The Department of Homeland Recruitment

Boothroyd was homeless when he was recruited. He was homeless because that had become the easiest option for him, after a lifetime of hard choices pushed him away from the rest of the world.

The moment he was recruited, he sense a difference, a new and unfamiliar sense of purpose, belonging. All they asked was that he help them recruit others.

At first, he didn't understand their mission. You might even say he misunderstood it, suspected even in his belief that they were anything but what they represented, agents of change.

He was asked to recruit another. "Recruit for what?" he asked. "For yourself," was the answer. He had no idea what that meant.

He found someone, much like himself, and when they asked him the same question, he replied, "For the greater good."

This went on for months, Boothroyd recruiting for the office, without knowing why. Finally, those who had recruited him asked him a question: "What have you found about the people you recruited?"

He didn't know how to reply. "About them personally," it was clarified. He knew the people he'd recruited, many of them personally, if peripherally. Eventually he understood what they meant, what his relationship with those he'd recruited was. He knew them. The office asked him what he might think they could do. It had been a long time since anyone had been interested in his opinion. It caught him by surprise. He gave it some thought. He was able to expound on each of them, he reflected with amusement.

"What does the Department of Homeland Recruitment do?" he asked. "Who do you work for? The government?"

"We were a committee, originally," came the reply. "We discovered we could help people by recruiting them. By giving them purpose. And we have you, Boothroyd."

He thought about what that meant. "You want to help," he said.

Time passed. He continued to recruit, looking for people, looking for their purpose. He set up offices, as those he recruited in turn recruited others. They were all in the air, spinning like windmills, and they were all going in specific directions.

In the future, in the times that came, Boothroyd noticed that people were doing what they were meant to do, and everything worked better than he had ever known it to.

He had been recruited into a cult, but it was the cult of humanity.