Fandomweekly Challenge 66 - Fair warning

[m_findlow]

Title: Fair warning
Fandom: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG.
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 66 - Gathering clouds at fandomweekly
Summary: Arthur is concerned about stepping out into the elements.

Arthur Dent frowned dejectedly as he stepped out of the spacecraft. Finally rescued from that godawful primordial version of Earth where he'd had nothing for company except the swamp and the trees (and some strange fellow who'd arrived in a spaceship, insulted him and then promptly left), and now here he was, somewhere new and it looked positively miserable. Grey clouds had gathered overhead, black in some patches and the heavens looked about to drop a year's worth of rain. As if to underscore the matter, a loud rumble of thunder rippled through the air, confirming Arthur's suspicions. He looked up waited for the lightning to crack across the sky but it didn't arrive. It just rumbled on ominously.

'Come on, Arthur,' said Ford Prefect, brushing past him and exiting the ship. 'Food waits for no man.'

'Is it far?' he asked, keeping an eye on the roiling sky.

'Only a mile or two. I couldn't get us any closer. It's Tuesday and parking is always a nightmare on Tuesdays. We're lucky to get a spot this close. I had to barge us past two Arcaninan grandmothers to nab this spot.'

Thunder boomed more loudly and Arthur cast an eye around for an umbrella but couldn't find one.

'Hurry up, for Zarquon's sakes! We'll be struck by lightning at this rate if we don't get a move on before the thunder is over!'

'Lightning? I haven't seen any lightning.'

Ford stared at him a moment then remember his time spent of Earth. 'Ah, I see where you're going with this. All arse about, your assumptions. Here, it's all explained in the Guide,' Ford replied, handing Arthur the strange computing device that had the words "DON'T PANIC" printed in large letters on the cover. 'Look up "Reverse Thundermatic Generator".'

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about the Reverse Thundermatic Generator. The Reverse Thundermatic Generator was created by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation to remedy the ridiculous and unfair outcome of the fact that a large and sudden burst of electrically charged light coming down from the sky with the ability to kill you (or at least give you a jolly good fry up) having no warning whatsoever. It instead aggregates all of the thunder associated with lightning, delivers that and then gets on with the task of all the lightning. None of this alternating lightning and thunder nonsense like we used to have.

Further research undertaken by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation in order to better determine the origins of such a blasphemous error in the creation of a standardised, yet completely random, set of acceptable - or at least slightly less controversial - weather patterns for intergalactic use, determined that weather itself was not a natural phenomena, but something that had been manufactured and proliferated throughout the galaxy.

On the basis that this original invention was both completely insane, and the result of the premature death of an entire section of the galaxy, whereby the failure to warn of an impending lightning flash by use of the warning mechanism of thunder, caused all of the species within that planetary cluster to simply instantaneously hiccup themselves to death in fright, lead to the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation taking it upon themselves to sue the original creators. This action was fully supported by the then President of the Galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox, who stated that it was a crime against spontaneous hiccuping to allow such incompetence to go unpunished.

Of course, what they failed to uncover in their research as they went back in time to channel the largest and most expensive lawsuit in the entire history of the galaxy, was that it was in fact the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation that had first invented the concept of lightning followed by thunder, and that in waging the most expensive lawsuit in the history of the galaxy, they effectively bankrupted their Weather Division such that it never existed in the first place. This enabled them to direct that funding into other more profitable sectors, including their Marketing Division, thus creating the inevitable surplus of mindless jerks who would end up being the first ones against the wall when the revolution came. In fact, it was the Marketing Division who first came up with the concept, stating in one memo that ran to a length of fifteen thousand nine hundred and sixty-eight point two pages, that "wouldn't it be a laugh if we sent them a warning thunderclap after the lightning?" (see entry titled Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Marketing Division. For further details, refer to Martin Flummelbuster's book entitled "Etymology of a mindless jerk and how to avoid being one when the revolution arrives")

'But that's absurd,' Arthur said. 'It doesn't make any sense.'

'Of course it doesn't make sense!' Ford cried. 'If the universe made sense then people like me who write completely nonsensical entries for a book as absurd at this would be out of a job, you see?'

Arthur didn't see but he nodded anyway. 'You know, Ford, sometimes I think things weren't quite so bad when I was stuck in that cave with nothing and no one to talk to except a couple of trees I named Beech and Elm. At least that made sense.'

'You've only got your own planet's prehistoric development to blame. Buck up. It's going to be a beautiful day.'

'How can you say that? All these black clouds and thunder. Why, I think we should just go back inside and sit down for a nice cup of tea.'

'Don't be stupid. The sun will be out in a few minutes. The sun always comes out right after lightning.'

'But what about the rain?'

'Been and gone. Torrential rain, thunder, lightning, then sunshine. That's how it works. We're almost at the tail end of it now.'

Arthur gave him a skeptical look. 'If you say so.'

'I do. And if we do get struck by lightning, know that your life insurance won't cover you. You did have fair warning, after all.'