Someone had been smart enough to leave fresh clothes on the jet so we could get out of the worn rainforest gear. Hey, cool, I hadn't even thought to ask- a suit just like Howard's. Only black, of course. We changed in moments, and although the fabric was the same, it wasn't polluted by a week's worth of sweat.

Howard leaned against the seat, stretching and giving an "Ahhhhhh..." of relief as the jet accelerated. Of course he's relieved. We're finished with the damn tests. No one- at least, no one in his right mind- is going to challenge his power. The world is his to command now, although right now I seriously doubt he's in the mood to command much of anything. He needs a break; so do we, and we're probably going to get at least something of one if he isn't going to do much. Good. I need the fucking rest. "I don't think I've ever been this relieved in my whole life."

Murphy said hello in my head. "Yeah, now watch them ask you to be everywhere, fixing their problems and being places as the leader, just as soon as you get home.", I said, grinning a bit. Implantation begets pessimism. Of course, as funny as that would be, I'd fucking hate it. He'd use me even more; he'd have to.

"Billy, since that is actually possible, I declare you a very efficient killjoy."

"Thank you, Howard.", I replied.

"They're not gonna do that.", Sarah said. "Something I do know, when the Dominator's away, they tend to be very cautious of one another. The last guy had to be somewhere for like a week- not sure if you remember it, Howard- and everyone steered clear of fighting. I think it's because of the low patience of the position.." Ah, so all the previous Dominators were impatient as well?

He was more surprised at that than I was. "What? I thought I was the one with the low patience."

"Nope. One of my previous employers- the guy died recently- told me he lived through three Dominators before you, and he said they were all the same, basically. Lots of patience for learning, lots of patience for understanding, no patience for assholes. And now, you especially. They made you that way." So it's both, then. Hey.. wait a minute, three Dominators before Howard? What's a guy THAT old doing sending people on assassination missions? I pondered asking that out loud and just put it on my things-to-research list.

"So in other words, they have a healthy dose of fear." Previous Dominators or no, I'd have a healthy dose of fear if I were a normal and I watched that last fight.

"Not so much 'fear', Howard, but.. ah.. respect. And something like fear, but more calculated. Basically, they know you have a bad side, and they avoid it. Especially after that. The battle's fresh in everyone's mind, and when they think about you, they think about bloody Enforcer pieces." Yup, just what I was thinking.

"That makes sense. Good, I'll have some peace for once in my life.." Him? PEACE? Considering we're the walking incarnations of violence, that is very odd to hear.

"You know, you're the second to last person I'd expect to hear that from.", I noted.

"Then who's the last?" I pointed at Sarah and clicked my tongue.

"Ha! Billy, I need the relaxation just as much as you two do. I always liked the occasional long pause in training. Now that I'm not a mercenary anymore or in training, I guess I'll have a lot more time on my hands. Even with you, Howard, you're still only one man.", she said, smiling a bit. I wonder just how correct she is. Wishful thinking or not? She's not going to be assassinating many normals as the Dominator's servant, but as for the Illuminati Howard keeps control over.. I guess it depends on how much real violence he needs to use.

"Yes, and hopefully I won't have to do too much assassinating. That gets a lot uglier for me than it did anyone you worked for.", he replied, informing us that violence won't be his first resort. She nodded rapidly.

"Great. So I've got this big all-expenses-paid summer vacation, and look where I'm spending it.", I said, in a joking tone. "A couple of months of straight summer camp in the best possible place and the worst possible company." Howard giggled; Sarah laughed evilly to herself. I realized how much more this would suck if neither of them had a sense of humor. "Which reminds me to ask- can you vanish from known existence for months at a time?"

"As much as I'd like to, I can't really be gone from their sight for even a day or two. I would go on a regular vacation somewhere, but I think I've had my fill of the tropics." I laughed at that, then stretched in the same position Howard was in and rested. For the first time since this whole mess began, I actually drifted into pleasant fantasy for more than a moment. She could have been my older sister, and he could have been my true twin brother, and instead of Illuminated, we could merely have been very, very rich. Since no one was talking, I allowed the fantasy to dominate my thinking for a good half hour, until my constant reality checks caught up with me.

The jet calmly floated down to the ground on a cushion of powerful thrusters, and Howard looked visibly relieved as he climbed out of the plane. "Now, after five weeks of that crap.. where was I?", Howard said, as his dogs rushed towards us, barking and wagging their tails. Good boy, Fido! Good boy! Here you go, have a treat- a live, screaming normal! Of course since there weren't any live normals on the island, we had to make do with just petting their thick fur instead.

"Remember to take my clothes off, Howard.", Sarah said in a conversational tone. In a way, that sounds like a great idea, but what the fuck?! Why the.. ah, yes. He'd commanded her to remind him, and she'd logically interpreted it as 'when we get home'. He didn't actually do that, instead choosing to simply grin at her.

"I'm not sure what you were going to do next.", I replied. Whatever it is, it's going to involve him having fun, and in this case, probably at no one else's expense. Probably. The other dogs didn't follow us into the mansion as did Fido.

"Don't look at me.", Sarah said. "No idea."

"Oh, yes, that's right.. you had just been delivered here.", Howard said to me. "And instead of tossing you two into the grinder with me for that testing crap, I was going to properly spend time showing you the way of things around here." Howard sat down heavily on the couch, his body position a familiar 'I'm here and I'm not going to be moving any time soon' pose. "But you've already seen quite a bit and you've already learned a good deal of Latin." Fido jumped on Howard's knees and licked his face.

"I've also looked up the super technology, means of concealment, the engineering of the Dominator, the important stuff.", I replied. I sat down next to him, remembering everything. It's all so detailed, so technical in areas, yet so.. weird. If one of my friends (probably Paul- he was always into this kind of thing) tried to tell me any of this two months ago, I would have told him he's a paranoid lunatic. "Had to make myself believe it.." Fido nuzzled my left arm and hand as I petted his neck.

"And it'll only get worse.", Sarah said, and I didn't have to look to know that she was smiling. Either she knows something important that I don't, or she's just making a good prediction. It's not going to get any better, and Howard might have to open the book of tricks a few times to solidify his power, so I'm guessing the latter.

"Sarah, hot chocolate, tall cup." He hesitated for a split second. "Two of them." Although it doesn't stop me from wanting to kill him, I truly appreciate Howard's brand of generosity.

Howard made some selections on the screen, going for a new game that apparently was released today. 'What the hell?!', I thought, as three things from the viewscreen popped out at about thirty miles an hour, one of them towards me. I noticed Howard reaching out to catch one and I did the same- it's a game controller, and it looks as if it was specifically made to fit my ten-year-old, six-fingered hands. Oh, wait. It was.

Howard pressed Start, and started laughing. "WHAT THE FUCK?!", I shouted, and Fido probably walked away from me and out the door because of that. The game in question was apparently a simulation of the rainforest, temple of doom, and Enforcer fight we had just done. "What the fuck, Howard? Who the hell makes this shit? And how can they be so fast?"

"The collective computer genius of the Illuminati makes this shit, and you know about our speed and efficiency." There was a level select, and Howard looked through the screenshots, including one that had us running away from the rolling rock instead of what really happened. "Or, maybe someone working for a first level started on this thing before we even went there. Not hard to do. Probably only took whoever it was a few hours for the characters and a few hours for the levels."

Sarah brought us our chocolate and went back for more for herself, as Howard looked through the various menus and instructions. Yup, it's a simulation, all right. It had one life, no health bar, and the screenshots suggested lots of difficulty- obviously made for us. Sarah came back, put her chocolate on the table, took the controller, and we proceeded to play as ourselves.

Although we were forced to dodge the rock instead of what we actually did do (the game's designer obviously didn't conceive of us being able to push it), it was realistic and fun, with much of the dodging automated as we only had the controllers to move with.

Playing games (he didn't want to do much else- neither did I, considering last week) with Howard is weird. He has, very literally, every game in existence- apparently he's got some sort of universal emulator in his system. And he'd never command me to play anything other than my hardest- I don't think he's even capable of considering it. And as he plays his hardest as well, it's almost always, depending on the game, real close or stalemate when we're going after each other.

On the other hand, in any cooperative game or mode, there's no challenge at all. It doesn't matter what it is, nor at what difficulty (and I know some of these don't exist in the normal world) we play it at. I've never played S&K3 as Tails to an excellent Sonic before (Paul almost always played Tails..); of course, since the second player is nigh-invincible, Howard just laughed and dodged as I whacked the crap out of the foolish Doctor's latest robotic creation. Gunstar Heroes? Destroyed. The original Double Dragon? Crunch. Metal Slug, Super Buster Bros., even the rather difficult original Mario Brothers? Annihilated. He doesn't command my actions in the games. He doesn't have to. It's all covered under 'Play your hardest.'

It was then that I understood something critical. Alone, Howard's a powerhouse far beyond normal capability. With me, in games or real life, he's almost completely unstoppable. And he knows it. I wondered if the previous Dominator knew this would happen. I wasn't sure how many of the other Illuminati, even the first levels, understood this. We probably could have killed thirty or more Enforcers back there.

After a couple of hours, he took us down to the pool to have a long, hot bath, which we all badly needed, the sticky sweat coming off our bodies from the application of powerful soap and pure water. And when we were all clean, he went back upstairs with us, laying down on his couch, commanding Sarah to massage his legs and me to brush his hair. As we did it, he made soft, purring noises, like a contented cat. "Stop, carry me to bed..", was his last command of the day, but fortunately, between me and Sarah, he was very easy to lift, and Sarah actually tucked him in. It's nice having power, isn't it, Howie? Seeing his peaceful, sleeping face made me want to go to bed as well, which I did, falling asleep in seconds.

I was completely unprepared for what happened that night.