Crap. I'm in a cell again. When will I learn?

It feels as if I drank myself through the DTs and out the other side. I hate waking up this way, locked up in yet another cell, once again my own victim. I can't bear to open my eyes to the humiliation.

I can feel the rumble of something large approaching. The tremble is enough to make me open my eyes.

I roll quickly to my left, barely in time to avoid being crushed by a barreling mitochondrion. As the monster ululates and turns I bolt to my feet, scrambling away as two more of the massive beasts appear behind the first.

I'm frantic. I make my way past the gnomonic overhang of the Golgi. Ahead to my left is the ridge of a centriole, and I labor toward it, my shoes and hangover a trinity of heavy liabilities as I cross the thick murk of the cytoplasmic floor. I collapse behind the centriole before the mitochondria reach the Golgi - I'm safe for the moment.

The cell is larger than most I've been in, and my cellmates are by far the most drastic I've encountered. I've been interred with bikers and slashers, malcontents and psychopaths, but none of them compare to the hungry bulks of the mitochondria intent on turning me into fuel. I have never before considered the idea of breaking out of a cell - it seemed a choice that could only make things worse. But if breaking out of this cell means survival, then the path of the outlaw will be mine.

I can hear the mitochondria approaching, snuffling after my scent. I glance around the centriole. Two of the three are huge brutes, though the smaller one still dwarfs me. They've cleverly fanned out to block my way as they inexorably comb the cytoplasmic floor for me.

I dart into the open, and all three turn in my direction emitting a united, hungry moan. I fight the supple floor and my pounding head as I pump my way toward the arching surface of the nucleus. The nucleus lay so close to the wall of the cell that the mitochondria will not be able to follow.

I'm almost there, nearly at the cell wall, when I hear a ghastly sound. I turn to see the endoplasmic reticulum waver and shiver as if about to heave. Sure enough, like a cloud of murderous bees, a dozen crimson transport vesicles bloom from the reticulum and speed toward me. Even the mitochondria cease their approach.

I am cornered between the cell wall and the nucleus. Desperate, I drop to my knees and dig into the cytoplasm, my fingernails clawing through the translucent, viscous pulp to grasp at a shadow. The shadow proves to be what I'd hoped, and I pull the blade of cytoskeleton free. I brandish it with a howl as the vesicles swarm about me. I thrust, cut, and slice; I spin the blade in arcs, I jab, I gouge and sever.

The battle passes in a blur, and the shredded remains of the vesicles litter the landscape. Behind me, the largest of the mitochondria bellows.

My bone sword in hand, I step to the cell wall. With a quick slice I open a rift in the peptidoglycan and leap through - a new outlaw, founded in the fading echo of his enemy.

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