a "Smallville" story
by Merlin Missy
Copyright 2002
PG
Warner, DC, Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster., etcetera etcetera etcetera.
Happy Birthday, Tara! (And thanks for the beta!) A special thanks to Amy who suggested I write something funny. This fell out a few hours later.
Chloe hated this part of her job. Most of her occasional staffers did her the courtesy of subbing their stories on floppy, or at least e-mailing them. Then it was just a matter of content editing and spell-checking before she could begin the far more entertaining process of building the paper around their words. Not everyone was with the program, though.
Take Doug.
He was a decent writer, and eager to please. If Chloe wanted someone to report on the excitement to be found at chess club, Doug would sit in on their meetings and faithfully write up the high points. If she wanted someone else to attend the student council meeting so she could go dig up the real stories around town, Doug's notes would be stellar. And handwritten. Always handwritten. His typing speed had last been clocked at five words per minute. Chloe had a choice: drop him from the staff or transcribe his stories, and he was just useful enough that she had opted for typing duty. For now.
Other than herself, the Torch office was empty of people this afternoon. Around her, the computers hummed to themselves almost inaudibly as they chugged through their background programs, including the SETI screen saver Clark had loaded on them last week. Sometimes, when she was working late to get an edition out on time, she wondered what their electronic thoughts were. This was Smallville, after all. Even computers might dream of bigger things.
Chloe paused in her typing. A chill ran through her.
Computers might dream. Maybe even of dominating their human masters, taking over like in the old "Terminator" movies that she wouldn't admit to liking. The chill grew, and she took a sip of her coffee. She'd been spared any prolonged exposure to the meteorites, and clairvoyance did not run in her family as far as she knew, so why was she suddenly having premonitions of evil?
"Hi Chloe!"
She jumped in her seat and snapped her head around. The movement sent a sharp pain up her neck that she was sure would bother her now for the rest of the day.
The girl was strikingly beautiful, and somehow familiar. Her healthy red hair flowed to her tiny waist as she smiled. Her eyes were the brightest shade of blue Chloe could remember seeing. The word "cerulean" popped into her head, which was odd as it wasn't a word in her vocabulary. The girl wore a black leather miniskirt with black tights, a matching tank top, and a faded jean jacket. Chloe's sense of foreboding did not diminish.
"Um, hi. Have we met?"
The girl's pretty mouth moved into a slight pout as her eyes flashed green. "You don't remember me?" she asked in a warm contralto voice. "I'm your cousin Mariethaenne Suzanne Kalella Sullivan from Metropolis! You can call me Mary."
Mary, thought Chloe, staring at her. I don't have a cousin named Mary. "I have two cousins, and you're neither of them."
"Well you ought to remember," said the girl. "We used to have so much fun, you and me and your friends Clark and Pete. Remember we used to go camping and riding horses together?"
"No."
"I was much better at it than you were. Poor Chloe. I've won tournaments for riding, you know!" The cheerful squeak at the end of Mary's every statement was starting to irritate her.
Mary looked around the office. "I heard you were working on the school paper. I worked on my school paper, too! I've even brought some articles I did for the Planet." The girl pulled out a folder with sparkling unicorns on it and handed it to Chloe half-opened. Inside, she could just see the newsprint, and a small black and white picture of Mary smiling sunnily beside the byline.
"Um, thanks." Chloe set the folder aside. "Look, I'm really sorry, but I'm kind of busy right now. Can you come back later?" Like when you're dead?
"Oh! You're working on the paper right now! I'll help!" Over Chloe's unspoken protests, Mary sat at a neighboring computer, deftly grabbed Doug's notes, and began typing them. "I can type over 100 words a minute," said Mary. "There. Done."
"Thanks. Again. Look, it's great you dropped by and all ... "
"You think so? I'm really glad. We just moved to Smallville last weekend, and I was hoping you and I could hang out and be friends. On my way over, I met a girl named Lana, and I'm going over to her house later so we can trade clothes. Wanna come?"
"No." Her head was starting to swim. "You moved to Smallville?"
"Yes, silly. Dad is going to help Uncle Gabe run the LutherCorp fertilizer factory." Her face went faraway. "Want to know a secret?"
"Not really." It didn't matter. Chloe had an unshakeable feeling that she had just become a bit player in a soap opera called "The World According to Mary."
"I overheard Mom and Dad talking last night. I'm adopted. There was a girl named Kalella, very young and tragically beautiful, who had an affair with Lionel Luther, and I'm their daughter. But my father couldn't admit the existence of a love child to his wife, and my mother died of a broken heart. That's when Mom and Dad adopted me." She ran her fingers through her long red hair.
Chloe was on firmer ground here. "So you're not my cousin."
"Only by adoption. Hey, do you know anything about something called Krypton?"
"The element?"
"No," said Mary waving her hand. "Not good old Number 36 on the periodic table. I think it's a place. Mom says my real mother said she was from there before she died."
"Never heard of it." Why oh why wouldn't someone come into the office and rescue her from talking to this nutcase? When she wanted privacy, she couldn't turn around for having Clark and Pete and Lana and Principal Kwan, and who knows who else in the office to bother her. You'd think no one ever had any classes around here.
"I think it must be a special place, because I can ... " She stopped, then said in a lower voice, "I can trust you, can't I Chlo?"
Chlo?
"I can see through things sometimes, and I can run really fast, faster than anything. I can even type faster than I just showed you, but I didn't want to show off."
Chloe thought quickly. Maybe the nutcase was just another poor kid affected by the meteorites. "Hey, were you here visiting Smallville twelve years ago during the meteor shower?"
"Oh no! See, I just turned twelve. I've always looked older than my age, and I'm really smart, so I'm a sophomore just like you. We'll have all the same classes! And I've seen those funny green meteorites and they don't affect me one bit."
"Great." Just great.
"We're going to have so much fun together! We can even double date. You can go out with Pete and I can go out with Clark. Our eyes met in the hall, and I think he likes me!" She began playing idly with a few strands of her red hair, braiding them. "We can even do each other's hair! I betcha I could give you a great new hairdo if you let me!"
"Yeah ... " Chloe came to a decision. She discretely opened her bottom drawer, where she kept her special supplies. One did not come of age in Weirdsville, Kansas without being aware of certain necessary survival items. Her fingers felt the smooth container, and grasped it.
Chloe smiled. "Mary, do your parents let you drink?"
Mary nodded cheerfully. "They know I'm responsible enough to handle it, even though I'm so young."
"I had a hunch. Let's make a toast." Chloe pulled out her flask and poured a bit into her coffee, and a bit into Clark's empty mug on the next desk.
Mary took the mug. "What shall we drink to?"
"How about we drink to you, the new star at Smallville High."
"That's so sweet!" Mary raised her mug. "To me!" She took a deep swallow, while Chloe sipped her lukewarm coffee.
Mary's eyes went wide, and she gasped and clutched her throat. She dropped the mug in her lap, where the liquid smoked and sizzled its way through her skirt. Mary shrieked, and fell to the floor unable to walk, twitching as she started to dissolve.
Chloe continued sipping, making a slight face at the taste. Holy water tended to be somewhat flat, but it worked wonders on Creatures of the Damned, be they vampires, werewolves or deranged fanfic characters.
"But ... But ... " Mary gasped raggedly. "You should ... love ... me ... "
The creature crumbled to dust.
Chloe set down her coffee, put Clark's mug back on his desk, then fetched the Dirt Devil she kept in the closet. Thirty seconds later, Mary's earthly remains were in vacuum-bag heaven.
As Chloe sat back down at her desk, the door opened again. She tensed as she turned around. "Oh, hi Clark."
"Hey, Chloe. Did a girl come in here a few minutes ago? 'Bout this high? Redhead?"
"Nope." She took a sip. "Coffee?"
The End