INTRODUCTION 9 page

In a world of limited resources and complex rules regarding their distribution, collection, and expenditure, knowledge, he knew, was power. He chuckled lightly to himself as he remembered his clueless high school chemistry teacher writing that in his yearbook: “Knowledge Is Power.” And even then, he had known the corollary: “Power Corrupts. Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.” So, if you were ultimately going to be corrupted anyway, why not start out that way? It eased the path.

And let’s be clear what is meant by evil. Selfish, underhanded, maniacal depravity with the sole focus of gathering power for greater and greater selfish, underhanded, maniacal depravity.

People always undersold evil. Your boss, whoever he may be, is not evil. Evil does not golf. It does not listen to management books on tape in traffic. It does not hatch diabolical plots to get a reserved parking space or rush to grab the cream‑filled doughnut at a staff meeting in a conference room with comfy, adjustable chairs. It does not offer vacation time, sick days, 401(k) plans, or health insurance, no matter how crappy. It does not obsess about its receding hairline. It does not count paper clips or goof off at the water cooler.

Evil eats what it kills and sometimes eats what is still alive, even if it’s not really hungry. It always wins or it destroys the game so that no one else can. It works constantly, relentlessly toward its own ends.

Your boss is not evil. You could kill your boss. You cannot destroy evil.

To win, he would need to be evil.

He had no problem with that.

Click.

Gafnar shielded his eyes and looked about the landscape. It was a barren and vile place. No water but the salty sea that had spat him onto this foreign shore. No vegetation but the blackened husks of trees burned long ago, offering no shade, no fruit, no fuel to ease his journey. The land itself was rocky and cracked by drought, a gusty wind tearing the last remnants of topsoil and blasting it into his burning eyes. Other than a few others like himself, the only creatures moving across the face of desolation were the rats. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, of ravenous rats, rampaging toward the fresh meat that had been tossed ashore by the storm and lay quivering in shock. He was that fresh meat, an offering to the rats. But Gafnar did not accept that fate; he did not even hesitate to ponder his fate. He did not wait for the horde to come to him, biting and gnawing. No, he moved toward the foul vermin and began to kill, expending every bit of strength he had left in a frenzy of death to celebrate his own life. Only later did he learn that he could eat the rats, skin their hides, loot their nests for shiny valuables. These benefits were worthwhile, but the killing was essential.

Rule No. 2. Hard Work Is Required to Become the Ultimate Overlord. Most people, he knew, played at life. They skimmed along doing the bare minimum needed to continue on their mediocre existence. They lived to joke and entertain themselves and their friends. They had no purpose, no drive. They didn’t play to win. They played not to lose or, worse yet, just to enjoy the game.

Clint believed such creatures to be beneath the rats. Competition not only fueled society, it fueled the soul. It made life interesting.

No one gives ultimate power to someone else. To do so would be to demonstrate that they didn’t want it, didn’t deserve it, never really had it. Power must be taken. By force, by stealth, by sleight of hand. It is not handed out by derelicts distributing coupons. It does not come as a free prize in a cereal box. It cannot be won by lottery. To obtain ultimate power, you must first have power over someone or something besides yourself. Someone gullible. Someone weak. And then you must increase that power person by person, item by item, place by place, until there is no person, item, or place that is not within your power.

Any humdrum nature video on public television will tell you the lion starts with the weakest of the herd, killing and eating those that are the easiest to bring down and devour. But the baritone narrators seldom note that, as the king of the jungle grows large and strong and hones his skills in the hunt, he may move on to faster game. He may join with others of the pride to stalk and panic an entire herd and send them rampaging over a cliff to their destruction, where they may be eaten at leisure. The lion does not join with others out of altruism or subservience, but to his own advantage. And when the drought comes, he does not hesitate to stalk and kill fiercer creatures, even man.

Most of the others that were not devoured by the rats moved quickly inland, seeking more hospitable environs, but not Gafnar. He feasted on the rats and on the mayhem for as long as he could and then he waited. And when others like him were thrown on the shore by new storms, he quickly moved to kill and devour them before they could get their bearings, before they could begin their journey, before the rats could devour their life force. And only then, when he was strong and fast, did he move on to new hunting grounds, bloody muscle in his fist, veins in his teeth.

Rule No. 3. The Ultimate Overlord Has No Friends. “Now that you’ve made it off the beach, dude, we should connect up,” chirped Jason over the wireless headset Clint was wearing as he made his way through the game. “I’m in the hills to the east. My avatar is called ‘Alexander.’ Jason. Alexander. Get it?”

Clint sneered at his computer screen, shuddering at the banal chatter. “Sure,” he lied, “My avatar is Vrod. Keep an eye out and let me know by e‑mail when you see him. My headset is fritzing out on me.”

He knew many people associated with friends as they made their way in the universe, but he could not understand how a true Ultimate Overlord could do so. An Ultimate Overlord poses as a friend to others, but they are never his friends. He chats amiably, sympathizes with their petty complaints, drinks their wine, eats their food, and makes them believe there is a bond of mutual affection and trust. They are a resource to be gathered and husbanded and guarded from thieves in the night and then to be used or consumed or sacrificed to the enemy to gain escape or advantage. They are to be betrayed when it is to his advantage.

And if any one of them should remind him of himself, he is to be betrayed first, before he betrays. The Ultimate Overlord has no friends because all friends may become enemies.

In these more prosperous lands, men gathered together, some for defense, others for attack. Gafnar joined a roving band of attackers and learned their ways and their weaknesses. And then, when it was to his advantage, he slit their throats in the night and took their belongings and moved on.

The process repeated itself, though the betrayals varied. Some allies he killed himself; others he pitted against his enemies or left to fend for themselves when a greater force attacked.

His favorite tactic was to volunteer to act as a roving reserve for any battles. When the fighting started, he would hang back, presumably to be ready to go where most needed, but actually to assess the fighting skills and weapons of both his companions and his foes alike. If the battle went well, he would wade in just before it was over, like Russia declaring war on Japan near the end of WW II, to help finish off the adversary and share in the spoils of victory. If the battle was going poorly, he would slink away and let the attackers wear themselves down killing his erstwhile companions.

He was not stupid. He didn’t tip his hand. He always appeared to be a cooperative companion to his supposed allies. He listened to their advice and learned their ways. He imparted information that would not harm himself. He fought when he needed to fight, but only if he had the advantage.

He let others die to save their friends, to save him.

Rule No. 4. Always Loot the Bodies. Waste not, want not. That’s what his mother had always told him. And she was right. So many people let so much pass them by because of social convention or morality or political correctness. Relationships, opportunities, money on the table.

He had shown he had no problem with hostile takeovers, cutthroat business dealings, holiday firings, pension fund raids. Of course you hit a person when they were down. That was when they were most defenseless. That was when they couldn’t hit back. That was when hitting them meant that they would never get up again.

And then you raided their workforce, you bought up their patents for pennies in bankruptcy. If you were lucky, you could scour the paperwork from their last desperate months and find that they had done something that crossed the line of legality in their efforts to save their business; then it was an anonymous letter to the trustee or the SEC and they spent the rest of their miserable lives fighting to stay out of prison instead of hating you for your success at their expense.

When the battle was done, Gafnar would circle back and ambush the wounded and weary victor (or wait until the victor wandered off to rest and heal) and loot the bodies of the fallen. He would steal coins and gems and magic and treasure and weapons. He would thieve the boots from their feet and the half‑burned torches they carried. If the loot was more than he could carry and quickly hide away in some secret spot, he would destroy what he could not steal. Better for loot to be destroyed in a pyre of flame than to let others have it after he had left.

Of course, there were exceptions. Sometimes he would leave some loot behind. Not out of kindness. Not out of fairness. But to lure his competitors to the booby‑trapped body and their demise. And then he would steal from them.

And just in case someone out there was clever and evil and competitive enough to do the same, he would always firebomb from a distance any body he encountered that he had not seen fall with his own eyes. Then he would loot the crispy husk. Sure, you could lose a little treasure that way, but the most valuable items did not readily burn.

Besides, he preferred his meat cooked. Why should even that go to waste? Protein was protein.

Rule No. 5. Accept Luck; Make More. He didn’t control the universe, not yet. So things were bound to happen for ill or good that he did not control. He had learned long ago to take such things in stride. He felt no guilt for benefiting from the whims of fate. Should his competitor suffer a strike or a fire or an unwarranted investigation, so much the better. Of course, a tip here or an envelope of untraceable cash there could always make your luck better. Don’t talk to him of morality or fairness. An Ultimate Overlord must be evil, remember? All the circles we move in jostle one another. All universes affect one another.

Cheating is fine, as long as you don’t get caught.

He clicked onto eBay and fingered his credit card.

For reasons that Gafnar could never comprehend, others that he did not know came to his aid. They intervened in his battles, they laid tribute at his feet. Some said that it was because he was favored by the gods, but he knew no reason why that should be so. Some said that it was because his reputation had preceded him into unknown realms of the universe, but it seemed unlikely to him that he had a fearsome reputation. He had always let others fight for him whenever possible, maintaining as low a profile as possible to avoid becoming a target. Sometimes he suspected these others who helped him to be sinister plotters out to befuddle and betray him. In such cases, he would slip into their yurts at night and slay them. But even when they awoke, they did not attempt to stay his lethal hand.

It was a strange world, but he could live, even prosper, with that.

Rule 6. The Ultimate Overlord Has No Family. Family members are worse than friends. They are friends chosen not by choice, but by biology. Worse yet, they are friends with expectations. They want goods, but offer nothing in trade. They want protection, but offer nothing toward the common defense. They wish to share in the prosperity of power without helping to create that power.

Not only are they unworthy friends, but they easily become the pawns of others. They are potential usurpers of the throne, figureheads about which others may rally the mindless masses. They peddle access, real or imagined, and increase their power from the scraps beneath your table. They create ties and obligations, or, at least, expectations. Wasn’t that what the legend of King Arthur was all about? Never trust your spouse, never trust your sister, never trust your son. The classics could be so educational.

He stared at the yellow Post‑it Note stuck to the side of his flat screen. “Call Mom,” it nagged. Screw that.

As friendships and prosperity grew within groups in the more hospitable climes, some took blood oaths of brotherhood or created clans or mated to produce offspring, but not Gafnar. He needed no brother; he did not wish to share his wealth or power. And, so, he moved on, questing inland to the wild lands of danger, trusting not to family to protect him, but hired minions who would do his bidding for minor treasure. He did not use his minions wastefully‑no resource should be squandered‑but he used them to protect himself and his wealth. He took care, however, to never gather a force large enough or strong enough to threaten himself. There was no sense in paying for your own overthrow and murder. And whenever a minion began to gain power and sway the others, he was given the most dangerous assignments, until one day he never came back.

Rule No. 7. The Only Power Is Used Power. Potential energy was okay for physics class, but kinetic energy caused things to happen. It made levers move, wheels spin. It crushed objects below and inflicted pain where it hit. Any resource not expended was a resource wasted.

Clint remembered a class from college about strategic nuclear weapons and the concept of mutually assured destruction. His classmates marveled at the madness of building more weapons than were needed to destroy the earth completely. He wondered at the waste of trillions and trillions of dollars and rubles and the coopting of the best and brightest of the world’s scientists to create what ended up being enormously sophisticated storage sheds for radioactive material. At some point, at some time, one nation or the other had the edge and could have obliterated its enemy forever, had it only the will to use the weapons on which it had expended a notable portion of the nation’s gross national product.

Oh, a threat can be a use of power, but only if it accomplishes getting someone to do something you want them to. A threat that maintains the status quo is an empty suit.

Truth be told, Gafnar liked to kill. He relished it. But he didn’t really like to fight. And if he could not get his temporary allies or his meaningless minions to do his fighting for him, he killed as quickly and as devastatingly as possible. He liked to blow things up. Explosions were fun. And if he didn’t have a handy bomb, there was always magic or poison.

Any weapon not used was a weapon that could be used against him.

Rule No. 8. Evil Is Smart, Never Silly. Clint never hid his light under a bushel. He didn’t understand the point of self‑deprecating humor. He would never wear a Star Trek uniform to an annual meeting or strike a wacky pose for a newsmagazine cover. If you didn’t appreciate his genius, then you were even more stupid than the average peasant. But he also never understood the point of telling others how smart he was. Let them figure it out too late. Let them think they had the upper hand.

At first, he had watched the chat boards for the game and their endless debates as to what an evil, all‑powerful overlord would do. He would build a lair with ventilation shafts too narrow for the hero to crawl through or he would line the ventilation shaft with crushed glass or lasers or bubble wrap and on and on and on. As for Clint, he wouldn’t have ventilations shafts; let the minions slowly suffocate in hot, carbon‑dioxide laced air. But he didn’t bother to say so on the chat boards. A real overlord would never tip his hand.

He stopped perusing the chat boards. He turned off his IM and let the e‑mails gather unanswered. He had more important things to do.

Gafnar roamed an increasingly deserted landscape. His minions scattered far and wide, but reported few powerful beings. Those that were found, though, he directed subtly toward each other, goading them to battle, watching one fall, then lobbing in missiles from a distance until the other fell. He built no castle, planted no crops, designed no heraldry. Instead, he roamed the land, gathering power and expending it to eliminate his rivals.

Rule No. 9. The Ultimate Overlord Destroys All Enemies. Every petty tyrant the world has ever seen has enemies. He rails against other nations and peoples and leaders in an effort to unite his own people and wage war. But, in doing so, he increases the power of his people and the risk to himself. An Ultimate Overlord is ultimate because all his enemies have been vanquished. Anything else is an Ultimate Overlord in training, a wannabe, a pretender.

No peace is negotiated except to gain a later strategic advantage. No coexistence is tolerated except while one marshals his own forces and sends spies to poison the enemy and sow discontent among his populace. No mercy is granted, for mercy shows weakness and caring, neither of which has any place in absolute power.

What cannot be destroyed must be bought. What cannot be bought must be destroyed. If an enemy sues for peace, agree immediately to meet, then slaughter the envoys and march on the capital at once.

What is the point of a halfhearted war? What is the logic of seeking only partial destruction? What is the mercy of prolonging the battle before the victory is achieved? Either you are willing to kill for what you want or you are not. Evil is not tentative.

Gafnar monitored closely those who, like him, gathered power and knowledge, men and materiel, magic and munitions unto themselves. He bribed with poisoned gifts, attacked without mercy, using his fiercest and most dangerous troops, and demanded tribute from all he conquered. He agreed to civilized rules of engagement, then ignored them at every opportunity. He waged total war; no respite, no surrender, no civilians. What he could not take for himself, he turned to ash.

He assumed that all his adversaries were as evil as he and punished them for their treachery, whether it existed or not. He did not hesitate to use his more powerful weapons and magics. He held nothing in reserve. He showed no honor. Victory or death were the only options. All else was for wimps.

Rule No. 10. Only an Ultimate Overlord Can End War. He always, always rolled his eyes when he heard the feminists say, “If women ruled the world, there would be no more war.” For as long as there is envy and jealousy and good things to be had, there will be war. Someone always wants, even if they have enough. Someone always is willing to take. Someone is always willing to try to stop them.

Whenever he heard the idealists talk of peace, he would recite to himself the poem he had once heard, many years before:

If all men were chickens,

there would still be war,

because chickens are mean

and fight for food.

If all men were cowards,

there would still be war,

for those in fear lash out most quickly,

lobbing rocks from cover.

If all men were women,

there would still be war,

for a woman scorned

deals destruction without mercy.

But he knew now that an Ultimate Overlord could end war. By gathering all goods to himself, by eliminating all family members who would seek to share in his goods, by destroying all enemies, and by destroying all friends who might become enemies (and minions who might become friends), he would eliminate war, for there would be no one left. All power, all goods, all places, all things would be his, forever.

The game would be won.

And when the last enemy had been destroyed and the chaos of battle still reigned on the field, Gafnar set his troops upon one another in the darkness, each targeting the other from a distance with magics and explosives. Then he poisoned the water and let loose an agent of death upon the winds to take any that might linger still. And he sat in the high tower of a captured castle and knew that he had become the Ultimate Overlord, for nothing moved upon the land.

That was when Gafnar realized that there was an endgame, that he now had a choice.

Having conquered the world, he could now become a god and create a new world in his own image. He rejected that immediately. Doing so would put at risk everything he had accomplished. Even worshipers were dangerous. Hadn’t the devil once been an angel who had gotten bored?

He could commit suicide, guaranteeing that his gains would never be eroded. But what was the point of there being only one, if you just gave that away?

Or he could sit and survey his empty world and know forever that he had won.

That’s what an Ultimate Overlord would do. Evil never gave in.

Clint leaned back in his desk chair, his eyes leaving the plasma panel for the first time in more hours than he could remember. How long had he played Ultimate Overlord? This session had surely stretched for days. The dark outside the windows of his high‑rise penthouse confirmed that it was night and the accumulation of empty soda cans and boxes of munchies suggested that more than a day had passed. But even before this latest session, how many days, weeks, months, had he committed to the game, building a character from scratch, moving it up the ranks?

He certainly had the time. Having sold his software business at the peak of the tech bubble, he had no need to work ever again. And the thought of conquering a massively multi‑player world until he was the only one standing had amused him. So he had scoured the tip sheets, bid up and purchased at online auctions any competing characters that had been offered, his aggressive bidding driving up the market and bringing more characters to the block. He had devised subroutines to handle the mundane housekeeping chores of the digital realm and generated legions of low level minions to do his bidding, finally setting them to guard the borders of the land and make sure that all new characters were destroyed before they gained power.

Months of time and mounds of meaningless money squandered to conquer a realm that existed only in virtual reality. Yet he was satisfied. Ultimate Overlord had become a massively single‑player game.

It occurred to him that he might call someone to tell them of his victory, but he could think of no one to call. Clint had no friends. His work ethic in building his business had seen to that. (Even his old college buddy, Jason, no longer called. Maybe it was because Clint had seen to it that Jason’s avatar, Alexander, had been destroyed. Maybe it was because Jason no longer played. Clint couldn’t care less.) Clint had no enemies. He had crushed the competition long ago and now held his wealth in treasury bonds and gold bullion‑items not affected by competitive forces. He had no servants. His luxury high‑rise had the latest in robotic and automatic cleaning and servicing devices.

He noted with puzzlement the depth of the darkness surrounding his tower. A power failure, no doubt. Perhaps more. He noted now his computer had been operating on battery backup. The mini‑fridge next to the desk was silent and the soda merely cool. The power had been out a long time. There were no lights in the distance, no cars moving on the highway, no planes in the sky.

He got up from his chair, working the stiffness out of his legs and shoulders as he moved toward the window. How long had he played Ultimate Overlord?

He had heard of hurricanes and tsunamis, back when he was still checking his e‑mail to track online auctions of characters. He seemed to remember some talk or rumors of war. There was some scare story about HIV or avian flu, threats of dirty bombs and airborne agents. He vaguely remembered a flash of light and the sounds of gunfire in the distance. Or had that been in the game?

Then the power, his power, flickered and failed and he was alone in his tower. The wealthiest man on the planet. No friends. No enemies. For all he knew, the last man on earth.

He was the Ultimate Overlord. And he, too, had a choice.

He thought he knew his answer, but as the days turned to weeks turned to months turned to years, and he was eventually reduced to killing and eating rats in the darkness, he realized that he had never been an Ultimate Overlord.

He was just a lonely guy with a mouse and a flat screen monitor. He had no life, real or imagined.

He was a loser.