phage

Phage

“Well, the way I see it, you have two options, Mr. Khan: we could amputate that leg of yours at the knee—“

“But it was just a spider bite!”

“A very infected spider bite. But there's another option.”

“Yes, anything! …but what's that murky stuff in that test tube in your hand?”

“This? This is the second option, phage therapy.”

Ever since the Spider Bite Incident, the sky opened and the Sun became visible over the city of Legville. The citizens rarely looked up anymore.

As for me, it was my first day in Legville, and my last day in any city. I came there to kill and be killed. Without that mission, I had no purpose and might as well just have been disintegrated by one of the antibodies around here. I can't even function when a target isn't in my immediate area.

When I was thrown from the safety of the culture and landed in the city, I stood motionless on top of an office building made from mangled, warped dead cells, a popular building material since the Bacteria Party came into power. As I stood there, I prayed to the Swamp Lord of my homeland that I wouldn't feel the cold barrel of a .44 Antiviral from some antibody on the back of my neck. But I don't fear death, for that's the end result of my job — if I do it right.

My name's Sam. I'm a bacteriophage.

The janitor came up behind me and dropped his mop and bucket of proteins. He knows exactly what my mission is. If a leather jacket, six tail fibres, and a crystal head with a strand of DNA floating around don't tell you I'm a killer, then it's probably too late, and soon you'll explode.

In his reflection on the adjacent window of the much taller Hair Follicle Center tower, I could tell the janitor was a big guy. Much larger than I was, just like many other microbes in this town. As far as janitors went he seemed well off, wearing a business suit instead of overalls or some such. On his right flagella he wore a black armband with a medieval letter B and a five-pointed star.

That was all I needed to know — that he was a member of the Bacteria Party. They came to Legville in the chaos of the Spider Bite Incident and promised a brighter future. They shouted inane slogans and slapped gigantic posters of their various leader figures onto buildings until the citizens let the Party take everything away from them.

There have been some outsiders that have tried to stop the Party. The “Antibiotics,” they called themselves — old fellows with rusty guns that specialized in destroying old bacteria. The Party had obviously dealt with their kind before; you could tell from their constant preaching of “a new beginning” and “the future is today.” With the Party immune to their bullets, the Antibiotics ended up on the streets and back alleys with no mission and no purpose. They can't even kill themselves because they aren't made of organic material. If that's not hell, I don't know what is.

Then I came in, and now that bacterium was behind me. The DNA in my head twitched with excitement.

“Hello,” I said. My tail fibre caressed my gun in its holster.

His voice trembled. “Please don't kill me, Mr. Bacteriophage.”

“Do you have a better idea of how I should spend my time, Janitor?”

“Sure, uh, maybe by killing someone else?”

This conversation was going nowhere. I whipped out the gun and pointed it behind me, but he dashed off. Not wanting to be standing still again to wait for an antibody to slaughter me, I gave chase.

I came to the cold stairwell through a protruding door on the roof and the idiot already was below me by two floors. The scent of the dead cells that made this building overtook me. I would have fired my gun at the bacterium through the gaps in the railings as I saw him dash down — if I was any other microbe. Bacteriophages only get one shot, ever. Once that trigger is pulled, my DNA wraps around the bullet in a split second and comes out the barrel while I fall limp in a puddle of dead proteins. I didn't have a good shot in that stairwell, and if I missed — well, I don't want to miss.

I sped down ten floors for that guy until I heard the 15h floor door slam. I flung it open only to find myself in a massive banquet hall. All manner of cells were there, and they all were bigger than me. An important bacterium was giving a lengthy, angry speech.

“PHAGE!” shouted the janitor.

Broken glass and screams were heard all over the room in an instant. The room was so full of bacteria I could have fired my gun anywhere, but the security antibodies swung their cybernetic heads in my direction. Their eye-lights blazed and their sirens screeched as they sped hovering in my direction.

I knew that I would soon be surrounded in the stairwell, so I dashed across the ballroom among the screaming crowd. The antibodies couldn't fire at civilians, even if they were Party-worshipping criminals. I didn't encounter any members of the Party, just a lot of screamers and a lot of starers in sparkly dresses and tuxedos made from $2,000 lipid bilayers. The Bacteria Party knew how to handle an Antibiotics stickup, in the rare case of no immunity: by fleeing the scene as soon as possible.

I finally came to the podium, and in the corner of my peripherals I could see party members being ushered into an elevator down the hall. I knew that door would close any second, so I had no choice but to rush across the stage. As I did, I felt antibody bullets scraping against my jacket. None of them were direct hits, but one slightly cracked the right side of the protein coat of my head. I could feel the fluids inside trickle down the facets. I held a tail fibre against the wound to make sure none of the precious genetic material would escape.

I jumped off the stage and ran down the hall. The elevator door closed before I could get a chance to fire, so I ran to the stairs. The thing was going up — these high-profile party members were going to the helipad on the roof.

As I ran up the stairs as fast as my tail fibres could carry me, I could hear the sirens of the antibodies below. Every time a gap opened in my path I danced across a hail of bullets.

At the 20th floor I came face-to-face with an antibody. I knew there was nothing I could do but run. The thing shot off two of the tail fibres I use for running. I fell, but I picked myself up again and ignored the pain as much as I could. I limped up five floors to the roof with the antibodies close behind.

On the roof, the luxury helicopter, gigantic compared to me, was just starting to leave. I was beyond exhausted. A bacterium looked at me, took his arm band off, and waved it like a flag with a sucrose-eating grin. “You can't hurt us!” said the bacterium. “You're not even a real life form!”

Then, I raised my gun and fired as he was closing the hatch. The last thing I saw was my bullet pierce through his head as I collapsed and the antibodies looked at me with their inquisitive headlights.

I began my new life inside that Party official. As the helicopter sped over the Legville skyline with the sun glaring in the bacteria's eyes, my victim laughed in his leather first-class seating as he realized he wasn't dead from the shot alone. The other officials shared the laughter until his DNA and mine came together. He spasmed and convulsed on the floor of the vehicle as his colleagues stared at the bacteriophages starting to form in his body. There were untold dozens of us. He exploded all over the expensive cushions, and the enzyme driving the helicopter didn't know what to do as his passengers were slaughtered. He made an emergency landing to let my legions out.

The phages will win. No matter how immune the Party is to Antibiotics, there is no immunity from the Swamp Lord's mandate.