Cells at Work: Ebola

Chapter 15: Interlocking Fates

Lady Macrophage turned her gaze toward her entourage of battle maids, then at MT's platoon, before turning back to stare at the Memory T-cell. "We are far from the Thymus. Even if we take the spinal highway, our large gathering of cells would be hard-pressed in moving with all due haste."

MT opened his mouth to respond, froze, then closed it back again as he realized the elder battle maid had more to add.

"As much as I want to personally deal with Dendritic-kun's fate," Lady Macrophage continued. "Alas, I must decline considering my initial mission to retake the liver takes precedence over anything-"

"You don't need to go back milady," NK interrupted without any hesitation. "I'll go back to the Thymus and murder that Dendritic bastard."

And then, as if already anticipating her muscled partner's response, she turned her gaze over to him to give him a defiant look. "And I'll do it alone."

"Are you insane?!" MT roared, just as she expected. His hands curled into tight fists as if trying to curtail his anger. "Are you really that eager to die?!"

"Why not?" NK countered. "I hunt alone, I don't have a team, and I don't-"

"Apologies NK-chan," Lady Macrophage interjected. "But I'm afraid I cannot accede to you confronting Dendritic-dono alone."

NK turned to look back at her master, her face squirmed with surprise and confusion. "But milady, I..."

"Do not mistake my refusal to acquiesced to your decision as the same as doubting your abilities to work alone." the elder battle maid stated sternly. Her face still wore the facade of a cheerful macrophage gossiping during tea time, but the tone of her voice now carried the gravitas of her position. "I have full confidence of your abilities to perform your destiny. However..."

Lady Macrophage allowed her words to hang for several seconds as if to emphasize the gravity of their meaning. She then closed her eyes as she inhaled deeply.

NK's first instinct was to mount a rebuttal, to remind her master that even she had no authority to tell her on what to do, but instead she conjured up all her self-restraint to hold her tongue.

"However, it is not only your fate that is destined to be in the Thymus in the next hour." The elder battle maid said at last.

"Wait, your reason for not allowing me to go alone is because of someone else's fate?!" NK growled, unable to contain her disbelief. "Milady, I don't have time for your beliefs in 'fate'. The Thymus is under attack! I need to be there now!"

NK never took her master's deep belief in fate seriously. She always thought of it as nothing but a fancy topic to be discussed during tea breaks. Her master once lectured her that fate didn't mean that their lives were already determined, or it was necessarily given by some higher providence. Rather, fate was a journey of an individual searching for her purpose in life as well as her acceptance to do everything in her power to achieve such a purpose.

NK had reservations of such a concept, even noting to her master that as cells, they already had pre-determined roles to act on. A red blood cell cannot become a neutrophil, and no mortal cell could ever rise up in rank to become a benevolent neuron. The elder battle maid then told her that such an understanding of fate was rather overly simplistic, and then she proceeded to expound further on the subject to which, to this day, NK never quite understood nor ultimately cared.

"If you are telling me to bring a detachment to the Thymus," NK continued. "Then you will be risking your fight with Lady Em. I might not have spent much time with your first apprentice, but even I know that you need all the cells you can get to def-"