has led to small tumors of anti-Cult and Order infiltrators within almost every secret group operating within Technate territory, and even a small few outside of it.

Such tumors take various forms, from moles within existing cells reporting to two masters at once, to subliminally modified members who write out secret messages and make hidden calls while consciously asleep, all the way up to entire fake chains of command ranging from the smallest of cells all the way up to secret CBURA mechanics housed in Crawlers. It is dangerous work of the highest degree, for any slip-up, no matter how small, can lead to death or destruction at the hands of the groups CBURA spies on. It is therefore no surprise that those who act in such branches of CBURA are only the best and most prepared of men and women, willing to sacrifice their very being in order to combat what they believe to be a threat to the security of humanity itself. They cut themselves off from family and friends, integrating themselves with their coworkers and fellow investigators to a degree closer than any family, friendship, or even romance. They take the same drugs and hypnosis used on prisoners and suspected cultists, opening up their darkest secrets to prove themselves trustworthy and without cult influence. And then they are trained to kill, to cover up, to lie in order to do what must be done for the good of all. The infiltrators of CBURA willingly walk into the darkness so that light may follow them.

### Internal Combustion

While the means in which they do so may vary, the primary role of the CBURA-based infiltrators is to gather information, and if necessary eliminate any and all opposition towards receiving new information. Information is the weapon of choice in the war on cults and darkness in the Combine's way of thinking, and so as the Technate preaches the value of information, and the Combine seeks it out, so too does the Bureau seek to gain it from those that would keep it hidden.

CBURA infiltrators generally do not concern themselves with such things as avoiding disruption in the community like most cultists do - their motivation is not secrecy but both gaining information, and exposing if possible. If an agent deems the cell he or she is positioned in to be no longer useful in furtherment of that goal, there is no hesitation in selling them out to CBURA and taking them in for interrogation and recording, or in extreme situations assassinating them all at once or one at a time. But for most infiltrators, the information they recieve is of constant worth, enough to justify their continued presence - news coming in from other cells or higher ups that must be passed to CBURA agents and disseminated for truthfulness and followed up on, or simply the funneling or outright stealing of unknown and/or potentially useful technologies back to Combine hands. It is in this way that CBURA and, by proxy, the Combine has recieved no small amount of useful discoveries from the Cults - hallucinogens and truth serums from the Cult of the Black Hand, diagrams of ambiaric devices and samples of Talon Steel from the Order of the Talon, advanced seismographs and 'hotspot generators' from the Inkarri Theocracy, zombie-creating fungi and various poisons from the Bearers of the Flayed One, deep-sea survival gear and improved sealing from the Atlantic Brotherhood, various mathematical formulas and measuring instruments from the Pythagoreans, and surgical machinery and pain-stimuli production drugs from the Red Carnation Club.

All of these, along with photographs, audio records, documentation, and others are smuggled or sent out through various means at high risk, and integrated into CBURA's personal collection of computer servers and file archives used to host information that is not yet able to be fully declassified into public archives. Known as the Archivos de Datos Impares, or ADI Department, such a collection houses the accumulative knowledge and evidence of the paranatural collected by CBURA, with some of this information being far more interesting than others...

### The Hawk and the Eye

It is perhaps a tragedy that the Order of the Talon is one of the Cults targeted by CBURA, for if they would ever reveal themselves to each other they would find much common ground. Both factions seek to eliminate the evils of the world that hide in shadows, to help guide mankind to a better tomorrow, and both share some elements of the other. The Combine have faith in their own designs and abilities, after all, and the Talon know when to critically examine a situation instead of relying on pure faith alone. But for all their similarities, the two are sadly seperate and divided in critical ways. The Order of the Talon chooses to hide and fight the darkness in the shadows directly, and focus on keeping knoweldge secret, taking out people and information deemed too dangerous to let the normal world know about. But the Technocratic Combine choose to fight and live in the light, bringing fiery brilliance to the shadow instead of engaging it on its own terms. Where the Talon would argue that some information is too dangerous to make available, the Combine would argue the information is too dangerous to keep secret.

And so CBURA and the Talon fight one another as surely as both fight against the deadlier Black Hand, the Talon out of a need to keep their secrecy from the world above, and CBURA to bring their secrecy into the open and reveal them for what they really are - fallen. The Talon, in truth, still have the upper hand in terms of secrecy - they have had experience of hundred of years and numerous layers of misdirection and infiltration on their side, and their opponents only have persistence, faith of their cause, and a willingness to do anything to get information and knowledge out of what they hunt. And, in truth, the masters behind the Order see little threat in the Bat attempting to hunt them down - such groups have tried in the past, and such groups have failed.

But amongst middle-level members of the Talon, the security of secrecy and infiltration is starting to be replaced by fear when it comes to operating within the Americas...for CBURA does indeed have persistence, faith, and will on their side. If an agent should fall against the Order, it only means another rises to replace them, and for every member of the Bureau caught or decieved into working for the Order two Order members are forcefully converted or killed in turn. The Bureau is slowly starting to create a metaphorical wildfire amongst the cults and cells throughout North, Central, and South America, and they show no signs of slowing or stopping their attempts. Already, some high-level members of the Talon, politicans and doctors and CEOs grow tense and nervous. For all it takes is the sighting of a fedora and cloaked figure lingering for just a second too long under a spotlight near their home, or a photocopied picture of them with the message "knowledge is power" written underneath, and the meaning is clear: CBURA knows about their affiliation. And at any time, they could be the next target of a raid, assasination, or forceful kidnapping and psychological recalibration.

The only time Order and CBURA members have worked together are on the odd occasion both have stumbled across Black Hand cells and made missions to take them out at the same time. Such events, understandably, are rare - when they do happen though, the results can be astounding. Priestly figures with shining glasses spew fire at black and red stone and glass alongside figures in dark coats and golden rebreather masks unleashing hails of lead at hooded Cult members, and for a time the Hawk and the Bat put aside their differences to descend upon the Scorpion. But such truces do not last forever, and while the best of times may allow for both sides to part without betrayal into the night, it is likely that both sides may find themselves at each others' throats in only a few weeks time.