He, indeed, didn't care about the nightmare scream.

We woke up again, simultaneously, and went downstairs to eat breakfast. No leftover birthday food for this 11-year-old; Sarah had cooked lots of meat and eggs (which weren't chicken, that's for sure), and we scarfed them down. I went upstairs as Howard read the Real News.

"Billy, come down here.", Howard called through the intercom after fifteen minutes. Damn! And right in the middle of this game of Starcraft, too. Fortunately, Paul was there to play for me (I can only guess the opponents' relief at finding one of their foes' skill diminished, although they're still going to lose; my teammate is Shylandro). I walked downstairs to find Howard holding out a controller, the game being Secret of Mana. Ah, yes. The computer can never be as good an ally as I am. I never played it before, but I quickly learned how to use the little kid I had as my character, and his large amounts of offensive magic. Paul came down after he and his Queen-mongering ally declared victory.

As we fought a two-headed dragon (I briefly imagined the Northberg dragons fighting two-headed giant humans), an ugly man with glasses came on, the game moving to the bottom right of the screen. Dave Wilson of the fifth level. Howard paused it and asked what the guy wanted.

"Master Howard.. umm.. can we have some privacy?", he said in a whining voice. Privacy? From us, his servants? You know how annoying it is to Howard when you ask that, isn't it?

"No. Now what did you call for?", Howard replied.

"Umm.. Master Howard... I believe I know the names of some people who want to kill you." Some people?! The only way to end that well is with a punchline of pulling out an enormous phone book!

Howard and I laughed. "Oh, there's a new one! People want to kill me. How thoughtful of you to notice. Newsflash!! Only.. oh.. a couple dozen want to do that, I presume?"

"Well, you see, I have a list.." This guy's voice was like fingernails on chalkboard.

"Give me the list, and get off my screen. Now.", Howard said, and got the list instantly.

"Goodbye, Master Howard.", the man's painful voice said, and Howard maximized the game again and we continued to play.

"You're not even gonna look at it?!", exclaimed an amazed Paul. Not until we're done our game! It took lots of time, but we rampaged through the game, using the best weapons and armor to kick lots and lots of ass. Howard's played this before, but probably alone- now that he always has people to play with, games like this are much more fun. The big, ugly dragon at the end died a big, ugly death, and Howard looked at the list that the fool had sent him. People Who Want To Kill You. At least he's direct about it.

What the list had was a bunch of names, from a couple of firsts all the way down to fifths. What it didn't have was evidence. Howard looked down it, and noticed one of the names that was on it- the last one listed, Jeremy Jorgenson. Hey, wait. Isn't that the same kid that Howard acquired the servant for? Howard called him up to find out what was going on.

Jeremy, a twelve-year-old with a round, slightly freckled face and a full head of blond hair, woke up and answered immediately. "Howard!", he shouted, a bit happy to see his Dominator, but a bit nervous as well. "What.. what are you here for?"

"Jeremy.. you know a Dave Wilson?", Howard asked.

"Dave .. Will.. Oh, yeah, him. He tried to steal some of my power with umm.. some promises of somethin, think it had to do with a few cults, wasn't worth the shit I already have. He pissin' you off too?" Yes. Yes, he most definitely is.

"Check this.", Howard said, sending the file. "From Dave, to me." I felt Paul moving around on top of the couch as Jeremy looked at the list quizzically.

"What the hell is this shit?" That's what I'd like to know. How can anyone be stupid enough to send Howard something like that, which contains no proof and is so easily disproven? "I don't even think a lot of these people really know you at all. Howard, you mind killin him?" Oh, I don't think you have to worry about that, Jeremy. "I .. I know this is a lot for a fifth to ask.. but.. he's a real pain in the ass.", the boy pretty much begged. There's no sense in that.

"Ah, I'll do it anyway. He tried to feed the Dominator misinformation, Jeremy." That's what I thought. Jeremy grinned in reply.

"So you're gonna.."

"Uh huh. Actually... I'll have my forces jam the communications and wipe out his defenses, but, if possible, I'll let you...", Howard said, finishing by running his finger over his throat and making a *KOUUICK* noise, the symbol of a sliced throat.

"So in other words, you're going to make it clear to everyone that I'm the plaintiff here." For making false accusations against him, yes. Actually I figured that that had little to do with it. I think Howard just wants to see if the kid can kill.

"Very much so. I want this to be clear to everyone as to who did the killing and why. I'm sure he's tried this shit on other people as well. By the way.. what were the details of that cult thing?" A cult has got to be one of the most useless things I can think of. How could a leader of such get into the Illuminati? I knew Howard was thinking the same thing.

"Oh.. lemme think.. he said he had the strings to a few cult leaders, and I could get some better guys from him.." Better guys than Enforcers? I doubt that! "He said some more shit about growth potential, some kinda medical business, and somethin about some mail-order schemes for more money.. I turned him down but he kept goin on about it, had to shut him off." Jeremy probably misheard him somehow, or something. To me it sounded like Dave was trying to run a scam or something similar that didn't even make sense in an Illuminated context. Or, Jeremy heard him right- it's hard to misremember something that badly- and Dave was totally, utterly unfit to join the Enlightened Ones. Then how the fuck did he get in?!

Howard reaction was explosive. "Oh, the FUCK! Okay, he dies in 48 hours or less, guaranteed." Jeremy snickered. "By the way.. how's your friend coming?" I still had nothing I wanted to say regarding that.

"He's almost here.. six more hours.", he said, and didn't say something else.

"And let me guess, after I woke you up, you won't be able to go to sleep again tonight.", Howard said. That was it.

"Yeah, you guessed it. Now I have two things to wait for." Like a normal on Christmas Eve.

"We're hitting him tomorrow night. I'll call you in twelve hours."

"All right, Howie. Thanks." He facially reacted a bit after he said 'Howie'- but it wasn't a problem. He doesn't mind it, not from his friends.

"See ya, Jeremy.", Howard amiably said, turning off the screen.

"Uh.. Howard, was that such a good idea? Killing someone you hardly know based on a few things from someone you just met?", Paul asked from his perch on top of the couch, and Howard smiled. I was half-expecting Howard to say 'Well, a friend of mine wants someone dead who's demonstratably lying to me, so it's not really a hard decision.' But it's not favorable for him to kill people without real evidence, which is why Paul was in that boy's ranch hellhole last year.

"I really don't think Jeremy's lying to me, Paul. But, I'm going to check this guy- wait, no, you are. Search everything on Dave, put down the location of everything you find, and if there's more than twenty bad things about him, tell me, also if you search absolutely everything and can't find 20. I'm going for a swim." The twenty bad things would establish a pattern but wouldn't be direct evidence. Similarly, maybe that idiot really did believe that his list of people would kill Howard.

"Wait... what if Dave had some kind of evidence? Even if it was bad evidence, planted by someone else?", I asked, as Howard walked to the elevator and Paul started his search.

"Well, it's either terminal stupidity or lying, Billy." Both of which are capital offenses. "And if he did have evidence of some sort, he sure as hell didn't provide me with it, which, again, is stupid."

"So it's back to the meatgrinder..", I said. I smelled the ass kicking to come. Howard's going to rip the shit out of him, and I'm going to help.

"Good. Haven't had something like this in a long time.", Sarah said. "Gotta brush up on my skills..." I couldn't imagine someone like her ever getting out of practice.

"And he left you to do all the dirty work...", I said to Paul, who just nodded and continued to search. "I'm gonna help. Sarah.."

"All right, I'll help too.", she said quickly, and we both went to our rooms as Paul kept using the large screen. Let's see. 'David Wilson'.. no, that's not it, there is a 'David Wilson' but that's a servant. This guy is 'Dave Wilson'. That alone got a lot of his logs, some annoyances and such, but it took time to find real bad things. Ah, yes. Trying to sell that stuff to this guy here, who obviously doesn't need it... he's pestering the heck out of that guy, there, and I'm pretty sure.. yup, he's lying on that one. Wow, I'm surprised this idiot's not dead already.

I found twelve, which was probably more than enough. I started walking downstairs when Sarah told me she'd found three. "Well, Paul, we found some for ya."

"He told me to search..", Paul replied.

"Yes, but he didn't tell you what direction to search in.", I replied. "Try 'Dave Wilson' and 'Kofi Annan'."

"I've seen that guy's name somewhere..", Paul said, as he searched and easily found the bad thing.

"He was listed as a public, so you probably have." I showed Paul good search terms for the other eleven- he immediately knew what was wrong with Dave doing those (bullshit lies to other Illuminati trying to do something productive, and some very slight uses of power without regard for secrecy)- then Sarah went in with her three. Hers are resource issues; Dave wasted Illuminated resources on normal shit that was ultimately far less valuable. He's a waste, and we're going to waste him.

Howard came up the elevator and Paul told him he was done. Howard looked at us- we were sitting next to him. "Did you help him?", he asked, as if he wanted Paul to do this himself as part of a rather aggravating lesson.

I shrugged. "Yeah. You didn't say not to. We found ours separately and just told him where to search."

"So who actually found what?" We showed him our contributions to the Prove Dave Wilson Needs To Be Torn A New One brain trust. Howard looked at them with mounting disgust.

"It's a wonder this guy's still alive.", Howard said. Damn right it is. Isn't it his job to kill idiots? And don't other Illuminati hate putting up with shit like this?

"That's what I was thinking.", I replied. "You know what gets me? How you can just tell someone to find twenty bad things about him and it's not that hard and they're all pretty bad. Shouldn't someone have figured something was wrong with this guy?"

"No, actually.", I told him. "Sometimes otherwise good Illuminati do stupid shit. Sometimes annoying people with many dumb requests and utter resource wastes can come up with some brilliant ideas. This guy's not like the Bastards, where everyone knew what was wrong with them. Some people might see the search results differently, so I'm gathering enough supporting evidence to show that I had a very reasonable belief that killing this guy was a generally good idea, even if he was misinformed making that list." Howard was talking like a normal prosecutor trying to get circumstantial evidence, but in this case it was pointless.

"Because an otherwise smart person could have been tricked into sending you that list.", I said, and he understood that it was laughable.

"That's the theory.", he replied. Fuck that. That part of the theory that they taught him can get on its theoretical knees and give me a theoretical blowjob.

"That's total bullshit." One of the best things about Howard is that I can say that to his face and he won't get mad. "If you had a zero-tolerance idiot policy, that guy probably wouldn't have even tried this shit." I was going to mention Damien, but I think his record was actually pretty clean for things detrimental to the organization. The Illuminati don't care about torture, after all. "I haven't looked, but I'd wager that guy doing that boy's ranch bullshit had a lot of bad things and stupid shit on his record, too." Howard nodded. "Maybe you should start looking them up and killing them just for being stupid." I could tell on his face that it would be a great thing to do...

...but he couldn't do it, and he explained why. "I'll be taking that advice when the engineereds grow more numerous and start pushing the old Illuminati out. Then maybe it'll be done well. But now? We can't afford a witch hunt. Even the bad ones help support the system. It causes some minor havoc when one of them dies. The twenty remaining First Levels were dividing the Bastard's and Bitches' holdings among themselves without having to call me, but I'm pretty sure some of them were planning on their deaths in advance. Do you think if I killed a hundred Fifth Levels, with the whole Illuminati being eligible to take their holdings, that it would be anything short of a massive clusterfuck?" I shook my head. "Not even counting the fear it would start. They have hurt me by being stupid, but it looks as if they hadn't, and imagine if I went and killed them." Our kung fu's about the same, but his argument was stronger than my argument.

"One thing, Howard.. how'd you know it was him for sure?", Paul asked.

"Paul, signals don't get through unless they have identification, based on a 1000-character encryption key.", Howard said. There's no breaking that. Not even Howard's computer could. "Now, unless Dave gave his out to someone willing to spoof his voice and likeness, which is pretty much a death sentence anyway, that was him. And all the keys are stored here.", he said, pointing down to his mainframe.

"So you could.." Manipulate the keys for his own benefit. Howard shook his head.

"I wish. I'd have to get some super-experienced computer guys in here, and even then.. the whole first level has monitors on the system to make sure I don't fuck around with that." Of course. Checks and balances, after all. "I heard Daddy almost got his ass kicked for that when he lived here. At any rate, bad idea."

Howard commanded Sarah to set up the raid we had two days later.