I was in the middle of the arcade, playing Die Hard with Paul (and saving his ass, not like it mattered with infinite lives) when I heard Howard's voice over the speaker, semi-giddy: "Guys, get your butts up here, because I'm going to have some real fun." Paul and I looked over our shoulders and watched our guys' asses get kicked as we walked out and went up the elevator.

When we got up to the floor under the stairs, we could hear Howard and Sarah talking as we joined them. Sarah was saying "So you're going to go there with no one else in the whole place, sounds like fun, but those things are high... I don't get it, you have the jet for that shit."

"Yeah, but the jet's just predictable. Also there's all that other crap to worry about while I'm using it, you know, the fuel, the risk of being seen, all that crap. I only go up there like twice every three months in it, and it's basically the same, I turn, I know where the acceleration goes, I go pretty damn fast. It just doesn't seem.. well, real. Like a giant video game is more like it, only if I don't land it right, game over. Besides, this is for another reason. I have to know what these places would be like. Remember, millions of normals are exposed to this all the time, and it's their idea of fun..", Howard happily explained as we sat next to him in the regular places, looking at the place we were going.

"I get it, Howard. But what about someone seeing you?", Sarah said casually.

"Sarah, at a distance I'm not all that discernable from anyone else, except for the albinism, which I'm not gonna disguise- too annoying. I can cloak the hair with a good sweater though, and no one will see the fingers. Also their security guards were made ill by a.. heh heh.. 'flu' going around and they had to have some replacements."

"So you've planned all this out in advance... I suppose all the clothes will be normal-looking, you've selected a place where the weather will be fairly cold, and you've got the transportation down too.", she replied, checking out the details on the screen. Cold? Oh, yes, realism. Sweaters in warm weather tend to arouse suspicion.

"Yup."

"I was not expecting you to think of the cold part. You're, well.. well, after the second test I shouldn't be too surprised."

"An Illuminatus. I don't forget the real world." I started chuckling, so did Paul.

The trip itself was very simple. Howard's jet flew to the hidden airfield closest to the place (owned, legally, by the US military), we got out, and a generic (yet certainly souped-up and reinforced) limousine- stark white, of course- parked right next to the jet. There was a handful of Enforcers watching the area- that was it. No one around, no other aircraft, no other vehicles.

"And no normal is watching us at all.", I noticed out loud.

"And no normal can.", Howard replied with a grin.

"You guys are.."

"More ingrained into the system than you thought. Unfortunately, this is about it. A lot of things that would symbolize power.. but just not enough direct. You know better than to worry about that.", he said, as we stepped inside and laid back in the roomy interior. Of course I do. Power increases for the Illuminati. It does not decrease.

Sarah informed us that this particular limo was outfitted with specialized, computerized windows that changed the appearance of what was behind them. We'd look like other people through those filters, she said, Paul almost disbelieving his ears. I had no trouble believing it. Amazing? Yes. But.. still.. technically possible, if you have the time and the money. I briefly thought about this car getting into a crash and then discounted it. They certainly have a contingency plan for that.

After about 45 minutes of driving, the normal-looking limousine pulled up to a gate, which automatically opened. It then drove to the parking lot, and I noticed that there was a spot for us next to the front door- along with almost every other spot in the entire place. When the limo opened its two back doors and we got out, a weird feeling of loneliness hit me like a brick. No one was here. NO ONE. I knew that would be the case when Howard first started talking about his plan, but the sheer absence of people- especially at an amusement park as large as this one- was simply another one of those Fear Moments. I knew it would show up in my nightmare that night.

We walked towards the giant rides, wholly bypassing the empty ticket windows. More than one horror story, I remembered, has the premise of a deserted amusement park. Someone should make a B-movie about that. Genetically engineered agents of a vast conspiracy, fighting ghouls and devils and clowns in some freakish amusement park in the middle of absolute nowhere.

The Enforcers who had replaced the guards opened up the too-large, too-colorful doors of the main entrance, and we stepped into.. whatever the hell it was. Twinkling lights and a giant clown face rose above a merry-go-round to our right. A gigantic Old West-style facade stretched out to our left. The larger rides (including a centrifugal-force mega-swing and the largest roller coaster) were to the center. A fountain.. holy fuck, they even dyed the water blue.. was right in front of us. Countless distractions- everything from an arcade to the tourist-trap souvenir shops- were all over the place. Everything was on. Everything was making noise. Even the smells of artificial food assaulted my nose- although the food shops were closed. To describe the net effect of it is impossible- but I'd suppose that's the point, to disorient, to confuse.. the only good thing is that we're the only ones within a very large radius, adding the idiot hordes to the stench and this kiddy-crap would really be bad. No, make that kiddy-crap™. This sort of kiddy-crap™, I remembered vaguely, is an all-too-common sight in the normal world. Not sure why they do the expensive decorations, really. Four-year-olds aren't going anywhere without their parents and anyone above the age of.. eight?.. isn't going to be attracted in any way by this.. this amazing display of dementia. Sarah just looked at it. Paul and I, of course, have seen this sort of thing before.

Howard, of course, had not. He blinked his eyes several times and held his head, shaking it slowly back and forth. "Uuugh.. if I had the time and the secrecy I'd redecorate this whole place.." And were it not for secrecy, he could charge exorbitant amounts of admission for people to watch it. I'd pay hundreds to see the bright red paint of the roller coasters torched off by a flamethrower, watch the unbelievably ridiculous-looking Old West facade get burned to a crisp by thousands of degrees of Micro-induced heat, see the sharp crack of the atomic shotgun turn the hideous blue-watered fountain into pieces of simple ugliness.

And, decades from now, if secrecy finally vanishes and this place is still around, I'm going to ask him to do it just for memories and old times' sake.

"Well.. I'm glad I came here just for that, anyway. It's an art gallery of the disturbed. And the closer you look at it, the more disturbing it becomes. I've never seen this much insanity in any one place.", Howard continued, looking around.

"This place is hell.", Sarah said, sighing. "Guys, I've been trained to react to every strange light, every strange movement, every strange smell- what the hell is that, anyway?" I told her and she continued. "..and every strange noise. You think about that.. and you look around you."

"Yeah.. none of you jump at little shit because there's never any little shit to jump at.. but in a place like this..", Paul said.

"For you.. it might be annoying.", Howard responded. "But for an engineered- no, more like anyone with quick reaction time and a better sense of aesthetics.. this is just plain lunus."

"When secrecy ends, so does this place..", Sarah said.

"That's exactly what I was thinking.", I replied.

"Yes, and we could use the metal to build a far superior one in its place. Come on.", Howard said, and we followed him to the largest coaster, we engineereds easily doing a series of hand-vaults over the series of railings where a long line of tourists would normally be, never touching the ground until there wasn't anything to vault to, moving as fast as possible. Paul just ducked under them.

We took a look at the thing from the platform the coaster's carriages were on. Yup, it's big, yup, there are tall humps and loop-de-loops. Paul might not meet the height requirement, I mused, but who's going to stop him? You Must Be This Tall Or Have This Many Illuminated Friends To Ride. Paul arrived at the coaster itself about seven seconds after we did. "So who's going to operate this thing?", he asked. Yes, even these modern ones almost certainly need a constant operator- you can't just turn it on, can you?

"Enforcer, here quickly.", Howard said in an ordinary, conversational voice. Within fifteen seconds, a 5'10", female Enforcer, which looked like a security guard, was six feet from him, looking for further orders. "Do you know how to operate this equipment?"

"No."

"Learn." The Enforcer immediately began inspecting the operator's controls, and found a slightly thick manual in one of the shelves under it.

In twenty seconds, the Enforcer looked up and said, "Task complete."

I hopped onto the first coaster's front seat from the left- Howard's approach moved me to the right. Sarah got behind me, Paul got behind Howard. "Send us around this coaster's course once.", Howard instructed the homiform.

The Enforcer complied, the padded restraining bar fell into place, and we were on our way, slowly climbing the first ascent, which was a good seventy stories up. Howard began pushing at the restraining bar.. with growing, manic force. Shit, what's he.. "BILLY, HELP ME!!", he shouted, pushing with all his force, and I pushed as well, not nearly as scared as he was, because I immediately realized his misconception- but I couldn't explain in time, and between the two of us, the bar gave way with a creEEeak-THUNK (tilted a good ways towards his side) and Howard moved as to climb out, about to shout to the Enforcer.

"Don't!", I immediately shouted.

"Explain!", he turned to me and shouted exactly as I had, within fifty milliseconds of me shouting not to.

"They always go there! They're always there for everybody! They're a safety feature, you sheltered moron!", I said, as fast as I could. Paul was laughing somewhat and I just knew that Sarah was smiling in amusement.

"Shit..", he said, as we continued upwards. I'm surprised we're still going- I guess the safety people didn't think of some superhumans pushing their steel-locked restraint bar out of alignment.

"You're not going to chicken out just for that, are ya?", Sarah asked, grinning widely, Paul still laughing to himself. Oh, we can survive the ride if we keep our lower legs tucked under the seats and we push up on the bar.. providing a good counter-force for when the Gs get into the negative.. and deceleration pushing us forwards into the bar shouldn't be a problem. Or he (actually, any of us) can call the Enforcer to stop it.. which is what she probably means by chickening out.

"Not sure calling it would be wise.", Howard said, and I realized that I didn't know enough about these machines to make a judgment call on that either. An 'all stop' thing might halt it relatively permanently, with a very slight chance of secrecy violations- or stop at the wrong time, with such force that even we'd be thrown out. That bar's padded for a reason.. "You should have warned me about this..", he said, looking me in the eye.

"Fuck if I know your logic..", I said, looking at him in return, as we reached the top of the slope.

I had no idea how steep it was going down. It was almost vertical. "Oh, shit.", we all said- and felt the back of the seat pushing on us as we were forced downwards at some obscene number of miles per hour. We did not scream- it would definitely violate secrecy- people might see testers on the coaster, but if they scream in our young voices... I thought about these things, I thought about the people that made this whole Illuminated business possible, I thought about his reaction to the safety restraining bar.. I thought about everything but the speed and the incline. I looked around to my back and left, my full-length hair pushing against my head from the wind. Howard was just looking straight ahead and holding onto the bar (easier for me than him, my end's closer), Sarah hadn't reacted much, and Paul was very pale. I'd probably be very pale too, if that was even possible for an albino.. and then the corkscrew loops came. They pushed us down and to the left- if not for my knees tightly gripping the seat and my hands tightly gripping the bar, I probably would have been pressed into Howard.

"Billy, when this is over, I'm going to command you as to what telling me things really means.." He almost certainly was not going to follow through on that- I could tell by the tone of his voice. And then we both noticed what was coming up next- a very large, very fast nose-downward loop, creating negative Gs that tried to push us up and away from the seats.

"When this is over, you can command my carcass, you assmeister!", I said in the loudest voice permissible, provoking quite a bit of girlish and boyish laughter from behind. Were we normals, we may or may not have actually survived it. As it was, it looked more daunting than it felt, and our power was enough to easily keep us in the seats, although the blood rushed straight to our foreheads.

The rest of the ride was less thrilling, although the designers made a few slight comebacks later. The other coaster had been moved forward, Sarah and Paul's restraint bar moved up (ours made a faint click), and we all stepped out, shaking off the effects.

"Billy..", he said, wiggling his arms and stretching his legs, "Illuminated safety devices do not work like that." I immediately realized why.

"Howard, Illuminated safety devices are designed with the rider's sense of authority in mind- they serve people who are used to a certain degree of mastery over their environment. This park's rides were designed with the opposite of that mentality."

"Ugh."

Two more large coasters followed, an exercise of G-forces. Nothing intense at all. I imagine that the park would get sued for having them so intense as to really excite us..

"Why haven't you guys gotten on that one?", Paul said, pointing to a ride that said Gravitron. I looked at it, wondering what it would do. Gravity.. hmm.. "Don't you remember, Billy? When you stood up?"

"Oh, that's like that one!", I realized. "But that one was up in the air. Yeah, I remember."

"Yeah, and the park guy was going 'Lay down! Lie the fuck down!' and everyone else was trying to stand up too?", Paul said, excited and walking towards the ride. The memory came back to me easily. At the time I really didn't see what the big deal was. So I stood up, so what? It wasn't that hard.

"That's right! And if I remember right they almost kicked me out of the park. If they only knew, right?" This is an opportunity- this time I get to do almost whatever the fuck I want on this kind of ride.

"Okay. What the hell are you two talking about?", Howard asked us.

"G-forces, Howard. We're talking about G-forces.", Paul replied. It was a satisfactory answer, and Paul further answered him by opening up the door to the centrifuge, a place with angled bed-like cushions on the perimeter and a light/speaker system on the ceiling.

I noticed Howard realizing what the device did, and I saw a grin grow on his face. I knew he planned to do something dramatic, probably along the lines of jump up and down in a place where all normals can do is struggle to sit up.

Howard called for an Enforcer and ordered it to tell him how fast it goes. Another flip through the manual and the Enforcer answered him immediately. "Twelve meters per second recommended, fourteen meters per second maximum.", it said.

"How many Earth gravities is that?", he asked.

"Users should experience approximately three at recommended and four maximum."

"Oh, of course. The room's ten meters wide.", he said, laying- more like leaning- on one of the beds.

"Huh?", Paul said, baffled, also leaning.

"He knows his physics, Paul.", I said, looking for where to go. Hmm, I want to watch him and I don't want the thing to be imbalanced.. "What's the equation?", I asked Howard, choosing a bed exactly opposite his to lean on.

"V squared over R.", he answered. "Enforcer, keep these safe." Howard tossed his guns to the Enforcer; I did the same. "Turn this thing on maximum speed." Yeah, like Howard would choose anything else. The machine started spinning counter-clockwise, but the lights and speakers didn't- good, those are separate and they're not going to bug us. Howard was just laying down, waiting for it to spin up, as a metal plate covered the exit to prevent normals from flying out like juice drops from a blender. The Enforcer was able to casually sit down- next to angular momentum where he is, apparently- but for us, the direction of gravity changed, and I found out the beds were on rollers when they started moving towards the sides and the ceiling. Howard grinned, and prepared to do whatever it was he'd planned.

"Is this what it's like to be normal?", Sarah asked. Interesting question. The centrifuge reached maximum spin, and Howard moved his body so that his legs were pointing clockwise of his head. I was about to mirror him when I realized that would be stupid- mirroring him would put my legs counter-clockwise. I had to match him, not mirror him. I put my legs clockwise of my head and prepared to actually get up. That would be difficult- I'd be picking up three of me the whole way.

"Worse in many ways, probably better in others, it doesn't.. correspond.", Paul replied. "But for you it's probably closer to it." As Paul was the only one within miles who could answer that question with any clarity, I couldn't really help him be more precise.

I watched Howard try to get up and walk, and did the same.. with maximum effort, power, and some pain. My own weight multiplied by four.. impossible for normals. But I slowly started walking.. faster.. felt the weight slowly decrease, the world start getting fuzzy, and Howard's form dimming in my eyes.. is this because of his technique or.. no, wait! I'm getting dizzy and blind because all the fucking blood's being drawn out of my head! I knew what he had to do and I mimicked it. I forced myself to start running, a slow, painful plod, then going into a run as the weight slowly became less and less.. then I saw Howard moving towards the center- as I followed him inward the weight simply disappeared and the feeling of dizziness slowly broke up into solid awareness. Of course it did. We're not rotating anymore.

"That's not four G's where you guys are, is it?", Paul asked.

"We're not moving, so it's just Earth.", Howard answered. We ran at an even jog, the rotation a simple treadmill. I love this. First the rolling-rock trap and now this; we're never short on figuring out ways to manipulate physics.

"Heh, we beat this one. I wonder if we could do it at five?", I said, smiling.

"We'd have to fuck with the machine, but do you really want to try?", he replied, with a strong hint of 'Then I'll let you try it.'

"No, actually. That wasn't nice to my head. Or the rest of me, for that matter." The pain was annoying, my body voicing its protests at being tugged downwards four times the usual in the form of muscle aches.

"Enforcer, slow it to a stop and return our weapons.", Howard told it. As opposed to 'Stop it immediately and see what happens', which would probably leave permanent dents in the walls and lots of painful regeneration? As it slowed, I noticed Paul finally becoming able to move.

"Aww, but I liked feeling helplessly crucified with glue!", Paul said sarcastically. Hey, beats being helplessly crucified with implants..

"You did? I'll have to keep that in mind.", Howard replied with a smile, adding yet another item to the 'Things I don't want to think about but probably will anyway' bucket.

It handed us our guns back and Howard thought for a moment, then spied an arcade and headed towards it. It took Howard all of five seconds to find a machine, hidden among all the crap, that looked interesting.

Oh. Yes. We didn't bring quarters. It was wholly ironic - an Illuminatus stopped temporarily by a very simple apparatus aimed at collecting from all and giving to only someone with the proper key. And I don't think he can use brute force short of just shooting the thing, and I doubt he'll do that..

"Damnit.. I bring everything useful and forget that these need tokens.", he muttered.

"Heh heh.. well, you could just.."

"That's exactly what I'm going to do." He then tried to force his fist-blades into the lock on the metal panel holding the quarters.. to no avail. He punched at it with them and made some medium-sized dents with small holes- he could easily punch through, but too hard and he might damage some hidden wiring of the machine. Then he pulled out one of his guns. Guess I was wrong.

"Howie, let a professional handle this.", Sarah sighed and said, picking a bent paper clip off the ground, and proceeding to twist it in half and pick the lock with it. Shit, now I've seen everything. She picks locks with paper clips. It's like she just knows where the tumblers are.. and can keep them all up.

We didn't bother to go past the first play on it. It was cheesy, cheap, the guns didn't shoot properly, and there were lots of free hits (and believe me, when an engineered tells you a hit is unpreventable..).

"Worthless. To think real money was spent making it.", Howard proclaimed. We walked out- and I saw things I haven't seen in person for a long time. Normal teenagers.

The Enforcers saw them at about the same time we did. One of the Enforcers said, in an even tone, "Get out of here. The park is closed.", while we took a look at them - a couple of 14-15 year olds and a couple of 16-17 year olds, sneaking in the amusement park after hours to get a few thrills. Poor fools. They'll get a thrill all right.

"Dude.. if the park is closed then who are they?", one of the younger ones said, pointing at us. Of course, the Enforcer did not reply. For a brief moment, I utterly and completely realized what would happen in the next few minutes. Howard just couldn't afford to let them live..

"Enforcers, ignore them.", Howard said in a dark voice. We all knew what was going to happen next, except the victims.

"Enforcers?!", the same younger boy exploded. "Who the hell are you, the manager's faggot kids or something?", he said, with some condescension in his voice. Hey idiot, you're making a miiiiistaaaaaake...

The first older boy next to him said, with paranoia in his voice, "Ryan, I think they're something a bit different than that. Let's just get out of here." No chance of that.

"I wanna know what the hell's going on. Dude, who are you?", Ryan replied, his good old American pride standing out even though he snuck into the park illegally.

"And what's with the fingers?", the other younger boy chimed in. I think that tore it...

In three seconds, Howard had cleared the twenty yards from us to them. In another fraction of a second, his left hand clenched around Ryan's throat and his right hand around the other younger boy's. He lifted both of them off the ground. "Hey, let them go!", the second older boy blurted out before he realized Howard was indeed holding them off the ground. Surprisingly enough, Howard obeyed, throwing both of them to the ground, then fiercely backhanding that boy. The fool's cheekbone snapped in half and he fell to the ground, clutching his face and yowling like an animal in a trap. The three of us approached the melee slowly, not interfering. Like we'd even need to. Talk about your unfair fights..

Ryan just screamed. "Dude, what the hell are you?!", he yelled, scrambling to his feet, completely freaked out by the Enforcers and Howard's raw power. Howard just called back, "Paul, get over here, I'm going to teach you how to kill today." Paul got at Howard's side in two seconds. Then Ryan made a huge mistake.

He tried to punch Howard.

What happened was easy to guess. Howard could have probably just ignored it and let it land; it wasn't coming fast enough to even leave a mark. But he calmly whisked it out of the air like a frog's tongue on a fly, and grabbed it. And squeezed.

The fist broke like a ripe watermelon, with chunks of bone cutting away large folds of skin. The boy who formerly had uses for it screamed and screamed and screamed, yelling, it seemed, for his mother. Howard let go of the soggy mess and turned his attention to the younger boy on his right, who was trying to crawl away and get to a standing position at the same time. A firm kick to the gut lifted the fool off the ground temporarily, causing the boy to choke out a small glob of blood, and ending his struggles. Ryan, clutching his shattered hand, got on his knees before Howard - and was begging! Idiot.. like Howie really knows mercy.

"Paul, punt his face like a football player.", Howard evenly said, pointing at Ryan and stepping out of the way so Paul could have maximum room and speed with his foot. The speed and power weren't quite at our level, but were admirable, breaking the boy's nose and sending him on his back, knocking his skull against the unyielding concrete, causing him to moan half-consciously, his crushed hand spurting crimson all over his groin.

Then the first older boy, so far untouched, started shrieking like a maniac and running for his life. "Enforcers, bring him back to me.", Howard said calmly, and pointed at the fleeing boy. Two Enforcers were at the boy in seconds, each one holding onto an arm, restraining him and walking back to Howard with the still-screaming boy between them.

"That one might have some use... he did figure out you were something more than you seem.", I advised Howard.

"Hmm.. I wonder... could we have uses for this one?", he said, examining the boy, seeming to study his physical features.

"I don't think so, Howard.", said Sarah. I knew that she was right. As per any bell curve, too many people have almost enough intelligence.

"Pity.", he replied, shrugging his shoulders and replacing the boy's nose with the palm of his hand. The nose, obeying the laws of physics, was forced to take another place- namely the inside of the boy's brain, which was squishy and soft, and so could accommodate the bone and cartilage with relatively little resistance. The Enforcers dropped the dead body like a sack of rotten meat. Paul sharply inhaled at the death.

"Paul, this is what you must learn. Their lives are worthless, and were forfeited the moment they came in here and saw my face. Had they obeyed the signs, they would have stayed out. Unfortunately, way too many normals get in way too far above their heads. Now, you see the whimpering one on the ground there?", Howard said, gesturing to the young boy who he hadn't done anything to except throw on the ground and kick.

"Yes.."

"Kill him, without weapons." Paul started kicking the boy's head furiously, causing massive bruises and cracking his skull. When the boy continued moaning, Paul freaked out and just bashed the boy's head into the ground again and again and again until the struggles ceased. He continued pounding and I realized he had made the second kill of his life. "Good. Now let's see...", Howard continued, considering who to kill next.

"Now, Sarah, show Paul how you do it." Sarah walked up to the remaining older boy, lifted him up by the head, it looked like he was about to say something beginning with P, the air beginning to escape his lips- and then she twisted her arms sharply to break the boy's neck before he could speak a word. She allowed the corpse to fall to the ground with a dull thump.

"Dammit Howard, you know I'm not that strong!", Paul shouted.

"Oh, I know. That's not as important as you think. It just means it takes you longer. Now kill this one- with a weapon.", Howard said in his calm master voice (with a hint of cult leader this time), gesturing in the direction of the remaining boy, with a smile on his face. Paul pulled out his gun and blew a hole in Ryan's head with a single, silenced shot, turning his pained expression and muffled moans into a final O of surprise and silence. I realized that I had not killed any of the four victims myself- in fact, I wasn't much more than a bystander, just watching the violence as if it were on TV.

"Howard- did you have to do that?!", shouted Paul in as loud a voice as Howard's 'don't give away the fact that we're here' command would let him. What about the screaming? Well, this is an amusement park, we're in the middle, and they would have screamed as they died normally anyway, their bodies rearranged to make it look like they fucked with a ride. Paul's just being over-cautious.. or he, for whatever reason, still has morals.

"Did it matter? Paul, you're forgetting the simple fact that anyone who sees me is either dead, an Illuminatus, or a servant. And those four were not Illuminati-grade material nor were they fit to be servants, and I could not let them live as anything else."

"I know they were supposed to be dead anyway.. but.. dammit, you just killed them like... like baby chickens or something!"

Howard sighed a bit. "Paul... you still have those old morals, don't you."

"Y- yes, I- I guess I do! Even though you said I'd see this.." Howard sighed louder with a hint of groaning.

"Paul, this isn't very hard to grasp, back when you were in normal society, your conscious actions aided the death and suffering of human beings. I think you already knew that, you just didn't want to face it. Every time you bought something, every time you rode in a car or ate a banana, you set in motion or helped continue a chain of events that helped kill or torture someone, maybe someone close, maybe someone on the other side of the planet. This is no different. Decisions I make can kill tens of thousands, you know that. So for your own sanity's sake, lose the local morality." And he was right. What are four dead sheeple worth, anyway? They had feelings, beliefs, personality, friends, families, dreams, and hopes- none of which could save them from The Man's sheer power- same as everyone else. I thought about their death explanations again and how their obituaries will read- 'Local Teens Get Caught in Fatal Amusement Park Accident' would be a pretty good headline for tomorrow's paper. Don't sneak into amusement parks after hours, kids, and whatever you do, don't try to ride the rides. The temporary guards would be chastised for poor performance and a couple would be fired from their jobs for laziness, putting everything on the records. Then the Enforcers would just cycle and business would continue as usual, with a tried-and-true flu/guard temps routine, or something similar. At any rate, their deaths would be seen by the sheeple as a tragic, though preventable, accident.

Then I realized that Paul's first reaction had been 'I'm not that strong!' instead of a moral one. Maybe he is getting used to this after all...

"Yeah.. you're right. I didn't know either of you had that kind of killer instinct though, even when you told me about those peasants in the first test. You", he said, pointing at Sarah, "I did."

"To kill or not to kill, that's not the question.", she said, smirking a bit.

Howard muttered a bit, called up a secrecy-expert Illuminatus, and told him to direct the Enforcers to make everything sound just normal. The people were testing the rides, some kids got in, tried to operate one themselves, and died tragically. Howard then told the guy that he'd leave the Enforcers there to do it, and asked the guy to put that on the record so that they'd be cycled the right way. The bad thing is, we couldn't keep riding- it was time to go home.

The limo was waiting for our arrival, and we stepped in.

"Not nearly as good as you hoped, Howard?", Sarah asked as the limousine drove out of the park.

"Not nearly as good, but many times as weird. Absolutely freakish."

"All a matter of perspective..", Paul said.

"No, Paul.", I told him. "Normals would find it freakish, if only they looked for the freakishness. But it's a cover for manipulation. They call those things tourist traps."

"If money meant anything to us anymore, I'd put that down on the list of ways to get idiots to give it to us.", Howard said. "A tiny part of it can be siphoned from the controlling corporation.. but that's no reason not to level the place. Let's see.. how many American dollars were spent on construction.." He checked the corporation's holdings with the onboard computer. About 5.6 billion dollars for that park.

"I've seen normal balance sheets before, Howard.", Sarah said. "'Woefully inefficient' doesn't cover it. Don't bother looking at the details of the spent money, they can move dollar amounts around to hide graft, mistakes, and other crap- the real information is nowhere. Even if it was, that still doesn't show how much was over-spent in places- unless you look up every item." Does it matter? Normal money is make-believe. "One of my kills did that."

Paul just smirked. "All right.. for the resident engineereds who don't know how normal business goes, let me explain.. my dad was middle management. When you guys are building something, what costs?"

"Parts and labor.", Sarah instantly answered. "Designs, planning, and a few setup procedures that can deal with secrecy.. but those aren't really considered costs except for research projects."

"And the labor's cheap, the designs are made by the best, and the planning is done with full knowledge of everything that's going on. The parts are also cheap, and I don't care how well you make them. You get them from yourselves, and the parts are made in the same efficient way. No competition. No capitalism. None of the stuff I'm going to list." He took a deep breath and began.

"Lawyers. Stupid managers. Human Resources Departments. Lazy workers. I'm sure you guys do your own testing.. there's another word for that.. oh, yeah, Q.A. Quality Assurance. Waste there. You guys are the government- taxes, compliance with federal regulations, that crap. Excess workers. Deadline problems. Everyone demanding more money for their part of the project." Howard audibly groaned. "Sounds familiar, doesn't it?"

"That last one- yes, logic would dictate that normals do the infighting shuffle as well.", he replied.

"Some of these problems might be blamed on the Illuminati- the government shit- but it doesn't matter. Normals make crap, Howard. Normals. Make. CRAP. You have no idea how superior you really are. If you did, you wouldn't have come out here."

"Paul.. I'm not going to again." Not a normal amusement park, but somewhere else..? No problem for him. Just 'I want that place to myself for a few days', same as he did for this.

"Damn it, next time you do something like this, you mind asking us for suggestions first?", Paul asked.

"Next time, maybe. This time, I had the whole thing in mind, it just sucked more than I'd hoped."