Mark & Marie-Ange, Saturday afternoon

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At the conference in Germany, Mark and Marie-Ange amuse themselves at a ridiculous lecture by being snarky.


Upon entrance to the session about mutant moral responsibility in the global community, attendees had been asked to turn off all electronics and to not use items like laser pointers. And had the discussion been at all interesting and not some pompous windbag's nonsensical rants, Mark would have respected the rules. So while he didn't own a mechanical laser pointer, he did have an iPhone and mutant powers. He pointed his right index finger at the speaker (whose name was clearly not important enough to remember or even acknowledge) and made the little red dot of his own personal laser dance over his leg.

Marie-Ange had taken the time-honored and obvious route of 'filing her nails' the minute the speaker started in on "The Gaia Theory". She wasn't about to get up and storm off, and she had a mini-recorder going in her purse so in case the idiot -did- say something useful or troubling and worthy of attention later, she would have a way to remember it. "Why did I sign up for this again? I could have been checking email or shopping or going to listen to a speaker who did not take too much LSD in college..." she muttered, low enough so that only Mark could hear her.

Mark moved the laser over to the large screen behind the speaker, pointing at parts of the presentation that he hadn't gotten to yet. "This guy is fuckin' nuts," he whispered back. "My purpose on this planet is lot more than to go clean up oily seals."

"I am not touching an oily seal, even if he wanted to pay me." There were people who had chosen that as their career and that was just fine for them, but Marie-Ange wanted nothing to do with oil, or sea mammals. "I am waiting for him to suggest that also, the HIV was brought to reduce the population. I read that is also part of this 'the planet takes care of itself' theory.”

"I love his predictions." Mark traced the letters LOL on the screen, and he could hear at least one chuckle from the middle of the room. "Apparently, my wanton use of energy manipulation is using up the Earth's available energy, so the sun has to compensate and that increases global warming."

"Does that even make sense? I thought that the energy you produce comes from your body, not the inside of the planet?" Marie-Ange had gotten lost once the speaker started in on alternate views of energy production. "If I did not want to get thrown out, I would send imps to do bad things to him. But I think that might be going too far, yes?"

"Something about entropy. Oh great." The slide changed, depicting a glowing mutant in earth tones sitting tranquilly underneath a tree, with flowers blooming at his feet and small furry animals gazing at him wistfully. Mark tried not to snort as the speaker excitedly addressed a question. "So my destiny is to be a sunlamp and incubator. Awesome."

"Oh, can we raise chickens in you then? Baby chickens are so adorable!" Marie-Ange asked eagerly. "Oh, but where would we get fertile chicken eggs. Maybe ducks... baby ducks are also cute. You could hollow out those falsies you got and put eggs in them!" She had almost managed to keep a straight face, with only a few twitches to indicate that she was on the verge of doubling over giggling.

Mark, on the other hand, didn't possess such decorum and chortled audibly, drawing an angry shush from the row in front of them. "I don't think Gaia appreciates this bullshit. If she put mutants on Earth to save it from humans, then she was a poor planner."

"Dinner at the all-you-can-eat sushi buffet if this speaker has donated to those Blue Planet... Moon.. whoever they are calling themselves now... with the commune. I think he has." Marie-Ange put her nail file in the pocket of her jacket and took out her PDA, tapping out a message to Doug. "They are granola hippies, he is a granola hippie.. "

"You're probably right. I'm sure he'll propose some sort of mutant kibbutz at some point. I mean, it's basically not a bad idea. A completely self-sufficient community could work on a small scale, but it wouldn't survive for long unless every generation has the same frequency of the same kind of mutants. And despite what Gaia wants, genetics doesn't work that way."

"And if every generation does not have people rebel and leave, or if they can get new people to replace the old people." Marie-Ange frowned as she tried to remember things from a history text she'd read. "I think there was also a problem with communal creches in Israel, where the children treated their crechemates as siblings even if they were not related, and none of them married?"

"Maybe, but even so unless new blood comes in, you're gonna get inbreeding. Mutant Tay-Sachs." Mark pointed his laser briefly at the speaker's eye just to see him twitch. "If balance is what we're going for, then nature sure fucked up by giving a genocidal sociopath the power to realign the poles."

"Do not say those things. If you say them, then Magneto will do it. You will jinx us!" There were days when Marie-Ange almost believed it too. "I am sure he has an explanation for that too. The sociopath with magnet powers, not the mutant horrible diseases."

"We should ask. The answer could be quite illuminating. So what else are you going to? Anything run by someone who's not a raving lunatic?"

"This is the only insane speaker I have heard." Marie-Ange admitted. And only this because she had felt like she had to fill up all of her time. "There was a very good speaker on technology to help mutants with their living spaces. Fireproof non-asbestos construction materials, and building faraday cages into the foundations of buildings. It is funny, that speaker also talked about how an energy producer could help the environment, with batteries and volunteer work, but he was not nearly as crazy." And it had been an aside, a brief mention in what was otherwise a topic entirely dedicated to helping mutants.

"You wanna head out? I don't think I can stand much more of this without completely losing my shit." As if he still retained any patience. If he stayed much longer, he'd end up blinding the speaker with all the laser pointing at his eyes.

Marie-Ange glanced up at the speaker, and then at her cell phone's clock, and nodded. "Yes. Please. We should collect Doug and anyone else we know, and we can go find alcohol." A lot of alcohol. So she could erase the memory of ever having been to this seminar. While that risked also erasing memories of the good seminars she had been to, she had taken notes for them. "But not German food. German food makes my stomach unhappy."

"That wouldn't be good for Gaia at all."