Waiting for us on the jet was something I wanted but hadn't remembered- a change of clothes. Water passes through these pretty freely, but some components of sweat stick around. Heh, cool, looks like someone gave Billy a black suit in the same style as this one.

"Ahhhhhh...", I said, leaning against the jet's cushioned back, enjoying the flight home- and just about everything else around me, for that matter. Everything seemed brighter, happier, and more cheerful. My body was full of the nutrients it needs, and I had long since regenerated all the small micro-tears and aches that plague an active body, leaving me with nothing but purity. I felt like I was living in the middle of a particularly hard video game's ending- nothing but pleasure and a jubilant, screaming, utter joy until the programming eventually ran out. "I don't think I've ever been this relieved in my whole life."

"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.", Billy said, a slight grin overcoming his face. His words knocked me off my perch. That would be ugly. Hey, it's time to relax.. no wait, no it's not, it's time to do your job! Hey, we've got all this shit piled up for five weeks, we need you, Dominator! That would just plain suck. I can't wait until Billy's trained for this.. lessen the fucking workload a bit.

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

"Thank you, Howard."

"They're not gonna do that.", said Sarah. "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.."

"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," (That would make him OLD.) "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 in other words, they have a healthy dose of fear." Emotions work on Illuminati, and no one wants to admit that.

"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."

"That makes sense. Good, I'll have some peace for once in my life.."

"You know, you're the second to last person I'd expect to hear that from.", Billy said, in a voice that suggested he was nearly as relieved as I am.

"Then who's the last?" He replied by pointing at Sarah and clicking his 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 replied, a slight smirk on her face.

"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.", I pointed out. She nodded rapidly.

"Great. So I've got this big all-expenses-paid summer vacation, and look where I'm spending it.", Billy said, half-amused. "A couple of months of straight summer camp in the best possible place and the worst possible company." Billy's rendition of the situation caused me to giggle and Sarah to chuckle evilly to herself in a faint imitation of my traditional dark laugh. "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." If I did that, I'd be known as a could-be-gone Dominator, and that is the first step down a nasty hill with a cliff at the end. So saith history. "I would go on a regular vacation somewhere, but I think I've had my fill of the tropics." He started laughing a bit, and then leaned back in my position and rested. I idled away the time until we finally got home, to meet a freshly upkept house with a rapidly barking Fido. Paradise is mine again. The sky is mostly white clouds with hints of blue sky, the forest is green as ever, and the steady sound of ocean waves greet my ears. And the annoying sounds of peasants are nowhere to be heard. I smiled as I realized what I wasn't noticing. The waterfall on the other side of the island. The stealth trainers and their hideout. The native fauna. I took it all in at once. Much... fucking.. better.

"Now,", I said, after touching the ground with my feet, "after five weeks of that crap.. where was I?" Fido, Magma, Negro, and Speckle rushed up to us, barked quite a bit, and both Billy and I petted the dogs' thick fur.

"Remember to take my clothes off, Howard.", Sarah said, casually. What?! Why the hell did she- ah, yes, I almost never make mistakes like that. That actually was a command a week ago, the 'when we get home' being logically implied. In a way, it was tempting, but I just grinned at her instead.

"I'm not sure what you were going to do next.", Billy said as we walked back inside the place I've missed. Magma, Negro, and Speckle didn't follow us in as did Fido. I've never commanded the dogs to do anything except tricks- and they're basically feral creatures. The non-engineereds were all pulled in off the street, and Fido's more at home in nature than anywhere else.

"Don't look at me.", Sarah said. "No idea." I briefly considered asking them what they wanted to do and discarded it into the bad-humor pile.

"Oh, yes, that's right.. you had just been delivered here.", I said, looking at Billy. "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." I sat down on the couch, the vast majority of my weight on my ass and back, sinking a couple of inches into it. "But you've already seen quite a bit and you've already learned a good deal of Latin." Fido jumped up onto my lap and I petted him as he licked my face.

"I've also looked up the super technology, means of concealment, the engineering of the Dominator, the important stuff.", Billy replied. Of course, I can imagine exactly what the look on his face was as he looked it up. He sat down to my right and shook his head a bit. "Had to make myself believe it.." Billy gently grabbed Fido's neck and Fido nuzzled his arm and hand.

"And it'll only get worse.", Sarah said with a smile.

"Sarah, hot chocolate, tall cup. Two of them." As she left, I idly turned on the screen. I'm not going outside today, not after that mess last week. Let's see.. oh yes, one of the few games that's playable on the native operating system instead of an emulator. A simple side-scrolling fighter, which is constantly upgraded just because the bored programmers can- it began as a basic test of the ACNOS (Advanced, Comprehensive, New Operating System- but some real joker took the first five words of every Dominator's opening speech to make the acronym.) capabilities, but has grown into something else, something with the occasional political statement in it. I turned it on and three controllers popped out at us, I caught the middle one out of the air- Billy was surprised but caught his as well. I pressed Start..

..and proceeded to laugh my ass off. "WHAT THE FUCK?!", Billy shouted. Fido wasn't startled, but walked from Billy out the door. "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." I looked more closely at what I had laughed at. Yup, it's accurate- someone had put all three of us in there, along with new levels resembling the rainforest and faux temple. Our game characters were clad in the usual symbolism, however, and as I looked at the level-select index I saw screenshots of us running 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 came back with our rapidly-heated hot chocolate and went back to pour herself a cup, as I looked through the menus. No difficulty setting (as if I'd play on anything less than max), controls fairly intuitive, no weak normal things like multiple lives or health bars. "Not surprised they did that. Too bad this thing isn't realistic by any stretch.", she said, sitting down to my left and picking up the controller there. "They probably made it fun, but there might be a message in there." We selected our characters and jumped through the level's pitfalls easily- our reflexes are godly and our characters were equivalent to our real selves. After defeating the ten Enforcers at the end, Sarah just yawned, leaned back, and laughed to herself. "Which came first, I wonder.. which came first."

"Since we didn't run from the rock, they probably finished this first.. and that really suggests that someone is having a laugh.", I said, grinning. "That's something you might not have figured out and I never told you.", I said, turning to Billy.

"What, the jokers fooling around with shit like this?"

"Yeah, they're jokers, Billy.", Sarah said. "These guys think they.. oh, screw think, they can play around with anything they want, making it funny or strange or however they want. Surprised they didn't personally congratulate him at the end of the game."

"Strangest tribute to success I've ever seen.", I said, sipping the chocolate. Sarah downed hers in a gulp, stood up, took a couple of steps, and chucked the empty cup into the sink.

"Nothing can break around here.. keep forgetting how nuts this all is.", Billy said, drinking the last of his chocolate. I finished mine and Sarah chucked both cups in the same way.

I allowed Sarah to quietly disappear as usual, and played various assorted games with Billy, commanding him to play his hardest. Saying that beating Billy in games is difficult is a tautology; it's like an ongoing Mirror Match, and it pleases me to know that the implants obviously haven't hurt his abilities any, as he's an exact match for me when I get serious. At our level, which game it is really doesn't matter. We stalemate constantly, with wins and losses being largely decided by the slight advantage of Player 1 over Player 2 or vice versa.

On the other hand, cooperatively, there's just simply no challenge. Again, the game doesn't matter. Arcade-style Ninja Turtles, Super Mario Brothers 3 (hacked; we're both on the screen at once), Lynx Ninja Gaiden- all of it gets beat in record time. Game-addicted normals would probably kill each other just to see a video of this. Even with the enemies doubled and everything sped up by Illuminated programmers (I know the code-happy master of software development and his Enforcers did dozens of these in a day), we crush them like bugs, swiftly turning the fun from the challenge of beating a hard enemy to that of stomping upon anyone who gets in the way. Logically, having him would double my power. It doesn't; it triples it or more, and the more I play with him the more I'm certain that this carries over into the real world. I doubt Daddy- or anyone else- knew this would happen.

Meaning, of course, that attempts to overpower me physically with Enforcers or vehicular weapons (undodgeable traps, like a gigantic squishing ceiling that lands in half a second, would still kill me... note to self, don't walk into traps) that would normally have an almost certain chance of success are now far more likely to fail. That third test was biased indeed- in our favor. I can smell the ass kicking from here...

And then I remembered what I had wanted at the beginning of the second test. Damn, we are sweaty, aren't we? I commanded my servants to come with me for a long, hot bath, the powerful cleansers and pure, hot water getting rid of the polar and nonpolar grime covering our bodies. It's hard to hide being dirty as an albino. When we were clean, I took them upstairs, and had Sarah massage my legs and Billy brush my hair as I laid down on the couch, my face resting on the softness. It was heaven, and it was lulling me to sleep, but I didn't want to get up. "Stop, carry me to bed..", I commanded them, and they effortlessly picked me up, Sarah tucked me in, and I fell asleep with a smile on my face. Domination at last, and my first day I get to do nothing but have fun. It felt like the happiest day of my life.