Just another day; I was doing various kinds of research when I receied a very unexpected surprise: "Billy! Get out here, now!", Howard opened the door and commanded, and I was out of my room and facing him in less than a second. Sarah was giving him a neck massage as he talked. "There is one thing I need to do." He sounded a bit aggressive, and I realized he was quite annoyed indeed. Oh crap, he's pissed at me. What the hell did I do? "I said before that commanding a servant is the same as doing it yourself. You can't ever lift any of my standing orders on any of my servants." Wait, then he's probably going to give me- "Sarah- obey him the same way you do me!", he commanded, and I immediately figured out why. He must have called to her and she didn't know it was him and not me.. and when my hair grows to his length, there won't be any telling us apart anyway. So he's made me master over her, so it won't matter which one of us it is. In retrospect, all of us really should have seen this coming. "They'll probably obey you anyway, but I'm going to go tell the Enforcers the same thing." And he went down to the main viewscreen to do just that. Sarah motioned me into her room and quietly closed the door.

"Did that really..?", she asked.

"Well, I can't command you to kill him, because I can't kill him and he says it's the same. I can't allow you to kill him, because I can't lift that standing order. If you think of something else, let me know." I realized I had actually commanded her with that. Damn. Now I'm going to have to watch my words, too.

"Damn." She just shrugged and opened the door, and I walked out to do the first run of the day, grabbing the wig. When I went down, I noticed Howard laughing and grinning, as if he had something devious in mind.

"Howard, I've seen you look like that a couple times before... but this is different. What the hell do you plan to do?"

"Ohh... not much.." He started laughing harder, as if he was thinking of something really funny.. funny to him, anyway, but I was starting to get worried.

"Howard, you're scaring me. If you didn't need me for the tests so bad, I'd figure you were planning to do something extremely bad right about now. Come on man, what is it? Does it involve me and some practical joke?", I asked, setting the wig down on the end table.

"All right, Billy, you can relax. I'm not going to go through with it." I felt very relieved, even though I had no idea what it was. "And yes, Billy, it involves you and a practical joke. It's funny, but it's not worth it. It involves you and Sarah being put into a fake gas chamber, thinking that you're going to die, while you pull your own levers into extinction, begging every minute." And he'd do it in a spirit of childish playfulness, just to watch us squirm.

"Is that funny to you?!"

"Yup!"

"I used to think up shit like that. This one kid was really afraid of clowns, and so I had an idea that a lot of us would dress like clowns and come to school. Of course, we didn't have the money or the resources for that or some other stuff we thought up. But Howard.. when you start making gags like that.." When talking about something, actually being able to do it makes all the difference.

"It gets really scary really fast. Billy, of course I'm toying with you." Because, as we all know, I'm his toy.. "I enjoy it. But I'm not going to do anything stupid."

"Not like it matters, but if you weren't me, I wouldn't believe you." He chuckled at that.

"Starvation and anxiety mean brainstorms to me, which means I think about the unwanted, the unlikely, and sometimes the impossible."

"I wish that explained all those crazy nightmares." It would be great if it was just simple outside pressures..

"Do I keep showing up in them?", he asked.

"Not every one. But some.. feature of you is there. You've got your own brand of fear in my mind." I might be confusing Howard with control, but that's splitting hairs. He is control incarnate.

"Illuminated Fear, super strength. It's only fear. It's not like you can't just think about something else and get most of it to go away."

In a way, he was right, but.. "That's so fucking easy for you to say."

"I know. It is easy for me to say. And I say that if you want to get rid of your fear, think about.. oh, say a month in the future when/if we're still alive and not in the middle of this bullshit."

"Yeah, but I'll still be..."

"Oh, yeah. That part will eventually go away." 'No it won't, that's the point!', I was about to shout, before I realized he meant the feelings of horror and awfulness at no longer owning my own life. "You'll get used to it, Billy. Remember, it's me, and I'm right here."

"So what happens if I don't get used to it?"

"Then you live out the rest of your life suffering and screaming." I was a bit shocked, but I really am glad for his absolute honesty. If someone had come to me before this started and asked me how the leader of the world's biggest conspiracy speaks, I definitely would not have said 'Plainly, and with the intent to be completely understood.'

"Thu.. thanks, Howard. I really appreciate it."

"Billy, if there's something you need, or you're really worried about, tell me. Now."

"Howard.. I'm worried about what happens if you... well, if.." I couldn't get the words to come to mind, but they involved things he's only done in the nightmares. "I can't finish it."

"You don't have to. Billy, if I was going to do anything like that to you, don't you think I would have taken a few spare hours to do it to you by now?"

"Yeah.. yeah, you're right. If you could even spare me a few hours." That didn't come out quite right- it sounded like I was seeking his attention.

"Speaking of hours.. Billy, do this one." He showed me the problem he had onscreen, shifting back to the left side of the couch and giving me access to the outstretched keyboard. Damn... such a simple problem, too.. or so it looks at first glance.

You are in a room with three other people who are very intelligent. The rules dictate that whenever someone sees at least one black mark on the forehead of another person, that person must raise his hand. Marks can be black or white. All three of the others have black marks on their foreheads, and thus everyone's hand is raised. All of the others are trying to figure out what color their mark is, and would have answered out loud if they knew. Figure out what color the mark on your forehead is.

"This is impossible!!", I blurted out.

"They wouldn't give it to me if it was.", he replied. "It has a solution, and I don't know what the fuck it is."

"Ohhh..kay..", I muttered. "All right, deductive reasoning. If mine is black... dammit.." I thought about it and went in circles for a full fifteen seconds, wishing that there wasn't a restriction against looking it up on the Internet or the local database. (No, no 'I didn't do it, my servants did on their own' this time. The computer simply won't search for it.) "Fuck that.. okay, if it's white.. then they don't know what theirs is. So they see a white and two blacks.. and they.. what would they.." I spent another fifteen seconds figuring it out. "..of course, they're very intelligent, they use the same deductive reasoning.. Howard, how could you not have gotten this? It's right up your alley.", I said, my cognitive brain finalizing the answer.

"You figured it out already?"

"I think so.." I started typing in the text box what I thought was the solution, making lots of backspaces and text inserts and ensuring that it was all correct. It was slow going, but I knew I had it.

If I had a white mark on my forehead, one of the other people would have been faced with the same problem, only seeing two black marks and a white instead of three blacks. They would have done the deductive reasoning: 'If mine is white, then one of the others would have seen one black and two white marks, and seeing the other person with a black mark raise his hand, would have concluded that his was the one the other was raising it for. But neither of them did, and so mine is black.' And so one of the others would have already figured it out if mine was white. However, they did not, and the only other option is for me to have a black mark on my forehead.

"Fuck... Billy, that's it." I clicked 'Send' and waited for the human on the other end to answer. He did, affirmatively. "You're right. That was right up my alley." He put his right arm around me and squeezed gently. "I really should have had that." He patted my lengthening hair and laid back. That's odd.. he's not annoyed with himself or anything.

"I'm surprised.. it doesn't bother you that much that I figured it out and you didn't?" Maybe because it's his twin..

"Not in the least. You can outsmart me all you like." That was amazing to hear. "Actually.. Billy, if you ever see me making a bad decision, I command you to let me know." This, right here, is a critical difference between Howard and ordinary controllers- who else would actually order something like that? From a logistical perspective Howard's way makes far more sense, considering that a bad decision might mean his funeral (I wouldn't have any problem wearing black to that..). Which is better, to be unquestioned and dead, or embarrassed for a bit but still alive? I smiled at him and went to do the run.

The first test lasted for a few more ugly days, in which we ate potatoes and whatever we could find, continuing to 'convince' the peasants to keep working (they never tried anything new to escape), but it was ending soon. This isn't so much a 'test' as it is 'a pain in the ass'. The next two can't be as heavy on the long-term annoyance, at least..