Chapter 1
Leftovers

Butterflies are Free...To Cause International Havoc [ARNS]

by FRED CHARUNDER-MACHARRUNDEIRA, Alternate Reality News Service Science Writer

The Harken-Snarker Expedition appears to have been stymied because the Chinese government has definitively refused to issue Sylvestre Harken and Juniper Snarker visas to enter the country.

"Well, that sucks," Snarker, Miss Congeniality at MIT's Mechanical Engineering Totally Hurls Lab, incisively commented.

The Harken-Snarker Expedition was, as anybody who has read the news for the past three months knows, set up in order to find the most elusive butterfly in the world: the one that causes a hurricane in the United States when it flaps its wings. The only butterfly of its kind is suspected to be fluttering around somewhere in China.

"Think of all of the property damage we could have prevented," Harken, a theoretical botanist at the Hoover Dam Institute, idyllically stated. "Not to mention, uhh, all of the lives we would have saved. Yeah. We could have saved a lot of lives."

This is the third official expedition in search of the Chinese hurricane causing butterfly to run aground in the last two years. The Finchley-Molgodarado Expedition was abandoned when Hubert Molgodarado was denied a visa on the grounds that he was a mass murderer on death row in Massachusetts. "China will deny an American entry on the flimsiest of pretexts," Snarker indirectly commented.

The Mountbatten-Sauerkrauten Expedition ended before it had even started because Marina del Mountbatten didn't like his passport photograph. "Well, I, uhh, yeah, that happened," Snarker ideationally added.

Bao Ling-Po, Chinese Attache Case to the American Embassy in Newport News, Rhode Island, refused to comment on the reason his government would not issue the visas. Since he didn't appear to have anything newsworthy to contribute, we were about to cut him out of the story when Bao accused American researchers of racism.

"If you're so concerned about destructive butterflies," Bao irradiatedly asked, working his way back into our article, "why not look for the American butterfly that causes hurricanes to happen in China? I'll tell you why - Chinese nationals killed by butterflies aren’t as important as Americans!"

"But...that's not the way the theory works..." Harken inversely protested.

"Actually, you've all misinterpreted the way the butterfly effect works," little known but terribly brainy mathematician Roger Penrose iridescently interjected. This was odd, considering we hadn't actually interviewed him for this article, so we ignored the interjection as best we could.

The Harken-Snarker Expedition has been supported by the Poynter Systers Institute and the Cameras for Dumbasses Foundation. "Poynter supplied us with all the compasses we could hope to use," Snarker indigenously explained. "56,783 of them, in fact. We, uhh, we sold most of them to buy stuff we needed for the expedition. You know: tents, heaters, aardvark strips for the ceiling, that sort of thing."

The Cameras for Dumbasses Foundation pledged its financial support to the expedition under the impression that it was set up to follow Chinese hurricanes. "Yeah, we were a little...unclear on the concept," Northwestern and General Environs (Excluding Seattle) Secretary General Irena Golubvachecknikoff intensely allowed. "Still, once we committed to the expedition, we felt we had to follow through, so we’re writing the expense off for the good will. Not that there appears to be any..."

In a last ditch effort to salvage the expedition, Harken and Snarker have asked the State Department to intervene with the Chinese government. "They mistook us for CIA agents on the trail of a Chinese noodle counterfeiting ring," Harken Islamo-fascistically stated. "After months of futilely trying to explain to them who we really are, we decided to kind of go with that..."

If Harken and Snarker do get to China, how will they know which butterfly is the one they are looking for. "Are you kidding?" Snarker icily asked. "A butterfly that can cause hurricanes? I’m sure we'll know it when we s

"Ungh, aargh, ah!" Penrose muscled his way back into the article. "The butterfly effect is just a metaphor," he quickly, interrogatorily shouted, "for the way - GET BACK! - the way chaotic systems are...are - I’M WARNING YOU, I’VE GOT A PHD, AND I’M NOT AFRAID TO USE IT! - are sensitive to initial conditio - aaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiieeeeeee!"

Sorry, but we’re not going to let some...mathematician hijack our article. Even if he does have a PhD and is not afraid to use it!

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