We landed with a blast of bottom jets and a soft thud. We got out of the plane to meet the entire first level - all of it. Gates, Turner, Kennedy, Mao, the three fat people Howard lovingly calls The Bastard and The Bitches, Judas Rockefeller, and the rest of the unnamable real in-crowd were standing there, in the small, fenced-off clearing with brick buildings (obviously the locals thought it was a government institution). Some had smiles on their faces, arms folded. Others looked at us with sternness and diffidence, doing what they could to act regal and/or professional. Still others were visibly restraining themselves from either laughing or cheering for him. They looked a bit strange against the lush rainforest background, with a single dirt road leading away.

The Bastard stepped forward from the mass of conspirators, midway to us. Howard stepped forward to meet him, taking part in an impromptu ritual.

"Inheritor Howard, do you accept the challenge of the Second Test?"

"Yes." Like he has a choice, and like we'd be here if he didn't accept.

"Then let it be so. Inheritor, your second test begins in.."- the fat guy pulled back a thick sleeve and checked his watch- "thirty minutes and nineteen seconds. Do you have any questions?" Umm, didn't this guy forget to say something?

"Yes. Where the fuck is Point X?" Yeah, that's it. I vaguely wondered what would have happened had Howard not asked that question. I realized and stopped vaguely wondering.

"Point X is approximately 320 kilometers away from here at a bearing of 173 degrees, 11 minutes, from geographic north."

"How big is it?"

"Point X is a circle one meter in diameter." Oh, how ridiculous does it get? Needles and haystacks don't even come close...

"What?? Okay, is it in a prominent, easy-to-find place?"

"Yes."

"Very well then." Howard re-entered the plane - oh, I know why, he's checking the onboard computer's maps. We followed him in, and he researched local landmarks and came up with a satellite image of the area - there didn't seem to be anything there, except a funny-looking foliage-covered hill (Green Hill Zone, I thought randomly) in the middle of the picture. It's certainly not just a hill, of course.

"So, if anyone has any suggestions as for what we do for thirty minutes...", Howard said with a bitter look on his face.

"We look at the direct route's satellite maps, check valleys, rivers, everything.", said Sarah, her training doing the talking.

"All right then." And Sarah did. For a full twenty minutes we looked at them, until we had an excellent idea of the area. Most of it was just naked travel space- no cliffs, some hills, no difference in terrain type- and not many human settlements to dodge. There were, however, numerous roads to worry about, and a lot of water. Look both ways and make sure no one sees you when you cross the street, kids. I grinned just a touch at the thought-

Then overwhelming despair gripped me like King Kong holding his latest bitch. And I thought I was fucked before. Now I am fucking dog food. Two. Hundred. Miles. In the middle of everfucking nowhere, through mud and water. With no fire, no help, no way. And forced to just keep going. And going. And going, as if I were the Energizer Billy with his battery drained. With a start I realized Howard would say it's easy for us as servants- because it is easy for us. Our legs suffer. Our minds don't have to do the work of making them keep going. And if he gets tired he'll probably make us fucking carry him.

'No he won't.', one of my inner voices pointed out. 'He's not that decadent.'

'Oh, yes he is.', I replied to it in the growling of the accursed. 'If food wasn't as plentiful as it is here, he might use us for it.' I wondered if I had said that out loud and realized I hadn't.

"Oh shit. I just realized something.", said Howard, a startled look on his face.

"What?", responded Sarah immediately.

"Billy screams at night." Oh shit. Oh... shit. How could we all have forgotten?

"Oh, the fuck.", Sarah muttered.

"Billy, I already know there's nothing you can consciously do to stop it. But I don't know of anything in the forest that can gag you during the night without you choking on it. If you scream too loud, you know as well as I do what happens.", Howard said, his teeth gritted. Oh shit and turtle wax. Involuntary suicide, anyone?

"Looks like I'll have to control my own dreams.. or something.", I mumbled.

"Uh huh."

"Sarah, what are our odds on surviving this?", Howard asked in a too-pleasant voice.

"Hmm.. if everything goes right, if we manage to do everything perfectly, a hundred percent. This test was designed to be passed, not failed."

"You're being optimistic.", I muttered.

"Only a little. If you scream, it'll be one in a thousand or something similar even if we don't sleep near populated areas.", she replied in a scathing tone. Uurrrrk.

"I must not scream. I must not scream.", I repeated to myself in a low voice. I realized I was starting to panic. My muscles were tense and my breathing was too quick.

"Inheritor! Bring your servants and come to me.", said Herbert in his official voice again. Howard gestured for us to follow, and we came back to Herbert, stiffly standing in the exact same spot he was before. "Enforcers, check their backpacks for violations of the rules." An Enforcer came to each one of us and searched through our packs. I was going to just leave it on, but Sarah removed hers, watching it carefully, and we followed- the Enforcers adeptly searched through each one and examined every item, our watchful eyes making sure they didn't pocket anything. In less than half a minute, they were finished.

"Very well, Inheritor Howard. First Level Gates has something to say to you." They obviously planned every minute of this introduction, then. They obviously expected me to arrive a few minutes early, but not so early as I did. An extremely nerdish man somewhere in his 30's sauntered over, squatted down a bit, and said directly in Howard's face, "Don't get your ass kicked.", he said in a low tone. "If you don't get in there...", he finished, motioning his head slightly in the direction of Herbert. He then got up silently and went back to the gossiping crowd. Did that mean Herbert would be the Dominator if Howard failed?

The rest of the time was like hell in its purest form, an eternity of time compacted into a few hundred seconds. Tick... Tick... Tick... we couldn't begin until five more minutes... tick..

I realized both Howard and I were really shaky at this point and ready to break down. Some of the Illuminati watching took note of that. Sarah was cool, focused, and nonchalant - then I realized she was making an effort at it.

Three minutes.

Then I realized something. If the rules are to be followed to the letter..

"HOLY SHIT HOWARD WE CAN'T LET THEM SEE US AFTER THE TEST STARTS!!", I screamed.

"Yaaaaaak!!", he screamed, heading for the bushes as fast as he possibly could. He headed in the direction away from our destination- he couldn't be closer than the starting point. We heard a gale of laughter behind us before we ducked into the brush. Sarah and I took off after him, and we were well in the jungle, invisible, before the test began. We hid under some dirt-and-bush cover, our specialized cammo gear covering us from detection.

Definitely more than three minutes passed before we got out our hiding place, looked back in and saw that the Illuminati all had left, and we went around the clearing as carefully and as quickly as possible and began the second test.

"That was close.", muttered Howard.

"Yeah, really.", I replied in the low, near-silent voice I'd need to speak in for stealth. "That would have sucked mondo."

"Well, now comes the boring part. We need to move pretty quick. If you two really, really start to hurt, tell me. Sarah, you're the navigator for this test. Both of you, don't ever get more than about seven meters away from me. Let's go.", Howard commanded us. So we did, at a good clip, Sarah leading the way. I looked around, in wonder, seeing the bright colors of birds and hearing the yowls of monkeys high above. I figured the excitement and the sheer adrenaline rush of being in uncharted territory would keep me going with no problems. That, of course, and the fear of what would happen if we fail.

Rainforest travel is not all that difficult, considering most people think of it as "jungle". It's not jungle. We only used our machetes twice in a half-hour period, and both times were mostly unnecessary. The rainforest floor is actually shady and barren of everything except decay- very little sunlight breaks through the trees and reaches the ground, so almost nothing can grow. We did sweat, and bugs did bounce off our suits, but it wasn't nearly the Vietnamese tropical hell (as seen in Rambo) most people think of. There was no sun or signs of human habitation, not even a road. My legs started to annoy me and I ignored them.

Being seen wasn't really a concern. The spies, sure, were lurking, but we didn't really notice or care about them. Animals saw us - some bolted in fright, others held their ground and stared from their safe place among the trees. We just kept walking.. and walking.. and walking. The novelty of this started to wear off and sheer boredom took its place. We passed tree after tree, flower after flower, climbed steadily over logs, went on and on.. My thoughts drifted to months ago when something like this was totally beyond the point of "out of the question" and would have been cause for laughter or puzzlement, back when I had friends, back when I was a normal... I shook them off. Paul's probably taking care of himself just fine without me anyway.

The suit did its job well. I sweated, but I wasn't about to die of heat prostration, especially not here in the shade, and especially since we're in the southern hemisphere where summer is winter and vice versa. A tree full of red ants went by on the right. I saw a bird's nest as I passed to the left. I wonder... can Howard stop this place from being chopped down? Greed knows no bounds, but this is the Illuminati's planet. If they wanted to, they could surely stop slash-and-burn destructive agriculture with a word. Hell, maybe they already have, and all the hullabaloo is just lots of whining about it.. or maybe they just don't care.

Every one of us wanted to say something, to break the tension, to pretend it's all just a game. Oh, it's a game all right. A boring, annoying game where one fall loses all and there is no reset button. A game where the only adrenalin rushes come from fear or anger and you can't type in any codes for god mode. A game where none of us have anything to talk about because we all know what we have to do. A game where the master is just as annoyed, frustrated, grim, and scared as the servants - that thought made me grimace evilly for a bit. Of course, none of this is really Howard's fault. Everyone's a puppet in some way. If they all gang up to take him on- which they ritually do as a matter of course- he can't just stop them or kill them all.

Howard kept going grimly on, his camouflage suit wrinkling and un-wrinkling with every step. Back and forth, back and forth, just like us, straight through uncharted wilderness, the backpacks going along with his and our movements, this way and that, mile after mile. My legs hurt after 45 minutes, then the pain started to steadily grow. I wished whoever engineered us would have thought of shit like this- our specialty is obviously short bursts of action. I was starting to strain, the muscles simply couldn't take much more of this. "Howard, I think it's time to rest."

"My entire lower body agrees with you.", he said, a large mosquito desperately trying to get through his face shield. He smashed it and wiped the stain from the non-reflective plastic. "But we're going to have to get used to more than that.", he said, sitting down and resting his legs. I laid down immediately, my entire body getting some relief from the strain, laying on my stomach so the grappling hook in my backpack wouldn't turn me into Billy-kabob. Dirt crumbled under my weight.

"Yeah..", muttered Sarah, leaning against a tree. "I just kinda wish they had trained me for this, too. Long-distance concealment wasn't part of the regimen."

"Are we still going the right way?", I asked, suddenly concerned that we had made a wrong turn. Sarah whipped out her map and her compass.

"Yes. After we got in the forest, we went in the right direction, and we did go pretty much straight. Besides, if it's in a prominent place, we should be able to find it.", Sarah said, and I appreciated her confidence.

"Think anyone saw us?", said Howard in a tone that declared either the answer's no or it's panic time.

"Not out here.", said Sarah evenly. "Even the bravest tourists aren't going out this far and I don't see any natives."

"Yeah, would be some tour, nothing but forest and fear.", I muttered. "Hope we're going fast enough..."

"That was about.. oh, three, three and a half miles an hour.", Sarah said. "The thing is, we'll have to keep going at that speed, and find food, and cross those fucking rivers to boot.. and you know the rest."

"Well, I'm not hungry.. yet.", said Howard with a shrug. "Let's keep going." He got up and we did. It started raining five minutes after that, started as a drizzle... then as a shower.. then it started just pounding from the trees and on our heads like the machinegun version of Chinese water torture.

"At least the rain will keep us cool...", muttered Howard, as the steady shower bounced off our heads and soaked into our suits, running in miniature rivers down our backs. It will keep us cool, and this would actually be cool in the American sense if this entire scenario were quite a bit different. Three kids in the middle of nowhere on an adventure, that's the stuff movies are made of! It's like a fucked up version of The Neverending Story. But the only thing being saved by this is our own asses... not the world, not even some princess.. unless you want to try to think of this professional killer as a damsel in distress, a thing you can't do without serious quantities of mind-altering drugs. I giggled to myself at the thought. Neither of them asked what I was giggling about. We took a long, good drink from a puddle shortly after that, a couple of dead leaves floating in the cool, rippling water. Since nothing had yet stirred the sediment, the water was fresh from the sky. We pissed shortly afterwards, and it was a thick yellow.

And it kept raining- for an hour.. and another hour. it was repetitive as hell, trying to make sure we went in the same direction when we went around large obstacles, using our hyper-sharp machetes when scrub got in our way, our rubber soles going splash, splash, splash whenever we hit a puddle- but not the invigorated splashing of preschoolers, the steady, military plod of soldiers on a mission. No one was out here to hear us, and it became difficult to see each other through the constant, pouring rain, it distorting the view from our face shields, the darkness aiding it in making everything invisible. Most of the animals had returned to whatever dens and hidey-holes they called home, leaving us out here to plod on and on in camouflage gear. A couple of times we heard rustling or what sounded like humans - we laid low, but every time, we couldn't hear any other signs of activity- must have been just more animals- and we kept plodding on at a necessarily rapid pace. After a while, even walking through the most exotic places just becomes boring as hell, the giant trees and the occasional majestic view being just another part of the scenery. But we couldn't afford to be bored - if we get lax, we could end up... the weight of the responsibility- and the rain- fell heavy on my head. I didn't want to be out here, none of us did. But if they demand it, if Howard is forced to go, and he forces us.. and.. dammit, what the hell did I do to get into this mess?

Nothing, I reminded myself. There is no justice. I keep forgetting that. And as I kept walking on and on, past leaf and tree and bird, my legs and heart pounding and begging me to stop, and as Howard sighed to himself many times, I tried to realize something, to find a value in all of this, to rationalize or reason the motivations behind this trip, as well as the existence of the Illuminati, how could people be so manipulable and blind as to be cannon fodder, hell, food for their betters..

I failed my rationalization miserably- why was I making it anyway?- and just kept plodding on.

"All right, let's stop again.", said Howard, sitting down on the muddy ground, unconcerned about the wetness on his ass. We sat down very close to him- I realized that was because of the human instinct to get close to people when you're in a lonely, cold, odd, or dangerous situation. This was all of the above. "Shit, I bet I could scream as loud as possible and no one would hear me.", he loudly muttered, some anger trailing out of his voice.

"Don't.", said Sarah quickly. "Murphy's Law." Whatever can go wrong...

"I know, I know. I'm starting to get hungry, too."

"Yeah, so am I.", I said, my stomach jumping into my throat at the word 'hungry'.

"Shit..", Sarah muttered. "Yeah, me too, but it's almost impossible to see anything out here!"

"At least we've got plenty to drink...", Howard quipped. "Anyway, this rain isn't going to end any time soon."

"So what are you saying we should do?", Sarah asked grimly. "Look for food in this?"

"Well... dammit, it might be like this all day. So.. well, we can't even really see anything, but if you see anything, make sure I know." We were lucky indeed- Sarah saw something just then.

"How about that.", Sarah said, pointing at something. I couldn't tell for sure what she was pointing at. Then I looked.. and I saw a monkey, hiding in the low branches, watching us curiously.

"Got Rocks?", Howard said in a low voice. She quickly uncovered and picked one up, took aim, the monkey moved to scurry up - and then Sarah just fired the stone into the monkey, knocking it off the tree. In a flash, all three of us were at the beast, popping our face shields, tearing it apart and eating it bite by bite, and relocking the shields with a satisfying click. There wasn't all that much meat on it, but enough to keep us going for another couple of hours or so.

"Damn..", I said. "Wasn't expecting it to be that easy." Not that I mind.

"Neither was I... hey.. Sarah, check up the tree the monkey was in for fruit.", he said, thinking maybe the monkey was at its food source. Sarah climb-jumped up the branches, and climbed.. and climbed. Then I heard a crash as Sarah jumped - to another tree! She then quickly hopped down its branches, carrying some mangoes. They were gone into our stomachs in less than a minute.

For a brief moment I felt alive as I never had before. Sensory input flooded me with images of a time lost, a time when my ancestors were doing this again and again, a time when... ancestors, what the fuck am I talking about? I don't even have any parents, and I'm not a product of evolution; my birthplace is the incubator, not the womb. Being out here in the middle of nowhere may be refreshing in a strange sort of way, but as for ancestral memory, nope. Of course none of that personal history crap changed my surroundings any, nor their meaning or their function. It was still a land of dirt, trees, rocks, and insects.

We trudged on, crossing a log over a river and sliding down a small cliff, using nothing except the compass, the map, and memory of viewed places to guide us. I did mention to Howard that my legs were really starting to hurt me, but he did the expected: he did the mental math and said that we'd have to keep going anyway. We were walking in identical patterns, so I can only take some small comfort in the fact that he's physically suffering just as much as I am. The rain gradually eased up.

We heard a scurrying to my left and we all turned at the same time - oh shit, who spotted us? - then nothing. "We're getting paranoid...", muttered Howard after getting closer to us. "That was a small animal." We then continued, never knowing what the disturbance was. Since no one popped out and said 'You've been spotted!', I assumed it wasn't a human or an Enforcer. Just thinking about the idea of someone doing that made me cringe in total fear.

If they see us breaking the rules, I know exactly what will happen. They'll let us fight for a while, then with their unlimited resources, finally wear out Howard and take him, then us. He'll end up a captive for eternity.. and what do we get? Suddenly I was filled with a sense of not just fear, but largeness- it is my life at stake here, but there's something more, something else to this whole business than just the obvious. And as much as I'd like to torture him for what he is and does, I really wouldn't want Howie to end up a captive for eternity.

I cracked open a jar of power (Similar to a can of whoopass) and continued following him furiously. He sensed my growing power and matched it, lengthening his steps from a plod to a determined stride, and Sarah did the same. No way we're going to stop now. Let's find this fucking place, and let's pray to Satan we're going the right way. That compass better not be broke, nah, what the hell am I thinking? That thing would probably laugh at a sledgehammer swung by Sarah. They make their equipment tough around here.

We continued for hours, in the on-again, off-again rain, not resting at all anymore, losing our determined strides yet happy at the fact we gained ground by using them, as thunder occasionally cracked overhead. Twice we thought something was a human but it was an animal; the second time, Sarah immediately threw a rock at it, bloodily hitting it in the face, and chased it as it ran; it turned out to be a young deer-like creature. She lunged, cut it with her machete, it stumbled, she darted forward, opened it up- and we feasted once more, tearing the dirty skin off and eating the bloody meat. We continued on and the sun began to set.

"Ugh.. after this shit I'm not going outside for at least a week.", Howard muttered as we all sat down closely, after another half hour. "I'm going to stay home, take all my clothes off, and just re-the-fucking-lax for a solid week. No, make that more like a month." Sarah chuckled. I envisioned an hours-long bath, followed by a nice, soft towel..

"Howard, you mind if I join you on that one?", I replied.

"If you live, I wouldn't have it any other way. Ah hell, what am I saying, I'm not going to let you die."

"Yeah, we can't, but you won't because we're not easily replaceable." Actually, our DNA is, but then he'd lose all the years we've lived, having to start over from scratch, and the next incarnation of me would never be quite as old as him.

"Yup. I refuse to lose anything permanent because of these damn tests.", he said, smiling. "We're done for the day. It's getting dark and I'm tired as shit.", he said, looking for some good ground to sleep on.

"Yeah.. yeah, I guess we can afford it. First light we gotta move though. We might lose time on the rivers.", Sarah said. "And I'd hate to think of what the third test is."

"We'll find out soon enough, or we'll die."

"Not die, Howard.", Sarah replied with a raised eyebrow, reminding Howard what would really happen.

"Yes, die, Sarah. They come and I'll whack my own head off, might tell you two to, too." I realized that he had said three homonyms in a row without sounding stupid or funny.

"Bull shit.", she replied evenly. "There is no way. You'd die fighting but you would not cut off your own head." And she was right.

"Howard, you wouldn't.", I affirmed. "But don't think about that. Death and that cell are about the same anyway."

"Yeah.. I don't want to think about it, either." And you don't wanna think about my situation either, Howie. "Let's get some sleep.", he said, finding a slightly elevated, level spot of ground. Sarah brought out the thin, camouflaged bag, and we climbed in away from the rain, with him putting himself in the middle like usual.

"Remind me to take your clothes off too, Sarah.", he said lasciviously and I realized he was feeling her up.

"Howard, are you actually ready yet?" was her reply. Ready for - oh, duh, puberty. Unlike the media-saturated goobers in the normal world, Howard has never been encouraged by anyone to rush his natural impulses. He'll come when they come..

"Not yet. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy myself.. heh heh."

"Go ahead. Just make sure you get to sleep quick.. wouldn't want to see your endurance flagging out there."

"You say that for selfish reasons too, don't you."

"Oh fuck yes, Howard. Horny, annoying, and as much of a bastard as you are, it can always get worse, and it will if you croak. Besides, I'd rather have a 10 year old do it to me than some 300-pound 40 year old." I absolutely cracked up after hearing that one.
"And you will be woken up early tomorrow." She turned her back to us, and started trying to sleep.

"Ugh, woken early, I hate that shit. But if she didn't.. damnit. I'm not sure why, but I feel strangely good right now.", he said. I don't feel anything except anxiety and frustration.. I looked and found some bit of resilient pleasure. No idea why, considering the circumstances.

"Yeah, so do I.. hey wait, which kind of 'good' are you talking about?", I replied.

"The pleasurable kind. To me, not other people."

"Oh yeah, then same. I'm going to hate tonight though.. get woken up early in the middle of a tropical forest, and I'm actually sweating a bit right now. Also can't take this suit off.." Exposed skin is a needless risk in a land of poisonous animals, and no amount of discomfort is worth death... especially if you're a valuable servant.

"It could be worse, we could be wearing normal clothes."

"Boy Scouts from Hell, here we come..", I said. He chortled. "Only Boy Scouts don't have to worry about having nightmares and giving away their position..."

"Billy, remember, if you get a nightmare, I'm right here."

"Yeah, that's the thing..."

"Oh, I know I'm in most of them in some form or another. But if you can't get any anchor to reality, just remember that I'm not them."

"I'll.. I'll try, Howard." I was a hair's breadth from calling him 'Howie'.. I laid back, closed my eyes, and fell asleep in a fraction of a second, but not before feeling a warmth and a slight pressure on my right side.