Answer:
Equality 7-2521 says that when, in the course of his reading, he first discovered and understood the meaning of the word "I," he wept — he who had never known tears.
Equality 7-2521 reads many books for many days. When he finally lays aside his studies, he calls the Golden One and tells her what he has learned. Her first words on hearing his discoveries are: "I love you." He tells her that the code of individualism requires each person to have their own name to differentiate them from the rest of humankind. He tells her of a figure about whom he has read. He was a legendary hero who lived far in the past, who took the light of the gods and brought it to humans. In this way, "he taught men to be gods." He suffered for his deeds as all bearers of light must suffer. His name was Prometheus. "It shall be your name," replies the Golden One. Additionally, he tells her of a heroine from the legends of the past. She was a goddess who was the mother of the earth and of all the gods. Her name was Gaea. He requests that the Golden One take this name, for she is to be the mother of a new kind of gods. The Golden One agrees.
Prometheus looks ahead and sees the future clearly before him. Prometheus says that he will continue to live in his own house and learn to grow food by tilling the soil. He will gain much knowledge from his books and use that knowledge in the coming years to re-create the achievements of the past. He is proud of the attainments he can reach, but also saddened by the inability of others to do the same, for their minds are shackled by the collectivist philosophy that keeps them enslaved.
Prometheus learns that the power of the sky was known to the freethinkers of the past; they called it electricity and used it to light their cities, heat their homes, and power their inventions. He has found the engine in the home that produces this power and will learn to repair it. He will study the wires that carry this power, learn how to use them, and then create a network of wires around his house and the paths that lead to his house. In this way, he will make the house impregnable from assault by others, for they have nothing with which to threaten him but their numbers. They use brute force, but he uses his mind.
Prometheus and Gaea will live on their mountaintop in peace and security. He says that she is pregnant with his child, who will be raised as a free man. Their son will be taught the word "I" and will learn reverence for his own spirit. He will learn what pride there is in being a human individual. When Prometheus's work is accomplished — when he has read the books, fortified their home, and tilled the soil — he intends to stealthily venture for the last time into the city of his birth. There he will call to him all those of independent spirit who remain — his friend International 4-8818 and all those like him. He will seek out Fraternity 2-5503, who cries without reason, and Solidarity 9-6347, who screams in the night. He will reach out to any of the men and women whose heads are still unbowed, who retain the slightest spark of autonomy and who yearn in some form for freedom. These individuals will flock to him, and they will return to his fortress. Prometheus says that here, in the uncharted wilderness, they will build their city and write a new chapter in the history of human freedom.
Analysis
That the hero and heroine take new names is significant for several reasons. They reject the collectivist names that were imposed on them by the slave society in which they were raised. The name Equality 7-2521 stands for a particular aspect of collectivist thinking. The collectivists do not mean by the term "equality" the individualistic principle that all individuals possess the same legal rights and are to be treated identically by the law. The collectivists mean that all are equal in an absolute sense — that no individual is or should be better than the crowd, that no one possesses greater talent than others or greater intelligence or greater virtue. It is the equality of an ant colony, in which all individuals are equally subordinated to and enslaved by the rulers.