As soon as we got into the jet, Sarah said, "You gave them what they wanted, Howard."

"You think they really wanted to croak?", he asked, surprised.

Sarah rolled her eyes a bit, gave Howard an 'Are you kidding?!' look, and said, "Come on, Howard! Just about everyone in the room had to have smelled the suicide. They all know that's instant death! I'm just surprised none of those three told that Night Operator their plan, or maybe he was in on it too. Do you know what suicide by cop is?", she asked, turning the jet around to point out the door.

"Never heard that term before.", he replied.

"Suicide by cop is when normals threaten or in some other way force police officers to shoot them dead. Since normal police have to shoot first or risk dying to criminals, the technique usually works. Suicide by Dominator, obviously, has the same effect.", she said, and blasted the jet into the sky with the usual enormous blast of force. I started laughing a bit. Suicide by Dominator! Lower the patience meter enough and BLAM! Really quick way to go here, folks.

"You actually might be right. But it's been said- never attribute to malice, or anything else for that matter, what can be adequately explained by stupidity."

"Actually," I pointed out, "it could have been both. They finally get the chance to tell you off as much as they want right before they croak. All of them probably already knew that Damien's death was because of stupidity- they didn't want to admit it, but they probably knew it- but after that and the fact that their popularity was getting dangerously low already, they might have just said 'Fuck it, life's not worth living anymore, we're broken and our lineage is destroyed, let's go.' Or maybe they even thought you wouldn't dare to kill them." Howard blinked at that. Social restrictions on killing at the wrong time and the wrong place are what would stop normals, but Howard probably has a hard time even conceiving of it. I have no idea what the hell Howard may do- exactly what concerns he uses to make his policy decisions are still alien to me- and so I can't really be surprised no matter what he does. It'll be rational, at least. "But watch it, some of those other guys might have faking the cheerfulness and might be gunning for you now."

"Hmm... maybe I'll look up examples of their crap, have some ready if someone thinks twice.", said Howard, after a moment's thought. But that wasn't all.. there was something else there.

"Howard... wait, something strange about all this." As soon as I said it, I realized immediately what was strange. "Those guys.. aren't really Illuminati."

"Ha! How so?"

"Well, for one thing, you said they knew how to work together. They don't, Howard. They were just mumbling assent, like sheep. I don't even think any of them really thought about why it happened or what could have been done to prevent it, or what those three did wrong. And... well, it just seems silly!"

"Billy, these are the first rational things I've really heard in three straight days. Details."

I had only limited understanding, but I gave it to him as best I knew how. "It's like they don't know what they're doing, Howard. They don't know. I don't really get it either, but you were right, it is a game. But if they all already control the world, then why do they keep fighting over things that don't exist? I looked it up that back in 1991, Herbert wanted to get a news organization to get people protesting the Persian Gulf war? Well.. why? Who cares if there's hippies or there's loyal Americans? If they're all sheep, why does it matter?"

"Heh, heh, heh. Billy, now you see it. You see, this organization was founded on one thing alone, ego. The founders knew that, eventually, the organization would fall if people came in only pretending to understand it. So what they did was they prepared for it. They wrote all the texts, so that even if they all didn't know what they were doing- which a lot of them don't- the organization would still function exactly as planned. But at least one person does have to know, and that's what I'm here for. They are fucking around, Billy. They want to gain and grow and manipulate in an environment where some of them can't really do that anymore, not because of their own lack of talent but because of the steady, consistent-growth plan. They're living in the past, a lot of them. They want to do more mind control than is needed, just so they can say 'Hey, these people follow me, see how great I am.' They want to make a difference where only time, steadiness, and cooperation will make a difference- so they do meaningless shit like that instead. They want to just jump out with some marvelous plan that will completely control everyone, where there already is such a plan. They fight among each other because they want respect, and that's what scares me."

"Scares? Why?" Sarah chuckled as soon as I said that.

"Because like I said, power doesn't really exist. Respect doesn't really exist. It's all just in the mind, Billy. They're fighting for emotions, and if they don't watch it, their petty feuds will fuck this whole organization to shit. And that's just what they are, petty. They can pretend to know, and they can say the knowledge, and they can practice manipulation and their multiple-layer shit, but too many of them don't really understand it. Too many of them can't control their own egos for the life of them- they can control almost everybody else, which makes them Illuminati, but the tail's wagging the dog. Normally, the Dominator would step in with recruitments, and try to show these people the way again, but he didn't, and for a reason. One reason is the partially-engineereds and the other reason is the implants."

"Because you won't even need the normal Illuminati anymore, will you, Howard? They'll just be your motherfucking servants. Divide and conquer."

"Bingo. But the problem is, I have to get this planet implanted before they tear us apart- I'll probably, hell, I'll almost certainly do that, but Murphy's Laws should always be counted upon."

"You're a trans-manipulative bastard.", I said, faintly. He's using the controllers of the world for his own purposes now.

"Thank you, Billy. But it's not as bad as you think. It's some of them, a lot of them, not all of them. You know all that murmured assent? A lot of that was just cover for other, real plans. Because some of them really do have an interest in the total control of the world. Now that those five are gone, their resources can be taken. For instance, I know that Herbert ran several major news organizations, and they'll probably go to some other Illuminatus specializing in that field. If a single Illuminatus is in charge of one sort of thing- which is ideal- he can orchestrate cover-ups with more efficiency than is done automatically for secrecy's sake. He could fix mistakes more quickly, he could target select groups of normals with experiments more easily and not have it reported, he could do a number of things. He could turn a 'bad' locale into a 'good' one where other Illuminati will find things easier to do. And then he'll have his respect anyway."

"And it's those guys who really run the organization.", I replied.

"And it's those guys I'll be counting on. Besides, the next batch of Illuminated children are almost all genetically engineered. In other words, they'll be several cuts above most of those guys. So, I probably won't be using the implants on the morons. Actually.. none of em."

"Yeah, it's better if you don't. Let them die out on their own and then get people who know what's going on. Damn, then you really will have the world. Six thousand of you deciding what to do with everything... ugh."

"All speculation so far, and I'll deal with that when I get to it."

"There is one more thing I'm trying to understand..", I said.

"What?"

"They were suggesting all that stuff at first. A lot of those same people that we saw in there. Some of them wanted you to do yadda yadda yadda suggesting that what you did was horribly wrong. And yet now we hear the cheering. What am I missing?" Paul looked at me and just shook his head. He hadn't said anything for a very long while and no one was going to make him.

"One word- context. They're afraid of me in person, you know that; also they were appeased by me coming to speak to them. That and they didn't understand it completely at first. When they heard word of even that bastard's son dying, they got scared because all they really knew was the bare facts of it. But when they find out that the course of actions would lead to those four getting the kibosh..."

"They realized that the danger didn't extend to them and they could breathe easier."

"In theory. It's complicated. We have an unknown number of people acting on emotions. We have an unknown number of people acting on reason. We have an unknown number of people just trying to get by and not really caring who croaks. We have an unknown number of people who really do trust me completely. And, since these are Illuminati, we have an unknown number of people who really want X, who are pretending to really want Y, with their facade being that they want Z. Now, that last number is probably low, as it's hard for a normal brain to pretend to want too many different things and do too much manipulation without just losing track and majorly screwing up."

"..is this just more of that multiple-layer shit you were talking about before?"

"Yes. It is. And on top of all of it, we have people with varying degrees of egotism, varying degrees of loyalty, and varying degrees of stupidity," His use of 'stupidity' instead of 'intelligence' caused me to smile a bit. "all of which may fluctuate in any given length of time."

"Yes, I have noticed this before, so don't laugh this time- this is an annoying business.", I stated. Sarah, Paul, and Howard all just nodded.

"And now you see why I've adopted my philosophy.", Howard said. "If I need to, I'll appease them with gestures and whatever tokens they need to ensure I'm really on their side after all. But I cut through the bullshit. I don't have the patience to try to figure out what every last one of them is doing."

"Hence the inevitable use or direct threat of physical force."

"Ehhhhhh-xactly.", he replied. I just nodded. Makes a good deal of sense, the direct approach. You don't try to push a path through the jungle by moving around vines and such, you use a machete. When the knot is so twisted it's impossible to untangle, you do what Caesar did and cut it in half. Ka-chop.

Howard did some more research after that, looking up the twelve-year-old second level Alfred Williams. Just your typical partially engineered (as if there could be such a thing!), runs various large non-governmental organizations (which, if I'm not mistaken, oppose each other publicly), good sniper, loves ping-pong. A partially engineered would have no problems playing it by himself, would he? Just another one of the modified boys and girls growing up to rule the world. Howard checked out some more details about people's conversations after he left- they didn't mind him exterminating them. Some were gleeful, in fact, or at least pretending to be. He eventually fell asleep, and I was right behind him in that.

The jet reached home too soon for me to ride the night mare on it.