It was time for the cards to be laid out on the table. And Howard never folds.

This is what I really respect him for. Not the power, not the control, and definitely not his position- it's just that he won't fold. It doesn't matter what kind of predicament he's in, what kind of forces oppose him, he doesn't back down. Period. Nothing can stop him... or nothing yet has, rather. I don't know what he plans to do with the top two levels.. from everything he's said, that dumbfuck Gladstone has.. not quite control, but influence over most of them. Blackmail and all that other crap. Lots of people have nice, large skeletons in their closets- especially Illuminati- and most of these guys have done something to piss off the previous Dominator at one point or another. And ever since I put that bullet in that one fucko's head more than five weeks ago, they've all been very, very scared of Howie. I stopped to ponder the sheer irony of Gladstone blackmailing others with their actions against the Dominator, while the Dominator is ready to beat the shit out of- or kill- him.

But then again, Illuminati don't like to think of themselves as being controlled, do they? So they may go with the Dominator simply because he represents freedom from their own demons.. I cackled in bitter irony at that. He'll implant you all sooner or later, fuckers. Enjoy your stay in Hell. And if he wants me to help him do that, I'll give him everything possible, implant effects or no. You bloated pseudo-Illuminated dipshits made a slave of the world, and your engineered creation(s) will make a slave of you. Pure hate almost literally blinded me... so when Paul came into my room, closing the door behind him, he was sort of shocked at the look on my face.

"Holy shit, Billy.. you all right?"

"Why, yes, Paul, I'm just fine. I'm under the control of my exact clone, I've learned that there's a secret organization that's running the world, I'm eventually going to have to watch my best friend die, said best friend is in this hellhole with me, so everything is just peachy keen everfucking god damned ALL RIGHT!!" He flinched some and even I winced at the burning hatred in my voice.

"It's time to go, ya know."

"Going." I put on the requisite black suit, and I looked like a vampire once more. I didn't even bother with the stairs and just vaulted over the railing and jumped down the twelve feet instead, the plush carpet cushioned my landing, and I did a quickie forward flip after I hit to avoid any impact damage. Paul considered following my path, thought better of it, and used the stairs instead. Howard looked at me quizzically, but he knows as well as I do that there's no such thing as danger- either you get injured or you don't. And I don't get injured from things I do intentionally.. especially now, with his damned commands in effect.

"Billy, you look like you're ready to kill something. Is it all at me?", he asked.

"No.. not just you, Howard. It's them I want. They made you and me the way we are. They fucking enslaved the world.. and all this is their fault. And something tells me you don't want a few of them around either."

"You guessed it. Okay.. Sarah, when I get in that throne, you sit to my left, Billy, to my right, and Paul.. hmm.. behind me. And listen carefully to this one- exactly one half second after I finish the sentence 'Ladies and gentlemen, I have a statement to make.', Billy, you kill the bitch to Gladstone's left, Sarah, the one to his right. One bullet death. You know what bitches I speak of?"

"Sandra and Wilma. How could I not.", said Sarah grimly.

"Of course. The fat whores he has for chorus girls.", I said with bloodlust and anger decorating my face.

"Bingo." It's nice to know that he has similar opinions on some of them, and that lightened my mood a bit.

"Hee hee.. Howie, that's a good trigger phrase.. 'I'm resigning - wait, no I'm not, THEY are!'"

"Heh heh heh. Let's go."

When we got to the plane, something parked in the back of my mind came to the front- it's not only the rooms that have only three spots. The jet has a pilot's seat, though.

"Oh.. damn. Hmm .. the floor, the seat or.. ah. Okay, Sarah, you stay in the .. nah.. Better idea. Paul, Billy, get in the back. Sarah, fly us to headquarters, cruising speed."

Through my hate I could see what was to happen again. "Oh, no..", I said as my legs took me inside the plane.

"Not again!", Sarah griped, as she got in the pilot's seat. Howard only grinned as he got in. Once more, the VTOL took us high, ceased, and the scramjets kicked it on to 1200 mph, Paul grunting from the acceleration.

"Sarah, get back here.", said Howard, grinning. Paul still looked a little puzzled. And as again, she got in the back, and he laid back on a human cushion, his head on her belly, his ass on Paul (for a brief instant I visualized Paul fucking him from that position, a thing that could have been easily done) and his feet on my stomach.

"Does he always do this?", muttered Paul.

"Sometimes.", I replied grimly.

"Hehehe... Feel lucky. I could be Sandra." I visualized at least three hundred pounds of lard sitting on poor Paul. No way he could fuck her up the ass. A big black guy's dick could probably reach through all that fat.. but it would be a close call.

"Well, then we wouldn't be going anywhere.", said Sarah, with the smile of evil on her face.

"Why not?", asked my white-clad clone.

"The plane wouldn't get off the ground!", she blurted, the nasty punchline coming out of her mouth like acid venom, and we all laughed at that. I took a moment to ponder the irony- Howard's Daddy is responsible for most of my and her pain (although Paul has a few things to thank Howard for), he considers us his toys, he's fucking laying on us as if we were a comforter right now, and we're cracking jokes with him like this is all just some fucking charade. Damn it all straight to Hell. Oh well. Right now I didn't care much- we were cracking jokes, but all of us wanted to crack skulls. Paul, the normal, appeared totally oblivious to that fact.

"Could she even fit in here?", cracked Paul.

"Well, now that depends, Paul. I imagine if we used an industrial press..", Howard said with my evil grin on his face. Everyone cracked up, and I laughed at both images going into my head at once- the silly one, of an extremely large mound of fat being compressed to fit into the plane without spilling over, and the gory one, which featured the actual Sandra being put in an actual industrial press. First, she would be driven to her knees, then she would be forced to lay flat, then her stomach would be gradually flattened out like a tortilla, she'd be screaming in pain, her ribs would snap like twigs, her pelvic bone would break messily, and her suffering would be ended when the unyielding steel met with her thin skull and pulpy brain. Crunch-splat. Then, the piston would probably spin for maximum pressure and compactness of heterogeneous waste. When the press came back up, there would be nothing but a jumbled, compressed mass of bone, muscle, skin, a few nerves, plenty of blood, and lots of fat, globs of the stinking, odious mess sticking to the rising piston. Eeyuck.

"She'd just pop back up!", Paul snapped. Howard kicked me in the stomach with his laughter. I tried to visualize her going from flat to fat and really didn't like what I saw. Sarah shook her head in the traditional 'that's disgusting' fashion.

"Okay, okay, no more fat jokes for the next 3 hours. I don't want to hear much more of that.", Howard said after he was finished laughing. "But seriously, she wouldn't fit in here. At least not leaving room for anyone else."

Then I noticed something. "Howard, speaking of fitting.. this thing could hold what? A six foot four guy? And if we're going to be seven foot two.." Paul looked at me and Howard with an amazed look on his face.

"Billy, you forgot who you're talking to. If this jet has room problems, I get a new jet, and let the taxpayers pay for it. A lot of Illuminati could probably use this thing anyway. And yes, Paul, 2.2 meters, about seven foot two. Don't worry, you won't look too much like a midget.", he said, smiling and patting Paul on the chest. He took a breath, thought for a second, then told me to thoroughly search the transcript database of all communications involving top-level Illuminati (which is a fucking huge amount of shit, to put it bluntly) since Damien's death for anything he might find important that has to deal with Paul, Damien, or some idiot like Gladstone getting back at Howard. I lifted Howard's legs to swap places with Paul, got into the database, and silently vowed to kill Howard last as the implants once more tore my body from my brain and I searched for the information, unable to move the pages down until I scanned every last line. Ugh. Fuck you, Howard. Good thing I read fast. The secret plots of the secret masters were, however, good reading material, and I read several discussions about power juggling, various public illusions, possible mini-threats (I didn't see anything about medium or major threats, though), and general deluding of the Illuminati who delude the sheeple. Most of the batch was re-transfer of plans due to a dead Illuminatus. Some of it was jokes, anger, and resentment that a second-level Illuminatus could get axed by his own servant. And a few things, much fewer than I expected, involved anything that would be of any interest or threat to the Dominator. I wonder who writes all these conversations down? Enforcers. Gotta be. These don't look like anything created from voice recognition software, the homonym usage is too perfect.

"Howard, most of it's just replacement stuff, who's going to do what now that Damien's a corpse. And most of the ones who talked about it agree it's a suicide." Publicly, anyway. There's no way of knowing how much super-secret communication is going on between whoever. "There are eight things you should probably take a look at though.", I said a half hour later.

"Say when the conversations happened, who they are, then read them aloud so I understand them.", he said from his relaxed position.

I sighed. "June 4, 1998, 0017 hours. Night Operator: 'Herbert, I'm sorry to disturb your rest, but I have horrible news.'"

"Gladstone: 'What are you talking about, horrible news? What is it?'"

"'Herbert, your son, Damien Gladstone of the Second Level of the Illuminati is dead.'"

"'Dead? How? He was supposed to be on that damn Dominator's island by now! He can't be dead.. can't be..' He was crying, How." He nodded.

"'He was shot in the head, sir. By his own servant, as a matter of fact.'"

"'What?! What happened?!'"

"'I don't know, sir. You'll have to ask the Dominator. I spoke with him less than five minutes ago. He was very arrogant.'" I sensed Howard's teeth clench. They were talking about him as if he was less than them, and that pissed him off considerably.

"'I'll call him up right now. Are you sure Damien's .. dead?'" I did a good Gladstone impression with the anger and hurt he must have felt.

"'Very much so, sir. The Dominator confirmed a powerful head shot with fatal brain injury.'" Howard giggled uncontrollably when I recited that.

"'Damn it, I'll call him up right now. Gladstone out.' End of transmission."

"Okay, Billy, stop.", Howard said, and sighed. "I wish I would have remembered those two were cousins before this whole mess began." Cousins?! They sure as hell don't act like it- but then again, neither do we, and we are definitely technically brothers. "Can't track everyone, I guess. Oh well. Paul, read the next one."

"June 11, 1998, 2315 hours.", he monotoned.

"Tim Castle: 'Dave, Dave, wake up Dave!'"

"Dave Control: 'Tim? What's going on, why are you waking me up?'"

"'Dave, Damien's dead!'" Paul was reciting the words, not mimicking how they must have sounded.

"'What?! How?!'"

"'It's all confused up, happened on the Dominator's island.. yeah, Howard says Damien's own servant killed him, but Herbert's going apeshit saying how it was all Howard's fault. No intelligence gatherable, Howard's not letting anyone near that island right now.'"

"'Is the damage recoverable?'"

"'No way. Howard says his brain is in little pieces. Something bad happened out there, Dave.'" Then I saw the fear that Paul forgot to add into his recanting. These guys are scared, and it's pretty obvious why. If one of them can die, they all can die. Never mind stupid people that piss off or try to shoot Howie, their own servants can prove them fatal. And their mighty egos don't like it. Wussies. They set the fire and they can't take the heat.

"'Oh, god. Look, that kid is becoming a serious threat here. Herbert said he shoulda been stopped earlier but..'"

"Stop, Paul.", said Howard, who knew what that meant. They were not referring to a 'should' as in 'Geez, I really should have done that.' but as in 'Fuck, that plan should have worked!'. If they were not being monitored, they would have said 'Herbert's test should have stopped him.', but instead they thought they could bury the message in language. Ha, ha, ha. Those idiots underestimated Howie- again. "All right, keep going."

"'..he wasn't, and here he is wreaking havoc. What the fuck was that old guy thinking, putting in this damn kid?'" I felt power of all sorts come out of Howard, mixed with a little hate. His teeth were gritted.

"'Dunno. Look, let's let this sit for a day or two, all right Dave? Don't want Howard freaking out and using that damn superweapon of his.'" Superweapon my ass. The Micro has serious heat problems- that's why they're developing a sink for that. Sure, it can shoot a death-beam, but Howie's always complaining about the operative time - less than a minute at half power, like ten seconds at full. Also, these guys are second levels- shouldn't they know more about it?

"'All right, Tim. Thanks for callin' me up. Night.' End of transmission."

Howard sighed a bit. "Were the rest of 'em like this?"

"Yeah. All the same theme. They don't know what to do, so I don't think they're going to do anything.", I told him. "They're not sure what happened, they don't really know if what you said was the truth, they don't know what to believe. They're surprised and confused."

"Just the way I like them." Howard's manipulative side (manipulative side, what the fuck am I thinking.. if he has a manipulative side, he's a fucking Mobius strip) showed itself again. "And yet again we see the nature of humanity exposing itself once more."

"How do you mean?", I asked.

"Remember when I told you they all wanted whatever tortures, and how some wanted me dead or you dead?" I nodded. "This is a demonstration of that. They made up that sort of thing right at that moment. They clamored immediately. They knew that I'd be reading the logs, and so it was a way of sending it to me."

"Yeah, I really don't get that. If they were so horribly angered.. then why isn't there more of this stuff? Why didn't they send whatever requests to you directly? I mean, it would piss you off the same amount, they must know that.."

"Because they're doing their piece of manipulation."

"..now I'm really confused.", I replied.

"It's always hard to understand.", Sarah said, shaking her head a bit.

"All right.. here goes. They wanted to express to me and their friends, for the record- and believe me, they all have ways of communicating off the record- that they did not approve of this, even if it was technically a suicide. They might even be joyful about the target- the Bastard's son, to be sure, wasn't widely loved. However, by doing what they did, they sent me a message saying that I shouldn't allow any killing. When they indirectly told me to do something like torture him or kill you, most of them weren't actually expecting me to do it. Now, to be sure, many of them probably really do want me to do that sort of thing, and some of them probably really do want me dead because of this. However, they know when they're not going to get what they want, so, if they presumably have control over their own egos, they'll just deal with it and go on."

His explanation might have been textbook Illuminism, but I had doubts about it. "Either that, or they're just whining and talking to each other like normals when someone gets killed because they're afraid, hoping for some sort of mutant justice that they'll never see, not bothering to conceal their messages because they don't think to do it."

"Or a combination of both.", Howard replied. "It worries me that you might be right for the majority of them." He wants to run an organization of smart manipulators, not idiotic small-minded normal-politician imitators.

Which reminded me.. "One thing I want to know.. why do you call them The Bastards, anyway?" Sarah sighed, as if she could list reasons for hours.

"That's a long one. Well, she had her own concerns when dealing with them. But it's pretty damn simple. They try every fucking day to use manipulation to steal from and try to control other Illuminati." Using manipulation is obviously okay, it's just when they use it in a detrimental, organization-harming way that it becomes a problem. "One time, the guy said something like 'Well, now you're in a position of weakness because you went and got that, and now I'm just profiting off your greed.' Shit like that. That barely makes sense, no Illuminatus is stronger because someone else got greedy, the guy who grabbed and didn't burn too many resources in grabbing now has more power, and the other guy doesn't. Another time, the Bastard kept going on and on, in a public meeting, about how he was owed shit and how he needs it, et cetera, everyone was bored and pissed- the guy he was bitching about didn't give him anything, but another guy did a bad trade with him. I'm surprised no one has killed him yet." The way he tells it, so am I. "He tries to be a fucking demagogue to us."

"Demagogue...", I muttered aloud, thinking if I could have seen this guy before on televangelist TV. Gladstone's not a public, is he?

Howard knew the question I had in mind. "He's not a public, Billy. He doesn't pose as any of the demagogues you're thinking of, Pat Robertson, Tammy Faye, or that one fat guy, I forget his name.. I think they're all servants of fourth levels or something like that. Could have changed since I last heard it." So much for the Christians opposing the New World Order.

Sarah hated him and wanted to speak her piece. "Heh. Yeah. I think just about everyone who knows about him hates his guts almost to the point of killing him outright. And did I ever want to. Damn, I hated that guy. He sent me on the most worthless missions to do the most worthless shit, sometimes for fun, like just stealing stuff and then putting it back, just to see if I could do it or for some bet." Shit, how the hell'd he get away with that? "And yes, Billy, it was the important and treasured stuff. No one found out it had ever left, except guys who we replaced." One thing I know is that the organization, or at least the Dominator's side, frowns upon the waste of resources. That was definitely a waste of resources.

"Sarah, that's actually really bad. I'd think Daddy or somebody would have done something. Even a third level I don't think would have gotten away with that, maybe not even a second.", Howard said.

"I know! He had a fixation on me or something. I think he wanted me, but he was.. that's right. He knew in advance, so he was pissed that you were getting me instead of him or his son." Having Sarah be Damien's servant was a concept I didn't want to think about, but she'd probably have found a way to instantly kill him.

Paul, who had the most reason to hate the Gladstone family, said nothing at all through any of this. Which is okay, and expected- he's a normal, after all.

We landed and took the same path to the auditorium as we had before.