Cross Everything by Henry Scowcroft

Author:Henry Scowcroft [Scowcroft, Henry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2021-02-18T06:00:00+00:00

5

What next?

VII: Rebirth

Scene: The battle-ravaged lining of the bladder. A scarred, bloody vista of inflamed tissue and slowly leaking capillaries, infused with a harsh, alien toxin.

Zoom in: Patrolling immune cells squeeze themselves through the debris-strewn layers of cells, their molecular weaponry poised to fire at the slightest sign of trouble. Cell by cell, they check for hallmarks of their foe, scanning the surface of each one, occasionally unleashing a powerful stream of perforating toxins when a rogue cell is detected. But increasingly, in the aftermath of the epic battle, all appears quiet.

Watch: Slowly, as the concentration of the toxin drops, the tissue becomes home once more to thousands of wobbly macrophages, hoovering up the cellular debris left over from the battle, while secreting molecular signals to calm things down, and gently begin the healing process.

In response to these signals, new blood vessels begin to form, branching out, suffusing the tissue with nutrients. Damaged capillaries are repaired. The bleeding slowly stops. The immune cells, becalmed, gradually holster their weapons. The whole system attempts, gradually, to return to something approaching ‘normal’.

But it is a false dawn.

Stop. Shift focus: Deep within the slowly healing tissue, something stirs. A small clump of cells that has remained somehow hidden from the immune cells’ scrutiny. Unlike their multitude of now-deceased siblings, these rare cells – each a distant descendant of that rogue mother cell – are different, their internal wiring subtly scrambled in a different way, unable to commit suicide, locked in suspended animation, doomed to continue their mindless existence, waiting for conditions to improve.

Now is their moment.

As the toxin’s levels recede, these resistant mutants’ ragged, disordered, chaotic chromosomes shudder into life, condensing, lining up as best they can on the cells’ central skeleton once more. The cells repeatedly cleave in two, into four, into eight, into sixteen – exponentially growing once more, undetected, still no smaller than a pinprick.

Zoom out. Shift focus. Zoom in again. Another microscopic mass of cells, and another. Hundreds, thousands, of tiny quiescent clumps. All have been similarly dormant, similarly cloaked, an underground resistance movement, weathering the onslaught. All are now buzzing with activity, released from stasis. Bursting into morbid life once again.

Slowly, the now resistant monster marshals its forces, and begins to rebuild anew.

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