He really does love us, I realized a few nights later. He loves us more than most families love each other. He doesn't worry about any bad things happening because he controls the bad things, by force if necessary (Sarah just came back from killing someone else on his orders, not important enough to worry about, just another fool who needed to die). And of course he does, because for the first ten years of his life he has had next to no human (or whatever the fuck we are) companionship. He didn't even understand the meaning until we were with him for a few days. He won't hurt us because we are ... his friends, to him. Or close. There's another term that is all the way correct, instead of the equality-implying "friend" and the obvious "slave" or "servant", which are also only partially correct. And it's not just some perverted combination, it's a transmutation. Damn it, I will never get any fucking sleep until I learn that word...

...vassals? nooo.. ..not lackeys or henchmen or even simply subordinates... no, wrong area...

...damn it, I can't get my mind off this and I don't think I really want to.

It's not quite "little friend"... it's more like..

When I received the answer, my brain took two seconds of its sweet time to relay it to me. When it did, it came like a freight train to the forebrain, with a huge cow-smasher on the front and steam belching out the coal engine.

I sat bolt upright in an instant. Paul, if he was sleeping, woke up.

"What is it, Billy?", he turned to me and said, surprise in his voice. For a moment I pondered not telling him. But he hasn't freaked out yet, and he won't freak out for this little thing.

"We're... not exactly his servants, Paul."

"Then what are we?"

"We're his...", I began, not wanting to clue him in to the full extent of the horror. I did anyway. "..imaginary friends."

"Imaginary friends? But we're real..."

"Physically. I can't explain. You'll have to figure it out."

"I...", he started, his normal brain on the road to understanding. Then he grasped it entirely. "I understand, Billy, and I did not need to hear that. But it is true."

"But you know what I mean."

"Yeah... yeah, I do."

Everyone has had imaginary friends at some point in their lives. Some of us still have them, and some of us let them take us over and become alter egos or multiple personalities. Others talk to them, seeking advice from a third party when there is no third party in the real world. Still others act out fantasies with them, pretending they have a brother, a new best friend, a video game character, or a servant, someone who will never disobey them because he is a construct of the mind, and his attitude and behavior can be changed at will.

Through a certain type of thinking- not quite doublethink, but close- the friend comes to terms with his servitude and sometimes begs his creator for him not to change him, hurt him, or worse- forget about him. Because as soon as that friend is dismissed, he is gone and he won't be coming back unless the creator summons him back up again. What happens depends on the maturity and brainpower of the creator. Young ones are likely to summon up semi-permanent friends and only begin to notice the incorporeality as they get older. Depending on how quick they are to grasp concepts, occasionally there is a rift, an overlap of beliefs. The child knows that the friend is not real, and yet there is still compassion, a love of sorts. Depending on how fast and how logically the child can think, the child rationalizes the actions of the friend. And of course the top priority for any intelligence is self-preservation, so the imaginary friend immediately starts imploring not to be sent away simply because the child knows he's not real. Older children- sometimes teenagers, sometimes even adults- consciously summon up imaginary friends because they feel completely alone and have the imagination, brain capacity, and sheer want and willpower to continue with their fantasy. If the tender moments could be put into a drama, it would blow everything else straight out of the water and tear Emmy Awards out of the hands of everyone else, because there is no greater love than love for one's own thoughts, one's own constructs, things that are a part of the lover.

Which sums this up exactly, only we have physical form and Howie doesn't need to keep thinking about us for us not to vanish into thin air. Other than the laws of physics (which we beat around anyway), there are no rules. There are absolutely zero things on this planet that are stopping him from just summoning me up and asking me to come and play. Not a single thing I can do will change it- I've become immune to every other form of mind control, including those done by the self. Nothing I can do would stop my fate, should he choose to inflict it, but he won't- but I feel compelled to beg anyway, beg for my continued existence.. as his imaginary friend. And the more I thought about that, the more I felt drawn to him, to make him absolutely sure that I (I could hear Paul screaming "Hey!" in my mind as I thought in the first person singular) ... okay, we are his best, best friends on the face of the planet and he would absolutely never want to do anything to us, and also to make absolutely sure that he never dies because when he dies, we vanish forever. (Which is about right.) We love you, Howie. The tattered remains of my freedom illusion cried out and I stomped on them with a titanic robot boot. Shut the fuck up, I screamed at them. You don't apply here. Nothing does, except what he wants at the moment, which he eventually gets.

"He could call me in there right now and make me act like his best friend.", I said. Howard's never commanded any such thing, but that means nothing. He does what he wants. "We only exist the way we do because he cares about us." Paul nodded, silently, his eyes closed. "But I guess that's the difference between him and some asshole.."

I held Paul tightly- he snuggled next to me as he was likely thinking the same thoughts and had a good deal of fear in them- and I drifted off to sleep and the land of nightmares.

"Billy.. you'll always exist for me.", dream-Howard said, and the way he said it was absolutely demonic. Mere words cannot convey the overarching sense of fear, the dark presence in my nightmares that has no compare in the real world. "You're always going to do whatever I imagine, and there's so much I can imagine! So much I can do with you, so many places to go and things to see!" Howard may say things like that in the real world, but this was much, much worse. "Let's start by having you.."

"Billy, come into my room." I awoke and screamed like Satan had led a phalanx of hellbeasts right out of my throat.

"Billy.. dude, that wasn't a nightmare. He really did call you.", Paul said, freaking me out further.

"Whaat?! I don't believe this shit...", I said, but that was an exaggeration- I did believe it, and so I had to obey it.

"Howie.. if I wasn't..", I said as I walked into his room, gesturing to my forehead and the implants therein, "you would never believe this."

"Believe what?"

"Paul and I were talking about you doing something like this before I went to sleep."

"Paul, how long ago was that?", Howard asked over the intercom. Paul didn't know; he'd fallen asleep too. "What else were you talking about?"

"Imaginary friends, us, and you. I'm not sure how to explain."

"Oh FUCK!", he shouted, surprising me. "Okay, this telepathy shit has gone from interesting to strange to all-out weird." This is already all-out weird. "If I really believed in that shit, it would be time to break out the Zener cards. But if you've been thinking the same things I have, you already know what I'm going to say. I'm lonely as hell, Billy, and Sarah's jetlagged, and as you have probably guessed, I don't want to be alone. Come here, dude. Lie down. I know you won't scream again tonight." In my nightmares, he said such similar things, and they were horrifying. In the real world, his voice was casual, friendly, and gentle, as if he'd discovered some great font of happiness and joy and wanted to share it with me. Genuine care, from someone with ultimate power and dire plans for the world. I looked into his eyes, he looked back into mine, and we both chuckled and fell asleep. About an hour later, Fido scratched on the door, asking in doggish terms to be let in; Howard did so, and the dog eagerly hopped into bed with us, enjoying our warmth. Howard gently put his normal-killing arms around both me and his dog and we went back to sleep.