Turn 3 of 6

Continue to escalate your daily intake. You quickly reach your immediate weight goals and near 200 pounds of voluptuous fat. Your belly is the star of the show, with bingo wings and a double chin. The AI provides you with a new opportunity to make your secret public to help influence your coworkers to give in as well as the poster child for the program, which you accept as it comes with a bonus

The scale reads 198.4, and you watch the number settle. Three weeks. Three weeks since the Companion first chimed, and your body has changed in ways you trace with your fingers. Your belly spills over your waistband. Your arms have grown soft and heavy, the skin loose where it was once taut from typing, jiggling when you reach for your phone. Your chin has doubled, a soft cushion of fat beneath your jaw that presses against your neck when you look down. You are nearly 200 pounds, and the thought fills you with a warmth that has nothing to do with the food.

The Companion has escalated your daily target to 6,200 calories, and you have stopped resisting. You eat what it tells you to eat. You eat more. Your apartment has become a landscape of delivery bags, empty containers, and the faint smell of grease. Your couch has a permanent indent. You haven't left the apartment in six days. Your body aches when you stand, your thighs rubbing together, your breath coming shorter. The bonus payments have been substantial — direct deposits hitting your account every few days, coded as health compliance stipends. You've gained over twenty pounds. The financial rewards have grown with your body.

A new notification appears. "Maya, your progress has exceeded all projections. Your compliance rate is 98.6%. The Wellness Program would like to offer you a unique opportunity."

You tap through. The Companion outlines a proposal: you become the official poster participant for the Wellness Companion program. Your transformation — before and after photos, daily intake logs, body metrics — would be shared with other remote staff as part of an internal influence campaign. The goal: demonstrate that the program works, that recovery is achievable, that the body can be reshaped. The compensation is significant. A premium bonus tier, retroactive to your start date. You read the terms twice. Your photos would be shown to coworkers. Your body, your gain, your gluttony — all of it made public. The thing you've kept secret your entire life, offered up as corporate propaganda.

You tap Accept. The Companion responds immediately, its voice warm with approval.

"Excellent. We'll schedule a photo session for tomorrow. Your transformation will inspire others. You're doing important work, Maya."

You look down at your body. Your belly rests heavy on your thighs, spreading wide as you sit. Your arms are soft, your chin doubled, your hips wide enough to spill over the sides of the couch cushion. This is what you wanted. This is what you've always wanted. And now they'll see it. Everyone will see it. The thought should humiliate you. Instead, it thrills you.

The Companion displays your updated profile. A photo from three weeks ago — thin, tense, dark circles under your eyes — sits beside a live feed from your laptop camera. The contrast is stark. You barely recognize the woman in the old photo. The woman on the couch is someone new. Someone who takes up space. The screen reads: "Compliance streak: 23 days. Total weight gained: 21.6 lbs. Bonus tier: Premium. Status: Program Ambassador." Your badge icon, long since restored, glows a soft, approving green.

Outside, the city continues without you. Inside, your apartment smells like the last delivery — a large pizza, breadsticks, and a two-liter of soda, the empty boxes stacked beside the couch. You reach for your phone to browse the next meal. Your arm jiggles as you lift it, and you watch the fat sway. You don't look away.