The Real Growlerville 5: More Glitch
(A first hand account by investigative journalist, Mr. E)
Do YOU Recall:
In an earlier post I spoke about Glitch, once a valuable and rare mineral found only in the Forbidden Zone.
However, here's what happened shortly after my last post about Insurgents & The Ethics Of Encrusted Animal Research. Oh boy!
Just as the Noise Thief issue was dying down, Professor QB Snifs released an astonishing scientific paper documenting his research on the mineral known as Glitch. The conclusions were so incredible, no one believed them at first. But the researcher's reputation for accuracy and impeccable attention to detail played a major role in convincing those within the government to act swiftly based on his discoveries.
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The paper reveals how overly frequent experiences of deja vu led Snifs to a devastating yet obvious conclusion. The inordinate amount of deja vu seemed to be related to the proximity of a light emitting microscopic crystal in one particular mineral sample. When he isolated & tested the sample, he could not identify it. But when he sorted the sample for crystals of the same size, he found the only mineral of similar size was microscopic Glitch.
He theorized that Glitch transformed itself into the active agent. He isolated the minute particles of Glitch, and put them under the video microscope running a continuous recording to document any changes. Snifs tells how he fell asleep at the lab and dreamed that a Glitch crystal had activated into the substance he could not identify.
This frightened him and he woke up. He found himself in the lab and again, like in his dream, he finds that a Glitch crystal had activated into the substance he could not identify. Again this scared him but he realized it was just a dream as he awoke once more, only to discover himself in the lab, etc., etc.
It seemed to go on forever, but when it finally stopped and things seemed normal, he ran the video tape and observed that only one microscopic crystal of Glitch had activated.
Now Snifs was really scared. If such a tiny amount of activated Glitch can cause such havoc with your experience of reality, it would be a total catastrophe if a jewel sized sample were to activate.
Reasoning that Glitch activation occurred in cycles, Snifs researched the great disasters of the past in painstaking detail. From his foray into the historic record he concluded that the great social upheavals we study in school, The Age Of Confusion and the Legacy of Chaos, were both caused by the mass activation of Glitch, on a 20,000 moon cycle.
It also happens that today is the day predicted for activation based on that cycle!!!!!!!!
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So let us back up a moment. < ---------------
Snifs is now claiming that Glitch, mined in the Forbidden Zone by our ancestors, and in everyone's jewelry boxes, was not the harmless jewel we all thought it was.
Quite the opposite - Glitch was an encrusted mineral, only in dormant form.
Not only that, but all Glitch was about to momentarily become activated, causing great disruptions in society unless it could be removed from our midst.
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The Great Glitch Recall went into effect immediately. Citizens were asked to turn in any Glitch they had voluntarily. Everything seemed to be going well, until Glitch detection devices showed that not all Glitch was being surrendered. "If citizens are not cooperating, we're doomed to chaos!" Snifs lamented. The Huhu Authority hastily put together an enforcement unit whose orders were to retrieve all Glitch, surreptitiously if necessary. It's a noble effort, but the feeling is that without complete cooperation, gathering all the Glitch in Growlerville is just not feasible in the short time frame before activation.
"The window of opportunity is about to slam shut unless we get very lucky," sighed Grandpa Huhu, acting chair of the emergency session.
Wait a second... Didn't he just say that?