With the potatoes completely used up, the final day of the first test was at hand. No more ripping inadequate crops out of the ground to feed the Enforcers, Billy, Sarah, and myself, all of whose calorie requirements are fucking ridiculous. I still can't believe they did that. When they said 'Test' I thought they meant an evil version of multiple choice, or separating some warring factions, or fixing some major world problem or something. Not a small-scale farming operation with the most belligerent people on Earth. At about 11:00, I used the I-didn't-do-it trick to order the biggest food shipment ever, and at precisely midnight a low-flying plane would come down, parachute several boxes, the servants would put all that shit away where Sarah can grab it, fix it up, and then finally I can eat!
Billy was right next to me, staring at the clock, watching the minutes tick by, salivating. 11:31.. 11:32.. I realized I fell victim to the same thing, waiting for the chopper to come, waiting for some damn meat (a few pigs just aren't enough!) and some sugary, rich, tasty calorie-rich food. Come on. The passage of time is outside my control, but I'd love to make an exception just this once. 11:33.
"Bah. Forget it, Howard. Looking only makes it seem slower.", Billy said.
"You sound like you've done this before."
"I have. Every day to get out of school, I stared at the clock. I've done this so many times, it's not even funny. Damnit, I need some food!" His body shook slightly and I realized he was making an effort to stop his body from consuming itself, something that would inevitably happen. Fuck malnutrition. If you starve someone with our regenerative abilities, he'll literally eat himself from the inside out, the various parts of his body fighting for each other's nutrients, until he simply dissolves into a pool of red glop. I heard breathing from behind me, wondered who the hell could it be, turned around, and it was Sarah. Okay, this is getting crazy. When I can actually hear Sarah breathing, I know it's time to do something. But it's not time. 11:35. I had been feeding myself slightly more than them, so I could take it a little longer. But it crept up on me, the hunger growing. I need something to eat, preferably something very meaty. Now.
For fifteen minutes we sat and stood like that, Billy holding himself in one place trying to burn as few calories as possible, the implants obviously in effect. He would have tried to kill and eat every Homo Sapiens on the island. Hey, there's an idea.. the peasants have to die somehow, they had been told they would get out a week later than they actually would get out, and it would take time for the Enforcers to take the foodstuffs out of the boxes. The difference would probably be only a couple of minutes, and I couldn't wait those couple minutes. Besides, they're live meat, with a beating heart and fresh, hot, rich, juicy blood. My muscles tensed at the thought.
"Now.. do you know.. what desire is, Howard?", Billy said in an acid tone, his body shaking, his mind and the implants on full tilt pulling every electrochemical string in his body trying to stop it from consuming itself.
"I think I'm beginning to learn.", I said sarcastically, looking at the clock- 11:51- and starting to feel the same thing, the process probably psychologically accelerated by watching Billy shake. For once in my life, I did not de-psych myself out. I didn't have the energy.
Time. Time. Time. 11:59 finally came around, and I went outside, walking on the wet ground in bare feet, walking over to the peasants' huts in the dark, Billy and Sarah following me uncertainly. I saw the food drop- midnight to within .01 second, I wouldn't need to wait at all, but it didn't matter. I knew what I wanted. I called for the Enforcers to put the packaged food in its proper place, eat whatever would satisfy their nutrient requirements, and by the light coming out of the house, the fading helicopter, and the moon, I opened the door to one of the huts. Billy followed me into this one, and I could hear Sarah ripping open the door to another. It was time to eat. I felt my nearly-unique brand of power fill me, probably the last of it. It drained the last energy I had, but I didn't care. I'd get more, right now.
Five of the six Mexicans inside woke up startled at our noisy entrance. "Que la chingala?", one fifteen-year-old said, the last thing he ever would say. Billy grabbed his arm and actually ripped it off his body, yanking away the holding bits of muscle and connective tissue. He ate it right there, grabbing the wrist and the elbow, cramming the skinny flesh into his mouth, barely taking time to chew. One of the peasants tried to run past me to some point outside, and I swung an insane, power-filled backhand into his head with all the force of my hunger and my strength. The thirteen-year-old's neck snapped. I grabbed the throat and drank the blood, rivulets of it running down my face. Damn. We really haven't been feeding the peasants enough. His blood was not nearly as rich as a pig's.
A woman started to screech at ridiculously high pitch, and in blind, vampiric rage I shut her up by putting her nose into her brain with the palm of my hand, feeling the brittle, malnutrition-weakened bone crush and hearing the corresponding snap. I flipped the body I was currently holding over and ate the skinny thighs, lamenting over the peasants' lack of food as much as my own. This meat simply doesn't have enough protein. Billy continued feasting on the body of the one he killed, its right arm laying on the floor, reduced to bone and a few pieces of skin. One older teenager thought he could be a hero and tackle Billy to the ground. Billy broke the idiot's right arm, grabbing the wrist and pushing it backwards to the shoulder, without thinking about it, and continued to feast. The would-be savior fell to the ground in agony, his heroism as dead as the bodies. Screams of suffering could both be heard from this hut and Sarah's, where I could also hear the sounds of snapping, crunching, and pain. They filled my heart with a sort of warm, fuzzy joy. The sixth peasant in this hut had finally woken up, her eight-year-old body shaking with absolute terror.
"Diablos blancos..", uttered a woman with too many wrinkles and too few brains on the top bunk, her eyes as big as saucers. You're right, bitch. White devils we are. White, evil, vampiric, hungry devils. I threw the unfinished body I held to the floor, and feasted on the other one I killed, with the flattened nose. I could actually feel myself digesting the underfed meat. My rage subsided, and I took a split second to focus on the sheer irony of an Illuminatus- the one a week and day from being the Dominator, no less- killing assorted nameless sheeple for meat.
I heard Fido bark and said in a nice doggy-master voice, "Go ahead, Fido! Eat, boy, eat!" He's probably as hungry as I am, being forced to hunt and scrounge for his food. Fido rushed into the hut between me and Billy, lunged at the terrified little girl, and tore out her throat in one stroke, causing red droplets of blood to fly every which way in a wide spray, hitting everyone in the room. He promptly began chowing down on the gristly windpipe, then various stomach muscles and vital organs. The three other dogs followed him in and also chewed whatever flesh they could.
"Por favor... por favor..", the woman on the top bunk pleaded. I answered her pleas by chucking her to the floor and kicking her rapidly in the ribs until she died of internal injuries. There you go, you stupid bitch. That's for not farming fast enough. I ate more of the body I held. Mmm, mmm, good. The problem with humans, especially the underfed ones, is that they're too stringy. Too many tendons, too much gristle. I started to smell copper and realized that was the odor of lots of fresh blood.
I heard movement and shouts from the other huts, the very faint sound of rubbing sticks, and someone's makeshift torch light up over the sounds of tearing flesh. Additional light came through the door; I turned around and saw a man with wide eyes stare at the various corpses strewn around the room. "Dios mio...", he said, before he fainted. His torch fell on him, and his ragged clothing and his body started burning. He woke up in a few seconds, and screamed as his body was consumed by the flames. Idiot.
I believe I was actually starting to get full, despite my body's rapid digestion. I had eaten quite a bit of muscle, fat, and blood, and that wholesome nutrition would do me good. Usually, blood is the second most nutritious substance in the universe (The first is mother's milk or its engineered equivalent.), but when it comes from something as underfed as peasants living near the most ravenous people alive, it loses its quality. And again, I'm so damn glad I never have to worry about disease. These people are filthy, both inside and out.
I took a few more bites of calf muscle and realized I was full, to the point of overflowing. I chucked the rest of the mangled corpse to the floor, saw the burning body outside the door, easily kicked down a grass-and-sticks wall, and walked out, satisfied and happy, enjoying the cool night air and the normals' agonized screaming. Billy ate for another fifteen seconds, then followed me out. Panic had gripped the rest of the makeshift village. Cries of "Diablos!!" and "Los jefes han matando Alicia!" filled the air, their screams making me feel all the more satisfied. Sarah had finished, and pieces of humans could be seen all over the place outside the hut she ravaged. In amusement I watched three of the stronger, more aggressive guys try to assault her with torches - one got his neck snapped like a twig almost immediately. #2 got his skull literally peeled open as Sarah grabbed his eye sockets and yanked upwards with her engineered power and adrenalized might. The skull-joints simply tore off, leaving the man's head a bloody mess, and I could faintly see the gray matter of his brain under the gore, scooped out by his own skull. The third was killed more mercifully, when Sarah smashed his jaw back then up with two quick blows of right and left hands, putting his lower teeth inside his brain. He did not bleed so much; he simply fell down, dead as a doornail before he hit the ground.
Then all hell broke loose as the peasants flew in a constant stream towards the trees. A woman carrying her baby tripped and dropped it, and it landed squarely on its skull. She picked it up, crying insanely, and fled towards the forest. Dumbfucks. This is an island. Where the hell are they going to run? The flames both from the burning body and people's dropped torches proceeded to set the rest of the dry village on fire.
The Enforcers calmly, meticulously continued to unload the boxes of food. I could hear a loud whup-whup-whup as another black helicopter came to rest, and its blades quickly shut off, leaving a silence only broken by the sounds of burning buildings and screams. I ran up to it, expecting what was to come. The Bastard, Herbert Gladstone, stepped out of it and addressed me in a solemn, formal tone, obviously rehearsed precisely. His formal tone was only momentarily broken by the sight of the soon-to-be Dominator with blood running down his face and chest.
"Mighty Inheritor, you have successfully completed the requirements of the first test for the abilities of Control and Patience. Now, we shall test you for the abilities of Endurance and Skill." Wait a minute, hotshot. That wasn't the test for endurance? A month of malnutrition for the person who can handle it the least?! Then what the hell is? "Being of sound mind and able body, do you accept or reject this next challenge?"
"I accept, you stupid bastard.", I said, grinning. If I can take a month of that shit, I can take anything. Bring it. I'm the fucking engineered Inheritor. And you only have eight more days to fuck me over in, asshole. What the hell do you plan to do? Fido came running to my right side and I petted him gently, blood matting his thick fur. Ugh. I need a bath.
He ceremoniously dropped a single paper, lead-bound, on the ground at my feet. "You have twelve hours to prepare yourself before leaving. The details are here." He then stepped back inside the helicopter, its powerful air almost blew me down, and he was high in the sky, then gone into the night. I noticed Billy and Sarah had taken their usual positions behind my sides.
"I can't believe I just did that.", said Billy in a dreamy tone. "The fucking food was right here, and yet we.. you.. just fucking slaughtered them anyway."
"They were going to die anyway. Besides, we all know why the fresh meat went first." To a normal it would not have been obvious; to us it was clear as day. The hunger we get is not for regular food. When we get hungry, it's always for the same thing-- raw, fresh, bloody meat. The wilder, the better. And I got serious insight about my strength- I didn't know I could break necks with a single blow. I didn't think I had the raw power. And I definitely didn't think Billy could rip someone's arm off like that. He didn't even have good leverage.
The Enforcers were finished putting the food away- I would definitely bring it out again for another feast today. One of them ran up to me and addressed me at exactly the same space as every time- precisely three fourths of a meter. "Howard, the peasants may be killed now." No shit, Sherlock. "Do you wish Enforcer aid in that matter?"
"Yes. Kill them all, as quickly as possible, with a minimum of damage to the island. Then resume normal duties. I'm taking a bath." "And so are all three of you.", I gestured to my favorite dog and servants. Fido barked. I picked up the book, trudged inside dragging mud and blood onto the carpet, dropped the book on the table with a whap, and slowly made my way up the stairs into the elevator, as I heard the faint, pleasant sound of assault rifles and agonized screaming outside. Shit, I'm tired. Once they followed me in, I pressed the fifth floor button, and almost collapsed with sleep on the way down. Some old prohibition about sleep and water I gleaned from common sense and some unnamed TV show hit me, so when I finally made my way to the pool, I said "Water - fifty-five." The freon tubes could be heard activating deep below the surface and at the sides.
"Fifty-five?!", exclaimed Billy. He started shivering in advance. "If you're worried about us sleeping in here, you really don't have to at sixty-fucking-five!"
"This is a lot easier for you than it is for me. Jump in." They did, all three of them, immediately, splashing me with cold. Billy drew in a loud gasp. Sarah shrieked, the first time she's done that in more than a month. Fido got out as soon as he got in, shaking madly. I touched a toe to the water - cold as hell - so I just muttered "the hell with it" and jumped in myself.
HOLY FUCK THAT'S COLD!! Icy tendons of blistering freeze greeted my body with sharp, shiver-producing bursts of cold and pain. "Yaaa!! Water! Seventy! No- Water, eighty!" All sleepiness was annihilated in a fraction of a second. What they say is true- cold showers really do wake you up quick, and normals really do get some important knowledge earlier. Damn. What the hell was I thinking? The high-powered heating got the water temperature up to at least a semi-agreeable level, with undercurrents exchanging the heat rapidly. Billy and Sarah were both giggling madly. "What the fuck's so damn funny?", I yelled at them.
"You.", Billy said, taking the KISS (Keep it simple, stupid) principle to an extreme.
"That and everything that happened in the last thirty seconds.", expounded Sarah. Both of them were still grinning like village idiots. An hour ago, I probably would have got pissed, but a feast of raw meat had made us all more agreeable- even Fido, who had remembered my earlier "take a bath" command and was swimming around. Fresh blood and mud are simple to wash off of bare skin and light fur, and the water purifiers quickly removed it when it dissolved.
"Thus ends the first test.", said Sarah in a semi-happy, semi-expectant voice.
"Hey, Howard.. didn't you say that the tests only last five weeks?", Billy asked.
"Yeah, so?"
"Well, then the next test can't be that bad, can it?"
"There are a lot of bad things you can do to someone in a week, Billy." He should know that by now.
"Yeah, but like.. they're not going to just flat-out attack you with Enforcers or something, are they?"
"I doubt they'll do that, but they're inventive, Billy. Just remember that."
"Oh, don't I know it." Heh, heh, heh.
The bath was refreshing. I sent Billy back up to get the paper, and bring it back - he did, with a pained look on his face.
"Howard- you better take a look at this. I think I jinxed it." His face and his tone were grim.
I climbed out of the pool and said, "All right, gimme." He chucked it to me, and I read the description and the rules - and screamed.
1. You may not communicate with anyone not in the Illuminati.
2. You may not bring any kind of sustenance with you.
3. You may not bring electric devices of any type with you.
4. You may not bring Enforcers or non-implanted agents.
5. Illuminated secrecy must be kept.
6. You may not bring any form of transportation.
7. You may not bring any weapons except blunt weapons and blades.
8. You may not light fire.
9. You must arrive at Point X, an area two hundred miles away from the starting point, within 168 hours of the beginning of this test.
10. You must start at the designated starting point, and at the designated time.
The designated point and time being noon and in the middle of undeveloped Brazil. "YAAAAAAAAAA!! Holy shit!! Sarah, how the fuck are we supposed to do this?" I grabbed the paper tightly with wet hands and it didn't get damp.
She climbed out, sighing, and grabbed the paper. "Hooooo... very carefully? Well, where's Point X?"
"I guess we'll have to find that out when we get there.", I replied.
"Billy," Sarah said with a sigh, "you did jinx it."
"Sarah, is this even remotely possible?", I asked, hoping that her field knowledge could tell me something about the challenge ahead.
"Yes... remotely. Two hundred miles in... 168 hours. And not all of that will be daytime. You'll have to average a daytime speed of about two miles an hour, without guns, gathering your own food, crossing a couple of rivers I'm sure, and not being seen. It can, technically, be done. And why are you saying 'we'? It says..." She read Rule 4 more carefully. "Oh dammit. I usually don't miss those either."
"Oh come on, Sarah, they wouldn't leave us behind now would they?", Billy said in his usual cynical voice.
"Considering their inclination for making tests hard, I figured they'd make him do it alone.", she replied. That brought up something I've been wondering about her.
"How many tests did they give you, anyway, Sarah?", I asked.
"About thirty big ones and constant little ones, like a total thousand or something. It was a weekly schedule. They changed it a few times though."
"Tell me how the one you most remember went.", I commanded. She rolled her eyes a bit, drifting back into her memory for the answer.
"Well.. I was eight years old at the time. I had just a little bit of training and experience with actual fighting, but, well, enough to get by. Then they put me alone in a room with one of those one-way mirrors on the wall, then they bring in this kid... he was a few inches taller than me and he was really aggressive. I think he was basically the meanest kid they could find. Anyway, they brought him in the room, and.. I don't know what they told him, but I think it was somewhere along the lines of 'do whatever you want to her.' He started pulling my hair, I told him to stop it, then he started trying to kick me... then my training kicked in." Billy winced noticeably.
"Ouch! What happened to him?", I asked morbidly.
"I forget all of it.. but I know it was something like several cracked ribs, a fractured neck, three separate concussions, bruises up and down his body, cuts everywhere.. I know I didn't kill him. But I used leverage, my steel shoes, my fingernails, everything."
"Did you have the metal fingernails then?", Billy asked.
"Yeah, I got those when I was like six. It took two guys to rip me off of him. I didn't knock him unconscious either, you probably would have loved his screaming." I giggled slightly.
"I suppose you passed the test.", Billy said.
"With flying colors.", Sarah replied.
"So what were they testing for?", he asked.
"The ability to kill. The ways came later." He nodded as if understanding something. Oh, yes. He was probably wondering why she didn't use her training methods to do an assassin kill. I figured she was just torturing him.
"I thought you did that naturally.", Billy replied. For that matter, so did I.
"Well, I do, but they needed to check."
"They always do.", Billy said with a slight sigh. It was then that Fido got out of the pool, and shook as dogs always do, his engineered muscles flinging water everywhere.
"So we've got twelve hours before we get to go on a safari of pure aggravation and the risk of death or worse. Great.", Sarah said, mildly annoyed.
"Yes. Okay, how to spend them?", I asked.
"I'm still fucking hungry.", Billy said. For that matter.. so am I. Shit. How fast did we digest them? Eat to the point of overflowing and then eat some more.. my metabolism screams for more.
"Let's eat." We went upstairs and we ate. Fucking absolutely devoured is more like it. Ate and ate and ate, pastries, veal, cheese, milk, vegetables, bagels, feeling the power go back into our bodies with each bite, throwing everything that needed to be cooked into a microwave and nuking it instead. Damn. I had no idea it would get like this- the nutrition is absorbed so quickly that we're left demanding more in a few minutes.
And finally, we were satiated once more, as the high nutritional content ensured that we wouldn't get hungry quite so quickly again. I plopped down on the couch and Billy plopped next to me.
"Damn, all this food and we munched on the peasants."
"Billy, it's not like they wouldn't have died anyway. You know that."
"Yeah.. but after watching your dog rip out the throat of that eight-year-old while I was chowing down on that other guy.. I dunno man, there's just something about that."
"You were taught for ten years that life is precious, that no one deserves to die, that violence is a disgusting, horrible thing not practiced by advanced civilizations, right?" Sarah came very close to laughing her ass off. As it was, she was snickering repeatedly. I doubted commanding her could make her completely stop; she finds death entertaining and mockery of death, or treating it as more than another set of fools to the meatgrinder, hilarious.
"Basically, except for wars."
"And you now know who taught that to you."
"The Illuminati."
"Of course. It was a lie, Billy. There are six billion human beings on Earth. Almost none of them are anything but generic, replaceable sheep. There's just so many of them, we can take a few and the rest don't care. Except if we want them to. Human life is next to worthless." This is all brutally obvious to me, brutally obvious to Sarah, and should be brutally obvious to him, but his ten-year childhood indoctrination of the Judeo-Christian Bullshit™ still affects him a little- of course, he's a quick learner and is rapidly getting over it.
"So why do you tell everyone that it's not?"
"Duh! Because Big Brother has to love them back. People won't love the system unless they think the system loves them, or at least is essentially good according to the moral codes which we put down for them."
"So you and your Illuminated friends really don't give a fuck."
"About most sheeple, hell no. Of course, there are certain sheeple that we use to keep the rest of them in line. People will follow those chosen leaders straight into Hell if they lead the way. That's where we got the term 'sheeple' from. Do you understand?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I get it. They're like ants, right?"
"You got the idea. Let's get some sleep." The digestive demands were taking their toll in fatigue. We went to bed and I was asleep seconds after hitting the mattress.
I woke up in the middle of the night with a pressure in my bowels. Ugh! I went to the bathroom, grimaced, and expelled a black, putrid mass of pestilence and rot, the inevitable result of the digestion of what we ate. Thus cleansed, I went back to bed and had no problem getting back to sleep.