Here we are in Chapter 4 already! Isn't this exciting? I can see some of you are still lost, so let me fill you in.
What do you mean, who am I? Detective Constable Allen Benedict Rimmer, at your service! And quite frankly, I can see why you're confused. This plot has more twists and turns than the Autobahn, and you'd have to be either a genius or a complete loony to be able to follow all of them . . .
Get on with it? I AM getting on with it! All right, so Inspector Fowler's gone missing. There's some type of alien being here who insists we take him home at once. And Goody's running around like a chicken minus its cranium because some book or other is all wrong. He says there's people in it that don't belong in there, and the ones that do aren't. Personally, I think he's due for a long holiday, but that's not up to me.
Oh, the author asked me to pass this on. There's a little blue box down the corner of the page that says "review", and she'd be obliged if you'd press it and tell her what you think.
Back on Red Dwarf, Fowler was posing the question to Holly . . .
"So how do I get out of here, then?"
"Well, uh . . ." Holly began.
"And when do we get our captain back?" the visiting Vogon demanded.
"Er . . ." Holly stammered.
Kryten took over. "We are even now attempting to locate the dimensional portal through which your captain disappeared . . ."
"Well, what's stopping you?"
Could it be that we don't even know what we're supposed to be looking for?
"S'not an easy job, is it?" Holly said.
"Indeed not." Kryten said.
Things had gotten so smegged up, four-dimensionally speaking, that even Einstein would have had a hard time sorting it all out.
I went to a party, Trillian thought. That's all I did. I went to a party . . . and it was the best and the worst thing I ever did.
I should have smashed that dimensional body-swapper to smithereens when I had the chance, Marvin decided glumly. But nobody asks my opinion. It's always Marvin, sweep the floor. Marvin, could you get that for us? Nobody asks, Marvin, are we making a colossal mistake that could destroy the universe?
I'm definitely going to need a bath when I get home, Fowler mused back on Red Dwarf.
In short, the universe made less sense than a DVD instruction manual.
The only person who could possibly fix it was stranded on a barren lump of rock that didn't even have a name.
And he was understandably very upset about it.
He was the Reality Flipper's inventor.
"I never meant for this to happen," he said to himself. "I really didn't . . . ."
Nobody answered him, which was only to be expected. He was, after all, the only sentient being in that neck of the woods. The nearest intelligence was at least a good two days' drive away. Which was the way he had wanted it at the time, but now it seemed just a teeny tad inconvenient . . . given that the fabric of reality was now weaker than the defendants' case at Nuremberg.
But he couldn't do this alone.
He pulled out his Trans-Dimensional Sub-Reality cell phone and called an old
friend.
"Slartibartfast? That you? Listen . . . I've got a wee bit of a problem
here . . ."
"Does it involve fjords?"
"No, not really."
"Oh . . . it's that Reality Flipper business, isn't it?"
"I wish I'd never invented the bloody thing. It's gone and messed up four timelines, and now the whole smegging universe is falling apart."
"There's nothing we can do to fix it?"
"Well, now that you mention it . . . I just might know of someone..."
The phone began to ring at the secret laboratory of the space-time continuum's greatest scientific mind . . . but he was out to lunch.
But his assistant was there.
"Hello?"
"I've got a bit of a problem with the Reality Flipper..."
"The what? Who is this?"
"OK, here's the story . . ."
The assistant listened to his explanation and came to one
conclusion . . . Reality Flippers were more trouble than they were worth.
But of course, Dave Lister could have told him so.
Gandalf could have told him so.
Sgt. Dawkins could have told him so.
For that matter, the average kindergarten student could have told him so.
He then contacted his boss, who had just finished an experiment . . . which had
blown up in his face.
Literally.
Fortunately, the blast wasn't strong enough to be fatal. It did, however, give him a wicked headache and a ringing in his ears, so that for the first few minutes, he shouted into the telephone.
"WHAT ABOUT THE REALITY FLIPPER?" he yelled.
"Don't shout!"
"WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
"I said, don't shout!"
This went on for some time, before the ringing in the great man's ears subsided and he was able to hear somewhat normally.
"All right," he said when the yelling had subsided, "let's take it from the top."
"We don't have time!"
Tell me something I don't know, the inventor thought as the universe continued to go haywire . . .
Back on Red Dwarf . . . Lister and company were trying to get something together to help Fowler return to Gasforth.
"I'm not sure this will work," Kryten said.
"It's got to work, man." Lister insisted. "I looked up the blueprints right there in that Hitchhiker's Guide, man."
"How do you know that thing's not out of date?" Rimmer asked. "They don't even have a decent entry for Earth, for smeg's sake!"
"I checked the copyright date."
"And?"
"It's only five years old."
"Well, a lot can happen in five years!"
"Indeed." Kryten nodded.
"Are you sure this will work?" Fowler asked.
"We can only hope, matey." Holly said, which didn't fill the inspector with a great deal of confidence . . .
I'm supposed to trust my life to this lot, am I? They make Kray look like Stephen Hawking.
But he had no choice. They were his best hope of being reunited with Patricia.
"Fire away."
Kryten looked puzzled.
"He's saying to go ahead." Lister translated.
"Yes, sir."
Fowler crossed his fingers . . .
There was a hum . . . then a crackle . . . and then . . . Fowler felt the entire ship start to tremble like an Enron executive standing before St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.
"Is this supposed to happen?"
"Smeg if I know, man." Lister admitted.
"Whatever you do," Holly said, "don't listen
to the toaster."
"Toaster?" Fowler was mystified. "How can you listen to a
toaster? Electrical appliances don't talk!"
Rimmer leaned over and whispered, "Long story."
"Which, hopefully, I won't be around to hear?"
Back in Gasforth, things were going a bit strange.
The lights kept flickering on and off.
"It's the force beam!" the Vogon cried ecstatically.
"What's a force beam?"
Agent Lister shouldn't have said that, because the Vogon then went into a numbingly detailed explanation of the physics of interdimensional travel . . . and lost everyone after the first few words.
Everyone except Professor Crichton, that is, who started
writing everything down, in anticipation of a possible future Nobel Prize
nomination.
Elsewhere, in Middle Earth, the Elves were wondering what to do with their, ahem, guests.
Arwen in particular was eager to find a place to put the two-headed one.
Preferably one as far away from her as possible.
Mount Doom sounded good.
He was a bit too lecherous for her liking. Right now he was suggesting a rather unusual use for pointed ears . . . and then the ground started to tremble beneath them.
"What's happening?"
"Smeg if I know!" Ford shouted over the rumbling.
"Middle-Earth-quake?"
"You would have to think of a stale joke at a time like this, Earthman." Zaphod groaned.
"Well, what would you have me do?"
"I'd have you get us the smeg out of here, for
starters!"
On board the Heart of Gold, things were similarly smegged up.
"Whoa, what's that all about?" Eddie wondered as the entire ship started rocking.
Gollum was not too happy about it . . . and neither was Sam.
"I'd rather be facing Ringwraiths!" he told Frodo as they bounced off a particularly hard bulkhead.
"How do we stop this?"
"I don't even know if we can!"
Far away in time and space, the inventor of the Reality
Flipper was in a similar state of panic.
"You're supposed to fix things, not make them worse!"
"Sorry." His friend said. "There's going to be a lot more of that before we're done, I'm afraid . . ."