Warning! The following may contain bad spelling, grammar, punctuation, cardboard characters, cheesy plots, offensive NSFW material, and / or puns.
Reader discretion is advised.
Meanwhile in a laboratory somewhere in the city, a scientist is getting raked over the coals by his superior.
“Damn it, Jenkins, I want to know what the hell is going on!”
“I’m not sure, sir. It seems the subjects are having a bad reaction to the formula.”
“A bad reaction! Is that what you call spontaneous combustion then exploding? If it gets out that we’re responsible for these incidents we’ll be ruined!”
“Calm down sir. There have only been a few cases so far. Maybe it has run its course and it won’t happen again.”
“Jenkins, I can’t rely on it the possibility that it ‘might not happen again.’ I need to know for certain what is going on and how do we control it.”
“I’m working on that sir. All the test subjects have shown no indications of combustion. Of course, we’re still conducting trials on mice.”
“Mice! What do mice have to do with anything? We need to test it on people!”
“But sir, testing it on people before we know what is going on would not only be wrong but potentially dangerous as well.”
“What can you do then?”
Jenkins adjusted his glasses. “Well sir, we could try it on pigs. They have many similar anatomical properties to humans.”
“Get some pigs then. Get a whole mess of them. Just get me some answers!”
“It’s a herd, sir. Or sometimes a drove.”
“A what?”
“The pigs, sir. They are collectively called a herd or a drove. Not a ‘mess’.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass what they are called. Just call them ‘test subjects’ and find out what the hell makes them catch fire and explode!’
“Yes sir.”
“Well, what are you standing around for? Get out of my office and go kill some pigs!”
Jenkins gathered his clipboard and notes and quickly exited the office.
The boss sat in his chair, musing to himself. “If this gets out, it will kill the company. And there goes my multi-million dollar bonus. I like my bonuses. If we can just keep this under wraps until that idiot Jenkins figures out what is going on….”
The lone figure got up from his desk and went to the sideboard, where he poured himself a drink.
“Then again, this could be a whole new income stream if we spin this right. If we can find out what makes it happen then we can reproduce it at will. The military would love something like this. Move into a hot spot area, get them to drink our formula, and then all of the enemy burst into flames and explode. Yeah, this could work.”