It's all lies.

All of it.

Even me...

Even me, even me, oh Billy... Sarah.. Paul.. what the hell am I doing they're just going to take me next and I'm dead, dead, dead dead, NO THAT ISN'T EVEN REMOTELY FUCKING POSSIBLE

I woke up sitting, turned on the lights, and muttered, "Shit on toast." Oh, damn. What a fucking nightmare. My head and heart are both pounding, too. I suppose this is one of the type Billy's used to, the nightmares he describes as 'pure emotion and only a few words.' Ow... what the hell triggered that, anyway? I haven't had a nightmare like that since I was eight. I looked out the window and saw darkness- and what the hell is that white shit? SNOW? Out here? It's technically possible... I looked out and yup, maybe about a quarter inch of white was covering the grass. The wind was blowing some, too. I haven't seen snow out here, ever. The temperate winds usually prevent that- guess there's a cold front coming on down from the Arctic and giving me some Northberg Joy. I know what its texture is, of course, but I've never been in actual snow for more than a minute at a time- no one leaves the Inheritor standing around.

I shook the last of the lingering nightmare off, rubbed my head, and groaned. I checked the clock calendar - 4:30 AM, December 22, 1999. Not only is this the first time I've had a bad nightmare, it's also one of the rare times I've woken up anything less than refreshed. I lumbered out of bed, walked without any of my usual grace down to the couch, and skimmed the latest edition of the Real News. Yadda... yadda... yadda. Two fifth-levels croaked on the same day, yesterday. Winter Solstice Party held by the Wiccan subgroup (why there are any Wiccans in the Illuminati is beyond even me). Latest experiments show some bugs still need to be worked out in the chemical balance checkers for 5% of the population. Possible upgrade to 'small' threat, that damn Anarch is still aiming for the Illuminati and trying to destroy our institutions, his target list was discovered and copied. He's a pretty good guesser, too. I swear that guy looks like an Enforcer. And his physical abilities are just like them too, only a bit better, and he seems to be able to summon up technological destructive power like a pro... he's not as advanced as us, but he has a sizable amount of intelligence and can strike quickly. But I could kill him. Hell, if my brethren can't do it, I'll kick his ass myself, with my own bare hands. Then I'll talk about how fucking easy it was. However, I'll probably never get the chance anyway. His ass is doomed. No one defies the Illuminati for long.

My servants were either asleep or elsewhere, probably asleep - it is early AM. I went down to the kitchen, opened the cabinet, grabbed a few nutrition bars, and lay down on the couch, eating them all in about thirty seconds. What did that nightmare mean, anyway? I had the distinct impression of getting.. what, killed, no.. it was something along the lines of ending up like my servants. What a fucking fate that would be. The Dominator made to serve someone else for the rest of his life - in my case, indefinitely. I've, for the sake of Illuminism, tried to identify with my servants and see things from their point of view; I still can't do it, even after 20 months, the best I can come is a clinical understanding, no empathy. Perhaps I just got them now. If that's true, no wonder they're so pissed at me and semi-paranoid- it's more than just the obvious, it's a subconscious recoiling as well.

There was no way in hell I could go back to sleep again, so I turned on the living room computer and played the latest build of Diablo 2 on an eighty-inch screen with surround sound. It got addictive fast, and I fell into a semi-awake stupor. I don't even remember blinking, only level after level, health potion after health potion, monster after monster, kill, kill, kill. There is a certain happiness to brainless slaughter. You don't have to worry, you don't have to actively think- in fact you can keep all thoughts of anything on the back burner- and your only immediate responsibility is the deaths by your weapon, in this case a pair of axes. Chop, chop, chop, upgrade weapons, hack, slice, maim. Program error (fucking slowass developers- Blizzard Entertainment could use an Enforcer or two), restart program, cleave, chop, cleave. Sarah once again appeared from behind me, massaged my shoulders uncommanded, and that is when I glanced at the clock- 7:30. I had killed more than three straight hours doing that.

"It's snowing out, you know.", she said in my left ear.

"Still?"

"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?"

"No.. had a nightmare, couldn't get back to sleep." When I said 'nightmare', the emotions returned in a flood, and this time I was able to identify them: lots of fear, mixed in with some rage, some acceptance, a touch of hate, and a sprinkle of envy. Ugh. What demented cook created that vile concoction? My own brain, of course, chemicals in one hand and stew-pot in the other.

"And I thought only I had the nightmares.", Billy muttered to my right, coming down the stairs.

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

He stood looking at me for a split second. "Okay.. you in a chariot, whip in hand." I started giggling a bit, and that giggling almost cost my Barbarian his life. Thank the producers for the leap skill. "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."

"Screwy enough." I heard a whistling noise from outside, and looked. The snow wasn't a blizzard, nowhere near it- but it was coming down rapidly and the grass was invisible. I wonder how much of the local wildlife it'll kill. Or have the pigs made their own preparations for this?

Turning skeletons, zombies, and wraiths into paste and bones was beginning to be a chore so I turned it off, and laid back. "Damn.. hey, maybe I'll go enjoy it while it's still here."

"You're going to go play in the snow? Even just saying that sounds weird.", said Billy, as Paul ambled his way down the stairs.

"The Dominator does as he will, and none may know his true motive.", said Sarah, quoting a long-held Illuminated phrase about Dominators engaging in faux pas, things below their station, or seemingly eccentric or out-of-character practices. Just hearing the phrase, of course, is a subtle cue to shut up, fuck off, mind your own goddamn business, and thank whatever god you believe in that he isn't coming after you. "Sometimes, not even him." Billy chuckled a bit. Sarah sees a regular need to deflate my ego- not to say I blame her or that that's a bad thing.

"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." Everything else was, and my own personal strange sense of \'e6sthetics told me that he'd otherwise be a dark blotch on the perfection of it all.

"Isn't that thing too light?"

"Nope. It exchanges heat a lot slower in cold." Two minutes and a few bites to eat later, we went to enjoy nature. One of these days, maybe in a few hundred years, maybe in only fifty, I'll just press a few buttons and summon the snow whenever I want it. It would take a good deal of power (all meanings) to implement, but it almost certainly could be done. Weather on demand. And I'll live to see it happen.

The suit did its job very well. I felt a slight chill as my feet sunk into the frost, no more. I picked up a large handful and then squeezed it. It obeyed the shape of my hand, with five indentations arranged neatly on its surface. I then chucked it at the ocean and it skipped a few times before landing with a plop.

"We got a lot of this back in Illinois. Didn't think we could get it here.", Billy said, admiring the snow, the wind blowing it on his bare face. Winter wonderland my ass- I noticed the tips of the trees were frozen, and they would surely be permanently damaged. I didn't worry about it; that's the job of the nigh-invisible maintenance men.

"Didn't think we could get it here either. Strange- little bit of frozen water on the ground makes all the difference."

"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 barking and the sound of small, rapid feet coming closer. Fido and Magma were running at us, Fido with his supercanine, cheetah-like speed. He had long since learned to tell which one of us was which by clothes color, but with us both wearing white, he just picked one and dashed. It happened to be me. In that instant, I saw the traditional canine way of saying "I'm just fooling around" - the lips pulled back to hide the teeth. He slowed down quite a bit and came at me at a speed of over thirty miles an hour, obviously intending to knock me down and lick my face as he has so many times before. (I, of course, have been strongly tempted to tell him not to do that, but I won't. Canine affection is simply too ego-boosting and flat-out pleasant.) This time, however, I anticipated him and leaned back - he did knock me down, but I grabbed his forelegs and flipped over with him. We rolled completely over again and I was on top, smiling. He licked my face anyway, and I kissed him on his wet nose. Billy was scratching Magma behind the ears. I let Fido up and he started barking at me, and panting at the same time. He then ran out back into the frozen forest- to get some treasure, maybe.

"What's he going for?", asked Billy, with one of my dogs' heads in his hand, the dog affectionately rubbing the fur against the fabric of Billy's leg.

"Something valuable, maybe?", I guessed. And I was right - it was something valuable, to Fido anyway. Dogs have such simple pleasures and simple lives. Fido obediently and happily carried the half-eaten remnants of a frozen pig to me. The pig, a male, had obviously died of hypothermia. It had almost no winter coat, and its blue-tinted body was covered in ice crystals. "Natural selection at work.", I noticed aloud.

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

"Actually, this isn't that fresh." There would have been more blood coming out of the wounds if it was. He took a closer look at the pig and nodded.

"Yeah, and the dogs ate most of the good parts." He was right- Fido probably took a fat chunk for his own engineered needs, and the year-old half-superior puppies probably had their fill as well. But Fido had respectfully and thoughtfully brought the meat to his master, whom his canine brain had thought may need food this winter. Of course, it is Fido who needs the food - his coat had grown out in reaction to the cold, his energy requirements are higher during the winter months, and all the dogs had eaten their share of the heated food the Enforcers leave out for them every day. Their instinct, however, is unabated and they feed their children, and their masters, meat. I petted his thick fur, snapped off a piece of frozen leg, and slowly munched. It was tasty- if you like frozen, raw meat.

"Is it good?", Billy said, chuckling slightly.

"Yeah, tough to eat though. It doesn't taste the same as it does fresh." Billy snapped off another leg and nibbled.

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

"Why not? It's protein and fat, the two things we need most."

"It's.. well, it's raw, unadulterated, frozen pig! Look at it Howie, it's the other blue meat!" I started laughing, and so did he- abusing the old Pork slogan is fun. I laughed harder and lay back in the snow, munching fresh pig. Fido and Magma both watched us, wagging their tails. I lay back in the snow- it was comfortable, at least, the softness being compressed where the weighty areas of my body are.

"Take the pig back to your children, Fido. They need it more than I do.", I said, looking into his eyes. He nodded, barked, grabbed a remaining leg in his jaws, and dragged it back to his den. He does indeed understand some English - he knows what "children" and "pig" are, and he generally understands "back to". Magma barked and followed him back into the frozen forest. I took a couple more bites from the leg, and flung the rest into the ocean. Billy also flung his and decided to sit right next to me.

"I think that was your Christmas present, Howie.", he said, chuckling.

"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."

"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.", I said, being factual and serious. He had a slight 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."

"Oh geez! Did you get hurt?"

"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."

"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?"

"Nope.", I said, the snow still gently falling on my body. "It was someone with third level clearance, though. Daddy was pretty pissed when he told me what it was supposed to mean. I think he did an investigation, but the guy is an Illuminatus and he did cover his tracks."

"I didn't think they'd let you get shit without knowing 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.. 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."

"Yes, that's right, the calls of nature can not be denied for long.", he said. I gently reached up, grabbed the back of his neck, and dragged him down to lay back next to me. He laughed slightly. "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." Well, of course I'm being myself, who else would I be - oh, I know what he's saying, and why he's saying it. A small piece of normal psychology (and a piece he still has, after all this time? Interesting.) I read about on my own answered this one. It's a thing that gets itself into the minds of the masses and gets buried deep, too deep. It's the 'Someone is always watching my manners' reflex that is brought upon by the lack of privacy and the constant supervision of parents, peers, teachers. A thing I've had to study psychology to find out about- a thing that is kept as an unconscious assumption at a very early age. And since practically everybody in normal society follows the pattern, there are no counter-examples. Of course, this is also kept as an assumption when creating new paradigms for the masses to follow, it's just called by other names and packed in as part of general normal psychology- not identified on its own as a mental element, just part of the general idea of 'groupthink'. It's hilarious, really- everyone is worried about being watched from outside, while inside, they are watched the most. And of course I've never had to worry about any of that because the only one who was watching me was Daddy, and he was only there to guide a young mind's learning and prevent it from making fatal mistakes.

"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."

"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!"

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

"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." He chuckled, put his hands behind his head, and just grinned at the falling snow.

So we ended up silently lying down next to each other in an inch and a half of fresh white, in which we were surely close to invisible. For no reason at all I slid my arm under him and just left it there. He reciprocated and for a few seconds we just looked into the sky. A snowflake fell on my nose and I brushed it off.

"So you do have some Christmas spirit.", he said, looking at me with a slight smirk. In reply, I scooped up a big handful of snow, chucked my right arm over my body in a simple arc, and plopped it directly into his face.

"Hey! You know I can't-", he yelled after the cold hit him.

"You can now, with the snow." He grinned, grabbed a fat handful, jumped up, squeezed it into a very tight ball, and chucked it at my head full force. I dodged a fifth of a second before the snowball hit the ground with a smack. I flipped up to my feet and we quickly got into our version of a snowball fight- tightly compressed balls of ice zinging back and forth, four total thrown a second, at 100 miles an hour. I suddenly realized that it would make no difference if a rock was put into one of these or not. We were seven feet apart - there was no way we could even come close to hitting each other, after dodging bullets for a while, snowballs going at the speed of a normal fastball are easy. I turned up the power, he turned up the power, and the rate increased to six a second and the speed to about 150. Of course, it was still impossible. However, I haven't had a workout like this in a while.

Then Paul stepped out of the house in green warm winter gear, with his mouth all the way open. He looked like an egg-eating snake with double-hinged jaws about to devour its latest meal. "Holy shit!", he blurted, as if he hadn't seen us do things like this before. He looked like he was going to throw one, looked at his hands, looked at us, and just shook his head. We kept at it for another thirty seconds, circling to get fresh snow. The frozen ground was barren of snow where we had grabbed and chucked like crazy, and an asymmetrical ovoid was formed of footprints and handmarks, leaving a small, pristine white patch between us.

"All right, stop it.", I told Billy. "There wouldn't be any hits for hours and we both know it." I plopped down on the ground, tired after that much speed.

"Yeah.. but there's still one thing I wanna show you, Howie.", he said, squatting down and putting his arm around me.

"What's that?"

I could have seen it coming. I really should have seen it coming. Had I been an outside observer, I would have been able to pinpoint the exact moment it was coming with ridiculous ease, for it was an available, simple, and predictable option for him.

I didn't see it coming.

*Splot!* A loose handful of wet snow greeted me in the face. Paul started cracking up. Oh, the fucking irony. The machinegun iceballs miss and the single, loose, slowly-chucked handful of snow hits. Brrrr... that shit is COLD!

"Billy," I crooned in my most pleasant voice, "I hope your finely-tuned sense of revenge does not extend into other areas." And I hope his resourcefulness does. I'd like to see him demonstrate it in life-threatening situations; but then again, life-threatening situations are something to be avoided.

"You hope wrong, asshole.", he said in one of his least pleasant. He then grimaced, and I was faintly reminded of The Joker. "But that was fun." Paul was still laughing some, his face visible even through the blowing- oh dammit all, it stopped snowing, there's just a wind carrying around what's already there. It's just blowing already-fallen snow and it's still early morning. The grass will be dominant in hours- and that's if the sun doesn't come out.

"Hey, Howard, do you have a sled?", Paul smiled and asked, pointing to the steep incline of this island's mountain.

"Ahh.. no.. Call a couple down! They'll be here inside twenty minutes." Paul ran off back to the house. The sleds would be purchased from normal retail stores by missionless agents, taken to an airfield like the rest of the stuff I order, and flown in some form above the island where they will be deposited by parachute. Sort of like normal mail-ordering, only a fuckload quicker and easier.

"Wood or plastic?", he called back. Damn. I doubted I could have one made of a frictionless material before the snow melted. I began to vaguely wonder if there was a good place, cordoned off in some way as to make it inaccessible to normals, that was always sled ground. Of course there is- Illuminati like a lot of land around their northern bases and using them as vacation spots (particularly for those who live in hot climates and have to often leave air conditioned buildings) is not unknown.

"Big and plastic!", yelled Billy. He then turned to me. "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?" Why do I keep forgetting that they are the standard and we are the exception? Mostly because I avoid dealing with them. Mental note: even a very light metal, such as aluminum, would grow cumbersome to normals, especially after repeated trips. Besides, aluminum is too malleable and would get bent out of shape if it ever hit something.

"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."

Billy muttered something under his breath. "What are you thinking about?", I asked, smiling a bit. This will be good.

"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.."

He cringed. "AAAAAAACK! No! Howie!"

"Billy, stand up and hold still." As he did, his eyes were tightly shut and his back tense. I picked up a nice, fat handful of fresh, wet snow, put it into close contact with the back of his neck, he involuntarily hunched his shoulders a bit- then I dropped it. Onto the ground. "All right, you can move."

"Oh.. you didn't."

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

"Howard, that was a cheap shot.", said my personal female assassin and all-around sneak.

"Sarah, how the hell did you get behind me in snow?", I whirled around and said. She was wearing not white, but a white-grey camouflage pattern designed for stealth. As with the rest of her skin-tight clothing, this diverted blood into my important, but technically non-essential organ.

"Thin snow, special shoes, and your distracted senses.", she said with a smile. She had not left footprints - wait, she had, they were just not outlined as most footprints are, and they could not be recognized for what they were from a distance.

"And I didn't even know you were out here." I looked up at the clouds. A few particles of snow seemed to come down, then stop again. Flurries. And when they end, no more snow here. Maybe there's an Illuminated ski lodge somewhere - I never know things like that until I look them up.

"That made it easier. I suppose you're taking the steepest way down you can find?"

"Sarah, that's a cliff. But I have one in mind." The one I had in mind was a steep slope with gravel- very hard to climb up even in summer. In winter, it should be perfect sled ground.

"Cool, now what were you doing with these things?", she said, grinning and picking up a snowball. Billy shook his head emphatically.

"Sarah. No.", I said, not wanting any more freezing on my face.

"Then I suppose you're just out here for the freeze?", she said, the opposite of my thoughts.

"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 from can get it here anytime soon.. hey, I wonder how the Micro would work out here."

"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." She's right- the energy would just bounce off the ice particles every which way, heating the whole place up and giving me some radiation as well.

"Yeah, would be funny though. Anyway.." I took a large handful of snow and compressed it as tightly as possible, using power and forming a compact object of crushed ice, then picked out an outhanging twig branch in the forest, a frozen one maybe 25 meters away. Then I took careful aim, threw - and the branch snapped with the force. Footsteps came out of the house - must be Paul.

"Nice aim. Watch this.", said Billy, doing similar and aiming for a branch farther away, which no normal could hope to hit. It snapped into two pieces - the branch was indeed frozen over, and was brittle. Sarah did the same and got two in one hit.

I grinned, this was fun as hell, and good training to boot. Even at the speeds we throw at, gravity and wind are still a factor, and I don't want to hit a branch without watching it snap in half, so I selected the brittle ones. I picked up a huge handful, crushed, threw - and missed by inches. The rotating, uneven snowball had gone under. Billy and Sarah both noticed and laughed malevolently.

"ARGH!", I yelled, this time aiming better and blasting the twig dead-on. It did not snap fully, but held on by a small piece of bark, hanging dead from the branch it was attacked to.

"And even more impossible shit.", muttered Paul.

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

"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 frozen pine needles sticking out of it?", I said, motioning to one about 15 meters away.

"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." Snow fell off his hand as the middle portion became something resembling solid ice. Even through his winter clothing, I could tell his muscles were straining. But the snowball was nowhere near what it should have been. "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!" The snowball moved inward very slightly. "The stuff you're hiding, Paul." I think that triggered it. The snowball became something not quite comparable to ours, but almost as hard as they come. In that instant, I realized something simple, something that I've been wondering - it's true, emotional pain, fear, and culture shock do make normals stronger mentally, much as the slight muscle-tears build their muscles. Paul was almost consciously pumping adrenalin into his right forearm and hand. He, of course, understood after a year and a half exactly what we were talking about when we said 'power'. It's like liquid concentration. Unfortunately, it took all his concentration and all his force to do something which we do half-heartedly, and he knows it, too, and he has known it for as long as he's known Billy. Oh well. Not everyone can be a superman - or if we were all supermen, we the Illuminati would come up with someone even better. I love genetics.

"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."

"All right."

"Now, pull back, release your power, and just throw, Paul." It was impressive, almost Enforcer-grade ability. The snowball did not break the twig but bounced off with a loud smack and exploded into pieces. Had Paul been an adult and had a larger power reservoir, he would have surely killed it.

"Dammit Howard, I can do that.", he growled and said, then pulled back another tight snowball and just zinged it. The snowball surely had enough force to break the twig. Unfortunately, the twig didn't notice a bit as the snowball was a good three feet over it.

"FUCK!", he screamed, grabbing another handful, tightening his aim - then consciously summoning something, that something I recognized, burning like fire behind his eyes, the something he had not been able to access in his training. He broke the tip of the twig straight off; it and the white iceball kept going until they bounced off another tree and hit the ground. "Shit, I've never been able to do that before.", he said, looking at his light grey gloves and the hands within as though they had become a different, alien part of him. Billy applauded, and Sarah nodded, grinning. We all took aim and kept snapping twigs, Paul aiming for the closer and smaller ones and missing a lot of his shots. After about five minutes of that, we ran out of twigs, got bored anyway, and stopped. I laid down again, resting on the cushion that nature provided.

"Ahh... my arms hurt.", I said, looking up at the clouds once more. I had made a point of throwing with both arms equally- being ambidextrous is quite useful. The three of them murmured the same.

"Now I see why you come out here.", Sarah said, throwing another snowball up in the air, then smashing it into pieces with a backhand.

"Yeah, it's great stuff. And check it- here come the sleds.", I said, pointing up into the clouds, where a jet flew. A parachute dropped from the jet, its trajectory directly to the lawn near us.

"All right!", said Paul, his usual grin on his face every time he thinks of speed.

The sleds landed directly on top of my underground jet, glistening with new blue plastic. One was circular, and large enough for two of us - the other one was a normal sled-shape that, with slight difficulty, could have held us all.

"Billy, Sarah, bring em and follow me.", I said, going through the frozen forest and up the mountain to where the steep hill is.

We trudged up the side, the gravel, the snow, and some ice combining to make climbing difficult. All of us ended up almost crawling, Billy and Sarah pushing up the sleds as they plowed into the slippery mix, pummeling their way upwards with their feet and elbows. Finally, we looked down the slope we had just climbed up- about 50 meters downwards, 30 meters horizontally. When the angle tapered off, we would have a tree to avoid, but lots of room to stop, provided we didn't make any sudden turns.

"Shit. Howard, are you sure you want to do this?", said Sarah, looking down and considering the risk.

"Yup. I love playing it dangerous.", I said, grinning. In a jet or a car, you have raw speed but good control over that raw speed, and it doesn't seem as fast as you're really going. In a motorcycle or a sled, you can see the ground whiz by more easily, know how fast you're going, and that's the exhilarating part. I've only been on a sled a few times before, and I don't remember it too well.

"Hmm.. guinea pigs, guinea pigs.. 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." He jumped in and she pushed him, using her power in three solid steps. When she jumped in, the force of it sent Paul overbalancing, he reached forward too far, and the both of them spilled over into the snow, Paul rolling, Sarah doing a backflip and skidding partially down the hill on her well-formed ass, and the sled flipping over 360 degrees and sliding down the mountain, as it would normally, only with no riders on it. Billy and I simultaneously cackled madly.

"You little fucker! You could have killed us both!!", she yelled, screaming at Paul from the base of her lungs. I laughed even harder. Paul got into a sitting position from his point halfway down the mountain, muttering to himself. Neither one appeared to be hurt.

"Yeah, well it wasn't my fault you decided to push us like that!", Paul said, getting up and checking himself.

"Howard--", Sarah began.

"I distinctly said not to crash.", I reminded her. She snarled and made an half-bark, half-roar sound like an angry wild cat. "I think we can do it without, well... hehe, don't you Billy?" I aligned the sled for going straight down.

"Oh, yeah.", he said.

"Push and jump in.", I said, steeling myself for it. He did a similar three-step push, smacking the ground with the rubber soles and his power. There was a thump as he jumped in the back- and I realized we were going 60-70 kilometers per hour. Faster than I expected. We hit a rock and did a slight jump - the nearest tree wasn't anywhere near us - but if we don't stop soon, we will continue into the forest where there are plenty of trees to hit. And there was no way to stop it from here, so..

I jumped off the sled, slide-walking onto the snowy ground. Billy jumped off backwards, leaned back and crouched, grabbed the sled, and skidded on his ass and the soles until he came to a stop. We were still a good thirty meters from any arboreal threats.

Sarah carried the sled back up the hill, cursing Paul with a variety of vile profanity. From the sounds of it, Sarah wanted his dick to fall off (Again?) and his brains to ooze out his nose while he was fucking a dog with AIDS, all the while performing a variety of impossible and contortionist acts.

Their next attempt was more of a success, us watching as we came back up the hill. Paul screamed all the way down, before he eventually bailed out. Sarah kept going.. toward the tree! What the fuck is she thinking?? "Sarah!!", I called out, as she demonstrated her plan. She grabbed an overhanging branch, flipped the sled on its side, caught it between her legs, and elegantly flipped over, chucking the sled to the side and landing on her feet. The rest of us clapped. She took bows, grabbed the sled, and trudged back up the hill for more.

Billy finished bringing the sled back up the hill and we did it again. It's exhilarating going at that speed. No wonder skiing and snowboarding are such popular sports. We did it several more times, then I got on the long sled with Sarah, I pushed, and I held on to her breasts as we zinged down the hill. Ah, I love this job.

As the ground grew wetter, the sleds grew faster. I laughed at Paul every time he jumped out, because he screamed every single time and bailed out like the sled was heading towards hot lava every time it was heading anywhere near a branch. "Damn.. this is cool.", he laughed and said after the fifth time he bailed, this time out of the long sled. I was alone on the circular one, spin-sliding at an absolutely suicidal rate, balancing myself so I wouldn't fall over, until I finally, internally realized that the tree wasn't going to lose the game of chicken and I bailed. The sled landed into the tree with a resonating thud, and snow dropped out of its branches.

We did that for a couple of hours, in various combinations, again and again, snow blazing by. We kept it up until the sun completely dominated the ground, the snow was flowing off the mountain in rivers, and it was definitely time to quit or suffer serious rock-burn when jumping out. Something would have lapped up the blood if we hit a good patch... eeyouch.

"I'm dizzy as shit.", mumbled Paul as he trudged through the brown forest, shaking off the after-effects. "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.", I said, dripping water from the tips of my fingers. "But can one of you please tell me why I just did all that?"

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

"Fun?", Sarah suggested. "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.", said Billy. "But the point's the same, we don't really know." He stopped for a moment and pondered it from a different angle. "Even he doesn't really know why he does things. Now I am scared.."

"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.", Billy 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."

"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.'", I finished, quoting Daddy.

"Not to mention they get stabbed in the back a whole lot easier.", added Sarah. Billy laughed. It took me a second to realize that she wasn't just meaning anachronistic normals who are spaced-out and easy to kill, but herself who triple M'd (majorly miscalculated motives, the Illuminated way of saying 'seriously fucked up in people skills') so badly she ended up here.

We entered and the viewscreen was displaying "Non-immediate message"; Sarah clicked the usual button and I sat down to listen.

A partially balding, dutiful-looking man's face was displayed- he's one of the second levels, but I'm not sure of his name. He spoke in a formal and precise tone, showing only mild joy. "Master Howard, I have good news.", the recording said.

"There's a new one.", I muttered. Billy sat down next to me.

"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." Yeah, Eric and Dylan and the pissed off Texas atheist in America, and lots of truly random violence in the undeveloped countries. We prepare for most of it, but Murphy's Law sometimes kills people we don't want dead. "Howard, your ah.. 'advanced recursive encompassization' technique is absolutely excellent and we of the Second Level particularly commend you for it." The man nodded and the screen clicked off. Hmm. ARC's simple, and I think that certain things I did other than just the general suggestions helped more than that.. but oh well. This was probably a message meant to calm me down or try to manipulate me into accepting something a bit later- or, a variation of this was being sent to everyone. I checked it out and found it was the latter.

"Ha! I knew it would work.", I said proudly and mightily. "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," she continued, taking off the snowsuit and revealing to us once more the body we've all experienced, "I imagine you're hungry." As soon as she said the word, my stomach agreed with her.

"You guessed it. Turkey with stuffing." While she proceeded to simultaneously bake and nuke the turkey, I checked out the guy's claim that the plan was indeed going perfectly. Murphy's Law dictated that things would unexpectedly go wrong, and they did, but sometimes luck dictated that they didn't. Or was my plan and its implementation really that good?

"Damn! You win, Paul.", Billy said. I asked what he meant.

"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.", I said, checking out things. Illuminati seldom report that 'there's nothing wrong' so I judged the success of the general plan by checking how many official problems were filed. They're down one fourth from last year and that was about one fifth from the previous. Damn! No one is opposing us, hate groups, factions of our larger organizations, not them, no one! "'Tis the everfucking season! Santa came early this year!", I exclaimed, laughing at the results.

"And once more I am reminded why you use the term 'sheeple'.", Billy said, sounding slightly exasperated at their idiocy. Why don't they realize, anyway? We can take away their speech and their weapons and their very children, and they do nothing to oppose us, hell, they'll even support us if we make it sound right! It's so good to be Dominator! I started laughing again, this time not the same; this was a gut-laugh, one that came from the bottom of my diaphragm, one that filled the room with powerful amusement, using my echo-cords. Billy joined in, doing a perfect imitation. Paul tried to imitate it, and partially succeeded. Sarah walked in and joined us, some power in her high voice. We continued for five seconds.

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

"Yeah, and here comes the Easter Bunny. Howard, I have not felt this displaced from reality since I got here.", Billy said, still chuckling.

"Reality is malleable anyway.", I reminded him. "And I've got a pretty big hammer."

"Yeah, just watch where you're pointing it.", Paul said. I grinned at him.

The turkey was done shortly after, and we munched greedily, all thoughts of anything but the pleasures of right now in our heads, ready for tomorrow by focusing on today, enjoying life- yes, all four of us, actually enjoying the lives blind luck gave, the pleasure-chemicals zipping through our heads. After taking a nap and some more research and specific queries to make sure everything really was going according to plan, I blew the rest of the day on electronic entertainment, happy at the presence of- no, just the mere existence of- my good friend Paul, my girl Sarah, and my eternally obedient and lovable brother, Billy.

We both had great sex with Sarah that night.

Three days later, we did take a snowboarding trip, in the mountains of Siberia on an old, Illuminati-converted military base now used for human research. It was mind-blowingly cold (of course, none of us noticed or cared due to the fabrics used) and mind-blowingly fun- we created an avalanche with our explosive echoed voices and surfed down the moving snow, using the super jumping ability of the special snowboards to launch over obstacles. The ache afterwards made home all the more welcoming. There was so much else we did, as we always do. Fun of all sorts, serious problems with Illuminati (Billy and I solve those in the same general way- get facts, make threats, Dominate), things that normals can barely contemplate and will never see. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how your Master is meant to live.