Doctor Darwin Deckard was maybe not in the greatest shape. Many of his colleagues would tell you that he was a rather robust gentleman, some being bold enough to call him rotund, and the most apathetic of them simply called him fat. Nevertheless, he was a gifted biologist, studying the development of beneficial viruses at TransDem Pharma.
Inspired by and spurred on by his colleagues, he figured he would develop a virus that would aid with weight loss. He’d spent a decade of his life experimenting with mutating various viral strains he hoped would achieve the desired results. Of course, given the fickle nature of his work, results tended to be somewhat unsatisfactory.
The lab liked to use clones of various animals as test subjects, a resource Deckard was grateful for as it allowed him to test his virus virtually as many times as he wanted. So far, results were bearing little fruit. Most of the strains he developed actually caused the test subject to gain weight rather than lose it. Most of the rats he tested on were transformed into little more than obese blobs, some of which had long died from heart disease. The fat rats who did survive didn’t last long, save for three who seemed perfectly fine and almost content.
These three were given his latest strain, and although they were fattened to the point of immobility were content to sit on their butts and do nothing. He later ran additional tests on these rats and concluded that his virus did more than just the opposite of what he intended. These three obese blobs of rodents apparently no longer necessarily needed food or water to survive, despite permanently feeling hungry enough to eat a horse. They also no longer produced any urine or other droppings, but digested everything into gas which was expelled through either the mouth or anus. On top of that, their mouths would eat any food places in front of it, independent of the rat’s desires. It’s like eating became an involuntary function like breathing or pumping blood. They also seemed to enjoy the sensation of touch, and their skin became much more sensitive and adipose tissue more comfortable. The three rats also developed oversized genitalia.
Then again, as interesting as this development was, he still counted it as a failure and decided to shelve it. Little did he realize that this strain would reproduce at a rate to rival the planet itself, eventually infecting it in a matter of weeks.