Cells at Work: Ebola

Chapter 12: The Burden of Command

In his mind, he could see the whole world burning.

Sitting on his command dais towering over his staff members, Helper T Cell squirmed and sweated as streams of data flooded into his mind by way of his seer-helmet. He was no neuron, but his headgear, which was attached to long strands of wire connected to neural mainframes, fed him real-time updates on the multiple battles, all coinciding across the world.

What he saw made him want to throw up.

Reports of defeat after defeat kept coming in and his command could barely handle the situation without breaking down. The command center buzzed with frantic activities of troop movements, losses, and desperate pleas for reinforcement. Everyone was at their limits, especially when they gave orders to units in the field that they knew would surely be their last.

Helper T clenched his hands like vise-grips on the sides of his chair as he struggled to control himself from yanking his helmet out of his head.

"Unit 227, do you hear me?!" he shouted. "For crying out loud, Unit 227 respond! Respond!"

He need not voice out the command. His seer-gear was more than enough to convey his thoughts, and yet he still couldn't help but switch to his audio interface to contact his teams on the field directly.

If those under him were indeed about to die, the last thing he could do as a commander was to hear their final screams before their doom.

"Damn it!" He slammed a hand into his armrest. "Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!"

He could feel his mitochondria beating furiously inside his chest. Anger simmered inside his organelles.

Why?! Why have you forsaken us?!

He let out a curse under his breath aimed at the Consciousness for exposing their world to such a horrific virus in the first place. He could recall the mad antics of the neuron who chastised his colleagues for going 'overseas'. Personally, he didn't know what 'overseas' meant, but based on the hysterical reaction of the neuron, he could only surmise it was anything but pleasant.

He inhaled a lungful of breath to calm himself.

How could the Consciousness do this? From the moment he was taught in the Thymus Academy, he was always reminded of the benevolence of the entity that governed their world. He was always thought to respect and sing praise to the one all cells in the world owed their existence.

It is better to die for the Consciousness than to live for yourself...

Such were the words ingrained deeply into his mind, but would it really be better? He had seen hundreds of his friends bleed and perish with the name of the Consciousness uttered in their final breath, and yet the only gratitude ever shown for their selfless sacrifice was a passing remark in the Thymus registry of their serial numbers now available for reassignment.

Do they all mean nothing? Were they indeed just automatons like those antibiotics the world oftentimes receive?

Would an entity that 'knowingly' endanger the lives of trillions of individuals even deserve their reverence and praise?

He sniffed and realized his vision had started to go blurry. He thought his glasses had fogged up, but then he felt tears trickling down his eyes.

Helper T closed his eyes shut.

Why... Why is this all happe-

He stopped mid-thought as he felt something warm pressing on him.