Dirk gently - Havoc Cartographer.

He was plugged into his workspace as a uncomfortable and unexpected yank pulled the plug on the machine, booting his consciousness from the machine.

"could have given a warning." Dirk complained as he rubbed the cyberport on the back of his head.

"Mister Gently, well ain't you in for a surprise." the black suit and tie said before slapping a thick manila folder containing dozens of files and contracts.

"Congratulations, You have been chosen to take over as a new team leader in the A division." The middle-manager said, shit eating grin engraving itself in his features.

Dirk looked confused for a few moments before asking.

"designation?"

"New team, A-201143523, Got a jump gate waiting in 3 hours, remember not to be tardy." saying the last part with a malicious enthusiasm.

Dirk gently caressed his right pinkie finger, the artificial nerves of the bionic replacement a constant reminder about the dangers of gates.

Dirk sighed to himself before beginning the time-consuming and nigh endless process of paperwork.

Employee Id:

Marital Status:

Next of Kin:

Rough description of sexual activity:

And the lists when on and on.

If the universes would be orderly on its own maybe Dirk wouldn't have several essays worth of his own life to retell every 8 hours.

fortunately his story was short as he finished and prepared to jump to his new occupation.

Elsewhere in the multiverse.

Ugg, spirits are weird.

A early homo-sapiens clad in loose animal skins of a primarily brown colour looked into the air as several orbs of light swam in his vision, he followed them and collected weeds and flowers.

He was the shaman of his people, responsible for communing with the spirits for the tribe's benefit.

The spirits could speak to him.

He is currently in a field, trees on the climb of his the mountain being tall and thick.

He was also rather thick, but with muscle instead of bark.

'I wonder... could tree walk like man?' His thoughts trundled around like a wobbly trolley.

'Yessssss~ They can, But not hereee~.' a spirit whispered to him silently.

This extracted a quiet grunt from the shaman as he wandered towards his most ambitious project yet.

A ritual circle

Carved into the flattened rock of the hillside, Shaman made his paints of ground up leaves and flowers.

Grinding and slathering the slightly magically reactive paste into the slight indents in the floor.

"Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" Shaman hummed

Suddenly a red crack formed. elongating into a circle of crackling red energy, a man trod through. he was scrawny and had a lot of bits attached to his animal hides.

Shaman immediately pulled out a spear

"Hun, Who You? What Tribe?" He immediately grunted

"Ah, well I am here to help your tribe." The strange man said in a funny high pitched accent

Shaman's slow mind eventually broke this down and asked

"Are you spirit?"

"...No I am not a spirit." He replied

"Then how help?"

"Well lets look around the village and then I can determine how to help." He said

Shaman found his speaking weird, like he was thinking twice and speaking, but the awkwardness passed as he invited the strange man around the village.

After all, you have to be big smart to have such tiny muscles and be useful to tribe!

After showing the Strange man, Called himself Dirk, Assumable because he must have sharp brain!

Will have to test later after he expires.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The caveman and Dirk Gently head toward a series of caveman gazebos, essentially roofs without walls, arguably a better housing system but the temperature isolation hasn't been invented yet.

Dirk's POV

holy shit, Did not expect to immediately be threatened by a caveman.

I pocketed the coin that appeared once the gate rift collapsed, one side was a human skull the other was of many ancient animals.

The village has an approximate area of 300m^2

With a dozen shelters, four of which seem to hold equipment, the rest are for exactly that, Rest.

Fires are maintained as the village was situated on a mountain side, not far enough up that Agriculture was impossible, and the dark loamy soil beneath my feet showed that there was a chance it would be a great summer-spring farming field.

The large trees reminded me of pine trees, though the lowest branch was 6m above the ground.

"hey... er, What is your name." I said to the caveman who was the first one met here.

He looked like I just explained astrophysics to a lemur.

"Name? I am Shaman, I talk to spirits for tribe." The caveman grunted.

"So shaman it is." I said to myself "Could you point me towards the clan's water supply?" I asked

"Water up over there." He said pointing past the trees, late afternoon, I couldn't hear any water in the distance, the forest was relatively quiet, though the tribe most certainly wasn't.

Tribe of just short on thirty, even with two thirds of the tribe busy working the rest was busy attempting to propagate human style.

"It is a bit of a walk isn't it?" I asked the Shaman more out of formality than genuine curiosity.

"Yes it is." he grunted, Leaving myself unsurprised.

I booted up my standard issue HCA neuro-implant, Most races outside of humans (and even a fair whack of them at that) couldn't use the implant due to it's sensitivity to atypical neural tissues, that and the HCA rarely handed out even the things they could produce in the billions per second.

Took an entire month to get the requisitions office to pull one out and get me scheduled into a licensed neurosurgeon.

The chip booted up as It ran diagnostics, finding everything within nominal rates, the first line entered my mind by rattling my skull.

Query?

>Y

HCA Manager required?

>Y

Booting EDIF

.....................Done

A pinging noise filled my brain as I activated the equivalent of a telegraph.

'currently in pre-metal tool society, have assumed position of assistance, nominally fertile grounds for proper growth of society here, ack' I messaged,

five or so seconds later a mechanical voice filled my head.

'Ack, progress society to minimum agricultural society, any magical influence in this tribal society, ACK' it intoned.

Looking at the shaman who was currently speaking to the 'spirits' I made the response.

'Limited magical knowledge, currently only aware individual was spotted immediately as was attempting to summon something to help their tribe survive winter, current supplies and consumption estimate a week of food available to survive the winter months.'

'Ack will progress tech society to suggested levels,'

The telegraph stopped as the implant filled my head with local topography, a large river flowing from up mountain, seeming that the water was condensed from the mountain-peak and the tribe settled here due to the water abundance and relatively flat slope.

"where do you get your water from?" I asked

The caveman grunted " up further." his halting English clearly showing the limited scope of his tribe's language even through the language filter.

"well we could divert the stream through the village to make getting water easier." I suggested.

the shaman looked like I slapped him in the face.

"That very smart." He said impressed.

Dirk thought on his circumstances a little further as he began planning how to cut a irrigation channel into the ground.