But yes indeedy, we have a winner, it's indeed him, now you get your $64,000 and a free trip to Hell, where you will be tortured for all eternity, because boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, it's him, it's your old buddy Paul.

Paul used to be my best friend. A week after the beginning of first grade, we just clicked- we were together all the time after that. It was like we were parts of each other sometimes, and when our families went to do something fun (in his case much more often than mine), the question was always "Can Paul (or Billy) come?" Lady Luck was on Prozac and we lived within a block of each other. And of course, we shared the things you don't tell anyone except your absolute best friend, we went down to the creek together to skip stones, and no one dared jump him when I was around- at least not after that one incident.

And I remember it well, now. We were in fourth grade, about a month after my ninth birthday. Three seventh grade niggers tried to jump him for "dissin one of our homeboys, yo" or some other monkey shit. They came from behind, all three six inches taller than him and two inches taller than me, smashing his face into the wall and bloodying his nose. One of them was going to give a kick to him when I activated my full power. I didn't do that often as a normal, seeing as how I was taught it'd call unwanted attention to myself and make me a freak. That time, I didn't care.

I grabbed the degenerate's kicking leg and turned it in circles. The other two monkeys could do nothing but stare as I turned his leg around until I heard something snap deep within his hip. He screamed like a girl. The other one made the horrible mistake of trying to punch me- I grabbed his hand and his arm, and twisted. And twisted. And twisted. Eventually his radius, ulna, and various wrist and finger bones were broken in several places. I learned later that it would be weeks before he could hold a cup again. The other one broke from his frozen panic and tried to run. I lunged forward and grabbed his fuzzy monkey head, smashing the side and back of it into the wall again and again, until he eventually lost consciousness and several hundred million (largely unused) brain cells. After I did all that, I felt..satisfied somehow, as if bloodletting were my purpose for living. I grinned. Paul just stared at me as if Jesus had come down and decided to stay for tea- he always idolized me after that, more than he ever did. For what was an unknown reason at the time, I was never prosecuted. The niggers' families never even sued. Eventually the incident faded back into the dark recesses of memory, but it's still one of the first things I think about when I remember Paul.

When my 'parents' died and I freaked and ran, I had wanted to go to his house before I realized that'd be a bad decision. I loved him, the way he would get sarcastic when you least expected it, his flippant attitude, the way his ordinary, blemish-free face smiled.

But he wasn't going to be doing much smiling anymore.

Because Paul is wearing black, and we all know what that means, and if you think it's a funeral you're just wishfully thinking. Because he's in Hell already, not just some coffin.

My best friend is an implanted servant.

I'm so glad I crapped earlier, otherwise my loosening bladder and bowels would have made a mess all over the plush carpet and certainly myself. Some drool started to drip out of my gaping mouth and I wiped it off. Howard glanced at me briefly, then personally opened the door to greet the incoming Illuminated visitor, who shone in white from the open door's emissions. The two masters said things in Latin then the fourteen-year-old, lanky Illuminatus with his face coated in something (probably some sort of super-strength zit cream) stepped in out of the drizzle, seemingly astonished at the nakedness presented before him by all three of the residents. Then he ignored it. The Dominator does as he will.

I wanted to do something but had no idea what to do, and Howard would have probably made me stop it as soon as I started; so I did nothing except stand woodenly, as if I was a pervert's dick in a porn shop. Of course, my dick was shriveled and small at the moment.

Paul followed Damien in closely, at a set distance of about five feet. He looked haggard and used, which I reckon he was. Other than that, he looked almost the same... but there was something wrong with him, not just the implantation. Something was missing.. something very, very bad happened to Paul. Oh no. He's lobotomized... no, he's not, he's looking at me the same as I'm looking at him. He's still there. Whew. At least.. at least his mind is still his. I was not crying, but I was about to. There. Now you've done it, you Illuminated bastards. Now you've taken everything. For myself, you knew you had to have me, I'm the clone of the Dominator, but you had no business taking Paul. He's a normal. Let him live and die as one, innocent of this madness.

Howard flung the door closed and he and Damien stared at each other for a little while, in a mental evaluation of sorts. Eventually Damien asked where he should sit, and Howard said "Anywhere." Damien plopped down on the plush couch and Howard did an acrobatic one-handed vault over it- not to show off but because he could with ease- to sit next to him.

"Business or pleasure first, Howard?", said Damien with a hint of insecurity hidden behind his status. He was probably very, very scared and respectful of Howard.

"Business."

"Privacy?"

"Yeah. Sarah, Billy," and he tossed his thumb in the direction of the bedrooms. We went up without a word.. but the implants weren't affecting me not saying anything- what could I possibly say to this?

"Paul, follow him.", said Damien and I could hear Paul's telltale footprints coming up the stairs behind me. For the first time in a week I found myself thanking God (not the local one, the metaphysical one), an entity which I had little respect for until recently. At least I'd be able to talk to Paul for the first time in what felt like eternity.

When we came in my room and Sarah closed the door, Paul just stared at me. Tears started to well up in his eyes, and he lunged to me with amazing speed, his arms wide open. I stooped down a bit and encircled his body below his arms and we stood like that, hugging tightly, for a good half minute. His salty tears dripped down my naked back, intermixing with my hair. I could feel the bump of a gun in his back pocket. "Paul...", I said, crying, hugging a person I thought I had lost forever. At that moment, I knew I would lose Paul sometime in the future anyway.. he was but a mortal. He would last an infinitesimal amount of time in comparison to my immortality, unless by some freak chance (or planned attack..) I bite the dust violently. But his body was still here, and young, and almost exactly the same as I had left it, only a couple of months older and much more terrified. And something else, too, although I couldn't put my finger on it.

"Billy.. is it really you.. or him?", he said in a voice that I had almost forgotten existed.

"I'm Billy, Paul. It's me. He's Howard. Yes, he's my clone, and yes, he's my master.", I said, answering his questions before he asked them and slowly breaking off our hug.

"At least... he didn't make you cut off your own.. your .. own..." He couldn't finish it. He broke down in tears and sat on the floor. Cut off what? Oh.. god. Not that. I looked down at Paul's crotch. No bulge. None. His pants clamped down right between his legs. He had all the anatomy of a Ken doll. NO!!! He didn't.. they made him... they took his.. oh God.

Out of the anger and frustration rose a single, simple thought.

Damien has got to die. Right now.

It doesn't matter how, it doesn't matter how much pain or blood, the entity known as 'Damien' must perish from this earth forever, as soon as possible. And I can't kill him. And Sarah can't kill him. And Paul definitely can't kill him. And Howard won't kill him. And none of us can or will make the Enforcers kill him. The only person left on this list was Damien himself.

Now how the hell.. I came up with a plan instantly. A brutal, simple plan. It made me feel a lot better, but I couldn't reveal it to either Sarah or Paul, or even the fact I had a plan. If it works, Howard may do any number of things to me, or he may make me do any number of horrific things to myself. But I don't give a fuck. What more can he do that he hasn't already? Go ahead! Torture me, Howie! Make me beat the crap out of myself, douse my face in sulfuric acid! For all intents and purposes, I'm already dead!! (Besides, if my resolve does break down, I know that whatever physical injury he does cause to me will eventually regenerate.)

"I guess I wouldn't have used it anyway.", Paul said, trying to mentally lessen his own pain and loss. It didn't work. He sat on the carpet, sobbing again and again, bemoaning the loss of his dick and his freedom, in front of probably the only person who gave a fuck. "Billy...", he whined, tears coming out of his face. He just couldn't stop. He laid on the floor and sniffled, unconsciously curling into a fetal position, a black-clad mass. "It won't be okay, will it? There's no way to stop them, is there? First us and now the whole fucking world and there's no way to stop it!"

"Paul... if there was a way to stop them don't you think someone would have done it by now??", I said in a semi-furious voice I've used several times with him. Sure, it's not kosher to talk like that to someone who got his dick cut off (correction: was forced to do it himself), but this is Paul. And for my plan to work, I need his anger, not his sorrow.

He sat up and sighed. "Billy, what the fuck are you doing here anyway?"

"I'm here because I'm his.. clone. Turns out I was born for this. They got me on my tenth birthday, with bad guys and gas. Why the hell did they take you, Paul? What did you do? You're just a normal.."

"Not anymore.. at least that's what he says." As he talked, I noticed a slight discoloration on one of his front teeth.

"I mean.. genetically. You remember that time when we fell off the hill, and you thought you saw blood on my knee? And when I let you see it a few minutes later there was no wound and I told you it just got bumped? Paul, there really was blood there. You were right too, the force of my knee hitting that rock should have broken my leg."

He looked up at me with shining eyes. "You're either kidding.. or crazy. They took my dick, they took your sanity. Oh, god, GOD!" I could have sworn I heard him whimpering for his mother, but I wasn't listening intently enough and I didn't want to hear it. Not from Paul.

"Paul, I'm no crazier than this whole thing is."

"That's not sayin' much.", he muttered through his tears.

I tried to think of something to say. As if there was something. What the hell do you say to your best friend who's the property of a sadist so twisted, he made your friend cut off his own dick? Nothing. You ax the sadist, any way you can. Oh, how glorious it would be to take a large bladed object, such as a longsword or woodsman's axe, to Damien's throat. His skin would be sliced open like nothing, the jugular's blood would spill in a huge radius, and his voicebox would be chopped in half, its tiny muscles flailing around in a small spurt of crimson every time he tried to talk. But I couldn't. And even my own plan didn't call for that.

"B.. Billy.. just.. hold me.. it might be the last time ever!..", he said, sniffling. I dropped to one knee and hugged him. He put his right hand in my left and we did our secret special handshake- secret and special because I was the only one who he could physically do it with, him putting his four fingers in the wedges of my five, our thumbs crossing. I wanted to tell him it would be okay, that we'd get out of here, but that would be bullshit.

"Just remember you hate him, Paul.. remember you want to kill him."

A person I utterly forgot was in the room spoke up. "This is way too touching.. you guys are even making me sad.", she said in her high, pretty, assassin's voice. Paul chuckled a bit even through his sorrow. I'm surprised Sarah said anything- the presence of a female (especially a naked one) near a man with no dick causes frustration in itself. Again, I felt that absolute need to kill Damien, to watch his head explode like he got sniped in Quake, his body explode as if he was on the wrong end of The Postal Dude's shotgun.

We stayed hugging for a long while, until the intercom clicked on, Howard told us to get down there and Damien told Paul to come down and follow him. Paul wiped away his tears, looked something like the boy I knew, and I mustered every bit of self-control I had to put my plan into action.

After we came down, Damien bid his goodbyes, walked out, and I knew I'd only have one chance at this. "Howard,", I said in a perfectly normal voice, "can I ask Damien a question? It's important."

"Yeah, go ahead."

I ran out the door into the drizzle and Damien turned around with some surprise. "Damien,", I asked in a 'geez, this is obvious, you better say yes' voice, "you are letting your servants do the one thing they want most, aren't you?"

"Oh, of course.", he said in a semi-worried voice. It was at that point I realized he mistook me for Howard- an implication I hadn't thought of, probably necessary for him to fall for it- but hey, whatever works. I was about to scream for joy when Paul did the obvious- he pulled the gun out of his back pocket and aimed it at the back of Damien's head as Damien said "N--" It was very clear that Damien meant for Paul to not do it, that he realized his mistake, that he didn't want this to happen.

It happened anyway. Paul's normal brain was too slow to process the information before his trigger finger fired and turned the inside of Damien's head into gibs with a sharp crack of compact thunder. The gun was rather powerful, maybe a .45, and bits of brain and skull flew from the gaping exit wound on the top of Damien's forehead. The lifeless corpse fell into the grass, blood seeping out of the gaping holes, feeding the plants with its red warmth. (At least he's good for something.)

Paul: 1 Assholes: 0

Then Paul turned the gun to himself and in that instant I realized Damien must have used a suicide command, for his servants to kill themselves after he died. I ripped the gun out of his hand and flung it into the ocean. I saw Paul bite down on something- the tooth! Must be cyanide. I yanked Paul's jaw down, ripped the poison tooth out of his mouth with my full strength, it created less blood than a real one would have, and I flung the white pellet of death into the ocean too. Paul's hands moved elsewhere and I held them tightly.

I heard my own voice scream "What the fuck?! Enforcers! Hold the dark-haired one and prevent him from hurting himself." Two tall, black-clad figures came from the darkness and grabbed Paul after I let go. I turned around and saw Howard come running out with a look of utter surprise on his face.

"Billy.. what the fuck did you ask him?", he screamed at me.

"If he let his servants do the one thing they wanted most."

"And he said yes?!"

"Yup."

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! But Billy- why did you ask him that?!"

"Because I knew Paul, Howard.. from before.", I said. "He was my best friend, and Damien made him cut off his own dick.". I heard struggling noises, half-turned around, and watched an Enforcer silently, calmly hold Paul's jaw down to prevent himself from biting off his own tongue. The other one was holding his head.

"Awwrgh.", he muttered and sighed. "I told you not to kill Illuminati!"

"I didn't kill him. I handed him the dynamite and the detonator. He pushed the button."

"Actually, the dynamite was already there. But.." He sighed, rolled his eyes somewhat, and shook his head a bit. "This is why only intelligent people are supposed to have access to the implants." Ha, ha, ha. That good enough for ya, Howie? You don't think you can fuck up too? In eternity, every eventuality must happen, remember? I can wait... after all, I have forever on my side.

"Now what do I do with him?", Howard said. Oh damn. My super-engineered brain had given absolutely no thought to this topic, as if killing Damien would solve all of Paul's problems. Yeah. Right. Paul's still here, still in direct contact with the world controllers, still either dead or a slave. I felt as stupid as Damien.

"You always said you needed someone to do more personal spy shit.", said Sarah, and again she was invisible until she talked, her assassin training in action. I'm starting to like it. She steps back and hides until she can do something major, such as save my best friend's life in one sentence.

"Yeah.. yeah, some other stuff too. All right. Enforcers, take him to the Northberg Medical Facility. Use the chopper, but refuel first." Damien wasn't going to use it anymore. The Enforcers gibbered in their fast language (still not sure of all of it, it's a clipped, modified version of Latin..), then one shouted for aid. Two more came out, one pressed something on a small control pad, a section of ground simply flipped upwards, and the Enforcer pressed a few buttons on it and pulled a hose out. I never even knew that was there.

In fifteen seconds the chopper was refueled, the hose pushed back in and the ground closed, the Enforcers holding Paul forced him inside the chopper with ridiculous ease, the others stepped in, and the black helicopter did its quiet whup-whup-whup high into the blackness and the rain.

"Sarah, call up Northberg and tell 'em he's coming." She walked inside, and through the untinted window I could see her talking to the viewscreen.

Howard and I stood in the drizzle, our bodies ignoring the cold wetness. Our eyes locked for a dozen seconds or so- I didn't know what he was thinking for once. We just stood looking at each other, eyes blinking in normal intervals at the exact same time. Do whatever you want to me, Howard. I'm just your poor, dependent servant, who laid utter and complete waste to one of your little Illuminated fuckers with a few words. "Billy, at least now you understand the basics of manipulation.", he finally said with some resignation in his voice.

"But I didn't manipulate. I just took advantage of his stupidity."

"Exactly."

We went back inside to hear an angry 40-ish man, red in the face, obviously terminally anal, shout at Sarah "And I want to know why he is sending here a servant that he does not own! Where is Damien Gladstone?" The man looked past Sarah and saw Howard. "Dominator! Explain this!"

"First off, you diaper-chafed piece of shit, you do not use that tone of voice with me.", Howard said in an even tone of bone-crunching authority. "If you continue, I will torture you to death and find a better man to replace you with. Second, it was a suicide. His own servant killed him, and that is whom I am sending to you. Third, you will replace this servant's anatomy, heal his scars, and his implants will be reset so that I will be his new master. Am I being clear, Night Operator?" The Night Operator didn't seem too happy about getting told what to do by a ten-year-old, but he knew that Howard would make good on his threats. He held his temper and his breath.

And it was a suicide, technically. Howard didn't want to blame me. Probably because, as my master, he is responsible for my actions, and the supposedly unwarranted killing of Illuminati is something that might get more fools trying to snipe his ass into oblivion.

"Where is his body?"

"On my front lawn, feeding the grass."

"What?! We could save him if the damage is less than complete!"

"Most of his brain decided to take a vacation out of the top of his skull. If you want another vegetable to do experiments on, I think you can clone some, can't you?" The Head Night Operator grimaced and got even redder.

"You will pay for this!", he screamed.

"Do you take American Express?", a completely unintimidated Howard replied. "And I distinctly told you not to use that tone of voice with me." The man was purple when he slammed the close button and the viewscreen winked out. Howard chuckled slightly. "Circumcised a bit low, wasn't he?"

"Yup.", I said.

"With a chainsaw.", muttered Sarah. The thought of one of these assholes getting the tip.. whoops, mistake, sorry, most of his dick getting cut off with a spinning metal blade of pain, with bits of skin, fleshy pulp, and blood flying every which way, while he screamed to no avail, made me smile and chuckle. Especially after what happened to Paul. Let them get the axe to the penis. Howard stood doing nothing for about half a minute, pondering the events- his good servant had set in motion a chain of events to blow away the guy he talked to for the last few minutes, the young Illuminatus with a promising future and probably some support on Howard's part. Or, maybe not. One does not make derogatory comments about the death of one's Illuminated friends.

We were all about to head off to sleep, when the fat guy Howard refers to as the Bastard came on the screen. He was mad. Really fucking mad. I don't think I've ever seen anyone that pissed, present company included.

"You... you.. Howard.. grrr... killed my son.."

"Having trouble forming sentences, happy boy?", Howard said, with a smirk on his face, purposefully goading Gladstone into further anger.

"You little bastard.. how could you.. I'll talk to you LATER!!", he screamed as he winked out, not daring to say any more in a fit of rage and inadvertently cause his own death- not that Howard's going to let him live very long anyway. Howard chuckled, then started to giggle a bit.

"Fiddlefucks. There is one more thing I have to do, though.", he said. He then, to my utter surprise, entered into public records a direct, concise statement of exactly what happened.

"You're telling the exact truth..", I said, amazed.

"The Operator could get the truth by resetting Paul's implants to himself before he resets them to me." I hadn't even considered that. "Anyway, it's time to sleep. We'll go pick up Paul tomorrow night. I haven't been to Northberg in a while anyway." Howard grabbed the mouse, clicked a few buttons on the screen, turning all communication off- Asshole Guard™. We walked upstairs to our rooms, me grinning like crazy. Paul got ultimate revenge on his tormentor, it turned out to be the asshole's son, and Howard's doing nothing but laughing at the whole thing and taking Paul in. 'Thank you, Howard. Thank you so fucking much.', I would have said, if I didn't want to send him straight to Hell so damn hard, and maybe if.. maybe if.. fuck. We all know the maybe-if, don't we, Howie?

I heard a slight growling sound coming from the front side of the house before I closed the soundproof door, and I knew it was only the dogs, Fido leading the pack, munching on Damien's corpse. None of us needed to look back to know what was going on; they were snapping him up like they did the peasants. Only Damien has a bit more meat on him, is all.

I had a nameless nightmare filled with fear, evil, massacre, and torment. In its own way, it was quite refreshing. For some strange reason I screamed in absolute terror and didn't mind a bit.

I woke up early, restless. The killing of Damien, and the assorted meanness Howard had bestowed upon his relatives, had felt like a party, the consequences to be dealt with in the morning. Well, guess what, now it's the morning. I thought for a bit, put on the black suit, and opened the door to find Howard already reading things on the viewscreen. I walked downstairs, curious.

Theodore Roosevelt: (Haha, is that actually his name?) A servant just killed an Illuminatus, and another servant manipulated him into letting it happen. Both of them are implanted.. what do we do in cases like this?

Jean Chirac: Killing them probably isn't an option, at least not in this case. The Dominator, I'm sure, has reasons for taking the normal one, and there's obvious reasons he's not about to kill the engineered one. Punishment is the usual answer for transgressions. (Shit. Double shit.)

Theodore Roosevelt: That's not going to accomplish anything, is it?

Jean Chirac: It's not meant to accomplish anything, Ted. Damien's dead. The point is to show that we're not going to just let people die. Besides, look at it this way- if the Dominator's taking a murderous servant, he's more likely to get killed himself. (Paul? Kill Howard? I guess it's possible, but I couldn't imagine it.)

Theodore Roosevelt: He might disagree, especially if it's in public. If the servant that looks exactly like him is punished in public..

Jean Chirac: I see what you're saying, but if the higher levels determine that he needs to do it, he'll do it. He can still be overpowered.

"So what the hell's going on? If you don't punish me in front of them, they'll come over here with an army?", I asked from behind him. I prayed to every God that man ever believed in that Howard wouldn't. Those torture devices he has are evil. And since I regenerate, he can do basically whatever they want without ever having to worry about what I'll look like in a week or so. Branding? No problem! A vise on the balls, clamped tightly, slowly getting tighter and tighter, crushing the male glands, causing screams of pain straight from the very bowels of Hell? Sure, it'll heal up. But what if the intended target was Paul, not me, doing damage not even the medical technology of Illuminated doctors can cure? I didn't want to think about that at all. Paul's still a normal, dammit, don't you fuckers know when to stop? He doesn't belong here, let him go back to the normal world and let him worry about school and college and what girls to date! Not whether or not he's going to get his ass kicked if his master gets bored enough, not whether or not he is going to get tortured for killing the guy who made him cut off his own dick. Again, I felt that same sort of protectiveness towards him- I'm the reason he's here, so I have to do what I can- which isn't much- to stop him from feeling the pain which my bioengineered body can take.

Howard motioned, and I vaulted over the couch to sit beside him. "If they try anything like that, I'm going to get the Micro, you're going to get the atomic shotgun, Sarah'll get the rapid fire mini-missiles, Paul'll get the automatic bazooka, the Enforcers'll get everything else, and we're going to have ourselves an ass kicking.", he said with some fury in his voice. His eyes and mine brimmed with the same bloodlust. A Quake 2 fraglist danced in my mind. He'd probably get the top of it- that Micro kicks a lot of ass. "But most of them don't want your torture, especially because they know of the regeneration and the fact that you can't be Pavloved. A lot of them want my public apology, and that's it. Some of them want Paul tortured." That's what I was worried about- hey, assholes, just remember what happened to the last guy who did it. "A few of them want you dead, although they don't say it directly. Probably, a few of them want me dead. Having a grisly reminder that they can die really ticks them off."

"So what are you going to do?"

He sighed, and shook his head. "Billy.. if you really were me, what would you do?"

Howard, once more, got my honesty and bluntness, which he seems to enjoy. "I'd probably tell them all that it was his own damn fault for falling for it, and anyone who thinks an Illuminatus should be protected from his own stupidity, especially some second level, should go fuck himself. Howard.. when I came up with that, I thought it was the smartest thing in the world. Now it just seems silly. Why the hell did he say yes?!" Chuckling, Sarah sat down to Howard's left.

"Anyone who would has no business being in the Illuminati at all, let alone the second level. Billy, it's not your fault. He got what he deserved. Any idiot could have seen the first thing Paul wanted to do was to blow that fucker's brains out. Yeah, he still supported me.. or at least pretended to, and I'm still ready to strangle you for that part of it. But he was an idiot. He had it coming. But.. I can't tell them to go fuck themselves. Even in our organization, any large-scale stupidity insult is political suicide. Sure I can stop 'em from getting on the island, but we'll all be trapped here for a very long time if I do that." His hate almost matched mine for their stupidity in power, the idea that they were somehow superior to created superior beings. He muttered to himself and vowed he'd never, ever, ever overestimate the levels' intelligence again. "By the way, let's make no mistake about this. Billy, Sarah- if either of you think anyone else will fall for that, you have my express permission to do the same damn thing to him or her.", he said, enunciating the words carefully.

"Don't think it'll work for me like it did for him.", Sarah pointed out.

"It just might. If it does, the victim gets what he deserves.", Howard replied evenly.

"For an organization that prides itself on intelligence, you sure must have a lot of idiots.", I said. Howard and Sarah laughed very loud. I started smiling and chuckling.

"Don't tell me you just figured that out!", Howard exclaimed, still laughing. Sarah just shook her head.

"I had the feeling earlier.. how did they get in here, then?" Now I know the full reason that Howard's initial oath contained a promise not to admit the unworthy. This sort of thing is likely a chronic problem.

"They were smart when they did. Power corruption, Billy. They have the minds- they just don't use them." A mind is a terrible thing to waste. (An asshole, on the other hand..) "There's no cure for it- once they get in here, their ego goes over their brainpower. Reversible in some once they figure it out.. some never do. And of course they're real Illuminati at that point, so we can't annihilate them indiscriminately.. not yet, anyway."

"Got it."

Howard decided to go to Paul that evening, even if he wasn't fully healed yet. On the plane I tried to think of things to say to Paul, but couldn't. I'd have to make it up when I got there.