The downstairs buzzer clicked again, in the middle of my daydreaming, on October 14, 1999. Sarah took it, I shuffled down to answer it, and I prepared myself to answer some questions and yammer some more shit. So, it was a surprise when someone I actually care about- the Day Operator of Northberg- was on it. For shits and grins, I motioned for the naked Billy to take it instead, and stayed out of sight.

He turned the communications on and proceeded to impersonate me. "Hello, Howard. Now that it's months after you've thoroughly quashed the stupidity plan, I feel that I have to bring you some news.. actually, it's history, but it is news to you."

"Operator, you know what happens to people who keep things from me.", he replied, having perfected my offhand, slightly threatening tone. Sarah looked at Billy with a somewhat coaxing face, as if to say 'Send me! I want some blood!'"

"Yes, but this is a plot you'll actually like."

"Spill it all."

"Well, Howard, the cause was a mixture of things. The first was a .. conversation I happened to overhear, back when you were still the Inheritor. It turns out that someone you're probably not too familiar with, Walter Kramovitch, had something of a grudge against your predecessor, and wanted you removed from power before you got in." Walter was a first level, until he died of a heart attack from cholesterol in June. I remember that factoid.. since I usually make a point of not getting involved unless it's necessary, I didn't know him particularly, and since the other Illuminati were able to divide his holdings just fine almost completely without my help, I didn't particularly care. "You didn't know this, of course, since I instructed him to never even get close to letting you on. Yes, I approached him."

"But you're the guy who was in charge of creating me!"

"Not even a setback. In fact, it made things easier. He couldn't believe his luck. I had him believe that your predecessor forced me to do the whole project. And then when you killed the old Night Operator, who I could have probably manipulated a bit, I took a replacement who I knew agreed with me to the core."

"So why?"

"Well, you see, I told Walter that he'd need lots of followers to take you on, and that numbers were the key, and so I had him spawn all those sheeple you so hated in the organization. I actually had him spawn sheeple who would spawn more sheeple."

"WHAT?! Oh, I think I know.." Interestingly enough, Billy figured it out just a bit before I did. The Operator was trying to demonstrate my power, using cannon fodder to cause fear in the useful ones.

"Oh, I know how it sounds, it sounds positively horrible for the organization. But you behaved almost exactly as I thought you would. You took steps to remove the problem, you killed just about all the virus, and helped to inoculate the organization from more outside-world members, creating a generally benevolent effect." Which is exactly how I remember thinking of the additional testing, as protection from disease. I was wrong about his intentions. I doubt I was wrong about the fear, though.

"The spread of the belief that all Illuminati should be born native."

"Exactly. And since I knew that you believed it yourself, I knew what you'd do. And that's my same goal, more or less. Don't worry, Howard- all active threats to you that I know about have been removed. I killed the one you spared, I killed another one who apparently hated you all on his own, and I imagine you can now guess what really happened to Walter." Having a near-monopoly on autopsies does give one incredible power here, doesn't it.. actually, the cause of death was almost certainly a heart attack, it's just its cause that's at issue. Did he fail to take cholesterol-reducing pills often? Did something just.. get in the way of his blood supply? There's lots and lots of ways to jam those little arteries up...

"And so you used an enemy of mine to help seal up the place, all without the notice of anyone and all without any seeming relation to you. But why not just tell me?"

"Two reasons- first off, if you knew you had an enemy, you probably would just kill him immediately, and, second, it would add a random factor into an otherwise fool-proof plan. That's why I waited so long to tell you, to make sure the situation was really over."

"Operator, you made a good decision and a bad decision. The whole plan was, generally, a good decision, and its results will allow me to forgive your.. bad decision of not telling me, you should know that I'd go along with any good decision. You were responsible for me." Coming from Billy, there was a careful double meaning woven into that sentence, and I avoided smiling at it.

"Oh well. Goal achieved. Oh, and before you ask, I never knew all that much about the Bastard Squad and nothing whatsoever about that idiot with that robot. That's the problem with this place, we don't really know each other, because so much is shrouded in secrecy, false motives, and outright lies.. but that's another large problem for another day." I will gain an entirely new respect for him if he manages to solve that one before everyone's engineered.

"For a normal-born, you really like to target large problems with giant plans."

"If I find a way to undo this one in the near future, I will tell you. But for now, I just like the idea that we're all having to cooperate because of the actual work being done."

"Very well, Operator. Keep raising the in-born percentage."

"As you command." He clicked off.

"SO! Turns out that guy's got his own share of plans. I like that. Someone does something other than get in my way for a change.", I said with a grin.

"Howard, aren't you feeling a little left out?", Sarah said. "I mean, everyone else has plans.." I just looked at her.

"Sarah, what the hell would he plan for?", Billy asked rhetorically. "He already has the long-term stuff down. Think about it. I mean, the only things that he doesn't have are solid unity and better technology, everyone's working their ass off for the second and there's no such thing as a plot that can do the first!"

"Well, you could do plots for small gains.. but I see your point. Too much work, too much hassle, too much unpredictability and not enough gravy. Besides, you guys can always just apply more time to something.", Sarah said, nodding slightly. Paul had come out of his room and was idly leaning on the railing, listening to everything.

"Yeah.. but frankly, I want to be able to make a plan for something. We all heard him, he didn't know about the loony with the robot.", I said. "Don't think he'd lie about that. And there's still nothing new on what happened to Brenk."

"Well, since we haven't seen any more impersonation robots or insane dolls, we should probably just assume that that was it.", Billy said.

"That's all we can do, and that bugs me.", I said. "Oh fucking well. We'll burn that bridge when we get to it."

On principle, I did some research on the Day Operator, checking personal logs (which are stored on my server) first. Of course, all the 'personal' journal information of any Illuminatus is visible to those above him; this is why almost no one uses it. But some do, when they have something they want others to know. I scanned the entries; they were sparse and sporadic, but I found one of particular interest written about three months ago and read every word.

Northberg Day Operator (He really does hate his name.)
7/17/99
Re: The Dominator's Creation

\tab It is about time that I wrote this here. Since you are reading this, no matter who you are, you should know that the previous Night Operator and I were less than friends. We were not enemies, either.. but it should be known that we had different agendas. At the time, I took that for granted. I should not have. But everything proceeded smoothly, and so I did not inquire as to his behavior, or the things he was hiding from me. Most of those are of little interest and no consequence, but there is one matter that I must discuss.
\tab The Night Operator attempted to partially sabotage the Dominator's creation. ( As Billy and I read at the same speed, we both gasped at the same time.) The nature of this sabotage was not directly harmful- in fact, on the surface, it was not a true sabotage at all. It was more of a rushing. When we talked, which was seldom, he would always try to emphasize time and attempt to quickly muddle through it. Looking back, I can see what the plan was. He attempted to make an inferior Dominator.
\tab It took me a deliberate, concerted effort to ensure that everything was done slowly and carefully, and to have the important decisions done during the day. He did not dare contest anything that I did, he pretended to agree that time must be taken, but he was internally frustrated. He would attempt to belittle things, to move them forward.. I will not give examples as that will only take more of my time and bore the reader; if you wish, you can listen to the old recordings of our early talks about this subject. If you require more proof, I can give it to you myself... but this is a thing that I would like to put behind me.
\tab I should have said something about this, but out of my own cowardice, I did not. It is that simple.
\tab Howard, if you are reading this, I apologize. Everything that I can think of, everything that I can list, was done right. I spent all of my time thinking about you; I made sure that nothing was rushed or skipped over. You would probably like to know that the new Operator is far superior in every way to the old.

"Damn.", I said faintly.

"I don't think he's bullshitting you, Howard.", Sarah said, shaking her head slightly. I checked to make sure that he was not, reading through pages and pages of the logs. Yes.. the Night Operator was trying to move things forward. Yes.. he was asking to skip some things.. and the Day Operator's efforts (either through pre-ordained rules or direct confrontation) prevented it. Billy was laughing to himself quietly, but growing louder as he read each word.

"What? What's so funny?", I asked him, knowing that he saw something that I didn't.

"Howard.. have you ever heard of the term 'devil's advocate'?" Now where did.. oh, yeah.

"Someone who always argues for the wrong side of something. I think I see what you're getting at."

"Yup. He was helping you, Howard. See that? Every time someone would suggest something to speed things up, he would quietly go for it, every time they wanted to be careful, he would say something mildly against it. He didn't dare go outright, he was fearful for his life the whole time. But every time he said something.."

"..it was the cue for everyone else to realize what was wrong with it.", I finished. "You're right. You're absolutely correct. I don't believe this!! That idiot, that absolutely foolhardy twit, was helping the project the whole time! If he wouldn't have said anything.. oh, in this one.."

"..they probably wouldn't have done those tests at all!", he finished. We shared a loud, echoed laugh. "I don't believe this shit!", he exclaimed in delight. "Fool, fool, fool!" Sarah was just smiling and shaking her head gently. I love it! Some of my superiority is because of someone hating me. Some people promote, some people sabotage, and both end up working for my greater good even before I'm born. Absolutely excellent.

That was definitely the high point of the month.