Inside h2g2 Part One
Created | Updated Apr 21, 2005
Khamsin stood at the door. He looked at the address on the piece of paper. 'HooToo Server Room, 42, The Towers'. Khamsin glanced again at the door. It read 'number forty two' and he was in The Towers. The strange thing was that there weren't any other doors in the tower labelled with numbers - but this one was.
Khamsin knocked upon the bland door and it opened up into a largish room, though he couldn't see the walls as the lights had been dimmed. Armed with a biro and a sketchbook Khamsin entered the room.
'Ah you must be the artist come to help.' came a sweet and soothing feminine tone. Khamsin nodded in the affirmative. Then the woman carried on. 'Sorry about the lights, but Jims has been working all night long in the office.'
Khamsin saw a glowing in one corner of the room and he knew that must be where Jim was working. He stepped a bit closer, the woman stood silently watching him as he did so. As he neared the glow he gasped at what he beheld. Quickly he opened his sketch book and jotted down what he saw. Just as he got down the sketch of Jims and the white mouse stood behind, he felt a firm grasp on his shoulder as he was pulled away back to where he had been standing before.
'Sit here and wait. Do not move or else!' The woman's tone was much harsher than before. 'No wandering around without my permission.' She started to walk off before turning and smiling at him again. 'Oh and Khamsin, my name is Nats.'
Khamsin watched as she wandered off to a cupboard labelled 'in case of an emergency'. From the cupboard Nats pulled a whip and started approaching a hamster wheel that Khamsin hadn't seen before. He heard the cracking of the whip and could see it from where he was sat.
As he watched Nats with the whip he also noticed that there was a man on the hamster wheel now running at the sight of the whip. Khamsin squinted to see the man's face, but all he could make out were the ears. 'It couldn't be Jims' he wondered. He checked in the other direction where Jims had been typing but he was still sat there. 'How very odd' he noted to himself as he made another quick sketch of the hamster wheel and Nats before it.
Once the man had stopped slacking again, Nats approached another door where another man sat sleeping. At Nats approach he started from his seat and, picking up a large wrench, he exited through the door. Khamsin was about to make another sketch when Jims appeared.
'Good morning Khamsin. Nice to see you got here safely.' The two men exchanged handshakes. 'Have you any questions about anything before we ask you what to do here?'
'Jims, I'm confused. What do you do around here? What has been happening?' asked Khamsin.
'Well, Khamsin.' Jims replied 'The white mouse with Jims over there is the BBC boss. On the hamster wheel over there Jims is trying to keep the server going while the server mouse is on strike and behind the door... well... there Jims is trying to beat a forty two foot mouse into submission with a wrench.'
Khamsin was still puzzled as he asked 'So how are there so many of you then?'
'Well I was helped out by a mad scientists' assistant who works on the lower levels of the BBC. He is the one that usually creates the children's TV.' Jim winked as he finished the sentence. Then he stood up and looked around 'Unless there is anything else you want to ask, follow me.'
Jims lead the way to Khamsin's temporary desk; a pile of stacked milk crates.
'Jimster!' bellowed Nats.
Jims looked to Khamsin. 'Sorry, I'll be right back.' Jims ran off to the beckoning voice and Khamsin was left to make a few more sketches of what had happened as well as a drawing of what he thought would happen if Jims and Nats found out about the sketches.
