I realized what I had stumbled upon almost instantly. For years I had been a coinsurer of erotic literature, and I had read all of the original Master PC stories by JR Parz, as well as many of the spin-offs created by other authors. Ever since I had first read about it, I had desired this program, this means to becoming a virtual God on earth. I have craved power and domination over all aspects of my life for a long time; At least since I was a grade-school student, probably before I had the capacity to articulate it.

Now it was laid before me: I had found a website with the bold words, “You have been selected to become a representative of the Master” and a simple link titled “Download Master PC”. I right clicked the download link in Internet Explorer and selected “Save Target As”. I selected my computer’s desktop from the pull-down menu and clicked on the save button. My unoccupied left hand quivered, and I felt my bladder contract. This was no time to go to the bathroom, I told myself. The estimated download time for the 10 megabyte file read 13 minutes. I got up and took a piss.

Feeling greatly relieved but no less excited I sat in my chair eagerly hoping it would be the real deal this time, and not some German remote-control software or a web development application. Maybe this time my dreams would be realized, and I would finally be in command of my environment for once. I shuddered at the thought. Power, sweet power, I imagined to myself. The ability to do anything I pleased. I wouldn’t waste it on merely creating huge breasted sluts to fuck like so many others has imagined. (“Or possibly even done?” I wondered) I would use it to fulfill my every whim. I had a pretty good idea about where I would start, too.

I looked down at my flabby body and sighed. I had started working out quite a while ago, hell, I still did. I rode my bicycle everywhere; I didn’t even have a car anymore. I guess the reason for my continued obesity was also one of my sources of greatest enjoyment: Food. I love to eat; I have since before my balls dropped. When I was eight years old my dad got a job at a local pizzeria as a delivery driver to make ends meet for our family. As well as making close to five dollars an hour, he and his fellow drivers got to take home any burnt or unpaid for orders. It was like Christmas every morning for me when I woke up. I would walk out of the room I shared with my little brother and check the refrigerator to see if the pizza fairy had left me a present. Most nights she did. I guess my parents felt that disciplining my eating habits was something I should learn to do myself. Certainly my brother never had much of a problem with it, and he was two years my junior. Nevertheless I was eighty-five pounds when I entered the third grade.

I grabbed the large fold of my stomach with both fists and jiggled it slightly, wishing it away. Maybe today I could stop being a 220 pound 22 year-old of a mere five-foot eight-inch stature. The indicator on the download window read 9 minutes.

My round face broke out into a wide grin. Perhaps I could finally get rid of the troubles I had with my gall-bladder. Perhaps I could eliminate the acne that had plagued me since my teenage years. Perhaps I could increase the size of my penis to something that wouldn’t make me face the wall in the locker room, ashamed that it was smaller than most of the other men there. I could fix the old problem with my knee, and straighten my teeth. I could make the stretch marks go away. My bad vision could be a thing of the past. The screensaver came on. I paid it only peripheral attention as little white dots flew by in the black background of space, my eyes glazed over, my mind racing, and my bladder again full. Six minutes to go. Six minutes that could determine the course of the rest of my life.

I visited the bathroom again, and tried to urinate. Nothing would come out. I washed my hands and returned to my computer. I didn’t sit down, just looked briefly at the screen, still six minutes. I went into the kitchen and got a drink of water. I thought about how great it would be to have everything and anything I wanted. I could rule lives. I could rule the world. I would be omnipotent. The water wasn’t sitting well with my stomach. I felt the familiar taste of bile welling up from the back of my throat.

I opened the kitchen’s door to the outside world and sat down on my back porch step. It was a beautiful fall morning, warm and sunny, uncharacteristic for where I lived. I still smelled a bit of spring in the air. Leaves decorated the ground in their muted reds and vivid yellows, their deaths insuring protection for their former bearers from the ravages of winter storms. I sighed. My right knee shook a little, a nervous habit I picked up from my Mother.

Standing up, I slipped past the screen door into the kitchen. I left the back door open for once, the screen a meager protection of my privacy and safety, my usual paranoia all but lost for the moment. I retreated to the security of the single bedroom in my small apartment, to where my computer sat at a large plastic desk. I moved the mouse a fraction of an inch, disturbing the flying stars. Fate told me I had another two minutes to wait before she passed her verdict on me. Most of the adrenaline had left me by now, making me tired and unsteady on my feet. I hunkered down in my old office chair and waited, my eyes locked on the steady glow of the monitor in front of me.

I swiveled around about 30 degree in my chair, putting my feet up on the desk. I looked to my right at a pressboard gun rack hanging on my wall, holding two of my most prized possessions, my Japanese swords. Though not much at all by a collector’s standards, they were real weapons, not just stainless steel wall-hanger junk. Quality reproductions done with real ray skin in the handles, the blades made of a moderately high quality of carbon steel. The small one was called a wakizashi, or companion sword with a blade length of about a foot and a half. The large one was a katana, a two handed sword with a blade length of a little over two feet. Both were sharp and both were made to be used in martial arts practice. They were one of my small sources of pride because of my small degree of proficiency with them. No one would ever call me very good, but I knew how to use them safely. I had taken almost a year of iaido, a Japanese martial art which uses the katana, and I knew enough to not be a danger to myself or others. Financial reasons had forced me to quit formal practice at my dojo almost six months previously, but I still practiced nearly every day in my yard with my bokken, a wooden sword shaped and weighted similarly to a katana.

I thought about how at first I could barely swing a bokken without my soft, weak arms complaining from overuse. I remember the first day after practice feeling exhausted, legs aching from sitting on my knees, and getting up and down from the floor many times. How after the first hard, grueling two weeks it seemed somehow easier. I remembered passing my first test and becoming a Rukkyu, the first rank an adult would test for at my dojo, and passing. I stood up in front of my teacher and fellow students and proved that I had learned enough.

It had taken hard work to achieve this goal, and diligent practice. It was something I was proud of. My iaido was something that was only mine, because I had made it mine with sweat and effort and exhaustion, taking tiny steps toward a goal that I had almost no conception of. Walking the path, my Sensei had called it.

I recalled walking another path of hard work as well. Despite my lack of willpower in regard to my eating habits, over the course of the last year I had managed to lose almost ninety pounds, coming down from a morbidly obese two-hundred ninety plus, to the more manageable weight I was at now.

I rode my bicycle every day, even when it hurt. I still ate the same amount, but I bought the lower fat and lower calorie versions of foods that I liked whenever I could. I practiced iaido. It was hard to force myself to do these things. I had never lived any semblance of a healthy lifestyle before, and I hated to sweat. My palms became tough and callused from using a sword so much. I had to change nearly every aspect of my life in order to do these physical activities. I had to change my personality. I went from sitting in front of a computer 90 hours a week to less than 30. My waist went from 49 inches to 38.

I climbed a hill on my bicycle one day. It was very steep, nearly a 45 degree angle. My legs burned, and I had to stand up on my bike to make it over the top. My lungs felt like they had been scratched up by a steel wool, and a stitch lanced through my guts, piercing my side with a sharp, stabbing pain.

Riding down the opposite side of that hill with a cool evening wind in my face was about the best feeling I’d ever had.

 I asked myself briefly if I would erase the months of iaido practice in exchange for the current meager knowledge of the art that I possessed. If I would give that up, and everything that went with it: The minor injuries, the minor triumphs, the friendships, and the hardships.

I wondered what I would have said if someone had offered me instant weight loss, a drop from nearly three-hundred to almost two-hundred in a fraction of a second; if I never would have had to get on that bicycle.

What would I tell them if they said I would never have had to climb that hill?

I blinked and felt a warm tear on my cheek. What was a bicycle ride down a hill worth, anyway?

“Stupid!” I screamed almost incoherently, shouting at the top of my lungs. I shook again; my old buddy adrenaline was back.

“It was just a fucking hill,” I sobbed.

I was fat. I was alone. I was a 22 year-old virgin who had never kissed a girl.

Blinking back the tears, I looked at my computer screen. My download was finished God knows how long ago. With a trembling hand, I clicked OK.

I drug the icon labeled “Master_PC.zip” into my recycle bin. Right clicking on it, I selected “Empty Recycle Bin” from the context menu. “It was only a God-damned hill.”, I could have been heard to mutter.

“Are you sure you want to delete ‘Master_PC.zip’?” my computer asked me. “No,” I said aloud. “I’m not.”

I clicked the button marked yes.

 
This is a story written by Zep StoryWriter. If you have Comments or feedback, please email me at zep1001@gmail.com