The problem of the day was irritating to the point where I moved around in various positions, one of them a bad, muscle-crunching one and I didn't even know it until I started to feel an ache. "Sarah, come here and give me a backrub.", I called up.

Instead of obedience I got a question in response: "Which one of you is it?" Shit! I really should have thought of this earlier!

Annoyed with myself more than anything else, I walked upstairs, opened her door, and said, "It's me, Howard.". The command kicked in and she started on the backrub, silently, and it created a good feeling to contrast with my irritation. Unless I start having to announce myself every time I give a command, there's only one way to solve this one. I opened the door to Billy's room- he was studying something. "Billy! Get out here, now!", I commanded, and he rushed from the computer to me in less than a second. "There is one thing I need to do.", I told him. He was a bit scared, thinking that I was angry at him. "I said before that commanding a servant is the same as doing it yourself. You can't ever lift any of my standing orders on any of my servants. Sarah- obey him the same way you do me!" Billy was startled, but not surprised. He could have seen this coming, too. "They'll probably obey you anyway, but I'm going to go tell the Enforcers the same thing.", I said, and Sarah took that as the cue to finish the backrub.

After I told the Enforcers (which I, indeed, didn't need to do), I went back to the brain-breaking problem at hand.

Eventually my attention wavered and I started thinking about other things. Just daydreaming, wishing that I had more time to play with Billy back when I wasn't being tested. Ugh. This annoying excuse for a test is almost over, too. Sigh. In minutes, my random thinking came up with a truly evil- and funny- idea, one that would be a real riot if I actually went through with it. I started giggling insanely. Billy was about to do a run, and came to see what was the matter, and I turned around and grinned at him.

"Howard, I've seen you look like that a couple times before... but this is different. What the hell do you plan to do?"

"Ohh... not much.." I started laughing harder. He couldn't know if I did do it... but no, the time of setup and preparations needed (not to mention keeping a straight face, and when I have a hard time doing that, you know it's funny to me) outweighed the hilarity, a lot of work for a few minutes of joke. I couldn't be bothered with doing it.

"Howard, you're scaring me. If you didn't need me for the tests so bad, I'd figure you were planning to do something extremely bad right about now. Come on man, what is it? Does it involve me and some practical joke?"

"All right, Billy, you can relax. I'm not going to go through with it. And yes, Billy, it involves you and a practical joke. It's funny, but it's not worth it. It involves you and Sarah being put into a fake gas chamber, thinking that you're going to die, while you pull your own levers into extinction, begging every minute."

"Is that funny to you?!"

"Yup!"

"I used to think up shit like that. This one kid was really afraid of clowns, and so I had an idea that a lot of us would dress like clowns and come to school. Of course, we didn't have the money or the resources for that or some other stuff we thought up. But Howard.. when you start making gags like that.."

"It gets really scary really fast. Billy, of course I'm toying with you. I enjoy it. But I'm not going to do anything stupid."

"Not like it matters, but if you weren't me, I wouldn't believe you." I chuckled.

"Starvation and anxiety mean brainstorms to me, which means I think about the unwanted, the unlikely, and sometimes the impossible." When stressed, I don't just react on a physical level, I think. It's definitely something that works in favor of my survival. I can't imagine how normals' brains would start shutting down at the time they need them the most!

"I wish that explained all those crazy nightmares."

"Do I keep showing up in them?"

"Not every one. But some.. feature of you is there. You've got your own brand of fear in my mind." That's okay, Billy. A lot of other people are going to be afraid of me, too.

"Illuminated Fear, super strength. It's only fear. It's not like you can't just think about something else and get most of it to go away."

"That's so fucking easy for you to say."

"I know. It is easy for me to say. And I say that if you want to get rid of your fear, think about.. oh, say a month in the future when/if we're still alive and not in the middle of this bullshit."

"Yeah, but I'll still be..."

"Oh, yeah. That part will eventually go away. You'll get used to it, Billy. Remember, it's me, and I'm right here."

"So what happens if I don't get used to it?"

"Then you live out the rest of your life suffering and screaming." My honesty very slightly shocked him back a bit; his reaction was so slight as to be subliminal to a normal. But I noticed the obvious, that he wasn't expecting Mr. Evil Dictator Clone (some random part of my mind laughed maniacally at that) to tell him the unequivocal truth right off the bat.

"Thu.. thanks, Howard. I really appreciate it.", Billy said, genuinely thankful that his young master decided not to inflict needless torment upon his already-abused mind.

"Billy, if there's something you need, or you're really worried about, tell me. Now."

"Howard.. I'm worried about what happens if you... well, if.. I can't finish it." The proper words would probably be something like.. oh, 'completely change around your mannerisms, outlook on life, and become a nasty sadist with a personal interest in causing me torment' with some unnamable atrocities mixed in for spice. Although I do have a nasty streak, I've always known to keep it away from my possessions. There is a difference between toying and some of the shit I've seen a few of my nastier Illuminated brethren do. Why any Illuminatus would spend hours doing.. whatever the hell that was, I really don't understand, for it really does have no purpose.

"You don't have to. Billy, if I was going to do anything like that to you, don't you think I would have taken a few spare hours to do it to you by now?"

"Yeah.. yeah, you're right. If you could even spare me a few hours." Oh, don't worry about that, Billy. When this fucking test nonsense is over I'll be giving you plenty of attention.

"Speaking of hours.. do this one.", I commanded him, gesturing to the screen and letting him have the keyboard to face the problem I've been looking at.

You are in a room with three other people who are very intelligent. The rules dictate that whenever someone sees at least one black mark on the forehead of another person, that person must raise his hand. Marks can be black or white. All three of the others have black marks on their foreheads, and thus everyone's hand is raised. All of the others are trying to figure out what color their mark is, and would have answered out loud if they knew. Figure out what color the mark on your forehead is.

Other than some stupid non-answer like 'with a mirror' or 'force them to tell me what the fuck it is', I can't answer it. What evidence do I have for my decision?! Billy was of a similar mindset; "This is impossible!!", he blurted out, shortly after reading it.

"They wouldn't give it to me if it was. It has a solution, and I don't know what the fuck it is.", I told him. If he can outsmart me, he's welcome to it.

"Ohhh..kay.. All right, deductive reasoning. If mine is black... dammit.." He was visibly wracking his brain for answers, just as I had. Good fucking luck! "Fuck that.. okay, if it's white.. then they don't know what theirs is. So they see a white and two blacks.. and they.. what would they.." He wasn't vocalizing everything he was thinking, but I think he was starting to get it. "..of course, they're very intelligent, they use the same deductive reasoning.. Howard, how could you not have gotten this? It's right up your alley." This was in about a minute!

"You figured it out already?" Apparently his brain went in a totally different direction. What the hell did he see that I didn't?

"I think so.." Typing it out for him was much slower than figuring it out, and he went back to correct mistakes and had to do a lot of copying and pasting, but he had it.

If I had a white mark on my forehead, one of the other people would have been faced with the same problem, only seeing two black marks and a white instead of three blacks. They would have done the deductive reasoning: 'If mine is white, then one of the others would have seen one black and two white marks, and seeing the other person with a black mark raise his hand, would have concluded that his was the one the other was raising it for. But neither of them did, and so mine is black.' And so one of the others would have already figured it out if mine was white. However, they did not, and the only other option is for me to have a black mark on my forehead.

"Fuck... Billy, that's it.", I said, amazed. He clicked Send and the human on the other end swiftly approved it. I didn't know whether to feel embarrassment at my servant figuring out something I've been slamming my head on, or pride that I have somebody like that at my disposal. Pride, I decided. The problem was solved by something of mine, and I personally won't overlook solutions like that one again. "You're right. That was right up my alley.", I said, putting my arm around him and giving him a brief hug.. "I really should have had that." I patted his growing hair- he hadn't put on the wig- and laid back.

"I'm surprised.. it doesn't bother you that much that I figured it out and you didn't?"

"Not in the least. You can outsmart me all you like. Actually.. Billy, if you ever see me making a bad decision, I command you to let me know." I really should have said that earlier. He smiled at me, put on the wig, and went to do the first run of the day.

We continued for a few more days, Billy and Sarah intimidating and occasionally using force on the peasants when they didn't move their asses, having little time to think about anything else but learning and the tests, which we did with determination, as we tried to eat something resembling a balanced diet, the potatoes simply about to run out. Damn, this is annoying, and I'm counting seconds even as I try to preserve them. But I know, when this is over, that'll be that and nothing like this will ever happen again.