diff --git a/lib/adapter/question.py b/lib/adapter/question.py
index eee6539..3dd7f09 100644
--- a/lib/adapter/question.py
+++ b/lib/adapter/question.py
@@ -4,11 +4,14 @@ Configuration parameters:
     path.internal.bin
 """
 
+# pylint: disable=relative-import,wrong-import-position,wrong-import-order
+
+from __future__ import print_function
+
 from gevent.monkey import patch_all
 from gevent.subprocess import Popen, PIPE
 patch_all()
 
-import sys
 import os
 import re
 
@@ -16,10 +19,20 @@ from polyglot.detect import Detector
 from polyglot.detect.base import UnknownLanguage
 
 from config import CONFIG
-from adapter import Adapter
+from upstream import UpstreamAdapter
 from languages_data import SO_NAME
 
-class Question(Adapter):
+class Question(UpstreamAdapter):
+
+    """
+    Answer to a programming language question, using Stackoverflow
+    as the main data source. Heavy lifting is done by an external
+    program `CONFIG["path.internal.bin.upstream"]`.
+
+    If the program is not found, fallback to the superclass `UpstreamAdapter`,
+    which queries the upstream server (by default https://cheat.sh/)
+    fot the answer
+    """
 
     _adapter_name = "question"
     _output_format = "text+code"
@@ -30,6 +43,11 @@ class Question(Adapter):
         Find answer for the `topic` question.
         """
 
+        if not os.path.exists(CONFIG["path.internal.bin.upstream"]):
+            # if the upstream program is not found, use normal upstream adapter
+            self._output_format = "ansi"
+            return UpstreamAdapter._get_page(self, topic, request_options=request_options)
+
         # if there is a language name in the section name,
         # cut it off (de:python => python)
         if '/' in topic:
@@ -55,7 +73,8 @@ class Question(Adapter):
             query_text = re.sub('/[0-9]+$', '', query_text)
             detector = Detector(query_text)
             supposed_lang = detector.languages[0].code
-            if len(topic_words) > 2 or supposed_lang in ['az', 'ru', 'uk', 'de', 'fr', 'es', 'it', 'nl']:
+            if len(topic_words) > 2 \
+                or supposed_lang in ['az', 'ru', 'uk', 'de', 'fr', 'es', 'it', 'nl']:
                 lang = supposed_lang
             if supposed_lang.startswith('zh_') or supposed_lang == 'zh':
                 lang = 'zh'
@@ -72,7 +91,7 @@ class Question(Adapter):
         else:
             topic = [topic]
 
-        cmd = [os.path.join(CONFIG["path.internal.bin"], "bin/get-answer-for-question")] + topic
+        cmd = [CONFIG["path.internal.bin.upstream"]] + topic
         proc = Popen(cmd, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE)
         answer = proc.communicate()[0].decode('utf-8')
         return answer
diff --git a/lib/adapter/upstream.py b/lib/adapter/upstream.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8625748
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/adapter/upstream.py
@@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
+"""
+Adapter for an external cheat sheets service (i.e. for cheat.sh)
+
+Configuration parameters:
+
+    upstream.url
+    upstream.timeout
+"""
+
+# pylint: disable=relative-import
+
+import textwrap
+import requests
+
+from config import CONFIG
+from adapter import Adapter
+
+def _are_you_offline():
+    return textwrap.dedent(
+        """
+         .
+                         Are you offline?
+            _________________
+           | | ___________ |o|   Though it could be theoretically possible
+           | | ___________ | |   to use cheat.sh fully offline,
+           | | ___________ | |   and for *programming languages questions* too,
+           | | ___________ | |   this very feature is not yet implemented.
+           | |_____________| |
+           |     _______     |   If you find it useful, please visit
+           |    |       |   ||   https://github.com/chubin/issues/140
+           | DD |       |   V|   and drop a couple of lines to encourage
+           |____|_______|____|   the authors to develop it as soon as possible
+
+         .
+            """)
+
+class UpstreamAdapter(Adapter):
+
+    """
+    Connect to the upstream server `CONFIG["upstream.url"]` and fetch
+    response from it. The response is supposed to have the "ansi" format.
+    If the server does not respond within `CONFIG["upstream.timeout"]` seconds,
+    or if a connection error occurs, the "are you offline" banner is displayed.
+
+    Answers are by default cached; the failure answer is marked with the no-cache
+    property ("cache": False).
+    """
+
+    _adapter_name = "upstream"
+    _output_format = "ansi"
+    _cache_needed = True
+
+    def _get_page(self, topic, request_options=None):
+
+        options_string = "&".join(["%s=%s" % (x, y) for (x, y) in request_options.items()])
+        url = CONFIG["upstream.url"].rstrip('/') \
+                + '/' + topic.lstrip('/') \
+                + "?" + options_string
+        try:
+            response = requests.get(url, timeout=CONFIG["upstream.timeout"])
+            answer = response.text
+        except requests.exceptions.ConnectionError:
+            answer = {"cache": False, "answer":_are_you_offline()}
+        return answer
+
+    def _get_list(self, prefix=None):
+        return []
diff --git a/lib/config.py b/lib/config.py
index 17fd5e1..840595f 100644
--- a/lib/config.py
+++ b/lib/config.py
@@ -94,6 +94,7 @@ _CONFIG = {
     "log.level": 4,
     "path.internal.ansi2html": os.path.join(_MYDIR, "share/ansi2html.sh"),
     "path.internal.bin": os.path.join(_MYDIR, "bin"),
+    "path.internal.bin.upstream": os.path.join(_MYDIR, "bin", "upstream"),
     "path.internal.malformed": os.path.join(_MYDIR, "share/static/malformed-response.html"),
     "path.internal.pages": os.path.join(_MYDIR, "share"),
     "path.internal.static": os.path.join(_MYDIR, "share/static"),
@@ -123,6 +124,8 @@ _CONFIG = {
         ("^[^/]*$", "unknown"),
         ("^[a-z][a-z]-[a-z][a-z]$", "translation"),
         ],
+    "upstream.url": "https://cheat.sh",
+    "upstream.timeout": 5,
     "search.limit": 20,
     "server.bind": "0.0.0.0",
     "server.port": 8002,