I had an oddly complicated dream in which I'd imagined various inefficiencies in the Illuminati and figured out ways to cure them- then I woke up and thought of ways I could do the same thing in the real world. Hey, it's not often I take initiative in this kind of thing. I'm not in any way obligated to do it, but the Dominator's power is good for fixing inefficiencies as well as settling disputes and removing idiots. I put on some pants and went downstairs- it'll be easier and more comfortable on the big screen. Let me see- yes, let's take a look at current mind control projects, that's a good place to start. The information was readily accessible.

I had an Enforcer get me a physical notepad and a writing implement- it's not often I use pencil and paper, and I tend to make my shorthand up as I go along. For a couple of hours, I went through several clips the same way, evaluating various practices and procedures. A lot of it was familiar territory- pleasure and pain Pavloving, subtle manipulation of ideas, good old-fashioned obey-or-else threats that we don't use much inside the Illuminati anymore. Some of the items were new twists on old ideas, or people using new things with old-fashioned procedures. "Possible implant technology flaw" read the description of one item. What?! Like hell there is. I watched the guy in charge of the facilities (in this case, the water supply) command Enforcers to do a number of various things. "Close the valve, then remove the old filter like this, then snap in the new filter in just the reverse way. Open the valve, and that task is done."

"There!", I exclaimed. He'd forgotten a 'then', and the Enforcers did the last statement first! C'mon, he should have seen this before putting it in the database for review. "No wonder! That fucker phrased it all wrong! I didn't think there were any technology flaws!", I exclaimed aloud, a bit relieved.

I tried another clip from another department entirely. About twenty servants sat at desks, marking and filing information in a rather mechanical way. They're not Enforcers, but they're not acting like implanted or unimplanted servants.. what, then? A rather long chemical name came on the screen that I faintly recognized, along with a dosage of 5 milligrams every half hour. Where have I seen- ah, yes. "Xenol again, these guys never give up.", I said aloud. I paused the screen, wrote Xenol and the dosage down, and unpaused. Xenol has showed up in Illuminated experiments twice before. The first one was rather dismal, with serious mistakes in the servants' work showing up everywhere. It was slightly modified for another try; the second time passed some initial testing, but a couple hours into it, the servants would lose it and start completely fucking up everything. This latest test has a different dosage with smaller increments, and I think the chemical itself is either the exact same or similar. Based on what I've read about its effects, I doubt it succeeded, and even if it did, it wouldn't be of much value to Illuminati. '2 minutes, 30 seconds later' appeared on the screen, and the servants were all shown working away as normals almost never do- then the camera fixed on one servant in particular with the word 'Mistake' on the top right. There were multiple cameras and I could look at the shot from all angles, both the servant's face (which yielded absolutely nothing) and his paperwork. It's the same kind of mistake as the previous two Xenol tests: obvious to anyone who's actually thinking about what he's doing. The servant had a box to put the information in, and he wrote down the information about three inches to the left of the box, right over some printed words.

"Nothing different... except it's in the wrong place. Real simple, too...", I said. A totally un-thinking mistake. Which is actually the point of Xenol- it turns off the brain's ability to think independently, and its subjects become robots dedicated to tasks. Of course, without the ability to think independently, the metacognition is destroyed, and if any brain cells die (an accelerated process with Xenol), the subjects can't catch themselves making a mistake because of that.. "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.", I concluded, writing things down on my notepad. The hell with this. Who needs servants like that anyway? Forget the Enforcers, regular old machines can do this shit. I sent a message to the directors of the program telling them to shut it down and gave them the benefit of my reasons before I finished the actual report.

"What is Xenol?", Billy asked, as he came down the stairs to watch me. I gave him a general overview.

"Why would you bother with that?", he asked.

"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.", I said, finishing with a chuckle. The name's a relic from the first version as it isn't quite so obvious anymore, but I can only imagine what they'd be like after, say, four or five hours on that stuff..

"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?"

It didn't take him long at all. "..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 what a colossal waste of time it would be.

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

"Bingo." Billy sat down next to me as I continued writing my conclusions down, and he looked over at my notepad. That, too, is a waste of time. "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." The X's are quite clear, but I doubt he knows what the upside-down question mark ('Why would we even WANT to know?') and the square/circle combination ('Square peg, round hole') mean. I continued to number 19: "Pure Manipulation Procedure", I shorthanded after I paused it. Apparently this rather fat Illuminatus is going to manipulate this almost-equally fat normal into something.

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

"Yep. No implants, no drugs, and if it is truly pure, no threat or use of force." He looked amazed. I was amazed myself the first time I saw it. I quickly started doubting the target's sanity, believing that he had to be completely nuts. Once I was taught the exact particulars of why he believed what he did, I understood it completely: normals will believe what they want, so insanity is common.

"What?! No.. force?! Must be some serious sheep.." To me, they're almost all serious sheep, but the targets of Pure are almost always among the most ovine possible.

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

The room must have been professionally done to be part of the manipulation. Morning sun poured through the thin, yellow drapes. Almost everything was white or light in color. I don't know how normals stand rooms like that- there was nothing actually useful in it- but it suited the Illuminatus's purposes well.

The victim wore all black; perhaps the purpose of this is to make her a servant? She woke up and asked where she was. Hmm? Manipulation after unconscious transport? This will be interesting.

The Illuminatus wore a white gown, and looked her in the face, smiling as only Illuminati really know how to smile. "Barbara? Wake up." When she spoke, I realized how good her voice sounded; it was simply harmonic and didn't sound like it came from a human throat. Either she was born with that gift, she's a practiced professional, or she has subtle technological help. This is the Illuminati; I'm guessing all three.

"Ugh.. who are you?", the victim asked.

"You can call me Angela." She can call her that, but I doubt that's actually her name. I paused it and wrote down my observations.

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

"I recognize two of those from somewhere..", he replied. I grinned at him. "By the way, she's got a Christianity thing going."

"Uh?" I hadn't noticed.

"See that gown, Howard? See the way her hair's done? 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." I wrote down the Christianity part as well, and then unpaused it.

"Annngela? What is this place?", the black-clad woman asked, a bit confused.

"This is my house, Barb.", the Illuminatus replied, the epitome of a positive attitude.

"Your house.. what am I doing here?" Maybe I don't understand normals, but unless it was someone I trusted at least somewhat, one of the last places I'd want to be is someone else's house after waking up if I didn't go to sleep there. (Billy, I remembered, was of the same opinion.)

"Well, because we selected you, Barb. We hand-picked you to help us with our important work."

"Yeah? Well, what if I don't want to help you?" I feel sorry for the Illuminatus here; there are so many good answers to that, and she can't use any of them. "And why did you bring me here, anyway?"

"Barbara, please don't refuse us.", 'Angela' replied, avoiding answering any of the actual questions. "It takes us time and money to get people as gifted as you. We saved your life, to give you a second chance." In case you weren't enslaved enough the first time! I paused it again to write down some more of what I noticed- the facial reactions of the servant-to-be, the potential problems for bad results with the questions, the sheer skill involved in using voice tone.

"Old school.", Billy said. "Flattery, authority, appeal to pity, the fucking works."

"Yup- it works!", I replied, unpausing it.

"To do what?", Barb asked in a tone that can only be described as bovine. What a stupid cow.

"To guard the world, Barb, guard it from Satan's followers." Oh, if she only knew.

"Ha! You were right!", I exclaimed.

"Satan's followers?", Barbara asked, not in a 'What the fuck are you talking about?!' tone, but rather a 'Please tell me more' tone. Yes, we need them to be like this for world control, but in a way this just disgusts me. I can't wait until we wipe people like this off the planet like an industrial cleanser sucking up scum.

"Yes, Barb. Satan. I know how horrible that sounds. Which is why we need people like you, to help us fight them." Needing people like her to fight anything is less than a joke.

"Well.. well, what will I be doing? And who do you work for?"

"Administrative stuff, at first. Even we have our bureaucracy." Heh, no shit. "And we are known simply as the Enlightened." Billy and I giggled. I'd intended to do this for serious purposes, but I'm being amused instead.

"So why me? Because of what happened to Russ and Don?", she asked. The video didn't have any subtext explaining who they were.

"Because of your abilities, Barb." Abilities?! I pride 'Angela''s ability to say that with a straight face. "We know you're willing to support Christ." Why humans would worship a supposedly supremely powerful being who managed to get nailed to a couple of pieces of wood is beyond me. "And yes, we never take people with familial obligations, it wouldn't be fair. I'm sorry for what happened. We pray for the souls of families lost." For a pure manipulation procedure, they were probably already dead when Angela chose Barb.

"And why am I wearing black?"

"Oh- that's just because you're a neophyte. It's just to show who's who." I paused it, laughed, laughed, and laughed some more; so did Billy.

"Neophyte my motherfuckin ass!", Billy shouted, amazed, as if he didn't believe his ears. "Neophyte! Fuckin neophyte.. That is pathetic!"

"No. Shit!", I replied, laughing. "That really is bad." I wrote down my observations- that this whole thing was a bit laughable, but very effective in its own way- and unpaused it.

"You guys aren't a cult, are you?", Barb asked. Oh, far from it...

"No, Barbara- we are not a cult. We are in fact Methodist." Yes, and our methods are control, manipulation, and expert lying. "You are free to leave at any time," Funny enough, she probably is. This is pure, after all. We really could afford to let her go; Angela hasn't broken any secrecy. "and we respect your right to privacy." Like a hyena respects a gazelle. "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." Oh, we most certainly can...

"Okay, so tell me about these devil-worshippers." As we knew would happen, she bought it all.

"Well, we call them the Misguided, because that's what they really are.." The screen faded out. Pure manipulation it was indeed, and I grinned and giggled at it. The taking of the woman to Angela's house could loosely be construed as 'force', but not really. I guess there's probably not a logical, statistical analysis that can be done here, but I want to know anyway: how stupid do you have to be before this kind of thing will work?

"That was unrealistic.", I heard Sarah say from the second floor.

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

"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!", Billy exclaimed, trying to wrap his mind around it.

"You were the one who told me that they don't think at all.", I reminded him.

"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..", he thought aloud.

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

"Stupidity is entertaining, but stupid people are useless.", I declared, and decided that was enough for today. I turned my scribbled, shorthand notes into paragraphs of readable information. So much of what I've seen today was nice, and even useful, but just.. unnecessary. It's like trying to optimize internal combustion engines when you've got fusion power.