Sidelines' Sarabande 支线小舞曲
一开始，正如在Area-08-B工程部门的同僚们一样，理查德·巴纳德博士密切注意着那些震耳欲聋的扬声器的动静。它们通常会坚定而平静地广播着来自任务管理中心的命令，听从它们可不仅仅是"重要"二字就能涵盖的，甚至可以说，这是他们的工作中最为重要的一件事。
但他却注意到，今天的情况似乎有所变化，比如说，广播里不再是托马斯·格雷厄姆向所有人下达命令，却放送起了一段弦乐。
只是过了一小会儿，困意就开始在他的脑海中浮现，理查德习惯性的开始只用耳朵静静听着这一切，而大脑却飞速运转，仔细分析着那段信息。
竟是一则如此大胆的消息，他在脑海中不断感受、理解着那令人放松的杰作笔触，亲切地评价道，脸上不由自主地挂上了一丝微笑。
狂暴、危险与残忍正于它如魔法般的、粗俗不堪的深处潜藏，如此复杂，如此精致。当他逐渐能够开始看出那些裂痕、音调与时间相互交融、不断渗透着的模式时；当他的表意识逐渐陷入混乱，被那位艺术家设计而把抛弃自身诸多职责、即将陷入异常舞蹈的，那深藏于底、被唤起反骨的潜意识唤醒的时候，理查德看到了一把钥匙。
"亨德尔的萨拉班德舞曲？天哪。"
理查德站了起来，循着乐曲的律动，仔细搜寻着异常的引物。那引物不同于现在常被人们滥用的粗鲁而愚蠢的伎俩，却是如此纯净、和谐。
"我的，我、我的——"
"我的最爱，"他小声自言自语道，却几乎无法察觉、无法分辨出周围的人早已倒在了一尘不染的瓷砖地板上。
"没事，别担心，我能搞定这个。"他心不在焉地向同事们说着，却没意识到他们未曾回应。
大多数人都对模因恐惧不已，因为它们通常会潜伏于阴暗中，令人难以察觉。该如何辨别什么是异常模因，而什么不是？它会出现在一篇小说上？还是画作？抑或歌曲？这是一个需要被作为整体来看待的复合模因吗？它会在观测者的脑海中留下引物吗？
不仅如此，甚至这东西还可能留有多重引物！不过，对于一个充满警惕的心智来说，模因又怎能称得上阴险？它们也只不过是些固定的组合形式罢了。注意规律，留心征兆，你就能发现它们。
"话虽如此，还是需要对那些固定模式时刻留神。为什么你开心时就会想唱歌？这种自发的、自省式的问题才能让你成为一个优秀的模因学家，"理查德微笑着说道，"既然我现在已经找到那曲调了，现在就只需要，呵，充耳不闻就行了1。"
不过当然了，绝大部分人并非模因学家，理查德身边的大部分工程师和技术员都躺倒在了4号清洁隔舱的地板上。他此前接种过疫苗，因此能够通过潜意识解析这段音乐。不过比起模因危害给人狂躁而生厌的零星感觉，这音乐更像是一整片灰暗，像一把小刀刺入现代人的脑海中，产生着微小的震动与裂缝。
理查德叹了口气，感到有些失望，他没从中发现什么能让他眼前一亮的东西。
他蹲下来，仔细观察着其中一个倒下的同事，恍如隔世。这大概就是他们所说的“理解的力量”吧，好似刹那间一切都已经改变，而旧世界看起来——不，那本就是焕然一新，而他在密封清洁服的透明面板后轻笑。
他朝着林德伯格博士那涂满呕吐物的面板上扫过一眼，就已经明白了所需的所有信息。
"血管迷走神经性症状，并非昏厥。大部分反馈与副交感神经均已衰竭，眼睛睁开，瞳孔跟随物体转动，也就是说，‘灯火通明，家中无人，嗡声渐起’。”他漫不经心地唱道，这是他对模因攻击的具体目的尚存疑问时就会自然道出的、早已熟记于心的句子，对他而言能起到助记作用。在这种状态下，他们的大脑虽然还能工作，却丝毫没有醒来的迹象，并且——理查德抬手扇了博士两耳光，却在她脸上看不到丝毫退缩——还缺乏对疼痛的应激反应。
"好吧，我就暂且称之为无应答状态吧，毕竟那个捏乳头测试对双方来说都算不上是什么趣事。"他向林德伯格坦白道。
她依旧一脸茫然。
而他也仍旧笑着2。
"对威胁没反应吗？"
她依旧一脸茫然。一股垃圾堆般的臭味飘了出来，大概当膀胱与肠道在清洁服内排空自己时，就会出现这种情况吧。
他笑的更开心了，还鼓起了掌，看起来十分满意。
"并非嗡声，而为舌响！来些C吧，不失良药，" 或者，用他的话来说一把C级记忆清除药物， "愿入好梦。"
随着最后一绺曲调在他口中消逝，理查德帮面前的女士调整至恢复体位。
"可惜啊，现在没法给自己用些C了，"男人思索着，突然严肃起来，"可真不错，那东西。"
随即，他们脑海中那首优美的危险乐曲被一阵雷鸣般的警报声所打断，自动监察程序介入了。
模因学家站在原地片刻，留心听着广播系统宣布进行初步自检。房间里所有联网设备的屏幕都忙着展示自动警告，这些警告不仅毫无用处，但讽刺的是还十分准确。
理查德哼了一声，心想这事儿可太丢脸了，他厌恶在模因游戏中输给任何人，基金会需要的是自动化模因疫苗，而非什么自动监查程序——次级预防绝对不是什么好主意，初级预防才是必要的（他想着一边笑了起来），这整件事就是个最好的例子。
"现在总算会给我们增加预算了吧，老大O们？"他一边咯咯笑着，一边研究着自动监察软件。他的模因学部门几个月前设计出了这玩意，但它实在太落后了，即使它可以识别出绝大部分潜在的有害固定模式，但无论是谁把这些微妙的东西天衣无缝地串成了一段旋律……
噢，那人可真是一把好手。
一行又一行的数据飞速略过他的眼内，他快速汲取着其中的信息，几分钟后，又或许是几小时后，他才回想起制度。“啊，我们是不是该警告一下整个站点，朋友们？”
他看向那些一动不动的同事们。其中一人正啜泣着，被困在自己意识中的某处黑暗角落里；又或者是享受着阴凉，毕竟那灼热的太阳之歌已经被警报声带来的雷鸣巨响但又舒缓十分的风暴所取代。
"嗯，是的，没错，对了，就是这个。"
模因学家不断抗争着自己被唤起的第一缕冲动（也许我可以在他们身上试些认知危害？），不断提醒自己，此等野心是完全徒劳的（我大概最终也会因为些更糟糕的东西倒在他们之间吧），以及令他需要向上报告的职责（如果他们不是第一个被袭击的，随便吧）。
"如果你们能听到，没空摆恢复体位了，大伙，"他说着，打开了洁净室的气密门，"尽量别在吞咽的同时呼吸哦。"
理查德在离开洁净室时完全没管净化过程（人都走了，还有什么净化的意义吗？随便了），他穿过
Richard did not care for the decontamination processes as he left the Clean Room (what was there to clean when you left it, anyways?) and traversed the large industrial unit of the Engineering Section. The inviting safe room and its many security measures were empty; the researcher walked past them, unfazed. No particularly dangerous activities had been planned for that day, after all. Nor warnings on any unplanned activities. No attackers that may have known how to overtake the PA system, or how to flood the place with mind-blowing memes, or where Area-08 was, or that it existed in the first place.
He cocked his head to a side, bemused. How easily they forgot "secret" did not mean "safe." Richard hurried, wide perspex windows and solid concrete walls to both sides.
To his right, seven D Classes had been left to the devices of three confused security drones in their testing area. The machines were unprepared for any play-possum war games, and so they kept beeping at the unresponsive D Classes. Richard didn't notice the wriggling as the drones pierced the men and women with their electrified spikes, yet he could not help but notice one of them had scampered to the furthest corner and stood still behind the unmoving body of another inmate; he made the mental note that he had to screen her for memetic resistance afterwards.
To his left, the largest Clean Room of the Sector, where the Foundation was building the modules that would eventually form the first Venerian aerostat. The room was no longer "clean", geniuses and qualified workers writhing on the floor, stewing in their own shit and puke. Richard didn't notice the expression in some technicians's face, who had struggled outside of his clean suit to try and get rid of some imaginary pest while screaming; he did wonder what the man screamed about (that response was incoherent with those of the other cases after all), but there was no time to go back and there would be security footing anyways.
Other people, better people, would have been bewildered or enraged by all this. Weaponized cognitive hazards, memetics in particular, were a horrible thing, after all. They would be scared, evidently. Even curious; curious as to how it was possible that they where still standing where so many others had fallen to the ground.
Richard kept strolling, serene, always smiling, to the elevator at the end of the concrete corridor. He even stepped up his pace, breaking into a run, to get to the elevator; as he called it down, Richard pondered the many fascinating secrets of the human psyche those new memes would unlock over the next days, as he would figure out how to treat them, erase them with amnestics, replicate them on brain simulators, then on people, and then erase them again… and do it all over again.
And over.
He entered the elevator; a uniformed guard was inside, counting the number of buttons in the floor selector. Richard gently pushed him aside and pressed the floor ground one.
The man went back to his counting, Richard noted, face frozen in an anguished smirk and pointing at them, from one to minus fifteen, over and over.
And over.
Richard took note, smiled from behind the face plate and did not stop him.
The elevator hit ground level, the door opening with a mellow, friendly chime…
The entire complex shook; there was first a roaring explosion. Then, a vibration and a constant, distant rumble, part a howl and part what the world would sound like if it was snapping in half.
And there was a familiarity in all of it, he thought, that wiped his smile and all other concerns and made him run.
The guard kept counting, Richard would remember later, but he was shrieking the numbers now.
The researcher ran, turned right where he should have turned left, kept running for a few more seconds and pushed the half-opened door to the left side of the Mission Control Hub of Area-08-B. He got blinded by the sunlight, but the bother only lasted for a second, as a completely equipped shuttle took off from Launch Bay 3.
He stared at the undeniably awe-inspiring column of boiling smoke that went on and on and on, and took it all in; the sight of the tiny needle-like shine on top of the cloud-like pillar, the thinning yet still deafening sound, the feeling it had grafted into his conscious self.
For the first time, he felt the suit was in the way. He slowly took the hood off and kept staring up. As the roar of the Foundation torchship shuttle Inquisitive died away for good, he managed to say:
"We got lift-off. Yes, we do, don't we?"
The two guards by the door, mercifully unconscious, did not see the smile their superior flaunted over them.3
"And that's you up there, isn't it, my lovable melomaniac?"
The sky held no answers for him, or preferred to be less than forthcoming.
原作：Dr Reach|Sidelines' Sarabande
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