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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.
“Oh. Crud. I’m sorry,” he began, but the dour look from behind thick glasses told him that she meant business. She handed him a note and said, “This is from the principal.” He looked down at it, uncomprehendingly, and before he could look up again, she was gone.
He couldn’t get the scene out of his mind. She was an adult, and someone important. He asked his friends and they all agreed that she was the assistant somebody or another. The high school had over 600 students and had the administration to match. By the end of school, he had the answer. She was Shiela Haworth, the assistant to the assistant vice-principal, and he was in some kind of trouble.
The note that she gave him didn’t make much sense, though. It simply read, “Dept. MIC 7741 Woodland Ave.” It was because of that he hadn’t told his friends about it. He couldn’t think of anything else to do but show his mom. “I’ll wait until after supper,” he thought, banking on at least a good meal before the hammer fell.
As he was putting away the dishes, he said, “Mom, I’ve got a question for you.”
She was sorting through the day’s mail, and replied distractedly, “Sure, go ahead.”
“I got this weird note today at school from one of the assistants.” He pressed it into her hands.
She looked it over and said, “Hmm. Looks interesting. I think you should check it out.”
“Really?”
She nodded with a curious, thin-lipped grin.
“It’s not too far away, and you can ride your bike there. I’m sure it’s safe since it’s from the school.”
“Well ok.” He thought for a minute and said, “I’m going over to Brian’s to shoot some hoops. Is that ok?”
“Just be back by nine.”
When he left, she leaned back against the closed door, biting her lip. “I hope they know what they’re doing,” she said to herself.
* * *
Bradon slammed the door shut and announced, “I’m back!” There wasn’t a reply but that wasn’t altogether unusual. He went into the family room where his mom usually watched the news or did needlework, then grabbed a granola bar from the pantry. “Mom?” He made his way to the stairs when he saw a light from the study and heard a low voice inside. The door was slightly ajar and he could have knocked, but curiousity drew him flat against the wall and sealed his lips together.
“Is it really that serious? Are you sure he won’t just get better?”
He couldn’t hear the person on the other end, only her words and the impatient silences between them. “No, that’s not it. I was just hoping he could go somewhere else first. Yes, I know we’ve already done that. I just don’t know if he’s ready for such a big step. Oh, I see.”
The phone rattled as it hit the cradle and he stole up to his room, mind whirling. He couldn’t quite describe the feeling, but it felt something like being excited and sick at the same time.
* * *
He was distracted the whole next day at school. When his friends asked him about the punishment, he just told them that he’d find out. They looked at him oddly but then quickly surmised that it was one of those administration things. “They always make you do weird things,” said his friend Brian. He was glad when the day was over so that he could finally find out what was going to happen and put the butterflies in his stomach to rest.
“I’m home!” he called out and went to look for something to eat. A note taped to the fridge read, “I’m over at Belinda’s. Dinner’s at 8 — Mom.” He added a note after hers: “I went to DMIC. BBBD — Brandon.” This was their system. He smiled at the abbreviation he just made up, but he figured that she would get it. BBBD meant “Be back before dinner.”
He tore out of the driveway on his red-and-black bicycle, and in no time, found himself downtown, the bike leaning against one of the many trees lining Main street. The buildings sat in the shade and the approaching dusk layered the area in a cool, comforting blanket. He connected the bike lock and went looking for the building. “Seven-seven-thirty, thirty five, forty, bam.” He stepped back to take a look at it.
The building was non-descript, just another brick front with black, opaque window and double doors. Gold lettering read, “Department of Minor Incompetence Correction” with the building number underneath, 7741. Set into the wall was a brassy plaque, with the phrase, “Aim for the stars! Tie your shoes!”
Brandon stared, blinked, and then laughed. Was this some kind of joke? Who had put the assisstant up to this? Was it his mom? No. She had sounded way too serious last night. Was it his uncle? He lived three states away, so no. Was it some kind of special day that he had forgotten? It was September, not April, so it couldn’t be April Fool’s. He racked his brain, thinking of some kind of reason for this elaborate joke.
Maybe I should just go home, he thought, but then quickly dismissed the idea. The school and his mom would find out if he didn’t at least go in and play along, and then he might be in real trouble. Fine. I’ll just look out for water buckets over doors and hand buzzers and junk like that. He swung open the door.
He walked into an antisceptic waiting room that reminded him of nothing so much as the dentist’s office. Black, barely-padded office chairs stood in a short line broken only by a water cooler, their metallic frames gleaming as if they had been polished recently. At the far end stood a short wooden endtable decorated with magazines. A small potted ivy sat on a shelf in the adjoining wall, and the floor was clean like the hallways at school were once a month. The only strange thing was the silence, like the room and everything in it had held its breath waiting for him. As the door ground shut behind him, he called out, “Hello?”
The front desk, a long, oval-shaped, sedately black hunk of wood had been so ordinary that he hadn’t even noticed it. After he spoke, a pale blue light switched on behind the desk, flickering brighter then darker and shot through with static.
“Ooh, that was a nasty one,” the light said. He blinked and it took the form of a secretary — a pale-blue secretary who was translucent, but a secretary with a ponytail and glasses all the same. She looked down at her notes (also in translucent blue) and then up at him.
“You’re Brandon Wilson,” she said.
“Uh, yeah. How did you know?”
“You’re here and you’re on time. And you’re probably more than a little curious.”
“Yeah,” he said, feeling like he was walking into a trap.
“Don’t freak,” she said. “We know all about you. We did have to study you before we invited you to the department, you know. Wouldn’t it be weird if we didn’t know anything about you at all?”
He exhaled and smiled, because she was smiling. “That does make sense,” he said.
“There’s no papers to fill out because we already know everything.” She winked at him. “Go down that hallway, don’t pass Go, and take the first door on the left. They’re waiting for you!”
He wasn’t sure if he should thank her or whether she was just doing what she was supposed to do, or if she was even real at all. He’d have to ask Jimmy about this when he got home. Could they make holograms like that in real life now? Was it some strange camera or film trick? He stole a glance at her when he walked down the hallway, but couldn’t see anything unusual. The first door on the left (actually the only door on the left, he noted), was ajar. He took another deep breath and pushed it open.
If the translucent holographic secretary meant that he was off the beaten path, then the room meant that he had left the path, the ground, and the whole planet behind. Part lounge room, part office, part guidance counselor’s office, part roleplayer’s den, the clash of colors and things — there were things everywhere — overwhelmed him. First, posters, some seeming quite official and serious decorated the walls (seemed, because slogans like ‘Just Say No To Incompetence!’ made him wonder), along with posters from various bands, charts, and even a sock or two. Three sofas surrounded a low glass table, which too was bedecked with various papers, glasses, and junk food, although not disorganizedly. Large standing-floor lamps lit each corner and a gaudy and ornate brass chain suspended a warm natural light from the ceiling in the center of the room. Doors led to what looked like an office, bathrooms, a smaller room that he couldn’t quite see in, and the back exit, noted so in blinding neon pink letters. Small tables and shelves sat in odd places, loaded with candy and drinking glasses with notes on them, and on the wall on his left squatted a giant blue flat computer monitor, with oak cabinets beneath. It looked like a teachers’ lounge that had been taken over by college students, and the inhabitants were no less bizarre.
Taking up most of the far couch was a woman dressed like an Egyptian queen. She laid on her side, tucking her legs behind a one-piece lily dress. A gold belt wrapped around her hips, bangles of gold and silver lounged on her arms, and bells hung from ribbons in her hair. She wore the vaguely bored and dismissive expression of cat-like royalty.
Sitting beside her was a man who looked like he had broken into a thrift store and dressed himself with whatever he could grab before the cops showed up. He wore a striped purple leisure suit with a dull-yellow tie in the shape of a flounder. His shoes were black-and-white checkerboard high-tops, his socks didn’t match, and he wore sunglasses that had pink swirls on their lenses. The clash of colors made Brandon queasy.
The couch with its side to Brandon held one man, who had stretched out to fill its entire width. He was well-built, tall, and handsome, from his stylish gelled black hair that hung over one eye, to the cool gleam of his steely eyes, to his fashionable and expensive attire. It wasn’t what he wore, as much as how he wore it, radiating confidence and virility. He held a magazine titled “Secrecy, Inc.” with the cover posing the answer to such questions of ‘How to Buy Groceries Online’, ‘Top Twenty Delivery Services’ and ‘Anonymous Email And Your Dating Life’.
The door had hidden the last person in the room from view until she rolled her silver cart a few inches forward. “Tea is served!” she announced, and then looked over at Brandon. He tried to smile but felt suddenly very small and like he had been melted. She had sparkling green eyes flecked with gold and long brown hair that danced in wisps about her throat. She wore a frilly lacy white dress and incongruously, sleek brown boots.
The holographic secretary then flew through the monitor at Brandon’s left and hovered over the couch with its back to him. She waved her arms wildly. “He’s here! He’s here! He’s here!” The woman pushing the silver cart cleared her throat and looked over at Brandon once again. He fought the blush creeping to his cheeks. The secretary looked over her shoulder and then said, “See? I was right.” Everyone sighed.
The handsome man said, “Come in and take a seat.” He gestured to the empty couch, as the secretary flew out of the way to perch on the arm at the far end. The woman in the frilly white dress handed out tea to the other people in the room and when she was done, she pushed the cart out of the way and said, “Ok, now that we’re all here let’s get started. The first thing that you need to know is that this is for real.”
Brandon had just settled into the couch when she had finished saying those words. She continued. “This is not a joke, not a game, and we are all dead-ly-serious.” She enunciated each word and he could swear that she was restraining a smile. “This is also your last chance. If you turn away now, you’re on your own, and you can’t handle things on your own.”
He swallowed, feeling his curious bravery being stripped away bit by bit. She was probably right, he thought, but why did she have to say it like that, in front of everyone?
“We’re offering you help, but you have to accept it,” said the man who had welcomed him in. No-one said anything for few moments, and Brandon felt like the silence was strangulating him. “So, are you in?”
Brandon thought for a moment. This wasn’t a joke and while he wasn’t convinced that his problem was serious, it had been nagging at the back of his mind. It was something he had to actively push down. Besides, his mom, the school, his friends, and who knows who else knew it. Here was a chance to fix it and it didn’t seem too difficult, so he figured, why not?
“Yeah, I’ll do it.”
If the others were happy or relieved, they didn’t show it. Brandon continued, “So what do I do? And who is everybody?”
The woman in the white dress grinned. “Second things first! I’ll introduce you, but here’s something else that you need to know: we don’t use our real names here. Everyone has a business name, or a code name, for the sake of privacy, and because of the organizational charter. I’m Wenchy.” She twirled a strand of brown hair around her fingers. “Our secretary you’ve already met — Veero.” She gestured over to the pale blue hologram sitting on the end of couch arm. Veero waved to him. “That’s HIM,” she said, pointing to the guy who sat alone on the couch, “and they’re O-Man and Velvet Katherine.” O-Man dipped down his crazy sunglasses in reply and Velvet Katherine gave him a curt regal nod.
“We have a correction program customized to your needs,” said O-Man. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to give blood. Every day you’ll be learning a bit more and forgetting how to screw things up.”
“But how?” asked Brandon. “Is it like another class or what?”
“It’s the class of real life,” explained Wenchy. “From here on out, you’re a junior member of the MIC. That means you’ll learn how to fight incompetence with the best and yes, there is some directed learning. The best thing is that all this helps you see how to use what you’re learning.”
HIM spoke up. “It’s like joining the army but with half the danger.”
Brandon nodded. It sort of made sense.
“You also get to be the eyes and ears of the MIC in school. Sort of like being a spy,” said O-Man.
Wenchy chimed in. “Oh yeah. We definitely need more student representatives over at Eastwood High.” She shook her head seriously, but with a smile. “That’s a cesspit of incompetence.”
“Wait a minute,” Brandon protested. “I won’t have to wear a funky outfit or speak before class, will I?”
“I don’t think so,” said O-Man. “At least we’ve never done that before. But you do have to have a code name.”
“I do?” he asked, incredulously.
They all looked at each other. Usually this was the easy sell. Most teenagers had no problem coming up with a code name. “Well, if you don’t,” began Wenchy thoughtfully, “then we get to pick one for you. Let’s see. How about ‘Brother B’?”
“I vote for ‘The Spazzalator’,” said O-Man. HIM nodded.
“No. I think he should be Anxiety Action Teen, A-A-T,” said Veero, with a grin.
Velvet Katherine looked deep in thought.
“Can I think on it?” asked Brandon, feeling a bit hot under the collar.
“Sure,” said Wenchy. “Just don’t tell your friends. All they need to know is that you have an after-class class and that you have a job. It’s to help you with studying. Confidentiality is important, you know.”
“A job? Do I get paid?” Brandon asked.
Wenchy stuck out her tongue at him. “Get real.”
* * * *
Brandon gathered together the various materials they had given him and still had a hard time believing that it was real. He wouldn’t have a hard time keeping it a secret, he didn’t think, because no-one would believe him if he told them. They told him that his mom would recieve status reports and the school was kept up-to-date, as well. He clamped the folder between his fingers and his handlebar as he pedaled on home, hoping he wouldn’t be late for dinner.
