BZZZZERT!

The twins sighed and rose simultaneously. They'd been enjoying a not-quite-shared dream, involving the particularly high-velocity recreation they indulged in last evening, and didn't appreciate someone buzzing them out of it. Anyone in the Illuminati could contact the Duumvirate, directly, at any time; this has always been the case, ever since the position of Dominator was established. The only thing that stopped them was the very real specter of being killed for interrupting their Dominators needlessly.

The immediate source of their annoyance was first level Donald Simpson, overseer for the United States of America. Donald was generally much busier than his Masters. As the one true overseer of the US (despite many, many other Illuminati having holdings there, including bits of government), he was ultimately responsible for its leadership and general behavior. Which made right now a very, very bad time for him, as some Saudis had just decided to park a couple of airplanes on the 80th floors of a pair of tall buildings.

The screen clicked on and Donald, surrounded by other screens and busy servants, faced it with a serious look. "What," Howard said, with a strong hint of 'this better be good'. That was mostly for effect; they knew he wasn't screwing with them. This overlord was far too experienced to consider it.

Donald followed custom to a T by simply changing his screen to some of the video clips everyone's seen, and some that normals haven't, including a satellite's eye view. Planes slamming into buildings (no collapse- not yet), people running scared away. There was almost no narration (save for some normal-grabbed clips), no commentary, just raw explosions and distant screaming. The twins watched passively, chuckling a bit, interested but unemotional.

"As you can see, we have something of a crisis on our hands." It was worse than that, actually; Donald had been so panicked that he had forgotten to move Bush for almost a half hour.

"Were there any of ours in that?" William asked casually.

"A couple of servants were in the area, but no casualties," Donald replied. He'd had a small hunch, not-quite-conscious, that the Duumvirate wouldn't really care. And without much of a reason to become involved- it would be easy to say that none of this was Dominator business, if there were no secrecy breaches and no one was raising a dispute over it- the twins simply wanted to go back to bed.

"What's the kill count?" William asked.

"The buildings are toast, but it might take a while.. I'm guessing three or four thousand." The public media would, of course, be screaming something different, as well as other assorted alarms. The government would, of course, firmly close the barn door after the horse ran out. Both had their role: to keep people panicked until the Illuminati figure out what to do.

"Who did it?" Howard asked.

"Passenger lists suggest- SHIT- The Pentagon. Oh, no.." Donald's disciplined face cracked and tears started running down his face, the nervous breakdown he'd been dreading his whole life happening right in front of the Duumvirate. He found himself caring less about that and more about his best servant. "STEEEVE!!!" He turned sharply to his left at a nearby servant. "Rid, contact Steve if he's still alive.. they hit exactly where he was, the bastards knew.. Dominator!" he shouted, turning to the twins, fear making him babble. "Steve Wintermute is probably dead. I don't know why they hit the towers, but.. it was an Islamic group called Al Qaeda. All over the Middle East. The- the-" Fast typing on his end. "regional director owns it, what the hell was he doing? I'm going to call and-"

"No you're not," both twins said simultaneously, realizing what they had to do. "We'll handle this," Howard said. The twins badly wanted to delegate this, but there was no one to delegate to. Donald's concern for Steve (whoever that was) could be a farce, a red herring for some other goal. The towelheads who did it could easily be Enforcers. It could have been a truly wild assassination attempt, or an inept or badly mistaken regional director letting some normal get too much influence, or some other Illuminatus having a hand in it. Or there could have been no leadership at all that wasn't blown up with it. The twins knew all this immediately; it was just time to divide the reality from the bullshit. They just hoped it wasn't actually an assassination of an Illuminatus or his servant, or the intentional frustration of an Illuminatus's goals, which were about the only things that could bring this under their purview. But it had to be official Dominator business before Illuminati started tripping over each other and it became a clusterfuck. They were too damn tired to deal with this shit, but the alternative was worse.

Fortunately, although they couldn't delegate responsibility, they could obtain information and command action. The Illuminati's investigative apparatus was already at work; the twins simply tapped into it for more than they really cared or needed to know about hijacking procedures and Middle Eastern religious politics. "Osama bin fucking annoying," William muttered after a few minutes of research.

"Osama bin getting his throat ripped out for waking me up at 6 AM," Howard replied.

They called the regional director of the Middle East, Mohammed Sheyikh, on his jet-helicopter craft- he swore up, down, and by Allah (monotheism was exceedingly rare in the Illuminati, but existent) that he had nothing to do with it and that he had every reason to believe he had Osama firmly contained and controlled. By doing so, he doomed himself. If he was a rogue the twins were going to implant him, interrogate him, and literally eat him alive. If he was not a rogue he would be killed for hitherto unimaginable incompetence.

Some fruitless investigation later, they sighed. They needed real information, not theories or possibilities. Fuck it.

"Sarah!" William called into the intercom. A full thirty seconds passed, but she started walking downstairs, naked. Engineered girls don't get PMS as such, but she looked pissed off, staring at them.

"Find Osama bin Laden and take him alive if it is reasonably practical," Howard commanded her. She rolled her eyes.

"Oh, is that it? I thought you were going to ask me to do something hard. You know what the best part of not being implanted is?" They looked at her. "Being able to go to the fucking bathroom first." She walked back up.

"Now that we've dealt with the direct stuff, Billy.. let's discuss symbolism," Howard said, quietly.

"Two towers, one military installation, one other one that didn't quite get to its normal-government destination?" Howard nodded. "Coincidences exist. For all we know right now, there's a fifth group that chickened out, or they had different plans and reduced it to this, or they had a surplus of personnel. But.."

"But it doesn't feel like one."

"No.. it doesn't. Not at all. But- wait, the fuck- if it is symbolism, using it doesn't make any sense. If they wanted to send us a message, they've already fucking done that! Or... somebody is trying to make it look like a rogue act, but they really want the repercussions of this to happen so their own goals get furthered." Whatever those were.

"And spawn a harder investigation, and lead us to believe they're rogues if we catch them. They'd have to be completely out of their fucking minds to do that." William smiled in reply, and Howard started nodding. "Which makes it a distinct possibility." He sighed, which turned into a yawn and his brother shared it. They got up, grabbing snacks before heading back to bed. "And they really have to be batshit insane to do it in our early morning."