(This is in response to a challenge requesting me to use more dialogue)
"So what is space-folk exactly?"
Adrienne tapped her breaks to the rhythm of the song playing, her eyes were fixated on the constellation Taurus to her left. "You're listening to it!"
Camden didn't know what to say about it, which is why he had asked for clarification. This seemed more bouncy, upright bass and brass instruments carrying an upbeat melody.
"Sounds like jazz to me."
"Okay, there's a big difference between space-funk and jazz." Adrienne was beginning to turn the music down, so to better explain this genre. A few comets buzzed through the night sky.
"The main difference is the brilliant utilization of--"
"I thought you called it space-folk," Camden interjected, smirking. He had begun to lean on the passenger's door, head propped upon his fist, as to cock his head toward her and best examine her semi-snooty explanation.
"That's what I said. Anyway, this is the difference: jazz is something you just snap your fingers to, or drink coffee to, or take dumps to. This-" she turned up the new song, more like ska with a cello and something like trash cans in the rhythm, "-is space-folk. To someone who doesn't know about it, it may seem to just be some jazzy number."
"It's a jazzy number..."
"Like I said, it may SEEM that way," she was growing defensive. "But this is another animal all-together. You tap your toes to jazz. You screw to space-folk."
"Oh-- I see." He responded sarcastically, though it was only apparent on his face. Her eyes were on the road.
"Exactly. You feel it in the hips instead of the fingertips." She felt like such a poet.
"So you're telling me that you want to screw." He offered, after a moment of silent reverie for the song ending.
Taken-aback, she turned to face him briefly. "Hah! No, no-no. I'm just saying--"
"Well you're just driving the ship right now, I don't see how this music, which is good for having sex to, would be conducive to steering an M-18 class craft." His smirk was apparent in his voice.
With an incredulous shake of the head, she clicked for the radio to come on. Immediately, the interior was flooded with new bulletins. Traffic alerts were loudest.
"Great, still a light-year til the next exit. Do you have smokes?" She turned to him to ask, also looking through her fanny-pack for something to pass the time. In a moment, there was a joint hovered in front of her face, rolled in a vibrant green cellophane.
"You sure you don't wanna screw?" He offered again, almost serious this time, placing the joint between her scaled lips.
"I could jettison you right now, and you wouldn't reach Jupiter's orbit until March. Do you really want that?" She lit the joint, and the rotation began in silence. Well, it would have been silent if the radio hadn't been announcing still:
~~IT IS Eight minutes til the hour and boy-howdee, are we experiencing a heat wave in the high-space tunnels. We're forecasting a bright commute on through the belts of Saturn.
~~THAT'S right Debbie-Don, we're no longer chilling out, we are burning UP! -a terrifically annoying audio effect is inserted- We also have some congestion in the lower belt between exit 603 and 700. Keep all of your lids peeled for a pretty nasty collision in the left lanes--
"Do you think that they'll wait for us?" Adrienne asks, turning down the radio. Through a hot-boxed space-craft, she passes the joint. She could barely make out Camden's cleft pallet and marigold eyes.
"The people in the wreck?" He responds, confused, distracted with smoke-rings.
"Guh, no. The Regulators. I know we won't get there in time for our appointment." Her eyes went down to the scaled patches of her knees, getting worse as they led to her webbed toes.
"Oh, well I guess they would wait for a bit, I don't know how long... I mean, you weren't even sure if you wanted to do this-- we still have time to think." There was a sort of softness in his voice, although the MoonBud was granting him a perpetual smile.
"Yea I know... But we're only getting worse, and like I said before, there's only so many like us." Her fingernails picked at the foam exterior of the steering wheel.
"But alot of people think we look cool. People pay alotta money for mutations like ours. I'm pretty sure there's nothing that could convince me to go pure." He self-consciously started to pet his forearms, luminescent freckles lighting up with an alien blue.
"But you look awesome. I'm just... I don't know. I got the wrong end of the stick. And you know my parents, they're such snobs about purity. They barely let me splice in the vision enhancements when I was fifteen. I don't know..."
"I don't look awesome. I've got the wrong stick altogether! This is just an improvement from what I looked like pure that I may as well quit while I'm ahead."
"You've always looked awesome Camden. You just like attention."
"So you really think I look good?"
"Of course, you look better than a piece of Sun-Rum Cake!" She let out a bit of a laugh. This laugh was joined by Camden's. Soon, there was no stopping them, and the laugh turned into an achoing mess of choking chortles.
"And you're like cool Moon-Frosting on a summer night!" He would shoot back through gasps.
They began to calm down as the traffic moved along some. She could sense his eyes on some part of her.
"Sure you don't wanna screw?"
She turned the music back on, loudly, and began to change lanes for a U-turn. Once again, her eyes followed the constellations for the route home. Comets continued to fizz upon touching the force-field surrounding the high-space ramp.
Camden noticed her gaze, "I can show you stars, babe."
She raised the partition and cut off his oxygen until he passed out, shaking her head with a rather flattered smirk.
"Do you really think that vanity will take this kind of turn in the future, Doc?"
"It's already taking these turns, Jack." The doctor was filling out paperwork for his patent on a few genes which allowed for 'Beautations', or so he referred to them as.
"Changing eye-color, sure... Even hair-color manipulation is a no-brainer-- but this? Scales? Webbing? And you were mentioning fins..."
Doctor Moreauso interrupts him, flicking ink from his pen toward Jack, the assistant.
"Kids are already into body-mod: gauging, subdermal implants, glowing LED freckles. Why not make it more natural?"
"But this isn't exactly natu--"
"Shut it. You'll see, the paychecks will be swelling by next term."
"I guess you're right." Jack rubbed his neck to rid some tension, "I just hope it doesn't get out of hand."
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