Eet eez a beeg ball of boom. Ya.
And I'd made it.
Luckily, I'm on the other side of a duralloy pressure containment door. This side has a simple, two-color design on it reminiscent of its cousins for bio, chemical, and radiation hazards, but about twice as frightening: memetic hazard.
You see, just because it's information doesn't mean it's not dangerous. Even through the double-walled duralloy chamber, it aches. Not in the head, but in the chest. It isn't too bad here, but inside, facing it? Ugh.
News had just rolled in about a Wild Hare, and we'd been assigned to chase it down. More often than not, we only found a Wild Goose. Sometimes good came of the hares, though, so we tended to follow through just in case.
This might have been OK, but at some point during the prep stages I'd wandered off to ensure that inventory had been restocked for the mission. An audit was coming up, and I liked to dot my i's and cross my t's.
I'm still not sure why I wandered off, but I made the mistake of mentioning it when I got back to the staging area.
Turns out it's a bad idea to mention inventory logistics when the Wild Hare tipster is in the room. Wild Hares can't be planned for, and they are often spendy to chase. Tips are usually from someone on the team, and what gets neglected to chase whose tips can be a...touchy subject. In this case, the tipster was instantly certain that I had checked the inventory because it was their tip.
Well, as soon as I said it I knew I'd done something wrong. It wasn't really clear how wrong until after the mission launched, at which point I aborted the run. Pulling into port I remember the angst globule building; by the time I landed it was too hot to touch and I just ducked and ran. All the emergency InfoSec procedures galloped through my mind as I ran, but each would only have made it worse. That's a baffling feeling--something is going terribly wrong, and everything you can do is irredeemably bound to feed the fire. I just gave up and ran.
It still hasn't coalesced into an addressable state, but it has at least localized itself. Here I am, staring at the entrance to the containment area, listening to time sloosh past, praying that the one thing I had done would eventually help.
Rumble. Rumble BANG. Well, nope. Apparently not. I felt that one through the floor.
The worst part? I'm still not sure if it's my fault. The tipster is certain it is; that's why I'm behind duralloy walls. It's to protect me from them.
I think.
Wait...right?
GAAAAAAHHHH
(Yes, I know it's a 'wild hair,' not a 'wild hare,' but the animal theme was too awesome to resist...)
(And yes, an 'angst globule' that is 'too hot to touch' has to be information construct analysis technobabble for this to be truly memetic. Let it be so.)
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