Really Wild Things Chapter 2, a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy fanfic

Really Wild Things by Nigel Mitchell

See part one for copyright notices.

The object plowed into the three soldiers, knocking them to the floor. As the object flew over them, flames pouring out of the object's engines blasted the three soldiers out of the window the object had crashed through. Ford could hear their screams fade as they tumbled fifty floors to the ground below.

Ford held up his arms in terror as the object rushed towards him. It crashed through the ice sculpture, shattering into a billion pieces. The object rammed into Ford's chest, knocking him to the floor.

And the object stopped.

Ford sat up, gasping for breath. He could now see the battered object which had saved him, clearly.

It was an ePigeon.

The Earth was first destroyed in 198-, a decade before the ape-descended life forms (who were so amazingly primitive) ever had a chance to think electronic mail was a pretty neat idea. In fact, much like many other technological innovations on Earth, electronic mail had been developed thousands of years throughout the Galaxy before anyone on Earth ever thought of it. And, much like many other technological innovations, the rest of the Galaxy had grown thoroughly sick of it.

The progress of electronic mail throughout the Galaxy is familiar and painful. On every planet, someone came up with the rather clever idea of sending letters in a digital form. The system was set up and became widely-used within a few years, during which time people came in contact with friends and relatives they hadn't talked to in years, formed close relationships between beings who would never otherwise have met, fell in love sight unseen, and the system was hailed as a revolution that would unite whatever planet happened to be using it.

Within a decade, electronic mail became a nuisance. The use of grammar was the first casualty, leading thousands of linguists to suffer fatal heart attacks from frustration. Then the users began to grow frustrated at the thousands of emails they received consisting of jokes, funny holographic images, random nonsequiturs, and messages from people that reminded them why they hadn't spoken in the first place. Then the sheer volume of electronic mail increased to the point where no sentient being could read all of them, resulting in fatigue and a loss of productivity that crippled industries all over the Galaxy.

Along with that came the flood of electronic advertising that signaled the ultimate downfall. Advertisements for medication to increase or decrease the size of various appendages, brand new business opportunities that required large amounts of money and gave very little or nothing at all in return, and pleas for help from doomed planets that never truly existed flooded the electronic mail system to the point of chaos.

Within a few decades, the average electronic mailbox on the planet came to have as many as seven hundred gogolquillion electronic mails a day, leading to the complete collapse of the system.

After a millennium of the cycle repeating itself on millions of planets, the Galaxy adopted the far easier system of instantaneous video communication, but a few chose to go even further back to a more elegant and tranquil time when messages were sent by carrier pigeon. Hence, the electronic Pigeon, more popularly known as the ePigeon.

Many planets evolved with the concept of sending information by attaching them to various birds, many of which happened to have the name "pigeon" (due to one of those linguistic anomalies that send structural linguists who examine it right into the nearest mental hospital. For more information, see "jynnan tonnyx" in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). The idea of reviving the system seemed delightfully innovative while still carrying the flavour of nostalgia.

The first attempts at creating a pigeon-based system across the Galaxy failed miserably, due to the fact that pigeons don't fare too well in the vacuum of space and those who did fared even worse trying to make it through planetary re-entry. Hence, the developers of the system grudgingly switched to a robotic pigeon instead of an organic one.

Of course, once the organic line had been crossed, progress moved rapidly. The electronic pigeon was fitted with a small hyper-drive to speed up delivery, heat-shielding to protect it during re-entry, and a vastly enlarged interior to carry packages as well as letters. The resulting ePigeon was a huge success, but an equally huge disaster as well.

The final change that led to the failure of the ePigeon system came when the developers tried to make the system as quick and reliable as electronic mail. Fitting the ePigeon with an extremely powerful DNA-flux spectrometron was their solution so that it could detect the genetic pattern of its intended target millions of light-years away, allowing it to home in on the receiver from anywhere in the Galaxy.

Receiving a message from an ePigeon usually consisted of minding one's own business when a ten-foot ePigeon came crashing through the walls of your home or office, hurtling towards you at the speed of sound, coming to a halt only when it came in contact with your skin, thereby knocking you to the ground. The fact that it would then settle down, open its hatch, and deliver your message did nothing to improve the mood of the recipient. Adding the cost of repairing the damage to the building or health of the receiver from an ePigeon delivery made it too expensive, and the system was disbanded.

However, there have been ePigeons sent many years ago whose hyper-drive malfunctioned and delayed their arrival. For this reason, ePigeons are still wreaking havoc throughout the Galaxy, despite the efforts of numerous bounty hunters and engineers to track them all down.

Ford assumed this was one of those ePigeons as he coughed and waved his hands to clear away the clouds of smoke billowing around him. The ePigeon's engines whined as they powered down. The mechanical bird looked at him with glowing red eyes.

"Identity confirmed," the ePigeon chirped. "Delivery to Mr Ford Prefect from Stagyar-Zil-Doggo."

Ford groaned immediately at the name. Stagyar-Zil-Doggo was his editor at The Hitchhiker's Guide. He didn't get along well with Ford. He tended to be picky about things like accuracy and logic in Ford's entries. Stagyar tended to fire energy cannons at anyone who entered his office without fresh, proofed copy for the Guide. Ford hadn't set foot in Stagyar's office in years. The last time, Ford had worked out a complex series of defence manoeuvres that including diving behind various sculptures and drink carts in Stagyar's office. He had only stayed long enough to drop off his latest expense report, then dove out the window with energy bolts blasting in his wake.

The ePigeon's tail lifted and a metal egg rolled out into the puddle of water on the floor. Ford fished the egg out of the water. When his fingers clutched the egg, a scanner read his fingerprints. The egg cracked open and a hologram formed on the egg's surface. The image swirled into the scowling face of Stagyar-Zil-Doggo.

"Sorry to do this to you, Ford," Zil-Doggo growled, "but since you don't answer your communicator or check your mail and run away whenever we send someone to talk to you in person, this was our last option."

Ford had to admit that he hadn't made himself easy to find. His expense reports had reached the point where they would upset the Galactic economy if they weren't re-paid.

Ford looked up to see that the entire ballroom had been emptied. Even the ePigeon had turned itself and blasted out the nearest window back to whence it came. Ford shook the water off his satchel and ran for the exit. As he ran, the hologram flickered on the egg in his hand.

Ford glanced down to see Zil-Doggo adjust his glasses and say, "I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is, The Hitchhiker's Guide has been sold to another company, the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation."

"Oh, starpox," Ford murmured as he crept down a hallway. He had always enjoyed the management style of The Hitchhiker's Guide's former owners. They pretty much let him do what he wanted, as long as he turned in a new entry every now and again. He hoped things wouldn't change too much under Sirius.

"The good news," Zil-Doggo continued, "is that you've been promoted to editor. Effective immediately. Congratulations."

Ford skidded to a halt, staring at the mechanical egg glowing in his hand. "You've got to be joking!"

Of course, the recorded message didn't answer. Zil-Doggo just grinned. "We expect you to report to work in three star-cycles. Your new office is in Section 28115 of Maze City on the planet Sirius IV. If you're not there by the deadline, you'll be terminated. By a squadron of Vogon deathnaughts. Good luck, Prefect. You'll need it."

The hologram collapsed, leaving Ford stunned and irritated.

Like many throughout the Galaxy, Ford knew little about the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. The company manufactured many of the products he used each day, from robots to drink machines,бbut Ford had never met anyone who worked for it, nor had he ever seen its headquarters. Yet Ford had formed a very strong opinion of the Corporation - he hated it. The Corporation did a lot of things, and none of it very well.

Ford Prefect paused at the end of the hallway. He could hear gunfire, screaming, and explosions. He tossed his towel round the corner. When nothing attacked it, Ford risked ducking his head out to see for himself.

He could see into the lobby of the Ix'Ff Hotel where Eccentrica's party was being held. It looked like the three soldiers from the Campaign had survived the fifty-story fall and were trying to get back inside the building. A platoon of security robots had intercepted them. Energy bolts flashed everywhere as the robots and soldiers exchanged fire. Flames licked the walls as beings ran for cover from the fierce combat. In all the chaos, Ford managed to retrieve his towel and slipped out of a nearby hole in the wall.

Ford ran through the streets of the city, cursing under his breath. He didn't know which was worse, that they had sold the Guide to the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation or that they had made him an editor. Of all the things Ford had tried to avoid in his life, working in an office had always been at the top. Ford had become a researcher and writer for the Guide for the specific purpose of avoiding responsibility.

Ford enjoyed his life as a field researcher for the Guide. He had no interest in being an editor. Ford had always felt sorry for editors, the poor blighters. While Ford lay on a beach on Xinka Prime, sipping Jovian ale and watching gorgeous women playing jilliball (a very complex game that involves a lot of jumping up and down, bending over, and wiggling various parts of the body), the editors sat behind a desk all day, reading countless mind-numbing entries on everything in the Galaxy, and being forced to correct the endless mistakes of billions of field researchers. Ford usually threw in a few extra typos and made up words in his entries, just to make the editors' lives more interesting. And now Ford had become one of them. Starpox.

Ford headed for the spaceport, where he would hitch a ride aboard a ship headed for Sirius IV. He had to get there as quickly as possible and show them how bad an editor he would be, so they would demote him back to field researcher. The sooner he got to Sirius IV, the sooner he could get away from it.

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