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

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Arthur made his way downwards while X kept watch.

He caught sight of Sfret slowly making his way into the stairwell.

"Come on!" hissed Arthur and ran to meet him, taking the monk's arm.

"Hm?" Sfret snapped out of his reverie. "Yes, yes."

Past the old man, Arthur saw the small collective of zombies hurpling his way. Pushing Sfret behind him, the Agent faced the brainwashed group and thought fast.

"Look!" he cried pointing wildly. The zombies looked at his finger. "No /look!/ Oh for-- "

"What are you doing, Arthur?" shouted X from above. Sfret was watching with up there with him. Sighing, Arthur shoved the zombie down and went back up.

"Right, where's the airport?" asked X.

"Erm, edge of Paris." Said Arthur flatly.

"Ah. Where abouts are we in Paris?"

"1ére."

"..."

"We're in the centre."

"Okay..." X shrugged. "Better move then."

Stepping out into the city, the three scanned the area for a decent getaway vehicle. Well two did, Sfret had his hand over his eyes, the other on Arthur's shoulder.

Independently, the fire exit closed with a slam and the three failed to hear a muffled "Ugh!" on the opposite site.

What they did hear however was a cheerful yet half nervous "That's right, follow me..." They turned and saw the Lourve's Curator leading 'away' a thousand strong army of Frenchmen around the corner.

X stared, "Not a good time to be English."

May I say, Clive - best mock-Bond girl I've ever seen. Ivonna Ur Lovechild...

Sounds like a great cliffhanger idea. It could make Arthur more interesting, as well as giving ST4 a one-last-job feel. Also - why did we think Anna had died? Is she all that she appears to be? Mind control, perhaps... Damme, I can't wait to write those zeppelins, though.

Anna and Annabel... it's a mad mad mad world.

(Lest of because ST1's a Mrs. Robinson is now Art's mother )

Yeah that should be good...

*vague holiday resort somewhere*

X: "Arty! You've gotta come back with me!"

Arthur: "Where?"

X: "Back... to the Agency!"

Arthur : "What about Anna?"

X : "Bring her along, this concerns her too."

Arthur : "How?"

X : "We've got to save your kids Arthur... we've got to save your kids..."

.
..
...

I'll get my coat...

the One-last-Job feel. yes that would make the whole thing have an extra dimension to it, every confrontation with Leicester, Tim, The Bizmark Fetishists, or the Agency AI would feel more threatening if we truly believed Arthur's heart just wasn't in it.

Also I was thinking about the 'killing off' Anna part - should be like Indy and raiders of the lost ark and the laundry baskets.

At one moment it Egypt he sees Anna (who presumably has been transferred over to the clutches of Mary and Vandeveer etc) he gives chase but cannot catch up and instead is left with the impression that she..fell to her death or was blown up or something.

In fact she is still with Mary, and winds up along the way at the underground citadel of the Order of The Dying Pilchard. Annabel has her ordered to be kept in the dungeons then berates Mary for her sloppiness setting up the cat fight later on. *Somehow* she gets out and is involved in the last act unseen by Arthur, so that when the last bit of debris falls and the smoke clears - there, to Arthur mortal shock - is the girl he thought was dead. Then and there he resolves to not loose someone like that again and makes up his mind.


I still want to send Arthur up into space to battle with Daltmooreby with lasers and then send the diamond skittering off into space - somehow Anna must turn up when Arthur has dispatched Daltmooreby (perhaps not fatally) - maybe she is hiding in the shuttle's escape pod? - maybe its not an escape pod but a shuttle craft - Arthur pilots it down onto the ice at Antartica, picks everone up and takes off, On board, switches to auto pilot, Arthur turns around to the group, X or Sfret says "look who we found." and wrapped in blanket, shivering and cold, is Anna. Poor old Arthur is floored.

Just need to have Arthur complete his mission and THEN get the shock of his life. otherwise the revelation doesn't work. He needs to fight believing Anna is dead, to complete the mission regretting she died but getting on with the job - only when it is revealed to him at the end that she was okay does "just doing the job" not seem enough. No more regrets. etc.

What happened to crashing next to Bob and Jill on holiday?

Well that was were I had thought of ending it, but I'm warming to end it on the reveal with Arthur instead.

Could do both...how's this? The Agents infiltrate the Arctic base of the Cult just as the dread Plan is about to swing into operation. Suddenly the ground begins to shake...great cracks appear in the ice...and the entire subterranean base launches itself into orbit. The Cult is about to flood the Earth, and want a good view and a lofty base from which to rule the planet. That way Anna gets to go into space, and when the base crash-lands in the Pacific ocean next to Bob and Jill we get a nice sense of inter-connectedness. Cue attack on the Agency, or whatever...

A new Hawaiian island?

Possiblé.

Is the fact that Rasputin knows about the Cult going to be addressed at all? Or did he simply get beaten before anything could be done?


*wonders if all this defining the conclusion will stop it being fun...*

Well we can stop defining the conclusion I just had a brain wave after you'd asked about putting some effort into ST4.

I figured the link between the cult and Rasputin was one of conveinience only. They want to destroy the above-ground, he wants to destroy and rule the world. Realising this, Annabel, who was chosen to represent the clan to Rasputin, rebelled and betrayed him.

Beyond that the clan are only out for their own ends...

Arthur X and Sfret ran through the forcourt of the Louvre palace past the famous pyramid and out underneath the arches.

"Arthur!" exclaimed X, this is the Seine! Remember Guy said -

"My gods your right! Somewhere around here is the cheese factory that Leicester ran as a front to lure in Boutros."

"Guy said Leicester took Boutros away via the underground monorail!" said X cheering up.

"Maybe it can take us to Egypt or somewhere closer than here and preferably without zombies."

"you mean like those ones ?" said Sfret innocently pointign ahead of them.


Across the bridge another large crowd of zombies were languishing in that special way zombies can.

"I think we're safe, I don't think they've seen us." said Arthur.

As if predestined by leadign narrative the lead zombie looked up directly at Arthur.

"Oh don't worry said X, the last lot were easy enough to avoid."

"a howl went up from the zombie side. Arthur disregarded the thought that it sounded almost exactly like a battle cry."

"I...er think we'd better run." he said laying a hand firmly on X's shoulder.

"No wories. X blanched. Ive seen enough zombies movies to know that they can't...

Suddenly the tension in the moment passed. It was as if a downwind gust had carried their scent towards the zombified hordes, resulting in an instant and insatiable bloodlust.

..run.! said X as the zombies surged forward over the bridge at terrifying speed.

"RUN!" screamed Arthur.

Behind some them the sun began to set over Paris, ushering in a blood-red dusk...

If anyone needs location details for thir posts check out:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.louvre.fr/louvrea.htm&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dlouvre%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D

Under the The virtual tours, tope left, check out "archtechtural views"

In particular, the Pyramid and palace at dusk - note the underlighting of the palace - I forgot to mention that in my last post. I like the diea of arthur X and Sfret fleeing from rmapagign hordes in twilight...

And most importantly of all the view of the museum as seen from the banks of the Seine including the bridge. Thats where my last scene was set so take it from there. If you see the area it might give you some ideas of where they are running *to*

hope that is all useful to you.

Clive.

P.S you'll need an up-to-date version of quicktime from apple if you don't have one already.

(Hot damn. Once I started on this one, I don't think I could have stopped till it was done. Good *God* it's long...I have my work priorities all wrong...ahem. For your consideration: Arthur, X, Sfret & The Curator in
FORGET PARIS
or
How Legion Lost His MInd and Wrote Till His Fingers Fell Off)

Renowned Louvre curator JacquesJacques D'Arcachon skidded around the corner of the Grande Galerie, slipped slightly on the slick polished floor and raced down the gallery under the gentle gaze of several dozen Renaissance Madonnas.
"Cerveauuux..." *
"Cerveauuuux..."
"Escargoooots..." **
"Non, non, non...cerveauuuux!"
"Ah, excuse-moi...cerveauuux..."
Behind him the mob of zombified Parisians, disoriented by the bright lights and artistic genius all over the walls, lurched forward with less benevolent expressions.

"Back into the building!" cried X.
As if in reply, a horde of groaning French citizens spilled out of the doors and began advancing, while the horde from the bridge advanced, met the edges of the second horde and so became a multitude. The Agents and Sfret were trapped in the courtyard. A great throaty roar went up from the teeming masses:
"Vive l'Empereur! Vive Rasputin!"
"A multitude! We're trapped!" said X, with a fine eye for the extremely obvious. He bit his fist and grimaced, applying his tactical savvy to the situation as the multitude surged forward. "Can't shoot them...they're civilians, it's not their fault they're weak-willed and don't have the rigorous mental discipline of a trained Agent... Radio silence, London isn't contactable...fiends must have jammers in operation... Wait! I know! Climb up the pyramid! It's our only chance!"
"What did you say?" called Arthur.
X turned around to see Arthur and Sfret already twenty feet up the sloping glass wall.
"Yes. Well. Nothing. Wait for me..."

A baguette-wielding cyclist in a beret clawed at his leg, and D'Arcachon dodged behind a plinth and raced forward again. His eyes darted from side to side as he muttered to himself:
"Secret annexe...secret annexe...aha..."
Knocking a zombified mime artist to one side with a viciously-swung marble bust of the Florence school, he rolled across the gallery into an alcove containing a da Vinci. Striking a series of points on the wall beneath the painting, D'Arcachon turned back to face the mob and gritted his teeth. A low rumbling emerged from the wall behind him. A dead-eyed nun with a line of snarling little schoolgirls behind her lurched forward, hands extended in claws...
And then he fell to one side as the alcove rotated swiftly, dumping him onto cold stone and just as swiftly rotated back.
The bemused murderous crowd was left with nothing to look at but a murky picture of John the Baptist. With nothing better to do, they drew a beard on it and wandered off to find fun elsewhere.

Scrambling up the side of the pyramid up the garish red light of a Parisian dusk and kicking mind-controlled Frenchmen off the glass to fall screaming into the heaving mob below, Arthur frowned. He turned to X.
"I know what you're thinking," his partner shouted, as he put a shoe in the face of a growling pastry chef. X and Arthur both smiled, and said in unison:
"Just like Stockholm in '97!"
Arthur chuckled, and hauled Sfret up another few feet. The monk was attempting to engage the attackers in conversation, curious as to why brains were suddenly the flavour of the month.
"When something like this seems familiar..." mused Arthur, "Perhaps we've been in this game too long, old friend."
X spread his legs, put a foot beside the heads of a street-artist and an interior decorator, then brought his legs together sharply, knocking the two heads together and sending their owners tumbling down the gradient. Four more crawled up to take their place.
"I believe these chaps think so too, Arthur old chum..."

---

Not a lot of people know this: One day, in Amboise, in France, in the year of Our Lord 1516, in the garden, Leonardo da Vinci met a young boy he had never seen before.
He finished a quillstroke, put down the feather and gave a rumpled smile over his sketchpad.
"Hello, little man. Are you one of the servant's children, eh?"
The sullen little teenager said nothing, but sniffled into his sleeve.
"What's that, little fellow? Ooh..."
da Vinci twisted in his large padded chair, shifting the blankets. No sign of any parents. Damnation. What did children like?
"Look, boy! Mmm? It's you! See?"
The boy neglected to look at da Vinci's quick caricature sketch of him. Instead, he knuckled his eyes and muttered in the half-cracked voice of an adolescent:
"I'm sposeta tell you something. I'm Michel from St. Remy, and I'm sposeta tell you something..."
"What's that, then?" da Vinci was getting uneasy. This child had Presence. He would make a splendid subject for a quick portrait, and da Vinci's hand strayed towards his brushes.
"Something you're sposeta do," offered the boy, staring at the ground.
da Vinci scowled. "Look now, bambino, what d'you mean by that? Who are you? Why are you bothering me?"
The boy looked up, and tears were rolling down his confused face.
"I'm Michel de Nostredame from St. Remy, and I don't *know* why I'm here."
da Vinci rose and awkwardly patted the weeping boy's shoulder.
"But there's something you have to build...one of your devices..."
The old man stepped back, fearful now. The child was touched, that much was clear. But by some god or devil?
"No-one wants my devices, boy."
"Not now, m'sieur. But...I think they *will*. There's something about...a dying fish, and a blue moon..."
da Vinci rolled his tongue around his cheek, and blinked. They were out there, weren't they? Prophets, seers, whatever you wanted to call them. Not for the first time in his long life, he was creeped out.
"Very well, child. But I must know...why?"
Michel ran at him and battered his chest with little fists, tears running down his cheeks.
"I don't know! They don't tell me why! Alright? I don't know!"

---

JacquesJacques D'Arcachon knew, and he counted his footsteps as he walked down the corridors of the Louvre's secret annexe. Here were stored all the parts of art history not fit for public consumption; the pornographic brass door-panels that Michelangelo used to knock out when he was drunk; the series of Rembrandt's experiments in 'rear portraiture', akin to what you might get with a drunk office party and a photocopier; the entire, shameful collection of what was privately known as Van Gogh's 'Electric Pink' period; and, of course, the Secret.
One thousand, six hundred and eighteen steps. He unlocked the door and entered the chamber.

"Looks like this is it, then," observed X. The Agents, hauling Sfret behind, had reached the pointy end of their ascent, and were perched around the pyramid's peak kicking back the tide of attackers.
"We could always...use those cyanide pills the Agency issued us with," Arthur grunted, kneeing a hefty waiter in the neck. His legs were exhausted.
"Can't..." replied X. "Lost mine long ago. Down the back of the couch."
Arthur smiled. "Me too. Damn tricky little things."
There was silence for a few sweaty, desperate seconds of struggle and temporary victory.
"Bloody French," observed X.
"X, please! Diplomacy, and all that..." rebuked Arthur weakly, as a gendarme tried to claw his face off. "Sorry, Sfret. Where are you from, anyway?" The monk was perched on the very tip of the pyramid, watching events unfold with cheerful interest.
"Ur."
"Ah."
"Mm."

A noise like the shattering of worlds, and the entire pyramid quivered. Shards of glass flew up to glint in the last glow of the absent sun - a great hole had been punched in the side of the pyramid, and the hushed zombie horde stood breathless with surprise. Now some monstrous black silhouette lurched into the sky, whirring madly. It swooped from side to side unsteadily, and came to some rough equivalence of a halt three feet above Arthur's cowering head. A beckoning figure leaned out from among a mess of levers and spinning belts.
"Agents! Hop aboard! Quickly, sil vous plait..."

A short while later, cruising over the tip of the Eiffel Tower, Arthur and X began to have a vague inkling of a clue of what was going on.
"A working helicoptor - made by Leonardo da Vinci. Air support from the sixteenth century. Hah..." X would have found it easier to be sceptical if he hadn't been sitting in the actual factual device, wind whipping through his hair, chuka-chuka-ing haphazardly over the Parisian skyline.
"Oui. Bequested to the French crown with vairrry specific instructions. Quite a mystery, until today."
Arthur squirmed in his seat. There was a little tag on his seat, with RUHTRA written on it. As a believer in free will, this made him fantastically uncomfortable.
"But now, my English friends, I must leave you. You will be able to make it to the coast, for a boat to north Africa - might I suggest Casablanca? It is quite traditional..." D'Arcachon flicked a strand of hair back from his face. "As for me, I must stay - Paris is my city. She was beautiful once, hein? And she will be beautiful again!"
"We can't thank you enou-" began Arthur.
"Please!" D'Arcachon held up a hand. "No thankees. You are brave, strong Agents - I am a mere curator. Au revoir!"

With that, he launched himself from the 'coptor and fell into the air, at the last minute pulling a ripcord. A parachute bearing a huge French tricolour billowed into sight, and shrank into the streets.
X mumbled "Bloody French..."
As Arthur gazed at the retreating parachute, Sfret took the controls, and began expertly maneuvering the Renaissance helicoptor, muttering to himself that he couldn't *remember* the last time he had handled one of these...
"What a stout fellow," mused Arthur. "I don't suppose we'll ever see him again..."
"Can't be helped. Can't be helped," said X, suppressing a hint of jealousy. "At the very least...we'll always have Paris."
"And Stockholm..."
"What?"
"Sorry. Mind was wandering..."
Night fell in the City of Lights, and the Agents were gone.

*cerveaux = brains
** escargots = snails

Only you.

Prioritising Storytime has been what kept me away from it. Granted, it's not important but flexing the mind muscles always improves my mood. I'm not a good writer by any stretch, but I do enjoy thinking ideas and getting them down on paper. It is a real joy to come back to ST3 after all this time

By the way - what hours do you keep Legion? 'last posting 4 hours ago' was the middle of the night! Understandable though that last post is Huge! I love: the bonhomie of "Stockholm, 97!" betwene Arthur and X.

Also good work with Leonardo. I didn;t see that oen coming. Its a good note to introduce now if we are going down the Da Vinci code route. Indeed the curator could return as the source of info for Arthur and X for the knights templar if needs be, a sort of substitute Richtor for Bob and co.

If we are sending the Agents to Casablanca, Daltmooreby and Slepp are already in the air, we need to start sending Mary and co off by boat soon. (I still say a rift on titanic and death on the nile are in the offing. )

I found this site quite helfpul it's a clickable atlas - click on the region you want and it zooms in showing the relative locations of, say Casablanca in Morocco and Cairo, the valley of the kings and the expanse of the western desert in Egypt.

http://go.hrw.com/atlas/norm_htm/world.htm

Clive.

Legion - you online?

Guess not.

Oo-er, sorry. I'm on a college network in my room, so I'm really online as long as I'm at home - just wasn't checking my pages an hour ago. You still about?

Oh yeah... Legión, I've got a rough cut of ST3 if you want a copy?