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How It Started


swahilimonkfish

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Part 1

 

It started simply enough. Fingers dragging along a touchpad. Press down on the link, and it opened. It wasn’t the first time that Hettie had gone down a rabbit hole. No reason to think that this was different. Just an idle journey to a corner of the internet. And that was how it started.

The next day, and she was there again. Retracing her steps down the same rabbit hole that she had visited the day previous. Reading black words on blueish-grey background, eyes drifting slowly from left to right, until the line ended, and then back to the first line again. And, as she re-scanned the words that she was first acquainted not twenty four hours earlier, her hand drifted towards the millionnaire’s shortbread on her desk, half-eaten. It wasn’t half-eaten for long.

The day after, Hettie met up with some friends outside the lecture hall at the University of Coventry. They stood around in their flock and looked at their phones, occasionally unattending the screens to talk about how hard this week’s reading was. Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club. Will Self’s Quantity of Madness. Men and their stories. But Hettie wasn’t listening. Hettie wasn’t looking up from her phone. The pixels that she was staring at, had her eyes in a vice-grip. The other hand was in a packet of doughnuts. None of the other girls said anything, but they all noticed.

It took Faizah to intervene, a few days later. They hadn’t seen much of Hettie. The bouncy girl with the giddy smile. Missing the flat party and the Pride march set off alarms. So, Faizah intervened.

“Hey babe… you okay?”

“Mmmhmm”

Faizah paused, and collected her smile again.

“It’s just that we were hoping to go out. Do some shopping. Shay’s coming too”

“Don’t like Shay”

“Oh. Umm… since when?”

“Dunno”

Hettie hadn’t really looked up from her laptop the entire time. Eyes doing that march across the screen, like tired lemmings. The hand not on her keypad, was bringing a slice of cake to her lips. Most of it ended up between them. Some ended up on them.

“We were thinking of clothes shopping, maybe? Come on babe, Top Shop has a sale on, the store’s closing or something and…”

“I’m good”

“Are you though? You look like you could do with some new clothes”

It had only been a week. A week since it started. And the evidence had still made itself apparent. Hettie was never the most lithe girl. Not every curve was in the right place. Boxy was an adjective that had been used in the past, though only by those with a cruel way with words. But, especially compared to Faizah, with an elegant pose to go with her elegant shape.

Hettie was, undoubtedly, boxier than the week before. Fluffier. More cuddle-some. The undone button on her size 12 jeans were a feature that the previous seven days had forced upon her. The way her striped top pulled tight across her chest another strain of proof. 7 days had made 7 pounds. And the cause was smeared around her lips.

“Look, are you okay, babe? You can talk to me, you know?”

“I know”

Hettie still hadn’t looked up. Her eyes like an unattended lighthouse, with nobody to switch its beam on.

“You’ve… are you stressed? Everything okay at home? What aren’t you telling me babe? I’m a little worried”

“I’m fine”

Faizah took a deep sigh. She wouldn’t normally say what came next, but a perfect storm of concern and frustration were the perfect invitation for harsher words.

“You’ve been eating… well. Like, quite a bit, recently”

“Have I?”

Hattie replied, as the cake slice rose to her maw once more.

“Yeah, you’ve… I think you might have put on a few. Quite a few, actually. I’m… well, me and the girls, we… we’re a bit worried”

Hattie paused. Her eyes for the first time left the blasted screen, and worked there way up to Faizah. There was somebody home in there, at all.

“It’s fine Faizah. Honestly, it is. I’m just… cutting loose a bit. I mean, you’re only at university once. Why not? After this, it’s all desk jobs and drudgery. So, I’m enjoying myself for these three years. Three years of freedom. Before the bone-crushing reality of adult inevitability. To do whatever the fuck we want. So I’m savouring it. Enjoying it. Making the most of it. Because, after these three years, life starts. This is all just the prelude”

And with that, Hattie’s eyes turned back to her screen. And Faizah just stood there, her mouth open wider than Hattie’s.

“What’s got into you, Hattie? You are acting so fucking weird, you’re creeping me out. And what the… actual… fuck… is on that laptop that is so fucking enchanting?”

If she hadn’t have asked that question, at that precise point in time, maybe it would have ended. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe it was destined to leak out anyway. I guess we’ll never know. But things are the way they are, and things were the way they were and Faizah asked that question. And it was then that that which had at that point merely started, continued.

+

Hafsah went to reach in the cupboard for her crisps. For 30 of her 42 years, she had always ended her evening with a packet of Walker’s salt and vinegar crisps. Just part of her evening routine. The soft potato chip, the quiet sharpness of the vinegar’s acid, and Eastenders on the telly. It was just how it was. It was just how it always was. But it wasn’t that way tonight.

“Imran!”

She waited for the inevitable grumble, the lumbering footsteps and her youngest son to appear in the kitchen. But nothing.

“IMRAN!”

She stood still and sighed. No noise but the clicking of the kitchen clock on the wall. He must have had his headphones on. Kids and their bloody headphones.

She dragged herself up the stairs, muttering under her breath about it was always the same with the youngest one. Not like his brothers, or his sister, it was always the youngest one. At the top of the stairs and first bedroom to the right, she banged on the door.

No reply, so she opened it.

“Oh my god mum, don’t you knock!” he said, crouching beneath his bed to hide his naked body.

“I literally just knocked and you didn’t answer!”

“I was having a shower”

“You should have still answered”

“I didn’t hear! I was having a shower! What the hell, you’re so embarrassing!”

His mum just rolled her eyes at him.

“You know, I don’t know why you’re so embarrassed, I’ve seen it all before. You were born naked you know”

“Oh my god mama, you’re so embarrassing at times…” he paused with his eyebrows raised. “...Well?”

“What?”

“What is it that you want?”

“My crisps”

“You are kidding me. For real? You broke into my room…”

“I didn’t break in. It’s my room and your father’s room. We paid for it. If you want to put some money towards the mortgage, that’s fine. Then maybe it will be your room. But, until then, it’s my room and you are a guest. Now where are my crisps?”

“I don’t know!”

“Don’t you lie to me, Imran. I know it’s you”

“It’s not. For real, it’s not”

“Well then, who had them? Because they’re not there. I bought an 8-pack of them yesterday and now they’re gone. You better not be selling them, trying to make money of my crisps. You’re as bad as your father, Imran”

She folded her arms assertively.

“It’s… try next door. I don’t know, but I bet she’s got them”

“Your sister? Your sister wouldn’t pull anything like this. She’s a good girl, unlike you”

“Because I’m not a girl or because I’m not good…”

“Don’t you get smart with me, Imran, I swear to Him I will…”

“She’s been acting weird all week. I bet it’s her. I bet it’s Faizah who took them. Like crisps are so important anyway”

Within thirty seconds of that defence, there was another bang on the door. On the door of her only daughter, Faizah. Because, the truth of the matter was that Imran was right. About her daughter at least, he was wrong about pretty much everything else. But Faizah had been acting weird, and she had been acting that way all week. Faizah was a good girl. First woman in the family to go to university, paying her way through it by working evenings and weekends, and when all the other girls were philandering with boys and smoking ** in dingy student accommodation she was at home, with her parents, as it should be. This Coventry girl had dun good. At least, until the past week.

It started with a McDonalds. McFlurry and all. The empty packet was left in the outside bin, her mum noticed it when she emptied the dyson. It continued with fish and chips on the way back from campus. Faizah never ate chips. It was the enemy of a good skin complexion and was thus an enemy of Faizah. By the time that the weekend had swung around, baklava had been laid to waste, caramel fudge cake turned to ash and crumb, apple and blackcurrant pie put out to pasture.

“Faizah! You open this door, girl!

The room was not the room her mother remembered. Brown and orange walls, like something from the sixties, and just a bed and a dressing table for furniture. And a sea of silver-foiled detritus on the floor.

“Where are my crisps, girl? You better not have eaten them? Where are they?”

“Dunno”

“Wh… what sort of way is that to talk to your mother? Now, answer me properly when I talk! Look at me when I am talking to you, young woman!”

Faizah was near horizontal on the bed, and gradually lowered her laptop screen, to see her mum peering over it with her arms crossed. She made no sound, but she looked, with tired eyes. When was the last time that she had slept?

“What’s going on, Fai? This isn’t you. You’re a good girl. What… is it a boy? Because some boys your age are good-for-nothing…”

“Mum, I’m just busy reading”

“For university?”

“No, just… a story”

“What story?”

“Just a… well, come here mum, and I’ll show you. I think you’ll like it” her daughter moved the laptop to her side to make room for her mum to sit next to her. It was then that Hafsah got a full look at her daughter. A week later of utterly turpid eating habits rested ever so gently above the waistline of her pj shorts. Her daughter, her little daughter, her little angel, was looking a little less little than usual.

“What is it? I might have read it already?”

“I doubt it. It’s an online thing. It’s really good. It’s called A Free Hit. It’s by this author called Swahilimonkfish and it’s really good”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s about these young girls who go to university and… they decide to cut loose a little, since you’re only at university once. Why not? After this, it’s all desk jobs and drudgery. So, they’re enjoying themselves for these three years. Three years of freedom. Before the bone-crushing reality of adult inevitability. To do whatever the fuck they want. So they’re savouring it. Enjoying it. Making the most of it. Because, after these three years, life starts. This is all just the prelude”
And with that, her mother cautiously sat down, with a reserved scowl on her forehead. And so it continued, just as it started.
 

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Part 2

It started just like any other day. With two scoops of ice cream.

“Are you sure you should be eating that?”

“Well, I’m not gonna drink it, am I? Silly-head!”

Cerys rolled her eyes at her boyfriend, Juan, before licking the bit that was about to drip on the table. Strawberry with bits. And a chocolate flake. Plus sprinkles.

“Ha, you’re so funny, C” he replied, with lacquered on sarcasm. He scrunched his face up in a sarcastic smile as an accompaniment, to make sure the meaning wasn’t lost.

“I know I am”

The meaning was lost.

The two sat at the table quietly after that, with Cerys preoccupied with her phone and her ice-cream, and her boyfriend checking out the latest Instagram story of his ex.

“Fuck me, hey Cerys, look at this” Juan said, sliding his mobile over to his girlfriend.

“I’m a bit busy at the minute”

“Yeah, whatever, you need to check this out, this is so mad, man. So, you remember my ex, Hattie? Yeah, well guess who got fat?”

“I think she looks cute” Cerys said, taking a quick glance off her own screen and onto his. Hattie was there, wearing skinny jeans that didn’t flatter her. With the tight black belt halfway up her midriff, it clearly cut her stomach into two, with bulges both over and underneath. Her arms looked chunky and her breasts looked full in her white top.

“Fuck that. She’s a right elephant now. You’re just saying that so I don’t nag you if you gain weight” he replied, with a cheeky grin.

“She’s just having fun. You’re only at university once. You might as well. It’s a free hit. Enjoy life. You’ve got just three years before…”

“What are you even going on about, C? She’s gained like 40lbs in 3 weeks. She’ll be huge come graduation. Absolutely...’”

“Rutherford size? Yeah, I know. Hot right? So I was reading this story. Marcie recommended it, I think Shay told her and…”

+

The media got wind of it not too many weeks after. Firstly, it was only local news. Reporters treating the piece as some sort of hokey ‘And finally…’ news item before the anchor could cut to the weather. The Coventry Telegraph reporting it as a cheap jokey piece about how young girls at the local university were deciding to cut loose a little. I mean, why not? After all, they were only at university three years and…

The reporter had to remind the interviewed student that they were actually on a four-year course, but the students didn’t seem to care.

The media interest was what alerted the conspiracists of Facebook. Leaving vaccinations, 5-G and George Soros alone for just one second, they diverted their gaze to this innocent little piece simmering in the local media. Obviously it was the water that caused it. Too much fluoride in the water altering their body’s metabolism. After all, User432HMax said on 8Chan that he was a doctor and this was all possible.

One post on Reddit was from a boy called Imran who claimed to be the brother of patient zero. It got downvoted to hell. Nobody is that gullible. His claim that his sister and mum now had it, that they were gaining weight at a staggering rate, and that they were enjoying it, seemed a little too far-fetched even for the tinfoil hat brigade.

Except, it seemed, one.

+

His legs curled up tight, his shoulders slunk. His face illuminated solely by the dull greenish light of his phone. His voice was a whisper. And he listened to the man on the other side of the phone.

“Do you know what the story is called?”

“No, I… should I even be talking to you about this? Man, this is like some spy shit, bro!”

Imran was sat in the family’s Toyota Carolla, rammed in the gloomy darkness of the external garage, away from his family. He was sunk deep into the backseat, desperately paranoid of being observed. Whatever had started over in this university town had got him anxious.

“Relax, you’re using a burner and the NSA don’t track calls from Nokias anyway, everyone knows that” the gruff voice from the other line said. “Now, what’s the story called?”

“I dunno, bro. Like… how do I even find out?”

+

“Hey, sis… can I…” Imran said quietly, walking into his sister’s room. It hadn’t improved since that time his mum had ventured in there. In fact, it had deteriorated no end now that the person responsible for the shopping was a willing ally.

“Yeah, whatever” she said, not looking up. Her eyes locked in a dancer’s embrace with the Swahilimonkfish Deviant Art page.

She looked different from when he last saw her. Which was just three days ago. Which was different from the three days before that. Young Faizah had yet to go clothes shopping since the day it started for her, when she tried to entice her best friend Hettie to go, simply to coax her out of an eating frenzy. That simple, innocent and good-hearted decision, now six weeks ago, had thrust her along the same path. A path where shopping for clothes only sounded good if they could stop off at the indoor food market before. And after.

So, six weeks of unabated gluttony later, and Faizah was just wearing her blue cotton nightgown. And just about wearing it too. The formerly slinky minx was now awash with supple-skinned softness and pillowy billowing. Her breasts strained against the quondam loose covering, her stomach outlining itself against the blue material that, when sitting down, as she was here and invariably, the small **-hole of her navel could be spotted through it.

None of this caused her to interrupt her ice cream sundae.

“Just wandering, y’know that story you’re reading?..”

“Mmmhmm”

“Could you tell me the name? My… mates would love to read it too”

Suddenly her eyes, glazed over like the donuts she had eaten just an hour earlier, suddenly burst to life.

“Well… which story? Cos, I’m more of a Burgermania girl cos Sweeney is ma girl, but I am totally loving Rosie Richards at the minute. Shay is all about Betty Bollingbrooke because - I wonder why, let me think. Then there’s Cerys’ favourite, Playing Your Cards Right, cos she’s a soft girl at heart. Oh, and Hattie is all about The Free Hit, still. I mean, you gotta love the classics, right? Like the way Rutherford loves classic films, only how it's actually only a façade to build her persona to hide her insecurities and then it gets thrown out of the window when the fun kicks in”

Imran stood still for a second.

“And mum?”

“Something called Mandy Lee’s Chance Meeting in Camelot. Not my jam, but she is so into it. No, I recommend A Free Hit as a starter or Playing Your Cards Right as a mild intro. Don’t go straight for the heavy stuff. You aren’t ready for I’m Addicted To You yet. Oh, and could you pass me that second ice cream sundae bro? Even though it’s Thursday, right? Not Sunday? Ahh man, that joke kills in Burgermania. Such a good story”

+

“Burgermania, she said?” the voice on the other end of the line asked.

“Yeah, I mean, she had her mouth full but…”

“I’m searching for it - in a public cafe, I’m not a noob - and all I’m finding is fast-food chains by that name. One in Denmark, one in the Netherlands… is it one word or two?”

“I mean, how do I know, bro? She didn’t exactly write it down for me. She’s gone, bro. Like, gone. That girl there, she wasn’t my sister. I didn’t even recognise her”
Imran said, burying himself deep into the back seat footwells of the Toyota.

“It’ll be the electro-magnetic waves, it’s fine. They won’t stick unless you live near a mast. Anyway, anything else? Cos I can’t find anything. Unless the CCP have already deleted it. They liaise with the NSA and…”

“Something about A Free Hit…”

“No, I’m just seeing a book about women’s cricket…”

+

Mr Lewenburg was looking forward to today. It wasn’t every day that the CEO came to visit, after all. Mr Lewenburg was just the person responsible for running an ice cream parlour just on the edge of Coventry, and this time two months ago, was high on the list for closure. Then, Cerys and her boyfriend bought their first ice cream from there. That was when it started.
He sat down, and then stood up again, before straightening his suit one more time with his hand. He needed to do something with his hands, otherwise he would just spend the entire meeting twisting his wedding band anxiously. God, his wife was so proud. At least, until she became distracted…

“Hey, Mr Collins, welcome to… well, your parlour. One of your parlours. I dunno… I”

Mr Lewenburg spluttered out as two men with grey hair and greyer suits walked in.

“Not just one of my parlours. My number one parlour. Your figures are off the roof. Listen, I don’t know how you did it, but I said to Jake, I said ‘Mr Lewenburg, he knows his customers’. Didn’t I say that, Jake? Didn’t I? Didn’t I say he’d turn it around?”

“Sure did, boss” the second grey-haired man in a grey suit said.

“I sure do know my customers”

“But… in all serious… I gotta ask… how you do it? Like, the numbers are crazy. Great, but crazy. Like, what’s your secret? It’s not money laundering, is it? Cos, I… we have enough trouble as it is with HMRC as it is and…”

“Honestly, I dunno…”

“Ahh, that’s disappointing. I was hoping you’d know. Wasn’t I hoping he’d know, Jake?”

“Sure were, boss”

“Mr Collins…”

“Please… Colin. We’re all friends here. It’s a family company. Call me Colin”

Mr Lewenburg caught himself fiddling with his wedding band again. He was just so nervous and, well, it would have been nice if he had an explanation for the sudden surge in trade.

“Sure. Sure. So, Colin… I honestly… it’s the locals. They’ve… gone mad. They’ve…”

“That’s what I like to hear, Mr Lewenburg, isn’t it Jake? Which one?”

“What?”

“No, let me guess, mint choc chip? No, that’s too traditional. Ahh, salted caramel? Is it salted caramel? It’s always salted caramel, isn’t it Jake? It’s the zeitgeist, you see. You gotta… always be moving forward. Like a shark. Or a pig on an escalator. Isn’t that right, Jake?”

“Sure is, boss”

“Actually, it’s… all of them. I mean, don’t get me wrong, salted caramel is doing well. Like, I mean, really well. But all of them are. Choc chip, raspberry ripple, vanilla…”

“Vanilla is doing well?”

“Yeah, it’s…”

“But, nobody likes vanilla. Vanilla is the beige of ice cream. The ‘ready salted’ of ice cream. It’s like I always say, ‘why does vanilla have to be so…’”

“Vanilla?”

“Exactly!” Mr Collins said, with an assertive point.

“I… It’s not just this place. All the food joints around the northern parts of Coventry are all doing a roaring trade. I don’t know what it is, but something…” and Mr Lewenburg paused, and began twisting his wedding ring about his finger again, thinking about his wife. “Something is going on with the people here”.

“Well, whatever’s going on here… I just hope they roll it out nationally”

+

And, just as Mr Collins had hoped for, it started to get rolled out nationally. Or, at least, bleed into other nearby regions. Mainly Coventry still, but slowly rearing its head in Nuneaton now too. It was still largely geographically contained, but the area that was containing it was growing at about the same rate as those within it.

At a local level though, it was all anybody in Coventry city centre ever talked about. There were those who were ‘affected’ and those who weren’t. The disembodied voice on the end of the phone had put Imran together with someone else, an old military man who preferred to be known simply as Wolf. Together, they began to reach out to others in the community who also hadn’t been ‘affected’. Slowly, a rebel group formed.

+

“I just want my wife back, y’know? Like, I don’t care about the dress size, I really don’t. It’s just… her eyes. Y’know. It’s… they’re different. Like she’s not there. Not fully. Just a faint whisper of her, drowned out by a cacophony of feeding and reading”

Mr Lewenburg said to the group, fiddling with his wedding band.

“And the masturbating. Have you… have any of you…”

The rest of the group nodded in agreement. They all knew about the masturbating. It was a frenzy, and it was getting worse. The more they ate, the more they pleasured themselves. Until it was relentless. Each and every member sitting around in the darkened room in the town hall could remember the loud groans of whichever loved one they knew that was caught up in it. Groans louder than anything Mr Lewenburg had ever elicited from his wife.

“And… I’m worried this is my fault. I… I think I did this”

“What do you mean?” Imran said, leaning forward with suspicion. Wolf leaning forward at the same time and with the same intent, as if part of a post-modern dance troupe.

“I wished for this. You know. For something… it’s hard to explain. I… my business was doing really badly and we were struggling to make ends meet and I was worried they’d shut my store down and I just… I know you shouldn’t… but I just… I spent evening prayers praying for a change in fortunes. I feel like Mr White with that monkey paw, wishing for just £200”

The group just looked sadly at Mr Lewenburg, who was sobbing now. There couldn’t be a more innocent, well-meaning man than he, and nobody could muster the slightest amount of blame for the poor man. Except for Mrs Pique.

“My son. My son caught this… whatever it is… from your ice cream parlour. You gilipollas” she spat out aggressively.

“Yo! Hey, chill! Alright… it’s not Mr Lewenburg. Okay? Look, it got my sister before it got Juan and Cerys. So… I think maybe my sister is patient zero” Imran interrupted. “Now, we any further on these stories?”

The group fell quiet. One man raised his voice.

“I haven’t heard from Alistair since he said he’d have a look for us”

“I have… he came into the parlour the other day. Ordered four scoops. And flake, sprinkles, you name it. It got him too” Mr Lewenburg muttered forlornly.

“So, we need to find out about these stories, but without actually reading the bastard things. Like trying to slay a Gorgon. And I need to talk to my sister again. Because we need to find out how it started” Imran added, assertively. Finding his stride, leading this band of desperate men and women.

Wolf, dressed still in camo despite being kicked out of the army a good twenty years ago and despite the interior of this particular town hall not being entirely conducive to traditional jungle camouflage, grizzled his own tenpenneth in.

“We need outside help. Anyone here know the names of any of them journalist people?”

+

“We any further on these stories, Jake?”

Mr Collins pulled down his office blinds before asking.

“Nothing, boss, I’m afraid. Do you want us to get a tech nerd… guy… person, to deal with it. I feel we could really do with the expertise”

Mr Collins sat back in his chair and tapped his desk while thinking.

“No. Not yet. I want this staying between us two, for now. But, ummm… expand the Free Hit Fund though. I want investment in all the places that can profit from this when this thing blows. And, you know what I always say Jake, everything blows eventually”

“Sure thing, boss” Jake said.

“And one more thing, Jake…”

“Yes boss?”

“Press that Imran kid a bit further. I really wanna find it out. I wanna control the flow of information on this. And, whatever you do, keep up the nutty conspiracist thing. I want him to think we’re on his side”
 

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34 minutes ago, >_< 0_0 said:

Just dropping by to see what sort of stories ur up to 🧐 each one is wildly different, but they’re all anchored to the first story in some way 👌 I wonder if Coventry is where u study?

You are wildly observant, you rascal :D I'm not imaginative enough to do anything wildly original, so every story is a descendent of a Free Hit. And you can probably tell where I studied if you wanted to work it out, it's probably about the only place in Britain I've never mentioned, lol. I'm running out of places!!! 

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Part 3

Flesh. Wet with sweat. Puddles of it. Waves of it. All of it to be climbed on.

“I am The Abyss, and I think it’s time I turned my gaze on you”

They kissed, and the darker skinned girl began to slide down her girlfriend’s body, kissing her all the way. She kissed her shoulders, pliable and soft. Then her upper chest, padded deep over her ribcage. Down to her breasts, swollen to the point where gravity was taking hold. Then down again, between the two breasts, slowly spilling to the side, splitting like the red sea that Moses divided. And to the stomach. Outward-pushing even on her back, and with the curved crenellations that ran down her side and towards her wide and plush hips.

“Well, you sure turned me gay for you” Faizah replied, between kisses. “I’m gay for this. And this. And this”

Hattie smiled as Faizah slipped lower, and lower. She reached for the millionaire’s shortbread on her bedstand, but could barely get the first piece in her mouth before Faizah had caused her to start gasping.

+

An email popped up in the corner of Robson’s screen. It was from his editor. He just threw it straight in the trash. He knew what it said, without even opening it. He hadn’t posted a story in three months, and he wasn’t paid to not post stories. Blah, blah, blah. Robson puffed his cheeks out. But his investigation into the disappearance of Morley Baker hadn’t gone anywhere. Leaving him with nothing to report. Which was bad news for a reporter.

A second email popped up. And this time, he didn’t delete it right away.

“You a reporter? I need to talk, bro. Something’s happening here. Something crazy, bro”

+

“So you call yourself The Resistance? Isn’t that… a bit predictable?” Robson asked, with his phone on the table recording the conversation. He was a softly figured gentleman. Gentle stubble, shallow hairline and washed away jawline. And he was staring sharply at his interviewee.

“Is it? I dunno, man. I am out of my depth here, bro. I don’t even know I can trust you. This guy, he’s a conspiracy nut, but with everything happening, now I’m getting paranoid”.
Imran twisted nervously in his seat, looking behind him every 30 seconds or so. The poor kid looked tired, even as he remained on edge. Like his battery was depleting. It was in his posture, the arch of his back. Something was clearly taking its toll.

“Look, it’s fine. The Guardian isn’t one of those newspapers owned by the Murdochs or the Barclays. We’re independent. And we’re good at this stuff” Robson said, reassuring the poor kid. He was only 18 and twitching like he was on something. Probably was. But Robson wasn’t exactly in a place to be picky right now.

“Cool. Cool. I needed to hear that, bro. Cos, you know, this stuff, man…”

“Just… take it from the top. What is it that you wanted to talk to me about?”

+

“Mrs Lewenburg? Great to finally speak. Your husband speaks about you all the time”

“Mmmhmmm” came the reply, flat and disinterested.

“Okaaaay. Umm.. is he in? Your husband? It’s Mr Collins. His boss? I… can you just pass the phone over or…”

“He’s gone out” came the reply again, this time it was clear that there was something in her mouth.

“You eating? Sounds delicious, whatever it is” Mr Collins said, more clunkily than he had intended. He winced as he said it, but it didn’t seem to get picked up on by Mrs Lewenburg.

“Oh god yeah” Mrs Lewenburg suddenly burst into life. “I’m eating these Paprika flavoured Pringles. You don’t really get them over here, but they’re huge in Europe. I mean, I guess technically we’re in Europe too. But they are sooo good. I’m on my second tube already. But I have a free hit, so why not?”

“A free hit? Okay. Umm… well, you know what? I bet I know what would go really well with those Pringles. Paprika, you said, right? Ice cream. Your husband’s parlour, my parlour. I mean, we’d love your custom and I bet that those Pringles would go really well with our new four-scoop salted caramel bonanza. It’s got fudge sauce, chocolate sauce, sprinkled, and two flakes” he smooth-talked down the line, constantly looking to upsell.

“Those flavours do sound good together. Good idea Mr…”

“Collins. But you can call me Colin. We’re all friends here” he smiled, and then the call was ended.

“You shouldn’t have done that, boss”

“I know. I just… it’s one of the ways I can’t help myself. Never miss a sale, Jake. That’s what I always say. Everyone’s a customer, sometimes they just don’t know it yet until you tell them. Don’t you agree, Jake?”

“Yes, boss”

+

“But, you say your sister is definitely… ‘patient zero’?” Robson frowned as he listened, not quite sure what to make of this. It was clearly some sort of nonsense. But what form of nonsense, he hadn’t decided yet.

“Well, I dunno, I think so. I don’t know anyone else who got it first but… like, she probably got it from work or university and I don’t go to either of those things! Like, when you are the youngest of five siblings, you don’t really keep up with all of them equally” Imran explained.

“And any of your brothers? Have they been… what did you call it… ‘affected’?”

“Yeah, like, my oldest brother is long gone, so he’s safe. He’s in the army. Second oldest married. He’s even having a child. Well, his wife is having a child, but you know what I mean. But my other brother, Muhammad, he hasn’t said anything about being ‘affected’, but you can just tell, bro. It’s in the eyes. And in the constant eating”
Robson pressed the end of his pen down and up and down and up again, while he leant back in his chair and thought. He wasn’t thinking about the case. Not directly. I mean, it was clearly just bullshit stacked upon bullshit. The kid was probably on drugs or pranking him or just exaggerating the truth. No, he was thinking about how it didn’t matter. He had to deliver a story.

The journalism game had all changed. His dad was a journo at The Telegraph. Opposite ends of the political spectrum, but it wasn’t quite as fascist back then as it was now. Or maybe nobody noticed back then like the screaming twitterati do now. It was never an easy career. The stereotypes about surviving on coffee, cigarettes and yesterday’s unironed shirts were a little closer to the truth than most stereotypes tended to be. But Robson was finding the profession different to the one his dad entered.

He got his first job as a temporary intern, five years ago, but rose fairly sharply. The surname helped and hindered, in that respect. But the shift in emphasis was already there. Journalism - as in good old-fashioned contacts-and-follow-ups investigative journalism - had basically bit the dust. Replaced with the clickbaiting, sensationalist op-ed writing. Opinion pieces were what drove the ad revenue, the subscription fees. People might like the journalism, but they clicked or they stayed for Owen Jones grumbling about how anti-semitism is important but not as important as socialism. Robson, in short, had joined a dying profession.

But his personal career wasn’t going to die just yet.

“Okay, I’ll look into this. I’ll find something. Something” Robson said, convincing himself as much as anything.

“Try A Free Hit. That’s the main story I’ve heard mentioned. But also there’s Burgermania, Playing Your Cards Right, and some girl called Rutherford apparently…”

“Rutherford is a girl’s name?”

“I didn’t even know it was a name” Imran shrugged.

“Fine. I’ll start there. I can do this. I will - I promise you - come away with something. I will not leave this story without a story” Robson said with razor-sharp sincerity, before grabbing his satchel and phone, and getting up to leave.

“See ya then, reporter-guy”

“See ya” Robson smiled back, before pausing. Something had been bugging him, this entire time. Gnawing on the inside of his brain like a parasite. It was the reason he was suspicious but also the reason he wanted to investigate this further. And he just couldn’t let it lie without asking. “Actually one last question.”

“Yeah, what is it?”

“Why me, Imran? Why some crappy, down-on-his-luck journo, instead of someone… y’know, good.”

“Cos you’re the only journalist whose name I know”

“And how do you know my name?”

“Because of that girl. The one you looked into”

“Morley Baker?”

Robson’s eyes ballooned at the mention of her. The girl that he had spent the past three months looking into. The girl who disappeared from her one bedroom flat in Surrey, leaving her 6-month old daughter behind with a neighbour. Nobody knew where she went, why she went, or even if she was taken. Just that a 22 year old girl vanished one night, without word to anyone, beyond the request for her neighbour to care for her child for a bit, and never seen again.

“Yeah, that’s the one. What’s this got to do with Morley Baker?”

“My sister said she used to play videogames with her. Online. And then she disappeared”

Morley Baker was a single-mother and a full-time video game player. Something called a livestreamer. Robson got given the case on account of his age. His boss reckoned that, if anyone in the team was going to know about Twitch livestreaming culture, it was the youngling of the group.

“And, who else did she play videogames with?”

“I dunno. Mainly randos I think. Subscribers or some shit. I don’t… I’m more of a FIFA guy. But sometimes Hattie and Shania played too, I think”

“And do you have Hattie and Shania’s surname?”

+

Three loud bangs on the door, and no answer.

Robson pulled back and looked up, to see the bedroom light upstairs on, but couldn’t here a thing. She was there. This Hattie girl. Her bedroom was the one on the front left where the light was pouring out. She was a student at Coventry University, along with this Shania girl. English and Media students. And it all felt strange that the two cases were connected. And, if Hattie actually came downstairs and answered the door, maybe answered some questions and cleared up some queries, this could all be resolved. But she didn’t. Unfortunately, Robson was just a journalist, and, at this point, there was nothing he could do. Except wait. And check out what Imran said about these livestreams.

+

When are u streamin nxt? - Codkiller42

Another DM that went unanswered. Hattie had absolutely no intention of even switching on her gaming PC. Just as she had no intention of answering the bangs on the front door earlier. And, fortunately for her, her parents didn’t either. Their priorities were as skewed as her own, these days. She was living in a Free Hit household these days.
So, instead, she was with the love of her life. Her very own Skinny. The Skinny to her Rutherford. Because that was the dynamic that her and Faizah were aspiring towards. And they were aspiring towards it at this very moment.

Hattie groaned loudly, between mouthfuls of chocolate cake, with frosting dripping down on her bed covers as she chewed. As Hattie pulled her head away, her mouth full with plenty to swallow now, Faizah took her turn to take a bite. More crumbs fell, but this time on the gently rising current of Hattie’s chest with each exaggerated and indulged breath.

“Feed me. Feed me more” she groaned, and Faizah reached over towards the cake at the side, and grabbed another slice.

“You’re addicted to me” Faizah smiled, as she pushed the slice towards Hattie’s mouth. She nodded, as her teeth clawed at the soft sponge.

“Guess what?” Hattie said, between groans and chews.

“What, love?”

“I’m 196”

“Oh my god, that’s hot. In two months, you’ve gained 55lbs. That’s so fucking hot, love”

“That’s what size Rutherford was at the buffet”

“Fuck, the Christmas buffet. Shit…” Faizah gasped at the memory of the scene.

“I can’t wait to be Betty Bollingbrooke-era Rutherford sized” Hattie grinned, and Faizah grunted.

“And you can be Sweeney from Burgermania…” Hattie continued, and Faizah gasped.

“But, from the epilogue…” and Faizah whimpered with joy.

“Where she’s all hallucinating and completely lost the plot…” Faizah groaned again.

“And she’s 700lbs…”

“704” Faizah corrected between jolts of delight.

“Yeah, both of us, eating ourselves beyond a horizon we’ll never reach”

“That sounds so fucking hot” Faizah wailed.

And the wailing continued for some time.

+

“He went to the fucking press?” Mr Collins raged.

“Yes sir”

“Who? Are they… would people notice if something befell them?” Mr Collins paced, chewing his own gums in frustration.

“Robson Cowley. Son of AA Cowley, the Telegraph guy. That alone probably puts him out of bounds. Sir”

“Fuck! Well, I guess it’s only a matter of time before the cat’s out the bag then…”

“It probably already is, sir”

“Why?” Mr Collins looked up.

“The House of Commons sir. PMQs. The MP for Coventry North mentioned the obesity epidemic in their constituency. People are starting to notice…”

“Well, we better speed these things along then. Pump every financial reserve into The Free Hit fund. I want to buy every independent fast-food store, every sweet store, every burger van, everything we can get our hands on before this thing goes viral. And, we need the original story. In case it gets suppressed, for whatever reasons. We need a copy, so we need to find out what this story is” Mr Collins said, walking up and down the length of his office.

“I really think we should hire a tech, sir”

“Fine. Do it. I guess plausible deniability isn’t gonna work much longer anyway. Oh, and reach out to that Imran kid can get it. Make it sound urgent. Make him… make him doubt the trustability of this journalist. I want The Resistance to think we’re on their side, so we can crush them” Mr Collins.

“Sir, it’s… they’re calling themselves The Renegades now”

“What was wrong with The Resistance?”

“Cliché, apparently”

“Either way, there won’t be much resistance once I’ve finished with them, isn’t that right Jake?”

“Yes sir”

+

“Nick’s here, shall I send him through”

“Yeah, sure” Nadia said, her head running through her hands. She knew this was coming. She, at least, hoped it would be remote. Via email or phone. But seeing the Chief Whip in person sounded like bad news.

“Hi, Nadia! How are you?”

“Nick, what a lovely treat” she smiled, crinkling her nose as she did so. It was an insincere crinkle, but she’d never met anyone who hadn’t fallen for it.

“It was about your question at PMQs…”

“About the obesity crisis in my constituency?” she asked, facing the politician with her sweetest smile. She knew this was coming, but she still clung to the hope that it wasn’t.

“Yes. Now, the leadership is completely okay with you raising the obesity issue. They’re in complete agreement on this…”

“Good”

Nadia braced herself for the ‘but’ that was about to follow.

It was always the same with Westminster politics. Cordial and polite on the surface, everyone always remembering their pleases and thank yous, but everyone was steely and ruthless under the surface. And the party leadership exemplified that. And the Chief Whip - the person in the party whose job it was to ensure that every MP marched to the beat of the leadership - exemplified that exemplification.

“But… there is a class angle here to consider. A lot of those seats in the North and the Midlands… the voters there… how do I put this? We, in the party, feel as though we’re attacking our own voter base here”

“Look, a constituent spoke to me on Friday, and I said I would…”

“Nadia! The working class are disproportionately affected by weight gain. It’s a class issue. Healthy food, gym passes, just not having to hold down two jobs while raising kids and thus have the energy to make healthier life choices… these make it easier for the elites to be healthy. But the working class, and we’re a working class party Nadia, they aren’t given the same opportunities to make those healthy choices”

“I wasn’t saying it was their fault. But, this is something I care about, Nick. Look, a man came to see me, a Jewish guy - and you know how we need to win back the Jewish community - and he’s… happily married to his wife for 22 years. He loves her more than anything. More than Keir loves that comb he keeps in his top pocket. He loves her. And, suddenly, she’s changed. She’s having an affair… with food. And his friends, and his friends kids… something is going on in my constituency and I have to be their voice. And… yeah, I get what you’re saying about victim-blaming. We shouldn’t do that. But, if something is going on here, we need to be the party that gets ahead of this”

Nick frowned. But it was a kind frown. He had an old, hangdog face, deeply malleable, and nobody could frown kindly quite like the Opposition’s Chief Whip.

“What do you mean, something is going on?”

“I dunno. Something. You remember how SARS was something. And the AIDS pandemic was something. Well, this is something too. And you know the anti-vaxxers and libertarians are gonna jump all over this bandwagon. We need to get on the side of popular opinion, and force Boris to choose between his libertarian backbenchers and what the people want. We need to get ahead of this. The Labour Party needs to be the anti-weight gain party”

“Hmmm… I’ll… report that back. We’ll do internal polling, see what the mood of the country is. So, you think this ‘weight gain epidemic’ might be… an actual epidemic?”

“Mr Lewenburg’s wife has gained 35lbs in just over a month. And he says the young people in the area are gaining even faster”

“We’ll have to make it sympathetic. Empowering people to make healthier choices. That kinda thing. I’ll run it by comms. Okay, I’ll… see what I can do”

“Thanks Nick” she said, with a crinkle of the nose. She meant it this time.

“But…” he added, and she winced. She forgot about the inevitable ‘but’ this time. “If you want to be the face of this, you might want to shave a few pounds of your own. You’re looking a bit… full-figured these days, to be lecturing on this issue”.

Nick smiled a kind smile, ripples of facial flesh on his old, hangdog face meaning that all of it was being used when he smiled. Nadia just looked down sheepishly, not even a crinkle of the nose could help here.
 

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Part 4

 

It started for Nadia back in 2019. Nadia Fletcher, Member of Parliament for Coventry North, was one of the 2019 intake, the most recent inductees to the House of Commons. And, at 27 years old, she was the youngest sitting MP currently - aka the “Baby of the House”. The condescending monicker, one that had been around since Victorian times and not changed thanks to politics’ preference for tradition over… well, anything really, wasn’t the reason that she spent her days in Westminster with a bee in her bonnet and a real point to prove, though. No, it was because she came from the very ‘working-class’ communities that Labour claimed to represent. And now she finally had the chance to do something for her community.

Plus, she was hoping for a cabinet post by 2024.

She wore her hair in a bob, hair straightened every morning. She spent ages choosing which personally-tailored suit to wear, every morning. She picked her favourite bracelet, necklace and earrings every morning. And then she grabbed some breakfast and headed to Parliament at 6am.
Breakfast had come to become McDonalds. Maybe it was those working class roots that Nick was going on about. Her growing up in an environment where easy food and cheap food always took precedence over healthy food. Maybe it was because, despite being a grown woman of 27, she was the “Baby of the House” still. And she still hadn’t evolved past her own university habits.

It was only since starting in 2019 though that it began to have an effect on her physique. She’d always had curves, curves that she was proud of but not so proud as to appear superficial. It was always a line female politicians had to tread. They always had to care about their appearance. Just, y’know, not too much. You need to try hard, without being a tryhard. Or something.

But the past year or two had seen those suits of hers need re-tailoring, time and time again. She had begun at 130lbs, a bit lower than her normal after all those days on her feet, campaigning and door-knocking. Now, after a sedentary job, long hours, a lot of stress and the return of her McDonalds breakfasts, she’d seen her scale scale new heights. Last time she’d looked, she was 175lbs. But that was 2 months and a re-tailoring ago and she just didn’t want to look any more.

Still, she was the ambitious type, and the Chief Whip had pretty much told her that, if she could shed a few of her recently accrued pounds, she could be the one leading the charge on this growing national issue. So, for the first time since her own university days, she decided to go on a diet. She opened her drawer and pack of Kinder Duplos, and put the whole packet in the bin. No, that wasn’t right. That was a bad example and you never know if the press, with their long lenses and shameless opportunism, would see her throwing away unopened food. So she pulled it out of the bin surreptitiously, careful to make sure her staff didn’t spot her, and then worked her way through the 18-pack instead. Y’know, so she could go on a diet.

 

+

 

Robson had also seen that Coventry’s food epidemic was mentioned on PMQs. This should have given him a huge sigh of relief. It meant that this story he was working on, tied in with something already in the public domain. It meant that his editor had a pitch that he would like. It meant that, if other journalists started their own investigation based on what that young MP said, they would be playing catch up on his head start. Robson, by all accounts, should have been happy.

But the name Morley Baker had made any hopes of feel-goodery impossible. Morley Baker. The woman who left her own child. Morley’s parents - grandparents to the abandoned child - simply don’t know what happened to her. Maybe she ran away. Maybe it was suicide. Maybe it was kidnap, though how would she have known to give the baby to her neighbour. But, if it was running away, why not give it to her parents. And, if it was suicide… where was the body? Indeed, in any of the scenarios listed, that same question remained.

Where was Morley Baker?

Well, one place she definitely was, was on her Twitch channel’s previous broadcasts. She may have been a professional gamer, but she was hardly an internet celebrity. She played indie games mainly, often with her own subscribers, and built up a small but loyal fanbase. They helped pay her through labour and child-raising, with donations and subscriptions and something called Bit donations. It was how she made ends meet, while staying at home to be with her baby - a boy rather cutely called Marley.
Robson was going through Morley’s old streams, hoping to hear her play with someone called Faizah. Or, at least, this Hattie or Shania. Something to tie these two cases together. But, so far, nothing.

 

+

 

The house was empty. Mum had gone out, drawn by the allure of an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet that seemed to hold some sort of personal significance to them that Imran didn’t understand. His elder brother was rarely in, just driving from drive-in to drive-in. And Faziah was never in these days. He didn’t know exactly where she was, but he suspected it was Hattie’s. He didn’t know what those two were up to together and he didn’t care. The house was empty. That was the important thing.

He gradually opened his sister’s door, and pulled his face back in disgust at the smell and mess. It was looking closer to landfill than the usual pristine room that Faziah kept. There was nowhere for him to put his feet, every inch of the floor booby-trapped with wrappers and containers and cartons. All depleted of their original contents. And none of those original contents were healthy.

Fortunately, he could see her laptop. Unfortunately, it was on her bed. If the floor was bad because of wrappers, then the bed was bad because of food. Crumbs, stains, smears. CSI would love a place like this. But Imran didn’t.

He got to the laptop and lifted the screen, only for it to require facial recognition or a fingerprint to get in. A fingerprint? That was doable, right? Something to do with sellotape? He’d seen it in a movie, and was sure he could pull it off.

He couldn’t pull it off.

So, he tried Plan B, guessing her password.

He knew all her favourite bands, all of her favourite songs. He could hear each and every one of them through the walls as she karaoked to herself fairly loudly. Only, she hadn’t been doing that lately, had she? Imran had an idea.

Password - AFreeHit

Password denied.

Maybe it was too much to expect. That, in this feeding frenzy, she would take the time out to change her password to her new favourite piece of mind-controlling literature. Except, of course, AFreeHit wasn’t her favourite piece of mind-controlling literature. That wasn’t what she said.

Password - Burgermania

And suddenly, the laptop lit up. And he opened up a browser and went through her search history. He screenshotted the list, and decided it was time to send these to his conspiracy friend.

 

+

 

“Yeah, we can run all sorts of search algorithms that run alongside the Google search engine, piggy-backing on it but applying our own calculations, we can…”

“Just tell me, how long?”

“Not long at all. Hours, not days”

Jake stopped, and put his hands in his pockets, and leant against the wall, his tongue clacking, mimicking the sound of a metronome and helping him think.

“And can you run this search… thingy, in such a way that it takes days rather than hours?” he asked, running his brow with his forefinger and thumb, under his grey hair.

“I don’t understand…”

“I’m…” he sighed, his patience thinning, his headache returning. “I’m not asking you to understand, I’m asking if you can do it”.

“I mean, I guess I could just find it, but not tell you right away?”

Jake stopped again, and started clacking his tongue against the inside of his mouth.

“Yeah, that should be fine. Inform me in… 5 days. And I’ll sort things over with Mr Collins” Jake said, nodding his head as if to cajole himself into following his own plan.

“Yes sir” the junior tech assistant said, and Jake smiled for the first time in years.

“Oh, and… whatever you do, do not read it. Just sit on the information and tell me in five days”

 

+

 

It started on a Thursday night. Mr Lewenburg and his staff were creaky under the onslaught of demand. Central Office had sent extra temps their way, as well as raising the prices, and none of it could help make a dent in the surging volume of customers. The only relief, the only reprieve, was that trading hours meant that they had to close at 10pm. And all the staff were grateful for that. Except Mr Lewenburg.

He didn’t enjoy working at the ice cream parlour these days. He always enjoyed the human interaction side of his job. But he was mainly serving zombies these days, people inured to any stimulus but of that which calories could provide. Instead, it was like working in a fast-food **. All speed, just cranking out service, without any of the human stuff that made it all worthwhile.

But the one thing he enjoyed less than being at work, was being at home. If he missed human interaction in the workplace, then he yearned for it at home. He pined for its passing. Mrs Lewenburg was a stranger to him, these days. All non-essential motor-functions shut off besides the same Epicurean ones that was 'affecting' everyone else in this city. At the end of the day, he just missed his wife.

“Let me guess, the four-scoop salted-caramel fudge bonanza”

Mr Lewenburg knew the order off by heart now. Days upon days of people asking for the same thing. The most indulgent, most sugary, most unhealthy thing on the parlour’s menu. Mr Collins’ idea, and, to be fair to the man, it was a good one. Certainly a popular one. And, just as importantly to him, an expensive one.

“No”

Mr Lewenburg looked up, confusion riven across his face. Was the person in line not one of the ‘affected’. His eyes then winced to realise that this was not the case. It was Juan and Cerys who, in his mind at least, were where it started.

They didn’t look the same as when it started. Juan was always a short guy, with dark hair and heavy eyebrows that he got from his mother. Now, the boy’s appearance could also be premodified as chunky. His chest too soft to be barrelled, the lower part of his dark-haired stomach picking in the gap between his too-tight polo shirt and his redundant belt buckle. No wonder his mum was so upset.

And next to him was Cerys. Golden haired, golden smiled Cerys. She had exploded in the seven weeks since they first came in. She was a fashion student who was always deeply conscientious about her appearance, and her build always reflected that. Slim, in the fashionable yet impractical way that her hobby espoused. Now, fashion had given away to convenience. A flowy summer frock that did little in the way of flowing. Instead, it suffocated itself around every mound of her build like it was a body-wrap, and the long length made so short that she was left barely decent, with beachball buttcheeks just a few inches of material away from revealing themselves. They did leave her legs, her most pronounced body part, rugged with cellulite and with thighs that were touching half way down to the knee.

“So, what can I do you kids for?” Mr Lewenburg asked, suspiciously.

“We…” Juan started.

“Well, I…”

“Yeah, she wants to custom make an order. Create one for herself”

“Yeah, like Minnie does at Kebabland…”

“When she custom-makes the Skinny Meal and then everyone calls it the Skinny Meal”

“Well, I wanna custom-make the Cerys Meal. Or Cerys Ice Cream, I guess. That would be pretty hot. And cold” and they both laughed at the appalling joke.

It was an unusual request, no doubt. But not that unusual. Indeed, it was a concept that was once planned on being rolled out across the various branches nationwide. And this meant that it was at least something that Mr Lewenburg was able to do.

“I guess… but it might be pricey” Mr Lewenburg said. “Can… why would a… sorry for asking this by the way but, why would a custom ice cream be…”

“Hot? Dude, it’s so hot. Food sex is the best, isn’t it C?”

“Yeah, it’s soooo good. Because I’m just laying back and Juan is just fucking me, and I’m just eating cake, sometimes he’s feeding me and sometimes I’m doing it myself, and I’m orgasming and… he’s eating cake while he’s thrusting and I’m just taking it. Just laying back, eating, and opening my legs wider than I used to, because they get in the way more than they used to, which is waaaay hot”

“And sometimes, I lean over her, and our bellies touch and it’s so hot. Like, I’m feeling it, right now. We’re gonna go wild when we get our ice-cream, I can tell” Juan added, unhelpfully.
Mr Lewenburg didn’t say anything. Even now, when he would have told you that nothing else was able to shock him, he had never been so shocked in his life.

 

+

 

“I wouldn’t tell him," Wolf said, looking typically stern. “I don’t trust him”.

Imran twitched nervously as somebody walked by behind them. They were walking down the street together, huddled as clearly in cahoots. Every passing person set off jitters and paranoia. They were clearly on edge to any idle passer-by. However, one feature of Coventry being recently stricken with this food frenzy virus was that there were simply fewer people walking about the streets. Walking wasted calories, you see.

“You think? That’s mad, bro. I mean, we only know each other because of him”

“Yeah, that’s what got me suspicious. How did he know about both of us?”

“Cos he some crazy, old, paranoid, white dude? Like you” Imran added helpfully on the end.

“I’ve been off the grid for years. And, anyway, like you say, I know crazy and paranoid, and he just seems to be playing it up a little too much. I don’t buy it. Plus, why did he try to get you not to involve the press?” Wolf added.

“I mean, that’s a good point. But who else am I gonna tell? He says don’t trust the journalist. You say don’t trust him. Who does that leave? I’m scared, bro. This is way not cool” Imran said, nervously.

“Just keep it together, laddie. It ain’t easy on anyone, I can’t even think about what it’s like to be you right now”

 

+

 

He’d caught glimpses of her. Robson had parked on the edge of the street, across the way from the house, hooked up on some un-passworded local area network. This way, he could do two jobs at once. Watch the house in case Hattie came out, and search old Twitch broadcasts to see if Morley Baker ever played co-op with a girl called Faziah.

The glimpses of her, proved she was in there. But they were only glimpses. He had no idea if she was gaining quite like this Faziah girl apparently was. There was no lasting image of her for his eye to drink in or digest. But, there was other evidence that she may be among the ‘affected’. Namely, that those glimpses were of her taking in a number of takeout orders from a number of takeaway establishments. Robson hadn’t seen anything like it before. Wave after wave of them, each unloading their respective wares to the half-opened door across the street.

But his interest was being directed elsewhere. To the sound coming his earbuds.

“Yeah, so we’re gonna be playing Plague Inc. with MadHatter and Shaymonster…”

Robson looked down at the screen sharply.

“And of course FeeFaiFoFum. Hey Faizah girl… long time”

It was a Twitch broadcast from 14 weeks back, two weeks before the disappearance. And Morley was talking to Faizah, and, by the sounds of it, Hattie and Shay too. There was the link. There was the connection that he had been looking for. Proof that the two investigations were somehow linked. But how? Robson’s heart galloped in his chest at the revelation. Maybe this, maybe Morley Baker, was how all of this, how it started.

 

+

 

Mr Lewenburg got in his house and sighed deeply. The lights were off in all rooms but the master bedroom. Or his wife’s bedroom as it had recently become. Slowly, with aching pains and weary shoulders, he hung his coat up and took his shoes off, and began to trundle up the stairs.

The house was dark at this time of night. Normally Mrs Lewenburg would leave the landing light on, just so he wasn’t left in the nighttime gloom. But she hadn’t done this for weeks now. He got to the top of the stairs and stopped, looking one way for the spare room and another for the master bedroom. Where his wife slept. Where he used to sleep. A fork in the road.
And maybe, if he had the chance to go back in time and revisit this moment, he would ask his previous self to change course. To go a different way. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe, if he had the chance, he would put his hand on his own shoulder and tell him that he knew what needed to be done. It was the right thing. And that he had no regrets. But there was no such hindsight-laden intervention, just a lonely married man at the top of the stairs, with a lot on his mind. And, for Mr Lewenburg, this was how it started.

He knocked on her door. Their door. The main bedroom door.

No answer didn’t mean she wasn’t there. More likely, it meant that she was eating, and the sight of her husband after a gruelling shift was not enough to engage her as much as consuming whatever gastronomy she had mustered for herself. And, with that, Mr Lewenburg walked in and saw his wife.

“Hi”

He said it with a deep, sorrowful voice, his head bowed out of shame and sadness. His wife was eating BBQ wings, and she was eating them with very little care for manners and good courtesy. It was as it was the night before and the night before that. And, without a response from her again, he continued.

“I just… I know you’re busy. I just wanted to check that you are okay, before I go… before I go… before I go and sleep in the spare room. My room. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know much of anything any more, to be honest, Esther. I feel… I feel all at a loss. Like the world is spinning and I can barely hang on. And it makes me feel tired. Like the world’s had enough of me. That it’s moved on. Or something. I dunno, I’m just tired maybe, long day. Anyway, just wanted to make sure that you’re okay” he said, slowly, quietly, each word climbing out of his mouth painfully.

“I’m fine”

That was the response. That was all it was. No acknowledgement of the pain. No recognition of the hurt. No care. Just a phone screen and BBQ wings. That was all she needed at that moment in time.

And if the initial decision to walk into the room was where it started, this moment marked the point where it continued. As he watched his extra-padded wife of decades barely recognise his voice; as he faced the prospect of another cold night in the spare room where the radiator doesn’t work and needs bleeding; as the realisation that this was how it was now. As he did all that, he remembered his conversation with Juan and Cerys, and made the decision.

“Hey, look, I know… it’s probably stupid of me to ask but… can I read one of those stories? I think I’d like to read one of those stories” he said. He wasn’t nervous when he said it, he simply didn’t have the energy. He just saw a fork in the road, and chose the one with his wife at the end of it.

“Really?” she replied, her face lighting up in a way that he hadn’t seen for days. He already felt better than he did five minutes ago.

“Yeah, I… is there one about a custom-made meal for one of the characters?” he asked, as she shuffled along in her bed to make room for him to sit next to her. “Called a Skinny meal or something?”.
 

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Part 5

 

“Babe, I’m here, ready for you, if you want to ravage me”

Honey lay back on the bed and twisted to get comfortable. She was wearing a particularly skimpy gold bikini and sarong combination as she lay provocatively on the bed.

“Babe, I’m waiting”

It was the Princess Leia bikini from that Star Wars movie, the one with the giant worm in it. Her girlfriend, Ginger, was a massive nerd for those sorts of things, it must have been some sort of sexual awakening for her or something. Honey didn’t get it, but at least the Ewoks were cute. She just spent her time watching the movie, waiting for the Ewoks.

“Babe?”

The bikini was a gift that Honey had bought herself as a present to Ginger. And, on special anniversaries - such as this one, the anniversary of their first dance - she would put the darned thing on.

“For fuck sake, Ginger. What can be more important than… this?” she muttered, mainly to herself, as she pulled herself up from the bed and began to trudge downstairs.

Ginger worked as the floor manager on Newyddion, a general news show in the Welsh language, as part of BBC Cymru Wales. And it was one of those jobs where it was hard to find the off switch. Apparently. Honey, who worked as part of the technical team on the show - but, coincidentally, wasn’t how they met: it’s actually a funny story and there are very few people here in Cardiff that they haven’t regaled with it - but found no such difficulties leaving work at work.

She got to the bottom of the stairs and couldn’t hear anything. Just the sound of her own breathing. The slow inhale and exhale were the only sounds in the house.

“Ginger?”

Nervously, she walked around the corner. Soft footsteps on padded carpet. And not even the background sound of the telly. Gently, she put her hand against the door and pushed it open, craning her head around the corner to see what was happening.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me?”

Ginger was there, but she was just dressed in her work clothes still, slouched lazily with her laptop on her knee and her reading glasses on. With the hand not on the keyboard, she was eating chicken goujons.

“Earth to Ginger? It’s me, the light of your life. Could I borrow your attention for just a second? Wait, are those onion rings the other side of you?”

Ginger nodded, and a smile appeared on her lips.

“Niiiice. You know, I haven’t had onion rings since the funeral of Uncle Rhys. I think. Or was it his wedding? I get them mixed up; one of them anyway” Honey said, as she, to maximum inconvenience of her partner, plopped herself down on the sofa next to her and reached over to grab an onion ring or three.

“Help yourself” came the almost disembodied voice of Ginger.

“I am doing, don’t you worry about that. I’ve earnt it. Not great for this bikini thing though, it was pretty tight as it was. I couldn’t believe it fitted, if I’m honest with you. I should probably not eat too many of these” she smiled, putting them in her mouth.

“I think you look great!” Ginger turned and smiled menacingly.

“Awww, thanks babe! Well, it is our first dance anniversary so I thought…”

“Chinese food?”

“No, I… sex? I was… are you hungry or something? Did you skip lunch? You shouldn’t do that Ginger, I’ve told you about that before”

“I’ll never skip lunch again, babe. Trust me”

Ginger’s smile was wide and her eyes were aflame.

“Good. Now, what’s this you’re reading? I don’t…”

“It’s really good. Do you want to read it too..?”

“No, if that’s alright. I think I’ll give it a pass”

“I think you’ll like it” Ginger licked her lips as she looked at her girlfriend, pointing the laptop at her girlfriend.

“I’m pretty sure I won’t” Honey said, pushing the laptop back towards her girlfriend, before reaching over for some more onion rings. “Oh my god, these taste so good… okay, someone’s feeling handsy”

Honey giggled as Ginger’s right hand slid down Honey’s body towards the crotch. Until it stopped, on her stomach.

“Look, Ginge, if this is about the fact that I promised I’d go on that diet with you… I will… I’m just, not tonight, eh?”

“No, it’s fine. No more diets”

“I mean, I probably should. 11 stone this morning, although some of that was just from my hair, I really need it cutting. Can you believe Maggie is booked up until the end of the month? It’s outrageous if you ask me…”

“Have a Free Hit”

“A what?”

“We’re young. We have three years…”

“What’s happening in three years?”

“Let’s cut loose. We deserve it. Enjoy ourselves. Come on, I think you’ll really like this story…”

And that was the first case of somebody affected outside of England. Maybe the history books will remember the tale of Honey and Ginger, the lovers from Cardiff. Maybe they won’t. A lot of things got lost in the aftermath, after all. But that was how it started to spread beyond England. Honey and Ginger’s Free Hit.

 

+

 

“Absolute poppycock and blithering baderdash! Let the nervous nellies and the… the… insecure incidentals, yes I think that works, and the… pussilanimous paranoiacs. Let them cower and kowtow. But not I. I shall not be so green-bellied and lily-livered. Audenta fortuna iuvat! You know what that means? Fortune favours the brave. Well, I have the good fortune of being a brave Prime Minister, and I will not find myself bending over backwards for those who want to fuck me up the arse”

“So… you’re not attending the meeting?”

“No, no. Absolutely not. Matt can deal with it. He has to serve some purpose around here, wot?”

The Prime Minister said, shuffling down the corridor and in the opposite direction of the COBR meeting that had been called, in response to the growing concern about ‘The Coventry Issue’. His face was a puddle of flesh, his eyes listless. His aide, a middle-aged woman with stern features and her hair tied back, matched him stride for stride.

“So you’re not going down there, then? There are winnable seats down there, and it would fit in well with our Healthy Upbringing Strategy” the aide said, walking slowly beside the disshevelled national leader.

“Ahh yes, the HUS. Good policy, that. I came up with it, didn’t I…?”

“Well, it was Matt originally…”

“But no. This gentleman is not for turning. I will not go to Coventry, else they ask me to ride through the town…”

“City”

“...Naked on a horse! That’s a Lady Godiva reference. Although, I do like her low-tax views. Plus, a woman naked on a horse sounds rather splendid, even if that woman is in the wasteland that is the Midlands. Ghastly part of the country. The Midlands exist simply to be driven through on your journey to elsewhere and serves no further purpose. No, I shall not be coaxed and cajoled. I shall make my wending way to the place in Gloucestershire for a long weekend”.

“With the wife?”

“Oh dear Lord no”

“The mistress?”

“Probably not”

“Then who?”

“I quite like that intern. The one with the nice bum. I quite fancy making my face the chair upon which she rests it”

The aide rolled her eyes at her superior, and got on the phone to make arrangements. Ignoring the ‘Coventry Incident’ wasn’t necessarily bad politics. The opposition had been pressing hard on the issue and they didn’t want to - how did he put it - cower and kowtow. They couldn’t just let the Opposition set the narrative. No, the decision was fine as long as the issue evaporated. Then they would look like the level-headed ones when all of those around were losing theirs.

All the aide had to do now was work out which intern the Prime Minister meant, given that his hiring of interns was almost exclusively driven by ‘the loveliness of their bums’. Maybe it didn’t matter which one, since he had little plan to be face-to-face with whoever it was for long.

 

+

“Robson?”

“Hey Gurinder”

“Looks like you were right to get down to Coventry when you did, this stuff is gathering traction. When do you think you can get us an article?”

Robson was eating a beefburger and sitting in his car opposite Hattie’s house, with his phone on the seat next to him and on speakerphone so he could eat his lunch.

“Well, I could do something… human. About what it’s like to lose someone to this… ‘affectation’. I am in occasional contact with the leader of the Renegades and his whole family…”
“You know who leads the Renegades? The ones behind the McDonalds attack?”

“No, I think the McDonald’s attack was just normal fascists. The Renegades are more… like a self-help group for those who have lost someone to… it. A Fight for Justice type deal. But a humanising piece, portraying the leader as a boy who just loves his family…”

“They’re terrorists, Rob. You know better than that. We can’t go around being terrorist sympathisers. But a report into the man behind the atrocities would be good. And you could tell them it will be about what you said ‘a man who just loves his family’”

Gurinder was a great boss to work for. He’d been in the business for around the same amount of time as his father, and he knew the industry like the back of his hand. Better than the back of his right hand, truthfully, since he lost it in a bombing in Basra back in his Middle East reporting days. But Gurinder’s best trait was that he was loyal to those that worked for him, and was probably the only reason Robson wasn’t sacked and trying to make ends meet writing guest pieces for The Morning Star or Tribune. So, this is why he was so ruthless with his junior. It was really to protect him.

“I… I guess. I mean, he is just a kid and… I don’t like to betray him. I genuinely think he’s a good kid in a bad situation but…”

“But you know how much you need a story right now”

“Yeah” he said, biting back into his burger.

“You… you eating right now? Wait, you’re not ‘affected’ are you?”

Robson laughed.

“No, not special fat, just regular fat”

Robson had found himself become rather husky around the middle in the years since he started in the trade. Even in his casual clothes, a black t-shirt and navy jeans, his gelatinous form was increasing clearly seen. It hadn’t always been this way, he’d been a pretty good fly-half in his rugby playing youth. But these days, XL was getting a little clingy to his spongey form.

“I mean, I’ll take your word for it. But how would I know?”

“Oh, you’d know. Apparently, their conversation skills turn to mush. Much like their figures. Heh, I might keep that one and use it for later” he smiled to himself.

“Well, it sounds like you’re doing really well down there Robson. I’m impressed. But, I can’t lie, I’m looking forward to you coming back. I don’t like you up there, with all that’s going on. It’s dangerous”

“Dangerous like a ride-along across Basra?”

“I just don’t want you making the mistake I made. Be safe Robson. You’re a good journalist, but the best journalists are the ones who get to come home at the end of the day”

Robson understood. But, at the same time, he kept looking back at his laptop and that livestream. Could he let it lie?

“I want to do one more story out here Gurinder, before I come back. I… I think I might be getting close to Patient Zero”

He winced as he said it. But the cat was out the bag now. He had to see this through. He had to see what happened to Morley Baker.

“Really? Shit! That… yeah, you can take a risk or two for a scoop like that. How close are you?”

“Well, I’m currently sitting outside of the house of a university student called Hattie. She is best friends with the sister of the leader of the Renegades - a girl named Faizah. She was one of the first, but… she plays a lot of online computer games along and…”

“No, don’t say it…”

“She used to play with Morley Baker”

“Robson! We’ve… done this before. She’s… it’s a dead end. Just leave it. You’re just looking for links that aren’t there”

“It’s a bit of a coincidence, don’t you think? That a girl goes missing under mysterious circumstances and then, around the same time, two of her friends contract a mysterious eating… thing. She’s involved in this, I know she is”

Robson paused for breath, and silence came down the phone. Robson paused his chewing and looked down at his phone in suspense.

“Fine, do what you need to do. I trust you on this, so don’t let me down”

“Cheers, guv”

“And Robson? If you’re gonna do it, then do it. I think it’s time for you to take your version of a ride-along across Basra”.

 

+

 

“So, I just wanna check, it was none of us right? The McDonalds attack? That wasn’t any of us guys, right?”

Imran stood up on the steps, looking down at the rest of the Renegades. They all just shook their heads sheepishly.

“Wolf? Nothing to do with you?” he continued.

Wolf shook his head, his eyes sharp.

They were in Coventry city centre. No more were they having to hide themselves in darkened corners of darkened rooms in darkened municipal buildings. Coventry was a ghost town - which was rather fitting given that The Specials were their most famous export. And this meant that the wide open was probably the safest place for them. Although the slow trickle in of journalists to the area might mean that this wouldn’t be the case for long.

“Good. Good. Look, I know this is hard. I know. We’ve all lost people. But we need answers, not violence. We deserve answers. For our families. For our loved ones. Bro, I shouldn’t need to tell you this but, if this thing spreads? That pain, that rage, a whole lot more people are gonna be feeling it. We do this for them. For the people we don’t know. The people we’ve never met. We do it so they never know that they should thank us. Because, nobody, and I mean nobody, deserves to go through what we’ve been through. Ain’t that right?”

The group cheered.

“Cos we are the Renegades, right?”

“Yeah”

“And I wanna hear the Renegades shout, you hear?”

“YEAH!”

“Good, I like it” Imran said, pacing along his elevated step, his shoulders wide, his chest out. “Now, we gotta lotta new faces here, and I see you. I see all of you. But we’re also missing some faces. And we know what that means. Anyone know who’s no longer with us?”

The crowd looked awkwardly amongst themselves, and began muttering. One voice shouted out.

“I think the Grays are ‘affected’ now. I saw them order in a load and… they weren’t very talkative when I tried to reach out”

“The Grays? From Claymore Street, right? Yeah, bro, that is fucking tragic. I’m sorry. But this is why we need the truth to come out. Anyone else?”

Another voice cried out.

“Mr Lewenburg”

Imran stopped.

He looked across the crowd and couldn’t see his saddened face. Imran’s shoulders slunk at the realisation.

“Yeah, that one hurts. That one hurts, no lie. He was a good man, Mr Lewenburg. One of the good ones. And, I think we should all just take a moment to remember those we lost along the way. And their pain, as well as our own”

 

+

 

“Feed me”

Mr Lewenburg grabbed the tubs of ice cream and walked over to her, lying in her bed in the tightest lingerie she could still squeeze into.

“Sure thing my love. But only if you feed me too”

She smiled as he said it, the thoughts on their lips of what they would do to each other.

“I’m gonna make you so fat, my love”

“Not if I make you fat first!”

And the two of them giggled as the bedroom lights got switched off.

 

+

 

“One more thing” Imran said, still marching to and forth on his elevated step. “I’m doing the interview!”

The crowd cheered. All of them, but Wolf, who folded his arms in suspicion.

“Now, now, I know there are people out there who think I shouldn’t. That it’s not safe. That they can’t be trusted. And, believe me, I get it. Bro, I get it, big time. But this journalist? He’s one of the good ones. One you can trust. He… helped look for a very good friend of my sister’s, before all this started”

The crowd nodded with solemnity.

“And anyway, apparently the paper are gonna do a two-page spread on me, my family and this movement. And they're gonna make it about the hurt. They’re gonna make it about the suffering. They’re gonna make it about the people. This isn’t about some weird food disease. This is about people. It’s about the people who get affected, and the people who get left behind. Right?”

The crowd cheered.

“And they get it. So, next week, look out for ya boy in The Guardian bro! You know what I’m saying, yeah? Man, I have a good feeling about this. I think they’ll look back on this day and say this day was the day that it started to get back under control!”

The crowd roared in support.

“No, The Renegades… I’m done. Okay? But you all know the drill out there. We can do this. Right? I said, WE CAN DO THIS? Right?”

And the crowd roared and as Imran stepped down from the step and mingled with the rest of his Renegade family. Wolf lurked in the background, watching.

 

+

 

Robson looked at himself in the reflection of the front door’s letterbox, making sure he didn’t have any stains on his top. He then stood up straight and knocked on Hattie’s door. And exhaled with nerves.

“It’s just… just a ride-along in Basra. If I lose a hand, I lose a… fuck! I don’t wanna lose a hand. This is a bad idea” he muttered to himself pacing on the spot like he needed the toilet.

He couldn’t hear any movement inside, so he knocked again. Louder this time.

“Fuck it… ride-along in Basra, it is”

He got back down on his knees and opened the letterbox. And this time, he shouted through it.

“HATTIE! Are you there?!?!”

He paused, waiting to see if there was an answer.

There wasn’t.

And, if you would ask Robson Cowley of The Guardian when it all started for him, he would have said that missing person’s case three months ago. But, ask anyone else, and they would say that this is when it started for him. Right here. Right now.

“I’m… I’m hungry?...” he winced as the words came out. “And… fuck… I’m also a friend of Morley Baker’s…”

Just two seconds later, the bedroom window on the front of the house opened. Robson pulled back from the front door and looked up at the window. And there were two young women. And, though they didn’t look like the pictures that Imran had provided any more, they were undoubtedly Hattie and Faizah. Faizah was there too. Robson knew that he was close. Close to Morley Baker and the origins of this wretched disease.

“Hey! What’s your name?” Faizah asked.

“Robson. I’m… you’re Faizah, aren’t you?”

The girls didn’t answer, they just continued on with their own line of questions. And, in that time, Robson did his best to look at them and see how much they had changed. Hattie was clearly, quite clearly, the bigger girl of the two. But the difference was most noticeable in Faizah, since her starting point was so bony and lean. That diamond-cutting jawline that she used to have had now mushroomed out into softness, to the point where she was barely recognisable.

“How did you know Morley?”

“Twitch. I was… one of her mods” he lied, scrunching up his face as he did so. He wasn’t even sure he got the terminology right.

“No way! That’s cool. So, Robson, mod of Morley, what are you?”

Robson twitched nervously, feeling the detective’s light being pointed at his face.

“What do you mean?”

“Feedee or feeder? Durr”

“Oh, right… of course” he stammered, looking up at them still. He didn’t even know these words. I mean, he could guess what they meant, they sounded fairly self-explanatory, but they were still foreign to him. Were they from these stories then? He could only assume. He decided to play it safe.

“What do you think?” he asked, his hands out by his sides as he continued looking up at the window.

“Feeder!” they both agreed in unison, which kinda hurt Robson. Had he really let himself go that much? “Okay, what’s your favourite book?”

Robson paused again. It hadn’t really dawned on him up until now, but he was essentially going under cover here. That’s what he was doing. And he was being grilled as part of his initiation test. Now, let’s see how much he’d listened to Imran.

“A Free Hit… obv” he said, trying to downplay it. Hattie smiled victoriously at her friend. “But Burgermania is probably second”. This caused Faizah to grin smugly back at her friend.

“And favourite character?”

“It’s gotta be Rutherford, hasn’t it?” he said. He only remembered the name because of his confusion over the character’s gender when Imran mentioned it.

“Damn straight!” Hattie said, her already considerable chest jutting out further with pride. “Guess who’s the Rutherford of this household?” she added, her flabby arms wide as if soaking in the applause from some hypothetical audience.

“So, you gonna let me in then?”

“Okay, Robson, mod of Morley. Come on in. It’s about time we had some BHM action. FIsh’s stuff was always too female-centric. Hey, we’re about to order in. What do you fancy: Indian or Turkish?”

“Turkish, I guess?”

“Yeah, you’re right. We should probably order the Turkish first”

And Robson gulped. This was gonna be his ride-along in Basra. This was gonna be his missing right hand.

 

+

 

Imran pulled back from the gathered crowd and gestured Wolf to follow him, away from where anybody else could here.

“You’re doing the interview? Really?” Wolf snapped.

“Relax, bro. I got this” Imran smiled proudly.

“I hope you know what you’re doing”

“The more people that know about this, the better. That’s how we stop it” Imran explained. “We need people to take this shit seriously. And… speaking of taking things seriously… McDonalds?”

“Yeah, it went fine. No witnesses, nothing to pin it on us” Wolf reassured.

“Good. Good. I like that. Good news. I like good news. Cos, we’re the Renegades, and sometimes Renegades gotta do that Renegade shit”

“Well, shall we work out what Renegade shit we’re gonna pull next” Wolf suggested sinisterly, and Imran just grinned.

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Part 6

 

“Break-in in progress at the bakery on Chapel Street. Any available units, please respond?”

The crackled message came over, and the two officers looked at each other.

“It is only five minutes away” PC Winston John said, looking at his partner.

“Yeah, but it’s gonna be another one of those vandalism things by ‘The Reprobates’ or whatever they call themselves” WPC Jasmine Jennings replied, with a mouthful of cream cake.

“The Renegades. They’re called ‘The Renegades’. You get that wrong in front of Sergeant and he’ll lost his shit. You know how he is” he laughed, and she joined in.

“Right? He’s such a whiny bitch” WPC Jasmine Jennings replied, howling with laughter and nearly spitting out her cream cake.

“Yeah, you know it’s cos his mum died” he said, his face straightened up.

“Fuck off” she said with a stifled giggle.

“Yeah, hit and run off Dalston Street. Never been the same since” PC Winston John said sternly.

“Oh, I… I didn’t realise” WPC Jasmine Jennings looked suddenly worried.

“I’m just fucking with you. He’s always been a whiny bitch. Bet he lives with his mum!” Winston continued laughing heartily. “You know, nobody has answered that call about the break-in…”

“Yeah, fucking hell. I guess we better. You answer it, I’ll finish this cake off”

“You eat those things like you’re ‘affected’” PC Winston John joked, looking at his chubby colleague.

“Fuck off, we’re the fucking sweeney, eating cakes is our thing”

“You’re thinking of The Simpsons. The cops on The Simpsons eat donuts. Here, in the UK, we just eat like regular people. You know, Sergeant was a lot nicer to you when you were thinner, Jaz”

“I know. But it’s a price I’m willing to pay” WPC Jasmine Jennings smiled as she pushed the last of it into her mouth.

 

+

 

“Shit, they really trashed everything, didn’t they?” PC Winston John said as they walked through the bakery.

“Apparently, they are trying to get ‘the affected’ to go cold turkey. Trash all the junk food and force them to eat salad or something. According to that interview in the papers with that kid” WPC Jasmine Jennings explained, looking through the upturned shelves and smashed goods on the floor.

“But then he insists he isn’t behind it. If he isn’t the one doing this, then how does he know why it’s being done? That’s what I want to know” he replied, sifting through further debris.

“We should pick him up and ask him” she agreed.

“This is the furthest outta town that these punks have hit. We’re… what, 15 miles from Coventry?”

“The disease is spreading, makes sense that the attacks do too”

“Don’t call it a ‘disease’, Jaz. Serge will pull you up on that. It’s an ‘affectation’”

“That’s just PC bullshit”

“We are literally PCs. If anyone needs to do political correctness, it’s a police constable… wait, have you found something?” PC Winston John said, spotting his colleague wander into a corner of the kitchens that he hadn’t paid much attention to.

“Yup” she said. “I’ve found something alright”.

“What is it?”

“The fucking motherlode” she grinned, pointing her torch at an untrashed tray of doughnuts.

“Fucking hell, forget Chief Wiggum, you’re like Homer Simpson” he laughed, before straightening her face. “Hang on, you’re not actually…”

“It’s what The Reprobates would have wanted” she said, picking a doughnut up and eating it.

“THAT IS… you are literally eating the evidence! How am I gonna explain this to Sarge? That the vandals stopped for a snack mid-break-in? They were hoping to literally leave us a trail of breadcrumbs” PC Winston John looked exasperated at his colleague and her cheeky grin.

“They don’t care. What’s one tray of doughnuts…”

“You’re planning on eating the whole tray? A whole tray? Of doughnuts?”

“Well, unless you wanna help?”

“You are so gonna fail the bleep test next Spring. They’ll kick you out if you fail it” he said, gesturing for her to pass him one.

“Hypocrite” she smiled, passing him one and starting on her second. “And anyway, I passed easily last time, got over 9. That’s enough to get into Armed Response”.

“Yeah, how many pounds ago was that? What’s that? I can’t hear you Jaz, can you speak up a bit?”

“Thirty… five… but I can lose it by Spring, easy”

“Yeah, those’ll help. A crisp twenty says you reach 50 by Spring and fail the physical”

“Twenty says I reach 50 but pass the physical”

“Okay, you’re on. Homer” he laughed, and she giggled. “But, you’re looking more like you wanna go undercover as an ‘affected’.”

“Wait, is that a thing?”

“Jaz… no. Just, going undercover sounds about the worst thing you can do with those… food zombies” he said, to his smirking colleague.

 

+

 

Robson was beginning to regret going undercover. If he had heard PC Winston John’s assertion that it was about the worst thing you can do, he wouldn’t have taken much persuading to believe it. It had only been two weeks and he was really feeling the strain. As were his clothes.

“Fuck me, how does this shirt not even fit any more?” he said, looking at himself at the mirror, as his navy polo shirt wrestling with his pudding-infused frame, suffocating his middle and tightening around his chest, arms and shoulders.

“That is so hot” the two girls agreed, watching him struggle. They were lying down on the bed, exhilarated just at the sight of his flabby physique. So, maybe it wasn’t the worst thing you can do. He smiled and walked over.

“Go on then, which character do I look like?” he asked, subtly prizing more and more information out of them about these stories without actually having to read them.

“What about… him out of The Wedding Cake Story?” Hattie suggested.

“What’s his name? I can’t remember? Robson, you know?” Faizah added.

Robson gulped.

“Wedding Cake Story… no, I don’t remember that one” he dared, hoping that wouldn’t accidentally reveal himself as the fraud that he knew he was.

“Yeah, it wasn’t one of Fish’s most popular ones. But, if you like BHM, it’s actually pretty good” Hattie explained. “Hot, but also cute. Bit like you, Robson”.

He couldn’t help but repress a smile.

“Anyway, you two. I was thinking… weigh in, stuffing, and then threesome?” Faizah suggested, rather generously.

Yeah, maybe undercover work wasn’t so bad after all.

 

+

 

“A fucking terrorist? He called me a fucking terrorist?”

“I did warn you. All journalists are scum. Even the good ones. Especially the good ones”

Wolf raised his eyebrows knowingly at Imran. If the man knew how to smile, this is when he would have done it. Imran was just grateful that he was too much of a miserable bastard to rub it in too much.

They were sitting at a children’s park, only there weren’t any children on it. The swings, the slides, the see-saw. All unattended. Unaffected parents had taken to keeping their kids indoors, just in case. And affected parents just weren’t fans of walking all the way there. And this left the place to just these two. Imran pulled himself up onto the empty swing as he reflected guiltily.

“I know you did, bro. I know you did. And I shoulda listened. But still, why did he have to do me dirty like that?”

“There are two types of people in this world, Imran. People like us, and people like them. And that’s all there is to it. It’s really as simple as that” Wolf told him, standing in front of Imran with his hands in his pockets, as if refusing obstinately to go on the swings in case he gets bullied.

“And the guy on the phone? He’s a ‘them’?” Imran asked, pushing himself back and forth on the swing with his feet.

“Yeah, don’t trust him. My guess, he just wants the stories. For the power. They like to have power over people, Imran. It’s who they are. The state, business, the press, all of them. Don’t let them. Don’t be pushed around”

“Like I am now, on the swing?”

“Heh, yeah, kinda” he said, cracking into a half-smile. Imran looked on smugly, finally having opened him up.

“So, what do we do if we find the stories? Publishing them is the worst thing we can do. No press, no politics. How do we stop this thing?”

Wolf paused, hands still in his pocket, and looked up at the sky.

“They called us terrorists. They should be careful what they ask for…”

“Oh, I dunno, man. I don’t wanna hurt people” Imran protested, worry etched on his face, deep layers of concern running like rivers beneath the surface of his skin.

“Of course you don’t. That’s fine. I’ll… see to that side of things. You? You’re the face of the group. You’re… a fucking celebrity. What you have to do is… just shake hands and kiss b**s.

I’ll do the dirty work. I don’t mind my hands getting dirty”

“But, how many people are you planning on hurting?”

Wolf turned around sharply to Imran, now no longer swinging on the swing, just sitting there apprehensively.

“I dunno. How many people are hurting already? Hundreds? Thousands? Someone’s got to do something. Kum-bi-yah won’t fix this shit. What about your parents? You think they like what’s happening to them? Your brother? Your sister? Trapped in a madness? Every time it ‘affects’ someone, what it means is there is somebody whose soul is locked away, unable to be accessed. Their soul, their spirit, their fucking identity. When was the last time you saw your sister? You don’t know, do you? How big she is? How lost she is? Your mum? When was the last time you saw her?”

“I dunno… a week ago”

“And?”

“I mean, she was never skinny”

“And…”

“She’s so big, bro. It’s like she ate my mum or something. I… it’s her face and everything, but it’s not her. Not in her eyes, not in her body. Like they abducted her and replaced her with an alien. It’s… horrible”.

“And that, Imran, is why we have to be willing to hurt people. Because hurting people is how we save people”

“What about you? If I’m doing it for my mama and my brother and my sister… who are you doing it for? Who have you got?”

“I have people I care about. Had. I… I don’t wanna talk about it but… I’m fighting for people too”

 

+

 

“Obviously we don’t condone violence or criminality of any kind. Labour is the party of law and order and that is why inaction is as detrimental as negative action. Because, if the Prime Minister doesn’t get a grip on this, more and more people are going to feel unsafe. Unsafe in their own homes, unsafe at their schools, unsafe at their places of work. That’s unacceptable. And that’s why we in the Labour Party are asking for the Prime Minister to get on top of this crisis…”

Nadia Fletcher, MP for Coventry North, spoke with conviction, as she sat on the sofa in front of the ITV cameras.

“Yes, that’s all well and good saying ‘get on top of it’. We can all do that. What should he do? Because, if I’m being honest, you’re not offering any suggestions, you’re just sniping from the sidelines”

Sniping from the sidelines. That caused Nadia to wince inside. That was the line that the Prime Minister had been using. Telling anyone who would listen that criticising is easy, leading is difficult.

“Well, I don’t think that’s fair…”

“Well, what would you do?”

Nadia steeled herself. It didn’t help that her fitted power suit didn’t seem to fit very well at all. And here she was, on live national television, being grilled by Britain’s favourite homely bigot and TV anchor, and she was supposed to be going on about the obesity crisis while finding every suit she owned no longer fit her frame.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She did everything right. She went to the gym. She walked into the gym. She walked up to the machines at the gym. Tentatively touched the machines at the gym, before scurrying off back to the changing rooms so she could leave and feel less self-conscious by eating Malteasers in her leggings and her ex’s sleeveless shirt while watching Murder She Wrote and reading up on the latest findings from the UK Housing association’s investigation into the causes of homelessness. Everything right.

“Well, for a start, I’d attend the COBR meetings. Not sack them off and spend them with another blonde intern at some Gloucestershire getaway…”

The interviewer laughed a little at that. It wasn’t confirmed, but it was approaching general knowledge that the Prime Minister had been sacking the meetings off for a rendez-vous or two with whichever intern had the hair colour most similar to his and the bottom most like a pin cushion.

“Yes, yes. But apart from the philandering…”

“The airports. We need to close down our airports and seaports, and make sure this thing doesn’t escape and become an international pandemic”

“Wait, are you suggesting that we quarantine the whole of the UK?”

“If we don’t treat this seriously, then our allies internationally will. I’d rather us be the ones that draw up the drawbridge than have our international partners do it for us. Because this problem isn’t going away, no matter how much our Prime Minister considers it an inconvenience to his weekend proclivities”

“You think that might happen?”

“Oh, it will happen. Unless the Prime Minister gets a grip”

And Nadia Fletcher sat up straight. Proud. With genuine conviction. She’d nailed it, she was confident that she’d nailed it. Unfortunately, sitting up straight caused the button on her work trousers to pop across the screen.

“Ha, don’t worry love, we’d already cut” the bigoted anchor reassured, bending down and picking the button up for her. “Although, some might suggest it’s a little hypocritical to be going on about this obesity thing when you’re not looking as slender as you did when I first interviewed you”.

Nadia hated it. She couldn’t pinpoint what was worst. The lascivious undertones, the blatant sexist double-standards, or the fact that what he said was probably true.

“Oh, I know! I tell you what, if chocolate was slimming and fruit was bad for you, I’d be a size six!” she laughed a fake laugh, but sold it with her trademark nose crinkle.

“You know, I feel exactly the same about these things! You know, we always enjoy having you on the show, Nadia. And, if you ever find some slimming chocolate, let me know…”

Nadia crinkled her nose again and walked back off stage, where they could hopefully sew a button back on.

 

+

 

“Oh, I’m gonna miss you kid” her Dad kissed her warmly on the head.

“It’s France dad, it’s not the moon. It’ll be fine, dad, stop worrying. I’ve got my ticket, got my phone - charged - my purse. Everything is fine” his daughter reassured.

“And you have something to do on the plane?”

“It’s a one hour flight…”

“Some music, a film…”

“I did download this story my friend wanted me to read. I guess I could read that on the plane” she shrugged, before waving her parents off and heading towards the airport entrance, to catch her flight to France. Her dad was right about having something to do. She just hoped that her friend’s recommendation - a story called A Free Hit - would keep her sufficiently occupied for the flight.
 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Part 7

 

He stood at the pulpit, shoulders pushed up and hair unraveled, like a cross between Kingpin and Worzel Gummidge. He’d read his speech, working hard not to deviate from it, add his usual flourishes or embellishments. Verbose verbiage and grandiloquent detours into Greek tragedies and Latin comedies. No, he just stared down the barrel of the camera and addressed the nation.

That was the easy bit for the Prime Minister. The tricky bit was the questions from the press.

“Hi, Sarah Prinum, Sky News. Prime Minister - you spoke at length about how the whole thing has been exaggerated. But the friends and family members of ‘the affected’ have seen first-hand how devastated this… thing is. What is your message to those family members?”

He jumped into the answer.

“Ahh, yes, no. Absolutely. Good question Sarah and, may I just say, you are looking excellent as ever. So, no, yes, the… the families are… and the friends, the friends and the families of those ‘affected’. Obviously, we in the government, and I as the Prime Minister of this nation, our heart goes out to those affected by… the ‘affected’. Yes, but… and I cannot stress this enough… we will travel ad meliora. And we will beat this thing with British intelligence, British resolve and British grit. We will rise to the occasion and slay they beast that is… this… we will defeat the… we will rise to the occasion. Yes, I think that’s it”

Press conferences were one thing, for the Prime Minister, but a live address to the nation meant that he couldn’t afford to get this wrong. They were expecting over ten million worried men and women up and down the nation to be tuned in, and he would be the voice that calms them.

“Hi, Darcy Cologne, Daily Express here. Prime Minister - Labour have called for the grounding of all flights in and out of this country until we know how this thing is spreading. You have insisted otherwise. Now there have been confirmed cases in France, Spain and, as of this morning, Croatia. So, two questions - will you change your mind on this and, if not, how confident that other nations won’t simply ground any flights leaving Britain themselves?”

He patted himself down awkwardly and ruffled his already haystack hair.

“Well, thank you Darcy for that… those are all valid questions and… but I think I speak for the people of this great nation when I say we will not isolate ourselves from the world. We will not close the windows, curtains and blinds, and lock out the sunlight. We are a Global Britain, and I am proud of that. Now, you mention the Labour Party and, I have to say, it’s easy sniping from the sidelines but the simple matter is that their negativity, because that’s what it is, disrespects this nation and the people of this nation. But, if they won’t stand up for this country, I will. We will. The British Government. Not cowering or kowtowing. Those pusillanimous paranoiacs, lily livered and yellow bellied. I will not have it. Where is their pride? Where is their patriotism, I ask. But we will not raise the drawbridges, we will instead… be bold and show that Dunkirk spirit”

He finished his speech with a slam of his hand on the desk.

“Marcus Drayling, Huffington Post, and can I ask the Prime Minister what he makes of the name of ‘the affected’ that we’ve been using here, compared to the more common term overseas that is Coventry flu or British flu?”

“Well, obviously, that is… and I hope… I imagine that this goes without saying. But, what I would say on this matter, and this is, believe me, very… important. And it’s easy for Labour to snipe from the sidelines, and indeed attack not just those ‘affected’ but to attack all the poor souls who maybe struggle a bit with their weight. Attacking people’s freedoms. And, I can’t help notice, Marcus, that the girl MP from Coventry herself, should, if she is so concerned about obesity, maybe… y’know… tackle the problem at home…”

“With all due respect, Prime Minister, that didn’t answer the question about…”

“And, I’m afraid that’s all that we have time for this evening. Thank you for your questions and goodbye”

And he shuffled off in a ruffled manner down the corridor. Somebody should probably have told him about the new name for this phenomenon before he was quizzed on live television about it. But the news revolving around Coventry flu was evolving so fast that people that knew simply weren’t the ones who had the chance to prep him. And, the good thing with the PM is, even if you were bad at your job, at least he wouldn’t sack you.

 

+

 

Nadia Fletcher, MP for Coventry North, was having a bad week. On Monday, she was fat-shamed on national television by the Prime Minister of Great Britain. And on Friday, her favourite skirt stopped fitting.

And now it was a chilled Saturday afternoon, and none of the constituents that she was trying to get hold of out of concern for their well-being. A decent number of them had been getting in contact with her about their fears and concerns, all relating to seeing friends and family dive head-first into anything remotely edible. So, it worried her when those constituents wouldn’t then get into contact with her.

And this was the case with Mr Lewenburg. She hadn’t heard from him in over a month now, and she was beginning to fear the worst. She pressed the buzzer one more time, and shuffled in the doorway to keep warm.

“Hey!”

Nadia turned around, to look where the sound was coming from. She saw a woman’s head sticking out of a car that had pulled up alongside the pavement.

“Can I help you?” she said nervously.

“You’re her, aren’t you? The one that dickhead of a Prime Minister was talking about?” she shouted. She was from the passenger-side, and she was yelling through the lowered window. Nadia walked up with her arms crossed, just to keep some warmth on her.

People who recognised Nadia since that press conference usually fell into two camps. Essentially, those camps were Labour and Conservative. Women’s bodies were not above the crossfire of tribalism. But, more precisely, they fell into supportive/feminist rally cries or shameful mocking. A woman’s body, as determined by a man, made her a divisive figure, and she had no say in the matter, one way or the other.

“Yeah, for my sins” Nadia got closer to the car now. The woman at the wheel was an attractive woman for her size. Blonde hair, kind smile. She was also rather zaftig.

“Well, I think you look well good” the woman in the car said.

“Awww, thank you” Nadia said, twisting her head and seeing a male driver next to her. Like she, he was well-proportioned.

“But why are you against the Coventry virus?” she asked.

“Why? Umm… I mean, aren’t you worried about it… sorry, what’s your name?” Nadia asked.

“Cerys, and this is my boyfriend Juan. And how about you pop over for a cup of tea and we’ll share our thoughts. You are our MP, after all” she said with that big smile of hers.

 

+

 

“Are you sure you don’t want to be fed?” Robson asked, with his cheeks puffed out with bloat. The two girls opposite seemed a little less exhausted. He was on the sofa with Faizah, and Hattie was sprawled across the floor.

“Well, of course we do” Faizah reassured him as she grabbed the pizza box.

“And it is sooo nice of you too. Really kind” Hattie added.

“But it’s your turn, Robson, mod of Morley. So, open wide, our growing boy…”

It had been this way for four weeks now. And while the girls were normally only too obliging when he tried to project the gluttony back onto them, sometimes he had to keep his cover and take one for the team.

Those four weeks hadn’t helped his investigation much, but there were slivers of information that, when held together, almost presented a picture. He had, for instance, come to the conclusion that Morley Baker was still alive, and was fairly confident that Hattie and Faizah could, should they ever desire to do so, get in contact with her. He was also increasingly familiar with the stories of Swahilimonkfish, without ever reading or listening to them. He knew, for example, about this writer’s obsession with female homosexuality, about how his writing was just a projection of his own self-loathing, about how his stories usually deteriorated in quality as they progressed. And it also meant that he knew the name and topic of his latest story, the one that this writer was currently only partway through, and it was this one that seemed to interest him the most. It seemed this one was the one that kickstarted the virus, essentially.

Those four weeks hadn’t helped his waistline much, either. And there was no sliver of consolation this time. The 22lbs that he had gained in the past four weeks meant that he was 22lbs heavier than his highest ever weight. Essentially. Clothes that barely fit him before, just straight up didn’t come close any more. His husky days were fast becoming sepia-tinged as he came to recognise that he was probably downright fat now. 211lbs on his 5ft11 frame and not a pound of that was muscle.

He knew all this because another feature of this writer’s works. Weigh-ins. The guy - or girl, nobody really knew - was obsessed with weigh-ins. Even if it seemed tenuous or unjustifiable from a narrative point - according to Hattie. All of his stories were essentially just window-dressing for just an excel spreadsheet of steadily ascending numbers, and bizarrely measured in pounds rather than the European kilos or the anachronistic British stones. He didn’t need to read the stories to know all this, because his obsession became the girl’s obsession, and weigh-ins were as much a part of their diet and as a poor diet was.

Hattie and Faizah had been the focal point of the feeding frenzy. Which was only fair, since they were the only ones ‘affected’. But Robson had to keep up appearances and, not just engage in it, but feign being aroused by it. Aroused by his own growing weight. Aroused by each of theirs. The girls radiated sexual energy at the slyest reference to it, and were blitzkrieged with sheer euphoria as the topic became more direct. And Robson had to mimic the same, summoning tumulescence at the drop of a sausage roll. Robson was pretty sure Gurinder never had to do this out in Basra.

And, all this meant that Robson was given a running commentary of their weight gain, as well as his own. He knew that, for instance, Faizah was 211lbs when they first invited them into their kinky inner circle. He also knew that the 211lbs was now 34lbs out of date. The young, green girl with a youthful face and strong features was now a face of pooled yoghurt, round and ruddy.

And then there was Hattie. Who was not patient zero - presumably that was Morley Baker - but whose size demonstrated irrepudiably that she was ‘affected’ earlier than her best friend/lover/feeder/feedee. Hattie was over 250 when he first met her, and now she was 43lbs further along down the road, drawing her to the precipice of 300. Or, as she called it, half a Rutherford. Always erring on the side of short and stumpy, she was revelling in her growth taking place in a predominantly outward direction, with saddled legs and a heavy stomach. Not even half a year into this crisis and both girls had more than doubled their respective starting weights.

 

+

 

Mr Collins straightened his tie and broke out a smile.

“Well, I understand how it might look from the outside, but rest assured…”

“But we’re not on the outside, Mr Collins…”

“Please, call me Colin. This is a family business”

The older, greyer, suited man paused to collect himself.

“As I was trying to say, we’re not on the outside, Mr Collins, we’re your shareholders. And this isn’t a family business any more, this is our business. We own more than half of this business, ergo it is ours. Not yours. Not your family’s. And, from this internal perspective, it looks like you’ve bankrupted this company on a hunch”
Mr Collins felt uncomfortable at that accusation. Bankrupted seemed a loaded term. He turned to Jake for reassurance, but he wasn’t there. And Mr Collins was feeling very alone and somewhat naked without his trusty steed by his side.

“I appreciate the concern, but this isn’t a hunch. This was a tactical decision based on real-time, on-the-ground information. Coventry flu is spreading. Across the country and, unless stopped, the world. The evidence is clear for all to see. And we are in prime position to cash-in on this opportunity. It will be us, this company, MY COMPANY… that will make a killing as people rush to feed their fat faces on our over-priced products”

Mr Collins composed himself after his minor outburst.

“My eldest son is one of those people rushing to feed their fat face on over-priced products, Mr Collins. He is in his third week of Coventry flu, thank you very much. As for this ‘real-time’ information. I don’t disagree that this situation could be a cash-cow. But you rushed in, blatantly cashing in on the misfortune of others, you risk putting this company in the crosshairs of political and media critics, and you jumped the gun. You still don’t have the stories, do you? So why did you spend all of our money four months ago? We’re living off fumes here”

Mr Collins hung his head low, before going for one last push.

“I see how that might be one way of looking at events. But we’re on the brink of finding these stories. In fact, I was just saying this yesterday, wasn’t I Ja…” he turned around, temporarily forgetting his assistant wasn’t here. “My assistant, Jake, he is days, maybe even hours, away from finding this source material. And then we can redistribute it in a targeted way, focusing on areas where we have high visibility, the cities and towns where that money has been spent and those eateries have been bought. That’s our plan and…”

“It seems this assistant of yours knows more about the operation than you do, and maybe he should be the one leading this company from hereon in. It also gives us distance from your… less-than-conscientious decision-making. While we, of course, reap all the profit. You are dismissed, Mr Collins”

“Thank you” he replied, timidly.

“No, Mr Collins, you misunderstand. I said, you are dismissed. You are no longer CEO of this company, we voted on it earlier this morning, pending any comments that might cause us to change our minds. But it seems more and more apparent that this Jake Baker would be a far more adept and compassionate CEO for the next, more prosperous phase of this company’s cycle. And now you are dismissed, Mr Collins. The other kind of dismissed, too”

Jake Baker read the minutes of this meeting and smiled to himself, before instructing his tech geek to roll out the plan to spread the Coventry flu in areas where they had done most of their investment. Swahilimonkfish’s work was about to go viral, and so was the Coventry flu. And this is how it started. The first of the corporate investments into the Coventry flu.

 

+

 

Nadia knew. Nadia Fletcher, MP for Coventry North, knew straight away. She knew from the very moment that she walked through their front door. From the heaps of rubbish, the piles of junk food, the takeout cartons, those cardboard boxes that the expensive meals for two sometimes come in, all of them across the floor and on the kitchen work surface. No rationally minded person lived like this. Which means that they were not of rational mind.

“Please, sit down Nadia. Do you want some tea?” Cerys asked, cheerfully.

“Tea would be lovely, ta” Nadia smiled, looking around nervously.

“I’ll make it” Juan said helpfully. “You look after our guest”.

“You’ve realised, haven’t you?” Cerys said, still sweetly smiling.

“You’re affected, aren’t you?” Nadia fidgeted on the spot.

“Yup. Three… going on four months now. Can’t you tell?” Cerys smiled, pulling her arms back to present her frame. She didn’t so much look Rubenesque as she did positively Lucian Freudian.

“You seem really… cogent. Is that… offensive, sorry? It’s just… all the stories I’ve heard, people are just in a mist when they become… affected” Nadia said, gratefully receiving her cup of tea. She was about to bring it to her lips, before she paused.

“Don’t worry, it’s not spiked. We’re not here to recruit. Or spread. Or however you like to think of it. No, we wanted to talk to you for other reasons” Cerys still smiled warmly, strangely uncoordinated with the words she was saying.

“And yes, we’re all compos mentis… as our PM would say. Being ‘affected’ isn’t about being in a fog” Juan added, as he sat down next to his girlfriend with a bag of mini Dunkin Donuts for them to help themselves. “It’s about clarity. I mean, think about it. What do you want in life? How many times have you thought you wanted something, and then regretted it later? With us, and with the writings of Fish, we have absolute clarity and control over what we want. We want to get fat, and we want others to get fat too. It… turns us on, big time”.

“Oh, Juan! What are you thinking? Offer one to our guest” Cerys nudged her well-padded boyfriend to offer a mini donut to Nadia. She politely declined.

“See, that’s an example of something we’re not huge fans of. It’s a real boner-killer” Juan smiled politely.

“I’m a bit uncomfortable…” Nadia glanced nervously for the door.

“If you ran, it’s not like we’ll catch you” Cerys giggled, and Juan laughed. “But seriously, we’re not trying to harvest your organs or anything. And we’d never do anything against anyone’s desires. We just wish more people desired to get fatter.”

“Cos that would be hot” Juan said with a smile.

“So hot” Cerys added, still smiling.

“So, why am I here? You want me to stop the campaign?” Nadia fidgeted in her seat, never comfortable with how she was sitting.

“I mean, ideally, yeah. But, honestly, it doesn’t matter. The dye is already cast on that one. We’re spreading. Literally. No, what we want is to give you this” Juan grinned politely, as he handed over a memory stick. “Download it onto your phone. Don’t listen to it. I mean, you can listen to it, but… it’s an audio file of Cerys reading A Free Hit. Which is to his work what Genesis is to the Bible. It’s up to you if you want to listen to it. I’d recommend just coming over to the darkside. We literally have cookies”.

“But, the reason my boyfriend has given you that stick is because, if they come for you, and they will come for you, threaten them with the audio file. Nobody will risk it, for fear of being quote/unquote ‘affected’” Cerys added, still smiling, her jaw muscles relentless.

“Oh. Umm… thanks?” Nadia tentatively took the stick.

“Yeah, and I wouldn’t tell anyone about this, either. Meeting us. You’ll get pegged as affected-sympathisers…”

“Affected-sympathisers?” Nadia cocked her head quizzically.

“Yeah, tonight, they’re gonna do their big counter-protest against The Renegades. I think it’s gonna get nasty. Plus, some people already suspect you’re secretly in cahoots with us, just by virtue of your gain” Juan suggested kindly.

“Which we love, by the way. Keep up the good work. Are you sure you don’t want a mini-donut?” Cerys added with a polite gesture, holding up the pack of donuts to her. “You can rationalise it as body-positivity if it helps. In a way, it kinda is”.

Nadia picked up one mini-donut and nervously put it in her mouth. It really had been a strange week for Nadia Fletcher, MP for Coventry North. From how it started, to how it ended.
 

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Part 8

 

“My fellow Americans. When I was elected as the President of the United States of America, it was the honour of a lifetime. To serve the country I grew up in, that my children grew up in, my wife grew up in, fills me with pride. And pride is the word that springs to mind when I look around here, and see proud Americans here today. Proud of who they are. Proud of what they have achieved. Proud of their part in building the United States of America we call home.

Because that is who America is. When folk come up to me and they ask, they say “Hey Bob, what is the United States of America to you?”. You know what I tell them. It’s the people. American people. Sure, American has some fantastic wildlife and topography. Sure. But it’s the people that make this country what it is. It’s the people that I am proud to represent. It is the people that I, as your elected President, am proud and sworn to protect.

And that’s a key word. ‘Protect’. My job, as your President, is to keep you safe. It’s my duty. And as an American, duty is what drives me. It’s what gives me purpose. Protecting you. The great American public. In times gone by, that protection has come from hostile forces, domestic and abroad. My predecessors protected the American people then. In other times, it’s on our own streets. From crime, violence, reckless endangerment. And, again, my predecessors swore to keep America safe. And now that mantle falls to me. And it is my turn to keep you safe. And, folks at home watching, rest assured that I will do that. I will keep you safe.

This time, the invading force doesn’t have a face. It doesn’t have a passport. It doesn’t respect borders. This invasion is an invisible one. But it is one I take very seriously. They call it the British virus. They call it the Coventry virus. We’ve all seen it, on the news, on the radio. This is the threat that we are facing. Today. Here. All of us. It is attacking this country. And, as I said before, what is this country if not its people?

We have, already, tragically, seen our first few cases of this invading force on our shores. At 8 o’clock, Eastern Standard Time, a young man and woman began behaving atypically. The symptoms are the ones that have been reported to be afflicting Britain and some parts of Europe. My heart goes out to those affected, and the friends and families of those affected. I understand the pain, and suffering, you must be going through now. And I don’t want another single American soul to feel that pain.

That is why I reached out to our international allies. In the European Union. And in all of the G20 nations. And we had to make a choice. And, let me tell you, this wasn’t a choice we made easily. We did so with sorrow in our heart. But that duty, that moral obligation to keep you, the American people, safe, rang through and rang clear. Mired as we all were in this terrible situation, the clarity in my mind came from this duty, this obligation, to keep you safe. It was the lighthouse that guided our logic through those stormy seas. A moral lighthouse. That is what America is. A moral lighthouse.

And, it was after charting the path of guidance provided by this moral lighthouse, through the rocks and waves, that we came to this difficult decision.

The United States of America and all of its allies are, from this moment on, grounding all flights to and from the United Kingdom. Grounding all shipping containers from the United Kingdom. And, this one folks is the one that’s gonna sting, we are shutting down the internet in the United Kingdom, to prevent this British virus from spreading further to our shores.
This will, of course, be reassessed constantly. And, if the situation changes, so will our cause of action. But this is our way through these stormy waters. This is how we keep America safe. This is how we keep the people of America safe.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America”.

And the camera stopped rolling, and Bob Brydon, the 46th President of the United States exhaled.

And 3600 miles away, the British Prime Minister threw his bottle of brandy against the wall in frustration and shouted “Bugger!”.

 

+

 

Mr Lewenburg was showing an emotion other than fuzzy euphoria for the first time in months. Lying next to his wife, flopped like a dead seal on their straining mattress, they were trying to access Swahilimonkfish’s DA page. But the internet was down. The internet, it seemed, was down everywhere.

“Guess we better order in then?” he suggested to his wife, and began to kiss her tenderly.

 

+

 

“I went for the navy suit in the end” Jake smiled at his wife. “Here, let me take the little mite”.

His wife, Jo,  handed over the baby to Jake, who held it so that its head could rest on his shoulder. Slowly, he began gently rising up and down rhythmically so the baby felt the comfort of his rocking.

“Should have gone with the grey” Jo smiled. She was about the same age as him, early fifties, and she wore those years around her eyes. She had sad eyes. Jo always had sad eyes, even when she smiled.

“They’re gonna give me the position anyway” Jake laughed.

“And then…”

“Don’t worry dear, I know what I’m doing. I know who I’m doing this for”

“Family” she smiled, giving him a peck on the cheek.

“Family” he agreed. And then he balled his face up in frustration as warmth on his shoulder dripped down his suit. “The baby’s just been sick, hasn’t she?”

“Looks like you’re wearing the grey suit after all” Jo smiled, her eyes still oceans of melancholy as the corner of her lips upturned. “Here, pass your grand-daughter over to me and get yourself changed. I don’t want you arriving late”.

 

+

 

The three of them lay on the floor, heads drooping against the sofa, hands resting on their engorged guts. It was late morning, and they were suffering from a late morning food coma.

“That. was. epic” Hattie giggled, before the vibration of her giggling on her diaphragm caused her to hiccough.

“I have never seen that much food before, let alone eaten it” Robson agreed, closing his eyes from the exhaustion.

“Yeah. Fuck yeah. You know, lunch is gonna be so fucking good” Faizah giggled, before lighting up a cigarette.

“Pass us one of them” Hattie asked, taking one and enjoying her first drag. “Robson?”

“Nah, I’m good. Those aren’t my poison” Robson smiled.

“You not a Bluebell fan then?” Faizah looked up suspiciously.

“Sorry?”

“Or Betty Bollingbrooke? Ruth Kodak from Big Dater? Or Zhavia from Doughballs All The Way Down? You need to spend a little less time obsessing over his old stuff Robson. His later stuff, he approaches character deterioration more broadly, smoking, drinking, that kinda thing. He’s a fucking pervert is Fish, and I don’t actually think its a very popular decision but the man has weird tastes. And, to that end, he’s sure given me a craving” Hattie explained. “I’m up to 10 a day now”.

Robson breathed deeply. Out of relief. Every now and then, he worried he would be rumbled. He’d put his foot in it or accidentally reveal his ignorance of the source material. But, he also breathed deeply because he was stuffed. To the gills. And beyond. He could feel it, his own fat, weighing on him. He felt sluggish, lethargic and so very very heavy. And the only thought he could think was that he better get a Pulitzer for all this.

He wasn’t really in it for the Pulitzer though. You don’t eat like he had been eating, just for some professional acknowledgement. You don’t gain a further 15lbs over the past 3 weeks, just to maintain some cover with a bunch of food zombies, just to get a prize. He was in it for Morley. He owed it to her, to get some answers, to get some resolution, to get some closure.

And, with that in mind:

“So, Morley… how big is she? Because she was ‘affected’ first, right? Two weeks before you two?” He said, pushing his head against his own chins to look at the two girls next to him.

“She got a two week headstart, that’s true. Which, is kinda hot, I have to admit” Hattie smiled, biting her own bottom lip at the thought until it drew blood.

“Morley must be huge then. Like, if she’s patient zero” Robson pressed. Faizah squirmed a little at the suggestion.

“You wanna know about Morley?”

“Yeah, I guess”

“So, you remember when Morley did that Last of Us 2 playthrough? I mean, you were her mod so I’m sure you remember. Anyway, when she was Abby’s character, and she needed to get medical supplies for Yara? And they’re going to the hospital basement and that woman is like ‘be careful down there, this hospital was ground zero for the whole city”? And then you go down there and you realise what ground zero means, when you come across that fucking creature - the Rat King?”

“Morley’s the Rat King?”

“No! Morley’s just a bloater. No, she’s not patient zero. Look at the dates when the first story was written. December 2018. Somebody wrote it, in 2018. And whoever wrote it, has been with this story for two years. Whoever this Fish guy is… he’s ground zero. He’s the Rat King.”

“Fish is the Rat King? Fish is patient zero? Guy… or girl… well they must be…”

“Fucking huge? Insanely big. Like comparing a runner to the fucking Rat King”

“Yeah!” Robson said, with a smirk. “Wait, do you think we should try to find him?”

 

+

 

“Hi, sorry for not being any earlier, but… I had sartorial issues. Grandchildren are… they are fun, but they cause havoc.” Jake smiled disarmingly as he sat down to face the board. He looked sharp, in his grey suit and black shirt, and a lean physique that he’d maintained over a series of decades.

“No, we understand. After all, this is a family business, Mr Baker.”

“Oh, please. Call me Jake. Everyone calls me Jake” he smiled, as he rested his left leg on his right knee.

“Okay then… Jake. Well, we’ve been very interested in your pitch. You think you can coordinate investment in local eateries with spikes of the Coventry Virus?” the head of the board asked. “Even though we are currently offline, thanks to President Brydon”.

“Not a problem. I prefer doing things the old-fashioned way. It’s how I’ve come this far. Plus, analogue over digital probably protects the company from any insinuations of impropriety” he reasoned, holding his hands together loosely, with composure.

“Part of your proposal was about lab-grown food?”

“Yes, we spend billions on R&D, it’s time we cashed those chips. It’s not perfect at the minute, but I don’t think the ‘affected’ are too discerning over minor textural inaccuracies as long as the product is similar calorifically. Plus, it can be mechanised easily within our current systems, which helps given our recent… staff attendance issues” Jake seemed well-prepped in giving his answers, and giving answers that the board were keen to hear.

“What about the issue with The Renegades? They’ve become a little more violent, recently. And they are attacking our stock before it gets to our shopfronts. We are taking a huge hit and, as you probably know, Mr Collins burnt through our reserves on his speculative investment strategy”

Jake tried to fashion a sober face, but a sneaking smirk danced along his lips.

“I… have The Renegades under control. You can trust me on that”

The board members looked at each other, fairly content with his confidence at least.

“And finally, Jake… it was leaked to the press this morning that the Prime Minister intends to announce an Anti-Affected Unit. There’s talk of detaining these people - these customers - as well as quarantining the whole of Coventry, which is obviously our most lucrative region”

Jake frowned at this. He hadn’t had an opportunity to read The Times this morning - the paper that the Prime Minister invariably leaked his plans to. But he did have an answer all lined up.

“Well, I have it on good authority that we shouldn’t treat the Prime Minister or this Government as a going concern”

“You think… Government will collapse”

“I think it’s already covered in gasoline. We just need to light the match” he smiled.

 

+

 

“It’s official babe, I got the job” Jake told his wife down the phone. “Yeah, yeah, everything going to plan... No, no, I’m doing that next... I just… I just wanted to let you know… Yeah, yeah, I’ll call her now”

Jake stood in the elevator and leant heavily against the railings. Nervously he put his phone back to his ear again, and pressed dial.

The phone rang.

And rang.

And, finally, someone answered.

“Sorry about that, I was the other side of the room” came the out-of-breath voice on the other side.

“I got it, honey. It’s done”

“Everything as I asked. The lab-grown food, going analogue, taking down the Renegades?”

“Yeah, it’s sorted. Now… can you come home? Please? I’ve done everything you asked honey, and I will do everything you ask. Just please come home Morley, your family misses you. Your little girl misses you. Please?”

He couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. He tried to be the strong, reliable one in the family. The rock of the family. But somehow his wife was the one most able to hold it all together, while he would just have periodic breakdowns or waterfall tears. And, listening to his daughter, a daughter he hadn’t seen in nearly six months, his dearest, dearest Morley Baker. It was all too much for him, and he collapsed in a heap on the floor of the elevator in deep, deep sobbing.

“Of course, dad. Just order four pizzas for when I get back… and maybe something for you guys”.

 

+

Imran sat by the hospital bed, watching the ventilation equipment keep her alive. His right foot bounced furiously, tip-tap-tip-tapping on the floor as his head hung low in sorrow. The hospital was cold. You’d thought people in hospitals would benefit from someone turning the heating a little.

Lying on the bed was an intubated Mrs Pique. That was all that he knew her as. Mrs Pique. Apparently her first name was Esmerelda, and that her friends called her Esme. But Imran didn’t even know that. He knew that she loved her son with all the fire and fury of an Amazon forest fire. Juan was one of the first ones to be ‘affected’. Him, and his girlfriend Cerys, began to show symptoms in Mr Lewenburg’s ice cream parlour not long after Faizah was ‘affected’. He knew that his downward spiral pushed her to despair. To heart-ache. And to fury.
He also knew that she was one of the ones that Wolf had radicalised, within their already radical group, to take the violence up a notch. She didn’t need radicalising. That anger, that her son was taken away from her and nobody seemed to care or be willing to do something about it, that was all the motivation she needed. The first petrol-bombing happened last week.
Imran buried his head in the sand at this point. Wolf’s team were essentially a movement within the main movement. Practically independent. Imran didn’t know the details. He didn’t know the plans. He didn’t want to. He should have intervened after the counter-protestations started. The activists, defending the ‘affected’. The so-called ‘affected’-sympathisers. As if Imran wasn’t doing this out of sympathy for those affected. Like his mum. Like his brother. Like his sister.

And then yesterday happened, and now Mrs. Pique was lying in a hospital. And all Imran could do was watch the machine keep her alive.

Well, not all he could do.

“Well, look who we have here. If it isn’t the leader of the Renegades himself?”

Two police officers walked up to him, looking down at the 18 year old kid.

“You want me to come down the station?”

“Pffft, nah. No need. We can do it here if you like. I… understand that you might want to spend a bit more time with Mrs Pique” the first officer said. He was a black man with a short afro and thick-rimmed glasses. Behind him stood a red-haired woman with her arms folded. They pulled up chairs and sat next to him.

“Thanks”

“She one of yours then? I take it. Found at the scene of the incident” the first officer asked.

“Yeah. Sorta. I mean, she was one of the first. And one of the angriest. I liked her. Her anger… it was just love really, love that hurt” Imran said, shaking his head in frustration.

“Hijacking a truck is dangerous though, Imran. You had to know the risks, young man”

“I know it’s dangerous. Like, why were they even pulling that shit, bro! I mean, the petrol-bombing was bad, the riots on Sunday with the ‘affected’-sympathisers was just wrong. But this?”

“You asking us to believe that you weren’t involved in the recent escalation of violence?”

“Nah, bro. I… I should have been. I’m not making excuses or trying to avoid being arrested. Believe me, I know I’m going away for all this. And it is my fault, in a way. I think back, to that conversation at the park. I let him deal with it. Zero accountability. Just to ease my conscience. Well, my conscience isn’t feeling very eased.” Imran said,taking a deep intake of breath to stop tears from forming.

“So, my name is PC Winston John, this officer here, the one who is always eating, and no, she’s not affected, before you ask, she’s just… like that, she’s WPC Jasmine Jennings. And this is just an informal chat. I’m not arresting you. Yet. I reserve the right to arrest you later. But, for now, we just want to talk” the man said, with kind eyes.

“She… she is ‘affected’. By the way. You can tell. It’s a thing they do, with their eyes. I saw mama do it. Like their pupils don’t move when their irises do. Not properly” Imran said, pointing to his female colleague.

“No, she’s… it’s an appetite thing. I think I’d know if she was a food zombie. Now, this guy you were talking about, is this the Wolf man that you mentioned on the phone? Could I get a sketch artist to come down and draw up a composite?” PC Winstone John said, getting his pad out of his top pocket and writing down.

“Yeah, sure. Whatever. I’m… I want it all out. The Renegades need to die. We… we aren’t a force for good any more… I’m sorry, but your colleague is clearly ‘affected’” Imran said, looking at the female police officer.

“No, it’s… this doughnut is just… it’s a Simpsons reference… it’s…” WPC Jasmine Jennings laughed.

“She gain weight real recently, by any chance? Has her attendance declined, by any chance? Low impulse control, by any chance? You’ve seen the adverts, those are the signs to look out for. And that weird eye thing, where it’s so dead in there that the pupil doesn’t move enough, that’s another sign. I’ve seen it” Imran said, getting agitated.
PC Winston John tried to laugh it off, but felt a bit awkward. Each of those comments, about the signs that someone may be affected, rung true.

“But I’m not a zombie, that’s the big give-away” WPC Jasmine Jennings smiled.

“They don’t have to be. When they want something, they get it. And what they want is usually to eat and gain and have sex. But, sometimes, they want to arrest the leader of The Renegades, so the rest of their kind can eat and gain and have sex, without interruption. She’s a fucking plant. And they can act normal, if it suits them. I’ve seen it” Imran pointed his finger accusatively.

“Trust me, young man. She’s not one of them. Right, Jaz?”

“I mean, would it be so bad if I was?” WPC Jasmine Jennings suddenly smiled.

 

(to be continued)
 

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Part 9

 

PC Winston John stood up nervously and back up. Both he and Imran were surrounded on three sides. Two sides were the hospital ward’s white walls. And the third side was poor Mrs Pique, lying in her bed and strapped to machinery. The only way out was past WPC Jasmine Jennings, who was still sitting in her seat, and eating a doughnut through a shameless smile.

“What’s going on Jaz? Why are you acting all crazy, all of a sudden?” Winston asked, his hand slipping slowly towards his Taser.

“All of a sudden? I ate doughnuts at a crime scene, Winston. I went from being the cutest officer in the whole station and I had Sarge wrapped around my bony fingers, and now I’m 55lbs heavier and I’ve started to chafe when I walk, which is actually quite annoying” the female officer continued.

“So you’re one of them. One of the crazies?”

“The term is ‘affected’, Winston. ‘Crazies’ isn’t very PC, and we are police constables, as you reminded me. It is kinda hot though, as a nickname. I’m totally okay with it” she continued, between bites of her doughnuts.

“But… you…”

“Yeah, so my youngest sister is Shania. Or Shay. She was one of the first. Basically, my sister and Imran’s sister are friends. Which makes us buddies, I think? How you doing back there, buddy?” she smiled and waved at the nervous teenager. “As for the whole behaviour thing, you wouldn’t believe how much self-restraint I’ve had to show. Only gaining 55lbs in five months? What am I? One of Fish’s slow-burn weight gain stories that he never finishes? Fuck that. But I did it anyway. Real self-sacrifice on my part. And Imran’s right about the behaviour thing. We’re not robots, or aliens. We’re just… focused. On the things that matter. Like people becoming more and more over-abundant”.

“But why Jaz? Why? What is it that you want?”

“What is it that I want? Let me think… flapjack, chocolate cake, mainly sweet stuff actually. I’m a Bluebell fan, you see. Ohhh, you mean… what is it that I want? Why did I go undercover? Oh, well, that’s simple. To arrest this little brat and all his accomplices. And stop anyone from getting in the way” WPC Jasmine Jennings seemed to enjoy monologuing almost as much as she enjoyed doughnuts.

“So… world domination? Are you a Bond villain, bro?” Imran asked mockingly, but rather acerbically.

“No… not world domination. Just… freedom. Liberty. Basic human rights, essentially. And chocolate cake. Which should be made a human right come the new world order. I’m joking about the new world order thing. Or am I?” she giggled, as she dusted herself down.

“I’m going to have to arrest you, Jaz”

“For what? Impersonating a police officer? I am still a police officer. I’m still WPC Jasmine Jennings. I’m just… peckish, too” she shrugged. “And we are both here, trying to serve the law and bring about justice. You want to take down the Renegades and, lo, so do I. What I do in my spare time, is irrelevant”

“Yeah, but what about when the Prime Minister goes after… all the… y’know your kind”

“He’s not going to be Prime Minister for much longer. We’re working on that”

The three of them paused, each of them with a lot to digest. Though, only for WPC Jasmine Jennings was that literally.

“I’ll help” Imran said, suddenly.

“Oh. I wasn’t expecting you to be okay with this?” the female officer frowned.

“You said, you ‘affected’ can act normal, if it helps them get what they want. And what you want is to stop the Renegades. If I help you stop the Renegades… would you persuade my family to act normal. With me” Imran asked, nervously. “It’s all I want. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. And, not like forever. But… I dunno, weekends or just Sunday evening, watching Law and Order with my mama and my sister. If you can deliver that, I will help you take down Wolf and his splinter cell”

“I… I’d have to check with them but… I don’t see why not. I’ve made so much sacrifice, surely they should share the load. Deal” WPC Jasmine Jennings said with an affirmative nod. “And you, Winston? You okay with this?”

“No. I’m not okay. You lied. Or deceived, if you wanna get pedantic. You didn’t trust me. I’m your partner. I have your back. You have my back. That’s how this works! At times, our job gets scary, and I thought I had absolute confidence in you. So, no! I’m not okay. I’m distinctly un-okay. But, I don’t wanna lose my partner to some evil plan by our Prime Minister who I didn’t even vote for anyway, cos I’m an ancestor of the Windrush generation and he’s the prick that betrayed them. And you’re… Jaz. Still. Sorta. Just… Jaz. So I’ll go along with all this. But you better have my back, Officer” PC Winston John insisted.

“Permission to forever have your back... granted. Over and out” she smiled. She really was a Bluebell enthusiast. That’s exactly how she would have answered.

 

+

 

“I’m sorry for looking at you funny. It’s just… I’ve missed you so much, my little Morley” Jo said, smiling kindly.

“Yeah, sure” Morley Baker said, eating a lasagna with a spoon. “Hey, could you order some more Chinese food. These lasagnas have been filling, but I need Chinese food. And maybe some kebabs. Oh, and does the cornershop still do those Cornish pasties? I could go a couple of them. They’d go well with some banoffee pies. And maybe some sticky toffee puddings. Oh, and a couple of them NikNak family packs. Some breaded mushrooms with the garlic dip. Oh, and please can you get me some of daddy’s ice cream?”

“Sure thing, Morley-minks” Jo said, undeterred by the list.

Morley had been home for two weeks now. She’d been cold at first. Distant. But, the more she practiced, the better she got at mimicking her former self. The better she got at being warm and friendly to her parents. She struggled with the child. It seemed to just be a drain on resources, plus having a child under one around meant her libido would have to hibernate until the evenings.

“Little one’s asleep. If he’s anything like you were, that’ll be the last we’ll hear of him until morning” Jake said, tip-toeing down the stairs.

“Cool” Morley replied, before flinching, in frustration. “Shit! I meant… awwww”.

“Yeah, that’s the better response. But, don’t worry, you’ll get there. Your mum restocking for you?”

“Yeah” she said, her interest waning in the conversation. “Oh, I should ask, how was work? Are the Renegades crushed yet?”

“Not yet. But I spoke to my man on the inside, and he’s working with one of yours. A police officer called Jasmine? Anyway, they’re trying to find this Wolf character…”

“They don’t know where Wolf is? Werewolf? Geddit?” Morley grinned dopily.

“Hey, you can do humour!”

“Puns. Not really humour. The writer, Fish, thinks He’s funny. It’s kinda off-putting when all us readers want is to masturbate feverishly to…”

“Okay, okay… remember what I said about what was appropriate in and around your parents?” Jake quietly chastised, and Morley rolled her eyes.

All things considered, things were going quite well. Jake didn’t know of any other families with this kind of relationship across ‘affected’ lines. Maybe it was because Morley needed her dad still. To take out The Renegades, but also to roll out distribution of His works. It was a useful quid pro quo for her, and he got to be with his daughter. So, like I said, quite well, all things considered.

The main difference, quite predictably, was her appearance. Morley had always been a thin and attractive girl. It’s an uncomfortable truth, but it seemed to be a necessary characteristic if you wanted to make it as a gamer or streamer. The target demographic for the area was predominantly incels and perverts - or young men, for short - and while there was an increasing amount of female representation, it still paid to play up to traditional beauty standards if you wanted to get ahead.

Pregnancy had left surprisingly little indentation of Morley’s physique. Things were softer, perhaps, and certainly less taut. But she wasn’t much heavier. She had enough youth on her side that it wasn’t an issue. She dressed well, and didn’t begrudge being a bit curvier too much.

And then it happened.

The girl sat before them was not that same. Not by 300lbs. Whether by necessity or choice - you simply didn’t know with the ‘affected’ - her clothes didn’t fit. The lower half of her gigantic stomach drooped under the limitations of her top, and down beyond the hem of her leggings. Sitting down, as she was, with her legs splayed like the clock’s hands at 9:50, her stomach pooled onto the floor. And the sensation of carpet on the underside of her stomach would cause her to close her eyes and hold her breath a second. Even her face was now orbited by a Saturn’s ring of fat, rounding her face completely and making looking down more difficult. She was a 450lb girl now, just 7 months later. But, in her defence, she did have a free hit.
“Also.. one more thing Morley… you ever gonna tell us where you went those few months? Or what you were doing those few months?”

But she just shook her chunky head, with her game face on and all of her thoughts pointing like a compass at food.

Jo and Jake put their arms around one another, and let their heads lean against each other in comfort as they watched their daughter burrow her way through one meal after another. She was back. That was the important thing. That was the only thing that mattered. He would set fire to planet Earth if he had to, if it meant he could spend time with his only daughter.

But, as he watched his daughter, with a rare smile on his face, his phone lit up. IMRAN. Jake groaned in frustration.

“I have to take this”

 

+

 

Imran was in the footwell of his parent’s Toyota Corrola again, in the dark of his parent’s garage again, Nokia 3310 pressed up against his ear again. Only difference was, this time there were two police officers in the two front seats of the vehicle. Well, one proper police officer and one undercover ‘affected’ that he was technically in cahoots with.

“Imran?” Jake replied, through a voice muffling app.

“Yeah, look, bro. I’m done. Okay. I spoke to the police like you asked, and they’re gonna sort out the group. It’s too much. I didn’t sign up for riots and violence…”

“You want Wolf’s real name?”

“Y… yeah. How did you…” Imran looked at his phone surprised. That took a lot less convincing than he expected.

“Pete”

“Pete? Wolf’s name. Is Pete?”

“His name is Peter Shrampton and…”

“Pete?”

“Yeah, and he…”

“Pete?”

“Yes, that’s his..”

“Pete, though?”

“Yeah, his name is Pete. I don’t see why that’s so…”

“Wolf? My Wolf? Guy who talks like Dirty Harry and looks like he could strangle a puppy with his bare hands? His name is Pete?”

“You didn’t think his name was Wolf, did you?”

“No! No. I mean, yeah. I mean… the guy just acts like a Wolf. And now he’s gone off the rails with his mini-militia… oh my god, that makes him a Wolf in sheep’s clothing. I’m sorry, but that cracks me up. Pete. Ha! Fucking Pete bro!”

“Yeah. Did the police say if you’d get immunity, if you took the Renegades down? You should push for that” Jack suggested, genuinely concerned for the kid. This Imran was even younger than his daughter.

“I… I’m pretty sure the police are working this one off the books… should I even be telling you this? You just sold out your other partner in a flash?” Imran realised.

“I was only asking for you. Closing the Renegades down was the last thing left on my to-do list. You helped get me the stories, that’s all I needed…”

“So you were using me! Wolf said you were, he knew it” Imran bristled.

“Wolf also said his name was Wolf. Look, this could be our last phone call. It’s… the last time I need to speak to you, anyway. But, if you ever need me, then ring the number and… within reason, I’ll do what I can. And Imran?”

“Yeah?”

“Wolf said trust nobody but him? The first half of that was right. Trust nobody. Not me, not the press, not the police. There is a lot going on in the background that you don’t know about. Just look after you and your own. Kith and kin. That’s all that matters in this world Imran, is your kith and your kin”.

 

+

 

Ling stood in front of them all, with her chest puffed out. This was her moment. Normally, when in front of a group of people, even if only socially, she would have worn something more conservative. Ling had always been on the large side, and had only ever known trouble for it. The five years since she passed 300 hadn’t been as bad as the time at school, but people always looked at her different, treated her different, talked about her behind her back different. This would be different, though. Here, she was among comrades.

“The institution? More like the thinstitution. Cos I won’t stand by and watch while they gut the glutters, I’ll stand by their side. And those neo-capitalist pigs and the 1% who think they can oppress this minority are about to realise we won’t take this lying down. We’ll stand up. And they will fear the wrath of our anarcho-communist utopia, and bring our radical revolution to the masses. Cause an uprising. Who’s with me?”

She put her fist in the air as she stood by the microphone, and the waves of people in front of her put their fists up in the air too. Behind her was a banner draped. “‘Affected’-sympathisers Revolutionary Slam: Like a poetry slam, but with less poetry and more revolutions”

“So the MSM and the bankers and the bourgeoisie and the political classes will know our revolution. And what are revolutions?”

She pushed out her microphone to the crowd as part of a call-and-response.

Except, they didn’t respond.

“Round, guys. They’re round. Cos… like, a revolution is… when something goes round. And… like, cos… you see, we’re championing people who are fat… aka ‘round’. It’s good word play. We need to get this right, so let’s try again. And what are revolutions?”

She pushed the microphone back towards the confused crowd.

“Round?” said one of the members from the front, with a shrug of the shoulders.

“Ugghhh, you guys are such shit comrades. Yes! Fucking… round” she huffed, flouncing off stage dramatically, where the next person walked up and started rapping about the death of the neo-liberal pigs and the rise of the actual pigs, and the crowd got back into it. Much to her frustration. So she retreated backstage.

“You okay, Ling?” Cheddarman asked, patting her on her back supportively. He’d been loitering backstage, looking awkward with his hands in his pockets. He didn’t like this place. He didn’t like these people.

“Yeah, it was the fucking microphone, they couldn’t hear me. I’m gonna wring that technician’s neck when I see him” she huffed.

“Babe, I don’t think it was the microphone. They heard you fine” Cheddarman said, leaning in with a kiss. But she pulled away.

“No way. You’re not devaluing my self-worth and reinforcing my negative self-image, C-man. That’s misogyny” she grumbled, walking away and sitting down. “It’s because I’m fat, fucking bigots the lot of them”.

“Yeah… no. Like, in normaltimes, maybe. But this is an ‘affected’-sympathisers group. They commit terrorism to protect the rights of food-zombies…”

“Don’t parrot the MSM and call them food zombies! You’re reinforcing negative stereotypes! And anyway, just because they support the ‘affected’, doesn’t mean they care about unaffected fat people. The ‘affected’ are victims. Big girls like me… deserve it? It’s fucking bigotry, that’s what it is” Ling moaned, before her husband enveloped her in a hug.

“Hey, don’t worry. I love you” he said, resting his head on hers as they embraced.

“I know you do, C-man. I know you do. But, it’s hard. You know the counter-protest at Marchand St? Where we slit that guy’s throat?”

“What the fuck, Ling? You slit a guy’s throat” he pulled his head back in alarm.

“No, it wasn’t me that did it, you daft sod. I’ve never even thrown a petrol bomb at anyone, let alone killed anyone up close. Anyway, you’re ruining my flow. So, the girl who did the slicing… you should have fucking seen her. She looked all elbows, skinny bitch. Hey, girls, you were there. Wasn’t the girl who did the knifing on Marchand St a skinny bitch?”

Ling gestured assertively at two big girls that she knew, who were passing with their arms around one another. They turned around with big smiles and looked at Ling.

“Oh. Yeah. She was. All elbows, I remember that Ling, I do” replied one of the girls in a Welsh accent. They were fairly husky girls, wide and heavy-footed.

“I don’t understand how you lot are all so dismissive of the violence. I mean, you are talking about murder? He probably had a family?” Cheddarman voiced his bemusement.

“Oh, that’s nothing. Me and Honey here…” the Welsh one continued, jostling the arm of her girlfriend, while smiling cheerily. “...once baited a whole group of Renegades into this food factory. Except it was empty. And then, when they arrived and poured in, hoping to torch the place, we locked them in and then torched the place for them”.

“Fucking fuck! What the… you are a bunch of fucking psychos, the lot of you!” Cheddarman yelled, distinctly creeped out.

“Oh relax, they were Renegades. It’s fine. But I hear your point, Ling, about the skinny bitches. It’s a crazy double-standard. Champagne socialists. Fighting for size acceptance in their size 6s” the other girl, also Welsh, added.

“But size doesn’t matter. I thought that was the point of size-acceptance and ‘affected’-sympathy. That you can be any size, big or small?” Cheddarman argued.

“Oh, do All Sizes Matter all of a sudden?” Ling asked him with raised eyebrows.

“No, that’s not fair babe” Cheddarman said, disapprovingly. But Ling ignored him.

“Anyway, this is Ginger and this is Honey. They’re so bad-ass. True comrades. You know, they used to be thin, but gained weight out of solidarity with the movement, and the ‘affected’”

“Yeah, you’d have done the same Ling, had you not already been there” Honey added with a sympathetic tilt of the head. “Although… there’s always more… sympathy, that you can show”.
Ling didn’t actually know Ginger and Honey when they were thin. She actually figured that, girls the size that they were, they were exaggerating. Maybe they considered a mere 180lbs as thin, a view on matters that Ling could relate to. She didn’t know that Honey was able to fit in the Princess Leia golden bikini from Empire Strikes Back, just three months ago. But then Ginger showed her Fish’s literary canon and now they were 110lbs heavier and infiltrating the ‘affected’-sympathisers group. It was with the intention of de-escalating the violence, since the violence was inadvertently giving the ‘affected’ a bad rep. And a bad rep meant the Prime Minister was taking more and more harsh action. Intentions had been changing of late though.

“You know, we should encourage more members to show solidarity. Gain weight” Ginger helpfully suggested, irrepressibly drawn to the idea of fattening others.

“Like they’d go for that. It would ruin ‘their LBDs that their daddy bought them’” Ling countered with a roll of the eyes and a mimicking of what shallow voices sounded like to her.

“That’s why I’m suggesting we give them some encouragement. I have an audio copy, y’see, of… Fish’s work”

“Fuck off! Really? How? They’re so hard to get a hold of” Ling’s eyes lit up. They go for huge amounts of money online too.

“Look, I knows a person who knows a person, that’s all I’m saying. Point is, if you wanna come to the riots, listen to this first. That’s what we should tells them all” Ginger suggested, with her phone out.

“Nah, they’d turn into zombies. They’d be useless at the protesting afterwards” Ling begrudgingly admitted.

“Don’t say zombies, it’s offensive” Honey snapped.

“Sorry, I don’t normally, I…”

“Proper MSM language, that. I expect better Ling. And anyways, we thought we’d offer. Out of solidarity” Honey continued, gathering herself again after a genuine flash of anger.

“Why, are you going to listen to it?”

“No because, like you, we don’t need to” they smiled.
 

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Chapter 10

 

Hattie waddled slowly to the kitchen, sweating as she did so. She could feel her upper legs scratch like sandpaper against one another, grinding her skin into irritation. She could feel the pull of her stomach to the floor, slowing her down further. She could feel the geography of her body, each part of it pushing outwards and affecting her balance. And it turned Hattie on so much.

And then she saw them.

“What are you two doing on the floor?” she asked, as she pressed her stomach against the work surface to reach for the blender in the top cupboard.

“Cookies” Robson croaked. “We ate a lot of cookies”.

“I dunno what Robson, mod of Morley, is complaining about. He only ate 42 of them” Faizah chastised, as her hand slipped down herself, negotiating her stomach, and in behind the material of her knickers.

“42 is a lot of cookies” Robson argued, cradling his own gut. His face had pain written all over it. It was a painting that the canvas of his face had been showing more and more often.

“And how many did you manage, Faizah?” Hattie said, with a knowing look.

“91. Booyah!” Faizah said, clicking her available wrist as she said it with Ali G triumph.

“Okay, that is a lot of cookies” Robson conceded.

“I was trying to make it to 100, to make it to a round figure. But then I remembered, I already have a round figure”

Faizah wasn’t lying about having a round figure, though the Chronicles of Fish would be more likely to call it a pear. Faizah didn’t intend to be bottom-heavy - besides being everywhere-heavy - but more and more of her expansion was affecting her lower half. It made sitting a deeply padded experience.

“So, who’s up for a weight gain shake?” Hattie asked, and the other two just looked at each other in discomfort and disbelief.

“Did you miss the bit about the cookies? I feel like you missed the bit about the cookies. We ate a lot of cookies. The cookies were eaten. The cookies are gone now” Faizah complained.

“Yeah, I genuinely couldn’t eat another thing” Robson added.

“Good job these shakes are a drink”

“No. Stop it. I can’t” Robson bleated, caressing his swallowed ball of a stomach. “I am full. There is no room. Literally. If I drink it, it wouldn’t go down, like pouring it down a blocked drain. I am full. Maximum capacity. Nothing in reserve. There is no more room at this particular inn”.

“I guess I’ll have to get the funnel” Hattie said, with a raised eyebrow.

“No, no, no. It’s fine. I’ll find room” Robson burst into a panicked flap in protestation. “But you have to answer questions. It’s only fair”.

“Fine. One pitcher, one question” Hattie negotiated, handing him a freshly made weight gain shake. Robson held it up to the light, unsure if it was indeed actually liquid, before conceding to her demands.

 

+

 

“...So I told the wench that if she wanted be truly shafted, then I had just the shaft, wot!”

The Prime Minister bellowed uproariously, backslapping the tired-looking ministerial aide by his side.

“Sir, we really need to talk about the polling”

“Well… in that case… if the wench wanted to talk about poling, then I had just the pole” The Prime Minister laughed again, but stopped as the aide just glared at him without a glimmer of nonsense in his face. “Fine. As you must. Y’know, Polonius said that brevity is the soul of wit, but I’ve always preferred dick jokes myself. Anyway, do continue glooming up this turgid morn with more of your nagging. Polling? What about it?”

The Prime Minister reached for a glass of water and sipped it gently, while hang-dogging in the direction of the anaemic-looking young man with a buzz cut.

“They’re ahead of us. Labour. For the first time in ages”

“Blah-blah, cut to the good stuff. How’s my personal polling? Favourite PM, that kinda thing” he said, shuffling in quiet boredom on the uncomfortable wooden seats of his Westminster office.

“Ahead again. The Labour leader’s ahead of you. Comfortably now. You’ve plummeted incredibly. And the most popular politician in the country is currently Nadia Fletcher - the Coventry MP. She out-flanked us on condemning obesity, and now we’ve followed her, she’s zagged back in and is somehow defending the ‘affected’. And it’s working. So many people know someone or are related to someone or work with someone who’s been affected now, that criticising the victims is deemed offensive”

“Bloody hell” The Prime Minister said, throwing his head back in frustration. “This Fletcher girl, she’s the one with the fat arse, isn’t she?”

The aide didn’t reply, figuring it to be a rhetorical question.

“Isn’t she?” the Prime Minister asked again, more tetchily this time.

“I... yeah. Sure. I guess, her… lower reverse may contain an above average quota of lipids” the aide seemed uncomfortable.

“Oh, sod that sodding collywobblling soddery. Man up and call a spade a spade. She’s got a rear end like a treacle tart, only not as tasty. More popular than me? Rotters, the lot of them.

Such terrible taste. Our Minister for Transport… now that’s an arse. She doesn’t know it from her elbow as far as her brief’s concerned. But an arse like a memory-foam pillow, it’s glorious” The Prime Minister grumbled. The aide just looked at him expectantly, until the Prime Minister continued.

“Oh, don’t give me that look. Just… get back to the polling company and run the polls again, until we get an answer we like. And… I’ll up the ante on the ‘affected’ thing. Matt’s supposed to be looking at it but, you know how Matt is. Five more brain cells and he’d be one short of half a dozen. Doesn’t know his Ovid from his Covid, dim-witted donkey-brain that he is, wot! Now, is that it? Can you leave me alone? My junior Prime Minister has a lot to get off his chest…”

The aide looked at him in bewilderment, so the Prime Minister clarified.

“I need a wank, boy. Now shoo off to the filing cabinet of drear from whence you came, so I can do some dominant cumming of my own”

The aide scurried off.

 

+

 

“Down it! Down it! Down it!” the two girls chanted as Robson drank straight from the smoothie maker they’d used for the weight gain drink. Thick, gelatinous liquid ran down either side of his mouth, spilling down his stained top and running over the curvature of his moobs.

Half-way through it, and he pulled it back from his mouth and yanked his head back up to breath.

“How is it? Special recipe” Hattie smiled at him as he panted.

“It has the texture of Guinness and the flavour of a Diagon Alley dessert” he wheezed, trying to get his breath back. She looked at him expectantly. “It’s not too bad, all things considered”.
She smiled victoriously as he steeled himself to drink the rest. One last guzzle of air, and then he pulled the pitcher back and started chugging again.

The two girls watched on like proud parents on the sidelines during sport’s day, cheering him on. He’d come on leaps and bounds under their tutelage and they were proud of every inch and pound of his development. They watched, keenly and supportively, as the liquid cleared the container and made its way either down his throat or down his chins. They began clapping to propel him along as the sludge continued to drain and drain and drain until…

“Finished it, ya bastard!” he yelled triumphantly lifting the pitcher up in the air as if it were the Six Nations trophy. The two girls whooped and hollered in celebration. He leant his head back against the wall and let his lungs flail in an attempt to catch their breath.

“So… you girls owe me an answer…” he said between staggered breaths, his concentration weak from over-exertion.

“Ask us anything” Faizah said, nibbling a cookie coquettishly.

“Morley. Morley Baker. Where the fuck is Morley Baker?”

The two girls looked at each other mischievously, a grin on each of their faces.

“Why, she’s at home, of course. Where else would she be?” they said, before giggling.

“Wh… what? Was she there all along? Has she come back? Wh… where did she come back from?” Robson said, his chubby cheeks scrunching up his eyes in disbelief.

“If you want to know the answer to those questions… you know what you need to do. One pitcher, one question, remember...” Hattie said, handing him pitcher number two.

 

+

 

The Prime Minister glowered grumpily in the poorly lit room, listening to the MP in his room tear him to shreds. The Prime Minister had tried to turn on the charm with the ranting politician at first, but not even that worked. Instead, the back-bencher in front of him practically frothed at the mouth at the bewildered Etonian leader.

And then the back-bencher crossed the line.

“Chamberlain? Neville bloody Chamberlain? You sniveling snozzwanger, you snidey snollygoster! How bloody dare you! I did not spend four years of my bloody life researching the life of Winston bloody Churchill for you to compare me to Neville bloody Chamberlain!” he roared, throwing his glass of water at the wall in frustration.

The back-bencher sat stony still as the glass shattered.

“Fine. I will be more front-foot. I will take on this insidious infestation. The ‘affected’ in-bloody-deed. From now on, they are not the ‘affected’ - they’re simply ‘pigs’. And what do pigs do? They get rounded up and turned into bacon. Well, I say that maybe it is time to load up our skillet and prepare to fry. Because we will take them from their homes. We will take them from their gardens. And we will never surrender!” The Prime Minister roared. 

 

+

 

Robson felt sick. In fact, he was pretty sure he was going to be sick. Every time he breathed, he felt something snag on the back of his throat and he thought two litres of weight gain shake were about to be erupting from his mouth like Mr Creosote. He was so stuffed, he noticed he was sweating to the point were it was dripping down his forehead. And his clothes were sticky, though the reason for that might have been the liquid that didn’t make it in his mouth. Or the simple fact that he, himself, was overfilling them.

The second container was now empty. He wasn’t sure how. At the time, it seemed to take ages, like time had melted along with the contents of his drink, and was only progressing forwards like the thick, turgid trudge of the shake. But, now he had finished, he cannot believe it was over so soon. That time that seemed like hours, now seemed like seconds. Maybe he was just chronologically dizzy from over-extending himself.

“Second question?” Faizah asked, and Robson could only muster a weak nod. The nod of a ** accepting a drink he cannot take. Robson’s eyes could barely stay staring forward, they drifted sleepily from side to side in their sockets.

Still, he had to ask a question. And he had so many that needed answering. Morley Baker, the girl that he had devoted nearly half a year of his life in search of her, was just at home? He had just about ruined his career in pursuit of her, worried about her safety. He had absolutely ruined his body for her, though it could be argued that the transition to bodily ruination had already begun prior to her disappearance. But he had so many questions.

However, his weight also posed other thoughts in his sugar-loaded mind. This investigation of his had gone on long enough as it was. And he needed to get out of there. Now that he knew Morley was at least safe, all he had to worry about was himself and his career. He’d promised Gurinder that he’d get Patient zero. Now was the time to deliver.

“Swahilimonkfish. The Rat King himself. How do I get to meet this Swahilimonkfish?”

 

+

 

The Prime Minister felt strangely nervous. He’d spent so much time finding excuses not to go to these COBR meetings that he felt like something of an imposter. Granted, his excuses felt like the lyrics to Mambo No. 5, but the Leader of the United Kingdom just loved getting his dick wet too much.

“So, as you see, the US pulling the plug on our access to the internet actually makes tracking the stories down more difficult. It’s just pushed the information underground. Now, we know that the ‘affected’ have found a way around that using 5G signals…”

“So, in a way, the conspiracists had a point?”

“No, not really Prime Minister…”

The main scientist had his head in his hands, a gesture deep-soaked in exhaustion and frustration.

“Prime Minister: The point is that the internet hasn’t just upped and vanished. It just takes a bit of working around. And that’s what we’re finding. And, as you can see, we’re tracking any block of text that contains a chain of eight of more consecutive words plucked from his canon. So, if somebody does have a copy of it, and that copy ends up on the internet through one of these backdoors… it gets deleted immediately”

“Excellent stuff!” the Prime Minister suddenly beamed. “Good news! That’s what I like to hear. Let’s biff this bloody thing til it’s bloody, wot! Britain’s bulldog spirit will never acquiesce to tyranny!”

“It’s lowering the rate of spread, but as long as every one person who is ‘affected’...”

“We call them ‘pigs’ now. It’s about time we stopped softly-softlying around and stuck a cattle-prod up their arses. Or… a pig-prod I guess. A porcine-prodder, yes, wot!” the PM corrected.

“Sorry, Prime Minister. But the point remains, as long as every one… ‘pig’ passes the story to more than one other person, it will spread exponentially. Cases will always double, until we break the chain of transmission. We need to get the R number below 1” the scientist said.

“I have a question, and forgive me if I’m being pudding-dense… but this online thingy. Where we delete copies of these apocrypha. How do we know?”

“Sorry sir, I…”

“How do we know what words appear in the stories? Because we can’t bloody read the things without going as mad as the March hare. So, how do we know the words to look for?”

A lot of the scientists in the room looked around at one another, fiddling furtively with coat-zippers, wedding rings or anything else, before turning back to the Prime Minister. One of them decided now was the time to wipe their glasses, while some others just avoided eye contact the old fashioned way and looked around the room.

Finally, one of them spoke.

“Sir… there’s something we haven’t shown you. We recommend that you don’t. As Prime Minister, it would be better if you had plausible deniability...”

“Oh, quit your negative ninny-ness. What’s the rumpus?”

“We know the words because we’ve shown people. We’ve shown people the texts and they’ve confirmed by developing the symptoms of the affectation” the least nervous of the scientists confirmed.

“You’ve been spreading the Coventry virus yourselves? Are you absolutely insane, man?”

“We’ve created an environment in which we have managed to contain the… transmission from these individuals…” the scientist continued to stammer.

“Oh, for crying out loud!” the aide barked at the scientists. The Prime Minister turned around and looked at the bespectacled advisor. “We caged them. We took homeless people off the street, read them a portion of the texts and then we watched. If they went mad, the text was legit, they were pigs, and we left them caged. And this is what they haven’t shown you…”

The aide, with a huff of frustration as the nervous scientists backed into the corner, strode across the room and grabbed the remote. Then, he switched on the large screen, to reveal camera footage of people trapped in glass boxes writhing in agony as they eat only regular amounts of food. The screams set the hairs on the back of everyone in the room on their ends.

“Alright, alright… I’ve seen enough” the Prime Minister said, and the screen turned off.

“We know it’s cruel sir, but it was the only way…” the lead scientist pleaded.

“Cruel? Piffle to cruel. A trifling skirmish with our arch-enemy of cruelty. This is piddling and picayune. This? This? This is not a problem. This is the solution. And a final one at that. You want to break the transmission? You need to quarantine the spreaders. I think it’s time we rounded these pigs up, and put them in glass boxes. See if we can starve them senseless”

And that was how it started. That was how Project Slaughterhouse started.

 

+

Robson opened his heavy eyes, but found that they kept falling back shut again. His eyes felt as heavy as he did. What harm would an extra hour or two of sleep do? Especially after recent exertions.

It had been three weeks since the girls had promised to take him to Swahilimonkfish. Britain’s Moby Dick. In terms of size, but also in terms of being hunted, in terms of being the object of Robson’s new fixation. Everyone knew Fish’s name - well, his DA handle at least - but nobody knew who or where. Except for the ‘affected’. And they weren’t keen to tell, because why kill the goose that’s laying the golden eggs?

Every day would go the same way. First, Robson would ask when he would get to meet Fish, and the girls would concoct some elaborate excuse. Then they would eat. Then they would sleep. And that was it. That was the day. It was almost not worth opening his eyes, just to climb onboard the same merry-go-round again and again.

“Come on Robson, mod of Morley, it’s time to get up! We’ve got you your favourite… we’ve got you food” Faizah teased, and Robson groaned in frustration. This had to stop. It had gone for far too long, for far too long. Every day was literally and figuratively an orgy of food. And every day, he knew that it had to stop. And yet, here he was, on the border of 270lbs.

270 just sounded like a big number. 270 wasn’t husky or chunky. 270 was fat. Properly fat. The kind of fat where, when someone looks at you, it’s the first thing they notice. Not “oh, he has nice hair” or “I have a shirt like that”. No, they look at him and think “fat”.

And when he looked at himself in the mirror, he thought it too. He hadn’t thought of himself as thin for years. But this was another level. The kind of level where you do a double-take because you don’t originally recognise the reflection. The second chin, drooping down like the drapes on a four-poster bed. The chest, always in shirts so tight you could make out his nipples. His stomach, a round ball of dough that sat forward like it had a point to prove. All of him - fat.

“What have you got?” he asked, forlornly. He knew what the day would end up being. He could remember yesterday well enough to know what today would bring. Food. In volumes. More volumes than the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His chest hurt from just thinking about it.

If he wanted consolation, he could compare himself to the two girls. Though, comparing yourself to the ‘affected’ is a dangerous perspective to take. They’d gone all-in, several times over, sometimes twice on Sundays. Faizah’s lower-half-centric adipose-stockpiling meant that her hips were fast becoming arm rests, and doorways were slowly approaching her widest points. She hit 340lbs last week and celebrated by just doing more of the same. Hattie was the real deal though, and the constant smug smirk on her lips told you that she knew it. When Faizah was first introduced to A Free Hit nearly eight months ago now, the difference between them was about 30lbs. Now, that divide had nearly tripled, and Hattie was one heavy-set 415lb woman. And if you ever want to lose an hour of your life, ask Hattie to recall the day she could no longer reach all of her stomach without hoiking.

“So, for this evening’s entertainment, we were thinking of role-playing chapter 11 of Spaghettification” Faizah said with a smirk.

“Sorry guys, you’ll have to remind me how that one goes” Robson admitted, though he didn’t know why he did. He could have guessed the gist of it. It involved a lot of food.

“Chapter 11 is the crazy chapter. When the main character is stuck in that time loop with that feeder and she has to eat her way out of it, to break the loop…”

“Of course. Of course that’s a real plot line that a human being wrote” Robson sighed.

“Well, maybe if you actually fucking read the things for once…” Faizah snapped.

“Faizah!” Hattie chastised, attempting to pull her, or at least some of her, to one side.

“No! I’m sick of it! How can he diss it if he hasn’t even read them!” Faizah said, before stopping and realising what she said.

Robson took a second to cotton on and then his eyes sharpened.

“You know? You… knew? You knew I wasn’t ‘affected’ this whole time?” Robson asked, trying to swallow his anger like it was yesterday’s pizza.

Hattie’s and Faizah’s stood there straight faced and wide eyes. Then, those straight faces suddenly melted into laughter.

“I’m so so sorry, Robson. But it was pretty obvious. You’re not half as clever as you think you are” Hattie admitted, with a guilty smile. Faizah put her hand up to her mouth as she continued to giggle, giving herself hiccoughs from the diaphragm jumping up and down in amusement.

“But… but… why?”

“Why? Why? We managed to persuade a non-’affected’ person to gain 85lbs! Can you believe it! I mean, look at you! Look at the size of you! Look at the stretch marks on your stomach, Robson!” Hattie teased. Robson felt his cheeks burning red.

“You fucking…”

“Don’t be angry. It’s kinda hot. Like, proper hot. All the other ‘affected’ are so in awe. You’re a bit of a cult hero, to be honest…” Faizah added, looking at the grumpy man lying in the bed with his arms folded like a scolded child.

“Hero? I’m a hero? I mean… it’s still pretty shitty…” Robson started to lighten up.

“And don’t pretend it was all bad. We’re nice girls and… the food’s been good and… it’s not too hot out there at the minute. What with the protests and counter-protests. Plus, being tight with the ‘affected’ community will help when the new world order comes” Hattie smiled.

“Oh, and then there’s the sex. So much sex. Like, crazy amount of sex. Threesomes, for crying out loud. No, you’re not hard done to, Robson Cowley, second-rate journalist from the Guardian. Most people would give their right leg for a few months like you’ve had. Or, at least their right hand…”

“Wait, that’s a reference to what Gurinder said… you hacked my phone?”

“No. Do we look like Piers Morgan? No, Gurinder’s on our side now. He’s doing good” Faizah explained.

Robson paused, to think. To try and work out everything in his head. Get everything in the right order. Make sense of it. But he struggled. It kept capsizing in his mind at the key moment. It just didn’t look right, his world the other way around, like he’d slipped into a coma and all this was in his head, just scraps of memories that didn’t make sense.

He snapped out of it.

“Okay, well if there’s no point in me being here then. Morley’s safe. And my journalistic career… fuck, my entire life is down the toilet. I’m done. I’m gonna… become a… I dunno. Because I don’t know anything any more…” Robson just broke into tears, sobbing pathetically in the bed.

The two girls looked at each other, each hoping the other knew what to do at this point.

“Ummm… Robson…” Hattie said tentatively.

“Yeah” Robson bleated through tears.

“Would a blowjob help cheer you up?”

Robson nodded, still crying. Although it didn’t take long for those tears to occasionally be interspersed with the odd weird wheezing noise of pleasure.

“Is that helping?” Faizah asked, and Robson nodded tearfully and fiercely.

“Would cheesecake help too?” Faizah asked, stroking the hair of the crying tubbo. Robson nodded through with his face scrunched up like a discarded crisp wrapper. Then he caught himself, remembered what it was he was upset about, and that nod turned to a shake of the head. Then, he wilted, and the shake of the head became a nod once more.

“Good boy…” Faizah said gently, lifting the cheesecake to his mouth. “Good boy”.
 

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Part 11

 

Out in the heart of the Peak District, smoke from a chimney poured into the cold grey sky. Shrouded on every side by woodland. Tall soldiers of wood provide the thick forested canopy that darkens the ground underneath. And in that forest, the source of that chimney can be found. An old wattle-and-daub property with ghostly white walls with rich, dark brown beams criss-crossing through it.

Inside, the fire blasted heat through the room, doing its mightiest to take the late winter chill out of the air. Sitting on a wooden stool in front of the fireplace was a man in his later years, wrapped up in a dark green TA jacket and wearing a corresponding beanie. He was on his tablet, staring at the screen, wiping his nose with a handkerchief.

Wolf didn’t have the internet out here, even before the blackout. Far too remote for anything beyond dial-up speeds at the best of times. So, instead, he downloaded the videos he liked to watch. And then he would watch them until his eyes stung with salt and his nose ran, watching Youtube videos by his daughter.

 

+

 

“Hi guys, it’s me, SugarPlumLovely, here to bring a bit of sparkle into your lives. Now, before I start, just a quick shout out to our sponsors - BrainSafe - and I’ll be talking more about them later in this video.

Now, you guys have been asking me to do an FAQ video since before forever. So here it is guys. You guys hit me up with your hottest questions and I… answered them. Oh yeah.

So… Hufflepuffle84 asked ‘How long have you lived in Canada?’. Well, Hufflepuffle84, I have lived in Canada for 8 years, Toronto for 4. Totally love it here, except for the winters, which are insane. But, everything’s really good, made loads of really good friends and I’ve stayed in Toronto post-graduation which is totally awesome.

Slitherin68 asks ‘What’s your favourite book from the Harry Potter series?’. Got to be Philosopher’s Stone or Sorceror’s Stone or whatever you wanna call it - Pssst… it’s Philosopher’s Stone - cos it’s the OG and it’s where it all began.

Ravenclaw22 asks ‘Favourite thing about Canada?’ and it’s gotta be watching ice hockey. I know I sound like a bro but ice hockey is totally badass and it’s not something we have in England, which is where I’m from - as you can sorta tell from the accent “alright luv, you wanna banana”... that’s my impression of my own accent - and I totally dig ice hockey now. Like, I have old memories of my dad being into it as a kid so maybe that’s why. But I dunno. I just really like it”

Griffindor01 asks ‘Why the name SugarPlumLovely?’ and… okay guys, I think it’s time to get real here a bit. Some of you guys who’ve been following my channel for a bit know that we moved to Canada after my dad left. I was only 14 and, like it hurt real bad. I was really close to my dad. But he… left us. I remember coming home and my mum - not mom guys, I just can’t say that, sorry, but it’s ‘mum’ - was sitting on the stairs crying. I don’t really know why he left, we don’t really talk about that stuff… and, oh shit, I’m gonna ruin my eye-liner, fuck… but I think he was a bit unwell. Like, he was totally great with me but, apparently he had depression or something and… I dunno. Anyway, I… we had to leave because… my dad… we… he was getting a bit scary… he wanted to come back and he kept saying over and over again how… how sorry he was and… I’m sorry guys, I must look like such a mess, crying like a fucking baby. So that’s why we moved to Canada and… I just miss him real bad. And… I have this memory of him. I was like 7 or 8 or whatever and… I was sitting with him and we were watching Disney films and we would get popcorn and… he would call me his little Sugar Plum Lovely and… I dunno if you’re watching this dad, or even if you’re still out there, but I love you so much dad. I love you so much and I miss you so much and…

If there’s someone you miss and it’s affecting your mental health, then maybe you’d like this video’s sponsor, BrainSafe. It’s a therapy app for your phone that can help you get the mental help you need, any time you need it…”

 

+

“You sure you don’t want to come in with me babe?” Ling said, leaning over to the driver’s side and planting a kiss on her husband’s lips.

“With you crazy fucks? Nah man, fuck that shit to the moon. Except you of course. You’re not crazy, you’re cute” Cheddarman replied, between smooches.

“Ha, we’re not that crazy. And anyway, we’re winning the war against the Renegades. Those motherfuckers are going down” she said, that last sentence given a generous sprinkling of venom.

“See? Crazy! Fucking war…” C-man just shook his head in disbelief and Ling laughed.

“It’s just a meet-up tonight. Honey and Ginger organised it, but they didn’t say when it would be over so just come by at 8-ish and pick me up. And maybe we can have Chinese food afterwards…” she said, rummaging through her handbag to make sure she had anything.

“We’ve already eaten” he smiled.

“I’m sympathising with the ‘affected’ C-man. You really don’t get it. I don’t understand how the patriarchy doesn’t collapse, I swear you don’t even have a brain cell betw…”

“Bye babe!” Cheddarman interrupted.

“And what are you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna lay down that new track I was talking to you about. Cheddarman by Cheddarman featuring Cheddarman, cos I’m doing vocal overlays” he explained, as she heaved herself out of the car.

“Is this the one that sounds like that song from Atlanta?”

“You know I never watched that show. Nah, this song goes like “Cheddarman, Cheddarman, all about the cheddar, man” like that. It’s pretty lit” he sang as she looked at him through the open door.

“That’s the Paperboi song from Atlanta, but instead of Paper it’s Cheddar, and instead of Boi it’s Man. You stole it!”

“No! I’ve never even heard of it, yo. Like, how can I steal something I’ve never even heard. Don’t go raining on my parade, Ling. This is the one that’s gonna make me famous…”

And, as soon as she closed the door, he pulled away in his Citroen C1, singing to himself as he went. “Cheddarman, Cheddarman, all about the cheddar man”.

 

+

 

Ling buried her face behind the zip of her woolly coat and marched to the abandoned car garage where they were intended to meet. Her walk was more of a shuffle, her black skirt and black leggings combo may have been trendy, but the tightness of them meant the fullness of her stride was greatly reduced. So, instead she walked like an angry penguin.

She walked into the building and saw some familiar faces. Including the skinny whore that killed the driver with the knife. Ling only mustered evils for her, but generous smiles for everyone else.

“Fucking cold, isn’t it?”

“Perishing” Ling agreed, rubbing her hands together.

“Least you’ve get extra warmth on your… person” the skinny girl added.

“You calling me fat, bitch?” Ling squared up to her, arms out as if to say ‘bring it’.

“Fat’s not an insult any more. God, Millennial’s are so out-of-touch. You should be flattered I called you fat. And anyway, the name’s Barbie, not bitch” the skinny bitch - Barbie - hissed back.

“Well… fuck you…” was the best comeback Ling could muster.

“Like, I wish I could gain weight. But not all of us are as lucky with our genetics. I just have such a fast metabolism, it’s so annoying. I eat so much, and never gain a thing. Like, I ate an entire apple yesterday… as a snack. But nothing sticks. Some people don’t recognise their own privilege” Barbie continued, rolling the eyes beneath her fake eyelashes.

And suddenly the door behind them closed shut. The sound of a key turned to lock it. And the quiet chit-chat of the car garage turned up a notch as panic slowly seeped in the room.

“Umm… guys, I don’t mean to worry you or anything… but were you all invited by Honey and Ginger?” Ling asked, as one of the other members switched the interior light on so they could see better.

“Yeahhh…”

“Did they ever tell you about that time they asked a whole bunch of Renegades to meet up in a factory or something, and then they locked them in and torched the place?” Ling continued.

“Fuck”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Shit, phones. Anyone got a signal?”

Ling, along with everyone else, scrambled for their mobile, to see if their signal was strong enough for them to call for help.

“I wouldn’t bother” same Honey, walking from the office of the car garage.

“W… were you hiding in there?” Ling asked suspiciously.

“No! Umm.. yeah… maybe. Look, that’s not the point. The point is that Ling is right. You are trapped in here. And Ginger who’s back in the office and not hiding - she’s just keeping a very low position but not hiding - she’s got a signal jammer. So looks like you guys are stuck here” And Honey began to smile menacingly.

“Oh my god, you’re one of them. You’re an ‘affected’. You’re… so normal though?” Ling said, piecing the puzzle together.

“Oh my god, that’s so ‘affected’-phobic” Barbie spat at Ling, before her own eyebrows crinkling into a frown. “Actually… yeah, that’s a good point. How come you’re not a zombie”.

“We don’t fucking like being called zombies, you Gen Z fuck!” Honey raged, her eyes, normally so listless and loose in their sockets, suddenly focusing sharply on the young girl. She then winked subtly at Ling.

“Well, look, I’d explain what it’s like to be ‘affected’, but soon I won’t have to. Soon, you’ll be able to see for yourselves” Honey said, pulling out her phone and turning up the volume on her phone speaker.

“Really! Cool!” Ling smiled goofily. “You have an actual copy of… oh shit, of course you have, you’re ‘affected’. I keep forgetting that”.

“Oh no” Barbie muttered.

“What’s up Barbs? Fat’s something to be proud of now. And anyway, I’m sure your super-duper metabolism will be okay with it” Ling sharply scythed back.

Suddenly, Ginger got up from her hiding space in the manager’s office and gave Honey the thumb’s up. Honey smiled a menacing smile and pressed play on her phone. The car-garage internal speaker system started playing the sounds from her phone.

“If in doubt, talk to Shaun…”

 

+

 

“Pass us that pack of profiteroles, would ya?”

PC Winston John rolled his eyes at his colleague, before reaching over to the back seat and taking the pack of them and handing it over to the policewoman in the passenger seat.

“Are you sure you should be eating them?” he said as WPC Jasmine Jennings yanked it hungrily from his hands.

“Winston… I’m ‘affected’. You’re not in denial about this, are you?” she said, opening them and picking the first one from the pack, and letting her eyes roll into the back of her mouth as her teeth sunk into the cream.

“No!”

“Winston? It’s fine. Look, I’m sorry. I know this has been a lot to take in. I know you feel like I’ve let you down, that I’ve betrayed you…”

PC Winston John shuffled awkwardly in the seat that he was in.

“I should have told you. I know I should have told you”

“Yeah, you should have” he harrumphed.

“Would a profiterole help?” she turned the pack to him and offered him. “They’re very good”.

“They do look good” PC Winston John said, eyeing the box with temptation. “No! What am I thinking, no!”

Insulted, WPC Jasmine Jennings pulled the box back to herself and began eating them one by one. With each one that went on to slip into her fingers and then between her lips, her breath tightened and she began to lean into the back of her seat more and more, her feet pushing against the base of the footwell. It wasn’t long before each profiterole, soft and sweet and creamy began to elicit quiet groans from her.

PC Winston John wouldn’t be bated. He just folded his arms aggressively and began facing slightly away from her.

“Are you sure you don’t one, Winston? These are so fucking good. Like, just try…”

“I’m fine!”

“Suit yourself then…” 

And she carried on, gasping and shuddering with each bite, with each chew, with each swallow. Soon, her feet were off the floor as her legs straightened, tightening her calves with enjoyment. And then the quiet groans returned, under her breaths like suppressed whimpers.

“I know what you’re doing Jaz, and it’s not working. I’m not falling for it”

“I’m just enjoying my profiteroles” she said, Bambi-eyed.

“You’re trying to make me fat, aren’t you? I know Jaz. I did the seminars too, remember? I know what your kind are like” he snapped.

“My kind?!?! Oh, we’re being bigots now, are we? Should my ‘species’ shuffle off? Fuck you, Winston! Fuck you! I have been nothing but accommodating to you. Given you all the room in the world. Cos it’s so fucking hard, you know? Being ‘affected’ and repressing it. I want to do so many things, Winston, you have no idea how much I’m holding back just to help you acclimatise to being with me. And you say ‘my kind’. You know what Maria from The Abyss or Skinny from A Free Hit would do? They’d take out a knife and place it against your throat. And I can feel my hand shake at the thought, the temptation. But no Winston, I’ll just sit here and make do with one measly pack of profiteroles, and pretend to be a regular police officer”
And with that little rant, she put the last profiterole in her mouth and slammed the carton shut, staring bitterly at her partner as she did it.

PC Winston John let his head sink down in rumination, cheeks puffed out in thought.

“Okay. Jaz, I’m sorry. I… I keep thinking about myself and how bewildered I’m feeling that I didn’t even think what it must be like for you. I mean, you’re the one who’s undergone the most change and… look, I know I’m just a colleague and I’ve known you less than a year so I don’t think this will mean much, but I think… you do a pretty good impression of yourself” he said, offering a sympathetic smile.

“Thanks” she offered him a sympathetic half-smile. “Y’know, you’ve probably taken the news quite well, all things considered. I mean, at least you haven’t dobbed me in it”.

“I wouldn’t even do that, Jaz. You… know why” he said, before looking at the clock on the dashboard. “Shit, the time. Our shift’s up”.

“Thank fuck, I’m starving!” she yelled. “On the way back to the station, can we stop off by the bakery that got stormed a while back. They’re up and running and their doughnuts were really good”.

“Is food really that good now? Or was that groaning thing for show”

“That good. And better. That was me holding back. Seriously, if you ever fancy coming over to our side…”

“I’m good, ta”

“Fine. Suit yourself” she smirked. “I… won’t ever do that. Y’know? Against your will or anything. You don’t want to come over, that’s fine. You don’t have to worry about that, Winston”

“Cheers, Jaz”

“Also, if Sarge asks you to investigate the unusual shipments heading down to London? Don’t. Trust me” she said with a smile as she did up her seat belt. Winston looked at her in confusion, but decided to carry on anyway back to the station. Via the bakery.

 

+

 

“The last shipment is going down to London tonight? Great news, I… shit, I gotta go. Cheers for the update Jaz”

Hattie put the phone down suddenly as Robson walked into the room. Well, I say walked, it was more like he staggered pregnantly as he drifted into the kitchen where Hattie was on the phone. She was sitting down on one of the chairs that they had moved into there, since she was no great fan of being on her feet for any extended period of time. That said, the chair was looking increasingly insufficient for a lady of her plenitude.

“What was that about?”

Still, Robson entering the room was enough for her to heave herself up onto her feet, a place she really didn’t like to be. The last 25lbs had really hit her hard, and made her lofty, fictionally-inspired goals seem further rather than nearer. As she wobbled to her feet, the 440lb woman grunted and groaned, with her joints creaking. But, rather than deter her, this just made her want it more. She enjoyed the fact that it was hitting her hard.

“Oh nothing you need to worry your cute little head about” she said, reaching him as he had his back turned to her. Leaning in, she tried to kiss the back of his neck. Unfortunately, with his generous back-side and her more than generous front-side, she could barely reach.

“My head is neither cute nor little” he grumbled, reaching for the coke and pouring himself a glass.

“Oh, stop being such a sulk. I’m just glad you’re out of bed. First time in weeks. And I’m thinking of ways to reward you” she said with a giggle.

“Oh, Robson’s up” Faizah said with a smile as she walked into the room. “Is his sulk over?”

“Not quite, but nothing a blowjob and a cheesecake won’t fix” Hattie replied, running her hand up the back of his neck and through his hair.

“Sorry, it won’t. I’ve… I’m going on a diet” he said.

“Awww” both the girls cried in unison, their chests deflating at the thought of it.

“It’s not your fault, it’s mine. I was arrogant to think I could go undercover. I just thought, if I actually helped find this missing girl, this Morley Baker, maybe… I dunno. Maybe I wouldn’t feel like such a fuck up. Turns out, I fucked that up too. So yeah, I’m 280 and this has to stop. I’m gonna go home, and eat spinach, and buy a treadmill and watch The Notebook on repeat”

“Is that the one where Ryan Gosling gained weight?” Faizah asked.

“Faizah! Priorities! And no, that was The Lovely Bones. Look, Robson, journalist of the Guardian. We’ll take you to see Fish” Hattie suggested, and Faizah tilted her head as if to say ‘fair enough’.

“You’ve promised that before. I know you never will. It’s fine. You can still have fun just as a twosome and I can…”

“Didn’t you enjoy it? Didn’t you enjoy all this?” Hattie asked, with a sliver of insecurity.

“Yes! Of course I did. Before all this, I… hadn’t been with anyone since my girlfriend split up with me…”

“Awww…”

“...three years ago”

“Oh”

“Yeah, see? It’s embarrassing. So this. Was amazing. Breath-taking orgasms around the clock. Everything I wanted, all the time, dialled up to 11. Of course I loved it. But… I’m just running from my problems. Not literally, before you two say anything. But I can’t just do this forever”

“Why not?”

“Because I… people just do. Okay? It’s just the way of the world and… I know that maybe the way of the world is changing. But it’s still… I need some semblance of normality back in my life. I need an even keel. And this is the opposite of that”

The two girls looked at each other sadly.

“We’ll take you to Fish…”

“You already promised that…”

“If you do something for us in return. If you gain just a bit more weight, then we’ll take you to Fish. We know where he is, and honestly I’d quite like to see him for myself. But we will actually take you there… if you willing to get up to 350”

Robson was shaking his head as she spoke, but the number at the end of the conversation nearly made him spit out his coke.

“350? Are you out of your mind?”

“Well, yeah. Obviously. I’m ‘affected’. But, if it’s just the number that’s the issue, and not the sentiment, then we can negotiate”

“No, it’s not the number…”

“No, don’t back down now. You’re 280, what number would you be willing to reach, in return for the scoop of a lifetime and possibly a Pulitzer. I mean, if you do that, it’s almost been worth it. If you don’t, well you’ve just gained 95lbs with nothing to show for it but 95lbs. So, name your number”

Robson frowned, suspicious he was being played. But how much more did a man with nothing have to lose. Apart from 95lbs of bodyfat.

“300”

“400” she countered.

“No, you’re going the wrong direction, Hattie. That’s not how haggling works”

“Fine. 350. Final offer”

Robson scowled again, now convinced he was being played.

“320, or I’m outta here”

“340, and I make you breakfast”

“330”

“350, and Faizah makes you breakfast, while I give you a blowjob”

Robson paused.

“Deal”
 

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Part 12

 

In the dead of night, a van was waved on through without its contents being checked. The guards that did the waving looked like they had recently outgrown their uniform.

 

+

Nadia reached into her handbag and rustled for her keys at her doorstep when she heard a noise coming from inside her property. Nervously, she reached for the mace that was inside her bag too. Quietly, she twisted the key and opened the door. Slowly, she stepped through the hall and into her main living space. And in there, she saw quite the sight.

“Oh, fuck, she’s here. Guys, she’s here” said a naked puddle of flesh, lost in a naked ocean of flesh.

“Is she? Shit. I was this close to a climax”

“Another one?”

“Yeah, I was really feeling it today”

“Same, I’m dripping more than a faulty showerhead”

“WHAT THE FUCK!” Nadia yelled, looking steely-eyed and pointing her mace in their direction. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t spray this at you and really hurt your eyes!”

The menagerie of flesh disbanded into their constituent parts, pulling away from one another and looking sheepish.

“Sorry, Nadia” Juan said, looking down guiltily.

“Sorry Nadia” came the concurring chorus.

Nadia stayed standing in the doorway, with her arms folded. She looked at them sharply, the various naked balls of rubbery lard struggling to make eye-contact out of guilt. Focusing on them, she recognised Juan and Cerys as her constituents, but she didn’t recognise… wait, was the older gentleman…?

“Mr Lewenburg?”

“Hi Nadia”

“Umm… long time no see? Sorry to be a prude, but would it be alright if you… put some clothes on?” Nadia said, moving into the kitchen to grab a bin liner and scoop up all of the rubbish that was on the floor. She soon realised that she would need a second bag. Fortunately for the individuals involved, getting changed was a long-winded process also, and it took about the same amount of time for her to clear all the rubbish as it did for them to squeeze into clothes that they had rapidly ballooned beyond.

“So, can you all introduce yourself properly please? Now that you’ve broken into my home” Nadia asked rather acerbically.

“Okay, so you know me and Cerys…”

Juan and Cerys now were dressed. If their look had to be reduced down to one simple surmisation, it would be comfort over fashion, though there could be an argument made that the tightness of their attire meant neither applied. Both were wearing jeans and hoodies, and both were increasingly looking like incognito Stay Puft people. When she had last seen Juan and Cerys, their size was considerable, but it was undoubted that they were drifting into something more eye-opening. The kinds of sizes that make passers-by notice.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I know Mr Lewenburg…”

“Hi Nads! And this here is the Mrs Lewenburg to my Mr Lewenburg” he said proudly, a soft flabby arm around the soft flabby shoulder of his soft flabby wife. Mr Lewenburg was not recognisable really, beyond the tired combover. His face had taken on a new shape, it long thinness transformed into something more bee-stung. He still looked a considerable amount leaner than his wife to his side.

“We’re Ginger and Honey” the two Welsh girls waved, leaning into each other’s chests affectionately.

Ginger and Honey were dressed rather more revealingly than the fashion of the times might deem socially acceptable. Their days as young, thin lovers seemed a lifetime’s march away from their modern incarnation. In hot pants that were wearing as thin as she wasn’t, left Honey’s legs on proud display, wide and wobbly pillars that didn’t thin as they headed to their base to the extent that is customary. And Ginger’s top, a crop top with the words “Let’s talk about Ex-tra Meat” on it, mainly served as an under-sized cotton bra, while her roaring stomach rushed outwards to the point where it was nearly casting shadow.

“And that leaves…” Nadia said, eyeing the largest woman in the room. The elephant in the room, if you will.

“Hi, my name is Morley Baker and I organise all these dolts. And I’m here to offer you the chance to become the next British Prime Minister”.

 

+

 

Nadia was sitting down and staring off into the middle-distance, holding a cup of hot cocoa. She blew it absent-mindedly, before taking a gentle sip.

“Sorry, can you say that again”

Morley sat on the floor. Originally, she intended to cross her legs. However, some legs just can’t be crossed. Instead she half-sat/half-lay there, like a splodge of acrylic paint on an easel.

The last month at home had not seen a huge shift in her eating patterns. Had her parents been more condemnatory of her gluttony, then she still would have eaten with the same abandon. But they were quietly appeasing to her needs, understanding that there was no understanding what she was going through.

As it was, she ate until a mortal’s jaw muscle would simply snap. An unfettered bombardment deluging her gullet with unrepentant quantity. This left her in a position where her body had simply run out of reservoirs for fat depositing. So some of it was bunged in her hands now; now chubby, bloated things that provided their own insulation. It rammed some more into her feet, splaying her toes more than they used to. There were rolls in places you don’t expect rolls. Rolls in her back, a wide surface of undulating topography. Rolls on her knee, swallowing the bone of it like quicksand. Rolls beneath her armpit, rolls in her neck. These things can happen when you near 500lbs.

“So, Nadia, you’ve slowly transitioned to a more sympathetic stance towards the affected. And that’s great. But that’s for the long-haul and, in the short-haul, we have a problem with the current Prime Minister. He’s planning on putting us all in glass boxes and starving us”

“He can’t do that. The Human Rights Act 1998 means that he can’t imprison…”

Nadia protested, but her eyes weren’t making contact. She was lost in the sea of her own thoughts.

“Babe, he’s the PM. He can do what, and who, he likes. Don’t worry too much, we’re working on it from our end. But I want you to do something for us. I want you to go to a pub called the The Wild Boar, it’s in Knightsbridge. You’re going to do an interview with a man called Robson Cowley… he’s a journalist at the…”

“I know his dad”

Everyone knew AA Cowley. A human carbunkle. A blot on the landscape of personkind. Like festering mould at the back of the fridge. Like a haunted pencil. The ghost of bigotry past.

“He’s nothing like he’s dad. And Hattie and Faizah have done a good job in domesticating him anyway. He’s fully house trained. He’ll interview you about and you can be the voice of the ‘affected’. I mean, it will be controversial. So I understand if you have doubts. And they’ll come for you. And not just on Twitter. There’s a reason Cerys and Juan gave you that thumb-drive…”

“But I’ll get to be PM?”

Her eyes slowly gained some focus, the idea slowly nestling its way into her cranium. The Right Honorable Prime Minister of the UK Nadia Fletcher has a certain ring to it.

“Yeah”

“And you’re not going to hypnotise me or…”

“That’s actually quite offensive. We don’t hypnotise people”

“Oh god, I’m so sorry, it’s just…”

“You’ll need to educate yourself before the interview. Language matters. And no, we’re not going to read Fish’s works to you. Which is a shame for you in terms of enlightenment, but it does mean you don’t have to put up with Future Me Hates Me. Now there’s a story that failed to live up to its promise. So, you just focus on the interview on Monday and…”

“The PM is making a statement to the House on Monday. I have to be there…”

Again, Nadia’s eyes drifted off into the middle distance. Prime Minister Nadia Fletcher sounded really good.

“The interview. The interview is more important. So relax until then. Put your feet up. I’ve gotta go, but I’m sure we’ll speak again. But Juan and Cerys will hang around and look after you. Make sure you’re taken care of. I know it’s… a lot to digest” Morley smirked, she just couldn’t help herself.

“Thanks”

“I like your scarf by the way”

“I… I’m not wearing a scarf”

“Fuck! I… do pleasantries have to be accurate? I didn’t think they did? Why do people say they’re “fine, you?” when they’re not? I swear, you non-affected are just braindead zombies at times” Morley chuntered as she munched on a Mars bar she found in her pocket, and Nadia smiled weakly.

 

+

 

C-man was sitting in the car, banging his hands against the steering wheel to the beat in his head.

“Cheddarman, Cheddarman, all about the cheddar, man” he sang under his breath, his head nodded to the beat. He was soon thrown out of his rhythm with the opening of the car door, and his wife coming in with a blank expression. “How was it?”

“Okay”

“Oh, it’s like that is it? I was literally only five minutes late, cos I was ordering your fucking Chinese takeaway. Giving me the fucking monosyllabic treatment”

“Food?”

“Yeah, food. Happy now? Hey, you… you got chocolate around your mouth, I think. Ahh, must be the light. Anyway, let’s get out of this creepy place. I need some Chinese food”

“Food”

 

+

 

Wolf put his tablet away as he saw Imran walking up, hands in his pocket and head down. Wolf walked towards him with a stern look.

“You followed?” he growled, looking around.

“Am I ever followed?”

“Alright, keep your hair on. The State are after us now though, kid. We’ve gotta be a bit savvier than we used to be” Wolf said, staring at the kid.

“Look, bro… I think I need in” Imran said, still not making eye-contact, his left leg twitching.

“Into what I’m doing? Now you don’t” Wolf said, spitting on the pavement as he said.

“Bro, I need to be in the loop”

“Why? A bit of a sudden change of heart?” Wolf said, tilting his head curiously. Imran looked flustered.

“Why? Why d’ya think? After what… what went down last week, you gotta let me in cos shit’s getting fucked, bro! What the fuck were you even thinking? People died! You know where I was the day after it happened? In the hospital, by Mrs Pique. She’s still on a ventilator, by the way, in case you were the slightest bit curious. Or maybe fucks are for pussies, so you just don’t give them, I dunno. But what happened was not okay, okay?” Imran said, spitting the words out while looking at the floor.

“I… I’m sorry about Mrs Pique. But not too sorry. Cos she knew what she was getting herself in for. She signed up for it. I didn’t impose it on her, I just gave her the instructions. She followed them. She got herself shot”

“It was a fucking armed convoy Wolf! You sent her into a fucking armed convoy!”

“Yeah? Well, sometimes people do shit when they care about people, okay? She cared about her son, she didn’t just move on and pretend it was okay like you did with your family! She actually acted. Fucking little shit, thinks this is easy? It ain’t easy. But you do the dirty shit, cos… you do that stuff if you care about your family” Wolf snapped.

“You don’t think I care about my family?” Imran finally looked up and met his gaze.

“I… of course you do. I shouldn’t have phrased it like that. But, ask yourself kid, what would you do? For the people you love. What would you do?”
Imran took a deep breath, and swallowed a smile that threatened to leak out.

“I dunno, what have you done? Prove it, prove your the big man. Apart from giving instructions, what have you actually done since you took charge?”

“Ohh… okay. You don’t think I killed people? You don’t think I put a knife to their throat and cut? Cos I did. The shop-keeper in Burton, the security guard in Derby. I did those. And I smiled when I did it. Cos I knew I was keeping my family safe. Cos people who care, not just say they care but actually care, are willing to make sacrifices” Wolf hissed.

“Yeah. Yeah we are” Imran said. And, at that point he just smiled. Smiled at the old man with the grubby stubble and weathered features. Smiled, as he walked away, hands in pockets.

“Hey, where you going, you little shit! Where are you…”

And that’s when he saw them. The armed response team coming from each flank, marching in on his spot. All Wolf could do is get on his knees and put his hands behind his head. And watch Imran walk off without ever looking back.

 

+

 

WPC Jasmine Jennings and PC Winston John walked up to the now handcuffed Wolf, kneeling outside the park.

“How d’ya get him to talk? To betray the movement?” Wolf asked sharply.

“Oh, you did that all by yourself, Pete” PC Winston John said with a smirk, and WPC Jasmine Jennings gave Wolf a parting wave, while eating liquorice, as the Armed Response Team hauled him away to their van.

“Hey, Jaz. You like how I called him Pete? Sounded badass, right?”

“Sure” she said, looking down at the rest of her bag of pick’n’mix.

“Hey! Act… normal. When people are talking to you, don’t instead fuck strawberry laces with your eyes. Cos that’s some ‘affected’ type behaviour” PC Winston John.

“Winston? I’ve been undercover for months and not even you suspected. I think I know what I’m doing. You’re just annoyed because I didn’t compliment you calling him Pete” WPC Jennings said, drawing the strawberry lace up through her lips.

“Yeah, sure. This time. But maybe next time…”

And suddenly both of the police-radios went off.

“Jaz, Winston… Sarge needs you back at the station. They’re planning the first of the raids on the ‘affected’”

“Shit!” WPC Jasmine Jennings yelled, before answering. “Yeah, sure. Give us a sec while we wrap up here and we’ll be straight back. You didn’t happen to catch the address of the first place we’re going after?”

“Yeah, on Rooney Street I think”

Jasmine looked pale, as she let the phone fall out of her hands and dangle on its cord.

“What’s wrong Jaz?”

“That’s Hattie’s place”

And that was how it started to get dangerous.
 

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Part 13

 

SugarPlumLovely wasn’t her real name.

Eloise Shrampton was half-Canadian on her mother’s side and half-English on her dad’s. Her dad gave her the unappealing surname, and the Francophonic forename was courtesy of her mother. And Eloise was sitting on the end of her bed, fiddling with the angle of the softboxes on her lighting rig. This video needed to be just right. This is the one where she would finally go viral.

“Sis, can I borrow your car? My boyfriend wants to take me out and I need to get to my boyfriend’s place so I can meet up with my boyfriend and then my boyfriend and I will go somewhere really cool with my boyfriend”

Rianna wasn’t actually her sister. It was her mum’s boyfriend’s daughter. Eloise didn’t have a sister.

“Yeah, sure. Just stop saying the word ‘boyfriend’” she replied, throwing her the keys.

“What word?”

“Boyfr… oh, haha. Actually Rianna, do you wanna watch me make this video before we go. It’s just a one take and done?”

Eloise was giving her reflection a quick once-over. Her mum always said she looked like her dad, which she used to take as an insult. He was, after all, grizzled and gnarly, while she was cute and impish. Over time, she’d begun to realise that there was a compliment in there. She had his ashen hair. She used to hate it, it was neither blonde nor brown nor white. But she slowly warmed to the depth and flickers of gold in there. She had his long face. Not quite of equine proportions, but it always made her look thinner than she was. And she was already very thin, the final thing that she had borrowed from her father. His tall, lean frame would have leant itself well to netball had her interests been there. But watching ice hockey with her dad meant there was only one sport she liked, and she liked it as a spectator.

“Only if you call me sister” Rianna bargained.

“Y’know what, you have a safe drive…”

Eloise squeezed her smile across her face like she’d just bitten her tongue.

“Ugh, you are the worst! Fine, I’ll watch you make your stupid Youtube video”

“Cheers sis” Eloise said cheekily, and Rianna clapped her hands in delight.

 

+

 

“Do you want anything Nadia? Cake? Cheesecake? Chocolate cake?” Cerys asked.

“Sorry?” Nadia replied, taking off her headphones. She was lying down on her sofa with her laptop leaning on her like it was a cat. On her screen was statistical breakdowns of crime, by region. On another tab was Twitter.

“I’m saying, do you want anything to drink?”

“Oh, go on then. Ta” Nadia smiled, putting her headphones back on.

Nadia was not used to having such nice houseguests. At the flat she rented down in London, she had to share with a fellow MP, and they would barely talk to one another. Mainly because of a disagreement over whether the party should abstain over a bill about private housing registration, but mainly because they would just bury themselves in their work. But back up here in Coventry, such company was always a pleasant turn-up.

“Here you go, two sugars wasn’t it?” Cerys said, waddling over to Nadia and handing over the cup of tea.

By contrast, these two just waited on her hand and foot. She got it, if they had put all their money on her being Prime Minister, she was an investment that they had to protect. And feeling special and doted on would be something she’d have to get used to once she took Number 10. None of the mess that she had expected, which suited her cleanliness compulsions, and all of the outlandish behaviour was taken to the privacy of the spare bedroom.

“One actually, but I’ll live” she smiled and crinkled her nose affectionately, taking the mug into her hands.

“Do you mind if me and Juan go for a stuffing?” Cerys said, heading back into the kitchen to grab supplies.

“Sure” Nadia took her headphones again and smiled as the big girl waddled by. And absent-mindedly, as the hefty girl hurled one leg in front of the other to surmount the stairs, Nadia found her hand drifting towards the box of white chocolate Kinder Riegels. She pulled it back suddenly, catching herself doing it. But thirty seconds later, she was opening one and putting it in her mouth.

 

+

 

“Did she eat them?”

“Well, just one, but there’s still time”

Juan and Cerys were gathered around a monitor and watched in hope.

This was not part of their remit. Spying wasn’t. But putting them with her was like putting crack addicts in a heroin jumble sale. Nadia electrified them to the point that their own bingeing felt bland. They’d tried it for the past few days but Juan could barely cum. Cerys, at one point, didn’t even finish her pizza. It was her fifth pizza, but still, the point remains. Their self-amorous ardour no longer did it for them. And that was all because of Nadia. Nadia was the forbidden fruit and they had no will-power. It was inevitable really. You can barely blame them.
The past few days had been a little conspiratorial, but that just added to the frisson. The elicit nature of it reminded them of the ignorance of Zhavia in Doughballs All The Way Down. Ruth Kodak perhaps in Big Dater. Maybe, just maybe, it reminded them of Wiktoria in those halcyon early days of A Free Hit. Yeah, just the thought of that revived their libidos. Sure, it was against Morley’s code, but they just couldn’t help themselves.

“Ooo, there she goes, a second one” Juan noticed, as he opened his flies. Pulling up his stomach with one hand, he put the other one down and started tugging.

“God, that’s hot. Look! That blouse looks fucking tight on her” Cerys replied, trying a different method. She was lying back on her bed, tilting her head to see the screen, while using her left arm to swoop around the soft bend of her stomach and attacking the issue from the side.

“Yeah, it’s the buttons that do it for me. And you get that little gap between the buttons where the strain lets you see a bit of her stomach. Little chinks of flesh coming through. God, that does it for me” Juan said, his face tightened as went.

“What about at breakfast, when she sat down at the table in her pjs…”

“Her actual pjs…” Juan said, his head pulling back at the thought.

“And her stomach just squatted on her thighs while she ate that fry-up. You could see the swell of it, and those little mini-rolls at the top of her stomach where it squidges up. Fuck me that was hot” Cerys said, her back arching.

“And don’t forget that little flicker of skin under her pj top. Her top was just a little too short and you could see that little sliver of stomach skin underneath”

“You love slivers of stomach…”

“Secret slivers of stomach. It has to be unknown to them, just a consequence of their over-eating. It’s soooo good. You’re… fuck, just bear with me, I’m… nope, too soon” Juan grunted, but then carried on. “You’re more of an arse girl, aren’t you?”

“I am such an arse-girl. And she is a girl with such an arse. She has that body-shape doesn’t she?” Cerys replied, her neck stiffening.

“Built like a fucking cello, she is” Juan agreed.

“Right? I mean, did you see what it looked like in those jeans? So bulbous and yet so squishy. And how did she get those jeans on? She must know she’s gaining weight. I mean, surely” Cerys said, eyes closed now.

“I think she knows, but I don’t think she knows we’re encouraging it. Bless her, but I don’t think she knows that the affected are all feeders, just that we’re feedees. She has no suspicions whatsoever that we want non-affected people to get fat”

“Well, to be fair, she was gaining before we arrived, so maybe we’re not facilitating it. Maybe we’re just catching her on the natural curve of her weight gain”

“She gained before we came onto the scene?”

“18 months ago, when she first entered the House, she was 130” Cerys, said, pausing what she was doing to show Juan a photo on her phone.

It was her standing outside, surrounded by volunteers and door-knockers, holding a placard saying Labour 2019. Fortunately for Juan, the placard was being held to her side, so her full body could be seen. It was the same face, right down to the crinkle of the nose, but it was sitting atop a different body. A straighter, less shaped body. A boyish body boxed into familiar tailored garb. Nothing stuck out in atraditional places, a little on her chest, but otherwise it was a straight up and down affair. Unlike the current Nadia.

“Ummm… can I keep this for a bit?”

“Sure” Cerys rolled her eyes. And Juan did too, for other reasons.

“So, guess her weight now then?” Cerys finally asked, after a bit of grunting from the pair of them.

“Well, she’s what… 5ft7?”

“5ft6 in flats, Juan. Come on, pay attention”

“So you’d have to say… 200… maybe 205?”

“I’d put money on her being 210” Cerys responded, causing Juan to take a sharp intake of breath.

“210 would be good”

“Yeah, it would make her 50% heavier in just 18 months…”

“Oh shit, I’m done. That’s done it for me, I’m done. Pass us a tissue? Babe?”

“I’ve got my hands full still. You… oh fuck, fine. Here you go” Cerys grumbled, handing him one and then returning to own self-care. “Oh, by the way, if you’re done… you couldn’t maybe pop downstairs and ask her if she needs anything to eat…”

 

+

 

Eloise was ready. Make-up: primed. Lighting: smooth and non-garish. Dress: cute and frilly, but revealing enough to be seductive. Male viewers only made up 30% of her channel’s viewers, but she knew what they were there for. They were there to her swollen breasts, peeking just above her zipper like a dual sun-rise.

“And I just press this button?” her sister asked.

“Yeah, that’s the one Ri”

“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that?”

“Uggghhhh… that’s the one sister” Eloise rolled her eyes, before her facial expression switched into a genial smile with unnerving ease.

“Hi guys, it’s me, SugarPlumLovely, here to bring a bit of sparkle into your lives. Now, this video is gonna be a bit different and a little bit crazy. And, real talk, I’m kinda freaking out about it. But guys… as you can probably tell from the name of this video… I’m gonna read A Free Hit by Swahilimonkfish and record what happens…”

“You’re gonna fucking what!?!?!” Rianna yelled, jumping up and shouting at her sister.

Eloise didn’t say anything, but her jaw tensed and her eyes pushed sharply away and then back again, sharply at her sister.

“I let you watch me make a really cool video and you interrupt my first take? Oh my god, you see this is why I don’t call you sister. Shit like this” Eloise ranted, spitting flecks of fury at Rianna.

“Sorry, but I’m not just gonna sit and watch you ‘affect’ yourself…”

“It’s… I’m not gonna ‘affect’ myself. For fucks sake Ri! I’m… clearly gonna fake it. You are so fucking dumb at times” Eloise said, throwing the neartly placed cuddly bear that was propped up behind her at the wall in frustration.

“Oh, I… sorry, I was… sorry sis… Eloise” Rianna stammered shamefully, her cheeks a shade of beetroot with embarrassment.

“Look… I’m sorry for shouting. It’s… just one take. I’m just stressed cos I gotta get this right. It’s gotta look legit. It’s… why I wanted you to be here while I record it. To see how convincing it was?” Eloise offered a peace offering of a smile.

“Really?”

“Yeah, that’s why I didn’t tell you. I wanted you to think it was genuine and then freak out while I was reading it and it would look really cool and verite”

“I mean… I could do that if you like? I did play Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet at High School…”

“Thanks, sis” Eloise smiled, and then neatly put the cuddly bear propped up behind her again, checked herself in the mirror to make sure her hair hadn’t come out of place, and then nodded for her sister to press play.

“Hi guys, it’s me, SugarPlumLovely, here to bring a bit of sparkle into your lives. Now, this video is gonna be a bit different and a little bit crazy. And, real talk, I’m kinda freaking out about it. But guys… as you can probably tell from the name of this video… I’m gonna read A Free Hit by Swahilimonkfish and record what happens…”

 

+

 

“When are they arriving?” Faizah said, stony-face. She paused, and then nodded, and then hung up. “We have to go”.

“We… we have to… what?” Robson said, looking up from his spaghetti bolognese, slurping a spaghetto messily up into his mouth as he did.

“Oh babe, you look so cute in your bib. But the police are about to break down our door and arrest us, so we have to go” Faizah explained, gently stroking his face.

“They’re coming?” Hattie asked, matter-of-factly. Her normal heavy shuffle now a confident, strident shuffle.

“According to Jaz, they’re just waiting for the order to come in”

“Okay, you have the address? Car keys? Snacks?” Hattie continued, eating a muffin while she grabbed her pre-prepared to-go bag.

“Yeah, but… what do we do about him?” the two girls turned around and looked at Robson.

Robson was still sitting at the table, looking up with wide-eyes, not entirely sure what was going on. He was, as Faizah mentioned, wearing a bib. It was a vain attempt to shield him from vortex of tomato-sauced stains that had splattered all over him like it was blood in a Quentin Tarantino movie. His face, his sleeves, and everything around him, painted a fluorescent terracotta.

It had been one week since he committed to gaining up to 350, as the bare naked ladies that were constantly by his side would testify. One week and it had been all hands to the deck, in service of the young journalist. It was a Minnie Charnwood fever dream come to life, as the two grandiose gals pointed all their arsenal at him and hit him with everything they had. And they had a lot.

Robson didn’t see the point in resisting. Their efforts were just expediting events. There were times when it turned into a haze of heart-racing euphoria, and there were times when he was scared and felt cold. And both of those events were met with the same response, of him just leaning into it as far as he could go. It’s very rare for someone of his already impressive size to gain 12lbs over the course of just seven days outside of a Swahilimonkfish story, but somehow Robson managed it.

“Morley said we’d have to leave him, if things ever came to it” Faizah reminded Hattie.

“Yeah, but fuck Morley. I’m not leaving him. I mean, look at him. As unaffected go, he’s pretty cute”

“He’s got potential”

“I kinda want him to come with us” Hattie stood there, negotiating with Faizah.

“Guys? I can stay. I don’t mind. It’s been fun, it has. Honestly. But, you need to be safe. And I won’t tell them where you’re going. I don’t… I don’t even know where you’d be going” Robson said, whilst reaching for the parmesan and sprinkling more of it on his bolognese.

“Oh, Robson, journalist of the Guardian. That’s really sweet, but I don’t think you understand. They’d arrest you too” Hattie said, tilting her head in care.

“I’d be fine, it’s only affected they want”

“Uhh… exactly”

Robson frowned in confusion.

“Robson, journalist of the Guardian, put yourself in the shoes of this special ops unit. Look at you through their eyes. And then remember that your photo that the Guardian use for your articles was taken just two years ago, but over 100lbs ago. Robson… they’ll think you are ‘affected’. And, even though you’re not, you might as well be. So, we’ve gotta go. Together. Three ‘affected’. Like the three musketeers”

Robson scowled, trying to get the fuzzy brain of his to catch up to what they were saying.

“But there were four musketeers really, even though the title says three”

That was all he could manage. Focusing on the least important, most superficial part of her comment. His brain was clogged up. Nothing made sense. He was practically affected now, even though he technically wasn’t. And that kind of information can shut a person’s thinking down.

“Yes, they mention that very point in A Free Hit”

 

+

 

“You have your orders, Unit Alpha. Now go”

The front door was hit once with the battering ram. And then a second time. And a third. And then the door left its hinges, and collapsed backwards. The men in black uniforms charged forwards, guns pointed forwards.

The stairs were there as soon as they opened the door. One half went straight up them in a fast march, short little steps at a hurried pace. The other half went right, through the hall into the living room. And, as soon as they entered, their guns rose head-height.

“We have three affected here. 1 male and 2 females. I cannot get a positive visual confirmation that any of them are Hattie Buckingham, but the… biggest one does have the same hair colour. They are unarmed, and one of them is… struggling to get his shirt on. Please advise”

The seven officers walked slowly towards the three musketeers. They were so close to leaving. But they thought Robson’s splattered shirt might be a give-away, but the biggest shirt he had was still too small and he was having a hard job stopping it roll up his belly like blinds in the morning. He looked ridiculous, in headphones, a while shirt that revealed his belly-button, and chinos that he didn’t even try to do up.

Hattie pulled her phone out of her pocket.

“Sir, the… bigger one, is carrying a device. Looks like a mobile phone… I’ll proceed to interact with the suspect” the officer said, still pointing his gun at the three of them. “You okay, love? You hungry? There’s loads of sweets in the van if you want to come with us”.

“Move one more step and I press this button” Hattie said, chest out, chin raised and staring defiantly.

“Umm… what is… sorry, ma’am, what device is that? Oh shit, is that a detonator? Umm… ma’am, please confirm what that device is. Ma’am?”

“It’s a phone, dipshits”

“Good, ma’am. Good. But what happens if you press the button? Are there explosives on the premises? I know you’re scared, but threats aren’t helping here, so just tell me, what happens if you press the button?”

“A Free Hit happens”

“I’m sorry ma’am, I… wait, is that a recording of…”

“Yeah. A recording of Fish’s first story. I press play, and you guys are the people your unit hunt, and no longer the people that do the hunting. I press this button, and you become affected. I press this button and it’s you that will run to your van after those sweets. So, I want you to BACK. THE FUCK. OFF” Hattie strode forward, her eyes narrowed in on the leading officers eyes.

“Ma’am, I can’t do that. I have orders”

“Well, pass me your walkie-talkie thing then, and I’ll speak to your superior”

“I can’t let you do that either ma’am”

“Pass it or I press it. They don’t care if you end up affected. But what about your family? Your friends? Will they mourn? Some people in my family mourned for me. My aunts and uncles held a vigil, to commemorate me. I remember hearing about it and thinking… who cares, I’m hungry. Is that what you want for you. Now, let me speak to your superior” Hattie said, gesturing for him to pass over his walkie-talkie. He unhitched it and threw it over.

She pressed the button to transmit.

“Foxtrot-Uniform-Charlie-Kilo, Oscar-Foxtrot-Foxtrot over. I repeat, Foxtrot-Uniform-Charlie-Kilo, Oscar-Foxtrot-Foxtrot over” Hattie said into the radio with a smile on her face.

“Come on now, you’ve had your fun. You weird, creepy fucks…”

And then she pressed play anyway. With her hand on the button, to transmit the message over the headsets of all of those listening in, as well as loud enough so it could be heard by all those in the room. She pressed the button.

“If in doubt, talk to Shaun”

Those words, bellowing to all those nearby, except for Robson who had his headphones on and was terrified and oblivious, watching it all unfold as if he was watching a movie and someone had put the mute on.

“Sir, should I fire? Sir, confirm that I should fire…”

“Lower your weapons! All of you, lower them” the lead officer said, with a strange glint in his eye. “I want to know more about this Shaun geezer, and what happens next”.
 

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Part 14

 

“Doughnut, Jaz?” Sarge said, handed her a pack of six, freshly dusted and smelling doughy.

“Awww, thanks Sarge” WPC Jasmine Jennings said, her face lighting up at the sight. PC Winston John just glared at her. “Just the one though, for me. I’ve put on a few recently, and I need to cut back”.

She smiled sheepishly as she bit into it, before using all of her will-power to not groan with joy as that first bite hit jam and light up all the pleasure sensors in her brain and body.

“You gonna offer me one, Sarge?” PC Winston John asked sharply.

“Oh, sorry, what am I thinking? Would you like a doughnut, PC Winston John?” Sarge said, faking a smile and shifting the box so it was in front of him.

“No, I don’t do carbs” PC Winston John replied, pushing the box back to Sarge.

“They are good doughnuts” Sarge said. “Wouldn’t you say, Jaz?”

WPC Jasmine Jennings fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat.

“They’re okay, yeah” she said, with wispy intonation.

“Sorry, that was a bit quiet. Could you say it a bit louder for the tape?” Sarge said, gesturing to the tape recorder on the table between them.

They were in Interview Room 3 - aka the one with the broken camera in the corner of the room. Sarge, a rakishly thin man with a moustache that didn’t suit his fairly youngish face, sat opposite them, leaning forward harshly. His hair was greased back, jet black and already receding. Opposite him, WPC Jasmine Jennings and PC WInston John were sitting on the interviewee side of the desk, still in their uniforms. PC Winston John was looking particularly uncomfortable.

“They’re okay, yeah” WPC Jasmine Jennings replied, leaning into the microphone with impish elan, a smirk across her face as she ensured that it caught it.

That smirk soon disappeared.

“Well… in that case… would you like a second doughnut, WPC Jasmine Jennings? If they’re good. If they’re tasty”

WPC Jasmine Jennings’ face contorted in temptation, but her eyes never strayed from the packet of doughnuts.

“Ohhh, go on then, one more won’t hurt” she said, flashing him her trademark smile, one of unabashed joy. She took the doughnut and bit into it, missing jam with her first bite this time, but enjoying it no less.

“Just one?” Sarge said, pushing the pack towards her.

WPC Jasmine Jennings flinched as he said it.

“I mean, Jaz. Why not? Why not treat yourself? You have a free hit, after all” Sarge snarled, his yellowish teeth gnashed.

“Sarge! I thought this was about the incident at the Hattie Buckingham residence” PC Winston John interrupted, trying to wrestle control of the subject away from where it was.

“IT IS!” Sarge hissed furiously, but catching his breath, stroking his moustache, and carrying on more politely. “So, Jaz, do you want that pack of doughnuts?”

Jaz didn’t say anything. She tried to but the words didn’t come out. She tried to shake her head in refusal, but it just twisted awkwardly in repressed desire.

“What about… if I had a second pack of doughnuts? What would you say to that, WPC Jennings?” Sarge said with a sinister smirk, putting the second packet on the desk.

Jaz squealed quietly under her breath at this point, her body pulling away from them but her eyes fixed.

“Come on Sarge, you’ve had your fun. Let’s wrap this up” PC Winston John said, getting up from his chair and offering his hand to WPC Jasmine Jennings, to pull her up from her chair.

But she just sat there, looking at the pack of doughnuts and grimacing.

And then, her eyes closed, her head went down and her hand slowly went towards the packet. Her hand began to shake as it drew near. Slowly, she grabbed the bottom packet, pulling it towards her and the one on top came with it. The entire time, she didn’t even look at PC Winston John. She didn’t dare. If she had, she wouldn’t have seen anger on his face. Or disappointment. Just sadness, as she pulled the two packs of doughnuts to her and loosened the top packet so she could get her hand in more easily to pull more out.

“Tell me, WPC Jasmine Jennings… the police physical that you plods have to do, the bleep test. That was eight months ago, correct?” Sarge asked, but Jaz wasn’t answering. She was on doughnut number three and feeling the sugar hit her blood with delight.

“You know when it was Sarge, you organised it” Winston replied for her, annoyed.

“Ahhh yes, I did. You’re right. And, as the organiser, I remember WPC Jasmine Jennings doing rather well. I think it was about 9.2… something like that. I mean, those are Armed Response kinda numbers. Aren’t they, WPC Jasmine Jennings?” Sarge looked at her with scissored eyes.

Jaz didn’t reply. Again. She was spending half of her mental capacity trying to unsuccessfully stifle a burp, and the other half of her mental capacity was spent on licking the sugary fingers of her hastily-eaten third doughnut.

“And… as the organiser, I seem to recall that part of the physical was the taking of physical stats. Height, weight, that kinda thing…” Sarge continued, looking down now at a sheet in front of him.

“What are you trying to say, Sarge?” Winston grumped.

“WPC Jasmine Jennings, do you remember your weight that day? I can tell you your height, if that helps spark your memory. 5ft8. Pretty tall for a woman, if you’re even allowed to say that these days” the officer forged a smile at them.

“No. You’re not” Winston grouched, crossing his arms as he did.

“If you can’t remember, or if you’re a little… preoccupied at the minute. That’s fine, I have the weigh-in here. And it says… drum roll please… no? Well, I’ll just tell you then… 127lbs. Wow. That’s very… lean. Impressive, really. I wonder, WPC Jasmine Jennings, do you think you’re still 127lbs?”

Sarge didn’t realise what those words were doing to the poor WPC. The way they knotted in her brain, asphyxiating all thought processes outside the id. She hoped that if she took another bite of her doughnut, it would take her mind off things. It didn’t.

“Sarge! This is getting outta hand now! Criticising a female colleague about their figure? That’s harassment, that is. Sexual harrassment” Winston banged his fist down on the table in frustration.

“Twelve officers out there were lost last week, and another dozen on comms, because someone rang on a burner phone to warn the people there. That’s 24 people, good people, who are now affected, and barely cogniscent. And even if they were, they’re locked up now under the PM’s new program”

“You say program, I say pogrom” Winston snarled.

“Either way, don’t fucking talk to me about what my intentions are! Cut me and I fucking bleed blue lines! And someone… betrayed the force and cost us and their families good officers. So don’t play clever sods with me Winston, cos if you knew about this, about her, then you’re going down too” Sarge said, standing up and pointing a finger accusatively. Winston couldn’t think of a comeback, so just leant back in his chair and re-folded his arms.

“Okay. So, WPC Jasmine Jennings” Sarge said, steadying himself once more. “You were 127lbs and that was just over 8 months ago. Now, I just so happen to have some scales here. They’re mother’s, if you must know, but I’m sure she won’t mind if you use them”

He pulled the scales from behind his suitcase, out into the middle of the floor, and set it to zero. He then stood on it.

“Ahh, 141lbs, that sounds right. Good they’re accurate then. Now, WPC Jasmine Jennings, fancy hopping on? You can carry on eating your lovely doughnuts while you weigh yourself, if it cheers you up”

Jaz looked down guiltily as she pulled herself up. Carrying the second box of doughnuts that she had just started, she took small steps towards the scales. Sarge watched, and thought he could detect guilt and worry on her face. And there was guilt, certainly, she felt as though she had let Winston down. But not worry. The neurons in her brain were scrambling elsehow.

Instead, she could feel moisture around her crotch as she walked. The teasing of her, the shame of it, the comparison of her gain, the greed of her eating. And now a weigh-in? What self-respecting alumnus of the works of Swahilimonkfish wouldn’t struggle to contain their elysium at such a point.

After the bakery incident - although most of the last seven months could be described as one long bakery incident given her new lifestyle changes - she had found herself to weigh 166lbs. She was technically overweight, but by a very fine margin, and looked just impressively curvy. Unfortunately, the will-power to tame her gain was weakening with the passage of time. She had been railing against a current that was roaring in the opposing direction for so long, and she felt weaker and weaker with every passing exhibition of strength. When Winston had found out about her identity, she had climbed to 187lbs and, even carrying it as well as she did, she was looking a far state removed from where she was. And now?
The scales calibrated as she placed her feet on the machine, leaning forward and looking down past her chest and stomach, as the number appeared on the screen.

Watching the scene, Winston could only roll his eyes at himself for not having cottoned on sooner. It was obvious now, especially with the side-on view that he had. Her breasts had grown, which possibly skewed the perception of her. A deep, hearty and well-supported chest that stuck out boldly in her tight police uniform. Beneath, the other major weight settlement was her stomach. Not so firm or proud, it was a soft, sloshy stomach despite being perpetually filled, like a slippery seal that was ducking down low under even the dark navy polo shirt so it could be seen. Juan would have approved. So would Fish, if his writings were any indication.

“203? From 127 to 203… just bear with me, I have a calculator app on my phone… 76lbs gained in 8 months. Wow, what a suspiciously large gain to happen just as the virus started spreading locally, affected, among others, WPC Jasmine Jennings’ sister” Sarge gave her a triumphant glare.

“HEY!” Winston stood up from his chair and walked towards his boss. His blood was pumping, his arms bristled with inaction as he marched across to the other side of the table. But, when he got there, he found calmness just at the right time. “Sarge, you seem to be weirdly into this. Like, are you getting off on this?”

“No, I already told you…”

“And, did you see that Jaz?” Winston said, but Jasmine was in her own world with just doughnuts and sexual thoughts for company. “His eyes. There’s something weird about them”.

Winston pushed his face towards his boss, zooming in on his eyes. They were perfectly regular eyes, a little beady perhaps, his right one a little bloodshot but not enough to suggest glaucoma or anything. Sarge pulled his head back in concern.

“Yeah, see that Jaz” Winston said to the silent girl. “See how his irises are moving, but his pupils are staying still? Yeah, he’s affected”

“Bollocks!” shouted Sarge, but Winston’s lie didn’t care.

“Yeah, I bet he was on the call too. Recently affected, so probably not showing the eating symptoms yet. But, the love of weigh-ins, the fat-shaming, the doughnuts, the eyes… yeah, Sarge is affected. Which is a shame. It means… we’ve lost another good officer and their family to the PM’s program” Winston smiled at him.

“This is rubbish. I… I… want the record to show that this is a load of bollocks. The… the tape needs to show that… he’s deflecting! He’s deflecting to protect the girl he fancies, though God fucking knows why after what she’s done to herself. Maybe he’s into it. Maybe he’s a perv. Not ‘affected’, just a sick man who prefers jiggly flesh and the pussy of a fat bitch…”
Sarge paused, catching his words. Reactively, he put his right hand over his mouth, either in shock or just to shut himself up after realising what he said.

“I… I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. I…”

“Calling an officer a fat bitch? After this charade? No, I think that you’re not affected, I was right the first time. This is just some good old-fashioned sexual harrassment” Winston said, staring him down.

“I… I’ll delete the tape. I’ll let her go. Just don’t… don’t…”

“I don’t want you to delete the tape. I want you to give me the tape. For insurance. And leave my colleague alone. For good. She can eat what she likes, wank when she likes, and you’re going to pretend she’s just a regular, unaffected office of the law. Is that okay, Sarge?”

Sarge nodded sheepishly, never making eye contact that entire showdown.

 

+

 

Walking out of Interview Room 3, PC Jasmine Jennings and PC Winston John breathed a deep sigh of relief. The dark pit of furry sickness at the deepest part of his stomach was slowly calming. They had seen off Sarge, and they had seen him off for good.

“Thanks Winston. For real. That was genuinely amazing” Jaz said affectionately, before doing that big, childish grin of hers.

“Partners have each other’s back” he said, with a quiet smile.

“Work partners or…”

Winston looked at her, his expression one of conflicting emotions.

“Or?”

“I just… it’s been a really shit day and… I just wanna go home and eat more than I’ve ever eaten before, and masturbate until I chafe. I mean, I’ve just been given a Free Hit at fucking last and I am going to push the boundaries of disbelief tonight. And I know how weird that sounds to you, but it’s just how I’m wired these days and… it would still be nice if… I’d like some company. Just, regular company. Work colleagues, together, after a stressful day, type of company” her eyes looked into his. They were a soft brown, almost hazel.

“And masturbate?”

And they both laughed.

“Look, don’t judge me for that! You know that’s not something I have much say over. It’s part of me now. But, I’d still appreciate a friend”

“Is this about what the Sarge said?”

“Which bit, he said quite a lot”

“About me liking you”

“Oh, that bit”

They suddenly felt awkward, as they finally left the precinct.

“Look..” they both said, at the same time, before realising how corny that was.

“I’ll go first” Winston said. “You know I like you. I’ve always liked you. I mean, everyone liked you. But I really liked you. And… I want you to know I didn’t help you to win you over or get in your pants or whatever. And I’m also not telling you that to appear a gentleman, with the endgame of getting in your pants or whatever. And double-also, I’m not suddenly acting like you were out of my league before but now you’ve been affected and gained a little, you’re now no longer out of my league and I should make a move…”

“Shut up Winston” Jaz smiled. “You were never out of my league. Even at 127lbs or whatever Sarge said I was. But I’m not going to be your girlfriend”

“Oh”

“Because… I’m affected and… it wouldn’t be fair. We’re… not like you. You… I’m not sure you’d like me. And don’t say you would, because you don’t know what we’re like”

“Well… you wanted me to come over as a friend, tonight. Maybe I could see what ‘the affected’ are like? Just as friends. But maybe with benefits?” he asked hopefully.

“Oh god yeah, I mean, I took for granted that there would be benefits. I thought you knew that. I want you to shag me. To fuck me. But, to fuck me as a friend” Jaz said with a gay smile, as she finally reached the car. Winston’s face lit up too. “My place or yours?”

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Part 15

How it started to trend to trend, was simple. SugarPlumLovely was subscribed to by somebody who she used to share a flat with called Chloe. She passed it on to three of her friends, believing it to be real. One of them, a woman called Renee, went to work with somebody who was affected, and thought it was distasteful. The other two didn’t. Soon, it was shared by another local vlogger that SugarPlumLovely didn’t know personally but shared acquaintances. Of her 450 subscribers, 20% were bots, 30% were dead or unused accounts, and 15% were taken out by the rolling internet blackouts. This still left 35% of her 450 subscriber base who were active.

One of those subscribers shared it on Twitter. This tweet was seen, then stolen and tweeted out by someone else in the Toronto area. This got retweeted by a couple of other local social-media enthusiasts, until a second-rate actor from Degrassi stumbled across it. They retweeted it.

It ran around in small film and TV circles, until Lawrence Hessington-Smyth saw it. Lawrence Hessington-Smyth was, at one point, an actor. Before that he was the progeny of a talented actor. These days, he was just a shit-stirrer and all-round bell-end. And shit-stirrer and all-round bell-end Lawrence Hessington-Smyth decided this issue was worth a tirade.

At this juncture, the video was doing far better than any Youtube video that SugarPlumLovely had ever achieved. Her subscriber number had jumped quicker than it had ever jumped, views were trickling rather quickly upwards, and there was a lot of shocked and concerned comments beneath it, upping what the Youtube algorithm called ‘engagement’. This is a large driver of how hard Youtube pushes content on their platform. Well, when Lawrence Hessington-Smyth decided that a young woman seemingly under the throes of affectation was a perfectly reasonable target for a reasonably well-known man to bully online, ‘engagement’ went through the roof.

It became two debates. There was one debate questioning the validity of it, with both sides hurling rocks at the opposing as if the debate was clear-cut. That the debate was clear-cut was about the only thing they agreed on, since they were, alas, unable to agree on which way it was clear-cut. The second debate was questioning the morality of it, with both sides hurling rocks at the opposing as if the debate was clear cut. People launched pile-ons, which were swiftly rebutted with counter-pile-ons. Some people considered SugarPlumLovely to be the next Meghan Markle, while others suggested that SugarPlumLovely was more like the next Meghan Markle. It was that divisive.

That was how it happened. And when it happened? While Eloise was asleep.

 

+

 

Eloise woke to see her step-sister in her room, looking at her with a wicked grin as she watched.

“Shitting fucking Christ!” Eloise jumped out of her skin.

“Good morning” the step-sister replied with the same big grin on her face.

“You do know how creepy that is, don’t you? To wake up and see someone staring at me and smiling like the Cheshire cat” Eloise said as she calmed herself down.

“You’ve gone viral”

“What? It’s too early for riddles, Ri” Eloise said, putting her head back on her pillow and feeling the warmth where her head had previously been.

“It’s midday. And I said, you’ve gone viral”

Eloise was not an early worm. She had no enthusiasm for mornings. Especially in the cold Canadian spring, her bed was too comfortable and too warm to part from.

“I’ve gone viral?” Eloise not really understanding yet, her head draped in morning cobwebs still.

“You’ve gone viral”

“I… I’ve gone fucking viral!” Eloise suddenly cottoned on and rushed to her bedside cabinet and took the phone from off it. “Why didn’t you say so!”

“I… did. Like, three times” Rianna replied, but Eloise wasn’t listening. After all, Eloise had gone viral.

 

+

 

Imran didn’t like waiting. It’s why he preferred to be late for things. Being early was dorky, and being late showed carefree swagger. No, Imran much preferred to be late for things. Being early sucked.

But Imran was early. He was at home, early, and he was pacing. Or shadowboxing. Something he’d seen one of his mates do and decided to copy it. When his mate noticed, Imran accused the mate of copying him, to preempt the vice versa accusation. He pretended he was Donnie Creed, ducking and weaving in the empty front room, until his breathing got a little ragged. He didn’t want to seem flustered when his parents arrived.

It had been 9 months now since his mum couldn’t find her salt and vinegar crisps and the culprit was revealed to be Faizah. 9 months since Imran’s, and everyone else’s, world got turned upside down. And, after 9 months, he was hoping for just a sliver of normality.

 

+

 

Eloise was sitting up in her bed, eyes glued to the screen in her hand. The numbers kept going up. All of them. Every metric she had. Up, up, up. Her figures were ballooning.

“So sis, how much adsense are we gonna get, eh?” Rianna gently ribbed, sitting next to her in bed, but over the covers unlike her sister.

“Uhhh… well, I have over 12 million views so that’s about… $4?”

“Oh, so we’re not rich then” Rianna’s face deflated at the news. She was looking at her sister, leaning forward on her bed. Eloise’s food baby had broadly died down, leaving the thin girl to not show a roll even as she pushed her upper torso forward to get closer to the screen. Seeing her sister squint, Ri passed Eloise’s glasses to her, but Eloise batted the offer away and continued to squint instead. “Still, I bet the apology video will go even viraller. Even more viral? Whatever”.

“You think I’m gonna apologise? Ri… I’m famous, I can’t tell everyone it’s all bullshit. I’ll get fucking death-threats. I’m already getting death-threats. Look at this one, JoaquinPhoenixAsTheJoker says what I’m doing is basically suicide, which is a sin, so he says he’s gonna kill me” Eloise had the Youtube comment on her screen. The comment had over 15K likes, all by people with similar user handles. The handles either lauded Snyder and Phoenix, are criticised SJWs and Rian Johnson’s Star Wars entry.

“Fuck”

“Exactly! Fuck! This is the fuck-est thing to ever happen to me! Why? I just wanted to become the next Caisey Neistat and be world famous and ordered and super rich and do lifeguard training with Kevin Hart. Is that so much to ask for?”

“Lifeguard training with Kevin Hart?”

“Yup, those are the kinda vlogs you get to make if you are a superfamous Youtuber”

“The short guy?”

“But the one time that I tell a tiny little lie is on the one video that goes viral. What are the odds?” Eloise dropped her head back onto her pillow in frustration. Her cuddly bear looked at her judgmentally so she threw it on the floor.

“Karma?”

“Yeah, you’re right Ri, I’m getting flustered. Just need to chill out, clear my mind and remember my breathing exercises from those Joe Wicks videos…” Eloise said resolutely, sitting up straight again and breathing in deep from her chest. And out again. “No. That’s not worked, I’m still fucking pissed. I’m not throwing away my booming Youtube channel because of one eensy-weensy untruth”

“Well, what’s the alternative?” Ri asked.

Eloise slammed the laptop shut and sighed. Both girls just sat there, staring into empty space. Slowly, and knowingly, they turned around and looked at each other.

 

+

 

“M… mama?”

He’d heard the straining suspension of the car to indicate that she had come back from the fish and chip shop. And the kebab place next door. And the Pizza place across the road from there. And the bakery two doors down from that. He knew it was her. His mum. And, once she had returned, the deal was she would act like his mum as best she could.

Then the door opened and the only words that Imran could remember were ‘mama’.

“Hey, little guy”

She smiled warmly, and opened her meaty arms for a hug. She had been living in the same roof as him for 9 months, but this was the first time he’d seen her in 9 months. Properly. The mum that he remembered.

“Little man” he corrected quietly. He didn’t care, he was just so happy for her to say words that weren’t related to eating.

“Was that it? I couldn’t remember. I just remembered you were little” she smiled at him, then her eyes drifted towards the bags of food.

“Mum?”

“Sorry, just lost myself there for a moment. I’ll tell you what, shall we have a fish supper? How much is a normal portion size for someone like you?”

Imran smiled and walked into the kitchen with her. And the world felt calm, like a blanket of snow falling softly on the floor. The spinning in his head stopped, and the world was still. Everything was okay again. It was just for the Sunday evening, that was the promise, but everything was okay again for that Sunday evening.

And then the Armed Response Unit came in through the front door. They had an ‘affected’ to capture, by order of the PM.

 

+

 

Nadia was sat down in the quietest corner of the pub and drinking an alcopop absent-mindedly. Her headphones were in and her eyes were focused on her phone screen, showing the PM’s speech to the House of Commons. There was going to a formal vote on Project Slaughterhouse UK, which felt like lip-service since she’d heard there’d been some raids already. Not many of them successful, but even having one poor ‘affected’ person starved in a glass box was a tragedy. But, nonetheless, the PM was pitching the idea as part of the Global Britain brand. The vote was going to pass anyway. They had a majority of 80 and none of them would rebel on issues such as this or school dinners. Trifling issues, maybe. But not serious stuff that hurt people.

“Love, you’ve been nursing that drink for half an hour. Come on, if you don’t order something else, I’m gonna have to turf you out. The lunch time rush is due in another 40” the heavy-set waiter said.

“Oh, sorry” Nadia said, with an endearing crinkle of the nose. She then finished her drink. “I’ll take a second, sorry”.

“A £1.30 drink?”

“I’ll take two of them?”

The heavy-set waiter looked disappointed.

“While, I can’t drink anything strong because it’s 11am and a journalist should be here to interview me any time now. And I shouldn’t eat, because I literally only just started my diet this morning…”

The waiter stood there, stony-faced.

“I mean, I guess I could order a side?”

The waiter continued to stand there.

“I guess I could have a burger to go with that side?”

The waiter smiled.

“I recommend the Baconator Deluxe with extra cheese”

“Fine. But this will have to last me until when my interview finished at 1pm”

 

+

 

It was 1.30pm and there was no sign of him. Nadia was getting frustrated, her eyes furtively pinballing between the time on the clock and the ongoing debate in the House of Commons. The vote would begin at 2pm.

“Hey”

Nadia looked up, a big red imprint on her face where her head had been leaning on her hand.

“Hey guys, what are you doing here?”

“We got a message from Hattie and Faizah, your journalist from the Guardian is going to have to rearrange. Apparently, they’re on the run. Project Slaughterhouse nearly caught up with them. They’re raiding loads of places in Coventry right now. Shit’s going down, in a big way” Juan and Cerys explained as they pulled over a couple of stool for each of them to sit down.

“Shit! I should… I should be at the debate! These are my constituents; they’re gonna be locked up you said…” Nadia said with widened eyes as she grabbed her handbag and prepared to get up.

“Hey. Not just yet. You’ll miss the fireworks” Cerys said, instructing her friend to sit down.

“Sorry?”

“Sit! We’re gonna order. That the Baconator you had? Heard it’s good, might order some. Garcon, may I order some of your finest Baconators?” Cerys said, clicking her hand in the air, only half for comedic effect.

“I don’t understand…”

“Look Nadia, just order yourself some chips and another drink, and watch the debate. Trust me” Juan instructed, as the heavy-set waiter came over to take orders.

 

+

 

“Well Mr Speaker, I fear the Honourable Gentleman may be speaking out of the wrong orifice. You see, the purpose of project Slaughterhouse UK is not to cause harm to the ‘pigs’. I have never, at any point, said to the contrary. Indeed, I would rather lie in front of bulldozers than see the suffering of our ‘pigs’”

The PM was slamming his balled-up fist on the table before him as he spoke, to give him an air of petulant gravity.

“But let me be clear… this is a war. A war for our freedoms, and our dignities. And I will not go soft on this virulent abomination. Because, make no mistake, Mr Speaker, that is what these ‘pigs’ are. Abominations. Godless abominations. Abominable pigs. Which, I think, makes them porcine yetis. And maybe the opposition are pro-abomination, but I can assure you that we here in the Conservative Party are not!”

The bang of his fist on the table before him sounded different this time. Or was that sound he heard something else? It sounded like an explosion.

His last words were…

“Oh bugger”

 


And that was, for the PM, how it ended.
 

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Part 16 - The Zeitpunkt (Season Finale)

 

How would it start?
 

I sat at my laptop. Again. I keep my window open to keep the room well-ventilated, but it leaves my fingers icy with cold. A parade of tabs adorn the top of my screen. One for work, one for Twitter, one for Google docs. All that one needs in their life.
 

I click on the Google docs one.
 

I’m sitting over my laptop, hunched over with cold, in a thick, black and very comfortable jumper. I’m feeling a little full from my lunchtime gyros. And I’m working out how to write the scene with the blowing up of the Houses of Parliament. And I’m working out how to start the 16th part of How It Started.
 

There was a lecture he had watched, online due to the pandemic. The Coventry virus, COV-1, was now rife through Europe, just like it was at around part 7, and everything was remote. Lessons were remote, relationships were remote, everything felt remote. Responsibility felt remote. Responsibility for what he had written felt remote.
 

The lecture had been about the perpetually perishing present. I had come across the idea before, though in less florid terms. The Germans - as they do with everything - had a word for it. Zeitpunkt. A moment in time, distinct from any other. Some argue, though I’d counter-argue, wielding A Brief History of Time in their faces like it was… something that gest wielded in people’s faces… I can’t think of anything… I’ll come back to it later, I’m sure, with a better example. Anyway, I’d argue that time was the ‘narrative’ and our perception of it was simply the ‘discourse’, but there’s a whole branch of thinkers and philosophers who argue that time is solely in the eye of the beholder, and the only time that exists to anybody and any point is ‘now’. You can see it in Future Me Hates Me, I guess. This contradiction between our various selves. Acting based on a past that our previous self assembled and working towards a future for a future self we don’t even know. Now is the only time that matters, they argue. And that’s what this chapter would be about. The now. The now that’s not yet happened. The moment in time. The Augenblick. The Zeitpunkt.

 

+

 

The detonation was remote. The materials that had been secretly wormed into the cold, rat-infested sewers of the House of Commons, on those deliveries that the ‘affected’ had been orchestrating, were sister materials to the same gunpowder that nearly erupted beneath them centuries ago. And the building is fragile, rickety and long overdue repair. And, at this moment in time, frozen in narration, the building was exploding. 

 

+

 

The House of Commons was rowdy. The Prime Minister had been in fine, rambunctious fettle, riffing about Lysistrata by the Ancient Greek poet Aristophanes in response to a question about human rights. The back-benchers on one side were all standing and spitting and shouting across at the back-benchers on the other side, booing and hissing like this year’s panto was particularly involving. They were barely paying attention to the fact that, at this particular Zeitpunkt, the building they were in was about to erupt into fire and debris, and they were experiencing their last Zeitpunkt before death.

 

+

 

Nadia was sitting at her table, eyes unblinking. Juan and Cerys weren’t paying attention. At this moment in time, their backs were turned, head facing behind them as the huskily-built waiter was on his way to them with the first round of Baconators, fries and sides. Not that this meant that the table had been clean. Nadia had been there for two hours by now, slowly slurping alcopops and eating chips - thanks to a bit of patient prodding by the affected waiter. As a result, the table was cluttered. As a result, Nadia’s stomach was as swollen as she had ever known it.

Sitting there in a tailor-fitted suit that had since become ill-fitting, her stomach swaddled outwards. The suit itself was unbuttoned. It had started the day buttoned, but generous breakfasts from a McDonald’s drive-thru (these exist in the UK too), generous snacking on the train ride down, and then generous indulging of the Baconator and Cheese had repositioned Nadia to an anti-buttoning-of-this-jacket stance.

Underneath the jacket was a pale vanilla blouse, similarly unsuited to the demands of her situation as the suit itself. Had Juan’s back not been turned to greet the waiter, they’d have no doubt been drawn to the straining buttons and those secret slivers of stomach that he finds so appealing. The stomach itself wasn’t some generically domed phenomenon, but a two-tier system with the upper part a slighter bulge than the lower bulge as if gravity was dragging it down to her natural bottom-heavy tendencies but it just hadn’t finished the migration.

Lower still were her trousers. Black and well-ironed, though the way she filled them meant that they could have been originally rolled up into a wet ball and they would still be flat when worn. She had always been “cello-shaped” even when she was at her thinnest. A gift from the Caribbean ancestors on her grandmother’s side, that only lightly registered on her complexion. So the struggles of upward pulling had been a regular part of her morning routines at any weight, and she had never paid much heed. But the recently swelling midriff - a fairly recent development - had seen a newer confrontation. The issue had, for so long, been around the thighs and arse, but once they were up, they invariably did up. But, here, her button was fighting with screeching fingernails to cling onto its done up position, begging for its release. The past few evenings, and the past few evenings before her last jump in clothes sizes, had seen a thick red mark around her waist where the band on her clothes had launched their talons into her flesh. And the next few evenings would, undoubtedly, be no different. She needed either the next size up or to undo the button.

But she wasn’t thinking about any of these things during this freezeframe. She was watching the last moment of a livestream of the House of Commons before it erupted.

 

+

 

Imran wasn’t thinking at all. At this vertical slice of his existence, he was just standing in shock. You couldn’t tell with everything as still as it was when we here look at him, but his lip was trembling in a way it hadn’t done since he found out his best friend and him were going to different secondary schools back when he was 10 years old. But his eyes told his story better than these words could. They were old eyes on his young face, scarred with the image of seeing his mother, the one he’d only seen superficially for ¾ of a year so far but had finally acknowledged his presence and saw him clearly for the first time, being carted off, writhing and screaming as a large number of very powerfully built people employed all that strength to drag her out of the house. Imran didn’t fight them. Imran didn’t move. He was frozen long before this Zeitpunkt.

But he wouldn’t be frozen for long. Because, while his body was still, his mind crackled with electricity. Not with constructive thoughts, detailed logistics and foolproof next steps. They were not so considered. No, Imran was raging. And when he next moved, his next steps would not be thoughtful ones. They would be angry ones. Dangerous ones. Destructive, hurtful, devastating ones.

 

+

 

Robson was sitting on a bus with his affected entourage, as the bus headed down country lanes to increasingly remote villages. His eyes didn’t bare the scars of what he had seen in the same way that Imran’s did. Indeed, his eyes were more drawn to the bag of bacon frazzles that he was absent-mindedly chomping through. His 290lbs were a toil to a body not used to it, and sat down on a narrow bus seat did little to appease that. His legs forced together to accommodate the other passengers, meant his stomach couldn’t sit between his legs as was becoming increasingly his norm. And this, in turn, seemed to push all his fat upwards. Looking down meant pushing against his chin, and all the fat on his torso seemed squashed upwards also in the tiny sitting booths of the S121 to Middle Chornton.

On the seats behind him, and equally compressed, were the even larger Faizah and Hattie. They were no less ill-suited to the mode of transport. Faizah’s right arse-cheek wasn’t even on the seat. Hattie and Faizah’s arse-cheek number one had simply meant there was insufficient room for the second pillow of flab. Hattie, however, was struggling on a further, secondary axis, as her stomach, the monument of excess that it was, pushing right against the seat in front of her.

And their mood was no lighter than their body, burdened with the knowledge that, after this stop, they’d be walking to where they needed to get to. And, as much as they weren’t built for being on buses, they really weren’t built for being on foot.

 

+

 

Wolf was sitting in some cold holding cell. His legs were crossed as if he was meditating, but his eyes were not calmed. They pulsed laser-beams from their sockets as they fixed onto the jailcell door in front of him. The world was silent and still apart from that door, from this Zeitpunkt to the next.

 

+

 

Eloise and her half-sister, Rianna, were sitting at a Tim Hortons. Rianna was mid-laugh, her mood as bright and breezy as the soft wind on a hot, summer day. Eloise was nervous, her tall lean build stiff like cardboard with a White Chocolate Tim’s Shake and a Crispy Chicken Stack in front of her. Her forehead had a light sheen to it as she sat, facing a Zeitpunkt of her own.

The answer to their problem was obvious, but it had been obscured by Eloise’s unwillingness to do it. If she wanted to continue her Youtube channel, she would have to do it while feigning to be affected. And there were certain sacrifices that would have to be made. And while this wasn’t the same situation as the one Nadia was about to find herself in, where her ambition was running up against the brick wall of compromise, it bore certain hallmarks. She was at a fork in the road. And on one side lay where she wanted to go, and the other side was where she already was. But the tolling booth at the road she wanted to go on charged a high price. The one thing she wanted to lose least, in return for the one thing she wanted the most. For Nadia, this would be morality vs. being Prime Minister. For Eloise, more mundanely but no less significantly in her eyes, it would be her waistline vs. being internet-famous.

 

+

 

Ling’s thoughts weren’t quite as lucid. She was ** on food. ** on the excess of it. ** on the badness of it. ** on the head-start that she had over so many.

Cheeseman hadn’t really noticed anything excessively untoward. Sure, the days had been more terse, and the evenings more wild. But this was normal when he was in her bad books.

Angry silences during the day and angry fucking at night. It wasn’t ideal, but it was young married life. And that’s all it was. He set up his phone on the table - the room they called the recording studio - and began laying down some fire lyrics to his new song: ‘WongaDude’

 

+

 

WPC Jasmine Jennings was in the police cafeteria, and next to her was PC Winston John. They had no idea that the nation’s police force was about to re-prioritise everything in the wake of the greatest ever terrorist attack on British soil. They were just enjoying each other’s company.

They were just friends. And sure, as friends, they had spent the previous two nights expressing that friendship a little more physically than is traditionally the case. But they were still just friends. Right? Winston felt guilty and overjoyed about it in equal measure. He had what he had always wanted. From the first moment he had seen Jaz, he had loved her since before he was born. And he found himself in Jaz’s bed, and often on her rug, against her wall, or on the cold kitchen lino, exploring that her sexual appetites were no less wild than her other ones. But there was always that nagging thought, rolling around in the back of his mind - that, as much as she was his world, he was just a cake to her. And that left him feeling guilty for liking her in such an emotionally unreciprocated way, even if he felt every ounce of the physical connection.

Whether Jaz saw Winston as cake or not, spoke less about how she saw Winston and more about how she saw cake. Sarge knew she was ‘affected’, and more and more of her colleagues suspected, but since he couldn’t touch her without self-implication, she felt untouchable. And that ravishing hunger that had been straining at the leash for Jaz for so long, could finally be released to hare across whichever treat or fancy delighted her. Which was most of them. She was finally let loose on eating like all the other affected did, and letting all the calorific consequences stack up on her.

It was visible to all that saw her in the canteen, tucking into the Friday Fish and Chips that the canteen bizarrely ran every Monday. She would lean back leisurely in her chair and let her hand rest on the swollen gut while the other would taxi food to her mouth and the back to the plate. She enjoyed the weight pile up, spiralling to 212 now and presumably beyond, wrapping her body up in bandages of fat, muffining in all of her police uniforms and filling the arm-holes of every polo shirt. She lived for the Zeitpunkt. For the moment in time, not as part of some ongoing tapestry, but the now-ness of every now until the next now came along.

 

+

 

He sat at his computer and twisted his face in frustration. The Prime Minister was on top form today. That comment about Lysistrata was hilarious. But those pesky left-wing do-gooders and their lefty lawyers were always trying to snowflake all over a fundamentally decent man. It made his next article easier though. “When will Labour stand up for real Britons?”. AA

Cowley shook his head as he began to smash away at his keyboard.

He had hated feeling usurped by his son, somehow getting the interview with the leader of the Renegades. AA had always felt a kinship with those ragamuffins, sticking it to the woolly latte-drinkers that called themselves the ‘affected’-sympathisers. But he had begrudging respect for his son for the way he knifed that young boy in that article. He was expecting some wishy-washy liberal ‘but he means well’ wetness, and his son actually showed balls for the first time in that lad’s life. Maybe that expensive education wasn’t completely wasted. In fact, AA thought, he should reach out to his son and see how he was doing. Maybe book a squash court and make that tubby 170lb lad run around a bit. Yeah, he’d send a text right now.

No, he changed his mind at the title. “When did we just roll over to the tyranny of these Affected Nazis?”. Yeah, that summed up his mood.

 

+

 

And that was how it started.
 

I sat back at my laptop, and twisted my face in frustration. Ling felt shallow still. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with her. I knew I needed another chess piece on the board, and I liked her as a character. But I never really took the time to dig into her like I did the others. Maybe, her being fat already lessened my personal investment. Wow, I thought to myself, I really am a bigot.
 

Eloise was similar. The other newest character. Had I simply lost the ability to write new characters, or was I reaching that point in the story where I was running out of steam? I knew, deep down, it was probably the latter. I had been clearly reading to much of The Id’s work, or maybe it’s just a natural consequence of me setting the story outside of Britain (for a change), but there’s something less gritty, more flitty, more candyfloss and unicorns about the story. A clear and convoluted excuse for weight gain like in the old skool WG stories. But sometimes I just want to write about young twenty-something women with amazing bodies getting fat. At least the ‘affected’ agree with me on that!
 

Because this whole chapter has been the kind of superficial describing that Juan and Cerys did when spying on Nadia. Here, I’ve got the camera and we’re spying on everyone. All of us. You’re included in that, you voyeuristic pervert! Oh, how clever and meta of me! Yeah, I thought not.
 

Maybe, I’d take a little pause after this chapter. Treat it as the Season 1 finale of A Free Hit. Yeah, that would work, thematically. A mini-break, and then come roaring back. I’ve exploded democracy, reached out across international borders, changed the perspective on the affected, killed off the season one villain and hinted at the season 2 big bad. AA Cowley, because dad’s make great villains. So yeah, a break. That would be good. And that gives me a free evening. To maybe find something to eat. I mean, why not?
 

Fuck. I can’t leave it like this. You need that final section, don’t you? The one that hints at the next series, to tantalise where it might go. Like the end-scenes credit in a Marvel movie. Fuck, I mean, I guess I should. For you.
 

I pulled myself back up towards my laptop and finished one last scene. Zeitpunkt over, we need one last look at Nadia as her world pivots in a way she couldn’t fathom. And I’ll try to keep it character based and not being de-railed into making it a section about weight gain.

 

+


Nadia nearly dropped her phone as the screen turned to an error message. But she didn’t need the screen, she heard it. An almost volcanic explosion coming from the direction of the river. A sense of unease hit the pub, as the customers all got up and walked to the window. A plume of smoke trailed up to the sky along the distant skyline.

More and more people left the pub to see what was happening. The constant opening and closing of the door meant that the roaring sounds of passing sirens would fade in and out. The only people who didn’t seem curious were Cerys and Juan. They were just tucking into their Baconators. Nadia spotted this and sat down, eyeing her ‘affected’ constituents with suspicion.

“You know what happened, don’t you?”

Juan went to answer, but there was too much food in his mouth that no words were able to come out. So Cerys took over.

“I don’t know what you mean. By the way, those chips… you finished with them Nadia?” Cerys said, taking Nadia’s half-eaten chips and adding it to her own collection without waiting for an answer.

“You told me to come here, instead of going to Parliament?”

Cerys and Juan didn’t answer, still eating the food in front of them. So Nadia continued.

“You told me that we didn’t have to worry about the PM for much longer, and that you would have to speed things up?”

Cerys and Juan weren’t ignoring her words, they were just focused elsewhere.

“You told me that I would be PM?”

“Bingo!” Juan said, pointing finger guns at her.

“You… did you blow up the Houses of Parliament? Are… are you terrorists? Am I… am I complicit in this?” Nadia stood up in shock and horror.

“You’re not complicit, you had no idea. Now sit down and finish your drink. And maybe steal some chips back off my plate. When you’re PM, you’ve gotta make sure people don’t steal chips from your plate - metaphorically” Cerys explained.

“How… how many people are dead?”

“Shit-tons. But most of them were wankers. Or politicians, or whatever you wanna call them. And none of them were ‘affected’. That’s the important thing. And that’s half the Tory party wiped out, they’ll have to call another general election. And you can run as leader of the Labour Party, taking over from the recently-departed former leader, and become PM. In the words of one of his many delightfully complex characters… bish, bash, bosh!” Juan added, putting the last chips into his mouth from his plate.

“I can’t… I can’t…” Nadia was struggling to get her words out, her blouse suddenly felt tight across her chest. “I’m not a… this is amoral. This is mass-murder. I didn’t think that you meant that when you said I’d be PM!”

“Look, you can complain. Dob us in. Whatever. But you need us. We’re a key demographic now. If you want to win the election, you need the ‘affected’ voters to turn out for you. And they won’t do that if you turn on us. So, what’s more important to you, Nadia? Being honest, and moral, and denouncing terrorism? Or being PM?”

Nadia looked shocked.

“I can’t just turn a blind eye to it. I’m sorry”

“Then you know what you must do”

Nadia closed her eyes. It was something she used to do, when she first became an MP. You close your eyes, and that’s one sense less to worry about. You close your eyes and it makes thinking easier. Your eyes are less distracted and you can focus. Focus on what matters. Focus on what matters. Focus on what matters.

Nadia opened her eyes.

“Fuck it. What’s done is done. The only thing that matters is the future. And the compassionate, moral thing to do is make sure the country has the most compassionate, moral leader. And that’s me. So, bring it on. I’ll do it. I… I wanna be Prime Minister”.

Juan and Cerys smiled genuinely at her.

“Well, in that case, how about you order yourself a Baconator to celebrate?”

Nadia smiled generously, and even spared a scrunch of her nose, as her hand drifted down to finally undo that button on her trousers to prepare for that celebratory burger.

 

+

 

Fuck, I was de-railed into making it a section about weight gain. 
 

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