... what?

Skittering deliciously across-upwards the isosurface, I came to an epiphany.

It was large and round, spiraling jaggedly offdown, and I soon perceived that it had completely diverted me from my previous traverse. Alien layers slid scathingly past me as I twisted ever farther from the initial realization, until by the end I was left sliding without direction, orbital-distal to an unfamiliar yellow tune.

Damn, I swore quietly. (The ripples faded into the tune before subsiding.) I didn't know exactly where I was, but the warm-spiky texture of the local groundstate was a horrifyingly clear indication that this was not the sort of place I wanted to think alone in, not unless I wanted to become a statistic. Even the cobalts didn't come places like this closetide without armed backup.

Fortunately it was opentide here — epiphanies are like that — so I backtraced, pulling in, trying to keep myself down until I could strike to an edge. I did have my glass-fan with me, for all the good it would do.

Except I wasn't finding any edges. And no matter how I went, the texture never got any cleaner. And... shouldn't I have second-touched someone by now? Even if —

[extended burst of static]