The meeting started out with the Director sending a few agents out to round up all the people needed to attend it. Tom found that a very large number of people had been called to the meeting, and they all squeezed into the conference room that was normally used to these kinds of events.
Agents from the Tenth, Twelfth, and Thirteenth divisions were also present, their insignias clearly visible on their collars. Once everyone was found and rounded up, the Director poured himself a glass of Scotch and cleared his throat.
"So you've all been gathered today to take a survey for the Department of Internal Affairs, specifically, for our sixteen special divisions. Several groups like yours have been gathered across the United States today to take this survey at exactly the same time to prevent cheating or sharing of questions. There will be no electronic messaging device usage during the survey and you will not be allowed to leave the room for any reason save for an emergency once you begin the survey."
"Alright, I think that just about sums up everything that needs to be said," said a man turning around with several stacks of paper in his hands. "I'm Agent Anderson Franks from the Department of Internal Affairs. Please complete and fill out this survey to the very best of your ability and return it to me once you're finished. I've provided pens for you and I'm very glad you've all decided to take this survey for us in Washington."
He walked around the long table and handed everyone a stack of papers stapled together that looked about a thick as a novel. Tom filled out the first page, which was general information you might see on a form to get a driver's license. Simple and plain enough. However, when he flipped to the second page, he started seeing weird questions.
What is your sexual orientation? Would you be comfortable having more than one sexual partner at a time? How many sexual encounters have you had in the past six months? The past year? How satisfied are your partners after sexual encounters on a scale from one to ten, ten being very satisfied and one being not satisfied? (Be Honest)
He gave Veronica a glance and he held up fingers to show what number he meant to ask about. She looked at the paper and then back at him with a smirk. She held up ten fingers and winked. Tom bit back a grin and nodded, writing down his answer.
Even with the strange questions in the beginning, some of them were just out of place or vague. Do you have a religion? If so, how religious are you on a scale from one to ten, ten being very religious and one being not at all religious? Are you afraid of cows, bulls, or other bovine animals? Do you get skin rashes when in hot environments? Do you feel cold at generally warm temperatures?
The number and strangeness of questions only rose from there, and by the time Tom was through with all thirty four pages of the survey, he was not only confused, but completely baffled by the meaning to the survey. Agent Franks came around and collected his survey, rifling through a few pages and circling some of his answers with a red pen.
After everyone was done, he thanked them for their cooperation and left without any explanation or reasoning for the questions. All eyes then turned to the Director, who shrugged, having taken a survey himself and seemingly not understood it either.
"I have no idea what this was for. It's not the first time something like this has happened, though." He turned to Veronica and gave her a disapproving look. "You and the boy need to stop screwing around, and don't try to deny it. I know exactly what happened last night. Only a blind hog could miss that look you gave him when he answered number thirteen."
Veronica smiled at him. "Yes sir," she said. Tom only nodded when the Director glanced at him. The present parties were about to leave after some small talk, but Agent Franks returned as they were standing and looked at them like they were stupid.
"No, no sit back down. We're not done yet." Everyone sat back down.
Agent Franks handed back the surveys with numbers written on them in bright red on the front. Tom took a look at his and saw '214' in big red ink next to his name. Agent Franks cleared his throat and looked around.
"Will everyone with a number between two hundred and three hundred please leave the room." At first, nobody wanted to stand up, and Veronica raised her hand.
"Yeah, what does N/A mean? Do I stay or go?"
Agent Franks nodded toward the door. "You go with the others." At that point, Tom stood up and left with the others who didn't have the right numbers and left the room. However, outside there was another agent who ushered them down the hallway into another, smaller conference room. Here, several agents from a few other divisions were sitting at a table with several small pill bottles in front of the seats, each with a single pill in them.
Tom looked at the end of the table and found Greg and Hervey each trying to balance a pill on the tip of their nose. The agent immediately gravitated to his closest friends and they each glanced at him as he approached.
"This isn't what it looks like," Greg said, pointed at Harvey. "He is not acting silly."
"I'm winning," Harvey declared as Greg's pill started to tilt.
"Is everyone from the other room here?" asked the agent that had brought them into the room. They looked around and nodded, and he gave Greg and Harvey a disapproving look. "If you'd be so kind as to quit screwing around with a multi-million dollar device, I could let you all leave in a few minutes."
Greg and Harvey took their pills and set them on the table. The agent didn't look very pleased, but continued anyway. He told the gathered agents to swallow the pill and call a number on a card that each person was given and told not to lose if anything went wrong or they got violently ill within the next twenty days.
With a few hesitant glances at 'violently ill', everyone swallowed their pill and were then let go with the explanation that they had been given the rest of the day off. Tom got a jump from Veronica at her house and drove home, having absolutely nothing to do on this particular Saturday.
He spent the greater part of his Saturday watching TV and snacking. Before he knew it, it was getting late and he was getting hungry again. He cooked a pizza in the oven, showered, and went to bed after receiving a very odd phone call from Allen in Division Thirteen. That guy was actually starting to creep Tom out. All he ever did was ask about Ceria like he was in love with her or something.
How any creature in Heaven or Hell or anywhere in-between could actually like that demon was beyond Tom, so he tried not to dwell on it as he fell asleep in his comfortable, warm bed.
------------
Something like a door slamming woke Tom from his sleep. He sat straight up, groggy and confused, scrabbling around for the gun on his nightstand. He found it and pulled the magazine out from under his pillow, sliding the ammunition into the grip easily. He got out of bed and reached behind the headboard for the claymore mounted on the side facing the wall.
After finding out that Tom's original claymore had been broken in half at Dùn Fhoithear, Donalbain Kieth had gotten one, a smaller basket-hilt claymore, forged for Tom and mailed it all the way from Scotland with a nice letter about Tom being worthy of any blade forged in the Highland Nation, with a promise of a highland claymore soon to arrive.
But turning his attention back to his potential home invasion defense...
Tom didn't know what it was that had caused such a loud noise, but he sure as hell wasn't going to face it without his sword. A gun was great, but a sword, who fucked with a guy holding a sword in a short hallway? Nobody, that's who.
Tom slowly made his way out of his room and to the stairs, stopping to listen for any noise every few steps. Nothing.
