Peter needed the bravery the bottle of alcohol would give him to do what he wanted to do. With suicide off the table, it was starvation or make a run for it.
Peter had never been one to take a risk and his life showed that. Maybe now he should take that chance.
CHAPTER FOUR
IT HAD BEEN nearly three months since Josef had accepted the role at NewU Pharma but this had been his first week in his new lab. He'd met the nine members of the team who were already onboard and re-acquainted himself with the three colleagues he'd requested. As promised, the laboratory was state-of-the art with no expense spared. Jo had been careful to keep his demands realistic, but he had the experience to know that if you don't ask, you don't get. He threw in a few luxury pieces of equipment to give up when told the budget wasn't enough to cover every demand. However, Cahill had been a man of his word and Jo had everything he asked for. In fact, Cahill had even welcomed him with a blank cheque. The cheque, Cahill explained was for whatever Josef wanted, people, equipment or a fast Italian sports car. It was his to do with as he pleased. The gesture didn’t impress Josef. He knew that all this bravado would mean nothing two years down the line when costs were mounting and results yet to yield marketable results. Welcomes aside, Josef got to work with his team, ever since he'd accepted the role he'd spent every free moment developing ideas and researching. He knew he would have to hit the ground running and push his team to the breakthrough that had evaded them. Cahill had in the last two weeks forwarded limited data packs summarising the work so far. It was all fucking worthless. Josef on reading the first data pack felt immense rage, not with Cahill, not with the team but with himself. He'd allowed himself to be tricked into working on another man's vanity project and it was nonsense. He had calmed himself at least seeing that if nothing else, the team had proved many ways of not creating a weight loss drug.
He had made the team aware that he was drawing a line through their work and they would salvage nothing useful from it. He savaged their work, but then offered them a glimpse into his vision. He knew he had to knock them down and build them back up and quickly. His idea was simple, look to nature. His research led him to a microbe, a discovery from the 1960s in the jungles of Vietnam. French scientists had discovered it then promptly ignored it, but they named it, “Gros Mangeur” - or Fat Eater. They had found this microbe was rife within a closed off source of water deep in the jungle where the locals wouldn't eat the fish or animals close to the pond. Being fat is a western problem, if you live in a small village in South East Asia, losing a few pounds could mean the difference between life and death. The French scientists had found that the microbe had been resilient, even fish that had been caught and dried still had the microbe infesting them in a preserved dormant state. When examining the microbe, they discovered they could tease it back to life with water and the salt from the preserved fish. When the war broke out the French had other issues to occupy themselves so the discovery became little more than a few pages of an academic paper and some freely published notes.
Josef had already started to source samples. It wouldn't be cheap, and he had no guarantees that the microbe still existed after all this time. If it did, he was certain they could use it. He'd made sure his additions to the team had the expertise he'd require to manipulate the microbe and develop into a usable treatment. Resilience could be an issue, two-fold. First, if the microbe remained constantly present, it would infect the patient for life, this may lead to complications. If the patient suffered from another condition, the inability to gain weight may cause problems. Second, Cahill would want repeat customers. Whilst Josef was sure if it was a one-off treatment Cahill would just charge accordingly, a regular dose would raise more money for Cahill and importantly give some clinical control back. Josef also knew that providing a 21st Century tapeworm would be a tough sell for the marketing team. He wanted to take the microbe and change it to a point it would be barely recognisable, it would have a very short life before being digested, ideally it would be clear from the patient within twelve hours. They would need to grow it in their lab in its changed form. Josef had a path to follow, and he was content, but keen to start. The samples couldn't arrive soon enough.
CHAPTER FIVE
GARETH HAD ONLY recently started at NewU Pharmaceuticals. In fact, he was new to the whole industry. He wasn't new to making money for his employers and lots of it. NewU Pharma's CEO James Cahill didn't bring Gareth on board for his charm, despite this oozing from him. He was a man people wanted to be around, just over forty-years old, he turned heads when he entered a room, and not just those of women. Tall, good looking and engaging. Gareth was a man going places, but he wasn't going there quick enough for his own liking. And when Cahill and the NewU Pharma board hired him, they knew what they were doing. They were bringing a man in who'd turn their penny share company into a major player. They weren't in this for the long game. They wanted a buyout from one of the big boys, none of them cared who. They wanted their millions of self-issued shares to soar from less than a penny each to twenty or thirty pounds a go. In private they'd joke about the islands they'd buy and the women they'd sleep with. A group of repugnant men too old to act the way they did, too young to know any better.
Gareth knew exactly how to play them. They were greedy, he'd promised them wealth at a level they had never dared to imagine, he just needed a level of autonomy they weren't used to granting. But they were keen. Hell, if he did something wrong, they’d hang him out to dry, and they'd continue with only the slightest delay. You don't develop a weight loss drug to make the world thin. You do it to make yourself filthy rich. Gareth knew that as unlikely as it was, Cahill would snuff any dissenting voices on the board.
The board meeting didn't take long. Gareth had used his brief time at NewU Pharma to familiarise himself with their product and its people. They had some brilliant minds developing their breakout fat busting product, no doubt stolen away from curing cancer or developing Parkinson's treatments by the promise of wealth and power. The development team comprised of four key personnel and half a dozen assistants who seemed aware their job was merely to do whatever the main four told them. Gareth didn't have to worry about the assistants, just the four key scientists. Just like Gareth and the board, the scientists were up and comers in their field. Dr. Josef Rasiak was the main drive, but he was a good, honest man. There would take no shortcuts on his watch. The same went for Dr. Christina Morelli, she wanted wealth and power, but she would only do it by playing by the rules. They knew they were developing something special and had no problem waiting until they had dotted every “I” and crossed every “t”.
No, Gareth knew he wouldn’t be able to sway them. Dr. Roger Smith and William Johnson presented Gareth with an option. Like himself, they were rising stars in their fields and like Gareth neither of them felt they were getting to where they wanted to be as fast as they hoped. Known behind their backs as Laurel and Hardy because of their physical appearance more than their sense of humour. Smith was in his forties, slim and stern, whereas Johnson was in his late twenties and morbidly obese. For Gareth, it was simple. Smith and Johnson would help get the product over the line quickly, they'd fudge a result here, lie there and even perjure themselves if it meant getting the product out there and themselves disgustingly wealthy.
CHAPTER SIX
HIS SMALL MAN-bag was adequate for his iPad, a notepad, and a sandwich when he'd go to the office. Now it seemed ridiculous for his present requirement. It was the small satchel or a full-on suitcase. He was ruing his decision to leave his laptop at work when they had been evacuated from the office. That backpack would have carried all the stock of food he had, several bottles of water and some spare clothes. No. Now Peter had to decide what he'd leave behind and hope he could scavenge something more suitable. He'd feast on several tins of corn mixed with pasta sauce and the rest would squeeze into the bag and about his person. Water was a problem. He'd carry a day's supply and hope he could find more. For a weapon, a small
blade attached to the end of a mop handle and he had designs on picking up the cricket bat John had previously dropped.
His plan was simple, get a good sleep, perhaps his last, get up before dawn, eat what he couldn't carry, drink as much water as possible and enjoy one last good shit in security and comfort. When the sun was up, he'd observe outside for any sign of the creatures and when he was sure it was clear, he'd make his move. There was only one destination, Southampton. The last broadcasts Peter had picked up on his old radio before he'd run out of D Cell batteries called on survivors to make their way to the University of Southampton. Here the military had put together their main southern base, there were several camps and outposts but the list of these repeated on the broadcast had grown shorter every day. It didn’t inspire confidence in the facilities away from the main base. For all Peter knew this had gone the way of the smaller outposts, overrun and full of nothing but these hungry bastards waiting for a freshly delivered meal. The broadcasts would advise of the local camps open to survivors and those that were no longer safe. Several nearer camps had opened and lost since he'd been listening. After his radio died, they could have opened another in the local park and he'd have no idea. He had to assume if anything near had opened, it would have been small and suffered the familiar fate.
The camp in Southampton stayed constant throughout. The broadcasts told of the thousands of soldiers with tanks, helicopters, and even air support from an aircraft carrier patrolling the English Channel. The messages were automated, but if they had power to maintain a signal, they must still have something going for them. This was Peter's best hope. He just had to fucking get there.
CHAPTER SEVEN
PROGRESS HAD BEEN better than Josef could ever have dared dream. In the six months since the microbe samples had been delivered, they had a working drug that in tests worked nearly entirely as planned. Animal testing wasn't something Josef was comfortable with, but he still used it. With mice, the drug was 100% effective at consuming fat. It succeeded in this quickly. They had fed the test subjects a particularly weight inducing diet in the run up to receiving their doses. They would continue with a weight gain meal plan whilst taking the experimental medication.
All lost weight. Before they applied the doses, all the mice were an obscene 35g weight, near double the normal mass. After day one, they had lost 5g. By day two, they were down to a more normal weight of around 20g. By day three, they had to be given extra rations and by day five all had died. It was too effective, and they hadn't yet limited the microbe's life expectancy. They didn’t know how. The doses applied were varied, but the results were exactly the same. Even the mouse with the smallest dose was riddled with the microbe when it had expired.
They took samples, examined the subjects and then destroyed them. Josef didn’t find cause for concern. They were so far ahead they had the time to get it right. Cahill and his new man Gareth weren't as patient. Early promising results were great, but they raised expectations unrealistically high with the money men and with the latest results Josef was being called to discuss the exciting new developments. He was already late and grabbed some notes before making his way to the boardroom. He'd expected to be met by all the board, but just Cahill and Gareth waited for him by the grand table. A dozen empty seats made the room appear grander than it was.
“Jo, please come and take a seat.” Gareth warmly greeted Josef who sat down and readied his notes.
“We're all very excited by the latest sets of results, Gareth thinks we should look at stepping up testing.” Cahill beamed with confidence and ready to hear exactly what he wanted to hear. It was as Josef had feared, the marketing man giving clinical observations and the money man expecting his pay day sooner.
“With all due respect Mr. Cahill, we're a long way from stepping anything up at the moment. The treatment is 100% effective at destroying fat hosted in the subject, but it's also 100% effective of curing the subject of life.” Josef thought he'd take a sip of water and let that sink in with his audience by Gareth had other ideas.
“Jo, you have made tremendous strides and we all think you're amazing. You're a genius, but we just wish you had the confidence in yourself that we have in you. We're not pushing you, we're just eager to share your miraculous work with the world, it's amazing and you will save millions of lives.” Gareth thought maybe he'd overdone the bullshit but found most intelligent people's weakness was flattery.
Josef couldn't believe this marketing prick was trying to push him into unsafe practice with a handful of comments appealing to his vanity.
“Mr. Cahill, we're progressing faster than we'd ever hoped. My team is working around the clock to find a solution, I can't promise that it'll present itself in the next few weeks, or even months but we need to do this right. The treatment is effective. Once we can crack the microbes’ lifespan problem, we'll step up testing but not before. You knew going in that we'd be years away from having a working drug.”
Cahill looked disappointed but offered Josef half a smile. “I understand, I do. We're excited but you're in charge, you carry on and if you need anything at all, people, equipment, whatever, let me know. Thanks for your time.” They invited Josef to leave. The interruption frustrated him, trying to push him towards a bad course of action. He left the room and closed the door behind him.
Gareth sat back in his chair. “I told you, we won’t be able to shift him.”
Cahill nodded. “You've felt his team out?”.
Gareth sat back up. “I have some people down there I can work with, I think two million ought to do it. I'm taking them out tomorrow, I'll expense it, just don't look too closely at the receipts. We need this whole death thing resolved though.”
“Agreed. Get everything lined up so when we need to move, we can do so quickly.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE TOILET FLUSHED and Peter was nearly ready. He just had to wait for his moment. Everything had changed in the last month, but Peter had woken in the same bed every morning he had for the last six years. He ate in the same kitchen. Wore the same clothes. Pissed in the same toilet. Stared at his rotund face in the same mirror. His life had only changed because he didn't go to work and hadn't got online for weeks. Many other details remained unchanged. The crisis may be a month old, but Peter would today for the first-time witness first-hand what the world had become beyond the street he lived on. He stood by his front door for what seemed like hours. In fact, just minutes had passed since he'd looked out the door and listened before gently closing it again. Peter knew he couldn't put this off any longer. He tentatively placed his foot on his doorstep and took his first step into the new world. He decided against closing the door in case he needed to beat a hasty retreat.
Quietly, tentatively made his move to claim the cricket bat. The blood on the bat had turned nearly grey and shimmered in the light, a tooth lodged in the willow turned Peter's stomach, but it was a weapon. A quick rub on one of his neighbour's overgrown lawns removed most of the gore.
Peter walked to the end of the road and saw the first creature. This time their roles were reversed. It was in the house at the end of the street, looking out at him standing in the road. This one was thin, so thin it looked like a skeleton wrapped in skin. It banged on the window, trying in vain to break through the double-glazed glass. Peter didn't dare to stop to ponder how the poor soul had transitioned from regular woman to trapped ghoul. It worried him that the noise it was making would attract more so pressed on.
He was on foot and his destination wasn't close. By his reckoning, from Redhill to Southampton could be one hundred miles, he didn't have a map and without the internet he couldn't plan a journey. All he knew was that it was southwest of Surrey, so that's how he'd start. Without a compass or map, he would head in the rough direction, had hoped he might get lucky and add the missing items to his growing shopping list of food, water, a bigger backpack and a better weapon.
As he headed off cautiously, he heard the now familiar, but still terrifying gro
an of one of the bigger creatures, it didn't sound too close, but that didn't give Peter much in the way of comfort.
CHAPTER NINE
JOSEF ALLOWED HIMSELF a beaming smile. It was a rarity that he’d allow emotion to enter his work life. He had taken a backseat during the presentation, allowing each of his team a chance to show off their efforts. He knew the board didn't care who had done what, but they'd allow this indulgence as they knew what was coming. It had gone very well. Tell a room of people that you just made them rich, and they'll clap, cheer, and give you a very hearty handshake. It had been a whirlwind success, seventeen months, and they had it. He still couldn't believe it. The amount of progress in the last two months had been nothing short of miraculous. What Josef was mainly happy about was his next project. He'd already started brainstorming his next great contribution to the health and wellbeing of humanity. He could wind down his day-to-day involvement with the moronically named “FatBGone” and start on something meaningful.
Roger and William had performed admirably, way above expectations. Josef knew they were competent but had only given them that much credit, but now they proved much more able. It was Roger and William who had come up with the solution to the microbe's lifespan. Whereas it seemed like it was uncontainable, they introduced a change into its genetic makeup that limited its life post “reanimation” to between four and seven hours. It gave it plenty of time to get to work before becoming dormant and entering the bloodstream before being sweated out. Every test they had performed since that revelation had been successful. Just three months ago this too appeared to be yet another dead end and Josef wasn't confident this hell would ever be over. But his team rose to the occasion and here they were, in the home straight. There was still a lot of work to do, but Cahill would pump in the required funds to get the approvals in place and get the drug signed off and cleared for clinical use. Josef was confident he could start making use of part of his team to work on his new project and was happy Roger and William could lead up the completion team.
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