In fact, this is how the Conservative Revolution began. And so, starting in Chapter 4, I will show you the true genius of the Rat Bastard.
That's the nickname of Randolph G. Litton, the Cascadia Public Management Corporations' Vice President for Public Relations (read: chief propagandist). He will be introduced early in Chapter 4, by Governor-CEO Brinkman himself, and given the task of turning a turd (SPEC, the privatized school system owned by a corrupt and mobster-infested teachers' union) into a rose. That serial-killer incident late in the chapter and new to Revision 4? By saving sweet Mimi's life, Shira inadvertently interrupts a false-flag operation which was going to squeeze sympathy for SPEC out of the torching of one of the most marginal of its high schools by a fake terrorist group. The slasher doesn't know it, but Litton's using him as a patsy. When Shira tells him when he's the fake teacher of her homeroom class, he goes ballistic — and ends up destroyed by his hubris (and his ex-wife) by the end of Chapter 5.
And why should I settle for just SPEC? The meeting at Drusilla's cult headquarters after Shira inadvertently serves as the conduit of the more successful terror attack that kills the chairman of Biotron should in fact be where we meet the man in person, who introduces himself to the dead CEO's son and vice-chairman (and ex-lover):
Cut to his publicity campaign on Biotron's behalf, in which the Author demonstrates just what the Rat Bastard is capable of. Therefore, in the serial-killer fight at Bangor High, Shira ends up showing just how disruptive she can get when she finds herself disrupting Litton's arson operation without even thinking about it.Litton: Looks like y'all need a little help.Oliver: You're the Rat Bastard, right?Dr. Mina Tatsumi: We don't need your help, Mr. Litton.Oliver: My father's just been murdered—Litton: By terrorists! At war against the corporations that provide America with its jobs! This, my friends, is how you bounce back from such a tragedy. It's not the fate of one company that's at stake. Those cold-blooded murderers declared war against science, technology, progress, and the American Way!Drusilla: Enough science! America needs more faith, and you—Litton: (points at her) Dru! Are you with the terrorists? You're insulting a bereaved wife, son, and mistress!
Drusilla falls silent and glares at Litton resentfully.
Litton: Good girl. Now here's the plan...
Oliver, Mrs. Thorwald, and Dr. Tatsumi and her assistants draw closer to him.
And so a major theme of Spanner, alluded to in the first three chapters, finally enters the main plot in Chapter 4: the greatest failure of terrorism is that it turns fascist oppressors and Corporate predators into martyrs. Terrorists are really violently self-righteous vigilantes who think that righteous violence is the one-size-fits-all solution to all problems. Their self-righteousness can be used as a potent weapon against them. Any government or corporate PR department that's not sleeping on the job can and will use this weapon. In fact, so does Shira — and Spanner himself, who mocks them for being gangsters with a messiah complex, Lawful Stupid, or (most amusingly to him) both.
The one "terrorist" you can't use this approach against is Spanner. He strikes only to make fools of his enemies, then he mocks them. Some experts speculate that his goal is to enrage the Corporates enough that they turn terrorist. Then he mocks the terrorists for being factions of the Establishment turned rogue merely out of childish spite. He declares that he will "own" Litton in the Rat Bastard's own field of expertise. And in Chapters 15-23, he does just that.
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