Dick Longg: Sexual Saviour of the Universe (33 page)

CHAPTER 26

Dick underwent the usual identity checks when he reported to the Party headquarters the following morning but before he was allowed past security, he was asked to sign an NDA.
 
Dick thought this was a very unusual request. Sure, the Nude Disability Act of 2003 had been worthy legislation that made it illegal to discriminate against disabled porn stars, and which made it possible for actors like John ‘Limpy’ Large and ‘Paraplegic’ Tiffany Titts to forge niche careers for themselves, but Dick didn’t see why it was relevant to him or his new job. Then he realised what he was being asked to sign was in fact a Non Disclosure Agreement, and that made far more sense.

This declaration stated that he would not reveal his new responsibilities or any aspect of his job to anyone. The document was worded so strongly that Dick was intimidated just scanning the text and felt threatened at the turn of every page. Dick expected that these restrictions would last forever, but discovered they actually existed in perpetuity, and that was a very, very, very long time indeed. The document didn’t actually state what would happen if he did break his pledge and Dick didn’t ask as he knew it would almost certainly be something that involved a long, lingering, agonising death. Dick signed the NDA and waited in the lobby, looking up at the trees and counting the squirrels scampering about. He’d just got up to eighteen, although he was concerned he may have counted the same particularly energetic one three times, when he heard his name being called in a monotone.

‘Mr. Brunel?’

An unremarkable looking man in his late forties approached. ‘I’m Stanley Carrington. Welcome to the Party headquarters. I’ve been appointed as your mentor’.

Nearly everything about
Stanley
was dull; his voice, his clothes, his posture, his handshake – and especially his name. The only thing about him not dull was his moustache, a fanciful waxed effort which proved Dick’s unwritten ‘Law of Facial Hair’ that stated that the extent of extroverted facial hair was in inverse proportion to the personality of the wearer.
Stanley
escorted Dick to a glass elevator and pushed a button marked ‘ten’. The voice of the elevator announcing the floors as they ascended had more personality than
Stanley
.

‘So, the Ruling Council’s on the tenth floor?’, asked Dick.

‘No. It’s not on any floor’,
Stanley
said in his dull way. ‘The existence of the Ruling Council is a secret and so is its composition. Members are spread across the whole building. They all have different job titles as a cover for their real roles’.

‘So what’s my job going to be?’, enquired Dick.

‘Assistant to the Deputy Assistant Under Secretary for Legislative Administration Ratification’.

Dick was disappointed. He wanted the prestige of being able to tell people, especially girls, that he was a member of the Ruling Council. That would have been impressive. It was a job title, Dick felt, which would make doors open and knickers drop.

‘Why that particular position?’ Dick said, trying to hide the considerable disappointment in his voice.

‘Because it’s so bland and innocuous that no one will bother to ask further questions about your work’,
Stanley
explained.

As the doors to the elevator opened on to the tenth floor Dick knew he was right. He couldn’t foresee anyone who he told about his job ever saying to him, ‘Wow, that must be interesting’ or
 
‘No way! That’s my dream career!’

Stanley
showed Dick his office in the Legislative Administrative Ratification Department and helped him settle in. It was an office well-suited to an Assistant to the Deputy Assistant Under Secretary. Not too big and not too small, with office furniture that was not too grand and not too functional. Sitting down for the fist time Dick found his chair wasn’t too hard and wasn’t too soft. It was, Dick thought, the office that Baby Bear would have loved - if the Three Bears had been corporate animals.

With the door closed to prevent their conversation being heard Stanley spent almost the whole day, including the lunch hour, giving Dick a comprehensive induction about the remit and politics of the Council, its history, all of its very many protocols and of course, its membership. Throughout, Dick wore a rictus grin which didn’t slip even when Stanley, who had been a member for two years, droned on in intricate detail about all office procedures including lunch breaks, tea breaks, dress code (including Formal Fridays), disciplinary procedures, holiday bookings, sickness reporting and all the complexities of stationery ordering with particular reference to the new forms HB5546b and 2B662289 that had just been introduced for the requisition of pencils. Dick was super keen to get started and wanted to meet his colleagues on the Council and begin making decisions. That’s why he was extremely disappointed to learn that the next Council meeting was half a day away, on Wednesday afternoon.

‘What do I do in the meantime?’, Dick asked, knowing that this society despised idleness and he wouldn’t be allowed to sit in his office throwing scrunched up paper into his waste bin or doing online Suduko (not that this was possible).

‘Each Council member belongs to one or two committees; usually areas they have a keen interest in’,
Stanley
explained. ‘These committees are tasked with reviewing specific issues and devising the proposals that the whole Council will then consider. I, myself, serve on the Technology Committee but here’s the entire list.’

Stanley
handed Dick an alphabetical list of committees that Dick worked his way down: Agriculture, Architecture, The Arts, Bridges, Canals, Culture, Diet, Engineering, Education… He got bored at Housing and had all but lost interest at Museums. Dick yawned inwardly and scanned down the names to see if there was a committee on Secret Weapons. There wasn’t of course, but where it would have been on the list, another committee caught his eye. Security.

‘That’s the one’, Dick said with great conviction. ‘That’s the committee I was born to be on. Count me in!’

‘Really? That’s very good to hear’, said
Stanley
, adding in his inimitable dull way, ‘And you feel you can make a useful contribution to this committee?’

‘Yes. Definitely’, said Dick nodding enthusiastically, before giving his mentor an inquisitive look and asking ‘What exactly do they do?’

Stanley
explained that the security committee dealt with threats against the State, from individuals or organisations, and how these could be identified and dealt with. Dick knew that combating the resistance movement must be a major part of that committee’s remit. Once Dick was in, he could find out exactly what they knew about the group and what steps they were planning to take against it.

‘I’ll inform the head of the committee of your interest and she’ll make contact with you’,
Stanley
advised. ‘Now’, he said, leaning conspiratorially towards Dick. There are some rather special fringe benefits in working here that I’m sure will interest you.
Stanley
handed Dick a sheet of paper containing another list.

‘What’s this?’, Dick sighed. ‘Sub-committees I have to choose from?’

‘No’,
Stanley
smiled. ‘Something more enjoyable and completely different. It’s a list of special evening classes offered free to senior Party members. Pastimes and hobbies to stimulate the mind and body or to help you relax and unwind. The current Leader introduced this concept when he came to power as a sort of compensation for the long hours, dedication and secrecy expected of us.
 
A happy Party member, is, he says, a productive Party member’.

Dick continued to scan the paper. It might as well have been a list of diseases to infect yourself with. Compared to these extra curricular activities laid out before him he would have preferred beri-beri to ballroom dancing and cholera to callisthenics.

‘I’ll have to get back to you on this’, Dick sighed, pocketing the list. ‘Tell me
Stanley
, what floats your boat?’

Stanley
frowned.

‘You know. What turns you on?’

No response. Dick sighed. ‘What leisure activity do you participate in?’

‘Brass rubbing’.
Stanley
’s eyes lit up at he told Dick about the joys of monumental brasses. He waxed lyrically about using a wax crayon to take tracings but Dick’s concentration had by now wandered. There were a number of types of rubbing that Dick enjoyed but brass definitely wasn’t one of them.

- - o O o - -

Early the next morning Dick met the head of the Security Committee, a jolly middle-aged matronly woman called Enid Sharpe who used words like ‘spiffing’ and ‘righty-oh’, and called him a ‘clever chap’. She was someone, Dick thought, more suited to serving on the Knitting and Embroidery Committee (if this existed) than on one dealing with the safety and protection of the Party and everything it stood for.
Enid
welcomed Dick on board and gave him a very brief overview of her group’s activities. She didn’t go into detail about individual projects as she said these would be reviewed at the Council meeting later, but she briefed him on his first task.

This was when Dick realised that serving on the security committee was not the thrilling, glamorous post he hoped it would be. In fact if his first assignment had been typical, the post would not be thrilling or glamorous by any stretch of the imagination. His task was to wade through reams and reams and reams of transcribed telephone calls from citizens who had been identified as potential anti-Party activists. The Party’s suspicions were solely based on certain phrases used in their telephone conversations that they believed might be code words for subversive activities. Dick learned that someone else on the Security Committee had begun devising this list of these phrases and his job was to investigate the patterns and look for incriminating evidence in these calls.

Dick couldn’t wait for
Enid
to leave his office so he could start. He wanted to see if any of these so-called anti-Party activists were resistance members he knew, but then he remembered he didn’t actually know the real names of anyone in the Resistance, so this was pointless. After a very short while Dick also identified something else that was pointless. The whole exercise. It soon became obvious that whoever had begun to identify these so-called suspect phrases was an over-zealous, paranoid idiot. It was extremely doubtful that the phrase ‘piano tuning’ was in any way ambiguous; it related to the tuning of pianos and was not a code for the kidnapping of senior Party members. Likewise, it was also very, very, very likely that ‘lawn tennis’ referred to a racquet game and was in no way related to a planned bombing of a police station. After several monotonous hours looking for evidence of anti-Party behaviour, Dick truly wished he were Assistant to the Deputy Assistant Under Secretary for Legislative Administration Ratification.

Mercifully, Wednesday afternoon soon came around, as did the opportunity for Dick to join his first Ruling Council meeting which took place in the Grand Room where he’d first met the Leader. All the Council members were seated around the large polished table with the Leader situated at the end, furthest from Dick. Carter, as usual, stood alert at his side.

‘Ladies and gentlemen’, the Leader said in his strong, rich voice. ‘Before I open the meeting today I’d first like to introduce the newest member of our Ruling Council, the man behind Jack, the destroyer of the rogue harlots’. All eyes turned to Dick and he felt himself blushing. ‘In his short time working at the Ministry of Information,’ the Leader continued, ‘He has demonstrated a commitment and allegiance to the Party second to none. But the fact of the matter is…’. At this point the Leader hesitated and looked directly at Dick, ‘He shouldn’t really be in this room at all’.

This was the cue for the audience to look confused and for Dick to turn a deeper shade of red, not from the praise, but from increased blood pressure. Was
this
the moment he was going to be exposed? After an uncomfortable silence the Leader continued. ‘And the reason he shouldn’t be here is purely a selfish one. I don’t want him tied up in bureaucracy. I want him developing the next “Jack”; another great invention that will assist the Party! Ladies and gentlemen, please give a very warm welcome to Jeremy Brunel!’