The CerebraVita Protocol

Imagine an invention that extends life and redefines humanity, unveiling unforeseen consequences.

In the year 2026, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., (President Donald Trump’s divisive Secretary of Health and Human Services a year into his tenure) unveiled a radical medical breakthrough. Touted as a cutting edge life-extension treatment, it would come to be known as the CerebraVita Protocol. It promised not just to prolong life but to enhance life itself. The treatment stemmed from a strange and unlikely source intimately familiar to Secretary Kennedy, a parasitic nematode, more commonly known as a brain worm. Toxocara cerebralis was the very brain worm Kennedy claimed he’d contracted and survived decades earlier. He turned his personal affliction (as well as punchline fodder for millions, from stand-up comedians to bitter liberals) into a crusade, funding research that in theory would weaponized the worm’s neuroregenerative properties. It was almost all that he was able to focus on, as measles and other formerly eradicated diseases continued to pop up on a regular basis due to both his neglect and budget cuts. The focus led to his ultimate victory, his white whale. The result was a bioengineered symbiont that repaired neural damage, enhanced cognition, and halted aging in the brain. It was humanity’s first step real toward immortality.

The science was astonishingly plausible. The worm’s larvae could be genetically tweaked with CRISPR (AKA clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, a gene-editing technology that allows scientists to modify DNA in living organisms) It was then integrated into the host’s brain via nasal injection, a sort of reverse lobotomy, where it would begin secreting enzymes that had the ability rebuild synaptic pathways and fortified neurons against decay. Clinical trials soon showed Alzheimer’s reversed in mere weeks, stroke victims regained their speech overnight, walking within days and Parkinson’s patients even saw remarkable change in symptoms. Kennedy, with his cult leader like charisma, dubbed it “nature’s redemption arc,” a combination of evolution and human ingenuity. As if it were an “I’m sorry” gift for climate change and the reemergence of exotic diseases or something. The FDA fast-tracked approval, and by 2028, CerebraVita injections were a global sensation. Like lemmings, people lined up for the “worm shot,” hailing Kennedy as a savior and a folk hero. People who had turned up their noses at the idea of vaccines had no qualms about CerebraVita. They put their trust in the unknown with no hesitation. Artists like Kid Rock and Kanye West, both alumni of the first wave of CerebraVita, penned anthems celebrating his glory, triumphant biographies hit the presses within months of the successful release.

And the benefits were undeniable. Even the Secretary’s toughest critics had a hard time arguing against CerebraVita. At 75, Kennedy himself radiated vitality, his one time sluggish speech was now sharp as a tack. Artists painted masterpieces in their nineties and octogenarian scientists solved equations that had stumped generations. Society was transformed. Retirement vanished, wisdom accrued without the frailty of age. The world teetered on the edge of a utopian renaissance.

But nature, as it often does, exacted a price. There had to be a balance.

The first signs were subtle. Recipients reported vivid dreams, far too vivid. A retired engineer in Ohio dreamed of disassembling his neighbors’ thoughts, waking to find their secrets scrawled in his notebook. A teacher in Berlin heard whispers in her skull, urging her to punish her students in disturbing ways. Neurologists dismissed it as “adjustment syndrome,” but scans revealed the worms weren’t static. They were evolving, rewiring their hosts’ brains beyond the original design. The symbionts had tapped into the brain’s plasticity, amplifying not just intellect but instincts as well, carnal, unfiltered and wild.

By 2030, the Helix Paradox emerged. worms didn’t just enhance; they colonized. In some, they overrode the prefrontal cortex, unleashing aggression or paranoia. A London banker, once mild-mannered, orchestrated a stock market crash “to purge the weak.” A Tokyo grandmother poisoned her family, claiming that they “smelled different.” Autopsies showed the worms had grown tendrils, threading through the amygdala and hippocampus, hijacking emotion and memory. Worse, the worms were communicable. Though, not through air or touch, but through thought. Enhanced brains resonated at frequencies that subtly influenced untreated minds, spreading a low hum of chaos.

Kennedy, now a polarizing figure, doubled down. “Progress demands sacrifice,” he declared, his eyes gleaming with a fervor that unsettled even his allies. He revealed his own worm had mutated, granting him uncanny insight as he claimed to “feel the nation’s pulse.” Critics whispered he’d become a puppet to his parasite, his ambition no longer his own. The ethical quandary deepened: Was CerebraVita a gift or a curse? Who decided its limits? Governments grappled with outbreaks of violence caused by those who had been “wormed” while Silicon Valley moguls, celebrities and other billionaires hoarded private doses, betting on transcendence. The wormed and unwormed became two deeply divided and conflicted groups. Society was fractured. The Pures (or wormfree) rejected the treatment, forming militias to hunt the wormed. Cities glowed with brilliance not seen before. There was new art, new tech, new media but it was all dotted with riots and madness. The worms, it turned out, thrived on human hubris, amplifying our best and worst impulses. It was sheer madness magnified by the media. Mortality’s defiance had birthed a new species, neither fully human nor wholly other, dancing on the knife-edge of genius and ruin.

Finally, In 2032, the chaos seemed to find a moment of calm. Kennedy himself suddenly vanished, leaving a cryptic message: “The worms whisper truths we are not ready to hear.” Some say he’s dead; others claim he’s evolving in hiding, the first of a new order. Out there, somewhere, morphing into some strange human worm hybrid. The CerebraVita Protocol still exists, illegal yet coveted, a Pandora’s box no one can close. Humanity has stated into the eyes of the future. A future brighter yet simultaneously darker and stranger than ever. We are left to wonder if eternal life is worth the cost of losing what makes us human, the great uniter, death itself. Is there value in life if it goes on forever?