h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Premier swung around a corner, scattering some startled pedestrians, and hustled down the busy shopping street towards the pillow warehouse. He heard whispers, saw furtively pointed fingers, and chuckled to himself. On any other day, this might be a time for a photo-op with the more photogenic of the local schoolchildren, a little hand-shaking and back-slapping to keep his grassroots happy. Today, however, his synapses were wired for action and, in the red-hazed, testosterone-fuddled entity that was his mind he dimly realised that he was in no shape for politicking. The last time he had tried shaking a hand during one of his attacks, he had swung an innocent voter through a wall, almost certainly losing his vote...

His face appeared on a television set in the window of an electronics shop, and he skidded to a halt. A news story about...*what* was this?

"...the shooting incidents earlier today, the Premier is missing. Citizens are advised that he may be armed, extremely dangerous and wearing a bandana, and may be operating alongside dangerous British terrorists. The National Reserve has been called out in Bonn, Zurich and Geneva, as well as all towns and villages, to apprehend the national criminal and to maintain order.
In light of the highly suspicious nature of his actions, and the subsequent disappearance of Vice-Premier Knett, feared murdered, the Swiss Assembly has carried a vote of no confidence in the Premier, leaving our nation temporarily in the hands of a governing council..."

A man in a grey suit with a discreet fish-like lapel-pin appeared on screen reading from a prepared statement.

"Please do not be alarmed, citizens. Subversive foreign influences aiming to disrupt the government of our great nation will be discovered and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Switzerland has had five hundred years of peace, brotherly love and cuckoo-clocks - it will take more than one deeply disturbed individual and his foreign accomplices to destabilise her. How this psychopath ever came to be elected is..."

To the disappointment of the people watching, the Premier now put his fist through the shop window, the screen of the television, the back of the television and the plyboard backing of the display.
"Heyy," croaked an old man. "The results were on next..."
Without pausing to pander to his electorate, the Premier ripped his arm out of the window and ran down the street towards the warehouse, already hearing the sirens behind him.

The Premier hurried down the street away from the small crowd of startled onlookers and ducked into an alley. He whipped of his bandana crafted from his tie and used it as a basic tornequet to stem the flow of blood from his upper arm where he'd caught it on a shard of glass. He grasped the length of material with his teeth and yanked it to a tight and briefly painful knot.

Giving his right hand an experienmental open fist close fist and flexing his bicep a little to ensure he hadn't robbed his arm of any blood supply he slid into the shadows. Why he did this was a mystery since it was broad daylight, about noon and the fire exit into the pillow factory was only yards away.
Naturally it was only capable of being opened from the inside, so he had to look for an alternative entrance. He found it in a small open window further down the alley-way, disspirtingly it was one too many hands above his wirey Swiss 6 foot frame.

Grabbing a discared milk crate from a pile of rubbish congregating beneath a broken refuse chute he propped open the small window with his elbow. He imitated a more staid version of the Fossberry Flop and with a flexabilty that belied his years and statesmanlike stoicism, slid inside, landing with cat-like prowess on all fours inside the last cubicle in the row of a men's toilet.

Swining his feet down to the floor and landing wiht a silent grace, he gently tipped the door open - blast! There was someone in there with him. Testosterone fueled visions raged through his synapses he relaxed and quietly raised the door up on it's hinges and opened it noiselessly.

The Trooper was standing at a urinal.

With no sound he stalked his prey like a Serengetti tiger ready to spring all naked nature tooth a claw from the wavering long grass to pin and slay the lame gazzelle who stayed too far from the herd. The sudden African metaphor was a mystery to him as well, but knowing his conditon as well as he did, he decided to just run with it.
In the fetid conditions of the staff toilet at the Pillow factory, the trooper finished with a shake and a zip.

The Tiger struck.

"Excuse my young sir - do you have the time?"

The man was startled. "whatthef-geeza where'd you come from!!?"

The Premier could waste no time. He delievered a swift karate chop to the neck and the man crumpled to the grimey tilted floor with a sound like a deflated accordian.

The PM lifted the Trooper's pistol from around his belt and stuffed it down the front of his own trouser belt like heed seen a LA street gangster do in a moveie this one time, untucking his shirt over the top to hide the bulge.

He exited the loo and found himself in a long corridor. the lights were mostly out but the high dirty windows filtered in a sort of grey light that picked out the highlights of a few troleys stacked boxes and empty shelves. Towards the near end of the corridor the light was much brighter and the was a lot of commotion coming from within.

"Hands up where we can see them!" ordered the commander.

"That sounds like them." thought the Premier

'I hope that traitor Knett hasn't corrupted the entire secuirty force or this will be very brief indeed.' he thought to himself, adding with a mainiac grin:
'but if it all goes south, I'll take as many of them down with me before I die!' and with that he walked inside.

Mary stood up and looked over at the cooling corpse of Pfennigstohler.

"Vandeveer" she commanded, "search him for the keys to the vault!"

Von Trapp who had joined the General and his wife' as their 'notarary', his bald head and dark glasses gave him a severe look, clasped a small leather satchel in his gloved hands.

"I'll go make sure Sreka is secure."

Mary touched aside the venetian blinds and surveyed the calm foyer of the bank with docile and quiet members of the public busy filing out deposot slips and arguing about bounced cheques. Back in the offices that dealt for the more elite clientle they were fairly exluded.

"Found 'em!" exclaimed Vandeveer then admonished for his exurberance whispered again. "Found them"

"Good. Said Mary She wacthed Von Trapp slip out of the office and pull the door quietly to. She waited a moment thenpressed her minature earpiece and announced "Get ready. We're coming down."

----------------------------

Downstairs Slepp tossed an ace of spades he always kept in his left hand jacked pocket. He had the card specially laminated and was carefully studying in the reflection, the entrance to the vault from which he'd come and any moment expected to hear the clamour of racing boots and uniforms. He was going out on quiet a limb sitting here and waiting like this. Suddenly he caught a flash of blue through the grilled bars and he caught the card and stuffed it into his lapel removing in it's place three poison-tipped fountain pen darts.

Assuming the Flaming-mongoose stance, bequesthed to him by his dojo master and clasped the darts between his knuckles and prepared to strike.

The footfalls of the approaching guard rattled on the hard concrete floor, and he was whistling a tune.

Slepp whipped round and aimed for the jugular.

Daltmooreby caught Slepp by the arm and drew the force of the blow away

Slepp reared up.

"Calm down old boy, cavelry's here." said Shwan with a smirk and lowered his cap slightly over his eyes.

-------------------------------

Von Trapp closed in on Sreka. Leaning against the door jam that led into the security room

"Andre!" he hissed.

"In here!" the big russian bellowed.

Von trapp snuck inside and saw Sreka firmly enscnsed behind a battery of monitors that formed a sort of semi-cirdle around him. as Sreka polished off the last slice of the only genuine pizza he'd brought along, he continued to tap the barrell of the gun on the terrified security man knelt just to his right.

Von trapp pulled out a revolver he has stashed in a holster under his arm - and taking painful care to screw a silencer onto the end pointed it at the security man.

"Make no mistake about this your not going to live."

The man gibbered.

"Unless you give me to log book for the codes to the deposit boxes."

The man, whoose name was Alfred pointed to a small box on the wall.

"T-t-tthey are o-v-ver tt-the-ere."

"Very good. Show me."

With Sreka and Von Trapp both pointing guns at his back. Alfred rose up to his full height of 5' 5" and placing his hand ontop of his head marched over to the box and popped the latch. taking out a small sheaf of card covered in a complex alpha numerical grid.

and held it out for Von trapp to take.

He leant forward and pinchign it betwene index and forefinger lifted the card from alfreds' grasp and tuced it int his jacket pocket.

"Turn around" Von trapp ordered.

Alfred began to blub a little. "Please. I have a daughter."

"On your knees!"

"please! " he whimpered.

Von trapp clicked off the safety and Alfred gave a visible shudder.

At the last second Vontrapp relented and struck Alfred a heavy blow with the butt of the gun to the back of his head.

Sreka was silent at Von Trapps tyrany.

"I'll go give this to Mary - " at the moment his radio cut in.

"Here we come boys - Don't screw this up!"

------------------------------------------------------

Mary and Vandeveer pulled of that trick of not standing out in a crowd by projecting that sense that they absolutly belonged wherever they were and that in fact anyone who doubted their veracity was somehow fundementally mistaken or from lower-class breeding stock.
In this matter Vandeveer's costume decked out as a decorated Armenian General was imeensily helpful.

Arm in arm they brezzed past various clerks and officials towards the main stairwell. Up ahead they could see one guard still stood infront of the centrally locked secuirty door that led down to the vaults.

Mary appeared to scratch behind her ear but communicated one last instruction before she'd have to run this operation in silent.

"Here we come - Don't screw this up!"

------------------------------

Von trapp pointed to the screen that showed the feed of the camera above the door.

-------------------------------

"S'cuse me Sir, madam, but where do you think your going?"

"To the vault."

"Not without Mr Pfennigstohler's permission. He's been delayed by a phone call said Mary gave instructions for us to go on a head.

---------------------

"Now!" said Von Trapp.

Sreka dilegently pressed the button beneath the screen marked "release"

---------------------

As if one cue the secuirty lock popped open.

"Well you can accompany us if you like. Said Mary fluttering hey eyelashes a little."

The grunt was curently undergoing the sort of road to damascus class consciousness that Mary was counting on. "Y-yes...M-Ma'am. then adding "Mr Pfennigstohler is going to kill me" as he ushered them inside and down the stairs.

----------------------

Von trapp turned to Sreka. "Keep that door open. Make sure no-one else comes down. We'll call you when we're ready to move to phase two.
You remember what to do? Leave, go and get the car - when all hell breaks loose reverse it into the lobby. distract them. We'll pick you up again outside. All clear?"

"Da."

"Good."

And pausing to collect this leather satchel Von Trapp hurried out of the security station.

He emerged back into the real fiscal world of the banking offices and made his way in a route he'd commited to memory months ago towards the open security door and slipped inside.

------------------------------

"Crates of gold bul-lion (sto-len by Naz-is),
Indus-trial secrets and unknown da Vin-cis,
Faberge eggs and gold papal rings...
These are a few of my favourite things..."

Von Trapp strolled down the aisles of the Pfennigstohler vault running his hand over the steel safes and crooning quietly to himself. He was in a good mood.

"Blow the lock-bolts.
Snatch the diamond.
It's good tooo be baaad...
I'll simply dismember those Agency dolts -
For I'm an enorrrrr-mous *cad*..."

He slid to a gentle stop in front of Onnajob, Mary, Daltmooreby and Vanderveer, and gave a thin smile.
"Very adequate work so far everybody. Sean - please attend."
Daltmooreby had rubbed the dust from a nearby safe and was peering at the panel.
"But it says here that this is the Ark of the..."
"Regardless - we are not here for that today. Sreka is in position"
Von Trapp held up the security card.
"Shall we proceed?"

Von Trapp Reached inside the satchel and pulled out a small card with five groups of apparently random letter groups on them.

"These are the codes for the safes with the explosive charges in as arranged." said Von Trapp smirking at his own superior criminal organisation and handed the card to Mary who nodded and said "Thank you Friedrich."

She turned to the others. "We'll need to identify these first and get out the equipment. Then we can proceed with getting the diamond. Sean, you keep in character and watch the door - Sreka is in control of the security systems if he sees anyone coming he'll alert us - but your are our last line of defence.

"I'm on it." said Sean, he tweaked his cap out of position, ruffled his tie clip and assuming a slight scowl slumped into character of a disgruntled security guard.

Rounding on the hapless Vandeveer Mary instructed him.

"We are looking for safe no. WXYVBQ - it's in here somewhere. Find it - that's where the diamond is being kept."

"Just remember we'll need to translate the word code into the numerical sequence on the grid to enter the correct passcode as well as turning the physical lock and we have the means to do both- and they thought this place was theft proof! This shouldn't take long if we all hurry. So get to it!"

Sleep and Vandeveer parted ways to opposite ends, reasoning that if one of them hadn't found it by the middle the other would on the way back and it was also as far away from the dominering Sister Mary margaret as tit was possible to get in an underground vault. Once in position at either end of the large safe room, they began combing up and down looking for the box that marked the final resting place of The Turqoise Moon Diamond.

Slepp continued his rounds unperturbed. Unlike Vandaveer who clearly had no time for this kind of menial grunt work, the ex-courier assassin was in his element.

Searching the many boxes he came across box WXYVBO. That wasn't it. Next came WXYVBP. Slepp smiled to himself then fingered along till he came to... WXYVBP-1.
His brow furrowed WXYVBP-2. WXYVBP-3, WXYVBP-4... quickening his pace Slepp looked across: WXYVBP-8, WXYVBP-9. WXYVBP-10.

He smiled again catching the next container to have no numbers. WXYVBR.
A hybrid of worry and annoyance got Slepp looking around frantically. There was no WXYVBQ.
Snarling his spun on his feet creating a wooden scraping ground on the floor then began to head back to Mary. His footsteps creating a echoing concrete sound.
He doubled back. 'Clop, clop, clop, clop, clop, thunk, THUNK'.
Lifting an eyebrow slighty he bent down and knocked on the floor. Again the wooden sound. A scratch to the chin instinctively brought his head up and he saw inthe vault reflective ceiling a pattern on the ground shaped from bits of gravel and grit. 'W. X. Y. V. B. Q.'
Reaching into his inside pocket, Slepp produced a short crowbar and bounced it down heavily next to his postion. A crack appeared then the concrete crumbled slightly. Correcting his slightly mussed hair, Slepp slid the crowbar in the small hole...

A small dust cloud made its way into the air as Slepp's head quickly appeared from the pit he had just fallen, hoping no-one was there to see it. Returning to his now 5 feet down position.
Slepp gasped at the corroded but stable old fashioned metal door in between some thick brickwork, a light wind coming from behind hitting his neck.
Clambering rather undelecately out of the hole Slepp looked around. No-one. The cloud of dust impaiting his once acclaimed yodelling voice Slepp wrote out a telegram: 'FOUND IT. STOP.' then jogging is way to whom ever he found first.

< Oh I pictured the vault as a ridiculously huge circular corridor which Slepp and vandaveer went around in different directions... >

<>

Ingrid Steler was a typical Hitchcockian icy blonde, all shoulder-length tresses, smouldering glances and pouting lips. Traditionally she would have found employment as a gangster's moll, a feisty reporter, a rich heiress or politician's mistress - any job which involved lots of slinking into dingy offices and having hard-boiled inner monologues directed at her, in fact.
The economy being what it was, she had been forced into a job at the bank - but she still attempted to smoulder when asking customers if they would like a receipt with their withdrawal, and managed to ask it in the same tone she might have used when seducing a hapless man into murdering her rat-fink boyfriend.

Just now she was swaying down to the vaults delivering her cash drawer for the morning and wondering idly if she should buy a cigarette holder. She tapped in the combination on the vault door, slid it open and stepped into the atrium - only to be confronted with an unfamiliar security guard, spinning around to face her with a surprised grunt. His hair spun around a fraction of a second later. The scruffy little man rubbed his chin, then attempted a seductive leer.

"Well hello, m'dear," he purred. "And what do you do when you're not being gorgeous?"
She rolled her eyes and flashed her ID card.
"I have a deposit for the daily cash, please step aside."
"You are...?"
She clucked. "As the card says. Ingrid Steler."
"Stellar indeed, ahaha..."
He chuckled heartily, twinkling at her from under his bushy eyebrows. She merely arched one of her perfectly-pencilled equivalents.
"I'm sorry, doll, but the top brass are giving a tour at the moment, no entry allowed. Just gives us more time to get to know each other, hmm?"
Ingrid squinted. "Is there something wrong with your eyebrows?"

Daltmooreby blanched for a moment, then rallied. Honour, among other things, had to be satisfied.
"I see you like to get right to the point..." he drawled, moving in slightly closer. "Perhaps you could get right...aahhhahh! You seem to have trodden on my foot accidentally, darling..."
In his heyday, the Subject would now have made a playful comment about the size of his feet. As it was, she had folded her arms and was saying something about the firm's strict policies on sexual harassment.

Daltmooreby missed the Sixties. The decade, that is. His own personal sixties were turning out to be quite a drag.

Having warned the pervy old guard, Ingrid pivoted magnificently on her heels and tapped her way around him and down the corridor, making a mental note to report him to the Human Resources director.

What the hell was *this*?
The *creep* had actually grabbed her *arm*!

"Now look here, beautiful, I think we both-"

Daltmooreby got no further, because he was shortly doubled up in agony on the floor. This afforded him a fine view of Ingrid's retreating legs, but a view he was in no state to appreciate.
Soldiers, guards, ninjas, assassins, terrorists, sharks, spies, saboteurs, spiders, snakes, megalomaniacs - these he could handle. But he had never been entirely sane around beautiful women.
"Von Trapp," he croaked into his cuff mike. "The perimeter is breached..."

Ingrid turned the corner to see a huge man with a crowbar working at the floor. He looked up at her, and time ran a little slower.
She dropped her cash tray, rushed to the wall and fumbled with the glass cover of the alarm button...

Tonnajob had no time to think, which was fine by him - he wouldn't have used it anyway.
He shot an arm into his coat pocket, flicked it out...

...and Ingrid sank to the floor unconscious, a needle-sharp poisoned paper aeroplane embedded shallowly in the back of her neck.

<>

[note to self: edit so slepp meets Ingrid en route with the telegram]

Vandaveer rounded a corner, a good talent in a round corridor, to find Slepp over a lady who had been done in by oragami. Desposing of the clerk done in by post-it note earlier had been enough to bare.

"You could have just told me," Vandaveer sighed, waving the telegram, "This is not what I pay you for."

Slepp grunted.

"We've-- I've found it," whispered Vandaveer into his uniform's cufflink.

"I'm on my way," boomed a female voice. Concrete debris collapsed back into the hole as she made her approach a minute later andstopped as she spied the hole. "Down there?" Mary demanded?

Vandaveer and Slepp nodded.

----

They groaned as they helped her bulky frame into the pit into which the two followed.

The nun frowned at the rusty metal posing as a door. Removing the security card she pondered. There was no where for the card to go.

"Allow me," Vandaveer suggested being carfeul to remove the card from her hand. Fearing somekind of retaliation.

He strained against door and then slide the card down to right between what would be door and frame. The door creaked then collapsed backwards leaving Vandaveer in a crouched position. He lookedback with a cocky smirk.

"Fool!" Mary shoved Vandaveer sideways and stepped into the vault.

Were this a Hollywoodmovie, monastary style music would sound... but a dusty echo wouldhavetosuffice.

Before the three stood a dark dry room shaped like a place off worship. Across the walls was the word: 'Beware' many times. Not in any threatening manner but it was strangely postioned off left as if more were to follow but no attempts at carvings followed.

And there it stood in the dust at the centre of the room. A container that would become the finest gem the had even been created.
Mary approached and batted away a 3 foot pill of dust as she scrambled over to it.

Reaching out to open the box, she slowly wiped her hand across her mouth creating agrey stubble effect then lifted the lid...

< Think of the fun we can have if she keeps changing mass... >

There was a hiss of escaping air from the container, then a mysterious ratcheting clunk. Mary swore, and snapped at her accomplices.
"Get some light in here!"
Von Trapp and Slepp appeared at her shoulders, training their flashlights on the contents of the mysterious trunk. Among a tangle of gears and levers, a rusty old sliver of metal was jerking around in a short arc.

"It's some kind of antiquated security mechanism," observed Von Trapp, and he yawned to hide his nerves. "Ja. I suggest that we move back. It will probably do something indiscriminate any minute now."
He and Slepp managed to move approximately fifteen feet off without any overt use of their knees.
"No..."
Mary was peering closer, and now she grinned.
"I know what this is."

The sliver of metal dropped, there was a deafening burst of strangled, shrieking noise, Vanderveer, Von Trapp and Slepp scrambled for the exit...

And there was the tuneful little sound of somebody putting down a violin on a wooden table. The somebody cleared their throat.
Mary turned to her boys and now turned on the full 10,000-volt grin.
"It's a *gramophone*."

The voice was scratchy and distant, and the conspirators gathered close around the gramophone container to hear it. It was a cultured, slightly nasal upper-class drawl.

"My warmest greetings and congratulations to you, whomsoever you may be. This is S Holmes speaking, on the 23rd of September 1890, in the living room of 221B Baker Street, London.
In hearing this gramophonical recording, you have proven your dedication to the pursuit of the Turquoise Moon. Jolly well done. And may God preserve whatever dawning age of the future when Man learns to tap the terrifying ennervating potential of that blood-soaked orb...however, I digress, and Mrs Hudson cannot pedal the recording-engine indefinitely...
And so. Dear listener, you may be disappointed to note the lack of giant, glittering diamonds in the vicinity. Apologies. It appears to my associates and I that, with the notorious Moriarty and his catspaws in search of the Moon, a mere bank would not prove security enough..."

Von Trapp cracked his knuckles and swore gently but shockingly under his breath.

"...and so the Moon has been moved to a far-flung outpost of Brittannia's world-spanning Empire. If you are an Agent of the Crown, the following advice may aid you in your continuing search - you must contact the independent operative known as Ozymandias, or his successor. Godspeed.
If, however, you are a minion of that ghastly Cult which seeks the diamond..."

All the minions leaned forward slightly.

"...know that you are fighting the resources and wealth of the British Empire, on which the sun never sets, the greatest superpower in the world - and give up your dastardly enterprise immediately..."

The minions relaxed, and there were a few chuckles.
"The times, they do a-change, eh?" grinned Vanderveer.
"Sshh! What was that?"

The recording was getting quieter as it wound down, and all leaned in closer to hear.

"...to conclude. Oh yes, and Doctor Watson informs me that this gramophonical tape will self-destruct in one second-"

There was a flash, a billow of sooty smoke and a round of coughing. Von Trapp emerged from the smoke brushing soot from his suit and hammering his chest.
"Sherlock Holmes just tried to kill me..." he whispered absently. Then he bumped into the imperturbable Slepp, and came to his senses.

"Boys!"

Mary stood at the entrance.

"There is no diamond here - what of it? We have what we need."
Vanderveer balked. "What exactly do we have, hmm? I will still expect..."
Mary cut in.
"We have what the Agency doesn't know about, children - we have 'Ozymandias'."
The terrible team gathered round her, looking various degrees of mystified. She grinned, her teeth white as fresh ivory in her soot-black face.
"First we make our exit from here. Then we go to...Egypt."