Alicia, a worker at a debt collection office, is called into her boss's office, but something is off. She realizes that he's been bitten by a mosquito with the infamous Jovi virus, proven by the fact that he's been acting overly happy. She comes home to her deadbeat husband to find that he has retrieved her grandmother's necklace from the pawn shop after finding work that day. However, she realizes her husband is acting far too happy and discovers that he too was bitten. Coworkers begin to get bitten as well, and the entire place actually becomes more manageable to work in for Alicia. Alicia decides to call back a crazy lady from last week, who offered to pay off her own son's debt by giving the collection agency her homemade jam. Alicia takes her up on the offer. She also notices that her husband seems to be growing a tail. She goes to collect the jam from the old lady and tells her all about her marital troubles. Oddly enough, Alicia then notices the old lady also seems to have a rat tail. At home, Alicia is shocked to discover that her husband has gotten his tail tangled up with another rat tail person on the subway and now the three of them will being living together indefinitely. This leads to a strange lifestyle, including threesomes and board game nights, as well as large amounts of jealousy. Work is also a disaster, as the agency begins to accept barter as payment and starts to pay its employees in hugs rather than money.

Alicia eventually starts a club for the unaffected citizens so they can all be miserable together. They start to wonder why they haven't been bitten. Alicia then discovers that she's pregnant and enlists the jam lady for help in finding her husband. She mentions that he might be in a Kingdom, so Alicia searches the city for him. She finds him on the A train with many other naked rat beings and tells him about their child. Alicia also tells him that she's officially leaving him and that she'll barter her way into a new life if that's what it takes to survive.