The nightmare was new and original, but then again they all are in some way.

I looked at a 7:24 12-22-99 embedded in the wall, wondering why I woke up to see a three digit time instead of the usual four. Paul's still snoozing, I'll leave him where he is. I put on some generic black pants to suit my mood and my position, and pondered how to kill the morning. Shit, Howard's not going to be up for a while.. might as well go use the big screen to play some.. damn, Howard is up, doing what I was thinking of- using his Barbarian to ream the shit out of the various undead hordes and demonic minions that comprise Diablo 2's enemies, mutilating and maiming with a ferocity only bested by our real-world power. Only I didn't think of Sarah massaging my shoulders while I'm playing. Good idea, that. I idly watched him play from the railing- he's using all the strategy of a bulldozer, and it seems to be working, as the combination of low ping, ultra computer, and godly reflexes provide more than enough resources to obtain levels and power with. To the spoiled go the victories.

"It's snowing out.", she said in his left ear, in a position usually reserved for whispering 'sweet nothings'. Snow? There wasn't any here last year. One look out the large window and I could see a steady fall of white flakes.

"Still?", he turned and said. Sarah jerked back slightly to avoid his cheek whacking her nose.

"Yeah, about an inch now."

"What the hell? It's never snowed here before and now this?"

"Weather is strange. What are you doing up so early? Buzzer ring and I missed it?" I ambled down the stairs to go get some food.

"No.. had a nightmare, couldn't get back to sleep." Him? A nightmare? There's a new one. But considering the large amount of crap we've fought through and how nightmare-worthy some of it is, it's not all that surprising.

"And I thought only I had the nightmares.", I muttered.

"Usually, you do. So what was yours this time?"

I reached back into my brain to provide him with an answer I didn't particularly want to remember myself. "Okay.. you in a chariot, whip in hand." He started giggling, lost concentration just a bit, and had to leap his Barbarian out of the way of some hideous demon. "But you're not using horses, you're using lions. You're in this great big coliseum, the lions go forward, and there's this guy... I don't know what he looks like, at all. The lions you're whipping run towards him and eat him, and all the while you're just sitting back in the chariot, smiling."

"So you're not in this one."

"Except just as an observer, not this time." If the target of the lions had been me, I would have known it.

"Screwy enough." No, the nightmares are never screwy enough- that's why they keep getting screwier. The wind started whipping a bit, and the snow was falling just a bit harder than it had a minute ago. I thought for a minute on Howard's dogs and realized that they'd be okay- even if whatever burrow they're using gets too cold, Fido can figure out a way to keep it warm without having to come in here. Engineereds are resourceful bastards.

He saved, clicked the screen off, and laid back. "Damn.. hey, maybe I'll go enjoy it while it's still here." Eh? Him? Just going outside? That is weird. He's sort of acting like.. no, we're not Christopher Robin unless someone slipped the kid a concoction of crack, brain-boosters, and a mega-dose of human growth hormone.

"You're going to go play in the snow? Even just saying that sounds weird."

"The Dominator does as he will, and none may know his true motive.", Sarah said. Oh yes. I seem to have forgotten. He does what he feels like. How could it have ever slipped my mind? "Sometimes, not even him." I chuckled. That's one way to make yourself unpredictable- let your subconscious make all the important decisions.

"That's right. I haven't enjoyed the feel of powdered ice in a long time. Billy, come out with me. And wear all white." I'm not going to ask why.

"Isn't that thing too light?", I asked instead.

"Nope. It exchanges heat a lot slower in cold." I idly wondered why I hadn't found that out yet. Oh yeah. It almost never gets cold here, that's why. Semi-tropical islands usually never see it- but then there's the freakish stuff like this. I'm fairly sure that one of these days, he's just going to get a helicopter to serve basically as a flying freezer, and rain down snow whenever he feels like it.

And he was right- I felt a slight chill as I stepped into the snow, and felt the fabric tightening on itself to prevent air exchange, in addition to whatever else it was doing- they think of everything, always have. Howard casually picked up a handful of snow and compressed it into an iceball, then flinging and skipping it on the ocean.

"We got a lot of this back in Illinois. Didn't think we could get it here.", I said, looking at the snow idly. When was the last time I had seen this stuff up-close? I remember.. when I was 9. I was with my... wait, that was just with Paul.. I fought through the swamp of half-memories and dreams to try to remember what I was even doing then. It didn't matter. None of my normal-life memories are relevant anymore.

"Didn't think we could get it here either. Strange- little bit of frozen water on the ground makes all the difference." Yes, it does.. and it did even more for me back in school days. Snow wasn't the thing, ice was. A little bit of ice meant school's out, lots of snow might not accomplish the same. I opened up a memory cap and it flooded into my mind. After I took the masses out of the picture- I avoided them anyway so they didn't occupy that much mental room- I remembered the joy of at least temporary, partial freedom from the annoyances of society, being deep in suburbia, surrounded by houses whose owners might as well have been dead. I remembered everything on one day- from the original realization that school was out and the quick phone call to Paul, to the tree bashing a dent in the plastic sled, to the lunch at my house, to the afternoon, and finally to the annoying early darkness.

"Yeah. This wouldn't be enough to get me out of school though. It was like this all winter two years ago."

"And it's probably like this over there now." I heard a lot of barking from the other side of the open area and an extremely quick pitter-patter of feet in snow. One of Howard's dogs- Magma, the red one- was going at usual dog speed, but Fido was running at.. what? Faster than a cheetah.. eighty miles an hour, looks like. I never knew he could do that.. then again, we don't see much of Fido, because Howard is perfectly content to leave him alone as long as he regularly comes back. And he is coming back- slowing down, looking at both of us, and just picking one to jump onto. It was Howard- and Howard anticipated him, did not dodge, and accepted the dog playfully leaping onto him to lick his face- but instead, Howard gracefully back-rolled to be on top of the dog instead. The two shared face-to-face contact for about a second. Magma was sniffing me and barking appreciatively, and I scratched the back of his ears. Fido got up, and then tore off into the forest again.

"What's he going for?", I asked, Magma nuzzling the side of my leg.

"Something valuable, maybe?" What would be valuable to a dog? Food? Yup, that's it- Fido came back, dragging the carcass of a half-eaten pig in his jaws, its skin tinted blue. Froze to death, looks like. Not enough hair, not enough insulating fat. Perhaps these guys will start genetically engineering the pigs as well...

"Natural selection at work.", Howard commented.

"Mmm, what I always wanted, yummy fresh pigsicle. I haven't had meat this fresh since the tests."

"Actually, this isn't that fresh." He was right- there would be more blood around the places that Fido had eaten, instead of just ice.

"Yeah, and the dogs ate most of the good parts." Howard snapped off a leg and chewed it, warming it in his mouth to avoid brain freeze.

"Is it good?"

"Yeah, tough to eat though. It doesn't taste the same as it does fresh." I popped off another leg and tiny ice crystals flew into the air. I nibbled on it- and of course my taste buds replied with a 'This is good. Eat more of this.'

"I still can't believe this stuff tastes good to us."

"Why not? It's protein and fat, the two things we need most." The engineers, of course, couldn't just let it go as 'They know they need meat, so let's leave it at that'- they made it 'Let's have them crave the stuff so they'll always have enough fuel.'

"It's.. well, it's raw, unadulterated, frozen pig! Look at it Howie, it's the other blue meat!" We shared a laugh. But it is weird.. every time I eat meat, especially when I can see what the animal looks like, the reflex, although subtle, is always instant- it's the kill impulse again. The same kill impulse that drove our personal body count where it is, the same kill impulse that's gotten us this far, the same kill impulse that screams 'MURDER IT' every time either of us gets pissed off. And the same carnivorous, voracious kill impulse that drives the hunger for the flesh of animals.

And of course that wasn't really considered a problem by either of us, and Howard laid back in the snow munching the dead meat.

"Take the pig back to your children, Fido. They need it more than I do." The dog barked and dragged the pig back to whatever deep hole in the ground he's been using as a burrow. I'm not surprised it understands English well enough to do that.

"I think that was your Christmas present, Howie."

"Heh heh. It's not quite as worthless as some other shit I've gotten, though."

"Who would give you worthless shit?"

"Some idiot would, anonymously. I don't know if he intended it as an insult or a joke or what, but when I was six years old, on December 25th, someone sent me a sock with a big lump of black stuff in it." Oh, damn. I wonder what happened to him? And of course at the age of six, no one told Howie what coal in the stocking meant..

"A lump of coal in your stocking, for Christmas."

"I didn't know the symbolism at the time, Billy, or even what it was for that matter.", he said matter-of-factly. I didn't hide my smile.

"So what'd you do with it?"

"Experiments. Daddy wasn't reachable for another forty-eight hours or so, the Enforcers weren't really available at the time, and I had to find out what it was. I got curious, crumbled a little bit with my fingers, it turned things black. I put my fingers to my mouth, spat a bunch of times.. eeyuck! Then I climbed up, turned the stove on, waited until it was red, and sprinkled some on." I could picture the burning.

"Oh geez! Did you get hurt?" I idly wondered how many scars he would have gotten from doing that, if he could get them.

"Nope. It was cool to look at, but I stayed away from the smoke though. Then I put the whole lump on another part, turned that on to max, jumped off the counter and stepped back."

"Home science experiments, the young Illuminatus way." Important thing to remember about powerful overlords- they were once at an age when even they didn't know any better. I looked at this particular overlord and noticed a fine covering of snow on his body and some melted water on his face- our blood circulates quickly and so frostbite is unlikely.

"Yup. I had to find out. The funny thing is, when Daddy called up, I wanted to know the guy's name so I could send him my thanks for giving me something that fun."

"Did you ever find out who it was?"

"Well, anyone third level or higher could give me any present he wanted without having to worry, because it's assumed anyone in the third level is advanced and understanding enough not to send bombs or something. Yeah, I know, bad assumption.." Woop! Woop! Woop! Understatement alert! "I don't know if anyone checked it before it got to me, though."

"Enforcers probably checked it."

"Yeah, you're right, the older ones wouldn't know what it meant. The ones I have now would."

"And now you're doing another experiment just being in the snow."

"Oh yeah, Billy. I can't learn everything from books. What I figure out here from just fooling around in this snow might mean the difference between life and death if I ever end up in a lot of it. I've been taught almost everything there is to know about anything and I've still got so fucking much to learn. Besides, I needed a nature break anyway, and I might as well get to know this stuff- most of our installations are covered in it." The unused portions of the Northern Hemisphere, as well as Antarctica, are great to hide large, mostly underground complexes in.

"Yes, that's right, the calls of nature can not be denied for long." He calmly gripped the back of my neck and pulled me down next to him. I laughed a bit. "Howie, I think I finally understand why you do some things now."

"I think I know what things you're talking about but I'm not sure why you just finally understood them."

"Well, like going out in the snow, eating raw pig, playing with your dog.. you're not being The Dominator, you're being yourself." I'm not sure why I'm saying this but there's something I don't understand. And he looked at me funny for a bit, and then something- probably his memorized psychological studies- told him what it was.

"And now I understand why you had problems figuring it out. Billy, I don't have to answer to anyone. Unlike just about everyone you've ever met, I will do whatever the fuck suits me at the fucking moment. There is no code of conduct, there are no rules, there are no expectations. I just come whenever things need straightening out, to hold everything together, I keep my assets in line, and that's just the stuff I have to do as Dominator to keep things the way they are and make sure I can do whatever else I feel like. Then I go out and do it like I've been doing for the past one and a half years. And the amount of stuff I can do keeps growing. It's life without inhibition, Billy. I can do whatever I want."

And then I immediately understood as well. It was a set of problems with my thinking, assumptions I've been going on, mistakes in my thinking that haven't had the opportunity to show themselves in manipulative situations- because, when dealing with the masses and even with some Illuminati, they're not mistakes. I've always considered the world rulers to be faceless, conniving bastards- and by and large, they are. But they are also people, people with their own particular traits and quirks. This is the first thing most conspiracy theorists forget, and a thing that's so hard to realize even when you're right next to the master of bastards. Regardless of power, people internally try to act like themselves, unless they feel they have to act a certain way. Howard does everything for some ulterior gain, but he does it in a way that is pleasant to him. He's not trying to fit any mold, or abuse his Ultimate Rich Boy™ privileges simply because he's supposed to- he's abusing them literally because he can and he feels like it, and what I haven't been understanding is the fact that he doesn't have any little guys in his head, any society-based behavioral restrictions, any of what Freud termed the superego. He has none at all, nothing to stop him from killing, nothing to stop him from doing as he damn well pleases. He can literally jack off in the middle of a meeting and, because of his position, no one would seem to care.

In sum, because he is all-powerful, he doesn't have to act like it.

I've known this was true before- it's fairly obvious when you put it in your forebrain- but for the first time I internally realized it.

For a tiny fraction of a second I felt an intense murderous rage and it went as quickly as it came.

"You put other rich people to shame."

"Of course I do. I don't live with any imaginary parents or peers or anyone watching me or checking me or telling me to mind my manners. And Billy, in case you didn't notice, neither do you. The only person you have to listen to is me."

"Except when they come over or you take me to them, then you always say..."

"Yeah, and you know why that is. I have to get all high and mighty and I have to make sure all customs are followed."

"Yeah, I know. But as for that no-inhibition thing.. why didn't I realize or enjoy that before? It's been twenty months!"

"You did enjoy it. You just didn't notice you were. The remains of your freedom illusion were still in the way." He was right. I did enjoy it.

"Howie, if all you're saying is true, then that term is just wrong. It's not the freedom illusion, it's the chains illusion. The real chains aren't seen quite as clearly as they should be, and there's some fake ones that aren't there at all."

"That, dearest Billy, is something I have not considered." I put my hands behind my head and looked at the falling snow, and realized that we were covered by maybe a half inch of it. Howard gently slid his arm under me and I did the same to him.

"So you do have some Christmas spirit.", I said, looking at him. He answered me by gently plopping a loose handful of snow in my face. Of course my reflexes didn't catch it- it wasn't fast or harmful, after all, and this was Howard so I wasn't in instant-defense mode- but it was highly annoying just the same, mostly because I can't do anything about it.

"Hey, you know I can't-"

"You can now, with the snow." If that's the way he wants it... I grabbed a large handful in my right hand, jumped up to my feet, compressed it as much as possible (which is, of course, a lot), and intended to smash his head with it. His reflexes zipped his head out of the way just before it smacked into the ground. The rest was predictable- a normal snowball fight played in fast forward. We pumped it up and made it faster still. Not like I can actually hit him with one of these things, and not like he can hit me. They're coming off the ground and into the air faster than most normal eyes can follow, but after dodging bullets, even this is a joke. We ended up moving in and out, circling- we were simply eating up too much snow and large grassy areas were forming.

At the corner of my vision, I saw a green-clad figure, probably Paul, stepping out of the mansion. "Holy shit!", he blurted, the usual response. We continued circling and I noticed Paul holding a snowball and just shaking his head as he realized that he wouldn't even be a factor. It kept going for another half minute or so- muscle ache started coming in- and Howard just said to stop it because there wouldn't be any hits for hours anyway, as he sat down on the ground and stretched his arms. I came up with a quick idea and idly wondered if it would work. No sense in not trying.

"Yeah.. but there's still one thing I wanna show you, Howie.", I said, squatting down next to him and putting my left arm around him again.

"What's that?" This is almost too good.

I gently chucked a handful of loose snow in his face. His immediate physical reaction- squinting of eyes, wiping it off- was immediate, as was Paul's laughter.

"Billy," he crooned in a pleasant voice, "I hope your finely-tuned sense of revenge does not extend into other areas."

"You hope wrong, asshole.", I said, smiling. "But that was fun." Paul's laughter died down and I noticed the snow had as well- some wind was carrying it back and forth, but there wasn't any new snow coming down. Bah. Of course, that's really all an island like this is going to get.

"Hey, Howard, do you have a sled?, Paul asked, gesturing to the ex-volcano. I suppose we wouldn't get creamed sliding down that.. and the best thing is that there's no solid objects such as buildings and cars to crash into.

"Ahh.. no.. Call a couple down! They'll be here inside twenty minutes." Paul started running back inside to do it. I suppose they'd be taken from normal stores and parachuted down the usual way. Time-efficient and secrecy-solid if it's done cleanly. Buy something, ship to airfield, just get plane started in right direction- if it gives the correct signals, don't blow it out of the air. Since no one follows people around enough to see such assorted strangeness (even if they did, the airfields are all on private land), no one notices.

"Wood or plastic?", he called back.

"Big and plastic!", I called back. I don't think they have sleds specially made for this. Snowboards, maybe, but you don't want to hit a dry patch with any part of a snowboard. It gets stopped in front and the back keeps going... thud, thud, thud, the body rolls down the hill, unless super acrobatics prevent it. "Wooden sleds fucking suck in wet snow and no one even sells them anymore. And the ones with metal on them get stopped so easy."

"What about just metal?"

"Howard, there are no such things, and by the time you make one there'd be no use for it, at least not today."

"Damn, would make sense, it's slick enough."

"Exactly how many other eleven-year-olds would want to carry a metal sled up a hill every time to go down?" He looked startled for a fourth of a second and then realized his mistake. He hates dealing with normals, and so does not think about them.

"Good point. And now I remember why I keep you around."

"I thought you kept me around as a decoy."

"That's just a nifty bonus feature." I muttered to myself about white snow traveling between white suit and white skin.

"What are you thinking about?", he asked, smiling at me.

"Exactly how much snow will fit down the back of that suit of yours."

"You know what? I really don't know that either. However, I do know a way to find out.."

A quick half-memory came to me (damn if I know when from) of having a lot of packed snow stuck up my sleeve and in my mitten, and I cringed a bit. "AAAAAAACK! No! Howie!" 'You bastard.', I almost said in addition. 'You don't have to go about using the goddamn-'

"Billy, stand up and hold still." He proceeded to get a large handful of snow and put it just next to my neck, and then plopped it aside. "All right, you can move."

"Oh.. you didn't."

"Of course not. Why would I waste good snow?"

"Howard, that was a cheap shot.", Sarah said, from entirely the wrong direction. How the hell did she... never mind, she's a professional. Her white-grey camouflage suit fit snugly around every curve of her body- the effect was enticing, to say the least.

"Sarah, how the hell did you get behind me in snow?", Howard whirled and asked.

"Thin snow, special shoes, and your distracted senses.", she said, smiling. I looked at her feet and at the footprints- the material was slightly snowshoe-like, but much softer and she didn't leave obvious footprints.

"And I didn't even know you were out here.", he replied.

"That made it easier. I suppose you're taking the steepest way down you can find?" An image of cliff-diving without a parachute immediately came up.

"Sarah, that's a cliff. But I have one in mind." He probably intends the less-steep way up the cliff- the one with all the small, loose pebbles that run down it when disturbed. There aren't enough trees in the way to worry about a crash and it's steep enough to get a lot of speed going. In a normal neighborhood, it would probably be called the Hill of Doom.

"Cool, now what were you doing with these things?", she asked, grinning and packing a good snowball. I shook my head.

"Sarah. No.", he said, using his left hand to gesture that he was through with that for now.

"Then I suppose you're just out here for the freeze?"

"Actually, there's things you can do in snow that you can't anywhere else. Like sled riding, if whoever Paul's calling it down to can get it here anytime soon.. hey, I wonder how the Micro would work out here." I realized I wasn't saying very much. Nah.. he's the master.. let him talk.

"Howard, bad idea, you know what happens if you shine that thing onto reflective shit. And if you do get lucky, you'll just melt huge patches of snow." I pictured the beam of the Micro fracturing into many, many different sub-beams, bouncing off various particles of snow and melting everything in sight, and even spraying us with some heat waves. Fortunately, we can regenerate from that very quickly- it's internal, after all, and there's no particles being lodged in the body- but that's just not pleasant.

"Yeah, would be funny though. Anyway.." Howard picked up a large snowball, crushed it extremely tightly, and aimed for a twig deep in the forest. His throw blew the twig in half. Of course it isn't tough.. it's iced over and brittle. These trees aren't meant for sub-zero temperatures. I noticed Paul coming out of the house, jogging towards us.

"Nice aim. Watch this.", I said, chucking a similar handful at a farther-away small branch, blowing it in half immediately. Sarah then followed suit and blew two branches in half with one solid hit. Of course, no normal could do the things we were doing- not with this snow and from this far away. Even if they did manage to hit one of them, they couldn't blow them apart.

Howard grinned and chucked a fast one- right under the branch he was aiming for., prompting Sarah and me to laugh a bit. "ARGH!", he yelled, taking another snowball and hitting his mark, blasting the small branch, leaving it hanging by a thread of bark.

"And even more impossible shit.", Paul muttered, marveling once again at engineered power.

"Paul, even though you are a normal, you can do shit like this, you've done it before.", Howard said, shrugging.

"Howard, that wasn't quite as impossible as this. That was just some guns and some military special moves that we poor normals do all the time. And if you mean some of that training shit, that was nothing like breaking far-away twigs with snowballs."

"Paul, you see that frozen twig, that one with the three pine needles sticking out of it?" It was an obvious one, the pine needles gave it away, and it was a straight, slightly upward shot of about fifteen meters. It was also very well iced and brittle.

"Yeah, that one's far away though."

"Okay, pick up a fat handful of snow, as big as you can, now just crush, as hard as you can.", Howard said instructively. Paul gave a mighty effort. Hitting and destroying small branches about fifty feet away is not easy for normals- it's all concentration and targeting. And using snowballs means that you have to compress it insanely hard in order to get it. I could see Paul's arm straining through the green winter fabric, and his teeth gritted a bit. "Paul, the implants don't do more than that. But you can. You've seen it in action, you know you have some - use your power!", Howard continued, and Paul attempted to squeeze it farther still. "The stuff you're hiding, Paul." He realized what his body had to do in that instant, and the snowball became almost as solid as they come. I wonder how he's able to do this. Probably all the crap he's endured, probably all the bullshit with Damien. It's made him tougher inside, given him more subconscious power, because his body is used to being adrenalized and panicked.

"Good. Now aim for that twig I showed you, just look at it - and see that twig as it should be, in half, broken by the force of your snowball." Visualization is good for this sort of thing.

"All right."

"Now, pull back, release your power, and just throw, Paul." Paul threw a blistering sidearm directly into the branch. There was a smack, not a crack- the snowball blew into pieces. The branch wasn't damaged.

"Dammit Howard, I can do that." He tried again with a similarly-compressed snowball- it would have probably broken it, if it wasn't three feet over the mark.

"FUCK!", he yelled, making an even tighter iceball, aiming, and then I saw it in his eyes- the power, the hidden reserves. He knew what he was doing; his subconscious was with his conscious. He broke the end of the twig straight off. Physically, it's a minor feat to accomplish; but what's important is what he had. I wonder if he can do that when it counts, in the deadly battles we see far too often? 'That's a definite maybe.', I told myself.

Paul was looking at his light grey gloves and the hands within them as if they had done something completely unexpected. "Shit, I've never been able to do that before." Sarah grinned and I applauded; he's obviously beginning to understand the power gained when your whole body works in unison. Then this is really nuts, I realized. The parts of the human mind and body work together, and yet some joker can make a device to control one part and the others don't- can't- even realize what's being done. Damn...

Howard laid down on the soft snow. "Ahh... my arms hurt." There was a general murmur of agreement. Paul better watch it- if he tries too hard to throw like us, he'll dislocate his own shoulder.

"Now I see why you come out here.", Sarah said.

"Yeah, it's great stuff. And check it- here come the sleds." A jet flew overhead, a parachute automatically opened, and the sleds landed directly on top of Howard's jet. One circular, one larger and elongated.. probably could fit all four of us on that.

"Billy, Sarah, bring em and follow me.", he said, and we dragged the sleds after him through the ice-covered forest and up the steep hill of icy rocks, grass, and pebbles. I had to get on all fours to climb up while pushing the sled, glad that the fabric is basically invulnerable to scrapes as I kicked holes deep enough to use as a ladder.

"Shit. Howard, are you sure you want to do this?", Sarah said, looking downwards. It's not the speed that gets ya.. it's what you can land on and how you can land on it. As engineereds, we can probably jump off a 50 mph car, hit the ground running, and come away with nothing but burned shoes to show for it- but our tissue is denser than normals', and the increased toughness will probably balance with the increased kinetic energy, should we hit a solid object.. wham.

"Yup. I love playing it dangerous." Bullets are dodgeable. The ground isn't.

"Hmm.. guinea pigs, guinea pigs.." Yeah, Howard, I love you too. "All right, Paul, get in the circular sled... Sarah, you push him as fast as you possibly can then jump in yourself. And don't crash. That would be bad." I found myself chuckling. Sarah doesn't make screwups like that..

..but Paul does. He pitched forward as Sarah jumped in, and the result caused both to fall out of their seats, Paul yelling and doing some rolls, and Sarah backflipping, then skidding down on her butt. The sled flipped over 360 degrees end-to-end and continued down as usual. Howard and I were beside ourselves (wait.. that makes the wrong kind of sense) with laughter.

"You little fucker! You could have killed us both!!", she yelled. Bah, that's a remote chance.

"Yeah, well it wasn't my fault you decided to push us like that!", Paul shouted back. She's engineered, you clown- what the hell did you expect?

"Howard--", Sarah began. I don't want to know how she would have finished that.

"I distinctly said not to crash.", Howard said, reminding me of a time when some schoolkid said "Hey, don't fall!" to the schoolkid he was tripping. Sarah made a catlike snarling sound at him in lieu of speech. "I think we can do it without, well... hehe, don't you Billy?" Howard aligned the sled for going straight down and I took a look at how steep the hill really is. Hmm. Yup, it's steep, all right..

"Oh, yeah."

"Push and jump in.", he said. I pushed in three steps with plenty of power (but not all- all of it would have sent him and the sled flying) and we were going 40 mph midway down the hill. We flew over a rock for a bit, passing a tree ten feet away, and we were getting closer to the forest. Howard jumped off to the left and I jumped off from the back, using my butt and the soles to friction the sled to a stop. The forest was still about a hundred feet away, but better safe than sorry- I visualized the wood-crack and flesh-thud of engineered bodies vs. trees.

Sarah was carrying the sled back up the hill, using her knowledge of vocabulary to request that Paul do everything from shoving his head up his ass to having his dick cut off (that's definitely a cheap shot, but she knows that). They went again, and Paul screamed all the way down before he bailed- Sarah kept going towards the tree! "Sarah!!", Howard shouted, as she demonstrated what she was going to do- she grabbed the branch, grabbed the sled with her legs, and flipped the whole sled over the branch to the side before landing on her feet. All of us clapped. She took a few bows before picking up the sled and going back up for more.

We went down in various combinations- me and Paul, him and Sarah. He held on to her breasts all the way down- I did the same shortly afterwards. The exhilaration from this isn't from the speed itself- which is relatively slow- but the closeness of the sledders to the ground and the proximity of obstacles. This is actually fun, I realized.

And, right in the middle of my twentieth or so trip down, taking me completely by surprise, was a voice coming right out and asking me: 'Don't you have any humanity anymore?' Hmm, maybe I shouldn't have noticed that this was actually fun- things tend to interrupt me when I do.

I waited until I jumped off the sled to answer it, listening to Paul bail out once again. 'I never had all that much humanity to begin with. Why you and why now?'

'Oh, come on.', it asked as Paul and I climbed back up the hill yet again. 'You know what I am. You know why now. You know that you're losing a lot of your memories, letting them fade away. Your dreams figure more prominently in your mind than your past reality.'

'A lot of that bullcrap was just school and other useless crap anyway.', I answered in a nasty tone, physically gritting my teeth and forcing the steady crunch of footsteps in snow into my mental voice.

It continued regardless. 'Furthermore- and probably most importantly- you're becoming more like him every minute.'

There was only one way to answer that: 'GOOD!'

And then it tried to strike a blow I've been expecting for a long time. 'And you've given up on freedom.' I envisioned the voice striking a blow against a powerful shield and the shield automatically counterattacking with an energy blast.

'SHUT THE FUCK UP!!', I railed at it, as I laughed all the way down, holding onto Paul at 40-50 miles an hour, not giving any external clues to the war in my head. 'You just SHUT THE FUCK UP and never use that word again!!' The f-word, I joked to myself as we climbed back up, Paul holding onto my body for support all the way back up, as I pounded the ground for more traction. The other f-word.

Paul and I went back down alone later. "This is exhausting. I'll keep going as long as you will, but ugh.", he said as he got off the sled.

"You know this already, Paul. We can't last all that long either." The furnace, not the candle.

"Yeah, but you just keep coming back. Howard's going to be at the screen doing something within five seconds of coming home. Watch." There was some wonder in his voice. His amazement with our abilities never really left after all this time. It probably never will leave until/unless he gets the abilities for himself in the form of a retrovirus.

"Nah. Sixty. He'll eat first."

We went down again and again, for hours, in all physically possible combinations. I held onto Sarah's mid-chest with my right hand and her legs with my right as we flew down the long sled. The ground grew wetter and speed increased; but soon enough, the entire island turned to its more usual tropical state and slushy water gave way to wet rocks, the cheap plastic sleds having their bottoms slowly shredded. When Howard didn't come up for another run I knew it was time to quit.

"I'm dizzy as shit.", Paul mumbled, shaking his head to clear the effect of taking a sled down time and time again. "Tired too. Thought you three didn't have that much endurance."

"Usually, we don't.", replied Sarah. "But that was too.. interesting to come inside early."

"Yeah.. refreshing too.", Howard said, watching the melted snow run off his fingers and onto the ground. "But can one of you please tell me why I just did all that?"

"Boredom?", Paul offered. "You said at the time that you basically just felt like it."

"Fun?", Sarah offered. "Although getting used to the stuff is a good idea, I've had to work in it."

"Actually, he said that he hasn't touched powdered ice in a long time. But the point's the same, we don't really know.", I said. "Even he doesn't really know why he does things. Now I am scared.." Howard, if you're going to use us, do you mind making sure you know exactly why you're doing something? This was just for fun but the next time might be more serious. I considered telling him that out loud and decided against it.

"Which is in perfect accordance with tradition and zero accordance with logic. But it's not like I don't have the time to kill."

"Actually, I was thinking about that, Howie. We sorta don't.", I said.

"What do you mean? Yeah, we'll die eventually, but..."

"Not that. We'll never be young again, remember? 'Always 18' is what you said." These are not the bodies we will be walking around in for the rest of eternity or until we finally get killed.

"Oohhhh... Well, that means a hell of a lot more to normals than it does to us. But yeah, you're right, we'll never be five foot six and without full musculature again, but biofunctions will be about the same. But Billy, worrying about that crap is pointless. People who live in the past or the future forget what time it is." He has a point.

"Not to mention they get stabbed in the back a whole lot easier.", Sarah said. I laughed. Yes, remembering to watch your back- can't forget about that little necessity, can we?

We went back inside. The screen had a window displaying "Non-immediate message", Sarah clicked on the button on it, and a recording of a older, stone-faced, half-bald guy I didn't recognize came up. Howard sat down to listen, and I didn't qualify this as 'sitting down in front of the screen'.

"Master Howard, I have good news.", the recording said. Good news? GOOD news?

"There's a new one.", Howard muttered, matching my thoughts. I sat down next to him. This must be worth listening to.

"Our general world plan is, so far, operating with negligible drawbacks. We did multiple tests, looking for problems, but the sheeple are happy and obedient. The only real problem seems to be isolated non-government mass shootings, and they are not of threat level." They're either just a fad or a new form of public entertainment. No big deal, really. It would take incredible chance for an Illuminatus to get killed by one, and an engineered.. let's just say that the engineered would teach the guy a thing or two about ultraviolent murder. "Howard, your ah.. 'advanced recursive encompassization' technique is absolutely excellent and we of the Second Level particularly commend you for it." It's not that complicated. Then again, neither is a bicycle, a revolutionary invention in its time.

"Ha! I knew it would work.", Howard said in the traditional Dominator tone. "Well, there's another few calls I won't get."

"And the sheeple fall even farther into the dark pit of despair.", said Sarah, chuckling slightly. "All right, Howard, I imagine you're hungry.", she said, taking off her snowsuit, the one piece of clothing on her body. And yes, of course, we're hungry.

"You guessed it. Turkey with stuffing." Bioengineered turkey. Regular turkeys don't have nearly enough meat. She went to cook it and Howard was judging the accuracy of the older man's statements by looking at Illuminated reports. Yup, he'll be there a while...

"Damn! You win, Paul.", I said.

"What do you mean, Billy?", Howard asked.

"Ah, he said you'd be in front of the screen doing something within five seconds. I guessed sixty, thought you'd eat first."

"Tya ha ha. And I would, only I can wait for the turkey." He checked numerical data. Fewer problems than last year. Fewer problems? The Illuminati gain in strength. More and more expansion. More and more slow, tentacle-like intrusion into the minds of the sheeple. More bold endeavors. And.. fewer problems? As an organization grows, its problems do too, what the hell... and no current serious organized opposition, according to the data on the screen. None. "'Tis the everfucking season! Santa came early this year!", Howard said, laughing.

"And once more I am reminded why you use the term 'sheeple'.", I said. Paul just looked down and shook his head. Howard power-laughed and I joined him. Why the hell not? Paul tried to do it too, partially succeeding. Sarah walked in and decided to join the fun. Five seconds of that went on before the maniacal laughter faucet (a shiny, Illuminated-metal sink faucet clearly marked MUAHAHA) turned off.

"Shit. If this keeps up, I'm going to start believing in Santa Claus.", Howard said.

"Yeah, and here comes the Easter Bunny. Howard, I have not felt this displaced from reality since I got here.", I said, chuckling It was just beyond amazing. With Howard keeping the Levels in line and the normals in complete non-opposition (I'm pretty sure Howard's suggestion of using recursive encompassization had something to do with that), the future is going just the way he wants it. Why wouldn't it? He's Howard, the Dominator! This is his planet; what he wants, he eventually gets!

"Reality is malleable anyway.", Howard told me. "And I've got a pretty big hammer."

"Yeah, just watch where you're pointing it.", Paul replied. Howard grinned at him. He was sharing his joy again, the joy of having, powers and abilities and cool stuff and friends who could never betray him. I shared in the joy eagerly. Why not? It's real happiness, the comfort of a true home, the caring touch and kind words of a boy who can do anything, the awesome power of technology, the warmth of a bright Illuminated future without worry or fear.

The turkey, an enormous whopper of a bird that could never fit in a normal oven, was done quickly, being both baked and nuked at the same time, and we munched on it hungrily, gobbling up the meat like hyenas. We gleefully ate until we were bloated and took a nap for a few hours shortly afterwards, then woke up to have some more fun with Howard's viewscreen and effectively infinite supply of games.

Both of us enjoyed Sarah (and she enjoyed it, too) that night.

Three days later, we took a vacation to a human research center in Siberia with nearby mountains. It was cold as hell, but we were bundled in Illuminated fabrics and so felt nothing. We used special snowboards to surf down an avalanche we started with our powerful echoed voices. The snow moved with us, and the snowboards could jump by pressurized air, making for an incredible experience. No two ways about it- it was the best Christmas I've ever had. And we continued to do things like that, playing games and having fun that is utterly out of reach of normals, solving the serious stuff with our usual amount of fact-finding, threats, and Domination. (Yes, our Domination- Howard makes it my Domination when he tells me to pretend to be him). Howard will be having fun for the rest of his life, and probably, so will I..