2014.02.04 - Modern Derp

It was mostly a quiet Tuesday afternoon at the Metropolis Museum of Art. Sure, there was the occasionally yuppie mom who brought her screaming toddler, and this one drunk guy tried to enter without paying... but those were par for the coarse here. The front desk clerk laughed when the security guard caught him yawning on the job. Yeah, one of those days. Really, the only thing particularly special about today was that it was five days into a new exhibit in the modern art wing: internationally acclaimed artist Jacques Fleurant was sharing his collection of controversial post-modern, post-structuralist, avant-garde pieces for a four-week run.

It was a shocking, bizarre collection. One piece entitled _Zeus' Massage_ included a fully-functional electric chair with Thor's (from The Avengers) face, wide-smiled, plastered on the backseat. Next to that was a piece was entitled _Good To The Last Drop_, which was basically a pile of rusty nails and moldy tangerines floating in a bucket of gasoline. This is where Tabitha Smith AKA Boom-Boom stood: she was staring at the sign over the bucket which read 'No Smoking'.

"I hate when people tell me not to do stuff," Tabs said to a random, dapper-dressed, mousey gentlemen a few feet away. He looked at her with confusion for a moment, and then turned away again to continue his awkward gaze at another piece of art which featured a eight-headed kitten sculpted out of glass and q-tips.

There's one thing no one who has ever known Kiden Nixon, friend or foe, could ever accuse her of and that is willingly wanting to go to an Art Museum. But as it were, she wound up with the Academy of Tomorrow in a very round-about way, and one of the side effects was that occasionally there were some assignments she just couldn't get get out of, no matter what she did. Sure, she skipped classes, skipped homework, waltzed in late if at all, but every now and then she'd get some kind of a reminder from the Headmistress that she's supposed to at least look like she's putting in some effort.

The result of one such conversation is that today, Kiden freakin' Nixon is finding herself walking into the Metropolis Museum of Art, specifically assigned to write an essay about what she took from the remarkable work of one Jacques McFrenchie, err, Fleurant. Whatever, no hope of Kiden getting that on the essay without misspelling. So far, from what she's managed to see with her brief glances while sleep walking through the exhibit, likely just a bit on a high, might suggest that her essay would come down as one of the shortest in the class: it sucked.

Odds are the teenaged girl known only as 'Hope Summers' should be in class right now. Or then again... Maybe she doesn't have classes right now? Or at least today. It's sort of hard to tell with her. Not that this redhead really is worried about possibly failing classes or not. After all, with all that she's lived through...

Well, that's a story for another time.

Instead, what's important is that she's here. At the museum right now. In fact she's practically right next to Boom-Boom as she too looks at that bucket.

"Seriously? People pay money to look at this?" she mutters more to herself rather than to actually be asking that of anyone who's here.

"Now, now," Tabitha retorted to Hope. Sure, she didn't know the girl, but Tabby was always one to engage strangers. Plus, this one looked interesting. "You have to appreciate that they're giving young degenerates some work. The economy and what-have-you..." Tabitha said, her voice trailing off as she bored herself with her own pretense of knowledge. "Wait a sec! Hold the phone!" she suddenly shouted, and took a quick 20-foot sprint to another piece. It was called _Hold The Phone_, in fact, and featured a giant, futuristic telephone that looked more like a ray-gun. Tabitha, noticing a complete lack of dialing-digits, picked it up and held her ear to it, hearing a dial-tone. The voice that picked up sounded... okay, she couldn't place the language at all, but spoke into the phone anyway. "Yo, we wanna pizza," she said, giggling at her idea of an art exhibit that literally enabled prank calling.

A bit aways from Tabitha and Hope, Kiden misses on their exchange, but she is moving in their general direction, her head swiveling from side to side as she gives each piece of display about 2 seconds of her attention span before moving onwards. When Tabitha cries out 'hold the phone', it draws Kiden's attention as she arches a brow at the ridiculous ray-gun-maybe-phone-a-majig. "I want jalapenos on mine," Kiden replies the offer of pizza. Much like Tabitha, she's one to often engage with total strangers, whether they like it or not. But then she spots Hope, and she moves a bit closer to her, "hey, I've seen you 'round the Academy, you also got stuck with stupid art assignment on the work of Jerkoff Flow-Rant? One thing I can tell you, he smokes some good stuff." She sagenods with her observation, as if that somehow lent to her words more weight.

"..."

Now the thought that Tabby is up and willing to engage Hope in conversation doesn't frighten the redhead. Nor does the fact that as Boom-Boom rushes towards the other exhibit just to prank call....

All right, so that /DOES/ catch the time (and possibly reality) lost girl off of her game a bit. But even more so is seeing Kiden here, which well...

"No. I just wanted to get away from the school a bit, and ended up here." is said as she looks right at her fellow student. "Should I ask which class you got it in though, so I can avoid it?"

Tabitha, still holding the phone, whispers to Kiden: "At least he's got a good name," thinking that Kiden's mock-name was the actual collector's real name. Turning her attention back to the phone, she starts shouting into it.

"No--No, no. Nonononono. PEET-ZAAAH. PEETZAHH." After another five seconds or so, Tabitha hangs up the phone and looks over the two girls who've assembled. "Be cool! Stay in school!" she declares with a grin and an upwards-extended index finger. At first it looks like Tabitha is saying this to be funny and random, but she lowers her pointy-finger to the next exhibit. It's titled _Be Cool, Stay In School_. It's a meticulously done, crayon drawing of two gigantic anime-style eyes that're crying fake blood.

"Right on, Hope!" Kiden says with a wide grin, almost as if she was proud of Hope, as she smacks her on the shoulder in what must be an affectionate gesture of some sort, as it didn't seem like it was meant to hurt. "You enroll in the Kiden School of Life, and I'll teach you how to get out of all the dumbest assignments...except this one," she groans as she motions at all the art works scattered around, "this one is a Kiden special, because apparently I'm irresponsible in forgetting what times classes are, what rooms they're at, and that homework are actually for doing instead of ignoring...what you gonna do, right?" Leaning towards Hope, she whispers, "for the record it's Art II, whatever that means."

When Tabitha takes her made up name for the real one, Kiden laughs, "sure, that's how the French do it." With her attention soon drawn towards the exhibit that Tabitha announced, Kiden rolls her eyes, "that is such a terrible name. I'd call it, 'Fight Carlos Get Sand In Eyes'." What are you going to do...?

Well, Hope /almost/ blurts out 'jump into another time period'. Not that it's a thing that she wants to do, or really would blurt out. But it /IS/ tempting. Especially as she turns and glances at the exhibit that Boomer is showing off. Which if anything prompts her to look right back at Kiden, especially as she hears that alternate title for the piece.

"Here's what you write. 'The artist was drunk, high, insane, and hyperactive, and his artwork shows it. The only thing stopping it from truly being depraved is that unlike The Joker this artist does not use whole, or pieces of, dead bodied in his work.'"

Tabitha Smith has trouble standing still with so much random stuff to look at, but manages to keep it together long enough to face the girls again. "You two on a field trip or something? Wanna ditch it? I've always wanted to try hang-gliding..." she says, her eyes swiveling between the two. She then interrupts her thought with an posed wave, "I'm Tabitha. Some day I'll be the queen of the world," she says, trying to keep a straight face.

After introductions, Tabitha makes a quick, sudden dive at the next piece of art.

This one was the central piece of the show, positioned in the middle of the hall. It featured a fake-bronze, life-sized, buck naked statute of none other than The Man of Steel, Superman... except instead of a penis, he's got a huge, powered rocket with the words 'NUCLEAR' etched into its side. "Now *that* is art," Tabby remarks, snickering. "It's just lacking one thing... me!"

With this said, Tabitha steps up to the statue and pantomimes like she's humping it, replete with "Unf! Unf!" noises.

A security guard quickly spots her and walks over, "Uhm, ma'am, I'm unfortunately going to have to ask you to stop," he says uncomfortably.

"Wait your turn!" Tabitha says with a mock-scolding tone, ignoring him.

"Not bad Hope, didn't know you were cool like that. But it's a bit wordy for me," Kiden grins at the other girl from the Academy, "I think less is often more or was it more is less? I can never tell. Either way, here's the Kiden certified version: Museum lame, artist sucks, thank god for ecstasy..." spending a moment's thought, Kiden puts on a serious expression if a bit feigned, and remarks, "I might drop that last bit."

When Tabitha speaks up, Kiden turns to look her way, shrugging, "kinda of an assignment really, but hang gliding sounds fun," but before she commits to it, Tabitha announces her plans for world domination, and Kiden snorts, "you'll never be the Queen of me." But then Tabitha does her act with the center piece display of the show, and while Hope is likely frightened by the sight, if she can even manage to look, Kiden just bursts laughing. "Oh fuck me, I'm sure that's exactly what the artist meant, Tabitha, one super boner for all..." shaking her head with laughter, she offers, "I'm Kiden Nixon by the way, but I think you might want to end this show before security gets serious with you."

While Tabitha is usually not one to listen to rent-a-cops, she wonders if she's weirding-out the two girls she just met, and jumps away from the statue... much to the guards relief. She steps back over to Kiden, her expression wearing a goofy smile. "Just trying to soak in all this culture," she says. "Wanna go get some burritos?"

Staring at the nuke that's been positioned so very elegantly on the Superman statue to be a metaphor on a metaphor, Kiden grins at Tabitha, "there's so much culture you gotta watch out for drowning, well, I guess I've seen enough to write my essay, it all sucked ever after." She nods at the offer of burritos, "solid choice, I can get us some money on the way," and that same guard who came to ward Tabitha off the statute is the first to lose a few dollars, as Kiden shares them with Tabitha, "my treat," she says with a wink.