Spanner Interlude 5: Approaching Solstice, December 2012

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner
Interlude 5: Approaching Solstice, December 2012

the medium. Nine voices come out of the mouth of a spectacularly robed Drusilla Becket in her gaudy temple made of gold and gems and rich fabrics yet built at strange angles that defeat Leila’s mind and make her head spin. Through their channel the nine chant their message from beyond as if chanting a spell to foreordain Leila’s future. In their singsong ninefold voice the nine principles of God speak as one through Drusilla’s lips down to Leila. “We are well pleased that you have successfully transcended what had been chosen for you so that you may be prepared for a higher destiny, yes. We are choosing you for a destiny that is higher, yes. For the end of the aeon of the Fifth Men as signalled by the ending of the Mayan calendar is at hand, the day when the Reckoning shall begin and the way is prepared for the coming of the Sixth Men that shall succeed the Fifth Men that are now dominant on this planet, yes. And the work to purify this planet of the children of the Evil One who worship the black jewel in his infernal crown, and the Evil One has introduced the virus into the programming of humanity, and this planet must be disinfected of this virus and of the race of Darkness that infects the mind of the Fifth Race so that the Sixth Race may not come, yes. And you, our chosen one, must make the sacrifice necessary to purify this planet so that the aeon of the Sixth Race may be born and reign over the kingdom of space. You do understand, yes.”

Leila nods reluctantly. She refuses to trust these godly words with their godly contempt for human grammar and thought. She witnessed what their anointed did to Yolanda Currie. She is not yet fourteen, yet she knows her life is already over even though it has barely begun. Unknown to Drusilla and the nine-principled God whose speaker she is pleased to be, Leila plots her own assassination.

escape: Alarms sound — people panic throughout the complex — the Biotron Labs mainframe has been taken over by a virus that streams loliporn Rebel Styles videos from the Darknet with no way to stop them short of destroying the computer with bombs. Lars Thorwald and Mina Tatsumi, the bioweapons engineers who own and run Biotron, blame each other to the accompaniment of Rebel Rebel’s sweet giggles over a chorus of screaming dying men.

“Mina, did you lower our security level? I told you we’d be attacked by terrorists!”

“Stop being an idiot, Lars! Let’s stop whoever’s doing this before they pirate our Intellectual Property!”

They try to contact their head of security only to listen in on his keening wordless death aria.

Taking advantage of the panic, weaving through the fleeing mob, Dr. Wendy Chaloner (27) leads three Factor Positive subjects and a Sexaroid named Priscilla Persocom in a desperate escape: Yolanda Currie, 24, short brown hair; Leila Shelley, 13, long black hair and violet eyes; Lucie Stenbeck, 6, blond-haired blue-eyed acquisition from a terminated terrorist and now being carried by the faithful Miss Persocom as they flee Biotron Labs past the twitching gurgling Dictel Security corpses under the watchful eyes of Rebel Styles, to the garage where they take her car and speed out before the virus can self-destruct the complex.

the doktor. The temple is deep in the heart of the Dictel Research complex. The holy of holies is a medical laboratory. The white robes and masks are the trappings of Scientism. The actual ritual is occult. The eugenicists hold the needles, ready to inject at the Doktor’s command. Her blood will soon flow in the veins of Synarchs who lust to seize absolute power, spiritual and political, before the solstice arrives and the Reckoning begins. The Doktor and his eugenicists arrayed in the white mantle and surplice and mask of Scientism chant their invocation in Enochian — no, Altean. She can feel the presence of her sister among them. Amanda, her betrayer, her murderer.

But she knows that her lineage is going extinct. So many Factor Positives had to die so that the Synarchy could gain the superhuman power to win their Conservative Revolution. But once they extinguish her lineage, the Synarchs will lose their source of immortality. They will grow old. They will lose their power. They will die. The System they sacrificed so many innocent lives to build shall fall.

Silently she curses her sister. The Nine shall not protect Amanda. Her betrayal will rebound on her. She suffers already the fires of Hell. As her blood drains out through the eugenicists’ needles and her consciousness goes dark, Yolanda realizes oblivion is mercy. Against her will she cries her last tears for the sister she loves.

chase: The pretty boy with long blond hair kisses the not-so-pretty son of COPCO chief Brendan Sparks on the lips. James Sparks gasps and blushes. Frank Becket winks. “That’s your love for the day, Jimmy. I’ll Trace. Now go earn your money!”

Jimmy shifts the cruiser into gear and switches on the GPS. Echelon’s eye of Total Information Awareness appears on the screen. “The Eye shall lead us to ’em.”

“And the Operator shall collect!” Jimmy slams the accelerator, the cruiser spins a circle, its siren screams for vengeance, and they speed off after the escapees.

With his Summon app John Freedom Mobley summons the girl with the wooden soul, Mistress Harlequin with whom he is in love. To him alone she seductively whispers, “Find the Shelley girl, Brinkman’s spawn, and deprive Fenris of his pleasure. Kill her for me, and the others as well.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“I have prepared you the means of my vengeance.” Right then a Dictel Security Blackhawk she has hijacked descends before him.

“Thank you, Mistress,” he sobs with gratitude as he climbs on board the helicopter. “I love you, Mistress!”

Down the half-empty streets of Bangor the car hurtles at maximum speed in search of expressways. Dr. Chaloner reassures her young companions, “We can’t give up. We can do this.”

But the Eye turns every camera in range toward them, tracking them by sight as Frank Traces them by soul. And in a voice calculated to deafen the entire city it booms, “SURRENDER, TRAITORS! THERE IS NO POSSIBILITY OF ESCAPE!”

the crusader. He stands before the silent black-suited horde standing at attention waiting for his word, the big man in pinstripe suit and fedora wearing dark filters over his thick glasses because of what the Proletarian did to him in Vietnam. For he is the American hero who slew the Proletarian when the Communist supervillain who dared call himself a hero went to Vietnam to exterminate the heroic American troops sent to save the world from Communism. Now under his command, the fanatical elite who serve the Synarchy wait silently for Henry Becket, newly appointed Secretary of Homeland Security, to speak.

“Faithful servants, the Lord has gathered you here to carry out a special mission that ordinary troops and agents are unfit to perform, for you are called to serve Him with your lives and they are not. Your mission is to find and retrieve three girls of special lineage who have been taken from us. You must recapture them before the solstice arrives and the Reckoning begins. This mission is top priority. It begins now.”

In one motion the black-suited enforcers raise their right arms in the legionary salute and in one voice cry out, “So mote it be!”

capture: Jimmy switches on the turbo to race the cruiser screaming down the half-empty arterial at double speed. Echelon tells Frank, “There is no more need for your Trace. I am now geolocating the Sexaroid.”

“Yeah, dude,” says Jimmy, “save up for the can o' whoop-ass them bitches got coming.”

Dr. Chaloner trembles with excitement, wrestles the speeding car’s steering wheel, struggles to suppress the cough that only gets worse. Miss Persocom holds the screaming Lucie protectively in the passenger seat; Leila sobs in Yolanda's arms. Yolanda tries to comfort her, crying, “We’ll be safe soon, Leila. We’ll be free, I promise!”

Jimmy switches on the rocket booster. As Amanda cowers in the back seat, the afterburner boosts the cruiser to double speed. Frank and Jimmy exult, “Rocket Power!”

The siren gets louder. Yolanda and Leila turn to look behind them; the flashing lights and screaming siren get closer — and they scream—

The cruiser rams them to the right (Amanda screams), the car spins left, spins onto the median; Frank and Jimmy burst out guns blazing, hitting Miss Persocom several times till she falls to the ground dead; an injured Dr. Chaloner gets out to try to beg them to spare the girls, but with an evil grin Jimmy shoots her in the knee just to make her suffer.

The girls huddle together. They cry and silently beg for their lives. They face the evil glare of Jimmy Sparks and the enigmatic smile of Frank Becket.

And out of the back of the cruiser comes dead-eyed Amanda, staring blankly at the sister she betrayed; Frank sweeps her into his arms, kisses her possessively, and gloats to his new captives, “See? She has joined us of her own free will! Foolish girls! You can’t escape us! Give up now and accept your fate! The Reckoning’s coming! There’s no time to wait!”

the charmer. The tall young man blocking her way is a beauty, with beautiful long blond hair and a serene smile on a face bearing the harsh beauty of the Beckets. With his chilly blue eyes, Franklin Becket gazes into Amanda’s terrified eyes deep into her soul and finds everything he needs to control her. She sees the air shimmer and swim around him.

“Please,” she begs, “not my sister.”

He shatters her heart in a strangely comforting voice. “You have no choice, Amanda Currie. You’re already guilty of Sex Terrorism. The charges are filed, the trial will be quick, and the sentence will be imposed in short order, for the Law is all-powerful and without mercy. You molested those children, Amanda. You unleashed the angel of chaos. You created Rebel Styles. There is no way to atone for that except by offering the blood of your sister in sacrifice, and your soul in service with fear and trembling to the true God and His only-begotten Son, Our Nation. Your only other choice is to offer your soul and your sister’s to the Lord of Darkness whose Antichrist my uncle slew last year. Are you going to save the world or help destroy it? The solstice is just days away. The Reckoning is almost here. Choose now.”

“But—”

“Choose now.”

She stares at him, unable to speak, unable to choose. His eyes drill into her soul for a seeming eternity. Her will collapses, her body falls into his arms, her body convulses with sobs growing into wails of despair. He raises her to her feet and gently presses his lips against hers. She submits to his cruel mercy.

crash: Yolanda Currie, Lucie Stenbeck, Leila Shelley handcuffed and strapped into the back of the cruiser. Jimmy smirks, satisfied with him self, already counting his reward. But a sudden chill tickles Frank’s neck; he sits up straight, eyes wide open; slowly he turns his head to face behind — Jimmy asks, “Hey, man, what’s wrong?”

“Look behind you.”

Jimmy looks in the rear view mirror and sees a strange black shape approach fast. “What the fuck is that?”

“Hit it, Jimmy — it’s Shield!”

Leila gasps, “Artie?”

Jimmy slams the accelerator, skids the wheels letting the werewolf get closer before the tires suddenly catch and jerk the car forward; they speed up faster and faster, but still he comes closer. “Afterburner!” hisses Frank. “Torch the cur’s face!” Jimmy switches on the rocket booster — but Arvid Shield leaps above the blast, lands on the roof (the girls scream), smashes the windshield into Jimmy’s face; the cruiser loses direction and weaves, the girls scream, Frank hisses in rage and tries to bite Arvid’s hairy arm, and the car spins out and Frank bursts out to battle his old enemy—

—but above them the Blackhawk appears, ready to fire its missiles, every single one. Arvid growls, “Oh no, you don’t.” With a mighty leap he smashes through the window into Mobley, somehow catches a skid on the way down, with all his might tries to throw it away from the car and its screaming captives, howling in pain as the muscles threaten to pull apart — and the Blackhawk drops Mobley onto the pavement and rolls off the expressway; Arvid shifts into human form, tall and beautiful in his ruined suit with long black hair like Leila’s, throws himself into the driver’s seat, shuts the door and tries to speed off with Frank and the captives as Jimmy foolishly gets too close — the Blackhawk explodes, hits everything around it with its shockwave, slams the car halfway onto its side with its screaming cargo — and Jimmy tries to put out his burning face with the remains of his police jacket, holds his hands to the smoking ruin and screams.

Above them, a fleet of black helicopters assembles to surround them...

the operator. Inhumanly tall, face masked by power distortion, voice distorted inhuman and almost unintelligible, like an angel of vengeance he towers over the beautiful black-haired girl cowering in terror at the base of a large fir in the wildest abandoned sector of Dictel Park on this cold winter night choked with impenetrable fog. He stares down at her. She is too terrified even to beg for her life. He briefly chuckles. His voice tears at her ears like claws. She knows what he plans for him. She clutches the purple penguin plushie tight against her heart, holds onto it for dear life, her last and only hope the dark crystal hidden within.

“Don’t think you can get away, Leila Shelley,” says Richard Becket. “We can Trace you. You can never hide. And do not think you can escape your fate. You and I are just instruments in the forging of the future that is already foreordained. The solstice is coming. The Reckoning is upon us. Accept your fate. You have no other choice.”

He stands there and stares down at her. She swallows her tears, struggles to regain control of her breath, looks around for an escape path where there is none, silently prays to whomever it may concern. She doesn’t care if she dies, but she vows she will not die to give him absolute power and eternal life.

Dr. Chaloner peeks into the clearing at him. He does not deign to look at her. She returns to the darkness, her mind working feverishly on a plan. She tries not to cough.

on to the next... →

Back to Chapter 7 index...
Back to Chaos Angel Spanner table of contents...

Copyright © 2012 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

[Revision 4 Final, 8/29/12: New to the Final Revision.]