Jeremy opened the door and wondered if it would meet his expectations. A cynical part of him figured that he might be knocked out through concentrated gas the moment he opened the door; that didn't happen. The room was smaller than he imagined, with two dental chairs connected to large insert-head-here machines which occupied the majority of the room. What he really didn't expect was a white-wearing muscleman standing next to the Operator. Jeremy had seen the man's face before, but not much of the body it was attached to.

Perhaps Wilt "Stark" Columbus, Engineering Director of Bavarian Research & Development, had body issues when he was a normal; he was taller than all three of the retrovirals by a few inches, and appeared to be much more muscular. He had commissioned Northberg for a number of modifications to his structure, with bone and muscle grafts reaching to his toes and fingertips. It was funny, as he was by far the weakest guy in the room- and if he ever did get the retrovirus (likely; he was in good health and hadn't shown signs of being a rogue), he'd be in pain for weeks as his body reformed itself. He was only present as an observer; he had been maneuvered into saying that the control implants could accept the telepathic overlay without any problem, and cursed himself for his foolishness. He wasn't expecting a demand like this, and didn't even understand quite why the Operator had wanted him to take responsibility, save that the Operator was paranoid about something he wouldn't explain. It worked fine in all the tests with normals. Why have him here for this?

And Jeremy, for a brief instant, wondered why he was here as trepidation struck him. They were going to lean him back into that thing. They were going to insert electronics into his skull as an addition to his brain, so that he and his servant may communicate without words. A vague unease came over him, half-memories of old science fiction episodes flooding him with images of pod people, Tommyknockers, The Borg. (The thought came unbidden: 'Joey, what have I done to you?') Although he knew the Operator well enough, Jeremy and Stark were in entirely different social circles and Jeremy couldn't help but be paranoid. What the hell was that guy doing here anyway?

Embarrassment hit him shortly afterwards. His fear had to be showing on his face, unbecoming of an Illuminatus. He had decided to go through with it even before he got the retrovirus, knew that any trickery on Stark's part would get the man torn apart by the Duumvirate, and after all, he'd intentionally done worse to his best friend. He furrowed his brow and walked resolutely to one of the seats. "Joey, sit down in the other one," and the obedience was faster than any other servant would have been. Jeremy turned to the Operator and Stark. "I know, I know. You're going to ask if I really want to do it, tell me all of the assorted risks, et cetera. I've already looked at all of it several times. You've got your willing guinea pig. Just do it."

Stark and the Operator looked at each other, body language doing their talking: If he wants to be like that about it, okay from Stark, It's to be expected from the Operator. Stark considered telling Jeremy that the Operator promised to kill him if Jeremy's servant died on the operating table, but decided against it. Stark wasn't worried so much about that as he was about what would happen if they were more subtly flawed. Engineereds, particularly young retrovirals, scared the piss out of him, but he could never join the enemy; he, like many hundreds of others, had no idea how anyone could be stupid enough to go toe-to-toe with monsters like that.

He had no pretensions about being able to affect the brains of the two, particularly Jeremy, but he was curious to see what the inside of their minds looked like, and disappointed when he realized that they were almost shut down by the anaesthetic. He also would have loved to tap into the communications between them- not to insert anything, but rather just to read the data. Although he was only peripherally involved in the control implants' development and had done little neural-interface work himself, he always was curious about it. He never got past the brain-as-wondrous-machine idea, which was in fact one of the reasons he hadn't started any related projects on his own, and in fact had almost no idea how the implants actually worked. The theory, design, development, and construction were all done by others; he was simply the ultimate overseer. Being able to herd geniuses was the reason he was in the Illuminati in the first place; his philosophy was to largely leave them alone, give a unique blend of generic and specific commands, and let them do what you wanted.

These implants, however, were not done by any servant of Stark's, but rather the Night Operator and his crew. The Night Operator knew he had to make his own splash in research and development- in a sense his dissertation- if he were to have any hope of one day becoming the better-respected Day Operator of Northberg or some other facility. Telepathic implants seemed simple, almost straightforward, compared to a number of other projects, but would be popular and make a good enough impression for him to be something other than the Day's shadow. The real problem was integrating them with the existing control implants, a frustrating and demanding task because the Night Operator didn't fully understand how those worked either, try as he might. He didn't have to; treating the control implants as a black box, all he had to do was develop a sort of API, to make sure the neural impulses were integrated in a way that made cognitive sense to sentient beings.

The Day Operator understood precious little of how either implant worked, and was simply here in his official capacity without much more than a well-crafted technical paper on the subject that he'd practically memorized, and his own retroviral wits. The Night Operator had dealt with the Day's work in the same way more times than he could count, so it was only fair.

In contrast, the procedure itself was laughably easy. Do some basic sterilization, give them the engineered-affecting anaesthetic, use an autoscalpel with a blade ten molecules thick to cut a very precise distance into the bone, insert implants into one head, add a very small overlay to the implants on the other, re-check placement, put bone and skin back on and they regenerate it sealed. A five-minute procedure with Illuminated equipment, with an extra five minutes for assurance that it's being done properly. Just under the dura, right next to the white matter. On top of folds, don't let it get wedged sideways into one before the connections start. Their cortexes are smart; they'll figure out what to do with it. And just make sure you're not breaking any connections, particularly the ones between Joey's implants and his mind...

Naturally, Enforcers assisted with hyper-precise machinery don't make mistakes like that, and the new telepaths were given the antidote and woke up completely two minutes after it was done. Stark had ordered the Enforcers to intervene if Joey attacked Jeremy or tried to hurt himself. The Operator just chuckled when he did that.

Because that was the one thing they could never completely test. Would homicidal or suicidal thoughts somehow slip through? Was there some sort of existential horror that could be created by mind reading, driving them insane? Would one loose thought by Jeremy kill him? These hadn't happened in human testing, but they hadn't used engineereds or anyone experienced with implants. The risk was clearly listed in the materials Jeremy had read, but he'd refused to acknowledge it as a problem. In his opinion, if he couldn't control the thoughts he sent to Joey, he'd deserve to die for the sheer retardation.

He looked at Joey. Hey Joey, can you hear this?, he sent. Nothing came back. Joey! What's up? Nothing, except a strange sensation, like he was thinking of flying in circles, doing loops and barrel rolls, combined with the concept of eating mustard.

"The easy to kill stuff at the first part of the last level of Diablo 2!" Joey blurted out. Jeremy looked at him in puzzlement. "That's not what you're thinking about? Is it a Mexican jumping bean?"

The Operator just nodded slowly. "There is an adaptation period." He was hoping there wouldn't be one with these two, but that had been just wishful thinking. He was also hoping for evidence that the debacle almost four years ago had something to do with the implants themselves, but no matter how he read the body language Stark didn't seem anything but basically curious and honest here. Oh well.

"How long do you think it'll last?" Stark asked.

"Who knows? Between two retroviral sentients we haven't been exactly able to do tests. And it's not like the usual implants where they go off of the brain's own language." That last part was mostly for the subjects' benefit. "Between two different brains? Could be hours, could be days.. could even be weeks." That last was based on a test done between a man and a woman.

"This wasn't in the shit you sent me, Operator," Jeremy said with some venom. Stark tried to contain his involuntary recoil. Joey found himself thinking of being mad, a rare thing for him. The reason was obvious, and his happiness that he was learning how to read Jeremy's mind made Jeremy think of happy things.

"Actually, it began with several lengthy assumptions, one of which was the neural networks having a common interface scheme," the Operator replied. "You'll develop one; you can't help but develop one. It's just a matter of time. But before then I recommend being careful with how quickly your servant can physically kill you." This last was said with a glance of apology to Joey. "But unless you want to be under watchful eyes while you learn the whole time- which would actually not be too bad of an idea, considering you're immortal- there's nothing more I can do for you." He knew Jeremy would never consent to something like that. The impulsiveness of youth. "Please give me regular updates on your progress."

Stark opened his mouth to ask if there was nothing else, surprised at the Operator's brusqueness, but realized that there really was nothing else. Jeremy and Joey gave their fond goodbyes to the Operator and Stark, and started leaving with the same quick stride they had arrived with.

"You really can't control your excitement, can you?" Jeremy asked.

"You're feeling it?" Joey asked.

"I'm thinking about it. It's like watching a five year old jump around. And it's all connected to things that make no sense!" Literally nonsensical, like a purely chaotic dream.

"All right." Jeremy felt the excitement change form somehow. "What number am I thinking of?" Five, Joey sent.

"Four," Jeremy said immediately.

"It was five," Joey replied, a bit downcast.

"All I really heard was 'ffffff'. You were thinking of the word, not the number, weren't you? We'll get this, dude. Couple of days, we'll be able to completely rock James Randi's world." Joey found himself forced to contain his riotous laughter. "C'mon, we're in the hangar, almost to the jet... okay, we're inside, you can laugh now."

Joey exploded and started talking after five seconds of laughing. "Oh man.. hahahaha.. you mean that skeptic, right? That guy you were reading online? Dude, think about it! The telepathy wouldn't even start his problems. Half this shit would have him eating his own head."

"Yeah, but since it's not really supernatural, we couldn't get the million dollars out of it." More laughter. "Hey, fly us home. And make sure you're sending me everything when you do it, because I thought you were thinking of flying earlier, but it didn't come out right."

"That wasn't flying, that was supposed to be a hug." Joey caught a sharp tang of what seemed to him to be stark outrage, mixed with contempt and annihilation. It wasn't; it was Jeremy's automatic revulsion to anything resembling an accusation of homosexuality between him and Joey. The emotion changed to a strange idea of digging, which Joey did not let interfere with his ascent away from Northberg.

"Is that what that actually feels like in your mind?" Jeremy asked. Ah, not digging, curiosity.

"Guess so. Jeremy, we're going to be closer than any two people have ever been before. You're the one who signed us up for it, master. So don't push me away now."

"Pushing you away? Dude, I don't even know if you caught that thought right, but I just don't like anyone thinking I'm gay. Oh no. Oh no, don't tell me you really are." Maybe, Jeremy pondered entirely to himself, telepathy was a Pandora's box he should have left the fuck closed.

"I'm not- at least I don't think- I don't know what the hell I am," Joey said, truthfully and a bit hurt. He just wanted to be with Jeremy, now and forever, the closer the better. Did that make him a fag, despite his lack of interest in rectal spelunking and butt piracy? "Is that really what goes through your head every time we're close?"

"Yeah. Sorry."

"You're a fucking Illuminatus!" The jet-helicopter actually wavered slightly, and Joey's telepathic outburst was just as fierce; subconscious image-expressions were, they noticed, transmitted with near-total accuracy. "And we're retroviral! You're still consciously, or sub-consciously, whatever, still worried about what some cockmongrel a thousand miles away would think of you. Not even allowed to know you exist, remember?"

"I said I'm sorry! I'm not used to having my thoughts dissected by my best friend. And didn't I tell you to think about flying?"

"You can't control my mind with these things, remember? But I'll do it, for you," Joey said softly. Jeremy received a confused, gentle emotion that he couldn't make sense out of at all. "Man, if you're not gay, find a girlfriend."


It was the girlfriend who found him.

Four days had passed since their surgery; during this time, the Duumvirate continued their eternal vigil, the Day Operator of Northberg dealt with peptides and the Night Operator pondered the feedback he got from the new telepaths, and Jeremy dealt with mid-European politics when not sharing his dreams with Joey. (The Night Operator had become quite interested when told that dream-images communicated far better than sent-thoughts.) The work, he reminded himself, never went away. He would have loved to take a vacation, but couldn't. (No rest for the wicked, he sent Joey on the third morning, and to their pleasant surprise Joey got it exactly.) This person to that person, prevent this group from geting out of hand, monitor this group which has a potential for riots in the wrong places, implement these police procedures but forgo these ones as it's too blatant and useless, this politician's being too much of a twit so let's marginalize him, contact these other Illuminati to make sure it'll all work out, et cetera, ad nauseum. It was all so formulaic, really. In his darker moments, Jeremy figured it could all be done by an advanced Enforcer or even some well-programmed computer.

But there weren't too many of those moments. Joey's lightheartedness was constant and infectious. 'Is this what he's always like, on the inside?' Jeremy was careful not to send. Joey was happy, tempered by the world and the realities of society into being more calm, but on the inside... 'Damn, he really is a little kid,' Jeremy also didn't send. 'I'm glad I don't get like that.'

And that was when the screen signaled an incoming call from Kylie Robins, and all questions about Jeremy's sexual orientation were answered in an instant.

The emotion was unmistakable, particularly since it was being sent with half-formed images and words. Jeremy wanted to grab that pink-threaded white top of hers and cast it aside with one hand, while yanking down her smooth, tight pants with the other, then grab one of those growing breasts in each hand and fuck her until he could fuck no more. For a fraction of a second Jeremy didn't know what to say. A flood of hormones was threatening to turn him into an ordinary lovestruck teenager.

Man up, twit! You're an Illuminatus! Joey had received that with some confusion before realizing that Jeremy was talking to himself.

Kylie spoke first, but he'd have to replay the conversation to remember what she said; his answers were on pure autopilot, a small part of his subconscious casually checking their conversation with the usual paranoia while his conscious mind went exploring inside her clothes.

"Kylie, I think it'd be a good move to discuss this in person," is all he really remembered saying, and even as he said it he thought it was stupid and unlikely to work.

"Mmm. I like what you're thinking." That meant she had designs on him, then. Was it because of who he knew, what he was, what he could offer? Who gave a fuck? Even if it was a trap- no, an actual trap, not that kind of trap, there was no fucking way she was hiding one of those- he figured he might as well jump in with both feet, and the best time for them to meet turned out to be immediately, and in a few moments Jeremy and Joey were airborne, on their way to a very secluded patch of forest in upstate New York.

It was days like this when Jeremy was glad he didn't have to deal with the CAA and FAA. The Illuminati had taken full, direct control of everything dealing with airspace years ago in practically every civilized country, and represented itself as military forces in countries that weren't; ADIZ clearances were never a problem, the registration was whatever he wanted it to be, the communication between ground and the helicopter (and it generally was a helicopter as far as normals were concerned- the jet function was usually the secret part) was actually done by Enforcers many thousands of miles away (unless ground control, itself, was manned by Enforcers), and the flight plan of record was automatically changed to wherever Jeremy wanted to be at the moment, barring investigation by some nosy ATC (who would suffer a temporary glitch, or simple disinformation, should he think to look too closely). How the fuck did normals tolerate it? They invented vehicles that permitted the oldest of human dreams, flying- and then they let someone else railroad them into following predetermined paths whenever they happened to be crossing something as specious as a national border (or when it happened to be cloudy, or if they wanted to fly high, or..), transforming the entire three-dimensional volume of airspace into a bunch of predetermined tracks regulated by whatever cocksucker happened to be wielding the hammer of government at the moment? And then to top it all off, a huge, presumably civilized, country gets its shit rocked by a handful of towelheads, the entire country's general aviation shuts down, even five thousand miles away, and this is considered sane and secrecy-acceptable? Sheeple, all of them!

"Huh?" Joey asked.

"Nothing. Just thinking." It amused Jeremy thoroughly that the person actually flying the aircraft had no idea of these things, and probably never would. Joey could unleash instant hairpin turns with jet assist, fly on false-color infrared without the slightest problem through thick fog, and land with startling speed and precision. Yet if Jeremy were to suddenly ask him what IFR stood for or what class A airspace was, he'd just get a blank look for reply. Joey just got messages from an Enforcer with a gentle voice telling him to go in some direction or other when it became a problem. The system not only worked, it worked with a maximum of contempt for normal rules and regulations.

"Well, at least not all of your mind is on that girl," Joey said and sent. His sending also included desperately in love, with a very subtle undercurrent of which one of us is the servant, again?

"I am not in love with her." Instant skepticism. "No, really. I am in lust with her." Being able to immediately tell the difference was one of the reasons he was an Illuminatus.

"That.. doesn't change much." Telepathy was much more concise than words. Joey sent unambiguous mental images of Kylie eventually leading Jeremy by the dick into some sort of disadvantageous situation, from which Joey would eventually have to point out the obvious and pull his ass out of the fire. Jeremy was glad Joey didn't read Horace, as Joey would probably have started quoting Satire II.7 at him.

"Geez-o-fuck, I'm not going to let it get that far." More skepticism. Why couldn't Joey realize.. no, he did realize, and he was doing his damnedest to prevent Jeremy from getting hurt. "If it's any consolation, you are doing your job right." His servant was, had to be, more important to him than some piece of ass, no matter how delicious and how Illuminated. Now he knew where the phrase 'bros before hos' came from.

Kylie's home was a sprawling ten-acre estate. Like a fifteenth of the Illuminati, she had kept her normal identity, inherited wealth providing her home, basic secrecy provisions helping hide it from curious normals. To the New York legal system, she was the heir to a powerful venture capitalist, her father dead a couple months ago from a heart attack, her wealth and education being held in trust to a man named Charles Conway, her mother having passed away when she was very young.

In reality Charles was her servant, her mother was someone else's servant, and her father had died in the line of duty, serving a man named Richard Cream. (Jeremy and Joey shared a laugh at the name.) It was indeed a heart attack, induced by an assassin's poison utterly unknown to normal coroners. What had happened next was unclear from the public records; the assassin's master had apparently intended to use the death for a major power play, acquiring normal-world voting shares in several corporations by some undetermined agency, and promptly using them to further some agenda which was left unwritten. The only part that was clear was that her father's master had managed to use the death to round up something of a posse, using several other Illuminati to lure the offender into a trap, an engineered dealing the final blows to him and his bodyguard Enforcers. The Dominator was never involved. This stuff just happened sometimes. Puzzlingly, most of the offender's materiel had gone to Kylie, and why Richard didn't make her a servant instead of mentoring her was anybody's guess.

Charles opened the door at Jeremy's first knock, and he dressed in a black suit recognized by normals as a business professional. He was approaching normal retirement age, his greying blond hair showing a great deal of white, the wrinkles on his face suggesting a life of mental work. Jeremy could have seen himself looking like that in fifty years if he wasn't retroviral.

In person Kylie appeared as a coy debutante, a modern princess with her crossed legs hanging over the end of a soft couch, toes waggling in pink socks, skirt just long enough to cover the important bits, a thick head of full blond hair, hands behind her head as if utterly innocent of her own sexuality. Her other personal servant provided a contrast: a simple, black-clad chubby girl sitting on a comfortable chair next to her with freckles, mousy-brown hair, and a neutral expression.

"Well," Kylie asked, "what do you want to do first?" There were so many answers to that leading question, but most of them were obliterated by Joey mentally, earnestly screaming at his master Come on, can the trap be more obvious?!

Jeremy judged that his servant was most likely right and decided to see if there was any substance to this meeting. "Women", Jeremy said, "have a better connection between emotional and rational sides of their brain than men do. Therefore I request that we separate this out and put business before.. pleasure." Jeremy had a suspicion how she had gotten here, and wanted to see if she was, in fact, a real Illuminatus.

Kylie giggled in response. Sweet Duumvirate, had she really gotten into the Illuminati on the strength of that alone?

"First off, why me?"

"You got in by being able to build electronics, and you're in England with holdings in Europe, so it makes you perfect for what I have in mind." That was such utter, transparent bullshit that Jeremy almost laughed aloud. And so much for keeping business apart from pleasure. "Rick has requested that I 'directly help create a more docile United Kingdom'. He says he needs me to 'clamp down on their culture'."

"Richard Goldman?" That was Jeremy's mentor, and that kind of thing would be highly out of character for him, but Jeremy felt like he had to act like he hadn't done his research. Illuminati usually stalked each other before doing anything, let alone partake in romantic relationships.

"Huh? Nooo, Rick Cream." Jeremy almost laughed again at the name, and almost laughed again when Joey sent him No surprise he's a hard authoritarian, then.

"So he wants you to jump right in?"

"Without help, either. He wants no direct communication." Ah, NDC. A cheap secrecy-preserving measure. Ideally, two Illuminati wih a mutual goal would coordinate everything perfectly, working together in such a way that it looks like their holdings are not. This takes time, planning, and intense cooperation. The second best was for them not to communicate at all and simply go about their business without stepping on each other's toes. If what they were doing was in opposition, then the social dichotomy would show up in normal land, and they could pit the disunited normals against each other at leisure. Half-assed coordination was much worse than either.

"No direct communication? With you?"

"I wouldn't fuck him," she said sweetly.

I'm not going to fuck you either. The thought came without negative emotions, though, and Joey raised his eyebrows in response. The thought that followed was an oft-felt one by Jeremy that a great many Illuminati had no clue what they were really doing.

"What's in it for you, then?" Jeremy asked, smiling. Joey almost thought that was impolite before he remembered where he was. In the Illuminati, 'What's in it for you?' is like 'How's the weather?' or 'Care for a bite?' He made a conscious decision to stay out of it, anyway. He could tell that Sally was worth getting to know, they'd shared a few knowing looks and half-smiles as their master and mistress talked, but he had no intention of interfering with the special moment. Assuming she wasn't just playing his master like a fiddle, which he still thought likely.

"A few more broadcasting rights, a handful of some really experienced servant reporters, a couple places in Russia, favors from two other Illuminati, and a museum." Cruft, in other words, although Jeremy didn't know the Illuminati controlled any museums directly. It looks like Kylie didn't receive an Illuminated Starter Kit the way some new recruits do.

"So what is it you want me to do?" Now that was a leading question.

She smiled at him. "I was thinking maybe a parallel camera system, with a new twist that they haven't thought up before." Yeah, she's an Illuminatus all right.

"Nah. That would step on too many toes. Besides, this is NDC. He knows what you have. If you did something he wasn't expecting it might really mess him up." She looked nonplussed. "Here's what you should do. Get your channels talking about some made-up crisis, maybe one of the more recent laws, but nothing to do with anything he might actually want to stop, this is NDC. And just for the dichotomy, have a few of the other channels promote it. He'll either come through after something like that or he'll lose basic trust, and if you do it right he'll even take the responsibility off your hands with the bigger media. You've never created a controversy by yourself before?"

"Nope."

"Well there's no better time to get started. Grab each side.," he said, making a gentle motion with his hands, "and squeeze."

That was her cue, and she took it. They both leaned forward and she practically fell into his lap, reaching down and putting both hands on his ass. He hugged her, tightly- not too tightly- and planted his lips full on hers and they engaged in a long kiss.

He was tempted to reach down into her pants and diddle her with his fingers, but refrained. He couldn't. Not now. Not yet.

He pushed her off him, gently sitting her down on her couch, and said, "I believe you have what you need for now. Some other time." He then began walking away before she could react. One mental command and Joey was on his heels, they were out the door, and Kylie sat there, her mouth half-open.

Why the hell didn't he try to do more? That was the plan. She'd seduce him, take him as close to the edge as she dared, but then refuse to go all the way until she had the retrovirus, claiming that she wasn't going to have sex with someone that different. Driven by his passion, he'd find a way to get it for her. Well, either that or rape her, but taking that particular risk was what had got her into the Illuminati in the first place.

He'd even kissed her, for fuck's sake! Was he waiting? Was he suspicious? Or did he simply just not do it on the first date? Sally sent a unexpected, rare feeling of consolation to her mistress in response to her frustration, which Kylie stopped herself from answering with a lash of anger. It wasn't Sally's fault, it was her own, and she felt the usual amounts of regret when a plan fails. What if she had done something different, what if she really had worn something else, or what if she had just asked him?

She would have probably been amazed at the answer, which was sent by Jeremy to Joey's similar question as they entered the jet-helicopter:

Because she wasn't retroviral.

Engineereds had to be extremely careful when having sex with normals. Even Fido knew that. Jeremy didn't want to have to be that careful with her. He wanted his first time with her- his first time at all- to be an all-out dick-slamming fest of wild jungle sex. On the other hand, he definitely didn't want to hurt her, and he also didn't want to have such an unequal long-term physical relationship. Kylie had to have it. There was no other way.

But how to get past the absolutism of the Duumvirate? He avoided blaming them for their approach; Jeremy still understood the twins to be smarter than himself, and wasn't going to question them now just because it got in the way of his love life. He planned- he considered- he thought. How did he prove conclusively that she wasn't an enemy? Proving a negative is one of the hardest exercises of logic to do. Circumstantial evidence wouldn't cut it. He had to set up a situation in which there could be zero doubt that she was not conspiring against the twins.

At the end of more than an hour of hard considerations and dozens of discarded ideas, all Jeremy got was a pounding migraine, and he only knew he was spreading it when Joey said, out loud, "Jeremy, I'm getting a headache. Why don't we just ask them?" Jeremy's response was unsaid, and emotionally charged- Because if we ask them, they might say it's impossible, and then there's no hope. Joey's reply was one of wordless trust and understanding: if Jeremy found a way to prove Kylie's loyalty after the Duumvirate said it was impossible, they wouldn't mind being proven wrong.

The call would wait until tomorrow. Jeremy and Joey were almost home at 6 AM their time, 10 PM the twins' time, which was a time they might not be awake. So out of courtesy, Jeremy endured a fitful lack of sleep, rife with worry, making sure not to send any of the worry, and then worried about that, until Joey's dreaming brainwaves finally lulled him to a good nine and a half hours of sleep. When he got up late that afternoon he had almost forgotten what all the fuss was about.

Hamburger for dinner/breakfast? Biologically he didn't even have to cook it, but unlike other engineereds he wasn't willing to test that. He did it himself; not even Joey could cook it just as he wanted it. If you want it done right, and all that, although he'd use telepathy once he gained a finer level of control. As he cooked and ate a large mass of ground beef seasoned with garlic, spices, and hot peppers, he considered how to phrase things.

No matter how many times it didn't happen, he was always afraid of the Duumvirate snapping at him for calling, imagining that they might not want him to call because they were in the middle of something or maybe just sick of his shit.

That's what I always thought you might say, Joey sent.

To you? Since when? Get down here before I eat all the burger.

Already dressed, Joey slid down the stairs' railing on his crossed ankles and wrists in a move that normals could never match. Since you told me you were in the middle of some long retarded project in school.

"I remember that," Jeremy said and sent simultaneously as Joey walked in. Duplication was a good way of training the telepathy. "You came anyway."

Joey talked and sent at the same time as well. "Yeah, I told my mom it was okay, and then I told your mom how our teacher always said to help each other out so long as we're not doing the work for each other, and I had to ask you stuff about my project, and I then had to get into your room and close the door before you said something stupid."

Jeremy cracked up laughing. "I had no idea what was going on. But we actually did end up working on that shit."

"For a little while, anyway."

"I can't believe we remember all this school crap. Your project was already done, wasn't it?"

Define 'done'? It was crystal growing shit. I just made everything up and bought the rock candy at the store. Joey sent this one exclusively, as his mouth was full.

"How the hell could you have been a bigger bullshitter than me?!"

Joey restricted his laughter to their minds, as he was still chewing. I just had more experience at bullshit. I was never as smart as you. They ate a few more bites in silence before Joey let slip from his mind, At least when you're not mooning over girls.

"Joey!" Jeremy shouted in mock outrage, but sent, Is it really that bad?

"Have you listened to yourself think? Your mind's like a furnace!" Joey sent associated images of chaos and panic like the original Chinese fire drill.

The thought slipped out: She's perfect, Joey! And this is before the retrovirus!

"Well you better call the Duumvirate. C'mon, it's not like it's 6 AM or something." They shared a laugh. More than two years after the fact, that was still some funny shit. Jeremy sat on his couch of authority, cracked his knuckles with some explosive pops (Wow, not doing that again), reminded himself that he was capable of this, and called the rulers of the world.

For a brief instant he wanted to talk telepathically to them before he realized he couldn't.

"Duumvirate, I have a unique problem. I believe that the Illuminatus Kylie Robins should recieve the retrovirus," There was no hiding why. He was originally going to give reasons but knew it'd be pointless. Better keep it short. "but I have no method of absolutely proving her loyalty. Is it impossible?"

The twins opened up other windows on their screen and Jeremy was expecting a negative.

What he got was the growing smiles on the twins' faces, and them sharing a chuckle. "No, you romantic fool. Don't you remember what we did with you and Joey? And now we have a way to tell even if she has any thoughts against us."

"I'm an idiot!" Jeremy shouted. Now he knew the Duumvirate was smarter than he was, a lot smarter.

Holy shit, Jeremy just got oooooowned, Joey thought reflexively, and Jeremy mentally thwapped him.

"Romance can do that. It's a good thing we've never experienced it. And you now have to do things that aren't very romantic."

Jeremy was glad they were, in fact, orders.


Jeremy chose to do the flying himself this time, and on the way he wished he had thought of all this before he had gone out there the first time; he'd have the element of complete surprise and he wouldn't have had to make two trips. Joey gently poked fun at him for second-guessing himself like that. Illuminati make mistakes. Shit happens.

"Back so soon?" she asked, eyebrows arched. She'd hit him worse than she thought- here he was, flying back and forth like an idiot. Men did crazy things when they thought they were in love, but she wasn't expecting to reduce him to little-finger status quite so fast.

"Yeah. I know. It's silly. Come on, let's go for a walk. Just the.. just the four of us."

Kylie's heels went tik-tik-tik on the cobblestones from their walkway. Master and servant put their arms around the girls' waists, Joey feeling a slight bit of pity for Sally with her rolls of lard. Assuming this went well, she'd be rid of them soon enough.

And when they approached the closely-parked jet-helicopter, Jeremy and Joey picked them up in one fell swoop; Kylie actually laughed, as she'd even given her Enforcers very specific instructions to not interfere should the boys start touching her and her servant. Not that two Enforcers were any match for them anyway. Her laughter stopped when they closed the door and Jeremy jumped in the pilot's seat to immediately take off.

"Kylie, listen. I really can't tell you what's going on. This is by order of the Duumvirate. I can tell you what I'm not doing. I'm not taking you to be killed, or hurt, or implanted, okay? I'm not kidnapping you." Kidnapping was exactly what he was doing, he just didn't want to admit it. "You'll be back home in a few hours." More like several, even with Jeremy switching to jet and hauling ass.

"How do I know that? How do I even know you were ordered at all?" She was basically screeching at him, but it was all she had in her rising panic. "How do I know they didn't tell you to just lie and then make me a servant just because they felt like it?" Since her initial meeting with them, the Duumvirate struck her as capricious beyond belief, like Greek gods. Most people could have their morals turned against them, a thing she was good at. The Duumvirate apparently had no openings at all for that kind of hook, which combined with their power scared the crap out of her.

"'Cause if they did, I'd disobey the fucking order," Jeremy said quietly, and there was no more talking. Joey smiled gently at Kylie's servant, helping her mistress's mood a bit.

And for me, this is just the frying pan and the fire, Sally sent.

Have you seen what they do to female servants here?, Kylie shot back. I hear there's this one guy who built his own harem. She sent that and realized there was probably a lot more than just one guy. If they do anything to me where the fuck do you think you'll be going? Okay, calm down, she told herself, working with Sally to come to a conclusion. Find the facts. Jeremy obviously didn't want to do this and so was probably telling the truth. Other Illuminati had made it clear that the twins just couldn't go around blowing away their own organization no matter how much it seemed like they wanted to. The twins had given her a standard introduction and she hadn't felt threatened then, although they had admitted paranoia. "Is the Duumvirate just paranoid?" Kylie asked aloud.

"Yes. That's exactly right," Jeremy replied. His tone said that it wasn't exactly right, but close enough. It also said that she'd come out all right. And, she realized, he's probably good enough at this to make his tone say anything he wants it to.

But there was one person in the plane who he couldn't fool. You are in love with her, Joey sent. Now, if you weren't before. Jeremy couldn't deny it.

The twins were standing outside when he landed, and they beckoned Kylie to follow them as she uncertainly stepped out. She and Sally reluctantly came along, Jeremy and Joey following. There was a new room at the bottom of the stairs, Jeremy noticed, and that was where the twins were leading the girls. Probably Faraday-caged and insulated.

Trepidation struck Kylie. She'd heard ninth-hand rumors about the Duumvirate having a torture chamber. Would they seriously just do that, using techniques that bypass the usual problems with torture and actually guarantee truthful answers? (The torture chamber was actually eliminated in their 2000 remodeling, but they hadn't told anyone else that.) "Duumvirate, what is this about?" she asked.

"It's about your servant," Howard replied, and then, in a fraction of a second, they had picked up Sally, whisked her inside with them, and closed the door.

Sally's thoughts were cut off from her sharply. "Sally!" Nothing. Kylie didn't understand. What would they want with her servant?

And then Sarah was beside her, a sheet of laminated paper in her hand. "Read this." Sarah held down a button next to a speaker grille. The paper was nearly the same as what Jeremy had been told to read to his servant.

Kylie did, stammering a bit, hearing her own words throughout the house, and turned to Sarah when she released her hand, understanding the what and why immediately. "You couldn't have done it some other way?"

"Do you have a more efficient way? It's bad enough having to worry about this-really-means-this counter-commands." Sarah thought Jeremy had probably given it all away. She also thought that the odds of Kylie being a rogue were infintesmally low; trusting a normal-raised girl to keep the secrets they wanted kept, from her Duumvirate-aligned boyfriend, while giving her a retrovirus- and every reason to switch loyalties immediately afterwards? If the rogues were that stupid they'd already be dead.

"I mean the whole.. no, I guess not." She stared at the door for a moment.

"Want something to eat? Drink? You look like hell." This was simple courtesy; her face was tense almost beyond recognition, and Sarah recognized the stress lines as the sort that get permanently etched into a normal woman's face. ('Good thing she won't be. Now let's see if I can figure her out before the twins do.')

"Yeah. Sure. Why are they.. doing it themselves?"

You have no idea. "Because they want it done right," Sarah replied. "C'mon. They might be a while." Sarah led her down the stairs, holding her hand, feeling the blood pump and the tenseness of her muscles. ('No autonomous reaction control at all. Weak. Why the hell is she wearing white?')

Sarah pulled a few rice balls out of the fridge and poured a cup of juice. ('Probably should keep some fermented just for this- a bit of ethanol would clear this right up.') Kylie ate and drank appreciatively, but didn't talk; fear and an unspecified dread marched across her face. Twice she tried to send and twice she remembered that was the whole point. Jeremy sat near her, but not too close, looking vaguely guilty.

"You look guilty," Sarah said offhand, and Jeremy opened his mouth before he realized that Sarah was talking to Kylie and not himself. Kylie choked on her drink, finally managing to swallow it down and take a few gasps of air.

"I am not-" Cough, hack, inhale. "-not planning anything against the Duumvirate of the Illuminati. Nor do I know any-anyone who is."

"Hrm. You're probably telling the truth. So what did you do?"

The twins came in at that point, a slightly crying Sally a few feet behind. The twins were laughing constantly, a constant stream of mirth as if they were watching a comedy show. This caused some confusion, particularly for Kylie with Sally's sending: I told them everything. Kylie had no idea why they would be laughing. Wouldn't they be pissed?

"This is great," Howard declared. "The personal and the political intertwine and the misconceptions abound! We could write a poem about this."

"Or put it on a daytime talk show, but it's better if we don't record this. Kylie, would you rather tell him, or should we?" William asked.

"Tell me what?" Jeremy asked her immediately. She wasn't an enemy, was she? Maybe someone in her family was. That'd be a good reason for the way everyone was acting. Maybe she had some older relative, he figured, who was involved in the conspiracy, and she didn't want to hurt him so was just trying her hardest not to get involved.

"Jeremy, I.." She was determined to hold on to as much of her dignity as she could by using as few words as possible. "I wanted the retrovirus." Of course she wanted the retrovirus, everyone wanted the fucking retrovirus, so what does that mean, unless she knew from the outset that Jeremy would...

Oh, shit, Joey sent.

"JER-RY! JER-RY!" Paul shouted, bringing fresh laughter to the twins, with Sarah joining in, knowing that she'd never have guessed that. Only Joey could hear the thought, but the facial expression Jeremy showed Paul was unmistakable: Shut the fuck up!

"You wanted the retrovirus? Wait, is that the only reason you did all that? The only reason you came on to me, the only reason you got telepathy in the first place?"

"No! I wanted those anyway. I just.. I just thought it would be an opportunity." In a part of her mind that Sally would never see, Kylie cursed herself for acting so damn normal. No! Not here! Not now! Not when she was so damn close!

"Excellent word choice," Howard echoed, laughing harder. Jeremy glared around. Apparently the twins were in a highly flippant mood- not surprising, considering their disdain for normal-world relationships (and wasn't that, at the core, what this was?)- and Jeremy didn't want to deal with this in this setting. But what could he say, anyway? 'You used me'? 'You manipulated me'? This was the Illuminati! Admitting that would be the same as openly saying that she was a better Illuminatus than him.

"It gets better. Ms. Robins, are you aware of our actual retrovirus distribution policy?" William asked formally, and got a blank look for an answer. "We distribute the retrovirus, and the associated lifting of restrictions on owning sentient engineered servants, to all Illuminati who we know beyond doubt have no designs on working with our enemies or harming us in any way." Jeremy understood long before William finished, and started looking around, not sure who to stare at in shock. But the twins' policy wasn't affected by his love life any more than it was by partial proof. I could kill her so fast... he found himself sending, quickly followed by the fact that he wasn't going to do that. She'd just received the Duumvirate's stamp of approval, after all, and in spite of everything, he still wanted to make passionate love to her.

Kylie got it almost as fast, and Sally received a brief wave of mental chaos. The Duumvirate had exposed her, humiliated her, let everyone know what she had done.. but in spite of it, she was getting the retrovirus anyway. She actually did entertain a few nasty thoughts against the twins but discarded them. It was better this way. She'd be an immortal superhuman genius, and she wouldn't even have to touch Jeremy. She had what she wanted. Why was she becoming upset? Sally couldn't answer her.

"Come on," Jeremy said in utter resignation. "I'll take you home."

"Have fun, you guys," Paul called after them as they left.

Knife-twisting little shit, Jeremy sent.

He just thinks it's funny, Joey replied. And it kind of is.

They sat in silence on the flight home, each waiting for the other to speak, neither having any idea what to say. It took thirty minutes before Sally finally said the first words. "It's immortality, you asshole," she enunciated clearly. "And a thousand things besides. She doesn't want to say it herself, but it's really obvious. Do you think she wouldn't use you for it?"

"Love is cheap, and easy to replace," Kylie said then, her eyes narrowed, her hands on her bare knees; leaning forward, Jeremy could see down her top. She's back to sex queen mode again- and after she's retroviral, that's probably the only mode she's going to have. Fearfulness and timidity would be discarded with normalcy. "The only thing that matters in this world is power and the ability to use it." She wasn't even sure if she really believed that, but damn it sounded right, and Jeremy found himself falling in love all over again. She smiled at him, recognizing the truth of her own words. The Illuminati's traditional approach, she recognized, was the right one, and everything that had just happened validated it. The only way to get what you want is to reach out and take it. And, she realized, she wanted both the retrovirus and him.

"I am going to bang the hell out of you after you're fully changed," Jeremy said. So that was what he was waiting for, Kylie sent.

"I sure as shit hope so," Kylie said dismissively, casually arching her back to stretch her breasts. "It'd really be crap if we went through all this not to end up getting laid." Ah, so she was both a whore and a powermonger. What better girlfriend could he possibly want? Before he knew it they were discussing living accomodations, moving arrangements (he would move in with her; her place was bigger, older, and had a great deal of some very old secrecy-proofed land), and sexual positions. They actually briefly considered putting all their implants on the same wavelength before reading more on the subject: males and females would never really be mentally compatible that way, and a four-way was an invitation to chaos and there was no way to single one of the group out. "Close, but not that close," Kylie said, and they laughed, and Jeremy began tickling her under her arms. His mouth was on her breasts sooner rather than later, and his head under her skirt a few minutes after.

Who knew an engineered tongue was fast enough to be an effective vibrator?
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