Old School Deep Knight Adventure

[Deep Knight]

The Trial of Deep Knight
Another Inconceivable Deep Knight Adventure
Chapter 8 –Death by Chocolate without Nuts

I had been having the feeling that fate was keeping me from finishing Donald Trump ever since I was given control of the Deep State. For all our insidious power, we had been delayed at every turn and never been able to “close the deal.” It was as if the President was Dame Fortune’s pet, and the breaks always broke his way, leaving us stymied. Now, when I finally got the go-ahead to go ahead and had marshaled my Federal Marshals, yet another ghost from my past rose up to bite me. Satan’s mom.

It started as a strange report that all of Hawaii was panicking due to the report of a ballistic missile coming their way. Living in paradise has obviously weakened their nerve, and a little thing like a North Korean nuclear warhead belied their reputation for hanging loose and keeping cool. But it turned out to be a “mistake,” an explanation that should always send up red flags as code-speech for cover-up. Doubly suspicious when I heard that the source of the alert was the island of Maui where Satan’s mother had been exiled, er, sent to retire, I had the substantial intelligence gathering of the Illuminati, New World Order, and Deep State stop their covert war on the current administration and turn their eyes and ears towards our 50th state. What they found out was much worse than nuclear annihilation.

Satan had wisely (how many time have you heard me use THOSE words together?) surrounded his mother’s compound with Imperial Illuminati Guards, and further hobbled his mom by having her care for recently-rejuvenated-with-a-vengeance Heckle and Hyde. She had somehow gotten her hands on Rapid-Gro-4-Klones, which we used to accelerate clone growth so we don’t have to replace world leaders with infant versions of themselves, and the boys had grown into teenagers. I have often wondered if her daughter-in-law gave it to her in vengeance, knowing how surly boys get at that age. Especially when isolated with nothing to do but play violent video games. Their attitude and constant defiance was driving her crazy, and she made a break for it. Much later we found she had gotten the dhoogz monkey off her back by going cold turkey and using methamphetamine instead. “Dhoogz,” scientifically known as adrenochrome, had been her drug of choice ever since she became addicted to it, but also the collar her son used to keep her on a short leash. You have to admit that the lady has nerves of steel, stopping like that kills 90% of those who try, although being immortal and having survived dozens of Medieval plagues helps. But she knew she would never be out from under her son’s thumb as long as she was also being fingered by Doctor Feelgood, so she took the chance. She also knew she could stockpile her daily doses and to this “stash” to entice one of the guards to aid in her escape. She found one in a young recruit who had once been a boy scout (we have to screen our applicants more carefully). It turns out that helping an old lady across the street is a gateway good deed, and one thing led to another. Assuming a grandmotherly persona, it was easy for her to get the young, homesick guard to start using dhoogz, even though it was well-known as the world’s most addictive drug (no doubt because it’s so powerful, with a high so nightmarish, that you’re hopelessly addicted before you actually feel the effects of your first dose).

Once under her and the evil dhoogz’s power, she both forced the strung-out guard to provide her with over a month’s sexual release and smuggle-in both a power boat and enough provisions to get them a few miles down the shore, safely away from the rest of the guards. During the dark of the full moon she made her escape, with her druggie guard piloting the boat. He was never seen again. Some say she got rid of excess baggage, but I figure that once she given the natural romance of midnight boat rides in the tropics she ravished him to a degree where between the sex, adrenochrome, and diet high in pineapple his young heart gave out and she dumped him. Literally, and where sharks often feed. Whatever the case, her escape set off alarms up one side of the island chain and down another, which of course got mistaken for a warning of a North Korean thermonuclear attack by a nervous emergency response worker. It didn’t help that Satan’s mom’s code name is “the bomb” or that “BM” stands for both “Ballistic Missile” and “Bowel Movement.” Anyway, the confusion this generated worked to her advantage, and after the 38 minutes it took for them to straighten this out, the old demoness was long gone and her trail cold.

But not forgotten. Satan was beside himself with worry, which was strange because he of all people should know how tough and bulletproof his mom is. The Illuminati and rest of the New World Order were shocked and stunned, not as much as when Trump was elected, but close. This wasn’t because we were concerned about The Prince of Darkness (please), but because we assumed he was going to go apeshit crazy and we would have to clean up the mess. The Council of 12, meeting in secret session, dumped the job in my lap, and to my dismay I had to travel from frigid east-coast January weather to Hawaii, the favored vacation spot of supermodels.

I wasn’t only going because my arm had been twisted, I suspected all of these delays could ultimately be traced to President Trump, the one who most profited from them. I couldn’t prove it, but since we were trying to topple and terminate him anyway, I didn’t think proof was necessary. What was necessary was my nose, which could not only smell trouble from miles away, knew about low tide was fishy, and the coast of Maui reeked it. There, I came face to face with teenage mutant Heckle and Hyde, who were barely conversational. Not because they were in on the escape, but from an overdose of young male resentment and because that sort of thing is popular right now. However, Deep Knight is no fool, no matter what you might think after reading about my exploits, and I knew the one thing that I could use to control them. After feeding them some pizza laced with growth hormone and a good night’s sleep, the boys would age another couple of years, And 16 year old boys were easily controlled by 16 year old girls.

I won’t make the same mistake twice and reveal the details, but I introduced the boys to Bobby-Jo and Bambi the next morning, and by noon they no longer had wills of their own. Not that Deep Knight had suddenly become a pimp for the underage, at that age boys fall in love from holding hands all night. It might also not be a coincidence that their fathers became Mayor of Honolulu and president of the island’s largest bank, when before they had been a truck driver and tour guide. Anyway, the boys were buying the girls anything their little hearts desired at the local mall, taking them to chick-flick movies they would have never been seen dead at, and talking again. In fact, you couldn’t shut them and the girls up.

Under threat of not allowing them to return to the mall the next day, the boys were a wealth of information. It turns out that they weren’t as oblivious to their surrounding as they appeared to be. Deliveries of winter clothing and parkas seemed to indicate a destination outside of Hawaii, but we had sewn up the airports and the major cruise lines. But not the tramp steamers, and if I knew my film noir, that’s the mode of transportation this long-in-the-tooth tramp would choose. Donning the disguise of a down-and-out merchant seaman, I haunted the waterfront, using the alias “Long John Sterling.” It wasn't long before my trolling for suckers hit pay dirt.

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

The Trial of Deep Knight
Another Inconceivable Deep Knight Adventure
Chapter 9 – Back to Basics

My instincts were spot on, but unfortunately I was too late. The docks in Maui tend to be a little more “upscale” than your normal waterfront, which Satan’s mother didn’t know that when she disguised herself as a sailor. Wagging tongues told tales of her atrocious fashion sense interspersed with her looking for a berth on the first available ship among confused tour operators and fishermen. She finally got signed on to an old tramp steamer that had been hired by a film maker and adventurer to go to a place called Skull Island. Apparently there was some big monkey they wanted to film then capture. I reported immediately to the Big Guy, who was all for sending a Seal Team of Amphibious Dachshunds (do they even have those?) after her, but I talked him out of it.

“She’s safely out of the way for at least a few weeks, so what’s the problem?” I asked in a perverted form of the Socratic method, “By that time she’ll be tired of being on the lam, even more tired of ocean life, and easily convinced to come home. Besides, what could be safer than a place called ‘Skull Island?”

“Skull Island was one of our less-successful projects from the 20’s,” admitted Satan, “which we abandoned after the 1929 crash budget cuts. There actually is a big gorilla there that the natives, which we imported from Iceland, worship as a god. But he’s nowhere near as big as portrayed in the movies, 9 feet tall at most.”

“What was that all about?” I inquired, genuinely confused as to how this could further the cause of worldwide evil.

“Doctor Moreau, who had been creating human-like hybrid beings for us from animals, came to me with this idea for 50-60 foot tall gorillas that could be cross-bred with giant lizards. It was at the mad scientist’s annual ball, and we both had been drinking, so it seemed like a good idea at the time. We got him a new island, gave him the most modern equipment, and even had a crew carve the volcano to look kind of skull-like, but his results were rather disappointing.”

Yet another R&D failure, with the Illuminati seduced by talk of “the evil of the future.” In my humble opinion, we should be focusing on the evil that’s needed right here and now, day in and day out, instead of some sexy-sounding “next big thing” that some egghead who’s never killed anyone in his life thought up “in a think tank.” But back to the story. The Big Guy was still worried, but calmed down when I told him how physically punishing yet boring her work would be onboard ship. “Teaching her a lesson she won’t soon forget” seemed to be high on Satan’s priority list. I used the opportunity to split from Waikiki beach, where I had for some reason been conducting the last part of my operation, and return home.

On the “redeye” flight back to the mainland, I found it impossible to sleep due to the nagging worry that the Deep State was being played by some hidden group of conspirators. The events that kept us from taking over the government were happening with too much regularity to be a coincidence. The implications of this were enough to keep me awake throughout the entire flight, even if there hadn't been the constant interruptions from women desperate to join the Mile-High Club. Anyway, once back at Illuminati Headquarters, I called a meeting and laid out my concerns.

“It’s like there’s a conspiracy to keep us from utterly destroying Donald Trump. We’ve been close enough to muss his hair dozens of times, but every time we let the blade fall, his neck is gone. I used to think he was smarter than he looked, and playing 4 dimensional mind-chess, but then I look at his actions in public. I’ve been racking my brain, and the only thing that makes sense is that there is a Deep State within the Deep State, and for some inconceivable reason it’s loyal to Trump.”

It was a like a lightbulb had gone off in the Council’s brains. One by one they gasped or peed their pants. All except Hillary, who I believe had been thinking along the same lines for weeks, and of course had near-legendary bladder control. Then there was Satan. He didn’t look surprised at all, but the reason why had yet to dawn on me. I was starting to let this swirl around in my mind like a hippy light show, when Hillary spoke.

“The other thing that’s been bothering me has been the financing for your recent high-rise-parking-structure, the one from the towering-inferno-style disaster. I didn’t think much about Deutsche Bank being in on that deal when I was going through your numbers as your new banker, but given the revelations about them and Trump Inc., it’s got me asking questions. Question such as, ‘What the @#$!?’”

Satan put his head in his hands, which isn’t easy given the size and position of his horns, and started to sob. “Trump was the only builder foolish enough to go along with parking garage over a hundred stories high. But I signed the contract without reading it, and now he’s got me by the short and curlies. I didn’t have any choice but to feed him inside information. I know it’s the worst sort of betrayal, but then again, it’s really not so bad when you think about it.”

So, the fish really was rotting from the head! All my work, my courting danger and getting shot at, had been undermined by the Big Guy himself. Not that I didn’t already know he was a coward and never to be trusted, but I thought he was my friend. This would not go unanswered, but I would let The Council of The Twelve take care of his disgrace, oversight and discipline are two of their main functions. I would get my satisfaction from watching Satan finally go down, which when you start in Hell is really saying something.

The chairman of the council looked sagely at the rest of us, and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s fine with me, boss.” The rest of the council nodded in agreement, leaving me out in the cold should I choose to complain. We Illuminati have many unwritten rules, but #1 among them is “Don’t @#$! With Satan.” Words to live, and stay alive, by, so I was keeping my mouth shut. Still, I couldn’t let it end here, with the boss undercutting us at every turn because of a real estate deal gone bad. As we Illuminati say, “It’s a good day for you to die,” so I took a deep breath and said both my piece and my peace.

“So what’s the word then, do I keep on trying to take Trump down, or do we call the whole thing off? I doesn’t matter to me, except that I have a burning desire for revenge and to see him broken and in the dust. But otherwise it’s OK. Really.”

Satan looked almost sorry that he had caused me so much grief. Almost. “You know how it is, Deep. Need to know and all that high security stuff. But now that the cat is out of that bag, BUT NOT SO MUCH OUT THAT IT WILL GO BEYOND THIS ROOM OR BE RAISED AT THE STOCKHOLDERS MEETING, I suppose we can find some way of letting you draw some blood. After all, I don’t like him any more than you do, and I’m quite frankly tired of having to stay at his overpriced shithole hotels to keep from insulting him. Taking him down a few pegs might teach him some humility, and more importantly, be incredibly satisfying. But we have to have a foolproof plan, he must never know who was behind his downfall.”

“Don’t worry,” I said smiling, “I think if we ask Mrs. Clinton really nicely she might just come up with her specialty, something unbelievably underhanded and vile. She would have the entire Deep State at her disposal, not to mention the Slice Girls and Velna and my not-inconsiderable talents. What do you say, Hill?” I asked, using her Satanic nickname.

I expected Hillary to smile and nod in agreement, but I didn’t expect what happened next.

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

The Trial of Deep Knight
Another Inconceivable Deep Knight Adventure
Chapter 10 – The Deep State Strikes Back Yet Again

Hillary was happy to plan a little revenge, which amongst people of taste is best served cold, given what had happened in the last election. And you know how vicious and vindictive she is, but then again, those are two of the things that most endear her to the Illuminati. She threw all of her “outside the box” thinking into the task, stunning even Satan, who’s not known for his squeamishness. The next morning she unloaded her fiendish plan on the Big Guy and my Deep State Tiger Team.

“My suggestion may seem radical, but let it sink in before your reject it out of hand,” she warned, staring directly at me, “sometimes hard choices are actually hard, but you’ve got to make them anyway. I suggest,” she paused for dramatic effect, “that we do nothing. Absolutely nothing, And I’m not just saying this, my research has proven that when someone’s shooting themselves in the foot the best course of action is to stand back and enjoy the fun.”

I obviously had a disgusted look on my face, because Hillary responded by first glaring, then sticking out her tongue. But it was Satan who first questioned the wisdom of this strategy out loud.

“What the @#$!? We give you the entire New World Order to extract sweet revenge and you want to sit on your hands? What gives?”

“Some of have used our setbacks to achieve personal growth,” said Hillary in that annoying tone she so enjoys, “and are willing to let the universe achieve balance on its own. Take for example, that idiots weight as reported from his recent physical, 239 pounds. Give me a break. Soon we’ll have legions of enraged women ready to rip him out to the White House, put him on a bathroom scale, and then impeach him.”

“Come on,” I retorted, “you think that him lying about his weight is really such a big deal? Compared to things like him opening negotiations with ‘the Greys’ to use our planet as an interstellar battleground in their war against the Reptilians?”

“It’s not his lying, but getting a doctor and a Rear Admiral to boot to lie for him,” explained Hillary slowly, as if to a child, “and regular Americans dislike elites getting privileges not available to them. Imagine the outrage if people found out about the things the Illuminati get away with, but multiply it by 100 times because it’s about personal appearance instead of world domination.”

The Chairman of the Council of 12 spoke up, “We were looking for bold, decisive leadership, not the same thing you did during the last month of your campaign. Just look at how that worked out for you.”

“I won 3 million more popular votes, some of which were legal.”

“Yeah, but getting more popular votes got you nothing,” responded the Chairman, tasting blood in the water and going for the kill, “just like attacking his lying or having women’s marches will get you nothing now. His core supporters don’t care about anything he does, thinking it’s more fake news.”

“Well, it’s still a better idea that Deep Knight’s plan,” Hillary said, lashing out at me, “Who would believe Trump would pay off a porn actress to keep quiet? And the whole pretending her name is ‘Stormy’ thing as a hidden message to the ‘STORM’ people that Deep State is bad ass is silly. Who would believe that as a porn name, my idea of using “Chesty MelOOns” was much better.”

“It’s a great name and a great plan,” I protested, having already sent out our photoshopped images and salacious “unpublished” interview. “Besides, it was meant to annoy him, not administer the final blow.”

“What it did was tie up the search engine at my favorite website,” grumbled Satan, “and I’m not looking for annoyance, I’m looking for something so shocking it can force him to do our will, just like his predecessors going all the way back to George Washington. If the Continental Congress had known what he really did with those Hessian soldiers after crossing the Delaware, he couldn’t have been elected dogcatcher much less President.”

“That was then, this is now,” I reminded him, “people feel much different about that sort of thing today, especially since people don’t wear wooden teeth or wigs or for that matter know what a ‘Hessian’ is.”

“Enough!” bellowed The Prince of Darkness, obviously a bit peeved, “We need leadership, not lame plans and endless sniping. I know that Vladimir has been tied up in Russia and that Hillary wants to be the one to do that instead, but don’t take it out on Deep Knight just because he’s a misogynistic bastard who uses women as playthings he can discard at a truly unbelievable rate.”

I blushed, but used Satans praise to extend the olive branch to Hillary, “I still think Secretary Clinton’s the one to make the ultimate evil plan. Just look at her history, and not just the Clinton Circle of Death or the mass graves in the desert. Everything about the lady is evil, she just needs to channel the Dark Side that’s served both us and her so well in the past. Perhaps a change of venue, a short and completely under the radar trip to Moscow, would get the evil juices flowing once again. We’ve got a few extra clones in cold storage to cover for her while she’s gone, don’t we?”

Hillary noticeably perked up when Satan, a bit sheepishly, admitted as much. It’s usually not a good idea to let people know you had backup just in case they felt like killing you, but Hillary is a hardened veteran of a political process that’s makes such things look like child’s play, so she let it slide. Something she had been unable to do with the image of a bare-chested Putin, busy in the run-up to March’s election. They say the fourth time is a charm, especially considering that he gets to count the votes, but for some odd reason he felt he needed to give it his personal attention. Perhaps things weren’t a hunky dory in their bedroom as Hillary implies. But I’m sure months of repressing democracy has gotten him ready to do the same to any reservations he might have about dating Secretary Clinton.

“At this point I’m willing to try anything. You have no idea how embarrassing it is to constantly read about how the NWO and Deep State are pulling the strings of power, when in reality we can’t do something simple like get rid of a president who won’t toe the line. It’s getting so I can’t go out in public anymore without people staring and snickering.”

I would have told him that the stares would happen anyway, given the horns, and also reminded him that I was the one who had almost won the war before he pulled the rug out from under me, but I let it pass. You get more flies with sugar than vinegar, and even more yet with shit, so I laid both on thick. “Both Satan and Hillary are right on this one, so why not take his advice and let her take a short vacation to come up with something worthy of her evil career. And come to think of it, I could use a vacation too. There were a whole bunch of loose ends on Maui…”

“No, you’re needed here to coordinate Deep State activities. If we let up the pressure now, Trump will get suspicious. We can’t be tipping our hand at this critical juncture, so in the interim keep up the pressure with the pussy hats and payoffs to porn stars, as if everything was completely normal. And no more surprises, especially to begin the next chapter, and this time I really mean it!“

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

The Trial of Deep Knight
Another Inconceivable Deep Knight Adventure
Chapter 11 – More Surprises

With Hillary off to a romantic Red Square rendezvous with her paramour President Putin, I decided to undermine her position with a one-on-one with Satan. One good thing about the Big Guy, he’s easy to talk into thing when there’s nobody else around to provide a semblance of sanity. I wanted to point out that even though I understood his desire for our attack to remain anonymous, Trump was still certain to suspect it came from us, and with him that was enough. Part of the problem with dealing with a very stable genius, they’re so universally right they don’t need to think, just go with their gut. So, why not just start open warfare like we did last year? Who cares what he knows after we’ve won and replaced him with a more subservient clone?

The Prince of Darkness was inches away from affixing his fingerprint in blood on a US postage stamp at the bottom of the work order, when the news came in of a government shutdown! With the Deep State on furlough, we would have no troops available to take the fight to the enemy! Just when you’re sure the President is an idiot, he surprises you with a clever move like this. Either he’s the luckiest SOB on earth, or he can actually do the 4th dimensional mind chess thing. I was crestfallen, and as you know I pride myself on having a crest that resists flaccidity.

“Don’t worry, Deep, we have the Senate and House in our back pockets, and with a few vile threats they’ll get the government back up and running soon. How hard can it be?”

I hate to constantly depict He Who Must Not Be Named as being simple-minded and stupid, but his behavior forces it upon me. Herding the Senate is like getting cats to vote the way you want, and the House of Reprehensibles is even worse. Sure, they’ve taken an oath to Satan, but when push comes to shove you never know what they’re going to do. Afterwards it’s always, “I’m sorry, I must have said the wrong thing during the roll call vote by mistake,” but we know the real story and keep track of their betrayals (we use the same service that Santa Claus switched to for his Naughty & Nice database). One of these days there will be a reckoning, but of course, not until the government reopens.

Nothing is more boring that waiting for Washington to get its act together, so I went home for the weekend. By Monday doing nothing bored me, so I took a short drive to clear my head. I had some vague notion of breaking into Fort Marcy Park, a closed National Park Service site where Hillary likes to dump bodies, when I was surrounded by Federal Marshals. I had been so busy I had forgotten the still-open warrant due to the mix-up at my secret Guantanamo Bay Tribunal trial. I had hoped the splash of publicity would have clued the powers that be into the fact it was a “bum rap,” as the kids nowadays say, but I underestimated their fidelity to paperwork. If the odds had been less in their favor I would have shot it out or weaponized Illuminati hand signals, but knowing a bit about Federal Employees from my time in the Deep State, I decided to chance a verbal rather than a ballistic confrontation.

First things first. As all of you know, you should NEVER answer any questions posed to you by police during a traffic stop. By common law this makes you agree that they have jurisdiction over you, and also gives them permission to ticket or arrest you. I know that sounds stupid, but you can’t argue with established precedent. Instead you pose your own question in response. For example, “Sir, did you know you were going 20 mph over the speed limit?” you might reply, “Why are you using a bald-faced lie to try and induce me into wrongly incriminating myself?” This will do two things: One, clue them into the fact that you know what is what and they shouldn’t mess with you, and; Two, annoy the hell out of them. The second of these is your greatest ally, piss them off enough and they’ll make a mistake you can use in court. In my case I’m normally interested in using that mistake to get the drop on the arresting officers, but in this case, I wanted to do something more sinister that shoot them in the back, draw them into dereliction of duty.

So, when they asked, “Sir, will you get out of your car so we can cuff ‘n stuff you?” I answered through a narrowly-rolled down window, “I’m amazed you’re working, I thought all federal employees were off duty today, what with the government shutdown.” I also switched my car stereo to a talk radio station and turned up the volume and the bass. I have one of those super woofers kids use to cruise around neighborhoods waking people up on hot summer nights, and I knew it would amplify Rush’s baritone voice to the point it could easily be heard outside of my car. I’ve learned to do this quickly, which paid off since it was only a few seconds after my response/question before a very-beefy cop smashed my window, pulled me out, and threw me face first to the pavement. Sure they were still treating me rudely, but I noticed they were also listening to Rush rant on about the government shutdown and how lazy government workers were loafing at home instead of in their offices. A few of them pulled out their cell phones and started asking angry questions, I assume to their supervisors. By the time they had the cuffs on me and had loaded me into the prisoner van, I could overhear loud conversations about the shutdown, and their duty to the President, etc. Suffice it to say the “pick up some donuts and go home to watch the Smokey and the Bandit festival on cable” argument won out, and in less than a minute I was out of the handcuffs and on my way home. Reaching over to turn off the radio, I stopped short when they interrupted to announce that Congress had voted and the Government shutdown was over! Looking in my rear-view mirror, I noticed the cops that had arrested me driving the opposite way. But suddenly, and I have to admit surprisingly, they slowed down, made U-turns, and started their lights and sirens. My and their short vacations on the taxpayers' dime were over, and the chase was on!

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

The Trial of Deep Knight
Another Inconceivable Deep Knight Adventure
Chapter 12 – While the Rat’s Away

The chase was on, but luckily I both had a substantial lead and a turbo-charged street-racer under my behind. Much like the cars used in The Fast and the Furious, mine had hundreds of thousands of dollars of modifications, a really sexy paint job, and lights that gave it a neon-glow look at night. I led them on a merry chase, down busy uptown streets, the wrong way on a busy interstate, up busy downtown streets, and along concrete-lined almost-dry river beds. We even went up a high-rise building using the freight elevators, out windows in that building and in lower windows in an adjacent one, then down elevators to street level. Not as easy as it sounds, but my pursuers were good, and although many were killed, a surprisingly large number kept up with me. And without having practiced the cars-flying-between-buildings-and-hitting-just-right thing too! Still, there were many, many massive car crashes and police cruisers falling on innocent civilians like manna from heaven. The highways I chose once again became sickening rivers of swirling blood, yada yada yada. Not only does this always cause additional accidents by its slippery self, survivors found the hard way that the government hadn’t actually gotten the piranha in the nearby Potomac under control. One would think this had happened frequently enough that they would put some effort into eliminating them, but you know the people at Fish & Parks.

The carnage I wrought naturally caused every fire truck and ambulance in the DC area rushing to our location, most from the south. I realized that I could hear them but that my pursuers couldn’t, having their own sirens on. Turning that direction, I switched on my “gaz booster.” Like the NOx or Nitrous oxide use in the movies, mine was called POx and based on a Russian rocket fuel that proved too powerful to safe usage. Reaching 360 mph in a few blocks of acceleration, my crushed-by-g-forces body made it well past the next traffic circle before the other emergency vehicles arrived, almost all simultaneously. My pursuers didn’t see the fire trucks until it was too late, and neither did the ambulances that crushed them both from the side. Scores died, along with hundreds of the other injured victims I had left in my wake who could have been saved but weren’t, so I suppose they were my kills too. Anyway, I’m taking credit for them on my quarterly review (they like metrics, you know, things you can measure and numbers and stuff, that show yearly career growth).

But, after the blood drained and the smoke cleared (I didn’t mention the horrendous fires, did I? In my opinion they should ban flammable transporting hazardous materials through urban areas), I was still a free man, although my engine was running a little rough after the rocket-fuel injection. Exceeding the engine manufacturer’s recommendations by a factor of seven tends to do that. I tooled over to a Mason-run garage that specializes in repairing those tiny cars driven by Shriners in parades. Often and incorrectly called “clown cars,” they’re actually too silly for most clowns to drive, but on the plus side, no one in their right mind would think I would be using one as a loaner. So, putting on a red, tasseled fez, I drove to the office to get my sweet revenge – a full-out assault by the Deep State now that the government had reopened!

The Deep State command center was a beehive of activity, with everyone eager for a little payback. Hoping to strike a lightning blow that would settle things once and for all, we planned simultaneous assaults on the White House and Mar-a-Lago. There was no place the President to could hide, with the possible exception of Davos Switzerland. But as our troops broke through they discovered that that’s exactly where he had gone! A real man would take a stand and let the swamp come and kill him, but Trump was a kettle of fish made from a different cloth. Now, surrounded by world leaders we couldn’t kill because they were our own dupes and stooges, he was untouchable.

Frustrated, I went into Satan’s office and vented. Here we were, the shadowy forces that pulled the strings from behind the curtain, and we couldn’t take care of a two-bit real estate developer and reality TV star. Sure we controlled everything, but what good was that when the big cheese ran like sand through our fingers? If we didn’t take care of the situation immediately and with overwhelming force, pretty soon the centuries of fear engendered by our betrayal and backstabbing would count for nothing. As many a young girl has learned the hard way, it only takes a single small mistake to irreparably sully one’s reputation and prom dress.

In the middle of my senseless rant, Hillary returned from Moscow. As is her preference, she had used “the back way” through North Korea, and brought me a snow-globe-like souvenir that depicted New York with small ICBMs raining down instead of white flakes when you shook it. It was nice she thought of me, and had warned Satan in advance to wait to open his, some well-aged Kimchi, until he got home. But best of all, her “killer’s block” had ended, and she finally had a fiendish plan for removing Trump that worthy of the name!

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

The Trial of Deep Knight
Another Inconceivable Deep Knight Adventure
Chapter 13 – Aimless Meanderings in Aspic

Hillary always had many irons in the fire, burning symbols of housework is a feminist “thing” and you know her proclivities. Back in 2016 one of those irons had been forming a secret society of FBI agents who worship Hillary as a goddess, a common problem in liberal-infested law enforcement agencies. A Deep State within the Deep State, they had diligently worked on an unbelievably complex plan to steal the 2016 election. This was thwarted by their forgetting to do it, and instead releasing damaging information about Hillary 11 days before the election. Boy were some faces red at the agency over those crossed wires! Indebted to Secretary Clinton due to their role in this massive cock-up, they were fabricating a cut-and-dried case against the current POTUS.

But, as many of you have probably guessed, this was actually a red herring. When was the last time you heard about FBI overthrowing the government (I mean, in the legitimate press)? The secret society’s weapon wasn’t color of law but distraction. While the administration was fighting the Russia investigation, they were actually investigating the Administration’s links to The Greys. Trump’s base might be alright with him playing footsie with other Earth nations, but hanky-panky with extraterrestrials is frowned upon, even if they’re humanoids. Generations of movies such as Independence Day and Starship Troopers can be thanked for that.

It was at this point in her explanation that Hillary rubbed her hands with glee. Interstellar collusion would naturally become known once “full disclosure” of “first contact” was “let out of the bag.” Greys were pretty creepy to begin with, and once people found out they fed by bathing in a tub of pre-digested human body part “soup” their popularity would plummet, along with the President’s. Many people think there isn’t a line that mister “stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody” can cross when it comes to his base, but that’s because they haven’t seen what the supermarket tabloid covers Hillary’s already drawn up will look like. There’s simply no way to present anal probing in a way that appeals to the bulk of the rural population.

There was only one slight problem with Hillary’s little plan, it would also expose our Reptilian overlords! That they weren’t actually being overlordish was a tribute to Earth-culture’s and my own effect on the dual Pindars who lord over the overlording. And of course the millions of gallons of high-end liquid ammonia we shipped to the Reptilian Homeworld, where it’s kind of like their Grey Goose vodka. Overpriced and not really any better than cheaper kinds, it’s got this trendy reputation from being “expertly brewed from fully-ripe human urine that’s tripled-distilled at -28 degrees for a crisp, refreshing freshness” (sounds much snappier in the original Reptilian). I good thing that exposing would not only destroy, but would likely result in an interstellar war that would reduce the Earth to a burned cinder. If we were lucky to have that much left.

Hillary doesn’t take criticism easily, but she was still “relaxed” enough from her tsarist tryst that she waited a few seconds before drawing her weapons and thought about it. Seeing that her plan could “use a few tweaks and improvements,” she retired to the back of the conference room, where she worked diligently without a break. She even kept bathroom breaks to a minimum by using the potted plant again, although I suspect it was also because she thought it might be one of the shape shifted Pindars like before. But if indeed she was trying to send either an angry or kinky message it fell upon deaf ears, the potted wilted foliage actually being a plant. Her effort was apparently worth it, because she came back with an unbelievably underhanded plan, one almost too unethical even for Satan!

In a nutshell, the plan relied on us demonizing Russia, substituting them for probing-obsessed aliens in the public’s list of things that kept them awake at night. Sure it was a stretch, after all we had been friends since our newly-minted country sent John Paul Jones to Catherine the Great’s court to wean her off visits to the stables. What is it with loose empresses and sailors? Anyway, despite actual history, we would offer alternative facts that made it look like they were our enemies and that was the reason why they interfered with the recent election. I know it sounds silly, but if you repeat anything enough times people will believe it. Besides, not that it makes any difference, but Russia really DID interfere with the election. Of course it wasn’t for the unethical reasons that we’ve been falsely inferring through the mainstream press, but a simple matter of everyday under the table payoffs.

But how to re-write history? Hillary had used “Brave New World” as her totalitarian model, not “1984,” so had no experience along these lines. But of course, we Illuminati had. How else do you explain history books ignoring our primary role all these years? So she left that part of it up to us, and I seized that bull by the horns and kicked him in the balls by suggesting we start by falsifying records at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California! If we could make his warm and personal friendship with noted Communist leaders look like an adversarial one instead, it could start the ball rolling. As you know, we Illuminati always believe in attacking an opponent’s strengths, which is why it’s best to aim blows below Trump’s belt.

Hillary immediately caught on (she can be a fast learner when she’s not blinded by blood lust) and suggested the two of us lead a commando raid on the library that very night. We would dress as “first responders” so that the continuing fires, floods and landslides could serve as convenient cover. It would also give the Slice Girls a chance for a whole new look, ninja outfits might be sexier, but after wearing the same basic black at every mass killing for the last few years they were tired of it. In fact, they giggled excitedly as they tried on the heavy boots, baggy pants, and bulky coats emergency response personnel prefer. Arming ourselves heavily “just in case,” we were soon winging our way to the left coast.

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

The Trial of Deep Knight
Another Inconceivable Deep Knight Adventure
Chapter 14 – Rolling Double Sevens

We landed in Oxnard’s International Airport and made our way over the mountains to urban-blighted Thousand Oaks and the nearby presidential library. I had been there many times, despite how things might appear, Reagan was “one of ours” (duh, what else could possibly explain making it in both Hollywood and Washington?), and we used his crypt at the library often for Satanic ceremonies. If you’re shocked, don’t be, I’ve done the same thing at Benjamin Franklin’s, Henry Ford’s, Abraham Lincoln’s and the Devil knows how many other gravesites. Drawing down tormented souls to do our bidding and all that. And don’t look at me that way, I don’t make the rules.

Thousand Oaks had been in the midst of intercity decay for centuries, and was ruled by various gangs such as the Bloods, the Crips, Los Zeta Talkers, the Mambo Kings, and MS-13. But the most feared of all were the Merry Men, who, dressed in green, could disappear into the ever-present oak forest where the police dare not follow. Their leader, Robin, was known for what he did to anyone unlucky enough to be taken alive. Luckily we wouldn’t have to be dealing with any of them, or so I thought.

Security is tight at the library, but using Illuminati hand signals, or a silenced pistol where that didn’t work, got us painlessly into the actual records vault. There we found countless pictures of “the Gipper” in Red Army uniforms or wearing a speedo swimsuit and Che Guevara t-shirt. I had Hillary start counting them, with the rest of us destroying them as they were tallied. In the end I simply threw them up into the air for the Slice Girls to shred into confetti "on the fly." Then, after having the night janitorial staff clean up (also all "ours," it’s a plush gig), we started replacing them with our own photoshopped version of Reagan’s presidency. Our altered, er, alternative history had him calling Russia our enemy, acting tough, increasing military spending, and demanding the wall be torn down (this last one was my idea, I put it in as a dig just to piss off the current President).

We were almost finished when the attack came. Hillary and my clear thinking had led us straight into an ambush, or would have if the ambushers hadn’t been delayed by the gauntlet of Thousand Oaks gangs due to an unwisely-chosen travel plan (damn navigation systems). Wounded or fatigued, with their numbers vastly reduced, they were no match for the warmed-up Slice Girls. The Trumpist forces had the sense to retreat to reform, or it would have made sense if it hadn’t been into the thickest part of the forest. I understand meat was on the Merry Men’s menu for the next week.

Leaks, leaks, and more leaks. One of the many problems with having coworkers who are all irredeemably evil. I would have suspected Satan again, as you know he can never be trusted, but his wife Gladys’ jealousy can, and after I put a certain idea into her head last week she had been keeping an eagle eye on him and, let’s say, restricting his outside communications. No, it had to be someone else who had been clued in to our plans, perhaps even one of the team at the library. I put this worry aside for the moment, and readied our forces for continued treachery. At that time I didn’t know that the original forces had been butchered, and not only feared their counter attack, but reinforcements. You know how Trump hates to lose.

Being strategic, I gave the Slice Girls the next day off to relax. They went to Disneyland of course, it being at the other side of the Los Angeles area and thus only a 4 hour drive, and I understand had a great time blowing off steam. As an added bonus I won’t have to visit myself to remove those annoying Disney Princesses. The girls had gone in lusting for their blood, but they started talking, bonded, and the employees threw away their hot and heavy costumes and joined the girls in our defense of the library! They turned out to be an unexpectedly valuable asset, the physical demands of wearing the princess costumes had developed their muscles, and repelling the almost constant sexual harassment from Mickey and Goofy their reflexes. I was a bit upset at first, but I let them live, which turned out to be the good turn that later turned the tide.

The attack came at dawn. Not from the either-hiding-or-being-barbequed troops who “retreated” earlier, but some of the new-age Federal Marshals who were immune to Illuminati hand signals! And they weren’t dropping by for a visit to keep us from changing history, but for that Guantanamo Bay misunderstanding! Some days you just can’t buy a break. It also seemed that I was #1 on the top-forty fugitive list, which entitled me to pursuit by legions of NWO-hating flatfoots. I knew what I had to do, grabbed my cell phone and put in a call to my lawyer, Renfrew Dildo JD. Oblivious to our plight, he left me on hold for almost 10 minutes while our outer defenses, overwhelmed, pulled back to the library itself. Heavily fortified against unruly visitors, I knew that it holding depended on the firepower of our enemies. Since they primarily pursued escaped criminals, I knew they would have heavy artillery, but the helicopter gunships were a surprise. With fireworks going off all around us, I gave him Dr. Dildo a piece of my mind when he finally got around to taking my call. He promised to get right onto it, and I hung up feeling less than confident. At the time I thought it was the shell fragments that were barely missing my head, but later found out that the @#$! shyster had billed me for the time I spent on hold.

Things looked bleak, with heavy pressure on all fronts, and a La Niña system off the coast. Hillary and the Slice Girls fought hard and held the line, but our other forces started to waver after getting killed off. Kids these days just don’t have the port-mortem stamina our nameless minions used to. But it was no use crying over spilled salt, what I needed was rescue. But, being the middle of the night on the east coast, Illuminati Headquarters was staffed by the graveyard shift, and they were all out at the graveyard. I had Hillary call and sweet-talk Vladimir, and while he was willing to come, he no longer had commando forces stationed in California (damned that Trump). In addition, his transport planes were busy airlifting supplies to North Korea, which meant any help would arrive too late. I even tried calling my auto club’s roadside assistance number (as you probably know, they’re all run by us), but got put on hold once again. Things looked forebodingly bleak, when…

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

The Trial of Deep Knight
Another Inconceivable Deep Knight Adventure
Chapter 15 – Crapping Out at the Tide Tables

We had heard explosions and saw flashes in the distance, but I figured they were shells that our opponents had fired in the wrong direction. For some odd reason, the military system’s designers had laid out the controls exactly opposite those of old Game Boys and Nintendos, so it was a common occurrence during especially stressful battles. But I was strangely wrong, it was something different altogether.

Coming directly towards us in the gloom was a giant gorilla, easily 30 feet tall. He had a darkly-clad figure on his shoulder, who appeared to be directing the oversized monkey to destroy our attackers positions one by one. Soon what was left of their fire turned away from us, as they tried in vain to stop the humongous hairy ape instead. Taking advantage, Hillary burst out of the rubble and screaming like a banshee, led the Slice Girls on a counterattack. I actually think her initial aim was trophy taking, but following her example the Slice Girls went for mass decapitation too, effectively evaporating their will to fight. Federal Marshals were throwing up their arms and surrendering in droves. Too bad we had agreed not to take prisoners.

I would have assisted, but was still on hold. In my defense, the music they were playing while I was waiting was excruciating to listen to. But it didn’t matter, in what had been an amazing turn of fortune, victory was ours! Putting two and two together I had already surmised that the mammoth monkey was Kong from Skull Island, and the hooded figure was none other than Satan’s mom! I mean, where else are you going to get a gorilla that size? It appears that Satan should have had more faith in Dr. Moreau, even though I too questioned the effectiveness of R&D in the pursuit of evil just a few chapters ago. Something about mad scientific geniuses… Anyway, I was hesitant to meet up again with the lady who had caused me so much trouble in the past, to say the least. It would also have been dangerous, either because of the “woman scorned” thing or her unbridled lust and disdain for respecting other’s wishes, so I send Hillary to find out just how she and the monkey had come to rescue us.

Jumping ahead, it turned out that her being at the library was pure coincidence. Her ship had made it to Skull Island and found that the giant apes abandoned there so many years ago had grown considerably larger due to selective breeding. Basically, giant gorilla females like their boyfriends big, hairy, and violent, and this evolutionary pressure had resulted a monster the originally-Icelandic natives named “Kønĝ” but people without mutated vocal chords by necessity call “Kong.” A series of misadventures too unbelievable to relate had led Satan’s scantily-clad mother to a pterodactyl’s nest on the side of an active volcano, where Kong rescued her after spectacularly vanquishing the nest’s resident, two T-Rexes, and a gargantuan lizard that looked like an iguana with a fin glued on its back. It had apparently been love at first sight, and as they say, once you’ve had ape you don’t let him escape.

Now, many of you with an unhealthy interest in such things may wonder how, um, the physical act of love was consummated between the happy couple. I could tell you that even asking for details was sick, or that if I could process supermodels at the rate I claim anything was possible, but that would be evading the issue. In truth, this was a hot topic around the water cooler at work, and a bunch of people at the Deep State did some research. In the hours of film taken on the island, mostly of violent and bloody confrontations between Kong and dinosaurs, Kong and the natives, and Kong and the ship’s crew, there wasn’t a single hint of a “dangling appendage.” Apparently he was jumping and swinging around in ways that should have had, um, a certain other area swinging too, but the pictures reveal nothing. Dr. Moreau had worked his breeding magic in such a way that that part of the anatomy didn’t become quite as gigantic as the rest, which makes sense when you think about it. Such a huge thingie might be good for bragging rights at the bar on Saturday night, but when you didn’t wear pants, in combat it would be a definite weakness. Especially when your opponent is a lizard with nasty sharp snapping jaws. Anyway, you’re welcome to fill in the rest of the story, I had heard enough by this point and made Hillary fast forward to less disturbing topics.

Satan’s mom had glossed over the role of dangerous drugs in the success of her romance, but I’m sure you won’t be surprised when I tell you the gorilla had a monkey on its back. The deviant duo had gotten off the boat on their return and gone looking for a source of dhoogz, believing that Thousand Oaks would be a good place to shop. Assuming that gunfire was a sign of gang activity, they sought us out, and the rest you know. Luckily, an Illuminati pharmaceuticals warehouse (we have lots, keeps the cost down for our medical plan) was nearby, and they had the massive quantities needed, which I gratefully released to Kong’s kinky concubine.

I also found that she and Hillary had bonded, both having an almost endless series of stories to tell each other about how they had been mistreated by men. That Satan’s mom didn’t see her own behavior as being somewhat lacking in those qualities that make a good relationship doesn’t seem to have come up. I had Hillary offer them use the main lobby of the Reagan Presidential Library as a trysting place (the only room with a high enough ceiling), the better to keep an eye on them, while I bit the bullet and gave Satan a call back in DC. To say he wasn’t pleased was an understatement, but after getting both my ear and behind chewed off, he calmed down and listened to reason. In my opinion the giant ape boyfriend (I found out they don’t like to be called monkeys) was a blessing in disguise. He might have been an inferior species, but he had the right attributes for surviving her bad temper. And her getting into trouble would be reduced both by his jealousy and inability to travel easily (not even the roomiest first class seat is big enough). I don’t think Satan will ever get used to the idea of Kong as his new “dad,” but with her anxious to return to her place in Maui, at least he wouldn’t have to deal with it except at holiday get-togethers.

With momentum on our side, and the girls done stacking our opponents' severed heads in a pyramid-like pile at the entrance, I left the Disney Princess girls to hold the library and returned to headquarters. The princesses had been unexpectedly good at combat, with the skills learned in controlling hordes of manic children working well against Federal law enforcement. They were also anxious to join the Illuminati, especially Snow White who was bitter over what was apparently a toxic relationship with 6 of the 7 Dwarfs. Trump supporters all, I understand it’s got something to do with the size of his hands, she was looking for some second-hand payback. I told them they wouldn’t have long to wait for more action, because with Russia now perceived as “bad” all hell was about to break loose!

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

The Trial of Deep Knight
Another Inconceivable Deep Knight Adventure
Chapter 16 – Sweet Sixteen Turns Sour Sixty-One

When we arrived back at Illuminati Headquarters, Hillary excused herself to take a call from her “sweetie” in Russia while I went up to my office. Satan was waiting for me, and both grateful and angry. Grateful that Hillary and I had taken care of his mom, and angry that I had stuck my fingers a bit too far into his personal life. I always had The Prince of Darkness pegged as a mama’s boy, and figured that the real source of his anger was his mother’s attentions to her new boyfriend. This led to considering ways I could leverage this knowledge into more influence at work when Hillary burst in, in a panic!

“Vladdie-Poo” Putin had told the former Secretary of State that his boy, Director Sergey Naryshkin, was summoned to Washington D.C. this past week to meet with US Secretary of Defense General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, well-known as the calmest and least volatile member of Trump’s team. He was told that Trump is considering ordering the mass arrest of his “Deep State” enemies who are attempting to overthrow him in a coup. In other words, all of us. Vladimir’s “Troll Factory” team also had told the Russian dictator that growing “dark web” chatter and Trump’s tweets pointed to mass arrests occurring soon in America, because as everyone knows, one hand washes the other’s dirty laundry.

Hillary, not known to her ability to keep a secret, had already spread this information before arriving at my office, and the building was literally shaking as people stampeded towards the exits. I got on the PA to calm things, announcing, “Calm your things and stop right there! Think for a minute. Trump’s been threatening us like this for the past year, yet nothing’s actually happened. Well, hardly anything, and only if you count our secret war and my arrest, both of which we kind of sort of won. But the point is that the state of the Illuminati is strong, and with Satan at our back we will go on to victory! So, scoot your behinds back to your desks, before I have the guards fire indiscriminately at you.”

Never let it be said my honeyed tongue was wasted on supermodels only, my words and logic had the desired effect, and after only a few massacres of miscreant workers, the rest returned to business as usual. This included a little job Hillary had ordered done by our makeup and props department, which helped break the ice. Satan’s mother had given her a shrunken head from Skull Island as a souvenir, and she had asked that the hair be dyed a golden hue and styled to resemble our President’s distinctive coiffure. The resemblance was so striking, and the subsequent things Secretary Clinton did with the head so hilarious, that not only was the fear and tension broken, but the room was soon howling with laughter. She started by making the head appear to say silly-yet-obscene things in a high, squeaky voice, but soon went into areas of pantomime, a description of which wouldn’t make it past the censors. Old Man Rockefeller was rolling around on the floor, peeing his custom-tailored pants while long strings of snot ran from his nose and around his face. Satan was guffawing in that annoying way he’s famous for, and stomping the floor with his left hoof so forcefully the chart easel next to him fell over. Strangely, Baron Rothschild was stern and silent, either from not seeing the humor in the infantile display, or… I decided to go with my instincts and when the laughter died down after the Hillary had the head disappear down her pantsuit, I sprung my trap.

“So, Baron, Secretary Clinton’s little demonstration was not to your liking I see. One would think that a double agent skillful enough to have eluded capture all these years would have learned to hide his real feelings in public better. Which of course, you would have, but you didn’t. When you think of it, that’s really suspicious. I mean, why go to all that trouble to hint you might be a traitor just to prove you’re not unless you really ARE a double agent and the leak that’s been coming from the inside!”

Satan looked at me cross-eyed, but Hillary and some of the others caught on, both staring at the now-sweating Chairman of The Council of The Twelve and shifting to block his access to the exits. Seeing his goose being cooked in front of his very eyes, the old reprobate drew a Luger and grabbed the matronly lady who was the DuPont representative for use as a hostage. He apparently didn’t know she had worked her way up through the family’s chemical business when she was young, and had acquired a reflex response to getting grabbed inappropriately by captains of industry. A couple of punches to the jaw and a solid knee to the groin not only began a remarkably-effective combination of moves, but were enough to cause the Baron to drop his pistol to the ground. Hillary grabbed it, and after Ms. DuPont was finished was about to shoot the aging aristocrat in the throat, when I stopped her.

“He’s more valuable to us alive, dead men won’t tell us how they were recruited or who else might be in this anti-treasonous plot with him. Besides, torture is fun, and you can always kill him later.”

“You’ll never make me talk!” asserted the Baron in an unconvincing series of croaks and groans. Satan nodded to Secretary Clinton who used the toe of her sensible shoe to provide the maximum amount of discomfort on the part of the traitor on the floor. As happens in fiction, his attitude changed with a remarkably small amount of tissue damage or drag to plot development, and he blurted out a summary of his story.

“I was running out of money, it costs me almost a million dollars a day to keep up appearances. Especially since wine connoisseur have gotten wise to the fact that my Château Lafite Rothschild is actually the worst sort of swill and stopped paying almost $1000 a bottle for it. Trump promised me fiscal relief and advice on leveraging my brand, but only after the Deep State was brought down and Hillary locked up.”

“He wanted me dead too, no doubt,” I added, incensed, “With my head on a spike over Traitor’s Gate or some such nonsense.”

“No, he didn’t mention you,” said Rothschild, obviously lying, “and he had an assassination list 29 pages long.”

“Kill him now,” I instructed, “and feed his body to the dogs.”

Hillary had realized the wisdom of my original statement, and that now that we had found the second leak and with more questioning would have plugged it, we were sitting in the rat-turd, er, cat-bird seat and once again now was the time to strike! I called the airbase and told them to load up the bays and warm up the engines, daddy's goin' carpet bombin' tonight! Nothing, absolutely nothing could stand in the way of my wiping the White House and Mar a Lago off the map!

It was then Satan’s secretary came in, white as a sheet while also red as a beet. It was clear she had been crying, as clear as it soon became that my dreams of retribution were premature. “I don’t know how to tell you this,” she sobbed, “but they just released the memo…”

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

The Trial of Deep Knight
Another Inconceivable Deep Knight Adventure
Chapter 17 – The Final Vinyl

The memo! I have to admit that I hadn’t expected that, although I’m the first to confess that I don’t watch Fox News. Satan, clueless as usual, needed to be briefed (why he comes to important meetings “commando” is beyond me), so Hillary and I took him into his office.

“Why should I care about this Nunes memo, and who is this pipsqueak and why don’t we have control over him?”

“First of all, you’re pronouncing his name wrong, both ‘n’s are silent. And why you have to care is that the memo exposes our whole FBI investigation scheme as a scam! Because Hillary paid to dig up dirt on Trump, that dirt can’t be used to soil him, it’s simple “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine. An extension of the exclusionary rule, it’s an obscure precept of juris prudence but my family used to have a strychnine orchard, so it’s something I have experience in.”

Satan looked at me blankly and nodded, so I continued. “Basically, if you poison a tree, even by mistake, you can’t feed its fruit to the any member of the court, regardless of the fruit’s actual toxicity. For example, if a cop searches a suspect's home with a warrant that has a comma out of place, any evidence found as a result of that search, even kidnap victims, can't be used in court and have to be returned to the suspect. This instance is a bit different, and has to do with investigatory bias. Since a detective might be too zealous in pursuing a criminal he believes to be guilty, he can only stay on the case as long as he firmly believes the person he’s pursuing is innocent. For centuries guilty Illuminati have been using this simple ‘trick’ to get out of doing jail time and reduce car insurance rates literally overnight, but now the tables have turned.”

I could see this was way over Satan’s head, but one good thing about working for him is he’s too vain to hint he doesn’t understand, so you can lay it on really thick and he never realizes it. This trait was especially valuable as the discussion progressed.

“I’m afraid that this puts the cherry on top of our using Mueller’s FBI investigation to bring the President down, with or without whipped cream.” I summarized, “I’ll have to continue eating away at the basis of our republic from the inside. It’s not as sexy as a palace revolt, but as bad as it might be it’s gotten us where we are today and shouldn’t be rejected out of hand simply because it doesn’t work.”

“But, how can you do that when there’s a price on your head?” asked Satan, eating from my hand.

“Exactly, which is why I should step down as head of The Deep State and turn it over to someone with no scruples and time on their hands. I bumped into Barack Obama the other day at the super blue blood moon sacrifice, and he expressed some interest…”

The look on the Big Guy’s face told me this was an avenue I shouldn’t pursue any further. Even though he fixed the presidential election twice for the guy, his ethnic background still made The Prince of Darkness uncomfortable. Let’s face it, part of it is due to how he was brought up, and you know how resistant he is to changing with the times.

“Deep should bite the bullet, return to court, pay off the judge and jury, and take his medicine like a big boy,” suggested Hillary, “I know what it’s like to have unsolved murders hanging over your head. Pretty soon you find yourself covering up so much evidence you can’t remember what’s a lie and what’s the truth anymore. It got so bad I had to write the answers to the questions on the inside of my arm so I wouldn’t make a mistake last time I testified to Congress. Obama's to the point it doesn't fit, and has to use a teleprompter.”

I looked at Hillary in shock, wondering what could have made her turn on me like this. Then I remembered the title of this story, and my heart sank. But in the depths of my despair, an idea crossed my mind, making my scowl turn into a smile. "Since I’ve already been acquitted, all I have to do is have the judge remember the trial, sign the damned papers, and I’m home free.”

“You forget that dosing them with LSD immediately afterwards wiped their memories of that clean,” Hillary reminded me in that annoying “know it all” way that she has of being right. This made it all the sweeter when I one-upped her.

“Yes, but as you know, a second dose of LSD is sure to restore those memories,” I observed, “It’s kind of like getting hit in the head, alternate wallops apply then remove amnesia. This has been used as a comic device in movies for years; I remember this Donald Duck cartoon…”

“But, how will you be able to slip this to them when they’re at Guantanamo Bay? That place is like a fortress!”

“By taking your advice and going back to stand trial!” I announced, to audible gasps from my readers. “I’ll simply take a few sugar cubes along with me, hiding them you-know-where when they search me, but popping them out when the coffee tray comes around. I believe there are sufficient presidents for recessing a trial when the judge is tripping balls, and by the time he comes down, he’ll remember the previous verdict and finish the paperwork. It’s so simple it has to work, I mean, what could possibly go wrong?”

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

The Trial of Deep Knight
Another Inconceivable Deep Knight Adventure
Chapter 18 – The Chickens Return to Capistrano

To say that the guards at Guantanamo Bay Prison were surprised to see me is an understatement, especially back in my cell as if nothing had happened. In fact, that was my story, that they had simply overlooked my presence all these weeks and I had been too shy to speak up about what I assumed was a normal judicial delay. Even though I knew they didn’t believe it, as long as I stuck to it with a straight face they couldn’t prove the opposite and had to, grudgingly, accept it. The trial was scheduled for 10:00 AM the next morning, or in Gitmo street slang, “one zero hundred bucks.”

The same judge and jury as were at my previous acquittal were present, so I palmed the sugar cubes I had hidden well enough to fool 3 full-body searches one of those millimeter wave scanners on the way to the courtroom. Substituting them for the cubes on the coffee trolley, I knew they would remain undetected as long as nobody smelled them before tossing them into their coffee (the one drawback of my choice of hiding place), but what were the odds of that? I smiled to myself, anticipating that things would go the way I planned them, smooth and simple.

My first hint that I was a fool should have come when a breathless messenger from the White House broke into court with sealed orders. It turns out that President Trump, hearing gleefully about my “recapture” and trial, had once again remembered the scene from the movie “The Untouchables,” but at the same time forgot that he had already shuffled my trial’s court officials with the one next door. So, the idiot sent orders to do it again (or perhaps, the stable genius out did us at 4D chess once again, I’ve given up trying to tell) and they once more announced that we all needed to rise because Judge Anna was entering the courtroom!

Some days you shouldn’t even bother to get out of bed. Here I go through all the work of forcing a group of unwitting victims to go through a hellish ordeal to circumvent justice, and where did it get me? Out of the bedpan and into the fire, that’s where! At least I was going to get the pleasure of seeing Judge Anna freak out about 15 to 30 minutes after sweetening her coffee, unless …

Bad luck seemed ready to make an appearance for the prosecution as Judge Anna absentmindedly sniffed at the sugar cube she had chosen for her freshly-poured coffee. I held my breath and time seemed to stand still, the fear of exposure and failure altering my perceptions of reality. How’s that for irony? I could only hope against hope that she had a cold, or perhaps allergy to one of the many flowers sent by my enemies and crowding the courtroom. But, when I saw her eyes open suddenly and widely while her arm drew the cube almost by reflex back from her nose, I realized I had failed. Regrets over mistakes that might cost you your life are never pretty, but they were nothing compared to the mentally-debilitating panic. A panic that once again made me fear I was losing my grasp on reality. So you can see why I thought I was seeing things when, with a big smile, she grabbed 4 more of the cubes and stirred all 5 into her hot and now-electric mug of java.

Judge Anna, probably the wordiest magistrate in common law, rambled on and on with her opening comments, which were mostly about how wrongdoers would get theirs now that she was back on the bench. I will be the first to admit that some of her statements were so far out I had a hard time decided when the LSD actually took effect, but it certainly had to be before she stared at the bailiff and told him his face was melting. Decorum disintegrated after that, with so many outrageous occurrences that I hesitate to describe them for fear of overburdening this story with weirdness. For example, Judge Anna clothed in only in her unmentionables trying to tie-dye her already-black judge's robes brighter colors. Dr. Dildo got the worst of it, being bound and gagged in the chair next to mine at the defense table. In fact I suspect he hadn’t moved since the court last convened. Judge Anna had been giving him the evil eye, but now in a seriously-altered mental state, that eye started to change into something a whole lot more amorous. Not that this caused her to ungag or release him, just take advantage of his inability to run or object. Or, have an opportunity to get cleaned up. Please forgive me if I avoid going into further detail, it’s the sort of thing anyone who’s ever had to “put down” a dog wouldn’t want to relive.

Needless to say, a mistrial was declared, especially after a 3-judge panel reviewed the video transcript. But military justice moves slowly, and that wasn’t until the next day. In the meantime, my “Acid Trial” continued through the night without adjournment, but with plenty of wild abandon. Sure, most of the things I saw were shocking and burned images into my brain I will regret for the rest of my days, but then again that’s my job. I only wish the aging Officers of the Court had found some other hippie music to dance to from the “Summer of Love” besides that “White Rabbit” song. “One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small,” my ass. Sure, they had saltpeter back in the 60’s, but Viagra wasn’t invented for another 20 years. Sorry to be so picky, but they played it over and over again, and so loud that it prevented me and my lawyer from getting any sleep. And we both could have used some rest when the trial restarted yet again the next afternoon!

The Judge from the preceding morning was back again, looking bleary and bedraggled. He was as fresh as a daisy though compared with Dr. Dildo, who was dehydrated, starved, carnally drained, and in need of a long, hot shower. Realizing he would be more of a liability than an asset, I slipped him my suicide pill, and asked to be allowed to represent myself as the ambulance crew tried to revive him as they wheeled him out on a gurney (those of you who have followed him through my adventures will be sad to learn that he didn’t succumb, and tragically recovered). The judge accepted my request, and if a lawyer who defends himself has a fool for a client, I had gone above and beyond that high standard.

I started my defense by calling for a mistrial. The investigation, I argued, had been tainted by the investigators discovering evidence of my guilt. This violated the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine that Jeff Sessions, JAG Numero Uno, had just argued on live TV was sacrosanct when it came to trials and stuff. The very Jeff Sessions who was the prosecutor in this case and at that moment nursing quite an “acid hangover.” You’ll note that I didn’t include any of his outrageous drugged-out behavior in my earlier description; it was so outrageous that I was tempted, but effective blackmail requires discipline. Anyway, he countered his previous assertion by arguing Hoc ergo erat, quod nunc, “That was then, this is now.” Good, but in my opinion not good enough. Still, as the judge retired to chambers to review legal precedent and watch his favorite daytime soap opera, I waited with baited breath, knowing my future rested in the hands of the Fates. Fates that hadn’t been kind since I stood them up for a night with the three Graces (I also had an offer from the Seven Arts, but it had been a long day and besides, sometimes less is more). Only time would tell.

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

The Trial of Deep Knight
Another Inconceivable Deep Knight Adventure
Chapter 19 – Headless and Starry-Eyed

“I have found an established precedent,” announced the gravel-voiced Judge upon his return, “in Goose vs. Gander, California Supreme Court Proceedings, volume 197, page 3561. The court found for the defendant, stating, “What’s good for the Goose is good for the Gander.” I’m afraid I have no choice but to release this sorry excuse for a human being back into a society that rightfully reviles him and everything he stands for.” He gave me a sly wink, banged his gavel peevishly, and announced, “Case closed. Next! Number 61?” As he turned, I noticed a reptilian tongue dart out of his mouth for just an instant, and realized that one of my friends the Pindars had shape-shifted to once again play the judge, no doubt killing and eating him in his chambers before returning his “ruling.” It’s good to have friends with special talents, especially when you’re desperately trying to sew up a story that’s already gone on way too long.

I restrained my unrestrainable joy just long enough to get clear of Guantanamo Bay, but then it was time to party! The Pindars were along and particularly gregarious, I don’t believe that anywhere near as many people had simultaneously joined the mile-high club before, but for some reason Guinness book people don’t keep such records anymore. Anyway, a good time was had by all, except for those outraged by outrageous public displays, or that sweet old lady who was overlooked and never asked to join in. What can I say, if you wanna be bad you gotta learn to speak up.

We arrived back at headquarters to find it up in arms. It seems that Trump never sleeps, and initiated an early-hours Tweet storm and raid on the Reagan Library, stubbornly clinging to the idea that winning means victory. Disney Princess Snow White was on watch, and wisely withdrew her troops in a way that lured the black-suited squad into the building’s lobby where Kong and Satan’s mom were still camping out. Delays due to immigration red tape about irregularities with the way Kong entered the country, don’t cha know. Anyway, Kong was both asleep after a late night and one of those guys who is REALLY crabby when he’s awaken suddenly. The commandos never had a chance, and between ripping them apart and squishing them between his toes, the attackers soon saw the futility of ground assaults. Even the machine-gun-armed biplanes they used in a last minute attempt to neutralize Kong failed when the massive ape climbed up the library’s clock tower and literally swatted them out of the sky using a larger-than-life-size bronze statue of our 40th president.

I would have expected Satan to be beside himself with worry, but he was uncharacteristically calm. I think he was impressed with Kong’s taking care of his mother and actually starting to warm to the big, hairy guy. He flew out to Thousand Oaks and survey the scene, having a tearful reunion with the woman who gave him life, and if rumors are true, a perverse group thing with the Disney Princesses where he ended up wearing each one of their work costumes in turn. To each his own.

Satan may have thought the whole incident was wrapped up, but I wasn’t done yet with the paper, ribbon, or bows. Sure, I had agreed to eat away at the legitimate government slowly, but also realized “slow” was in the eye of the beholder. For example, a “slow night” would be one where I coupled with only 100 supermodels. Taking this as my cue, I was set to redouble my efforts, and the plans were almost complete when Satan returned. I anxiously awaited an opportunity to present my conspiracy to him, and almost ran down to his office when I can the call. Unfortunately, I never got to even broach the subject. The Prince of Darkness had used the flight back to review last year’s financials, and he wasn’t happy.

“Do you know how much your little war cost us?” he whined, oblivious to the fact I had manipulated him into thinking it was his own idea. “Look at this line item for bullets alone! What are they made out of, gold again?”

“That was silver and only after your son-in-law George reported that The Forces of Righteousness had perfected a werewolf potion,” I explained, as if to a child, “but in actuality he had fallen asleep watching the SiFi Channel. The bullets you’re referring to were perfectly normal lead ones, it’s just that we had to use a lot more of them. Action sequences in recent blockbuster action movies have raised the bar for promiscuous shooting, and the last thing we want to do is disappoint our fans. Think of it as the cost of doing business. You’ve gotta spend money to make money, and it’s not over until the fat lady pulls the chain and flushes.”

It was no use, the Prince of Cheapness wasn’t having any. You would think it was his own money, not the company’s (perhaps there’s truth in the rumor he bought BitCoin at its peak, has taken a huge bath, and has dipped into the till). It was, “Why do we use tanks that burn so much expensive diesel?” and, “That’s seems like a lot to spend on nerve gas,” for what seemed like hours, with the suspicion that this was all a prelude to having my war budget slashed becoming more certain by the minute. By the time I left Satan had imposed a near-starvation budget on my Deep State forces. Assassinations halved, no more paying for protesters to attend “Women’s Marches,” and nuclear warfare was out of the question. Ouch. ALL expenditures would need to be approved by him, and our next to goals were threatening a government shutdown and having stock prices take a dive. Underwhelming. Sure, I know that “slow and steady wins the race,” but unlike my girlfriends who will wait in line for hours, I’m not known for my patience. When I want things, like the overthrow of the legitimate government, I want them now! Infiltrations, false flags, October surprises, and tunnels from Texas Walmarts to underground bases might set the stage, but I’m the kind of guy who will fast forwards to the final scene of a porno movie just to see how it ends. You might call me impatient, even reckless, but if it wasn’t for people like me who believe in doing wrong and not just thinking about it, imagine where the world would be today.

So, the next time you complain that the forces of evil aren’t overthrowing the government fast enough, walk a mile in our shoes. At least we plugged our leaks, or I think we did. Again, trust issues with all of your coworkers being evil. And the distracting problems with Satan’s mom seem to have finally worked themselves out. Heckle and Hyde, still 16, were upset at first at their return, having been basically unsupervised for weeks. I understand heavy-duty cleaning was necessary and their favorite coach was hauled outside and burned. But then they found that Kong liked their video games, extra-large pizzas, and that the boys’ 16-years-old-&-cute girlfriends could wrap him around their fingers. So, whenever Satan’s mom threatened to “lay down the law,” the girls would giggle at Kong, he would beat his chest and roar, and a compromise would be reached. Not your typical household, but probably the least dysfunctional part of He Who Must Not Be Named’s family.

The End

[Deep Knight]

The Trial of Deep Knight
Another Inconceivable Deep Knight Adventure
Chapter 20 – Didn’t This Already End?

It was the kind of rude awakening that you get when a flash grenade is thrown through your hotel room window, but even more so. Luckily, I had given up sleeping nude when the wife gave me lacy Kevlar “footie” pajamas for Xmas and I decided to please her by occasionally wearing them. I shook off my sleepiness, grabbed an RPG launcher, and let one fly at the helicopter hovering outside our window before they could get off another Hellfire missile. Bullseye. I quickly checked with Velna to make sure she was OK, and then gathering her and our luggage up, left the hotel before it was consumed by the fire started by the crashing gunship. But we weren’t quite fast enough, although we escaped with our lives, the agonizing screams of the other guests as they were burned alive really got on our nerves.

I don’t know about you, but I like to leave my work at work when I come home at night. I mean, working for the Illuminati is stressful enough when you’re breaking the laws of man and god from 9 to 5, but afterwards it’s Miller time! This running the Deep State and being a target of the entire might of the United States was starting to get old. I needed to have a talk with the Big Guy one of these days.

Coincidently, the Prince of Darkness called me into his office to talk about exactly that subject the next morning. He too professed concern about my work load, and talked about making a new, better position as a reward for all the trouble I had gone through. I immediately smelled a rat, and after a bit of cat and mouse, soon found out I was right about all 3 types of fauna.

Satan’s mother was getting tired of Kong hanging around the house all day, bored and underfoot or goofing around with her “we’re really 33 and don’t have to go to school” former bodyguards. She had asked her son to give him some high-level position in the family business, which he thought was crazy but you know how mothers can play the guilt card. This backstabbing was done for all the wrong reasons, but after some consideration I decided that it may have inadvertently been an inspired choice! After all, he had shown he had what it takes, twice, at the Reagan Library, and living with his chosen paramour would keep his martial skills in top form. The only question was his communication skills, grunts, groans and roars being good for some things, with an office environment not being one of them. Satan seemed to read my mind and added that his son-in-law George would be moving over from heading the Planning Dept. to be Kong’s assistant. Most days they could work remotely, from a seaside command center with really high ceilings we would start building next week in an exclusive part of Maui (“cost savings are job one” my ass). It was close enough to be an easy commute, but far enough away Kong wouldn’t always be dropping by home in the middle of the day.

I was OK with this. Let’s face it, I had milked most of the honey from conspiratorialists’ Deep State revelations, and was getting bored. More importantly, Deep Knight is a winner, and a winner is used to winning. The Deep State was too perforated by leaks and hobbled by having its hands tied to make a quick job of it, and those who know my history with supermodels know how I like “quick.” Unfortunately, Satan looked at changes in my career as a way of solving family problems, and that included their recent expenses. With a smile he announced that I was being “promoted” back to my old position thwarting prosperity and such, but with a new, impressive-sounding title and a reduced salary. Did I mention no reserved parking spot in the executive lot? The skinflint covered the pay rate and parking privileges in passing, as if he expected it to be overlooked, but I wasn’t going to stand for two doses of disrespect in one day. He Who Must Not Be Named needed to be reminded of who he was dealing with.

“Why does Kong need a parking spot? Not only can’t he drive, he can’t even fit into a car. In fact, he couldn’t fit into the garage!”

“It goes along with the job. What can I say, Deep, you know how it is, my hands are tied,” he lied unconvincingly.

“That’s too bad, because the Spade and Archer were really upset when I used Velna as a chauffeur a few months ago. They didn’t blame me, knowing I was in a bind, but you. I had a hell of a time convincing them that you were my friend and not trying to show me, and through me them, disrespect.”

“But they’re such happy-go-lucky guys,” protested Satan, “surely they don’t get mad or hold a grudge.”

“You’ve got to be joking!” I lied, “That’s just part of their shape-shifted personas, what they think we want to see and hear. In reality they are the angriest, most ruthless creatures in the universe. I have to convince the Pindars on an almost daily basis not to cut their losses by destroying Earth and going back home. You have no idea how touchy they really are, and how much harder it becomes with every passing day. Now with this…”

“Did I say we wouldn’t give you an even better parking spot and a raise, say double, no, ten times what you got before?” asked Satan, paler than I’ve ever seen him before, which made his face sort of a bright pink. “And as to your new job being the same as your old job, I meant to say you would be supervising that job, but from a level high enough it wouldn’t involve any actual work. How would you like to be the new Chairman of The Council of The Twelve?”

I smiled at the thought of being “Chairman of the Board” and a thorn in both Satan’s and Trump’s side. Just because the Deep State had gone underground didn’t mean I didn’t still have a personal score to settle with the “orange eminence,” and of course you know how I really feel about Satan. But I was a field agent, a man of action, not someone to sit around all day abusing power and playing with other people’s lives in ways that go beyond sick. Wait a minute, that might not be so bad, and I could use a change that lets me spend more time at home with the kids…

“I’ll take it,” I announced, “as long as you give me the title of Baron Rothschild to go along with it. And a castle somewhere nice. And the go ahead to use the Knight family motto on my crest, “Nos Mentiri, Fallere et Furantur!” or “We Lie, Cheat & Steal!”

Satan nodded his assent, and I was off on a new adventure. Taking the executive elevator to the highest level of the lower depths, I strode across the board room’s plush carpet and took the seat at the head of the table. “You all know me, so while I might be the new Baron Rothschild I’m still the same old Deep Knight, only now you’ll have to call me your lordship and curtsy. So, what’s on the agenda for new business, and why the @#$! haven’t you already brought me Trump’s head on a platter?”

Keep a sharp eye or two out for the next Deep Knight adventure, “The Sorrow and the Committee,” coming to a supermarket checkout display near you soon!

[Deep Knight]

[Deep Knight]

The Return of the Mad Monk
Another Unconscionable Deep Knight Adventure
Prolog – The Pyramid of Evil

I, Deep Knight, was now Baron Rothschild, Chairman of The Council of The Twelve, executive board of the Illuminati, an organization so evil it was the jewel in the New World Order’s crown. Me, a small town boy from the Midwest whose father was an ordinary “deep cover” agent and part-time saboteur at the local munitions factory, and mother an assassin and home-maker. Is this a great country or what? Think of that the next time you bad mouth America, the land that gave me this opportunity to destroy it from within. Call me an old fashioned phony who lets his own self-interest excuse his hypocrisy, but where I was brought up some things have never gone out of fashion!

As you know, the council represents the twelve ruling families or “Illuminati bloodlines” which are thirteen in number. This is the reason there are 15 members, one of whom is appointed Chairman. Although only having one vote, he can still control the council through his authority to mimeograph off the agenda and order the others’ summary executions. By custom and bribery, the chairmanship has gone to the Rothschild line for over 250 years, ever since the House of Habsburg got kicked out when Satan discovered just exactly how they were getting their famous jaws. A long, pointless and disgusting story you should definitely hear, I just hope it doesn’t get edited out.



I know it sounds unlikely, but they checked it out on that “myth busters” show and, sure enough, it missed the apple on top of William Tell's son's head every time. Using a non-flammable lubricant is the key. Not that I’m suggesting anyone try this at home, look what it did to Emperor Franz Joseph and he had been trained since childhood.

Anyway, the New World Order is like a big pyramid with Satan, the Evil One and Chief Executive Officer, on top. He, in turn is “counselled” by The Council of The Twelve, who represent the Stockholders (traded publically as NWO on the NYSE, ask your 401K manager to add some to your portfolio today and watch it grow). Then on the next level there are The Synod of The Seven, The Chamber of Ninety-Nine Elders, the Committee of 300 (The Olympians), The Queen and her Ladies in Waiting, The Kitchen Cabinet, The Nameless Ones, The Trustees of the Five Families, “The Twenty-Three,” and a plethora of lesser-known ruling bodies of secret conclaves, congresses, and numerical values. Everybody’s got an opinion. Next come the giant, soulless corporations the people love so much, below them the rich 1% (99% of which are ours), and at the bottom hard-working Americans who only want a shot at making their lives better so they can move into the 1% and exploit others too. The kind of story unique to America, or it was before we fixed the system so that only those with the right bloodlines ever got ahead, but touching none the less.

In this pyramid, power flowed from the top down and money from the bottom up. For example, everyone on the next level below me is required to enlist 3 new members who pay a “membership fee” of $30 each, $10 they keep and $20 they send to me. This reimburses their original $30 membership fee, and once enough members are recruited below them they start to make HUGE amounts of money from getting those $20 fees sent to them and not me anymore. Honest, it’s gonna happen soon, any day now.

Also like a pyramid, the organization could easily suck the life out of its host organism, killing it. So, throughout the ages, we have carefully limited the pain and suffering we inflict on society, keeping it a level modest enough it doesn’t kill the goose that’s laying the golden egg, but high enough that it’s still fun. This requires the sensitive hand of the surgeon with the scalpel, not an axe in the hands of a hockey-masked fiend as is envisioned by our detractors. And, as the new Chairman of the organization that pulled all the strings, the hand on that blade was now mine.

When you’re not used to operating a new piece of equipment, driving a new car with all sorts of buttons and knobs you’ve never seen before, or trying to land that jumbo jet because the pilots passed out from food poisoning when they both chose the fish – rule number one is “change the controls slowly and don’t make any large or sudden movements.” Well, Deep Knight has his own rule number one, which is to ignore rule number one above! Those who have followed the Illuminati’s work will realize it’s a testament to evil and inhumanity, sure, but also to opportunities lost. And once lost they’ll never come back to life again, unless you dig them up and get them to the lab before the next full moon, of course. In other words, I didn’t need a light touch on my scalpel, but to use it like a machete and cut our way out of the mess centuries of mismanagement have gotten us into!

This doesn’t mean there isn’t a human side of this job, and as chairman the other members of the council are like family, with me as father comforting them and solving their problems. And, of course, deciding their fate should they get caught violating our most sacred rules once too often. It was with these responsibilities in mind that I took an early morning call from Hillary, former Secretary of State and representative of the Clinton Crime Family, who sobbingly asked if she could come up to see Velna and me in our plush new penthouse (comes with the job). We gave the go ahead to the guard at the private elevator, and went to the door to greet and console her, but she was inconsolable. Throwing down a photo or a picture in an ornate gold and silver frame, she pointed an accusing finger at it and made an accusation that shocked even Velna! And she had just seen me half naked and unshaven!

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

The Return of the Mad Monk
Another Impermissible Deep Knight Adventure
Chapter One – Do I Have To Spell It Out For You?

Laying in front of us was a typical Eastern Orthodox Icon in an over-the-top frame that made my blood boil. Simple frames are definitely the best, not only don’t they detract from the artwork, but are much easier for the servants to dust. Not that the portrait was any better than the frame. For one, the halo was made of gold leaf, which made the piercing eyes even more unnerving. For another, huge bushy beards like that had gone out with ZZ Top. I assumed, correctly, that the icon was Russian, and incorrectly that it had been a Valentine’s gift from Vladimir to his girlfriend Hillary, who was appalled at his bad taste. I decided to tease her about it.

“He had your portrait painted, how nice!”

Hillary looked at me like I was from another planet, and then turned to Velna. “It’s a portrait of Rasputin, I found it in the files at the FBI while I was over there partying with senior management. Anyway, we got tanked and decided to riffle through J. Edgar’s personal files to see what the little pervert had that might be good for a giggle, when we found this along with a personal letter from the Mad Monk himself. It seems that Hoover had sent him a fan letter and request for a publicity photo, and he kept it under his pillow while he slept. Always blamed the commies for his death.”

I nodded in agreement, and to not look stupid after my embarrassing faux pas. “It was more than that, rumor is that he had heard about the Rasputin-Satan thing and you know how he felt about Satan. It wasn’t just that “breach of promise” with his widowed-but-still-hot mother when he was young, but I’m sure that’s where it started.”

“Rasputin and Satan?” asked Hillary, inquisitively and with an inflection at the end of the sentence that made me certain it was a question.

“Yeah, they had this alliance once, but you know how jealous Satan gets when someone gets a lot of ink in the press because he’s considered more evil that the Evil One himself.”

“So he knew him, I mean, personally?”

“They used to be the terrors of St. Petersburg. Out dancing and drinking like Cossacks all night, then causing government collapse by day. If you ply the Big Guy with enough vodka and get him started telling those stories, it’s hard to stop. Especially about the practical jokes he, Trotsky and Lenin used to play on Stalin. Sick stuff, but hilarious!”

“I haven’t told you the most important thing about the letter,” said Hillary in a breathless tone, “It was in Vladimir Putin’s handwriting! I would know it anywhere!”

“That’s ridiculous,” I sneered, “Rasputin’s been dead for over 100 years! He was poisoned with both arsenic and cyanide, shot six times, stabbed, castrated, bludgeoned, and drowned. Now, someone may have survived one, or maybe even two of those, but all seven? Not to mention the almost 150 years old thing, which like the castration, one would think a lover would notice. Gotta be a coincidence, perhaps they had the same penmanship teacher in Siberian elementary school.”

Hillary looked a little sheepish, especially about the castration thing, but went on, “I also thought about it being a coincidence, but what about the name? ‘Rasputin’ is simply ‘Putin’ with a ‘Ras’ added as a prefix. And as you probably don’t know, the prefix ‘раз’ in Russian is pronounced ‘raz’ and means ‘un-, de-, or dis-.’”

“Oh, like in 'раздева́ть' (‘razdevátʹ), the verb to undress,” I replied understandably.

“I didn’t know you spoke Russian,” interjected Hillary.

“Only a few key useful phrases,” I admitted. “So, then Rasputin means the ‘un-Putin’ eh?’

“More like ‘de Putin’ or ‘dis Putin,’ as in ‘de big one,’ or ‘dis and dat.’”

“It still doesn’t make any sense,” I confessed. “You’re just getting paranoid. Maybe you should cut back on smoking weed for a while…”

“Or maybe I should talk to Satan!” said Hillary in her own startling confession. “He’s probably the only person alive today who knew him, with the possible exception of Saint Germain, but you know how he feels about me and the Illuminati.”

“He was going to work from home today, something about getting the dungeon ready for a romantic Valentine’s Day night with Gladys. I know he thinks this will make up for his dalliance with the North Korean Olympic cheerleading squad, but I suspect their youth, skinniness, and sheer numbers will keep the wife mad at him for at least a week, so what the hell. We can always lie and swear it was an emergency.”

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

The Return of the Mad Monk
Another Untenable Deep Knight Adventure
Chapter Two – Does this Bow Tie Make my Ass Look Big?

The Prince of Darkness was still in “do it yourself’ mode when we met him at his office, wearing overalls and a tool belt filled with screwdrivers, wrenches, and pliers. It’s common knowledge that his “playroom” equipment gets a real workout, and maintenance is key to having it ready for use when the mood turns romantic. After all, having to fix a broken chain or not-tight-enough nipple clamp in the midst of passion can put a damper on the evening. I expected him to be angry, but if he was his interest in telling stories from the Bolshevik Revolution overcame it. This, of course, started with his “you won’t believe it, but the October Revolution actually happened in November” spiel, but after some constructive coaxing, he focused on his intimate knowledge of Rasputin.

“Yeah, Grisha and I were close at one time,” admitted Satan, using the Russian nickname for Gregori, Rasputin’s first name, “but then he decided to go independent and start his own business to market a boutique line of evil conspiracies. A chain of outlets, actually, some owned by him and others franchises. A decent business model, and one that could have brought enough cash flow into Russia to keep the monarchy afloat, so of course it couldn’t be tolerated. I hated to do it, after all Lenin said that the scurrilous rumors about him and the Tsarina were as valuable as a division of armed revolutionaries and ate a whole lot less. But, no matter how valuable you are, you can’t just flaunt the rules like that in public and expect to get away with it.”

I winced a little, thinking of the many run-ins I used to have with members of upper-level management before I purged them, and how The Evil One had probably said the same things about me once. Luckily he never did anything about it, and Hillary changed the subject before he remembered.

“What I need to know, is have you ever met anyone since that reminded you of him? And not necessarily his face, that huge black beard effectively covered it, and besides, there’s always plastic surgery. No, something about his voice or body language and gestures, or …”

“Voices can be changed with plastic surgery also,” Satan reminded Hillary, “like we did with Barry White’s squeaky falsetto so he could have those sexy disco hits. But now that you mention it, there was always something about Putin when shirtless that seemed familiar… But no, given the latter’s age, it couldn’t be. It has to be a coincidence.”

Hillary almost jumped out of her pantsuit, and quickly explained her other “coincidences” about Putin’s name and handwriting to Satan. I could tell that the fact that her theory was physically impossible generated a bit of healthy skepticism, but the Big Guy had enough respect for and fear of Hillary to give her a hearing. Then, realizing that if it was true it would be incredibly valuable to know, he quickly authorized me to direct the Illuminati to find out. As Hillary had hoped, his knowledge of Rasputin’s closest-guarded secrets provided a fool-proof means of identification.

As students of history know, Rasputin was not only the “Russian Love Machine” but intimate with the royal family. Not “love machine” intimate mind you, despite what the sick rumors said, but intimate enough that he sometimes joined the princesses when they sharpened their pet dogs’ teeth before feeding defenseless peasants to them. At one of these festive events, Princess Anastasia’s little cocker spaniel “Cujo” somehow bit Rasputin in the right nipple, leaving a small but distinct V-shaped scar. Satan’s idea was for us to somehow get high-resolution pictures of this nipple, using both normal and infrared “film” (how many times to I have to explain digital photography to him before he “gets it?”), and then show them to him.

Hillary went one better, and invited Satan and Gladys on a “double date” that night with her and Vladimir, who would be landing shortly at JFK in NYC on the QT. They would join them in box seats at the Broadway musical “Wicked” (which I’ve heard Gladys has been dying to see), and Hillary would find some excuse to get Putin out of his shirt while they were still all together. If the Big Guy was absolutely sure about the scar, the two of them would use interrogation and light torture to learn the rest of the story. It was an underhanded betrayal, but when a girl like Hillary thinks she’s been dating a younger man and then finds out he’s older than her by almost 80 years, it really puts a ding in her self-image and she just HAS to know.

The moment of truth came during intermission at the bar next to the theater, where I was posing as the drama critic for GRIT, "America's Greatest Family Newspaper." Scrupulously maintaining my journalistic cover, I was heavily made-up and crawling inside of a bottle of Old Overholt when they finally appeared. The two couples had ducked in for a few quick drinks before the curtain rose again, and at the urging of Hillary and Satan had challenged each other to get up on the bar and see who could do the sexiest couples striptease. You would think she had learned her lesson about undressing in public after the size of our cost-plus invoice for covering it up during the last election, but you would be wrong. Anyway, Hillary insisted that they go first, and to howls and cat calls from the crowd, got into a uniquely strange bump and grind (did I say they had “a few” drinks? Perhaps I underestimated). Once “Hill” got “Vlad” down to his tighty whities, she increased the gymnastic gyrations of their dance such that her partner’s upper chest was front and center to the Prince of Darkness’ view. He took full advantage, standing and carefully inspecting every inch of Putin’s glistening upper body, much to Gladys’ obvious displeasure. She kept poking him with a sharp seafood fork she keeps in her purse for just such purposes, but to Satan’s credit, he kept focused on his task. After a close brush with Putin’s upper right side (they had started to tango, and Hillary was “dipping” him), the Prince of Darkness sadly shook his head “no” and sunk back onto his bar stool.

That might have been it, but Ms. Clinton isn’t the type of lady to take “no” for an answer. She later told me that it had occurred to her that Putin might using makeup to hide any telling scars. Using her legendary upper-body strength, she forced Vladimir into an even deeper dip, slowly and roughly licked his right nipple with her raspy tongue, and twisted him so the newly cleaned areas was almost in Satan’s face. The Big Guy initially looked annoyed at her persistence (or maybe he had just realized that he and Gladys were up next), but then suddenly and without warning he got this shocked look on his face, drew back, and loudly whispered, “Grisha?”

Vladimir started to answer in the affirmative, but then stopped before the first syllable of “Da?” had left his mouth. His face and chest turned pale, and he slowly got down off of the bar, then put his head into his hands and started sobbing uncontrollably. The patrons were all deathly silent as we led him outside and into a waiting taxi, and to Illuminati Headquarters where he unloaded the whole, perverse and frankly unbelievable story.

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

The Return of the Mad Monk
Another Unpardonable Deep Knight Adventure
Chapter Three – Da Big One

Vladimir’s story, or should I say Rasputin’s, came in bits and pieces between tears and sobbing, and of course was in his unique heavily-accented broken English. To spare my readers, I have rearranged the story to fit a coherent timeline, fixed the grammar, removed the Cyrillic spellings, bridged its many gaps, and completely re-wrote it in my award-winning style. Not that I actually embellished it anywhere that it wasn’t necessary in order to make it juicier, mind you. So, without further ado, here it is.

“I was born in the small village of Rossignolski in Siberia in the year 1869. My poor-but-dishonest parents spent much of my childhood in jail, so I was raised by my relatives and occasionally wolves. It was a happy time of bitter cold, ice and frostbite, but it was not to last. When I was 17 my parents were released from prison and started a mail-order ‘diploma mill.’ Since the entire family was illiterate, it was decided one of us needed to learn to read and write for such a scam to be successful, and I drew the short straw. Sent to a monastery in nearby Olinski, I was forced to work in the kitchen during the times I wasn’t in class or studying. However, this allowed me to steal a little food now and then to supplement our meager student rations.”

“I had problems with the crazy backwards letters in Cyrillic script at first, but soon learned enough that I had planned on leaving during spring break. Then, one night I had these incredible religious visions that led me to repent my wicked life and join the priesthood. A year later, when the same type of thing happened to all the monks who ate the mushroom soup, I discovered that the real source of my visions lay in Brother Demetri’s poor eyesight and my hasty selection of vegetables to steal the evening after he had gone out foraging for fungi in the forest.”

“Disillusioned, I decided to return to a life of crime, only this time in the new age religious business. Things like séances, faith healing, astrology and yoga-cize were all the rage, and I worked my way across Russia from east to west doing everything from telling fortunes to selling ‘Dr. Feelgood’ patent medicines. I finally ended up in St. Petersburg, conning aristocrats and church patriarchs instead of dirt-poor peasants, and life was good. That was until I met Matushka.”

“Matushka means ‘mama’ in old Russian, and that is what I used to call the Tsarina, Alexandra Feodorovna. At the time there was this woman wrestler in Moscow who used that name professionally, and I thought they looked very much alike. I kept that to myself, of course. She was actually a German Princess who had been imported for the job, the domestic variety having been a little too ‘picked over’ by Nicholas’ many cousins before he had come of age. She enticed me with her wealth and credulity, and by the time I found out she was actually a ticking time bomb packed with ‘crazy,’ it was too late. The worst thing was the constant nagging. If it wasn’t ‘heal my hemophiliac son right now,’ it was whining about wanting victory in WWI. And I was trapped, unable to leave because they kept throwing so much money and so many women at my feet. The money I spent on vodka, and the women I liked because your feet are always cold in Russia. I threw lavish parties, drank like a fish, and my life became one ‘lost weekend’ after another.”

“Finally, I was invited by Prince Felix Yusupov and the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich to an intimate little party at the Prince’s condo. A notorious transvestite and polo player, the Prince was one of the richest and kinkiest men in Russia, so I felt I couldn’t refuse. Well, you know some of the rest of the story, how they betrayed and assassinated me, killing me seven different ways, the last drowning when they dragged me onto the Petrovsky Bridge and dropped my still breathing body in the Malaya Nevka River. I was found under the ice, 20 yards downstream, the next day. They assumed I was dead, of course.”

“But Prince Yusupov was not only a coward, which is common amongst polo players, he was a bad cook. Afraid that I might live due to too small of a dose of poison, he baked huge amounts of arsenic into some sweet cakes and added equally large amounts of cyanide into some sweet Madera wine. I ate unbelievably-large doses of three of the world’s most toxic substances, arsenic, cyanide, and refined sugar, yet I lived! They had to kill me 5 additional ways before they thought it took. But they were wrong! I woke up in the St. Petersburg morgue, aware of what had happened to me, really, really chilly, and thirsting for vodka and revenge!”

“There is a school of thought in homeopathic medicine that says a very tiny dose of poison is actually good for you. Something about structuring water or trace amounts of like curing like, I never quite understood how it was supposed to work. It does though, but there’s more, and it’s known only to those who practice the dark arts. If HUGE doses of poison are taken, they can make you immortal rather than kill you! But it’s got to be the right mix of poisons, taken during the right phase of the moon, and followed by multiple murder attempts to ‘activate’ it. Such a bother that there are few witches who will do it anymore, and you have to pay through the nose, but I’m living proof that it works!”

“I killed an innocent peasant who had a beard like mine, and dressing him and my clothes left him in my place in the morgue. Then, first shaving and then getting some plastic surgery, I adopted a whole new look. Biding my time, I aided first the Mensheviks‎, then the Narodniks, moving sideways to the Octoberists, then Beatniks, and finally settling on the Bolsheviks. For some reason I can’t recall I went after the royal family who had been good to me instead of the Prince and Grand Duke who killed me, but you know how complicated politics can be.”

“After the revolution, I joined the secret police, who were first called the Cheka, then GPU, OGPU, NKDV, NKGB, MGB and finally KGB. Every time they changed their name I would change mine and the city I worked in, moving up the chain of command by falsifying records as I went along. This way nobody noticed the fact that I never aged. Finally I reached the pinnacle of the KGB, its director, but then the Soviet Union and Communist Party came crashing down. So I’m an authoritarian conservative these days, and getting some payback against the party that failed me. At least that’s what my psychoanalyst concluded before I had him silenced forever.”

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

The Return of the Mad Monk
Another Intolerable Deep Knight Adventure
Chapter Four – Davy Jones Rents a Locker

“How could you Vladimir! Or Grisha!! Or whatever the @#$! you're called!!!” Hillary spit out venomously. “I loved you but you never even trusted me enough to tell me your true name, much less your real story! Was I just your plaything, or was it that I’m a First Lady of the United States, and dating me made you feel important. Like when you did god-knows-what with your Matushka, the little bitch!”

Crooked Hillary was jealous of a woman who had been dead for almost 100 years! This kept getting better and better! I couldn’t believe my luck at being present to witness this, and just sat back, content to soak it in. Also, I was pretty sure Vladimir hadn’t recognized me yet, and in his emotional state I doubted he would unless he heard my voice. Not that I’m afraid of him or his KGB buddies, but why get on the wrong side of a remorseless killer if you don’t have to?

“Lapochka!” replied her until-a-few-minutes-ago lover, using a term I later found meant “sweetie pie,” ”It is you I am to loving for self, not because you being once FLOTUS. Never really like Tsarina anyway, she was smelling funny and to being wery big pain in ass.”

“Don’t you Lapochka me!” snarled back Hillary, knives coming out of her eyes. “And what’s all this about you having been castrated? When were you going to tell me about that? Huh? What did the mixture of poisons do, grow it back, just smaller? That’s right, I’ve heard stories! Ladies still gossip about it in the locker room, saying it compares favorably with a baby elephant’s trunk, but just look at it now! I’m no fool!”

“Is, how you say, ‘urban myth’ from old ‘fake news’ only reporting in failing Moscow Times. Is exactly same size, which is wery big! Your J Edgar Hoover from FBI write memo that say there no castration or collusion, and can prove! Will be having troll factory flood social media demanding ‘release the memo’ with hashtag.”

“I know how J Edgar felt about you, so don’t try to pull that wool over MY eyes!” she fumed, getting angrier with each reasonable explanation. “You said you were murdered seven ways, and if one of those ways wasn’t castration, then what was it?” Hillary tapped her foot peevishly while Vladimir readied his answer, mouthing words and counting on his fingers.

“Was arsenic, cyanide, refine sugar, shoot, stab, beat, and drown. Is seven!”

“So castration was used as a sugar substitute? How sick do you think I think people are? And, if that was true, why would you say you were killed five more times AFTER you pigged out on the Prince’s poisonous potions and pastries?”

“Slipping of tongue. Bottom lines, is all, like American street racers say, ‘original equipment.’”

“Original FACTORY equipment!? How could you? Now I’ll be forever haunted by the vision of your missing dang-wang-woodle, er, wang-dang-doodle being replaced in one of those horrible pre-revolution Russian factories! I would have preferred a quick death…”

“No! Is what born with, only get bigger, which perfectly normal part of growing up for boy. Is wery much true, how you say, ‘no additives or artificial ingredients of any kind.’ Am to loving you, never make cheap and sordid by using something not really me!” Putin grabbed both sides of Hillary’s head with his bear-like hands (so much larger than Trump’s), stared into her eyes, and almost crooned, “All to knowing I must have you, love you, cannot living without you. Zvezda Moya,” softly in his trademarked honeyed voice, and kissed her deeply with a lot of tongue. I’m not sure what the phrase meant, but it was probably sappy, and I could see that Hillary was weakening. I know their age difference seemed to be insurmountable, but I understand they had been having nights that would make a Cossack blush and you know how women think with the brain that’s below the belt instead of the one above the neck. Putin’s real identity was a shock, but it wasn’t anything a couple hours of sweet talk, a few dozen roses, begging, and a string of screaming orgasms wouldn’t cure. I tactfully withdrew from the Council of The Twelve’s meeting room, motioning to Satan and Gladys to follow. Gladys caught on right away, but had to prod her husband in the behind a couple of times with that fork of hers before he got up, no doubt he was hoping they would start either physically fighting or doing the nasty, and in either case wanted a front row seat.

“We’ll have to cover up the whole thing at that theater district bar, of course,” mentioned Satan as the three of us sat in his office. We were all a bit stunned by the evening’s revelations, and it took me a second or two to respond.

“No worries, I had arranged to have everyone in the bar killed before the evening even started. As we speak they’re staging it to look like a perfectly ordinary mass shooting so people won’t notice, I doubt it will even make the front pages.”

“You don’t suppose we could drop by for a peek? After all, technically date night’s not over,” asked and noted Gladys, squeezing the Big Guy’s hand. I keep forgetting that she’s not an actual agent of evil (except when it comes to her binge shopping), and is still able to enjoy blood-soaked murder scenes because she doesn’t associate them with the drudgery of work. I gave my enthusiastic OK, called ahead, and the two of them ran off, giggling. I had the feeling that Hillary and Vladimir weren’t the only ones who would be walking funny from “overdoing it” the next morning.

My prediction about the Russian dictator’s physical aches and pains proved true, but when he finally dragged his sorry ass into my new, plush office he also had that hang-dog look one associates with watching someone else eating your lunch. It was Satan’s fault, of course, he had forced the Russian dictator into renegotiating his many “deals” with the New World Order, squeezing him using a little technique he likes to call “blackmail.” Luckily, Putin not only didn’t know about my part in last night’s drama, but thought it was simply a coincidence that Hillary had licked off the make-up he carefully applied to his right nipple at just the right time for it to be seen by the only person who would recognize it. I crossed my fingers and hoped the fool would remain clueless, if he knew he could easily take my betrayal the wrong way. At least I didn’t have to worry about Hillary blabbing, if she can keep her mouth shut about her role in what happened to flight MH370, she can keep quiet about anything.

“Why don’t you want the Russian people to know you’re Rasputin?” I asked, playing dumb. “Over here you’re actually quite popular, for example the North Coast Brewing Co. makes an Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout, and what do Americans like more than beer?”

“You are to not understanding Russian peoples,” he explained. “Sexy bare chest is good, strong dictator is good, rich billionaire is good, one and half century old is bad. In election next month, lose all of swing wote and erode base, so must make deal with stinky horned devil. Shitskis!”

“You’re not falsifying the vote, like we do in this country?” I asked, shocked and surprised. I was actually a bit more surprised than shocked, having “been around,” but was shocked just enough to honestly list both.

“Of course, but…” he said, as a light seemed to come on slowly behind his eyes.

“And,” I clued him in, “with you-know-who you don’t actually have to go through with it, only bluff. He thinks he’s a great deal maker and negotiator, but he folds like a cheap low-thread-count sheet when push comes to shove. Still, it’s not wise to go too far, I suggest you give him some little deal sweetener that will let him claim victory and save face, but not really affect your bottom line. Complain loudly and bitterly, which will get him woozy from thinking he’s got you by the short ‘n curlies, then close the deal before he has time to think. I’ve done basically the same thing a dozen times.”

I know I shouldn’t mess with Satan’s plans like this, but Vladimir had not only saved my life, having him both in power and friendly to our evil cause was good for the long game. Satan was too used to only being concerned about short-term profits to understand that you had to think 5 to 10 years out if you were going to survive in this business environment. And with us having found out that Vladimir was immortal, it might be a very long game indeed! Besides, it’s fun to mess with the Big Guy now that I have the power to do so, you would too if he had put you through even half of the ill-thought-out schemes he had involved me with over the years.

To be continued…

[Pottapaug1938]

"Zvezda Moya"? You, of all people, after all this time, don't know what it means? What kind of Illuminatus are you, anyway?

The phrase means "my star". In other words, of all of the women who offer themselves to you, as an Illuminatus, hoping to grab even a scrap of your power and influence, a "zvezda moya" is your go-to snuggle-bunny. She (or he, if that's your preference) is the one with whom you are strapped onto those bed-topped generators, at each Illuminati clubhouse, to save the Chapter money on electric bills while you... you know.