ANOIKIS - Chapter 1
Trigger warnings for this story: Gore, swearing, graphic violence, alcohol/drugs
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Bacteria don’t die
like you or I die. If you were to take an anti-tank shell, aim it at
a person’s torso, and blow them in half, you wouldn’t expect the
legs of that person to get up and start running away. But if you do
the same thing (that is, do something that should be 100% fatal like
throw them into pure alcohol) to a bacterium, something else happens.
Sure, they’re dead the moment their cell membrane splits open, but
even as it crawls around, pulling the cytoplasm and organelles out,
the parts of it that remain inside, keep working. Flagella will keep
beating hard, moving the corpse-to-be around, cilia will keep
slashing through the water, trying to move to the nearest food or
light or lack of light, depending on the species.
All in all, I think
that we’re the luckier of the two.
Of course, the
benefits of having a single cell can’t be understated. Some of them
are shockingly complex, and the Bioengineers and Gene-wrights have
been able to come up with some really interesting breeds of germ. In
front of me now, actually, was one I was particularly fond of. Big as
my head, a free-swimming sphere that floated along the organo-glass
piping of the Strider’s lymphatic system. Did a remarkable job of
lighting the place up, the dry bone-and-cartilage cavity that had
been lovingly moulded and shaped by the bonegrowers to have seats and
tables jutting out of the walls.
Check out a new work in the making from a good friend of the blog!
