Just another day- I woke up, threw on some white pants, and walked downstairs for breakfast. I looked out the window- sun, sun, sun. Okay, unless I absolutely need to do something myself, I'm sure as hell not going outside today. Billy came down shortly after me and we ate the breakfast that Sarah had already cooked.

When I was done eating, I grabbed the Real News from the end table, found an interesting-looking article (''Anarch' raids Stuart Robertson!'), and read things that I didn't want to. Some asshole normal calling himself the Anarch had found an Illuminatus- found a fucking Illuminatus!!- and raided him.

"Hooo...", I sighed, and Billy looked over my shoulder as I continued reading.

The Illuminatus had escaped with his life, but not much else. The self-destruct was hit on his Illuminated communications- he'll get it rebuilt, of course, but it's definitely going to be a major pain in the ass for him. A lot of his normal followers were dead or left wounded (whereupon we got what information we could- which wasn't much- and killed them), but he got away. A few Enforcers were fragged as well. How the hell'd those normals (and they were, the wounded ones confirmed it) manage to do that?

"So what are you going to do about this guy?", Billy asked.

"You're being silly. He's not my problem." I deal with Illuminati. We have a whole department that's equipped to deal with shit like him.

The rest of the day was spent as usual, with Billy at my side. It stayed sunny all day, so we didn't go out in it. Instead, I played some games, including single-player RPGs. When I handed the controller to Billy, I watched myself play, literally- he did the exact same things I would have. Fido came in and we petted his furry back with our bare feet. After a few different games- the time absolutely flew and it was lunch and dinnertime before we knew it- we went down for a swim.

The buzzer rang when we were in the pool. I got out and considered having Billy pose as me, but decided against it, put on my own pants; Billy got dressed in his black shirt and pants and followed me up.

This is new; the two opposing Illuminati were on the same screen this time. Kudos to them for deciding to settle their problem in a civil manner. Unfortunately, the problem wasn't anywhere near as nice as the people. One guy's a military controller, another guy has a multinational defense corporation, and their power is overlapping in many ways. I've never had to say this before, but I went ahead and did it- "This is complicated, damn complicated. I'll have to call you back." I worked with Billy for a resolution to this thing. This guy owns this, therefore that, but the other guy owns that.. smarter people always have more complicated problems. Fortunately we were able to get a satisfying resolution, and they were both happy with it. I let Billy go do other things and laid down a bit on the couch.

Half-asleep, I dreamed conscious dreams, thinking of random things that I've been told in the past. One of those was the Law of Fives, the idea that you can't reliably 'bounce' an Illuminated multi-manipulation idea through more than five channels. For example, if I purposefully created a children's show that exposed them to pedophiles, expecting some horrible incident to happen (or more to happen, and thus getting better statistics), using that incident/statistics as leverage on the population to accept without question new, more socialist laws, then used those laws to help us control people more effectively without using secrecy, and then managed to continue building up those laws, oh, it can be done, and it has been done.

But when you multiply too many percentages, and you try to add more things to those five (using them as precedents for greater state control over children, for example), then things start to break down. This is occasionally referred to as the one-hand rule, and I really like that one- can I do one more than everyone else? Heh, heh.. The reason it is a law is because people always start to forget what drove them in the first place. The sheeple don't always understand the relationships we want them to, in this case, greater state control because of dangers 'to the children!'; their minds start holding other relationships and they start comparing the latest laws to Hitler. (Some Illuminati say that the Nazis are the reason they can't control so much today- I say that if it wasn't for the Nazis, they'd just be making other allusions, like Stalinism. 'Horrible' total control always has some symbol. If they knew who I was, that symbol'd probably be me.) Assorted angry people begin joining anti-socialist groups- usually, the ones we totally encompass, but too many of them have ideas of their own and start to either take people from the group to use in their own anti-Illuminated purposes, or just to act alone. Usually, of course, everything goes A-ok, the manipulation takes hold, and we laugh at the fools. But reliability is the question here. A normal wouldn't buy a product that only worked maybe 80% of the time. We don't like to use manipulation techniques with unpredictable results. The Anarch does that, which is why he's the Anarch.

To get around the multiplication problems, we act simply. We always keep the images fresh in the minds of the masses, deluding them with loud words and pictures. But people really can only be pushed so far, and the farther manipulation goes, the more stringy and less reliable it becomes. This is why we've been changing society to help us with greater manipulation, to keep them talking and prevent them from acting. And we, even the more mortal among us, can wait. We've been waiting. We can continue to wait for opportunities to come to us, which is why the Law of Fives doesn't apply anymore, because of technology and because we're so goddamn cautious. We're handling humanity like it is: a giant jar of nitroglycerin. Millennia of violent, turmoil-laden human history can not be overrode by willpower alone.

And now here come the implants, ready to lay this whole thing to rest and make all this talk of manipulation obsolete- and with that thought, I rested, losing consciousness entirely.