Another fucking nightmare. Same theme- me, Billyized. Shit, that's annoying.. although waking up and realizing you're still the Dominator mitigates the terror with a total sense of relief. Whew. Yup, I'm still me. There's a Twilight Zoner for ya- a body switch with no apparent changes, except for lots of cheering from one side and lots of screaming from the other. A terror I'll never have to worry about. A real nightmare- no basis in reality, I reminded myself, although I did find myself darting around random nooks and crannies with engineered speed.

Forget it, Howard. Let it go. If some secret agent were in here, I or they would be dead as steamrolled bugs already. Besides, no one's that stupid. You'd need a real Darwin Award contender- too bad secrecy demands that it not be put on the Darwin Awards website- to try to get close to the person of the Dominator.. between the Enforcers (Enforcers vs. Idiots: you can almost hear the screaming if you listen real hard), the agents-in-training and their teachers (I took a second to question their loyalty- no way in hell they'd betray me. It's something like Asimov's First Law of robotics- I've seen plenty of the training and it's clear who they follow, no matter who's commanding them at the moment, and no matter how personally dangerous they become.), the servants (Hmm.. it's close, but my money's on Paul shooting him in the head before Billy and/or Sarah tear him apart at the seams), and my own abilities (Crunch.), no one is getting in here. Not even that Anarch- who seems to be in hiding, since he hasn't been heard of for months- can break into this place. There are problems I have to live with- security is not one of them.

A part of the nightmare I didn't realize I remembered came flashing back out at me like a bulldozer from Hell- although I didn't get a complete image, it was enough to realize that I was being savaged by the only people physically capable of doing it.

Security from the outside is definite. Security from the inside is not. Wait, what the fuck am I thinking? They're servants, Howard, they can't kill you! Although I've demonstrated plenty of indiscretion and instant decision-making over my twenty-two-month rule, I stay away from the big blunders (No! That bit with the arm did not count! That was one in a million, now stop doubting yourself, dammit!), so if it eventually happens, my natural sure-tonguedness has ensured that it doesn't happen any time soon. Hmm, where are they, anyway? I opened their door to find Billy and Paul asleep, Paul's head resting on Billy's right arm as Billy had his legs over Paul's. If they heard me, they weren't showing signs. I closed it and opened Sarah's- she wasn't there. Not that that's unusual or anything. She could be literally anywhere on the island- of course, I could have someone fetch her in two minutes if she wasn't near an intercom, but I'm not going to bother.

I put the usual on and went outside, shaking off the last effects of the nightmare. Not going to happen. Ugh. I found myself wandering aimlessly after a few minutes- I need to clear my head. Clouded sunlight and the forest produced a somewhat pleasant, calming effect. Hmm. Might as well see it all from the top. I clambered up the usual route to the top of the island's mountain, to a cliff that might as well have been designed for \'e6sthetics.

And there Sarah was, clad in all black, sitting on the cliff's ledge, moving back and forth frustratedly. She'd move forward, as if to lunge off- then lean back- then stand up, move a bit- and then relax back. "Yes, I really do want to.", she said, without looking back. Had I known she was up here, I probably would have been more stealth-concerned. And here she is, trying to do what dozens of electronics engineers and a fuckload of secret, well-funded technology prevent her from doing.

She finally looked back. "Just tell me which one you are- the duplicate gag's old.", she said, as I walked up to her. She squatted down and threw a small rock over the 25-meter drop. I couldn't hear it land.

"And what good would that do?", I asked rhetorically, squatting down next to her and looking at the budding trees, spotting a pig shuffling through the forest below.

"It would destroy a rotting, repugnant joke that's been going around like a bad case of ebola."

"Yes, but if I did tell you, I might be lying just for the sheer hell of it, and you already know that."

"Got me there.", she shrugged and said. "Damn, you mind just letting me do it? What's one more kill between friends?"

"Sarah, neither of us want you to die.", I said quietly.

"But it's just one death, Howard!" I could tell that she doesn't know it's me- she's only just guessing. "Just one stinking little kill! You've listened to my advice before on who to get rid of- now why not me?"

"Because we'd miss you. Valuability issues aside."

"Yeah, just because you fucking feel like it, as usual. Billy," Ah, she's not guessing at all. She's alternating names for whatever reason. "if I really were your friend as well as just a sex partner, assassin, and all-purpose servant girl, you would have asked me why by now."

"Is it the obvious?"

"What else is there?"

"Then why ask?"

"For more specific stuff.. I was at least expecting you to ask my thoughts by now."

"Sarah, I have no desire to know what you're thinking right now. A good portion is very simple to figure out and the rest is probably just muddled anger and frustration."

"You're wrong- it's all anger and frustration. Come on! You can still fuck my corpse for a while after I'm dead.." A certain sense of desperation that I could simply not place came into her voice.

"I thought you had other people to kill first."

"I do. And you know what? They're either going to die on their own in a few decades or they're going to live forever, just out of reach, just like this cliff. I suppose you know who Tantalus is."

"Spending an eternity in Hades with food and water just out of reach, which is why we use the term 'tantalize' today. I'm surprised you've heard of him."

"Oh, don't worry, I get plenty of culture.. seeing as how I get to see everything and touch so fucking little."

"Sarah, just because you happen to be my finger of death instead of everybody's doesn't change who's ordering the killing. If not you, then someone else. You just happen to be really good at it.", I said, letting her know which one I am and trying to get her to reveal more. A wish to kill me? Logical. A wish to kill herself? Uncharacteristic as hell.

"Yes, and after all that bullet-slinging, I've still never done my own assassinations, or even my own assassination. It's all been for you or some other power-hungry warlord."

"Such is the nature of the business."

"Yeah, the same fucking business that created us and started this whole damn thing. What the fuck were they thinking? All their egotism was culminated, rolled into a ball, combined with genetics and made into you. And now here I am, still suffering from the effects of being trusting."

"You already know they planned every minute of that to exactly fit what you've always wanted. They do that."

"Yeah, I know. It's just that.. damnit, Howard, this whole thing just sucks. You can make me do anything you want, just say the word.."

"Sarah, none of us want you to die. You really are too valuable. Besides, if you plunged 75 meters, who'd cook the turkey?" She just sighed and chuckled. "I'm the Dominator, remember? I don't waste resources, especially ones I care about."

"Your definition of care.. remember almost a couple of years ago when Billy was saying he didn't want to know what your definition of 'friend' was? Well, we've eventually learned in detail. Howard, you're an evil bastard all on your own but that part comes with the territory. But when you've got other people trapped in your twisted clutches, things change, because you have a spark of kindness and of niceness and of all that other happy crap. And is it trying to get out, hell no, because your overwhelming sense of Illuminated control has taken and assimilated that, too."

"As you said, part of the territory. I'll always control you, but that doesn't mean you've got to suffer. Besides, most of the people you want dead, I want dead. In fact, probably all of them except me."

"No, there's others."

"Name one."

"The head Day Operator at Northberg."

"Him? Well, yes, I have everything to thank for from him. Is that just vengeance or.."

"Just vengeance. No other reason. Same with the rest of the assholes. They enslave me, I smear their guts around."

"You're talking like there's such thing as justice."

"It's not justice, just revenge and hatred. I want them dead."

"If the retrovirus doesn't save them, you have only but to wait."

"Yeah, and watch them get replaced by a new squad of engineereds even more villainous than you."

"Sarah, anything I could do or say to further your goals would be immensely detrimental to mine. Which is the bottom line, because I'm not only an evil bastard, I'm the evil bastard, and don't you forget it."

"How could I? I'm two and a half years, lighter hair, and a sex change away from doing what you're doing. And that's the real kicker. Even Paul could be just as mean and evil as you are, if only he had the power to go with it."

"So you're just pissed off that it's not you."

"Basically, and also at the way even engineered humanity works."

"Tough shit. Sum id quod sum and even I can't change the way humanity works. Not for a while, anyway."

"And even then, you're going to change it for your own purposes, because that's what's going to benefit you the most in the long run. Shit, I know all this. It's the way things have always worked. I'm just on the wrong fucking end of it." She stood up, picking up another pebble, and throwing it full force at about a twenty degree angle, the small stone quickly becoming a dot and then nothing.

"I will leave you alone, if you want.", I said, getting up and looking her in the eye.

"No.. I'm goin in. A decimeter from the cliff, four hectometers from the cliff, doesn't make a damn bit of difference. Cold out here anyway." I put my arm around her as we turned around and walked back. Other than Sarah's suicidal episode, it was a usual day.

Following my usual instincts, I killed things. Virtual, as usual- my Lightning-loving Sorceress and the Burning Dead simply dislike each other, and between my sense of tactics, my strategy, and my reaction time/ping (It is my Realm after all), the Dead have an extremely low chance of survival. And, of course, they didn't last any longer than I let them. I don't play with the big screen for this game anymore- too low resolution, and it still looks pixelated on the meager 35 inch I have in here.

It was indeed a usual day- the buzzer came when I was in what's usually termed 'the zone' - a semi-conscious state, the same one I use for real-world fighting. Fuck it. I'm not leaving this chair. It's.. Greg and Shane Jefferson, the fourth-level 13-year-old fraternal twins, partially engineered. They can afford to see my room. I saved the character and turned on the visual chat.

"So what do you want?"

"Just advice, maybe some help. You know the main news in America?", Shane said, her high voice reminiscent of Sarah's. Which shouldn't be surprising- it probably, partially, is Sarah's.

"I don't watch it, you should know that."

"You know who Elian Gonzales is?"

"Doesn't ring a bell. Give me a few minutes." I checked Illuminated records and found a whole lot of shit- looks like a few media guys are using the six-year-old boy as a public figure, to stir up yet another wave and set up some precedents for tactical and military use, and to steer popular thought the way they want it, like always. Amazing. Screw fifteen dead kids- one living one will suffice just fine. It would have taken me about fifteen minutes to see exactly what was going on in detail, but I realized it had a lot to do with world politics. "All right, what is it?"

"We think the guys who are doing this are doing it poorly."

"Shit.. I never even heard of any of this until today. What's going on?"

"Agh, it's a mess.", Greg said, in a voice slightly like mine. Looking at their necks, it's obvious that they can echo as I can. "Thing is, we're starting to think they've got it backwards. The idea was to keep the boy away from his father long enough to make people want government intervention, and to make familial relations more important than world politics." More minor delusions of the sheeple- this whole thing seems to be a time-killer, to make them look at something else while more important things were going on, which they always are. "Thing is, there's a whole lot of protestors out there, begging to let the boy stay.. government's really being portrayed as the enemy here. The guys behind this are doing the usual shit to make the whole thing useless, you know how they do that.. but we were thinking that if this keeps up, the protests will be seen as working, government will be seen poorly.. personally I don't think anything will really be affected, but there's fourth and fifth level guys whining about how the local climate is going to fuck up their plans. it's just a mess and we don't think anyone knows what he's doing. Might be some infighting between guys controlling this." Never a good thing, that.

"Besides, we think we want the boy for ourselves.", Shane said.

"What possible use could you have for him?", I asked.

"Oh, come on Howard- same reason you got Billy.", Greg said, not quite accurately but I wasn't going to correct him. "Besides, this is a real mess, and I want to see what the kid's mind is like. A small experiment in psychology, and we rip this mess off the air and replace it with something else. Of course, this isn't our department, we don't have authorization.. that's why we're asking you."

"Give me a half hour and you'll have your answer." Click. After about twenty minutes of pure research (I didn't use Billy for this, I wanted to learn these things myself), I started thinking about it as a whole. This is intriguing, I will give them that. Stalin, of course, said it best: one a tragedy, one million a statistic. So, we tend to focus on the one, and not the one million. One is much, much easier to control, anyway- especially when the one happens to be a child too young to make decisions for himself or even understand what's going on. And it is, indeed, a mess. There really are arguments- not so much 'infighting' as heated debate between guys controlling this. When media and government Illuminati disagree, bad things happen. Out of respect for.. me, probably, they've decided to refrain from kicking each other's asses and simply started playing tug-o-war. Bad. Very bad, in the long run. This kid needs out of the public eye. It's not a 'disaster' by any means- but it's starting to get muddled and ugly, and government isn't doing what it should have, that being to chuck the kid into the hands of his father from the first and claim it as policy. And Greg and Shane want the kid.. I can't say I blame them. Yes, let's do this. The father is replaceable, just like anyone else, and any behavioral differences can be blamed on Loyal Castro (the name Fidel always gives me a chuckle). Take the kid to a military base, and then replace him- the behavior of a six-year-old is amazingly easy to replicate- and give the real one to Greg and Shane. No fuss, no muss, no annoyances. Rip him away from his relatives military-style, and just ship him far away from Miami, and let's put an end to this whole mess.

Greg and Shane don't have authorization, and I should really be doing this myself anyway.

A few clicks and five minutes later, the face of Janet Reno appeared on my screen.

"Dominator Howard! What is it, Master?"

"This Elian Gonzales.. really screwed up publicity, really screwed up everything. I have people who want the boy. We can do effective replacement on the father right now.. when can you bring him to a nearby institution?"

"That's the problem, Dominator. I've got orders from every which way. You're going to need to give me time, lots of it."

"How much?"

"A couple of weeks..."

"A COUPLE OF WEEKS?! What the hell kind of orders can you possibly have?!"

"Do you really want to know?"

"No. I don't. Orders or no orders, I want the boy at a military institution within fifteen days. I'm being lenient, Miss Reno. I want that boy delivered unharmed and my people will do all replacements themselves. Your agents can take him out of there in.. how long does it physically take them?"

"Three minutes. But Dominator.. trust me here, you don't want to rush this."

"Fifteen days is hardly rushing it, Miss Reno. I want the boy, unharmed, as soon as possible and that's the maximum I will take. MY people can get him out of there in thirty seconds, and I can easily leave you with the cleanup. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Dominator. I'll inform the other masters."

"Good. Don't contact me about this- contact Greg and Shane Jefferson. Don't screw this up or you will end up on the wrong end of some implants."

"Yes, Dominator." Click. I then informed a happy Greg and Shane about my instructions, had Juan Miguel replaced, and then went back to playing Diablo 2.