Superman Movieverse Forum

Escalation
When the world has got hold of a lie, it is astonishing how hard it is to kill it. You beat it over the head, till it seems to have given up the ghost, and behold! the next day it is as healthy as ever.
Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
British writer and politician (1803 – 1873)

There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one's self on lies and fables.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
German writer (1749 – 1832)

“I cannot believe that people are buying this bunk,” Lois complained as she and Clark stepped out of the elevators onto the newsroom floor. The faked video of Superman visiting her hotel room the night before was all over the news and the internet. And even though the Daily Planet had printed the story about the first video being edited and therefore suspect, it didn’t seem to help.

“I mean, yesterday was bad enough,” Lois said. “But today it’s like I’m the Jezebel that took down their hero.”

“If it makes you feel any better, they’re not too crazy about their hero, either,” Clark said quietly. “The ladies down in the business office are using Superman’s picture for a dart board.”

“You’re joking.”

“I wish I were.”

“This is just ridiculous,” Lois said, waving her hands in frustration. “I simply cannot believe that people are actually buying into this bull.”

As they arrived at Clark’s desk, Lois stopped and stared at the pile of cards and baked goods that covered the desktop. Festive balloons floated above the computer monitor. The people seated nearest the desk smirked then turned away when Lois glared at them.

“What the devil is all this?” Lois demanded.

Clark opened one of the cards. “Um… condolence gifts for me?”

“Homemade fudge?”

Clark shrugged. “The card says it’s from one of the women downstairs.”

“Oh, I see. I eat crow, you get fudge.”

“Half of me gets the fudge, the other half ducks darts,” Clark murmured. “I don’t know how to react to people anymore.”

“Well, I do. I’m tired of being the bad guy, when the real bad guy’s the creep who took that video and spread it all over the airwaves, making an innocent conversation look like something despicable.”

She uncovered the plate of fudge and took a piece. It was almost to her mouth when Clark grabbed her hand.

“It doesn’t smell right,” he murmured.

“This whole thing doesn’t smell right,” Lois complained.

“No, I mean the fudge doesn’t smell right,” Clark said. He took the piece from her hand and put it back on the plate. “In fact, most of this doesn’t smell right.”

“Poison?” Lois asked.

Clark nodded then grabbed the wastepaper can from under his desk. He dumped the baked goods and candies into it and tied the liner closed.

“This makes no sense at all. I can understand targeting me. But why go after you?” Lois asked.

“Anyone who knows anything about us would know I’d share the goodies with you, especially the chocolate.”

“They’d also know you’d share them with the newsroom and with Jason,” Lois said. “This is way out of control.”

“Lois, Clark!” Perry called out from his office door. He beckoned them to come to his office and shut the door behind them. Polly and Jimmy were already in the office.

Perry nodded to the television monitor on the credenza. The video of Superman’s alleged late-night visit was on the screen. “What the hell is this?” Perry demanded.

Clark answered. “That wasn't from last night. First, that’s not the Midtown Hilton and that’s where we spent the night under the name of Mister and Missus Charles King. I have the receipt. And second, even if Superman had decided to visit Lois last night, assuming he was that stupid, the rooms on the thirty-third floor of the Midtown Hilton do not have usable balconies or sliding glass doors.”

“It’s a very good fake,” Jimmy commented.

Clark was silent for a long moment, staring at the screen. “The video itself isn’t a fake, but it certainly has been misrepresented,” he said finally. “It was taken about six months ago. I don’t know if it was ever aired. The woman is Carmella Gleason and what you don’t see in the video was that she wasn't alone in the room. There were police officers looking into the abduction of her little girl. Superman was asked to help look for the child. He found her body instead.”

Perry rubbed his hands together, a rare smile on his face. “Jimmy, given what we now know on the provenance of that video, find out everything you can about it – who took it, who had it. Take Meyers with you and confirm that the Kings stayed at the Midtown and the rest of what Clark says about the building is true. Get me photographs. And if the manager can positively ID Clark and Lois as the Kings, so much the better. ”

Perry nodded to the bag still in Clark’s hand. “You didn’t like the goodies the girls downstairs sent up?”

“Maybe I’m a little paranoid with somebody out to get my wife,” Clark said.

Perry nodded. “Polly, you go with Lois down to the police lab and have that stuff checked out,” he ordered.

“And me, sir?” Clark asked.

“Aren’t you supposed to be figuring out what’s going on with Latislan and Podansk? I need something by deadline.”



Clark settled behind his desk in the side office, half listening to the news reports on GNN. The discovery that Richard White had been with the NIA and involved with Margosha Yerikova before her death was disturbing to say the least. But Clark wasn't sure how that related to Mardon and Schenko and the current problems between Latislan and Podansk, or if it was just a bizarre coincidence. And Lana being involved in the whole mess was simply… freakish was the word that came to mind. That photo was taken not long before Pete Ross filed for divorce from her. Clark realized that Pete hadn’t given him the full story of their breakup.

Natalia Korchek, Clark’s temporary assistant, walked into the office with two cups of coffee. She placed one on the desk for him. “Where were Ms. Harper and Ms. Lane going with the gifts the ladies downstairs gave you?” she asked.

“They’re having them checked out,” Clark said absently. “Can’t be too careful, you know. Look, I need you to get down to research and get me everything you can on General Yerik Kasparov and his daughter, especially their murders. It was in early two thousand, February, I think.”

Natalia’s breath hitched and her heart rate jumped.

“Natalia, is there something wrong?”

“Why do you need to know about the General?”

She seemed inordinately tense.

“It’s part of the recent history of the region. That makes it pertinent.”

Clark noticed Brock Thompson’s face come on the TV screen. Outside the office the noise level had dropped as reporters and gofers stopped to watch the news bulletin.

“…With peace talks broken down because of the Superman scandal,” Thompson was saying, “border skirmishes have erupted between Latislan and Podansk. Sources close to both governments say that local missile base commanders have been given the launch codes and are simply awaiting authorization to launch. U.N. observers have been unable to determine whether or not the missiles have nuclear payloads…”

“Go,” Clark ordered Natalia. She simply stood there, staring at the monitor. “Go,” Clark repeated more loudly. After a moment she seemed to shake herself and hurried about of the office. Clark locked the door and closed the blinds.

“We have satellite confirmation that missiles have been launched…” Thompson said.

Clark was out the office window and across the ocean almost before Thompson finished his statement.



Perry White glowered at the TV monitor on the pillar closest to Jimmy Olsen’s desk. Perry wasn't a stranger to war reporting, nor was he oblivious to the fallout of international events on the American public. He had hired his nephew, Richard, to help bolster the international section of the paper based on his experience in analyzing the causes and effects of seemingly innocuous events as they played out on the international stage.

Perry was annoyed that, with the exception of Clark, no one on his staff had been paying any attention to the ongoing events in that part of the world, and Clark had only been made aware of the problems because of his other job. But Perry had noticed that even Clark seemed surprised at how quickly a relatively minor political squall had escalated into a storm of hurricane proportions. The obviously deliberate smear campaign against Superman wasn't helping any.

“…Wait a minute...” Thompson was saying on the screen. “Sources now say an unidentified object is streaking to intercept one of the missiles...”

Thompson listened to something coming over his ear bud. After a moment he looked at the camera again. “Apparently, that unidentified object was Superman. He has intercepted the first missile and is apparently heading off to do the same to the others...”

“All right, Superman!” Jimmy crowed.

The reaction from the rest of the newsroom crew was more sober. Jimmy ducked his head in embarrassment for his outburst then turned back to his monitor.

“Bingo,” Connie Meyers called out from her own desk. Perry waited for her to continue.

“Just talked with the night manager of the Midtown Hilton,” Connie went on. “He has confirmed that Lois and Clark Kent spent the night there under the names of Mister and Missus Charles King. He recognized them from the news reports. He also confirms the video being aired of Superman on the balcony did not happen at his building. In fact, senior management has been on to GNN to get them to pull the video and make a public apology for misrepresenting their establishment.”

“So, what’s the hold up with GNN?” Perry asked.

“Pilar Johnson, Burns’s producer, wants to talk to Burns before taking any action. However, Burns isn’t answering her phone and nobody seems to know where she is.”

“In the meantime, Lois and Superman are left twisting in the wind until GNN grows some?” Perry grated.

“I’m starting to dig into Burns’s background,” Connie said. “Apparently she was low man on the totem pole, covering the dog shows, fluffy stuff. But she was trying to get her foot in on heavier news and may have been bucking up against the old guard over there.”

“Faking a story isn’t exactly a smart way to break into the big leagues,” Perry commented.

“She had to have known she’d get caught,” Jimmy added. “Clark was mistaken, by the way. That video ran six months ago – January fourteenth, to be exact, on Barry Dunning’s show. The Gleasons sued Dunning, claiming Dunning’s people knowingly endangered their child by airing Superman’s involvement in the case. Dunning settled out of court and the details of the settlement are sealed.”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Perry murmured. “Anything more on the witnesses to Lois’s alleged infidelities with Superman?”

Connie grinned at him. “The supposed housekeeper is an illegal by the name of Benita Lopez. She didn’t know the street Lois’s house is on much less what color it is, or what the kitchen looks like. The woman claiming to be the nanny is one Galina Kalikova – a Russian hooker with police records on two continents, maybe three. She didn’t even know the name of her alleged charge. Lois’s attorney is looking into pressing charges against both of them and against the idiot who decided to go live with the interviews without verifying the facts.”

“Anything to link them together?” Perry asked.

“Still digging,” Connie told him. “My gut says neither of them would have come up with this B.S. on their own.”

“Keep me posted,” Perry ordered. He looked around and spotted Tom Weaver settling in at his desk.

“Weaver, what’s happening on the Gunderson case?” Perry yelled across the room.

“He’s expected to make a full recovery,” Weaver said. “But the cops are playing this one real close to the vest. All they’re saying is that it’s too early in the investigation for them to say much beyond the fact that Lois was never considered a viable suspect.”

“Can we print that?” Perry demanded.

“Yeah,” Weaver said. “I got that much from them. Plus, the MPD has their A-team on the case, at Mister Wayne’s insistence.”

“An attack on a journalist is not something to be taken lightly,” Perry reminded him. “I think that’s something our illustrious publisher appreciates.”



“Explain to me, again, why Perry sent you along with me?” Lois asked her companion, Polly Harper, as they approached the squad room that belonged to Bill Henderson’s elite unit in MPD’s downtown headquarters. Despite Lois’s best efforts, she hadn’t been able to lose Polly.

“Believe me, I’d rather be chasing down my own leads instead of baby sitting you,” the older woman groused. “The powers that be don’t think you should be out and about alone, and Perry agreed with them. The way they figure it, you were lucky you had an iron clad alibi when Ralph got shot. You may not be so lucky next time.”

“So I end up with a partner I don’t want,” Lois grumbled.

“I thought I was the one who ended up with a partner I didn’t want,” Polly retorted as she pushed open the door to the Special Investigations office. The noise and barely controlled chaos always reminded Lois of the newsroom on a heavy news day. Today was no different. Detectives were seated at their desks, some on phones, some talking to people Lois wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley even with Clark by her side. Still others were working on reports and chatting with one another.

Lois and Polly were given perfunctory nods as they passed through the crowded room heading for Henderson’s office.

Henderson was standing in the doorway as though he’d been forewarned of their arrival. “Lane and Harper,” he grumbled. “What have I done to warrant seeing both of you?” He eyed the plastic bag in Lois’s hand. “Are you resorting to bribes now?”

Lois shook her head. “These were left on Clark’s desk this morning, supposedly consolation gifts. Maybe Clark’s getting as paranoid as I am because of this smear campaign, but he said they didn’t smell right. Mister White thought it was better to be safe than sorry.”

Henderson beckoned one of his officers over to take charge of the bag with instructions to run the contents over to the labs to be analyzed. Then he brought the two reporters into his office.

“So, what really brings you here, Lois?” Henderson asked.

“Do I have to have an ulterior motive?” Lois asked.

“You always do.”

Lois sighed. After all her years of covering the City Beat, Henderson knew her too well. “Polly’s covering the Gunderson case,” Lois explained, hoping he wouldn’t ask for more details. “I thought, since I’m involved, I’d help out a little.”

Polly snorted.

Henderson settled into his chair, a wry smile on his face.  “My team wouldn’t even be on this except that your publisher is convinced that the incident with Gunderson is a lot more than it seems. The chief and I agree with him.”

“Are there any developments in the Gunderson case that you can tell us about?” Polly asked.

Henderson sighed. “We have identified his assailant, a woman named Lana Lang,” he said. He was addressing Polly but his eyes were on Lois. “She’s Senator Ross’s ex-wife and a former high-school classmate of Ms. Lane’s husband.”

Polly gave a low whistle. “Any ideas on her motive?”

“We have ideas but we really won’t know anything until we talk to her.”

“Is an arrest imminent?” Polly asked.

Henderson shook his head. “Despite asking the State Department to put a hold on her passport, she managed to skip the country. We’ve sent a notice along to Interpol that she’s a person of interest to us, but since we’re not looking at a capital crime, our request won’t be a real high priority for them.”

Polly whistled again. “Senator Ross’s ex has skipped the country…” She gave Lois a speculative look. “And Clark knows said ex-wife. Is there more I should know about?”

Lois shrugged. “Clark dated her in high school.” It was going to come out eventually any way.

Polly nodded sagely. “So shooting Ralph may have been a way to get back at you for whatever?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so,” Lois admitted. “But there is the possibility she knew Richard before he came to Metropolis.”

Henderson gave her a surprised look.

“Clark found a society photo from about seven years ago - Lana Lang and Richard, with their respective escorts, at a diplomatic reception,” Lois explained.

There was a knock on the office door and Emily Douglass stuck her head in. “Sex Crimes just sent us a heads up. Alice Burns was found dead in her apartment in North Bridge.”

“Isn’t Alice Burns the one…?” Polly began.

“The one who aired a six month old video clip claiming it was Superman visiting me last night,” Lois completed for her. “Connie’s looking into that and so is legal.” Lois turned to Douglass. “You said Sex Crimes was called in?”

Lois caught the look Douglass gave Henderson. The press was not included among Douglass’s favorite class of people. Henderson nodded permission.

Douglass shrugged and answered, “Her producer found her and called it in to the precinct. The vic was tied down, raped and strangled. It almost looks like the work of the High Rise Strangler except, apparently, Burns didn’t swing that way.”

Lois nodded. She’d covered the High Rise Strangler cases. Seven years before there had been a string of brutal rapes in expensive high-rise condos and apartments. Then five women were found raped and murdered. DNA as well as modus operandi had linked all the cases together, but nothing else had given any clues to the identity of the perpetrator. The killer wasn't in any of the DNA databases under a name, real or assumed, which meant he had never been arrested and had his DNA sampled. But what had been truly frightening about the five murders was the fact that, like the rapes before them, there had been no sign of struggle, no sign of forced entry. Apparently the women had invited the killer into their homes despite warnings that a serial rapist was on the loose and apparently targeting single professional women.

“So you don’t think Burns might have simply picked a guy up in a bar and invited him up to her apartment?” Lois asked.

Douglass shook her head. “According to her producer, Burns wasn't much into guys. Maybe that’s why she was out to trash Superman.”

“So, if Burns didn’t invite the killer into her apartment, how did he get in? I assume she had an alarm,” Polly said.

“Maybe the person she did invite in let in the killer,” Lois suggested.

Henderson grinned at her. “It’s not too late to join the force.”

Lois shrugged. He’d made the offer before, more than once, and she’d turned him down more than once. “Cops can’t put the fear of God, or the press, into the mayor,” she said.

Henderson chuckled and waved the women out of his office. Lois turned to leave with Polly but Henderson called her back.

“Shut the door,” he ordered. Lois gave him a curious look but complied.

Henderson opened a desk drawer and pulled out a leather case. He pushed it across the desk top toward her.

Lois unzipped the case and opened it. Her eyes widened - nestled in the case was a thirty-five caliber automatic.

“I know you know how to use it,” Henderson said. “I’ll feel a lot better if you can defend yourself.”

“Henderson, I’m a seventh dan black belt and you know who I’m married to.”

“And I know he’s trying to sort through that mess over in Eastern Europe,” Henderson told her. “Which means he’s not here to keep an eye on you. And we both know Burns’s murder isn’t random.”

Lois studied the gun. It was a tempting offer. She zipped the case closed and pushed it back to Henderson. “A journalist with a gun is called a combatant.”

“I thought that was just in war zones.”

“And you don’t think someone’s declared war on Superman and me?”

“I think someone’s trying to, and I think Burns’s murder means that the other side is losing control. They’re decompensating and that means they’re going to get more and more dangerous.”

“Bill, we don’t know if it’s one person who started the smear campaign and everybody else just jumped on the bandwagon or if it’s actually a conspiracy. Burns had to have known she was going to get caught misrepresenting that video. That would have meant an end to any hopes she had of a news career, anywhere. And being sued by the Daily Planet wouldn’t do GNN any favors, either.”

Henderson nodded thoughtfully. “You’re sure you don’t want the gun?”

“Are you sure you trust me with it?”

“When’s the last time Maggie Sawyer took you to Roland’s Neck?” Henderson asked, referring to the MPD’s Firearms and Tactics division near Pelham Inlet Park in Pelham.

“Just before she left for Gotham,” Lois admitted. Captain Maggie Sawyer had been one of Lois’s closest friends in the MPD until the officer left to head up the Special Crimes Unit for the Gotham City Police Department. That was four years ago.

“Then it’s past time,” Henderson said. “We can check out the crime scene on our way.”

Lois’s eyes narrowed as she regarded him. “You know I’m not covering that story, not to mention that I’m the dreaded press, so what gives?”

“I’m trying to improve the MPD’s public image by being nice to the press?” He grinned at her.

She stared at him, not buying into it.

His expression turned more solemn. “Big Blue is busy and I figure you need somebody watching your back right now. I don’t want to be the guy who tells your husband that some squirrel took you out.”



It had taken far longer than Superman wanted, or expected, to deal with the missile threat in both Podansk and Latislan.

He managed to intercept and disable the missiles that had been launched. Luckily these particular missiles hadn’t been nuclear, but even conventional explosives would have been disastrous had they reached their targets – the opposition’s capital cities.

Superman was able to determine the missiles’ launch points and quick bursts of heat vision disabled the missile controls on both sides. It was only a temporary solution, but it would at least buy the diplomats time to get both sides talking.

Both sets of generals howled in outrage at Superman’s interference but he quickly determined the first launch had come from Latislan.

“How dare you interfere in our internal affairs!” General Orloff, Navance’s chief of staff screamed when Superman landed at his office in the capital of Latislan.

“I dare when you target innocents,” Superman responded. “Other nations’ innocents. What you do to your own people I might despise, but there’s not much I can do about it. But we both know there is nothing that war could ever achieve that you could not better achieve without it.”

“That’s very humorous, coming from a man who flies into women’s bedrooms at night,” Orloff scoffed. “You’re no better than a common politician, all talk and no substance, taking advantage of the people’s trust to have your way.”

“So you take your disenchantment with me out on your neighbors?”

Orloff glowered at him then dropped his eyes. “The first launch was a technical error,” he said softly. “His Excellency had not authorized an attack, as yet. He is meeting with President Kasparov as we speak. He still has hopes that an equitable solution can be arrived at, no thanks to you.”

Superman was surprised to hear that the two leaders were meeting – after they had chosen to break off talks due to the smear campaign, the President of the United States had offered to mediate. He was turned down as well. “If I cannot trust Superman, how can I trust a cowboy?” Kasparov had said with Navance nodding beside him.

“At least they’re talking,” Superman said. “Do you mind telling me who managed to talk them into it?”

“An American, Randolph Goode.”