Chapter 1 - no room for marie

Marie cried for days after she was told. They didn't just say "Sorry, you didn't make the cut this time." They said "You'll never be a sister." And the reason? Because she was fat? She had never been so insulted. She wasn't fat at all! She had exercised all summer for their membership, and had lost almost 20 pounds. She was now 135. True, all those girls were gorgeous, and worked out all the time, but she figured she was a shoe-in. She had won first place at every science fair since she was 10, was a member of MENSA, and was being paid to do research for a bio-technology firm right out of high school. Well, research assistant.
She wondered if she would ever get over the shame. She found herself sobbing and eating, and angrily threw a bag of potato chips against a wall, scattering them everywhere. The last thing she wanted was to get fatter. She suddenly realized it must be the same for all of them. She had to get revenge! But how?
She was already busy with lots of other research, but in a few weeks, believed she had crafted a plan. She was just missing a couple crucial details. The first was easy enough to figure out. She needed a virus, a very specific virus. So she spoke with her boss and the head of the biology department, and worked out a partnership deal where she would do a research project on the virus for both, while the school wouldn't pay a cent. Then there was the actual research.
The first thing she had to do was make sure she had the right virus. She injected some rats, weighed them and a control group, and put them on varied diets. In just a week, she could already see a difference in the numbers. After 12 weeks, all of those injected had become obese. Then she worked to create a vaccine. Using classic Pasteur method, she pulled off that task in just a week, sure that would more than justify the project for all involved. Well, all that knew they would be involved, anyway. She tested the vaccine on rats, placing several new, healthy rats injected with it in with the infected ones. After yet another 12 weeks, with most of the year over, she was sure the vaccine was effective. She injected herself, and then set herself on the real challenge. How to get the virus into those evil sorority girls. She just needed one, she felt. Still, she just couldn't see herself using a syringe on one of them in any conceivable situation. Not without going to prison before seeing any results, at least.
She got an idea one night, and "accidentally" left open the door to the cage of the infected rats. After several hours in the middle of the night searching her lab, she had rounded them all up in a box, and got a mailing label for a box of that weight from the post office, with the sorority house address. She took it there herself, dropping it at the front door and walking away in the last bit of darkness before morning, having spent another entire night on her plan, but feeling satisfied.
The next day, news was all over campus that a big box of rats had been mailed to one of the Greek houses. The news grew as the day progressed. Three girls had needed rabies shots after being bitten. Some rats still hadn't been caught. Now she just watched for the real signs. She found out who the girls were who needed rabies shots, and did some stalking. After a week, they both seemed to have colds, and were missing classes. The next week, the campus had deemed the cold a "plague", as it swept through the campus, especially the Greek community.
Marie left for spring break worried that her plan may have gotten out of hand. She spent the whole break worried for many of her classmates. And the return from break made it worse. Nearly everywhere she went, girls were complaining of gaining weight. She had wanted to explain at some point, anonymously, to the sorority girls why they were all getting fat, but now the entire campus would hate whoever did it. She wanted to figure out a cure, but now she had no infected rats or virus. The company she worked for was very satisfied to have a vaccine, and didn't see any need for further research. She felt sick as girls began to wear less clothing for the summer, and new gains could be seen on all. She visited the sorority house on the last day of school, saying she wanted to find out about membership next year. Nobody seemed to remember her, which made her feel safer in her evil deeds, but also slightly stung.
The girl who answered the door had to have weighed a good 160, and her arms wobbled when they shook hands. Marie looked down as they made introductions and saw the girl had a cookie in her other hand, and quite a muffin-top, wearing clothes clearly too small. "I'm Alexa, it's nice to meet you. We lost some members over the year, and we are actually looking for more. Come meet the girls tonight at our end of the year party, and then you can make a decision in the fall." She seemed so nice, Marie wondered if her mistake had been even bigger than she knew. At this point, she seemed to be the thinnest girl on campus, and was getting rather sick of all the now-chubby guys hitting on her constantly. She somberly decided to take justice upon herself.
She went back to her boss, and said new evidence showed the vaccine could wear off sooner than expected. There could be some sort of interaction that shortened the effect, and she wanted to find it before it became a liability. She had a fresh sample of the virus in two hours after throwing out the word "liability".
So an hour before the party, she had on a clingy red dress she felt looked great on her, her heels on, and her make-up, and stood before a full-body mirror, trembling, holding a syringe. She looked at it carefully, read the label. "Human Adenovirus #36". She remembered all her research. One drop, and she would never be this thin again. She felt better knowing that while it made the body produce more and larger fat cells, it seemed to make the fat cells too large to cause damage to the heart, and somehow even lowered bad cholesterol. She watched as her freshly-applied make-up stained as she teared up. She had taken away hundreds of people's control over their weight. She winced as the needle tip went in, and then, remembering her vaccine, plunged all of the contents in. She dropped the syringe immediately, and shouted at herself, "Oh my god, did I really just do that?!" It took her some time, but she dusted herself off and prepared to meet her victims on an evened playing field, re-applying her make-up and taking many deep breaths.
She arrived at the sorority hall to find only a few sisters, all at least overweight. "Aren't there a lot more of you? Did everybody already go home for the summer?" she said, attempting to make the last bit sound like a joke, like, who would ditch a party like that?
"Well.. we used to have this rule.." one began.
"A stupid rule." the heaviest one interrupted.
"Yeah, this stupid rule that only the thinnest, prettiest girls on campus could join. It was never in writing, so we weren't in violation of any campus rules, but it was just the way it was. I think you would have made the cut, but you know. Lots didn't, and then when our members started gaining weight, we started clearing house until we hit financial rock bottom. That, and we didn't have any skinny members left anyway, we had all gotten fat, just over a couple months. We all exercised and dieted, and nothing seemed to matter. Apparently all the Greek houses had it happen, but of course, with that rule, we were the hardest hit."
"Well, that does sound like a really stupid rule.." Marie said, unsure of how to console her victims. Suddenly, she was overwhelmed by a sneeze, then another.
"Oh no, not the plague again." one said.
"I swear that cold that went around was why I got fat. Why we got fat." said the heaviest girl.
"Why would you think that? Colds don't make you fat." Marie lied.
"I seemed to get it first, along with Alison. We thought we just got something from these rats some evil jerk had mailed here, but whatever it was, it seemed to spread to all of us. Then to classmates, and then our yearly formal party... it was a disaster. All the Greek houses were there in force, and we were supposed to be the most beautiful, the cleverest, the center of attention, and all of us were sick. Soon, everybody was sick. I knew one girl that dropped out right before the cold went around, and she never got fat. About the only one." The other girls seemed tired with this theory, rolling their eyes. "You guys act like it's a joke, but Alison hit 300 the other day. That means she's almost tripled her weight in a few weeks."
"We all know why." One girl said flatly.
"Still, that isn't right. You should see her! She has stretch marks all over!"
"Hard to feel sympathy for her. She still blames us for her getting fat. Still. And that craigslist and facebook stuff.."
"What stuff?" Marie interrupted.
"So this girl not only didn't diet or exercised. Worse, she had some weird fetish where she liked guys feeding her. Somehow, her metabolism kept her as thin as the rest of us, until one day... well, it didn't. She put on 20 pounds in a week and left campus afraid for her life. The guy that fed her? Followed her. They're still together. But she blames us for her being fat. She made a craigslist posting saying we wanted "feeders" and were all trying to gain. It said we wanted to be publicly humiliated for our gaining, that it was something we were all into. It was just her, and she wasn't even here anymore."
"And facebook?" They all looked at one another.
"She started some group about 'hot chubby sorority girls' and put photos of all of us on there." I sneezed again, and then again, and then again, apologizing.
"If she's got that cold that made us fat, and I catch it again, I'll probably pop before summer is over." the heaviest one said. ***. I suddenly realized that the rats had re-infected one another, and the re-infected ones were the biggest.