It is a scene etched into my memory, and for the life of me I couldn't tell why- it is simple and ordinary, as simple and ordinary go here. Howard is sitting on the couch, using the footrest, calmly laying back with pen and paper in his hand, wearing a pair of white pajama bottoms and nothing else, his muscular structure shining with his albinism. A remote control sits next to him, and he occasionally pushes a button on it to freeze frame, point the eraser at the screen, and scribble some more notes down. Some of his long hair hangs behind the couch, as his head is deeply embedded in the soft cushioning. His expression is one I would not recognize from the normal world without some context help- one of genuine interest without reservation.

Which would simply be a use of my extended observational abilities, had I not heard part of the audio and seen an angle view of the screen. For Howard appeared to be watching an educational documentary of the use and misuse of implanted servants. I approached closer, watching from the railing, and I saw what it was he was looking at- Illuminated self-records. "There!", he exclaimed, sitting up. "No wonder! That fucker phrased it all wrong! I didn't think there were any technology flaws!", he continued, to no one in particular. He then used the remote to shift to a different sub-set of clips. This isn't a documentary; it's sets of Illuminati home videos. The next one appeared to be in a work environment, with over twenty servants at desks, busily marking, filing, and occasionally transferring a piece of information into another bin. These weren't ordinary implanteds, though, nor were they Enforcers... something's wrong with them. What it was came onto the screen- a long, chemical name with numbers in it that I didn't fully catch, and '5 mg per 30 min'.

"Xenol again, these guys never give up.", Howard said, pausing the screen, scribbling something, and resuming it. I saw the words '2 hours, 30 minutes later' appear on the screen. "Well, they aren't getting tired.. check him... check him.. There we go.", he continued, pausing the screen at another point with the word Mistake on the top right. He then looked at various parts of it- they had that shot from different angles- and Howard was busily studying the servant's face and mistaken paperwork. The servant had written something far outside the box he was apparently supposed to have written it in.

"Nothing different... except it's in the wrong place. Real simple, too... fuck, it's not a side effect, it's the fucking main effect! That's it.. Xenol's down the crapper. They just lose too much. Somebody at Northberg just did not do the right tests." Howard then opened another window, typed a few paragraphs of information, and sent it off.

"What is Xenol?", I asked, slowly coming down the stairs.

"Drug we've been testing. The effects are, presumably, to enhance efficiency. Well.. it usually works, but the affected make mistakes, big ones, and they don't realize they're doing it. They've tried various chemical configurations of what is essentially the same drug, and none of 'em work."

"Why would you bother with that?"

"I wouldn't! It's just that, even with Enforcers, some old-school Illuminati simply don't give up. Those filing guys might have had their efficiency tripled- they couldn't think about much else, couldn't daydream, couldn't anything- but if any of their brain cells involved in the task die, they don't realize it and don't catch themselves, as they're not thinking about their jobs too much, either. Oh, and it slowly rips their nervous systems from the inside out. The reason we call it Xenol is because it makes them act like aliens.", he finished with a chuckle. I had a passing thought about Howard using that on us- maybe it'll be in tonight's nightmare- and then discarded it.

"Oh, that's always fun."

"So tell me, Billy, if you always did the most efficient thing and you were dead-set on using a drug with a much more efficient Enforcer alternative, what would you do?"

"..There's no answer to that, it's a paradox."

"Exactly my point. Which is what I'm trying to get through to these people with this report. There's a lot of drugs that can fuck up human minds, and research on all of em would take years.. no, decades and we'd be doing nothing else."

"And now you've got the simple solution, scrap the human mind."

"Bingo." I sat next to him. He continued taking notes. I looked at his pad- if it were not in some kind of order, I would have assumed he had scribbled randomly. "Billy, my shorthand is illegible to everyone, even you. I use expressions and symbols wholly of my own making."

"Why not? You don't actually write anything for anybody. I do get some of it." It was a scribbled (Like he'd learn handwriting when everything is done by computer..) combination of English, symbols, and predominantly Latin- most of it negative and derogatory, with big fat X's in it, obviously his symbol for negation or disapproval. He had numbered them item by item- there was an X on most. He was up to number 19, and examining two fat women- one of which was a servant. 'Pure Manipulation Procedure', the screen read. He paused it to write a double-underlined Pure under it.

"Pure? Is that what I think it is?", I asked.

"Yep. No implants, no drugs, and if it is truly pure, no threat or use of force."

"What?! No.. force?! Must be some serious sheep..", I muttered, genuinely astounded. It is possible, with the right people. But I thought the 'right' people in this sense were useless to Illuminati in every other..

"Ohhhh, yeah. No question. It's amazing to watch in action, though." He unpaused it.

The room looked like something out of an RPG. The sunlight filtered perfectly through yellow drapes, casting its rays on the woman in the bed. All sorts of trinkets, many of Christian origin, lined the shelves.

The black-clad servant awoke from the bed that was just big enough to hold her. "Unnh.. where am I?"

"Barbara? Wake up.", the large, white gown-clad Illuminatus said in a harmonic, pleasant, slightly trans-human voice; she could easily be a voice actor for computer recordings, automated phone systems, and such. There was a smile on her face, and I had to remind myself that this normal doesn't get creeped out when people clad all in white smile...

"Ugh.. who are you?"

"You can call me Angela.", the Illuminatus said. Howard paused it and wrote some more things down.

"Billy, note the tone of voice. Pleased, expectant, and respectful."

"I recognize two of those from somewhere.." Howard only grinned at me. "By the way, she's got a Christianity thing going."

"Uh?"

"See that gown, Howard? See the way her hair's done?" It was blonde, and flowing back behind her head- like Howard's, only with curls. "She might as well be wearing wings and a halo. And since she's wearing white, and her name is everfucking Angela.. or at least she says it is."

"Gotcha. I didn't really catch that." Hmm. I imagine with so many world religions he didn't have time to memorize them and their symbolisms. He wrote some more things down and unpaused it again.

"Annngela? What is this place?", the servant asked.

"This is my house, Barb."

"Your house.. what am I doing here?"

"Well, because we selected you, Barb. We hand-picked you to help us with our important work." She spoke with authority and said the word 'important' as if it meant 'sacred'.

"Yeah? Well, what if I don't want to help you? And why did you bring me here, anyway?"

"Barbara, please don't refuse us. It takes us time and money to get people as gifted as you. We saved your life, to give you a second chance." Howard paused it again and wrote down some more things.

"Old school.", I noted. "Flattery, authority, appeal to pity, the fucking works."

"Yup- it works!", he said in his happy-master voice, unpausing it again.

"To do what?", the servant said, a bit suspicious but influenced by her surroundings- which were obviously designed to pacify and calm. I looked back and saw Sarah looking on from the railing with mild interest.

"To guard the world, Barb, guard it from Satan's followers."

"Ha! You were right!", Howard exclaimed with some mirth.

"Satan's followers?", Barbara asked, obviously stupid and Christian, willing to believe anything fed to her. Shock treatment in the right fashion does miracles. I thought back to my tenth birthday and pondered the effects of such shock on one of these. Well, that and some serious manipulation gets this result..

"Yes, Barb. Satan. I know how horrible that sounds. Which is why we need people like you, to help us fight them."

"Well.. well, what will I be doing? And who do you work for?" Hook, line, sinker, and leg irons..

"Administrative stuff, at first. Even we have our bureaucracy.", Angela (if that was even her name) said with a polite smile. "And we are known simply as the Enlightened." Howard and I shared a giggle.

"So why me? Because of what happened to Russ and Don?"

"Because of your abilities, Barb. We know you're willing to support Christ." Manipulation at its finest. "And yes, we never take people with familial obligations, it wouldn't be fair." Whether the Illuminati killed Barb's family is, I realized, completely irrelevant. "I'm sorry for what happened. We pray for the souls of families lost." With all kindness, respect, and seemingly honest pity. Wow! This really is pure manipulation!

"And why am I wearing black?"

"Oh- that's just because you're a neophyte. It's just to show who's who." Howard paused it for a laughter break, which we both took loudly.

"Neophyte my motherfuckin ass!", I exploded with more incredulity than amusement, although there was plenty of both. "Neophyte! Fuckin neophyte.. That is pathetic!"

"No. Shit!", Howard replied with laughter. "That really is bad." He scribbled some more and unpaused it for the final time.

"You guys aren't a cult, are you?"

"No, Barbara- we are not a cult. We are in fact Methodist." Barbara's denomination, obviously. "You are free to leave at any time, and we respect your right to privacy." The pair o' lies paralyze... "I apologize for the circumstances under which you were brought here, but we can't be too careful. But, if you do choose to stay, we will support you with comfortable living, we can do that."

"Okay, so tell me about these devil-worshippers." The tone of her voice and her mannerisms told me she bought it all.

"Well, we call them the Misguided, because that's what they really are.." The manipulator's kind, gentle voice trailed off as the screen faded to black. Howard was just grinning and giggling. To me it wasn't quite as funny- I've seen this shit before. There is no manipulation like religious manipulation. Pull those strings! One, two, three, four! Pull! Pull! All to the tune of an aerobics track... I just started chuckling.

"That was unrealistic.", Sarah said.

"Oh, yeah.", Howard replied. "It was an extreme example. But that was real- although they did have her planned out welllll in advance."

"I'm trying to understand that. I am really trying to understand that. I can't understand that. There is just so much she didn't notice! I know that's kind of the point, you don't need to tell me that, but.. that's just BAD!", I exclaimed. Forget it, I told myself, which is probably exactly what they told Howie. Don't try to understand them, it'll only make your head hurt... just manipulate them and deal with your own kind.

"You were the one who told me that they don't think at all.", he pointed out.

"This is different... or maybe it's not, not in this case. But they have to teach some skepticism sometimes or cults would get them all the time.. I guess this one.."

"Was cult-prone. That's why they could do it.", Sarah finished for me.

"Stupidity is entertaining, but stupid people are useless.", Howard concluded, and began typing up his report. Useless for the future, anyway. I watched him type with a certain level of curiosity- he'd been spending time watching people get controlled by all sorts of things. The gist of it was simple: For efficiency, safety, and reliability, nothing beats the implants.