Overeating for a Worthy Cause

Illustration by Alan M. Clark

Johnny pushed the peas around on his plate, trying to make it look like he’d actually eaten some of them.

“John William Anderson!” His mother’s voice had a plaintive whine that hurt his ears. “You eat every single one of those peas. Don’t you know there are children starving in Ethiopia?”

He made a face and looked across the room at the chocolate cake in the kitchen. It was topped with fudge icing and Johnny knew there was ice cream in the freezer.

“I’ll be happy to eat chocolate cake for them.”

“Now, you know better than to play that game with me.” His mother reached across the table and touched the top of his sym-bracelet. A hologram of Muhhammad stood before him in a pose that buried one of the skinny boy’s legs in a mountain of mashed potatoes.

“Just look at that poor child. Nothing but skin and bones, and it’s a full six weeks since we adopted him as your foster sym. You’re not eating enough to keep the poor child properly fed, and you’re not going to do it with chocolate cake and ice cream. Is that clear?”

His father cleared his throat and set down his knife and fork. “Actually, it doesn’t matter what Johnny eats as long a his body takes in more nourishment than it needs.”

“You mean the bracelet’s just transmitting empty calories?”

“Calories? No, a calorie’s a measurement of heat. It doesn’t transmit heat.”

“Then what is it sending?”

“Electrical pulses. They adapted the micro-converter—”

“Why don’t we just send them the peas?” Johnny asked.

“Eat those peas!” Johnny cringed under his mother’s glare and pushed a few of the nasty things onto his spoon.

“It only works on microscopic items. Things so small that you can’t see them.” His dad winked as he added, “But I think you’ve eaten enough tonight. I didn’t have the doctor put that sym-bracelet on you to help some strange kid in Africa. I had it implanted to monitor your health and protect you from the family curse of obesity.”

His mother pushed her chair back and stood up. “How dare you! No wonder the boy never minds me....”

Johnny slid out of his seat and crawled under the table as they moved into their usual positions for an after-dinner fight. They wouldn’t notice him slipping away. They never did.

He could still hear their angry voices as he grabbed two slices of chocolate cake and headed toward his room. As luck would have it, he had to pass by the refrigerator on the way.

Might as well take the whole container of ice cream and a large spoon for a scoop.

“Run, Ngai. Run!” Teresa Milner clapped her hands and shouted as the boys raced around the pole and headed toward her. Ngai won, and Muhhammad came in a close second.

“Very good, Ngai. You’re doing much better, Muhhammad.” Neither one of the boys knew English but she liked to believe they understood her anyway. There was a lot to be said for tone of voice and body language.

The boys grinned, showing gaping holes where teeth should have been. Except for that reminder of malnutrition, they looked the picture of health. No one would ever know they nearly starved to death before the sym-bracelets were available.

She smiled at the irony behind her invention. When she was young, her mother always forbade her to leave the table until she’d eaten every single bite of her meal.

“There are children starving in India,” her mother would say. So one day Teresa bundled up her food and dropped it in the mailbox.

Her mother grounded her for a week when she found out about that.

Sym-bracelets were simply a more sophisticated method for sending the excesses of the wealthy to those in need. The best part of the whole deal was that international relief agencies didn’t have to beg for funding anymore. Overweight, affluent people stood in line to buy the sym-bracelets because it meant they could eat all they liked and not gain a single ounce.

She grinned with a little smug self-satisfaction at her perfect solution.

When I win the Nobel prize, maybe I should invest the money in chocolate factories. I could use the profits to build a few decent schools and hospitals out here.

A bell ringing nearby interrupted her thoughts. Lunchtime.

Good! I’m starved. Maybe I’m even hungry enough to eat that awful stew they’ve been serving us.

What a relief it’ll be to get back home and eat some decent food!

Teresa waved at the boys and turned toward the gate that separated the workers from the natives; but as she walked away, something pulled her back. She turned and stared, realizing at last what it was that had bothered her these last few days.

The boys were leaning against the fence with their noses in the air, savoring the smell of that awful stew like it was pizza or something. Their mouths were watering and the eyes had that glazed look like she hadn’t seen since wart-faced Billy had that crush on her in fifth grade.

And then it hit her. Right between the eyes.

They’re hungry! The sym-bracelets have taken care of all their physical needs but they’re still craving food.

She carried her bowl of soup outside and tried to share it with the boys. Within seconds, she had a riot on her hands as people swarmed over her like a pack of hyenas on a dead gazelle.

“That was a damn foolish thing you did,” Dr. Ciurej said as he finished putting the cast on her broken arm.

“Why didn’t you warn me, Dennis?”

“About what? Waving food under the noses of hungry people? I thought you were smarter than that. You certainly said as much every time I tried to persuade you that you needed to get out of the lab and see the results of your work first-hand.”

Teresa lowered her arm and tried not to flinch as Dennis swabbed peroxide on her cuts.

“I guess I deserved that. I was so sure we’d finally succeeded after all those failures. Maybe I just didn’t want to admit I blew it again.”

Dennis looked up just long enough to smile. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You stopped them from dying.”

“For how long?” Teresa bit back tears that had nothing to do with her injuries. “Now they’re healthy, full of energy, and hungrier than you and I can even imagine.

“How long do you think it’s going to take this country’s petty little dictator to figure out he’s got the most highly motivated source of soldiers in the world? And one that doesn’t have to worry about stopping to eat?

“Boy, I sure did these people a favor, didn’t I?”

Dennis shook his head. “You gave them a chance to live. If they choose—”

“But it’s not their choice!” Teresa stood up and paced in a small circle. “Everything’s constrained by politics.

“We wouldn’t need the transmitting sym-bracelets at all; we could take the energy directly from the powersats. But no, the satellite owners aren’t going to give their power away free.

“So I solve that problem by inventing something that has the rich begging for the opportunity to help those less fortunate and we use the satellite as a gateway with the minimum fee.

“It was supposed to be a win-win solution but I ignored the obvious. I didn’t think about the psychological need to eat.

“A fool could have seen this coming!”

Dennis laughed softly as he twisted the cap back on the bottle of peroxide. “So how long are you going to sit here and berate yourself before solving this problem?”

Teresa shrugged. “It’s hopeless.”

Dennis shook his head as he handed her two pain pills. “This sure doesn’t sound like the charge-ahead Terri I know.”

“Well, right now Terri’s tired and hurting.”

“So take your pills. It’ll kill the pain so you can get some sleep and tackle the problem when you feel better.”

Teresa stared at him for a moment before turning her attention to the pills in her hand. A smile spread across her face and she gave Dennis a big hug. “I’m feeling better already. ”

Dennis stepped back slightly and folded his arms across his chest. “OK, Terri. I’ve seen that look before. What are you plotting now?”

“A small modification to the sym-bracelet. One that sends a false signal. We can drop a neural transceiver into both the symbiont and the host. When the host is full, the bracelet transmits a signal to the symbiont’s brain that tells him that he’s also full.”

He laughed. “For a second, I thought you were serious. Take your pills, you’re becoming delirious. The side effects for that kind of modification would—”

“Give all the third world nations an opportunity to catch up with their neighbors.”

“Now I know you’re hallucinating.”

Teresa leaned forward and fixed a hard stare on him.“Not at all.” She took a deep breath. “It’s no great secret that your main interest in this place is the tax write-off. That’s a real upscale practice you’ve got back home and I bet your portfolio reeks of money.”

Dennis shrugged noncommittally. “There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the rewards of one’s work. Not ever/one’s a bleeding-heart liberal like you.”

“And what if I could show you a way we could both have what we want most? Would we have a deal?” Dennis leaned back and stared at her before speaking slowly and softly. “If it was anyone else I’d tell them to take a hike. Let’s take one together and you can fill me in on the details. ”

Teresa smiled and tossed the pain pills over her shoulder as they walked away.

John Anderson hesitated a second as he noticed a Hungry Warrior restaurant had moved into one of the old, abandoned restaurants near their condominium.

He didn’t know why, but lately he found hamburgers rather bland and his body seemed to crave new, exotic food. African food.

His dad said it had something to do with a feedback loop in the new sym-bracelet linkup and some people were upset about it. The company that made the sym-bracelets offered to remove them free of charge but who’d want to accept that kind of offer? They’d get fat without the symbiont constantly siphoning the calories away.

John walked under the crossed spears that had replaced the golden arches in front of the restaurant, and opened the door. On the wall next to the menu was a holographic image of the company’s founders, Dennis Ciurej and Teresa Milner, accepting the Nobel peace prize for their work in Africa.

He stepped up to the counter as a woman smiled and said, “May I take your order?” John didn’t know why, but he had a real craving for a double order of banana mash.