Chapter 9
November 7, 2023 at 9:55 AM
The invasion of the antigens. — The big battle. — Antibodies falling from the sky. — The B Lymphocyte's clever plan. — Success is never blamed. — Trouble's following hard behind. — The best way to avoid a conflict. — The adventure continues.
Having reached the meeting place for the workers of the immune system, our four heroes joined the nearest squad. The local T-Helper looked at them questioningly.
"Guys, you're not from my subunit, are you?" he inquired with doubts.
"It's okay, bro," said the T-Killer, patting his shoulder. "We're just passing through."
"Yep, everything's under control," assured the B Lymphocyte, fidgeting with his small pocket cannon.
Dendritic Cell promptly went off to join his colleagues, without waiting for instructions, and Memory Cell headed after him, promising his friend to catch up to him soon.
After one hour, they met again, directly at the front. A sad scenery of shattered around neutrophil bodies and hemolyzed erythrocytes surrounded them. Macrophages were operating on the front line and looked like they were already tired of chewing. But surprisingly, the enemy was nowhere to be seen. When they asked the macrophages, where everyone was, the latter just pointed downwards, and the four newcomers spotted some strange movements. Next, some small, threadlike and very active rod-shaped bacteria, that looked similar to a horde of strange ants, separated from the floor and started moving towards them. Though the biggest of them were not taller than a platelet, they were so dangerous, that they shouldn't be underestimated. Speaking of platelets: these were crowded together at the side and already started to cry, since they couldn't get access to the wound. The bacteria were moving in windings, marching and singing their march song:
"Blood-red rivers! Releasing toxins!
We Proteus bacteria are a team!
Your suffering is for us like a drug,
and your antibiotics are useless and suck!"
While singing with their creepy, squeaky voices, they were getting closer and closer, with some of them effortlessly moving over basically the steepest surfaces.
"Using adhesion, huh?" grunted Dendritic Cell and stepped forward. "Oh, I'm sooo scared!"
"What's he doing?!" exclaimed the T-Helper, who had commanded everyone just now to not move from their spot ahead of time.
"Don't worry," said the B Lymphocyte. "He has a plan. At least, I think so." He whispered the last part to Memory Cell.
Dendritic Cell did have a plan. He filled his lungs with as much air as he could and then screamed so loudly that it could be heard even at the entrance of the infection:
"Hey, you pathetic earth-worms! You call yourselves bacteria? You're nothing more than a bunch of unorganized dumbasses! An absolute joke! I bet you don't even have a leader!"
The unwelcome guests were baffled by all this insolence. So baffled they even slowed down for a bit, staring at Dendritic Cell, who continued yelling and mocking them, especially insisting that there was no way that they had or would ever have a leader, since they were daft as a brush and other of the world's stupidest objects. The bacteria army got so furious over that they started releasing an even bigger amount of toxins and marching with more determination. The T-Helper paled and even clutched his heart. The T-Killer wanted to kill the Dendrocyte, and the B cells sincerely hoped that the latter knew what he was doing.
"Hey, colony leader, get out, you mean coward!" insisted Dendritic Cell, continuing to make the enemy mad. He was standing dangerously close to them, but luckily evaded the zones where the toxins were released.
"Why're yelling like that?" barked someone near his ear. "Here I am."
"Oh..." Dendritic Cell turned around. He hadn't even noticed the bacteria's leader approaching him.
"What do ya want?" growled the Proteus impatiently.
"Oh, nothing special," answered the Dendrocyte, shrugging. "Just looking for a suitable specimen for my antigen presentation." And with these words, he quickly grabbed the leader by the scruff of his neck and skillfully threw him into his colleagues' direction.
"Keep in mind," screeched the defeated leader. "That others will take my place! I have more than enough successors!"
"A bit too small of an antigen," complained the other Dendritic cells and macrophages. "How are we supposed to divide him?"
"Come on, let us have a look." The B Lymphocyte and Memory Cell squeezed themselves into the crowd.
"Yes, I remember him," affirmed Memory Cell out of the blue. His friend was so surprised that he started to hiccup.
"You remember something for once?" the latter inquired sarcastically.
"I really do," affirmed Memory Cell. "One day, there was a food poisoning with meat that wasn't fresh anymore, and..."
"What's that got to do with it?" asked the B Lymphocyte and kicked their capture in dissatisfaction.
"Usually we prefer to intrude into a body together with contaminated food," snarled the beaten leader. "By today, we found this nicely open wound and didn't think twice."
"I see," said the B Lymphocyte, and Memory Cell delighted everyone with the fact that he even remembered the number of that case back then, and ran off to send a message to the archive.
Soon they received a printout containing the information about the antigen. The local B cells let out "aaah"s and "aha!"s, and rushed off to unpack their ammunition. There was still a slight disarrangement among the bacteria due to the loss of their leader, but they were already actively in the process of voting a new one.
There were a lot of them, though they still were small. But that didn't bother them, on the contrary: their size made them quite agile and gave them the opportunity to sneak up to the enemy without being noticed. Yes, they were audacious and held together. But that didn't save them. First arrived Miss Megakaryocyte and explained to the nearest bacteria with the help of punches, what would happen to the ones who were mean to her kids. And then, Dendritic Cell towered over them, already being ten times taller than each one of them and now starting to increase even more in size and release cytokines. The artillery was already standing behind him, ready to fight.
"You dared to ruin my vacation!" growled the Dendrocyte as the first and last argument, with a bloodthirsty shine in his eyes. The bacteria backed off, trembling. It seemed that they were already regretting having entered that body at all. "And now I'm really furious!" he added, looking like a demon in their eyes. Behind his back, Memory Cell was announcing the beginning of the bombardment through a megaphone, asking Miss Megakaryocyte to step aside together with her little ones, and already started the countdown.
It banged so loud that the putrescent microflora was almost catapulted out of the wound. The bacteria were rolling, spinning and then shaking in agony. After everything had ended, new squads of phagocytes arrived and went down to business: they were walking through the battlefield, trying to not miss even a micrometer, and collecting the bacteria, who were marinated in antibodies, into big cooking pots. They carefully advanced to the gaping wound that was still open, because the Proteus bacteria hadn't let the platelets do their job.
And just as one should expect, trouble didn't stop there. New enemies were entering the uncovered opening already, and some of them were already more than familiar to our cells, such as the painfully known Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus and others, not less unpleasant characters. But then, a group of quite well-dressed gentlemen stepped ahead of the others and greeted everyone:
"Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen. For us, of course, not for you," they added with a sarcastic hum. "You can consider yourselves lucky to have been honored by our presence."
"And who're you?" inquired the cells, not very enthusiastically.
"Allow us to introduce ourselves: we are the noble descendants of the Clostridium Dynasty."
"What dynasty?" questioned the cells, who were already having a bad feeling about this, since nothing good could be expected from these Clostridium bacteria, whatever family they might be from.
"We're from the noble lineage of Tetani," they answered proudly. "Our ancestors were close to Emperor Clostridius."
"A bit too pretentious, aren't you?" growled Dendritic Cell. He was burning with desire to grab one of these dandies and have a bite out of him, but his intuition told him that this was a bad idea.
The new unwelcome guests quickly became insolent, immediately occupying all access to the wound, not letting it close up, and starting their fighting operations. Reaching the scene of the disaster was impossible, and the platelets were in hysterics.
But while the "gentlemen" were doing their insolent actions, luckily the other enemies weren't in a hurry to attack. Why should they, if there were others who could do that dirty work for them? Despite the fact that there weren't a lot of these noble bastards, they seemed to be pretty dangerous, by all appearances, since their toxins made everyone around them twitch with cramps. And this was just the beginning. Every time the immune cells took a step away from these scumbags, the other germs started to run into all directions.
However, Dendritic Cell still decided to take a risk and grabbed one of the Clostridium bacteria, but suddenly found himself hanging close to the ceiling. Four neutrophils, who were fixated there, held him by his arms and legs.
"We wouldn't risk like that," they commented.
Meanwhile, the enemies started to come closer. Just as the T-Helper had given the last order, the trouble began. In the heat of the battle no one heard how somewhere in the back areas, far away from the frontline, a racket started: suddenly, a giant tube appeared in the sky and something strange fell out of it. The red blood cells got scared and alarmed, but still couldn't contain their curiosity and decided to have a look.
The things fallen from the sky were neatly packed boxes, and on each one was a tag with the following inscription: "Horse serum. Ready for usage." The erythrocytes carried some to the T-Helper, but he just scratched the back of his neck and admitted honestly not having any idea what it was. Now the B Lymphocyte appeared, opened one of them, took out the content, opened it as well, smelled it and even tasted it, licking it off his finger.
"These are antibodies," he said. "And they're probably against our so-called noble descendants. But I'm not really sure, as there aren't any references. Should we try it out?"
"Are you crazy?" protested the others. "What if it's dangerous? Who knows, what these antibodies exactly are and where they come from. What if they harm the organism?"
The cells promptly divided into two sides and started arguing. The first was in favor of using the antibodies that had been sent from heaven, the second against. And to top it off, the now completely shameless Clostridium bacteria announced that they were willing to accept their opponent's capitulation. Why having all these useless battles, if it was obvious who would win from the start?
"I have an idea," commented the B Lymphocyte, and winked at the cells surrounding him.
Soon the battle was stopped and the noble descendants of the Clostridium Dynasty spotted a ceremonial delegation approaching them: the B Lymphocyte and Memory Cell, who were carrying gifts, and a macrophage with food to welcome them. They stood at a certain distance from the germs and bowed before them.
"Please forgive us for that quite unpleasant reception," said the macrophage with a smile.
"And accept these humble gifts," added the B cells.
"Ah, finally," rejoiced the bacteria. They were so pleased that they even stopped releasing toxins so that the delegation of negotiators could come closer with the gifts.
"Please try this," asked the macrophage.
"Let's drink to our acquaintance," suggested the B Lymphocyte, taking a bottle out of a huge basket. Memory Cell followed his example on the spot.
"Oh, champagne! Just in time," agreed the bacteria. "So we can now celebrate our victory. And make you our slaves," they added with a nasty laugh.
"One moment!" reacted the B Lymphocyte and started to powerfully shake the bottle. Memory Cell did the same. Then they removed the corks and yelled: "Cheers!"
The bacteria got splatted with the bottles' content and promptly changed their expressions, started screeching, writhing and cursing.
"They poisoned us! Traitors!" they screamed.
They desperately tried a deadly attack, but the B cells and the macrophage were already gone. The testing of the antibodies from heaven was successful. The remaining boxes were already unpacked and the weapons loaded, and as soon as the delegation ran off, the bombardment started and left nothing but memories from the Clostridium bacteria. Now, there was no one left who could could stop the cells from finishing off the rest of the scum. Staphylococcus aureus, who had already assumed the "grape"-formation found themselves surrounded to their utter horror by macrophages armed with the biggest clubs the latter had been able to find in their arsenal, and the Bacillus cereus was brutally torn to shreds by the neutrophils. The leader of the tetanus bacteria, who had survived by some miracle, was being transported together with other antigens to the headquarters by the Dendritic cells.
"Alright," said the T-Helper. "That's enough. We don't need any more captives."
"No mercy!" yelled the others. "Forward! Let's finish off these bastards!"
"Hurray! Forward!" the platelets joined them, waving their little shovels. Protected by a neutrophil squad, they successfully managed to reach the open wound.
* * *
"All's well that ends well," commented the B Lymphocyte and placed another slice of meat pie on his plate. All this fighting had made him terribly hungry.
"That was a great idea, Mister B Lymphocyte," he was praised by one of the macrophages, who poured him some sauce.
"Well, that waf the moft foolproof way," he answered with his mouth full.
The cells were having a big celebration with a lavish feast. Everyone, who could still move after the battle, participated in it. The macrophages were serving delicacies, out of which most were made out of their recent enemies. Because why should they waste perfectly good ingredients? Even the non-phagocytes had to admit that everything was just incredibly delicious.
After having eaten to his heart's content, the B Lymphocyte started having the desire to perform his comic songs, but then remembered that he didn't have his guitar with him, and even if he did, it was still lacking strings, which made him sad. However, to his unspeakable luck, some of his colleagues turned out to be music lovers, who felt sorry for him and gave him a spare set of strings. The T-Killer, who was enjoying the food without a care right now, had no clue of the ordeal that awaited him.
"Now that all enemies are eliminated," said Dendritic Cell to his friends. "Let's proceed with our trip, shall we?"
"That's a good idea," agreed the B cells, who actually didn't really have the desire to sail around no one knew where again, but considered returning to work even worse, especially after having put in so much effort during that fight just now. They really deserved a break!
"Are you joining us, T-Killer-san?" asked Dendritic Cell with hope in his voice.
"Why not?" the other replied, shrugging and not wanting to admit, that in reality he had really liked those exciting adventures in the company of friends he had never had before. That's why he just added, in order to sound important: "You'll be all lost without me, so what other choice do I have?"
As our four adventurers were starting to say goodbye to everyone, suddenly a messenger came running, saying that there was a call for Mister B Lymphocyte. The latter inquired if it was really for him and not for some other B Lymphocyte, and got an answer in the affirmative. So he took the telephone receiver, asked who was wishing to speak to him, and heard a hysteric female voice. His companions watched with interest how his eyes opened wider and wider, and when he hung up, the poor guy was almost sobbing. It turned out that the Mast Cell had somehow managed to find out his location and called him to tell him, what a scumbag, scoundrel, and bastard he was... for having left her all alone and departed on some trip!
The B Lymphocyte didn't have the force to put up with these insinuations and hung his head in a matter of minutes. He just wasn't able to compose his thoughts and turned on the waterworks more and more. The T-Killer couldn't bear to watch this and shook his shoulders with such power that he even lifted him up from the ground.
"Don't be sad, man, no need to wail because of some naggy hag!" he said.
"Who are you calling a naggy hag?" he suddenly heard behind him.
The T-Killer turned around and saw NK to his displeasure.
"The basophil are you doing here?" he spat at her instead of a greeting.
"Nothing, I was just passing by," was her evasive answer.
"Passing by, huh? I rather think you're so into me that you're basically following me!"
"I'm not!"
"You are!" the T-Killer mocked her.
"Looking for trouble, aren't you?!" NK started moving closer to him.
"Who's looking for trouble here?!" he snapped, towering over her.
Dendritic Cell understood that he had to take action, otherwise this argument would drag on for a long time. He greeted NK lifting his hat and discreetly grabbed the T-Killer's elbow with an apology:
"Sorry, but we're in a big hurry. Have a nice day, NK-san!"
They had to travel on an official staff motorboat first and then by foot to reach the workshop, where their own, repaired boat was waiting for them. On the way, the T-Killer was pouting that he didn't get a fight with that insolent NK-Cell, and the B Lymphocyte was sniffing and blowing his nose into a handkerchief that Memory Cell had lent him. But whatever, their trip will continue.
