Vell told the cleanup crew to work slowly, so as to kill even more time distracting Jack, but the job was inevitably done, and Vell was once again forced to play host.
“Alright folks, our next guest is on their way, or at least I sure hope they are,” Vell said. “We’re still working on that musical guest-”
“No you aren’t!”
Vell recognized that voice, and felt his first moment of genuine happiness all night.
“Oh my god! Folks, put your hands together for Roxy Rocket!”
The former looper and current rock star took to the stage, guitar in hand, to the raucous cheers of the audience. While her band set up their instruments and audio equipment, Roxy walked across the stage to grab Vell in an embarrassingly tight hug, and also turn off their mics for a quick aside.
“Harley let me know what’s up,” Roxy said. “Jack the Ripper, yeah?”
Vell nodded his head towards the out-of-place Englishman in the midst of the crowd of college students. Roxy smiled and waved in his direction, and Jack waved back.
“We’ve met,” Roxy said. Vell didn’t bother questioning that. “I got this.”
“Cool, thanks,” Vell said. “Mind sticking around for a bit after the song? We’re really struggling for interviews here.”
“Yeah, be glad to,” Roxy said. “Now enough with the pow-wow, I got to go rock some tits off.”
Vell assumed that to be a joke, but someone’s tits actually did come off. Roxy finished off the song and waved goodbye to the newly titless spectator as medical bots carted them away.
“Are they going to be okay?”
“Yeah, they’ll be fine, it happens every now and then,” Roxy said. “It’s why I get so many trans dudes at my concerts. Cheaper than top surgery. Anyway.”
Roxy set aside her guitar and took a seat in the plush chair next to Vell’s desk.
“Thanks for a wonderful performance, Roxy, and for joining us on such short notice,” Vell said.
“No problem, Vell, always happy to help out a friend. And hear people cheer for me,” Roxy said. “My schedule happened to be clear so I could rock and roll on by.”
“Well, I’m glad things worked out. Still, this must be expensive, right? Teleporting out here on such short notice.”
“Well that’s one of the benefits of having a record label, love,” Roxy explained. “As long as there’s some publicity to be had they’ll fund a lot of bullshit.”
“I can’t imagine them being that excited about this.”
“Well, the thing is, my label really wants me to be on more talk shows, but I hate talk shows,” Roxy explained. “Damn near throttled Kimmel the last time I was on his show.”
“I remember that,” Vell said. As he remembered it, he scooted slightly further away from Roxy.
“No no, you don’t need to worry, Vell, I like you,” Roxy said. “Just don’t ask me about my dating life.”
“Noted. So, uh, avoiding that subject, is your label that desperate to get you on talk shows that they’d send you to one with like two-hundred viewers?”
The AV Department’s broadcasts of school events and special programming rarely reached more than a few hundred viewers. Nobody was all that interested in watching their lab experiments and tech demos.
“Their job is to get me publicity, not fact check,” Roxy said. “Don’t worry, pal, they’re all getting paid.”
“That was the least of my worries,” Vell said. “I’m just worried someone is going to catch on and shut us down.”
“Nah. Like you said, kid, there’s only like two-hundred people watching this.”
The producer walked on set and handed Vell a small sheet of paper, which he took a moment to read.
“Production says we’re up to three-thousand,” Vell said.
“Really? That’s like half the school, man, good for you. And me,” Roxy said.
“Mostly you, I think.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Vell,” Roxy insisted. “There’s got to be at least like twelve people who are tuned in for you.”
“Wow. Thanks for the surprisingly honest assessment,” Vell said. “That’s not sarcasm, by the way.”
Roxy shrugged. She’d been trying to lowball for comedic effect, but apparently Vell’s ego was even smaller than she’d thought.
“So, in the interest of you not getting in too much trouble, do you want to talk about that album? Anything you can tell us?”
“Yeah, I can tell you it’s going to fuck.”
Vell held tight to the sheet of paper he’d been handed, just to have something to do with his hands.
“It’s going to...fuck?”
“Yeah. Do you not get that? I thought that was your generation’s slang.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Maybe? I’m not exactly the most in touch with the youths,” Vell said.
“Even so, you’re the one who’d know about my songs and fuckin’,” Roxy said. Vell turned red in the face, drawing some scandalized ‘ooh’s’ from the crowd. “Good thing you’re not in my chair or they might expect you to tell that story, eh?”
“Yeah,” Vell said.
Both of their phones buzzed at the same time, and both ignored them -until they both started to buzz again, and again.
“Can we cut to commercial or something?”
“We’re a local school channel, do you think we have advertisers?” The producer said from the sidelines.
“Then can we get someone else out here to do a bit?”
“Here, let me check my phone first,” Roxy said. “They can’t kick us both off stage, they’d just have a bunch of empty chairs.”
Through the power of collective action, Vell got to check his phone. Luckily it was good news: Lee was only moments away from being able to banish Jack the Ripper. Said serial killer was looking a bit cross about the delay in the show, but he wasn’t murdering anyone yet. Vell just had to keep him distracted a little while longer.
“Any chance your phone is giving us something to talk about for exactly five to ten minutes?”
“Quite the opposite, my dude,” Roxy said. “My label is actually pretty pissed about this whole thing.”
Roxy stood, picked up her guitar, and waved to the rest of her band.
“Sorry to cut and run, Vell, but no label means no album, and neither of us want that.”
“Oh, god, yes, please go, hurry,” Vell said. Making sure Roxy kept making music ranked higher than keeping one little serial killer distracted, in his book. “But could you sign something for my girlfriend on your way out? She loves you.”
“Will do, boss! Good luck, Vell!”
She made a quick exit stage left, leaving Vell alone again. Harley did raise a few protests off stage, but Roxy trusted them to handle the whole Jack the Ripper situation without her. Which may have been a mistake. Vell sat at his desk for a few seconds in total silence, hoping that Jack would just disappear. He didn’t.
“So, hell of a show tonight, right?”
The audience mumbled and muttered in general but unenthusiastic agreement.
“Had a lot of fun, had a lot of guests, even a shocking surprise musical number.”
There were a few half-hearted hollers in celebration of Roxy’s surprise appearance, but Vell could still feel himself losing the crowd. Jack the Ripper was noticeably unenthusiastic about this poor attempt at a closing monologue. Vell could not help but notice the disappointment on his face, which had yet to be magically banished and sent back to hell.
“But we’re not done yet!”
Although Vell really hoped they would be soon. His alluring promise drew the audience back in, however. He just hoped he could come up with a follow through in the next few seconds.
He had an idea.
“Folks, we’ve got one more very special guest for you tonight.”
It was a bad idea.
“He’s been sitting out there waiting for his turn to take the stage all night, please join me in welcoming-”
It was a very bad idea.
“Jack the Ripper!”
Vell pointed towards the old English serial killer. Harley, catching on to his bullshit but lacking in other ideas, made sure a spotlight scanned the crowd and fell on Jack. He seemed shocked yet delighted by the sudden attention, and after taking a moment to bask in the literal spotlight, the Ripper jumped out of his seat and dashed up to the stage, taking a moment to bow and wave to the crowd he had only recently been a part of. Vell thought he was hamming it up a little, but his showboating killed a little more time, so no complaints.
Once he was done showing off Jack took a seat and settled into it. Vell tried to scoot to the far end of his desk, but Jack insisted on a handshake. Actually touching Jack the Ripper made him deeply uncomfortable on every possible level, but he survived.
“Welcome to the show, Jack. Can I call you Jack, or do you prefer Mr. Ripper?”
“You know, mate, I actually really regret getting that whole nom de plume going,” Jack said. “I was thinking of rebranding as ‘The Whitechapel Devil’. Do you think it’s too late to get that to stick?”
“Much too late, yes,” Vell said.
“Oh. Jack is fine, then.”
“Alright, Jack,” Vell said. He was really hoping Jack would disappear soon, but he had to keep bullshitting until then. “So. Let’s start with the obvious, I guess. Why’d you kill those women?”
“Well, at the time I thought I was enacting a righteous vengeance upon the iniquitous corrupting influences that were decaying the moral fabric of society. With time to reflect upon my actions, though, I think I was just lashing out at a world I lacked the coherence to really understand, which coupled with my untreated mental illness, drove me to act in violence.”
“Damn,” Vell said. “I guess you’ve really taken the time to introspect in hell, huh?”
Jack nodded.
“If you got a second chance, do you think you’d do things differently?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Jack said. “I’d reveal my identity, for starters. Do you know how many Dahmer docuseries there are? You fuckers love serial killers! I could be cashing in on so much publicity.”
“Ah. I see.”
In retrospect, a redemption arc for Jack the Ripper was probably too much to hope for. Vell folded his hands nervously and got back to killing time.
“Well, I suppose on to the next question then,” Vell said. “If you want notoriety, now’s the time to start.”
Vell leaned forward on his desk and shot an inquisitive glare towards Jack the Ripper.
“What is your real name, Jack?”
The crowd gasped in anticipation. The crew, sensing tension, darkened the lights on everyone but the ripper. In the spotlight once again, Jack began to sweat, and nervously contemplated his course of action.
“Alright, damn it, I’ll tell you,” Jack said. “But only because you’ve put on such a great show.”
“Well thanks, that means a lot,” Vell said. “Especially coming from you, Jack. Or should I call you…?”
“Right, right. It’s really interesting, you know, absolutely no one guessed it correctly. My real name is-”
Jack disappeared with a slight poof of smoke and magic as Lee’s spell finally took hold. Vell stared at the empty space Jack the Ripper had recently occupied as the lights came on and the crowds made various grunts of confusion and disappointment.
“That’s right folks, it was all a bit,” Vell said. “For our last act, we had an actor play Jack the Ripper and then made him disappear!”
The hastily constructed cover story received no response for several seconds.
“Are you going to bring him back?”
“No,” Vell said. “Good night everybody!”
With his distraction finally done, Vell sprinted off stage so fast the producers didn’t even have time to play the outro music.
----------------------------------------
Three days later, Vell was trying to relax in his dorm when he heard a knock on the door. He opened it and, much to his chagrin, found some representatives from the AV department.
“Hi, Vell.”
“Hey guys.”
“So we wanted to talk to you about maybe doing another episode of Late Night with Vell Harlan,” the producer said. “It’s sort of the most popular thing we’ve ever done. By a factor of one hundred.”
“Uh…”
“Please?”
“Well, I don’t want to disappoint you, so...Harley!”
Harley appeared in an instant, shoved her head through the door, and shook it side to side.
“Mr. Harlan has prior commitments,” she insisted, before pulling both herself and Vell out of the doorway and slamming it shut behind them. Vell could hear the AV guys walking away dejectedly outside.
“I feel kind of bad,” he mumbled.
“They’ll be fine,” Harley said. “They’re creative. They’ll come up with something.”
Three days after that, Vell and Harley were turning in to the first ever episode of “Freddy and the Doohickey”. Said episode lasted about five seconds before the doohickey exploded. Harley turned the show off.
“I didn’t say they’d come up with something good.”