The chapter opens with the narrator lamenting the fact that the town is full of "ordinary civilians" who have been infected with a "type b virus" and "ant and ant" . The narrator explains that the "killer t cells" -- cytotoxic T cells -- will arrive any minute now, and that the dendritic cells -- which are the "antigens" of the immune system -- will "swallow stagger 199" from inside the shed. The dendritic cells, he says, are "just ordinary civilians" and must be killed before they can infect the rest of the town. He asks the narrator if he can tell the townspeople that he has killed just one of the "zombies." The narrator replies that if he doesn't, then his senpai will. He tells the narrator that the senior dendritic cells give the senpai a hard time, but that the helper dendritic cells will "go go go go" if the "same enemy appears again" -- meaning, if the first enemy appears, the second enemy will appear. He says that he is not like the white blood cells or the macrophage, or the "strong like them" -- he's not strong enough to kill just one "zombie." Instead, he'll kill "every last one -- . . they stand by" -- so that if the same "enemy appears" a second time, they can attack again. The naive narrator says that there's no need to worry about "little naive" dendritic cells. White blood cells patrol the body looking for enemies and kill "memo ries" -- messages from other immune cells that tell them what's going on in the body. Macrophage and dendritic cells relay messages from the immune cells to the effector T cells, which then "induce" the effect
The chapter opens with the narrator lamenting the fact that the town is full of "ordinary civilians" who have been infected with a "type b virus" and "ant and ant" . The narrator explains that the "killer t cells" -- cytotoxic T cells -- will arrive any minute now, and that the dendritic cells -- which are the "antigens" of the immune system -- will "swallow stagger 199" from inside the shed. The dendritic cells, he says, are "just ordinary civilians" and must be killed before they can infect the rest of the town. He asks the narrator if he can tell the townspeople that he has killed just one of the "zombies." The narrator replies that if he doesn't, then his senpai will. He tells the narrator that the senior dendritic cells give the senpai a hard time, but that the helper dendritic cells will "go go go go" if the "same enemy appears again" -- meaning, if the first enemy appears, the second enemy will appear. He says that he is not like the white blood cells or the macrophage, or the "strong like them" -- he's not strong enough to kill just one "zombie." Instead, he'll kill "every last one -- . . they stand by" -- so that if the same "enemy appears" a second time, they can attack again. The naive narrator says that there's no need to worry about "little naive" dendritic cells. White blood cells patrol the body looking for enemies and kill "memo ries" -- messages from other immune cells that tell them what's going on in the body. Macrophage and dendritic cells relay messages from the immune cells to the effector T cells, which then "induce" the effect