Howard forced me to crawl back to my Chicago home, where my agent parents mocked me for being so stupid as not to see through them. When they were done, I was controlled to go and humiliate myself in front of everyone at my old school, as Howard watched, laughing uproariously. And then I was forced back to the island- prohibited from using any kind of transportation, I had to walk and swim, and then approached Howard on hands and knees, naked, on hard gravel, as he berated me for being late and snapped chains on my wrists and ankles. "You can't keep me waiting, Billy- I've got a world to control!", he shouted, laughing maniacally, and the sky turned dark. "I'm going to make you sit here and eat table scraps rolled in the dirt, build a cage around you and leave you right here on my lawn! And then I'm going to laugh and laugh, because every day I'll come out here and remind myself how glad I am not to be you!" And then he reached down- his hand didn't look like a hand but more like a tentacle, and he-

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!! NOOOOO!! AAAHHHHH!!!!", I screamed, and curled into a ball, desperately crying and shivering. Howard opened the door and I knew he was going to do even worse things- I scurried back, closed my eyes, and prayed for it all to go away. I felt my head being lightly touched and opened them again- Howard, with a sympathetic look on his face, had walked around to the other side of the bed was reaching down, his hand- not a tentacle, a hand- gently resting on the top of my head.

"Billy," he asked me, his voice as gentle as his hand, "what was I just doing?"

God, he does all that and now he asks- "Howard, you were just.." Realization, and a growing sense of relief, slowly flowed into me. "Wait.. no. You were just sleeping. So was I.. I screamed again, didn't I.. oh man, I didn't mean to do that..", I apologized, still a bit desperate.

"Billy, shush.", he commanded. "You can talk again when the sun comes up. If you keep screaming at night, I'm just going to get this room soundproofed. Just relax for now." He squatted down on one knee and put his arm around me, and I was struck by the absurdity of it- wasn't I supposed to be bowing before him?- and then he got up and left, closing the door behind him. I relaxed, following his command, stretching out under the covers, utterly relieved at what hadn't been real. He'll never do anything remotely like what I dreamed. I live in a mansion, in my own spacious room, which was carefully designed by agents of the most powerful organization on Earth for utility and comfort. Howard would never chain or cage me, because it'd be totally fucking pointless. It didn't change the basic horror at all. Even with an atomic shotgun in one hand and a fusion-powered microwave laser in the other, wearing Illuminated body armor to block the bullets I didn't dodge, I'd still be Howard's plaything and servant, living at his tender mercy.

I fell asleep, and the sun was high in the sky when I woke up.

Today proceeded almost exactly as yesterday had, only I was doing the runs. They weren't terribly difficult, just mildly annoying with a few well-placed rock formations to climb over and a few low-hanging branches to dodge, and it's still Howard's island paradise, after all. The fake hair was Illuminati quality, far better than I expected; my regular hair simply fit into it and there was no telling us apart unless you knew what to look for (and then I understood Howard and Sarah's confidence- the Enforcers definitely would not know), and it felt comfortable, almost unnoticeable on my head. As I returned I realized another obvious solution that I definitely should have mentioned earlier. Will he even want to hear.. fuck that. If he doesn't want me to be blunt with him he'll have to fucking command me, which is highly unlikely.

"Howard, you know what?", I asked him as I stepped back inside, a bit winded from the running. "We didn't have to do that whole wig business after all."

"Why not?"

"Wouldn't it have been simpler and easier just to cut your hair?"

He replied with a smirk instead of annoyance that I had suggested it. "Blasphemer."

Later that day, it started to rain- the second run of the day, I only got drizzled on, but for the third one, it was a downpour. I still knew which way to go, of course, and the soles of the boots didn't slip on the wet rocks at all. The wig wasn't affected, either, simply laying on my soaked body like ordinary wet hair. The peasants thought they would stop working in the torrential rain, and a few made moments towards escape- when they realized that neither was going to happen, they kept working, probably with the promise of release filling their tiny minds. One of them actually tried to enter the mansion- the Enforcers stopped him first, but I'm sure that if he had gotten inside, Howard would have tossed him out like a sack of the tasteless potatoes we continued to eat. Lightning actually struck the mansion once or twice, but it was apparently built to not care.

I kept on doing the research, of course. There's so much to know about the Illuminati. Pages and pages, volumes of stuff. Events, concepts, ideas that normals have barely even considered. Six thousand of the world's most intelligent people, in concert with an army of servants and Enforcers, can swiftly produce a lot of recorded material. Sifting through it to find interesting stuff wasn't hard, though. I found myself saying a lot of "Wow, I never knew that.", "Holy crap, I had no idea that was possible!", and "Woah, they can really do that?!" And since the database contains no misinformation- none- it's an incredibly effective learning tool.

One of the biggest things was how to control a lot of people with few of your own. Different people are controlled in different ways, in different environments and under different circumstances. A Congressman is very susceptible to a certain drug which makes him open to suggestions, and doesn't have any bad interactions with alcohol. A member of Parliament loves underage women and will vote however this one girl's father wants, within a wide range of reason. There's no pattern, no distinctive marks. It was extremely interesting at first, but quickly became dry, like reading a chemistry textbook. Howard doesn't concern himself personally with this stuff- he's above it, like a normal company president is above the product-assembly guys.

Eventually, after hours of reading things normals will never see, I had a more pressing need of sleep.


I found myself in a world of meaningless, nowhere, gray nothing. I could hear about twenty little children around me, laughing and singing something.. something that I haven't heard in a long time... "I love you, you love me, we're a happy family.." Where did I hear that before? It was something from TV.. something controlling... I knew that the song was bad somehow, that its lyrics were a lie, and the tune was a siren song. Panic rose in me as the song rose in pitch. A figure of reddish-purple and bright green faded into view and came towards me, arms in a ready-to-hug position. It looked almost comical, with two wide, sharp, short teeth covering its entire mouth, mittens for hands, strange awkward feet, a bulging belly, and what looked to be a tail.. then I remembered, in horror, who this was. It was that disgusting mound of purple lard. It was the Hellwyrm. It was Barney, the mass manipulator of millions of kids, whose fat, grinning face was found on a hundred million dollars' worth of brightly colored shit. I've hated this guy since I was four, just like Ronald McDonald and all the other intentionally warped characters- they're unreal, disgusting, horrible, perversions of humanity (and dinosaurs), and just flat out evil. Especially this motherfucker. The sheer feeling of danger and evil I got from being directly confronted by this hideous monster turned my knees into Jello and my heart into a rabbit's. Dammit, now I know why Howard gives me weapons.

I pulled out the atomic shotgun, kicked down the quick-balance, and fired all five rounds into its chest. They sunk into the purple fat leaving no marks or blood- they didn't even knock him down. Son of a bitch, isn't there some Internet jihad that knows how to stop this asshole?

I turned to run from the abomination, but it called to me.. "Billy... come back to me, Billy. Come and hug me and love me forever. You're my Special Friend!", it said in its saccharine voice- and I came back to him and wrapped my arms tightly around him. I wanted to crush him, but you can't do that to something that plush. A growing sense of sickness and disgust flowed into me as I smelled the creature's vile body. The absolute terror I felt at this point was pushing me completely off the brink.

The beast began to sing. "I love you, you love me, we're a happy family, with a great big hug and a kiss from me to you"- and I felt something big and wet press down on my head- "won't you say you love me too?"

"Yes, I love you Barney, you're my bestest friend and I'll love you forever and ever!", I found myself saying like a five year old on way too much Prozac. As I drove my face further into the green patch of processed vomit it had on its skin, something rose in me, total panic and vicious hate all rolled into one, and I came up- accelerating-

Into the mansion bedroom I was now growing accustomed to, owned by Howard. Damn, I thought crazily, if only I could do that wakeup bit again, outta this. The Inheritor, looking like he'd inherited some annoyance, was saying something- I couldn't hear him for some reason- then he shouted in the most authoritative voice I've heard him use yet, "BILLY! STOP SCREAMING!" I didn't even realize I was. I shut my mouth and calmed my aching vocal cords.

"Dammit..", he said with some annoyance, "is that ever going to stop? You sounded like you were dying in here!"

"Probably not.", I said, relieved at the loss of the lesser nightmare and still internally horrified at the presence of the greater one.

He sighed. "Ok, that's it, soundproofing comes tomorrow evening, or you're sleeping on the other end of the island.", he said under his breath. "And Billy.. just what was the nightmare this time?", he said in his usual half-curious tone with some exasperation.

I told him.

He waited until I finished telling it, and then he exploded. My previous screams of terror were nothing compared to his screams of laughter. He could barely stand up. "Billy... monsters, demons, sadists, unnamed horror, snakes, even me, I can understand easily. But BARNEY?! That fat happy piece of Illuminated kiddie-control inspiration is giving YOU nightmares?!", he said with a face full of mirth. "If.. haha.. if I grew coke on this island, I'd figure you snorted some. Now don't try- but don't try not- to get back to sleep." Makes sense; try to get to sleep, it won't happen. Don't really care, and you're out like a light.

I laid back to bed- in the next five seconds, a flash of black passed over my vision, and it was morning in the blink of an eye. Then I woke up and did the same things again that I've been doing for the past two days.

The peasants were slowing down, the carrot of eventual release no longer meaning as much. Time to get the stick. Make no mistake- the potatoes, even supplemented with fruit, are barely enough for energetic young engineereds. Having the peasants slow down their work on these super-growing plants would be intolerable. I was commanded to make the peasants work, so I carefully doled out physical pain, usually using the Enforcers, maximizing fear and awe. If they had the facilities to understand what I really am, they'd be awed indeed.

Howard did indeed have soundproofing installed, with the same ordering trick Sarah had used. (He did it himself- he's just me wearing the wig, right?), and after he did a run, I did a run, and he did a run again, they were installing it upstairs. As the black-clad men and Enforcers silently (almost completely silently, I have no idea what machines they used) worked on the walls, ceiling, floor, and door of my room, Howard took me to the viewscreen and proceeded to help me learn some Latin. Holy fuck, am I glad my brain's engineered. The tenses and sentence structure differ utterly from English, even in Illuminated modern Latin. The vocabulary I learned on my own, over time and with a lot of patience. But hey, it's not like I had anything better to do, other than keeping the peasants in line from time to time, a thing that Sarah usually did.

The freakish thing is that, except for the temporary partial starvation, I was actually starting to get used to living this way, if not used to the implants. None of my old worries were present at all, nothing I'd had to worry about meant jack shit anymore, although I missed my old friend Paul a bit. Every day that passed, the mansion and the surrounding island felt more and more like home. Although Howard often left me alone to study and learn- I had to catch up to him, after all- his attitude of treating me like his most prized possession never wavered. The annoyance at the lack of good food and the constant tests, most of which I couldn't begin to help him with, was frustrating him, but he never reduced my or Sarah's portions of food and never got mad at us, no matter how pissed he was at everything else. Sometimes he would keep me or Sarah near him, just to keep him company, even if he wasn't doing much. I didn't hate him- how could I?- but I'd still kill him in a heartbeat given the chance. Hey, he knew the risks when he took this job. It didn't matter. Not once did he come remotely close to saying the 'wrong words' to release me and/or get himself killed.

Days passed by as they used to when I was living with normals, my brain no longer constantly in overdrive trying to find a way out. It was just life. I'd wake up, eat the same crappy potatoes (man am I going to be glad when this shit is over!), do stuff I needed to do, learn stuff I needed to learn (on that, Howard and I are utterly in agreement), be played with by Howard for a bit, and go to bed. The nightmares were still horrifying, the screams no less real, but Howard didn't hear them and I learned to put them out of my head when awake.