A Brief History of the Bureaus

By Annie B. (anneblair1976@yahoo.com)

Rated: PG

Submitted: December 2014

Summary: A short history of Bureaus 1 – 39. Inspired by Lynn S. M.’s Trask and Tempus Challenge.

Cover image from freeimages.com.

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Bureau 1 was created by the dinosaurs to devise ways of keeping space rocks from hitting the Earth. They disbanded when the Tyrannosaurus rex leader ate the Stegosaurus leader.

Bureau 2 was created millions of years later by Neanderthals in the Middle East in order to combat the invading strangers from the south. It did not end well.

Bureau 3 was created by the Roman Empire to keep the restive tribes and civilizations on the borders out of trouble. Trouble won.

No records are known to exist of Bureaus 4 through 20, though they exist in legend. A carved stone was thought to contain information on the bureaus, but later research showed it to be an early attempt at fanfic.

Bureau 21 was organized by Pope Clement VI to fight the Black Death. It could have been worse (then again, it could also have been better). C’est la vie.

Bureau 22 was organized by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. Its purpose was to open new routes to riches. Three ships were sent west to find a quick route to Asia, but two good-sized continents stood in the way. The rest is history.

Bureau 23 was created by the Aztecs to keep the Spanish out. It didn’t work too well.

Bureaus 24 and 25 were organized by the British and the American colonists, respectively. Bureau 24 discouraged the colonists from rebelling. Bureau 25 encouraged them to rebel. Bureau 25 was more successful.

Bureau 26 was created by the British government to take back the American colonies. After a few years of war, most famously in 1812, it lost.

Bureau 27 was created by an ancestor of Lex Luthor in an attempt to gain ownership of all the gold in California. When it proved unsuccessful, he left his wife and children behind in New Troy and joined a wagon train to California to take charge of the Bureau himself. Unfortunately, he joined the Donner Party, and that was the end of that.

Bureau 28 was organized by Abraham Lincoln. Bureau 29 was organized by Jefferson Davis. The purpose of these bureaus was to spy on the opposing side and end the war quickly, preferably in the favor of the man who had organized the bureau. The war still dragged on for 4 years, though Lincoln triumphed eventually. Lincoln didn’t have much time to enjoy his triumph, though Davis had 24 years to think about his loss.

Bureau 30 was organized during World War I to keep the United States out of the conflict. It was not notably successful.

Bureau 31 was organized to enforce Prohibition. It was touted as a great success until the head of the Bureau was caught taking a bribe from Al Capone.

Bureaus 32, 33, and 33.5 were formed to combat the Nazis. Bureaus 32 and 33 were successful. Bureau 33.5 tried to revive Nazism in America in 1996, but hadn’t counted on the presence of a super-powered alien who didn’t care for their politics.

Bureau 34 was formed to combat pornography. The members of this Bureau enjoyed the job entirely too much and became the source of the term “Rule 34.”

Bureau 35 was organized to combat Communism. It was disbanded after the Soviet Union was found to be a financial contributor.

Bureau 36 became the CIA. It also held controlling interest in the FBI, Homeland Security, and the NFL.

Bureau 37 was organized to combat Fidel Castro. As of 2014, Castro was still alive and his brother was president of Cuba.

Bureau 38 is classified, but rumor has it that it knows something about somebody.

Bureau 39 was organized to keep aliens from invading the Earth. It was classified until two nosy reporters from the Daily Planet, Lois Lane and Clark Kent, didn’t believe the cover story and exposed Jason Trask’s madness. In the process, Trask accused one of the reporters of being an alien and tried to kill him, without great success. Trask himself was shot by Sheriff Rachel Harris.

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Trask’s ghost hung around Smallville, and as it turned out, aliens did invade a few years later. Having been proven right, Trask tried to get the invading New Kryptonians to leave, but succeeded mostly at aggravating Lord Nor, who was already on the mean side.

The New Kryptonians were finally defeated, but not because of anything Trask’s ghost did. Furious, Trask allowed himself to be reincarnated far in the future as a technological genius for the purpose of allowing a time traveler named Tempus to come up with various convoluted plans to defeat Superman and stop Utopia.

This went on until Tempus stepped through a time window at the very wrongest time and place, a moment known to Lois and Clark as Tempus Interruptus, thus preventing one of their children from being conceived and allowing another who would otherwise never have been born to be conceived three months later.

Because of this, an ancestor of Tempus’s who would have been saved by an original descendant of Superman died, and the woman he would have married instead married an alternate descendant of Superman. Tempus ceased to exist, and Trask’s reincarnated genius never thought about bedeviling Superman. Utopia ensued — and there were no more Bureaus.

THE END

Table of Contents

A Brief History of the Bureaus