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

< Psst... what about the other cart? The one X was secretly on the back of unbeknownst to the driver? >

< thanks the story should read then>


While this was going on, the Devil (known by his favourite victims as Lucifer), was bored. He'd not done anything interesting recently.

So he was feeling a bit mischievious.

Then he caught sight of a couple of spies chasing a bald man. He recognised the bald man. He grinned. "I've been waiting for you for a while..."

...back on the surface the chase wasn't going well. The driver of the cart which X had been on had spotted him, as this was his own personal one, and that X had chipped some of the paint, to avoid a fight X had managed to jump on the back of Arthurs. "Faster! We're going to lose him", yelled X.

"I can't go any faster! We're already pushing it.", replied Arthur

"I can run faster than this!"

Just then a black hole (not one of your namby pamby space type ones made by dead suns, no this was a real evil one), opened on top of the hill. Of course it was obscured by the fact it was on top of the hill.

The last thing Arthur saw was the bald man disappearing (he thought) over the hill. Just then Arthur got a spurt of speed and the golf cart picked up.

"Hang on!", cried Arthur as X fell off.

"Wait for me" yelled X. Trying to catch up with Arthur.

But just as X was about to catch up with the cart, it fell through the Earth. X only slowed down enough to see the back of the cart go through the black hole as it closed up.

"What the hell is going on here?", said a stunned X.

He stood there for a few seconds trying to take it in. He had to tell someone about it. And there was only one person that came to mind. Predictably it was the blonde woman they had met on the road.

< Oh sure... >

The blonde woman, however, was not happy. She'd been led to the bedroom by a gentleman spy and had not been seduced.
It made her feel like an extra.

"I'm sure there's something I should be doing..." she mused, as she idly admired her legs.

For reasons unclear to us but transparent, no doubt, to the Gods of Narrative, she decided to have a shower - which is why, when X burst into the bathroom looking for her she was able to shriek, clutch the shower curtain to herself and set up a nice dollop of sexual tension.

"Don't you ever knock!", yelled the blonde haired woman. "And what are you looking at!?"

X had briefly completely forgotten about black hole that had swallowed up Arthur and the bald guy, and was now making plans in his head for this evening. He, relatively quickly reminded himself that he was a spy.

"Uh... um", he realised he was staring and quickly turned his head away, blushing. "Erm... Oh yeah, Arthur has been sucked in to a black hole."

"What!? Look give me five minutes to get dressed, and maybe you might make some more sense. Now out!"

As it turned out X waited outside for half an hour, as per usual. Eventually he was allowed back in again, where he told his strange tale...

>> Meanwhile, in the crimson pits of Hell, it was turning out to be a bad eternity for the Red Leicester.
Currently he was being slowly roasted in the Lake of Brimstone while some gibbering demons twisted his intestines around a coil of barbed wire... <<

Arthur shook some ash from his suit and looked around incredulously at the fiery scenes of diabolical torture going on around him. The small bald obviously-a-spy he had been chasing gibbered beside him, while the golfcart ran unheeded over the banks and sank sizzling into a lake of brimstone.
"This can't be...oh no, don't tell me this is..."
"Hell!" shrieked the bald man. "Oooh, my Mutti was right, I have come to a bad end...I'm sorry, Mutti!" He clamped his hands over his eyes and started singing a rather insipid song about raindrops and roses and whiskers on kittens.
But Arthur was no longer listening. He was peering through the smoke and flames at a familiar figure that was shackled to the lakeside nearby.
"I know that man...good God..."
The intercom blared into life...

>> "Summoning for the Red Leicester. We got a Red Leicester here? A pirate, maybe? Anybody?"

"I am he." said a strange voice. <<

Arthur's mind was making the three-minute mile look like a tortoise in advanced stages of rigor mortis. His highly-trained Agent instincts spotted a way out.
"Come on!" he hissed, and he dragged the cowering Kojak-alike across the piping-hot flagstones towards the gaunt figure who had just spoken up. "Perhaps if we can get close enough..."

>> Leicester would have protested except his severed hands were being rammed down his own throat. He could only watch in fury as the impostor twinkled out of existence to begin life anew on the world above... <<

And, although the recumbent Leicester couldn't see this, two other figures were caught up in the thaumaturgical slipstream of the summoning, flung out into the cold reaches of the Ether and then, since the Universe notoriously likes to keep things neat, deposited back on the hillside of a golf course in central Europe.

Arthur felt the cold mountain breeze wash over him. Two seconds later he had grappled the bald spy to the ground and was bending his face threateningly over an anthill.
"Now," he growled. "I have *absolutely no idea* what that was all about. But I do know if you don't start talking, I'll be helping you to improve your aardvark impression..."
"Ach! I will talk, I will talk!" The bald man squirmed under Arthur's grip. "My name...my name is von Trapp. Gahh, damn you imperialist Agent scum..."
Arthur paused, thought for a moment.
"Not...not von Trapp the notorious sadist and international terrorist?"
"Jawohl, the very same. Just let me get my feet, and I show you..."
"Not...not von Trapp the former KGB marksman and political agent?"
"Yes, this is me, now if I could just...grgh..."
Arthur's eyebrows lifted in a neat symetrical effect.
"Not..."
"No! No!"
"...not..."
"Don't say it!"
"...not that cute little kid from 'The Sound Of Music'?"

The hills were alive with the sound of German swearwords. High in the mountains, eagles scattered from their eyries and avalanches thundered down the valleys.

Arthur grinned.
"Wow. How does a good kid go so bad?"
"It was all a *long time ago*!" growled the former child star. "And what kind of childhood was it, anyway? On the run from the Nazis, and all your father can think of is getting his end off with the nanny...is it any wonder I am bitter?"

With a sudden wrench of wiry strength he threw Arthur off him and shook his fist.
"You haven't seen the last of me, Agency pig-dog! The dying pilchard bleeds under a turquoise moon! Haha!"
Arthur had a blurred impression of movement, and then a handglider was soaring away across the treetops with two small figures tucked up against the underbelly. He growled, cracked his neck and tapped his watch.
"HQ? Can I get satellite tracking?"

(((And to anyone who has no idea what just happened in Hell - read Storytime 2. It's the bit where Rasputin gets summoned in place of the Red Leicester. And since I wrote it, I have no qualms about sampling from it. In fact, I think it's admirably post-modern. Hehe.)))

and Legion I am in awe

... as usual.

Clive ' De hillz are alive viz the zound of - your Doom!!'

<blast I forgot the "< >" >

< *waits for someone to write something that I can follow...* >

< Can't hold that thought... I'm writing FRAGMENTED part XI as I sit here and it's far too complicated in exposition! >

The evil Von Trapp, circled a dense cospe of pine trees to evade his purser. He began a graceful descent pasing low over the 18th backtowards the Club House. As he neared steeply angled roofs he twisted to the right and passed nimbly between them - the collapasable canopy of the hand-glider folded back up into the reclusive confines of his coat and he rolled to a stop, stood up and brushed some snow off of his shoulders.

Renewing his grip on the manacled suitcase he marched briskly across the rooftop picked the latch off one of the windows and crept bum-first into, what turned out to be, the broom cupboard. He again picked the lock and emerged into the corridor. Von Trapp knew the layout exactly, he'd memorised the topographical plan before setting out from Base.

He walked briskly into the Vanderveer's office and noted with a sad air that he'd left the door to his secret lab open. He called up the lift and descened.

As the lift plummetted down, a series of lights passed over Von Trapp's face, reflecting in his cold dead eyes. A small snarl curled his top lip and then vanished again.

The 'ding' of his arrival brought him back from his internal soliloquey and he emerged to see Vanderveer turn paniced to a much broader gentleman.

"my influence stretches farther than you know..."

"Does it?" asked Von trapp stepping out from the shadows

Vanderveer was visibly in the opening stages of a heart attack.

Sreka, looked sidelong at Vanderveer and the cell containing Sfrat. and back at the Kojak figure clutching the Briefcase -"who's dis fella den?" he asked not prejudging the situation.

I am Friedrich Von Trapp and I am in charge of this opertation from now on."

Tonnajobb quickly snapped his hand to his forehead in salute as he slowly shuffled around to block his snow flake...

Vanderveer spluttered, then hissed like a megalomaniacal kettle.
"And just *who* do you think you-?"
von Trapp was busily opening the briefcase and sifting through some papers.
"I am the local operator, Vanderveer," he said without looking up. "And I'm here because my superiors are unhappy with your progress. We have invested a considerable amount in you, 'Porridge'...and so far our return has been negligible. The Grand Master is unhappy." He looked up at Vanderveer, and grimaced.
"He can become quite indiscriminate, when he is unhappy. So I am here to speed things along. Now before you make any hilarious threats, remember the riding lessons. And shut up."

Vanderveer blanched. "My-my plans are proceeding apace. Soon all the pieces will be arranged on the board, and I will play my-"
"Oh *please* shut up. Your villainous spiel is as tired as your secret elevator routine." He continued to speak as he rooted through the papers in the briefcase. "Did I mention that I drew this assignment because of my pathological hatred of Dutch people? Please don't aggravate me, you lisping degenerate... Aha, here we are."
He handed Sreka and Vanderveer two thin manila folders.

"This is your new objective. Mr Sreka, he has given you the little talk on the importance of diamonds? Good. Our target is most appropriate, when you consider our location..."
Sreka flipped through the folder. Blueprints, security timetables, pictures of a building in some leafy city street...
"What do you mean by that?" growled Vanderveer.
von Trapp favoured him with a smile as dazzling as an oncoming train.

"We are in Switzerland, yes? So we're going to rob a bank."

Arthur was pacing around on the clubhouse veranda when his earpiece buzzed, and a tiny voice addressed him.
"This is London calling, London calling, do you read?"
"Go on..."
"This chap you wanted us to track? The handglider johnny? We have his location. Are you feeling alright, old man? Not under too much stress?"
The Agent sniffed. "What are you talking about?"
"This von Trapp fellow...according to our scans you're, aha, standing on his head...would that be, aha, accurate?"
Arthur tuned the earpiece out. His gaze strayed down to the ground beneath his feet. Look for a ventilation shaft...

"My God!"
X stood dumbstruck on the steps leading down to the course. He carried a bunch of candles, bottles of rare oils and a leather-bound grimoire, all of which he now let slip from his arms as he rushed up to Arthur and patted his arms and face. The mysterious blonde, feeling ignored again, followed behind him.
"I saw you...a black hole...shower curtain...thought you were a goner, honestly, it's *good* to see you..."

The blonde gave a shriek, and fell backwards. As X rushed to help her up, Arthur began laughing softly, and offered up a silent prayer of thanksgiving to the god of secret agents*.

She had caught her stilleto heel in a cleverly-concealed grille in the ground.

*One of the more mysterious, and indeed unnamed, members of the pantheon, with the distinct disadvantage that his Commandments self-destructed after ten seconds. Thought to be the agent provocateur of the Valhalla-Ice Giants conflict.

*Bump*

C'mon, is there no more...?