File 1: Departure

I will soon enter Ego Pod. For your edification I document this voyage. Surely your comprehension will compel you to enter into your own Ego Pod.

I am the first. It is my creation. It will end all pain, all strife, all war, all suffering. Ego-Pod is an autonomous world in which all the user wants is so.

File 2: Antecedent

I have lived twenty-four and a half solar-cycles on this orb and found nothing of consequence in human existence.

File 3: Function

I have constructed my Ego Pod six feet under the ground. It is a cocoon, an egg, a womb of realization. A bubble of amniotic fluid. Smart jelly in a white space infinity. My body will be safe and warm. I will be eternally preserved in Ego Pod. My mind will enter the Data Stream and float into the Sea of Perfection. My world will be my own choosing. I will construct my infinity through Neurotransmitter Communion.^*
*Also known as “N-Tra-Com”. Trademark available in Data Stream Archives..

Ego Pod is self contained. There will be no others. No contact. The self is all that is necessary. A perfect mind—free of distraction from others, from the outside, from impurity—will know absolute freedom. We will construct our own existence, as we desire, to our needs and wants, without limits.

The Smart Jelly will fulfill and protect our body, supplying nutrition and sanitation through Umbilicalis-Transference, and personal conditioning to prevent atrophy. Any pleasure experiences in N-Tra-Com will be felt by the body via the Smart Jelly, which embraces and cradles, providing sensory impulses that will be sent back to the brain of the user.

File 4: Current Life

It will not be long now. I wake as solar rays enter my room. I feel Ego Pod calling to me. Even as it rests I hear the silent hum.

But I must first tie up loose ends. I take the Cross-District Tram to the office. The smells of the city pollute my nasal cavity. For every fragrant tea, there are five chemical toxins. For every delicate perfume anointing a young woman, there are ten noxious fumes wafting up through the sanitation labyrinth. The Tram jerks to a stop. The brakes are rusted, decaying. Pathetic.

My office building has been crafted from Promethium alloy. Though the ground may shake, the spires of humanity stand tall in the cowering sky. The building is new, constructed just a few solar cycles ago. Nearly the entirety of the southern hemisphere has been strip-mined to support the hungers of the north. Such waste, these phallic towers. Ego Pod will eliminate man’s fearful inadequacy.

My function at the office was to manage the function of a machine. I became a machine that serviced a machine. Is that not insanity? It would be like creating a God that demanded to be worshipped.

I check in with my manager, Eugene, before I begin my shift. He says, “It’s hard to see you leave. You are the greatest programs analyst our company has ever known.” I stared back at him. I remove an eyelash that has been scratching my cornea.

I sit down at my work station. The machine is a beast to be tamed. It drones with the sound of cold space, so mortal in comparison with the perfection of Ego Pod. This primitive machine knows the cruelty of my whip. It will not act up again.

Leo, who works in a neighboring cubicle, sits near me at the commissary. He says, “I will miss your Moon Day morning sense of humor, O.D. But I guess you need to do what’s right for you, eh?” I emit a dry murmur of acknowledgement accompanied with a slight nod. These frivolous human interactions do little but obstruct the flow of constructive neurotransmitter activity. They will not be missed.

Back at my station, the machine continues to drone. I write the code as our corporation manifesto dictates: “Balance for the shortest cycle that will not result in hostile inquiry.” I expel the digital language like so much human waste for the remainder of the solar cycle. The ending bell pings a few turns before nightfall.

On my way to the exit, I spot Sophia. We have shared glances at the duplicate service kiosk on several occasions. Her eyes catch mine. She says nothing at all, though her long face tries to say that she will miss me.

I care not for these people. Though they may project feigned melancholy over my departure, I see the duplicity beneath their smiles. I don’t need them. I need nothing from my old life.

File 5: Application

Hell is other people. This has been documented throughout the course of human history.^*  Humans cannot manage emotion. Humans cannot function properly with other people. Humans cannot successfully choose mates, partners, or friends. Humans hurt each other. Humans kill each other.
^*See Data Stream Archive: History, Human: Mistakes .

Heaven is solitude. Heaven is fantasy. Heaven is what we create.

In Ego Pod, we create our own Heavens. The places, the time, the temperature, the food, the sounds, the tastes, the smells, the sights, the textures, are all at our whim. We create the others. We will them into existence as we desire, and they become who we wish them to be. If we wish, we can create our own families, friends, and loves. We make them who we wish, and discard, replace, and alter them as it fits our whims.

File 7: Legacy

My design of the Ego Pod has been sold to Green Wall Corp. I now possess funds to function, power, and service my own Pod forever. I need no currency as I enter Ego Pod. The Green Wall Corp. will sustain my machine. That is all I ask. Thus, I need never leave it. I need know no more than that. The design has been sent out into the Data Stream. Others can create and enter their own Ego Pod. When all humans are inside Ego Pod the world will be perfect. My legacy and importance will be incalculable. I, of course, need no recognition or notoriety. I need only myself.

File 9: My world

The nations have long since disappeared. All that remains are corporations and cults, with small tribes living on the fringes of civilization. The totality of humanity is primitive, warlike, destructive. The only way to find peace is to eliminate contact with others. Ego Pod will eliminate wants and needs. All will be inside Ego Pod. Fulfillment will be absolute. There will be no concern for personal gain, be no need for conquest. All will be Kings and Queens of their own realms. All will be Gods.

File 10: Pass

Seven lunar-cycles ago I sought a mating match in the Data Stream. I released my wants, my needs, my desires and waited for a response.

         Indo-European XY. Twenty-four lunar cycles. Of
         respectable gene-stock. Seeks XX mating partner. Must
         possess currently updated immaculate salutary biological
         inspection. Age and ethnicity unimportant.

For three terran-cycles, nothing came. When a message finally floated to me I was unimpressed to say the least.

         Dear XY. I was intrigued by your mysterious posting, and
         would love to know more about you. I am a forty-three
         solar-cycle XX. I clerk in a food exchange. I tend several
         felines. Please search images of them at Feisty Feline 182^*
         for my feline Seminar.
         I message you for I fear that my time to mate is running out.
         I don’t wish to expire before having the opportunity to
         advance the species.
         I look forward to your response.
                  -Anticipating, FF182

She disgusted me. After two terran-cycles I replied.

         FF. Your Seminar was utterly charming. I respect your
         needs, but I am hesitant to download myself in full
         resolution. Perhaps we can find a way to become more
         synergistic?
                  -XX

Her response was nearly immediate.

         Dearest XX. Please log-in to my Seminar at 22:00. I have
         arranged for a private session to show you who I am and
         what I can offer.
                  -Yours, FF182

I entered her Seminar at the appointed time. She had posted a glamour of seduction. Primitive. I cybered her from afar. It did nothing for me. I altered my Virtual Reality Helmet to register the likeness of a notable eastern performer, but to ruse did not help. I felt empty afterwards, the experience was fleeting, sticky, artificial. I uploaded an artificial avatar to avoid rejecting her directly, then logged-off.

As I logged off, I could taste the acrid dry cell death in my mouth. Even my injection of fantasy could not be maintained in the primitive VR Helm. I became all the more convinced that Ego Pod was necessary. A fantasy world must not end if the fantasy is to be successful.

File 11: Error

                  Nero Nero
                  Rome is burning
                  You cannot stop
                  World turning
                  Dread death to all
                  Please hear my call
                  The name you want
                  Caligula ^*
*Caligula-Minor: Omni-Sexual Worm Virus.

File 12: Hacked

Darren Olsen is a thirty-seven year old white male virgin sixty pounds overweight with a receding hair line and three bald spots on the top of his head who lives in his mother’s basement in a nowheres-ville suburb of Boise, Idaho. He worked out of his mother’s home writing computer code for pornographic websites.

The closest experience Darren’s had to sex was in 1996. It was the second to last night of the San Diego Comic Convention. In his crappy motel room, near the air port, he received a hand job from a Cambodian masseuse named Maly, who was actually a fourteen year old boy named Phirun. Darren suspected this of the masseuse and considered offering the boy an extra hundred bucks if he would let Darren sodomize him, for who would know?—the boy could hardly refuse—but even this duplicitous act required action.

Darren quit his job as a computer programmer at a paper goods warehouse four years ago. He tells himself he did so because the job was useless, not worth his time, but everyone at the office knew he left because he asked the new receptionist, Stephanie, out on a date, but she told him she was engaged.

He has no real friends or contact with any human beings outside of his mother, and he has not left the basement since his hamster, The Mighty Thor, died five months ago of a brain aneurism.

File 13: Barrier

Spyware Shield Engaged
Firewall Secure
Retaliate: Salted Earth^*
*Salted Earth: The Uncanny Uber-Virus

How childish. To think that some plebian believed they could hack my server. My Salted Earth Virus crashed the invading system, rendering it inoperable. No recovering software will help them. My Virus killed them. Even their hardware has been reduced to scrap.

I will not be stopped. Ego Pod is perfection.

File 14: Sophie Files

The attempted hacking of my files has given me an impulse. I engage my Spyware Ninja and sneak into Sophie’s Server. Search terms: “O,D.” The following excerpts are taken from User/Sophie/Unsorted_Files:

         File 97
         This guy at work asked me out today. I was so shocked I didn’t
         know what to say. I told him I was engaged. I’m not sure why
         I said that. I didn’t even really know who he was. I only vaguely
         recognized his face from office-wide meetings. I suppose if it
         were important to him, he’d learn more about me before taking
         a step like that. Leo said the guy’s name was Olsen.

         File 114
         Leo told me that Olsen is leaving. I asked around. No one
         knows why.

         File 114.5
         I hope Olsen’s not leaving because of me. I don’t know why anyone
         would think that.

         File 133
         Olsen keeps coming up to my cubicle. But he never says anything.
         I’ve considered saying something, but I always turn away. He never
         did anything to learn about me. I don’t think he knows anything
         about me. I must not be important to him.

         File 162
         I’m so excited about this guy my friends set me up with. I was even
         talking about it at work today. He has such gorgeous hair. Olsen
         looked moodier than usual today. I feel sorry for him, but this is
         for the best.

         File 294
         Olsen is leaving soon. I’m actually kind of relieved. I can’t tolerate
         his eyes any longer. I feel like they judge me.

File 15: Scenario

In the machine I will know true happiness. I will be on a tropical island with Sophie. She will wear a brown bikini and be forever twenty-years old with perfectly tanned skin and long black hair that cascades down her back like a light breeze. She will be clever and gentle, never jaded or sullied. We will sit on the soft sand of the beach under a green umbrella and watch the clear blue waves. We will drink fresh strawberry lemonade and eat warm chocolate chip cookies, while never gaining a pound. At sunset we will retire to our pagoda on the hill, where there is never dust nor mold nor spiders, and lay together on our bed of clouds.

File 16: Entering

I have programmed my initial Scenario into Ego Pod. I can always alter the Scenario if I become bored or dissatisfied with it. As I stand over the unit I can taste the perfection on my tongue and the back of my teeth. The Promethium chamber is lined with white space and filled with Smart Jelly. It will embrace me. It will hold me.

File 17: Ego Pod

Enter it and know peace know love know heaven.