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

*To get to this area, you must go through a gate outside the guardroom. A squad of 6 Apes mans the guardroom at all times, and take turns harrassing those who pass.

Beyond this checkpoint, are dormatories. Rows and rows of beds and a large cafeteria-style communal eating area. Most residents shuffle from their beds to the cafeteria to work, and then reverse the process at the end of their shift, too tired to do much more. Every 4 hours a horn blows, indicating a shift change coming in 15 minutes.

The residents all wear the same uniform - orchid-purple-coloured pants, with an orchid-purple-coloured t-shirt with their user number stencilled on the front and back.*

*Stirs a huge cauldron of beans, cooking over a fire. Lashes out with the ladle and kills a fly, which drops into the pot. Continues stirring.*

*Gives a big pot of beans to an Ape assistant for dishing out to the Volunteers.*

And remember, only one serving to number U46995 no matter how many characters he says he is running.

*fills another huge caudron with water, in preparation for another batch of beans. Goes through a door to the adjoining pantry and returns with a large bag over his shoulder. Slits the bag with a knife and absent-mindedly directs the resulting flow into the cauldron. Tosses the empty bag aside and glances in the cauldron. Does a double take.*

Aw, man! Don't those idiots in Purchasing know the difference between navy beans and split peas? Now I have to make pea soup instead of baked beans. The poor volunteers won't know what to do with it if it ain't baked beans. I'm gonna go down there and give those Purchasing fools a piece of my mind!

*stomps out of the kitchen*

*a spidercambot with a paper packet lets itself down toward the pot on a thread*

*at a short distance above the pot, the spidercambot tears the packet open with its palps and lets the powder pour down into the soup*

*when the packet is empty, the bot retreats back up into the recesses of the cave ceiling, then methodically tears the packet into miniscule pieces, so that the Ex-Lax label can no longer be reassembled*