The next day, it was just the usual, Howard killing time with me, anticipating a call from someone needing the services of the One who rules the world. But this time, we knew that the call was coming, it would just be a matter of when- Howard stayed near the large screen. He wanted me with him, but I was going to stay anyway- I wanted to see the report on what was really going on with Sarah's four-armed son, as soon as possible. It'll be interesting, if nothing else.

And he did come on, a bit after noon. Howard hit the key to react to the buzzer a tenth of a second after it rang, reaching up from his bored position and no longer looking bored at all. "Howard, the report you wanted? It's here, in full." A few clicks later, and it was downloaded. "He's fine, Howard. Just.. fine. Heartbeat is regular, blood pressure normal, no respiratory ailments.. and with his advanced strength, I doubt those arms of his are going to pose much of a problem- and they are, in fact, fully usable." The Operator closed his eyes and shook his head just a bit. "A miracle. An absolute miracle."

"Operator, one thing I didn't ask for on the report was why it happened. I want you to tell me that yourself." Good. Thank you, Howard. More information.

"Why?" The man onscreen shrugged slightly. "We screwed up, that's why. None of us had the foresight to predict that you two might be breeding." Umm.. guys? You knew you were going to make her his servant. You knew he'd reach puberty. What the hell are you talking about, not having the foresight to see the painfully inevitable?!

Howard chose not to make a point of that. "Technical explanation.", he simply said.

"That would be the 'how', then, and telling you the whole technical explanation would take more than two hours, I'd need to seek outside help, and it would be an enormous adventure into the fun-filled world of jargon, and even your Latin isn't going to help much against that." The Operator's tone suggested that his profession was a complicated, hard, and tiring job. (Well, of course it is, but look at the fruits of your labor.) "To put it concisely, we managed to pack genetic information in different places than it was supposed to be, the two of you bred, and the genetics for the arms (it's actually more of a fractal pattern, but that's even more jargon for you..) was copied twice, telling the organism that it needed two pair, each in different places. The miracle is that it didn't hurt anything on him, and an even greater miracle is placement. They're right at the bottom of his lungs, but you can find all that out in the report."

"Why did you have them in different places? I thought I was just an advanced version of her?" Howard has absolutely no problem referring to himself as a product.

"Well, what you're seeing is the results of a larger policy, for any kind of modern engineering. Every person, or every Enforcer now, does a little piece of the job. Even if you devoted your whole life to it, it would take you fifty years to understand everything that went on in your creation, or any genetics project for that matter. The principle's very simple. For every problem, one person, or a small team, devises a solution or a workaround. For example, her arms are in the wrong chromosome portion- done all wrong, really, but it was the best fix at the time- while yours are in the exact same place as a normal human's. No four-armed babies will come from her and a normal, because her eggs that contain that chromosome portion aren't supposed to be fertilizable. A workaround for the workaround. But, since we screwed around too much, we ended up changing your fertilization chemicals just a bit- just a little bit, mind you- and boom. It's too many cooks, really, but we can't have any fewer."

Howard said it an instant after I thought it. "You talk about it as if it were a programming language, and Quad's just a bad blend of recompiled code."

"I am, and in certain ways, he is. The DNA samples say that.. oh, it's in the report. Oh, and by the way- is that his name? Quad?"

"Quadrus Dominus." I've never been a fan of names that include physical characteristics, but that Latin and the four-armed badass the kid is certainly going to grow up to be will go well together. The Operator typed it in. "Is there anything else you want or have to say?"

"Yeah, actually.. Howard, although the report does say it's unlikely for you two to create any more.. modifieds.." That's a fairly crappy euphemism for what he really means, which is 'freaks'. "I'd recommend that you two not produce any more offspring. There's a million things that can go wrong, and even though her gestation time is much shorter and she will certainly not be affected much, and quickly recover.."

"You're worried about my reaction upon seeing an even more fucked-up kid come out."

"It's not pleasant and it's certainly not productive. Personal recommendation, Howard: if you intend to procreate any more, just say so. If it's the screwing you care about, I can whip up suitable morning-after pills for her in a couple of days, no question." Pragmatic, the Operator is. "Given her biology, she won't even feel it after a few minutes."

"Recommendation heard. Ship them to me when you've developed them, and make sure you list every last effect and side effect. There is one more thing I'd like to mention, while you're here."

"What's that?"

"The retrovirus. What of it?"

"It's hard to make and even harder to test. It's our top priority and we're doing everything we can. There is no ETA." In other words, he has no idea when the fuck he'll be done with it.

"Then that's all." Howard and the Operator switched off at about the same time.

"Being referred to as a genetics project really doesn't bug you, does it?", Paul asked.

"No, actually, I quite like it. Technology has power over mankind, who created technology. Why should this be any different?" I smiled a bit.

"Oh, I love that.", I said, chuckling slightly. "We're the Terminator. Dipshits create technology, technology replaces dipshits. Only this time it's not computers, it's superior DNA. Even their own children are becoming part of it."

"Yeah, and that saves me so much hassle. You remember the birthday party." If there is anything the two of us can agree on, it's that we'd rather be dealing with engineereds than normals.

"Yeah, and the differences. I remember that, I remember you saying that they'll surpass us."

"I welcome it. It would be nice to have a few hundred more ass kickers around here." That'll be hilarious. Okay, assholes, your Enforcers can fight three angry engineereds? Fine! Can they fight.. three hundred? It's Clobberin' Time!

"And we actually have opposition in Quake!", we both said simultaneously. We proceeded to enjoy such a battle, but my mind was roiling and I'm sure his was too. Bad blends of recompiled code, that's all the failures are. Good blends of recompiled code, that's all we are. Not that I'm complaining about that particular facet of my existence; this awful situation is mitigated by the fact that I can crush people's heads in my bare hands, which is always refreshing. But we're still products, the manufactured wish of an Operator who found his project unexpectedly doubled. Howard has absolutely no problem with this, but then again it's been a simple fact of his existence from Day One. But, technology can be surpassed.. but it's been more than eleven years and I haven't heard of any truly significant improvements. Howard would definitely have shown me if there were. But if there is some new breakthrough, what's Howard going to do? Order the Operators not to continue researching it? I fucking doubt that. He can't hold that position forever. Even though the other engineereds would benefit from that position, it's a capitalist ethic here. Grow or die. Become more powerful as an organization or shrivel up and blow away.

That's when I realized something else- the next crop of engineereds couldn't afford to institute a real overthrow. Unless they made a move to quash it- which I doubt would happen- the capitalist ethic would continue, and those new masters would eventually be faced with the same thing. That's my logic, anyway- I can't foretell the future and the End of Secrecy may change things. But I do know that there is something of a bond between engineereds, which seems to be something more than a 'we're all in the same elite group' tribalism. Probably because we all share a good deal of the same DNA. And, as I thought earlier, it's been eleven years. This combination of chromosomes is going to last a while, but when the newer ones do come.. I have a feeling we're probably going to be friends and it's not going to be a usurpation meatgrinder. That would fucking suck.. as in this game, we can't possibly hope to defeat an entire armada of people even remotely close to being as powerful as we are.

The game eventually ended, I went back downstairs and noticed Howard looking up something I've never heard of... what appears to be an attempt at replacing or at least supplementing the Dominator. A three-year-old version of Howard.. but they had some problems with his mental development and all they said for his fate is 'removed'. Ouch. Nice obituary, there. But what else can they do? The Illuminati is not a liberal, take-care-of-the-weak society. Now it's 'Project Restarted', but they don't appear to be getting anywhere. Yes, this current combination of chromosomes is going to be around for a very long time indeed. The only improvement I can think of is the four-arms one, letting the future engineereds annihilate enemies via weaponry twice as fast as they could before.

I could almost hear Howard thinking. Judging by his body language, he's worried about the same things I've been considering- the idea that his power is going to be either usurped or eroded.. eroded, yes, that's a possibility. Normals, certainly, but do engineereds really need Domination?

"Sucks, doesn't it?", I asked him.

"Has to happen sometime, no two ways about it.", he replied.

"Don't let yourself get demoted, or there's no way back up." He knew I was right.

"Billy.. you've figured it out, and you know why there's no point in talking about this."

"Because it's inevitable, yeah, I know. No problem. Just make sure they're your friends.." Oh damn. What the hell did I just say? How's he going to take that one? Just because he completely controls everybody doesn't mean that... wait a damn minute. He can't do that. He's going to have a moshpit of knives in the back.. isn't he? And since they're engineereds and don't.. hey.. "Hey, wait a minute. What were we thinking? What the hell is power going to mean by then anyway? Internally, I mean."

"Damn, I didn't think about it like that. You're right- when the 'I must be better than everyone else' ego is suppressed, the only logical solution is not to deal with the normals at all, they're not necessary. All those normal institutions will be gone, and the authority of the Illuminati..."

"There won't be any more authority, unless you really do implant everybody. When you break the secrecy barrier.. it's just a matter of how far up." Unless you're going to use technology, engineereds do not respect authority in the traditional sense. Only if it's useful in getting things done, only if it's necessary on an organizational level.. but we simply don't follow primate alpha-male logic and that's what the Illuminati are currently running on.

"Are we the only ones who realize this?"

"We might be, but probably not. I don't think many people want to think about it. They won't live that long. The other engineereds might not have been actively considering it, but they know.. I think we all know if we look ahead far enough." And, as a cynical slap in the face to this new enlightened future, Sarah and I will still be implanted servants, and so too will be a lot of others.. many of which may be engineereds. Screw authoritarianism, usefulness is the issue.. servants are great, why not give a couple to every citizen? Normals have authoritarian hunger for power, engineereds have a more pragmatic greed, either way it's the same- the elite will make its own utopia and it doesn't care who it ends up stepping on to do it. (That's how we know it's an elite. Want a piece of the pie? Contact your local Illuminated recruiter today!)

Howard didn't say anything more and neither did I. He's just going to use his superior brain and his pragmatic greed to come up with a solution to the problem, if there is one. I started thinking of one myself before I realized it was futile- he's lived here his whole life, he's got his neurons better configured in this department than mine. And there's simply no way he's going to ask me for help. This is decidedly his problem.

But he didn't think about all that right away- he checked the report out first. Almost unreadable to the layman, it detailed each and every piece of the four-armed boy (What is he referred to as, anyway? He's not dictionary-definition engineered, and he's decidedly not normal. Engineered-progeny is probably the best way of putting it.), and I do mean everything. I had to use some of the Latin I learned to figure out just what some of the medical terms meant, also puzzling out some Greek roots. But through all the jargon, a single, clear message stood out: He's what you'd expect from such a union, except for the arms.

'What if Howard implanted everyone? How could he?', my mind asked before I fell asleep that night. How could Howard possibly implant everyone without causing worldwide revolution? It just doesn't make sense. People fear that stuff, fear it with their hearts, fear it at a primal level that even the Illuminati would be hard-pressed to manipulate. So how would they? How would they.... I drifted off.

So many people. So many... and they've all got their fists in the air, what are they chanting? "Space... space.. space.." And they're all standing on a sphere...

"Will you listen to me?", either Howard or I shouted, trying to be heard above the clamor of the mob. "Will you listen to me?!", one of us shouted again, and the mob finally looked up to see my form (which I could see from a third-person perspective.. maybe that is Howie?) floating in the air above the sphere. "As you know, spaceships are limited! There isn't enough for everyone, it just can't be done! But I can tell you that the only people who achieve space are the ones who get the identification implants! Identification implants are available worldwide at terminals for no charge!"

Then I saw a line, a huge line, forming outside and steadily flowing into a building, then I noticed another door near the entrance and people started walking out of it. "Hey cool!", shouted a twelve-year-old. "I got in first, all right!" His seven-year-old brother followed him out saying out loud to all the world, "I was second! I was second! And I can't believe we got to see Howard!" Even more people got in the unbelievably long line... then it faded out and reality met me once more.

I emitted a brief echoed yell before I flopped back down on the bed to really go to sleep.