Three weeks later, I had twelve Subjects.
Recruiting had been easier than I'd expected. Desperate people were everywhere—I just had to know where to look. The
unemployed at job centers. The homeless at shelters. The addicts at NA meetings. College students drowning in debt.
Single parents working three jobs.
Every city was full of people who'd been beaten down by life, who needed a miracle.
I was happy to provide one. For a price.
The Tasks I assigned varied wildly depending on what I needed. Some were simple errands—buy groceries, deliver
packages, gather information. Others were more complex. I had Subject #004, a former paralegal, filing legal documents
and researching property law. Subject #007, an art student, was creating fake identification papers that the Regulator's
Mundane Integration would make real. Subject #009, a recently fired line cook, was preparing meals for me because I
was sick of eating ramen.
The Points flowed in steadily. My tax collection grew every day.
SOVEREIGN STATUS
Chapter 2: Expansion
Total Points: 341
Active Subjects: 12
Point Tax Rate: 30%
Tasks Issued: 127
Tasks Completed: 104
Tasks Rejected: 23
I sat in my new apartment—not the luxury penthouse yet, but a massive upgrade from my previous shitbox—and
reviewed my Subject profiles. The Admin Panel laid out detailed information on each one: their completion rates, their
current Point balances, their wish lists, their emotional states.
I was particularly interested in Subject #003, Marcus Reeves.
Marcus was a twenty-eight-year-old ex-convict who'd served five years for armed robbery. He'd been out for six months
and couldn't find work anywhere because of his record. When I'd bumped into him at a bus stop and felt his rough
handshake, the system had flagged him immediately.
RECOMMENDED: High-risk/high-reward Subject. Willing to accept dangerous or morally questionable tasks.
Requires careful management.
Marcus had accepted the Contract within seconds of seeing the offer. And he'd been my most productive Subject by far,
completing every task I assigned without question or hesitation.
I'd tested him with progressively more questionable assignments. Breaking into an abandoned building to retrieve some
equipment I needed. Following someone I was curious about and reporting their movements. Intimidating someone who'd
annoyed me into apologizing.
Marcus did it all without blinking.
And his wish list was telling:
WISH LIST - SUBJECT #003
Entry 1: "I wish for my criminal record to be completely expunged—erased from all government databases and legal
records as if it never existed."
POINT COST: 186 Points
Current Points: 89
He was halfway there. Working toward a fresh start.
I could give it to him. In fact, I probably would, once he earned enough Points. It served my interests to have loyal
Subjects who trusted that the system would deliver on its promises.
But there was something else on Marcus's wish list that interested me more:
Entry 4: "I wish for superhuman strength—able to lift 2,000 lbs and punch through concrete."
POINT COST: 417 Points
Marcus wanted power. Not just freedom from his past, but actual physical dominance.
And that gave me ideas.
I opened a new communication channel—the Sovereign's Voice, the telepathic link that let me speak directly into any
Subject's mind.
Marcus. I have a special task for you. High risk, high reward. Interested?
The response came immediately, his mental voice rough but eager.
Always, Sovereign. What do you need?
I smiled.
There's a man I need dealt with. Permanently.
A pause. Then: Understood. Send the details.
The man's name was Derek. My former manager. The one who'd fired me over the phone with such obvious satisfaction.
I could have let it go. In the grand scheme of my new life, Derek was irrelevant—a petty tyrant with a tiny kingdom of a
convenience store, lording his meager authority over minimum-wage workers.
But I remembered every humiliation he'd inflicted. Every sneer. Every arbitrary rule. Every shift where he'd made me stay
late without overtime pay. Every time he'd mocked me in front of customers.
And now I had the power to make him pay.
I didn't assign the task through the formal system. That would create a record, and even though the Regulator would
cover it up through Mundane Integration, I was being cautious. Instead, I presented it as an "off-books opportunity"—one
that would earn Marcus a bonus of 200 Points, paid directly from my personal balance.
Marcus didn't need details. He didn't ask why. He just said yes.
Two days later, Derek was dead—a tragic mugging gone wrong in a bad part of town. The police investigated for all of
forty-eight hours before ruling it a random act of violence, just another statistic in a city full of crime.
The Regulator had worked perfectly. Derek's death had no connection to me whatsoever in any official record. It was as if
I'd never existed in his life.
And I'd paid Marcus the promised Points.
TRANSACTION COMPLETE
200 Points transferred to Subject #003
Subject #003 current balance: 289 Points
That night, I lay in my new bed—a real bed, with a real mattress and actual sheets—and waited to feel something. Guilt.
Remorse. Horror at what I'd done.
Nothing came.
Derek had been a miserable person who'd made other people miserable. The world was marginally better without him.
And I'd removed a source of past trauma from my life.
It was logical. Practical. Fair, even.
I fell asleep easily.
At the one-month mark, I purchased my first wish.
PURCHASE CONFIRMED
Wish: "I wish to be physically attractive—conventionally handsome by societal standards, well-built but not overtly
muscular, clear skin, symmetric features."
Cost: 127 Points
Remaining balance: 214 Points
Processing...
Reality alteration in progress...
The change wasn't instantaneous or dramatic. There was no flash of light, no pain, no sensation of transformation.
Instead, over the course of about ten seconds, my reflection in the bathroom mirror simply became different.
The acne scars I'd carried since puberty smoothed out. My asymmetric nose straightened. My weak jawline sharpened.
My hunched shoulders squared. Muscle definition appeared where there had only been skinny-fat softness before.
I watched myself become beautiful.
When it finished, I stood staring at a stranger. Someone confident. Someone desirable. Someone who wouldn't be
invisible anymore.
I tested it the next day by going to a coffee shop. The barista—a cute girl around my age who would have looked through
me before—smiled. Actually smiled. Made eye contact. Asked if I wanted anything else in a tone that suggested she was
offering more than just coffee.
I said no and left, but the validation sang in my veins.
The world treated you differently when you were attractive. I'd always known that intellectually, but experiencing it was
something else entirely.
And this was just the first wish.
I had so many more planned.