Big Egos Read online

The barista calls out my order. I give Lucille Ball another glance, then I grab Delilah’s caramel macchiato and my triple espresso and I head out the door as Hemingway says something to Faulkner about a bell tolling.

  I climb into my T-Bird and sit behind the wheel, my Sirius satellite radio tuned to the BBC as I sip my triple espresso and watch the front door of Starbucks and listen to the latest world news.

  A report about the crackdown on Ego raves in London.

  An investigative exposé on Japan’s psyche subculture.

  A congressional committee on the spiritual implication of the id.

  I find it ironic that Congress is debating the concept of the soul, considering that it doesn’t even have one. But I suppose they can’t just stand by and ignore the concerns of some of their constituents, even if it’s just for show.

  I switch the radio to another station, something with lyrics and music, and come across a familiar song that reminds me of college and spring break and cold Coronas. I don’t even have to close my eyes and I’m there on the beach, the moment playing back in my head like a video clip.

  This has been happening to me lately: random memories from my life popping up, invading the present, blending in with the here and now, brought on by a familiar song or a scent or a turn of phrase. Kind of like little acid flashbacks, except I’ve never dropped acid.

  One moment I’m sitting in my car and the next, I’m on the beach with my best friend Nat. Another moment I’m having sex with Delilah and the next, I’m eating dinner with my parents.

  It’s like flipping through channels on the television and getting snippets of scenes.

  Flip.

  I’m at a Buddhist meditation center.

  Flip.

  I’m stuffing my own stocking on Christmas Eve.

  Flip.

  I’m at a fraternity party during college.

  Part of me wonders if I should report these mini-flashbacks or if I should be concerned, but another part of me explains them away as a trivial side effect. After all, my flashbacks aren’t affecting my cognitive functions or my ability to deal with the minutiae of everyday life, so until they start causing a problem, I likely don’t have anything to be worried about.

  A few moments later, Lucy comes out of Starbucks and walks across the street to her car, a BMW 900 series, which in this neighborhood means there’s a good chance she’s Beverly Hills or Bel Air material, so she’s probably not hurting for money. And while Lucille Ball has been dead for more than thirty years, her estate hasn’t agreed to license her Ego. Couple that with the erratic behavior she’s exhibiting and it’s obvious Lucy acquired her Ego on the black market.

  Which is where I come in.

  I wait until Lucy pulls out into traffic and heads west on Sunset Boulevard, then I crank up the song on the radio that reminds me of spring break and I start following her.

  CHAPTER 3

  “I’m not following you,” says Nat.

  “What part aren’t you following?” I ask.

  Nat takes a drink of his Corona and looks at me from behind his sunglasses as a couple of bikini-clad co-eds walk past us toward the surf of the Pacific Ocean.

  “All of it.”

  Where we are is Newport Beach during spring break of our senior year at UCLA. This is five years ago, in 2016, a few months before I started working full-time at EGOS.

  A late March storm has given way to a gorgeous Southern California afternoon, with four- to six-foot swells, a long, lazy break, and dozens of nearly naked bodies adorning the sand and surf. In the middle of all this, I’m trying to explain to Nat about the new product being developed at EGOS, the bioengineering company where I’m interning. I really shouldn’t be talking about it since I signed a nondisclosure agreement, but I’ve known Nat since we were in kindergarten and I trust him not to share this with anyone.

  “Okay,” I say. “How about this? What if you could be somebody else?”

  “You mean like in that old movie Being John Malkovich?”

  “No. I’m not talking about a portal into someone else’s head. This is completely different.”

  “Good. Because I’m not all that excited about being spit out into a ditch on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike.”

  “You’re not going to be spit out anywhere,” I say. “And the experience will last a lot longer than just fifteen minutes.”

  “So it’ll be better than sex?”

  Nat has had sex twice in his twenty-one years: the first time during his sophomore year in high school with Debbie Rivers, a cheerleader who had been passed around like a bong at a drum circle; and the second time during his freshman year in college with a woman who turned out to be a prostitute. So when it comes to something being better than sex, Nat isn’t exactly an expert on the subject. Though I’m sure he could teach a class on self-gratification.

  I motion with my beer toward a trio of teenage women lounging on the beach, their bodies young and ripe and glistening with suntan lotion. “Imagine that all three of these women find you irresistible. Imagine that when they look at you, they see Heath Ledger or Paul Newman or James Bond.”

  “But I don’t look anything like James Bond.”

  “You don’t look like Heath Ledger, either.”

  “Thanks for clearing that up, bro.”

  Nat’s called me “bro” ever since high school. Considering we’ve been best friends since we were kids and that neither one of us has any close family ties, I suppose it fits.

  “Who you look like isn’t the point,” I say. “The point is, you would be who these women desire. You would be who they fantasize about. You would be who you always wanted to be.”

  Nat studies the three women. “Can I be Captain Kirk? I always wanted to be Captain Kirk. Or maybe Indiana Jones. Or Sherlock Holmes. Or Aragorn. Women would be all over me if I was Aragorn.”

  Nat has never been a big fan of reality. He’s always identified with fictional characters and still spends a lot of his nights immersed in role-playing games like Skyrim and World of Warcraft and Apocalypto, living behind the mask of an online avatar.

  Which doesn’t exactly help with the whole not-getting-laid thing.

  “Isn’t there anyone real you’d want to be?” I ask. “Kurt Cobain? James Dean? John F. Kennedy Jr.?”

  Nat scowls in concentration and purses his lips. He’s done that ever since we were kids. Even at twenty-one, he still looks like a little boy.

  “Ryan Reynolds,” he says. “I’d be okay with him.”

  “Well, that’s a start. But we might have trouble getting the rights to celebrities and public figures who are still alive.”

  The problem with living celebrities is that you get into issues of invasion of privacy and false impersonations and identity rights. It’s less legally complicated to replicate the DNA of someone who’s already dead or of a fictional character, even though estates and copyright holders still want royalties or a suitcase full of cash in exchange for a license.

  “I still don’t understand how you’re going to do this,” says Nat. “Is it like Jurassic Park? Or Blade Runner? Or The Boys from Brazil?”

  “Not exactly.”

  I explain to Nat that while the science and technology involved is somewhat complicated, the basic premise is simple: we’re going to replicate the DNA of dead celebrities and fictional characters using molecular cloning and then mix the DNA with a cocktail of amino acids, potassium, sodium, chlorine, enzymes, proteins, and a dash of serotonin. The idea is to create an experience of being someone else for several hours.

  No one’s cloning dinosaurs.

  No one’s creating replicants.

  No one’s developing a master race.

  We’re just revolutionizing role-playing games.

  When the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that human genes can be patented because the DNA extracted from cells is not a product of nature, it opened the door for the patents on the cloning and replication of genes that would eventually le
ad to the creation of Big Egos.

  “The trick,” I say to Nat, “is using the right combination of proteins and enzymes, which is essential for the synthesis of the DNA with the host.”

  “You mean like on game shows?”

  “No. You’re the host.”

  “I’m the host?”

  I’m thinking I shouldn’t have tried explaining this to Nat while we were stoned.

  “Can you mix it with alcohol and drink it?” asks Nat.

  “Sure. But that’s not the point. Once the cocktail has a chance to calibrate with the DNA of the . . .”

  “You want another beer?” Nat digs into the ice chest. “All this talk about cocktails is making me thirsty.”

  I sigh, then forge ahead: “Once the cocktail has a chance to calibrate with the host DNA, the experience will last for anywhere from six to eight hours, though the primary consciousness will remain just beneath the surface as a reality monitor.”

  “So even though I’m someone else, I’ll still be me?”

  I explain to Nat how that’s an essential component of the product. After all, just because someone thinks he’s Superman doesn’t mean he won’t break his neck jumping off a roof because he thinks he can fly.

  Nat sits there staring at me, drinking his Corona, his head nodding slightly, his lips pursed, his expression contemplative, and I think I’ve finally managed to get through to him. Then he turns and looks out at the expanse of beach and all the half-naked bodies strewn across the sand.

  “So I’d be able to have sex with any one of these women?” he asks.

  “Well . . . that depends on who you’re pretending to be.”

  “Okay, so if I’m someone famous, can I have sex with famous women?” he says. “Like Taylor Swift or Jennifer Lawrence or Megan Fox?”

  “Probably not them, because they’re still alive. But anything’s possible. Theoretically you can have sex with famous women, but it’s easier if they’re already dead.”

  The mother sitting near us with her two young children picks up her towels and personal belongings and moves farther away.

  Nat looks up and down the beach at the selection of potential conquests, drinking his beer and nodding his head. “I think I’d like to have sex with Hermione Granger.”

  Nat always did have a thing for Emma Watson.

  We sit there for a few minutes, sipping our beers in silence, watching the waves roll in as the three young women I’d pointed out earlier get up and walk down to the water and wade into the surf.

  “You said that even though I was someone else, I’d still be me?” says Nat.

  “That’s right,” I say. “Your consciousness will still be there just below the surface, monitoring what’s happening.”

  “Kind of like a security guard?”

  “Kind of.”

  Nat nods and takes a sip of his beer. “What if my security guard falls asleep on the job?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What happens if I stay below the surface?” says Nat. “I know you said it’s not going to be like Being John Malkovich, but what if I get trapped inside someone else’s identity and I can’t get back out?”

  “That won’t happen,” I say.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because there are safeguards in place to make sure of it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because they’ve had extensive trials and testing and are putting together a customer support team trained in psychology,” I say. “Plus they have some of the best scientific minds in the country behind the technology.”

  “But how do you know?”

  When Nat gets hold of a question, sometimes he can’t seem to let it go.

  “It’s not going to pose any more of a risk than virtual reality,” I say. “The main difference is that you won’t need to wear goggles to enjoy the experience.”

  “Yeah, but with virtual reality you’re not putting genetically mutated DNA into your body.”

  Admittedly that’s one of the PR issues the company faces, but considering that people eat genetically modified fruits and vegetables, as well as animals pumped full of genetically modified hormones and antibiotics, getting the general public to accept the idea of Big Egos shouldn’t be too difficult. Especially once they get to experience the ride.

  “What about Captain Kirk and Indiana Jones and Aragorn?” I say. “I thought you liked the idea of becoming one of them.”

  “I do,” says Nat, taking another sip of his beer. “I just don’t want to end up getting spit out into a ditch in New Jersey.”

  CHAPTER 4

  I’m back in 2021, sitting on my couch wearing my Google 3-D glasses and watching my Super Hi-Vision plasma TV, surfing from twenty-four-hour news channels to relentless talk shows to ubiquitous reality programs. Surfing from infomercials about vitamins and natural foods and exercise equipment to advertisements about weight loss and male performance drugs and cosmetic enhancements.

  All of these commercials about health and diet and fitness. All of these ads for waistlines and libidos and teeth whiteners. If you’re not taking care of yourself or eating right or exercising, if you’re overweight or you have a small penis or you don’t have bright enough teeth, then there’s something wrong with you.

  Spiritually. Physically. Morally.

  Instead of being defined by your actions, you’re defined instead by your smile. Your sexual performance. Your percentage of body fat.

  On the Fitness Network, a celebrity health guru is showing how to burn calories and fat by using his patented exercise formula.

  It’s a lot to live up to. These pressures of achieving. From the moment you’re born, you’re pounded with the expectations of what you need to actualize in order to become a success.

  Go to college. Get married. Raise a family.

  It’s what you’re supposed to do. The plans you’re supposed to make. The life you’re supposed to live. Diverge from the norm and you’re frowned upon. Questioned. Shunned.

  There’s something wrong with you if you’re not interested in improving yourself. If you can’t make a commitment of marriage. If you don’t want to have children.

  So people earn a college degree so they can get a good job. They work at a job they hate just to earn a living. They spend two months’ salary on an engagement ring. They pop out a couple of kids they don’t really want just so they can fit in. Because it’s what their parents did. Because it’s what society expects you to do. Because it’s safer to take the same path everyone else has traveled.

  Truth is, no one’s listening to Robert Frost.

  Now all of these cardboard cutouts, these people who have spent their lives following guidelines and adhering to the parameters of society, are looking for a way out of their monotonous, cookie-cutter existence.

  Looking for something. Looking for anything.

  I flip from an infomercial about how to maintain a set of six-pack abs to a news report on MSNBC about the increase in popularity of faux celebrity key parties. On Here and Now with Bill Maher, the panel of guests includes Salvador Dalí, Austin Powers, and Eleanor Roosevelt. And on MTV is a reality show pitting the fictional casts of The Brady Bunch against The Addams Family.

  People don’t want to be themselves anymore. They want to be someone else. Someone important. Someone famous.

  A movie star. A household name. An icon.

  On BBC World News America, a newscaster is reporting about a Virgin Atlantic flight that was hijacked by Benjamin Franklin.

  It used to be you were stuck with your own personality, your own identity, and that any adjustments to your persona would only be as successful as your acting ability.

  That all changed with the introduction of Big Egos.

  Not everyone wants to alter who they are, to live a life that isn’t theirs and pretend to be someone they’re not. There are plenty of men and women who are perfectly content with their lives and their struggles and the comforts of their own identities. But f
or those who can afford it, for those who seek the thrill of experimenting with alternate personalities and temporary identities, Big Egos offers a respite from the mundane.

  You know that phrase about how the grass is always greener? Well, the other side of the fence is now as lush and inviting as Shangri-la.

  A Paradise of fantasies. An Eden of possibilities.

  On CBS is an advertisement for Big Egos: Does your lifestyle not fit the person inside of you? Try someone else on for size!

  For three thousand dollars, you can change who you are by purchasing a DNA-encoded cocktail of your favorite dead actor, artist, writer, musician, singer, athlete, politician, talk-show host, or television star—all legally approved by their respective estates, because if there’s one thing estate holders love, it’s money. You can even purchase an officially licensed fictional character like The Luke Skywalker, The Mary Poppins, or The Harry Potter. And for an extra fee, you can special order a custom Big Ego that isn’t available to the masses.

  Each Big Ego comes in ten-milliliter bottles. While I often double my own dosage, one milliliter is all you need for a complete experience, so you get ten uses per bottle. Each experience is essentially the same price you’d pay to go skydiving, take a hot-air balloon ride, or go on a private helicopter tour in Hawaii. Except with Big Egos, you get more bang for your buck.

  While it’s not something everyone can afford, it’s definitely not targeted to the rich and famous. That would kind of defeat the purpose, considering my company offers the opportunity to become rich and famous. In a manner of speaking. At least for a few hours.

  To show our appreciation to returning customers, follow-up orders run two grand, but you have to purchase the same Big Ego. You can’t start off with The Billie Holiday and then expect to get The Whitney Houston at a discount.

  On The Lindsay Lohan Show are a bunch of guests who are confessed Egomaniacs.

  Although the altering of the consciousness is the primary draw of Big Egos, there are also minor physiological changes that take place during the process. This is made possible by adding an evolution gene to the DNA strand during the replication process.