Excited Delirium Book: Chapter 46 (OMNINet’s Big Meeting)

Author’s Note: The following is Chapter 46 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 .

August 2, 2008

A group of twenty of the finest industrialists and businessmen of various ages and sizes sat around a large, wood and steel oblong table that would have appeared large had it not been for the fact that it was placed in the middle of a massive meeting room that overlooked Central Park in New York.

These men – and they were all men – were the leaders of the different business entities of the OMNINet. All were white, all were well-polished, and all were exceptionally prepared for this important meeting that took place every year at the same time in the same location.

This was an office space that would make a Chinese Emperor, French Monarch or even Catholic Pope blush. The walls were not a single material, but a carved array of the world’s most exotic woods and metals. Depictions of Christendom’s greatest events were depicted on these walls, but masked so that lay-people wouldn’t be thrown off by the overtly religious tone.

It was important that this room be immense because of the entourage of lackeys that surrounded each of their bosses, armed with piles of studies, reports, USB tags for instant access to digital files and a multitude of other documents, just in case any of them were put to task by their ultimate task master, Griffith Garamond. A forest of trees and mountain of silicon was on tap, just in case anyone needed to justify their pale and shallow existence.

An existence, it seemed, that had one purpose: make money.

This particular OMNINet meeting began, as always, with the following unwritten introduction that all members in attendance repeated, all in unison, their voices rumbling the room with their low baritone sounds:

I am one with eternity because I believe

I have been blessed with the power to bring back Our Lord

I am an agent for the Lord’s will.

We are not a group. We are a movement.

We are not an event. We are a trend.

We are not a concept. We are the foundation of society.

WE ARE THE FUTURE TODAY.

WE ARE THE FUTURE TODAY.

WE ARE THE FUTURE TODAY.

If anyone outside these walls ever asked about the introduction, the rumours would be flatly denied and the topic would be changed hastily. Garamond and his employees were in agreement that it was an act of duty to pledge allegiance to their Lord at the beginning of all of their meetings, but an act of foolishness to reveal to the world just how devout they were.

Grant Garamond, Griffith’s father, made a signature contribution to the OMNINet with the introduction of the concept of “Circles of Profit Sources”, or COPS. The COPS strategy represented a method by which the management of the OMNINet showed their understanding of the growth opportunities related to the specific industry that they were assigned to by Garamond. They were also responsible for identifying any opportunities that extended slightly beyond the core profit centre. A basic example: the food COPS manager would have to create a new and profitable market, like organic foods.

What made the structure a little different from your standard org chart is that these managers did not report to the leaders of each industry. Instead, they reported directly to Garamond. No one outside of the inner circle of management of the OMNINet and their immediate subordinates knew anything about the concept of COPS. Anyone who questioned the structure was usually politely ushered out the door with several months pay as a severance. If they got that.

On many occasions, unproductive COPS Managers who were not successful would be transferred to new Univist territories, usually without any kind of malaria vaccination, security or other modern protection. They were usually found floating down a river within a few weeks of their new roles.

“Let’s take a look at the COPS, shall we?” Garamond insisted rhetorically.

The crowd went into instant silence. An anxious crowd waiting to verify the sound of an approaching Minuteman missile would have been louder.

Garamond scanned the room. He looked displeased. Something was bothering him and he was eventually going to reveal who was at the core of his unsettling demeanour.

Everyone in the room knew that by the end of this very long meeting, Garamond would either fire someone on the spot, humiliate them and push them to the point of wanting to wet themselves, or simply slap someone silly because, well … because he could.

What the attendees didn’t realize was that this meeting was very different. The company had just launched a spectacular IPO for Tri-X and the people in the room desperately wanted to celebrate.

Unfortunately, Garamond was not in a celebrating mood. He couldn’t tell all of the men in this room that this entire meeting would be a façade, only because he had to keep the company stable long enough for he and Hadlock to cash out.

He scanned the room again and zeroed in on an easy kill.

He thought he found the right target when he saw that a young man named Charles Turner sat shyly with his head down. Turner was relatively new to the business, but hadn’t really proven himself. He was responsible for the food division and was not yet with the company when the COPS team met last year. He was a recent MBA grad from Yale, adding on to his MA in Science & Biology. With today’s food industry being a function of chemicals and cost saving as opposed to flavour and farming, he was a natural for the role.

Garamond was keen on testing his role right now.

“Turner!” Garamond barked.

Turner jumped and his head snapped upwards to face his boss.

“Sir!” he barked back, like a military cadet eager to please his sergeant. “For the last two decades, our food division, er um, your food division has been following the ‘grassroots’ trend in organic and local foods. For a long time, it was a bunch of hippies growing celery and carrots in their backyard, having negligible impact on our distribution networks. However, starting in the last ten years, it looked like the growth of the industry, which was very activist in nature, might actually become suitable competition for our food divisions and processed consumption groups.”

“Hmmm,” was all Garamond uttered and nodded. This was the invitation to go on.

“What we started doing,” Turner continued, “was acknowledge that the market was here to stay and we decided that we would own this category completely, rather than compete with it. We picked up any of the producers that got to a point where they might have some kind of scale in their production and we buried many of the others by ‘encouraging’ local governments to restrict low-scale production. The latter was done by making labeling rules more onerous, citing health reasons and resorting to the occasional e-coli scare.”

“Towards the end of March, organics will prove to be the greatest victory for our division.”

“I need a little more than that, Turner,” Garamond invited coldly.

“No problem, sir. Where to begin?” Turner paused as he collected his thoughts. A single page was dropped in front of him by one of his associates, but he pushed it aside. He was going to wing it, which was exceptionally bold for a meeting like this. Congo or Sierra Leone were particularly unstable right now and he was taking a risk that might earn him a coach-class ticket there tomorrow morning.

Turner continued: “We were always stuck on how to increase produce prices without drawing attention from folks counting the inflation rate or old farts that could remember when a pound of potatoes was a buck or two. More importantly, most of the foods that we grow are basic commodities. Carrots, onions, garlic, oranges and so on. Even bananas and mangoes were established in certain price ranges and people simply wouldn’t buy them if we changed the price at all. By the late 80s, we had tried everything: irrigate the hell out of these products so that we were essentially selling a water-soaked red pepper, netting us more money per pound, but this had a limited market. We were even using pesticides and other growth hormones to make produce bigger, but people would buy less when the prices or the quality decreased.

“So …” Turner was getting excited now. Being chosen first meant he would be the first to finish. All of the dudes in the middle would be forgotten, but he would stand out. He would impress his boss.

“We followed your recommendations to plant a few stories about toxins and pesticides in food, but even before that, we had a line of organic produce ready to grow and sell to the market. The result of the continuous stream of media releases about food security, toxins, carcinogens that are in use by ‘ the industry’, is that people are now in a whirlwind panic. They have come to doubt the standard food stuffs and produce and have embraced the ‘organic’ thing en masse. I mean, completely and with devotion.” Turner was quick to correct himself because he knew Garamond was a ‘freedom fries’ nut, shunning any hint of the French language whenever he could.

“This couldn’t have happened if we didn’t squeeze out every small farmer in North America, mainly because they would have called us on the ‘bovine excrement’ metre a long time ago. However, because most North Americans are urbanites and don’t know jack shit about produce, they take all of the threats about their food very seriously.”

“Please don’t swear in my presence, young man,” Garamond asked calmly.

“My apologies sir. It won’t happen again.”

“And please don’t grovel either. That’s Hadlock’s job.” Everyone in the room erupted in a superficial, yet brief, guffaw. Including Hadlock.

Turner continued. “The net effect of these efforts is that we’ve been able to ‘brand’ a lot of our lines of produce and other goods. We’ve also kept our logos and names away from the products because many consumers think they’re being smart by buying ‘local’ or ‘farm friendly’ when all they’re getting is the same old crap, er junk, from Chile and Mexico picked at five cents a pound and sold at four bucks a pound. In some markets, our profits are up more than five-hundred percent. With Washington, we’ve been able to squeeze a few key Senators into introducing new guidelines for quantifying ‘organic’. They’ve been very helpful at keeping competitors at bay because the regulations we’ve written for them make it nearly impossible for other producers and suppliers to comply with standards we’ve recommended.”

“Suffice to say that we’re at the early stages of developing a significant industry related to organics and we are perfectly poised to monetize the hype surrounding ‘green’ living.”

“Excellent work, Turner,” Garamond drooled. He looked like a two-year old that just devoured a slab of chocolate cake. The sound of increasing profits, especially for commodities, were always the best way to earn favours from this man.

“I think that’s a good segue for what’s happening on the legal front,” he said as he nodded towards Carter, the company’s in-house lawyer. Wilson Carter had taken over Hadlock’s role years ago, when Simon moved forward into the President’s seat.

“Thank you sir,” Carter responded promptly. He stood up, knowing that he would be forgotten by Garamond following that challenge that Turner had forged. This was competition and sycophancy, all at its best.

“On the legislative front, we’re pushing both ways on financial regulations. After you helped engineer the collapse of Enron, we put a lot of effort into getting severe rules in place in the form of Sarbanes-Oxley, but not before creating a couple of dozen shell companies that offer consulting services that were customized to suit the new laws. The rules have become so onerous that we’re getting an unexpected benefit: more companies are going private to avoid public scrutiny. As that happens, we can pretty much do anything we want without having to report activities to authorities. The other bonus is that we can scoop up a lot of companies on the cheap. No market means no bidding war.”

For a lawyer, Carter was surprisingly succinct and to the point, but then, everyone had to exercise brevity in the presence of Garamond, who was, ultimately, the only person entitled to being long winded and using an obscure and challenging lexicon.

“Ahh … the Robber Barons have returned,” Garamond said with a demure smile.

“I’m sorry sir,” Carter struggled to say. “Who?”

“Before your time, but if you were awake in your business history class, you’d be fully aware of the families that ran this country as our economy was built in the 1900s and the beginning of the twentieth century.”

“At that time, it was popular to turn over investments to the lay-person because the dream of ownership gave everyone a warm fuzzy and it ensured that upstart companies drained the economy of savings before people invested their money in themselves. These days, nobody saves money to funnel into the stock market, so what does it matter if a few companies rule the roost? It also makes it more challenging for little companies to slip past our watch.”

“Carter.”

“Yes sir!”

“Carter, I want you to keep pushing on the legislative front and work with Underwood to keep the stories in the public domain about the merits of private activities, costs of public listings, etc. By the end of the year, I want there to be a complete frenzy in the marketplace related to our our Tri-X IPO. We need to keep the stock rising and we don’t want anything to get in our way. Do you understand?”

“Underwood: you’re going to be very, very busy in the next few months. I want news and talk about the Tri-X IPO, products and services to be everywhere within the six months and I want people to be beating down the doors for more information. I want articles in the press, TV stories and people chatting on the web, all talking about why this is the biggest thing since the lunar landing.

“What are you working on now?” Garamond insisted.

“Well sir, in general, media is doing well as a tactic for other COPS,” Conrad Underwood said as he opened his binder. “We’re helping everyone else get their stories out there with the themes that you’ve instructed.”

“But what are you doing to expand the profit sources for the media network?” Garamond drilled, pushing harder for more information from Underwood.

His subordinate flinched and leaped up, momentarily losing some of his composure before the whole room. “The media networks are flooding the market with stories about select companies in the OMNINet group of companies that are either trying to get more money from the market or that are trying to keep their head above water. We’re sitting in the sidelines waiting for the stories to hit, and then we trade on calls or puts, depending on the flow of the story. We have about two hundred holding accounts trading in a number of tax-free and unregulated jurisdictions that are profiting from the media storm that we’re whipping up for these companies.”

“Media is playing a key role with getting the stories out and pushing people to our agenda,” Underwood finished proudly.

Garamond stood up. He walked over to Underwood slowly, paused in front of him, face stony and void of emotion and slapped him across the face. Underwood tried to look, but was far too humiliated to look Garamond down.

“This is garbage! What are you doing that’s new? Sooner or later someone that we haven’t paid off is going to catch up to us and we want to make sure that we’re ahead of the curve. What about the Internet? This is the new medium that’s changing the world. Why aren’t you telling me about multi-billion dollar IPOs and new technology that all the kids are using?”

“I’m sorry sir, but I thought you wanted to hear about how we’re supporting the other COPS,” Underwood stammered.

“I don’t want to hear about how you’re putting the reputation of this company on the line just so you can make some fast profits. That’s the kind of thing that will jeopardize this entire organization!” Garamond bellowed.

“I’m sorry sir. I was going to talk about the Internet and some of the problems we’ve been having.”

“What is it now?”

“Sir, I’m not going to sugar-coat things for you. The revenue stream for the media companies is suffering. We’ve been able to disguise our lack of earnings with entertainment and media for a couple of years now, but it’s inevitable that people are going to find out that they can live without us.

He continued, not realizing that seismic shocks were thrusting up from Garamond’s mantle.

“The internet has really fucked things up for us. Nobody’s reading our papers, TV and cable subscriptions are down, and our ad budget has taken a dive. The big push with our telcos and cable companies to get everyone hooked up to DSL has made it easy for people to exchange info. Too easy.

“We’re having trouble pulling people back to TV because screen writing is for shits, indie movies are catching on, and sites like YouTube are letting people share their own ideas. I even saw a homemade sitcom on one of these sites the other day.”

“Now, sir, I wouldn’t be telling you this if we weren’t working on a solution. We’re using KIDDS and other organizations to demonize the web, telling consumers about how terrorists, drugs runners, money launderers and perverts are essentially the Four Horseman in binary code, and it’s starting to have some impact.”

KIDDS was an acronym for Keeping the Internet and Digital Devices Safe. It was a policy-oriented think-tank that had one specific goal: scare the shit out of parents and encourage them from letting their kids use the web without going through the bigger media companies.

“Blast!” Garamond shouted, startling everyone except Hadlock, who knew this was coming. “People stop watching our shows, they stop watching our ads. They stop watching our ads and they stop spending money on Swiffers and SUVs and new laundry detergents. And you know what’s worse than that? They start thinking for themselves. They start thinking that they can do things without us. We lose control.”

“I have some ideas, sir,” foolishly interrupting his boss. “What if we start jacking up the costs for basic hosting services and blogging so that we can increase the revenue from people that think they’re changing the world?”

“That’s incredibly short-sighted. We push up the costs too much and they stop using us, like they did TV, radio and print. Also, it’ll inspire them to go and do something silly, like create their own media network.” Garamond’s logic was ironclad.

“Push for censorship,” Garamond responded quickly, forgetting for a moment that a subordinate cut him off. “Get certain family organizations to keep pushing for more rules and regulations to tighten and control access to the web.”

This was essentially what Underwood had proposed, but it always sounded better to Garamond when it was Garamond’s idea.

“Yes sir,” was all Underwood could provide.

“In the interim,” Garamond added, ”make sure that our friends with the media buying companies to only buy space with mainstream sites. I don’t care if it’s our competitors. Just keep buys away from commie and colourful web sites.” For someone who pretended that he didn’t know anything about the Internet, Garamond exhibited an exceptionally clear understanding of how things worked.

Garamond paused for a few moments and made some notes in his calendar. “I’m going to schedule a follow-up meeting once a month for the next three months to track your progress. When we do meet, I want all of this liberal net crap washed off the face of the planet and want to know that we control the Internet. Do you read me?” The fingers carving the Ten Commandments couldn’t have been more clear: fail to follow these instructions and you will be doomed for all eternity.

“Next time you come here, I want to hear something new. Productive. Safe. Do you get me? New. We need to increase profits, not sustain them. Now get out.”

Thomson quickly gathered his belongings and left. He looked for a moment at the two young men that stood behind him, but they looked to Garamond.

“You two stay here to take notes and keep track of anything that this putz has to do in the next few weeks to save his job.”

“Yes sir,” they both replied earnestly.

Garamond returned to his seat at the table and grabbed his water glass. He walked over to the credenza, wrapped his fingers around the handle of a Macintosh water ewer and poured himself a refill. He didn’t offer anyone anything while he was up. They would have to wait.

Two down. Eighteen to go. He was going to have to get Hadlock to sit in on the rest of the meeting while he went outside for a cigar. As much as he hated Castro for taking his oil platforms back in the 1960s, he could always enjoy a fresh Cojiba.

“Hadlock. Take over. I’ll be back in an hour. Get a full report on what’s happening with all of the following COPS,” he said as he handed a list to Hadlock. “Save these ones,” again pointing to a short list, “for when I get back.”

Garamond is a man who loves to control a room and the expectations of the people in that room. By this simple action of pointing out the ones that were important to him and those that were not, he earned himself a few new enemies as well as a few new admirers. As the meeting progressed the room would identify who would wind up in each camp.

Garamond didn’t bother to look at the group that watched him leave the office. He shut the massive oak and maple doors behind him and wandered slowly towards the elevator to the top level, where he would enjoy a smoke.

Now that was an industry that people loved to pick on, thought Garamond. He smiled as he thought of the toxins and other shit that his and other companies dumped into the ridiculously poisonous brew that people consumed on a daily basis. Sure, he thought, it was all about making a few bucks on the pack or two here and there that people bought, but today it was all about the new industry that’s emerged to help out all of these poor saps. Nicotine gum. The patch. Zyban. His subsidiaries were making more now on substitutes and treatments than he could ever imagined they’d make on the original cigarettes.

Cigars were different though. All he resented was the idea that he was funding Cuba because it was the only decent place to get a cigar. Once that fucker Castro kicks it, they’ll be able to buy the island for a few bucks and turn it into America’s new playground.

As he waited, he decided to take a different elevator downstairs to the main entry way and have some street-level fresh air. Sometimes even he got sick of looking down on people.

The elevator arrived and he pressed “L”. The doors closed and he leaned on the back rail of the elevator car as he hurtled towards the ground. Within a few moments, he’d be able to enjoy a little break from his management team. He told himself that it’s not that he wasn’t interested anymore. It’s just that he was getting tired of hearing the same excuses from the same group of people.

The car stopped on the 20^th floor, which struck him as odd because this meeting was always held late in the evening. He appreciated the idea that there might be someone working here this late, but it was rare. Most of his employees just soaked him for their time and went home to their 2.3 kids and other niceties that his generosity supported.

A younger man got on the car as the doors opened. He didn’t seem like much of a person. At least that’s what Garamond’s first thoughts were. He was pear-shaped, he slouched, he was a little on the obese side and he looked like he hadn’t shaved for three days. Why is it that the next generation just doesn’t give a shit about their appearance, he thought?

“Young man. Do you mind if I ask you something?” Garamond asked as they continued down to the lobby.

“No. No I don’t mind at all. What can I help you with?” the rider asked.

“Why are you here?”

“Why are any of us here?” he answered with another question. Seeing the look in his interrogators eyes, he added “we’re here to make money,” he finished before Garamond could snap at him.

”Most exceptional response young man. But why are you here?” Garamond continued.

“I’m here to fix some of the hardware issues that the marketing and research group has been having over the last few weeks. It seems the transition to the new Horizon product has wreaked havoc on everyone’s computers and I’m the fall guy.”

“Do you think they’ll notice the difference tomorrow morning?”

“Not bloody likely”

“Hmmm. Bunch of overpaid Harvard brats. I’m Griffith Garamond. What’s your name?”

“Carl Parkfield,” he said as he held up his ID tag. “I’m working as a temp through the Garamond Employment Services.”

“Ah yes. My father’s contribution to the automobile industry. If it weren’t for him, cars would never have been built in North America. Did you know that?”

“No sir. But I do now,” Parkfield answered, winking at his boss.

As Kite got off the elevator, he tried to recall if he had provided any extra info that he shouldn’t have. Talk about all the dumb luck on the planet. The man never walks alone anywhere anytime and he bumps into him on the elevator late at night when he’s collecting data on his latest “project”.

To make this an even more fortunate event, Kite literally did bump into Garamond as they got off the elevator. He used this opportunity to slip a very small recorder into Garamond’s suit pocket. It was a new variety that Hummus had developed for him: the recorder was small and flexible enough that it wouldn’t be detected when the wearer moved around, but powerful enough to pick up conversation within a few dozen feet of the person on whom it was planted.

What made the product really cool was that it was fully biodegradable. It was built on organic material so that with a simple command from Kite, it would automatically decompose destroying all trace of its existence and seem like nothing more than belly lint.

Garamond returned to the meeting room, with the conversation in full sway. Hadlock was doing his work well by keeping these punks in order. The chatter stopped when he entered and he asked Hadlock what industry they were reviewing.

“Sir, we’ve reviewed my plan with charity and retirement homes, we’re added some thoughts to the food channel, focusing on methods of reducing the prices we pay to the Chileans and Mexicans, and we’ve discussed how we can get more premium cars on the market to take advantage of ethanol and hybrid vehicles.”

“But we’re still not going to make these cars more efficient, right?” Garamond asked.

“Absolutely not! We found a way to influence the test results with the transport commission so that our efficiency ratings seem much higher, but they aren’t. Our market for oil won’t dry up any time soon and we’ll be able to take an extra ten to twenty thousand from the hippie set as they buy cars that they think are helping the planet.”

“Good. I’m going to hold off talking about some of our new exploration technologies with ConOilCo until after the meeting. On that note, let’s talk about oil, corn and the pharma industries, shall we?”

Eddie Manchester was at the table and stood by, watching the evening’s discussion proceed like he was watching a horror movie. He was agitated through the meeting, but didn’t do or so anything. Until now.

“Mr. Garamond, I have to object. I don’t understand why we’re sitting here planning so many ways to be so manipulative while the world is falling apart around us. Why is that we can’t do something productive and positive rather than focus on the best way to wring money out of people. I feel like we’re a bunch of Scrooge McDuck’s sitting here counting our gold trinkets.”

The silence after Eddie’s stance was unimaginable. Everyone was astounded by Eddie’s interruption and sat with jaws open. A fly would have had a field day with that many open mouths.

Eddie Manchester was working as the VP of Marketing and Research in the corporate office and he had been a loyal employee with the OMNINet for more than 15 years. While his work was exemplary and unquestionable, this kind of retort would guarantee an early retirement.

“Excuse me, Edward. Are you some kind of ‘save the world’ activist? Are you thinking your petty little fair trade coffee and unionized work shop will save the day? Well, it won’t. Consumers of our products and services are selfish turds that only think of themselves, so why shouldn’t we? They have the option of not buying SUVs and five-dollar mochas, but they still do . They can buy smaller homes without air conditioning and six thousand square feet of space that they’ll have to fill with crap, but they still do . They can choose to share some of their wealth with less fortunate people. Wealth that people like us generate for them, but they choose not to . These people are greedy and awful and need guidance and control. Without it, they would be lost.”

Garamond paused and waited for these thoughts to sink in with the group. “Well … does anyone doubt this?” he asked as he scanned the room. “If you do, speak now and then get the fuck out of here because you’ll be telling me you’re not ready to do what every American should be doing and that’s raping this fucking planet because that’s what God intended for us to do! If we’re not hacking down the trees and robbing the soil of riches and making people meek, then we are failing as the leaders of this planet!”

Again, the room was silent. Again, all eyes were focused on Garamond, waiting the hear what he would say next.

“I’m done. For those of you that we didn’t talk tonight, you’ve got a few weeks to finalize your presentations. I’m sorry that we can’t talk about it tonight. For those of you that did present, thank you. You did a superlative job. Now please go home to your wives and make lots of children for God’s Army,” he said, laughing a little and sending a wave of calm over the audience before him.

“Wardencliff,” he blurted to a modest looking waif towards the other end of the massive desk, “I’d like you to stay here with Manchester, Hadlock and myself. We have important plans to review.”

The crowd dispersed quickly, not wanting to hold up Garamond from his smaller meeting. The four managers lingered behind, sending off their assistants, and proceeded to sit at the end of the room in a small circle of leather club chairs. A small mahogany table was in front of them. It was covered with plans for something that Eddie couldn’t recognize.

“Edward. Allow me to initiate this intimate discussion by thanking you for your comments. I think you added a few extra thoughts that caught me off guard, but you helped enormously. You understand that I’m not trying to make you out to be a fall guy. I’m just trying to send the rest of these people a very important message about loyalty and how they should respond at my meetings. I pick out one manager each year that shows great potential and this year it’s going to be you that deserved a little extra attention. I also want to ensure that my managers feel like they can offer some ‘fierce dialogue’ once in a while. If they for one minute believe that they can progress through this organization by being a wallflower, they’re sadly mistaken.”

“It pleases me to please you, sir …” Eddie responded and then paused on the last word like he was going to say something else.

The other three waited, waiting for his last thought, but it was not made public.

Eddie was thinking of mentioning something about the level of truth with which he spoke, but a thought like that would translate to permanent regret once Garamond fired him. Besides, he knew that he was about to be let in on something big and he was keen on being a part of the plan.

“Gentlemen,” Garamond started. “What we are about to discuss will never be uttered again by you or the people that you come in contact with. If anyone mentions this plan, you will deny it. Do we understand each other?”

“Yes Mr. Garamond,” was the reply in unison.

“Then let’s begin …” Garamond said as he invited the others to lean in to look at the plans.

(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.)

Read more with Chapter 47

Did you miss a chapter? If so, click here to see all chapters or click here to go to Excited Delirium: Chapter 1 (Prelude)

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 .