By Miaka Neko (Miaka1164@aol.com)
Disclaimer: Aida belongs to Elton John, Disney, Hyperion Theatricals, etc. Not me. (Not me! And who'd have guessed I'd throw my-sorry). Rent belongs to Jonathan Larson and other cool people (why am I disclaiming Rent at the start of an Aida 'fic? There actually is a reason). Enjoy!
Prologue Part I
Note: If you have extreme Rent-phobia, this part isn't vital to the story, so just skip down to Prologue Part II. However, it does frame the story (much like the actual museum scene in the show)
"Roger!" Mark yelled. The filmmaker was
nearly out of breath by the time he caught up to his friend. The
sign above him read Egyptian Wing. "Where the hell have you been?"
Roger turned around. Why was Roger wearing
all white? Mark suddenly wondered. Hadn't he been wearing a
tank top that morning? "Um, do I know you?" Roger asked.
Mark let out a sigh. "I'm Mark Cohen,
you're Roger Davis, this is a museum, and you left to go out with Mimi
and left me to realize that you left all the equipment for the gig tonight
at the loft."
Roger, or rather the stranger held out his
hand. "Um…I'm Ryan Weiss. Who is this Roger guy anyway?
This is the second time today someone's called me that."
Mark held out his own hand in disbelief, but
didn't have the energy to shake Ryan's-no, Roger's!. Dammit, he hadn't
walked this far for this! "Okay, I just walked through all of the
East Village and back trying to find you, even though that meant I had
to walk past Maureen four times-four! Please, just a little bit of
gratitude here!"
"Are you okay?" Roger asked. "Here."
He took out his driver's license. The profile matched Roger's exactly,
but the name was as Roge-uh, Ryan claimed. Mark looked awkwardly
up at Ryan, unsure of what to say. From the heat in his face he was
sure he was turning some very interesting shades of red. "Um, you
wouldn't happen to know someone named Mimi, would you?"
"Well, yeah, she lives with me-" Ryan met
him with a strange look. "Um, not like that, Roger is my roommate
and Mimi lives with Roger-and so does our friend Collins. It's uh…not
what you think."
"Well if you see her, could you apologize
to her for me?" Uh-oh, Mark thought. "I think I was a bit rude
to her when I told her to stop hanging on me. She thought I was this
Roger guy too."
"Sure…" Mark mumbled. Mark knew the
Davis family, and they had mentioned nothing about Roger having a twin
who got separated at birth. "Too weird," he said under his breath.
Ryan looked down at his watch. "Sorry,
I have to go, there's a film starting downstairs. Hope you find your
friend!"
"Hey!" Mark yelled. "Did Mimi say where
she was going?"
"No, but I saw her with her boyfriend later
on. It must have been that Roger guy."
"Thanks!"
"There you are," Mark grumbled. At least
this one was wearing a tanktop.
Roger looked up from the Egyptian weapons
exhibit. "Mark, what are you doing here?"
"Trying to find you," Mark said, leaning against
the sign on the case which said 'do not lean on the glass.' "You
do realize that you left all your equipment at the loft, right?"
"Well, yeah, I wasn't planning on hauling
it through my date with Mimi. Why?"
Fuck, Mark mouthed. "Because I haven't
done anything since 9 except to find you. I had to walk past Maureen
twice-twice!"
"And you know you enjoyed it," Roger smirked.
"Thanks anyway. Besides, now you get to enjoy the pleasures of Ancient
Egypt."
After I parted with my precious $6.50, Mark
thought. "Right now I think I liked you better when you still hated
the world," Mark said grunted. "What happened to Mimi?"
"She said she left what she was going to wear
tonight at Maureen's. Women."
"Wome-Whoh, shit!" Mark yelled.
"What?" Roger asked, looking up.
"That…that woman…" Mark pointed to a glass case
containing a statue of a female pharaoh. "Doesn't she look like Maureen?"
"A little," Roger said, looking up.
"Whoh, you're right. You should tell Maureen, maybe she can incorporate
being a descendant of pharaohs into her next performance."
Mark reached into the pocket of his pants
and pulled out his wallet. "Hey, do you think if I sent my mother
a postcard I could get out of calling her for a while?"
Roger thought about it. "Maybe, but
you know your mother." He looked down at an inscription of one of
the artifacts. "Historians guess that whoever died here must have
had some importance, considering how far it was buried under Egyptian sands-who
the hell writes this stuff, anyway? And what is this thing?"
"It's a tomb, moron," Mark said. The
museum needed to learn how to turn off the air conditioning. It was
November, and Mark was freezing.
"The inhabitants were most likely buried alive?"
Roger asked dubiously as he read the inscription further. "Owch.
You'd have to do something pretty bad to have that happen."
"Yeah, but what if you didn't?" Mark suddenly
asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, let's say if you walk down Avenue A,
you get buried in a tomb. But if you walk down Avenue B, you get
the girl of your dreams."
"Well, you could always move out of the East
Village-"
"Seriously, though. Dying in a tomb
couldn't have been the only way for those people. I mean, if they
had done just one thing differently, what would have happened?"
Roger shrugged. "With a little bit of
luck, they wouldn't have gotten buried in a tomb. Are you feeling
okay, Mark?"
"Yeah, I think so. It's 6 already, we
should get to the gig."
"Who actually buys this stuff?" Roger asked
as he looked at a pair of Eye of Horus earrings.
"The evil corporations of the world automatically
assume that if they put crap out there we'll buy it. According to
Collins, at least. Take McDonald's, for example. So, which one should
I get?"
Roger dubiously rotated the postcard rack.
"Hmm, what about the Egyptian Wing?"
Mark shrugged. "I looked, but I didn't
really see anything of the stuff we had seen. Wait, here's a flower
vase." He picked up a postcard. "It's worth a shot-aww, shit."
"What?" Roger asked.
"I dropped my wallet," Mark groaned.
"I'll meet you at the gig, okay?"
"I don't mind waiting, you know." Roger said.
"Besides, I think I'm going to get the earrings for Mimi."
"You're going to be late," Mark warned.
"Besides, I think I left it on the Egyptian wing and that's on the third
floor. It'll take too long." And I really don't want to watch
you and Mimi make out for any longer than I had to.
"Fine," Roger said as Mark put back the postcard
and walked off. "Later!"
Mark took back his thoughts almost as soon
as he had thought them. Mimi wasn't just Roger's girlfriend, he was
Mark's friend as well. But nothing more than that. No, he wasn't
jealous of Roger. Mark sighed. So why do I hate everyone so
much lately?
It must have been by the Maure-pharaoh statue,
Mark thought. Of course, that's where I looked to see if I had any
money for a postcard. He looked around. That was where he had
left his wallet, but where was the statue?
"There," Mark said, seeing his wallet on the
ground. Thank God, he thought. He was low enough on cash
as it was.
"Hey, is that yours?" a security guard next
to him asked.
"Yeah, sorry," Mark said, showing his license.
"I dropped it on the way in." He looked up to find himself looking
at the weapon's exhibit-except it seemed larger than before. "Hey…what
happened to the statue of the female pharaoh?"
The security guard gave him a strange look.
"What are you talking about?" he asked. "We have some Ramses stuff,
but the Cleopatra exhibit doesn't come in until next month."
"You know, it was the one next to the tomb-"
"What tomb?"
Mark looked around the room. The tomb
was gone, along with the statue. "Holy shit…" he said.
"Please don't swear, sir-"
Mark didn't hear him as he walked towards
the area where the tomb and statue had once been, right next to the weapons
exhibit. There was now only some information about the pharaohs of
that time. "I think I just walked down Avenue B."
Suddenly, the world was swirling together,
getting dark…
Mark's vision was gone by the time he passed
out.
Sorry for the extensive Rent crossover, but somebody needed to realize
that things had been changed so I figured it might as well be Mark instead
of Random Person A. The next part will be exclusively Aida-this and
the end of the story are about as much Rent that you're going to see.
Did anyone get my actor humor regarding the Radames reincarnation and Roger
(as well as Maureen and Amneris?) Umm…please review? Tell me
what you think!
