Emilio and Patrick resumed the strange elevator journey down to the basement, flanked by the two guards. The men were anxious as they slid down the Berlin skyscraper. Emilio smiled, "Sorry for the delay. Let's see what 184 in IQ gets these days." He rubbed his hands in glee.

"The sales brochure said 185, but who's counting." Emilio loved Patrick's dry sense of humor.

"He should be down even lower by now. IQ drops with age and when your cell companion is a fern. Decades in his cell, he really must be closer to 180, but I am giving him the benefit of the doubt."

"Why do you call this man a jester?"

The President took the edge off being on the elevator. "In French, the bishop on a chess board is called 'le fou' and should be translated in English to 'the crazy' or 'the insane'. Le fou du roi, translates to 'the king's jester.' That piece on the chess board is very important. It represents two historical figures, the theologian and the guy making people laugh in the king's court. The name bishop suggests only religion. In my mind, the real translation of this piece is the jester. The jester played an important role, today we would call them satirists or political comedians. The jester's imbalance in the game of chess is crucial in maintaining the equilibrium on the board by creating chaos. It moves sideways for a good reason. It is very hard to anticipate."

Patrick had no clue where Emilio was going with this analogy, but he knew better than to interrupt. Emilio continued, "Every plan, every life, needs chaos. Every government must have an opposition. Corporations need competitors in the market to evolve. I see this as a Darwinian theory of evolution of culture. We need a Jester, a real one, I feel it. I hid them because I wanted you to validate my choice, you just did." The elevator door finally opened to the fourth basement. The security here was at a maximum. Guard after guard lined the hallway. The two CQC experts walked out ahead of their precious guests.

"We're certainly helping to keep the unemployment rate down by looking at this. Not sure if this is optimal use of taxpayer money," said the President as loudly as he could. No one laughed. The man was right, this was overkill.

As they walked deeper into the heart of the building, Emilio continued his strange explanation. "As you know, I love the game of chess. If I had one contribution to bring to the educational system, it would be to add it as a core discipline in public school. The balance in chess is to multiply patterns of attack. Because of how my jester will move, he will be the easiest to overlook and underestimate both by my enemies and ourselves."

Patrick tried to appear interested. "Why are there two per board?"

"My God, you have really never played. Remind me to make fun of your mom next time I see her."

"You know I have two fathers, right?"

"I am sure Paul doesn't mind the title of mom." They walked slowly down the corridor. "I am about to unleash that monster,” he said pointing ahead at the first room. “When he escapes, and its not if but when, I'll be blamed."

"We've kept him in supermax for decades, he'll never be released."

"You don't understand what I'm saying." The President bit his lip, he meant he was preparing himself to release the man.

"Sir, life is not a badly scripted mystery novel," said Patrick.

"Life has a wonderful way of exceeding fiction. You think people back in the year two thousand could even anticipate any of this?"

They finally arrived at the end of the hallway and entered the holding areas with a large number 1 next to the light. Two guards waited inside and saluted. The rooms along this hall were paired: an interrogation cell in which a killer awaited, and an observation room across the famous one-way mirror.

They walked to the first room. On the observation room table, someone had prepared a carafe of Scotch whiskey and a couple of crystal tumblers. Both men from the back of the mirror could see the French Canadian waiting, shackled to the metal table. The monster waited patiently on the other side of the mirror; he was immobile, like a statue at the table.

Christian was wearing a mullet and a goatee. His eyes were circled by dark, giving his intelligent, ferocious eyes an especially malevolent cast. The brain of this man dominated the body in which it was encased. His eyes were as sharp as a caged feline.

Emilio continued. "Stay put. When you play with fire, it's both wise and reasonable to expect to get burned. This guy is bad news. Let's do this!" Emilio grabbed the glass carafe of alcohol, and the two glass tumblers and entered the room in which the killer waited. The guards were on high alert but the President was let inside alone. Colonel Martin refused to let Emilio in the room with the killer, he failed to jumped in and the heavy metal door closed shut on his nose.

The nearly fifty-year-old killer sat calmly. He was lean, tall and wearing a long blue prison jumpsuit. He looked interested but not look like a killer. Around his neck was an electronic collar, and above each ear were attached sensor plates.

"Mister Maltais."

"Call me Christian," replied the prisoner with his thick Montreal accent.

Emilio placed the tumblers and the Scotch on the table and filled both glasses generously.

"Put the cuffs on him," he told security.

"You can't be serious?"

"Last time I checked, I was still President, so that means you'll do as I ask. I hate this puppet mode." The killed seemed interested by the unexpected turn of events.

The implant in the man's head served to record and control his every movement. From a distance, someone else had control of the neural impulses of the prisoner. The guard pulled two pairs of cuffs and attached both wrists to a different leg of the table. As both hands stretched, the man's head was pulled lower to the table, inches from the glasses.

"Cut the cyber-link," ordered the President.

"Emilio..."

"Patrick..." he confirmed. As if an invisible hand cut the strings of a puppet, the killer's body went limp. The French Canadian was back in full control of his body. He tried to stretch and move his hands, but he was still hunched and cuffed. At least he could stretch his jaw.

"This feels much better."

"No need for the preliminary remarks," said Emilio. The President turned to the guard in the room. "Shoot the cameras down." He pointed at his gun.

"Turn them off?"

"What part of the word shoot don't you get? You must know how to shoot, right?"

The man pulled his sidearm. They were in a concrete room. The bullets hit the target, ricocheted, but no one was hurt.

"Leave us now, you can watch from behind the glass."

"A first date? What an honor," the criminal said teasingly. The guard got up, opened the door, and left. "How am I supposed to drink?" His hands were tied to each of the table legs.

Emilio sat in front of the man, he was not scared. "Christian, I see you don't know me, that's rare these days. I like that."

"What?"

"Let me reset what ever you have in that head of yours. Most prisoners with your IQ, as you have, would see that this steel table is not bolted to the floor. An idiot in your situation would imagine he could flip the table up in a vain effort to slide the cuffs out of the table by the end of each leg. A fool would reach for the door or for my neck. You're highly intelligent, but you still underestimate me. That is normal, you spent your entire life surrounded by people you easily outmatched. As an intelligent person you know that if the table is flipped the glasses will fly in a random direction and introduce unpredictability into your actions. Your little brain, while well structured, cannot anticipate how the glasses will break. Take a look, I did order crystal weak glasses carved with hundreds of facets to help generate more chaos." The French-Canadian was silent. "A glass keeps you shackled, not these cuffs, how ironic, no?"

"Impressive," said the man. The killer's smile was priceless. He was back in contact with someone who was worth his time. His eyes began to move erratically in their orbits as the man formulated a new plan. In less than a second the flutter stopped, and he focused again on his host.

"Intelligent people want to control things, to predict. You will pounce the moment you think you have the upper hand, not before. In fact, you now have concluded my entertainment value exceeded your desire to harm me," continued the President. The killer smiled, he liked this man.

"I will not attack you," he confirmed.

"I know," Emilio replied. "That's why I'm here with you. There is a plan out there that needs some element of chaos introduced into it. You appear to me and my poor Patrick to be singularly talented at generating chaos. I will use you as a tool to help force my adversaries out of their shadows, away from their routines. Not that it matters to you, but I'd wager that's the first time someone about to manipulate you has had the courage to let you know upfront."

"Indeed. So you need me to act as a goat tied to a post to draw the lion out? How much noise will you need me to make once I am tied?"

"I like the analogy."

"You need something, from me?"

"Yes."

"You can't trust me. What do you want, information? I have been locked up and without access to the Internet for decades. Who are you?"

Emilio grabbed the glass on the table and helped the prisoner take a drink of the very high quality Scotch. Emilio wished he could take a moment to sniff it. The man in front of him virtually shuddered with possible outcomes. It was hellishly distracting. Chaos indeed.

"You are not drinking?" the killer asked after a healthy swallow.

"Guess why?"

"You never drink."

"Very good," said Emilio. “Very observant.”

"This is lovely," commented the Canadian on the drink. He drank some more.

“You think I am more intelligent than you?”

“Humble of you, Mister President.” He paused and scrutinized him from head to toe. “Not sure, you are no idiot, that is certain. I am unclear if you can reason that well.”

“You are correct, I am in theory less intelligent because the test is based on logical reasoning. Had the first test been designed by emotive people, I would outshine you.” Emilio continued. "There is a larger story here, and I can disclose to you only a very small part of it: your part. Several decades ago, a virus called the META virus hit the world. We have yet to understand its origin or how it works, but we suspect it is man-made. We also suspect the man who engineered it was named Takeda, a gene-splicing expert. I think you know him."

The killer nodded. "He must be dead by now."

"Not really. There are many theories about this viral infection, but what is unknown to the population at large is that a group of trillionaires, all of whose physical conditions were deteriorating and all of whom had a limited time to live, were infected. Each of these men is still alive, so for them, the virus is extending their lives. As you might guess, these are twelve of the nastiest humans on earth aside us, of course. They formed a little no-so-secret society called the Visconti, named after a famous tarot deck from Italy. Do you know the legends to this effect?" Christian nodded. "They work very hard to avoid detection and have seemingly never broken any law.”

"These men have spent decades increasing their wealth and gaining in influence. I fear they have someone on their payroll at every level of the world's governments, including my own administration. As with any group, they must have an agenda. Two days ago, Nick Schmidbauer, CEO of Research in Motion, went to visit the comatose body of Takeda. Six months ago, Mr. Schmidbauer bought the place where Takeda was dying and began to empty the place out. Hours after Schmidbauer entered Takeda's room, Nick came out with a young man. Both got in different cars and the hospital was blown to pieces. I think Takeda was somehow rejuvenated, his body regenerated, and he himself put back into play. Within minutes, we lost him, which is impossible in today's world unless you have inside help that can manipulate street cameras."

"This is great stuff!" It was unclear if the killer was referring to the story or the Scotch.

"The full story is much larger here, but they are up to something as bad as what you once tried to do, even worse."

"Last time I was in a lab, I released a plague and tried to kill the human race. Am I not the last guy you can trust to go against your mafia? Why would I not help Takeda?"

"I have something you want," replied Emilio. "Everyone has a price. I can give you something that will have you work for me, even save this world, if it needs saving."

Christian chuckled. He did not know where to start. "Sir, I will not lie, something I want? Are you insane? Let me guess, my freedom, a family member...You don't seem to be an idiot. You realize I am a killer, and tried to kill everyone on Earth, including myself, right?"

Emilio reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of cardboard. It was an old fashion postcard. He unfolded it, looked at the image. "The one thing a human like you would literally die for." Emilio kept the image to himself. "Whatever is the ultimate plan of the Visconti, it will happen in about a month, during the finale of a game called Electoral 2072." The President got up and lifted one side of the table next to his Jester. The message was clear, he wanted the man to have both hands free to hold this card. Christian slid the cuff down. The jester slid the other cuff and finally was able to straighten himself. The prisoner, instead of lunging for the President as anyone would have expected, grabbed the carafe of Scotch and refilled his glass.

The President continued. "Four months after the game's final, the first manned mission to Io, the largest moon of Jupiter, will depart. The flight is going to be a suicide mission, a one-way ticket. The crew will be three people. From Io, the sight of Jupiter takes a full 120 degrees in the night sky. Most of it. The mission is dedicated to exploring the ice below the surface and, hopefully, to locate the first extra-terrestrial lifeforms in our system."

Emilio turned the card over and placed it on the table. It was an artist illustration of an astronaut standing on the surface of Io. He was watching the majesty of Jupiter in the sky above. On the back of the suit was a name: C. Maltais. Nothing could have cut this monster deeper. "I own one of the three seats. I will put your ass in that rocket if we both are still alive by then, no questions asked. I will sign that release today." Christian finished the drink and grabbed the card to look at it more closely. Images began to flood his mind.

The man's eyes began to flutter once again. Emilio knew the man was thinking, "Io?" he said out loud.

"There is more. I will let the head of the program tell you the details."

"I am a killer, public enemy number one. Surely you do not send killers into space?"

"Listen to this headline: 'Famous Killer's Suicide Mission to Redeem Himself!' I doubt anyone will cry over your departure from earth. Your bunk mates might take issue." Christian could not believe what he was hearing. This bastard of a President was right, the idea of a suicide mission and to be the first human to see with his own eyes that sight was indeed something he cared about.

"You really are a son of a bitch," said Christian. "Why do you think this is of any interest to me?"

"You are a simpler mind than you imagine. We have made strides in brain development. I understand what drives your madness."

"And that is?"

"I'm not here to psychoanalyze you. My time is short. Others will have answers for you. You are a sheep attached to that pole, you said as much yourself moments ago. Draw the lion out and you get the prize. What I promise is to kill it before it slashes your way."

Christian was speechless. "We both know this is a lot of bull. Scuba diving? Water on Io? Nothing will go as planned."

"That’s my boy. Don't forget," he grabbed the glass, "I am no idiot."

"On one condition."

Emilio got up. "Christian, I really find it refreshing how you do not know me." The President was a hard bargainer. He was leaving and ignoring on purpose the request.

"Just one?" asked the French Canadian.

"Anything more than keeping this Scotch is a no."

Both men smiled. "Then the Scotch it is," said Emilio.

Before Emilio turned to leave the room, he pulled a small image from a pocket and threw it face up on my he table. It turned and stopped in front of the man in the exact right angle to be seen. The Jester’s mind was sharp enough to see it. "My job is to save people like this kid on the picture, not you."

Christian looked at the picture. It was a boy. The subtle similarities in the youngling’s face were immediately obvious to him. This was no random image. This younger adult was obviously related to him. His mind raced with hundreds of questions. The prisoner exploded in laughter. This fucking President really was amazing. He had his shit straight. Fuck him. "You really are a king-sized son of a bitch!" said the monster respectfully, as the door was about to close behind Emilio.

“His name is Francois.” As the President walked out, he simply said, "Hope you don't mind but your code name is Jester; don't forget it. Please don’t kill any good guys." The Jester was left alone, in the empty room with both images in hand. The alcohol was starting to kick in and he loved the buzz. “I need something for that 185 of yours, don’t disappoint me.”

Christian was, for the first time in his life excited about what would come next.

“Fireworks,” he said out loud.