Spanner R4 Update: Chapter 4, Second Pass: The Novelization Part (With Bonus Chapter 5 Preview)

I know what I'm editing now. Second phase: adapting those parts of Chapter 4's Script Frenzy script version that I haven't adapted yet, plus completing scenes I didn't script but which remain unfinished. Here's the rundown:

1. Incomplete: the opening coffee shop scene before the shooting; the first two paragraphs are still in concept and not yet written.
2. Incomplete: the strategy conference for the Bangor High student tutors and their parents. The original outline and the Script Frenzy version are set at Mudlark House; for the revision, I'm moving it to the house of the Tachibana family from Chapters 1 and 5.
3. New: the scene where the future Team Bremelo scout Dictel Park and run into a Klown gang called the Baddd Boyzz near the old Dictel Corporation headquarters. The gang leader, Little Badd, and his chief enforcer, Big Baddd, will be a recurring menace throughout the School Arc.
4. New: what in the original outline was a funeral is now a gathering at Drusilla Becket's cult headquarters to determine who takes over Biotron Corporation now that its founding chairman Dr. Lars Thorwald is dead.
5. New: the scene at the Shelley family house to discuss how to extricate Leila from her arranged marriage to Oliver Thorwald, which remains enforceable by law despite the elder Thorwald's murder.

The hard part is, surprisingly enough, those first two paragraphs. The easy part is converting the new scenes from script to prose (and HTML). After that, I'll update the novelization to include changes made in the script version. The third phase, then, will be cutting the chapter down to size.

Meanwhile, here's a new scene for Chapter 5 that I thought up while walking the downtown streets right after posting yesterday's entry. This little scene says volumes about both episode villain Mark Bernkastel (the serial killer Shira saves Mimi from in Chapter 4, and the first homeroom teacher in the School Arc) and major villain Dick Becket, king of the Corporates and supreme guru of "Sado-Monetarism". Seems his sadism goes beyond even economics...

The scenario: just before Bernkastel sets out for Dictel Park to hunt our heroines, he calls the United Corporations chairman while he is having sex with the Shira clone he's having his kitchen staff fix for dinner that night (some Corporates like to eat clones of themselves as a delicacy, but their leader prefers to clone his female enemies and have sex with them before he eats them). The clone makes the expected sexual noises throughout the scene.

Bernkastel: Chairman! Shira Thomas is Spanner!
Becket: (irritably) What did I tell you about interrupting me, Bernkastel?
Bernkastel: But Chairman, this is urgent!
Becket: I'm busy, Bernkastel. Wait until I'm finished.
Bernkastel: What in Jesus America's name—
Becket: Are you a cocksman, Bernkastel?
Bernkastel: (surprised) What?
Becket: If you were a cocksman, Bernkastel, you wouldn't be going around killing women instead of conquering them. If you were a cocksman, you would have conquered Shira Thomas long ago. Am I clear?
Bernkastel: But—
Becket: You are as useless as ever, Bernkastel. Goodbye. [hangs up phone]

I've noticed how the Beckets can intimidate even the scariest villains: Drusilla and a theocrat in Chapter 1, Richard here, Henry pretty much anytime. And I haven't even gotten to Colonel Tom. As for making deals while having sex with the clone you're going to eat: that's an act of supervillainy in itself, and one of the most cyberpunk things my villains have done yet. It's absolute decadence only aristocrats are capable of getting away with. So into Chapter 5 it goes, along with the followup scene in which the cooked clone is being served, after Bernkastel is blown up by a mon his ex-wife sent to his phone.

The followup. Chairman Becket's serving this well cooked Shira clone to none other than the real ruler of the American Empire, the President of President Goldman Sachs & Company, a ruthless corporate raider who looks like a simulant and plays dress-up in a cop uniform even though he doesn't have Police Guild membership:

President: I thought I ordered you to serve me the real Shira Thomas!
Becket: I was hoping this would inspire you toward revenge.
President: Bull pucky! I won't be satisfied until the real Shira Thomas is right here on this table, specially prepared personally for me!
Becket: You try catching her, then.
President: My men are already working on it. Speaking of which, how's my old friend Mark?
Becket: He is already dead.

Now to get back to drawing my callipygian heroine — the stubborn original, that is...