Paul didn't look right the next day. His face was a bit red, and his sleep's breathing seemed interrupted, uneven. I got up before he did, and went to the computer, occasionally looking at him to make sure he was okay. About twenty minutes after I woke up, he immediately got up and looked out the door. "Ugh...", he said, coughing loudly. "Howard.. I do not feel well today.. *cough*" Ah, yes, that's what was wrong with him- he was sick. Being engineered and effectively immune to disease, I've almost forgotten it happens.

"Why not? What's wrong? Some after-effect I didn't know about?", Howard asked from downstairs. He's seen even less sickness than I have.

"Nah... I think one of those assholes gave me the *cough* flu. Is there any aspirin or cough medicine in here?" I fucking doubt that. Why would we?

"No, never was. I completely forgot- you can get sick."

"And you can't... figures."

"Well, actually, yes- for maybe a half hour for what you've got, maybe less. Our white blood cells kill that shit too fast for us to care." And if there's anything we can get infected by, we haven't seen it yet.

"You mind lending me some?"

"Well, Paul, that would be the ideal solution.", Howard replied. "Only one problem. They destroy all foreign matter. You are considered foreign matter to any of our white blood cells."

"Great, I'll add being eaten from the inside out cell by *COUGH, cough* cell to my list of bad fates."

I had an idea, though. "Paul, if you want to get rid of it, go take a bath in water a hundred and seven degrees Fahrenheit for at least twenty minutes. Swim in it downstairs, it'll keep you awake. That should help bust it... cough medicine and aspirin don't really cure anything." He went to do that. I had actually commanded him.. but at least it'll fix what's wrong.

"Actually, Billy, there are things at Northberg that can help... but for most of them, the cure's worse than the disease." Huh?

"Okay, Howard- if the cure's worse than the disease, why would they make anything like that?"

"Experiments, and such... we've made a drug combination that can kill 99.999% of all bacteria, and a good amount of virii with it."

"And you haven't released it to the population." Do the Illuminati really need disease in the world as a control on the normals?

"It would be a great way to kill them. Do you understand what happens in normals when the local microorganisms die? If they were ever taken off the drug, they'd be pneumonia bait. Superinfection, I believe it's called."

"But you've got an entire medical lab... Howard, that is pretty pathetic, if you don't have things to get rid of the simple shit.", I replied, looking down at him from the railing.

"Yes, we do have things. But Billy, I have seen way too many of my brethren rely too much on things." He sounded like he wanted to rant. "They don't understand that every medical action they take upon themselves, there is a reaction, something else happens, some of them are even addicted a bit. They want.. they want to be like us, only they can't. For example, Paul could be given antibodies to the flu, and it'll be gone in less than a day. But then his system will never develop them itself, and the next time someone gives it to him, he'll get it again." I've heard of that before. "Fever-reducing drugs will destroy the heat he needs to help, and anything to stop the runny nose will make the process of nasal germ removal slower. So many of them don't understand... they don't understand that they're not meant to live forever and that their bodies have ways of making them live a specified time. If you're going to use artifice, you have to make the people artificial. Remember that, Billy.. he'll kill it himself, he doesn't need anyone's help. If I believed that he did, I would have given him Prozac for his occasional depression." Prozac being a cheap substitute for freedom, of course. Just ask the school administrations of America, and if you display the right credentials (or a gun), they'll tell you the truth, if of course they consciously know it. There's also that one side effect..

"Which makes people psychotic, if I remember right. Howard... this is about a lot more than just Paul, isn't it. You're a little.. no, forget that, you're fucking pissed off. What the hell happened?", I asked.

"I don't think that was hard to figure out. It's this.", he replied, whacking the paper. "I think I caused this, Billy. I said I would complete the final objective and now everyone's trying to live long enough to see it even if they know they won't. A new super antioxidant that slows down the human body, 'blood-checkers', and some other shit. They're already doing all the stuff that won't hurt them, eating the right foods, doing the right exercises, making sure they don't die of heart attacks and whatnot, getting Northberg to modify what DNA they can afford to, all the natural stuff and the unnatural that won't hurt them, but now they're doing more. It'll all improve their quantity of life, but blow their quality to shit, some of that will slow down their thinking and some of it will require them to stick needles in themselves all day, or take pills that will fuck around with their emotions. What the hell is wrong with these people? These are Illuminati here! Even if a retrovirus for everyone comes tomorrow, the ones today should be able to accept death!" He might say that, but he won't die unless he's killed.

"Howard, you say that because you're immortal. They're not. They don't know what happens when they die. And it's coming up to them, slowly but surely, it's the Grim Reaper. That's where that comes from.. a guy in a cloak with infinite stamina coming along faster than they can run steadily, they can sprint faster, but they can't stay ahead.. but they're trying to outrun it anyway, because when it catches them, that's it, they're gone, off to a place no one knows. It's their fear, Howie. They're afraid... and you'd be afraid too."

"Yeah.. you're right, I'm just pissed. They're all going to be engineered someday anyway and the Reaper will catch up to the current ones. Not a really long-term problem, I know. I just hate reading about" BZZZZZERT "it.", he said, the buzzer interrupting his last word.

"Dominator! I absolutely.. need that you get this woman, Claire Sanders, out of my Malaysian operations!", screeched a fat, thirty-something, fourth level woman named Deborah Puff. I think that 'need' was almost a 'demand', and I'm sure Howard heard it as well.

Hey, look. Claire Sanders. Howard, grinning slightly, pressed a few keys and sent the screen into split-screen mode, making it a three-way call. Claire was thin, also fourth level, and older than Deborah. If they were normals, I mused, they'd be fighting over cheap trinkets at a yard sale. The moment they saw each other, they started yammering back and forth in what might as well have been monkey-speak.

"Both of you shut up.", Howard said, softly. They wanted badly to continue to scream and rant, but both shut up. Howard had his left fist clenched, the fist-blades adding more than enough threat. "One of my servants has become ill and I am not in a very good mood.", he said, in a careful, cultured voice. He's laying it on thick; if they think he's a low-patience spoiled kid with the power to kill them instantly (which isn't exactly false), they'll be less likely to piss him off. "If the two of you are incapable of having this conversation civilly, then I'm simply going to kill you both and have a single person settle the result. Now, Deborah, you called me first, explain what you do there and your grievance against Ms. Sanders as concisely and as accurately as possible."

"I'm in charge of a lot of Islamic control in the region. I was instructed by a third level, Mr. Arnold Hobbes, to use all available communication means and controllers to hold the loyalty of the largest Islamic paramilitary force in the area. I took control of RTM as part of that. A couple of weeks later, I had a few agents report that they were running into agents of another Illuminatus, and that's Claire Sanders." Claire wanted to interrupt Deborah- it was on her face- but she didn't dare.

Howard didn't ask any details, instead saying, "Claire, explain what you do there and your grievance against Ms. Puff as concisely and as accurately as possible."

"I've had the responsibility of trying to keep Asia pretty much unified for years. One of the ways I've been doing this is by keeping the broadcasts and various cultural stuff aligned as much as possible. I've had eminent control for a long time, I just went to taking RTM, which is when I suddenly found my people running into her agents." Deborah wanted to interrupt that, but didn't dare either. Howard's a peacemaker that way.

"Oh, I see what's going on.", Howard said calmly. "You're stepping on each other's toes. And both of you are so thoroughly, utterly convinced that you are right that right now there's very little chance of a resolution. Now, Deborah, did you even bother to research any possible eminent control over those kinds of operations in that region? Did you notice that there was a Pan-Asian control system put into place?"

"No.. no, I didn't.", she replied, sheepishly if not sheeple-like.

"Claire, did you perform any checks or research to determine if there was another Illuminatus who had taken control of that particular broadcast outlet?"

"I didn't think that-", she started loudly. Howard simply stared at her, transfixing her with his white gaze. It's not a mystical power, but it might as well be. "No, Howard."

"Listen to me carefully.", Howard said, seemingly unperturbed. "Your goals are not in direct opposition." The two women shook their heads to say no, no they weren't. "The two of you are to share this resource with each other's interests in mind, as both of you have a legitimate claim to it. You will cooperate in good faith. And if I hear of any more childish silliness between the two of you, I am going to be the one throwing the temper tantrum." It's an easy thing to visualize, and a grotesque thing to clean up after. Give the Enforcers the mops and the soapy squeegees, and start picking the embedded bits out of the wall. "I do believe you both understand?" They nodded and said things to the general affirmative. "Good.", Howard concluded, and turned off the communication with a click. Sarah and I were flanking him, and he turned to each of us, sighing. "Now, you see, if they had bothered to have any kind of reasonable discussion before calling the Dominator, I wouldn't have had to deal with that." Howard then proceeded to look up details about Malaysian broadcast control.

"Ugh... god damn this hurts..", Paul said through the intercom a few minutes later. Howard looked startled and rushed to the elevator, impatiently waiting the few seconds for it to come back up. I didn't follow him; I got a vague sense of guilt. Maybe I told Paul entirely the wrong thing...

"Hmm, now that's an emotion I haven't seen in a while.", Sarah said, recognizing the look on my face. "What'd you tell him?"

"To take a hot bath..." Sarah just shrugged. She didn't know what was wrong with it, either. Crap! What the hell happened? I waited, and Howard came out on the second floor, carrying Paul. I went upstairs to follow him as he placed Paul in our bed.

"Billy, hold very still.", he commanded me as I reached the top of the stairs.

I saw it coming but could do nothing about it- his right hand whacked me across my face with what I could tell was a calculated amount of force. It hurt, but it didn't knock me off my feet or cause any real damage. But- he just- "You can move again."

"Howard- you've never-", I said, surprised.

"Caused you any physical pain intentionally. I know. That was a requested courtesy to Paul, and considering what you did to him I'd say you deserved it."

"I didn't mean it!" Shit, especially not after what he's been through!

"I know that. You're not a normal, Billy. Unless you study it, you don't know their biology."

"I did study it, and even I didn't know that one.", Sarah said.

"Neither did I.", Howard said. "But I didn't tell him to do that." The worst part was that he was absolutely right. I had commanded Paul, and I had hurt him in doing so, which was one of the worst things I could conceivably do. Paul trusted me completely, I care for him immensely, and my ignorance had stabbed him in the back. And that ignorance is why Howard's annoyed- I had thought I knew when I didn't- and if Howard's going to train me to be his duplicate, he can't allow that. It could get him killed.

I looked at the ground and walked past Howard into Paul's room. There were few words to describe it: he had it awful. I could smell him sweating, but he was shivering at the same time, and he laid in a fetal position on the bed in agony.

"Paul... are you going to be all right?"

"Yeah, Billy, I will... in maybe the next couple of days!", he tried to yell, but that only came out as a croak. His fist launched up and I let it catch me on the left cheek where Howard had hit me. It didn't hurt nearly as much physically, but I felt injured just the same.

"I'm sorry.. I had no idea."

"It's all right... you're forgiven. Just don't.. ever command me.. to do anything like that.. ever again!"

"I don't plan to. Is there anything you want me to get you?"

"No. Just.. time." They say time heals all wounds, but that only applies to engineered regenerators. It did, however, get Paul out of bed and drinking lots of grapefruit juice in a few hours. I ordered several two-foot by two-foot wads of fluid-absorbing cloth for him- Howard didn't understand why until he realized just what respiratory illness does. Down the incinerator with the sticky, goopy remains, for a whole week- fortunately we didn't need to go on any raids during that time, although Howard did need to make a few more threats to various people, like usual.