The nightmare was particularly horrible, but entertaining in a way. It featured pain, horror, and a shock I didn't recognize at first- shock I felt only once before... when was.. ah. When I was finally brought here and the mask was uncovered, that's when. But why now? Why the horror.. why the fuck.. the earth revolves around the sun once, what is that supposed to mean.. what's being done, what's this evil, what's this pain, PAIN, PAIN NO STOP IT HOWARD -

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAdamnit." Ow. Vocal cords. I hate that. One can get used to the fear. A regenerator can not get used to the pain of double vocal overload from extra-strong lungs that comes from the daily dose of reflex screaming. But why the shock now? Why today? What is today, anyway? I clicked on the little time icon on the computer and it read 8:50 PM, Tuesday, April 27, 1999. Which is.. of course. I know what today is- how could I forget? We were preparing yesterday. It's my - his - our birthday. I wonder what he's getting this time. More servants? I wouldn't mind, really. More power? I'm not even sure how that's possible. A larger sum of some dead Illuminatus's reserved holdings to distribute? A bigger gun, maybe a new Micro? Who the fuck knows? Even he doesn't know, even the people who sent the presents don't know what the other ones are. It's just going to be like the last one, only this time he's having friends over. Or, to be precise, the high-power boys and girls who like to think they're his friends, some of whom might actually roughly be considered that. Howie's definition of 'friend' is very fucked up to a normal and definitely a part of my nightmares, but at least it's consistent. And sycophants do not qualify.

I realized I'd had my nightmare scream at the end of my usual sleep instead of in the middle, and laid back down in bed, thinking. A couple of minutes later, Howie said over the intercom with some strange happiness in his voice, "Billy, wake up, wear all black, and go down to the dining room."

"I suppose they'll all be there?", I asked as my body continued to fail to listen to me for exactly one year straight. Every boy and girl of the Illuminati, under the age of 17. Which isn't that many (recruitment usually takes those in their 20's), but it's a good sum- forty? Fifty, maybe? Exactly how many has Northberg been producing? Howard had made it clear that only actual Illuminati went, not the privileged stupid brats of them who simply couldn't make the cut to have any real power.

"Probably. Sarah made an extra-large cake. There's quite a few of them down here, not yet all though."

I finished putting on the black suit- it's new, I can tell- and went down to find out. Paul, the eternal early riser, was already there, checking identities of the entrants. I doubted they'd all come, considering Howard's Illuminated body count. Their parents probably forbade them, or they were simply too scared. Of course, since many of them have near-Howard physical power and are actual Illuminati, they can, of course, do whatever they want- any parental control is either a cheap excuse to avoid Howie or they have serious self-esteem problems.

Howard had already opened one present, but it appeared to be all he wanted right then, and he was already wearing it- the one formal garment of the Dominator. Only this time, in a very slightly larger size, built for an eleven-year-old instead of a 128-month-old; the fabric of these suits does stretch, but not perfectly. And I'm certain the one in my closet was recently replaced just in case I need to impersonate him again. He wore it and a smile- a smile devoid of most of the evil I'm used to seeing with it. He then told the Illuminati to sit near their servants and not to try to position themselves close to him.

As I walked to the dining room (which was set up for a few dozen people now), I noticed that there were no helicopters, planes, or boats on the horizon. "Looks like no one else is coming, Howard.", Paul said.

Howard nodded, then gestured at me, at the seat next to him, and I took it and waited. He then gestured at Paul, at the seat to my right, and Paul sat down there, a bit nervous.

Sarah brought in the cake, partially balancing it on her pregnant belly, and the baked mass was positively enormous, for all the gluttons to eat. There weren't any candles on it; 'Happy 11th Birthday Dominator Howard' was written on it in big letters of icing. He gestured at her, she took the other seat next to Howard and I could almost feel her wanting to sneer at them, to let them know that she should be wearing white, to possibly break their necks like sheeple. And physically, it would be so gloriously easy, as our normal-killing days in the tests proved. Or maybe not. I'm not sure just how powerful these children are compared to us..

Some latecomer opened the door, and everyone turned their heads to look at him. "I took a sub.", he explained, as he took one of the few remaining seats at the table. Some of the seats remained empty.

"Is it four hundred degrees this time, Sarah?", Howard said with sarcasm. A couple of kids on the other side of the table began to snicker, although there's no way they could even begin to get the year-old joke.

"No, probably about two hundred in the middle, though." Everyone in the room salivated as the cake began to smell. Like sugar, spices, and flour. But that wasn't the only smell- the room reeked of power games, manipulation, lies, fear, all sorts of weird shit, and everyone's favorite- desecration and subjugation of everything normals hold dear. The might and force of the Illuminati are governed in part by a classroom-sized bunch of kids, free from most physical ailments, all who hold no qualms against slaughtering people to gratify themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if this bunch started singing 'We are the world' impromptu. After all, they're the only ones it applies to. Another annoying song for the elementary-schoolers; another fact of life for the real rich kids. As a point of fact, I can remember some of the lyrics... they absently played in my head as the party went on.

We are the world... we are the children...

"All right, is there anything any of you manipulators wants to say to me? Don't wait until the end of the party, guys. I only have two ears, there's 43 of you, and I don't want people crowding for whispering space." There was a general chuckle.

"Are you really immortal?", chirped a kid from the middle who looked about six or seven. He obviously wasn't qualified to be at this party more than half a year ago, and considering he has to ask that, I'll assume his parents made the fatal mistake not to thoroughly engineer him. Some of the other children looked at him oddly, obviously assuming that he'd already know.

"Yes. Unless someone blows me into little pieces or something, I will live forever. Also I regenerate, and no, I don't give demonstrations." There was general laughter.

We are the ones who make a brighter day

"Howard, what really happened to Damien?", a twelve-year-old asked, with a slight smirk on his face.

"It's all in the public records. There weren't any lies or even any obfuscation of the truth. I know, it's pretty fucked up. But the world has one- wait, actually five less assholes, everyone learned their lesson, and I got a new servant out of the deal." A general chuckle and a nodding of heads. "Any more questions?"

so let's start giving

"Are you the anonymous asshole who keeps kicking my ass on our Quake 2 deathmatch server?", asked a ten-year-old Oriental boy, who was almost certainly partially engineered. Some kids cracked up in glorious laughter, including the twelve-year-old who previously spoke.

"As a matter of fact, yes I am." Some quiet 'ooh's. That's not perfectly accurate; sometimes it's me. Or both of us, in which case all kinds of ass gets kicked.

There's a choice we're making

"I hate you!" A gale of laughter swept the room, with everyone in it except us the servants. After all the blood Howie's spilled, someone loudly complains to him about his performance in some first person shooter. Figures.

"Oh, it's not a fair fight, remember? I've got a reaction time of next to nothing and even my eyes see more frames per second than yours." The kid groaned. Some of the other, younger ones grinned; apparently their skills are engineered closer to Howard's. "Any more questions?" There were none.

We're saving our own lives

"Sarah, Billy, pass out the cake." Sarah cut it into many equal pieces (a few of the kids noticed her skill with a blade) and I passed a piece- about a third of it total- to each of the salivating faces of the world controllers and their handful of implanted servants, with the first to Howard and the last to myself. Practically all of the masters and some of the servants (myself included) ate with unrestrained greed, paying no attention to any culture's manners; just open mouth, insert cake. Even if there were any adults around, no sane one would have dared tell any of them what to do, lest they get a lead enema or, better yet, systematically tortured to death in Howard's underused cellar.

It's a choice we're making

Some of them did come closer to whisper assorted private stuff into Howard's ears. Most of it was technicalities and random personal questions, some involving us and assorted sexual/social practices, most of those involving abusive S&M. The predictable stuff. No, kids, I don't suck his dick. No, kids, none of us has, as of yet, been forced to kneel before him. No, kids, he doesn't need it. Only one of them was actually begging for power, and he just got laughed at instead of thrown across the room at fifty miles per hour. Fido was hanging around, getting under the table- Howard motioned for me to pass him a piece too. He ate it with his usual ferocity, as the feet under the table idly tickled his furry back.

Just you and me...

Have you ever seen a flock of sheeple children at a birthday party? I'm certain you have. This was almost exactly like that, only there were no bullshit party hats, no one dressed in uncomfortable clothing (okay, so maybe that one girl's dress just had to hurt, but she did it herself and had sex appeal in mind), there were no obvious cameras, the screaming was more political and directed, and the birthday boy is an eternal badass surrounded by servants and intelligent young manipulators instead of some nerd surrounded by whiny parents, relatives, and shit-faced urchins. The atmosphere was one of gaiety and cheer, instead of the usual foolishness and who-struck-John. In a way, it was all somehow refreshing, although I haven't been part of the normal world for a year. There was no screaming, no whining, no begging, no tattling, and definitely no annoying, harmless fights- if step one was a fist in this crowd, step two would be a bullet or several, or maybe Howie would step in and take the fool apart piece by bloody piece. No Illuminatus fucks around with that, especially not the kids.

Then the party broke up a bit and everyone spread out around the mansion. A few girls broke off in a group of their own, to a random corner of the main room. An assorted group of boys and a girl went down the elevator. But most of them hung around Howard- they didn't approach him directly, but they always stayed near. We finished eating at the same time, and people started talking to Howard some more. I casually got up and walked into the living room, hoping that I'd be able to talk to a few servants.

I found an Illuminatus who wanted to talk to me instead. "Hello, Billy.", the brown-skinned boy said, his two younger female servants next to him. From.. India, I'm guessing, although he's not wearing a turban. He might be partially engineered, but it's hard to tell.

"Hello.", I replied, a bit off-balance. Illuminati don't usually talk to me if they know who I am, and this smiling, brown-skinned boy is from a different culture, which may or may not have anything to do with where he's actually from. "You know my name, but I don't know yours."

"It is Hadji, friend.", he said as if he were an equal. Probably, in his mind, I am. I'm close to the Dominator, after all. I shook his hand, being careful not to squeeze too tightly. Hadji.. I don't remember.. wasn't there another kid who lived on an island somewhere named that?

"Why are you talking to me and not Howard?", I asked him. "I must be blunt. I don't know what else to say."

"That's okay!", he exclaimed, laughing. "At least it is that you are honest. It is my sisters. I don't want to keep them as my own servants forever."

The girls were about eight and six years old. What's he.. wait, is he really.. Yes, he is. This is probably going to get awkward in a hurry. "You want to marry them off?", I asked.

"Yes!", he replied, smiling. To him it was perfectly natural..

"I can't help you. I have too many.. bad circumstances to be able to even consider something like that. Besides, they're too young."

"Yes.. yes, for now they are. I am looking to the future." Paul looked at the girls, and I knew what was going through his mind. To just have a wife handed to him is probably the only way he's going to be able to get any in the future (fucking Sarah would be like fucking an industrial robot to him); of course there were lots and lots of good reasons not to. Hadji'll be able to give them to somebody, I'm sure. I realized that he had commanded the girls into silence, realized how they surely must be treated, and carefully avoided screaming 'They're your fucking sisters, you jackass!' at him. Instead, I asked if he was actually engineered or not.

"My mother.", he explained. "She received an ovomutagen." The accent was slight, but the terminology flowed out of his mouth like water. "She was normal. I was so different from the others.. you lived as a normal in America, right?" I nodded. "Things must be so different in America." I just smiled. I'd really be a freak where he grew up, wouldn't I? He'll learn the cultural differences one day.

I overheard another conversation, because the conversers were getting louder. "Fine! Twenty kilounits on if he accepts, and another twenty kilounits on if he beats your ass." They walked into the dining room and I followed them to Howard.

"Howard, do you like bets?", one of them asked.

"Depends on the bet. What is your offer?"

"Well, the bet's not with you. I bet Jimmy twenty kilounits that you'd accept the challenge, and another twenty that I can beat you at Starcraft." One of the youths, obviously Jimmy, was grinning widely, obviously believing that Howard wouldn't take it, just to laugh at this young man of about 14. They were obviously lower levels- higher levels generally don't trade or bet with resources.

"What's your name, anyway?"

"Ryan West."

"Ryan, I am going to kick your ass up and down the street. Get up there, go in that room," He pointed to my currently unused room. "load up the game, and prepare to die." I could almost smell the ownership from here. Howard's reaction time is nothing and his strategical sense is godlike, and just by looking at Ryan I can tell he wasn't engineered heavily enough, if at all. Who the hell did this joker think he was fooling?

"Brood war or regular?", Ryan asked as he went up the stairs.

"Brood war, latest version.", Howard said, following Ryan up. I went to follow him. This'll be entertaining.

"So how are we going to make sure no one cheats?", Ryan asked.

"Well... if we just closed the doors to our rooms and let no one in, there's lots of programs either of us could use for network packets and that kind of thing. Soo.. to make sure no one's cheating, let's have people watching." Howard's voice grew loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear. "Oh, and if anyone tells anyone about anything, or even gives any vague hints... well...", Howard called down with a strange happiness, then clenched his fist, releasing blades very slightly longer than the ones he used to have. No one was going to give either one of them any hints. Howard motioned us to sit next to him, and I watched him start the game.

It was a smallish map, ice terrain, three main bases, plenty of expands to grab. Not sure if I've played it before. Howard randomly got Terrans and his foe got the Zerg. Howard quickly made a Barracks and a Bunker near the middle of his base; that was a good decision, as a 6-Zling force headed his way rather quickly when he only had two Marines, a few of the lings dying right away, some others managing to attack SCVs out of the Bunker's range. Howard popped the Marines from the Bunker and they finished off the lings as he ran his SCVs from them.

Howard went Academy/Eng Bay, building Missile Turrets for cloak detection (Lurkers are a pain in the ass, although you should hear the normals when we can actually move some units fast enough to dodge them, even timing it right on Extra High Latency) as well as a Comsat. Ryan poured a decent force into Howard's base, but Howard had Medics and the Bunker, and only lost a few units as Ryan's force got slaughtered.

That's when Howard went into Dominator mode, trying to take over the whole map. It's what he does, after all. He built Bunkers before CCs at the expansions, and got some air and some Sci Vessels with Irradiate; this proved to be a very good idea as Ryan tried a Mutalisk/Guardian force, one that Howard's Comsat saw coming. Waste the Overlords with Irradiate, then send the cloaked Wraiths in for the kill. Howard continued to mercilessly spy on Ryan's unit production, as well as checking out his nearby expansion.

A couple of people were running back and forth, looking at the screens, and I could hear them very carefully trying not to laugh at something. Is something wrong? Does Ryan have some massive expansion that Howard doesn't see? Nope.. quite the opposite, as we discovered in half a minute. Ryan only took the nearby mineral expansion, and his forces and base couldn't withstand Howard's massive output of angry Terrans. It's okay, Ryan, some Terrans want to kill Howard as well. If it weren't for these neural implants, he'd be a smokin' crater by now.

Ryan left the game instead of waiting for his base to get pounded into nothing, and walked into Howard's room with a grimace on his face. "Howard! You.." He didn't dare finish it. Howard can kill him, after all. "You mind if I swear at you?"

"You can for five seconds.", Howard replied magnanimously, putting his thumb into his palm and using his five fingers to count down as Ryan spewed some hastily-made flamewar-worthy diatribe; when the fingers were clenched, Ryan stopped instantly. "Anyone else want to try me at this?" Nobody did.

We separated from Howard and got asked various questions by various Illuminated fools. Some of them we answered, some we refused to on principle. Damn, some of these people treat their servants like shit, and a lot of them didn't bring theirs to the party- a few regretted that. A few of the more Damien-esque ones retreated quickly when they realized we weren't commanded or obligated to treat them with any sort of respect. Paul, I noticed, had disappeared Sarah-style, although Sarah herself was with me. She gestured and we went down the elevator wordlessly, after we had stopped being badgered by people.

"You're not actually threatening me, are you?", I heard Paul ask in a quiet voice the moment the elevator reached the bottom and its doors opened. Another black-wearing, older, aggressive boy was in his face, obviously highly perturbed. We'd walked in the middle of a rather heated conversation. I heard a few kids playing in the pool, and two teenage servants, male and female, were standing by the weapons room, watching the conversation as well.

"No! I can't even fucking hurt you! I can't even mess with you, since you belong to an Illumy-natus.", he mispronounced in a similarly quiet voice. "And I'm not! I just want to know what the hell you and Mr. Baker really did to make me the servant of that Jap!"

"I didn't do anything, Brian.", Paul said. "And, like I said, I didn't know you had the implants- I'm surprised Baker let you back in the general population with them in your head. I had them way before that- I was sent there to find out what the hell he was doing with them. He wasn't allowed to be doing that. The Dominator killed him for it. Akira got you at random."

Brian backed away, slowly. "So he told us the truth after all.."

"And if I remember right, you were being a big dick to me in that place.", Paul said.

"Look- I'm sorry, seriously. It doesn't matter anymore, all right? I'll even do anything you want for a while if you can help me get out of here!" The boy was lying, I could tell, but it didn't matter.

Paul just shook his head slowly. "Look behind you.", he said, and the other boy turned around to see me and Sarah watching him. "They don't have a way out of this. If they can't do it, what the hell makes you think you and I can? I don't know what commands are on you now, but the only way out would be for Akira to say the wrong thing. But if he's smart, don't count on that happening any time soon."

"Damn it..", Brian said. "Bet you don't wash your master's feet every day." Paul shook his head. "I'm just lucky he didn't make me stay quiet next to him again. I've been in hellholes my whole life and this is the worst!", he said, his voice rising as he consciously (or commandedly) tried to keep it down. "And the worst part is that he says that I can commit suicide any time I want, but if I do that I really will go to Hell."

I was going to say something, but Sarah did first. "That's a bunch of bullshit. I can't believe you still believe in that crap. There's a room full of guns right there.", she said, gesturing near the still-watching servants to the room. There was a small, metal sign somehow attached to the wall next to it labeled 'Don't mess with the Dominator's weapons. - The Management'- yup, 'The Management' of the island put it there in an act of foresight. "I'll hand you a good one if you'll use it." For a moment I worried that it would crash Howard's party if Brian really did do that, but then realized he'd just laugh about it.

"No, despite whatever I see going on here, I still believe in God.", the boy devoutly said. "'Sides, Akira's already got me carrying one. Look... listen, if you can't help me, then apparently only Jesus can." He pretended to ignore Sarah's and my snickering. "If my body can't be saved from this, then maybe my soul can.", he said, going back up the elevator.

The two other servants were still watching us silently. "So what do you two think of that?", I asked them.

"Funny in a way. And we can only speak when spoken to.", the boy replied. The girl nodded.

"You two were ogling Howard's weapons, weren't you?", Sarah asked them. They both replied in the affirmative. "Like the sign says, don't fuck with them. I'm surprised this place is open at all right now."

"Hey, stop, stop!", we heard from the pool, and walked over to it. A boy and a girl stopped splashing another boy- for a minute I thought they were servants, but there were nothing but white clothes left behind next to the pool. They were having fun, and didn't really acknowledge our presence, so we didn't acknowledge theirs, just went back and talked to the other two servants for a while- one of the kids in the pool was their master.

They wanted to kill him, of course, and were sad that the 'Damien trick' (we were all unsurprised that it had a name of its own) wouldn't work- their master had talked about it in their presence, but they badly wanted to do something like that. "We probably wouldn't if he was a little bit NICER!", the girl shouted, intentionally loud enough for their master to hear. He laughed uproariously in response. They'll probably be all right, if he's doing that.

We took the elevator up to find the tightly-dressed girl getting intimate with Howard. "This!", the fourteen-year-old exclaimed, approaching the couch-sitting Howard smiling. Sarah watched, not looking shocked or jealous at all, as the girl thrust her barely-covered breasts into Howard and started kissing his face repeatedly.

"Oh, you can do better than that.", Howie said, as he grinned his trademark secret-master grin. He took her to the floor, quickly lifted up her dress, kissed her breasts repeatedly, and ravished her in front of all the gawking kids, his cock obviously ready and willing, and her legs and cunt just as willing. The engineered seed of the Dominator is the most precious on Earth and her daddy would certainly be happy about any pregnancy. Not that she cared. She was an Illuminatus by her own merit... yet another reason to let only the best in. And to get in the best, for that matter. She's a little bit engineered, but there would probably be complications- Sarah looks like she's in her eighth month now, but it's only been about two and a half months since we had sex with her. Damn. I wonder why we engineereds don't look like adults already, if growth in the womb can be that fast?

Now, supposedly, he can do this with no problem and the baby will be perfectly normal (normal as in healthy).. but if it doesn't.. oh well. They have Northberg for that shit. They could give her an abortion faster than you can say 'tear it out of her womb!'

"Holy shit!", a nine-year-old said. That was all that was said for a while. The rest of them were too busy staring with their mouths wide open, watching their beloved Dominator fornicate for a full three minutes. Her body arched and bucked, he grinned widely and pounded into her with a good deal of his might. From the red flush on her body and the fact that Howie was actually gasping, it was obvious that both of them were enjoying themselves. What better way to enjoy yourself at a party? Well, there, you Illuminated brats. For those of you who haven't seen it yet, now you know what sex is, not to mention why he's called the Dominator. I idly wondered how many of them would use this experience as a way to think about getting some for themselves- not that it wasn't getting easier, with the advent of implanted servants. Get em, implant em, and fuck em. Even Damien knew that, although he didn't understand the difference between an asshole and a cunt.

He stood up and helped her to her feet, hugging her. "That was great.", she said, smiling widely.

"We'll have to do that again sometime, Carlie.", he said, putting his wet dick back in his suit. A few of the others clapped and cheered.

She kissed him once more. "I'll remember you." More clapping, more cheering, a few positive shouts.

The rest of the party went on in much the same way. Kids talked and played and fucked and laughed, enjoying their Dominator's hospitality. Everyone wanted to be the last to leave (to get some private, personal time with Howard), so he simply told everyone to get out at 8:00 PM. It'd been a long day, and by the time that rolled around, we were all rather exhausted. When the guests all left, he sat down on the viewscreen and began to perform a typical Illuminated task.

"You're running an acquisition?", I asked curiously.

"Yup. This fifth can't do it himself so I'm letting him acquire a friend of his." Wait.. what?!

"Acquire a friend-", I blurted. "Does he know what he's doing?!"

"Oh, yes, Billy. He does indeed know exactly what he's doing." Then that says it all. Apparently this young man has decided to start using Howard's definition of 'friend'. "I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't make sure of that." That didn't surprise me. I had nothing whatsoever to say to this.

"Howard.. if you could get it, I'd say that girl was trying to kill you with AIDS or something.", Sarah said. Howard only chuckled as she retired to her room, as he hopped up the stairs two at a time.

"Wow... Howard, I can't believe it's been a full year.", I said, following him to his room.

"I thought time was going slow for you and you were suffering."

"Oh, I am, but I've stopped caring about that." He put his arm around me as he always does. "The time effect went away after your first test. If you think about it... living with you has been rather quiet, considering."

"What the fuck could you be considering?!", he exploded, with some mirth on his face. After everything that's happened- most notably that fucking impersonation robot and his arm getting lasered off- it shouldn't be a wonder he's surprised at that.

"Howard, you're the controller of the world. People want to kill you. People want things from you, and we're talking a lot of people. The only reason we haven't seen more action is because you delegate everything to lower levels, but even still.."

"Exactly. Which is the point. Being able to delegate has got to be one of the top responsibilities of the position, and the default framework caught most of it anyway. The only reason I wouldn't delegate something to any of them is if I or you three were the only ones who could do it."

"Or...", I began, with a slight grin.

"Or I'm particularly pissed off. I know. But that helps, and you know why."

"Yeah, there's nothing like the master of everything running at you with the Superweapon of Death. Howie, you're the fucking bogeyman. I wonder how many times they've threatened each other with what you'd do if you found out about something or heard something."

"Hopefully, few... but probably plenty."

"Yeah, a lot of talk, so little action. You get them to do it. I guess that comes with the territory. We do several hundred times more simulated killing than in person.."

"Well, for most Illuminati it's the same, and for most sheeple, that's infinite times. Technology is a wonderful thing, Billy. Even the most tame normal can spend hours killing computer-generated images or even other humans if he has computer connections. If I have the urge for blood and death, I'm not going to waste precious people or resources going out and getting them, even though I could easily. I'm going to do the same thing all my brethren do and I'm going to play some violent videogame. It's funny, but not really that ironic. I could lead armies into battle for the hell of it, like what previous rulers used to do. But there's too many strings to pull for that sort of action today, and why bother? One of the things I don't do is blow resources just because I feel like it. That's why we don't see much action. I'm more conservative than most people take me for." Obviously, he was using 'conservative' in its true, non-political sense. And it makes sense. He could be more active- but why? He needs those people to dominate the world. He's not going to call any more attention to his activities than he has to. Instead, like a true puppetmaster, he sits back and lets other people put their lives and their stuff on the line for his cause, using his visage and personal force as both a subconscious and conscious threat. Will he send Enforcers? Will he snipe you in the dark? Will he call his expert servants to ream you? Will he go himself, decorating your internal organs all over your front wall? Or a mean, ugly combination of all of the above?

"You're still a trans-manipulative bastard, Howie." He smiled widely and held me a bit tighter.

"Thank you, Billy. Oh.. and Billy?"

"Yeah?"

"Happy birthday." Those two words, coming from him, meant everything.

"Happy birthday, Howie." I was about to fall asleep next to him and then I remembered his command.

"The nightmares-", I began.

"You can stay." We fell asleep together on top of the covers, wearing white and black, like two chess pieces who after centuries of fighting each other have decided that maybe the board isn't worth the war after all.