Tristiana’s eyes lingered on the sign in the window that read “Everything half off!”. Then she walked over to Jennifer and pointed to the sign. “How much for the sign?”

Jennifer narrowed her eyes. She didn’t recognize her and she wasn’t in high school, but she couldn’t tell exactly how much older the customer was. “That’s not for sale.” Rule number one, she thought; stop trouble before it starts.

Tristiana feigned shock. “It says everything, and the sign is inside the store. Although I think I’d like it in a more lace — no, an off-white color. Red isn’t really my thing.”

Jennifer stood up tall and said curtly, “Excuse me, ma’am, but –” She couldn’t help but thinking that the sign would be better in off-white, too.

Undaunted, Tristiana continued. “Other stores sell their signs. You did know that, didn’t you?”

Jennifer looked surprised and then lifted a finger to her temple. Whoa. Why am I so lightheaded? “No, I didn’t know that.”

“Pluvious Canine just two stores down said that theirs was two-thirds off. Can you beat that?”

Jennifer’s mind raced in several directions at once. Was that the name of the store they just finished down there? No-one knew what it was; it had been a secret. And two-thirds off! How could they survive with those margins? Most importantly, why would they sell their sign if they were just opening?

“What if I used my DC card?” Without waiting for a response, Tristiana whipped out a glinting, glittering card with the store’s name on it.

Jennifer closed her eyes involuntarily and when she opened them again, she felt that a whole minute had passed. She found herself leaning against a mannequin for support and the only memory she had was a cold, cruel laugh ringing in her ears.

* * * * *

Written with letters pulled from newspapers and xeroxed several times, the flyer read,

“Westchester High Tournament of Intellect
#1 of a 3-issue limited series

The Inner Circle summons all hale and hearty ones
strong of mind and peculiar in interests to declare
and defend thy wits. Not attending is not an option!

Food, drink, internet, and dice shall be provided. B.Y.O.B!

Friday @ WHS Auditorium, 6PM-times unknown”

“Did you see this?” asked Dana, thrusting it under Jimmy’s nose.

Jimmy turned from his locker to look at her and said, “Uh, ohio.”

She blinked and then said, “Ohio. Well, did you see it?”

He rummaged around in his backpack and pulled out an identical note. “All of us got one. It’s held three times every school year.”

Dana mumbled something to try to cover up the fact that she had forgotten that. Jimmy loaded a few books into his backpack and shut the locker, spinning the combination lock. Together, they walked towards the library in the dawning day.

“But that’s this Friday,” Dana said after they had walked for a bit, hoping that she didn’t sound too nervous, or too whiny.

“Everyone knew it was it coming,” he chided her. “We talked about it last Friday.”

“When last Friday?” she huffed.

“Right after the lycanthrope fighter pilots discussion.” He felt her forehead. “You are watching Bikini Weekends again aren’t you? Symptoms of acute brain drain suspected.”

Dana held out her arm and stopped Jimmy from walking forward. Such an insult to her intellect could not go unchallenged! “Again? I am not a ditz!” She tossed her hair and then vowed, “I’m going to completely dominate this tournament! Dom-i-natus, from the Latin, meaning to rule over! There!” Jimmy politely applauded and thought to himself, “I need to brush up on my Latin.”

Dana clenched her fists. It was all Brandon’s fault! She had been so focussed on finding out what he was doing that she had forgotten everything else.

* * * * *

The rest of the day trudged on and eventually Westchester High gave up and begrudgingly released students from its confines.

“Man, I hate Wednesdays. They’re so long,” complained Brandon, walking with Brian out of school.

“I know what you mean. Glad it’s over!”

“And it’s also the homework day.”

“Isn’t every day homework day?” wondered Brian.

“Not like today. Wednesday is THE homework day. They really stick it to us. At least my teachers do.”

Brandon pulled his backpack up and let it drop back to its usual position. “Hmm. It does feel a little heavier than usual. Maybe you’re right.”

“So what are you doing tonight?” asked Brandon as they reached the bike rack.

“Nothing really. Why? I thought you had DMIC.”

“I got the evening off, so I was wondering if you wanted to shoot some hoops or something.”

“Sure yeah man, that sounds cool. Seven at the park?”

Brandon made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. “Right-o.”

By seven, dusk was almost night and Brandon was pedalling to the park. It was a pain now that Brian’s hoop was broken; he hoped that the lights were working at the park. It seemed so foreign, so odd for it to be a schoolnight and for him not to be at DMIC. He took in a sharp breath and wondered what everyone was doing at the conclave meeting. Then he breathed again and remembered that life used to be always like this, before the DMIC. He rounded the turn into the park and pedalled over to the basketball courts.

The empty court greeted him with two basketball goals raising their monocled eyes to the sky on spartan steel shoulders. Above, the stars spread out in a glittering expanse against the night sky. Brandon laid down his bike silently and noticed that the air had grown colder recently, as fall began its long, fatal dance with winter. Beneath the stars, on the empty court, he felt his finiteness creeping into his awareness. He made his way to the nearest goal and brushed his fingers absent-mindedly over the flaking paint and steel, wondering when Brian would show up.

A few minutes later, Brian rounded the bend and sent his bicycle wheels flying over the loose gravel that led into the park. Brandon stood there, back against a goal, eyes out-of-focus, looking into the sky. He didn’t seem to notice Brian until Brian laid down his bike.

“Hey man, you didn’t go to sleep or something did you?”

“Nah, I was just thinking,” Brandon said.

“I did all my thinking at school,” joked Brian. “Let’s shoot some hoops!” He headed over towards the shack that held the lights and flipped them on, then he shot the basketball over to Brandon.

* * * * *

Dana bicycled downtown, looking in various stores at random, in a helpless attempt to find where Brandon was spending his time. She had tried everything else and now it was down to this.

She had known Brandon since the 8th grade, but this had taken her by surprise. If there was one thing Brandon wasn’t, it was mysterious — at least until now. He was smart enough, but just distracted. Jimmy was like that, too. Maybe guys either had some kind of focusing problem or they weren’t distracted because they only thought about three things ever, like Brian did. Maybe he had advanced to four things since high school. She grinned. The exact number didn’t matter, but she knew he’d never talk with her about lycanthrope fighter pilots.

She took a turn down Woodlawn Avenue, and noted that the bank was still open on the right. Most of the other shops were closed. “Just one more,” she promised herself, “and then I’ll warp home for Oddworld!” She scanned the stores and slowed her pace. “First National Bank, T.J Harvey’s, Rizalla’s Cafe`, It’s All Venice To Me Imports, the Department of Minor Incompetence Correction.” She slammed on the brakes and turned back around to check out that last one, reading the small brass plaque beneath it: “Aim for the Stars! Tie Your Shoes!”

She burst out laughing and then after a few moments thought to herself, “This is always where someone opens a door and gets sucked into an alternate universe or gets eaten by a humongous reptile.” She reached into a side pocket on her backpack, rubbed her lucky 20-sider, and then reached for the door. It was locked. Locked? That never happens!

She couldn’t see inside through the tinted glass no matter how she scrunched up her eyes. Even the light provided by her collapsible lightsaber wasn’t enough. She took a long look at the sign again and then spun around to make sure it really read the same thing. Then she noticed the next store over, “Water Wheels of the World”, followed by “Astelle’s Investigations”, and then “Our Secret Cafe`”. She shook her head. It had to be some kind of joke. Besides even if it wasn’t, she couldn’t picture Brandon in some bizarrely-named place like one of those. It just wasn’t him!

When she reached the end of the street, she thought to herself, “This sucks like Cygnus X-1! I need to make it past the castle gate!” Then as she looked up into the night sky, she felt heat rise to her cheeks at the plan that came to her mind. She bit her lip and wondered aloud, “Could I pretend to like him?”

* * * * *

“Six up!” said Brian, after sinking a hoop within the half-circle of the court. Brandon took the ball and dribbled it back to the top of the key. “What are you doing for English?” Brian asked him.

“Oh I’m reading stuff mostly,” said Brandon with a grin.

“Get out! Me too,” he said lunging to the side and dribbling to the left side of the goal. Brandon stood a few feet away, arms crossed to prevent the shot.

“I haven’t got an idea for the paper yet. I’m thinking about doing a bio of one of the poets.” He shot and missed and Brandon went to get the ball.

“That sounds good, man. I think I’ll do like a poem or two and see how they fit in today. Mrs. Eldridge likes that application stuff.”

“That’s right,” said Brian, following his friend back to the top of the key. “Maybe I’ll do something else.”

“Nah, just relate-ize it, you know?”

“Right,” said Brian, adding a “Crud!” as Brandon whipped past him to take a shot and dropping the ball cleanly in the hoop. “Eight-six!” Catching his breath, he added, “You know, that sounds like eighty-six.”

“Yeah it does,” said Brandon. “Or it sounds like someone ate six.”

“Isn’t that a lot to eat?”

“I guess it’s not so much if it’s like six donut holes,” said Brandon.

“But if it was six cars, that’d be too much.”

“Yeah.”

They played for a few minutes without saying much, and Brandon took the lead, eleven to nine.

“I saw something pretty crazy the other day,” said Brian.

“Like what?”

“Lauren. She was talking to some other girls.”

“No way!” said Brandon, unbelieving.

“Yes way, man. I saw it with these two,” and he pointed to his eyes with two fingers while he dribbled the basketball with his other hand. “And I could have sworn that it was about clothes or shoes or something girly.”

“Really?”

Brian made a shot but Brandon blocked it and recovered the ball before it went out of bounds. Brandon took a three-point shot and made it, leaving Brian momentarily short for words.

“Come on, I’ve done it before,” Brandon reminded him.

“It’s been a while,” said Brian, returning with the ball. Brandon rolled his eyes.

“So anyways, did you ask her what it was about?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I just couldn’t find the right time.”

Brandon called a time-out. “That sounds weird.”

“It is weird.”

“No, I mean weird, like there’s something else going on weird.”

Brian ran his hand through his blonde hair to wipe the sweat off and said, “Where did you get that idea from?”

“From you. But don’t go do that. That would unsettle everything, you know?”

“I know.”

“Ok.” Brandon looked at his friend with his eyebrows raised, not sure if he was really telling the truth or not.

“Honest, man, I don’t have a thing for her!”

“Ok, ok!”

“But you, now, you have something going on.”

“I always have stuff going on.”

“No, not ordinary stuff! I don’t know, man, but you’ve been out-of-it lately.”

Brandon tried not to think about Wenchy at this particular moment, but her face kept appearing in his mind. “Well, I guess…”

“There’s no guessing about it! You are totally distracted. You have to be crushing on someone.”

“Well if I am,” said Brandon, more defensively than he wanted to, “it’s not anyone at school.”

Brian smirked. “That just means you met her in the neighborhood or at the library or the hobby store or somewhere.”

Brandon felt some confidence seep back into him. “Yeah, right. Like girls hang out in those places, and we know all the girls in the neighborhood.”

Brian looked at him. He was right, but he had every indication of someone in love. It didn’t add up.

“Ok,” said Brian at last. “Maybe you’re not, but you sure look like you are.”

“Whatever!” said Brandon, calling a time-in and charging with the ball.

They played two games of 21, each winning one game, before they called it a night. Afterwards, they sat on a bench nearby because it was warmer than the cold concrete court. They had started talking when the lights went off with a violent electrical snap. In the darkness, lit only by the stars, Brian said, “Guess the time’s up.”

“Yeah, guess so.” Brandon could help but think how ominous those words sounded. He didn’t get to see Brian as much after school and he knew that he’d been hanging with his jock friends more.

The trip back home was quiet and when they bade each other goodnight, Brandon felt even smaller and more isolated beneath the stars, surrounded only by the dark. He felt out-of-place somehow, not where he always was and yet, not what he was going to be, only, he had no idea what he was becoming. The porch lights of his house drew him in without protest.

* * * * *

The Complexitor was seated at the bar at Starry Nights, and had just slipped his phone back into his jeans. It was Wednesday night, not his usual night, and none of his business associates were around. A boring and repetitive industrial guitar song throbbed through the speakers like a headache. The words he had just texted to his cousin burned in his mind as if they were on fire — “No room. Bad idea. Can’t do it!” He looked suspiciously at a watery scotch and rearranged the three sunglasses that he wore. He was wondering if she would show, but those thoughts fled with a familiar poke between the shoulder blades and a coy giggle.

He looked over into the star-and-dagger eyes of Tristiana. “So you did it?”
“Of course I did,” she said.
“I doubt it,” he said.
“I knew you’d say that,” she replied, sitting down on the stool next to him, and then pulling out a silver phone from her too-cute purse. “Watch this.”

Her fingernails clattered across the phone and quickly located a series of video clips. In turn, the Complexitor watched her approach one junior member of the DMIC after another, though not a single one that he had seen the night of the football game. One by one, after Tristiana’s confusing web of words, their expressions shifted from intrigued to confused to momentary panic, and then to a slack-jawed expression of unconsciousness.

The Complexitor gritted his teeth. “These look authentic. I don’t quite understand how you did it, but you did. What do you want me to do?”

She smiled a brilliant, disturbing smile. “I want you to ask me out.”

The Complexitor recoiled so quickly that one of his sunglasses flew off and skidded down the bar.

“What?”

She smiled again and leaned in closer. “I said, ‘I want you to Ask Me Out.’”

The Complexitor began to sweat and his beady eyes scanned the area for some sort of social system that he could manipulate into complex behavior.

“No you don’t,” she said, placing her manicured nails on either side of his head. She stood up and loudly declared, “But we had a deal!”

The Complexitor felt the knot in his stomach mushroom instantly into a familiar ill feeling. He had moved here to get away from his ex-wife and now this? “Ok, ok,” he found himself saying. “Where — where would you like to go?”

“Mediterranean cuisine is delish!”

He hadn’t thought this way in years. Where was that place Roberts liked? “How about the Sicilian Station for lunch, uhm, tomorrow?”

She turned her back to him. “On such short notice? What kind of girl do you think I am?”

Others were still watching. He cursed, silently, and then offered, “How about Friday, then, for dinner?”

She spun back around. “Yes, that’s perfect! See you then. Seven PM.” She winked at him with the star eye and then sashayed off into the lace-colored dance floor lights.

It had been two days and he still didn’t have any answers. He ran the situation over and over through his mind, without a single satisfying result. How had it all gone wrong? He had analyzed the game for several days, and planned for nearly a week. He had the best information available on the DMIC. He had taken all his vitamins. He was, as his cousin said, “juiced”. It couldn’t fail and yet somehow, it did.

The DMIC was simply stronger than he had anticipated, probably by a factor of two or more. What’s worse, Roberts had told him that they were aggressively recruiting high school students. He took another sip. He hated to contemplate the possibility, but maybe he needed a partner. The idea seemed comforting at first, but before he could follow it any further, the embarassment of defeat returned with a vengeance. Maybe their recruits were responsible for their success? That could have been the mitigating factor — no, it had to have been. Very well. He would take care of that. He would defeat the DMIC by taking out their new recruits. He would clip the new buds.

That evening, he decided to go out to the local watering hole for those involved in the incompetence trade — Starry Nights. It was an industrial club that didn’t make it, and from the outside, it still looked that way. The parking lot was littered with trash, weeds grew through the cracked asphalt, and a “For Sale” sign was staked outside. The building itself featured impenetrable black glass all around, and was plastered with glow-in-the-dark stickers of planets, comets, stars, and other astronomical objects. The two double-glass entrance doors featured spiral galaxies — one spinning clockwise, the other counter-clockwise. Above the doors, written in a fluid, futuristic cursive letters was the name of club itself. When the Complexitor arrived, he took a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and followed the byzantine instructions written down. After a series of knocks and wiping sounds made by dragging his fingers across glass, the doors jangled and opened. He quickly stepped inside.

* * *

Brandon swung open the door to the DMIC lounge. HIM sat in his usual position with a dainty cup of tea between his two meaty, oversized hands, oblivious to the chaos around him. Veero hovered just below the ceiling, fading in and out, while Wenchy and O-Man stood just below her, hurling insults at one another. O-Man was dressed in a white T-shirt with jarring blue letters superimposed on red letters which read simply “No”, shimmery green pants that featured water droplets falling into a lake in a holographic pattern, and his usual goggle-glasses. Velvet Katherine laid on the sofa, chin propped up on one elbow, smiling.

“No, what’s important here is assigning blame! Whose fault is it?” asked Wenchy.

“Yours,” said O-Man. “You’re supposed to be a tomboy. You fumbled the ball!”

“I didn’t want to get my dress snagged on the couch! You should’ve thrown it TO me instead of to my Side Of The Room.”

Velvet Katherine noticed Brandon and in reply, stretched out her hand and curled three fingers in slowly. HIM nodded as he lifted the teacup to his lips.

Velvet Katherine said drolly, “Welcome to the asylum.”

“What’s going on?” Brandon asked.

She idly pointed to a foam football that was wedged in the oak cabinet where Veero’s control circuitry was housed. HIM put down the empty cup and stated, “Arena football gone bad. They jarred her controls.”

“Oh,” said Brandon. He took a seat on the couch facing away from him, slightly amused and slightly confused. “Are they going to fix her?”

“Someday,” sighed HIM. “It’s not hard, but it’s the principle that’s at stake.”

“And the pride,” added Velvet Katherine.

“Are we still having a meeting?”

“Of course,” darted Velvet Katherine. “The children just need to get it out of their systems.”

O-Man and Wenchy continued arguing; Velvet Katherine raised her voice and repeated herself.

Wenchy was about to slap O-Man and he was lunging for a cushion on HIM’s sofa when what Katherine had said registered. Wenchy looked over at Brandon, blushed slightly, and composed herself. O-Man grumbled and headed over to the oak cabinet. When his back was turned, Wenchy stuck out her tongue at him. Brandon rolled his eyes.

An uncomfortable silence filled the room until Veero popped off with, “I was right here! Right here!” She sighed and slumped over, floating down to HIM’s sofa. She adjusted her glasses and looked over at him, smirking. “Tagging hair isn’t a real tackle!” HIM quickly looked away.

O-Man shut the oak cabinet and then stood before the coffee table as Wenchy sat down beside Brandon. He rifled through some notes that he pulled out of his green pants. “Ok, conclave meeting this Wednesday. Six PM sharp. I’ll drive.”

Everyone but Brandon protested. O-Man grinned, feigning hurt. “Just making sure that you’re awake.”

Wenchy jabbed Brandon in the ribs, her voice low and secretive. “Do you remember what the conclave is?”

Brandon blinked. “Uhm, I know it’s a level higher up than the chapter.”

Wenchy pointed to him and then unfurled an imaginary book with her hands.

O-Man continued, “More on that later. Here’s the status on the McCallahan Lake project. We’ve verified that there are no other sources of incompetence in the area and our surveillance has indicated that none are forthcoming. The maintenance work is not large enough for Farley to subcontract.”

“On the other hand, the system isn’t being maintained poorly enough to get the attention of county water management. So far, it’s just minor disturbances like low water pressure and occasional disruptions to service. It may be a year before trouble hits, but when it does hit, it will be big.”

“If it’s a big deal, we don’t handle it anymore, right?” asked Brandon.

“True,” said O-Man. “But what if something becomes a big deal because we didn’t stop it? That’s major bad and Bernie would find out for sure.”

“Bernie! Grr!” said Veero.

“We also have a tendency to lose funding in those situations,” noted Velvet Katherine, almost nonchalantly.

“And if that’s not bad enough, all the other chapters laugh at us,” added Wenchy. “So while it might seem like a good idea, it really isn’t.” She turned to look at O-Man. “By the way, why didn’t you use the roach motel defense?”

O-Man shrugged. “We ran through several scenarios and only the mobile truck repair looked possible. Even that was only an outside chance because one of the guys is a gonzo truck mechanic — it’s the only thing he cares about.”

“What else did you find out?” asked Velvet Katherine.

O-Man scanned through his notes. “There’s an election coming up for the county commission. Our next plan of attack is to publicize the sorry state of the drainage system. We’re gonna take photos and send them to various bloggers.”

Wenchy nodded. “The harpoon strategy.”

“The next thing is to fill in Brandon in on what happened behind the scenes last Friday.” He gestured to Wenchy, who took his place before the table. She smiled at him and he sat down, folding his arms as if bracing for impact.

“Here’s the official rundown,” she began. “It was mostly a success — grade B. We managed to foil the Complexitor. The background to this is that while you,” and here she looked at Brandon, “and the other junior members were executing the visual component of Operation Flash Fire, we were tracking the Complexitor. We had him penned in and he didn’t even know it!”

Velvet Katherine looked at Wenchy with a “stay on course” sort of look.

“Ahem. Well, after the visual component took its toll, he tried to make a direct play. Jackie interrupted him and then O-Man and Velvet Katherine brought him to heel. It would have been a perfect ending, too, but he got away. More to the point, O-Man let him get away.”

“But no-one’s ever put a Wankel engine in a DeLorian! What would you say to that question?” he asked, spreading his arms wide.

Velvet Katherine replied curtly, “No-one in this room knows what you mean.”

O-Man protested, “You were there, too!”

“We always leave the dirty work to you,” she replied.

“It seems,” interrupted HIM, “that we all have something to learn from this.”

The room fell instantly still. After a few painfully quiet moments, Velvet Katherine spoke. “Point taken. Wenchy?”

Wenchy bit her lip in a way that Brandon thought was irresistably cute. “I will make suspect apprehension a part of strategy.” She adjusted her glasses. “Now about that conclave meeting.” O-Man got back up before the table and they launched into the particulars.

The rest of the discussion was a blur to Brandon, because for the first time, he had thought that Wenchy was cute. The times before he had felt nervous or fragile around her, and he hadn’t wanted that dream to end, and he had felt this glow inside that wasn’t entirely a joy in conquering algebra, but until a few moments ago, it hadn’t all added up. Now it had. She was cute — even when she was snapping her fingers before his eyes.

“Earth to LM. Study time.”

He blinked and realized that the discussion was over. “Oh sorry. I guess I spaced out.”

She led the way into the office. “I noticed! But don’t worry — there’s no test on that stuff. In fact, you’ll have the day off.”

He followed her inside. “I will?”

“Yes. You’re still being trained. A few more weeks and then you’ll be able to attend off-site functions.” She saw his disappointed look. “Hey, it’s for your good as well as ours. Life goes better with training!”

She cleared off the whiteboard and changed the subject. “So how has algebra been treating you? How did studying go this weekend?”

“It went alright,” he said. “I studied for about an hour and a half.”

“Hmm,” she said, picking up a ruler and pointing it at him. “Are you sure that’s enough?”

“Uh, not entirely. But it’s more than I was doing before.”

“Good, good,” she said.

“I’ve been using the techniques.”

“Even better!” Inwardly, she smiled. She had told him to imagine that the problems were important and that his answers mattered. “Make up a story to go with it. In the real world, after all, no-one drops a random math problem in your lap! There’s always a reason why you have to solve it.”

“They’ve been working out really well.” His eyes met her for a moment too long and he had to look away. She looked at him strangely. “Oh no,” she thought. “Not again!” With a familiar pit in her stomach, she realized that this meant a call to his mom. She hurriedly switched the subject.

“And the class itself?”

“Oh. We’re getting to the end of the section on points and lines and Mrs. Turner always has a test at the end of a section. She said it’ll be this Friday.”

“Ah, test prep. I’ve got you covered.” She laid out a laminated sheet before him, that discussed four different methods to study and retain information. Each section had a few steps with fun things mixed between to make studying memorable.

After giving him a minute or so to look it over, she announced, “Algebra is not the only class, though. Our sources tell us that Biology and Physics are having you for breakfast — or at least brunch.”

Brandon wasn’t sure he got that one. “Yeah. I don’t understand biology. Physics is a little easier, though.”

She nodded. “Physics is O-Man’s department,” she said. “Veero’s interested in biology.”

Brandon blinked.

“That and alt rock,” Wenchy added, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for an AI/hologram system to have interests.

“We’ll get you started with them after this. But one more thing,” she added. “Don’t forget to study even classes that you’re great in. You’ve gotta keep brushing your teeth even if you didn’t have cavaties last time!” She added, “Now let’s go see what Veero is doing.”

* * * * *

The Complexitor’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the inside of the failed nightclub. Fanning out in a concave half-circle hugging the windows sat a handful of wooden circular tables, surrounded by clusters of chairs. The chairs were stacked one upside down on top of the other, as if the club had not yet opened. Further in, an empty black dance floor stretched from one end of the club to the other, and above, stage-like track lighting bathed the area in an antisceptic smoky-white glow. Further in stood the bar, and he could make out several people sitting there, some conversing with the bartender, others conversing with one another. Off to the side of the bar were comfortable-looking square lounge chairs clumped around low tables. The faint odor of cigars and the unpleasant smell of cheap draft beer came to his nostrils. The music pulsed annoyingly in the background — some sort of nondescript and out-of-date rave material. He really didn’t care for music; it was distracting and as a result, he never bothered to learn much about it except as a way to group similarly annoying things together. The only reason he knew it was rave was because of his cousin. He grit his teeth and made his way to the bar.

The bartender gave him the usual desultory nod as a welcome. He ambled over to tables and noticed a few familiar faces. “Mr. C!” called out one, while others waved him over. He pulled out a comfortable chair and settled in.

Around the table sat his compatriots in the incompetence industry. They weren’t friends, and they weren’t acquaintances, and they didn’t come to drink; they simply talked about various aspects of the business and shared their personal stories. He supposed that “business associates” was the best way to describe them. That was the word that his primary information source, Roberts, used.

A slender man dressed in a neon orange jumpsuit with black goggles and a perpetual grin on his face sat directly opposite the Complexitor. He was Number Four, a representative of the Orange Brigade. Lambda was there also, a young man with a purple flat-top and various Greek symbols down his cargo shorts. He sat with one leg on the floor and the other leg resting on top, bouncing his foot to the beat. His shirt was a picture of suspenders made to look as though he were wearing them. He seemed relaxed and balanced, which was very unusual for him. The last person at the table was Roberts, who wore a long, tan trenchcoat that he seemed to disappear into, leaving only his head to peek out, a head that was covered with short, fine bristles of white hair in patches. Behind gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes were electric blue, piercing, and calculating.

“So howzit?” asked Lambda.

“Could be worse,” said the Complexitor. Roberts raised an eyebrow, and then waved for the bartender.

“Yes. It could be. And that’s our job!” said Number Four, happily, as though he were hopped up on happy pills.

“They were just discussing math,” said Lambda, frowning non-seriously at Roberts. “You got here just in time, man!”

“Probabilities, to be precise,” said Roberts.

The Complexitor laughed. “I bet that you were taking odds on Lambda making it the whole evening without an incident.”

“Ding ding ding!” said Lambda. “The truth is, I’ve gone the whole day without a single accidental act of incompetence! That’s why your words can’t touch me!”

“He’s refining his unability! You go!” said Number Four. The Complexitor sighed. He didn’t like to think of their talents as inverted abilities, and that was a big reason why he didn’t join the Orange brigade — the getup was another.

Roberts said, “I told him that it would be no problem for him to continue that streak the rest of this evening. However, my estimates of that are quite low.”

“Whatever,” said Lambda, bouncing his foot to the beat.

“So how’s everyone else doing?” asked the Complexitor, nodding to the bartender as he passed out another glass for everyone.

“I can’t complain,” said Roberts. “The information trade is booming.”

“Things are smashing in orange land!” said Number Four. “This last mission we caused fifty acts of incompetence at our latest flash breakdance session. Granted, they were fifty acts of bad dancing, but they occurred all within a few minutes of each other, which put a dent in the local competence grid, for certain!” And that was another reason, thought the Complexitor. Staging acts which encouraged mass incompetence was mindless and had no lasting effect. He was convinced that the competence grid was something that existed only in their orange minds.

“How about you, Complexitor?” asked Roberts. “How did your operation turn out?”

The Complexitor took a deep breath. “Not so well. In fact, it was a total bust.”

The others leaned in a little closer. Good news was good, but bad news was even better. “Things started off well — no obvious signs of a resistance,” he said, feeling like a police officer reading a report. “It wasn’t until the second quarter that I realized how much we had underestimated them.”

“No way!” said Number Four with a downturned thumb.

The Complexitor continued, “They knew about the my sensitivity,” he said, tapping the outermost of his three sunglasses, “and they exploited it to its full potential.”

“It’s almost like they knew more about you than you knew about them,” said Lambda.

“I know,” said the Complexitor, looking at Roberts. “After that, I tried to influence the game head-on, but my official source dried up, and then I met Jackie.”

“Jackie? Interesting,” said Roberts.

“I’ll spare you the rest,” the Complexitor continued with an annoyed glance at Roberts, “but I managed to evade capture. They were far stronger than we expected, by a factor of at least two.”

Number Four let out a low whistle. “I can’t find an upside to all that, and that’s depressing! Who were you fighting?”

Under his breath, the Complexitor said, “The DMIC.”

Lambda and Number Four looked at each other for a moment and then burst out laughing.

The Complexitor quaffed his scotch and looked off into the distance. “Go on, laugh. It’s not like I went in there blind.”

Lambda said, “I’m sorry, man, I just can’t help it. Geez. The DMIC? Aren’t they like the place where garbagemen go who can’t get into garbage school?”

“No,” said Number Four, slapping his knee. “That’s where the garbage goes that can’t make it as garbage!” Lambda kept laughing but looked at him strangely.

That’s another reason, the Complexitor said to himself. Their jokes don’t make sense.

Even Roberts let a little grin tug his lips upward.

The Complexitor looked at them each dully in turn. “I appreciate all your support.”

Lambda stopped laughing and said at last, “Sorry man. I know it’s gotta sting.” He laughed a little more, recovered his composure, and then asked, “So what’s your followup?”

“I don’t have anything definite. I will be reevaluating my information sources, though,” the Complexitor stated.

Roberts took a sip of his drink. “Probabilities, probabilities. All our information is extrapolated from what my sources know to what might be, and even what they know might be wrong. What we’ve learned is that our estimates of the DMIC — as improbable as this might be — are low. This is good knowledge to have.”

“You should have joined us!” chirruped Number Four.

The Complexitor leaned back in his chair and felt a playful, almost tender poke. He turned and looked up straight into the eyes of Tristiana.

With the smoky-white lights behind her, she seemed like an angel stepping forth from the clouds, at first. Two off-white wings protruded from her shoulder blades, reaching half-way down her back, ending in sharp pinions — a nice sewing job, he admitted. Her hair was a long, black affair that fanned out over her forehead slightly and then splayed down to where her wings began. A silver star had its center as her left eye, and a dagger had its center as her right. Her gossamer-like top seemed to ripple in some breeze, while spiderweb-textured black gloves ran from her fingers to her elbows, tapering into translucence. Her ruffled black dress was cut in sharp lines as if it had been cut from paper that bled glittering silver gel. Her shoes were off-white slippers with tiny silver-outlined wings behind the heel, a star on the left toe, and a dagger on the right. High cheekbones gifted her with an elevated air, but her eyes focussed on him like he were prey and her smile was twisted in a grin of uncertain sanity.

The Complexitor knew about her and had seen her around, but their paths had never crossed. He knew she wasn’t an emissary or a messenger-girl. She curled a finger and beckoned him aside. He got up and nodded to the table, with the remaining occupants each looking some degree of stunned.

Once at the bar, she said, “I hear you’ve been having a little — trouble.” Her voice matched her appearance — lines alternatingly silky-sweet and huskily mad.

“Word gets around,” he said, looking at an empty glass beside him.

“I can help, you know.”

“How?”

She sat down beside him and playfully imitated his sitting position, laying her head on her arms, and then her arms on the bar. She then lifted her head, turned it sideways to wink at him with the star eye. “Now I can’t tell you all that! But I can mystify!” She swirled her hands higher and higher as if coaxing a balloon into flight. “If I can mystify three junior members of the DMIC” — and she held out three fingers — “then you have to do something for me.”

He laughed. “If you can do that, be my guest.”

She stood up sharply and pushed the bar stool under the table. In a voice like a game show host, she announced, “It’s — a — deal!”

The Complexitor could feel the eyes of strangers on him. Applause broke out from various sections of the bar and she bowed to each in turn.

She stood up and turned to face him, grabbing his nose between her thumb and forefinger. She whispered, “Prepare to meet your doom! Be here Wednesday. I’ll be waiting.” She laughed selfishly and sashayed away, wings flapping slightly as she went.

* * * *

Tuesday morning, Lauren took the long way to homeroom — down the main hall, down the B wing, and then up K. She scanned the right side of the hall and found Danielle, hanging out with two of her friends. “Ugh, I hate acting like this, but here goes nothing!” she thought, slowing her pace and waving hi to Danielle.

Danielle was a short, brown-haired girl, whom most would describe as cute. She was friendly, wore her hair in a ponytail, and smiled more than most. She knew Lauren from second-period English, but they didn’t talk much.

“Hi Lauren. Forget your homework?”

Lauren forced herself into an artificially happy smile and made her voice perky. She said, “No, I got it all done. Just barely, though!”

Danielle’s other two friends were freshmen that Lauren didn’t know, but they knew about her. When she joined them, they each backed up a few feet.

“Me too,” said Danielle. “I wish we would get through the Odyssey already! Blech!”

Lauren fought back the urge to swing her backpack around and knock them all out. The adventure stuff was the only poetry worth reading! Her anger vanished instantly when she realized that Dana would agree. “That’s weird. I wonder what she would say if I asked her about it.” Instead she just nodded.

Then Danielle introduced her to the other two girls — Anna, and Charlotte. In a moment, Lauren could tell that she picked the perfect day to talk to Danielle. All three of them wore sharp clothes, color-coordinated well, and had hairstyles that fit them to a tee.

Before they could get back to their conversation, Lauren said quietly, “Actually, I need to ask a question.”

Anna and Charlotte looked at each other and quickly thrust their hands in their pockets, fumbling for their lunch money.

Lauren sighed. “No, that’s not it. I need some advice.”

Danielle smiled, her eyes twinkling. “Lauren Mitchell needs advice?”

“Yes,” said Lauren, looking off into space, and down at her shoes. “I have to go to a wedding, and I don’t know how I should look.”

Danielle smiled even larger. “So what kind of advice do you need?”

Lauren stumbled with the word. “F-f-f-fashion advice.”

The three girls looked at her in shock.

“Yes, fashion advice! I need it! Tell me everything you know!” The way she said it, it sounded like a threat, but she was blushing and had pulled her cap down over her eyes. The girls laughed and took a few steps closer. In no time, they were all discussing what a good wedding outfit would be for someone who didn’t have to be in the wedding itself. They even gave her ideas for hairstyles, after Lauren had reluctantly removed her MOPAR cap.

Just then, a skinny kid with a rumpled brown jacket and a T-shirt that read, “It’s not me, it’s YOU,” passed by the group of girls. He stopped and looked at them. “Lauren?” He saw a tall, blonde girl standing on tip-toes, with her long, straight hair falling about her shoulders, but she wore a t-shirt sporting a cartoonish funny car, and clutched a cap like a safety blanket. “No way!”

She stormed out of the group and towered over him. “Forget what you just saw, Eddie. One more thing.”

“What’s that?” His voice quavered as fear shot through every muscle.

“Start running.”

He bolted down the hall, skidded left around the corner and kept going. Brian was headed towards his locker in the same hallway when he saw Eddie speeding away from him. He paused and looked sidelong down K wing. There, he saw Lauren all smiles, putting her cap on, leaving a group of girls that she had been talking to. He had a sudden, strange, feeling that he had just seen something he wasn’t supposed to have seen. He ducked back in the hall and turned around to take the long way to homeroom.

* * * * *

“Do you have it?” He turned around to face a rasta hat-wearing redhead girl carrying a black backpack completely covered with buttons. She wore a black tie-dyed t-shirt with a silver whirpool that reached from the edges to the center. He blinked and looked away, becoming dizzy after just a few seconds looking at.

“Uh, not here,” he said, stepping out of the flow of traffic leaving class. “But I can get it for you.” There was something about her that made him nervous. Maybe it was knowing that she was a higher-level geek than he was. Maybe it was the fact that she was cute. Maybe it was both.

Dana was in no mood for pleasantries. She wanted her lightsaber back and she wanted it now. “Ok, let’s go get it.” They went to his locker and after fumbling with a few books, he pulled it out and handed it over. She held it up and examined it several different ways. “Not even a scratch. Excellent!”

“I even put new batteries in it,” he said, getting the last of his books into his backpack.

She pressed the ‘on’ button and a brilliant red glow instantly outlined the clear center column. She swung it around a few times, completely oblivious to the stares of the other students as they passed by. “Excellent plus two!” she said, turning it back off and then collapsing it down to its usual size.

He shut his locker and turned to her and said, “Thanks for letting me borrow it. That was really cool of you.” Before she could zing him about returning it late or notice his expression, she caught a glimpse of Brandon from the corner of her eye.

“Later!” She ran off down the hall, light saber in hand, as stealthily as she could.

He looked after her and said to himself, “She’s so cool.”

* * * * *

Lunchtime was filled with strange energy, as if you could feel the relationships between people reconfigure, buckle, and sway. Brian knew that something was up the moment he saw Brandon. He had seemed a little strange on the ride to school, but by now, he was completely different — out of it and way too happy.

“What’s up with you?” Brian asked.

“Me? Oh. Nothing,” said Brandon, whose dreamy and out-of-focus eyes, were slowly refocusing. “Did I forget to zip up or something?”

Brian laughed. “No, man. It’s your eyes. You look out of it.”

“Oh.” He smiled.

Lauren sat down and noticed that Brian looked more serious than usual. Brandon gave him a sidelong glance and knew what that expression meant — he was thinking of something to say, or trying to avoid saying something. Lauren looked over at Dana and Jimmy, who joined the table with their lunches. “Oh yeah,” said Brandon as he went to go get his, and Brian fumbled around with his brown bag.

Lauren waited for a break in the conversation and then asked Dana if her class had read the Odyssey yet in English.

“We read it a few weeks ago, and no, you can’t have my notes,” said Dana, crossing her arms defiantly.

Jimmy took out a worn paperback titled, “Hyperdrive in Your Backyard, Cheap and Easy” and crouched behind it.

“That’s not it,” said Lauren, thinking to herself, “Didn’t I just do this?” She continued, “What’s your favorite part?”

Dana blinked, nervously looked around the table for someone to help her out. Was it a trick? Why was Lauren asking her something so geeky?

Dana smiled and pulled her rasta hat down over one eye. “The end. You’re not there yet, but there’s lots of blood.” She leered at Lauren. Lauren leered back. “You mean you didn’t like the monsters at all? What about the adventure?”

“Of course I liked those parts too.” Jimmy elbowed her and said softly, “How many Cyclops sketches did you make, anyways?”

Dana turned beet red and took his book. “Traitor!”

Lauren adjusted her cap in a way that Brian noticed as being more girly than usual. He blinked. Then she chomped a french fry in half, and he looked relieved.

“I just thought it was cool,” she said, “the way that Odysseus is going from place to place, like it’s some kind of naval road trip, you know?”

Dana looked at Lauren with a piercing gaze for several moments and then, after deciding that she wasn’t using a Jedi mind trick, she said guardedly, “That was cool.” Jimmy’s book fell from her hand and he caught it before it hit the cafeteria floor. “And it was poetry. I didn’t think you could do that with poetry.”

“Me either,” agreed Lauren.

Brandon looked from Dana back to Lauren to Dana. “Wow. I think this is the first time you have ever agreed on anything important.”

“Maybe so,” said Lauren, a little hurriedly. “But don’t get used to it. I still won’t play those stupid card games.”

“Like we’d let you!” replied Dana. Jimmy rolled his eyes and Brian excused himself.

Lauren took a few bites and then asked Brandon if he noticed anything about Brian.

Brandon thought hard about what to say next. He didn’t want to give away Brian’s thought process, but he didn’t want to lie, either. “Yeah. I think he’s thinking about something.”

“Uh oh,” said Lauren. “Hope he doesn’t hurt himself. Then again, what’s up with you?” She pushed him playfully.

Brandon just shrugged. “I’m just a little out of it today. Hey, it happens.”

Dana had noticed that, too; he did look like he had a vision of something; his eyes had this far off look, kind of like Legolas — she stopped herself. She still had to figure out what he was doing. It was time to expand the area of coverage. She grinned to herself. If her cellphone still worked, she would have sent herself a text to add to her mission calendar.

On the other side of town, the Complexitor pulled the buzzing phone out of his cargo shorts. He flipped it open and read the text message. He grit his teeth and replied as quickly as his large fingers would allow — “I can’t. Bad idea. No room here.” He pressed “Send” and put the phone back. What was his cousin thinking?

* * * * *

That night at the mall, Tristiana stood in the narrow hall outside the women’s bathroom in the mall. She looked like any other young mall denizen, with a little bit more flair for the gothic; her star and dagger symbols still surrounded her eyes, and on her white tennis shoes, she had painted a matching star and dagger on the corresponding shoe. She held up a backlit compact mirror and leaned against the wall. Etched around the inside of the compact in electric pink were the words, “Faedar 3.0″. In place of a mirror was an LCD, showing the mall divided into a green grid with several green dots clustered nearby. She smiled, licked her lips and shut the compact, slipping it into her overly-cute black purse.

This was the night, she thought. She would mystify three members of the DMIC and then the Complexitor — she giggled to herself and stepped out into the mall.

Wenchy looked around the room. “Let’s go through our roles one more time, shall we?” Her voice struck a characteristic semi-serious tone.

“O-Man, you’ve got the ground attack and the sweep operations.” He saluted her.

“HIM, you’ve got driving duty, clean-up, and wardrobe detail.” HIM responded laconically, “Check.”

Wenchy narrowed her eyes at him. “Hey now. Someone has to do those things.”

HIM said, “No-one ever changes clothes during one of our missions. Wardrobe detail is boring.”

Wenchy replied, “You have to do Something. We just can’t risk you going outside. You’d cause a riot with all the teenage girls in attendance.”

“Ok, ok, I’ll handle it.”

O-Man kept the grin on his face from becoming a huge smile. It was humorous, somehow, to hear HIM complain.

“I’ll do communications, strategy, and of course, food acquisition. O-Man, front and center! Four hot dogs, chips, and drinks.” She waved a wad of dollar bills at him.

He grumbled. “What, you don’t like the color of money?” she asked him. Everyone rolled their eyes. “There’s enough there for you.”

O-Man took the money and said, “I’ll be back with the food.” He opened the door, closed his jacket, and promptly disappeared. The door swung shut by itself.

* * * * *

Every breath that Brandon took seemed to be charged with excitement. No one thing was responsible for how he felt, but rather a whole host of things. He was fifteen; he was with friends; his school’s football team was playing in the first game of the season, trying to beat their arch-rivals; his band was in the stands, playing rousing music and taunting the cheerleaders; it was early autumn; the oddly-invigorating aroma of hot dogs and cigarettes was in the air; and so many others were there, just like him, sharing in this night. He couldn’t describe it exactly, because the words were just out reach, but he knew it was memorable. Together with Brian and Lauren, he felt invincible.

They had good seats along the middle of the field in the seventh row. Lauren had made sure their seats were just above the walkway separating the lowest section from the middle, so it was easy for them to jump out of the seats and dance around when the situation called for it. They were also close enough (at least Lauren was, with her softball-toned arm) to pelt the opposing team with objects, if the situation called for it.

First quarter lurched from one unsteady moment to the next, with moments of dramatic tension and desperate plays counterbalanced with odd breaks in the action. The first oddity was when one of the Sharks kicked the ball after the Eagle’s quarterback had dropped it. The referee blew the whistle and the loudspeakers rumbled, “Aborted drop kick. Change of possession.” About half the people in the stands were asking each other what a drop kick even was. Five minutes raced by, with the Eagles threatening to score on the Shark’s ten yard line. Moments dripped by in slow-motion as they tried for three downs to make a touchdown. When they went for the final pass, it was blocked by Shark #37, but then the Eagle’s cornerback kicked the ball into the end zone. The referee blew the whistle and awarded two points to the Eagles. “Touchback. Two points!” The loudspeaker blared. Most people knew what a touchback was, but it wasn’t something that you saw every day, at least not that way. Then a spate of odd penalties hobbled the Sharks as they barely reached the fifty-yard line. Even the referees disagreed on what the calls should be.

“Man,” said Brian aloud. “I didn’t realize that football was so complicated. I’m glad that I play basketball!”

Lauren made a fist. “Freaking refs!”

Brandon had gone from excitement to confusion to a cold sweat. He’d already heard several people wondering aloud about how little they knew about football, while others had been bragging about their knowledge, and he suspected that they were just covering up their own ignorance. Ordinarily all that wouldn’t have bothered him, but their commentary paralleled what was happening on the field below. Strange situations followed one after another, and the incompetence of players, coaches, and referees became hard to ignore as the game dragged on. He knew that it was no run of bad luck, either. Their incompetence was being brought out by artificial means. What happened when the incompetence reached a critical state? He had no idea. Would the DMIC’s cure be worse than the problem? That worried him just as much.

“Brandon. Psst. Brandon.” He looked over at the people sitting next to him and in the nearby rows, but he didn’t see anyone. But that voice — it sounded familiar. It was a raspy, like a hard rock singer’s voice.

“Who’s that?” asked Lauren, looking around.

Then it hit him — it was O-Man. But why couldn’t he see him? Never mind; he remembered that Wenchy told him that he’d be hard to spot. “Just someone I know outside of school,” Brandon said quickly. “Give me a sec.”

He walked down to one of the main walkways that lead to an entrance. As he left the row, he looked beside him and O-Man was standing there, denim jacket spread apart with bright orange reflective tape peeking out from under his arms.

“Good move, kid,” he said, giving Brandon a thumbs-up. Brandon looked at him and asked, “Wenchy said that you’d be hard to spot, but you were totally invisible!”

O-Man rummaged through his pockets. “Pretty cool, isn’t it? Here.” He pushed several long strips of reflective white tape into Brandon’s hand. “Use these.”

“How?”

“That’s up to you. Just make sure other people can see it.”

“Uh, ok.” Brandon’s mind whirled. “Is this part of the mission?” He tried to choose his words carefully.

“Yes,” said O-Man. “HE is sensitive to light, remember? Enough light, especially distracting light like these produce, will send him running like the cockroach he is!”

“Is that all I have to do?” Brandon asked.

“Yup. And if you see some kind of disturbance later on, don’t worry. We have the situation under control.”

Brandon didn’t feel particularly reassured by that, but he nodded, and O-Man took three steps and then disappeared.

He made his way back to the stands and found Brian and Lauren doing one of their famous side-to-side dances. Brandon joined right in, dangling the reflective strips from his free hand.

“So what was all that about?” asked Brian when the dance was done.

“He had some reflective things,” said Brandon, “He said they’re good for football games.” He shrugged.

“Rock on!” said Lauren, excitedly taking a few. “We saw some flashes around the stadium when you were gone and was wondering what was up.”

Really? Brandon thought. Brian nodded. “Look at the band, man.” He pointed over to where the trombone section had hung reflective strips from their instruments so that they flashed whenever they were playing.

“Hoo-yeah!” yelled Lauren, taking two of the strips and twirling them around. Brandon and Brian joined in, and Brandon once again felt the excitement and that sense of timeless invincibility return.

* * * * *

The Complexitor stood halfway between one cluster of lights and another, at the juncture where their coverage was the weakest. After looking around carefully, he trudged up several rows, and located a seat perfectly hidden in the shadows: row thirty-one, seat thirty-six B.

He fiddled with his orange and white scarf nervously until the game began, and then he placed his fingers on his temples and stared in the direction of the home team. He could sense the innate complexity of what has happening down below — 55 players, five referees, four coaches — all he had to do was to introduce one anomaly, one unexpected variable. Just a little bit more complexity and incompetence would bloom like toadstools after rain.

The ball spun out of the quarterback’s hands and whether it was slippery grass or whether it just seemed like a good idea, number 45 from the Sharks decided to kick the ball. When it landed out of bounds, the referee made a call that sent shocks of confusion through both teams and half the stadium: “Aborted drop kick. Change of possession.”

Behind three different pairs of sunglasses, the Complexitor smiled.

* * * * *

“Status,” said Wenchy into the microphone.

“Fenris at quadrant one, check,” replied a whispered, distracted female voice.

“Jennifer at two. Ready,” replied another female voice, this one self-assured and just a bit haughty.

“Moe three! Ready to rev!” This voice was jubilant, male, and had a scratchy about-to-break kind of quality that placed its owner right in the throes of puberty.

“Edward ready at four.” The lower-pitched, somber voice brought to mind smoking jackets and tea time at distant gazeboes.

“Jack here. Waiting on you.” Brash and cocky, Jack’s voice oozed debonair refinement.

Wenchy paused a moment and then announced, “Operation White Light is a go!” The momentary static was broken by five nearly-simultaneous responses. Wenchy turned her eyes toward the incompetence and complexity meters, both of which were a series of amber peaks lurching dangerously towards red.

Reclining in a chair, HIM glanced over the latest issue of Hairstyles of the Stars at the meters and raised an eyebrow disapprovingly. “We waited too long,” he said.

“That’s exactly what we want him to think,” Wenchy replied. “We want him to get overconfident and then desperate. It’s his first mission and he won’t want to lose.”

“We’re sure that he’s operating alone?”

“Sure as sushi.”

HIM returned to reading his magazine and sighed deeply.

* * * * *

The Complexitor cursed under his breath. “No side effects? Right.” He noticed a lot more flashes than usual. He had become accustomed to a few streaks of light as a side-effect of the mental enhancers, but not to this extent. It couldn’t be a migraine, either, because his temples felt fine. Still, there they were — flashes of light spreading across the stadium in on-again-off-again patterns. Then the truth came to him like an unwelcome visitor. Could it really be them?

He hadn’t expected any response at all; this widely-dispersed attack brimming with competence floored him. Minutes ticked by and the flashes grew more numerous and arrhythmic, each spinning off into its own pulsing constellation of activity. Concentration was impossible.

In the meanwhile, the football game fell into a rhythm of hard-fought yard gains punctuated by dramatic passes. The crowds on both sides grew enthusiastic and the bands challenged one another across the stadium.

The Complexitor felt his stomach sour as he tottered down the steps. Desperately, he waved to the referee that he had bought off, but all he got was a disputed play. He forced his eyes into slits and stumble-ran his way towards the Eagles sideline, muttering statistical formulas aloud.

Jackie sat in the top row of the lowest section on the Eagles’ side, directly above the fifty yard line. Her straight black hair framed her face, sliding back and up slightly just below her ears. Her eyes were a mysterious dark blue, and her outfit was an upscale take on outfitting apparel — a purplish, nearly maroon top with cream-accented utility pockets, and a matching clingy skirt out of the same linen. A thin black belt with a single gold clasp matched her fashionable black boots. Finally, she wore a straw bonnet the same color as her clothes, slanted across her brow. All in all, she radiated elegant mystery.

Jackie’s gaze followed the Complexitor as he made his way towards the field. She whispered into a walkie-talkie, slipped it into a pocket, and casually met up with him. As if by accident, she stretched and sent one of his sunglasses careening. “Oh my,” she said, “I’m so sorry!” He paused in the middle of his statistical incantation, shocked. Jackie pressed a boot faux-delicately onto the sunglasses as she walked forward. “Oops! There I go again!” She turned and looked at him with a smile as cold as steel.

His eyes shot wide open as he fumbled for the handrail and hurried down the stairs. Could she be part of them too? His intelligence didn’t mention anyone that stylish. Stupid! He turned his thoughts back to that formula and let it spill from his lips as he took the stairs down to the field. He put all his energy into it, hoping to pull off one final, decisive maneuver. He’d have to be close to the coaches in order for it to work, but between those maddening sparkling lights, the stadium floodlights, and the roar of the crowd, he knew he didn’t have long to pull it off.

A gate barred the way to the field and just beyond it stood a security guard and Frank, the referee that he paid off. The security guard had his arms crossed and regarded him with a suspicious eye.

Frank said aloud, “That man is a troublemaker.” The Complexitor stared at him and started to shake in rage. “Oh really?” asked Jackie, who stood at the top of the stairs. He looked from Frank to Jackie, fidgeting and sweating. Weakly, he muttered, “There’s been some kind of mistake,” and then he bolted towards the nearest exit, surprisingly quickly.

Jackie trailed him down the walkway that separated seating areas, and then up the stairs towards the exit. She took the steps two at a time, almost catching up to him when he groaned, and lunged to the side like he had hit a refrigerator. “O-Man!” shouted Jackie, “Are you hurt?” A figure lying on the ground opened up his denim jacket and then she could see him give a weak thumbs-down. Jackie nodded and leaped over him to catch the lip on the wall of the exit tunnel, standing precariously on one foot.

The tunnel was clear except for a surly, grungy girl, her back up against the wall near the exit. She looked derisively at the hefty man running towards her and while continuing to sip from her Slurpee, inched her foot forward just enough to cause him to trip and land on his face.

With that done, she grinned imperiously and tossed her brownish ringlets. Jackie jumped down and O-Man quickly joined her, as they put a foot on each of the Complexitor’s arms. The surly girl took a sleek walkie-talkie out of her jeans and pressed the button. “Complexitor stopped. VK out.”

Jackie blinked. O-Man took in a sudden breath. “Velvet Katherine?” asked Jackie.

“Yes, ’tis I,” she replied. The contrast between her disguise and her cultured, aristocratic voice could not have been more striking.

“It’s been ages!”

“It hasn’t been That long,” replied Velvet Katherine with a smile.

The Complexitor groaned beneath their feet. They both looked down and stepped away from him, looking to O-Man to handle him.

“Yes, yes, I’ll take care of it,” he said. Jackie smiled and within a few moments, they were trading information on sales events, new store openings, and all the juicy tidbits of clothing acquisition.

Maybe it was because the distracting lights were far off, the parking lot lights were not near enough, or because O-Man was having trouble locating something to tie up the Complexitor, but when the question came, he was completely caught off guard.

“I’ve got a question for you,” wheezed the Complexitor.

“What is it?” asked O-Man, irritably.

“What do you think about putting a Wankel engine in a DeLorean?”

O-Man’s jaw almost hit the floor. Could such a thing even be done? It would be massively complicated. His mind spun. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I think that might be a bit out of my league.” The walkie-talkies buzzed like angry bees, but Jackie and Velvet Katherine were too caught up in their conversation, and O-Man was holding on to a fraying rope of competence.

The Complexitor pulled himself to his feet. “Don’t forget that it’ll have to use unleaded gas, too.”

O-Man nodded. “That’s right. It would have to. Wait a minute.” He spun around, but the Complexitor was already halfway down the tunnel. Before anyone could react, he reached the exit and vanished into the night.

* * * * *

Back inside the stadium, the football game rolled on through halftime and blessedly smooth halftime shows, a desperate third quarter, and a tight fourth quarter. At ten thirty PM, the final score was Sharks 31, Eagles 24.

Not much later, Lauren pulled up in her driveway, and brought her half-painted Camaro to a stop. When she opened the front door, she noted that the foyer lights were on, and her mom was cross-stitching in the family room.

“Hi mom,” she called out after shutting the door. “I made it.” Her mother looked up with a calm careworn expression.

“Twenty minutes to spare. How was the game?”

“Great! We stomped them!”

“How were Brian and Brandon?”

“Crazy like always,” she replied. “Brian dared me to do victory doughnuts in the parking lot after the game. I didn’t, though.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Good for you.” Then after a pause, she continued, “He’s the taller one, right?”

“Mom,” Lauren complained in a sing-songy version of the word, heading off into the kitchen.

“You still don’t have anyone to accompany you to the wedding,” she called.

“I know.” Lauren had a granola bar in her hand and peeked into the family room from the kitchen. Her mother caught her gaze with a familiar concerned expression. “I don’t want you to be looked down on.”

Lauren sighed. “I know mom.” She wandered into the kitchen and looked out through a small window into the deep night, thinking.

She flipped her honey-brown hair and said, “Why else? To meet your mom.” She wore a long white dress that grew transparent around her ankles, where it was met by stockings of a similar hue and matching pumps. Her hair was done up in a style Brandon didn’t recognize, but it used a circlet of hair across the back of her head, leaving the rest to dance just above her shoulders.

It made perfect sense. His mom hadn’t met anyone from the DMIC. Why didn’t they all come together, though? He felt nervous. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll come the first week, then O-Man, then HIM, then Velvet Katherine, and then Veero. Oh yeah. Then Jackie will show up.”

“Who is Jackie?” he thought. He was about to ask when his mom greeted them at the door, wearing a dusting apron that he had never seen before. It was a lacy faded yellow linen with an acorn in the center. His mom nodded and Wenchy grinned. Then his mom put her hand on her own head and lifted it off. Wenchy did the same, and they exchanged heads.

Oddly enough, not a single drop of blood was lost in the transaction, but the sight caused Brandon to trip and hit the floor just over the threshold. The room spun and everyone’s words melded together in what sounded strangely like, “Detention.”

Brandon awoke.

He rolled over and checked the clock, the numbers providing a reassuring anchor to the real world. “Another dream that makes no sense,” he thought, although he could still see Wenchy clearly when he closed his eyes.

* * * * *

It was finally Friday; the school was filled with a slowly-growing contagious energy mixed in equal parts with a sensation of time running in slow motion. Just about everyone except the geeks anticipated the first game of the year that evening. Only the geeks were unfazed by the pre-game momentum, but even they counted the hours until the weekend. Probably the only person in the school who wasn’t thinking about the weekend in any way was Dana. She had Brandon in her sites.

She knew where he finished third period and had followed him unseen since then. Nothing suspicious so far, she thought. But I’m sure he just wants me to think that. You can’t fool rogue/assassins. Especially twentieth-level ones.

He passed by a hall and then doubled back and picked up speed. She dodged between uncaring seniors and followed at a distance. He was making a beeline for a dusty side door. He’s going to get away! She fumbled with her backpack and found her camera. It was actually an old cellphone that didn’t work, except for the camera. She spread her fingers over the back and parted them slightly, while using her thumb to snap a few pictures. To the untrained eye, it looked like she was just fumbling with her outlawed cellphone, hardly an eye-raising event in Westchester High.

Brandon reached out to the door and pulled it open. Man do I have to pee, he thought. I’ll go this way because there’s a bathroom right inside. He blinked at the reflection in the glass and then hurried inside. What was that? It looked like a tie-dyed t-shirt.

Dana dropped her backpack to hide her face and counted to ten. Once Brandon was out of sight, she hurried towards the door and threw it open, ready with her pseudo-cell phone.

The empty hallway, the low hum of the water fountain’s cooler, and the boy’s sign on the bathroom door all mocked her, especially the last. That was the one place no girl could go, on threat of losing all of your girl points. Dana didn’t dare; she wondered if Lauren could get away with it. Maybe that was how tomboys were made? Girls who had lost all their girl points and now lived on in quiet agony, in some strange double-life?

Her mind ratcheted back to the situation at hand. She knew he was hiding from her. There’s no way he just needed to go. She shook her pseudo-phone at the bathroom and scurried away before the bell rang. She still had lunch and then sixth period.

At lunch, she was quieter than usual. Jimmy rolled her eyes at her, knowing that she was waiting for Brandon to drop some morsel of information. Then she would pounce and pepper him with questions about third period. However, no such opportunity arose. Jimmy tried to bait her into a conversation about Garman Star cards, but she wasn’t falling for that. Everyone was talking about the game or reading and she felt like screaming in frustration. This tactic always works in anime`s, she shouted inside her mind.

* * * * *

Sixth period was Algebra and Brandon knew something was wrong when a girl leaving the class before drew a line quickly under her throat. That meant only one thing: a pop quiz.

Sure enough, half-way through the class, Mrs. Turner told them to close their books and to get out a sheet of paper. She eyed them all with a satisfied smirk. “This is to test how well you’ve been paying attention. There will be ten questions on this week’s lessons.”

Brandon had been applying, or at least, trying to apply the lessons that Wenchy had taught him. He wasn’t at all sure about them, but he figured that he’d know if they worked soon enough. Mrs. Turner’s brusque voice shattered his thoughts. “Begin!”

He looked up at the blackboard to find it decorated with her usual cryptic handwriting. He squinted and went to work.

She took up the quizzes and told them to get busy on the problems at the end of the chapter. “I want you to think about this over the weekend,” she informed them, again smirking. “That’s why I’m going to grade them now.”

Brandon sighed and looked across the room. No-one was really happy about it, although the people in the front row looked less dispirited than everyone else. When Mrs. Turner returned the quizzes at the end of the class, Brandon was shocked to see written on his paper “85% — B”. A rush of victory-inspired adrenaline hit him like a flash fire. While most people trudged out of class, he walked out with his head held high. “For once, for once, I got it right in the here and now,” he thought to himself. He wasn’t sure what he really meant by that, but it sounded good.

Outside in the hall, Dana took her books from her locker very slowly, and then took them in and out of her backpack. When Mrs. Turner’s class let out,
she scanned the crowd for Brandon. There he was! Wait, was that really him? He had the same shirt on, same haircut, so yes, it was him. But he looked different somehow. Someone jostled her as the class next door let out and that refocused her thoughts on the mission. He was half-way down the hall already and so she had to walk quickly without looking like she was running. She found the tall people in the mass of teenagers and dodged from one to another as she closed on Brandon. He took the hallway towards the gym and she rounded the corner, only to run straight into Missy, the relationship and advice queen.

Missy stood about five foot five, which made her taller than Dana, and when she wore platform shoes like she did today, she was a whole head taller. She seemed almost too cute, with blonde curls, carefully heated into shape, pitying blue eyes, and lips that were nearly always pursed, as she pondered the relationship travails of the entire school.

“I never thought I’d see this day,” Missy said, looking down at Dana. “And you’re so obvious, too!”

“I’m what?” Dana asked, for a moment trying to get past the girl, when it hit her who it was and how miserable her life could become.

“Really, now. Stop trying to deny it!” She looked down the hall at Brandon. “Hmm. Not a bad choice, but it wouldn’t be my choice, of course.”

Dana blinked. “No way. You think I –”

“Have the hots for him?” suggested Missy, finishing her sentence. “I don’t have to. You’re following him and hiding from him, and you’re using your cellphone to take pictures of him. You’re hopeless, even for a geek.”

Dana blushed and tried to get the cellphone into her backpack. Where was that expandable lightsaber when she needed it? Never lend your weapons to newbies, she reminded herself. Wait, why was she even blushing? He did look different, somehow, more interesting — but that wasn’t it, she told herself. She had gotten caught and by Missy at that.

“Oooh,” said Missy. “How cute! A geek in love. I have just the advice too. I wrote it two weeks ago, in response to ‘Sleepless in Science Class’. Don’t worry about letting him know you exist. Don’t get desperate, either. All you really have to do is show up and be yourself. He’ll see you for who you are and the rest is happily ever after!”

Dana looked up at her. “That’s terrible advice! No guy would ever figure that out! Besides, I’m not interested in him. N. O. T. Not. I just — uhm — have to know what he’s up to.”

Missy blinked and smiled at her as if she had completely contradicted herself.

Dana looked down the hallway. Brandon was gone. She bunched up her fists and said, “May you be tormented by tiny dragons who hate your hair and have nacho breath!” She stomped off.

Missy laughed. Geeks were such fun, even if she only understood half of what they said.

* * * * *

Four o’clock came none too soon, and finally the school day was over. Brandon walked down the hall overflowing with students on their way towards bikes, busses, and for the fortunate, cars. He had avoided thinking about the DMIC for most of the day, but he didn’t have school to distract him anymore.

“You probably won’t have to do anything, but when we get involved, you never know. We could always use a gopher.” Those were Wenchy’s words. They weren’t as improbable as what came next.

He had asked, “How will I know?”

“O-Man will find you. You’ll have to look very carefully, because he’ll blend in.”

Brandon still couldn’t believe it. How could that guy blend in anywhere? Then he remembered the incident in the garage. Was it something like that?

Brian’s voice shook him away from his thoughts. “You ready to roll?”

“Yeah.” Then on a sudden impulse he added, “Race ya.”

Brian arched his eyebrows. “You’re on!”

They walked over to the bike rack, and unlocked their bikes. Brian stood up on his bike and asked, “Count of pee?”

Brandon laughed out loud. “We haven’t done that since eighth grade. You sure?”

“Sure, man! It’s Friday!”

Brandon took a deep breath. Brian did some crazy stuff from time to time, but not as often as Lauren. He thought she had some kind of adrenaline imbalance or something. Brandon gave a thumbs up as he clambered on to his bike too and stood up.

They both crouched down and stood up with each number in the countdown, nearly shouting, “One…two…pee!” Then they tore off down the sidewalk, pedalling as fast as they could go, dodging wannabe-popular people, elementary schoolers, and the occasional road hazard.

Seven minutes later, Brandon pulled into his driveway, the triumphant winner of the race. “I’m home!” he announced, throwing open the front door.

“Hi,” his mom called out. “Do you have DMIC today?”

He shivered unconsciously. She made it sound like some kind of weird disease. “Not exactly,” he said, heading into the kitchen. “I might have to do some stuff at the game, but probably not.”

She was in the pantry, pulling out a loaf of french bread for dinner. “How’s the studying part of it going?”

“Hold on a minute.” He dropped his backpack on the table and rifled through it. Finding his Algebra folder, he pulled out the quiz with a dramatic flourish.

Her eyes scanned the top page and then she met his triumphant smile with one of warm surprise. “That’s pretty good. I’m impressed.”

“Mrs. Turner’s questions were boring, though. Wenchy’s are way more interesting.” He immediately clapped a hand over his mouth and fought the blush that crept over his cheeks.

His mom looked at him askance before retrieving a cutting knife for the bread. “They do talk to me, you know, and I do know all of their names.”

“Oh yeah. I guess I’m a little paranoid about telling anyone anything specific.”

“Uh huh.” He never knew what she meant when she said that, so he just let it drop. “So what are we having for dinner?”

* * * * *

The Westchester High School stadium was a utilitarian concrete stadium, not too large, and not too small for a bustling high school. The floodlights were on and the parking lot had started to fill up an hour before the game began, with clusters of people milling about the stadium. The football players were stretching on the field and the band had gathered by the entranceway, ready to put on the pre-game show.

Brian was hanging out with two of his jock friends, waiting for Brandon and Lauren to show up. They had both decided to try out for the basketball team. Tim, a lanky guy with dark curly hair teased Brian. “You should try out too. Don’t worry. You can’t be so good that everyone else will quit in shame.”

Brian laughed. “That’s not it, man.”

His other friend, Steven, who stood about the same height as Brian, but with a thicker chest and crimson flattop said, “Maybe he thinks that Coach Jones doesn’t like him.”

They both looked at him and said together, “Coach Jones doesn’t like anyone!”

“I know!”

“Whatever,” said Brian, smiling. “I just like basketball. I never said I was like superstar good at it.”

Just then another group of guys walked by. One of them looked vaguely like Mafia hired muscle: broad-shouldered, dark-eyed, and not too bright. Another guy with a muscle shirt accompanied him, flexing his thick arms with obvious dragon temporary tattoos. A scrawny kid tagged along, hidden beneath a scruffy red hoodie and wearing a t-shirt that read, “You’re the Loser!”

“That’s because you don’t have the drive,” said the Mafia-esque guy.

Brian looked over at him and then shrugged. “Nope, guess not. But I can still beat you at twenty-one.”

“So? I can beat you at one-on-one.” After thinking for a moment, he added, “And at Horse.”

The scrawny guy said in a low voice, “Hey Tony, only middle-schoolers play that.” The other guy looked at Brian and made tough-guy faces while flexing his muscles.

Brian’s friends laughed under their breaths. Tony turned to look at them when a sing-songy female voice called out from across the parking lot, “Ooh Tony!” He leered at her and then looked back at them. “Later dweebs.”

“Can you really?” asked Tim.

“Yup. He’s so chicken now he won’t even try, though,” said Brian.

“Weird.”

“Yeah.”

They stood and talked for a few more minutes until Brian showed up, and Lauren right behind him. Tim and Steven said they were going to hang out with some guys on the basketball team. “That’s cool,” said Brian. “I’ll catch you guys Tuesday.” They went over to the far gate to find the guys from the team.

“What’s Tuesday?” asked Brandon.

“We’re going to shoot some hoops down at the park. Wanna come?”

Brandon shrugged and pretended to think about it. “Maybe next time.”

Lauren butted in. “Who cares about Tuesday? Let’s make some eagle soup! Whoo yah! Let’s get seats close enough so that we can throw things at the other team!”

Brandon laughed and they followed her to the near gate to get their tickets.

* * * * *

At still another gate, O-Man snapped his fingers so that the ticket girl would pay attention. She blinked. “Where did you come from?” she asked, dazed.

O-Man sighed and said, “Just over there. One ticket for the game.” She looked sidelong at him and gave him a ticket in exchange for his dollars.

As he walked away, she craned her neck to follow him and then said to the girl opposite her, “Did you see that? That guy just disappeared!” The girl next to her yawned. “I didn’t even realize you were talking to a guy.”

“He wasn’t a guy like our age,” she said.

“Can I buy a ticket, please?” asked an irate mom at her window, waving a handful of bills.

“Oops. Yes. Coming right up, m’am.”

As he walked into the stadium, he checked his pockets once again. Cell phone? Check. Emergency key on the ring of keys? Check. Adjustable wrench? Check. He examined his jacket, by pulling his arms back and stretching for a moment. Sure enough, the bright orange flaps inside showed and would easily reveal his location to anyone nearby. He was set.

After scouting out his seat, he ventured down to the concession area. The concession stands were permanent structures housed in concrete and built into the stadium themselves. Only two were open, and the one at the far right had the metal shutters pulled down. O-Man walked to the far right stand and then to its right entrance and knocked. A deep, masculine voice called out from inside, “What’s the password?” O-Man asked, “What’s the password?” The door opened, and a mass of computers, maps, and snacks greeted him — that, and HIM and Wenchy. O-Man stole inside and took off his jacket. Wenchy and HIM blinked.

“Where’s Katey?” he asked. Wenchy gave him a sour look and cleared her throat.

“Katherine is keeping an eye on the visitor’s end zone. Good thing I don’t have the comms on, isn’t it?”

O-Man grinned nervously.

* * * * *

A man wearing a bulky black leather jacket and a scarf in orange and white that fell to his navel walked up to the ticket booth. He wore three pairs of sunglasses, each smaller than the last, and fiddled with the keys in his pocket, the pencil in his jacket pocket, or his scarf. His fingers were nervous and sweaty while his small beady eyes constantly scanned the area as if he expected ninjas to jump out of the darkness and carry him away. At the ticket booth, he presented his money and said, “One adult. Where’s the darkest part of the stadium?” The teenager inside the booth stared back at him. “I’m sensitive to light.”

The teenager thought hard and then replied, “That’d probably be the bathroom, I guess.” The man growled at him and snatched the ticket out of his hand.

The man twirled his scarf back and forth around his fingers. The setup was ideal, he thought, except for all those lights. A complex game that few people understood completely but inspired passion was the focal point. Because it was a school sponsored event, the school administration added another set of rules, and then the city added another layer still. The attendees were volatile youth, protective parents, and easily-swayed referees. He rubbed his hands together in glee. It was a perfect night for complexity.

Brandon and his best friend, Brian, rode their bikes to school. They pedalled hard because the sky was grey-to-black and the wind was beginning to pick up.

“How did what go?” asked Brandon with a smile.

“C’mon, man. Don’t tell me you’re not even allowed to talk that much!”

They turned a corner onto the home stretch to school. “Pretty good, I think.” He felt a little glow spiderweb through his heart; it was good to finally get it, but there was more to it, something that he couldn’t quite identify.

They slammed on their brakes, locked up their bikes, and headed to homeroom.

* * *

Brian had homework, Jimmy and Dana were at the library, and Lauren was probably teaching freshmen girls how to disable boys with a single blow. Brandon had never actually asked her what she did in the morning, but he just assumed it was something tomboyish like that. Because all his friends were occupied, he wandered into his first period class, Physics with Mr. Miles.

Mr. Miles was a tall elderly man, thin and wizened like a very old tree. He looked like he would creak when he walked. He busied himself with answering questions about the homework but not revealing the entire answer with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, and between questions, scrawling the daily challenge on the blackboard.

Brandon took his seat halfway back in the class, on the side of the classroom with windows. Outside, the oncoming storm crept closer, slowly choking out the early morning light. He wondered how he would make it home. “Maybe Brian’s mom can come pick us up,” he thought.

Around him was the usual chaos of homeroom. Most people were desperately scribbling out answers to their homework for Physics and whatever they had afterwards, flipping madly through books like gamblers flipping cards. Trina and her clique of popular girls hung out on the other side of the room, gossiping and occasionally flouncing their hair. Lauren had bragged once that she had restored a car that cost less than Trina’s wardrobe, Brandon remembered. A contingent of geeks occupied the back corner, huddled in a circle, playing some sort of card game. A few guys slept in their chairs and the rest came and went according to no real schedule. Brandon idly surveyed the scene as his mind wandered to Jimmy’s email from last night.

He said that advanced holographic systems did exist, but they were incredibly expensive. To mate that with some kind of real-time AI system would likely cost too much money for anyone but a research lab, the government, or someone connected to the government. His last line made Brandon shake his head: “I’d probably have to see it to believe it.” I’m not so sure that seeing it would help, he thought.

* * * * *

Earlier, Dana had met Jimmy by his locker like she usually did. This morning, her eyes glinted with determination.

“I’m going to do it,” she said, popping up beside him while he pulled books out of his locker.

“Do what?” Jimmy asked with a barely-perceptible sigh, as though he already knew the answer. “And oh, ohio.”

“Ohio. Figure out what Brandon’s doing, of course.”

“I thought we knew what he was doing.”

She made a face at him as he shut his locker. “No, I mean find out what he’s REALLY doing.”

They began walking towards the library and reached the double glass doors before Jimmy had formulated an appropriate response. Waiting on either side was a tall geek, each dressed in a trenchcoat. Their hands were crossed and their expressions radiated disdain. In a single, fluid motion, they dropped their hands and spread their fingers out around an invisible sphere, then pulled their hands apart.

Jimmy nodded sagely. He rested his hands, palm-side up, rotated them twice in large circles around his ears, and then returned them to the palm-up position. The two geeks looked at each other a little nervously. With cracking voices, they said, “You may pass.”

They repeated their gestures to Dana. She fiddled with her rasta hat and looked down at the ground, then swung her arms around her torso in a small circle. She then looked from one to the other, directly into their eyes. “You may pass,” the one on the left said, more nervously.

The one on the right said nothing, but looked stoically straight ahead.

“You know I did it right,” Dana fumed. “Let us in! Let us in!”

He rolled his eyes and left a snarky space between each word. “You –may –pass.”

She huffed and pulled up her backpack higher on her back. Jimmy looked over at him nonchalantly and said quietly, “They’re filming a movie on campus this week.” The left geek’s eyes widened as he looked back from his compatriot to Jimmy.

After a moment of dead silence, Jimmy added, “It’s called They Escaped from Prep School on Altair Six. It stars actors who couldn’t make the cut for Voyager.” The right geek turned ashy white. Everyone else looked slightly confused.

Jimmy rejoined Dana. “Whatever you did back there, bravo, bravo!” she chirruped, pretending to lay down flowers before him as he walked.

He looked at her, half-grinning. “It’s still not a good idea.”

* * * * *

The morning announcements droned on from one boring statement to the next. Then the head cheerleader came on and with her beyond-perky voice to remind everyone about the first football game of the year tomorrow night. “Westchester Sharks versus the Edwards Idiots — oops! I mean the Edwards Eagles!” Some people laughed; most exchanged knowing grins. “Come out and support your school! Goooo sharks!”

Brandon was definitely going. He’d received permission from his mom weeks ago and he was going to meet up with Brian and Lauren outside the main gate. The more he thought about it, the more he was looking forward to it. Not only as some island of sanity in his suddenly topsy-turvy world, but something that connected him with his past. He had been to every home game last year and he didn’t want to miss this one. The three of them always had a blast when they went to games together; whether it was popcorn throwing contests, quasi-serious reviews of the hot dogs, the best cheer made up during the game, or halftime dances, it was always wild and fun.

The Pledge to Allegiance came on and Brandon rose to his feet and placed his hand over his heart.

* * * * *

It had started to rain during lunch and it didn’t let up the rest of the day. Brian called his mom, but she couldn’t get to school until late. When she finally did get there, the rain had stopped, and he and Brian sheepishly loaded their bikes into the back of her SUV and went home. Brandon stared a hole into the vehicle’s clock. He was already late for the MIC meeting by the time they pulled up at his house.

“I’m home!” he announced, slamming the front door shut. No reply, again. He checked the refrigerator for a note. “I know you’ll be getting food tonight, so don’t worry. ATGS. Love, Mom.”

The grocery store? Food. He was hungry. Wait — how did she know? For a moment, he panicked. Oh yeah. They did say something in the very first meeting about being in contact with his mom and school. He calmed down until he realized that he was still late.

He scribbled a reply. “At DMIC. BBWIO — B.” He locked the door, hopped on his bike, and hoped against hope that there weren’t any slick spots on the road.

He zig-zagged through the streets, pedalling as fast as he could go, and made it to the Department office at seven thirty-five. He was five minutes late, according to the oval clock hanging on the wall of the empty foyer. The lounge door was cracked open, so he rushed down the hall and threw it open.

Still no dice. The lounge was bright and gaudy like always, but uninhabited. He looked over his shoulder for any surprises, but nothing greeted him. The office was empty, the parking lot door was shut, but the strange closet that O-Man had showed him had its door cracked. He listened for a second. Yes, those were definitely voices. He peeked inside.

The members of the DMIC sat around a round table crisscrossed by yellow lines. Overhead hung a single lightbulb that cast grim shadows all around, hiding their faces in the gloom. Opposite him, Veero hovered in the air, legs crossed, peering down at the table from two feet above it. Velvet Katherine was shrouded in a simple scarlet cloak, but her fingernails gleamed with an expensive maroon manicure. As she looked towards Brandon, she moved her hands dismissively, causing her gold and silver bangles to clink and ring.

“What should represent someone who’s late?” she asked, with her usual royal disdain.
“The banana,” said HIM.
“No, the banana represents Jackie,” replied O-Man.
“How about a flat tire?” suggested Wenchy, waving hello.
“We don’t have such a thing,” sniffed Velvet Katherine.
“But if we did,” announced Veero cheerily, “it’d have to be placed off the table. That’s the rule. If you’re late, you don’t get a spot on the map. Just kidding!”

Velvet Katherine tossed a figurine at him. Brandon caught it and looked down. “I’m the shoe?”

“If the shoe fits,” suggested Wenchy. Brandon groaned inwardly. “Ok, everyone, move over.” They made a place for him at the table.

As he sat down, he noticed the low hum emitted by the table and noticed several output jacks, dials and LED displays built into the sides.

“Welcome to strategy night,” said Wenchy. “Here we plot our strategy in the long war against incompetence. And we also eat pizza. Pepperoni this time.” She gestured to several boxes on small end table nearby that also housed plastic cups and various soda bottles.

This was the most serious he’d ever seen them. Each of them were focused on the task at hand, for at least five minutes at a stretch, sometimes ten. Though they broke out into humorous side discussions, they regrouped quickly.

Wenchy gave him the inside scoop on what was happening. “The grid is our section. You remember that from yesterday, right? Anyway, the smaller squares are areas, which one or more of us are assigned to. All of our figures are puke-green.” Brandon looked down at the shoe. It looked like someone had melted a yellow-green crayon on it.

He looked out at the grid. “The flashing lines? Are they the borders of our section?”

“Yes,” said Wenchy. “We have to be very watchful on the borders. If the incompetence builds up over the threshold, it could cause problems not only with our department, but with others. As a result, we patrol those areas twice as much.”

Everyone had a shuffle of papers nearby (except Veero) that they referred to during the discussion. O-Man was covering each area, one at a time, beginning at the northernmost area. So far he had covered empty areas and no-one had updates. Wenchy used the time to bring Brandon up to speed.

“Red figures represent known threats, and yellow represents emerging threats. If a figure is blinking, then that means that he’s about to do something. And how do we know?” she said looking at him. “I knew you were going to ask. We have our sources.”

Brandon looked out across the board. “Does each figure represent just one person?” Maybe it was a stupid question, but he had to get a grip on what was happening here, somehow.

“No,” said Wenchy. “It could be individuals or organizations. Organizations carry a flag.” Brandon noted the toothpicks with colored tape at several locations. He realized that he hadn’t eaten yet, so he took the opportunity to grab some pizza and something to drink.

“Ok, anything in the first row?” asked O-Man, at last tired of asking about particular areas and having no-one respond.

“Yes, area Z-fifty,” said Veero. “It’s the McCallahan Lake project.” Everyone but Brandon groaned. “I thought we had fixed that for good!” said O-Man.

“We did successfully remove all major sources of incompetence,” said Veero, suddenly serious, “but their handiwork remains.”

HIM sighed. O-Man looked like he could strangle somebody. Wenchy looked as though she were plotting the next three moves, while Velvet Katherine nodded grimly.

“So it’s the drainage system,” said O-Man.

“Yuppers. And now the repair company that services it. The president is James T. Farley. He’s the brother of Brian Farley.”

“Figures,” said HIM.

“Ok, how many and what strength?” asked O-Man, scribbling on his list.

“Five employees. Brian is just lazy as opposed to purposeful, though, so he’s a rank three.”

O-Man nodded and placed a reddish dwarf into position, holding a flag with a three circled on it.

Wenchy blinked as though she had arrived at the answer. “This is low-level, but we can’t let it get a foothold. We need to practice the sweep and contain, and follow it up with the roach motel defense. We’ll need at least two of us at half-time.”

O-Man moved a puke-colored car over to the area. “HIM?” He looked over at the man dressed in a white button-down dress shirt, shades propped up in his hair. “Probably not too many women around there. Are you in?”

HIM nodded and moved a hat over to the area.

Brandon tried to follow that logic; by all appearances, HIM was a guy that would have women swooning left and right. He looked over at Wenchy, and she mouthed, “He’s TOO popular.”

The other low-level spots of incompetence didn’t faze Brandon. It only made sense that there would be a bad apple here and there. He wasn’t surprised by the cluster of figurines around the county government buildings, either, even though they formed a scar across the table. The deep-red army that sat in Westchester High, however, unnerved him.

Velvet Katherine then moved a yellow wizard over to section seven, right outside Westchester High.

“What does yellow mean again?” Brandon asked Wenchy.

“Yellow means that we’re keeping an eye on that person or organization, but we have no official incompetence activity yet.”

“Oh.” Brandon finished another slice of pizza.

“The Complexitor will make his move with two weeks, most likely within one,” noted Velvet Katherine.

O-Man fiddled with his notes. “That could be a problem. We don’t have enough immediate responders in that area, and I was going to put Flowmasters on the Green Hornet then too.”

Velvet Katherine nodded. “He knows this, minus that automotive rot.”

O-Man ground his teeth. “Background refresh, please Veero,” said O-Man.

Veero, sitting Indian style, bowed forward and tossed her hair like a harem girl. “As you wish!” She put her finger to her temple and after a second, stated, “What we know about subject seven-five-fifty-two, the Complexitor. Ex-CPA and IRS. Dismissed in the only federal downsizing in the past thirty years. Hot-tempered, intelligent, vain, and up until recently, living quietly off his pension in Maryland. He moved to the area two years ago and is suspected in funneling intel and money to various incompetence organizations. Has been operating on his own for the past six months.”

“Do we have anything more specific?” asked Wenchy.

“Only this,” added Velvet Katherine, “He is sensitive to light.”

Veero blinked. “Where did you get that information from?”

Velvet Katherine looked at her with an expression of slightly offended royalty.

“We’ll just keep watching him, I guess,” said Wenchy. “Ok, anything else?”

O-Man flipped through his notes. “Nothing here.” He flicked his gaze over to Velvet Katherine. “Anyone else?” No-one did.

“Alright then, you know what to do!” said Wenchy, jumping up from her chair and putting her hand out in the middle of the table. Everyone else followed suit, and then chanted “Two-five-seven, two-five-seven, two-five-seven, yeaahhh!”

Brandon was lost in thought as everyone filed out of the room. It just didn’t seem right to do something like that, like it was a movie scene. Wasn’t this supposed to be serious?

O-Man looked back and said, “What’s wrong? Are you unhappy I didn’t show you the entire room on the tour?”

Brandon looked at him in unbelief. “I don’t know how to say it, but it doesn’t seem that you, I mean everyone, takes this very seriously.”

“I thought we were pretty serious back there,” mused Veero, flying by.

O-Man nodded sagely. “I guess it doesn’t help that we don’t have degrees hanging from the walls, either.”

“I was kind of wondering about that, too.” Just then Brandon felt that he went too far. His stomach clenched and he opened his mouth, about to say something — take what he just said back, maybe — when Wenchy replied.

“There’s a reason for all of that,” explained Wenchy. “but I can’t tell you everything now. What fun is there in that?” Seeing that his expression didn’t change, she continued, “We do do things differently here. That’s our mission, and we have chosen to accept it.”

“But why aren’t we going after the big guys? If the local government is red, then what about–”

HIM interrupted, “How do you think that we keep our jobs?”

Brandon asked, “Huh?” HIM pulled out a black leather bifold stacked with business cards. He pointed to the third word in the department title, “minor”.

“That is correct,” said Velvet Katherine. “Our charter prevents us from engaging highly-visible organizations.”

“We’re car detailers, not car manufacturers,” added O-Man.

“Huh what?”

O-Man continued, “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, but because we aim at small things first we’re totally under the radar. Just like getting a car detailed can completely change how it looks!”

“Oh.” Brandon felt sheepish and suddenly tiny. If there was a mousehole within sight, he would have gladly scurried into it.

“So actually we’re a lot more dangerous and subversive than they’ll ever know, because we’re not taking on the big guys.”

“And about the serious part, we’re very serious, which is why we’re so laid back,” Wenchy chimed in.

Brandon just waited for the explanation and tried not to appear dumbfounded.

“If you freak out about everything and try to control it all, you’ll end up going bonkers and doing a bad job,” said Wenchy. “That’s why chilling is rule number one.”

It made sense, but it was backwards, or totally different than the rest of the world. Yet it seemed to work, somehow. I guess I’ll just have to accept it, he thought, as he went to check the calendar.

“What’s a PE day?” he asked Wenchy, who was tidying up the office.

“Personal Enrichment.” She looked at him as though expecting him to grasp every nuance of the word, but playfully. “Vacation. We only meet if necessary.”

“Which it won’t be tomorrow,” stated HIM.

Veero phased through the wall. “Uh guys. The table is freaking out.”

In a few seconds, everyone was gathered outside the strategy room, peering inside. In the darkness, one yellow figurine beeped like a dump truck in reverse.

“Oh crud,” said Velvet Katherine, rather loudly.

Everyone looked at her in surprise.

She stood up straight and adjusted her red cloak officiously. “I had begun to compose my plan for the day.”

“It looks like the Complexitor is going to make his move,” noted Wenchy, listening to the beeps. “It’ll be in the PM. Westchester High. Most likely the stadium.”

Brandon blinked. “Does that mean I’ll miss the first football game of the year? My friends and I were all going.”

“No. You won’t miss it,” said Wenchy. “You must be there for tertiary backup and miscellaneous other duties.”

“So this is my first mission?”

“Something like that,” said O-Man.

“But I don’t think I’m ready.”

“Don’t worry,” said Wenchy. “You’re not ready. You probably won’t have to do anything, but when we get involved, you never know. We could always use a gopher.”

Brandon sighed. His two worlds were on a collision course and he didn’t feel good about it.

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?

He made his way over the new part of the campus, where the library and the gym were located. Construction was finished earlier this year, and the high school had divided up the old library and gym into offices and classes. The new library towered over him, a three-story white building in brown trim, with small windows that couldn’t be opened or closed. A white-on-black sign above set the glass double-doors read “Main Library”.

“Whew,” he thought, pushing open the doors. “There aren’t any of the geek guard around. Maybe they get every second Tuesday off or something.”

The library was quiet in the early morning before homeroom, not at all bustling like it was during lunch or even after school. It didn’t take him long to find Jimmy, sequestered in his usual corner, in his crumpled grey coat that was too short for him. The only problem? He wasn’t alone. Peeking above the cubicle wall the other side was a shock of red hair beneath a multicolored rasta hat. Dana! Brandon ducked out of sight before they could see him and got to his locker.

After he pulled out his books for his first three classes, he slammed the locker door. Jimmy wouldn’t wonder why Brandon asked him about holographs or projectors. Dana, though, was naturally curious. What if she joined them for lunch? He spent the rest of the morning sleepwalking through classes and figuring out how to answer the questions his friends would bring up. Lunch came too soon for him, and before he knew it, he was sitting at table number eight with Jimmy, Brian, Lauren, and Dana.

Jimmy waved Brandon on over. “Muscles mean justice,” he said. Brandon said, “Uh. Yeah.” He had grown accustomed to Jimmy spouting off random phrases for no apparent reason. Maybe he’d explain where he got this one from; maybe not. Jimmy was twirling a limp fry in one hand lackadaisically. Besides that, he seemed about the same as always — disheveled, stringy, black hair, an unfocussed distant stare, and crammed into the chair.

“So then are you saying that you’re a criminal?” asked Lauren as Brandon sat down. Lauren was a tomboy, with blonde hair and intense blue eyes. Her shirt read, “MOPAR Racing — Kick Asphalt”. She wore a Hemi baseball cap and leaned in towards the table.

Jimmy rolled his eyes and ate the fry. Brandon said, “Guess I got here before the brawl this time. At least I have good seats.” Brian nodded.

“It’s a joke,” piped up Dana, sitting across from Brandon. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and said, “Don’t you get it? It’s Gunparade Orchestra.” She sneered at Lauren.

“Whatever,” said Lauren. “The shows I watch are in English, thank you.”

Brandon took a bite out of his hamburger and thought that the way things were going, he wouldn’t have to answer any questions at all. Jimmy was in the thick of it, so he couldn’t ask him about Veero, either. He resigned himself to this fate when Brian asked, hoping to diffuse the tension, “So, how’d it go yesterday?” The table immediately fell silent and everyone turned towards Brandon.

He swallowed hard and shifted gears. “Time to see if the plan works,” he thought.

“Pretty good,” he said. “It’s an after-class class to help me with studying. Kind of like a mentoring thing. So I’ll be tied up after school for a while.”

“How long?” asked Lauren.

“I don’t know yet. It’s just my first day.”

“Oh, right.”

“It’s pretty important if the assistant to the assistant principal singled you out,” said Dana.

Brandon didn’t even blink. He was ready for her.

“Not really,” he said. “My mom’s talked with the administration before. It happens sometimes.”

Brian laughed. “Yeah, I remember that time in the fourth grade when you freaked out for a week.”

He was ready for that, too. “Shut up, Brian,” he said, laughing. “Don’t make me bring UP the Chicken Bone experience.” Brian laughed. “Good one, man!”

“So where’s it at?” asked Dana.

“Downtown.”

“Downtown like where?”

“Why? You planning to visit?” He grinned but he saw that determined look in her eye. She knew he was hiding something and she wouldn’t let up until she found out what.

“Maybe,” she said.

“Geesh Dana. Let it go already.” said Lauren.

“Ok, I’ll tell them that you need help — with fashion.”

Jimmy refocused his eyes and looked from Brandon over to Dana. “Youch.”
Everyone else chimed in with agreement.

She threw a fry at Brandon, which he ducked just in time. After that, they got down to eating and talking about the football game on Friday until the bell for sixth period rang. As everyone shuffled off to sixth period, Brandon sighed. He still didn’t have a codename.

* * *

He raced home, running through names as quickly as he could.

“The Psycho Cyclist?” He laughed.

“The Uncaped Crusader?”

“The Spazzalator? Ugh.” Why was that name in his head? Some help HIM had been.

“How about Captain Ordinary?” He pulled into the driveway and parked the bike in the garage. It wasn’t any good. He wasn’t coming up with anything.

Fortunately, he didn’t have much homework, so he got that done and spent the rest of the time before dinner playing Zombies Invade Littletown, hoping that video game violence would stimulate his creative juices. It didn’t work. By the time his mom called up for dinner, he was desperate. Today was the day he’d do two things he’d never done before, and the second one was ask his mom about himself. He knew that was at least as dangerous as picking a fight with Muscle-head Johnson, a junior, but he was running out of time.

Over peas and rice, they talked about the usual topics of gardening and homework. Then he saw his opening.

“You know, I’m not that great at writing. But what would you say I’m good at?”

She blinked and said, “Hmm. Let me think.”

“Well, how about this: how would you describe me? It’s for that after-school thing. And please no diaper stories.”

“Oh, rats.” She took a few more mouthfuls of chicken and said, “I think one of your greatest strengths is that you’re amiable. You get along with most people.”

Brandon tried to keep his face from falling. There were times when his mom made him feel like he was three years old, and disgustingly female. This was one of those times.

“And you’re good at several different things, though not everything. You blend in well. I guess I’d say you have an untapped strength.”

He mumbled a “thanks” and finished off his plate. “At least she saved it at the end,” he thought. After cleaning off the table, he said goodbye and rushed to get on his bike. Sure he’d be there a few minutes early, but he needed time to think. He also wanted to make sure that Dana wasn’t following him.

The dusky streets of early fall folded him in their capricious breezes as he pedalled his way downtown. His mom was generally right, but she wasn’t helpful. Getting along wouldn’t make a great codename. Neither would being good at several different things. How do I think of myself? That was a question that hit him out of nowhere and he almost fell off his bike realizing how profound a question it was.

He remembered having to “tough it out” quite a bit, because his mom kept reminding him. “Your father’s not here, so you’ll have to do this or that. I had to do everything before I felt ready for it.” He turned the corner. “I guess I’m good at surviving, then.” He pulled into Main street and parked his bike in the same place as yesterday. He felt like standing up like a marathon runner crossing the finish line, because suddenly he had a name. “You know when they say to fight to the last man, I am the last man! Yeah!” The adrenaline of self-discovery mingled with the physical exercise of bicycling combined into one perfect moment. He walked into the MIC with his head held high.

Veero wasn’t out front, so he went right on in to the lounge. He didn’t have any idea what to expect, but the sight of the MIC working somehow still managed to shock him. HIM sat in a chair too small for him, facing a screen that also seemed too small, with his fingers occasionally typing in short phrases on the keyboard. Velvet Katherine had draped herself across the couch, but indicated in a serious, and stern voice where the books were to go; Wenchy stood up on a ladder arranging the books according to her whim. O-Man and Veero were standing before the blue monitor set into the wall, discussing the finer points of scheduling and logistics. No-one seemed to notice him, so Brandon cleared his throat.

Wenchy stepped down from the ladder and adjusted the dark rimmed glasses. “I’m nearsighted,” she said. “And you’re…” She checked her watch. “Early.” Velvet Katherine allowed a faint smile to grace her lips.

“By your leave?” asked Wenchy, in mock royal courtesy.
Velvet Katherine waved her hand in a vaguely uninterested fashion. “Shoosh.”

Wenchy turned her attention back to him. “Ok, let’s get down to business. Did you read the material?”

“Yes, but…”

“Did it not all make sense?”

He shook his head. “The organizational stuff and the theory were hard.”

Her gaze softened. “Everyone has a hard time with that. Let’s go over it.” She lead him into the office and motioned for him to sit down at a steel table. A flip-chart hung on a nearby stand, and she flipped to the fourth page.

“Leaving aside the theory for a moment, let’s focus on how we fight incompetence,” she said. “The MIC is made up of chapters, and we are chapter two-fifty-seven.” Several shouts came from the lounge and other rooms, saying “two-five-seven” throatily. “That’s another thing. Whenever we say the number, everyone has to say the number.”

“Has to?” Brandon wondered aloud. He was starting to wonder about the maturity of the MIC.

“Yup,” said Wenchy. “Anyways, each chapter has a specific area that they are responsible for, called a section. So there are two organizational schemes at work — one of members, the other of the area we cover. It’s kind of like police. They have squads of people and they cover areas, like blocks and cities. Got it?”

It was starting to sink in now. He nodded. She gestured to the flip chart.

“The next level up is the region for land, and the conclave for people. So you’ll see the southeast region covers ours and two others; the conclave is a monthly meeting with all chapters in the region. They rotate it. This month it’s at chapter three one oh.” She wrinkled her nose. “Their coffee sucks. Still with me?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok, the next level up is pretty easy — state and then state body; after that, there’s the MSR, for multi-state region, and then the MSA for multi-state assembly.” She pointed dramatically to each section on the page. “Finally, there’s the yearly national convention, which every member of MIC attends.”

“Will I have to use this a lot?” Brandon asked.

“Not often, but you still need to know it especially when you’re attending a conclave or you’re on some task force. It happens sometimes. You never know when.” She shrugged.

“Each layer has its own governing body, although the ones below the state level are ad-hoc, which means we just wing it. The only other thing you need to know is that Bernie from Indianopolis is a jerk.”

Brandon’s head was beginning to hurt. “Will there be a test?”

“Yes, but I’m telling you about Bernie so you’ll know what we mean when someone calls you Bernie or says, ‘Don’t pull a Bernie!’ There’s no tests on that.”

O-Man stepped in the office for a moment, looking for something on the main desk. Today he wore a polyester white jacket over a tie-dyed ultramarine shirt. He chimed in with a downturned thumb. “Bernie bites it.” He found a piece of paper and then left.

“Hmm,” thought Brandon. “BBI.”

“Hey O-Man,” said Wenchy as he left the room. “Why don’t you show him around? The official guided tour is mas importante, capish?”

O-Man flipped up his swirled sunglasses and pretended to think about it for a minute. “I can’t believe we forgot that. C’mon.”

“Ok, you’ve seen the lounge and the office. Bathrooms are over there.” He jerked a thumb towards the doors labeled appropriately. “This is the strategy room,” he said, cracking open the door to a small room that was dominated by a humming circular table. “Out back is where the vehicles are.” He opened the door beneath the cursive pink neon sign and showed Brandon a forest green K-car sedan (with a 350 engine, O-Man assured him), and a boring white van (with a huge V-8 but terrible gas mileage, O-Man added). “And oh yeah. There’s a little side garage, too.” O-Man opened a side door and showed Brandon a wonderworks of steel, chrome, and tools. “This is where I juice ‘em up. I’ve got my eye on an old Mustang down at Ted’s Tires.” Brandon blinked. Amid all the steel and chrome, O-Man seemed to fade into the background for a moment. He blinked again and everything returned to normal. A moment later they were back in the parking lot, so he didn’t give it much thought.

Brandon wasn’t much into cars, but knew enough to recognize that O-Man was one of those guys that could do almost anything with a wrench. He noticed that none of the cars had official insignias. “That’s right. We don’t have any marked cars. Unmarked is all we do here!”

“So when do you go home?” Brandon asked as they re-entered the lounge. He figured that the MIC was like a normal job with set hours and such. “Most of us live here,” said O-Man. “And those of us who don’t, would rather.”

Veero smirked at that. “Wait ’til you hear the story!” she chirruped. He looked at her with some disdain. “Well, this is the end of the tour. I hope you got your money’s worth. If not, there’s no refund. Sorry!” Brandon smiled as O-Man rejoined Veero and Wenchy walked over towards him.

“So did you think about your code-name?” she asked.

“Yes, and I came up with one.”

“Ooh. Let’s hear it.”

“I think I’ll go by ‘The Last Man’.”

“Hmm. Why did you pick that?”

He could feel every eye in the room on him.

“I feel like I have a hidden strength,” he began, feeling a bit under the microscope. What was he saying? Those were his mom’s words. “I mean, that I survive. Whatever happens, I make it through. You’ve read my file. I’ve been through some things.”

Velvet Katherine nodded sagely. O-Man gave him a thumbs up. HIM stood up and said, “No matter what happens?”

“Uh, yeah.” He meant it to sound a lot more defiant than it did.

HIM got closer and stood an inch or two away from Brandon. “No matter what?”

“Uh?” Brandon looked around but couldn’t see around HIM’s massive frame.

HIM got closer still and Brandon shut his eyes, balled his fists and planted his feet.

HIM scratched his stubbly chin thoughtfully, stepping away. “Not bad. Resisting at all costs takes courage, and courage is beyond muscles.”

Brandon looked relieved. Somewhat dazed, he mumbled, “You mean that muscles don’t mean justice?”

O-Man shouted out, “Dude! This isn’t Gunparade Orchestra!”

Wenchy said, “Yes. Courage beyond strength. Strength that lasts until the very last minute; think of all the brave souls on forgotten battlefields who held out against impossible odds. That’s something worth dreaming of.”

Veero swooped in to hover beside him. “Not only that, but it abbreviates well. LM. Those letters are right after each other. We’ll call you LM!”

Velvet Katherine spoke. “Veero, please go rhyme ‘orange’.”

O-Man groaned out loud. “Why did you do that? We were planning!” Velvet Katherine held up her fingers in a V for victory sign and said simply, “V means me.” O-Man growled and left the room, mumbling about a reset switch. Wenchy and HIM grinned as Veero hovered in mid-air trying different words in the hopeless task of finding a word to rhyme with orange.

“Andy-ways,” said Wenchy, “Let’s cover the schedule.” She held open the office door and said, “For the first couple weeks, we’ll focus on how to study and train you for your role as junior MIC member. After that, you’ll meet the others your own age. Yes, I know you’re thinking that.”

Brandon bit his lip. Maybe there’d come a day when he knew as much about them as they did about him.

“So there are others?”

“Yes, just not here at the moment. But speaking of moments, here’s the schedule.” She pointed to the calendar on the wall. “For now, just remember that Thursday nights are strategy nights.”

“And pizza,” added HIM, raising his eyebrow mysteriously as he wandered into the office looking for something.

Wenchy didn’t miss a beat. “Yes, of course, pizza. Mostly pepperoni but sometimes we go crazy and get a pineapple or a barbecue. The calendar tells all. Now, to studying.”

Brandon sat down. “Let’s start at the beginning — why study?” she asked.

Brandon asked, “Because I have to.”

“Wrong!” said Wenchy, with a smile. “You study so that you don’t fail, because failing is bad, and failing makes you feel stupid.”

Brandon bit his lip. “Can I ask a question?”

“Sure, that’s what this is all about.”

“That’s not the real reason, is it? I mean, I’m supposed to do well at school so I don’t get yelled at.”

“Well, if you don’t fail, you don’t get yelled at.”

“Wait — wait. What I mean is that I have to do well at school so that I can get through it because that’s what’s expected of me.”

“And why is it expected of you?” she asked.

“I don’t really know,” he answered, shrugging. “It seems kinda pointless to me. Most of what we do I’ll never use and I’m not using it now.”

“That’s true,” she said, barely holding back a smile.

“What? That it’s pointless?”

“No. That you’re not using it now and there’s a bit of it you won’t use. That’s why it feels so pointless. So, to make it stick we’re going to use it now. And we’re going to figure out what you’re going to do after high school. That’ll help us figure out what to focus on.”

“I don’t know about after high school.”

“It’s ok,” she said, conspiratorially. “You don’t have to know right now. But someday, yes, someday, you will know. Hopefully you’ll find out before you’re out of high school.”

He blinked, trying to follow the logic of that. “But first, algebra.” She uncrinkled a piece of paper. “Our sources say that that’s your number one problem.”

“It sure is. I hate that class.”

“Because?”

“Because it’s pointless.”

“Not exactly,” said Wenchy. “There are a few points there, but most of them come later in geometry.”

“Wow,” Brandon said quietly. “I think that was one of the worst jokes I’ve ever heard,” he thought.

Wenchy shrugged. “You’re doing Cartesian coordinates right now, right?”

“Right.”

“Do you know why they’re called that?”

“No.”

Wenchy explained the history behind the name, which Brandon found not exactly boring, but he was better at history than math. History had a storyline, while math didn’t. Then before he knew it, she had him plotting lines and computing areas — although they weren’t the dry math he was used to. All of a sudden he was responsible for drawing up architectural plans for a tree fort, and computing how much concrete was needed to build a skate park. “The application is the thing,” said Wenchy, “it which to catch the mind of the king.”

By the end of the session, he had the first pale glimmering of understanding, and he could feel the pieces slowly coming together in his mind of a bigger puzzle. They were still far off and he had no idea what the puzzle would look like when it was completed, but as he rode home that night, he felt hope.

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.

“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.