'What am I going to do today?', I asked as I woke up. That's the thing. For important, world-changing stuff that can be done in a day, I don't really decide. Masters are supposed to be active, not reactive, but the top spot, for day-to-day operations, is the most reactive of all. I'm sure I could do something if I wanted, but when nothing's noticeably broke, there's not much fixing to do. I went to the computer and decided to play some games.

About fifteen minutes into it, I heard Billy close the door behind him. "Howard... I'm not even sure if I should show this to you or not... but I guess you should probably see it.", he asked.

"Is it urgent?", I asked. I was in the middle of a particularly entertaining game of Starcraft. The foe, a high-powered ladder player, was using map hack, and I wasn't; then again, I have certain advantages that he doesn't, too.

"No." Billy squatted by my side and diligently waited until I had finally strangled the opponent of resources, causing the fool to try tricks with disconnection hacks, causing me to remove him from the Internet like a hot cleaning spray on a clingy piece of shit. I closed the windows I had open and looked at Billy.

"Now what is it you're not sure you should show me?" Commanded, Billy wasted no time in reaching up to the controls and using the Search function to display the videotaped records of Damien Gladstone. 'Paul Smith, Servant - Part 1' was the first record; the records were all roughly around four hours of video, and went up to Part 12. After seeing Paul's battered body on a Northberg Medical bed, I had some idea of what they contained.

"Is this going to be unpleasant to watch?"

"It was for me, I only could take a few minutes of the first part. I really don't know why I'm showing you this. I just.. think you should see it for yourself."

"I doubt I'll even watch one of these in a sitting.", I said, playing Part 1. If Billy could only take a few minutes of the first part, this is going to be a very brief foray into curiosity indeed.

"One thing.", Billy said as the title screen came up- 'The Beauty of the Servant, Paul Smith - Produced by Damien Gladstone'. Oh yeah, this is gonna be ugly. "I told Paul never to even search for Damien's stuff or to even touch it if he did find it."

"Probably a very good decision.", I replied. The video started with accompanying audio. Paul was in a leather costume with exposed buttocks and high heels, bent over on his knees, obviously being commanded to hold his arms hand-to-elbow behind him (no physical restraint was present). Damien walked onscreen, with a smile on his face and a whip in his hand. "Greetings, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Damien Gladstone. Today, we'll be observing the implanted sentient servant in his most natural state.", Damien said, in the voice of a normal-TV nature show host. "There is more here than meets the eye. Inside his suit are several steel burrs, carefully aligned with his joints and nerves. Even as I stand here speaking to you, he is suffering in agony. Yet he cannot scream. This, of course, is due to no gag, but instead is due to the power of mind control implants. Observe carefully." Damien spun around and struck Paul's exposed buttocks three times with the whip, causing him to jerk forward slightly. "See how he moves? I have commanded him not to. Prohibited from reacting voluntarily, we know that all his reactions are not. This show shall contain no pretending. Everything you shall see is the true beauty of the implanted servant." Damien then nodded to the audience, produced what must have been a foot-long dildo with steel spikes protruding from it, and jammed it up Paul's anus in one single, forcible push, causing blood to drip out as if from a leak.

It was then that I felt a strange taste, disgusting but somehow familiar, in my mouth and almost forced it out, before I realized what it was and clenched my teeth (which felt a bit odd) and lips to avoid spewing vomit everywhere, swallowing my digestive juices down my throat with a single gross gulp. I've only puked twice before in my life, both in reaction to things I thought were edible but my body couldn't take. I closed the video file and the search results in a fraction of a second.

Now, make no mistake- I've seen sadism before, in all its forms. Males and females, adults and a few children (on both sides of the control), many varieties of torture, even a couple of masochists. Before today it was just one of those unexplained oddities that I've never really thought about, like how hummingbirds fly or how caves form and grow stalactites. The difference is that I could look the scientific stuff up. Here, a textbook explanation wouldn't satisfy my burning question:

What is the point of this? Even if Paul were some low-IQ sheep without much reasoning ability, why would anyone even treat an animal like this? Killing animals (including H. Sapiens) because they need to die and eating them because you're hungry is rational; torture can be necessary for information or to set a terrifying example. But how depraved do you have to be before hurting your completely obedient servants seems like a good idea?

In short, why the hell would anyone do something like this to someone he controls?

"Billy," I said deliberately, "I command you to explain, in a way that maximizes my understanding and minimizes my confusion, the reason why Damien has done this."

He began hesitantly, unsure. I doubt he was the right person to ask. I doubt the right person to ask would be anyone I'd really want to talk to. "Because.. because he wants to assert dominance, to feel powerful. Maybe he's got something to prove."

Billy's valiant, genuine attempts to make sense of it did nothing for my overall understanding. "Assert dominance? Feel powerful?" In the Illuminati?! "Prove?! That must be the most screwed up normal psychology ever. He's an implanted servant, what the hell was there to prove?"

I could see Billy looking at a number of answers and giving me the most satisfactory. "His own ego. Howard, what I want to say is that it's because he was an asshole, or a dick. In normal land it would explain everything. Telling it to you... this is what he valued, what he cared about doing. It gave him pleasure to do it." I knew that already. "If you want to know why that's the case," And it was. "I don't know."

"What a fucking waste." This statement contains considerably more damnation for the Illuminati than it does for normals, particularly when applied to people. "You may stop trying to make sense of it. I can't make sense of it either. I'm going to simply say that his brain was misconfigured, and otherwise pretend I never saw this.", I said. "Now that you've shown me something that made me almost puke and given me my ugh of the month," I was going to say 'Ruined my day', but I think I'll have this out of my mind with a few hours of good games. "make Sarah cook my usual plate of good food, if she hasn't already." He turned immediately and started out the door. "And yours, while she's at it." He left.

In ten minutes, the food was done. Sarah had wrapped beef in a donut-like dough, and as I took the first morsel and popped it into my mouth, I felt some of my back teeth hurt, like the gum had said 'Okay, enough of this'. Oh.. oh, yes. Sarah noticed that both me and Billy were in pain and looked down at her cooking as if she'd made some terrible mistake. I held my hand up, saying 'Nope, it's not you.', as I reached into my back teeth with my other hand, pushing and pulling. Top left.. loose, out. Top right, annoying, there we go. Bottom right's moving around, and with a good grip I yanked it out. I finished bottom left with another sharp jerk. It hurt, of course, but there was no way I was going to try to eat with constant pain like that. I held out my four extracted teeth with my right hand and Billy held his out with his left. Chuckling, we put them into a pile. I explored the holes with my tongue and felt the bicuspid already poking through. Sarah nodded, as if she should have realized we're just losing baby teeth.

Paul uncertainly reached out, took the teeth in his left hand, and shook them as if they were dice. "Shotgun.", he offered, and we laughed. That would be a hell of a weapon, wouldn't it? Death by flying teeth. We went back to eating, which felt odd.

That reminded me of what I thought earlier about Billy as a living, growing being that I control and can teach. Damien hadn't done any of that with Paul in the least. He hurt his body with his torture devices (strange- I'm pissed at the now-dead Damien for hurting my servant, but Paul wouldn't be my servant if Damien wasn't dead), but he probably didn't train him, either.. and that's a problem I can fix.

"Paul," I asked, "did Damien in any way teach you how to use that gun you carried?"

"No, not really.", Paul answered.

"Sarah, order whatever is needed to train him in how to pose a serious threat to a non-Enforcer combatant in an automatic pistol duel." I believed that it was a realistic limit of Paul's abilities, for the time being anyway. Sometimes I just think there's something extra in him, something that Billy saw.. maybe when he grows older, it'll come out. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking. "When it gets here, you're going to use it to do just that. Paul, the reason you're being trained is because I want you to actually know enough and have enough skill to fight against Illuminati agents with normal genetics, if necessary." He was a bit shocked, but recovered. If there's anyone who can train him, it's Sarah.

"Yes.. yes, Howard. But.. considering what you are and who else you have.. why would you bother?", Paul said.

"Because I want you at your peak.", I said simply. "And it just might mean something someday." Paul played on one of the light-gun games in the basement arcade before the stuff got here, and I played various games involving firearms with Billy.

It didn't take long for Sarah to set it up, a target on a motor, which she walked the Enforcers through assembling, and of course the pistols themselves, good-quality Illuminated weapons, the best model for a beginner but enough to blow someone's head open. Sometimes I find myself amazed by how much Sarah really knows. Billy found a tree to watch from; I decided to just stay inside and watch through the glass.

Almost as soon as it began, the viewscreen buzzed, and I was interrupted by... him?! A guy I do vaguely recognize, but on principle shouldn't. The leader of the trainees and squads I have on my island, who has them doing things in secret for me here before they go on to other things. In secret, meaning that this guy shouldn't be on my screen at all. "This is about your dogs, Howard.", he said. Well, that's a good excuse. "Magma and Fido have had a litter of six healthy half-engineereds, but it took an enormous toll on her." Shit, this dog was running out happily to me just last week! "She's okay, but we've had to give special nutrients to her pups as well as special treatment for her. Howard, I don't think you want this to happen again, so.." He was probably going to say something like spaying, which I will not abide.

"Let's not mince words, hm?", I said. "You roam the island far more than I or any of my implanted servants do and you're far more numerous; if signs were present earlier you should have noticed them. Don't disrespect my dogs, especially the engineered one, he's more dangerous than any of your men and you know it. In case you haven't noticed, they have their own miniature society, which is why I leave them alone. And the day might come when I have considerable uses for Fido." I spoke gently, explaining everything, but the thoroughly loyal agent was wincing as if I'd actually hurt him. "You're not going to mutilate any of them. The adults are implanted, after all. I have a much better way of handling this. Take care of them all, and make sure they're not harmed. I'm certain I'll be able to find six people in a few years who will give them good homes and thank me for it." I clicked the screen off and walked through the back door of the mansion to the dogs' den. Paul... no sense in me watching, not really. Sarah'll train him. The agents, of course, had left by the time I arrived. Crawling into the den of an engineered dog is highly dangerous, of course, but I'm welcome, and Fido barked happily, but quizzically, at my approach: 'So glad to see you, but what a surprise!' A feeder had been set up for the half-engineereds to drink from, and they nursed from it, oblivious to everything else. Magma was laying down, weary but fundamentally okay.

"Fido," I said to the engineered dog, and motioning to Magma's vagina, "never have sex with her again.", I said. He understood 'never', understood what I was motioning at, and gave a whine. "You're stronger than she is. Much stronger.", I told him. "She was hurt having your puppies." He barked at that. I have no idea how much he actually understands of English, and don't want to test him. "You're a good boy, Fido. You're a really good boy.", I said, petting the dog's thick fur. Obligingly, he rolled over on his back and I tickled his stomach. After some minutes of this- he's soft and warm- I crawled out of the den and returned to the mansion. Fido is a somewhat useful pet to me, and would make a wonderful guard dog beyond all others, but in a way this is simply where he belongs, as leader of his own pack. At least for now. When I want him, as with my other implanted servants, I'll have him.

I watched Paul attack the target with aim that I could only classify as 'wildly inaccurate'. The thing is, obviously, compared to what I'm used to, he's no good at it. The key word is 'compare'. Dolphins laugh at human swimmers, people in fast cars laugh at people on horseback (hmm, bioengineered horses, there's an idea...), we laugh at normals' fighting abilities. He was, in fact, learning quickly, aiming at a moving target. This would be a lot harder if these were normal weapons, too. I couldn't see the targets from this angle, but I didn't have to- the look on his face was enough to know whether he'd hit well or not. Watching him move is like watching an elephant dance. He has no natural grace at all; his movements are as smooth as sandpaper. I really hope Northberg will be able to do something for normals, not just surgery and fixes, but really something one day, perhaps the retrovirus, perhaps something else. Not just Paul- the Illuminati is full of people who should be like us engineereds, but aren't. Cybernetics, maybe? With fusion power, energy requirements are no longer an issue. In fact, with the Illuminati's command of biomedical knowledge, neural interfaces, and robotics, we could probably build one hell of a cyborg if our efforts were focused in that direction. But we've gone the bioengineering route instead, and I'm thankful for it. Even with accurate tactile simulation, fine motor control, and all the abilities I enjoy today (only I couldn't regenerate, I'd have to be rebuilt..), it would just suck on an \'e6sthetic level if I was mechanical.

Paul tried mightily to fight, running back and forth as if he was actually in combat, for a good number of minutes, and I opened the window a bit to hear his words. After some more bad shots, Sarah said, "The line still applies, Paul." The line.. ah yes, she means the line from the barrel's path.

"Yeah, I know. It's just that..", he said, running back and forth, "I'm sick, sick, sick of being considered some monkey of a lesser being compared to the assholes around here!", he shouted, firing three shots. He'd done a very good job, an excellent one- both him and Sarah were smiling widely. I heard Billy cheering as well.

"How tired are you?", Sarah asked him.

"Very."

"All right, Paul- you've got most of the offensive part down pat. I don't-"

"Hold up- offensive part?!", he replied, surprised. "Sarah, I can't dodge bullets like any of you can."

"You don't have to dodge, just make yourself harder to hit.", she replied. "I don't think you'll be able to do some of the trick shots around here most of these people train in, but that's for special situations only." Sarah looked at Paul and at me, and I could read it off her face- what am I doing? It's easy, Sarah- I'm making him tougher to kill, and I'm training him to be better. Yes, he'll probably never be on the level of even some of our normal agents, but that's not the point. He has something in him, something faint, something that I intend to bring out or that may come out on its own. He has something that sets him apart from most normals, a greater potential somewhere- even if it is inconsequential in the long run, I want him at least close to maxed out ability-wise. Besides, if he ever does get improved, he'll have the training to help him there, as well.

"Fatigue's going to affect you too much. We can finish this tomorrow.", she told him. I know of no real-life situations where he'd actually be fighting for that long, either.

Billy followed them in and asked various questions about Illuminated weapons operation that I thought were silly, but made sense from a normal standpoint, things involving reloading and getting the bullet to the chamber; the chk-chk of a shotgun is indeed quite menacing, but it's done automatically in our weapons.

I woke up early the next morning, but Sarah and Paul were already outside, and I opened the window a crack to listen again. He was.. shooting at her, yes. I should have expected that. She makes the perfect moving target- he can't possibly hope to hit her, no matter how he might try. And he was, indeed, trying, forcing her to continuously dodge, trying his damnedest to land a hit. "Okay, stop.", Sarah said, and he was relieved. "Howard- he's good.", she told me.

"Good enough?", I asked.

"I wouldn't make him an agent just yet.. but I wouldn't pit any normals I wanted to keep against him, either. He'd have to take a regimen of courses to get appreciably better, and even that might not really help." And from the way she was dodging, I'd have to agree.

There was one last lesson I wanted to give, though. My command could possibly kill him, so I made sure of the angle and the verbiage before I gave it: "All right. Paul, try to shoot me with the next bullet in that gun." Blam- TING! The bullet, bouncing off the window's surface, angled as light off a mirror would have, passing a meter to the left of his head, and the pop of sound had him holding his right ear.

"You now know about ricochets.", I told him, grinning. In the Illuminati, the potential exists for bullets to bounce off any hard material. "You also now know that this glass laughs at those bullets. Any more training that you might want is up to you, that command's over." To my complete lack of surprise, he didn't want to do any more training.

Sarah made breakfast, and I remembered the targets Paul was shooting at- there were plenty more, and I used some of my underground weapons on them with Billy. Wow, I can't believe I've never fired some of these before. Some are pretty basic, and some kick a lot of ass. The day went by as usual without any weapons being used on any living targets.