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

*sea and evillene groan and rub their heads*

[sea and evillene] that was strange.

*they look at each other*

[sea and evillene] don't do that! me?! you!

*they turn and face away from each other, crossing their arms*

In the inky blackness of the room, Maestus' lips move imperceptibly. A word hangs in the air.

"leave"

The Xenomorph stands infinitely still.

"that is not a feasible option"

Maestus pulls the chain taught, and it glows with writhing cords of white sparks.

Gigsuchild bares a grin, and reaches a clawed hand into his own tattered suit pocket. He pulls out a single link of silver chain. It too is glowing, and sparks leap between it and Maestus chain.

"so"

"..."

Maestus pauses. Giguschild replaces the link into his pocket. He turns and begins to slink into the shadows.

Maestus' chain lashes out and catches the Xenomorph's back. The glancing blow leaves a deep, smoking gouge. Screaming in anger, Giguschild spins on his heel and leaps surprisedly over another crackling swing. Snapping his legs straight as he lands, he noiselessly somersaults behind Maestus and slices down his back with his claws. Maestus' body arches forward just out of reach and he brings his arm back, swinging the chain in a glowing arc. Giguschild throws himself back but the chain rakes accross his jaw, leaving another smoking mark. Giguschild uses his momentum to snap his razor-tipped tail upwards, but Maestus effortlessly evades it, his body sliding into the space away from the cutting barb. Landing lightly Giguschild rolls sideways as the chain rakes the ground next to him. Throwing himself up, he spins onto the wall and swings his legs onto the ceiling. The rotten beam gives way but he manages to throw his arm around a solid one. The chain whips towards his legs but he rolls himself up into the space above the ceiling. He leaps through a hole in the floor above him and clatters away over the rooves and struts of the city.

*UH is on the floor, clutching his eyes, and writhing in silent agony. He screams, suddenly, and lies still.*

[At this point, freeze frame. Dylan is digitally inserted over the image, and he pulls Giguschild "out" of it, so that he disappears in the image and simultaneously is inserted over the image, with Dylan, who holds him in midair using Continuity Bleach]

[Dylan] [through clenched teeth] Who. Is. This. Maestus. Character.

You'll see. A complication.

*pops back into the normal image*

(If you'll permit me)

HP's secretary, sitting at a desk outside his door with orders to let no-one in, is working silently at his computer. He feels a vague noise, and darts his gaze up into the long corridor ahead of him. No-one is there, nothing is moving. He feels uncomfortable, and keeps looking for quite a while, before looking back to his desk. He glances at his book to see a leather-jacket wearing arm closing it; jerking his eyes up with a start he sees Maestus standing in front of him.

[Secretary] How did you -

[Scene cut]

[New scene; HP's office. Maestus enters, and holding up a finger for silence, removes the chain from around his neck, over his white hair, and places it on the desk. He twitches back his jacket revealing no other weapons, and spreads out his palms.]

[HP fails to raise his eyebrows]

You would be *looks down at the file* Maestus... *lays the file down on the table so Maestus may read it, he sits back in his large executive seat and arches his fingers*... As you can see, my attempts at tracing you have been... inconclusive... *the file contains only a picture labelled 'Maestus'*... I have nothing on you except a tenuous link with that horrid Xenomorph creature... he appears ... not to like you... I presume you haven't done anything *too* violent and horrid with the secretary...

I'm going to be as forthcoming as I can be, Mr. Maestus. Unidentified entities with a penchant for appearing and dissappearing at will don't attract sympathy here. They do attract attention. This attention is unwanted, by me. I presume you come here to do one of two things, and since I believe if you wanted to do one of those things you would have done it by now... I can only assume you're here to do the other.

What do you want, Maestus?

[HP}=~~

*Lies still. Someone kicks him. He dosen't stir*

...

Outside, the secretary sits perfectly still in his chair, staring with fascination at his hand. He turns it over again and again, juddering in horrified fascination as he does so.

Maestus lightly rests his fingers on the glass surface of the table. The twisting and flickering executive toys clicker to a halt.

"Unfortunate"

"I need an area of the city"

"Bordered by the third and eighth ley lines"

"And the river"

There is a pause.

"Comply"

[Cut to YK, Mackenzie, Link (and Navi), and Nerfal, playing "Sorry!™" on the streets.]

*sea sneaks into HP's secretary's office, past the secretary (who doesn't seem to be paying attention to anything but his hand) and presses her ear against the door, listening*

Maestus continues.

"No one employed by you will go there"

"None of your activities shall affect it"

"You will not watch it"

"You will not listen to it"

Maestus withdraws his fingers from the table. The toys whir back to their repetetive clicking. A tiny muscle twitches in Maestus' finger; the door slowly warms, and then burns plasma-white hot.

*sea jumps back, cursing quietly and rubbing her burned ear. she fumes for a moment, then goes back to eavesdropping at a safe distance*

*Insane Endeavour takes a moment to go home, still madly in love with Affy, but having lost him somewhere and somehow. She finds a blank envelope on her mat.*

Oh no, not another internet promotion!...

*Opens it, wonders how HP got her address, and starts to read*

No, another internet promotion... interesting...

*Takes the transcript to her sofa and sits down, reading and re-reading it, blissfully unaware at this precise moment to the vaguely disturbing events happening in other parts of the city.*

>

[YK] Sorry!™

[Nerfal] D'oh!

[HP is satisfactorily comfortable enough to raise an eyebrow]

EvilComp (TM)... Bring up map area with following parameters: Third ley line, Eigth ley line, river...

EvilComp (TM): *bee beep* Complying....

You want an area of high psychic activity and natural power...

You expect me to give it to you just because you made the metal dolphin stop and the door glow a bit...

You are mistaken...

Maestus says nothing. He stands motionless in a black pool of shadow. There is a vague pause...suddenly, the air in the room gripples sharply and *twists*, pulling everything out of focus for a second. The room gives a sharp judder and a little dust falls from the ceiling onto the desk. The blacked-out windows ripple, and become hazily clear, exposing a vast field of view of the dark city, unlit by the usual pinpricks of the street lamps and lights. On the desk, the clacking toys blur into motion and then smash into flying pieces.

The building shudders noisily, the structure groaning with displeasure and sending mournful harmonics booming across the skyscape. The steel girders buried within the wall flex slightly and begin to buckle. Suddenly, with a momentously heavy crack, the view out of the window jerks to one side and the room tips a little. With a crack, the lights blow as the power cables sever. The cityscape begins to labouriously move across the window. Panning inch by inch, the vast building slowly grinds around, looking past the dead hotels, shopping plazas and swathes of houses, and the vast hulking growth of the industrial sector, to face the area of the old docks downtown, and the river. Along the dark roads and through the rusted skeletons of long-dead machinery, spectral white streams flow and pulse, eddying and whirling, lighting up the abandoned quarter against the dark city like an ordered regiment of luminescent plankton in an otherwise black, rippling ocean.

With a dull crunch, the building settles in this new position, structures and building materials creaking as they take up the strain again. A fine layer of grey dust covers everything in the room; with a crackle it dissapears off of Maestus' jacket and face, leaving him invisible in the ink of darkness. With a dull flicker and a distant throb, the emergency generators splutter to life, casting a hazy glow into the darkened room. Maestus' lips move, imperceptibly. The words hang in the air.

"It has already been decided"

"You will comply"

[Mackenzie] Oh look.

[YK] Mm?

[Mackenzie] Someone's rearranging the buildings.

[YK] Mm. Should we quit this forum?

[Mackenzie] Guess so.

[They do so]

*Convulses. Once. Stands up. His eyes are pure white. No pupil* He looks around, slowly, and then his head follows a psychic summons. He begins to walk slowly towards the now toppelled(?) EG skyscraper*