The Diet Chip
I
Jake Whitmore stepped into his boss’s office. Chet had taken over the position less than a year ago, and the large room that had once looked like a more spacious and even more cluttered version of Jake’s—shelves stacked with technical manuals and scientific journals, binders and loose pages covering nearly every flat surface—now dripped with alpha male overcompensation. Framed magazine covers featuring tech billionaires lined the walls, the shelves were barely half-filled with business books between nondescript trophies and signed sports memorabilia, and there was even a punching bag hanging in the corner. Chet wore his ever-present earbuds and had replaced his predecessor’s desk with a standing model that likely cost more than Jake’s car.
Chet looked up at Jake’s arrival, then glanced at the phone in his hand to remember his name.
“Hey, Whitmore. Come in.”
Chet didn’t ask Jake to sit, likely because there were no chairs besides a leather sofa in deep, rich browns set against the far wall.
“Good morning, Mr. Hammond.”
“What’s up?”
“I’m here to talk about my project.”
More than half of Chet’s attention was on his phone, but he looked at Jake like the proverbial deer in the headlights.
“The Neural Regulating Subcranial Nanomachine.”
Chet’s pupils dilated slightly, lacking even a flicker of comprehension. Jake suppressed a sigh. “The brain implant.”
A wave of recognition finally spread across Chet’s face. “Yes, of course. What about it?”
Jake shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “The prototype is functioning within established parameters and has passed all its unit tests. I’d like to move on to human testing.”
Chet’s veneered smile faltered. “The board has discussed this already, Whitmore. The risks are too high.”
Jake blanched. “We’d follow every procedure to mitigate risk. Volunteers, liability waivers…”
Despite being nearly a decade his junior, Chet offered Jake an expression that was both patronizing and condescending. “The optics are bad, Jake. One misstep now and we’ll lose half our investors—“ Jake opened his mouth to reply, but his boss rolled on. “—Even if it does work, they’re just not seeing the ROI, and I can’t say I disagree.”
Jake strained to keep his face neutral as his blood boiled. Of course. The board worshipped at the altar of profit. From the country club geriatrics all the way down to nepo babies like Chet. Never mind that his device had the potential to help millions of people, without invasive surgeries or a lifetime of mood-altering drugs.
“What about animal testing, then?”
Chet’s eyes widened as his eyebrows rose. “Are you for real? We’d get even worse backlash if we tried that.”
“But—“
“Listen, the board appreciates your ingenuity, but it might be time to icebox this little project. They’re willing to offer you a VP seat on one of the AI teams. You’d have your pick.”
Jake desperately wished he were sitting down. He wanted to scream at this child, but only let his voice rise a few notches. “What I’ve built is closer to true AI than anything those teams are doing. LLMs are just glorified guessing machines! Enhanced auto-complete!”
Chet’s face turned placid while he waited for Jake to finish his brief rant. “I respect your passion, Jake. Really, I do. You could be a valuable asset… If you learn to be a team player.”
Jake wanted nothing more than to slap this infant across his laser-treated face. Instead, he said, “I understand. I think I just need a break. I have a few weeks of PTO saved up.”
Seemingly satisfied with the exchange, Chet put on a wide grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “No worries, just make sure you clear it with Lisa in HR.”
***
Cheryl Whitmore knew something was wrong the moment her husband plodded through the front door. A haze of bad vibes surrounded him so clearly that Cheryl imagined a cartoon storm cloud hovering above his head. A handful of greetings, from sympathetic to passive-aggressive, ran through her head before she settled on simply, “Hey.”
As if her word were a magic spell, Jake’s entire body deflated further. In one motion, he dropped his bag, slumped into his easy chair, and let out a whoosh of air in a long, frustrated sigh.
“Want to talk about it?” Cheryl asked.
Jake looked up at her, then, hazel eyes flashing between despair and rage. In a flat voice, he said, “They’re ice-boxing the project; want to move me to another team.”
Cheryl listened quietly as Jake recounted the interaction with his young boss. The board, the investors… she took in the words Chet had said, the blanks Jake filled in, and added a few inferences of her own, laced with the expletives her kind-hearted husband avoided using.
When she sensed he was finally winding down, Cheryl rose to stand beside his chair. She gently hugged him to her until his head rested against her chest. Jake’s arms snaked around her waist in quiet need, drawing them ever closer until Cheryl let herself be pulled onto the recliner. As she fell into his arms and onto his lap, Cheryl tried to ignore the gentle, near-inaudible grunt that passed his lips. She was a grown woman, and Jake was not an athlete—it had nothing to do with the excess holiday pounds she’d yet to shed.
They sat together for several minutes, Cheryl’s head nestled into Jake’s shoulder while his head leaned atop hers. When the awkward angle sent a soft twinge through her back, Cheryl pecked a kiss to the hinge of Jake’s jaw. “Breakfast for dinner?”
She felt his smile before she leaned back and saw it. Jake’s eyes were still crinkled with stress, but his grin set heat blooming in her core. She kissed him properly, then met his eyes. “It’s going to be okay; we’ll figure it out together.”
Jake nodded, and though Cheryl could tell the confirmation was forced, his eyes flashed with mirth, and she had half a second’s warning before he wrapped her in a princess carry and shot to his feet. Cheryl barely had time to notice the chorus of crackles in her husband’s spine and his strained grunt as a girlish shriek escaped her lips. “Put me down, you idiot!”
Jake kissed her forehead. “Hush, I’m being romantic.”
Cheryl pouted. “We’re not in our twenties anymore, and I’m too heavy, now put me down before you hurt yourself.”
Jake deposited her on her feet, giving an affectionate pat to her bottom. “Fine, fine. You’re definitely not too heavy, though.” He shook himself and held up both fists in a cartoonish fighting stance. “I can do this all day.”
Cheryl rolled her eyes. “Whatever, Cap. Come on, you can burn off some of that machismo by chopping veggies.”
As usual, they ate in the living room while watching the next episode of one of the shows they watched together. Cheryl made omelettes, and hers was egg whites with spinach and bell peppers. It wasn’t bad, but she found herself envying the one she made for Jake—crumbled chorizo with baby bella mushrooms. She hadn’t used a lot of butter in Jake’s; the pork sausage didn’t need much, but her own lacked even the richness of egg yolks, and avocado oil added nothing to the flavor.
Cheryl wasn’t overweight by any means, but three months after their all-inclusive holiday cruise, she was still trying to shed the last five of the nearly ten pounds she gained lying in the sun and enjoying buffets. While the adage “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” was utter bullshit, Cheryl wished she didn’t have to exert quite so much willpower to keep herself from sliding down the proverbial slippery slope.
They made love before bed, and while Cheryl lay beside her husband, warm and fragrant and debating whether to take a quick shower, an inevitable set of dots connected in her head.
“What if I test it for you?”
“Hmm?”
“Your implant thing, the neural whatever.”
Jake rolled to face her, propping himself up on one elbow. “The Neural Regulating Subcranial Nanomachine? Why would you do that?”
She turned onto her side, tracing a finger along Jake’s bare bicep. “Well, you know I’ve been trying to get back to my pre-vacation weight—“
“I told you you don’t have to do that…”
“Hush.” She leaned in to kiss him. “I appreciate that, but this isn’t about you.”
Jake nodded.
“Your device affects chemical impulses in the brain, right?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“So it can help me enjoy dieting and working out without feeling miserable?”
“Why do you do it if it makes you miserable?”
“It’s not… ugh, I’m exaggerating. I do it because that’s what it takes. ‘No pain, no gain’ and all that. It would just be nice not to have to fight my caveman genes so hard.”
Jake rattled off an elevator pitch for his device, talking about chemical imbalance, executive function, and mental health, before shifting into a diatribe about the dangers and lack of real-world testing. “…And that’s why, for something so trivial—“
Cheryl kissed him again. “You’ve done all the lab testing you can, right?”
“Yeah… No live testing, thanks to ‘the board,’ but—“
“And you need that live testing to prove that it works.”
“I mean…”
“That’s why testing it on me is perfect. It’s not like I need it, so if something goes wrong, you can just shut it off.”
“I guess so…”
She shifted closer, gently lifting his arm until she was wrapped in his embrace. “It’ll be fine. Bring the prototype home, I’ll test it, and you’ll be able to show those rich assholes what a genius you are.”
***
One week later, Jake left the lab with a small insulated case stuffed into his empty coffee thermos. The security guard raised an eyebrow as he stepped through the scanner, no doubt sensing Jake’s nervous expression. It was all Jake could do not to break out in a cold sweat, but the guard nodded him ahead, and he fast walked out of the building with his prize tucked away in his shoulder bag.
Cheryl sat in Jake’s recliner, watching him slide the case out of his thermos, cleaning it with a kitchen towel and a disinfectant wipe. Inside the case was a set of plastic-wrapped syringes and three small vials, all tucked into a foam lining.
“Is it gonna hurt?” She asked.
Jake shook his head. “It’s just like getting a regular shot. You might feel a little prick from the needle, that’s all.”
Cheryl grinned. “That should be a novel change compared to the not-so-little prick you usually stick me with.”
He gave her a flat stare. If she wasn’t taking this seriously…
“It’s a joke, hon, relax.” She raised her arm and ran a knuckle down his cheek, brushing the line of his jaw. “I trust you, okay?”
Jake nodded and put on a pair of rubber gloves. He guided Cheryl to sit forward and wiped a small patch of skin at the base of her skull with an alcohol wipe. Using a syringe to extract the microscopic device from one of the vials, he injected the fluid. In mere seconds, a tiny bandage covered the injection site, and the process was finished.
Cheryl sat back, gently pressing the skin around the bandage curiously. “How will we know it’s working?”
Jake packed the case and stashed it in the back of their fridge. “The changes should be subtle. The device’s programming is designed to detect the desires and intentions of its host, stimulating neural pathways and brain chemistry to stabilize and enhance…” He saw her eyes glaze over as his explanation drifted into the esoteric, and he patted her hand. “It will take a day or two for it to settle into your brain. We likely won’t see measurable results for a few weeks.”
Cheryl smiled and took his hand. “Nothing to do but wait, then. I’ll get started on dinner.”
As she tried to stand from the recliner, Jake put a hand on her shoulder. “You should probably rest for now. I’ll order delivery. Chinese?”
His wife’s face was a picture of conflicting emotion, so he added, “A few lazy meals won’t crash your diet, just give it some time to work.”
Cheryl nodded with another faint smile.
“I’ll make sure to get some healthier stuff, like broccoli,” Jake said, knowing full well that even the vegetables in a Chinese takeout would be loaded with butter and sugary sauce. His rational mind said that the simulations showed the device worked best on a relaxed host, but a much deeper voice, buried and presumed silenced, whispered a more selfish hope.