Illuminati Inc.

Today was Harry Holt’s first day working as a security guard at the old Illumination Tinfoil Company. He drove his small white coop to the front gate, right next to a speaker stand. The building itself was a decrepit, anachronistic factory with ugly, dark red bricks and filthy, broken windows.

A dull, lifeless voice crackled from the speaker.

“Illumination Tinfoil Company. How can we help you?”

“I’m here for the security job.” Harry replied as he pressed the button under the speaker. There was a drawn out silence when the voice suddenly responded “Security job? We don’t have a security job-”

“Move, move, move! Get out the way!” A loud, raspy voice said on the speaker. “Harry! Harry are you still there?”

The voice was quite familiar to him but Harry couldn’t really place it.

“Um, yes.” Harry replied, pressing the button again. “This is in fact me. But how are-”

“Come on in, amigo!” The voice said invitingly as the rickety front gate opened. Harry drove inside to the parking lot, which only had thirteen spots. One was labeled on the wall “J.R.” and had an expensive looking convertible on it. The next was labeled H.H. (Harry assumed that was his parking space). The next eleven were “employees of the month.”

Harry parked the car and walked to the employees’ entrance. As he walked through the door he was greeted with the deafening silence of factory machines and the din of non-existent workers. Harry was confused as to why there was no one was here working. Was he the only person in the factory?

“So, are you the new help?” A deep, booming voice said. Harry turned behind him to see a tall, burly security guard with a long, trusting smile and a neatly trimmed beard behind him.

“Um, I am the new security guard if that’s what you mean.” Harry responded.

“That’s great! Welcome aboard, son!” He slapped Harry on the shoulder. Harry saw that his uniform was neat and clean… as well as absent of any name tags or badges.

“So where are all the workers?”

“Downstairs. Which is where you’ll be working.”

“In the basement?”

“Sure, if you wanna call it that. Come with me, son.”

They walked to the other side of the factory. It was there that Harry saw a modern looking elevator. Its presence made the factory look even more dated than what it already was. The guard inserted a key into keyhole above the elevator before pressing the elevator button itself.

“On paper,” he began. “You work for the Illumination Tinfoil Company. “But in reality, you actually work for one of the most sought after and illusive groups in history, Welcome to your first day with Illuminati Inc., son.”

“Hold the phone.” Harry said. “You mean, I am working for the Illuminati? THE Illuminati? The really infamous conspiracy group Illuminati?” Harry could feel a couple dozen knots in his stomach. He wasn’t sure what to make of his new job now. Just as he was contemplating leaving right out the door, the elevator arrived with a low ding.

“Well, yes and no. Jimmy will explain when you get downstairs. Now off you go! Tell Jimmy that I said good morning!”

Harry reluctantly got on the elevator, which soon closed with a loud, metallic snap almost like prison bars. Then the elevator began to descend, slowly at first, before it began to pick up speed. It made Harry feel queasy as he clutched his stomach. And then all of a sudden, the elevator came to a screeching halt.

When the doors opened a brief moment later, Harry was stunned to see a beautifully futuristic hall filled with cubicles, fourteen altogether. The whole view looked like it was ripped from the science fiction stories he read as a young man. Approaching him was a young, nerdy looking man in his twenties riding a segway. Around his neck were two necklaces. One was the Star of David and the other was a Freemason Square and Compass. It was based of these two necklaces that Harry finally realized who was the voice on the speaker when he first arrives: his employer, Jimmy Rothschild.

“Sup, Harry!” He said, extending his arms out as though he was waiting for an embrace. “I’m sure you remember your old pal Jimmy, right? We met at your job interview!”

“Job interview was putting lightly.” Jimmy recalled briefly. “There were men in suits asking me personal questions… felt more like an interrogation!”

“Yes, yes, yes… my grandfather Jacob is very selective on who we chose for our little operations. Anyways, enough reminiscing. Let me give you a brief tour and job description and I will leave you to your work! Allons y!”

The two of them began to walk down the corridor and Jimmy began to explain. “So Harry, I’m sure that a young fella such as yourself has social media, right? You know… Snapbook, Mychat, Facespace?”

“I have Snapbook.” Harry replied. “Do you guys run social media servers?” Harry was peering into the cubicles and saw men and women of all shapes, sizes, and races typing away on computers, jotting down notes in notebooks, and ripping pages from said notebooks and dumping them in overflowing wastebaskets.

“Not exactly, amigo.” Jimmy replied, shaking his head. “Now, when you are on Snapbook, do you see any conspiracy theories involving fake moon landings, false flags, flat earths, and false flags?”

“Yeah, my friends share stuff like that ALL the time. It has gotten so bad to the point that I am considering blocking them.”

“Good, good!” Jimmy said. “Well the conspiracy theories part is good. Don’t unfriend people because they are often misguided in why they believe in what they believe in. Anyways, have you ever stopped and considered where those conspiracies come from?”

“Not really.” Harry replied. “I always thought that they came from someone mistaking satire as truth or someone reading way too much into politics or entertainment news.”

“Well, Harry, where we are right now is where conspiracy theories are born!”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t follow, Mr. Rothschild.”

“Please, it’s Jimmy.” Jimmy replied, slapping Harry on the back after a chortle. “Mr. Rothschild just makes me feel old. Anyways, allow me to explain: in these cubicles are out of work fantasy and science fiction authors. In exchange for a sizable income, they write and spread conspiracies theories all over the Internet!”

“Jimmy!” A small, asian woman cried out from her cubicle. “Check out this story I wrote on the Oldvillage massacre!”

Jimmy quickly read through the young woman’s notebook.

“Holy shit Marlene!” Jimmy said as he ended the notebook back to her. “Are you honestly writing about a false flag theory with the United States Army killing those children instead of that schizo?" He read through it again and a smile grew across his face. "I like it! Keep up the good work!”

“Thanks, Jimmy!” Marlene replied as she immediately got back to work. Harry was sickened by the exchange he had just heard. Why would anyone with compassion and morals spit on the graves of children like that. It just didn’t fly right with hims, to say the least. Disgust soon became almost full-blown terror as he realized that someone in the world would believe it without without questioning what he or she read. But as more people stopped Jimmy, the quicker Harry came to the conclusion that no subject was taboo.

One of the consprithors (an unclever portmanteau of ‘conspiracy’ and ‘author’, coined by Jimmy himself), suggested that a recent celebrity death was not caused by an accidental drug overdose, but was killed for revealing the truth about chemtrails (apparently it was a tie-in with another conspiracy the author wrote). Another suggested that aliens were spilling chemicals in the water that made people gay. The last one of the day was there was a group of liberal homosexual Mexican muslims planning to invade the United States and install a sharia socialist regime. By the time, Harry and Jimmy got to the end of the hall, his head was spinning.

“Okay, Harry.” Jimmy replied as they got to the fourteenth cubicle. “This will be your workspace.” As Harry walked in, on his desk was several sets of high-tech computer screens with a single, metallic keyboard and mouse connected to it by a giant computer tower that as tall as the desk.

“This little baby isn’t even on the market yet!” Jimmy said. “And it won’t be for another twenty years!”

As Harry sat down on his desk, he saw that thirteen cameras were set up in the thirteen cubicles, positioned in such a way that you could clearly see on what was on each computer screen.

“Your job description is essentially keep anyone who is not supposed to be in the building out of it as well as making sure that the workers don’t leave before 8 PM. Also, make sure they aren’t doing anything... suspicious.”

“Well define suspicious.”

“You see, Harry, we have a good operation going here. People are eating this shit up, amigo! We don’t anyone to jeopardize what we have! From that supercomputer you have there, you can access and shutdown any computer from this hall. The employees are paid well enough that they shut their traps and they signed a nondisclosure agreement as well, but if you see them posting something on Snapbook or Facespace that may blow this thing sky high, you cut it off immediately.”

“Should I tell you when someone breaks the rules?”

“Yes, but we navigate on a three strike rule: Strike one is a warning. Strike two is a pay deduction. Strike three is, well, they are permanently dealt with. You don’t have to do that yourself. Let me know and I’ll send someone to take care of it. Any questions before I go?”

“Just one: why?”

"Why what?"

"Why make up these conspiracies?"

Jimmy nodded and got off the segway. He walked over to Harry and began to speak in a low tone.

“Isn’t it obvious? Do you not realize where you are working at?”

“Aren’t I working for the Illum-”

“Yes!” Jimmy hissed. “But that is not what’s on your records. That’s not what you are gonna write in when filing for taxes. Damnit, Harry, even our almighty overlord government thinks that you are just an average joe working security! You work for the Illumination Tinfoil Company! Think about that!”

And Harry did just that. After putting two and two together, his mouth began to grow agape. Jimmy could see that his new employee finally got it.

“I am going to have a meeting with the Vril Society soon.” Jimmy said as he got on his segway. “Those feminist socialist matriarchs don’t like for me to be late. They think it’s sexist. My number is saved on the computer. Call me if anything!” And just like that, Jimmy hopped on his segway and left Harry’s cubicle.

Harry’s shock soon shifted into near hysterical laughter. Of course! Who benefits off of conspiracy theories more than the tin foil companies? He logged in to his Snapbook account and made a status update: “The only conspiracy is that there are none!”