Hunting the Conspiracy

Everywhere he looked, he found signs of the conspiracy. Financial institutions, militaries, religious institutions, businesses: every aspect of life contained the insidious tentacles of the Oligarchy. He dug deeper, and deeper still, tracing sources of funding, of ideology, of power and control, and found more and more numerous tentacles, a proliferation of limbs tangled together, interwoven. The Secret Masters, he came to believe, weren’t even human.

It wasn’t until he encountered one, stalked it, cornered it, grasped its tenebrous flesh and pulled it from its gasping host, that he realized the truth.

There was no head. There were only tentacles.

Conspiracies

"What about the Cuban Missile Crisis?"

"Aliens."

"Fall of the Berlin Wall?"

"Aliens again."

"The aliens control everything?"

We barely contained our laughter, but Bink was deadly serious. "Everything," he said.

"And the government covers it all up, right?"

"No! That's what the aliens want you to think the government wants you to think. The government wants to tell people, but the aliens won't allow it."

"All right," Jane said, "so how do you know so much?"

Bink sighed. He reached up and pulled off the mask, blinking his nictating membranes at us.

"It's okay, though. I'm on your side."