Her job was to roam the hallways of the system -- the arteries, the veins, the teenie tiny capillaries that weaved in and out of the tissue. She'd gotten a report of a death in these parts. She responded as she was trained to. She was the first on the scene. Her name was Cy.

At first she kept her distance. One could never be too sure what kind of ‘gens were lurking, waiting to pounce. Microbials, viruses, bacteria, even cells she could have sworn were with the force could turn at a moment's notice. She was a member of the immune response, a white blood cell, a gotdamn first responder.

And she was proud, too, even though there'd been a flare up recently about some of the overzealous attacks done by her and her fellow leukocytes. Some cells in the gut had started to flex on their neighbors. Cy had rolled up with some other members of her team and put an end to the kerfuffle. When the smoke cleared it turned out Cy's side had killed about as many if not more of the good guys as well as the bad. It was apoptosis the news on the lymphatic networks were calling it. Cy called it an innocent mistake.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

That's why she was hanging back now. The telltale signs were there in the bloodstream around her, the torn up proteins ripped from the bodies of cells. The call had come into the marrow saying murder. Now on site, Cy could confirm. A cell was dead. At least one. The killer's whereabouts were as-of-yet unknown.