Chapter 6: Limelight

Hefmire’s Case Notes, 05/09/2011:

“In addition to her nature, I must also raise the issue of Patient Zero’s environment. I cannot countenance the notion that the lifeform would have been a threat to us under any circumstances. Rather, I believe, her contact with the film director and the world he inhabited exacerbated her natural tendencies, leading to the spiral of behaviour that brought the situation to a head...”

***

“General Awn,” Hefmire said, striding into the general’s office, “I have the results.”

“Well?” Awn asked, fixing the doctor with the kind of stern look normally reserved for use by hardened Special Agents in Cold War dramas- he felt the situation warranted it.

“Yes, I’m afraid Patient Zero is dangerous,” Hefmire informed him.

“To what degree?”

“Well, let me explain...” The medical man took a deep breath, and launched into his explanation. “You provided me with tissue samples from various cases. These cases do not merely divide, as one might expect, into primary and secondary but into primary, secondary and tertiary cases of infection. The tertiary cases- that is to say, those few who managed to contract the virus from secondary cases- are by far the least interesting, from a medical standpoint. They merely exhibit an increased appetite and propensity to weightgain almost within the bounds of what would be possible for a human being to achieve. The secondary cases- those who caught the virus from the original rig workers- are rather more altered on a genetic level. They’re appetites and metabolisms are distorted to the extent that they’re bodies very quickly expand to anywhere between 700lb and 1000lb before stabilising. This takes a matter of mere weeks, but ultimately, their internal physiology remains fairly well within the constraints of received bio-science. The primary cases, however...” Hefmire allowed the exposition he had deposited thus far to linger in the air for a moment before continuing, “the primary case tissue sample’s reveal something very interesting. The digestive systems of the primary cases have been altered to convert every molecule of food they take on into adipose tissue- fat, to the layman. This happens almost immediately upon consumption, and the processes involved are so alien we cannot even begin to reconcile them with what we know of human biology. They remain, as all humans do, however, limited in the amount they can eat and the size they can expand to by outside factors- how much food is available to them, how many calories they use up each day, how far the lining of their digestive tracts can be stretched. Even though the rewriting of their biology allows them theoretically to engorge to any weight, in practice, beyond a certain weight, the increase inevitably slows to a crawl. Even a cursory study of the underlying genetic code hidden in the tissue samples can tell us a little about Patient Zero, however, rather than merely the host. What it tells us, in fact, is that her body has no such practical limitations...”

Awn sighed heavily. “You know, Hefmire- it would have saved a lot of time if you’d just told me that she can expand without limits and poses a physical threat to mankind. I really didn’t need the biology lesson.”

“Apologies, Sir,” Hefmire replied, a little stiffly: “I happened to think it was interesting.”

***

It was one week after filming had begun on ‘The Woman Who Ate the World’ and in fact there was little else that needed to be filmed. Actors and actresses had been rounded up with surprising ease and Sashman had deployed Jaff’s effete charms to persuade the best out of them on the first take for each scene.

Beach, as the film’s lead antagonist, had developed a strange mystique. The fact that her real-life persona and her role were so alarmingly similar had raised numerous eyebrows in the business. Her character ate impossible quantities of food, employing a form of mind-control in order to expand until she could destroy the planet by swallowing it, and in filming, she was more than capable of eating the huge quantities required by her role- quantities that no human should be able to eat. This interchangeability with her role gave her a certain fame among those in the know about the film- though the public were as yet unaware of the details. It was an eerie kind of fame, and one Sashman wanted her to take advantage of. Right now, her car was speeding towards another photo shoot for the purposes of advertising the film. The media would be there, and the awe she induced in the other members of the cast and crew would, it was hoped, build up the film as a cult classic before even its title was released to the wider populace.

In addition to the aforementioned mystique, she had also developed quite the physique. Her car arrived at the glammed-up warehouse studio where the shoot was to take place, and she poured herself out, in a slow, deliberate stream, revealing her body in a gradual but flowing motion that allowed all the media types, camera crews and actors gathered around waiting for her to get the full effect. First, she slid her legs out, planting her high-heeled feet firmly on the pavement while revealing thighs that looked as wide and, thanks to her natural tan, as shiny early NASA space-rockets. They were, however, merely a prelude to the belly that flowed out over them as she leaned forward, readying herself to stand- it was a round, space-filling cascade of flesh, encased in a too-small, zebra-print dress. As she leaned out properly and began to stand, it could be seen that the top of this dress (strapless, naturally) was perpetually on the verge of being burst apart by spherical breasts so large that they dwarfed the bellies of even the other fatter men and women on the crew, and were pushed up high enough by the tightness of the dress that they partially obscured the lower half of a face that, despite the immense weight beneath it, and a certain plumpness in its own contours, still retain a surprising definition and conventional allure. Slightly distracting from its sensual formation were a pair of large diamond earrings bought with the hypothetical money the film was going to make. In total, from her tapering shoe-heel to her those glinting, decorative jewels that hung on either side of her head, and taking in the whole, vast ocean of flesh between, she must have weighed something in the region of 850lb.

As she made her way from the car to the studio, donning a pair of mirrored sunglasses as she went, she drew stares from everyone present. Many of the press, there to report on what few details of the film Sashman and Jaff were prepared to leak, had, at some time in their career, pointed out some slight celebrity weightgain or “battle with their weight” as though it was newsworthy. Many had worked for the kind of red-top magazines that circle the tiniest bit of cellulite on a starlet’s leg to draw the public’s ridiculing eye to it. Many saw Beach that day and spent the rest of their careers trying to make up for that. She was stunning, in the literal sense of the word. She left people unable even to speak as she waltzed towards the studio doors. Sashman was waiting by them, leaning surreptitiously, surprisingly inconspicuous given his fame and importance to the film, letting her drink in the limelight.

“Good afternoon, good lookin’! Shall we get started?” he asked.