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

The light drizzle and hushed tones of the windshield wipers had Baxter deep in trance. 'When would this light ever change,' he wondered. But not for long. For the screaching tempest of piano keys were the last sounds he heard as his brains were bashed out by title board of the Yamaha piano that fell through his roof. As his brain gasped for oxygen and before the tunnel of light appeared his last thoughts were, 'That piano certainly fell in a non-sexual way.'

A twisted pile of wood covered the remains of the Chevy Geo. A stunned spectator...

..sidled up to Bob and said: "Do you know what he said before he died? I just heard it as I was bending down to tie my shoe laces"

"No" said Bob, "But I expect you're going to tell me".

".....the dying pilchard bleeds under a turquoise moon."

Bob thought this was extremely odd, as he always believed his oops to be slightly inferior. Mr Ghali's message brought a huge grin to Bob's. He sat down on one of the more comfortably shaped desert rocks with the note in his hands. He stared at it, tossing the words around in his brain. "I wonder," he thought to himself...

"...who it was that teleported me to the desert like that?? It is as if someone wanted me out of the way of the UPS district near Menwith Hill because they were planning to do something to the listening post there...maybe involving Hot-Air Balloons or Mark Thomas..."

He shifted in his sitting position uneasily on the sandy rock.

"Damned Egyptian Prunes", he thought to himself...

Meanwhile, in a basement near Reading, a shifty looking bloke picked up a phone, dialled a number and spoke the word "Nazi Stormtrooper" into the handpiece.

Suddenly, back at Menwith Hill...

"...what in the WORLD is this desert shaped rock doing outside a UPS office?"

As Bill/Bob sat musing both the contents of the message and the existence of a desert rock in an city, he heard a very strange sound. A quiet, buzzing noise, that droned on in the background. It would go, and come. Go, and come. Almost like clockwork.

He looked around, and Agent Bruce (XXXX - He wouldn't give a Castlemaine fourex for anything else) gave him a thumbs up from inside the Egyptian bistro. Agent X seemed to be arguing violently with Agent Bruce (XXXX - He wouldn't give a Castlemaine fourex for anything else.), though the latter was ignoring him.

Bill/Bob looked in the other direction, hoping that perhaps Guy, the UPS guy would walk out of the office and be able to tell him what the hell was going on.

He looked up the street, and suddenly, it was clear to him! He knew where the sound was coming from!

It was a policeman, sitting on the corner, snoring!

Bob wondered in amazement at how that man was able to sleep through all of the sirens of the ambulances and fire turcks that came to remove the piano from Baxter's head, when all of a sudden...

My bad. I must have started posting before you started, and didn't finish until afterwards.

No...mine was 22 mins ago! Yours was just now!!



Ah well...here I just wanted to plug http://www.menwithhill.com/ coz it is funny!!!

Next person can decide on the thread (MINE MINE!!)

No, no... I meant that I had hit the reply button before you actually posted yours. You posted yours 22 minutes before I posted mine... I just didn't see yours.

Meanwhile the gestapo agent had caught up with the crowd and in an attempt to intercept our intrepid heroes, threw the bottle of peroxide. Bob and Jill instinctively ducked and the bottle smashed on the shoulder of a bystander who was wearing a back to front shirt. Ello, Ello, Ello said our friend the British Bobby, I'm h'afraid I've got you bang to rights my little European friend. I'm arresting you for a bleach of the priest.

You can't do that said Bob, he's really.................

Ohhhhhhh...riiiight...of course....sorry....
Aheh...*sheepish grin*
sorry.

where does Granny Weatherwax's post fit in to this?

... Tim hastily pressed a large red button marked "multithread postings drive - only use in extreme emergency". "Whoops" he said "I'm not used to a dimension drive with a manual shift". The GEV shimmered back into a more solid form and hovered over the UPS headquarters.

"Reality should return to normal about now". he looked around the cockpit but Billy-Bob, UPS Guy, Jill and Dr Edgbaston and the grand piano from the cocktail lounge had all vanished.

"Bother, they must have been shifted out of the ship.

Tim hastily disguised the GEV as a Starbucks booth and scurried out to find where everyone had got to.

Meanwhile in the Astoria Hotel a voice came over the tannoy system "phone call for Professor Nazi-Stoormtrooper. Prof Stoormtrooper please contact reception ..."

A short, pudgy, balding man with a grey beard waddled over to the white courtesy phone.

"'Allo? 'Allo? Zis is Professor Nazishtoormtrooper. Who iz diz?"

A cold voice, muffled as though the speaker was talking through a face flannel, said, "Professor."

"Yeees? Vhat do you want?" The professor tapped his foot impatiently.

"I know the answer."

"De answer?" Professor Nazistoormtrooper became agitated. "DE answer?"

"Yes."

"Vhat iz it?"

"You must tell me something first," the voice admonished in a condescending tone.

"Oh, fery vell. De dying pilchard bleedz under a turquoiz moon. Now tell me!!"

The voice breathed deeply for a minute. "You want to know... what happened to the story... and why it got so messed up..."

"Yes!" the professor was practically jumping. "Yes! Vhy? Vhat REALLY happent?"

"...and what happened to Bob, and Jill, and Agent X, and Tim?" The voice continued to bait the old man.

"Come on!"

The voice said...

"Well, do you remember back in post 116, when the agents were in the drop-ship on their way back form Siberia?"
The professor grunted in the affirmative. He had thought that scene in Siberia with the train had worked out very neatly.
"So Boutros and UPS guy had heard about a planned attack on the BBG listening post housed in the UPS depot at Muswell Hill in north London. So, in order to get back in time to foil the dastedly plan of Gonzaroolio and the clownz, they activated the experimental multithread postings drive. This was a calculated risk, but it would have worked out well. However, there was a double agent on board, -someone working for the Big Cheese. This double agent had tampered with the 'narrative-continuity-generator' so that when the drive was activated it created a huge, unstable simulpost bubble that expanded consuming all the common sense for the next few posts. Someone tried to cover it up by going to a commercial break in post 117, but when that finished the bubble expanded out of control and narrative-continuity collapsed completely. The aircraft has arrived at the UPS depot and the drive was shut down, so we should now be able to return to the story."
"I see," said the professor, "So what is a happening, exactly?"
"The clownz are waiting in an Egyptian bistro in Muswell Hill, over the road from the UPS depot. It turns out that this bistro is actually run by Boutros's wife Leia Maria Boutros-Ghali, -the couple are of course Egyptian and that is probably what Clive the Flying Ostrich was getting at when he mentioned the bistro in the first place. So the agents can creep in through the back way and capture the clownz before they strike."
"Where is Boutros and what happened about UPS guy getting that body for him. We all assumed that Dr. Edgbaston, the neurosurgeon was going to reattatch it for him?"
"We're not sure, that may have been swallowed in the narrative collapse. It may be unrecoverable."
"I see," said the professor, "and this double agent, who is it?"
"Oh yes. Can you remember where Tim came from?"
"Wasn't he there all along?"
"No, he wasn't, -he tagged along after the incident where Bob was taken away by the enemy on that submarine."
"I don't understand."
"Tim started out as an enemy agent," insisted the voice "He probably still is one!"
"No, not Tim, he seemed so nice. He certainly dresses well."
"You see, all that time he spends in the bathroom getting ready, he is really communicating with the his evil bosses!"
"No! I don't believe it, really?!" the professor was shocked. "So how do I fit in to all this?" he asked.
"You are just a narrative tool to help explain to everyone what is going on," said the voice, who then hung up.
"Oh," said the professor as he popped out of existence.
In the lobby of the Astoria Hotel, the telephone receiver dropped and began swaying loosely by its cord.

So with Reality now approaching a state that mirrored the bleary-eyed, slightly bewilldered stagger of one recovering from the all-night drinking binge. Conflicting posts and paradoxes resolved themselves away and The Story staggered onwards...

The clownz sat in the egyptian bistro across from the UPS depot. They had just stopped off in there to grab a coffe and a croissant after a daring raid on the postal service warehouse. On the television various adverts played:

"...that unfresh feeling! Great on toast!!

BUY! BUY!! BUY!!!

NEW FROM PESKY ADVERTS INC."

Outside...Agent XXXX and Agent X.com watched patiently through a window.

"We really ought to get one of those..."
"Are you kidding ? said Agent X.com. Have you seen the price."
"You're right, said Agent XXXX, we could never afford one of those on our meager secret agent salaries."
"Oh well, enough of this slavish devotion to scene setting, onward!"

With that, the two agents snuck in to the retaurant through the back door, crept behind the counter and collected their service uniforms from the hooks in the kitchens and together stood up behind the tills.

The clownz were sat just a few feet away from them...

Bob marched in and spoke politely but firmly (in a non-sexual way) to the receptionist.

"Listen, my good man - I need a neuro-surgeon pronto - and three single rooms and your honeymoon suite for an indefinite number of nights."

(He was determined to get Jill into bed before the story finished)

Something was different - he felt as if the plot was beginning to come to a head around him, and all unnecessary secondary plots were being wound up. He sensed a clarity in the air and a tediousness in the narrative.

Was it all just a case of cheese smuggling or was it something more serious? ONly Boutros Boutros Ghali knew the answer, and he was still disembodied.

The bell boy sauntered across the foyer towards him, just as he was filling in the registration slip. The receptionist handed over the keys.

Bob stood staring at the numbers, his brain in full action, trying to work out the significance of the room numbers -somewhere he felt that this was the answer to..........

...the question that had been running through his head ever since the episode where Jill was left on the island with the savage natives in funny headdresses - what WAS her cell phone number? He knew he'd written it somewhere, but he hadn't been able to find it.

"How many floors do you have in this place?" he asked the receptionist incredulously.

On his private underground monorail, The Red Leicester sped on towards London. He thought as he sat there:
"It had, he was ready to concede, been very fortunate that on-board the nuclear submarine that was to bring Bob to him there had been stationed in the mess-hall one of his very best double agents. Disaster had bcome opportunity and Tim had stayed and ingratiated himself with the group, that too was fortunate. The Red leicester flicked a grin of and on at this, oh yes! that was indeed a useful twist; a line directly into the hearts and minds of the secret agents. He had instructed Tim personally to sabotage the 'narrative-continuity-generator' on board the Dropship. That had been a useful diversion. Until then he could not leve his hideout. He had no doubt that having abducted BBG, that there was a surveillance operation around his head-quarters in Siberia. The Simulpost bubble as it had spread across the globe had in a wave of something that was probably quantum, dissrupted the normal fabric of Story-Time and bizarre consequences flowed forth. He could still picture the look of mute terror and incomprehension on the man's face when a tyrannosaurus Rex with "Flopsy" on the name tag had popped into existence beside him. Again with the smile.

But now it faded. Where was Tim? All line's off communication had been cut-off during the bubble's expansion - that much had been expected - but now, Tim really ought to have at least re-ported back to him. Leicestersniictch Kitanya-irrania-tatonya-karenska-alisov had wanted to tell him he would be coming to london himself to see this mater brought to a close. But still nothing on the communicator, only static. As he sped along underneath France, The Red Leicester thought about where he might find Tim and tought nasty things about what he would do to any of the Secret Agency if he ever got his hands on them....

There was a steady dripping noise. Tim realised at last that he was hearing something and so by definition he was conscious. What was happening? Where was he? Most importantly: what was he wearing? Tim opened his eyes. It was bad. Real bad. His suit was ruined.

Tim was prone in a puddle of foul and oily water in a tunnel? Sewer? A faint glimmer of foetid light reavealed a curved ceiling, covered in slime, just a few feet from his face.

The light was coming from a gap in the tunnel roof just a few feet away. Slowly Tim turned over and began to crawl through the filth towards the light....

He half expected four mutant turtles with coloured bandanas to come to his aid, but he was in the wrong story. Instead...............