Monday, July 11, 2011

Spanner 7.4: Pizza and Crocodile Tears

...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 7: Love Missile
Part 4: Pizza and Crocodile Tears (Revision 3)
25 august 2014...
As the Corporates fly into cleared-out Manhattan for their Spanner-plagued Acceptance of Steve Jobs and Apple into the United Corporations, Vice President Sarah Palin, Incorporated, announces that her divorce from Todd Palin is final. She is now free to marry whomever she wants. And she intends to marry him on September 11, the Day of the Patriot Martyrs, one of the high holy days on the religious calendar of Americanism.

The world press explodes with rumors of the groom. Is it another politician? a high-ranking Corporate baron? a celebrity (presumably not the tarnished Mel Gibson)? a European prince? one of the powerful Shepherds of the Church of America whose inquisition protects the Empire’s power? Jesus America Himself? The bookmakers are already making their bets.

26 august 2014...
Todd Palin threatens to sue his now ex-wife. All the sleazy celebrity magazines in America and the even sleazier tabloids in Britain and Japan bid for his tell-all exposé.
8 september 2014.
before class. Charmian has carefully avoided Shira for the past week. But Shira is taking the day off tomorrow because she turns fifteen, so she’s the center of all attention, surrounded by crowds of admiring students. Valiant Team sensibly stay away from the Bremeloes so they can lick their wounds and Challenge them later.”

Not long before the homeroom bell rings, the crowds dissipate as the students hurry to class. Shira, being a tutor, is in no hurry. Charmian manages to find her alone. She whispers, “If they find out what you’re doing with that slutty Eurotrash friend of yours, you won’t have so many friends anymore.”

Shira crosses her arms and gives her a crooked smirk. “What about you, Charms? All your bullying and beating people up, sending boys to beat up girls you’re jealous of, and how many kids have you driven to suicide? If the kids find out, I’ll be a hero for taking down the Princess of Darkness a notch.”

Charmian stares at her wide-eyed, stunned as if she’d slapped her. She narrows her eyes to glare at her angrily. Shira’s ironic smile says Sucks to be you. Charmian spins around, harrumphs haughtily, and flounces off to class.

In the remaining time, Shira and Jennifer greet each other, their cousins, and their friends (female as well as male) by hugging them and giving them a big kiss on the lips. Then she directs them to do the same to each other. Some of the girls shyly kiss each other on the cheek, while most of the boys don’t even do that and simply hug each other boisterously.

They get hit with various books, pens, and other random things. They turn around to face Charmian back with her gang of mean girls. “Eww, stop that!” she shrieks. “It’s gross!

Shira faces her in fighting position and summons Cory and a scowling Jennifer to either side of her. “Why, Princess Charming! How nice of you to come back to deliver us a Team Challenge on behalf of Team God Hates Fags!”

“But—”

“Now lay off,” Shira snaps, “or I’ll invoke Gang Rules on you and your entire criminal enterprise.”

Charmian runs off to tell the Principal on her.

principal’s office. The Principal says, “Don’t you know that excessive public affection is against the Law?”

Shira paces the office like a trial lawyer as her judges look down at her suspiciously. “I noticed you didn’t say it’s against the Law. Sure, the Holy Republic highly encourages bullying and fighting in school because it [clears throat] ‘builds men.’ However, it just happens to be illegal in the State of Cascadia. Therefore, your prohibition is against the Law.”

Falconer thunders, “Lewd behavior is forbidden by the authority of the Bible and the Book of America, and nothing can nullify the Law of God!”

“So says the Caliph,” Jennifer snaps. Falconer gasps; Principal groans. Jennifer takes off her glasses and gazes hard into Falconer’s eyes. “You forget, Major, that Cascadia is an Anti-Sharia state. Furthermore, we’re a Populist state you look down on as a mere colony, and in a Populist state the people have the right to nullify Federal laws.” She starts pacing and twirls her finger in the air. “But you Neo-Confederates are incapable of understanding a democratic society. You were always absolute monarchists anyway, and you’ve always been obsessed with forcing your own brand of Sharia on the world.” She pivots to face Falconer and points at her. “That’s why you people lost the War for Slaver Domination in the first place.”

Principal holds back angry Falconer and sighs in frustration. This time his smirk is much more strained. “Do you always have to keep slandering the Great Holy Rebellion to make your point?”

“Why not? You’re still fighting it. And you’ll keep on losing it. You’re still on the wrong side of history.”

lunch. Jennifer suddenly finds herself blocked by Charmian and surrounded by her most dangerous lieutenants, Kelly, Christie, and Debbie. Charmian glares at her angrily like an offended church lady. She crosses her arms and smiles back contemptuously. “What’s the bug eating at your guts now, Charmian?”

Through her teeth, Charmian replies, “We heard that you married your own mother. Is this correct?”

“There has to be some reason why I’m not imprisoned in some eugenics-mad oligarch’s harem. Congratulations for stumbling on it.”

Charmian raises her voice. “Do you not know it’s against the Law?!

Jennifer rolls her eyes and sighs. “Have you descended so far into the bottomless pit of morality that you’ve forgotten you’re Corporate? From the looks of it, I say you have.” She takes off her glasses slowly and stares into Charmian’s eyes. “Knowing the oligarchs of your caste, there’s a high likelihood the breeder hunters will ensure none of you will finish school.”

She hears a gasp behind her. “Oh no!” exclaims a panicked Debbie. She starts to run.

“Deborah!” shouts Charmian. “Where in Jesus America’s name do you think you’re going?”

Through a scared smile, Debbie replies, “I gotta go tell Barry! We might have to do it a little early! ’Bye!” She runs off before Charmian can stop her.

Pizza Mafia. Team Bremelo share an extra-jumbo Hawaiian Supreme pizza at Pizza Mafia’s new location downtown. The current core membership: Shira, Jennifer, Cory, Kio, and Rob. Seika has offered to pay any overruns; he brings Harumi with him. Polly came along because Team Bremelo are her friends.

Harumi asks, “Shira-chan, how you beat all those guys?”

Cory answers. “There’s four or five people in this joint who own the Israeli fighting styles. I’m one of ’em. But Shira’s the best.”

“What Cory means,” Shira hastens to add, “is that we’re so familiar with Israeli fighting styles everybody in the Church of America’s required to learn, like krav maga and military haganah, that we can beat ’em in just about any fight.”

“We practice fighting against Israeli styles in our dojo simulator” adds Jennifer. “Once you get familiar with them, you can beat just about anybody who uses them if you use a superior style like we do.”

“Now we’ve got some real force behind the Student Union. We can fight at least at Valiant Team’s level or better.”

“They can’t call us ‘wimpy pacifists’ anymore.”

Seika asks, “Then how did you beat that gang of huge men without even fighting?”

“I told ’em we’re ten times better than they are but that they could test us on it if they liked. They decided not to risk getting their oversized butts whomped and left. Simple as that.”

Polly asks, “Jen, if Charmian were to Challenge you, could you beat her?”

“I could beat any of the Fleer sisters with little problem, if that’s what you mean.”

“I could beat all of ’em at once, including Vivian,” says Shira. “Why else did Charmian run off to wail to daddy?”

“Speaking of which,” muses Polly, “isn’t Vivian getting married tomorrow?”

Feigning ignorance, Shira looks up, rests her head in her hand, and smiles. “Why, yes she is! And what a welcoming party she’s going to get.”

“Now explain that little incident in the cafeteria.”

Jennifer’s eyes go wide. She presses her lips together, looks nervously to the left, and starts to blush. “Well...”

Seika blushes. “Jennifer, is it true?”

Puzzled, Jennifer cocks her head. “Is what true?”

“Did you really marry your own mother?”

Jennifer blushes furiously. “Well...I guess the truth’ll have to come out eventually. Yes. As a matter of fact, I did marry my mother.”

Harumi gasps in shock. Rob looks at Jennifer strangely and asks, “Seriously?”

Jennifer giggles. “Well, that’s a long story...”

Cory winks at Shira. “So why didn’t you marry your mother?” Jennifer and Polly look at each other, then at Shira.

Shira winks. “Don’t need to. Not Racially Incorrect enough. The Cartel’s eugenicists won’t touch me with the proverbial ten-foot pole.”

Polly says, “Surely some crime lord or sheik wants you in his harem...”

“And he’ll get his ass in big trouble the minute he tries to enslave me. And I don’t mean just me. He’ll have my mother to deal with.”

Jennifer says, “It’s only us white girls who marry our mothers, and for a specific reason.”

“Say it, girl!” cheers Shira.

Jennifer winks at her and explains, “For some reason the Corporate aristocracy are obsessed with racial purity, so they set up a Eugenics Institute and had the Cartel give them control over reproduction. Institute agents search the world, looking for white girls they deem [air quotes] “pure” enough, and then kidnap them and auction them off to Corporate overlords for shotgun weddings and a life as breeding slaves. So to protect their daughters, mothers find every way they can to scrounge up the money to buy Exceptions from the Cartel so they can marry their own daughters. Once they’re married, the eugenicists can’t legally touch them. So if the Cartel eugenicists try to force Polly or me into breeding slavery, our mothers can sue them to get us back with extra damages, especially if they have to hire bounty hunters [the phrase catches Brandi’s attention] to rescue us first. And that’s why Polly and I married our own mothers. Nonwhites, and other racially incorrect people are considered unsuited for eugenic breeding, so they’re safe from that kind of breeding conscription. So, as much as Shira and Hope adore each other, they have no legal need to marry, so they won’t.” She winks at her cousin again.

Shira winks back. “That’s why.”

on to the next...

Back to Chapter 7 index...
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Copyright © 2011 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.
Creative Commons License

[Revision 2, 7/11/11: Flashbacks and final scene mostly intact from the first draft; everything else is new material.]
[Revision 3, 10/22/11: Edited to fit Third Revision continuity, corrected continuity and text errors.]

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