Where did this come from? Beats me. I suppose I've just read 
too many self-inserts and I just thought the usual cliche needed 
some justifying, what-if style.

For further illumination, read on...

All comments, good and bad, are very much welcome, at:
jwchampagne@msn.com


The Program


In this day and age, when information is power, and those who 
are best at collecting and linking up the right scraps of 
information are the brokers of that power, it would amaze the 
average person to know just how easy a time those brokers 
have of it. 

Forget the conspiracy theories, in which gigantic government-
operated computer systems relentlessly track every detail of 
your life through your credit card purchases and video rentals, 
your magazine subscriptions and medical prescriptions. 

In reality, all that the aspiring information-broker need do is lay 
out the right kind of bait. Most people are more than willing to 
tell you, in detail, nearly anything you might want to know about 
them--and more than they realize they're telling--if you make 
them a legitimate offer in return. Hold out an apparent 
_opportunity_ at a time when real opportunities seem seldom to 
arise, and people will volunteer virtually any fact about 
themselves they think will give them an edge over other 
interested individuals.

The model for the figure who holds all these threads of 
information, who gathers and manipulates all these disparate 
strands of knowledge, is not the Hacker, the shadowy master of 
digitally encoded data who moves at will from computer system 
to computer system, but the Director of Personnel, who sits at 
his desk all day, reading letters of application and resumes, 
looking for the clues that tell him whether this or that applicant is 
the right one for the position being offered. The 
unacknowledged legislators of today may ultimately be 
answerable to no man, but they still have to put in a 9-to-5 
working day (with occasional overtime) in order to make the rent.

A bit anticlimactic, I realize.

But if the full truth is to be known, it must be pointed out that 
there are special groups of such people who operate around the 
world, following their own mysterious agenda, constantly on the 
lookout for just the right kind of person for a certain exceptional 
situation. They don't carry highly advanced weaponry, of course, 
and while they do tend to work underground, they arrive at work 
in the morning just as others do. They do not run a gauntlet of 
retinal scans and palm-locks to enter their offices. In fact, their 
offices tend to be voluntarily avoided by those "out of the loop". 
Who wants to visit, let alone work in, the kind of airless, lightless 
cubicles they use for their more covert work when there are 
plenty of window-office spaces to go around on the upper 
floors? 

And thus they are left alone to do the work that few will ever 
acknowledge, manipulating events and bringing people into 
unsuspecting contact with each other in such a way that even 
those whose lives they touch never realize how little random 
chance had to do with their meeting, and thus with the salvation 
of the world from deadly perils. 

They are not by nature flashy, stylish, or intimidating individuals, 
though some of them can act a bit wild at the annual Christmas 
party.

Call them (if you need to call them something) the Men in 
Basements.

***

Monday morning mail call. Thelonius upended a box over the 
Director's desk.

"Is it my imagination, or is this pile bigger every week?"

The Director shrugged. "Seems that way. The program _is_ 
getting more popular. They're getting more ordinary applications 
upstairs--a lot more--if we're getting more down here." The vast 
majority, he did not need to add, which were of no interest to the 
Director or his committee, made their way into one or another of 
the upstairs offices, routed through perfectly legitimate 
channels... but every single application the program received 
was first checked for certain key words or phrases, screened for 
the kinds of details that would be of interest to the Director's 
people--the people who constituted what they knew was the 
_real_ Program, the secret reason for all the activity upstairs. 
Only a very few applications were eventually diverted to his 
offices, but even these made for a sizable pile.

Nancy puffed an oh-brother,-big-job-ahead breath through her 
lips. "Maybe we ought to consider narrowing the search 
parameters again."

"Thelonius likes them the way they are." He nodded to the 
group's unofficial "mailman", who returned to his terminal to 
process the next batch. "Besides, we should be glad the pool of 
Potentials is as big as it is. Less chance that we'll simply skip 
over the right ones just because they don't fit the _ideal_ 
profile."

"I guess you're right."

The Director smiled, and waved over the rest of his committee. 
"Henry, Willoughby, Nance... you all know what to do." They did; 
each picked up a handful of envelopes, more or less at random. 
There was really no point in being orderly about it, to the 
Director's way of looking at things. They weren't going to find the 
right person by being neat--just by being thorough. It wasn't the 
best strategy to come at this job with a careful plan. Sudden 
inspiration was often as valuable a tool as preparation, for their 
purposes. 

Besides, there was no substitute in their delicate business for 
simple human intuition. Otherwise the job would be left entirely 
to Thelonius and his computer-generated profiles. What they 
were looking for was almost never plainly laid out for them on 
the paper they read. You had to have the knack for telling what 
was being written between the lines.

The guidelines the group followed were tough, but very broadly 
defined. In fact, it was almost the only way they could operate as 
well as they did. It wasn't unusual to see Willoughby trade a 
resume with Henry, who had a special "feel" for the often vague 
terms the applicants used; he could tell when someone was 
trying to _hide_ something, where the rest of the group could 
see only someone trying to show off--a useful talent indeed, 
considering the kind of person they were looking for. No-one in 
the group doubted, though, that the Director was the best among 
them at what they all did; that was why he was the Director, by 
the unanimous consent of his people as much as by the fact of 
his seniority. Everyone in the office read through the Potentials, 
but every Possible and every Probable was brought to the 
Director's attention before it went into the basket on his desk 
that he cleared out by the end of the day.

And so the morning passed in a library's silence, the only sound 
the shuffling of papers being sorted from pile to pile, with the 
occasional one being dropped back into the box to be returned 
on Thelonius' next trip upstairs.

Henry spoke out just as he was about to dispose of one such. 
"Listen to this one, guys. First year junior high, and she speaks 
four languages already. Piano, swim team, debating club... says 
she's interested in a career in international trade law." He 
whistled, impressed, and dropped it into the "reject" box. "You 
know, this job has really helped restore my faith in the American 
educational system."

Willoughby called across from his desk, "Betcha she's going to 
be applying to Harvard in four years. She'll make it in easy, too."

"No bet there. She's the ideal candidate. Knows what she wants, 
hard worker. Too bad she's not what _we're_ looking for."

Nancy fanned herself with a letter of application. "I need a 
cigarette."

"Thought you quit."

"Tried the gum, tried the patch. Waste of time."

"Stay focused, people..." the Director chided them for their small 
talk. "Only a few more to go, then we can compare notes and 
short-list." The silence resumed for a while, until the Director 
looked up again, and, in practiced harmony, the committee 
pulled their chairs over to his desk, one or two likely candidates 
in their hands.

"Okay. Let's hear what you've got."

Nancy started. "Sarah Johnson. 14..." She summarized her letter 
of application and gave the highlights of her resume; the rest of 
the group did the same with their picks.

"You know, it never ceases to amaze me just how many 
basically bright, motivated kids there are out there, who really do 
want to broaden their experiences, to learn new things, to see 
the world..."  

"You forgot to add: to pad their college applications."

"Now, Nance, don't be so cynical."

"Sorry. Just getting a bit jaded, I guess. This job really does 
mess with your head after a while, with the way we _ought_ to 
be looking at these kids. I mean, look at this one." She waved 
Sarah Johnson. "The letter doesn't even tell me _why_ she 
wants to be a part of the program. I don't think she even knows 
why herself."

"That's very possible," the Director conceded. "Henry's Harvard-
candidate was very clear, very concise. But remember, that isn't 
necessarily what we're looking for. May I see that one myself?" 
Nancy handed it over. He read it and smiled.

"I do like the name," Nancy admitted. "Nice and ordinary. 
Something about it seems almost..."

"Made up?" asked Henry, who was reading the application 
himself now. "Parents divorced...father dead." He turned to the 
Director. "Another good sign."

"Oh, come on. Where does it say that?" Willoughby leaned over 
Henry's shoulder, and even Thelonius had wandered over by 
now.

"I'd stake my reputation on it," Henry, ever-humble, grinned. 
"Look at how reticent she is about her home life..."

"Okay, I'll go along with that. She's a Possible, as of now." The 
others made disgusted noises, which the Director pooh-poohed. 
"_Besides_, I've got a feeling about her myself. It's got the right 
'feel' to it."

"The resume _doesn't_ indicate she even speaks the language, 
though," Henry warned.

"Doesn't matter. If I'm right about her, she's the kind who can 
pick up everything she needs to know in a few days. Now, let's 
pick the rest apart..."

Morning became afternoon, and afternoon wore on, as they 
debated the merits of their choices. The end result: one 
remaining Possible, and one Probable. A good day. It wasn't 
unusual for them to eliminate all their candidates before lunch. 
As they argued, the Director seemed to become more and more 
thoughtful, as though distracted by some detail he hadn't 
consciously accounted for yet. At last, the group stopped their 
discussion and stared at him. He stared back, but not directly at 
any one of them.

"Allentown."

"Beg pardon?"

"Sarah Johnson. Allentown, Pennsylvania."

Nancy checked the application. "So she is. There. From there... 
Argh. You know what I mean," she stumbled over the words, 
confused.

"I seem to recall reading something about Allentown... oh, three 
or four months back..."

Willoughby perked up. "The Archive?" The Director nodded, the 
rest groaned, as Willoughby headed over behind his desk in 
search of the right box.

"Just once," Henry complained, "I'd like to do my research by 
reading the _Times_ or the _Post_, like a normal person."

"Can't be helped. Nature of the beast. Besides, don't let 
Willoughby hear you say that. It'd break his heart. Do you know 
how much time he's already put into that _National Enquirer_ 
and _Weekly World News_ database of his?"

"And what are you going to do, put it on CD-ROM and sell it to 
public libraries?" Henry asked the returning Willoughby, who 
shrugged.

"Make _our_ job easier, at any rate," he said, opening an old 
_Enquirer_--they didn't even have a microfilm archive, given the 
nature of the publications they were used to consulting.

A few minutes later, Nancy called their attention to the article; 
the Director's memory was as good as ever, and it looked like 
his hunch was paying off.

"Here it is, here it is... Allentown, PA. Sightings of a quote-
unquote "monster" attacking people in a shopping district. 
Eyewitnesses describe it as a cross between a yadda yadda 
yadda and a blah blah blah... Hospitalizations... doctors on 
record ascribe symptoms to exhaustion, stress, _off_ record to 
indeterminate cause. Police found no sign of so-called 
"monster"... Some witnesses claim seeing someone fighting said 
monster... conflicting rumors... our sources say a _young girl_ 
was involved."

The others sat back. "Too bad no-one snapped a picture. Too 
bad Sarah Johnson's application didn't come with a picture, too."

"Wouldn't help. The Allentown picture would be too blurry. They 
always are." Willoughby paused. "So. We have one Sarah 
Johnson, resident of Allentown, who some three months after 
this all-too-typical mysterious incident exhibits a sudden, 
unexplained desire to visit another country..."

The Director smiled. "Lady and gentlemen, I think we have our 
candidate. Good work all around." The group joined in the smile 
and congratulated each other, as the Director turned to his own 
computer and opened his word-processing program. He always 
wrote these letters himself, each one seeming fresh and new to 
him, though the text seldom varied. The small task was like a 
personal reward to himself for having found certainty in the 
midst of doubt.

"Dear Miss Johnson,

"It is with great pleasure that I write to inform you of your 
acceptance as a participant in our Japanese student exchange 
program. Your host family, who live in Juuban in Tokyo, have 
already been contacted..."

The Director of the Magical Girls Exchange Program, as he 
would have been called if the real nature of his work were 
generally known, smiled again to himself. It was a good thing he 
found his work its own reward. Enjoy himself however he might 
right now, it would be another long day tomorrow--it seemed that 
there was always yet another outwardly ordinary but secretly 
super-powered teenager to be sent to the right place to defend 
the world against the forces that threatened it...

Idly, as he hit the "print" key, he wondered if his counterpart 
over in the Martial Artists Exchange Program was having as 
good a day...


The End


...And thus is answered the eternal question, just _where the 
heck_ do all those flippin' exchange students come from??

Address all baps, punts, and painful shiatsu jabs to

Jim Champagne
jwchampagne@msn.com