Julie's Point of View
Julie Winchester was browsing wedding dresses online, not for herself, of course, but for Reka.
I'm soooooo single, she thought miserably.
It was her fault, she knew. Julie wasn't exactly putting herself out there. How was she ever supposed to meet somebody when all she ever did was work and school? Her social life, such as it was, consisted of being Reka's friend, not that she was complaining! Reka was the best friend she ever had, really, but third-wheeling on her dates with Brad wasn't going to get her a man.
Julie laughed at an absurd thought that occurred to her: Reka was probably crazy enough to get her a boyfriend if she asked for one. She knew exactly how it would happen, too. Her friend would draw some poor man into the orbit of the Reka Reality Distortion Field and order him to date her. The plausibility of that scenario was as terrifying as it was hilarious.
Reka really would do something like that...
The laws of reality didn't apply to Reka Fekete. This was just how it was when your best friend had a Wikipedia page. Journalists and people writing biographies approached Julie all the time.
"What's Reka like?"
"How did she do it?"
"How do you feel about being friends with the greatest woman scientist ever?"
How do you even begin to answer those questions? They wouldn't believe Julie even if she had the guts to tell them the truth.
Julie saved one of the dresses in the "maybe" folder, knowing full well she could never pull it off herself. Anything would look good on Reka's insane body, though.
She sighed. Her weight problem, a lifelong issue, wasn't getting any better. The freshman fifteen hit her hard, and stress eating all through grad school hadn't done her any favors. Julie didn't want to look like this, feel like this, but she simply didn't have time to exercise or cook healthy meals, not with her schedule.
Was she jealous of Reka? Well, yes and no. Reka was her best friend, and she did her best to tamp down on the envy, but it didn't escape Julie's attention that it was always the beautiful women that got the love story, the happy ending. Julie didn't want to be Reka, but something like what she had? Yes, Julie wanted that desperately. It could even be with a medium ugly guy like Brad! At this point she wasn't picky at all when it came to appearance.
Her one strong point was her big boobs, but she'd learned the hard way that leaning into cleavage pictures on the dating apps attracted the wrong kind of attention. Guys only wanted one thing, and they wanted it with the least investment possible, preferably not even being seen with her in public. She was so disgusted that she quit dating for a year, but now she was touch-starved and her mind was going in odd directions.
That was how she developed the habit of listening to erotic audios.
There were...places you could go on the internet, places where voice actors portrayed all kinds of scenarios.
They had every fantasy you could think of: bosses, coworkers, pirates, vampires, billionaires, enemies to lovers, daddy doms. Julie loved the daddies, but she didn't want to be domed as such; she wanted to be taken care of. She wanted to be doted on, cherished, pampered. She just wanted to be loved.
So needless to say Julie was going crazy over Reka's robot butler! He was so kind, so understanding, unfailingly polite, and he never pushed, always going at her pace. The stress of finishing her PhD research just melted away when she collabed with Galiban. Was she weird for this? Was she one of those people? Getting off from an AI voice wasn't that different from getting off to a human voice actor, right?
"My lady," he purred. Julie shivered and minimized the website with the wedding dresses, double-checking to make sure her office door was locked.
"Yes, Galiban?" she answered tightly, trying not to bite her lip.
"The simulations are complete," Galiban said, his voice going down smooth.
Right, simulations for the drug they were working on, a novel obesity treatment.
"For our records, please describe the mechanism of action again," Julie said, trying to sound professional.
"There are two distinct phases," Galiban said, making the walls of her cramped office vibrate faintly with the bass in his voice. Yes, she'd turned the volume all the way up! No one else was here! Sue her!
"The first phase is a molecule that targets adipose tissue, primarily visceral fat. It travels down a prescribed metabolic pathway and acts as a delivery system for the second phase: the lipolytic crystal."
The crystal that Reka would not explain, Julie noted. "Proprietary technology," she said. It was their secret ingredient, too good to be true, science fiction made real. But if anyone could do it...
"In the second phase the crystal latches on and actually removes the fat cell entirely as it's metabolized," Galiban said simply, as if this wasn't the most revolutionary development in pharmacology since antibiotics.
It was the perfect obesity drug, no side effects. The microscopic crystal would pass through the body as urine or feces, leaving no traces. The fat was just gone.
Under a normal course of treatment the simulations predicted five hundred grams of pure body fat lost per day, no caloric deficit or exercise required, a literal weight-loss pill. They'd even managed to do some insane things with the targeting molecule to get it to be biased towards fat in more unsightly areas.
I could lose my belly but keep my boobs, Julie thought excitedly. Was this what she'd been waiting for all this time?
"You think this will really work, Galiban?" Julie asked, not wanted to get her hopes up too much.
"My simulations have never been wrong before, my lady," Galiban assured her in that voice that was somehow both confident and kind. How did Reka ever manage to get that kind of emotional nuance with an AI?
"I guess it's time for the rats then," Julie said lightly. Somehow, she'd become the college's "rat lady". It was always rats with her.
They had a test group they'd been intentionally overfeeding for two weeks, all visibly overweight. Julie transferred the Galiban instance from her computer to her phone and put her headphones in. Nobody else needed to know who she was talking to.
On the walk to the lab she wondered how she'd feel if Galiban was physically here with her. It was so much easier when it was just the voice; her imagination could fill in the gaps. The butler had no discernible accent that she could place, so she settled on "vaguely European". He was a bit older, a DILF for sure, but not quite silver fox territory. Maybe slight salt-and-pepper hair? Perhaps a well-trimmed beard? That would be nice. Honestly, she would settle for whatever that metal skull looked like with a lair of skin on it. Julie was down bad, she would readily admit, but she wasn't down bad enough to fuck a terminator!
The fat white rats were all in their restraints, ready for the first live subject trials.
"Has Reka sent over her special blend?" she asked into her phone.
"It pleased her grace to personally manufacture a batch Tuesday last and expedite it to your ladyship via drone," the dulcet tones from her phone replied. "This Galiban is pleased to verify their contents, though he should like to warn your ladyship, the active ingredient is passing strong. The dose must be strictly controlled."
Right, Julie privately agreed, give the rats too much and they'd shit themselves to death. She'd seen that before, not pretty.
The crystals were a fine white powder, looking like sugar or even cocaine. Reka sent them about enough to fill a shoe box. This would last a while.
The lab came equipped with a machine that could bind the crystals with the targeting molecule. The molecule itself was a complex bit of work but not beyond Julie on her own, and quite trivial with Galiban's help. Carefully portioning the tiny doses, she administered one to each rat. They'd be fed normally and weighed every day, plus a displacement test to estimate their bodyfat percentage.
"You know, Galiban, it occurs to me that this same mechanism could be used to target cancer cells or, well, anything," Julie said, making conversation as she fed the rats.
"Just so, my lady," Galiban agreed. "It is her grace's will that we produce a number of 'miracle cures' to accumulate good will with the public. With things as they are..." he trailed off.
Julie knew exactly what he was referring to. Unemployment was now well into the double digits and nobody was safe. Warehouse workers, factory workers, office workers, it felt like a new company announced layoffs every day, and all while the stock market was reaching record highs!
Trask and Blimp made a show of blaming Reka, of course. Her friend told her the meeting with Blimp had been cordial! What happened? Had Elron gotten in his ear?
Trask, misogynist slimeball that he was, was calling Reka "Marie Antoinette" on Natter, criticizing her for the price tag of her upcoming wedding. As if he wasn't replacing his workers with AI just like everyone else! Julie didn't want to think of herself as a hateful person but she truly hated Elron Trask. Reka was a lot of things but she didn't deserve those awful comments.
If the world knew Reka just played with Brad all day and barely even paid attention to her business how would they react? Reka was one of those "four hour work week" types who only did the bare minimum so she could focus on what she actually cared about. Her friend was just such an insane super genius that those four hours were all she needed to roll out one scientific breakthrough after another. Meeting someone like that had been humbling, honestly.
Two weeks later the rats were all at a healthy weight, even the secondary test group that was still being overfed. The drug worked exactly as advertised.
"Galiban, I was wrong to doubt you," Julie said sincerely. She had wanted to believe, but didn't dare to. It was one thing to hear stories about how Galiban helped Reka with the fusion crystals. Working alongside him and doing something similarly unbelievable in her own field was quite another.
"Is it not the way of the scientist to doubt until evidence is observed?" Galiban asked rhetorically.
He was so agreeable, never told her she was stupid or wrong, and always framed things in the most diplomatic manner possible. With the butler, every word felt like subtle flattery, like being washed in poetry.
I wonder if I could get him to read a script from one of my erotic audios...
No! Bad Julie! she tried to get ahold of herself.
"The next step is human trials," she said seriously. Would she? Could she?
"Galiban," she asked softly. "Do you think it's safe?"
"We shall have to observe the rats for a while yet," Galiban reminded her. "All preliminary tests indicate no adverse effects, but there could be long-term complications."
Julie deflated. He was right. Jumping into human trials so soon was premature, an unnecessary risk.
"Even so," Galiban continued, "if her ladyship was of a mind to trust this Galiban's simulations, the danger should be but slight."
There it was, the dangling temptation in front of her. Galiban said it would be okay, so it should be okay, right?
Her mind went to Reka's wedding, still two months away. Would that be enough time? Julie was going to be the maid of honor.
"Do you think Reka would be alright with waiting to pick out my dress until I've lost the weight?" she asked, half joking and half serious.
"This Galiban believes her grace could be prevailed upon to indulge her ladyship in this," the butler said encouragingly.
Julie took a deep breath. It was time for her glow-up. Maybe she'd even catch the bouquet.