The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Book Five: Untitled
(This book has been left untitled in memory of Douglas Adams, the original Hitchhiker of the Galaxy and an infinite inspiration for many other aspiring journalists for the Guide. You are sorely missed, Douglas. Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha won't be the same without you.)
Chapter One: The Interview
The harsh bleeping of the ancient alarm clock sounded throughout the tiny cramped apartment. The room was messy, to say the least. To say the most, it was no less than a serious biological hazard.
In one corner stood a dresser, with metal drawers overflowing. A mound of dirty clothes stood in front of it, mostly mismatched socks growing different types of mold. To the right of the mound of clothes stood a dark six foot tall hominid form, silently waiting for something⦠More about that later. In the other corner, but not more than six feet away from the dresser, was the door to an even tinier bathroom.
A cardboard and black marker sign hung on the door. Caution, it read. Sometimes hot water will run, sometimes it won't. Depends on how bad you need it. The shower inside seemed akin to a giant ball of blue and yellow striped fungus, with a few brush marks on the wall showing feeble attempts to remove it. Not that it was anyone's fault that the fungus was there. It was actually a sentient being that had feelings and thoughts, however dull, and any attempts to remove it would result in serious injury. The mirror in the bathroom was actually clean, but the sink below it was extremely rusty and small. The toilet was clean, thank god, although the thing in the shower was sending a few tendrils towards it.
Outside of the bathroom, taking up half of the miniature room was an ancient hoverbed. It didn't really hover, bur rested on the floor. So much for that. Various blankets in different stages of thread bareness covered a still form. An arm came out from under the blankets and groped for the alarm clock that sat on the dresser. Finding it, the arm grasped it and threw it against the wall.
It stopped ringing, and the hominid female in bed sat up and threw the covers off. She was rather tall, about five foot eight, with human characteristics. Five fingers, four limbs, and two blue eyes. Her long dyed purple hair was sticking up in random directions, and she wore an over-long t-shirt as a nightdress. Kricket Championships 2000, it read in large red letters that were stained and ripped. The hominid's name was Alia Quintalas, and her home planet had been blown up several years ago by a Vogon Constructor Fleet. Alia had lost everything save for a ratty old bath towel and the nightshirt she had happened to be wearing when a strange alien had appeared and beamed her off the planet into the nearest Vogon spaceship. She had only just managed to hide from the aliens, and escape the next time they had made port, a week later.
She groaned and rubbed her eyes. "Six already?" she mumbled, looking at the upside-down clock against the far wall. Aliastretched and yawned, and stumbled to the bathroom.
The green tendrils on the floor grew several eyeballs to look at her, but quickly shrank back when Alia aimed a blaster from beside the sink at them. "Bloody mushroom." she muttered, washing slime off a toothbrush. Alia scrubbed her teeth with a cinnamon-y toothpaste, and then stumbled to the shower, grimacing at the slightly green water that came out of the rusty showerhead when she was able to turn the rusty handle. She really needed to see her landlord about that.
Of course, this had proved rather impossible since he had spent the last five years at a bar in the middle of town and showed no desire to leave or charge her rent, a fact that had caused her to rent the apartment in the first place.
Alia showered as quickly as possible, once again noting that the fungus in the shower was quite slippery when wet and had grown several inches once again. "You need to shrink." she said to it, grabbing a dirty towel from the floor. "I can hardly fit into there." When it didn't respond, Alia shook a bottle of hydrochloric acid at it menacingly, and it quickly thinned out. "Better." she muttered, raking a brush through her hair, pulling out the knots and snarls that had somehow gotten there during the night.
Alia frowned at the mirror, and tapped the brush against her leg. "Loose or tied back?" she mused, fiddling with an elastic ponytail holder. "Loose, dude. It's like, totally natural and in flow with nature, man." Alia jumped two feet into the air, grabbed her blaster on the way down, and hot the floor with it leveled. In the doorway stood the six-foot tall robot from the corner.
He was hominid, with long, gangly brushed copper arms and legs, and an oval shaped head with large round green eyes. He wore a leather peace sign on a leather cord around his neck.
She sighed and put the blaster down. "Henry, you scared the heck out of me. Did I forget to turn you off last night?" The large robot shook it's head. "No, man. I just felt your natural frequencies signal that you were awake. You need to relax, dude, your aura is like, really agitated." Alia shrugged as she fit a black hair band onto her head, leaving her hair long and flowing. "Yeah, my interview is today! Of course I'm nervous!" she said sharply back. "Oh, right. What job is it, again, dude?" Alia sighed. He didn't approve of her new possible job, saying that she should be a medicinal healer. Medicinal healer her foot! "I'm interviewing for the post of journalist for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." she said patiently. "Oh, yeah. I get a bad feeling about that job, dude. You should become a medicinal healer. That feels much safer."
Ignoring him, Alia walked past him out of the bathroom and poked her head into the closet cautiously. There was actually a CLEAN outfit hanging up. Amazing. She grabbed it, changed into it, and glanced at the blue alarm clock that was still against the wall. She still had enough time to eat breakfast before going to her job interview. While she purused the fridge for something edible, Alia's mind raced back to the day before, when she had seen the advertisement in the morning paper.
She had been shoving some sort of garbage down her mouth in preperation for her day as a waitress at the Rusty Robot, a pub nearby which was the only place which would employ her. She had seen an ad in small black print, sandwiched between an advertisement for Sirius Robotics Corp. and wanted ad for a missing robot. WANTED, it read in bold letters. Someone with a sense of adventure who loves to travel. Preferably w/ journalism skills. The Hitchikers's Guide to the Galaxy needs a new writer. Report tomorrow at 7:00 P.M. in the Rusty Robot pub, Table Fourty-Two, to talk with our interviewer if interested. Possible planet postings include Urquion, Theala VI, and more!
Alia had immediately checked her calendar. Her shift the next day did not begin until nine, so if the interview didn't work out, she could still report to work. If it actually did work out, then she would have ample time to sneak out of the barw without seeing her boss, run home and get her things, and get on the spaceship to the training facility. Hopefully she wouldn't have to ever see Hecredes II ever again. Alia finally found something that was edible in the cupboard- A box of something that looked like it had once been some sort of thin lunch wafers. Now it was a box without a label full of crumbs. She titled the box back and poured the crumbs into her mouth, spilling several onto the floor, but she didn't worry about it. If she got the job, she was never coming back, save to pack up her things. If she didn't get the job, well, it was just another drop in the rapidly expanding ocean of decay.
She finished "breakfast" and headed out the door towards the Rusty Robot, not knowing what waited in store for her thereā¦
