"EEEEYAAARGHHH!!!" I really wish Billy could tell those nightmares of his 'Yes, I know what you're trying to tell me, okay?! Stop with the making me scream, it's annoying me and Howie!'

We woke up together again in the morning, and ate Sarah's usual breakfast. I checked the Real News, found nothing but our version of bureaucracy and things that have no relevance to me whatsoever, and swiftly got bored. Severely bored, as a matter of fact. First-person games were too easy, it was too sunny out to play there, and there was absolutely zilcho in the work department to be done. Yay, they're taking care of themselves. No complaints. Damn, I'm bored. I looked through my archive of really fucking old games, found Secret of Mana, and played. When their characters became active in the plot, I used Billy and Sarah as the other players. Paul ended up watching, and we were in the middle of anally raping some diddlefuck with two heads when the screen moved the game to the lower right corner and some hideous dipstick with glasses came on. Dave Wilson of the fifth level. A fifth has the gall to just call me up and interrupt whatever I'm doing? I paused the game to ask exactly what this fucker wanted.

"Master Howard.. umm.. can we have some privacy?", he said in an incredibly stereotypical nerd voice.

"No. Now what did you call for?" It's a rarity I have to ask something twice. He took a bit of time to look at us- Sarah wore dark purple, Billy and Paul black, and I white. It took him about three seconds to grasp the fact that yes, these were servants (c'mon, you didn't know about Billy, asshole?), yes, I wanted him to speak the fuck up, and, yes, if he didn't do it soon, I was going to kick his ass.

"Umm.. Master Howard... I believe I know the names of some people who want to kill you." Okay, correction: A fifth has the gall to call me up, interrupt whatever I'm doing, and tell me who he thinks is trying to kill me? Points for bravery, points for trying to save my ass, negative points for being annoying, and way too many negative points if this is what I think it is- just some asshole trying to guess right, impress me, and try to wring me of some power like an old rag.

I burst out laughing, and so did Billy. "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.." His voice is sandpaper to the ears.

"Give me the list, and get off my screen. Now."

The list was downloaded instantly, he said "Goodbye, Master Howard." in his whining voice, and he got off my screen. I maximized SoM again, and continued to rock on.

"You're not even gonna look at it?!", marveled Paul. I scoffed. I could read Paul's thoughts- he figured I had a serious ego problem and an immortality complex. Well, I do, and I am... mostly. We proceeded to beat the living shit out of the entire game in a few hours. (To hell with the AI. Three humans on that game and you kick ass. Three engineereds? 'Easy as crushing ants' doesn't quite cut it. Try something more like 'God Mode'.)

After the game, I, to much amusement, proceeded to look at the list. It listed about people of all levels, from William Gates to Jeremy Jorgenson. Hey.. wait. Jeremy was at my birthday party.. and he's the one I talked to, the one who wanted his friend. No way he wants to kill me. I called him up. It took him fifteen seconds to answer.

"Howard!", the twelve-year-old said in his pajamas. "What.. what are you here for?" His tone was more happy than scared, although it did carry a bit of worry. Unless Jeremy's the Lord of Hiding Emotions, that nerd was full of it.

"Jeremy.. you know a Dave Wilson?"

"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?" I groaned.

"Check this." I gave him the list, cheerfully entitled People Who Want To Kill You by that nerd. "From Dave, to me." Paul shifted his weight a bit on top of the couch as Jeremy's face got puzzled.

"What the hell is this shit? I don't even think a lot of these people really know you at all." I didn't reply to that, instead musing over what to do next. "Howard, you mind killin him? I .. I know this is a lot for a fifth to ask.. but.. he's a real pain in the ass." I didn't like watching him say that- it was slightly disturbing to watch a young Illuminatus beg for anything. He's almost certainly sincere, and Dave Wilson is.. yes. Dead.

"Ah, I'll do it anyway. He tried to feed the Dominator misinformation, Jeremy." Jeremy's face broke out in a grin.

"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..." I moved my finger across my neck and made the *KOUUICK* noise of Looney Tunes cartoons - the international symbol for execution.

"So in other words, you're going to make it clear to everyone that I'm the plaintiff here." We both could be, but I want you to do it, Jeremy. I want to see if you're willing to do what you ask me to.

"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?"

"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? From a fucking cult? Okay, this is crap, just who let that nerd in and just what is he doing here?! Of course, Jeremy was smarter than 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." What the.. fuck? What the hell does Dave think this is? It's amazing how divorced people can be from reality, even in the Illuminati...

"Oh, the FUCK!", I exploded. "Okay, he dies in 48 hours or less, guaranteed." Jeremy snickered. "By the way.. how's your friend coming?"

"He's almost here.. six more hours." There was something else on his lips.

"And let me guess, after I woke you up, you won't be able to go to sleep again tonight." It was 2 here, and 10 where he lives, in England. Not that physical distance means all that much.

"Yeah, you guessed it. Now I have two things to wait for."

"We're hitting him tomorrow night. I'll call you in twelve hours." His forces probably consisted of only a few bodyguards and maybe a normal hitman or two- we didn't need them. My Enforcers and myself would chew all Dave's defenses into tiny kibbles.

"All right, Howie. Thanks." His face moved after he said 'Howie' - he knew he had made a serious error but didn't want to call more attention to it, and was obviously hoping I'd overlook it. What he didn't know is that I don't mind it from people who I care about. Maybe It'll be a known differentiator in the future, people who call me that being those who I really know will help me.

"See ya, Jeremy." I clicked my end off.

"Uh.. Howard, was that such a good idea? Killing someone you hardly know based on a few things from someone you just met?" That's the nice thing about Paul. He keeps things in perspective.

"I really don't think Jeremy's lying to me, Paul. But, I'm going to check this guy- wait, no, you are." Paul needs experience with this kind of thing. "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." That information would be for the other Illuminati's benefit- not mine. Billy and Sarah were welcome to kill their time almost any way they wanted. I went to the elevator.

"Wait... what if Dave had some kind of evidence? Even if it was bad evidence, planted by someone else?", Billy said with some puzzlement in his voice.

"Well, it's either terminal stupidity or lying, Billy. 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..", Billy said, mostly to himself.

"Good. Haven't had something like this in a long time.", Sarah said. "Gotta brush up on my skills..." The elevator took me down and I mused to myself as I took the suit off and dangled my legs into the 80-degree pool. Dave Wilson. A man I haven't heard of until today. Six thousand people, and it's utterly pointless to keep track of them all. I imagine the normals have problems like this. Only with them, it's easy to dis-employ somebody; here, it's a much more tedious and bloody process. I jumped into the pool and idly treaded water.

Every time I see a normal Illuminatus, I think to myself, 'Why isn't he engineered?' The two Illuminati contacting me today were yet another instance of that. Jeremy Jorgenson has a gift; that's why they got him. A knack for problem solving. Engineering talent. With our training, he could be turned into an absolute genius, and that part of his DNA is probably going to be thrown into the next mix of engineereds. His existence is a boon to us.

But Dave? What talent does he have? What capabilities allow him to be considered the best of the best, the highest of the high? Why the hell is he here? You'd think he'd be a bullshit artist, with the normal-world record I'm sure he has, but either he's not up to his form today or he was never that good at bullshit. Or maybe, after careful research, he didn't figure out a way (There is none. I'm the DOMINATOR, you shithead- I don't fall for bullshit) and just decided to throw the information at me and run? Or maybe he.. bah. Infinite guessing there. I hopped out of the pool and laid down, my head on my arms and my legs in the water. Sigh. Forget about him for now. He's just another waste of carbon about to get recycled into the ecosystem.

I finished my swim, put the suit back on, and went back upstairs. "I'm done, Howard.", Paul said, as I walked out of the elevator.

"Did you help him?", I asked Billy and Sarah, who were sitting next to him.

Billy shrugged. "Yeah. You didn't say not to." I didn't, did I? Then again, there's a lot of things I don't want them to do and never have to tell them. Oh well. Paul almost certainly learned what I wanted him to. "We found ours separately and just told him where to search."

"So who actually found what?" Paul found five ugly actions of Dave's, Billy found twelve, and Sarah found only three. Billy's and Paul's were various- everything from Dave annoying other Illuminati to being a bit sloppy with secrecy- and Sarah's were resource problems. Wow, holy crap. This guy actually wasted Illuminated resources on pointless normal shit!

"It's a wonder this guy's still alive.", I said. Manipulators may thrive, but stupid pains in asses don't last long here, usually doing something major enough to get themselves instantly killed rather quickly.

"That's what I was thinking.", Billy 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."

"Because an otherwise smart person could have been tricked into sending you that list.", Billy said, and it was, indeed, ridiculous. Maybe I'm being too cautious after all. But this is the way I was taught to rule, lots of truth to go with lots of force. Even I could possibly be tricked by a careful setup, so I usually double check everything.

"That's the theory.", I said.

"That's total bullshit.", he replied decisively. Billy makes a wonderful arguing partner because he can't consciously delude me. "If you had a zero-tolerance idiot policy, that guy probably wouldn't have even tried this shit. 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." I'm sure of it. "Maybe you should start looking them up and killing them just for being stupid." Oh, how I would love to. But I can't. Even I'm not capable of standing against the furnace that would start. Billy's speaking from slight ignorance; he hasn't read the history of Dominators trying things just like what he suggested.

"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?" The question was rhetorical, but Billy shook his 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." He nodded with complete understanding.

"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. Now, unless Dave gave his out to someone willing to spoof his voice and likeness, which is pretty much a death sentence anyway,", I continued, making it pretty clear that anyone who gave it out was a total dipshit, "that was him. And all the keys are stored here.", I finished, pointing downwards.

"So you could.." No matter what back-stabbing defamation or assassination plot he was about to say, the answer's the same.

"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. I heard Daddy almost got his ass kicked for that when he lived here. At any rate, bad idea."

I had Sarah set up the raid, which we had two days later.