Something's wrong here, I immediately noticed.

Damn it! What the hell is it? Damien's not here to kill me- that helicopter isn't filled with explosives (it'd have to have a nuke in it to blow me up from there anyway- this place is nigh-invincible).. why the hell am I getting the feeling that something is just plain wrong with this picture?

Maybe I'm just being a fool, that's why. Maybe I should have laughed at Damien and shut the connection off like I had planned. Maybe what's wrong here is me, getting prepared to deal with an idiot's son, knowing that I'm wasting my time and some of my credibility even bothering to talk to this clown.

No. It's not that. Because Billy notices something's wrong too- and he notices it more acutely than I do. Shit! I doubt he knows what it is either... is it the servant? Yes.. something is definitely wrong with the servant, and that's what Billy's looking at. But something's wrong with the Illuminatus too. It's not his face, which is coated in some kind of lotion (I'm guessing it has something to do with the marks on his face). His expressions, his mannerisms.. I don't know. Even observing him carefully, I can't tell what it is. Maybe it's something Billy's seen in the normal world that I haven't. At any rate, if he has something planned, I have the utmost confidence that I'm simply too fast for him. I looked at him, judging whether or not he was carrying anything that might actually be a threat to me. No.. he's armed, yes, but from the positioning of the gun I can tell that he's clueless about it; it can't be quickly drawn.

I was obviously watching him and he watched me as well. Good. Take a good look! I don't mind that at all. I'm rather used to being looked at...

I let him say the first thing. "Where should I sit?" Silly question- there's not anywhere else here but the couch. I don't usually entertain guests, after all. His voice was scared- probably more scared than it should be, but then again I'm just terrifying like that.

"Anywhere.", I replied, and he sat on the left side- I simply flipped over the couch to sit on the right. He came here to be impressed, and I won't deny him even the little things in that.

"Business or pleasure first, Howard?" Pleasure? You're kidding, right? You're here as a diplomatic gesture, Mr. Gladstone, and I only conduct pleasure of any sort with my friends. What's more, there was an undercurrent in the word 'pleasure' that I didn't like at all.

"Business."

"Privacy?" For a split instant I had no idea what he meant. Privacy from who?! Oh... yes. I wouldn't consider it, but I'm going to be courteous about this, even if it's just another piece of utter pointlessness.

"Yeah. Sarah, Billy," and I motioned with my thumb upstairs. They understood and left.

"Paul, follow him." He left immediately, giving me no clue as to what was wrong with him.

"Start with the most important piece of business first.", I told Damien.

"The first would be for me to give you a personal congratulations on your passing of the tests. Dominator, believe me, there were all kinds of plans to have another Dominator if you failed. And yes, the rumor is true, my father had me as one of them." You earn no points for confirming common knowledge, Mr. Gladstone; tell me something I don't know and maybe I'll consider you a bigger help. "I'm glad you won, Dominator. I'm very glad none of that had to happen." He's being honest. If he was made Dominator, he'd probably be dead by now... "And I really loved that rolling rock solution." I didn't spoil it by telling him it was Billy's idea.

"The second is the retrovirus." I looked at him. I've been in favor of a retrovirus to improve already-existing Illuminati since long before my tenth birthday, and I've made no secret of it. It's a high priority for Northberg, but it's a tough job. "Dominator, there are people who don't want it deployed, that say if we make and distribute it, it'll tear us apart." I'm sure there are people that say that, and I'm equally sure they're close to Damien and his father. "They can go to hell. Dominator, you probably wonder why I'm not partially engineered. You know I could have been, and I'm sad about it. Master, I want it." I'm the Dominator, so it's all right for Levels to call me Master- but from his tongue it sounds very weird indeed. There is definitely something wrong with his mind. "The strength, the intelligence, the regeneration.. the immortality. I want it, and I'm so glad you're supporting distributing it freely instead of keeping it to yourself." He's being honest, but I can tell from the way he says it that he's got a terrible misconception. He thinks that if I give it out, I'm weakening myself against the other Illuminati, reducing my power as Dominator, instead of beefing up the organization that I command, really increasing it.

He's also sucking up, I realized. He did his homework, he researched me through and through, and now he's just doing his damnedest to get on my good side. And, although it isn't working, he's good at it.

Well of course he's good at it, I realized as he continued to talk (it didn't really matter what he was saying), understanding everything about the Bastard and his son in a flash. He knows how to borrow, to manipulate normals, to take power. He knows how to make it sound like he wants to fulfill my goals when all he wants to fulfill are his own. And he and his family obviously know how to keep power, the fine art of position-keeping that has been perfected in the last two hundred years. I've known this sort of thing before- I guess a flash of insight is just a realization based on things already known.. such as the fact that they don't know how to use their power to benefit the cause- or me. Damien is probably very serious about wanting a retrovirus, mental problems or not. He probably would love nothing more than to join the ranks of the engineereds. But I know that, at least for now, he can't really help me. He can tag along and that's about it. And since he does have mental problems of some kind- although I'm not exactly sure what they are- I can't have him interfering in my plans. If I just told him to get the fuck out, he'd likely cause me a good bit of trouble, so...

No. I can't just up and kill him. I can't let my bloodlust get the better of me. Not in this stage of the game. Maybe after I've marshaled some forces, maybe after I've established my position a little more. Not now.

So I let his sycophancy draw to a close, I told him that I couldn't help him right now due to other Illuminati not wanting me to play any favorites yet, and I told him that I'd be thinking about him in the future- which, of course, I will.

"All right, it's over, get down here.", I told my servants, and Damien called for his servant, Paul, in a voice that reaffirmed my suspicions of his mental imbalance. Damien and Paul walked out the door.

"Howard, can I ask Damien a question? It's important.", Billy said, casually.

"Yeah, go ahead." Billy rushed out the door as if the question was the one thing in his life.

A few seconds later I heard a POW and realized it was a high caliber weapon. Oh fucking shit. I rushed out the door and saw Billy holding Paul's arms tightly, and from the motions I realized the servant was trying to kill himself- and on account of a command. But why would..

Then I noticed the prone form of Damien Gladstone on the ground, a crimson flow pouring out of his head onto the rain-soaked grass. There's no healing this guy, I realized. Shit! I had just finished making my decision not to kill him immediately, and guess what happens!

"What the fuck?! Enforcers! Hold the dark-haired one and prevent him from hurting himself." Enforcers were at the servant immediately and held his arms tightly. Billy let go and turned to face me as I rushed towards the scene.

"Billy.. what the fuck did you ask him?", I shouted at him.

"If he let his servants do the one thing they wanted most.", he replied with a note of triumph.

"And he said yes?!" You've got to be fucking kidding me!

"Yup." His note of triumph was larger.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" He was a fucking second level- how the hell did he get fooled by that?! "But Billy- why did you ask him that?!"

"Because I knew Paul, Howard.. from before.", Billy replied. Gah! No wonder! That's what Billy was looking at!! "He was my best friend, and Damien made him cut off his own dick." Well, that's the explanation for what's wrong with the servant, and probably a fairly good explanation for what's wrong.. err, what was wrong with the master as well.

"Awwrgh.", I muttered, sighing. But, still.. "I told you not to kill Illuminati!"

"I didn't kill him. I handed him the dynamite and the detonator. He pushed the button." This is exactly what the guide to implants warns about. A servant with a don't-kill-your-master command- which is all servants- can hook his master up to Jack Kevorkian's Suicide Machine as long as he's sure that the master, not the machine, decides the killing. This is also why it's a bad idea to implant people with poor senses of logic- they're likely, oddly enough, to make ways around it that don't make any damn sense. Unfortunately, it's also bad to implant people with good senses of logic (a necessary evil, however), because they'll figure ways around it that make perfect sense.

"Actually, the dynamite was already there. But.." Sigh. Argh. Damn it! "This is why only intelligent people are supposed to have access to the implants." Billy was mildly amused at that. "Now what do I do with him?" Billy obviously wasn't thinking about that little problem and said nothing.

Sarah spoke up from behind me. "You always said you needed someone to do more personal spy shit." Yes, I did, before Billy came to the island.

"Yeah.. yeah, some other stuff too." He's a normal and he might be useful just for that. "All right. Enforcers, take him to the Northberg Medical Facility. Use the chopper, but refuel first." A little Enforcer-latin, a little refueling, and the chopper was high in the sky, the black paint blending with the rain-filled black sky. "Sarah, call up Northberg and tell 'em he's coming."

I looked at Billy and thought. Well, if he's friends with that boy, then there's no question as to why he did it. And there's nothing effective I can do about it now that it's done. I wanted Damien dead as well- just not quite like that. But the fact that Billy is using manipulative techniques is a good thing in and of itself- it means he can become my second self very soon. It's just the ends that bug me. "Billy, at least now you understand the basics of manipulation.", I told him.

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

"Exactly." That hit him like a gentle slap, the immediate understanding evident on his face. He followed me back inside.

On the screen was the Night Operator of Northberg, and he was absolutely livid. Which is highly unsurprising, considering his relationship to the Bastard and his son. "And I want to know why he is sending here a servant that he does not own! Where is Damien Gladstone?", he shouted to Sarah before I came into his field of vision. Damn it, Billy, now I'm going to have to deal with this guy, and he's well beyond pissed. "Dominator! Explain this!"

Wait a minute. What did he just call me? The Dominator. Oh, that's right, I'm the DOMINATOR. Why the hell should I be scared of him?! "First off, you diaper-chafed piece of shit, you do not use that tone of voice with me.", I told him, the authority in my voice a strangling hand. "If you continue, I will torture you to death and find a better man to replace you with. Second, it was a suicide." It's a suicide for two reasons: because it can be defined logically as suicide when you consider that implanted servants are supposed to be an extension of the self, and because I say it's a fucking 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," I remembered that one just in time- I almost forgot normals could scar. "and his implants will be reset in my presence when I arrive. Am I being clear, Night Operator?" He didn't like that, of course, but he knows that I really can and will torture him to death. He wasn't about to spearhead a revolution against me, I knew, not even for his deceased cousin.

"Where is his body?" He tried desperately to hold his temper. Here's some advice: don't lose your temper, or I'll lose mine.

"On my front lawn, feeding the grass."

"What?! We could save him if the damage is less than complete!" His temper restored most of its previous fury.

"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?" His temper returned to its previous explosive state.

"You will pay for this!", he screamed, and I decided to get flippant the same way Billy does.

"Do you take American Express? And I distinctly told you not to use that tone of voice with me." The Night Operator, a bright purple, slammed his end of the viewscreen off. "Circumcised a bit low, wasn't he?", I observed. I don't give a damn what Damien's relationship to the guy was. If the Night Operator cared about him that much, why the hell didn't he have him at least rudimentarily engineered? Don't you have any faith in your own technology, Operator? Didn't you realize that you could have prevented this by both giving him better intelligence and better reflexes? Or did you simply not care, you fuckwit, and only started caring when Damien became old enough to...

Play his power games? Is that what's going on? The Night Operator helped create me and I'm the best there is. If he is playing power games and using his cousin to do it, why the hell did he send someone like that against someone like me? Doesn't he have any clue how strong and smart I really am?

How the hell can genetic normals be so fucking stupid?

"Yup.", Billy said.

"With a chainsaw.", Sarah muttered, and Billy started smiling and chuckling in vengeful glee. Of course he's happy. He both got the chance to see an Illuminatus eat it from his servant and he rescued his friend from a life with a sadist, all in one simple question and one single stroke of death. Now Damien is dog food and Billy and his friend are going to be reunited.. just not in the way that he'd originally hoped. This is going to be interesting if nothing else.

But I'm too tired to worry about that crap now and I started heading for bed, the buzzer loudly interrupting me with its BZZZERT! The insanely, almost inhumanly angry form of the Bastard showed up on my screen and I smiled at him a bit.

"You... you.. Howard.. grrr... killed my son.." Oh, really? I killed him? Why didn't you think of his possible death before you decided not to engineer him, you shit? Why didn't you tell him that I can't be dealt with and manipulated and flattered like some pinhead normal politician or some fifth-level second-rater? What the hell were you doing breeding in the first place, anyway? I could almost hear the gene pool thanking Billy and Paul for their efforts.

"Having trouble forming sentences, happy boy?", I said, smirking at him, daring him to come and get me, a task I knew the other Illuminati would gladly let him do alone. I'd love for him to do that. I'd just slaughter him like the bloated bitch he is.

His crude, animal intelligence told him to leave. "You little bastard.. how could you.. I'll talk to you LATER!!", he shouted, before he clicked off. He should feel lucky I haven't yet clicked him off with a .50 caliber Universal Off Switch. And, as I thought about the last guy: why didn't you partially engineer him, if you wanted him to live so badly? This is the same general question I'd love to ask normal anti-bioengineering activists at gunpoint: why do you consign your own fucking grandchildren to disease, inferiority, and slow death?

"Fiddlefucks. There is one more thing I have to do, though." I entered into public records, in simple, direct language, a statement of exactly what happened.

"You're telling the exact truth..", Billy marveled.

"The Operator could get the truth by resetting Paul's implants to himself before he resets them to me." He hadn't thought of that. "Anyway, it's time to sleep. We'll go pick up Paul in the morning. I haven't been to Northberg in a while anyway." I'll be sure to check out the latest everything when I'm there. I turned off all incoming communications to preserve my sanity and headed upstairs to get some sleep. Billy was still grinning, probably with the realization that we have a common enemy in Illuminated idiots.

The next day, I got up early, my mind waking me up with various worries, as various possible political implications of what Billy did (and my rather impolitic responses, although I don't regret them one bit) occurred to me.. I put on the suit, wanting to feel armed. Then I walked down to the viewscreen and read assorted, Enforcer-transcribed conversations between the full range of Illuminati, skipping over pleasantries and gobbledygook, looking for conversations like this.

Theodore Roosevelt: 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.

For a split second, out of nowhere, I visualized myself taking off the suit, just because I didn't want the fist-blades to give Jean Chirac an early death as I beat her head into the floor with repeated face-crushing punches. Then I made my rage pass- I didn't want to let it into this. Not now, at any rate.

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.

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.

That was my most recent; I've read about twenty before Billy talked from behind me. "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?" That might be what some of them really want, the ones who aren't just saying so to join with the group in a condemnation of me. Punishment might be the symbolism they're looking for. And they're not going to get it. Sorry, assholes- you know what Billy is the moment you look at him (which means you might want to consider donating a few of your sparse brain cells to thinking about what he'd like to do to you), I do not have to answer at all the fact of Damien's suicide (which means that you should feel lucky I am even bothering to care), and, furthermore, you are not going to affect any of my quite personal decisions with your pathetic, useless whining.

I motioned and Billy vaulted over the couch to sit at my right. "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," I found it amazing how naturally I factored in Paul as part of my forces. "the Enforcers'll get everything else, and we're going to have ourselves an ass kicking." I don't care what they're threatening. They want to try it, let them. They want to start a Dominator-ousting on something that is my business, they're welcome to it. And when my servants, Enforcers, Illuminated allies, and I are finished urinating on their corpses, I'm going to rebuild the Levels with people that aren't stupid. "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 say they want Paul tortured." I could almost read his thoughts: 'Didn't I kill the last guy who did that?' "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 asked.

I don't want a civil war. More than that, I don't want to be seen as the one provoking a civil war- I'll lose allies. I have to put my foot down- to settle anything like this in the future- but I can't do it in a way that would make them consider opposing me. I need ideas. "Billy.. if you really were me, what would you do?"

"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." Ideas are like that. Even good ones. "Why the hell did he say yes?!" Sarah chuckled and sat down next to me.

"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." They don't want to piss me off. Unfortunately for me, that also works in reverse. "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." It'll be attrition, and it will probably work on me. That's a problem. What I have to do is this: I must be direct without insulting everyone; I must answer the legitimate concerns without knuckling under, maintaining my image of benevolent strength. In other words, I have to be truly diplomatic for the first time in my Illuminated career.

"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.", I said, watching my words. I considered commanding them to do it, but decided against it. If the Levels bitch at me when my servants do it again, I'm just going to say 'Didn't I already answer this shit? And who the hell could fall for it after knowing how Damien met his end?'

"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."

"For an organization that prides itself on intelligence, you sure must have a lot of idiots.", Billy said. Sarah and I just busted a gut. I might be the Dominator, but he's Captain Obvious! He started chuckling, realizing the 'Duh!' value of what he had just said.

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

"I had the feeling earlier.. how did they get in here, then?" The back door, I almost answered. The vents, the pipes, the windows. They sneak in like roaches, and I'm the fucking Orkin Man.

"They were smart when they did. Power corruption, Billy. They have the minds- they just don't use them. 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." I need to populate the Illuminati with bioengineereds. The ones that aren't will either get a retrovirus, get terminal geriatric diseases, or get creamed.

"Got it."

We flew to Northberg that evening. Even if Paul wasn't healed yet, there was something I needed to do.