The next day was the usual- just a lot of time-killing, random research, and assorted sources of fun- I kept Billy next to me because I figured he'd need to hear this. At about noon, the call I've been expecting finally came with a buzz. I responded immediately and the Operator appeared.

"Howard, the report you wanted? It's here, in full." Finally. Instead of worrying, I get results. I pressed a few buttons and downloaded the offered report in milliseconds. "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." He shook his head slightly and closed his eyes a bit, pondering the event. "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."

"Why?" He shrugged a bit. "We screwed up, that's why. None of us had the foresight to predict that you two might be breeding." I'm not going to point out the total blindness inherent in that last sentence- not now, anyway.

"Technical explanation."

"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. 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." Something wasn't quite right.. oh, that's it.

"Why did you have them in different places? I thought I was just an advanced version of her?"

"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."

"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." Since almost everyone throughout his life will be almost certainly be nicknaming him according to his abnormality, I figure a good dose of Latin can make it sound much better. The Operator's fingers moved in the traditional five-fingered secretarial typing, filling it in. Listening to the clicks, I could tell he hadn't misspelled. (That would be an embarrassment, wouldn't it?) "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.." Bah, even 'mutant' sounds better than that. "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." Visions of heavily-deformed babies danced in my head. "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. 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." I figured he'd say that, but I had to ask all the same.

"Then that's all." We both switched off at roughly 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 am technology.

"Oh, I love that.", Billy said, chuckling. "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."

"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."

"And we actually have opposition in Quake!", we both said simultaneously, then proceeded to actually have a battle on the local (my) server, kicking ass and ignoring names. They will surpass us, no question. One of them may try to take the Dominator's seat because of that, and I won't be able to fight them off like I can the normals, because they'll be better than me. That doesn't bug me for some reason, though. So far, engineered or partially-engineered children (even those with slight tinkering are still under the age of 15) have formed their own loose sub-clique. We are, after all, a real elite. I will be known as the First, the original fully-engineered Illuminatus- even though I may lose some power, I can't fight this. I am not remotely stupid enough to attempt to slow down the advancement of technology- there can be only one result at the end. Technology is a scramjet combined with a bulldozer- you can give it paths to go on, but it's eventually going to go whether anyone wants it to or not.

Besides, I really am technology. I have nothing to fear. The current crop, at least, isn't going to try to kill me. It's a sort of curse- in 30, 40, maybe 50 years, I'll be wholly outdated if Northberg continues. The New Elite will have taken over. 40, 50 years after that, a Newer Elite will rule, and the previous Elites will, of course, be living forever. The Elites won't kill the older ones- they would sentence themselves to the same eventual fate by instituting such policies. In other words, in a hundred years, we must have direct, or at least greatly expanded, control. These Elites need to go somewhere.. and they will be digressing farther and farther from the current human form, millions of years of evolution packed into a century or so, ignoring the usual restrictions of mothers giving birth and energy requirements. And, of course, the normals will simply vanish.. making the poor deluded fools who want their children 'pure' nothing more than cannon fodder. Or maybe I'm overestimating the speed of progress. Although I know the partial engineereds have some elements superior to me, what I'm thinking of is the 3-year-old who was rumored to be my Version 2.0- last I heard, he had serious mental problems and I don't know what they did with him.

After the hard-fought game, I looked it up. They 'removed' him (that one makes even me blanch, but no one said the Illuminati were nice), now it's 'Project Restarted' and they're a year into the restart, having difficulties and making only slight headway. They could produce something slightly better than I am (with four arms, to boot) now- but they won't. They're saving up for a full-on assault on nature. They want even more bang for their G's, T's, A's, and C's. Since there is no call to create another fully-engineered with only slightly more power than I have, they want their code to be better compatible with normal human forms, so they can have their cake and eat it too- their biological children being given the superhuman power and intelligence we've all grown to love. And, of course, when they do finally create Version 2, they'll produce him- or several- just on principle and find a use for them... and I can't stop them because if I tried, they'd know exactly what I was doing, and kill me because they firmly believe in the desirability of greater technology. Obvious solution: Personally take charge of the children's education and cause them to at least regard me as an ally instead of the eventual target.. I thought about it and decided to take regular trips to Northberg Educational. Although I might still get deposed in the end, it's better than getting my ass handed to me by some Orwellian superhuman.. will that work? This is depressing. Yup, I am technology, and technology gets outdated.. this is even more depressing. Fuck it. No sense worrying about it. There are currently only two engineereds in the world who might want to do violence to me, and fortunately, they can't.

"Sucks, doesn't it?", Billy said from behind me. I had noticed his presence sometime in that last stream of thought, but hadn't really regarded it.

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

"Don't let yourself get demoted, or there's no way back up." He's right. Once I start sliding, there's no end to the bottom. I'll almost certainly always be an Illuminatus, but what does that mean five hundred years from now when everyone's engineered better than I am and the Illuminati have full direct control? Better a figurehead than... oh damn, I better implant even them.. fuck, why the hell can't I think straight?

"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.." He continues to be right, and I though nothing more needed to be said on the subject- he walked away for a few seconds, then turned around and said, "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..." My thoughts were somewhat jumbled and I didn't finish the sentence.

"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." Holy shit. He's right again. The reason hierarchy exists is because people are stupid enough to be guided by outside forces. I instantly realized the futility of trying to keep everyone implanted- it's not going to work with an advanced humanity, Murphy's Law dictates that (doesn't it?)- and I am certain Billy realizes this as well as I do (which isn't very well at all, shit... I'm getting confused a bit, need to think on this). With six billion- nah, we don't need that many, make it a hundred million and preserve the environment- people better-engineered than I am, technology is going to be much more powerful and the new humanity will explode into space, trans-light travel or no. First we take the Moon's resources, then Mars, then maybe Venus (can we turn all that CO2 into oxygen?) then some moons of other planets, then it's time to get out of this solar system and go exploring. Fuck the solar system; let's take the universe.

"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."

Who wants some paradise? Replace all the idiots with 500-IQ immortals and see just how fast the world improves.. of course, this is incredibly long-term thinking, but this is the road we're headed down, the only road in sight. Trying to keep the population stratified as in Brave New World would be pointless- technology will replace the lower classes. But then, what would that mean for me? I'd be ruler of... what?

Nothing more was said. Communication would only exacerbate the problem- so I did something else. I checked out the report's technical details- nothing except the arms was really of note. Lots of fucked up code.. but he has our engineered physical aspects and he's not disabled in any way that they can tell. From what I could tell, a small section of genetic code necessarily got overwritten by the arms- but they can't tell what should have been there, to them it's just garbage, and hasn't affected any of Quad's physical aspects, and although we can't know the mental aspects yet, it hasn't physiologically changed his brain any. I felt a good deal of relief. Quad and I will probably make wisecracks someday about the strangeness that got him his extra limbs- but as I noted before, it's out of my hands now and I'm not going to go around in circles about it.

As I went through the day, my brain was boiling- I figured it was my mind resolving its internal conflicts, my subconscious figuring out things, what to do, how to do it, and what the results would be. I got a slight headache, but thought I'd get over it.. eventually, I did.

But that night I couldn't sleep. Two voices were doing battle in my head. One was screaming about how I'll have to implant everyone if I want to keep power and stay alive.. the other said that that was certain, inevitable death, because things have an incredibly bad habit of going wrong, citing Murphy's Law and the sheer power of engineered people. Oh damn.. the biggest decision this world will ever see, and I'm having trouble making it. I hate being confused.. but confusion is often the result of decisions that need to be made. Fuck, what to do.. in theory, the implants are perfect. In theory, I could have everyone attached to me, and through telecommunications, give my orders.. and prevent my plans getting interfered with by ambitious middlemen. Instead of having both voices pester me, I turned them on each other and watched the debate.

Voice 1: No implants mean your replacement. Implants mean you stay where you are. There is no question about that.
Voice 2: Yes, but if you try that.. think about what could go wrong! Murphy's Law!
Voice 1: Like what? You don't try to implant all of the people immediately.
Voice 2: Well.. umm..

And that settled it. There is no way I can possibly stop the technological advancement of better engineereds and retrovirals, but I am not going to lose this power willingly. Things can go wrong.. but until I see a plausible way for things to go wrong, I'm going to go through with the original plan and implant as many people as possible. Now it's just a matter of how I go about doing that- the fact that the Dominator doesn't control anything directly, I immediately noticed, is a safeguard against tyrant Dominators who want to try to use power battles as a way of control. They didn't foresee someone with my kind of reaction time just blasting heads off. But now it's gone from a discussion of 'what to do' to a discussion of 'how do I do it', and discussions of 'how do I do it' are my natural territory.

It would have ended there, had a third voice not shown itself.

Voice 3: Even if you manage to avoid being deposed forever, even if you manage to implant everyone without anything going wrong, even if you live as the ruler you plan to be.. what does that mean, in the long run? What does it mean if you're going to control a society of engineereds through implant slavery, and have your will be supreme over all? It means you'll make all the decisions, it means you'll be God. Now, tell me- is that kind of plan really worth it, forcibly suppressing the engineered Illuminati, constantly struggling to keep your position, and knowing that everyone else in the world- engineereds of your caliber- are reduced to the level of servants? And let's say, in a hypothetical situation, you somehow do manage to implant all the future Elites. Then what? Do you really want to be everyone's master?

'Why wouldn't I?', I asked it, but for some reason I knew that there was an answer to that, some nagging sensation, something even I couldn't articulate very well. What price, power?

I immediately fell asleep.

The next day, I checked a lot of engineereds' conversations and a lot of Northberg material. The engineereds were also feeling antsy about getting outdated, and Northberg's reports basically said that I'm the best they'll have in a long, long time. Theoretically better combinations of DNA were often unviable, and often produced unexpected results. Get one thing wrong, screw something up elsewhere. Get everything 'right', and the body doesn't grow properly. Screw everything up and you might get a Quad. On a hunch, I looked things up, and found that I was right- they're going to start making four-armed Enforcers now. On another lark, I read a dissertation by the Operator and a few of his colleagues- genetics is like assembly code in some ways. It was confusing, full of references to other documents, and I found myself skipping large parts, but I got the gist of it. You can do anything you want with DNA.. given that you know precisely what you're doing.

And as for what to really do.. I'll burn that bridge when I get to it. We as an organization need more direct control before I can do much with the normals. And if I start trying to implant Northberg's current creations, my ass is grass- but I know that they'll stop, or drastically slow down, manufacturing engineereds at some point, even if that point is long after the End of Secrecy. They'll have to. Immortality means that there is no natural die-off, and we're ridiculously hard to kill.