Uncle Kevin was impressed with the back yard. “Now I won’t have to mow it for another six months,” he said. I didn’t find that funny, so I crammed some more fries in my mouth instead. “All you have to do is finish up the murder strip.” I knew that he meant that last bit between the trees.
“So did you meet Kirandra?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, quickly following up with, “You were right. She is different.”
If he could hear my mixed emotions, he didn’t say anything. I asked him, “Have you heard of a guy called John Cutler?”
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Brandon had forgotten to email Jimmy last night, so he’d have to do what he had never done before — get to school early — and talk to him. He figured if he knew how Veero worked then at least something would make sense. He sucked in a sudden breath. He still needed to make up a codename, too.
Everyone knew that the geeks got to school before dawn and that they controlled the library. They also asked you fiendishly difficult questions if you started harassing them, so that even very dense people ran away screaming that their brains were melting. Their star running back had spent a week on the bench muttering about cosines once because of that. If they gave him trouble, he’d say, “I’m looking for Jimmy,” in his best tough-guy movie accent. Geeks respected fake accents, didn’t they?
I made my way downstairs and discovered that Uncle Kevin and I still had similar tastes in breakfast — cereal and milk. He explained in a note that he didn’t know what I liked anymore, but he figured that “Sugar Bomb Explosions” was out. I munched through some Raisin Bran while reading the rest of the note. The lawnmower was in a shed out back, along with the gas and oil and the usual shed tools in case I needed them. I looked around the house for a few minutes and then changed into some shorts and went to work.
Mowing the backyard was slow and tricky work. The lawnmower died if I moved it more than a few feet at a time, because it couldn’t cut the tall grass quickly enough. The morning trickled by in rivers of sweat and in stop-and-go mowing. I dodged an old shoe and most of the the plastic Mtn Dew bottles. One I didn’t dodge went flying out of the lawnmower and pegged the fence like a fastball.
“So you took this one, huh?” said Uncle Kevin, striding into the doorway and leaning against the jamb.
“Yeah,” I said, turning from the window and feeling suddenly self-conscious. He didn’t say which room to take, so I just picked one I liked. “It’s ok and everything, right?”
“Sure,” he said non-comittally. I don’t think he cared that I took this room, but it was a change having someone else around.
And then then my stomach rumbled. Lunch was an airport double-cheese burger that cost four times as much as it should, and that was five hours ago. Uncle Kevin grinned. “You must be hungry. I think they heard that one down the street.” I shrugged. “Anyways, let’s go downstairs and order some pizza.”
Things weren’t going too well at home, again, and I wasn’t sure if my parents were going to pull through. I really tried to stay out of it, but part of me felt like I was slowly breaking apart, like rust was flaking away, bit by painful bit. I said that I’d like to go spend the summer with my uncle Kevin. They both agreed. They needed some space and I thought that if I weren’t around, they could work things out. I’ve always felt responsible for their problems, somehow.
It was the beginning of June when they said goodbye to me at the airport, and within fifteen minutes, I was on a plane to Tarrant, Ohio to see Uncle Kevin. It was beautiful and strange. Tarrant was one of those small towns nestled in a valley where history and hope seemed to be part of the air, and Uncle Kevin wasn’t really my uncle, but an older cousin. Still, I had called him uncle since I was about six, and the name just stuck. He owned a three-story house that must have been built in the early 1900’s.
For the series introduction, click here! The organization has existed in many forms throughout the ages. In the beginning, it was based in a cave rejected by bears; later on, it was found on a rocky island where the Phonecians dropped off uncoordinated sailors; it has been located in unfinished towers, two-ring circuses, and in beat-up shacks everywhere. In our modern age, however, it is more visible than ever before, yet hidden in plain sight. Each location bears the same polarized window tinting and features the same plaque outside:
Department of Minor Incompetence Correction
Aim for the stars! Tie your shoes!
Our story concerns chapter #257, located in a populous city somewhere in America (the precise location has been kept secret to avoid lawsuits). What follows is not at all unusual for the DMIC. If anything, it is representative.
* * *
Brandon Wilson was an almost-ordinary high school sophomore. While he was smarter than most of his friends, he was atrocious at studying, and not from lack of effort. He was simply bad at it.
It wasn’t something that medication could fix either. He’d been tested every which way with the same results. “There’s nothing medically wrong with your son, Mrs. Wilson,” the head nurse in Jr. high had said. Brandon reasoned that you only studied in school, and school would be over in two years, so he wasn’t concerned. He’d handle life after high school when he got there.
Then Tuesday struck. He was half-way to class when it hit him — his backpack was too light, again. “Oh yeah,” he thought, “my English book.” He spun around, took two and a half steps, and ran right into her.
The Department of Minor Incompetence Correction is a quasi-governmental agency that battles the forces of incompetence through unorthodox means. Its newest recruit, Brandon Wilson, finds himself suddenly thrust into the weird and below-the-radar world of incompetence and competence, along with a host of equally strange denizens from chapter #257.
“To change big things you have to change small things, and every big task is made up of many smaller tasks. Don’t you know your Gunslinger Girl? So if we say we’re going to change small things, we end up making a big impact. We’re actually we’re a lot more dangerous and subversive than they’ll ever know!”
Light-hearted, satirical, and innocent, with occasional moments of gravity, for the young-at-heart, anime` fans, Romantics, and those who appreciate unconventional satire.
Welcome to an omnium-gatherum for serial fiction; at the start, it will be mine, but I’m open to having others participate as well. Here I’ll be posting bit by bit for several different serial fiction stories. The entries will be edited, and updated as time goes by, so there will be a bit of churn. Then again, it won’t be boring. New stories will be up shortly.
