“Yes it could!” Sam gasped, unable to hold back any longer. “That’s exactly what it is—luck! Joe’s not good at anything!”

Her finely-penciled brow wrinkled in a frown. “Well, clearly he’s good at something if he—”

“No!” Sam snapped, slamming a hand on the table between them before she could finish her dissertation on stupid. Jabbing a finger at her, he snarled, “I know college-level thinking is probably beyond your capabilities, so I’ll put this in third-grader terms so you can understand. You know that dot on a graph that’s way outside the rest that gets thrown out as a fluke by mathematicians who actually know what they’re doing? He’s that. A statistical outlier. Just a random fuckup in an otherwise working system. He has no special skills, no particularly exceptional abilities, and basically average intelligence. Compared to a Huouyt, he’s a drooling infant waving his monster truck baby rattle and shitting on himself. I, on the other hand, am not. Hell, I just bested Congress’s top Huouyt at their own game in ten minutes this morning—and I paused in the middle of it to take a dump. See?” He twisted his computer around for her to see the accounts.

“Is that money?”

“My money, yes.”

She snorted. “Okay, Mr. Sweatpants and Mustard.”

Sam narrowed his eyes at her and spun the computer back to face him. “You know what? I’m done wasting my time.” Like so many other Earth women, the imbecile was sitting right in front of the smartest Human that humanity had produced in a hundred years, and she was clearly getting wet thinking his brother was the one with the brains. It was intolerable. He had a new goal, a new focus to direct his formidable attention—after spending the last thirty-five years trying to avoid attention, he was going to make every single person on Earth know about—and desire—him for his brains. Male and female, ‘cause fuckkit. He was just that hot, intellectually speaking, and he was tired of seeing his brother get credit he didn’t deserve.

She was squinting at the screen. “So, what, did he give you some of his money or something?”

It was the final straw. He would show these people who was the more awe-worthy brother. “I told you,” Sam said, wadding up a napkin and tossing it on the table. “Joe’s just a stupid jock who wouldn’t have even made a decent state school. He probably would’ve had to join the Marines just to survive. I can make more in an afternoon than he’ll make his whole life.”

“So what do you do for a living?” she asked, looking curious, now. “Was that really money?”

Sam slapped the computer shut and stood. It definitely would be the last time he ever came back to this shithole. The moment they got nosey was the moment he packed up and moved to a different penthouse. “Tell your sister next time you see her that she should ditch the pretentious Monique Gavant prints and just get it over with and class it up a notch by serving brewed tree bark by a muttering Haitian with a cauldron and a voodoo doll, not letting her insecure, idiot sister run the place dressed in fake silver jewelry, chipped nails, ‘dreadlock’ hair extensions, lips care of mademoiselle Sharpie, infected nose ring—disgusting, by the way—and a tongue barbell that isn’t going to make up for the fact she gives a horrible blowjob because she’s failed at everything in life and learned how to be a social rebel from some emo TV show from the nineties, probably as a rebellious cry for help because both her parents were working all the time and they clearly didn’t love her.” He got up and stalked out, still seething she thought his brother was smart.

He was halfway out the door when she called behind him, “You got a dog, Mr. Sweatpants?”

Sam frowned and turned back. “Huh? No. I hate dogs.”

“Oh that’s weird.”

“Weird?”

She shrugged and nonchalantly went to pick up the napkin and cup he’d left behind. “I majored in Psychology. Figured you probably had a dog.”

“Majored,” Sam scoffed. He’d lost count of his PhDs, honorary and earned. Then he blinked at her, trying unsuccessfully to imagine what was going through her rudimentary brain. “What? Why?”

She continued to clean his table almost thoughtfully. “A lot of narcissists have dogs. They need the blind adoration.”

He laughed. “I’m not a narcissist. I’m a realist, and the reality is I’m so much smarter than you that you’re about as interesting to me as a wad of toilet paper holding the results of my morning wood as it’s being flushed right there along with my morning dump.”

“Definitely a narcissist.”

“It’s not narcissism if it’s true.”

“Anyway, glad you don’t have a dog. You’d fuck up a dog worse than you’d fuck up a girl.” She dropped them into the trash. “And if you ever do get a girl, I hope she’s a pain loving psychopath. Only way she’s not ending up in the loony bin.” Then she picked up the full cup he’d abandoned and calmly began wiping up his table with a wet rag, turning her back to him as if he no longer existed.

Sam rolled his eyes. “The word you’re looking for is a ‘masochist,’” he informed her, hating it when poddites couldn’t even come up with accurate words for their drooling, rudimentary, utterly ineffective insults.

“Actually, with you, I was thinking ‘sadist,’” the woman said, tossing the rag back to the bar and turning to glance up at him. “You need someone to cram a stiletto in your ear and tell you you’re a good boy, tie you to their bed, strap on their Annihilator, then take you up the ass while you whimper and beg for more.”

Sam got a weird little thrill at that, then stifled it, scowling. “You’re five-two. I’m six-seven.” Obviously she didn’t have what it took to make him beg.

“Oh, I wasn’t offering,” the woman said. “No fucking way, man. You might as well have mental herpes.”

He narrowed his eyes at her.

“Just don’t get a dog,” the woman said. “Pretty sure no woman in the universe would wanna hang around you more than three seconds, so you can’t do much damage there, but dogs are known for giving people the benefit of the doubt no matter how much they abuse them.” She tossed the full cup of coffee into the trash and met his eyes again. “I’d just feel real sorry for the dog.”

Then she went back behind the counter, saying nothing else.

“I’m not a narcissist,” Sam snapped. “I’m a genius. There’s a difference.”

“Yeah, believe it or not, the B.O. and possessed muttering and Einstein hair kinda gave it away from the start, but I was trying to be nice. You can leave now. I wouldn’t want the décor to send you into an autistic rage.”

Sam turned to face her fully, confused. “Are you kicking me out?”

She seemed to consider, then said, “Yeah, I think so.” Then she turned to do something in the kitchen and didn’t respond to his further queries, Sam apparently forgotten.

Three hours later, Sam was sitting in his new luxury hotel room, scowling at the wall. “Just don’t get a dog,” he muttered, miming the girl’s nasal squeak. Like he didn’t deserve a dog. Like he’d mess up a damned dog.

She didn’t know anything. He didn’t want a dog. Dogs were messy, noisy, needy…general pains in the ass.

Still, the woman’s…judgy…tone had stuck in his brain like a barb, and he’d been replaying it over and over in his head as he drank margaritas and thought about how badly he wished he were a badass like his brother and not a lame hacker who ran a handful of drug cartels on the side.

“She thinks I’d fuck up a dog,” Sam muttered, scowling at his computer, still completely unable to concentrate, hours later. “All dogs need are food, water, and regular exercise. How do you fuck that up?” Hell, he could buy dishes with mechanisms to automatically feed and water a dog, and with a couple days’ work, he could build a treadmill for the beast that would calculate its exact metabolic needs and lure it up onto the apparatus whenever its body fat reached unacceptable levels, then lock it into a pen and shock it on the ass to keep it moving until it had burned off the excess, keeping his dog in a perpetual state of perfect health. No sweat.

Sam scowled at his computer, still pissed at how little interest the world had for him now that he’d conquered it. There was no mistaking it—he had reached god-level. He could destroy whole cutthroat Huouyt corporations in the middle of his morning shit, could juggle six different drug trades in between dining at elite restaurants and banging expensive hookers. He had literally nothing left to do except build his legend and fuck with unsuspecting mortals.

…or get a dog.

Sam flinched. That was easily one of the stupidest ideas he’d ever had, clearly put there by the infectious mental boil that was that barista’s vapid, pus-filled mind. He got up and paced, glaring at the walls.

Four hours later, he couldn’t stand it anymore. He called the hotel’s front desk and, when the concierge asked what he could do for ‘Our esteemed Mr. Rothchild,’ Sam said, “Go get me a dog.”

There was a long pause on the other end. Then, hesitating, the concierge said, “If that’s an…illuminating…substance, Mr. Rothchild, I am unaware of the colloquialism.”

Sam frowned. “It’s not a drug, it’s a dog. I want a dog. Go get me one.”

Another long pause. “What kind of dog, sir?”

Sam made an exasperated wave of his hands. “Like fuck if I care! Something with fur.”

“Um. Of course, sir.”

Three hours later, Sam still did not have a dog. Frowning, he waited until exactly three hours had passed, then called the front desk again. “Where’s my goddamned dog?”

The concierge seemed startled. “We, uh, assumed you were…um…not in your…usual…state of mind, sir. Considering the…proclivities…you informed us about.”

Even then, six doobies lay neatly on the nightstand from when the concierge had acquired them for Sam, for a seven-hundred-dollar tip.

“I’m depressingly sober,” Sam said, “and I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. Go get me a fucking dog so I can prove her wrong.”

The man on the other end hesitated, then said, “What kind of dog?”

“I don’t fucking care,” Sam cried. “Any. Dog.”

“Of course, Mr. Rothchild. Give me a couple hours.”

“Why’s it gotta be so long?” Sam demanded. “Can’t you just buy one in a store or something?”

“Uh, sir, many pet stores aren’t open past nine p.m….”

“Oh for fuck’s sake. Just hurry it up.” He hung up the phone. Sam, exasperated, started to pace.

It took more than a couple hours. Sam was still pacing by seven the next morning. He called the front desk, and when she answered, the concierge was a chipper young woman, not a stuffy old man. Sam hesitated in his pacing and frowned. “Where’s the guy I told to get me a dog?”

He could hear the smile leaving her voice. “I’m sorry, sir?”

“I told the guy last night to go find me a dog. I want one. Where is he?”

“Um, I can check the notes…”

“Do that!” Sam cried. If he’d just spent all night awake and pacing and the guy had simply forgot…

She hesitated. “Um, I’m not seeing any notes about a dog. Did you have to leave one at the airport, sir?”

“What?” Sam frowned. “No. I told him to go buy me a dog. From a store or something.”

The pause on the other end was geological. Then, she said, “If a ‘dog’ is a colloquialism for—”

“It’s not a drug,” Sam snapped. “I just want a companion. Go get me one of those.”

“You mean a…masseuse?” the woman asked. “An…escort?”

“No, a fucking dog,” Sam snapped. “Jesus, you people have the mental acuity of a bag of limp dicks.”

“Um. Yes sir,” the woman said. Then, gingerly, she added, “Sir, did you happen to partake in any…illuminating…substances within the last eight hours?”

Sam bristled. “No. I’m sober. Get me a dog. The animal. Woof, woof. Go now.”

The woman on the other end hesitated, then said, “Of…course. What kind of dog did you want, Mr. Rothchild?”

“I don’t. Fucking. Care,” Sam cried. “I just need it to prove a point!”

“Yes sir,” the concierge said, sounding cowed.

Four and a half hours later, she arrived at his door with a bundle of toys, bedding, leashes…and a fluffy white animal about the size of a football. Its beady black eyes squinted up at him from beneath a curly fluff of white fur. After prolonged eye-contact, it barked once, the high-pitch yap the perfect sound to shatter the masterpiece of harmony that was Sam’s concentration.

“What is that?” Sam asked, recoiling.