Fic: "The Metropolis Story..." Part II...

[reg...@aol.com]

“The Metropolis Story…”

Archived at the Buffy Rebecca verse, www.buffyrebecca.com./Metropolis.html
You might want to take a gander at the Cicelyverse page to get a
handle on the Cicely Addams material... www./buffyrebecca.com/Cicelypg.html

Disclaimer: All BTVS characters remain the property of Joss Whedon,
Mutant Enemy, and all other owner/creators of the Buffy the Vampire
Slayer series...

Summary: Poet/Champion turned reporter/Champion (the vampire thing was
involuntary) for the second least respectable news organization in
Metropolis, William Soames Walthrop is assigned the job of uncovering
the mysterious silence of a famed, deceased silent film star of the
great film inspired by the greatest city on Earth. Both the other
reporter/Champion and other reporter/seedy investigator of things
mysterious in town hate his guts.

Part II…

“Mr. White?...”

Raising his glasses with a grunt, editor-in-chief Perry White regarded
his supplicant…

Clark Kent, ace reporter for the leading Metropolis news organ, the
Daily Planet, an amazing example of the power of suggestion…It being
impossible for any objective person to find this hulking, handsome
fellow as anything less than “Don Draper”-level material, yet all
acquainted with him accepting the young reporter’s self-portrayal as a
rather mild-mannered, rather ingenuous, even geeky sort, though for
all that a brilliant and rising journalist. All except a very few in
the know, either through love, friendship, or enmity…

Mr. White not being one of them…He frowned at the nervous young man…
Still wet behind the ears for all his efforts…Though undeniably a
promising reporter…The most promising of the current lot…

Not that that was saying much in this age of Internet twaddle and
fluff passing as journalism…Just to find a reporter willing to do some
leg work and able to write a coherent sentence now seemed to be taken
as the Second Coming…

And, for the moment, this particular cub had failed him…At least in
anticipation of the enemy’s efforts if not in the work itself…

“I assume you know we were scooped by INS again, Kent?!...” he eyed
the reporter…

God, get some contacts one of these days, kid…He regarded the heavy-
framed glasses the young man now fumbled with…

“I’ve heard that, sir…On the alien conspiracy story?...”

“That’s the one…” White glared… “Nice of you to read up on it now
that’s too late…
Kent?!...You are aware that it’s a part…A big part…Of a good
reporter’s job to keep up on what the competition is doing…”

“It doesn’t seem like much of a real story, sir…” Kent tried…

“The Mayor’s wife…The Commissioner’s wife…Both possessed and used by
the terrorists, nearly adding their husbands and half the city to
their cause, left in comas?...That doesn’t sound like a story to
you…?!!”

“Well, sir…Aliens?...Jellyfish puppet masters controlling public
officials’ family members?...I mean, it sounds like most of the stuff
INS puts out…”

“Except that the facts remain…The two ladies were affected…The city
was in danger…And one Walthrop not only saved the day and these two
prominent ladies but scooped us!...”

“Well, the Mayor’s office denies the story…And NASA hasn’t said a word
since they collected specimens…”

“Kent?!...NASA collected specimens…People saw them collecting
specimens…People saw the Mayor’s wife demand Metropolis surrender to
their kind…That is a story, whether the government admits to it or not…
Kid, what do I have to do to teach you the ropes of this
business?!...”

“Sorry, Mr. White…Do you want me to follow up?...”

“Is there still a story?...Kent?...”

“Well…The two women are still in comas, sir…”

“And…?”

“And NASA and the mayor’s office haven’t admitted to the cause of
their behavior and injuries…”

“And…Therefore…” falsely patient smile…Wave of hand…

“There’s still a story…” Kent nods…

“Very good…” frown… “Now, don’t you think someone from our institution
should follow-up on your fine intuitive stroke?...”

“Uh, yes, sir…”

“Wonderful…But it’s not you…”

“Sir?...”

“Walthrop, Kent…Walthrop is your competition…Olsen or Lois can do the
follow-up, under your overall supervision as chief reporter…But your
task is to keep your eye on the competition while your people see what
juice is left in the original story…I want you on Walthrop 24/7…Where
he goes, what he does…”

“But…There are other stories to ferret out, Mr. White…”

“Oh?...Such as…?”

“Well…The city council scandal…”

“Did my city reporter take a vacation?...Kent…If you find the story of
a lifetime along the way, you call me and I’ll put Lois on Walthrop’s
tail…Until then, you are his shadow…He doesn’t breathe without Clark
Kent knowing about it, cell in hand to report it to this paper?...”

But he doesn’t breathe…Kent sighs inwardly…

“Do you understand me, Kent?...”

“Yes, sir…”

“Excellent…You can go now, Kent…”

“Yes…Uh…Thanks, sir…”

“Door, Kent…”

“Yes, sir…” closes door…

Lovely…Following that blonde freak of nature about the city till God
knows when?...On stories that I’m embarrassed to think could ever end
up in the Planet…?

Even if some are true…

While real news is left to Lois, Jimmy, and even those idiots at
Fox?...

Geesh, if I’d just been able to confirm a vampiral nature at our first
contact that night and killed him then and there before his friend got
word out about him and his darned soul…Instead now I not only have him
competing with me on protecting the city from Evil, he’s my up-and-
coming rival in the news wars…

And of course Lois likes him and that swing between sensitive and
swaggering manner…

And that #$#@! accent…And that leather jacket…

God, of all rivals…Another vampire hero with soul…Who lives in
Metropolis, thanks to that brooding idiot in LA…

And soul he recovered on his own…For love…Even I can’t top that…

“Hey, Clark…Perry have anything to tell you?...” a young fellow in
rather fresh-out-of-college preppy suit and sweater vest combo,
photographer/cub reporter Jimmy Olsen rushes up to him…A troubled Kent
not aware of his presence at first…

Thank God Lois doesn’t know anything about his other worldly side…
I think…

And he does have a girl…Though…Sorry, Mom…

“Hmmn? …Oh, hi, Jimmy…”

“Anything from on high?...”

Damn it…It’s unrequited…They say…

Lovely…A poet hero who freed himself from a dreadful curse for love of
a woman who doesn’t return his affections…Which he nobly accepts…

And he’s a first-rate reporter…Even if he works for the second least
reputable news outlet in town…

Damn it…

Sorry, Mom…

“Yes…Uh, Perry wants you and Lois to follow up on the INS story about
the Mayor’s wife…The aliens?...”

“The mind-controlling jellyfish?...Really?...Lois won’t be too happy
about that, Clark…You know they were running her for ten minutes when
we all went into that warehouse after Walthrop phoned you…”

“It’s how he wants it, Jimmy…Not for us to question…Besides, the
aliens or whatever they were, are dead…So you can tell Lois she
doesn’t need to worry…”

“Worry about what?...” a female voice, silky in tone yet firm…

***
“Tea, William?...” Margaret offered…Setting down a tray on the
battered desk…

“Yes, thanks…” William smiled, taking the proffered cup…Repressing the
urge to stare into that sweet face…Just to see if anything…

No…For God and poor Dru’s sake, leave it be…She’s fine…There are no
clouds there, apart from the normal misery of human existence…Don’t
argue yourself into becoming her second Angelus by killing with good
intentions…Let her be…

“And coffee for you, Karl…” Kolchak nodding, with what was for him,
gallant pleasantry…
Switching from leaning in his new chair at dangerous angle to sitting
up…

“Thanks, Maggie girl…”

Of course there is that mash on me…That’s a bit worrisome…Will
thought…

But it’s only natural, really…She liked me enough to choose me 120
years ago, why shouldn’t her human self find me attractive…

Just have to hope Angel’s docs and occults got everything right…Before
he sent her off into the world to sink or swim on her human lonesome…

What a guy…He and Buffy should open a “tough love” clinic together...

“All set?...” Margaret smiled at him… “I know you prefer just lemon…”

“Yes, please…And fine…Though if you’ve any of those cookies you made
yesterday…”

“Always…” she beamed… “Just a mo…Karl?...”

“Just leave me the plate, kiddo…I’ll clean you out…” he waved…

Dru and her perfect teas…Well, at least Miss Edith is no longer
invited…Nor a bleeding corpse or turned victim…

“Will?...” Will blinked at Margaret eyeing him…

“Thanks, love…” he took the plate and set it down in front of Kolchak…
Who as good as his word, promptly grabbed three large cookies…

Margaret hesitating…Clearly hoping for a bit more from him…

Oh, love…Not a good idea, even if my heart weren’t elsewhere engaged…

Bit too cruel, bastards…Will thought, addressing the unresponsive
Powers That Be…

“Thanks, Maggie…Keep Tony and the other wolves away, would you?...”
Kolchak addressed her…She nodding with smile, closing door as she
left…

“Rather wish Liam had thought to provide a boyfriend…” Will noted,
staring at the closed door…

“No interest?...” Kolchak eyed him…

“Come on, Karl…” he frowned back… “You know as well as Liam did when
he arranged my gig here, I love her, in the best of ways…But even if I
felt that particular sort of feeling for her, I wouldn’t endanger her
happiness by pressing things…”

One thing to do a quickie with Harmony, career girl vamp and Wolfram
Hart mole in our ranks, to check out the ole equipment…Quite another
to selfishly risk the sanity and happiness of a…Yes, a dear and
innocent, friend…

“She’ll find someone, a sweet kid like that…” Kolchak noted…

Hopefully, at last, a decent someone, if she wishes…Though…Will
thought…I can at least be glad the genuine feeling was there for a
time…I can try to tell myself my other self
helped, not tormented, in just one case…

Until many years later…

“Ok…So?...What do we have?...” Assistant editor/chief reporter
Kolchak, rather pleased with his new chair, (even if it was thirty
years old and probably rat-gnawed, judging from the marks), leaned
back to eye ‘his’ ace reporter…

At last I get a bit of recognition, as well as an office and the first
new (to me) furniture I’ve seen in 20 years…

And, even the good chance of perhaps scooping my own star reporter…

After all only one of us can go out in daylight for all his restored
soul jazz…

“Our subject…” William pulled out a glossy studio portrait of a young
blonde-haired actress in 20s era dress… “Ms. Brigitte Helm, actress,
star…”

“Nice…” Kolchak nodded at the portrait…

Will looking at the portrait carefully…

You know…I never quite realized…

Not exactly Summers, but…

“And here she is at work in her greatest triumph…As Maria/Futura in
‘Metropolis’…” Will pulls out two more photos from the heavy envelope
he’d placed on Kolchak’s battered (but mine, all mine) desk…

Ms. Helm in heavy, plain dress looking solemnly at camera, an
earnestly soulful expression…

And Ms. Helm in same dress, slyly leering at camera…

“She’s good…Or was…” Kolchak eyed the shots… “Good and evil in one
performance, eh?...”

“More than that, Karl…She played Hitler in several scenes…Before he
was Hitler…Based on what the director, Lang had seen of him…When she
addresses the workers as false Maria to rile them up…Unbelieveable…”

“Hmmn…Ok…Take your word for it…You saw her, after all…”

“I was on set once during production…And I saw the premiere…” Will
nodded…

“And now the mystery…After ‘Metropolis’ makes the kid a star at 19,
she dominates German film until 1933 when the Nazis take over and by
1935, she’s so fed up with their tentacles round the German film
industry that she gives it all up and leaves…”

“Worried about Goebbels’ tentacles too, I’d say…And she had married a
Jewish doctor…And stuck by him…” Will, tentatively taking up a photo…
Leering false Maria…
Saint and monster, all in one…Those lessons poor ole Dru gave her in
that dungeon certainly worked…

“Brave girl…” shrug… “But…What’s the mystery?...She took her husband
and ran for Switzerland and never looked back…”

“But she never worked in films again…Never agreed to a single
interview…Not even long after the war when Lang and ‘Metropolis’ were
considered master and masterpiece…” Will tapped the photo before him…

“And Tony Vincenzo figures this is a mystery that’s worth pulling his
only worthwhile reporting team off real news?...”

“I think he figures it’ll keep us out of trouble…Especially if we have
to do the research in Europe…Still…It is a mystery…” William pondered
the photographs spread out before him on the desk…

God…What is this fatal attraction blondes have for me?...That certain
type of blonde…

Not twins but they could be sisters…

Kolchak, staring as well…

“You meet this girl?...Back then…?”

“Yes…” William nodded… “The time I visited the set…And ten years
later…”

“Any?…You know…” shrug… “Anything I should know about?...”

“We didn’t shag if that’s what you mean…”

“But you really do think there’s a mystery to this?...”

“There was…” hard stare…

“Slayers don’t give up their profession that often…Even when they’re
movie stars…And I’ve never heard tell of one who was allowed to retire
and live to ripe old age…Their Council puts Humanity’s safety well
ahead of any regard for the life of an individual Slayer…”

“Except…?” Kolchak eyed the photos…

“Except…” Will touched the nearest photo gently…

***

[reg...@aol.com]