It was in the globe, smaller than a blood cell.
“We will shrink you in to fit inside this vehicle and then inject you inside Gregory. There you will perform internal surgery inside him. You will zap everything that is not supposed to be there. It is the first time we are using it,” said Doctor Dumont.
“Wow, just like that!” said Nomi.
“Pretty much,” said Doctor Chalmers, who had kept pretty much silent up until now.
“This vehicle is a cleaner vehicle. It will allow you to navigate thru Gregory and destroy the bad cells inside of him. The vehicle is designed to auto sanitize itself. Its outer shell will not affect Gregory in any negative way. You will be the copilot inside of this vehicle,” said Doctor Chalmers.
“We thought of this all remotely to being with. But we found out that we need someone inside the vehicle to visually pick up what the machines could not see. We did not want anything to escape. That is why the vehicle will be operated by you and remotely by Mister Chiffon. Also the ship does have its own systems to help you thru your tasks,” said Doctor Dumont.
“The suit will be a safeguard should anything go wrong with the integrity of the craft. We will be able to recuperate you if you end up being in deep trouble,” said Doctor Chalmers.
“That is very reassuring in a weird way,” said Nomi.
“Please don’t worry. We will be there to assist you along the way during the process, it should not take more than a few hours to do,” said Doctor Chalmers.
“We have examined Gregory from head to toe and identified every region infected. You will travel thru a lot of him at incredible speeds and zap everything like we said,” said Doctor Dumont.
“The suit that is before you is made of an alloy composed of different metals and crystals and will be flexible. It will bend and work out like regular clothing. It will resist pressures, heat, acid and anything that can be thrown at it. You will have a life support system for your suit that should give ample time to perform your operation,” said the gopher.
“OK. I have to prepare for this?” asked Nomi.
“Yes. Nurse Cassandra will go prepare you further and put you in the undergarments of your suit so we can apply the outer shell when you get back,” replied Doctor Chalmers.
Nomi disappeared with Nurse Cassandra and she came back a while later, all dressed in white undergarments that had hoses and connectors of different kinds.
“Ah good, we are making progress. Please approach,” said Doctor Dumont.
Nomi went up a few steps. The doctors started to fit her up with the super suit. They started at the bottom and worked their way up. They carefully attached each part in a very distinct pattern and position. They were doing well with the suit fitting, when suddenly an automaton nurse came crashing through the door.
“Gregory is going into cardiac arrest! They are trying to save him,” screamed the nurse to the group.
Everyone went pale.
The doctors stopped for a moment.
“Do anything and everything to get him back! We will finish preparing Nomi here and send her as soon as we can,” said Doctor Dumont.
The nurse left in a hurry and the doctors continued their hard work on Nomi, who got the last pieces of her outfit finally installed. The group tried to hurry up as much as they could. After some time, they installed the breathing apparatus on Nomi’s back.
“There, this is your rebreather system, you will have an almost infinite supply of oxygen with this,” said Doctor Chalmers.
They attached other connectors to Nomi suit.
Then they gave her some sort of device that looked like a gun.
“What is that?” asked Nomi, surprised at the contraption.
“This is a laser, in case you need to go outside the vehicle. It will help you zap those cells if need be, this would be the worst case scenario and the one we don’t want to happen, but we have to prepare for it,” said Doctor Dumont.
“We are sending Mister Chiffon with you as your virtual copilot. He has been programed to pilot this ship for you. He will be here, but will virtually control all of the ship when you are not in control of it so you can concentrate on your mission,” said Doctor Chalmers.
Mister Chiffon was hooked to another machine not too far from Nomi. You could see on a screen that data was being uploaded to his brain thru a tiny little cable inserted into his shell. The progress bar read 87 percent completed for whatever information he was getting and the bar kept going up.
Finally, after some tense minutes, the final touch was applied. They put a helmet on Nomi head and started the oxygenation system of the suit. The doctors then sealed the helmet to the suit and turn the communication system of the suit to see if Nomi could communicate with them.
“Test, test!” said Doctor Dumont into a microphone on his desk.
“I am hearing you!” replied Nomi.
“Are you OK in the suit asked the Doctor? I hope it’s not too hot for you,” asked Doctor Dumont.
“No, it feels like a warm winter suit. It is warm but tolerable,” said Nomi.
“Good that is perfect,” said Doctor Dumont.
“Now, we have no time to waste. We have to shrink you and insert you in your vehicle,” said Doctor Dumont, who pulled a lever on a command panel close by.
Steam came out of the machine as it came alive. A huge glass door slid down and Nomi stepped into the huge tube in front of her. She placed herself in the giant tube, waiting.
“Now relax Nomi. The shrinkage takes but a few microseconds. You won’t even have time to blink and you will be inserted inside the ship we have loaded in the tube with you,” said Doctor Dumont.
Doctor Dumont pulled the lever again and there she was. Nomi was in a weird-looking ship.
“Please get to the cockpit,” Doctor Dumont said.
“Yes,” replied Nomi as she looked around.
Nomi went to what seemed to be the front area of the vehicle. It had some piloting instrumentation. Nomi looked puzzled by all of this.
“Do not worry about those. Mister Chiffon will take care of most of this for you. Now we are going to transfer you into a special cartridge and insert you into Gregory. That also should not take too long,” said Doctor Dumont.
“How is he doing?” asked Nomi.
“I just got news that they brought him back. He is safe for now, but we have to do our part faster than I expected now. It’s all up to you young Miss,” replied the Doctor.
Nomi just sat and waited in the vehicle and for what seemed to be an eternity, nothing happened and then she felt some tremors of the vehicle.
“We are transferring you into the capsule now said Doctor Dumont. Do not worry, this will take only a few minutes,” said the gopher.
Nomi was looking outside the window of the cockpit, she could make some forms out but everything was so enormous. She sat there waiting and then as before the voice of Doctor Dumont came on.
“We are transporting you in the room where Gregory is. You will be injected in him within the next few minutes. Please hold tight and do not panic,” said Doctor Dumont.
Again the vehicle shook and then everything went steady.
“There,” said the voice on the radio.
“You are now inside Gregory, child. Please follow our instructions. Please turn on the power of the vehicle. It’s a big switch on your left. It says power under it. Push that up. It will start the vehicle so that Mister Chiffon can start to pilot it,” said Doctor Dumont.
Nomi did as told and pushed the lever. The vehicle started to hum and shake a bit. A light came out in front of the vehicle and Nomi could see some strange thing going on in front of the vehicle.
“What is that?” asked Nomi.
“You are inside a blood vessel Nomi. What you see going by are blood cells. You are smaller than them. You need to destroy the bad, cancerous cell in Gregory’s body. We will start from the bottom of his body and go all the way up to the end of his head. Since he does not have a big body mass yet, we should
be able to do this clean up pretty quick,” replied the Doctor.
“OK. We will bring you to the start point and then Mister Chiffon will help you pilot the vehicle to the end point,” said Doctor Dumont.
The vehicle started to turn and went into a direction. After a few minutes, a familiar voice came back on.
“We are doing great Nomi. Don’t despair this will be over soon I promise,” said the Doctor over the radio.
The vehicle traveled for a bit and Nomi was finding the view terrifying, but also strange and beautiful. She was impressed by the complexity of what was going around her.
“We have to start cleaning up,” said a voice on the radio of the vehicle.
“On your left, you will find some commands for the vehicle mounted laser system. Please take a look,” said the Doctor.
Nomi looked as indicated and found an array of controls and they were all tagged with different names for different functions. She looked at them for a few moments.
“I think I have them, they are in front of me right?” Nomi asked.
“Yes, they are. We have made the controls as simple as we could so it would be easy for you to use and concentrate on what you need to do,” replied the Doctor.
Nomi pushed a button and a stick came out of the console in front of her. The stick had several buttons on it. It looked like an airplane pilot control stick.
She started to maneuver the stick. The shipped moved when she moved the stick.
“Good, I see that you are trying stuff,” said the voice on the radio.
“On your screen you will see a display that shows you what you need to zap,” continued the Doctor.
Nomi looked to her right and there was a display that showed her an incoming object that was coming her way. The screen was flashing and indicating to her that she was going to need to take action pretty soon in order to destroy the rogue cell.
It came closer and closer to her ship. Then the alarms went on.
“Thirty seconds to encounter,” said the on-board computer.
And it continued the countdown warning Nomi at about every five second interval.
When the cell was close by more alarms came on.
“You have one cell very close to you, Nomi. Do not miss it. All you have to do is press the yellow button when it is close by and the ship will do the rest,” said Doctor Dumont on the radio.
So Nomi waited a few more moments. When the cell was in line with the ship, another louder alarm came on and Nomi pressed the yellow button on the stick and the ship fired a pale blue light all around it. The cell passed by and it was disintegrated by the ray of light.
“Good job! That is exactly what we want you to do Nomi,” continued the Doctor who was at his console and very happy about what just went on.
“We are having good results with the ship and Nomi,” he said to Doctor Chalmers.
“Yes, I am most pleased. Our designs are working as expected,” replied Doctor Chalmers.
“How are you doing Mister Chiffon? Any trouble with the ship?” asked Doctor Dumont.
“It is smooth sailing so far. The ship is easy to control,” said the turtle.
The ship started to move and navigate thru the space it was in. It was going thru and zapping bad cells left and right. It was making marvelous progress. Doctor Dumont was checking on Nomi often to make sure she was comfortable with the situation at all times. He did not want her to start to panic and have things go awry.
“Gregory is still OK for now,” said Doctor Dumont to Nomi.
“We are at one percent done with the clean up. We are also injecting Gregory with a specialized liquid to help rebuild his red blood cell more rapidly, so he can get back to normal as soon as possible,” said Doctor Chalmers.
“I am holding off. But it’s getting harder to navigate. It seems that there are a lot of clumps of bad cells everywhere,” Nomi said.
“Yes, that is expected Nomi. We have planned for this,” said Doctor Dumont.
The ship stopped in front of an accumulation of those bad cells. Nomi looked at it.
“What
Nomi Nivag and Gregory's fight with the big "C" Page 4