chapter 17

Laura's selfish act and her ignorance did little to negate the fact that the gallon of weight gain formula Becky had forcibly ingested over the past 24 hours was far from some ordinary cake mix plus a couple of valium. In fact, this was no cake mix at all. Paul had designed the formula to work on a multitude of levels that were currently in the process of manifesting themselves within Becky. Strangely, the first and most obvious property of the formula being the its calorie density was the least important. A serving, or dose, of which there were 10 in one bag, was only about 500 calories, which was rather modest in comparison to the other gain meals available through the programme. This was because Paul had designed his formula to work specifically in conjunction with the other meals on the programme and not on it's own, this rendered his activities very hard to detect. Paul had realised he couldn't just add in extra servings of calorie dense meals, because that would be discovered far too easily. Becky would of course be oblivious to the fact that just one serving was designed for an entire day, and the calories where far from the main active agent in the formula. Also in the mix was a complex combination of drugs, including fast acting and long lasting sedatives designed to target certain functions. First was to obviously produce high levels of lethargy, which inhibited physical movement. Second was to produce a numbing effect in the users fullness response, so that apatite for other official meals for the programme wasn't effected. Third was to introduce long lasting feelings of peace and contentment, so that the user would be oblivious, or just wouldn't care about the changes occurring to their body. Perhaps most insidious however, is that Paul designed the formula to also enact temporary changes to the metabolic uptake and energy absorption within the individual taking the formula. All of these factors combined meant that Paul's particular formula was an incredibly effective and potent weight gain inducing concoction. Becky, though no fault of her own, had ingested 20 doses in 24 hours, enough for 20 days. The 10,000 calories Becky had just consumed were the least of her problems, it was the huge amount of long lasting drugs and her altered metabolic processes that was going to effect her system drastically over the next 20 days due to the sheer amount she had consumed in such a short time. In other words, Becky had overdosed, and was now well outside the design parameters of Paul's already unscrupulous weight gain formula. This was going to have a radical temporary effect on her body's ability to metabolise energy, and subsequently, it's fat production and storage mechanisms. But worse, it was going to have a prolonged and if untreated permanent effect on Becky's personality, comprehension, and memory. Becky was in trouble, and nobody knew.