After detangling a hideous, profane, emotion-filled, ugly fuckup directly affecting two third levels, three fourths, and involving several others (Ugh, I hate women's emotions- glad Sarah doesn't have many), I went, sat down at the computer, and did the traditional decision-making method (You are probably familiar with it as "eenie meenie miney mo".) to decide how to create pixelated death. Duke 3D Atomic it is. I logged onto Mplayer, got a 4 player going, and started the slaughter on Crater.map.

Footsteps came from behind me and quietly entered the room. "Hey, Paul.", I said as I calmly killed an idiot with two shotgun blasts. His blue-panted sprite fell on its knees with blood running from its mouth, then fell down dead. A kill was added to the little tally after my name.

"Hey, how'd you know it was me?"

"You're the only one around here who has footsteps."

"Oh."

"So why'd you come in here, anyway?"

"I.. I dunno. I guess it was to beg for my freedom.. but just looking at you I know there's no way."

"Begging? I need the ego boost. Start begging and keep begging.", I said with a grin. Some newbie got on the wrong end of my RPG and he became little teensy kibbles.

"Oh mighty master Howard, I beseech you, please release this poor servant.. I know I'm only a normal and I don't think I can possibly be of any compare to your greatness. I know I'm just a burden and I know I'll only get in the way, so this miserable little footstool I am so humbly asks for release.. I'll do anything.." He started fumbling for more toadiness and ran out.

"All right, you can stop now. And you'll already do anything."

"Yeah, I know. But you could let me go if you wanted, couldn't you?"

"Actually, probably not. For one thing, you're dead. If anyone you knew sees you walking around, that'll lead to a lot of crap we could definitely live without. And even if we got your face rearranged," I said with an evil emphasis on rearranging faces, "there'd still be other shit to deal with. Your DNA, for example. And then there's that little matter of going from dickless to fully intact, and yes, that operation leaves evidence.", I said as Duke's version of the Micro started expanding assorted fools. One of them called me an autoaimer and left. The other two were also asking how I'm so damn lucky. It's not luck, you idiots, I just kick ass. Having the god of computers is just icing on the cake.

"But.. who would find out?"

"Anyone with spare time, good luck, and your DNA sample."

"You're clinically paranoid, you know that?" I started giggling, both from Paul's comment and from the fact I stepped on two shrunken morons one after the other.

"I know I'm paranoid. I'm really starting to lose it, Paul. I already think there's a secret organization controlling the world, and sooner or later I'll start raving about subliminal messages, secret islands, and mind control implants. And I've got all these crazy delusions about being immortal and super strong and being in some great position somewhere." I blew someone to pieces with an RPG, he respawned right in front of me, I killed him again, he respawned again, and I grinned widely as I gibbed him again. He left.

"Thank you for reminding me where I am.", he said dryly.

"You're welcome."

Paul flopped down on the bed, stomach upwards. "Of all the people in the world I could possibly be enslaved to, it ends up being Billy's clone." The remaining one was getting the shit kicked out of him - a shotgun war yielded one hit on me and three on him, causing him to die and swear again. I headed over to where I knew the armor and atomic health were. Stupid games- in the real world, you can see where and when someone is shooting, and the bullets aren't instant. Oh well. "Still can't believe that jerkoff Damien was that stupid."

"Never underestimate the stupidity of normals.. or, for that matter, Illuminati.", I reminded him. Which is brutally true. People are stupid. Not just sheeple, not just the masses. Perhaps the only exceptions were the ones on this island- even Paul, of normal birth, seems fortunately devoid of idiocy.

"Are you pissed about that?"

"Pissed.. no, not pissed. Disappointed. That shithead got what was coming to him. And no, I will not make that mistake." I would have said 'don't even think about it', but that was in the list of phrases not to say to servants, which I dub the Bad Juju list. The opponent was hiding from me, but I knew where he was. The top of the tower is not a good place. Let's try pipebomb-elevator games, shall we?

Paul snapped his fingers in the 'Damn!' gesture, and said, "At least you're nothing like him."

"Of course I'm not. I've seen the videos."

"You're sure you're never going to do anything like that are you?" His voice had a great deal of sympathy-seeking in it, and had I felt like it I would have toyed with his mind. Nah.. not now, anyway. I was getting a bit tired, and I've had enough of servants freaking out. Even when you tell 'em, it just doesn't really go away. The opponent idiotically named "SCORP123" was not killed by my pipebombs, but died to my shotgun instead after he got stupid and jumped out the window. He proceeded to call me things I'd thought about Damien, but with a more limited range of thought and bad spelling. He then left after I sent him to Hell as he stood still and typed.

"No. Why did you think I would?"

"It's because you ... you're in control, Howard. Master of everything, definitely master of everything here.. I kind of expected you to be a sadist."

"Oh, that whole freedom illusion thing still applies to you?" His puzzled look answered that question. "How long has it been since you were implanted, exactly?

"Two weeks. I count the days."

"And you still don't understand how things work around here?"

"Not really. He didn't even let me go outside until the flight here."

"What? That fiddleshit! More than a week with an implanted and he didn't even..." I sighed in exasperation. "Idiot. Idiot! Paul, do you know exactly how he got into the second level?"

"His dad is first level."

"Yeah, but damn nepotists.." Again, Paul looked at me quizzically. Groan.. once more the public schools have failed to teach adequately. "Nepotism is when you put friends or family in top positions simply because you like them. And that doesn't belong here. Paul, the Illuminati is a non-religious, non-ethnic, mostly disunited group. The only thing we have in common is we like power. And to get more power, we generally follow the same procedures, which includes using every resource to its fullest to get more resources and more power. Personal things are usually chucked to the side, unless you either have a lot of power and don't need any more- or are just stupid, like that fuckstick Herbert and his diddleshit offspring whom you mercifully euthanized." I joined another game.

"So in other words... it's not about hurting people, you just don't give a fuck."

"You have the idea."

"Oh, man. Billy said he felt totally real again a half hour after he woke up here the first time. I still don't feel real. And I'm .. we're not talking like an eleven-year-old and a ten-year-old. At least not where I come from. What the hell..." The map was a bit larger than Crater and I aimed for the weapons, not the fools, first.

"You've been around people who use words of more than one syllable too long, I'm afraid."

"Fuck... fuck, fuck, fuck.", he muttered absently, like a chant.

"Yes, Paul, I assure you there's plenty of fucking going on around here. I fuck people over for a living, they want to fuck me up, I usually tell them to go fuck themselves, I've got a fuckload of power and technology, and according to Billy this is all fucked to hell." I had a good arsenal, and about three idiots had shot at me. It was a five-player game, and one or more of them was lagging severely. I found a safe spot, alt-tabbed, opened up Ping Pal, found his IP and domain name.. an AOLer! I reached out with Error Buddy (What? You think those holes in Windows are accidents?), crushed his system stack like a baby under a steamroller, and while he was bluescreened and couldn't see anything going on with his computer, closed his Duke from afar. The other players cheered.

"I agree with him."

"That makes two out of three. Sarah's used to it."

"Yeah, I know, the bored assassin. I just wanna know how you.. you three do all that.."

"All the ridiculous gymnastics, unbelievable feats of strength, superior intelligence, and assorted abilities you find to be superhuman. It's called genetic engineering, Paul. We can't let normals know this sort of thing exists for a long, long time. There would be chaos. Everyone would want a super designer baby with all the latest features. People are basically objects already, and massive freedom-illusion schisms would erupt if they knew the truth." Some twit shot an RPG down a corridor and I managed to pump on the 'roids and dodge most of the explosion damage. I then shotgunned him to death.

"Hey.. hey wait a second, if you guys control everything, then what about all those TV shows like The X Files and .. uh .. Gargoyles and alllll that other shit that has Illuminati on them?"

I erupted in laughter. "Paul, those are an important part of it. I don't think you understand the basic thing here. We have to control both sides of everything. The Republicans and the Democrats, organized crime and the FBI, the big scary government and the mass media that makes people worried about conspiracies. Of course, we make most of those conspiracies ridiculous by introducing magic, religion, or aliens into them, therefore no one really believes any of that conspiracy crap." Some fool popped out from another corridor and I decorated the wall with his blood using a rocket.

"Damn..", was all Paul could say.

"It gets technical in spots, but world domination is easier than you'd think. It's not like it's anything new."

"Yeah.. but.." His un-Illuminated mind (I hate thinking of him as a 'nescient') would not let him finish, as he couldn't find the right way to say it.

"Yeah, but we're doing it in secret. It adds a few more things but still, not that hard." Wounds were traded, but no one got any kills for a short while- then I heard RPG fire and one normal killed another.

"Land of the free and the home of the brave is the land of the bees and the home of the slaves.", he said, as if he memorized it a while back. I started laughing again. Assorted repetitive voice taunts were being thrown out by one of the dipshits.

"Who told you that?"

"Billy, about a year ago. It's almost like he knew."

"He had some idea. If he actually knew, I probably would have had him as soon as he could be caught." Argh, I hate skinny-ass corridors. No room to dodge and two normals shot at me with RPGs at once, killing me for the first time today. This map is now on my shit list. Of course, I'll still win the frag war by about 50:1.

"Trust no one." He was trying to express his thoughts in the basic terms given him by the media- he'd learn sooner or later that that's utterly ineffective.

"Correction. Trust no one that you don't control. And even them you have to watch out for."

"You have to watch out for us?"

"Oh, hell yes. I'm not going to shit you on this one, Paul. If I misspeak the wrong damn thing to any of you, especially Billy, I could end up with a bullet in my head, just like Damien." Sounds of fighting came from a little ways away and I came to clean up. A normal killed another, then used a voice taunt- 'You're an inspiration for birth control!'

"That sounds hard. Even for you."

"It's not hard, you just can't get careless. Paul, if I put you in charge of any implanteds, which I probably will, I want you to remember that." I'm starting to love the pistol. Peashooter? Bah. I emptied about half a clip into one fleeing idiot and he died.

"Yeah, I gotcha." Paul sat up on the bed and watched my skill decimate assorted normals for a good fifteen minutes. Then I made another game on Warfortr.map, and played for a minute. A guy moving around on 'roids in front of me was very hard to hit, and I thought nothing of it - both of us retreated for more ammo, and I gibbed some fool on the way. So did the other guy. We dueled for a bit, retreating a lot when we did damage. He was shooting very, very well and I idly wondered if he had an autoaimer- but I didn't want to open the program to check. The other two fools were pretty much astounded after another couple of minutes and basically left us alone to fight some more, which we did for a good two minutes. We killed each other three times, with the instantaneous weapons. That joker actually had two more kills than I did!

"Damn.", said Paul. "He's as good as you."

"No one is as good as me, except maybe Billy.. hey, wait a second." I found a nice hiding spot and alt-tabbed, checking the IPs I was connected to - WHAT THE FUCK? It only shows three foreign hosts, one of which is Mplayer itself... I clicked the game again, and yup, they were all there. That miserable..

"Billy! Get your ass in here, now!", I shouted into the intercom.

He appeared in moments. "Yes, Howard?", he asked innocently.

"Just what were you trying to pull?"

"Me? Why, nothing. I wasn't doing a thing.", he said in a far too sugared voice.

"Then who was?"

"Her.", he said in a loud voice, pointing at Sarah's bedroom, and I heard loud girlish laughter coming out of there when he did. Paul quietly burbled. Billy only stood and grinned.

"Sarah, turn that thing off and get in here." Oops. She did and I noticed the game's movement come to a halt. IPX no-timeout piece of shit. I made a mental note to go bust some heads over at 3drealms. She walked into the room as silent as ever, grinning slightly.

"Sarah, why did you do that?", I asked with some malice.

"Oh, just for the hell of it, really." I let them do things just for the hell of it. They're lucky I'm so lenient.. "Also, I was really bored and didn't want little Paul to think you were good or something.", she joked.

"Hey!", shouted Paul at being called little.

"You bitch.", I said. She shrugged, as if her bitchdom were a universally accepted fact. I thought of the right words... don't go in.. no.. don't fuck up.. noooo.. ah. There we go. Wait. I can't give a no-interference-without-my-knowledge command, that might prevent them from saving my life.. damn this. There's only so much you can do with direct commands, for absolutely total protection, they'd need to voluntarily be interested in saving my life instead of killing me. The usual way to cure this little problem would be the usual carrot-and-stick pavloving, but Billy and Sarah are immune to that- hey, what about Paul?

'No.', my inner, grating voice said, returning once more. 'You know exactly what will happen if you do that. He's done a damn good job repressing memories of Damien. You'll knock his efficiency down to squat if you do that. You might as well just kill him and get another Enforcer instead for the same thing. Besides, he's not as smart as Billy and Sarah. You have less to worry about with him.' Then I found the other little problem with the implants - for Illuminati near my power, bodies and physical power were easy to come by through the Enforcers, but it was their minds- their intelligence- I needed as help. And guess what the implants happen to control? Oh well. True 'mind control' implants would probably wreck to shit what they were designed to control anyway.

What to do now? I need a challenge. "All right, since everyone in here seems hell-bent on kicking my ass," Subtle, unspoken agreement from all three of them. "Billy, Sarah, get back to your computers and let's play local." They went. "Paul-"

"Lemme guess.", he interrupted. "I'm not invited to play because the three of you will beat the shit out of me."

"No, I need an easy target in case I get bored. Go to the living room and play from there."

The game was, indeed, a challenge. The three of us walked off with about 30 frags each in the end from Warfortr.map, shotgun war at its finest. Paul actually got ten kills, more than I expected- of course, he usually fired shots while we the engineereds were kicking each other's asses. Then he got expanded and exploded by the Weapon O' Sizzle. Ah, death and destruction. Glorious, and takes pain and annoyance off the mind. Even I need to escape from reality for long periods of time- even for me, usual reality is dull and boring, and only punctuated by small bouts of real-world killing. Then again, with the three of them here, it's much less boring than it used to be, even when dealing with the sort of ugly, detailed shit we dealt with later that day. A job that would have taken me about an hour or so took me about 25 minutes with Billy's help.