Ethan Sterling hated board meetings. Especially this one.
The air conditioning in the conference room was set too cold, as usual. Forty-third floor of Sterling Tower, and they still couldn't get the temperature right. He drummed his fingers on the polished obsidian table while his Chief Technology Officer droned on about quarterly projections for the NeuraLink division.
"We're looking at a seventeen percent increase in..."
"Cut the bullshit, Marcus." Ethan leaned forward. "The neural interface isn't working. Three test subjects, three failures. When were you planning to tell me?"
The room went silent. Eight executives in tailored suits suddenly found their tablets fascinating.
Marcus Holt, brilliant, arrogant, and currently sweating through his Egyptian cotton shirt, cleared his throat. "The subjects experienced some... unexpected side effects."
"Side effects?" Ethan's voice was soft. Dangerous. "Is that what we're calling neural hemorrhaging now?"
"The interface works, Ethan. The subjects could control digital systems with thought alone. The integration was perfect for seventy-two hours before the complications."
Ethan stood, buttoning his jacket with one fluid motion. At thirty-six, he moved with the confidence of a man who'd built a tech empire from nothing but student loans and sleepless nights. Sterling Innovations was now worth eighty-seven billion, and he owned sixty-two percent.
"Perfect except for the part where their brains rejected the tech and nearly killed them." He walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows. Seattle sprawled below, misted in typical October rain. "The DoD contract requires human trials in three months. Functional human trials."
"We need more time..."
"We don't have it." Ethan turned back to the room. "And neither do our competitors. Whoever cracks neural integration first owns the next century of tech. I want solutions, not excuses."
His phone vibrated. A text from his wife, Vanessa: Charity gala tonight. Don't be late again. The Prescotts will be there.
He slipped the phone back into his pocket without responding. Three years of marriage built on mutual ambition rather than love. She had her social standing and unlimited access to his wealth; he had the perfect partner for business functions and family expectations fulfilled.
A hollow victory for the foster kid who'd coded his way out of poverty.
"There is... one option." Marcus hesitated, glancing at the others. "The prototype."
The CTO pulled up schematics on the main screen. A delicate web of nanites, designed to create a semi-organic interface between human neurons and digital systems.
"It's experimental," Marcus continued. "But the simulations show ninety-eight percent compatibility with minimal rejection risk."
"Human tested?"
"No. But the primate trials were promising."
"Until they weren't," added Dr. Chen, their head of R&D. She was the only one who ever challenged Ethan directly. "The last test subject experienced unexpected neural pathway reconfiguration."
"Meaning?" Ethan asked.
"Meaning the monkey's brain rewired itself in ways we didn't anticipate. Nothing dangerous, but... unpredictable."
Ethan studied the schematics. "How long until it's ready for human trials?"
Marcus and Dr. Chen exchanged glances.
"Six months, minimum," she said.
"Unacceptable." Ethan's voice was flat. "The DoD won't wait. Neither will our shareholders."
"We could fast-track it," Marcus suggested, "but we'd need a volunteer."
The silence that followed was heavy with unspoken understanding. Everyone knew who that volunteer would be.
Ethan had built his empire on risk. On being first. On pushing boundaries until they broke.
"Set it up," he said finally. "My private lab. Tonight."
"Sir," Dr. Chen stood, her expression troubled. "As your medical advisor, I strongly recommend..."
"Noted. Meeting adjourned."
They filed out, leaving Ethan alone with the rain-streaked windows and the weight of his decision. His phone buzzed again.
Also, the new household staff starts today. Try to be civil.
He'd forgotten about that. Their estate manager had quit last month, something about "unreasonable expectations" from Vanessa. The new staff would be another set of strangers in his home, watching, judging, reporting back to his wife.
The thought exhausted him.
Eight hours later, Ethan lay on a medical table in his private lab, twenty floors below his office. The space was clinically white, humming with equipment worth more than most people would earn in several lifetimes.
"The nanites will create a temporary neural mesh," Marcus explained, preparing the injection. "You'll be able to interface directly with our systems, control them with thought alone."
"And the risks?" Ethan asked, though he'd already made his decision.
Dr. Chen checked his vitals one more time. "Unknown. That's what makes this experimental."
"Comforting."
"It's not too late to reconsider," she said quietly.
Ethan closed his eyes. "Yes, it is."
The injection burned like ice in his veins. For thirty seconds, nothing happened. Then his vision fractured into prisms of light, his heartbeat thundering in his ears.
"Neural activity spiking," someone said, their voice distorted.
Ethan tried to respond but couldn't form words. His consciousness expanded, connected, reached into systems beyond his body. He could feel the building's security network, the environmental controls, the massive data servers three floors down.
It was working.
Then something shifted. A neural pathway misfiring, a connection where there shouldn't be one. Pain lanced through his skull as his brain's architecture rearranged itself.
"He's seizing!" Dr. Chen's voice cut through the chaos. "Shut it down!"
"I can't," Marcus replied, panic evident. "The nanites have already integrated."
Ethan's world went black.
He woke to the soft beep of medical monitors and the dull throb of the worst headache he'd ever experienced. His private bedroom. Morning light filtered through automated blinds.
"Welcome back." Dr. Chen sat beside his bed, looking like she hadn't slept. "How do you feel?"
Ethan took inventory. Arms, legs, all functioning. Vision clear. Thoughts coherent.
"Like I got hit by a truck," he said. "Did it work?"
She handed him a tablet. "See for yourself."
He looked at the screen, concentrated, and watched as applications opened and closed without him touching them. Files sorted themselves. Emails composed with just his thoughts.
"Holy shit," he whispered.
"The integration was successful," she confirmed. "But there were... complications."
"What kind of complications?"
Dr. Chen hesitated. "We're not entirely sure yet. Your brain activity shows unusual patterns in the speech and cognitive processing centers. We need to run more tests."
Ethan sat up, ignoring the spike of pain. "Later. I have a company to run and a gala tonight."
"Ethan, I strongly advise..."
"I feel fine," he lied. "Just a headache."
The words felt strange in his mouth, like they didn't want to form. A sharp pain stabbed behind his eyes.
"You're not fine," she insisted. "The nanites have integrated with your neural pathways in ways we didn't anticipate. We don't know the full effects yet."
"I'm fine," he repeated, and this time the pain was blinding, dropping him back against the pillows with a gasp.
Dr. Chen was immediately checking his vitals. "What happened?"
Ethan blinked away tears of pain. "I don't know. When I said I was fine, it felt like someone drove an ice pick through my skull."
She frowned. "Try saying something else. Something... factual."
"Like what?"
"Tell me what you had for dinner yesterday."
"I skipped dinner. Was too busy with the prototype."
No pain.
"Now tell me you enjoyed your dinner yesterday."
"I enjoyed my dinner..." The words caught in his throat as agony ripped through his head. He couldn't finish the sentence.
Dr. Chen's expression shifted from concern to fascination. "Interesting. Try another one. Tell me you hate your company."
Ethan glared at her but tried. "I hate Sterling Innova..." Pain, sharp and immediate, cut him off.
"Now tell me how you actually feel about your company."
"I'm proud of what we've built," he said, and the words flowed easily. "It's my life's work."
Dr. Chen sat back, her scientific curiosity overtaking her concern. "The nanites appear to have reconfigured your speech centers to reject falsehoods. You physically cannot lie without experiencing pain."
Ethan stared at her, the implications crashing down on him. A tech CEO who couldn't lie. A husband in a loveless marriage who couldn't pretend. A man whose entire carefully constructed life required strategic omissions and polite falsehoods.
"Fix it," he said quietly.
"We'll try. But the neural integration is delicate. Attempting to reverse it could cause permanent damage."
"How long?"
"To find a solution? Days, maybe weeks."
Ethan closed his eyes. The new household staff would be arriving soon. The gala was tonight. Board meetings, investor calls, press interviews all loomed in the coming days.
"No one can know about this," he said finally. "No one."
"Of course." Dr. Chen stood. "I'll tell Marcus you're recovering normally and need rest. We'll work on a solution discreetly."
After she left, Ethan lay staring at the ceiling, testing his new limitation.
"I'm twenty-nine years old." Pain.
"I have brown hair." No pain, his hair was indeed brown.
"I love my wife." Excruciating pain.
He was still experimenting when his phone chimed with a notification from the house security system. The new household staff had arrived for orientation.
Ethan Sterling, tech billionaire and newly minted human lie detector, was about to face his first test in a world built on convenient untruths.
And he was terrified.