Excited Delirium Book: Chapter 55 (Greyrock – Bringing it Home, II)

Author’s Note: The following is Chapter 55 of the my online book "Excited Delirium". Please post comments. Please tell your friends about this story. If you’ve missed a chapter, please click here for Chapter 1 (Prelude) or here for the full index

“You’ll be in charge of a very special unit,” one stuffy looking old man said to him from across the hall.

It was still light out and the meeting that Len Daniels was invited to had assumed a formal feel very quickly. All of the chit chat and murmuring stopped quickly when a single person came to the door and clapped a very old and dusty looking book. Daniels tried to see what it was, but there were too many people around him to get a good look. He also knew that all of his actions were being closely monitored. If he looked like he was trying too hard or showed any sign of doing something out of turn, the group would become silent and he’d ruin his initiation, which is what he suspected this was.

Everyone quickly assembled in a new room. Three rings of chairs were set up in perfect circles, each larger than the other. Twelve members sat in each ring, for a total of thirty-six members. Daniels thought to himself that the most senior members of the group would sit in the closest ring, but he was wrong. The senior members of this group always sat in the furthermost circle to ensure that those closest to the centre would face more scrutiny. It was a practice that had been observed for hundreds of years.

They sat in single seats around the room, all padded with plush red velvet and trimmed with gold paint. Daniels sat in the middle of the room on a pad that revolved in a tight circle, feeling like a very small Sun as its planets swirled around it.

As the people around him spoke, they usually spoke when he was turned away from them. This again was a practice that was used in this organization to avoid having inductees like Daniels know who directed the command. He could probably recognize a few voices, but not all of them.

“This unit will be responsible for the security of the nation,” a voice said behind him.

“We’ve taken steps to limit the population you’ll have to handle, but it may still be quite large,” another voice boomed.

“Will you have any issues with the incarceration of American citizens?” a soft voice asked. He thought he knew this voice as Garamond’s, but couldn’t tell for sure.

“Not in the least, sir. If they’re criminals and they work against our fate, then we will help them understand what we’re doing. If they have to be in jail for this re-education, then so be it,” Daniels said. As part of his initiation process, he had been taught some of the key words that would ensure his acceptance. Even though it was a very private group, they still managed to share the right information with the right people. He also knew that he didn’t need to express any extreme thoughts in response to the questions. The entire group was fully aware of the tactics that Daniels and his teams would employ to silence ‘disruptors’.

“We’ll have lists of people that will need to be assembled immediately in the event that this route is necessary. What are you prepared to do to ensure that they are taken to our facilities?”

“Anything that’s asked of me,” Daniels responded without hesitation.

(Note: "Excited Delirium" is a work of fiction. Any person, place or thing depicted in this work of fiction is also a work of fiction. Any relation of these subjects or characters to real locations, people or things are an unintentional coincidence.)

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Excited Delirium by Liam Young is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License .
Based on a work at www.exciteddelirium.ca .