So out of sheer curiosity I decided to put the screen on a popular American news channel, and within fifteen seconds was erupting in laughter. Sarah was sitting next to me, and getting some chuckles of her own. It was beyond funny. Two idiots had walked into their school, black trenchcoats (hmm, why'd they choose black?) and heavy weapons in hand, and started blasting away their classmates, killing "up to 25" before massacring themselves into oblivion. The media were reporting facts, the 'tragedy' angle and all, and the fact that this is getting to be a popular pastime for many American students. Maybe I should... nahhh, I'm just too distinctive-looking for anything like that. "Hey, Billy. Check this.", I shouted up. He was at my side in a few seconds, looking at the screen with increasing bewilderment.

"What the fuck?!", he eventually blurted out. I cracked up. Paul, who moved to my far right, still wasn't saying anything, just looking at the screen and slowly shaking his head. Then another fat punchline came. The destroyed duo had a number of unexploded bombs inside!

Sarah got the joke in a way that the rest of us didn't at first. "Unexploded.. unexploded.. all that trouble and they can't even make bombs that- hehehehahahaha!!", she squealed, her bosom moving rapidly in and out with her laughter. Of course, her assassin background means that she's used to seeing perfection in destructive operations, and something like this with mistakes that egregious is more than merely ridiculous, it's 'ludicrous' on steroids to her, wholly insane from the bottom up. Which it is, as a matter of fact.

"Duuuummmmmmb fuckers!", I pronounced. "Up, UP, to 25 people! 25 people, all that weaponry. And the 1999 Darwin Award jointly goes to Eric and Dylan for their spectacular display of ultimate stupidity. Nice try, though." It really was a nice try, although they fucked up so completely the term "botched job" doesn't come close. I listened to some more details- they were ostracized, they were loners, all that crap. When it started whining about all the dead sheeple again, I just turned it off. But there was one last question..

"Okay, I'm confused. Why did they do it?", I asked.

"Revenge?", Paul suggested. Ha! Revenge my ass. It might have been what they were trying for... maybe. But if they were seriously going for revenge, why did they leave so many people alive? Sheeple are puzzling.. even to me, and I understand how they think- or, to be more precise, would like to pretend they do.

"Yeah, that's some revenge. I guess with normals, everything's weaker, even the body count." Which was the most pathetic of all.

"Mental illness and revenge. Also probably family history, and just bad luck. Someone's gotta do it. Can't think why they made bombs that don't even fucking explode.", Sarah said, still amused at the idea of unexploded bombs.

"I have no fucking idea. Probably lots of hate and not enough patience or knowledge. They killed themselves, they probably meant to do it like that in the first place.", said Billy, as puzzled as I am.

"All right, I hate asking for this stuff, but.. what is a good way to put some spin on this? I know there's going to be 'public outcry' no matter what we do. But I think the Illuminati can use this."

"They automatically will.", Sarah quickly reminded me.

"Yeah, but that's just the ordinary stuff. I mean something more.. cohesive. Something to further our plans a little more than usual." Single events have much more potential for exploitation than many people realize.

"You mean like gun control.", she said.

"Yeah!", I said and grinned. Gun control was a good place to start. I hate the idea of all those sheeple armed with weapons they can barely use anyway, and gun availability simply provides too much freedom illusion- the illusion that they can protect themselves with their own resources. "But we can do more than that. What would people like to believe caused this violence, other than just the guns?"

"Heavy metal. That's probably what they listened to.", suggested Paul. Nah. Interfering with their music choices will destroy the freedom illusion in a way that we don't need to.

"They were Hitler freaks, right? Associate them with the far right, if you can do it.", Sarah said after considering.

Billy finally broke his silence with one of the most ironic things I could heard from him. "Hold up. Did they play any violent video games?"

"Violent.. strange as that is, that might be a good one, Billy, I think you're on to something.", I said, enticed by the idea. "More censorship. So easy to do after something like this. Make more control wanted and needed, not just video games, but everything. Music, television, all that, and not just the usual stereotyped 'evil' stuff either." I can see it now; the great post-Littleton change, everyone's afraid to let their kids get near them, and partake of the 'violent' material (which often has large anti-government/society/Illuminati undertones). Granted, it won't work on everyone (nothing can) and it definitely won't work forever (nothing does), but it'll have an impact. Liberalism and fake freedom with less of the hassle, after all, they are fearing for their lives, right? Stupid sheeple. Lenin really did put it best when he said that one death is a tragedy and a million deaths is a statistic. And I've got a great way to do this without sparking backlash. Multi-cyclical is so fucking useful!

"Yeah, but you don't want to put them out of business do you?", Paul said, noticing my personal love for violence of all sorts.

"Oh, don't worry about that. They'll stay in business with the fake rebellious crowd and everyone who likes home violence. It's just that I don't want a complete lack of societal, tacit, unenforced- but important nonetheless- controls. And you know why."

"Lead down the road to anarchy, wouldn't it?", he replied.

"Close enough. Remember, it's not the stuff itself that's important- games, guns, television- but the underused minds of the sheeple consuming it."

I implemented my plan, telling some details to several Illuminated heads. There was a lot of nodding, a lot of grinning, and quite a bit of actual understanding. In less then ten minutes I had contacted everyone I'd need to, to take something really important to only a small area, and decorate the world with it.

"Ahhh... all right. That was easy enough. Let's go rock some normal Team Fortress server." An hour and a half of straight death- and Trenchcoat Mafia jokes- emanated from the super Internet connection.

A few hours later, as hunks of roast veal and yams were being consumed by all four of us, the screen buzzed. Had my plan worked? Did someone finally get the guts to question me? I answered it myself, and the guy on the other end was displayed as a fourth level media dude, working at MTV. Hunh. I didn't tell this guy to do anything, although I may have talked to his sponsor, or his sponsor's sponsor.

"Master Howard! I was wondering if you could spare a few minutes."

"Just start talking."

"Howard, your plan, something about it just doesn't make sense."

"Hold up. Who the hell told you I had a plan?"

"Get off it, there's no other way it could have happened. I watch the news too."

"It's that obvious already?" I really shouldn't be surprised. But I was semi-generalistic when I gave the orders, and I was expecting most of them to take time to make specific decisions. To engineer an entire fully-formed plan, with cooperation between everyone, would have failed to take advantage of the moment. Their plans will gel together anyway. Still, it usually takes hours to decide how best to carry out those kinds of orders, and a few more hours to precisely engineer the way to carry them out. Results shouldn't be appearing yet, or maybe this guy was watching for this kind of thing in advance?

"Yes it is. You got every major news channel, Howard. I can't find anything else anywhere. But.. what do you plan to gain with this?"

"What do you mean, what do I plan to gain?!", I said, snickering. "Isn't it bone-crunchingly obvious?"

"But.. Howard, you know what happens when you prod a subculture like this! This is self-defeating!"

"Not the way I'm doing it. You see, that isn't my whole plan. The media are going to circle around it, sometimes vilifying some parts of it and holding harmless others, and we're going to keep bouncing this back and forth between subcultures, video games, and guns, and generally make the sheeple dislike all three. It's like taking care of a garden, you have to spread everything equally. And since there isn't anyone outside us with lots of clout that will support all of them at once and point to the real reason (whatever that was), any opposition will just be swept into the same whirlpool. And then when I'm all done, I'm going to have you guys say it was never any of their faults, when everyone already has it firmly into their brains that they're to blame."

"Oh... geez, is that the "multi-cyclical method" I was hearing about?" I nodded. "Sorry.. Howard.. I didn't mean.."

"Relax. I didn't make it complicated, I just told everyone basically what to do. They make it complicated with extra details, like it should be, when they start cooperating and seeming to compete at the same time, and sometimes they add their own goals to the mix. No normal would waste that much time trying to figure it out. I just let the bureaucracy work for me. So you saw the complicated part. You're not supposed to know as much as I do, remember?"

"I.. I understand, Howard. Thank you." I turned the screen off.

"All that crap over a max of 25 kills...", muttered Sarah. "Damn, I don't get how anyone can see this as important. Sheeple will be sheeple, I guess.", she continued, trying to puzzle out what passes for logic in their culture. I understand their logic well, of course.

"To the public, it's just a number.", I reminded her. "To them, the important thing is that people died. One death is a tragedy and a million deaths really is just a statistic. Their oh-so-precious babies got slaughtered like pigs and now they want to 'do something' about it. And of course they appeal to Big Brother, and Big Brother gives them exactly what they want." It really is amazing. The corpse count is unbelievably low- if they played any first person shooter with any seriousness, they must have sucked at it- and yet I can make the religious groups tighten around themselves and the rest of the masses tighten around everything else, adding an extra helping of control to the fools, letting them make themselves and their children steadily more helpless, as they steadily include more outside control (of all sorts- pick your poison) into their lives. The only commonality will be that they'll all be praying to their overlords for help. Absolutely amazing. If it wasn't for my extensive teaching in this subject, I would never believe something like this would even work.

Later investigation revealed that only thirteen people other than the shooters were dead meat.