Yahoo! Yay! Another chapter to feed my addiction!
They asked us a lot of questions about famous people like Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent. I guess you have them in this world too?”
Wait a minute. Is Clark a reporter for the
Daily Planet? If he is, isn't it kind of a stretch to say that he's famous? I mean, I certainly don't know the reporters of my local newspaper. They're just bylines. Heck, I hardly know if anyone on my local paper has won awards.
I can understand Lucy knowing about Bruce Wayne - he's a playboy billionaire. He'd be in the media for sure. But Clark Kent, a mild-mannered reporter, is famous?
“They didn’t tell us,” Lucy said. “All I know is that they started splitting us up a few hours ago. I saw people being loaded into at least a dozen different trucks.”
Lois grimaced. The moment the government had decided that Superman was real, they’d split the passengers into at least a dozen different locations. If they were careful about just who knew where those locations were, and only talked among themselves when he was being recorded on the other side of the world, it would be hard for even Clark to find the passengers.
Whoa! The government is escalating here!
Lucy reached out to touch Lois’s face and said, “Then why are you so young?”
“I should be an old hag in my early forties you mean,” Lois said dryly.
I can just see Lois pursing her lips at this. Of course, in real life, like just about every actress, Teri Hatcher has probably had a facelift (meow! I'm being catty).
“You just said this was an evil dimension. I was just wondering when everybody turned evil.”
“I didn’t say that,” Lois snapped. “This isn’t the evil dimension.”
“The government arrested everybody and didn’t give us a lawyer or a phone call or anything. That seems pretty evil to me.”
You know, Shayne, the really scary thing about this fic is the mirror you put up to our own world, our own society. What happened to America's ideals? How did we lose them? When did we decide to piss on the Constitution?
Despite the barricades the members of the press surged forward, and the flashes of light as the downed reentry module was photographed over against the backdrop of St. Basil’s cathedral.
I can just imagine. So many photographs are taken there, it's a world-wide recognized icon. It's like the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, Mount Fuji, or Big Ben. So with a very few words, you've painted a very vivid picture in my mind (once again!)
Nikolai gestured urgently. If someone shot at the man in the bright suit with a tank, he’d risk killing the cosmonauts inside. With the press watching, that would be a political nightmare, especially as there was an American on the crew.
Glad to see that the grunt on the spot is keeping his head. Nikolai has a thankless task and is doing a good job with it.
“I am here to help,” he said in flawless Russian.
Clark's languages are getting better! (Remember, his Burmese was heavily accented.) Is this because he's using that Kryptonian part of his brain that controls language fluency? Or did he just travel in Russia before?
Lucy visibly deflated. “Are you sure we aren’t in the evil mirror universe?”
No, Lucy, Lois denied it, but I think you
are in the evil mirror universe. We just don't notice it because we're stuck in it, and the evilness has crept up on us bit by bit. (Like boiling the frog in the pot of water slowly - it doesn't realize the temperature is increasing, so it doesn't jump out and save itself).
Joel was losing them; it was hard enough trying to convince them that something as fantastic as other worlds were real without trying to convince them of the existence of a clearly fictional character. That the character was clearly impossible didn’t make it any easier.
In the "truth is stranger than fiction" department...Exhibit A. (tee hee hee)
“He looks like the comic book character Superman, but we have no idea who he really is, or what abilities he really has. For all we know he took this form just to make us let our guard down. There is no indication that he doesn’t have all sorts of abilities we’ve never even thought of.”
The French ambassador was the first to recover. “Everyone knows…”
Now I'm really wondering what the French ambassador was going to say. "Everyone knows Superman is a comic book character?" "Everyone knows that Superman is a good guy?"
They stopped suddenly and one of them pulled his gun. He could see the faces of the men in front of him suddenly going pale.
When he heard the sounds of knocking on the window behind him, he turned slowly. He was on the second floor and there were no balconies near his window.
Floating in the window was the figure they had been discussing for the last hour.
What followed was mass confusion as everyone raced for the door.
You know, I can just see this happening. Poor Clark! All he wants to do is talk. And he's met by panic. I guess all those ambassadors aren't buying into what the Suit means.
More and more agents were streaming onto the roof through an access panel; now there were thirty men and women standing in front of him, all in suits and all standing at ready. Their faces were impassive, although Clark could hear the sounds of their racing thoughts.
So Clark is telepathic now? Or is he hearing their racing hearts? Or their racing breaths?
But kudos to the Secret Service for facing up to what they have to think might be a super-powered assassin. Watching Clark shrugging off the tank fire was probably pretty alarming.
I'm sure there'll be a whole lot of talk in the Secret Service barracks (or wherever they hang out), because Clark has shown the Superman powers, he's wearing the Superman suit. I'm sure the Secret Service people are as knowledgeable about pop culture as any other Americans. Who doesn't know Superman? Don't you think they'd argue over their beer about whether they should believe in the Suit or not? After all, Superman has been persistently portrayed as a good guy.
But, in their defense, Shayne, you've written very clearly about the way they think and the necessity of their paranoid worldview.
Stepping through the patio doors, Susan watched as both men looked up. The man in the Superman outfit stood up as he saw her emerge.
“Ma’am,” he said. “I’d like to hire your services.”
(guffaw) Even Superman needs a good lawyer! (Another sad comment on today's society).
I'm so looking forward to Clark's conversation with Susan. Jared had better leave, though, so there is lawyer-client confidentiality.
Given the circumstances, it's wise for Clark to hire a go-between - it lets things de-escalate.
And another thing - lawyers like to be paid. Will Lois be taking care of this? Will Clark get some money, somehow, in our world? (I just can't see him doing endorsements, and we know he won't steal. Heck, he was queasy about picking winning lottery tickets.) But maybe Susan will be doing this pro bono? I mean, how many lawyers can say that Superman is their client?
Just some questions now:
Clark and Lois really haven't had time to talk either - they've just been on the run, or doing stuff, ever since Clark revealed his powers to Lois. So I hope the good Clark-Lois talk will come soon. She needs to end up in his world, and I can't see her doing that without her talking to him at length sometime.
And I'm getting a little worried here. The presence of a superhero implies the need for a supervillain to make the story go. Since Clark is fictional in our world,(but now he's real!) isn't there some sort of "story engine", or "mass consciousness", or "completing the underlying archetype", that Superman will follow the plot and fight a supervillain? Superman fights bad guys and protects the Earth - that's what he does.
So, if Clark doesn't get back to his own universe soon, will his presence in our universe be enough to attract a supervillain? That's rather frightening - we don't want anyone like Darkseid or Mongul in our world.
One last thing. This story inspired me to pull out my DVD of "Superman: Doomsday", which is a not-too-bad movie. What's interesting are the bonus features on the disc, specifically the interviews with the comics writers and creators about how they worked up the Doomsday-kills-Superman plotline. They have interviews with people like Mike Carlin, Jerry Ordway, Roger Stern, etc - big names in the comics biz. And they talked about setting up this plotline just to sell comics, and how they had to make it good, because the Superman character is so well-known and important. They're basically playing God with Clark Kent.
So, given the situation, I'm just wondering how the guys at DC Comics and Warner Bros. are feeling about the real Superman flying around. Are they going to make noises about copyright infringement, or are they going to be down on their knees thanking God for the sales boost? And, will Clark get to meet them? (Or did you fill that niche with Jim, the guy from the Superman Museum? I sure hope you get back to him.)
And, if the comics writers/artists meet the real Superman, will they then be blithely able to put the fictional Superman in such terrible peril on a weekly basis? I mean, you can think of bad stuff (bad stuff = drama, bad stuff = a story) happening to a fictional character much more easily than you can consider bad stuff happening to someone that you actually know and like. So, if they actually meet Clark, do you think the comics writers will lose their mojo?
And, if they meet the real Clark Kent/Superman, do you think they'll apologize for everything they've put him through? Because, right now, it's looking like our fiction is Clark's reality. Given what our fiction has done to Clark, we do owe him an apology.