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

*pulls a pair of those fluorescent torches airplane landing crews use from her pockets, and guides Redbeard (piloting the raft quite well, all things considered) to a gentle hovering position near the group*

Hmm. l really don't know whether this toaster oven is worth bringing along. lt's awfully heavy, and will probably just slow down the raft. l say we make it a gift to the villagers. lt'll provide warmth and heat for cooking, at the very least, and perhaps it can be programmed to work as a defensive guard against those horsemen.
Sorry, Monty old fellow. Pity our acquaintanceship was brief, but with hope we'll meet again.
*slips fork-pronged programming device back into toaster, makes a few deft movements with buttons and switches, and turns the machine back on. The machine flicks to life, makes for the chief of the village, and bows to him. The villagers begin to murmur confusedly, and Kala clutches at her father more tightly. He strokes her shoulder consolingly, sets her down gently, and approaches Odra and the toaster with a guarded, yet questioning look*

*Odra and the chief communicate in a series of grunts, gestures, and complex body movement -- though she always has rather had a knack for languages. At last the chief smiles broadly, clasping her arm in the traditional manner of his people's thanks. (Unfortunately, he happens to clasp one of her spike-studded bracelets while doing so; she apologizes, and he laughs understandingly, staunching the minimal bloodflow). He walks over to the toaster and assumes command of it.
He speaks to Odra again, and she faces the safari party, gearing up to explain what has happened*

*kicks a toaster, a pop tart pops out*

Oy! Lucky day

*marph scrump

Well, it looks like we could go in one of two directions here. We could explore the cave behind the hut, or we could investigate the mine. Styx is already exploring the cave and he should have no trouble finding us later to tell us about his discoveries, so I think we should leave the cave to him and investigate the mine. We'll have to be careful, though, because we don't know how many of those pseudo-Apes there are, although Affy may be right in supposing them to be either the 500 CLI monkeys or their descendants. We do seem to have landed in the future and it does seem to be our future, but we can't tell for sure yet. I suggest we take the raft, in its camouflage, on a reconnaisance mission first and then plan our approach from there.

*Yells up at raft*
Hey, Redbeard. Send down the elevator thingy.

*GL tells the chief that he and his villagers have been good canine-ites and that as a reward, their God and his helpers will see what they can do about the Apes. The chief bows respectfully, then says something over his shoulder to the natives. All the natives fall to their knees and bow low to GL. Showing off, GL changes to wolf form and howls. Wide-eyed, the villages watch GL walk over to a point near the cauldron and then rise into the air. At the top, GL disappears into the raft and changes back to human form. He turns to Redbeard and says:*

I could get used to this God stuff. Got anything to eat?


I could get used to this

*Odradek and the chief lead the toaster oven over to the cauldron, exchanging a few words;the villagers remain on their knees, though not bowing so deeply as for GL*

We're leaving Monty the toaster here, everyone. He's too big for the raft, and speed may be important at some point in our explorations. l've modified his loyalty setting and his function/purpose setting, so he'll act as a sentry for the village, standing guard and hopefully deterring any further kidnapping raids. He also makes a mean Monte Cristo, and hopefully will improve the culinary standard of living round here, as well.
*grins, yells up at raft*
l've not been elevated to God-status, l don't think, GL, but they seem to regard me as some sort of profit or magician of yours. Now it appears you even have a disciple...so send down the lift, O Great One. l'm coming up.
*she calls out a farewell in their native tongue and walks over to cauldron. GL, still showing off, begins a complicated series of apparently mystical invocating howls until, impatient and annoyed, he spies her glaring at him and idly playing with her weapon-holster. He clears his throat, Redbeard draws up the lift, and she ascends into the raft as well*
Took you long enough...

You know, if this is the future of the Guide, this isn't too different, really. You'd see this kind of thing in Damogran all the time. Granted, universal Damogran isn't exactly my idea of a great time, but it's definitely something.

Well, GL called for food, so I better get busy.

*sets up hibachi, lights charcoal, soaks some mesquite chips.
Grabs large bag with a flour-like mixture, measures some out and mixes with oil and water, covers with wet towel.*

This is a camp bread mixture with flour, baking soda and herbs which will pretty much last forever, so even if we run out of other food, we'll have bread. For the rest of the meal, I want to use up some our fresh food before it spoils.

*puts mesquite chips on coals*

We've got filet mignon. I was going to wrap them in bacon, but seem to have used that up. But there's sauteed onions and mushrooms if you'd like. Some vegetable kebobs and a few other things.

*puts steaks and kebobs on grill. Takes bread dough and puts in frying pan with a little oil and sets pan on the slightly cooler side of the hibachi. In sautee pan, lightly sautees first the onions, then the mushrooms, then sautees some artichoke hearts stuffed with lemon and cream cheese. Checks all the food and is amazingly surprised that it's all ready at the same time*

OK. Help yourself!

*makes sure the raft is set to "park", then meanders over*
Redbeard, you are truly amazing...mm.
*snags herself a plate of sauteed mushrooms and onions, artichoke hearts, a vegetable kebab or two and some bread, and settles herself in a quiet corner, to sort through the information on the apes that the group has thus far. Begins to sketch herself out a little flowchart, then stops, lost in thought*

*in a distracted tone, reading and eating*
See, l'm thinking that perhaps, yes, these apes -- Redbeard, you absolutely have to promise to tell me how you do these artichokes -- that these apes -are- the descendants of the original 500, and that these cani-humanoids are the descendants of we original Guide inhabitants. Yet for some strange reason, the apes seem to have continued evolving -- perhaps evolving all the way from simian into human form -- while the original humans have, well, devolved, a bit. Perhaps to maintain their cultural identity, the ape-cum-humans have started dressing in gorilla suits, to differentiate themselves from the humans we met at the village, and maintain their apparent superiority?
Mmm. Truly excellent bread, as well...

*Fills a plate with a little of everything. Looks at plate. Heap more of everything on plate Starts to eat. Concentrates fully on savouring every bite, until the plate is empty.*

Redbeard, that was truly magnificent. Those artichokes were to die for. Thanks.

Odra, your theory sounds good, and fits all the facts, but we still have no proo.....

*GL has noticed something protruding from the lake that the raft is parked near. He takes out his omnoculars and looks. He gasps, then sits down heavily. The others crowd around asking "what did you see?". GL hands his omnoculars around and points. The others look and see two heads and pairs of shoulders protruding from the top of the water. Everyone becomes quiet as it sinks in that the weathered heads and shoulders belong to the Bruce Statue.*

*The quiet is broken as Lil heaves herself in the raft with an audible grunt. She pulls the lasso up after her and recoils it.*

While I get myself some filet and mmm, all of these things, look at what I found in the pouch.

*throws a very faded badge down next to the hibachi, on which can be descried "CE RY EB O 2 00" *

*Looks where the others are looking, then sits down to concentrate on her plate*

You know, if you get that accumulation of grime and moss off that statue, you'll find solid gold. And that means that, whatever else happened her, it wasn't thermonuclear, or that would have turned into a puddle.

I'm still going to remain commited to my theory that we're in a parallel universe that is remarkably similar to our world. Besides, we can keep this from happening in the future if this is really caused by something that we did.

Now, we're overlooking one very important clue here. I think that there is something here that, like Odra says, causes ultra fast evolutions and mutations in entities. You see, the CLI monkey was only in here for a while. Perhaps the ape-people recognized this as a monkey, and used something to hyper-evolve it within hours of it falling through the portal.

*Looks around the jungle skylines, smiling at the peacefulness of everything, despite the grim future. The smile, however, rapidly becomes a frown. Affy checks his watch, and the frown gets more solidified*

Okay, I can see where our portal is supposed to be, but I can't see the portal. Also, my watch isn't registering the existence of any portal, wormhole, rip in the space/time continuum, rift, or anything else. I wonder...AMPTON!!!

Affy, you don't think Ampton is here too, do you? And what did he do to the portal?

*takes the controls and steers the raft out over the lake, to allow for a better look at the statue. While hovering over it, she lowers a pronged scooping-device down and takes a core sample of the layers of debris coatint the statue, and draws it back into the ship*

Hopefully by examining this we can at least try and figure out how far into the future we are, and when this entire situation started, even if we can't glean, from this sample, the reason behind it.

*pulls out foldable pocket-electron-microscope (the smaller the microscope, after all, the smaller the items it is capable of seeing, no?) and studies it carefully for about twenty minutes*

Hey...someone come over and take a look at this...
*there seems to be some sort of tiny microbe present amidst the lichen and algae...moving through the fibres of the moss. Each time a microbe passes over a frond or rhyzome, that affected shoot alters somehow -- changing colour, starting to grow faster or slower, developing a new striation or pattern or texture -- within the span of five minutes or so*
lf it does this to simple organisms -- whose mutation rates are much faster than humans' or more complex animals' -- what do you think its effect on us might be?

*worried silence*

Well, I believe that the best way to do this would be to take a sample to CLI. But the portal's closed. And, GL, if Ampton came across with us, he might have accidently closed the portal. We might be able to reopen it, but we should conserve the electricity in our polarity switches.

*Thinks*

If this is the future, the CLI building might still be around. Maybe we could salvage equipment to help us out. So, let's drop by the lab before going to the mines. The lab should be in that direction.

*Points in the direction CLI should be in, and realizes that CLI is in the same direction as the mines*

It's probably just a coincidence.

*Meanwhile, down in cave*

*lopes along behind Ampton*
What's THIS big thing?? sniff sniff sniff Major shuriken, man, heh heh heh
...
Bores holes in the rock? What for?
Never mind, I don't care.
...
Portal? How would they know? They were having fun with a floating raft and showing off to natives, last I saw.

Where are these monsters then?

*Pulls out a map of h2g2*

Okay, this map shows the Bruce Memorial being right where we found it. CLI is in the direction we were going. And we just came from...we just came from a place very near where the Aroma Cafe *should* be.

I think I know where Styx's tunnell is going to lead.

lf this is the evolution of h2g2...and we're between the Cafe, Atelier and labs...you don't think...could Ook be one of the simians' forebears?
lf so, we've got a tribe of frighteningly clever scrabble players on our hands...

Nice map, Affy! If and when we return, do you think I could get a copy of it?

*makes fresh pots of coffee and tea*

Hmmm... wonder if there are any of those trees with the majic aroma beans around here, and if they've evolved, too?

*Looks over the side of the raft and sees a small hut all by itself in a clearing. Outside the hut a man is bent over a fire. As he straightens up, GL sees an array of various pots and what looks like an esspresso machine warming on the fire. The man looks up briefly, but does not see the raft due to its camouflage colouring. In the brief moment that he looks up, GL notes a striking resemblance to Irving Washington and suddenly realises what he is seeing. It's Irv's descendant, making all the coffee, tea, cappuccino, etc that was ordered in the past and shipped via IIEM.*

Hey, I wonder where we are! I mean, not us, but the rest of us. I mean, the future us! Dying doesn't happen in h2g2! The closest you can get is being 'deaded', and if that's the case, we'll be at a cemetery, or something.

Also, if that's Irving's descendant, I wonder if he knows how to make a Usual. We're not out of water yet, but I could really go for an old-fashioned Usual, with the brass band and music, etc. Doesn't look like he'd have an IIEM, though.

Oh, and RB, I have disks with the "map" program on them back at CLI. They only cost about five donuts, and work on any decent computer. Of course, they're best when you have a holographic imager, which cost extra, and...sorry, I keep changing the subject.

lf that's lrv's descendant down there, making all the drinks we've ordered, and if he makes every single order that passes through the llEM...and Ook the orangutan was an instance of a misunderstood order to the llEM...how did he ever manage to make a Blue Sumatran orangutan?
A...highly sentient...orangutan...

You don't suppose...
Could the misunderstanding that brought about Ook have occured not through the fault of the llEM, but through the future lrv's end? You don't think...is Ook one of the highly evolved simians who lives here, who accidentally got transported back through time to the Guide we exist in, and so went back in time?
lt might explain his Scrabble skills. Maybe l had it backwards before.

And Affy, maybe he would have an llEM. How else could he send the drinks he makes back across time-space to get to the Cafe?