Monday, June 6, 2011

Spanner 2.1: Lethal Lolita

...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 2: Sex Bomb
Part 1: Lethal Lolita (Final Revision)

reality distortion field:
the aura projected by an
extremely charismatic person,
so powerful that it distorts
perception and/or judgment


All that is solid melts into air.
Karl Marx

20 august 2014.
secret location.
In a dark smoke-filled room somewhere in the TrumpCity™ Administrative Zone, five men hold an emergency meeting to discuss a plan of action against Spanner: United Corporations chairman Richard Becket, FBI director Karl Radisson, COPCO CEO Brendan Sparks, Dictel CEO Lt. Col. Thomas Drake Becket (U.S. Army, Retired), and, dominating this meeting with his grim imposing presence that intimidates even his brothers, a visibly disturbed Homeland Security Secretary C. Henry Becket. Secretary General Stephen Harper and Vice President Sarah Palin observe by satellite from Holy City and let the experts plan. President Goldman Sachs and TrumpCity™ owner TrumpCo signal their presence with giant logos looming overhead to remind them who is in control.

“I think our terrorist intended to embarrass the Cartel,” says the Chairman. “He certainly succeeded.”

“No, I think this terrorist wanted to embarrass me,” says the Colonel. “He cut through my defenses like butter.”

“I still think Apple’s jealous competition hired him to keep it out of the Cartel,” says the COPCO CEO. “Paul, you’d better get it investigated.”

“I’m convinced this was an anarchist assault on the Revolution,” says the Director. “We’re already looking into every Anonymous cell we can sniff out.”

The Secretary slams his fist down and thunders, “Stop this nonsense!” The others fall silent. “If that terrorist is not stopped now, our Revolution will be destroyed, and the fate of America with it!”

september 2012...
Kira and Shira were so close no one knew where one ended and the other began, so intimate they made love in their dreams. After the coup robbed Shira of her second self, her wounded passion invaded her mother’s dreams. Two weeks after, Hope woke up to find sleeping Shira making love to her. She tried to stop her, break her, even punish; Shira begged, wailed, said she couldn’t stop — and she didn’t. Eventually, Hope gave up; Shira has cried her eternal gratitude and adoration ever since...

apartment, bremerton. —two souls explode into one — Hope wakes up, Shira collapses onto her, hot sweat streams down and tickles their skin, they settle into an embrace at once hard and gentle. Hope caresses Shira’s soft buttocks; Shira moans softly and answers with a long soft kiss. Hope sighs. “You’ve gotten so good at this...”

Shira’s tears fall onto her face; she smiles. “Anything to worship you.”

Hope laughs gently. Mother and daughter have shared one bed since they lost Kira. Their bodies are completely comfortable with each other, their minds intimate with each other’s thoughts, their hearts bound by deep love and a shared void where Kira once was. “Everything was successful?”

Shira grins. “We got the Tachibanas out, took the book, and gave the Man a big juicy surprise with extra bacon and cheese. I say mission accomplished.”

Hope’s expression turns deadly serious. “Fun’s over now, darling. They’re mad like raging bulls. Expect their answer any time.”

Trembling with enthusiasm, Shira sits up and pumps her fist. “I say let the bulls out! This fight’s only begun.”

early morning. On all official channels, the news spreads the pleas of terrified Americans crying out for a hero. On all screens, the strong and serious face of Secretary Becket appears to deliver a warning to the Nation and the world.
Tonight, a terrorist attacked the economic heart of the Empire. From previous messages we have intercepted, we know his purpose is not in the service of an enemy nation, but solely out of nihilistic hatred of America. His methods are beyond normal human comprehension. America’s heroic military and law enforcement personnel are doing their part to stop this menace that eats at the heart of Our Nation. But America is in desperate need for even greater heroes. We shall find these heroes, and they shall save America. May God bl—
On all screens, another face suddenly interrupts: black motorcycle helmet, skull and crossed wrenches emblazoned above the faceplate, eight-bit pixelized, Atari rainbow rising in the background, tickers above and below repeating the word SUBVERTISEMENT. In a Votrax voice, the apparition speaks:
The lamestream is now done spinning its lies. Now I will unspin the truth. Call me Spanner.

Last night I sent a clear message to the American supermen. But greed, faith, and self-infatuation has turned their minds to mush. Therefore, I will explain.

They claim they defend freedom. But their freedom is that of the bully who robs others of theirs. Their blindness tells them the only true freedom is freedom from freedom itself. Their freedom will self-destruct.

They emptied an entire city for — what, a business meeting? For one little party, they enraged millions. The people will not tolerate a repeat.

Their ideal is no ideal. They call it Synarchy. We call it central planning. It never works. It violates the Law of Entropy. The people can run their lives just fine without interfering rulers. That is anarchy.

Don’t try to find me; I am everywhere. You cannot identify me; I am anyone and no one. You cannot punish me; I am the virus in the System. I am not the superhero come to save you from yourselves. I am the Angel of Chaos.

This message will self-destruct in five... four... three... two... one...

On all screens, the color-bar test pattern. The long long beep. A standard male television announcer voice interrupts.
This is the Emergency Alert System. A Code Red Terror Alert has been issued for the entire East Coast in the wake of the terror attack on TrumpCity tonight. FBI Director Karl Radisson is offering a twenty-five million dollar reward for the identification and capture of the terrorist known as Spanner. A spokesman for President Goldman Sachs & Company says the President wants the terrorist eliminated as soon as possible.
On all screens, the news. You are watching ESPNBC. A standard blond news presenter pretties up the screen. Her name, for all it is worth, is Amanda Currie. From the studio TelePrompTer, the pretty blond newsreader reads the news prettily.
...the destruction caused by the Spanner incident, TrumpCo has put itself under Chapter 11 protection and will not prevent displaced residents from returning to the city. Homeland Security Secretary Henry Becket has issued a temporary blanket ban on all hoverboards for the next four days, until Revolution Day celebrations are finished. Now on to other breaking news...
You change the channel. Fox, Sun, ABCNN, QVCBS: Spanner is the news. ABC, NBC, CBS, CBN, TBN, CW, ION, Fox Entertainment... the regularly scheduled edutainment and infomercials all pre-empted by news, and the news is Spanner. You are about to throw the remote through thetelevision when Secretary Becket himself calls you over the Party hotline.

The Conservative Revolutionary Party intranet is one of the privileges of power in Imperial America. You are Ward G. Tremayne, Shepherd-Mayor appointed to dominion over the traitorous liberal city of Seattle, a single-mindedly devoted Patriot, the spiritual rock of the dreaded “Fearsome Foursome” who wield iron-fisted dominion over the American State of Cascadia. The evil socialist rabble hate you. Their hate feeds your power. You click the button that brings the Secretary’s image on screen. His face looks visibly unnerved.
Shepherd Tremayne. We have a problem.
“Mr. Secretary! I take it we didn’t catch the terrorist?”
There is a reason why the Crime Prevention Division’s precognitive agents went mad. This “Spanner” is no mere terrorist, but a new kind of weapon, not a man but a virus. He has already infected the media, as you have seen. The perfidious rabble are already inflating him into a superhero.
“You are describing a supernatural threat, Mr. Secretary. This is an act of spiritual warfare, aimed at us by the forces of Darkness.”
Not Darkness, Mr. Tremayne. Chaos. It is not just the life of Our Nation that is in danger, but the very order of things. The first law of Heaven is Order. We are under direct assault by Chaos itself. Universal destruction is in our future if we are not at all times vigilant. Gird your loins, Mr. Tremayne, and prepare for war.
“I understand, Mr. Secretary. God bless America!”
America bless God.
The Secretary’s face disappears, and the news of Spanner resumes. You have never before seen such worry nor heard such fear in the stolid stonelike visage of the man who was once America’s superheroic defender against Communism. Henry Becket is the rock of the Nation, yet this Spanner has shaken him. You click and click in search of a Spanner-free channel but do not find it. The Secretary is right: Spanner is a virus. He has infected the media. The entire Telesphere is dying of his disease. You can feel all Anonymous laugh at you.

Suddenly, the channel changes itself. You click and click, but the channel now refuses to change. To your horror, you see a dark-skinned blond girl, lying on her side on a luxurious-looking bed, facing left. She is beautiful. She is charismatic. She is utterly seductive, totally nude, insanely horny, completely without shame. She is the infamous Rebel Styles, and she is your deepest, darkest secret.

She is a child of no more than eight.

Slowly she rolls over to face you, smiling seductively. Discreetly she keeps her left hand between her legs, as if to disguise her gender. In her right hand, she holds a television remote. The image gradually zooms in on her pretty face. She coos:
Come to me. I know what you want. I can see deep into your heart. I know the desires you’re most afraid to see. You want me.
You cannot resist Rebel. You are utterly entranced.

Suddenly, she stares straight into your eyes and says nothing for an endless moment. Still smiling enigmatically, she says:
Will you die for me?
Your will is no longer your own. Under her compulsion, you say, “Yes, my love, I will die for you.” She smiles sweetly.

You reach for your revolver. At first, hoping to murder Rebel, you point it at the screen. But then your sick desire for this child seductress compels you to turn the pistol at yourself. You plead weakly, “Jesus America, please forgive me.” You insert the barrel into your mouth. At last, you pull the trigger.

You were Shepherd-Mayor Ward Tremayne, spiritual rock of the Fearsome Foursome. Now you are dead.
BREAKING NEWS FLASH!
Amanda Currie: (breathlessly) Word has just come in to the ESPNBC Newsroom that the Shepherd-Mayor of the Metropolitan City of Seattle sponsored by Boeing Defense Industries, Incorporated, has been assassinated!
Cub Reporter: (on the scene) That’s right, Amanda! It has now been confirmed that the man who committed suicide in this house is indeed Shepherd-Mayor Ward Tremayne, dictator of Seattle appointed by Chief Shepherd Drusilla Becket herself. FBI spokesman J. Locke Holmes announced that the murder weapon was a curse.
J. Locke Holmes: (at FBI press conference room) We have found no signs of physical damage or struggle, or even natural causes, so we had no choice but to conclude that this was a supernatural attack.
Amanda: As expected, the Caliphate claimed responsibility.
Spokesterrorist: (in mountain lair) You decadent Western infidels have not yet unconditionally surrendered to the eternal dominion of our immortal Mahdi, blessèd be he forever. We shall continue to escalate our death prayers until either you surrender to Allah or you are all dead and suffering eternal torment in Hell, with weeping and gnashing of teeth. Glory be to—
Amanda: The Earth Revolutionary Front also claims responsibility.
Spokesterrorist: (in forest lair) As long as you people continue to rape Our Mother, we will continue to work and pray toward your destruction until you and all your Earth-destroying technology and pollution are all purged and cleansed from her body. Blessèd be! Down—
Amanda: The Socialist Revolutionary Organization refuses to comment. So far we have heard no further word from Spanner.
last night...
dreamspace.
The monster chases Leila, and she runs. She bears no clothes no armour no defense: she is beautiful slender pale vulnerable and she runs. Every time she looks back to see how close or far it is, it takes a completely different shape. She doesn’t know why she’s there or what she’s doing, but still she runs. Through alleys pathways traffic garbage crowds, through scuzzy apartments clean skyscraper offices stifling fuming factories she runs. As long as she keeps running, the spectre will never catch her. But she’s afraid, and so she runs.

Then the spectre attacks her in its true form, the huge grim figure in the mirrorshades in the dark, and it begins. The wars the civil wars strife terror hate, the burning oil spills the hurricanes tornadoes earthquakes, and the world is about to end the same way it always does and the same way the spectre wants it to end, and the robot zombie apocalypse is about to begin — but after the nuclear warheads launch, a roaring tigress attacks the spectre and he panics and the world goes into chaos and dream visions go random—

hotel, portland. Leila suddenly wakes and sits bolt upright, the covers flying off her bare drenched skin. Dripping sweat glues her short black hair to her forehead. She breathes heavily, gasping for air.

She struggles out of the bedcovers and sits at the side of the bed and lets the sweat run down her skin. She has never experienced anything like this. The vision always ends the same way. But not now. The wordless sense that something huge is about to happen overwhelms her. She tries to think about it for a while. Then she gets up to take a long cold shower.

shopping arcade, fort vancouver. The exhausted girl sits listlessly in the food court and watches Apple try to beat Microsoft into the Cartel on the television screens above and the world take one step closer to the end, and despairs. And then the same thing happens to the Cartel that happened in her dream that morning: the whole scene descends into chaos. But this time the chaos is caused by a man — a mystery man on a hoverboard wielding smoke bombs, exploding flares, and a monkeywrench. And the talking heads are calling him after the monkeywrench: Spanner. The world tries to take one more step to oblivion, and an angel of chaos descends to trip it.

For the first time in over a year, Leila does not take her daily antidepressant. The despair has fled. All that is left is shock...

house, bremerton. Now she dreams that Shira is making love to her. She wakes bolt upright. For how long she cannot count, she sits there stunned, remembering last night’s dream, wondering if Shira has anything to do with that Spanner...

She showers, dresses, meets her mother at breakfast, idly traces her tattoos with her finger. Taylor asks, “Darling, you look like you just had a nightmare or something.”

“Have you ever dreamt that Shira Thomas was making love to you?”

Taylor laughs. “You haven’t met her yet?”

“Of course not!” snaps Leila.

“She wants to, of course. I’ve even heard rumors she built a shrine to you.”

“Well, I hope she stays far away then.”

“Oh, you’ll be meeting her soon, I guarantee it. You’re in Shira country now. In Shira country, what Shira wants, Shira gets, and what she wants is you.” Taylor winks.

Leila’s eyes go wide, her jaw drops; she stares at her mother in shock.

sunrise. Donald K. McTeague is chairman of Yoyodyne Industries and America’s defense industry fuhrer, and he is currently attempting a hostile takeover of the Boeing Company. He watches the news of Tremayne’s death. “This was no suicide,” he mutters to himself. “I know who murdered him.”

He tries never to sleep because he believes sleep is unproductive and a waste of time: so much to do, so little time. But the new anti-sleep drug he’s taking makes him hallucinate one night before the big screen in his hotel room. Eventually the swirling vision takes the form of his greatest fear.

“I know what you want,” she calls to him in her seductive lilting voice. “You want Rebel Rebel. You want me more than anything else in the world.” McTeague stares at her in utter fascination, like a bird hypnotized by the eyes of a cobra. “Take me. Ravish me. I’m yours and only yours.” He obeys her command, climbs through the television screen and into her world, and tries to rape her — only to find himself trapped forever inside the screen. Rebel laughs at him as he screams in absolute terror.

When Chairman McTeague fails to come to work, his assistants send corporate security agents to his mansion. Soon he finds himself locked in a rubber room at Western State Hospital, irrevocably mad, never to return to the outside world. The Boeing acquisition fails.
Amanda: More breaking news!
Cub Reporter: (at Western State) The chairman of Yoyodyne Defense Associates, America’s defense industry leader, has gone mad! Boeing has broken off merger talks.
Amanda: In other news, Lockheed Martin Northrop Grumman Dynamics has announced its intent to acquire Boeing to create one of the most spectacular business enterprises ever, second only to Standard Oil itself! The combined company will be called Lockheed Northrop Boeing Dynamics...
mudlark house. Home. Overjoyed to be alive, too excited to sleep, Jennifer leaped into Willa’s bed, kissed the length of the iridescent Chinese dragon tattoo coiled around Willa’s body, made love to her all night — sustaining the height of ecstasy as long as they can till it seems an eternity, heaven and earth collapse into one another, mother and daughter-wife lose their identities in each other and the whole universe, for hours and hours—

They collapse into each other’s arms, hold tight each other’s drenched bodies, attack each other with deep delirious violent kisses till the sun comes up...

The small bathtub for them alone always knows when they are ready. Jennifer programmed it. She leads Willa by the hand into a fresh bubble bath. “I’ve never felt so alive in my life.”

Willa laughs. “Now you know exactly what terrorists and bank robbers live for.”
“I thought they were in it for the money and that idealistic kinda stuff.”

“Oh, those are just game achievements, proof on the scoreboard that you won. In truth they crave the thrill of cheating death and getting away with murder, the same way addicts crave drugs. Idealism? Pelf? Cover stories.”

Jennifer cuddles up tight. “That’s why I’m so glad Shira and I have you and Hope to ground us.”

“Well, keep us connected so you don’t come unmoored.”

Her expression turns grim. “Like Talia...”

mid-morning. “I know what you did,” she purrs to Jesse Jameson, state Party chairman, “and I know you want more. You can never get enough. Do it to me again.”

He stabs his wife over a hundred times. He shoots up the Salem COPCO office and steals several Toymaker bombs set to explode on impact. He recklessly races his rigged Range Rover into Cascadia Public Management Corporation headquarters, through the gate, right into Chairman Walter Brinkman himself.

Fully transformed into invulnerable werewolf form, Brinkman suffers not a scratch; reverting to his usual half-transformed state, he surveys the damage around him as angry COPCO agents arrive. “Investigate this Rebel Styles,” he screams through the phone at Chairman Sparks. “I demand you put an end to this madness now!”
Amanda: Even more breaking news!
Cub Reporter: (at CPMC corporate headquarters outside Salem) Party state chairman Jesse Jameson just killed himself in a bizarre suicide bombing attack on CPMC headquarters!
Brinkman: (dusty, slightly ruffled) Whoever’s commanding these demons is making his intention clear now that he’s openly committing magic terrorism against the Nation, the Revolution, and our company.
Amanda: In emergency session, the Party Central Committee has appointed J. Stoneman Becket as interim state chairman...
boathouse. While still moored in Eagle Harbor off Bainbridge Island, Karen once again dreams of Kira trapped in the Arizona concentration camp where the Kubotas were once imprisoned for racecrime. While her parents sail Rich Passage, she kneels before the family Buddhist altar to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo with absolute determination: for the people’s happiness, for their liberation from this hell of tyranny, and for her twin cousins, without a single thought of herself.

By the time she has spent her hour in the Buddha’s enlightenment, the Kokoro has arrived in Bremerton. Shira and Jennifer are here. She is ready to face the world.

late morning. “Come and play with Rebel Rebel,” she coos to Justice J. Jasper Johnson, the executioner of child pornographers who has publicly vowed to personally slay this demoness. “I’m your lover forever. You cannot possibly resist me.” He hates her with all his heart because she tortures him with uncontrollable desire. He shoots every television in his house, then murders his sleeping wives, children, and slaves. He sets fire to his mansion, not to cover up the crime but to exorcise the succubus from his mind once and for all.

He fails. When Jasper Johnson arrives late at the courthouse, he brings his beloved assault rifle to his office and massacres his entire staff. He is shot dead by antiterrorist strike police.
Amanda: Still more breaking news yet!
Cub Reporter: (at the Supreme Court in Salem) Cascadia’s Chief Justice, J. Russell Johnson, has just massacred his entire staff! The FBI is looking into allegations that terrorists summoned demons to possess him.
Amanda: Thank you. In yet more breaking news, Cascadia Public Management Corporation CEO J. Walter Brinkman and Church of America in Cascadia Chief Shepherd Drusilla Becket Pernell have appointed Shepherd Luke Everson as the new Mayor of the Metropolitan City of Seattle now brought to you by Lockheed Northrop Boeing Dynamics!
shopping arcade, bremerton. Shira, Jennifer, and Karen meet downtown in the coffee shop that is not Starbuck’s or Tully’s, where Keenan Sasser and Ada Paulette wait for them. Their beautiful, elegant Korean-American friend Daisy Kwon says, “Hi, guys!” They rush over to hug her and the friend she’s tutoring, Marina Reyes.

At Keenan and Ada’s table, the meeting begins. “Girls!” says Keenan. “You won’t believe what else Spanner unleashed.”

“All morning there’s been news of Party leaders going nuts or killing people,” Ada explains, “and they all had one thing in common, and you won’t guess what.”

Shira fidgets with anticipation. “What?”

Ada narrows her eyes and says conspiratorially, “Rebel Styles.”

The girls gasp. Shira goes, “Oooooooh!”

“You have something to do with that?” asks Keenan.

Shira protests, “I didn’t know a thing about that till you told me!”

At that moment, Ariel Shield walks in. She double takes at the sight of Shira. “Oh Shira, how nice to see you!” She rushes over, Shira gets up, and they hug.

“Did you bring Leila to me?” whispers Shira.

“She’s here.”

Jennifer stands up at the shock of the name. “What?!” Daisy and Marina gasp.

“Oh boy,” Ada says grimly. “this is gonna get real fun.”

telesphere. A new channel blinks into existence. The chaos Spanner created on the airwaves gives it the margin of freedom it needs to be born. A man with a Bristol accent reveals its existence to the world.
Announcer: Pirate Television KCUF is now on the air.
FBI headquarters. The FBI are swamped enough with mafia- and Nazi-related child porn cases, many of them snuff, that they are tempted to pass the Rebel Styles case by. But Special Agent Joseph Ogden is disturbed enough that he argues the case to Director Radisson. “Men going nuts all over the country, offing themselves, going berserk. Important men, even. And all of ’em have one thing in common, and it’s these Rebel Rebel videos. There’s similar cases in Japan too. I say we need to stop this Rebel Styles before she goes viral and does some real damage.”

The tall blond woman he has just interrupted is Special Agent Diana Shockley. “I agree with Agent Ogden. This does sound urgent.”

Secretary Radisson says in his Australian accent, “You two are the most effective agents we’ve got, so I’m putting you on the case. COPCO operatives will meet you as soon as you get to Seattle.”

on to the next...

Back to Chapter 2 index...
Back to Chaos Angel Spanner table of contents...

Copyright © 2011, 2012 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.
Creative Commons License

[Revision 2.1, 6/22/11: Much of the NaNoEdMo ’11 edit of this section was omitted. It is now restored.]
[Revision 3, 9/8/11.]
[Revision 4 Final, 7/2/12. Expanded and fully integrated into Revision 4 continuity. Shira and Leila scenes moved here from Chapters 3 and 4 respectively.]

No comments:

Post a Comment