The human body is suddenly infected by a virus that turns immune cells against each other. Join Natural Killer Cell, Killer T Cell, Macrophage, and White Blood Cell, as they battle out a seemingly unstoppable enemy whose goal is nothing but the comp...
Thank you so much to everyone who has read this story up to this point. I really do appreciate every warm comment and vote for each chapter release. It lets me know people around the world really do read this fanfic.
It's more than two years now since I started this fanfic. I remember being delirious with fever when I dreamt/hallucinated Macrophages in Space Marine armor fighting off the virus causing my colds. This was the inspiration for me doing a Cells at Work fanfic and I chose Ebola because I saw that amazing video by Kurzgesagt regarding Ebola. Although it was an oversimplified explanation of the disease, it was done so in such a way that I realize I could actually write a Warhammer 40k-esque story about it. After all, in the grim recesses of our bodies, there is only war.
Anywho... It has to be said that I'm not a medical expert in any form whatsoever. I'm a Computer Engineer by trade with a passion for fiction writing. As such, I cannot claim that my story is wholly based on medical science. However, as a writer, I do love taking tidbits of ideas from what I've read or seen on the internet and apply them to the plot of my stories.
Over the years, there are parts of the story that I realize I could have written differently (this will come more evident in upcoming chapters). Again, this is not a scientifically accurate story, but it is instead written as Grimdark fiction like W40k.
One challenge that I love about writing this story is replacing descriptions for inner body parts with cellular parts. For example, blood is replaced with 'cytoplasm', 'cytosol', or 'crimson cellular fluids'. Instead of writing, 'she felt her blood boiling', it's written as 'she felt her cytoplasm burning'. I have to twist my understanding of the English language just so I could get the correct description. You could even see the evolution of body part descriptions from the earlier chapters and the ones written after. As a writer, I really had fun with this sort of challenge.
Alright, enough of my inner thoughts, here are some clarifications that I need to get out. Specifically, what the hell happened to NT4201?
How could NT4201 get infected and why is she able to fight off with U1146 who is a White Blood Cell?
Ok, some context on how NT4201 evolved in my story. Initially, NT4201 was just a random character to be killed off by that evil glasses-wearing macrophage. I just wanted to show how far the infected macrophages have really fallen. NT4201 was supposed to die on the initial onslaught of the macrophages, but as I wrote her supposed death scene, I felt extremely sorry for her especially when she was crying out for her senpai. Although I'm writing grimdark fanfic, I'm actually a bleeding-heart author with a soft spot for my characters.
As such, I just couldn't let NT4201 die like that so I instead let the evil glasses-wearing macrophage infect her instead.
SUPER BIG MISTAKE.
After writing that chapter, I remembered that Red Blood Cells don't have a nucleus and so couldn't be infected by viruses. I was already writing the next chapter when I realized that. I didn't want to rewrite my story and for some reason, NT4201 getting infected was such a huge appeal for me compared to the alternative that she just dies.
So I checked Google one more time, searching for topics regarding viruses and red blood cells. As expected, the articles I read confirms that red blood cells are enucleated and as such could not be infected by any virus.
However, there was one medical paper I stumbled upon that proposes red blood cells could actually be made into virus traps. (From NCBI site: The erythrocyte viral trap: Transgenic expression of viral receptor on erythrocytes attenuates coxsackievirus B infection)
Basically, a bunch of scientists wanted to know what would happen if viruses try to infect red blood cells instead of normal cells with a nucleus. If viruses instead infect red blood cells, they get trap since red blood cells do not have the cellular mechanism to help them replicate.
As such, if we could somehow lure viruses to their destruction via traps (and by traps they mean Red Blood Cells) then we could prevent the virus from spreading. (NYT Article by Carl Zimmer, March 27, 2007: Scientists Explore Ways to Lure Viruses to Their Death)
It's really a neat idea though I think the result of the study was rather mixed.
This article was a huuuge story saver and that's why we see NT4201 able to withstand a fight against a veteran neutrophil such as U1146. NT4201 was never infected because she doesn't have a nucleus. The virus that injected its RNA into her could not replicate itself and that's why we won't be able to see a face-hugger crawling out of her mouth like what we saw with the macrophages.
The RNA of the virus, however, in this story does make her go delusional and that's why she could somehow hear voices in her head. I also took some liberties in the article's mentioning of Red Blood Cells as 'virus traps' to mean that they could somehow keep the virus at bay. And by that loose interpretation, I made it in such a way that NT4201 got the fighting know-how of the virus without getting infected herself.
It's a stretch, I know, but making NT4201 a badass is a stretch I'm willing to make.
Anyway, that's the story behind NT4201 and I'm really surprised at such a development. ^^
Once again, thank you so much for reading my story up to this point! I really appreciate it.
Also, if you didn't know, I also have another Cells at Work story which is instead based on the Cells at Work: Black spinoff.
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Cells at Work! Code Black: COVID-19 is more researched (though I still won't claim it's scientifically-accurate) compared to this one which I wrote more for fun. This means the updates for the Covid-19 story are slower as well. In fact, it's on hiatus until January when the Cells at Work Black is aired.
Still, I'd suggest giving it a read as well since it has a new batch of characters you might soon meet once the anime airs. ^^
