Wil McCarthy reports on his experiences consulting with the CIA on scenario building in his capacity as a science fiction writer in the new Wired:

My mission, should I choose to accept it: sit in a room full of fellow sci-fi writers and help imagine, shall we say, things that might someday go bump. But first there was a definite moment of double take, and then a scramble to confirm that this wasn�t some elaborate hoax. Because, like, the CIA needs my advice on scariness?

Let�s face it: The FBI, the NSA, and even Israel�s Mossad are second-rate bogeymen. When it comes to the paranoid fantasies of hit lists and ESP drugs, gigabuck dope deals, and orbiting mind-control lasers, the Agency rules. Then again, it�s not entirely unprecedented for bureaucrats to draw inspiration from science fiction. Fed techies are as likely to read the stuff as any other geeks, and a few at NASA and the DOD even write it.

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