He retrieved a fingernail clipper from the bathroom, slid out the nailfile attachment, and inserted the curved tip into the lock as far as it would go. He’d learned to do this on Whispering Tree Lane, after Hank had followed through on his threat to install a lock on the pantry door. He jiggled the tool until he heard a click, and the drawer slid open.
An ordered row of file folders hung inside. Labeled in inscrutable shorthand such asBZMN, PHENT-8, and SEMGLP-1, they contained files related to past and ongoing experiments, some conducted at Monstera and older ones apparently completed while Smith was at Torrey Pines Medical Discovery Institute.
Emmett pulled out the folder labeled EMAC-8. The contents were mostly indecipherable—reports, timelines, reams of data both scientific and financial. Struggling to make sense of them, he turned to a more easily digestible document: what appeared to be an internal memo authored by Dr. Smith himself, on the mission and purpose of the treatment.
Ephaloma-copiramate (EmaC-8) is the pharmaceutical component of the multimodal weight loss product Obexity, a clinically proven cure for overweight and obesity unlike any before it. Obexity alone has been proven to eradicate the disease where diet and exercise have failed.
Obesity is viewed by most Americans as a lifestyle choice or characterological flaw; however, scientists have known since the mid-nineteenth century that the food obsession commonly associated with the moral depravity of obese people is a byproduct of the low-calorie diets often foisted on them, which have been found, time and time again, to result in short-term weight loss followed by regain, often of more than the original amount lost.
An experiment conducted during World War II, in which researchers at the University of Minnesota halved the caloric intakes of thirty-six healthy young men, found that while dieting, the men became obsessed with food—eating it, talking about it, hoarding it. They even dreamt about it. They developed new urges to “gulp their food down ravenously,” to lick their plates clean. Several men developed habits of binge eating. After reverting back to their normal diets, they found they could no longer be sated. Ancel Keys, the lead author of the study, wrote:“Subject No. 20 stuffs himself until he is bursting at the seams, to the point of being nearly sick and still feels hungry; No. 120 reported that he had to discipline himself to keep from eating so much as to become ill; No. 1 ate until he was uncomfortably full; and subject No. 30 had so little control over the mechanics of ‘piling it in’ that he simply had to stay away from food altogether.”
The greed of fat people is a scientific fallacy, reinforced by the misconception that they could easily be thin if only they exerted more willpower to control their diet and exercise. Decades of research have shown that the odds are stacked against those who attempt to lose weight by these traditional means. Exercise, though critical for overall health, barely moves the needle on the scale in most clinical studies, and obese people who attempt to lose weight, due to the natural slowing of their metabolism and their body’s other built-in defenses against starvation, must consume far fewer calories to maintain their bodies than the naturally thin. Having to undereat for life, paired with persistent starvation-induced impulses to overeat, makes it nearly impossible for most obese people to keep weight off long term. Add to that the complexities of genetic predisposition, psychological factors that drive some to self-soothe and self-medicate with food, and many Americans’ lack of access to all but cheap processed foods lab-created to trick their bodies into consuming ever more while feeling ever less satisfied, and we find that for the majority of overweight and obese Americans, sustained and significant weight loss is all but impossible.
Of course, there are exceptions. Stories of superhuman feats of willpower abound in the media, often to sell diet and exercise programs that will fail for nearly all. Nevertheless, the science is clear: For most overweight and obese people, losing weight and keeping it off is not simply an issue of “mind vs. matter.” Dieting is fraught, excruciating, destructive, and almost universally ineffective. Punishing exercise regimens, likewise. In order to destroy obesity without destroying obese people, a simpler, more miraculous solution is called for.
Obexity is that solution.
Emmett finished reading, his brain a tumult of disquiet and relief. Was this true? Was it possible that everything he’d believed about his weight struggles was wrong? It was freeing but also terrifying, realizing what little control over his body he might have had all along.
He continued his search upstairs, where the first of the house’s three bedrooms had been repurposed as a home gym. The equipment looked a couple of years old, worn in but polished to a shine. Emmett felt uncomfortable in its presence—not like he did at 24 Hour Fitness, as if he’d landed on an alien planet. The setup here was almost too familiar. The chest press gleamed in the morning light, practically smirking.
Of interest in the second bedroom was a framed print of a seventeenth-century nobleman, an image Emmett vaguely recalled from an exhibit at the Museum of Us.
The largest bedroom was neatly made up. A king-size bed tightly tucked in white linens. The dresser empty. It was like a hotel room, down to the bedside drawer, except instead of a Bible, Emmett found a Book of Mormon.
His dread intensifying, he opened to a marked page in the Book of Nephi. A couple of verses were underlined:But the Lord of Hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness. / Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat.
More disturbing still were the words penned in the margins:
Sir Percival Blount—messenger of God??
As if the book had burned him, he dropped it back into the drawer, then paused. A name was engraved into the back cover, the gold lettering flaking away as if with age:C. HENRY STAUDER.
Stauder? Not Smith?
Emmett took the book up again and flicked hurriedly through it, looking for something, anything, that could explain it.
He stopped at the inscription penned into the inside cover:
To Hank—
May this book bring you solace in the dark. May these words forever guide you into the light.
Appendix X—Health Journal
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