Fast Car

[River Yates]

There were two things that definately, without a doubt, did not mix at all: River Yates and cars. If this was true, then why was River in the parking lot? Well, it was a place to hide from people and it was a place to cause a myriad of trouble. Currently, she was sneaking around with a bar of green soap.

She snuck around a random van and wrote on the window with it, "Speed Demon". Technically, what she was doing could be called vandalism. However, it wouldn't cause any permantent damage to the car itself... as far as she knew... so long as she only wrote on the windows. River wasn't interested in causing serious damage... just making a random idiot look twice at their car and wonder how that got there and if the statement was true.

She snuck up to a black porsche and wrote "Batmobile" on the back window. Finding herself bored, she dropped the soap on the ground and snuck behind a black Ford F150 and out of sight.

River took a breathe and took her Ipod which had been playing a bit of Simon and Garfunkel. Then, she turned it off and wrapped the headphones around it. River was happy with the sunny day, but she wished for more clouds and maybe even a bit of smog, like in the cities she came from. Here, everything was clear and sunny and happy and extremely dull.

[Tessa Collins]

Tessa didn't usually cut through parking lots, but for some reason today he found himself walking right through the staff parking lot.

He walked along bobbing his head slightly to the beat of his ipod, giving him the slight appearance of a chicken that had been the victim of a paintball war. While passing a rather expensive looking porsche he noticed that something didn't look quite right with it. Being the curious little bugger that he was he decided, against his better judgement, to stop and check it out. He paused his music and went over to investigate.

The back window was emblazoned in rushed green...handwriting? with the word "Batmobile" He stifled back his amusement. "Heh, I wonder who did this. I wish I would've thought of that." He grinned.

[River Yates]

The moment the violet-haired girl hiding behind the F-150 heard someone coming, she froze. That was just what she needed... a person to walk in on her green-handed. Well, technically the saying was red-handed, but the soap had been green and she had some stuck under her fingernails which she immediately started to pick at.

Of course, then she heard the positive reaction and sprung out of her hiding place like a little jack-in-the-box. "Oh, that one was obvious. You should see what I wrote on the El Camino!"

She froze when she saw the guy's hair. It was beautiful... like sunset... or a fruity drink. She could almost taste the mangos and the strawberries and the bananas. It could only be better with a touch of violet or lavender. Everything looked better with a touch of violet or lavender. Suddenly River found herself wishing for purple soap.

[Tessa Collins]

Tessa jumped back. He quickly shook himself out of it, and took in what the purple-haired girl had said.

"So, this is your handiwork, huh?" He glanced back at the car, "Nice." He nodded.

She looked like just the kind of interesting person he'd been waiting to meet ever since he set foot in this little inkspot of a town. He grinned, which may've looked a little bit malicious.

"So, what'd you write on the El Camino?" He asked, now intrigued.

[River Yates]

"Why don't you wander over to the El Camino and read it yourself?" River asked in response to his question. She had a huge grin on her face as she said it, though there was a bit of sass in her words. River never answered questions in a straight-foreward way.

If he did wanter over to the El Camino, the front window read "I wanna be a truck!" in beautiful curly green writing. Now that River thought about it, the message on the porsche was better, but she refused to eat her words.

She looked around for her bar of soap. She'd dropped it somewhere around the truck or the porsche. It had to be somewhere around there....

[Tessa Collins]

Tessa was a little skeptical but wandered over to the El Camino anyway to steal a quick glance and snorted at the green "I wanna be a truck!" written on the window.

He stepped back to the porsche and noticed that the girl seemed to be looking for something. Possibly the "weapon" responsible for the curly green words on the different cars, which he assumed was some sort of car chalk... or maybe not, it didn't seem as bright as car chalk would normally be.

He figured he should maybe help her, but he wasn't feeling quite that charitable at the moment, especially since he still wasn't quite sure what he thought of her just yet. Instead he opted to turn off his ipod and shoved it hastily into his bag right next to his newly acquired tarot deck and a couple books.

He leaned up against a light pole, "So... are you new here?" He didn't really care what her response was going to be, he just hated awkward silences.

[River Yates]

River stopped her looking around to look at the sherbert-hair-colored boy. She was talking to a boy, right? Oh well, she'd figure it out sooner or later. It seemed odd for a boy to be so colorful, but most of the boys she'd met and made friends of were more girly than most of the girls River knew. Then again, this one seemed to be a little more upfront about it. River wasn't sure how she felt about that.

"Do I look like I belong in this crazy place?" River asked him with a crooked grin. She spotted the green soap by the wheel of the porsche and snatched it from it's new spot, rubbing the dirt off of it. Her grin went from crooked to all out and up to the eyes.

After a few moments she added, "I'm River, by the way." She strolled over to a rather cruddy looking black Chevy Cavelier and wondered what message she should write on it. She was still rubbing the dirt off of her bar of soap.

[Tessa Collins]

"I'm Tessa... And no, you don't look like you belong here. Then again, I'm not really sure what the natives really look like, considering I'm not one myself, and I think my roommate's from Germany...or something." He said, following after her partially because he wanted to know what she was going to write on this car, and because he didn't have anything better to do with this particular afternoon.

[River Yates]

"Perhaps, instead of vandalizing faculty cars I should be examining the natives and their local behaviors," River wondered outloud in a snobby, faux-English accent. She tapped her chin with the soap for a moment and then looked distastefully at it's green color.

Then, she shook her head. "Naah..."

Upon hearing Tessa's name the whole question of whether he was a guy or a girl came up in her mind. She got the guy vibe, but Tessa was definately a girl's name. Then again, River had once known a girl named Timmy... so... One could never tell by names.

[Tessa Collins]

"Mmm. Yes, yes, perhaps." He added, playing along. He kicked a particularily annoying little pebble across the parking lot. "Meh, I still haven't really found anything especially interesting to do here." He watched the pebble skitter across the pavement and settle itself some 6 feet away, "Well, I mean, aside from the little game you've got going on here." He glanced around the lot, "I wonder if Professor Rudra parks here? I kind of hope not." He thought out loud.

He turned his attention back to River, who had appeared to, in Tessa's mind, been contimplating eating the green bar of soap, or maybe she was just sniffing it? She seemed a bit, eccentric... yes, that seemed like the right word. Then again, who was he to judge someone like that?

"You planning on marking all these cars?" He hadn't realized it but his face clearly showed his skepticism, "Certainly seems like a lot of work, for not much pay-off... Unless you're planning on stickin' around to see the end results." He added the last part as an after thought.

[River Yates]

Cocking her head to the right for a moment to thingk about it, she then looked back at the bar of soap. "It does seem like a lot of work for nothing... I was kind of hoping someone would catch me and send me back to New York... but then I'd have to deal with Skye and that just wouldn't do... Though I wouldn't've been caught if I just stayed behind that big black truck... and then I could watch their reactions... I guess it all depends on who the cars belong to... " River was mostly thinking outloud now.

She tossed the green soap at Tessa. "Fine then, I give up. You continue my work." She gave Tessa a wink and walked to the other side of the parking lot and climbed on the fence, sitting on top of it.

[Tessa Collins]

It's a good thing Tessa had no interest whatsoever in football, because he totally fumbled the soap. After picking it up off the ground he looked at it for a couple seconds then back at River who was sitting on a fence.

"Wait, what? So that's it? You're just gonna leave your job half finished?" He called after her. In all honesty he didn't really feel like getting himself in trouble this early in the game, and was, of course, trying to weasel his way out of it.

He strode over to the fence that she was sitting on and leaned against it, picking the dirt and other debris off the soap. He sighed, "So... You said you wanted to be sent back to New York. Am I correct in guessing that that's where you're from then?" He asked, hoping to lead the conversation in a different direction.

[River Yates]

"If you wanted to," River said with a shrug and a sigh. Afterall, she didn't really think she was from anywhere, much less New York. After all, she'd only lived there the last two-and-a-half-ish years, over a year of which was spent in a coma. Though, River was a very private person. She wasn't about to share the weird and sordid details of her life with anyone... no matter how pretty their hair was.

River looked down at her boots. "This place is completely different from any place I've ever been in..."

River found that she was very skilled at vague statements for some reason, especially when a person was trying to nose into her past... probably to start a new conversation that didn't involve vandalism. Too bad about leaving out the vandalism bit, though...

[Tessa Collins]

After he stopped picking crap off of the bar of soap, Tessa decided to entertain himself by pushing around some small pebbles with his foot to form little connect-the-dots pictures that only he would probably be able to tell what they were.

"Oh, yeah. Me too. Way different than L.A." Despite the fact that he had only lived there for the first six years of his life, from what he remembered, he loved it.

He tossed the now mostly clean bar of soap back to River, as the streetlights in the lot started to flicker on as the sky began to grow dark.

[River Yates]

"L.A. sounds like it'd be fun. You know, with the Hollywood and everything," River said, her eyes widening. She knew that L.A. was probably as glamorous as New York City, but the whole Hollywood thing was always there. Just like New York always had Broadway and Belleville always had St. Louis and its Arch right across the river.

The only difference being, River hated Hollywood and television. Well, not the movies so much as the television. A movie every once in a while was okay. Watching a television program and waisting an hour or so every week that a person could spend outside or reading was just... not fun.

"This place is too empty... and clean ..."

[Tessa Collins]

Tessa laughed a little at the mention of "The Hollywood" "Actually it's the people there that make it so interesting. I was sitting next to a homeless man once who told me all about General Washington's love for imported teas and cats." He was too young at the time to realize that the homeless man hadn't meant domesticated house pets at all, but he'd never thought about it enough to realize what the guy really meant.

He smiled at the connect-the-pebble picture that he had constructed in the shape of a rabbit. "But I get what you mean. This place seems like that place from that one movie... Stepford or something?" He paused realizing he probably wasn't making any sense, "Uh, nevermind..."

[River Yates]

The violet-haired girl smiled at the idea of talking to homeless men. She'd once surprised and frightened her mother by inviting a young homeless woman home for tea. The homeless woman kept talking about green fairies. River had liked her, until Skye kicked her out.

River actually jumped at the mention of Stepford. "You mean the science fiction novel turned into a movie and movie remake known as the Stepford Wives!" she asked with a hint of excitement. For once, a popular culture thing she actually understood! Yup, she was a dork, but a cool dork.

"Yeah, I keep looking for the robots, but I can't find them. That movie remake was lame..." She remembered forking over the cash for it and then regretting it terribly. It was such a waste of good money and a couple of hours...

[Tessa Collins]

"Yeah, that's what it was, The Stepford Wives. My mom loves that movie." He wasn't sure whether it was the old version or the remake that his mom liked since he only ever saw bits and pieces of it in passing, he never really payed attention.

He glanced around the parking lot, "Hmm, who knows. Maybe this place really is squeaky clean." He smirked, knowing that it really did have it's fair share of secrets and such, but he couldn't tell her about that. "Wait..." he thought, "I wonder..." He was wishing that he had the little crystal that Professor Rudra had given to everyone right about now.

He flipped around so he wasn't leaning against the fence anymore, but instead staring up at River, "You haven't met Professor Rudra yet, have you?"

[River Yates]

"Professor who?" River asked with an arched eyebrow. It was her first day and she didn't know any professors. Rudra was a weird last name. It sounded familiar, like she should know that name for some reason, but River easily pushed it out of her mind. There were a lot of things that did that. It was because of how many books River rapidly read... or that's what she figured.

She looked at Tessa, trying to figure out just what he was thinking. Bringing up professor's names was just... weird.

[Tessa Collins]

"Uhh, nevermind. I'm sure you'll meet her eventually." He laughed, a touch of nervousness mixed in for good measure.

Tessa glanced at his mp3 player's clock feature, which read 7:07 in the pm. Then glanced around at the green marked cars, and wondered why none of the staff had come out of the building yet. "Maybe they're in a meeting?" He thought. Well whatever it was, he knew that he was pushing his luck being there this late.

"Umm, it's getting kind of late and I've got some homework to get done." He employed the "quick thinking" tactic, "Homework... yeah. Well, it's kind of true I guess." "But uh, interesting to meet you and all that jazz." He sent her a light wave and turned on his heel to leave.