In the hotel, many people chose the least expensive accommodation -
this meant sitting in a nice lounger in the foyer with your belongings in the
locker beneath the seat and taking a FullSenz session that reproduced a very
nice hotel room with a nice soft bed. In
accelerated time, you could stay the night in less than 5-minutes and everyone
got to stay in the presidential suite.
This kind of pheely session was called "parking" and some
folks were wheeled straight from their cars to the lounge chairs without ever
disconnecting from their pheel, which was called "valet
parking". By the time Edgley and
his wife entered the hotel foyer, 5,000 people were parked in the great hall with
15,000 more aged hippies lined up to get in to use the chairs.
Edgley had nothing but disdain for such people, for him, staying in a
hotel meant a real bed and a real mud bath and he'd better not get any
trouble. It never dawned on him that
most folks couldn't afford the $25,000 per night hotel rooms or that most of
the million strong crowd would rather camp like they did at the original
Woodstock, (except with their SPECTACLs, inflatable tent-homes and, especially,
their chemical toilets -- it's not like they didn't learn anything in the intervening years).
As Edgley and his wife approached the check-in
counter, he realized there was another long line up and all the employees had
large microchip earrings.
The Sagittarian Satellite and the Waste-REL had both arrived at the
fuzzy navel. Well, near the fuzzynavel
because fuzzynavels have gravitational fields that warp space/time and if you
get too close you get sucked in and popped out the other side. The satellite wasn't ready to let them leave
just yet.
"We're now situated close enough to the fuzzynavel for you to
float into it slowly," said the satellite.
"Are there any questions before you go?"
"Yes," said Lyle.
"Go on," said the satellite.
"Everybody on Earth thinks we've been visited by UFOs," said
Lyle. "Is it true?"
"Yes," said the satellite.
"But not from our galaxy."
"Who are they then?" asked Mickey.
"They're a species of beings that communicate using variations in
the frequency of pain. Of course, to
converse they utilize the barest minimum levels of pain."
"So why would they come to Earth?" asked Lyle.
"To visit your farms," said the satellite as if this was
utterly self-evident. "Some of your
farms radiate so much sheer unfiltered agony that it radiates beyond your own
galaxy and disturbs the concentration of this species," said the
satellite.
"That's why they only come to rural areas?" asked
Portia. "Is that why they kidnap
the farmers?"
"Yes, they try to communicate the only way they know how,"
said the satellite.
"With anal probes?" asked Lyle.
"Yes," said the satellite.
"But we've told them a thousand times it doesn't work and that you
people don't understand what they're saying.
Of course, often the farmers have nervous breakdowns right after and go
out of business. They've managed to
close down a few estrogen farms that way."
"No one ever understood?" asked Lyle.
"Oh, some do, but in the end these farms are too big and
torture-talking to one lowly farm hand does nothing -- so the aliens had to
move their galaxy," said the Satellite.
"They what?!" exclaimed Verna. "Now I've heard everything."
"No, you don't understand," said the Satellite. "I mean they traded with another
species. They bartered for a smaller
galaxy with a bunch of useless star clusters in order to get further away from your galaxy. You won't be seeing them anymore."
"Doesn't anybody else ever visit Earth?" asked Ayame.
"No," said the satellite.
"The smell."
"Can we go now?" asked Verna.
"No, we could stick around a little longer," said Lyle. "Let's chat some more."
"No, your mate is right," said the satellite.
"His mate?" laughed Verna.
"You must now go to Earth and kill all the Boomers before they
lay waste to the rest of your planet," the satellite reminded them. "Are you ready?"
"For genocide?" asked Portia.
"No, that's later," said the satellite. "Now you have to go through the
fuzzynavel." He paused. "Jules."
"Yes," said Jules.
"You won't feel anything in there and when you come out you'll
have to deal with the fact that it's 8 hours later than you think it is. Can you cope with that?"
"How hard can it be?" asked Verna. "It’s like any commercial flight."
"Okay then, here's a little push," said the satellite and
they were off.
The progress into the fuzzynavel was slow, but you can tell when
you've actually passed into the fuzzynavel because you're definitely not
anywhere near the state of Normal, near the capital of Normal or on Normal
Street.
Next: The G.A.G. Festival
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