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

*leaving the galley, Lil enters the lab*

I keep thinking Garius will be perfectly OK because it's his own place, after all, but... Ooh... Look at all the shiny stuff!

*the lab rooms are full of glass and metal and tools and meters and totally unidentifiable objects*

*carefully follows Lil but apparently not carefully enough as he's very close to tilting a 3 ft glass column of sorts with his backpack*

Never been here before, I think. Impressive!

*Enters the room*

Never been in here myself.

Professor Tonks and Yar Kramer came here a lot to discuss inventions with Garius and Affy, and I think the boys basically did what-ifs and models here. The real work always went on behind locked doors. For our safety mostly. And then for copyright protection.

*walks over to the entrance to the security office. The space is dominated by a round table, around which are seated five securibots playing Texas Hold'em*

*the bots briefly glimpse at the humans and other entities in the lab, and go on playing*


You can tell Affy and Garius haven't been here in a while.

*There is a loud "ding!" like a timer would make, and the glooping sound is replaced with a hissing sound. There is a startled snort, followed by a yawn.*

Well, well. So it ~was~ CLI safety lava.

*Sound of one shoe and one bare foot hitting the floor. A few uneven footsteps. Sound of switch flipping, sound of duck quacking.*

Yay! There's one here too!

*flip, quack, flip, quack, flip, quack...*



*At the sound of the intercom, the pokerbots glance up from their cards, roll their eyes and continue playing.*

*enters, looking at all the objects with wide eyes*

Wow....

*enters the security office and starts looking at the bots' cards*

Any one of them looking to be cashing in?

Hey - any clues on the cards?

*flies in with Vip, being careful not to knock anything over*

Wow, and this is just the public stuff?

Good idea, Santra!

*enters*

*walks around the table but at least to him, the bots are keeping the cards close to the chest*

Will some Hostess charm let you see cards, Lil?

Look at the door! There are some color stripes next to the lock.

Magenta and Yellow?

*indeed, two narrow strips are aligned above the lock, one magenta and one yellow*

*And, as salonistas watch, the dealer lays out the flop -- two queens and a seven of spades*

Hmm, so the lock colours are magenta, yellow and presumably cyan, so we just need to figure out what relationship between the primary and secondary colours they came up with to match keys to locks...

*after a round of betting in which no bot folds, the dealer lays out the turn, a King of Spades*

*arrives late, and follows along..*

*The bot with the largest stack of chips in front of him, looks at his cards, puts them both together in a small stack and places them face down on the table, with his hand covering them. A few seconds later, he takes his hand away, along with one of the cards hidden in his palm. That hand goes into his lap, while his other hand distracts attention by nearly spilling his drink. The lap hand reappears and reaches for his "stack". He looks at the cards again without changing expression.*

*Runes clomps in*

Ohhhh. I like it in here.

*It starts examining the glassware, trying to work out what's being done*

This is a Schlenk line, see? Keeps the experimental mixtures isolated from the air. Only the coolant's run out. I do hope they haven't been venting the nitrogen straight to the vacuum, or there's going to be a nasty explosion when it thaws.

*Teeters in and narrowly misses misstepping into the Schlenk line apparatus*

First pair of sensible shoes I see are mine.

Ah. A card game. I like card games. Can I join?

*whispers*

Do you reckon we should tell the other bots? You know, about the cheating?

*also whispers*

Is that card special for us also or would that be too much of a coincidence? What if it's the two of hearts or something else that might signal colour coding?