Sarah's thoughts roiled.

They did that on occasion. As the empress of operations her ruthlessly logical mind naturally developed strategies and followed every line of inquiry to its end; the Operator had constructed her brain shortly after developing an Enforcer prototype, and she often suspected that some qualities had rubbed off. She couldn't not think tactically. So when she woke up one morning with the idea that perhaps their enemies had psychological traits in common, it jabbed at her until she did the necessary research.

What she found was nothing quite approaching evidence, but she did find a great many other things, some of which she found unnerving. A plan started to take form. She compiled her research and went downstairs, the twins at their usual spots, Paul between them, this time browsing through games looking for something that might actually pose a fair challenge that they haven't played before. She decided to give them a new game to play, even if it might not be much of a challenge.

"Honored Duumvirate, Fifth Level Paul," she began, voice dripping with wry sarcasm, "Towards the goal of ferreting out your presumably insane enemies, I would like to inform you of a number of abuses of power within your organization."

"If it can't be abused, it isn't power," Howard replied immediately, almost forgetting that he was talking to Sarah and not William or Paul fresh from normalcy.

"That doesn't even make sense," William said, looking at Sarah like she was a normal and it was just that time of the month again. "It's an infinitely long list. Anything that can be defined as an abuse happens more frequently than you can mention one."

"Which is why I've stuck to absolute extremes. Humor me," she replied, flipping over the couch and sitting between Howard and Paul, taking the extendable keyboard/mouse setup and rapidly going through a number of windows.

One of them involved the exploits of a Mr. Vernon Stuart, a British chap, who was cheerfully masterminding arms sales to Sudanese factions. The regional administrator of Africa was in on it, and approved; the way things played out apparently made his job easier. The twins clearly didn't see anything wrong with it. So he was making a few of his favorite arms dealers happy. So what?

"Easy to become reliant on this damn thing, isn't it?" Sarah asked. "I followed a thread here..." Click-click. "and it led to this. He's not selling to the highest bidder all the time, he's selling to the people who are the most vicious. Janjaweed factions directly, sometimes at cut rates."

"But still making money. This is secrecy. Without an Illuminatus, the guys selling wouldn't always know who could pay the most. They'd just sell to whoever would pay well and who they felt comfortable with," Paul pointed out.

"You misunderstand," Sarah said. "He's not selling as normals would sell. He's selling to whoever has committed the most atrocities. Sometimes he would reward a massacre with a new shipment the next day. It doesn't always go the way he wants it, because he's working indirectly, but that just ends up being variable reinforcement. It's not like the locals are smart enough to figure it out. They think it's God working his will to make them kill more."

"To what end?" William asked, perplexed. If Vernon wanted to make Africans kill each other en masse, there were faster methods. "This just sounds like genocide the long way."

"That's what I thought, and I went poking around to find out why. Actually he has nothing to gain from successful genocide, the African administrator doesn't have any need and his arms business is a very small part of the things he does. Vernon's a power broker only in the abstract- he's really something of a jack of all trades. Works with other Illuminati very well. I don't think any disputes involving him have ever come up on your screen, and there's nothing in the records." She paused for a short breath, thinking.

"But that's all beside the point, because he isn't in this for kills. He's in it for atrocities, torture, rape. That's how he selects the people he sells to." Finding this out took some very serious investigation. "He does want to see butchery, and he wants to see lots of it, but he also wants to see horror. He has some very good intelligence down there, a couple Enforcers at the very least, and my guess is that he's recording it all for his private collection." She gave the subtlest of glances to Paul, who had once been the unwilling star in an atrocity collection.

"Interesting choice of hobbies," Howard said. "But he seems to be handling it very well. You're right, the locals aren't smart enough, the other normals won't have a clue, and even you had to search before you found anything. If anything, his personal interest is making things more certain, not less."

"It's not really any weirder than doing research on a handful of local thug lords out in the Third World just to prove a point to three people," William said offhand. "C'mon Sarah, you know very well we're not going to touch this guy just because he likes to see gore." If nothing else, they couldn't afford to.

Her reply was with face and gesture: And yet you got Damien killed.

William narrowed his eyes. That was Paul. That was different. "These people have been killing and maiming each other since time began. You don't care either, you're just ramping up to something else. Cut to the chase."

She shrugged in concession. "Are you sure you don't want that ramp-up? Because I actually spotted three more before this last guy."

"The last guy," William said. "This is your Dominator speaking."

"All right, but first I have to know something on policy. What is more important in these cases: Thoughts or actions?"

"Thoughts, obviously," Howard replied, a bit bereft of patience. "Vernon wouldn't even be interesting if it was just actions. The point you're trying to make is that we can find out who's crazy through research, and take the crazy ones as potential enemies. Unfortunately, the kind of global toying sadism you're talking about can actually make them more desirable as Illuminati, a fact that Paul doesn't like either. It also doesn't mean they're against me. I thought you were above this." That last sentence was a heavy insult to an Illuminatus. Especially, Howard didn't need to add, since William was right about the normals killing each other anyway. Who gave a shit?

"The fact that it's pointless doesn't mean much, then?"

Howard was losing more patience. "Sarah, if we were to seriously investigate everyone who's done pointless sadism, we might as well just try to outpower all six thousand and do things the ugly way. Taken literally that would include people in this room." Three of them, in fact. "I can't think of any current Illuminatus who'd be worth extra attention just for that."

Sarah replied by closing the windows on the screen and opening others.

The twins would have been horrified flat if they were unfamiliar with control techniques. As it was, revulsion and disgust crept across their faces like centipedes, although they had the self-awareness to find this amusing in a dark way. Disturbing the Duumvirate with a form of control- holy shit, give the man a medal! Sarah made a slight face in disgust before turning to the twins with a smug look: C'mon, boys, you can't tell me this guy deserves to live.

"Politics, Sarah. Is this necessary? Can we afford to?" William reluctantly replied.

"The first question you can answer on your own terms. The second is yes, as very few people are going to care at all, and the ones that do aren't dumb enough to start something over it."

Paul wasn't listening to them talk. He was reading and re-reading, failing to understand it fully because a large part of him didn't want to understand it. "This is a joke, right?" he asked, clearly understanding that it was not. The expression on his face was unmistakable, his muscles vibrating with pure hate. Rage like this could only end in a handful of outcomes, some good, some bad, none pretty. For a brief moment the other three thought that he was going to scream. Suddenly his face went expressionless and his muscles went slack.

"Dominator," Paul said formally. "To complete my plan, I require the fastest aircraft you can possibly afford to give me. I will also require use of the satellite laser system. Is this acceptable to you?"

The twins looked at Paul's fury, back at Sarah's smug expression, and then at each other. Fuck it. They'd killed people over much less. "Paul, you take the jet, you tell the laser operators where to point it, and you kick some ass. This is a command from your Dominator," Howard replied in the same tone. Paul got dressed in his signature trenchcoated suit, went down the elevator, retrieved a variety of weapons, came back up within minutes, and walked out the door silently. The look on his face was flat murder. William wanted to say something as his friend left, but words would not suffice, and he was very surprised at the depths of Paul's rage. He hadn't seen his friend pissed anywhere near that badly for years.

The cause was the rather perverted idea of one Mr. Matthew L. Rhines, and the criminally-oriented children, teenagers, and young men he had subjected to it. The implementation involved the victims being forcibly regressed via heavy Pavlovian pleasure-and-pain conditioning with brain electrodes to an infantile state, as a sort of twisted rehabilitation, in an attempt to rewrite their personalities. The theories were clearly bogus to anyone with a passing interest in psychology, based on flawed assumptions and wishful thinking. Had any of the victims been returned to society- assuming they could be, at all- that much would have been evident immediately. Paul didn't know how the hell this guy became an Illuminatus, and didn't much care at the moment unless it meant even more people to kill. Four years prior, Paul had suffered vicious, painful, hellish torment involving anal rape for six straight weeks before he had the opportunity to blow his tormentor's brains out. Spying for his Dominator, he had spent time inside a boys' ranch that, while brutal, was nothing compared to the pure human desecration that was the keystone of Matthew's theories, and he understood this on a fundamental level. Oh yes. Ass was going to be kicked today.

The first thing that Paul used was an excuse. Matthew, I would like to meet you to discuss.. blah, blah. Paul could have made up anything that the man was peripherally connected to. Just for fun, irony, and morbid curiosity, he pretended to be interested in his theories and didn't involve the Dominator at all. The man ate it up like candy, and very fortunately wanted to have all of the real conversation in person- Paul didn't feel that he couldn't keep the bullshit up or his gorge down for very long, and swallowed vomit after he clicked off.

He was high-strung through his flight, with anxiety he wasn't familiar with. He hadn't felt this tense since he first became an Illuminatus. Like a bowstring pulled way too far back, the slightest uncontrolled push could set him loose. He could have, of course. No problem for him. He'd just run through and kill every target he saw. The odds would be twenty to his one- wildly imbalanced in his favor, as they didn't have access to weapons sufficient to kill him. Unless someone had been quietly slipping Rhines some heavy hardware or major auto-defenses- an unlikely proposition, as he wasn't in the Illuminati very long- Paul could have simply raided the place in the manner of the Middle Ages.

But he didn't want to do that. He was an Illuminatus, after all, not an assassin or a servant. He would not act out of instant rage; instead, he would calmly, rationally confirm what needed to be done, and then do it. He wasn't feeling very rational, however. He was remembering Damien, that bastard who hurt him, hurt him over and over and over again just for the fun of it, just because he could. Paul forced himself to also remember how he had ended it with that single pistol shot to the head when William had tricked Damien into letting him do it. He was remembering James Baker, that overwrought asshole who ran that shitpit boys' ranch he had been sent to infiltrate. Paul never told the Duumvirate just what things were like there, and they never asked. The only thing that kept him sane, from mis-reacting to the (fairly standard, he later learned) brainwashing he received there, was the knowledge that he was on a mission and was still Howard's servant, implants as a psychological crutch. James died because of him. And now he was here. Paul knew how this would end, barring some sort of impossible misunderstanding or reverse miracle. It's just how it would proceed that he was thinking about.

And then he saw the facility and a terrible sense of wrongness grasped him, as if it literally shouldn't have been there at all. Well, no shit! Half of the things he dealt with on a regular basis probably shouldn't exist, that guy who got off on blacks murdering each other might be stereotypical but still shouldn't exist, what was so special about this one? Other than the psychosis, it was just another building in the middle of nowhere, home to another asshole. For a lot of them, this was what power was about. But despite that logic, he couldn't shake the feeling, and he was tempted to simply command the satellites now and damn everyone inside.

He took a deep breath as he slowly, carefully landed the jet. Fuck fear. Fuck anxiety. And fuck that sense on the edge of his consciousness. Was he an Illuminatus or not? It didn't matter that he was still a fifth; men many times more powerful than this assclown feared his disfavor.

Rhines' servant was there to greet him as he disembarked. In Paul's amped state he thought he could hear the man's voice speaking to him in his mind through that glare and his overall body language.

You've been a bad little boy, haven't you? Oh yes. And we know how to treat bad little boys here, don't we? You need to be put in your place, little boy, and I'm just the man to do it. This, despite the fact that Paul was two inches taller, visibly more athletic, and clearly an Illuminatus. Even if the man didn't know Paul's retroviral abilities, Paul wasn't expecting that sort of condescending loathing.

Paul simply looked back at the servant, sending a silent message of his own: You'll be dead within fifteen minutes, so why should I care what you think? Paul smiled as the servant didn't seem to get that at all. The man gestured at Paul with a false casualness, and into the building. "Lead the way," Paul countered with, pointing at the man and his Enforcers. Although their speed was likely no match for his reflexes, he still didn't want them getting behind him. The man scowled, gestured to his Enforcers, and Paul followed them in.

The walls were painted brick and mortar, not the typical Illuminated-facility steel, and the colorful murals and paper cutouts (depicting things Paul refused to understand) adorning the interior walls made it look almost like an elementary school. Disturbing as it was, it meant that Paul could use photons instead of the projectile weapons he had concealed in his white trenchcoat. Matthew might have been able to borrow a few building-constructors had he asked, but really, what did he have to defend against, retroviral teenagers with microwave lasers?

Paul pretended not to notice the horrors he was passing, the room full of locking cribs, the "nursery" he passed next to containing kids who were either completely brainwashed or on their way. He heard the loud wailing of some boy, but it passed over his conscious mind like the breeze. His step was light and airy; a smile graced his lips. In fact, he felt no rage at all. Why would he? There was nothing to be angry at. And if it wasn't for the Enforcers and the cameras, and the fact that he still wanted to continue with his conversation plan, he would have broken the servant's neck before parting with him.

The chair was comfortable, but Paul noticed different indentations in the carpet; another sort of chair had been placed there recently.

The man in front of him was thin and old, and likely was heavily affected by Northberg; life-extending surgeries were common practice when recruiting men his age. Minor waste of resources, in his case. He smiled at Paul, and Paul read the body language, and saw nothing but what the man outwardly portrayed: respect and friendliness.

"Welcome, welcome! Have a seat." Paul instinctively checked the chair for traps before he sat down, making no show of trust yet acting like this was perfectly normal. Unless they were hidden perfectly well, there were none, although he imagined needles rising out of it hard enough to break through his suit. Paul supposed the man in front of him would have inflicted the horrors on him given half a chance; perhaps he might have some special variant for engineereds. Rhines simply nodded at him and looked at him with an expression devoid of fear or worry. ('Does he even see me for what I am? Does he even realize why I might have come?')

"Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee? Cup of milk?" A cup as opposed to what? Oh, that's right. Fuck.

"I had a good drink on the plane." You can't possibly be stupid enough to think I'm going to accept consumables from you.

"I hope it wasn't anything too strong for you. Tell me, dear boy, what you would like to know," he said, sounding much like a kindly grandfather. Dear boy. It was perfectly possible that this man was a full-blown member of the rogues, and was simply using basic methods of lulling Paul until he would spring a trap. That was one alternative. The other, which seemed more likely, was that since Paul was intelligent, polite, pleasant, and apparently agreeable, the nice old man would behave like Mr. Rogers to this dear boy. Why not? Paul was a good kid, right? (Clearly the man had done no research on him. Even if he had, it wouldn't have told him nearly enough.) This man apparently had no hidden animosity, nothing but caring concern for good boys like Paul. A few commands and his servant, chastised, would pretend the same. Paul could easily continue, cup of milk in hand, and conclude the conversation amiably, leave peacefully, and return to his Dominator with the opinion that an ass kicking was not necessary.

And then one of the geneticists could create a breed of avian swine to commemorate the occasion.

Paul could barely speak without cutting loose, so stayed terse. "Of course I've seen brain electrodes used before, but never anything quite like this. What exactly is this technique?"

He was expecting the old man's answer to start with 'Well, I've explained in the records...' Nope. Old men like to talk, and Matthew spoke with the deliberate patience of someone who has all the time in the world. "Their bad behaviors are simply an outpouring of their base, inborn impulses. We simply condition them into acting as what they truly are, and then we rebuild them from there." The man turned his laptop around to face Paul, showing a graph that was half spikes and half flatline, demarcated with a vertical 'Use of Therapeutic Positive/Aversive Conditioning' line. "As you can see, the short-term effect on instances of unacceptable behavior is immediate, but permanent results can be achieved in a few years." A few years. With brain electrodes, if he really knew what he was doing, he could accomplish the Pavlovian conditioning in a couple of days. Likely he actually did...

Paul was starting to feel a sense of urgency. While they talked, the kids suffered. He decided to make the conversation shorter than he originally planned.

"So, then, your intent is to rebuild them from a different foundation."

"Yes, that's right." There wasn't even the slightest hint of irony.

For a moment, Paul thought it was all one big April Fool's joke. Maybe today really was the first and he had just got his dates mixed up, or maybe the twins decided to do one a few days early so he wouldn't catch on; they had only promised not to play them on each other, after all. The beginning now, maybe, and the end of the joke on the first?

No, no such luck. This guy meant it.

Rhines noticed Paul staring at him and continued, a bit awkwardly: "Oh, there's more to it than that. I'm aware that they can destroy themselves fighting it." 'And that differs from what you're trying to do how, exactly?' Paul didn't say. "I have one boy conditioned to convince newcomers to 'pretend to go along with it', as well as a normal woman with similar instructions. They both suggest that they're against me, but that it would be best for my patients to accept things 'for now'. They don't last long after that." He smiled as he spoke, the delight on his face obvious. That tore it. Time to end this. 'I'm going to own this guy so hard, people three universes over will feel it.'

"I find your unique therapeutic approach fascinating, but there is one more thing I'd like from you."

"That being?" Was he beginning to get a clue, yet? Did he have some inkling?

What Paul wanted to do- what every nerve in his body was screaming at him to do- was pull out an anti-Enforcer weapon instead of the tranquilizer gun, splattering this fucker's brains like so much mushy pink Chef Boyardee, bits of skull the size and shape of cornflakes embedding themselves in the far wall with almost the same velocity as the buckshot that had carried them there. But Sarah, procedure, and common sense had demanded at least an attempt at implant interrogation, so he held down his gorge, shot him with the little gun instead of a big one, and reminded himself that he'd ordered the interrogators to cremate this asshole alive once they were done, tearing his atoms one from the other and leaving nothing but carbon dioxide, water vapor, and a faint layer of ash. Paul started to smile and laugh at the prospect.

The Enforcer guards went for him. There were only two of them and they fell in instants, one with a crushed skull from Paul's armored fist and the other with an imploded neck from his forearm. Laughing louder and louder, Paul pulled out the fusion/fission weapon, and began to sing something from Katamari Damacy as he sauntered, almost skipped, down the hall.

The shot and the following fight were both unmuffled, echoing up and down the halls and intermingling with the background noises in a cacophony from nightmare which he tried to drown out with his own voice. ("Na NA, na na na NA NA NA, na na Katamari Damashii...") Enforcer nannies, untrained in engineered combat, rushed up the halls and went down in burning pieces, Paul carving them at a distance in patterns, the thundercrack of the Micro booming like a continuous explosion. Paul giggled loudly at their ineptitude, as well as the sheer comic effect of an Enforcer nanny, its smoldering head a few feet away, bleeding dark red all over the screaming, babified teenager it had carried. Paul didn't let himself feel anything else, still singing. If he went into rage now, he wasn't sure if he'd ever come out.

He turned the corner and nearly collided with a normal-born woman, dressed as the Enforcer nurses. She looked at him in absolute horror, backing up slowly, completely disbelieving what he was doing. "Oh, hello there," Paul said, still smiling. "Can you tell me what you do here?" He was curious as to how she'd phrase her job.

"Listen, I was just trying to help-" Ah, the sputtering of fearful lies.

"You're full of shit," Paul said in the same pleasant tone, put his foot on her chest, and ripped off her arms like drumsticks, smacking her in the head with them a few times after she went down. Paul looked at his white outfit with mild dismay. He'd gone and gotten himself covered in blood. Oh well. A few more unarmed Enforcers showed up ('They ought to start training them not to bother.') and were sliced easily in half in one microwave swipe. Paul heard one behind him, and as he spun on his heel, it fired a Taser. A Taser! Giggling even harder, Paul plucked the electrodes out of the air, tossed them aside, and ended the offending Enforcer with a burning hole in the center of its head one centimeter wide, through which superheated brains gushed.

On impulse, Paul kicked open the door to the nursery and his singing died in his throat. Roughly two dozen males from ages 8 ('Eight! Fucking eight!'- Paul clamped down on that) to 25 sat or lay about the room, wearing baby clothes, the majority of them crying and wailing, some of them looking around wildly for the nurses who had met their end trying to repel the unstoppable threat. Paul's self-enforced good mood almost collapsed into screaming fury, but he retained his composure and went to the one boy who looked to still be lucid, who was staring at him with trembling lips, looking him in the eye. As he had with Rhines' servant, Paul felt he could read his innermost thoughts:

I'm begging you, get me out of here.

Okay, that one didn't take a telepath.

Reading the nametag on the boy's clothing, Paul asked, "Hey, Cody. Want to be my friend?"

The boy had been there for roughly three days. Confused, terrified, unable to understand what was going on in his mind yet still smoldering with residual rage, he blurted the first thing that came to mind: "It's Luke, not Cody!" He braced himself, expecting pain and a terrible sadness that wasn't really his, and a look of relief came over his face when he received nothing. He didn't wholly realize what had happened, thought that the explosions were figments of his imagination, didn't know what the smell of ozone and overcooked meat really meant, didn't quite cognize that the red stains on Paul's suit were, indeed, blood.

"Okay, Luke. Want to be my friend?" Paul asked again. Receiving no reply in three seconds from the baffled boy, he simply turned around.

"Wait! Yes! YES!" Luke screamed.

"Okay. I'm Paul. You're my friend now," Paul said simply, reaching behind Luke and crushing the control collar's electrical system by main force, knowing that it was discharge-proof. If it wasn't for the electrodes going deep into Luke's brain, he simply would have torn it off. He reached out with his hand. Luke took it, unsure, and Paul shook it firmly before pulling Luke up. "Have a gun," he said, handing Luke a smallish semiautomatic rifle. Luke looked at the Illuminated weapon uncertainly, vaguely understanding that he was being extracted. Was this some sort of dream, or was he in a coma this whole time and this marked the end? Who the hell was this guy? Did he really kill all the staff as it sounded like?

One last nanny Enforcer entered the room, going for Paul with the same intensity that all Enforcers have in combat. To Luke's eyes, one instant the nanny was moving towards him, and the next instant Paul's foot had already kicked it in the chest with unbelievable speed and force. It fell backward, destroyed ribs ripping holes in lungs and heart. It sat up for a moment before falling back down. Almost all of the other victims started screaming at the top of their lungs, some sounding like normal teenagers, some giving a high-pitched whine that should have come from no post-pubescent throat. Paul ostensibly paid no attention.

"So, Luke, what do you like to do? What are you good at?" Paul asked, in a forceful voice that cut through the noise.

Being asked that, in this setting, felt so weird that he immediately blurted what he thought was the truth instead of a lie or a non-answer. "I blow shit up. Destroy shit. Cause fucking chaos." A look of realization, of latent hate being drawn towards the surface, drew across his face.

"Really?" Paul asked perkily but with the same forceful voice. "We definitely have a place for people like you. Welcome aboard." Luke was only half-listening, instead walking up to and aiming at what looked to be a completely catatonic boy. Paul looked on as the boy seemingly went lucid in an instant and started to say something, but was interrupted by the loud .45 caliber crack of the semiautomatic. Although he would have greatly relished it, Luke never had the opportunity to fire a real weapon before; the Illuminated mini-rifle jerked directly back, spoiling his aim by a fraction of an inch. Instead of putting it right between the other boy's eyes, it instead went through some of the top of his skull, splashing the nursery-print wall with crimson, the shock to the brain killing him instantly. Ah, yes; that must have been the boy cajoling him to accept this. Paul simply smiled, and led Luke out with the same sauntering near-skip he had when he entered the place. "You killed someone the moment you had the chance. And here I was thinking I'd have to train you to be one of us." Paul actually wasn't too surprised. Considering that Luke had been through more hell in the past three days than most boys his age did in their entire lives, the fact that his savior, new friend, and thus example-setter hadn't been adverse to killing at all, and that Luke probably didn't have much of a conscience to begin with, it was natural that murder would be the first thing on his mind. (It had actually been on his mind the whole time.)

"Wait! Who the fuck are you?! What the fuck are you?! Why are you here?!" Luke shouted over the screaming as he uncertainly followed his new master out, looking with simultaneous horror and fascination at the burn-slashed corpses littering the floor. ('What the fuck did he use, a lightsaber? Is this guy some kind of Jedi?')

"Paul Smith, fifth level Illuminatus. I'm retrovirally engineered, and I'll make you a retroviral, too. I'm here to make friends. C'mon, bud. Let's get you out of here and into some real clothes." Luke was confused and unnerved by most of what Paul had to say ('Illuminatus? What-engineered? And he wants to be friends?'), but the last suggestion got him going. ('Wherever the hell he's taking me, it's got to be better than this.')

Paul looked around for a while before pulling out a small radio. "It's empty or close enough. Send 'em in." Then, to Luke's surprise, Paul put his arm around him, looking at him with a smile. Luke remembered the white-clad boy's immense strength, and hoped to God he wasn't queer. To go from mental destruction to anal rape would be just his luck about now. "So tell me, Luke, how does it feel to know that there's a place for you in the world, just the way you are? What went through your head when someone as powerful as I am took time to save you from this? What's it like to be rescued?" Paul was a good six inches taller than Luke, and for a moment Luke felt like his little brother. He rejected it out of hand, as he couldn't tell the difference between real and artificial emotions anymore.

"Just... fucking.. I don't know!" There was a woman's scream outside, then the loud b-r-r-r-r-rap of an automatic weapon, the perimeter Enforcers coming through. "It's.. it's fucking great, I'm so glad you did it. Why the fuck weren't you here earlier?!" he shouted, reaching behind him for his collar.

"Don't, there's wires in your head. We'll take them out professionally," Paul said, moving Luke's hands down with his hugging arm. "We didn't know. There's six thousand Illuminati, and many of them keep a substantial amount of privacy. Sorry." That apology was so fucking ridiculous, and Paul knew it, but...

Luke didn't care about that. "Jesus, some of those guys in there are so fucked-"

"I know," Paul said gently, as his Enforcers rushed into the building. Generic, military, and late-model, they moved past Paul and his new friend with alacrity. "Hopefully they'll forgive us for being so late." Most Illuminati would have laughed at Paul for saying that. Forgiveness from normals? "It's all right, we'll give them their brains back." Or what was left of them. Paul didn't mention what would have to happen afterwards, in the majority of cases. It would be a mercy. "When I was rescued, it was one of the best experiences in my life, although I didn't really know it at the time. I can't tell which was worse, my or your tormentor, but my best friend gave me the power to kill the motherfucker, and his twin brother adopted me. Much as I'm doing for you. Let me tell you about us." Having been through the unbelievable, Luke didn't disbelieve any of what Paul had to say. He did not, however, really think about it. Stress, murder, and action had shut down most of his forebrain.

Paul walked out, still talking, and found the corpse of Rhines' servant outside the jet. The sharpshooter Enforcers keeping the perimeter had been methodical in preventing him from getting in. Instead of sniping him in the head, which would have passed through and done damage to the jet, they had shot him in his right knee, then got him in the head when he went down. High-caliber bullets meant there wasn't much of either left. Paul frowned at the stains on the reflective armor, still casually discussing Illuminated secrets as he would the weather. Then he looked at Luke's clothes with sheer disgust and ripped apart the one-piece in an instant, exposing the full diaper underneath. Sickened to his stomach, Paul tore that off as well and threw the wet and messy object to the place where the corpse's head used to be, still talking. Luke looked bewildered for a half second and then laughed, a wild horse-laugh of impending insanity. Then he followed Paul up into the jet. Naked was better, anyway.

"There's a toilet opening inside the seat," Paul said, noticing that Luke was dripping from his dick. Luke pulled it agape and Paul noticed that he intended to leave it that way. Of course. Likely they had done significant damage to his bladder control. Paul gave him the dignity of pretending not to notice as, apologetically, he explained the bad part: that Luke would not become an Illuminatus and would be a servant, most probably an implanted one.

Luke didn't cry or whimper. Of course not. He had spent the last three days fighting that, and without the control collar's effect it was much easier. Instead, he stared at Paul with simultaneous awe and rage. Paul didn't mind. Luke could cuss him out all he felt like, particularly right now with a semi-fucked mind. He could even viciously attack Paul if he so chose. They'd still be friends.

"Don't give me that shit!" Luke screamed after Paul explained that it was necessary. "They were all telling me how I needed that crap! Now you're telling me how I need this, huh?" He started to point the gun at Paul, and Paul instantly took it out of his hands and flung it away into the back of the jet. Luke buried his head in his hands and silently quivered with fear and rage.

"Listen closely. You haven't gone from the frying pan and to the fire. This is an entirely different sort of need. There are far more humane, and ultimately far more effective, ways of channeling the destructive anger of men your age." Luke liked being called a man; that was why Paul did it. "You don't deserve to be treated like that. Nobody deserves that, or anything remotely like it. Death is far more preferable. You don't even deserve the problems associated with implant slavery, but we do that both for security and secrecy reasons. We're going to be giving you access to power, Luke; lots and lots of it." That perked him up. "The implants are just there to make sure you use it for, not against, us."

"What the fuck are you talking about, power? You mean like what you did in there?" Luke had never had anything resembling power before, which was a root cause of his rage. The only way someone like him could get power was through destruction, which he had become very, very good at.

Paul launched into a discussion of Illuminated power of all types, with a special emphasis on the fusion technologies and the extreme weaponry, including the Micro he had used to chop those Enforcers up, and the existence of Enforcers themselves. Paul concluded with, "And you'll be a regenerating immortal as well, stronger, faster, and smarter than ever before." Luke thought Paul was being snide with 'regenerating immortal'.

Luke's swirling mind ('Sweet Jesus, he just killed everyone and now he's talking like a fucking doctor') was going in a different direction. "He could have used those fucking collars to train us to do anything, right?"

"In theory, yes."

"Then why that?! For the love of fuck, why that?! He could have made us all like you and trained us all to be firemen or politicians or something! He could probably have made us to be cops!" Paul's friend still didn't really understand Illuminated secrecy, nor did he know that the retrovirus would cause such electrodes to be regenerated out. Paul still acknowledged his point.

"I could go on about his rather nonsensical theories, but they're all complete hogwash. Basically, he did it because he wanted to. Having a room full of destroyed teenagers pleased him and probably got his servant off every night. While you were being brainwashed, that guy was masturbating." Luke was sickened and stunned. "You have destructive impulses, as do I. Have you ever wanted to do anything like that to anyone, ever?"

"Fuck no!"

"Why not?" Paul asked.

"Because it's sick! It's bullshit!"

"Of course it is. The stuff you've done isn't even in the same league as that. And yet he, and many, many others like him in the normal world, have made themselves believe that such things are right and proper and perfectly okay because you're a teenager with destructive impulses. The act of destroying you gives them pleasure, and they justify what they've done with smart-sounding nonsense. Such people are badly imbalanced, unable to separate their fantasies from the objective reality of human psychology, and need to die."

"Is that what I'll be doing?" Luke asked. Paul sensed Luke's sheer glee, the only honest good emotion he had really felt in three days.

"There's not enough of them to make it a full-time career. At least not ones that we can afford to go after; secrecy, again. But there will be times, yes." Luke looked downcast, as if that was the only fun he was going to have. "You can cheer up. You're my friend, remember?" Paul realized how scarily like the Dominator he sounded, but plodded ahead anyway, using the same calm tone of voice Howard used for this sort of thing with him almost six years ago. "I'm not going to hurt you. It's how we all get along here, by masters and servants being friends. We'd be completely fucked otherwise. You'll be having a lot more fun here than anywhere else you ever have, and if my hunches on your psychology are correct, you're going to become a mostly independent ass kicker. You'll have almost everything you can possibly want, including sex, and we'll eventually get you a real girlfriend. I assure you, serving in Heaven is far better than being coddled in Hell."

Luke looked at Paul, befuddled and not knowing what to say. People had done things to him. No one, but no one, despite what they repeatedly claimed, had ever done anything for him. Especially not as an act of seemingly random kindness, especially not as violently and flashily as Paul had been. And that affected him most of all- Paul's sheer confidence, his demonstrated power, his decisiveness, the fact that he could rip through people like nothing (Paul mentioned Enforcers, but Luke didn't quite understand what one was), get blood all over his clothes, and still talk as if he was playing a game or going out for a party- that's what made Luke trust him. Although he had serious misgivings about the implants (he didn't realize what they really were, and thought of them as a variant of the electrodes in his head), he'd blow up what this boy- his friend, make no mistake- wanted destroyed, servant or not. "Thank you," he said. He had never had an honest reason to say that before.

"You're quite welcome," Paul replied. "Welcome to the Illuminati." His screen signaled him again. "Ah, yes. Okay. Okay, nuke it." Paul then pulled out the swinging-arm viewscreen, gestured, and Luke immediately got out of his seat to look, still dripping slowly.

It was an aerial view of the facility. The building was somehow.. changing? Fire erupted from it, small at first and then immediately everywhere. The building itself, not just the inside but the outside as well, started to burn. Within seconds, the entire building collapsed inwards, pieces of white-hot metal struts visibly melting under the thick smoke. It reminded Luke of the World Trade Center disaster he had laughed at. In less than ten seconds from the start of it there was just a pile of rubble nearly invisible underneath an expanding cloud of smoke and loose, burning debris.

Paul felt a quick surge of snap-back relief. The sense of wrongness was abruptly removed. It reminded him of popping a zit (when was the last time he had to do that?), with the nugget of extreme unwholesomeness sitting on his finger- or, in this case, standing less than five feet away.

"Good fucking riddance," Luke said, sitting back down, the beginnings of a smile on his face. "What the hell did you do?"

"I didn't mention the satellite Micros, did I?"

"...You rule. You fucking rule."

"That we do. Any questions?" Luke was slowly regaining his mental state and asked pointed ones, such as how the hell any of this could happen and what the hell was Paul's weapon. Paul answered everything in detail, even questions about himself that Luke started asking when he realized that Paul really would tell him everything. He didn't quite catch everything the first time around and ended up asking things Paul had already told him. The concept of people his age, and younger, ruling the world excited him and filled him with joy. He didn't recognize the feeling of vindication any more than he did gratitude. Eventually he got hungry, and gobbled up an energy bar and some water readily. Normally it would be too rich for his taste, but he hadn't had any solid food in three days, either. Paul left him in his own thoughts for the remainder of the trip, for Paul, too, was thinking.

Heh. He had really outdone himself that time, hadn't he? He doesn't just empty the place. He picks the first someone to lay sane eyes on him, and lifts him out, just like that, no hesitation and without a care in the world. Even if Luke was ill-suited it would change nothing. Paul had declared him his friend, and so his friend he is. Didn't he have that right? Being a close friend of the Duumvirate put him a position to change the fate of more nations that one. He can at least decide who his friends are.

He knew there was no such thing as atonement, but he couldn't help but think about Ryan and his three friends. More than five years ago, they had broken into an amusement park when Howard had taken it over for his own entertainment. There was no retrovirus to make them suitable for the organization, and secrecy dictated that they could not be allowed to see the Dominator and walk away; thus, they had to die, and Howard made Paul kill two of them as an object lesson in the sort of things he would have to do, even as a servant. But they didn't deserve to die. All they did was break into an amusement park, looking for thrills. Howard reminded Paul to 'lose the local morality'- forget about the corpses in front of him and remember all the ones out there in the wider world- but Paul would never forget those deaths, even if standard operating procedure considered them necessary at the time. He considered the score a bit more balanced now. Although against his will, Paul had killed; now he had chosen to save. Saved a natural born killer, from the looks of things. Paul smiled. After all, there's a lot of people who do deserve a good killing, and the Illuminati could always use the help.

"Man, why won't this shit STOP?!" Luke interrupted Paul's thoughts with, looking down at his genitals.

"Still dribbling?" Paul asked. Luke nodded angrily. "They did something to you. We will undo it." Luke wanted to share Paul's confidence and didn't reply.

It took a couple of minutes after that for Paul to realize something that he should have earlier. The secrecy! Good crap, the secrecy! Was Rhines serious about releasing them back into society after something like that? Paul had been so fixated on the horror that he hadn't realized the obvious. He started to get very worried indeed- how many more Illuminati would fuck up that badly?

'Few,' he said to himself, calming himself down. 'Or none. The organization's lasted this long.' And even for the few that do, there's experienced servants around who will quietly correct them when they try to order something secrecy-breakingly stupid, and quietly drop hints to other masters, or perhaps the Dominator, if the order isn't stopped.

But that was for people smart and resourceful enough to have savvy and experienced servants...

When they debarked there was a troop of Enforcers waiting for Luke, who took no chances and had a stretcher ready. "Trust them," Paul said, and he did, the Enforcers efficiently putting him into what looked like a golf cart and zooming away at speed. Paul'd taken him this far. Although he did wonder what the teenager coming up to Paul would be so enraged about. ('Fuck it, probably nothing to do with me.')

That was no teenager- that was the Operator, and he was indeed pissed, his face red and his fists clenched. Paul didn't think he'd ever seen the Operator angry before. Scared, yes, and worried- but never pissed off, especially not as a retroviral. "Paul! Are the people who did this still alive?" Paul smiled and shook his head- you're kidding, right?- and the Operator relaxed somewhat, sighing. Paul had sent Northberg basic background information on what had been done to his new servant. "What the hell is this, or, no, why the hell is this?"

"If I could have implanted that asshole, I'd tell you," Paul lied.

"You know, you four should probably consider implanting some of these shits and fuck the political consequences."

"Believe me, we'd love to, but we really can't," Paul lied again. He was tempted to let the Operator in on it, but this was need-to-know information and the Operator didn't need to know. It wasn't as if the interrogators were going to waste time asking about Matthew's theories, nor would he want them to. "If you want, I'll send you what we pull off his computers."

"Oh, I'm sure I'll be enlightened." There was hypocrisy in the sarcasm. The Operator had done things that were arguably even worse, and Paul knew it. But unlike Matthew L. Rhines or Josef Mengele, the Operator's medical atrocities were always in the service of real research, he never used humans when simpler animals would serve, he minimized pain because it messed with his results, and he never did anything like that for the fun of it.

Paul pondered where to wait as his servant was restored and analyzed. There was always the educational wing.. no. As an Illuminatus, Paul figured he should be able to go from something like that to dealing with engineered children without feeling anything except a minor sense of irony, but the concept was too disturbing and he decided against it.

"I'll never get used to this," he said to no one.

"You and me both," no one replied, and Paul didn't bother looking around the hangar for the voice, instead finding himself more exhausted than he had realized. Sleep on the jet? Nah. He took the next tram to the medical wing, found the psychiatric ward (a tiny affair, he found; in light of recent events he felt it should be expanded a bit), and slept on a conveniently-placed couch. ('And if anyone comes to psychoanalyze me on it, I'll give them much more than they bargained for.')

He did not like his dreams.

The psychologist looked at Paul's sleeping, twitching form and pondered attempting to figure out the nature, if not the exact details, of the nightmare. Better not. That suit was coated in dried blood for a reason. "Paul," he said, from a safe distance of twenty feet.

Paul sat up in half an instant. "Gah! Oh. Sorry. Is he fit?" he asked.

"Oh, absolutely. If not now, after the retrovirus," he answered. "Although his intelligence per se is mediocre, he maintains a high level of cunning and skill in some areas. He's a natural fighter. I'm sure you'll find some use for him." This last part was with a smirk; everyone knew how much fighting the Duumvirate and their direct subordinates could end up doing.

"And the status of his servitude?" The attitude of the Illuminati towards implants became somewhat more negative after the unimplantation of Howard's servants. Acquiring people and then not implanting them was becoming more popular because of it. Asking that question would have elicited a 'Huh?' if that was not the case.

"My recommendation is unimplanted."

"Unimplanted?" Paul asked with surprise. "How did you come to that conclusion?"

"For starters, there's loyalty. Towards the Illuminati as a whole, he feels little deep surprise and is fairly ambivalent. However, he considers the engineered leadership to be wonderful and you to be more or less godlike, although he has a certain degree of pride and won't admit it outright. Then there's the risk of secrecy breaches. He has nothing to gain and no impetus for doing so, no serious normal-world relationships other than unfriendly ones and almost no societal empathy. He doesn't fully understand secrecy requirements yet, but there's nothing to suggest he'll oppose them. Then there's the matter of self-determination. Luke is a very animose young man, and has even more hate for mental control applied to him than is apparent." Paul wondered if that was possible, given the amount of apparent hate, and found himself pondering if hatred had a maximum. "This one had me indecisive for a while, but I feel that the implants would do more harm than good. They'd reduce him in a fundamental way that I believe is not worth it. Both before and after the retrovirus, it will be possible to adequately control him without them." 'It will be possible' meant that it wouldn't be easy for Paul to do it. The psychologist had long experience in keeping his private assessments of Illuminati's manipulative skill private. He also had a concept of confidentiality with his patients (he had been a normal psychologist, and still thought of them as that), and avoided direct quotes whenever possible.

"I'll follow your recommendation." Paul didn't show his joy. He didn't want to use implants if he could possibly help it.

"Shall you select a retrovirus? As you're probably already aware, the Operator is working on several new experimental ideas." Paul actually wasn't; after his own augmentation, he hadn't been following the project much at all.

"He's very animose, right?" Paul asked. "Then let him decide what he wants."

"As you wish." The man left Paul's presence, and returned back to his office. Some servant acquisitions featured the grim, disturbed, or intrinsically violent. Every last one of his patients, of course, distrusted him at first, and getting real information about them required a combination of brain monitoring, interrogation, and subtle manipulation. If he could extend his conmanship to larger areas he would certainly be wearing white. 'And Paul doesn't quite trust me. And I don't trust myself, either.' Which settled things into the familiar, comfortable niche of all fucked up, the same place he had been in for the past half hour.

First, news of non-implantation. Good, he's happy.

Then he discussed possible retroviruses, and gave Luke a wide selection of possible abilities. "Do remember that this will be with you forever. This is not to be taken lightly. He said to let you decide what you want, so if you ask for blue eyes and red hair, we'll do it."

"Leave all that stuff. I like how I look. I just want the benefits." There were a number of possible additional benefits- some simple claws, some hair modifications, a certain running change... and one that will turn the subject into a human electric eel. "Holy shit!" Luke exclaimed on seeing that, double-checking what he just saw, eyes wide. "You can actually do that?"

"Oh yes. This one is new, and slightly experimental." The man's forte was psychology, but he knew enough about biology to discuss it briefly. "We estimate your output will be roughly a kilovolt, DC of course. The organs go into your back, with corridors throughout your body. Nothing near the brain stem, of course. You were born right handed, so for you it will be left side positive, right side negative. It'll take you a while to learn it, but you'll be able to charge batteries." He didn't have to mention the effects on human beings.

"Holy... fucking... shit. I'll take it." Luke grinned like Satan. No one would ever be able to shock him again. From now on, he'd be the one doing the shocking. "Whoever the fuck made this, whatever genius thought this shit up.. I want to shake his hand."

"You and a lot of other people. Hold out your arm."

Luke eagerly stuck out his right arm. Dr. Zarnecky was the second person he had ever met that he could trust with his life. He was surprised when the doctor took a tiny sample of blood instead of injecting something. "Oh, you thought you were going to get it right away? The synthesis process for this will require human supervision and take as many as two days. We work around the clock. I recommend you use the time productively. There's always more to learn. In this organization, what you don't know can kill you."

"Or leave me in some fucking hellhole getting turned into a baby. I know. So, um.. what do I do now?"

"Your friend is just outside, waiting for you." The psychologist tried not to put any special emphasis on 'friend', but the word stuck out anyway. Luke shook the man's hand and left almost instantly. Paul got up from the conveniently-placed couch with a smile on his face. Luke would have held his hand all the way to the jet if he didn't think that was gay.

Paul's words, however, were somewhat harsh. "You're not implanted, so listen carefully. This is very, very important- no matter what I tell you to do directly, you have to do it, immediately and without question. Usually I won't phrase things that way. If I ever do that, do exactly as I say, because I always mean it. Disobedience can mean instant death, and not just from me." This was somewhat of an exaggeration, but Paul was trying to inculcate the mentality of the serious operatives.

"So what you're saying is, I'm your nigger."

"You can put it like that if you want, but with this kind of power there has to be things that I just won't command you to do. If I ever command you to do something really stupid, pointlessly self-sacrificial, or anything like that, kill me, because it's not really me. That's one good reason not to use implants." Paul would never forget William's brush with commanded suicide. A couple more syllables and...

"It's not really you?"

"Robots. Yes, it's been done." Luke was too used to weirdness to be surprised.

Although Luke was never a big fan of computer or console games, they played together on the jet. Luke was brutal and went for the jugular (a thing Paul strongly encouraged), but he couldn't hope to match Paul's retroviral power in any game.

"By the way, when you're near the Duumvirate, act however you want. Swear, carry on, do whatever pleases you. The twins see right through false decorum," Paul said near the end of the trip. Luke had to guess what 'decorum' meant through context.

"Are you serious?"

"Absolutely. It takes a lot more than that to piss them off. However, if you do that, even I can't save you. Remember how I said that I can do whatever I want to you? Although there are some practicality issues, the twins can do whatever they want to anyone." Paul had told him about them earlier, but didn't put it in quite those terms. Luke didn't reply to that and the jet landed softly. Paul led his new friend inside, still wearing just the black robe and the generic shoes, across the wet grass. The smell of the ocean brought back some memories for Luke- when was the last time he went to the beach, anyway? And if the mansion was as palatial on the inside as it was outside, he could get used to living here. When he stepped inside, he nodded in satisfaction, only one thought on his mind: 'They've got it made.'

The twins were eating, loudly as usual, and Luke followed Paul into the dining room where a Thanksgiving feast waited for them, a massive turkey (engineered for size and muscle density) and mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce and corn and pumpkin pie, despite the fact that this was late March. Luke's stomach rumbled. He was worried he'd never eat real food again, and look at all that. Then he noticed the people eating it. The albinism and hair were ignored, the fingers not noticed right away and then shrugged off when they were. What he saw first was the broadness of shoulder and the height of torso and neck; approaching sixteen years of age, the twins nearly reached seven feet. Even their heads were larger than normals', retaining proportion and giving the impression of simply being expanded in volume. 'Damn, they're big fuckers!'

"Have things been peaceful while I was gone?" Paul asked them. The question was half-serious; in five hours all hell could have broken loose and been forced back in.

"As they ever are," William casually replied. "Who's your friend?" Howard asked. The question was a formality.

"Duumvirate, Sarah, I'd like you to meet my new servant, Luke; Luke, this is William and Howard Dominus, the Duumvirate, and Sarah Mortis Dominus, first level Illuminatus." Sarah grinned, displaying her razor nails. The twins looked at the servant as if he was an exhibit in a museum, judging him, casually dissecting his soul in a far different fashion than any psychologist. Luke looked back at them uncertainly. Five hours ago he had been the victim of some asshole psycho's idea of rehabilitation. Now he was in a room with the masters of the entire world, and he could feel the absolute power they wielded as if it were tangible. Under normal circumstances Luke would have told them to blow it out their ass, for the sheer pleasure of telling the rulers of the world that, mortal threat or no. There was a brief smirk as he considered this; both twins smirked slightly at him as well. It's all right, that smirk said. We welcome your hatred, as we have uses for it. Piss us off too badly and we'll slay you like a dog in the street, but you'll receive no condescension from us. Then Luke started smiling a real smile. Just like that, he was home. He pulled up a chair, cut off a large piece of breast meat ('Damn, that knife's sharp'), and began to eat.

"So, Luke, what was it like in there?" Howard asked casually.

The question rubbed Luke the wrong way. He pushed himself and his chair away from the table as if he meant to get up and beat Howard's ass, despite the ridiculous physical mismatch. (You're gonna need a lot more than the Force, Luke.) "What the fuck do you think it was like, fuckin' Disneyland?!" The rest of them chuckled at him, although Paul was amazed at the sheer balls Luke had to do something like that.

"Well, what do you think of the guy who ran the place, then? Was he nice? Gentle? Kind?" William asked, smirking.

"The fuck- stop playing with me."

"No," Howard said. Luke was taken back a bit by the echo effect, pulled the chair back up, and went back to his turkey. Being toyed with wasn't so bad, considering.

"Did you hear about his experimental new retrovirus?" Paul said, attacking the engineered turkey as well.

"Electric eel modification," Sarah replied, having read the psychological transcript with the twins.

"Hey, the cunt got it in one!" Luke shouted between bites. ('I can swear all day at the rulers of the world, and they won't care. This is more than awesome.')

"Hey, the dipshit is going to have several pounds of extra organs and high voltages coursing close to his nervous system. Don't get too close to any electromagnets," Sarah retorted casually. "Are you on your best behavior today, or are your manners always this good?" Luke just looked at her, unable to think up a reply.

"So Luke, do tell me, why are we suffering your presence here?" William asked in a serious tone, an exceedingly rare real authority that punched through Luke's bravado like an ice pick. Luke had had tons of assholes telling him what to do, but none of them were like this. They pretended to authority. The Dominator just had it.

"Huh?" Luke replied. ('Oh fuck...')

"You've proceeded to treat us all with disrespect, blithely eat our food, swear at us and Sarah, and generally act like an asshole. What makes you think we will suffer you to be here one moment more?"

"Well, I.. shit, I don't know..." Luke looked at Paul desperately for salvation and found none. Surrounded by unfriendly-looking engineereds, any one of which could have put him away in an instant, Luke started to get very, very nervous indeed. It was only when the smiles crept up on those faces that he realized what was being done. "...you fucks!" All four of the engineereds erupted in laughter. The twins slapped each other six. Again, Luke found he really didn't care about the twins' idea of messing with him. It was a hell of a lot better than some other people's.

"Why that retrovirus, in particular?" Howard asked.

"Because I want to zap people."

"Really? Is that it?" William asked. "No battery charging, light bulb glowing, fun with electronics? Although we have fusion power," Luke didn't know enough about science to be impressed by that. "being your own personal dynamo has its advantages. With the right equipment you can even be a miniature Magneto."

"That shit sounds cool. But I just got it for all the ball stomp it can do."

"Along with the intra-brain shit, Luke received a lot of electric shocks," Paul explained. "I'm guessing he simply wants to do some shocking back."

"Shock? No." It had sounded good at the time, but now he wanted to go to bigger and better things. "I'm going to fucking electrocute people." The engineereds smiled at him. He didn't have the smarts- not yet, anyway- but he had the right attitude. They found his unpolished aggressiveness and brutality endearing, almost sweet.

"You better start studying electricity now," Sarah informed him. She was talking down to him, but he didn't realize that. "Electromagnetic theory, some electrical engineering principles, basic circuit behavior, maybe even transistors. You've got to know everything about conductivity and don't ever forget Ohm's Law." Luke didn't even know that V equals IR. "Otherwise you'll probably end up electrocuting yourself." Luke just nodded and went back to his food. She was right, of course. No sense in having a firearm if you didn't know what it would do when you squeezed the trigger.

"Well, at least the lights won't ever go out if anything happens to the geotherms and the fusion," William said.

"You would use me like that?"

"What, with your power? Of course not. That's way too inefficient. We've got a giant hamster wheel downstairs waiting for you," Howard said, deadpan.

"Ha fucking ha." The Duumvirate and Sarah filled up and left and he continued to eat with Paul, who was eating twice as fast as he was, but filling up at about the same rate. "Are they always like that?"

"It's just their way of greeting you. You're just not smart enough for them to really talk to right now," Paul said. Luke was about to retort, but just nodded at the honesty. "Relax. You have no idea how much this retrovirus will do for you." Aside from physical exercise, Luke had never believed in 'self-improvement' anything, because everything with that label was bullshit. Having real superiority simply handed to him felt a bit like cheating, which made him smile inside. "I'm done."

"So am I." Luke's stomach was about to burst. He followed Paul into the main room and watched the rulers of the world at their work. What he didn't realize they were doing was divvying up Matthew's productive resources, having decided to take a firmer hand on their organization. Years ago, the lone Dominator would simply have let the recipients fight it out and come to him with problems in the traditional way, but the twins had given up laissez-faire world controlling. Luke read rather slowly and thought they were briefly skimming things that he didn't understand, lists of holdings and duties and servants. He didn't notice the puzzle piece-like fitting of responsibilities, and he most certainly didn't notice the twins trying mightily not to simply give it all to the one slightly engineered teen who could take some of it. Matthew didn't have very many resources- almost all of his real effort had gone into his dream hellhole- so the whole thing had taken less than fifteen minutes. Luke sat in a comfortable chair and watched the whole time in silence, too full of food to be more bored than tired, trying to puzzle out just what the hell they were doing. It felt like they were playing some advanced simulation game and he was a five year old watching them, and did he ever hate that.

Almost immediately after they had finished the distribution, the screen buzzed. The engineereds figured that someone might bitch. William took the call grudgingly, the usual Dominator don't-fuck-with-me look on his face. "Speak," he commanded Douglas Evenhart, a thick, balding man of about forty who wore useless glasses (literally useless; his eyes were surgically modified to 20/20, and he just wore them for effect) and looked every part a professional.

"I'm quite happy with the holdings. And after reading the report I agree that the man was a complete nutcase. But considering he wasn't fouling up any operations, I'm just wondering why you bothered." The man assumed that the Dominator had initiated the decision to do it. Paul's entries in public logs had encouraged that belief.

The Duumvirate looked at the man askance; if he was a complete nutcase, why do you ask why he was removed? Howard found an excellent way to answer him. "Luke, express your opinion of this man's opinion."

Luke wasn't expecting to be put on the spot like that and said the first thing that came to mind. "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on," he told Douglas.

"Ah. Taken out another degenerate to get yourselves another nasty servant, I see." He clearly had a low opinion of Paul. "Only a matter of time before you give him a white suit. Ah well, I suppose that's what retrovirii are for." He nodded deferentially and clicked off.

"He's a dick, but he's dependable," William explained.

"Remind you of anyone?" Howard asked, smirking. It flew over Luke's head that he was referring to him. They continued to do some more work, much of it not relating to Rhines at all. They'd been following Sarah's chain of logic, considering that she might have been right; perhaps sadistic idiots, even rogues, could be identified by their acquisitions and operations? Thoughts led to actions, after all; perhaps there could be some trace beyond blatant acts of insanity. It was the closest thing they had to something they could actually follow up on.

Nope... nope. The twins used their previous victims and enemies to serve as a baseline, but the correlation was too loose. The previous Night Operator, for example, acquired no one at all. The Bastard and Bitches who they had killed six years ago all had wildly varying needs. And the techniques used varied more with the servant actually doing the work than with the Illuminati ordering it. The twins had only had contact with one other Illuminatus who acquired teenagers in such numbers; the long-dead James Baker that Paul had helped raid. They searched operations for various parameters and found only one living person who was acquiring youth on a regular basis: one thirty-five-year-old by the name of Peter Gritzl was discreetly, carefully acquiring a new teenage girl every two months or so. Gee, why ever could he possibly be doing that? Sexual conquistadorship was, however, definitely not something the twins were going to attack people for. Especially since several other Illuminati were also quietly acquiring girls only a few years post-pubescent, albeit in smaller numbers.

If Luke had the reading speed and the wakefulness to follow the Duumvirate, he would have heartily approved of the idea and suggested that his master join in the practice. However, he had soundlessly fallen asleep without quite realizing he was going under. He hadn't really meant to do it- with all this new information, these strange, important people, this new life, who could possibly want to sleep?!- but the action of the past few hours and the horror of the past three days had taken their toll. Luke's subconscious had determined that the island was safe, and adjusted his somnolence accordingly.

Howard and William widened their search somewhat. A few Illuminati had taken some teenage boys recently... ah, only one of those Illuminati was an adult male. What about the non-recently, the twins looked over the search list, let's look at one male Illuminatus who took a teenage boy.. Jeremy Jorgenson had taken Joseph Freeman. The twins looked at each other and chuckled at the sheer silly futility of this line of inquiry. There was, however, a darker side to that. What do you do when most of the sickos and perverts are on your side?

At some point Howard noticed that Luke had gone to sleep, and gestured in his direction. 'Let's stick a pacifier in his mouth,' whispered William in his brother's ear, and that sent Howard on a characteristic laughing binge, William joining in instants.

Which of course woke Luke up. "What's so funny?"

"You wouldn't get the joke," Howard replied.

"They opened a new room there," Sarah said, pointing to a door next to the stairs, and he got up like a heavy golem. "It's yours, enjoy." The twins nodded in appreciation of the modular design; if they ever wanted to acquire anyone else, they wouldn't have to worry about where to put him or her. "Don't wet the bed."

Luke turned to look at her with hate. "Listen, bitch, that shit's just not funny." Because he was still recovering in that regard and might do exactly that.

"I was the one who found out about that place. Any one of us could have ended it, but if it wasn't for me, you'd still be there," Sarah replied.

Luke opened his mouth- maybe to swear at her, maybe to thank her- but then shut it and entered the room and closed the door behind him. He glanced around at the room- 'nice'- before taking off the robe and the shoes and lying buck naked under the covers. He'd care about the rest of it in the morning.

"So.. what do you guys think?" Paul asked.

"I think you're doing an excellent job, Paul," Howard replied. This wasn't the answer Paul was expecting. "You've been following us around like a puppy for far too long. Making decisions on your own, acquiring servants you like, it's about time you started being a real Illuminatus."

"Decisively," William said, nodding. "We read his interview. Paul, we know you didn't want to implant him. Why didn't you just make the decision not to in advance, and let the chips fall where they may? Consulting a psychological expert was a good idea, especially since you had to take him to Northberg anyway, but you're the Illuminatus." Paul had intended to rescue someone from dependency. He didn't realize that he'd be rescuing himself in the process. Why had he hesitated? What the hell did he have to fear?! Paul felt an infusion of power but knew that wasn't quite right. 'I had it all along. I just didn't know it until now,' Paul realized.

"As for him," Sarah said, "he's violent, vulgar, vile, and, verily, a very vicious villain. Treat him right, grow his power, and if you don't find uses for him, I will."

As she said that, Luke fell asleep, and immediately started having an extraordinarily bad dream, the details of which he would never repeat to anyone.

He woke up six hours later- it felt like he had been in nightmare-land for years- with dream-confusion and panic clouding his mind. It felt like a supernatural entity had wrested control of his life from another one; he had the vague impression of a massive blade cleaving slimy, sluglike flesh. For a vertigo-inducing instant, Luke thought he might wake up out of this as a dream and return to the nightmare as reality. 'No. That shit can't happen, it's totally fucking impossible, they all got slaughtered, it's not.. fucking.. real!' He looked at his hands, then his muscular arms, then at the metal walls. Still here, in the Duumvirate's mansion, still fourteen years old, still whole. He slammed his fist into his palm; his knuckles stung and his palm ached slightly. Real as real gets. 'Why me? Why the hell would they fight over me?' The idea of supernatural beings bothering to alter his reality was so antithetical to Luke's way of thinking that he put it out of his mind.

"Bad dream?" Paul asked. He hadn't entered through the door; to Luke's astonishment, there was an open trap door in the ceiling, no pole or ladder or anything. 'That's one hell of a way to go up and down.'

"I don't want to talk about it." Or even think about it, for that matter.

"Dreams are often the mind's way of purging unwanted thoughts," Paul said.

"Shut the fuck up! I said I don't want to talk about it!" The idea that such thoughts could exist in the first place royally pissed him off. "Listen, I'm pretty much useless without this retro virus, right?" Luke pronounced 'retro' and 'virus' separately. Paul shrugged and nodded somewhat. "Then I'm going for a walk. Alone." He glared at Paul, daring him to command him otherwise.

"Enjoy yourself. You sound like you need it." Paul leaped up into the hatch, pulled himself up effortlessly ('That's why they have it like that!' Luke realized), closed it, and then proceeded to monitor everything that Luke did with the ubiquitous surveillance equipment. Paul had nothing better to do, and was simply that curious.

Luke got out of bed, cleared the last vestiges of the nightmare out of his head ('they're dead, destroyed, gone'), and got dressed. He always went commando-style, the head of his circumcised dick having lost its sensation long ago. Loose black pants with metal on the knees. Black T-shirt, very loose in the back, under black leather jacket of similar sizing. He looked in what he took to be the sock drawer and found gloves instead, most with metal on the fingers and knuckles. Luke ignored these and spent three minutes looking for socks ('They didn't even bother giving me any.. fuck it.') before he put some engineer-style boots on and realized that these had soft material built in. They were about a size too large. 'They can make a retrovirus that will change my DNA and they can't even give me clothes that fit.' That's when it hit him: 'They're not giving me clothes for what I am. They're giving me clothes for what I'm going to be!' Suddenly, he appreciated every inch of the bagginess. The metal.. conductive! He walked out of the mansion and into the drizzle with a smile on his lips.

He never minded rain. It kept people off the streets and cloaked him somewhat. It made spraypaint useless, but he never could get much of that and for the more advanced vandalism the rain provided solitude and cover. That part of his life was over, though, but he didn't miss it; he'd be smashing groups of people, not mailboxes or windows. Out here there wasn't anything to really smash anyway. Out here... out here, there was the constant rushing sound of the waves, the open and inviting grass expanse under which was buried the fastest, most powerful jet known to mankind, out here there was a lush green forest at the end of March. He walked directly into that forest, head down against the drizzle, and his mind, unused to such labor, started to deal rationally with what was going on.

Upon reaching adolescence, he found himself sick of being talked down to, sick of the way people had treated him, like he didn't know how to run his own life. His way of thinking had almost immediately gone to the typical me-against-them logic of rebellious teenagers the world over. Even that.. place.. was still, completely, me-against-them. Now he had supped with the rulers of the world and one of them had declared Luke to be his friend. But this was a different Them, a Them that changed all the rules and redefined power.

Luke looked up at the forest around him. He had just noticed the differences in the trees, pines right next to one kind of leafy tree next to some other kind, as if they were just naturally like that, even though he knew that wouldn't happen in nature. As he looked up, a raindrop hit him in the eye. An old joke came back to him: Rain is just God pissing on you. He'd been pissed on by God enough times to agree with that.

But now, instead of punished, he was being rewarded for his deeds. Luke stopped walking and started to snicker, then to burble, then he just threw back his head and laughed at the top of his lungs, alone in the woods. He hadn't heard Illuminated maniacal laughter before, but he did a fairly good impression nonetheless. It was just so goddamn funny! His parents, his minister, all the adults in his life had threatened him to change his ways or suffer the consequences. And now he was wandering around a paradise none of them would ever get to see, with friends that could kill them all in moments, and super powers two days away! Those were the consequences! "BWAAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!" Not being a game player, Luke had no idea of the word 'ownage'. He felt a slight twinge of embarrassment- someone might have heard him- but decided not to care. After going almost instantly from degradation to apotheosis, why should he give a fuck?

Something other than human did hear him, though, and it rushed out behind a tree, barking. Fido had been tailing him, and Luke recoiled in surprise at the sight of the albino canine. "Easy, boy, easy," Luke said. He'd had to kick a street dog before, but he knew that this was no ordinary mutt, not with that muscular frame. Fear gripped him as he realized that it could probably make short work of him. "You're probably not used to strangers." Fido was actually quite used to the smells of unknown persons, but it unnerved the dog that there might be a strange human making such loud noise. He didn't move like the hidey-men and smelled of fear and a few chemicals; an outside-human, here? But he smelled of Master's house, too. A new friend of Master's? Fido barked once and Luke took a cautious step back, splaying his open hands, trying desperately to think of something to do. Run? If it was anything like Paul, that would be a joke. Scare it off? Not fucking likely. Throw a stick? Would that actually work? Who cared; it was his only choice, and there were plenty of sticks.

Fido watched the broken-off twig sail over his head. The stick game! The strange human knew how to play the stick game, so the strange human was like Master! But Fido had gotten bored of that game a long time ago. Instead, he rushed towards the strange human, pounced him to the ground, and started licking his face. Luke yelled twice; once in 'oh fuck I'm dead' alarm and the second in relief. "Get the fuck off me!" he shouted, more in mirth than annoyance. Fido barked and started running around him.

"Yes! You're faster than me. I get it." Then as if to prove it, Fido dashed into the forest with a burst of speed that Luke found absolutely incredible. 'I bet it thinks I'm going to follow it. Guess what, dog- you might be a bio-monster like the rest of them and like I'm going to be, but you're still just a stupid dog.' He then continued the way he was originally going, not knowing that Fido had effectively protected him from the other dogs by covering him with his smell.

Ah, what he wanted, a secluded spot. A cave formed from a lava tube, it was halfway in the water, going nearly ten feet towards land before terminating in collapsed rubble. It had ledges which looked like they were carved with the intent of sitting on them; he found it surprisingly comfortable and stared at the opposing cave wall.

Two minutes into that, Paul became bored, and a bit curious. "What the hell?" he muttered aloud. What the hell was his servant doing? Soul searching? Purging himself? Communing with the devil? Trying to turn himself into an Enforcer? Paul would have thought it was a still screen if not for the wavelets lapping at Luke's waterproof boots. High tide would be a couple of inches below the seat; if Paul knew the phase of the tide he could have figured out when Luke would snap out of it from the water pouring into his boots, but he really wasn't patient enough to make such a calculation, and looked at the clock again. Ten minutes. Maybe Luke knew, and was just waiting for Paul to tip his hand? Nah- he wasn't nearly that bright, and didn't have the background-noise paranoia most Illuminati and servants get after a while.

Although Paul knew he could have used some more of that paranoia himself. His new servant could easily have turned into Fido's new chew toy.

'I should go to him.' No- he had to create the idea that he was neither a petty nor overbearing master. This watching was simply out of pure curiosity. And if Luke wanted to spend his free time in a meditative or trance state, that was probably a good sign- but no, he wasn't in a trance, he was blinking at irregular intervals, fidgeting slightly, neither bored nor intent. 'What the hell is he doing?!' And Paul began to watch him intently, searching his face and his body language. No clenching of fists, no stiffening of arms...

It was twenty more minutes before Paul realized he was doing the exact same thing as Luke, except he was staring at a screen. 'Holy shit, he's infectious.' And that thought made him stop short. It was still early morning, and Paul hadn't had a full night's sleep, and he'd just spent half an hour doing nothing but imagining. What if his new servant really was infectious? What if Paul had set off a chain reaction, and Luke would proceed to convert whatever normals he could find into his apostles, who would continue to iteratively make more, a sort of anti-Christianity spreading like wildfire?

Paul giggled at himself. It was nice to flirt with the nearly-impossible every now and then, it was just when you went steady that you had problems. And he did go to see his servant; it had been long enough for a non-spying Paul to start wondering where he was, and they had a lot to talk about anyway.

They did, for hours (getting wet in the process, eventually lying on the ledges instead of sitting on them), and what they talked about was generally a rehash of past events with rather vile overtones.

Some hours later, it came to their attention that Richard Jacobsen, third level Illuminatus, was displeased. After being informed that the resources he had delegated to his new subordinate were under the control of a new, decisively more influential and aggressive, Illuminatus ("What happened to Matt?" "Matt went splat," Douglas had answered), he had gritted his teeth and swore at the sky. At least Rhines was somewhat adequate, compared to the servant he originally had administering that agglomeration of local media and political groups. 'Should have just found myself another servant', he thought with force, but hindsight was always 20/20. After a brief debate with himself on the merits of whether or not it would actually accomplish anything, he had finally gotten up the gumption to call the Dominator and request some form of redress, interrupting their dinner. "Dominator! I feel.. that.. I must have a discussion with you about the.. consequences.. of your termination decision." Dammit, he was never good at talking to people higher than him on any social scale. Being the authority was easy for him, subordinate less so. That, and the twins terrified him.

"What, another one?" William asked. This conversation had obviously gotten off on the wrong foot for the petitioner, but then again most did.

"Dominator, you feel it was necessary?" he asked in a carefully neutral tone.

Luke glared at the man and smashed his fist into his palm. "Paul's servant shares our opinion. Mr. Rhines was clearly such a poor choice of people that we wonder how you could ever blunder so badly," Howard said. Jacobsen stiffened up at 'blunder', as it was a word often followed by elimination of the blunderer. Calling was a bad idea, very bad, and there was that 20/20 hindsight again. "Granted, we did approve him, but that's never a perfect filter and we don't pretend to do a mirror investigation." He had been nice to them just like he had with Paul, and almost every recruited Illuminatus adopts some form of superior attitude to match the position. And of course if they went around asking 'do you have perverted fantasies that you would like to make real' they usually wouldn't get anything but naked lies. (They would, however, leave some advice in the system: Start checking the Internet history of potential recruits, checking complete ISP logs and tracing through proxy chains, with some extra investigation dedicated to local Wi-Fi networks.)

"He passed the tests and appeared to be perfectly sane," the man replied defensively. Implied was You designed the tests, you know we don't care much for normal definitions of sanity, and you approved him personally just like everyone else.

"Mr. Jacobsen, tests are just tests. In a controlled setting, we can only test for the power with any confidence, not the correct way, and there is a correct way, to use such power. A certain subtlety of actions that should be taken, and actions that should not. All of the rogues clearly fail to understand this. This is not some sort of Dominator-enforced code of ethics, although you can call it that if you like. Consider the activities of Mr. Rhines in a future, End of Secrecy environment," William pronounced, needing no further explanation. Jacobsen actually relaxed- 'good, they're not going to kill me for it.'

"I see your point, Dominator, though I imagine that several hundred other Illuminati will disagree fervently, especially considering your past actions."

The twins glanced at each other, realizing the truth of that. Several hundred. Several fucking hundred, possibly even more, Illuminati who would probably take the paradise they had been granted- total power to do anything they want- and each and every one building his own private hell. Pre-apocalypse, this made the majority of them dutiful and cunning. Post-apocalypse, presumably retroviral, they would form cysts of diseased thinking all over the twins' planet.

"We do what we want to anyone- that is still true?" Jacobsen continued, not knowing what he had just said would inevitably end in either targeted attrition, outright carnage, or both.

"Oh, decisively. You can do what you want to anyone; the Illuminati decide what power is, after all. And I will sit here and I will do what I want to you," Howard said.

"Understood, Dominator." Click.