Even Exonormal Organizations Need New Blood
(Backstory: Originally published in the long-dead online magazine Revolution Science Fiction in 2001, this is how the sausage is made, with a few changes to remove mention of a particular comics-industry sex pest. This is where the whole St. Remedius story got its start: from an article in the Wall Street Journal about how both the FBI and CIA were sending recruiters to Fort Lauderdale and Padre Island to interest incipient college graduates into considering both for future careers. A few years later, the CIA even moved into running radio ads around Spring Break to get the word out, and I just had to wonder “And what kind of people would the CIA get to apply based on an early-morning radio ad alongside the ads for ambulance-chaser law firms and Central Market food festivals? And who would be competing with the CIA to hire the brightest and the best?” Thinking back on this bit of satire and exactly how boring even the most exciting paranormal research would become by the time everyone finished submitting papers and repeating the same talking points over and over to beginning newswriters a bit overwhelmed by how weird their world was getting, give a couple of decades to let the ideas percolate a bit, and that’s how St. Remedius started. And now to keep going: as a tip, I’d very highly recommend against college graduates taking any job offers from Torchwood. That place has “class-action sexual harassment suit” AAAAAAAAAALL over it.)
Padre Island, Texas – For thousands of high school and college students, the beaches of Padre Island are the obvious locale for spring break. Following the students are hundreds of recruiters for various Fortune 500 corporations seeking the brightest and best for new positions right after graduation. In recent years, US government agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, and the Central Intelligence Agency have joined the corporate recruiters in seeking new members interested in a higher calling. This year, though, marks the first time the United Nations Intelligence Task Force (UNIT), the organization the world contacts to deal with extraterrestrial threats, has sought new members via standard recruiting.
Founded in 1969 through the efforts of Brigadier General Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart (British Army – Ret.), UNIT is a multi-national military force whose mission is to deal with alien or extraordinary Earth-based threats with the potential to endanger the whole planet. Headquartered in Geneva and placed under the sole command of the United Nations, UNIT currently operates with branches in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Brazil, and Antarctica. Most famed for its missions against invasions by Yeti, Daleks, and Cybermen in the early Eighties, Unit has expanded its operations to include other, more subtle menaces to humanity, such as stubbing out self-cloning “boy bands” and protecting third-rate horror writers from repeated extraterrestrial abductions and anal probes.
“We’ve actually had it easy this year,” said Lieutenant Colonel Meredith Patterson, chief recruiting officer for UNIT-North America. “Two years ago, when we started researching possibilities in Fort Lauderdale, we were competing against every last dotcom seeking technical graduates, and most of them decided that they didn’t like the military lifestyle or the thought of wrestling Sontarans for the fate of the universe. These days, though, we have our pick of computer science, engineering, astronomy, and cryptography majors. The only group we’re having problems recruiting are paleontologists: we’ve had a couple of cases involving buried Silurian and Sea Devil colonies off Baja California, and we can’t get enough dinosaurologists to deal with that mess.”
Lieutenant Colonel Patterson explained the reason for recruiting new college graduates instead of drawing them from the existing branches of the world’s armies. “I’ll be blunt. We take on plenty of opponents that the standard armed forces can’t handle. New soldier can be maimed, disintegrated, hypnotized, vaporized, parasitized, driven insane, left paraplegic, and converted into foodstuffs. On the bright side, it beats working retail.”
Because of new threats and new technologies, the new UNIT recruit has to have skills above and beyond those generally cultivated in college. “In particular, beyond the usual computer and scientific skills and the aptitudes with various forms of exotic weaponry, we’re looking for that extra something. Immunity to hypnotic suggestion, telepathic ability, and resistance to Cyber-conversion are very good pluses, and we certainly wouldn’t turn down anyone with aptitudes in public relations. In the early years, we were constantly blowing up old gravel pits in Surrey, and there was always someone complaining about the racket and the mess.”
Even in these rough times, competition for top candidates can be fierce. Jeff Holmes, a journalism and cryptography major from Flagstaff, Arizona, related how he had multiple offers from various public and private groups with the same agenda. “UNIT is really interested in me, but I got a call from a new group called the Baxter Building Collective, and they’re offering me twice the pay for the right grades. It’s just they’ve only been around for about four years, so I’m not sure if they have the job security I’m looking for right now. I have to admit, though, their promise of a 401(k) that’s completely free of Enron stock is pretty tempting. Miskatonic University’s grad school program keeps calling me as well, and I can’t knock a grad program that pays real money to go tramping around Antarctica.”
Charlie Chu, spokesman for the Baxter Building Collective, denied that any competition existed. “Hey, we’ll take help from UNIT. We’ll even take help from the Coalition to Reunite Gondwanaland if the threat is big enough. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get going. This is an increasingly strange world, and we’re dedicated to keeping it that way.” Miskatonic University representatives could not be reached for comment.
Want to get caught up on the St. Remedius story so far? Check out the main archive. Want more hints as to the history of St. Remedius Medical College? Check out Backstories and Fragments. Want to forget all of that and look at cat pictures from a beast who dreams of his own OnlyFans for his birthday? Check out Mandatory Parker. Questions, concerns, and disgust over generative AI? Check out Contact, Privacy Policy, and AI Policy. And feel free to visit the St. Remedius Medical College Redbubble shop for all of your Mandatory Parker needs.
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