I was wrong- the unaided booming voice of the previous Dominator would not have carried across the auditorium. Not to say that his voice wasn't booming, it was simply that the auditorium was absolutely plain huge. With six thousand faces staring at me, each one with its own particular power behind it, I had no choice but to accept how large the auditorium and its number of inhabitants was. And I had no choice but to stare back at the mass of faces, and I had no choice but to take my position and allow my servants to take their places, Billy to my right and Sarah to my left, and I had no logical choice but to introduce myself.
"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Illuminati!!!", I shouted in an echoed, booming voice no normal could have replicated, only slightly high in pitch because of my age. I got twice the applause of my predecessor. This place is soundproofed, I'm sure- but without it, everyone in the whole installation could have heard it. There were no idle hands or bored half-clappers. Every single eye in the room was focused on my face, twelve thousand invisible lasers piercing my flesh. Every single hand was active in creating clapping noise, a cacophony that sounded more like a waterfall than anything else. Then it stopped with the quickness of a faucet turning off, and every ear was bent on hearing my voice, every mind intent on my exact words and their exact meaning or, if I chose to speak with allusions and/or make references, meanings. I did not feel anything out of the ordinary. After all, I was born for this.
I took a deep breath, folded the pole of the speaker's podium, chucked it away over my shoulder (clang, clatter) just to demonstrate how good I am, and began.
"Annuit C\'9cptis: Novus Ordo Seclorum. The clock has ticked again, for what could be the final time. Yes, for all of you who don't know me, I am immortal," Murmuring. "a product of Northberg." More murmuring from the far back. What the fuck are these people murmuring about? Isn't all this common knowledge? "And I have been created with one task in life: to serve as the Dominator of the Illuminati." Serve is the correct word, in this case- normal politicians may speak of themselves as 'public servants', but I am the masters' servant, the one who gets all the combined dignity and indignity of being the judge, jury, and executioner for the powers that be.
Now how did all that go? Oh, yeah. Every other Dominator has said their speeches with either plenty of preparation, stage notes, or both. I have nothing except my exceptional memory, which can handle this litany of oaths and promises. It makes for excellent theater, not using cue cards or other references- especially on such short notice. "As Dominator, I promise to uphold the power of the Illuminati, to uphold secrecy until the Day of Exposition, to be a fair judge," There's a joke for ya. "to refrain from excessive alcohol," There's another joke for ya, but it's been in there for the last two hundred years and it's not going anywhere. "to avoid recruitment of the unworthy, to defend my fellow Illuminatus, to dispense justice as I see fit," That really is exactly how it goes. I laughed for minutes the first time I heard it, then learned that it was changed in 1850 from 'to dispense justice in a regular manner'. "and to choose an- no, ladies and gentlemen, I just told you why I will not be choosing an heir." I hate to deviate like that, but immortals do not choose heirs to anything. Even if I do croak, these people will just fight amongst themselves for the position anyway, as the Inheritor will not have been introduced. I have no intentions of retiring.
"I have only one thing to say about the previous Dominator. Any problems you might have had with him, personally, are gone. He's retired, and if any of you wanted revenge against him for something or other - you're just too late, assholes." The reaction was some laughter and some half-joking cries of "Damn!" and "Shucks!" (in their native languages, of course) with accompanying fingersnaps. Only the three directly in the front row- the Bastard and the Bitches- were not amused.
"Right now, there's one friendly reminder I want to make." They all started listening closely. "WE are the ELITE!", I boomed. Cheering answered that- what else would? Pure emotionalism and ego-feeding, yes, but it's an instant approval generator.
"When I came here, I was hit with many more things than I expected. I didn't want to be giving you that litany of undecided issues. New policy time, folks- if you give it to me to choose, I will choose it within three days or give it to someone else, or I'll just say it can't be chosen. I will not let all this sit here, and I can't think of why he did." Loud cheering and applause. "Likewise, I have something to say to all of you- choose things for yourselves. Don't rely on me to make your decisions for you. I'm here to keep order, to break ties, to judge. Nothing more. I've been examining this organization from day one and I can say that everything works much, much more smoothly when you put down your vengefulness and your pettiness and you just decide the major issues breathing together with each other- then go back to your vengefulness and your pettiness when it doesn't matter anymore." Their good-humored laughter, cheering, and clapping caused me to relax a bit.
"About spying. Right now, we have tens of thousands of spies. Is that enough? I don't know. Is everything that needs to be spied upon being spied upon? I don't know, no one person can. But I do know that we need to encourage it. As the plan moves forward, intelligence becomes crucial. So if there's any piece of spying you think needs to be done and you don't have the resources for it, go to whoever your boss is and ask him directly. He's here; he knows what I want." Some clapping.
"That leads me to pass my judgments on what we've been doing and how we can make it better. All of you know what recursive encompassization is, and what the main problems are- sometimes the normal organizations don't form, and sometimes our manipulation doesn't have the desired effect. It's a mistake to believe that the sheeple will always join organizations for the things that they strongly do or don't believe in- we know that the ones that aren't willing to speak aren't willing to fight. But I'm asking that we take it one step further. Hidden, private beliefs can get in our way in other ways. This has been discarded many times in the past, but now it's time for Advanced Recursive Encompassization, where we take a more pro-active stand instead of a reactive one. We need to form the organizations now, anything that needs to be there, even if it would theoretically hurt us or not. We need to encourage them to believe anything that they feel like believing, just so they know- on any level- that their beliefs can't do anything. Most of you have heard that as traditional Illuminated speech, but I'm talking about it more literally- make legality supreme, make the framework unstoppable, while giving the sheeple a large cage to play in. And if we want to stop them from believing something to our detriment, we can do it instantly, because they will be organized, placed into a camp. The odds of any need for emergency secrecy measures are low, because I am not merely suggesting that the larger organizations have Illuminated or servant heads, but we also encourage normals to do it themselves, and we place a manipulator in if it's worth it. Now you'll notice I haven't named any names, because this applies to everyone." I tried to emphasize the generality of it. "I want all of you to keep what I said in mind when doing your jobs- it is universal. You've probably heard most of this before as theory, but I want you to make it concrete. You already know the psychological factors that make all this possible- you know how the masses react- that is my plan. Because the end of secrecy will happen in my lifetime and I want us prepared!" Again, clapping and cheering- although most of them knew that that last phrase was for dramatic effect. Of course I can say that the end of secrecy will happen in my lifetime.. if I croak, I don't have to worry about being wrong.
"I know there's been some hubbub about technological priorities. I've been over them and I don't intend to change them." That settled the issue right there. Period.
"But there is one thing I do intend to change. Every Illuminatus who does not have them will get two Enforcers. As I said, we are the elite, and we should all be treated like it." Cheering from the back- not surprising, that's where the lower levels are.
"So what you're saying is that every level 5 deserves Enforcers?", someone from the third level asked me in a neutral tone.
"That's exactly what I'm saying." Many cheers from the back. "Is that of particular offense to you?"
"No, but I know some people who hate the whole idea."
"So do I, and those people can all go fuck themselves." Even more cheering from the back. "There is no reason why every one of us shouldn't have them. They are invaluable. It's time to make them stop being the sole property of the highest levels because, trickle-down issues aside, they improve efficiency, we all know that. And that should be our primary concern. And yes, I know what the other concerns are- but we're not going to let fear of each other stifle us this time." More cheering and clapping. I love it the same way normal politicians do; it gives me a chance to collect my thoughts while basking in the general approval.
"Now let's talk about what we all want. The end goal. The Day of Exposition, The Final Triumph, the End of Secrecy. The fact that it's called by so many names is a testament to how much we think about it." General agreement. "Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's coming. You know what we have. And yes, you're damn right- I do plan to use mind control implants to do it!", I boldly exclaimed, settling an annoying question once and for all.
The reaction was predictable: general cheering, lots of applause.. but through the applause I could hear one man saying, in a sort of loud muttering, "yes.. and we all know what you plan to do.." He stood up and, drawing a gun from his belt and aiming it at me, screamed "Sic sempi-" ('Thus always', I instantly realized: the beginning of 'sic sempi tyranis', 'thus always to tyrants'.) as loud as he could. His words were punctuated by a bullet: Sarah's, blasting the gun in his hand, but causing it to go off at its intended target. Fifty milliseconds later, the bullet was where my head had been; I had simply leaned to the left very quickly. At about the same time, Billy had put a bullet in the idiot's forehead. There was some more cheering, some more laughter, and some more clapping. Sarah, though, was silently, almost imperceptibly cursing herself; I'll talk to her about her mistake later. I decided to continue my speech where I had left off, resting my head against the bullet hole in the chair.
"There's also been a lot of hubbub about space, how hard it is to achieve it and how many resources need be devoted to get anything up there. I have only ten words to say about space. We will get there completely in the next hundred years." Some shocked looks. No clapping. I'm not going to bullshit anyone about this one. Getting out of the Earth's gravity well requires tremendous resources, and creating space or celestial body-based facilities requires even more- technology will eventually solve it, but it's just a matter of time.
"I know this hasn't been very long, but I'm not going to bore you and that's all the words I care to speak.", I said, and a large- but not quite large enough- round of applause followed that. There better not be something I'm missing... what are these people waiting for?
A 45-year-old man- Judas Rockefeller, one of the native-born Illuminati, a first level- stood up, hopped up the stage to me, and said "And you'll get the power when you'll pass the tests." What the fuck? Tests... on me? The hell? I would probably have laughed if it wasn't for the fact that everyone else in the audience was expertly, inaudibly stifling smiles and similar reactions, as they looked at my expression.
"You were all informed of this, weren't you.", I asked them. Everyone- absolutely everyone in the audience- said the affirmative in his or her native language, including Latin. I laughed, smiled for the crowd, and went along with the first level showing me whatever he intended, the applause of the audience rising to the level I had anticipated earlier. My servants followed reluctantly, and I marveled at the Illuminated ability to keep secrets, as the applause of the audience disappeared behind the soundproof, closing door.
As we followed the white-clad, smiling man down the hall, Sarah gave me a look- a look that said quite plainly, 'Don't trust these people!' I smiled back at her- a way of saying, 'I'm not you, Sarah. They're not going to do that to me.' She just rolled her eyes and looked away.
A few unused stairs here, an unused door there.. and I was in the strangest place that I've ever been. I noticed Billy recoiling at it, and I probably did the same thing. It was a long row of holding cells from different time periods, all nearly the same size. The oldest looked to be from the late 1700s, the newest a modern holding chamber made from Illuminati-quality plexiglass. All of the old ones held decomposed, barely-recognizable human corpses, the next-to-newest (from the fifties?) held a grotesque, foul-smelling excuse for a man (who I did not want to look at, at all- I'll find out about him from a distance, thanks), and the newest.. was empty.
"Lemme guess. This is what happens to me if I fail, right?", I said, gesturing to the modern cell from which no one- not even me- could escape. Judas nodded.
"My paranoia was too low. I didn't anticipate something like this. So.. what are the rules?"
"Go home.", he replied. "You'll get your information on your plane. That's all I'm allowed to say." I considered torturing him on the spot and then discarded the idea. I'd get in a fight with the entire complex if I did that- and although I might even win, these people are still my power base.
"I know why you did it this way.. you were worried about me killing people after I heard them." He only nodded and grinned. I sighed, shrugged, and started to walk off.
Behind me, a decrepit voice said, "Howard.. you're immortal... hahahahahAHAHAHA...", and then promptly began hacking and coughing from trying to laugh that loud. 'Can it!!', I almost screamed at him. 'Don't you think I know what that means?!' Instead, I didn't turn around. I didn't want to look at him. He was effectively dead.
The rail system took the three of us to my waiting jet. I was in a partial state of shock, but I really should have thought of this in advance. Screw the consequences. They might as well be death. I've got a problem to find out about and solve.
"Nothing is ever easy.", Billy observed as we re-entered the plane, Sarah at the controls once more. "Not even for you."
"Nope.", I replied. "Not even for me. I had no fucking idea. Is this confusing you?" The jet's VTOL took us up and the thrusters took us up and away.
"What, the fact that they've spent so much time working on you, you're going to get ultimate power over everything, and you have to do this kind of thing for your enormous parliament?" I nodded. His use of the word 'parliament' was unexpected, but I've heard them referred to as that a few times. "Nah. Murphy's Law affects all of us."
"Unexpected bad things are distributed indiscriminately. We've lived by that maxim for a long time. In case you didn't already figure it out- which you probably should have by now- there's no such thing as 'fair'."
"Don't worry. I figured it out." A few clicks later and the rules for the first test was on my screen, as Sarah climbed out of the pilot's seat to take a look.
I groaned. Billy shook his head and put it in his lap. Sarah muttered "Oh, that's just stupid.." to herself.
1. The first test will last for 28 days, starting at midnight PST.
2. You will find that your communications have been severely curtailed. You are to accept this for the 28 days.
3. You and anything you own must stay on your island.
4. You may not intentionally bring anything, save this jet and its contents, to your island.
5. You have twelve Enforcers and one hundred unimplanted normal servants at your command during those 28 days. (I never thought I'd see 'unimplanted' and 'at your command' in the same sentence.)
5. A particular variety of potato will be available for food. Only the unimplanted servants may farm it. (So I can't speed things up with Enforcers. Damn.) You and your servants may only eat what is produced on the land surface of your island.
6. No humanoids may be killed or neglected to die during the 28 days. (In other words, no Enforcer or peasant meat.)
7. You must run a 3-kilometer course three times a day. When you start running the course each time, you must complete it in 18 minutes. (That's not fast at all, but they want to make sure I'm running instead of just moving along slowly. Energy consumption.)
8. You must complete a given mental exercise each day.
"Oh yeah, Howard.", Sarah said, her lips dripping with sarcasm. "Noooo one wants to kill the Inheritor, not before they have a reason to, uh-uh... aaa, who's my next employer?"
"Sarah...", I warned her.
"Sorry. Realism took over for a minute. Ya know, it would be easy as hell for them to push this just a little bit too far, and the other two tests would.." Kill me. Exhaust the Inheritor for a full month and then...
"Yes.. but there's food already on the island, you know that. And that self-sufficiency crap Daddy was telling me about.. just a warning, nothing more." I realized immediately that he didn't mean for me to keep it up for more than a month, that he misinformed me.. but I'll deal with that thought later. I have current problems- this is going to be bad. I'll survive it.. that's not the issue.
"And you have to solve one of those problems every day, that and the running.. shit.", Billy said.
"They want to make sure I'm burning calories and that I can continue to think straight. You know, though... this looks like it was planned as if I'd have to do it alone.. it looks like not that much thought was put into it." Billy started laughing to himself at that, and I can see why he'd find it funny. We talk about being the super organization with all-high knowledge and all-high manipulation, and our decisions come out with just as much bullshit as any other organization's.
"Committee decisions look like that.", Sarah explained. "You know how it goes. Somebody pushes, somebody pulls, sometimes decisions are made without enough information. They sat down, took a good, careful look at the Northberg specifications for you, figured out how much you'd eat, argued about just what to make you do.. and they completely forgot the edible plants and animals already on the island.. as well as the two of us."
"Wait a minute.", Billy said, shaking his head. "That can't be right. You mean to say that the organization in charge of everything, the suuuper-smart Illuminati- just fucked up?"
"Or no one bothered to tell them.", Sarah replied. "My bet's on the Dominator simply not divulging information. You said he warned you. He was probably pulling strings from the first."
"That would explain it.", I replied. "Oh, and Sarah.. about that mistake."
"I know! I'm sorry, Howard."
"You were telling me before how you were too good, and that's how you got into this mess. I told you that there was no such thing as 'too good'. I was wrong- you hit your mark exactly on target, exactly perfectly. You blasted him right in the trigger." Billy started chuckling to himself. "Next time.. don't!"
"Dammit, I know! If you would have been just about anyone else..."
"..you probably would have found a way to kill me already." Sarah blushed slightly at the compliment.
"And as for those potatoes..", I said, scrolling down the rules, reading the details: these things require lots of maintenance and lots of effort to farm.. and they grow quickly.. and they're obviously designed just for this. Then I looked up how the peasants would be waiting.. hmm, cages are appropriate.. and then proceeded to craft a plan to get them working.. muttering to myself all the while. Assholes. This whole damn test business only seems necessary, but is actually dangerous for damn near everyone. Because if I don't get in... who will?
After I finished that business, I took a look at who the attempted assassin was. Thirty-two-year-old Nathaniel Lee, no apparent threat risk.. but a steady stream of declining holdings and probably some growing anger. Typical normal thinking, nothing I haven't seen before. His fortunes plummet in a spiral and he believes the Dominator's behind it, so he tries to take revenge by killing me. Unfortunately, he obviously didn't read the relevant material on me, or he would have known he could have never actually done it, at least not like that.