I woke up smiling. So nice to sleep in my own bed again. I'm probably going to be bothered by somebody about something today- five weeks of not having an active Dominator builds up a lot of crap- but until they do, I'm going to do what I usually do and enjoy myself, this time secure in the fact that I have the most power on Earth and don't have to be taught anything more, having beaten the killer final exam. It's good to be Dominator. I put on the white suit and was about to go down to the beach when I heard sobbing from outside.
I realized instantly the reason why, even before I walked out the door to talk to him. Billy's avoided screaming at night for the entirety of the second test, and it must have accumulated all into one terrifying burst. As I stepped out and looked at him I knew I was right. He looked horrible, haggard, a thing I didn't think was possible. "Billy.. are you actually.. hurt?", I asked. Over the past five weeks, he's done so much for me, the question answering, the rolling-rock trick, the amazing combat boost, things that an ordinary servant could never come up with or do, things that I couldn't command him to. Having him damaged- especially his brain- by this would be beyond awful.
"No.." His voice was an agonized croak. "it's not killing any of my brain cells, it's not hurting anything except my vocal cords, and they'll regenerate." He sounded confident- I control his actions but it's still his brain, and he's been taking good care of it- and I was very relieved. "But it was horrible, Howie..", he continued, and I let him put his arms around me. Howie.. he had called me Howie. I've been taught the importance of subtleties and I immediately saw it here. A minor use of a diminutive form of a name. From someone I didn't really know it would be a slight, a sign that I was just a kid and too young for the position, a word to be answered by threats or death. From Billy, who knows that I can make him do anything without any consequences to me at all, it meant that he felt so familiar with me that he knew he could hug me and call me that and I wouldn't do anything bad to him in response. In other words, it meant that he trusts me. By all rights that shouldn't mean anything at all- he's an implanted servant- but it did.
I put my arms around him in response and smiled. "Billy, I can't do anything about the nightmares.. you know why." He did. I let go and so did he. "I'm just going to watch the ocean for a bit. C'mon." I led him to the long, sandy beach, found a good spot, and simply sat down in the sand. He followed me, slowly, and we looked over the seemingly endless ocean.
Everything I see is mine, even if I just see it as flyover space or a buffer between me and the normals. I'm the Dominator of a water planet. Statistically, the land is the aberration. This constant fffsssshhhh of waves- it's just background noise to me, has been for years- is the sound the planet makes, despite who makes war against what when. The thing with the ocean is that it's all basically the same, from the surface anyway. We don't concern ourselves with it most of the time, why would we? We're still land-dwelling creatures. The bottom of the ocean might as well be deep space to us for its hospitability. The thing is, I mused, Northberg might have something to say about that. Underwater engineereds.. I don't know what they'd be like. But they'd see more, find more (who knows how many needed minerals are down there?), do more beneath the waves than we land-based creatures ever could in our metal shells we use to vacation there. I smiled. After we end secrecy and before we conquer Mars and Venus, we should finish conquering Earth.
It was almost hypnotic in its semi-repetitive movements. Waves would splash against the beach and retreat, only to be replaced by more waves. Seashells and driftwood littered the edge- it was low tide- and once in a while a seagull would fly overhead. Things I don't usually pay attention to, but were relaxing anyway.
"It is nice out here, isn't it..", Billy said.
"It has its own peace.", I replied. I saw motion to my left and looked at several moving, grey objects bobbing up and down, barely visible. "Hey.. dolphins."
"They probably love it here.", he said. "Nothing can disturb them." Because for anything to disturb them, it'd have to disturb this island's well-protected secrecy. It took a while, but we watched them pass the island.
I realized I was hungry after they were out of sight, and I didn't want to move. "Billy-", I began, turning to him, but then noticed something out of the corner of my eye, and we both turned to look at it. Somebody very stealthy, and from the slim, barely-visible footprints in the sand we both knew who, had left a covered bowl of sugary snacks and bottled drinks just behind us. Smiling, we munched and stayed by the beach for an indeterminate amount of time. It drizzled a bit, but it didn't matter. After that rainforest business it was as nothing.
Relaxation finally turned into boredom and I got up. "Well, that's enough time looking over the sea. Now we're going to go under it.", I told Billy, beckoning him to follow. It's become second nature to take him with me, I realized. With Sarah it wouldn't be anywhere near the same. I smiled slightly as we walked into the house. There's no reason for me to be alone for any length of time anymore.
The elevator took us to level 4, where the submarine was parked. The hatch on my small sub came open with a pop- why lock something that's not supposed to be seen by normals?- and we climbed in. This was really meant for one person, but I knew it could hold me and both of my sentient servants okay, although there's just one seat. Which reminds me.. why am I piloting it? Because he doesn't know how. Well, I'll change that. I reversed the sub going downwards, causing the pressure lock above us to slam shut, turning it around as the sea doors opened. I took the sub out to a place in which we couldn't crash into anything nearby. "Okay, Billy.", I said, getting out of the seat. "Sit down."
"Let me guess.", he said, getting into my position and examining the controls. "You want me to know how to pilot this thing."
"Yup. First things first- never press the buttons on the wheel, on this vehicle or any other with similar controls, unless you're attacking something." This thing's armed. "Left one is missiles, right one is an electrical harpoon. There's autotracking, so don't worry about your aim." I tried to think of a normal vehicle in comparison to this, as there are similarities and differences. "Turn the wheel and it'll bank, push it left and right and it'll just turn. Up and down are directly nose up and down, not the reverse like some normal stuff. Pedals are reverse and forward, not gas and brake. And I am going to hang on.", I said, hanging on to the seat as I expected Billy to be surprised by the touchy controls- he was, and the sub lurched to the left. "You can turn it all the way upside down, you won't lose your seat." He did just that; the automatic belt snapped around his waist as I simply ran along the walls of the sub as it turned. What else should I tell him? All of this is so well-known to me that it doesn't come to mind easily. Ah, yes. "Absolutely everything is jet-impeller driven and computer controlled. None of the stuff normals think about when talking about submarines," And we have three hours.. oh wait. "and the two of us have one and a half hours of oxygen."
"It's like playing a video game.", Billy said.
"Exactly. Easier to use controls with superior armament and reflexes? The sheeple won't stand a chance when secrecy ends if their shit is just as bad as it is now." He laughed in response. Let the people who make the things make computers for the details, and let us do the job of piloting and killing. It works so much better that way.
I told him where the lights button was, he pressed it and the area around the sub was brightly lit. I told him the reason for this, too- the light volume is actually very low, just specially amplified. This glass isn't actually glass, but a computerized image displayer in real-time. An incredible invention for secrecy. I had him keep going, as I watched with interest the ocean floor and various fish species. A few times I had to tell him to turn back because of secrecy, and he impressed me by parking the sub in reverse without getting anywhere near the walls.
Having him control the sub also reminded me- I wanted him to be able to pilot the jet, too. It had a lot more features- VTOLing being one of them- but it was easy and he got a hang of it quickly, the controls on all Illuminated craft being fundamentally the same. The thing was the secrecy rules- how high you can fly in what places, things like that. Above the island and nearby, though, he was doing twisting barrel rolls and fast loops almost immediately. Excellent. Having him be able to do this may come in handy someday. And that's the really cool thing about having implanted servants, especially immortal ones. They never grow outdated, as physical objects will. They learn and grow and develop, practicing new skills and using old abilities to help them discover new talents. The Billy I'll teach and play with tomorrow will be just as much, if not more, fun and useful than the Billy I'm teaching and playing with today.
Eventually, he landed it vertically, I commanded Sarah to cook another meal, and we'd just finished eating when-
BZZZZZERT!
My second day as Dominator and I'm already starting to hate that sound. But it's rather appropriate. I wouldn't have a catchy jingle or a pleasant hum take its place- no, the loud, obnoxious buzzer is exactly the proper tone for most of the people who are going to call me.
And speaking of loud and obnoxious, it's the Bastard's son. What the hell does he want?
"Master Howard! Congratulations on your succession to Dominator." No thanks to your father. "I would like to individually salute you personally and discuss matters of the future." And if you fuck with me, you won't have one. "May I arrive at midnight tonight?", he asked, deciding to be blunt out of fear of wasting my time.
"You may arrive.", I said evenly and in an end-of-conversation tone. If he's going to be obsequious I might as well have fun with him.
The screen clicked off and I threw my arms around the couch and around the shoulders of my servants. I reviewed my decision not to judge the son by the sins of the father. He's not engineered- a huge shame- but he sounded pleasant enough, and he apparently wants to make nice-nice with me. That's not a problem. I'll make nice-nice with him too, and I'm the engineered manipulator here. Maybe I'll convince him to commit parricide.
"So he's coming over here? I thought no one was supposed to be on your island except you and your stuff.", Billy said.
"Not usually. But since only him and his servant are coming, he's basically at my mercy." That's the other reason I have no problem with him coming. "Sure, we could do this over the screen, but he probably wants to see this place for himself and get near the Dominator. I don't know why, but I'm getting the feeling that some of them just want to be near me, to put their wet lips to my ass or what I don't know.", I replied, annoyed at the people who just want to congratulate me, make a show of respecting me, and then say 'well Master, I kinda need your help here..'.
"Sounds like taking a field trip to Chernobyl.", Sarah said, grinning and chuckling. Yes, it is, and if he fucks with me I'll give him a very high dose of radiation indeed.
"Yeah, really, as if I didn't flaunt enough power already, they gotta get closer to it, just like those fucking Californian sun-worshippers who wear melanoma as a badge of honor. 'Ooh, hey, look at us, we can burn up like roast chicken!'... stupid normals. Anyway, I have 8 hours to kill. If you've got any ideas, I wanna hear em.", I commanded, my left hand idly groping at Sarah's left breast, her slight exhalation of air showing that she had no idea how to answer my command or my groping.
"Get on Quake or Quake 2 and snipe with a 15 ping- Reach out and crush someone!", Billy suggested.
"That gets boring after the two hundredth gib.", I said.
"Mortal Kombat.", Billy replied.
"Why? I can kick the living fuck out of the stupid comp on all levels, Enforcers the same, and playing against you or Sarah gets very pointless very fast. Come on, Billy. You've lived among normals. What would one of them do?" I don't want to do what the normals do, of course, I want to do an accelerated, engineered version of what they do.
"How, your average normal would blow the time watching TV, biking, inviting friends over, or just sleeping. Or getting porno off the Net, or sitting in AOL chat rooms for a couple hours shooting the bull." Ugh. I most certainly wouldn't want to do an accelerated version of any of that, except the biking, which would require a requisition of materials which I don't want to deal with right now. I'd rather just eat something at the moment.
"Or eating.", Billy added, and I realized how closely our bodies were synchronized. After that starvation shit I've come to enjoy having good food to eat, which for normals would be very bad indeed. Fat-loaded, calorie-filled meat, chocolate, and (ironically enough) potato chips. I ate with gusto, the food quickly flowing through my mouth and into my stomach with rapid, precise chewing. Billy was just looking at me for some strange reason and I asked him what the fuck he was staring at.
"You eating. You're a fucking Viking at a feast." Bwa ha! Only I don't drink mead. "I thought it was just for that one time after that starvation shit ended, but you do it all the time." And he's learning to do it, too. I started laughing and then choking. Billy waited eagerly for me to die, but I cleared my airway rather quickly.
I just smiled at him. "Now I remember why I keep you around."
The time was spent as I've spent it before, only this time I've got Dominator power and servants. I called down three super jetskis and, two hours later (after some incredibly nasty TV), raced along the ocean's surface at eighty miles an hour. The rain grew hard and I came in for several rounds of ridiculously hard computer games. Then I made the mistake of having both my servants next to me near the couch when we drifted off to sleep. The unmuffled "GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" sprung me up with a start.
"Billy, you fucker, if you're ever about to go to sleep again and I can hear you scream from where you are, fucking tell me!", I commanded him angrily. Sarah giggled. I looked at the clock and muttered. 11:30. We ate and shat before Damien showed up- an Enforcer informed me that a helicopter was giving off authorized Level Two signals and I idly wondered how he got to that level. Oh wait. I already know. Good ol' nepotism. "Let it land.", I commanded the Enforcer. And if Damien's going to try to flatter me into doing things for him and piss me off, I'm going to send him back up into the air- without a helicopter...
The helicopter landed right on top of the jet's spot. Groan. Oh well. The mechanism that flips the jet can take the weight, Damien and an eleven-year-old servant stepped out, walking to the mansion, an interesting peculiarity in the servant's walk.