#amediting Spanner R5: Distractions, Slow Going, and At Last, Clarity

Things are starting to get clear in Spanner Revision 5. For one thing, Shira finally has her big provocation in 1.1: she sets money on fire, right in front of the camera while predicting the death of not just the American Empire and its Conservative Revolution but capitalism, period. She's wearing nothing but a ripped Doc Savage type shirt in a different color. She just threw her Challenge: prove me wrong, or I'll laugh at your wails when your Empire burns. I facepalmed: how come this never came to me in four entire drafts? Now I finally have an explosive start to the main story equal to the future destruction of Earth in the Intro.

Otherwise, it's been slow going. Mostly, I've written notes, suggestions on how to revise that may or may not become obsolete as I finish chapter after chapter. I'm mostly done with the Peter Ross of SPEC scenes, though that inspired new idea for 1.1 may get me changing the Ross scenes in 5.6, 6.2, 6.6, and 21.6 yet again. I hacked the stylesheet so that I have the High Corporate characters speaking as if they were gods on Olympus, with Chapters 1, 2, 5, and 6 edited accordingly.

And distractions. Not from books, videogames, or TV shows, but entirely new stories. Three short stories plus ideas for one more story and two books. So of course I wrote them down. Here's the opening sentences:

1. He was about to scream the Shahada and attack when the guitar hit his face with the force of a hundred fists.
2. These days only headless nude waitresses served the tony restaurants where Chinese Communist Party (Holdings) Limited executives power lunched.
3. Anastasia Blaise was born with the anonymous beauty of the surgically Resculpted and the aristocratic gift of no conscience.

And one cover idea for one of the novels: instead of the standard "running man" motif found on the covers of way too many standard thrillers, a man flailing in mid-air as he falls to his death off a skyscraper (the setting of the novel's framing scene), with Shira herself apparently mirrored in all the motion-blurred windows.

Meanwhile, for Spanner R5 I'm working the two main villain-related themes more into the story: the death of capitalism (the Corporates) and "pride goeth before a fall" (the revolutionary hubris of both Corporates and Patriots). One more new R5 theme I'm kicking myself for not coming up with during the first four drafts: the class divide between "freemen" and "workers" in which "freedom" is defined in Platonic and therefore aristocratic terms as freedom from work. Right now I'm editing a scene in 1.2 where I plan to introduce the new theme. It continues...

#amediting Spanner R5: The Nonlinear Edit, or Back and Forth and Back and Forth

During the first week of the final ebook edit for Spanner book 1, I find myself settling into a pattern: going back and forth across the book, following story threads and character arcs, making little tweaks and major transformations here and there.

Remember the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg over the valley of ashes in The Great Gatsby? I had that image in mind when I decided to put a huge Big Brother-like image of the fat angry face of SPEC chairman Peter Ross over the principals in their office. And I'm putting that image in every single scene set in the principal's office. Likewise, I made major changes to Ross' own early appearances in Chapters 5 and 6: I made his first appearances in effect epiphanies of a god, a Revision 5 theme I'm working on involving all the High Corporates and not just the Beckets, then revised the confrontation in 6.2 so that Shira, Leila, and Jennifer sent him reeling. He ends the scene "shocked at the inscrutable female mind" when his problem is that he, like most High Corporates, can't even conceive of a Populist hero's mentality grounded in reality. His final scene in 21.6 seemed to be perfect in Revision 4, but now I'm going to revise all his Chapter 21 appearances in light of the Chapter 4-5 revisions and add Elle to his 21.6 scene, with her replacement of the injured Karen in that scene (she's in the first confrontation in 6.2) being a major plot point.

Most of the major edits so far have of course been to Chapter 1. As I mentioned last post, I removed Karen and reduced Jim Sparks to a minor villain who gets a lucky break, then replaced them with Elle and a new "shounen hero" character specific to the chapter. I've also been slipping in references to later threads and themes to establish them at the beginning and prepare the readers for the later events. There's still a prop and a character I've neglected in later chapters, the Gospel of the New Genesis (which by Chapter 23 becomes the center of the Dick Becket-Ariel Shield feud) and the seventh Scarab. I could always find somewhere to fit them in.

I also added a new CSS format. Basically it's for lines of dialogue spoken by High Corporate oligarchs on large video screens that reinforces the impression that they are (as their spin implies) living gods. The ones I've applied it to are Steve Jobs (or rather, his ka) in 1.7, Henry Becket in 2.1 (with Rebel Styles' lines getting formatted in another new format), and Peter Ross in 5.6 and 6.1. In 5.4 (IIRC) I've reformatted the stadium announcers' bombastic announcing in the script-type format (based on play scripts adapted to comics, not movie scripts).

In 10.1 I'm changing the identity of the first nameless woman, from the tall brown-haired one to the short slender Asian one, because the latter is Ayla's mother; the reunion is in 13.4 in Revision 4, and I'm moving that to 10.1. I plan to set up her appearance with a few cameo appearances in Chapters 7-9, after Ayla arrives at Shira's apartment. I'll introduce her roommates in minor roles in 10.5-6 (the song war and its aftermath), and after that build up this thread around Leila until she finally goes nameless in 13.2.

Not used from the Revision 3 plan: the love scene on the beach in 14.6. Now I have a study in contrasts and the perfect character for it. I'm looking for a place to put the Shira vs. Charmian tennis match. Not used from the Revision 4 plan: the scene in 23.4 where Radica gets shot down and only Liz can rescue her, and the one planned for 23.6 in which Willa applies violin torture (sound-cannon amplified this time) to the one who deserves it most, her ex-husband the Party Chairman, still in his superhero uniform.

I haven't started this yet, but another plan I have is to relentlessly brand everything to an annoying degree in order to represent the total marketization of society, with Corporatism playing exactly the same role in the American Empire that Islamism does in its symbiotic enemy the Caliphate (which itself is "Jihad vs. McWorld" gone berserk). And I've reverted the name of the giant corporation that own China to Chinese Communist Party (Holdings) Limited.

The muse is happy to get back to work now that I no longer have to work on a schedule. Back and forth is just fine with her. And so the nonlinear edit continues.

#amediting Spanner R5: Aw, To Heck With the Week's Break, I'll Edit Chapter 1

And so the one week's break I planned to take was broken, and I did not take it, so now I'm editing Spanner Chapter 1 instead. This time I'm taking my time, since I no longer have a regular posting schedule to worry about and the muse threw at me some great ideas I dare not ignore.

First of all, there's Elle, the background character I fell in love with while editing Chapters 22 and 23 for Revision 4. I realized she's a much better fit than Karen for Chapter 1, so now she's replacing Karen altogether. Where Karen's handle in the flashback sequence was "Genki Girl" (which I settled on while in one of my "closet raver" phases when spinning out scenarios for the Project Notebooks between 1998 and 2001), Elle "takes a handle only a Rocker could understand: Whatsername." You probably already know where it comes from, but I'm setting up a running joke. She now has a full name: Eleanor Kayla Shears: Eleanor after her great-grandmother Eleanor (Nelly) Richter (who for some reason never even made it into Book 1), Shears as in Billy (yes, the guy who was Paul when Paul was dead is her great-grandfather, and he appears in Interlude 8).

Second, I changed the character of Jim Sparks the rogue cop to make him a villain in the first two chapters so I could give him a stronger character arc. Among the Team Spanner heroes, I replaced him with a gung-ho anarchist hoverboarder who races under the handle "Blackflag" and dates the precocious Elle. I'll spoil his fate: just as Neal Stephenson killed off the Cyberpunk Hero in the first chapter of The Diamond Age, this guy's the Shounen Hero I kill off at the end of Spanner Chapter 1. Elle will cry for him (in Chapter 2 and later), but Shira will regain sole possession of the protagonist role. Sparks is my Cyberpunk Hero (named after Akira's Kaneda, even), but he never becomes the protagonist and in fact is pretty much a pinball in Shira's game.

Third, I'm finding a whole lot of places to put references to later themes and plot threads that didn't even exist in my mind at the time. For example, Elle's decision to take the handle Whatsername foreshadows the women with no name at all who first appear in Chapter 12 and whom Leila joins in Chapter 13. For that matter, Elle herself may decide to go nameless eventually, but in Book 2. I also found more places to fit mentions of Kira, and so on.

In the "kill your darlings" department, I decided to remove Jennifer's rant about Ayn Rand and serial-killer fandom from the airplane scene. Sure, it sets up her later stint with the Slasher Hunters, but it stands out a bit too much from that scene. Instead, I had Jennifer and Elle react more emotionally when Shira informed them about her battle with Oliver, possessor of the Travelling Shovel of Death from whom she stole Leila's power crystal. I'll fit that now orphaned snippet of dialogue somewhere into Chapter 2, 3, or 4, since it's still important.

I even found both dialogue and narrative passages to condense. I thought I'd gotten them all by the last of who knows how many Chapter 1 edits in February and March of last year, but no. Turns out Chapter 1 wasn't as perfect as I thought. But doesn't it always turn out that way?

And so the final edit begins...

On Spanner Book 1: Thoughts on the Fourth Revision, Plans for the Fifth

I began the Herculean labor that was the Fourth Revision of Spanner Book 1 back in February 2012, jumping the gun on NaNoEdMo that year. It's now April 2013, almost a full month after this year's EdMo ended, and it still seems hard for me to believe I just finished. It proved to be the toughest part of the job, much more difficult than merely writing it. It got even tougher once I got past Chapter 10, where the third draft ended; in places, the fourth draft became a whole lot different from the second, especially when I got toward the end (which was admittedly quite weak in the second draft).

Well, it's done now, and it's much closer to what I want despite all the crazy new ideas my delirious and overworked muse threw in (pretty girls without names, anyone?). Where previous versions were the equivalent of alpha software, this is the beta. The Fifth Revision will be the equivalent of bugfixes.

Before I finally unleash the ebook edition, there's a few more changes I want to make in one final one-pass edit. First, there's the central love arc, which revolves around Shira and Leila but isn't limited to just them. Still, I need to strengthen it so you can feel the full sublime and destructive force of their love from the moment each first appears separately in Chapter 1 until the final poetic stanza, for it's the story's driving force, the irresistible force flinging itself at the immovable object that is the Conservative Revolution. Second, I'll need to strengthen the forces of resistance: Jennifer (a relatively minor opponent, and only in the relationship line), who tries in vain to keep Shira with her and away from Leila and then throws herself into relationships with two other girls only to return to Shira in the end and make the core couple a threesome; Governor Brinkman, her grandfather and clan patriarch, who insists on marrying her off in order to form a political alliance between clans that eventually fails; Oliver, the one she's being married off to, who finds his "Intended" in the arms of another woman, who proves too dangerous an opponent; and the entire school establishment at Bangor High, to whom their love is as dangerous a political threat as the Student Union.

Beyond the relationship arc, there's the School Arc of Chapters 5-21. In Chapter 4, when the Teachers Guild dissidents and Student Union organizers first meet, I need to set up the two sides of the conflict more strongly. We need to get a sense of the kind of threat Peter T. Ross is even before he first shows up in Chapter 6. I have him described as a hedge fund manager who raises horses for the rich on the side. However, financiers have a heroic and magical aura in this series, one I'm playing up for Ross in particular in Chapter 25 (in Book 2), and they find the source of their heroism in Ayn Rand (though Rand herself would have scorned them as unproductive parasites leeching off actually productive companies, a lower form of business type than even her politically connected but still productive villain Orren Boyle). His appearances in the office behind the principal's at Bangor High in Chapters 6 and 21 are the epiphanies of a god descending to earth. Another major player who needs played up more is Henry Becket, particularly after Chapter 15 when his superhero team take over the Party.

There's a few other characters I want to give a more prominent role. Chief among them is Elle, who didn't fully emerge as a character until Chapter 22, after which I fell in love with her. I realized she makes a better player in Chapter 1's Spanner Incident than Karen does. As for Karen, I need to make her more prominent in the Student Union plot thread so as to justify her near-martyrdom in Chapter 19 and the ensuing Team Challenge in Chapter 20.

There's some other things I need to change. Some of the characters need to talk more British, including the Canadian, Australian, and Irish characters; and the Rockers should use a lot more British street language than they currently do. Some of the narration should be less journalistic and more poetic, or vice versa. There's still a bit of filler. And there's the formatting and stylesheet experiments I "pulled my punches" on in Chapter 23 R4 that I'm going to "supercharge" in R5, in not just Chapter 23 but 15 and 22 as well.

This edit will take nowhere near as long as Revision 4 did. After all, I was still throwing in all kinds of new stuff, up to and including the kitchen sink (or, more perversely, the bathroom one). I'm done with the big edit. The rest is just fixing and fine-tuning. And just like last February, I'm impatient to start.

Spanner Chapter 23: Black Panic in the Suites (Final Revision)

← Chapter 22

Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 1: Rock City Blues
Chapter 23: Black Panic in the Suites (Final Revision)

Election day, 2014. It was not supposed to happen. The Conservative Revolution was supposed to have liberated America from politics. Governor J. Walter Brinkman, Chairman of the Cascadia Public Management Corporation that owns the government of the state of Cascadia, said so himself.

It’s happening despite his most desperate efforts. Furthermore, what was originally intended to be a high-school anti-bullying rally has exploded into a statewide general strike that threatens to spread throughout the American Empire and beyond.

His solution: destroy Cascadia. Some of the Empire’s strongest supers will do whatever it takes to stop him — especially his granddaughter who erased her name and her lesbian lover Shira Thomas, who came into their powers one month ago and killed King Patriot...

The end begins here.

Table of Contents:

1. Welcome to My Revolution (October 20, 2011, Final Revision 4/15/13)
2. Warriors of Rock (October 21, 2011, Final Revision 4/19/13)
3. The Television Will Be Revolutionized (October 22, 2011, Final Revision 4/21/13)
4. Burn the Polls, Ye Sons of Freedom (October 23, 2011, Final Revision 4/22/13)
5. The Fuses Have Been Lit (October 24, 2011, Final Revision 4/23/13)
6. I Am the Future (October 25, 2011, Final Revision 4/24/13)

Book 2 Previews: (for the ebook edition)

• Interlude 14: The Crisis (May 2, 2013)
• 24.1: School’s Out Forever (The School Invasions Part V) (May 9, 2013)

For the Fourth Revision, I have made massive changes from the Revision 2 version and even the Revision 3 plan. Many scenes have been not only massively revised for the new continuity, but severely condensed. All song lyrics and some entire plot threads have been entirely removed, while new threads have been added, including a massive multi-character super-battle that acts as a direct sequel to Chapter 23. The entire chapter now takes place on a single day: November 4, 2014.

Original R2 section titles: “Settle for Nothing” (23.1), “Spanner Q&A” (23.2), “No Time This Time” (23.3), “Vote Early, Vote Often” (23.4), “The Fuses Have Been Lit” (23.5), and “I Am the Future” (23.6). The Revision 1 version was never completed; there is no Revision 3 version.

As there are no revision notes for previous versions, here’s the Second Revision introduction:

At last! After ten months’ delay, Chapter 23 is finally being posted, and Spanner Book 1 is finished at last! And so we come full circle, with the Conservative Revolution facing its first real Populist threat since it saved the American Empire from democracy. Spanner throws himself into the works and even holds a press conference, while the Wrecking Krewe and the rest of Team Spanner pit their souped-up boom trucks to cancel out the Fearsome Foursome’s helicopter-mounted giant sound cannons as the crowds battling the authorities below attempt to turn Brinkman’s sham plebiscite into a real election. And of course the Man declares war against the People and tries to force them back into slavery. For the threat of equality promises the end of sovereign freedom, the divine right of oligarchs. And when the victims withdraw their sanction, the predators perish...

The balance of power in Cascadia is shifting. Nothing will be the same after this. As for Byron Scofield, fanatical Prophet of the Church of America: he has decided that the time for tolerance has ended, and the time for war is now...

And so the stage is set for Book 2, Rage of the Prophets [final title: Love Terrorists], which contains some of my strangest and most interesting plots and characters (particularly villains). Book 1 was just the intro. Now it’s time for the Author to bring his A game. Now we get serious.

to be continued...

Back to Chaos Angel Spanner table of contents...

Copyright © 2013 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

Spanner 23.6: I Am the Future

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 23: Black Panic in the Suites
Part 6: I Am the Future (Final Revision)

Nameless Reporter: Almost all the votes have been phoned, texted, emailed, and web-polled in, and now it’s official: 28% in favor of CPMC, 82% voting no-confidence. Better yet, CPMC stock’s falling through the floor!

Brinkman: There was no vote! It never happened! There’s only one vote in this state, and it’s mine! I’m the chairman, CEO, and sole owner of this corporation, and... and...

Hope Reston: I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the sacrifices you've made, giving up careers and families and sometimes even your lives, to take back our rights and freedom. All credit belongs to you alone. Democracy is our freedom. Democracy is our strength. Long live the people of Cascadia! As long as all of us work together to fight for our freedom and help those who are most in need, the System cannot prevail.

Spanner: Do you see the cracks in the castle walls, in the foundation? Corporatism built the citadel of American Empire out of bigotry, power lust, greed, and corruption, on a foundation made from the pure quicksand of evasion and lies. But never let yourselves get complacent. Give them an inch, and they’ll take a mile. They have already begun rebuilding. Not only is the fight not over, it’s hardly even begun.

debBot: Look at all those state flags down there, daveBot! Where’s the American flags? Do they have it in for America?

downtown bremerton. Sitting with her family in her wheelchair at a table at the edge of Harborside Plaza overlooking the boardwalk, Karen is shocked to find herself hailed as a hometown hero. Saffron pulls her younger sister to her feet and holds her tight, screaming and sobbing in joy; brothers Shin and Sage make it a dancing group hug. Back in her wheelchair, a stunned Polly puts her arms around her. “I had no idea it would get this big...”

Karen kisses her cheek. “I knew all along.”

“What—”

“We have a lot of enemies, and a lot of friends. I almost gave up, but Shira said, let’s bet on the people.”

“Sounds like her!” Mimi, Trishie, and Ruthie join them, and the four girls group-hug their bravest friend.

Six dreamers in a psychedelic borderworld more vivid than normal dreamspace find themselves surrounded by enraged spirits taller than the sky. Jennifer says, “These are the Egos of the Party leadership.”

“We’re gods too,” says the girl with the violet eyes. “They cannot hurt us here.”

“If they try,” says Shira, “they’ll only hurt themselves.”

Kira directs them toward the portal out. “We can’t stay here. People need us.” They redirect their flight toward the portal and through it back into the real world.

westlake plaza. Ariel, Taylor, and Melody carefully carry down six exhausted young women on their Repulse fields, naked and sweat-drenched and caught on the border between waking and dreams, into a main city square packed with dancing cheering strikers celebrating their unexpected victory over CPMC. Melody directs the others toward their friends from Bangor High: Student Union leaders Colette, Kio, Courtney, Lorelei, Lorine, and Doug; teachers Sylvia Plame, Yasmin Khoury, Eugene Fletcher, and Ada Paulette; and librarians Sally Hatfield, Kitty Carlisle, and Chrissy Jordan. They scream and sigh, relieved their friends didn’t die in the battle against the superheroes above; they welcome them with arms raised high to receive them. Even before she reaches the ground, even in her half-conscious delirium, Jennifer thinks aloud: “I need to invent some way to beat those guys together... wait, I can’t just do it myself, we need to open-source it so everybody can put their minds to it... yeah, just like science...”

But then the cheering and dancing stop. Everyone looks up and falls silent. Hovering above them, battle-ravaged cape fluttering in the wind, is the Scarab, looking down upon his enemy the people with a terrifying murderous stare that eventually settles on Shira. He tells her telepathically, I hope you’re pleased with yourself, angel of chaos.

I’m not the kind of Player in it for personal glory, god man. You can’t win, but we can still lose.

I told your sister you can only win against them, but she would not listen to me either. Their time is past. They have no future. Neither do you if you choose to go down with them.

Why do you keep prematurely proclaiming victory? Is that an Ego thing? She gives him a beautiful smile. He does not answer.

Ariel, smiling sweetly, seemingly no worse for wear, clutching the briefcase containing the Gospel of the New Genesis, rises up to meet the battle-weary World Patriarch. She tells him, No, you can’t have it, and I won’t leave until you do. The two powerful enemies stare each other down for an endless uncomfortable moment.

He does not respond even telepathically. Reluctantly he flies away to rejoin his Liberator comrades heading across the mountains. Satisfied that he will not return, Ariel lets the people celebrate their victory while they still can and flies off into the west.

Nameless Reporter: CPMC stock has collapsed! The New York Stock Exchange has just announced its intention to delist it along with COPCO...

Brinkman: (trembling, growling) You fucking parasites, we’ll take back our rightful wealth and dominion God promised to us and you stole from us. We shall not forgive.

cpmc headquarters. The boardroom doors open. He is there in his dress blues, tall handsome and intimidating: Commander Will Becket. The beautiful companion sporting long curly brown hair and an elegant sky-blue coatdress is his wife and conscience, Dr. Trista McLendon. Brinkman gasps, “Will! What the hell are you doing here?”

“Shutting down your company,” he calmly replies. “Clearly it’s failed.”

The Investors stand up, stare sadly at Brinkman, and turn to leave for their helicopters. “Wait a minute! What are you guys doing?”

The assembled High Corporates stare him down without blinking. Mr. Bhawal says, “We put our trust in you, Mr. Brinkman.” Mr. Xi says, “We trusted you to suppress the rabble so as to create a stable market for high-end investment, Mr. Brinkman.” Mr. Antonov says, “However, Mr. Brinkman, instead of disowning a certain rebellious teenager, you created another Spanner Incident.” Mr. Galvez says, “Now you, Mr. Brinkman, have proved you cannot keep the rabble sufficiently in line to keep your property stable.” Mr. Zhi says, “We cannot hedge against instability when you cannot prevent instability on your own property, Mr. Brinkman.” Mr. Seon says, “We are confident Mr. Bloomberg has reversed Mr. Trump’s failure, whereas you have not, Mr. Brinkman.” Mr. Vronsky says, “Goodbye, Mr. Brinkman.” And the High Corporates who once kept CPMC stock high leave; on their way to their helicopters, they call their brokers to short-sell.

Martin Becket glares at his cousin. “Walter, you damned fool. You should have disowned the emo little whore and let her ditch her name. Now look what you’ve done. Enjoy being eaten alive... Wally.” On his way out, he takes a moment to glare at Will, who stares back calmly.

Will and Trista enter at last. Brinkman looks at Trista and says to Will, “You lucky piece of shit.”
Will’s ice-blue eyes twinkle. “The word is...” He leans into his cousin and smiles. “...deserving.”

On the monitor behind them, the news channels breathlessly report the collapse of Cascadian real estate prices.

shira’s apartment. They find themselves assaulted by overjoyed hackers at the door. Their favorite Pizza Mafia pizzas await them on the coffee table behind. After pizza, cola, and cake, they take turns in the shower. They’re in no condition to talk after their first real superpower battle, so they call it a night and cuddle together: Shira, Kira, Jennifer, Elle, and the girl with the violet eyes in Shira’s bed; Charlie, Desiree, and their two daughters in the guest room.

“Leave ’em alone for now,” says Hope. “They need the rest. Right now, let’s get ourselves ready for round two.”

fallout
actions have consequences:

yet another heavily hedged and leveraged Owner bank snatches CPMC out of the greedy clutches of Chinese Corporatist Party (Holdings) Limited and announces plans to resurrect them through the usual austerity nostrums using the same CEO

COPCO fires “One-Eye Jack” Becket as Seattle section chief and replaces him with not the compromised genius detective Locke Holmes (no administrator) but the overzealous South African, Michael Corson

Admiral Reynard S. Currie, not impressed, announces his intention to use the United States Police Force, Bringing Home The War On Terror™, to restore the Revolutionary hierarchy to power

the brought-back Lady Penner who lost a life over an iPod is released from Naval Hospital Bremerton only to find to her horror that not only is there no more Student Council but no Bangor High either

Oliver Thorwald leaves the resurrection facility alarmed to find his chosen princess Christian Becket Fleer, pop-idol hitwoman Bunny Strakeljahn, and pet mad scientist Mina Tatsumi engaging in pitched battle royal over who possesses him

Raylene Forster and Saxon Mobley wake up in new bodies of their own in Holy City, surrounded by their Liberator comrades in High Corporate dress

Dr. Jenna Hunter dissolves the Teachers Guild’s Seattle Local and declares her intention to reorganize the bankrupt SPEC around a series of commercially oriented “Cool Schools”

Nolan Robson flees Cascadia for Arizona in the Kingdom of Texas as soon as he takes a new body (cursing Falconer even as he emerges) in order to take an executive position in the Prison-Industrial Complex

Hope Maureen Reston finds herself named interim governor and will be greeted by a sea of green-white-and-blue state flags as soon as she moves to the governor’s mansion to carry out her plan to reorganize the government around the Worker Guilds’ successful rank-and-file strategy

Byron Scofield shoots Luke Everson between the eyes in the door of the Shepherd-Mayor’s Enumclaw mansion

and in a bankruptcy sale the Wilder Foundation acquires a Capitol Hill loft building at shockingly low cost and a bright-eyed reporter with no name takes a brightly sunlit loft which she prepares for the arrival of her new companions:

a nameless teenage nude model with violet eyes and silky black hair now shoulder-length and the one with the highest-level superpowers;

a fallen princess new to this freedom thing who exercises her family right to erase her family names and becomes comfortable wearing only a tiara;

an eight-year-old girl so precocious she already erased her name (given by a gangster), child lover by force of will;

her sweet cousin, the precocious twelve-year-old redheaded beauty;

long-lost twin sister Kira Amanda Thomas;

the shared love of their life, Shira Miranda Thomas, Governor Reston’s point woman and youngest daughter

and her adoring K-9, Catalina

plus the five-year-old girl who came with the loft, name of Flower, the daughter of a Corporate couple who used to have some difficult-to-pronounce Eastern European surname the Conservative Revolution changed to Omni-Consumer, not that she is old enough to recognize; and four cats relieved to be fed after a month of neglect by disdainful Corporate neighbours. Though Flower likes that her beautiful new adult friend likes to go naked in the house, she is shocked to find out she doesn’t have a name at all; the bright-eyed girl happily takes the opportunity to begin Flower’s education in the way of the anonymous beauties. Jennifer’s new lab waits for her to set it up to her liking. The building’s remaining Corporates either leave in a huff or get evicted. Hotel Bremelo waits for its Team to move in, inside the wounded heart of the city from which they draw their strength.

And the heart of the city continues to beat. And its urban intelligence, the one known as Em, smiles upon the city and the people who are its life.

technosphere. They are the only ones present, standing on the checkerboard floor in a dark and empty virtual arena, superhero and nudefighter facing each other in superpowered Mexican standoff, mighty arms folded on his mighty chest, gloved hands planted on the smooth curve of her hips, war in his masked eyes, mischief on her unpainted lips. “You’ll never get away with such villainy, angel of chaos,“ the superhero proclaims, cape fluttering like a flag in the silent virtual wind. ”I, the American Crusader, shall make justice prevail.”

“Yet your superhero name is the ancient byword for villainy,” Aya Shibata replies. “The Proletarian called you the villain all the while you were killing him. Why do you keep fighting for his ideal?”

“The world needs a hero. I am the only one standing between the world and those who would destroy it.”

“You are the way, the truth, and the life? You are the dead hand of the past burying the world alive. I am the future.”

“You cannot win, Spanner.”

“You have already lost, hero. Checkmate.” And with a wink and a flash of light, Shira Thomas is gone, leaving Henry Becket alone in an empty world.

The vision begins in chaos: a burning city, large crowds battling Imperial forces, flying drones committing mass murder, the screams of the Chosen — but the longer it runs, the clearer it gets, and all the combined visions focus increasingly on one man: from the moment he seized power after the death of his father, Henry Becket fails to save an empire that was dying long before he became its superheroic savior, and he collapses into madness, and into silence — and the darkness he dedicated his life to banishing forever, draws itself around him like a blanket of blackest night and consumes him.

And then the darkness dissipates, and the sun reappears — but the world has browned out, and only one forested oasis is left...

Braving the flickering shadows of her own darkness that bear away her name into oblivion, the girl with the violet eyes stands in the center of a grove of ancient cherry trees in full bloom, beautiful pale body bare, strong wind caught in her long black hair, shining sun caressing her with its warmth. The girl with cinnamon skin (which twin? both combined) flies down to her from the blue sky above, beautiful and nude, a demon descending on long bat wings matching her wild red hair. She lands before her and gives the command: “Suicide angel, stretch out your wings.” Slowly, sensuously, the black-haired girl stretches out her beautiful black angel wings. The wind caresses the soft feathers.

They pull each other into a lover’s embrace. They share a long, sensuous, increasingly violent kiss. Then they turn their faces to look into you, subtle smile on their faces, a twinkle in their eyes, speaking without need for words: if you do not understand, you have already lost.

They turn around and leave the ground, into the blue sky above; hearts entwined and powers combined, ready for one final job. Together they fly, willing to die, angel and devil in love; together they fly, into the sky, to heaven, where they will slay God.

end series one.

to be continued...

Back to Chapter 23 index...
Back to Chaos Angel Spanner table of contents...

Copyright © 2013 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

[Revision 4 Final, 4/20/13: R2 scenes heavily edited to fit Final Revision continuity; some scenes condensed, others expanded. New scenes added to complete some plot threads and continue others into Book 2. Revision 4.0.1: corrected one character error.]

Spanner 23.5: The Fuses Have Been Lit

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 23: Black Panic in the Suites
Part 5: The Fuses Have Been Lit (Final Revision)

The voice of the Chairman comes down from heaven, amplified by multiple military-industrial satellites. His feral growl reveals him to be closer to full werewolf transformation than he has ever allowed himself to be in front of a public his now intends to destroy.

Brinkman: Traitorous Commonist rabble of Cascadia! You have murdered your King instead of obeying him, and you have chosen to betray us in league with the Antichrist instead of fighting against his evil under our command! We fought our Revolution to save America’s sacred Manhood from you! Surrender unconditionally and prepare for punishment and penitence, or we will sentence you to eternal torment! You have five minutes!

They stand together on the streets of the cities and towns below, arms linked together in solidarity, forced by the immortals who control the instrument of heavenly wrath to face their mortality and acknowledge their common humanity: Christians, Muslims, Jews, Pagans, Buddhists, unbelievers alike; student and worker, white and black, young and old, American and non-American, insufficiently rich to desperately poor, common mortals faced with sudden death and the realization that they are the enemy the Revolution means to destroy, they are the true target of World War IV. They thought they could force the Owners to give them an actual education or decent pay and working conditions; all they did was enrage a race of paranoid and implacable gods into genocide. For the first time since the death of socialism at the hands of Stalin, it dawns on a critical mass of unspecial ordinary people that the American Dream was always a lie, that to the small élite of Real Americans they have always been the Sons of Satan, and this is only the beginning of the rain of drones the Americans will be raining upon them from one end of the Empire to the other.

The Party wants them to surrender and submit. They choose to join together peacefully. Together, some without consciously realizing it, they reject the authority of the all-powerful Conservative Revolutionary Party and all that it stands for.

Yet the Revolutionaries comprehend nothing. They perceive only the Threat From Below that threatens to destroy their carefully planned utopia. They think only of the profit rate falling ever faster toward zero, the System of Free Enterprise speeding toward the singularity. They feel the American Exceptionalism embodied in their Party slipping away. But Brinkman has taken their vengeance out of their hands. They slip to their knees and chant prayers to Jesus America, to Echelon and NORAD, and to the Great White Father who leads their Party. From the sky above Seattle, the Liberators look down appalled.

A million cameras continue to shoot video. Not wanting the professional hacks of the MSM to interpret their own experience for them, they narrate it as if they can pour out their hearts and souls onto the Darknet in the last five minutes of their lives. If they pray to a supernatural power, they pray to a Supreme Being beyond the comprehension of even the Nine-Principled God and his son Jesus America.

But Admiral Currie is not fazed. Enthusiastic as ever, he declares, “We’ve got it in the bag! The Revolution is saved!”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Brinkman grumbles. “I’ve got two daughters in the right position to ruin everything.”

He pats Brinkman’s back. “Nobody can stand up to Nuclear Power, comrade! Once our heavenly sword of justice cuts through your treasonous spawn like butter, we’ll crowd the sky with ’em and end the Communist threat for certain! Just have faith.”

Flying above the Seattle skyscrapers, Shira and Kira spin a double reality distortion field around themselves, their sisters, and their lovers, not so much as to hide them as to distort the images Echelon’s spysats are sending to the NORAD killsat’s aiming system. Jennifer asks, Do you really think we’ve got the power to pull this off?

The girl with the violet eyes flies into Shira’s arms. Shira replies, We killed King Patriot, didn’t we? Kira embraces Jennifer from behind, caresses her breasts, nibbles her ear; with so little time remaining, the three couples begin making furious love in mid-air. Down below, the Rockers aim their sound cannons at the mass distortion in the sky.

The Party censors allow the Great Firewall to keep the MSM channels blue. They don’t want any information to leak through.

Introduction to a Dead Blog, or The Only Post on SpannerVision

Now that Twitter's shutting down Posterous, I'll never be able to post a second entry to the "SpannerVision" blog I had there, which I neglected because I was too busy actually writing and editing Spanner to draw anything. SpannerVision was to be my series-related image blog. It was the companion blog to my alternate main blog, where I put some of the entries linked on the Inside Spanner page. All those, and maybe some more, will be reposted here once I'm done posting Spanner Book 1.

Oh well, maybe I'll have to get that Tumblr account after all...

Introducing SpannerVision

(originally posted on June 21, 2011)

Welcome to my new blog where I'll be posting images (and eventually music and video) for my (currently a) webnovel Chaos Angel Spanner and its universe. I'll be posting character designs and other Spanner-related graphics here. Some of the images will be not safe for, well, Facebook, where all my relatives are...

At least this gives me an excuse to start drawing stuff for the manga idea I turned into a webnovel...

Spanner R4 Update: More #amediting Needed on 23.5

Turns out Spanner 23.5 is the most incomplete section of Chapter 23, with the least number of Revision 2 or previous-chapter scenes that merely need editing. 23.6 is the most complete (or was when I started editing Chapter 23), so it's going to post the day after 23.5 regardless.

What's stymieing me this time? (Darling muse, I love you to pieces, but you don't get to take a break until the chapter's over.) By plan, this is the most abstract section in all of Book 1. I'm not so much editing it or even writing it from scratch; rather, I'm constructing it, and construction takes time.

Probably the first thing I'm going to do with the Revision 5 one-pass edit is rework the formatting of Echelon's lines. I kludged the CSS so I could get 23.2-4 posted quickly. 23.5 involves a lot of CSS hacking.

I'm working on 23.5 now, and I hope to get it posted tomorrow. If not, I'll let you know. But I'm finishing Chapter 23 and Book 1 no matter what. 23.5 will post.

Spanner 23.4: Burn the Polls, Ye Sons of Freedom

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 23: Black Panic in the Suites
Part 4: Burn the Polls, Ye Sons of Freedom (Final Revision)

Brinkman: To our rebellious subjects: There is no election. You are not the government. The government is CPMC. The government is me! I alone am the Law! My word is the word of God! Obedience alone is of God. All rebellion is inspired by Satan. You will cease your Devil-inspired rebellion against God, or we shall be forced to destroy you all, to the man, root and branch.

Suddenly a piratecast interrupts the official announcement: an eight-bit representation of the head of the Statue of Liberty replaces the blue screen, opening and closing her mouth in clockwork fashion; descending red, white, and blue gradients replace Spanner’s rainbow background, speaking in a cheery female computer voice.

Lady Liberty: Good morning, America! I’m Lady Liberty, and I’m here to remind y’all that if you don’t vote, you can’t be free.

The computer image of Lady Liberty is replaced by a series of portraits of great American founders and leaders, mouths animated ventriloquist-dummy style.

Thomas Jefferson: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government...

Thomas Paine: These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

Abraham Lincoln: Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable — a most sacred right — a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.

Lady Liberty: So y’all better cast your votes and make ’em count! Let’s show ’em People Power! Let’s show ’em that America is We the People! Get off your duffs and make your votes count!

Litton and the MSM corporate techs finally interrupt the real piratecast, but not before the damage has already been done. Governor Brinkman returns to the screen, angrier than ever, looking less human by the second, venting his sovereign wrath in an escalating rage that distorts his face. (Sparks: “He’s starting to look less human.” Shira: “Good. Then people will see what their owners really are.”)

Brinkman: Y’all are traitors! Goddamn liberal commonist Muslim faggot nigger-lovers! I’ll kill you all! I’ll eat y’all alive! I’ve got nukes and y’all don’t! I’ll rip your—

Brinkman’s face is replaced with a comic book image of the Wolf Man and the sound of a howling movie werewolf.

Lady Liberty: Not so fast, Fido!

The eight-bit image of Spanner appears. This time the famous graffiti tag of badge-shield, crossed wrenches, and Old English “S” is superimposed on his faceplate.

Spanner: People of Cascadia: You are being faced with a choice. The Synarchy are throwing you a Challenge they think you can’t possibly win. Accept it and throw it in their faces. Is America truly the land of freedom and democracy, or a caliphate of corporations subjugating humanity to the cult of Mammon? The choice is yours alone. This is Tournament, and you are the fighters under Challenge. Go forth and win.

Brinkman attempts to retake the airwaves as soon as the piratecast ends, but his cousin Martin Becket shoves him aside.

Martin Becket: The masked terrorist wants you to forget the evil in the heart of man. Democracy is not only impossible, it leads only to anarchy and chaos. America was founded to prevent democracy, by reserving power for an enlightened oligarchy. We have restored the proper order of things. The men whose virtue God has blessed with infinite wealth support our company’s virtue.

Nameless Reporter: (looks at her phone, then at you) Major investors are showing their confidence in CPMC by driving its stock price to four times its previous high!

Martin Becket: The Revolution does not need approval from the profane. God himself has already cast the only vote that counts.

Nameless Reporter: (points at you) Remember, people, (raises her thumb) a vote for CPMC is (turns her thumb down) a vote against you.

Brinkman: The bitch is full of shit!

Martin Becket: No, she’s right. A vote against us is a vote against America. God doesn’t like that. (glares at you) Obey God!

As the smoke and debris from destroyed battle copters dissipates, the strikers make another attempt to take the streets, only to be foiled by smoke and noise bombs thrown by young black-masked vigilantes, mostly male and driven by testosterone. One of them, presumably a leader, uses his phone as a microphone to speak through a hijacked city PA system:

Anarcho-terrorist: You pacifist wimps! You think you can destroy the System by marching? You’ve already committed mass suicide! You already surrendered to the Enemy! The only way to freedom is through blood, fire, and revolutionary violence! Burn the polls, ye sons of freedom!

Jennifer leaps up and punches him out; the strikers cheer. She steals his phone.

Jennifer: Fine act of government those hotheads just pulled. Didn’t we just have your kind of revolution? They’re not anarchists at all!

Listen, people: terrorism is government! The Man’s bullying you to prevent mass self-determination. What is anarchy? No leaders! Democracy without leaders. These terrorists only wanna replace those other terrorists. Don’t follow! Vote against CPMC, and these clowns too. Back to the strike!