Chapter 17

We are getting it done! The progress we are making in organizing the region the Wizard has placed under House Telford is astounding.

For quite sometime our days were filled with a wide variety of activities all surrounding the central goal of recruiting and caring for as many plague survivors who wanted to become a part of House Telford as possible. Where I had been thinking of it as a 'community' in reality it turned out that there were seventy three community groups that formed at prime locations throughout the region under my control. We didn't force people to join House Telford and instead focused our efforts on selling them on the benefits to be gained by doing so. For those who wished to remain apart we did make certain that they understood not to mess with any members of our house or our belongings. In reality very few living in the region decided against joining us once they had time to observe us and reflect on our goals.

In the few instances where a group of individuals had already taken possession of a hotel, warehouse, or factory that one of my teams had been tasked to secure - we just wished them well and moved on. I could see no reason to quibble over things when there are far more locations and resources for us to make use of then we can ever possibly utilize. The goal isn't to dominate everybody; it is to ensure survival and quality of life.

Once we've picked a building suitable for residency, we send in a scouting team to verify that it is unoccupied. If the building is occupied and the individuals living there want to join House Telford then we continued with our plans; if not we move on. The next step utilizes one team to install transport mirrors at prime locations within the building while another team secures the entrances. After we have a secure residency available to house new members we are ready to blitz the area with recruiting information.

After raiding a Sony warehouse we are now using literally thousands of the TV/DVD player units with our recruiting video playing 24 x 7. We place these wherever people are likely to go: food stores, malls, warehouses, and hotels. With each kiosk we place printed pamphlets and posters that tell about House Telford and list any upcoming recruiting meetings in the local area. We also list an emergency number people can call if they need any sort of medical or other help before the next meeting is scheduled to occur. Now that we have this more organized approach in place our recruiting process has really began to gain momentum. Of course, while all of this has been going on, we are still securing factories, warehouses, and other useful locations and adding them to the mirror network.

During our recruiting sessions from time to time we run across the occasional lunatic, but not very often. What is starting to happen, with an ever growing frequency as time passes are incidents where members of House Telford run into family or friends that they had thought were lost to the plague. On several occasions I also have found friends I had thought were lost to me forever. One of these friends is an old army buddy named Armand. Though we'd lost touch somewhere after Sarah died, more my fault than his I'm sure, I find we still connect well and our renewed friendship is as strong as ever.

Armand is an unusual individual on many levels. Over the years as I've listened to him talk about his family I have learned that his mother was Ethiopian and father was Chinese. He is tall and lean and has a somewhat professorial look about him. If you see him in the loose and somewhat baggy clothing he seems to prefer, you might even jump to the conclusion that he is frail; but if you were to see him without clothing you would soon discover that his entire body is covered in muscle. Armand has that whipcord lean musculature only obtained by decades of marshal artistry.

Armand has become an important member in House Telford. He had already organized a group of almost three hundred survivors before our recruiting efforts reached him. Since he joined up with us Armand has helped me to develop an administrative staff along with the functional tools to handle the daily minutiae of caring for so many people. Armand's organization genius was augmented by his ability to adapt things for practical use. He soon set me up with a series of command centers the likes of which one would have never seen before the plague.