BZZZERT!

The man on the screen, Thomas Fuchi, instantly started talking. "Dominator! I'm going to make this quick. The Anarch has just killed Brutus Mando and is still at his residence, and some of his normals are actually killing our Enforcers! Can we count on your help?" You're damn right you can. This isn't something I wanted this perfectly good day to be interrupted by.

My reply was swift. "You have it. If you can't kill him, delay him long enough for my forces to get there. He's dead." I clicked the screen off. Fuck you, you irritating normal son of a bitch. You don't get to see my face. I have someone who can do these things for me. "Sarah!! It's time to go kill!", I shouted into the intercom.

"Who?"

"The Anarch!"

"You know where he is?", Sarah asked, eager for blood.

"He's assaulting Brutus Mando's base right now! I told them to delay him.. get ready and get the fuck over there NOW! The Anarch's a normal and he has lots of them. Don't break secrecy." In this situation, that command had to have priority over the kill-him command.

"On it." And she was swiftly gone, silently walking past me in her usual murderous ensemble of normal clothing over assassin gear. This is one thing I find irritating- people who oppose me who somehow live. I want people who oppose me to be dead. Fortunately, as the Dominator, I have lots of ways to get them to that state.

Highly annoyed, I laid back on the couch and wondered what would happen if secrecy somehow broke. Well.. it would be 'underground', for one thing. It would be decried as paranoid nonsense by anyone in the mainstream. Even if by some horrible catastrophe, a piece of secret information got out, it would eventually be contained, or at least diluted- when a piece of secret information and 99 pieces of similar-sounding bullshit get out, who's going to know what to believe? The sheeple sure as hell won't. And anyone displaying the true information to the world would be swiftly killed and probably replaced. I know all this, of course, it's just that I haven't needed to think about it for a while. What a pain in the ass it is; lots and lots of Illuminati do nothing but that, secrecy. The End of Secrecy will free all that intelligent manpower up, at first just to kill assholes like this Anarch, then to do scientific work that will actually help the next humanity. With that thought in mind, I relaxed, and a bit later, ate and played with Billy and, for a few hours, Paul. Then I had him research what he could find on the Anarch, which was practically next to nothing. No name, no identity. It was left unsaid- an Illuminatus probably has a hand in this somehow. There was nothing productive we could possibly do, so I played some more with him instead.

Sarah came on the viewscreen in a few more hours and told me something I never, ever thought I'd hear from her. Failure. She failed to kill him. Maybe I should count that as my failure, though. She's my servant, after all. But.. how could she? He's a fucking normal!! She didn't want to explain, instead just saying that she'd write a report about it. I didn't command her to tell me. Right then, I didn't want to know, and turned off the communication. I was frustrated with myself, for making snap, casual decisions that might get someone killed. She's Sarah!! How the fuck would I ever suspect that she couldn't do it?!

I read the report when it came. Bottom line, he had a lot of meat shields, and she killed them trying to get to him, but it was a rather unique situation- she couldn't do it. Because my last command was for secrecy, which was reasonable under the circumstances- nothing for anyone to get pissed off about- but a huge mistake just the same. What if I had commanded her to kill and ignore secrecy- he'd be dead, and not killing any more Illuminati, and we'd have to do a bigger cleanup for the possible life of an Illuminatus in the future. What if the next target's Jeremy, or an engineered, or someone else I really care about? What if my off-hand command about normals and secrecy had actually gotten someone killed that I really don't want dead? I have to command- it's my job as Master- but next time I'm going to be far more specific and command Sarah to use more her judgment. Next time I have someone else to kill, that is. This Anarch has personally pissed me off, and he's somehow managing to evade our searches..

Sarah, naturally, was livid at herself when she came home. "I FAILED!! I fucking FAILED!! That Orwellian motherfucker's still out there somewhere, doing who knows what, and I couldn't motherfucking STOP HIM!!" She had my sentiments, and I wasn't going to get mad at her.

"Sarah, shit happens. You know that as well as I do. If it wasn't for secrecy he'd be dead meat."

"Yeah.. I know.. but.. DAMN IT!!", she emitted in a voice that was almost a shriek. She flat-handed the wall hard- neither, of course, was hurt by it.

"Sarah.. it probably ended up being impossible.", Billy tried to pacify her with.

"No- you guys don't get it! I could have had him! Damn!" No, you couldn't have. You were commanded, and you're an expert. If you could have had him, you would have. I didn't want to say that out loud and make her worse, though.

"This was your first mistake in.. how long?", Billy asked.

"One and three quarters of a year for serious mistakes.", I said, remembering the trigger-blasting way back when. "But until now, her targets have always ended up dead."

"So then.. why?", Billy asked.

"He.. dodged me. The fucker dodged me. He knew what I was doing, he knew how to move.. and I even think he knew about the secrecy rules! He might not be human.. he might be an Enforcer." Sarah eats Enforcers.. if this guy's worse...

"One hell of an Enforcer.", Billy and I said simultaneously.

"Yeah.. well, if he shows his ugly mug anywhere around here again..", she said, irritated.

"If I get the chance, I'll kill him.", I said. "He'll show up again."

"Not for a while..", she said, shaking her head. "He managed to escape, but his forces are gone.. he had dozens of normals with him.. a lot of this was in my report. I personally wasted three fourths of his guys."

"Anyone who can control that many normals in that society..", Billy said. That's another question- how the hell does he do that?

"Yeah.. we should assume someone's behind this. Can't think why. There's better ways to go about this.", I said. Illuminati have escaped the Anarch before- and that was an irritating thing to think, that we should have to worry about escaping anyone. "He'd have to be in constant contact with that Enforcer, and if we start checking things, which has already been done as a matter of course..."

"Annoying business, this is.", Billy said. I looked at him with a simple, direct message: 'No shit.'

"Yeah.. guess Murphy's at it again.", Sarah said with a yawn. "Some asshole thinks he can follow in the footsteps of the guys you waste. Gotta love the stupidity. I'm still so pissed about this. If you wouldn't have remembered to command secrecy I would have probably broken it." It would have been better, probably, but Sarah didn't seem to have an opinion on it. That's my decision, after all.. "I'm going to go sleep this off." I let her go.

Damn it! This is just so irritating! If I had bothered to go on one jet ride, I wouldn't have to be worrying about this shit! "If we would have went...", I started, upset.

"He'd be dead, yes.", Billy said, sympathetically. "C'mon, now you're acting like her, like you should have known what would have happened before it did. You can pretend to omniscience, can even approximate it with computers and all that, but nobody knows everything. You know that." His words were the exact opposite of a lot of Illuminated philosophy but perfectly in line with common sense. "And I doubt anyone will blame you for something your servant, the best assassin in the world, wasn't able to do. They have the report and they know she was seriously going after him." Billy's words were true, and very good to hear.

I smiled at him, and it felt like a weight was removed from my shoulders. "You're cheering me up, as usual. Next time that asshole shows up we're going to eat him for lunch. But that made me look bad. Oh well. That's it for him. Let's get my mind off this." And we played.