Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 11: Everybody’s Talkin’ ’Bout
Part 5: Crash the Murder Party (Final Revision)
Part 5: Crash the Murder Party (Final Revision)
ferry. The fast foot ferry speeds across the bay. Commuters crowd both decks. Desiree hides in plain sight among them, just a professional-looking woman with short red hair and a pretty face. She sips her tea and runs strategies through her mind. Then business calls. No caller ID. This must be our client. She puts the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
Dr. Mina Tatsumi, interim CEO of Biotron, answers. “Did you get what I sent you for?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have it on you?”
“No.”
“What?!”
“And you’re not getting even a microgram of it.”
“You treach—”
A tone of cold menace enters Desiree’s voice. “If any harm comes to my daughter, I will end you. If she dies, your death will be exceedingly slow and painful. You will give her back to me alive, unharmed, and unbrainwashed, or I will take her by force. Got it?”
Tatsumi abruptly cuts the call.
Desiree shows an ironic smile. “Hmph. Thought so.” She finds herself the object of all the nearby passengers. She smiles at them sweetly. She will do them no harm.
middle school. The school buses will only take them home. Elle and Melody want to take Ayla to downtown Bremerton. Ayla says, “The classes are a lot easier here.”
“That’s ’cuz you’re not supposed to learn things here,” Melody replies.
“Quote-unquote ‘Real Americans’ hate what they call ‘book larnin’,’” Elle complains, “’cuz it gets in the way of their blind faith. It’s not like in Asia, where the governments want their kids to be smarter than the kids in all those other Asian countries. It’s not even like in Europe, where they at least have a culture. All America values is money and empire.”
“It’s just another Caliphate, only run by a rival cult.”
Suddenly Shira’s Mustang stops at the side of the street. The door opens and Leila leans her seat forward; Ayla gasps at the sight of Arisa Saionji sticking her head out from the back seat already dressed for nudefighting. Arisa grimly orders, “Ayla. Get in. We need you.”
Ayla stares at Arisa, then looks back at her new friends. She sighs, then climbs over Arisa into the back seat. Leila leans her chair back, she and driver Shira wave at the cousins, and the Mustang drives away. Elle and Melody wave back and say “’Bye!”
red house. The librarians and Elsie arrive in one car. The security force field lets up and lets them through. They park their car. get out, and climb the porch stairs to the door. Elsie knocks. The door opens. They are shocked to see Charlie in the nude.’
Sally asks, “Charlie, how come you ain’t got no clothes on?”
Charlie winks. “Only barbarians wear clothes in the house. Get in.” She holds the door open for them.
The four women look at each other. They look at their smiling naked host. They shrug and go in.
thorwald property. The Slasher Hunters’ van parks across from the gate on the private back street leading from Holly Road. A VW Bug arrives just as John Peck, Martin Lansky, Lars Izquierdo, and Brandi Quinn nearly finish setting up the operation command center; Polly, Cory, Jennifer, Connor, and Kio get out. The red Mustang slides in behind them; Shira, Leila, Arisa, Ayla, and the Shelley twins get out. The trunk opens; Shira takes out a lock-picking kit and hands out five portable sound blasters. At last a lime-green Hummer parks behind it, and a grim-faced Debbie emerges carrying two pistols in shoulder holsters and wielding a baseball bat.
Shira and Debbie stare at each other, then Leila, then each other. “Your friends,” Shira says, “should be here fangirling.”
“He’s got gangster friends too,” Debbie warns. “Don’t blame me if y’all get yourselves killed.”
Leila says coldly, “If Frank shows up, what then?”
Everybody stares at her, then Debbie. Debbie stares back at her and says nothing.
All the girls except Debbie strip naked and change their clothes right in front of her. Her eyes go wide and her jaw drops in silent shock. “What on God’s earth is that?”
“C’mon now, Debbie,” Jennifer says, “it’s not like you haven’t seen nudefighters before.”
Shira explains, “Tough guys are weak to this. We distract ’em, we win. Even if they kill us, we got fans who’ll lynch ’em, and we still win.”
Debbie, still skeptical, glares at them. “You guys better be right.”
They now wear the loose baby tees and short pleated skirts of nudefighters, except Ayla who now wears a man’s dress shirt and tie that are too big for her. All the fighters follow Shira to the gate to get in when she picks the lock.
warehouse. Christie declares to Lucy and Lady, “This man is mine!”
Oliver smiles down from his gaudy yet makeshift throne with the conspicuously mounted shovel. “I admire your ambition.”
Lucy whines, “But he said I was his one and only!”
Christie shoots her an intimidating glare. “Are you an Imperial Princess?” Lucy does not answer. Christie smiles and approaches Oliver with a smile sexually inviting yet Machiavellian as the boys of the Shovel Clique look on.
property. Bremeloes and Slasher Hunters split up into three groups to sneak in; Lars stays behind in the van with Peck as mission control. Jennifer, Leila, Fiona, and Debbie follow Brandi. Debbie says, “You sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Of course we do,” Jennifer replies. “The important thing’s to keep them from knowing what we’re doing.”
“Shh!” go the Shelley sisters. Brandi nods at Jennifer and Debbie. They switch to sign language.
Shira, Marina, and Ayla follow Arisa. “I’m scared,” Ayla whispers.
“Good,” says Shira. “These guys are dangerous.”
“Why did you have to bring me?”
Arisa replies, “You’re their weak point.”
“They built up their defenses against women,” Shira adds, “but not lolis.”
The boys follow Lansky. The Israeli seems to know Rob. Connor tells Cory and Kio, “Just do what they say till we get there.” Cory and Kio nod.
They sneak past bored mercenaries with cigarettes and AKs, then past men in work gear doing hard labor. Debbie whispers to Jennifer, “Awful busy for an abandoned property, don’tcha think?”
“Don’t be deceived,” Jennifer warns. “Those are violent criminals he’s renting from Dictel Corrections doubling as a dodgy construction business. Oliver learned a thing or two about misdirection from fighting us.”
Past the criminal workers, past the dogfighting arena they’re building, toward the half-derelict warehouse still bearing the logo of Dictel not Biotron, they sneak. Shira throws a rock in a random direction. Guards and criminals turn their attention away. Two seconds are enough to get the stealthy invaders in.
warehouse. “Come here,” Oliver says. Christie sits down in his lap. She can feel his penis go hard. “Please tell me about yourself.”
“My father is Admiral Fleer, Naval commander for the entire Northwest zone. Without him, Wally Brinkman is nothing but another glorified gangster. Even better yet, he’s a Prince of the Empire. My mother is the daughter of Secretary Becket himself.”
“And Leila Shelley is what?”
“Just another tawdry piece of Eurotrash you don’t want.”
A man’s voice behind the Shovels says, “And Oliver Thorwald is what?” Everyone spins around to see Frank Becket holding an evil-looking Bowie knife to Lady’s neck.
“Frank, what in Jesus America’s name are you doing?”
“He’s beneath you, Christian. His blood is inferior to ours.”
Oliver stands up and chuckles. “Are you even American, Becket? I’m a self-made man and you’re just some fairy-tale fiction. Well, hear this, Prince Charming. America belongs to the kings of ambition.” He whistles; his pet slashers Johnny-Johnny and Louie Louie run up to him and hold sharp crowbars to his head, backed up by a dozen AK-wielding mercenaries.
Frank smiles at him. “I know you, Oliver Thorwald. You never wanted Leila Shelley. You don’t even want my cousin here. You always hated women. So weak, so emotional. I know what you really want.”
For the first time, Oliver Thorwald’s glib smug smile disappears. At first he directs a hateful glare at his old enemy. But hate turns to terror when the one person he expected least suddenly appears out of nowhere.
Leila flashes an ironic smile. “Wow, guys. Are you doing this all for me?”
Oliver picks up his shovel from the side of his throne.
red house. Charlie returns to the kitchen. Sylvia and Yasmin greet them naked in the living room. Kitty asks, “How come she’s got you two without your clothes?”
Yasmin answers, “I’ve known Charlie and Desi for a long time. Around them I just feel more comfortable this way.” Sylvia nods and blushes.
Charlie returns with a big bowl of fruit she sets on the coffee table. “Hey girls, make yourselves comfortable. You can keep your clothes on if you want.”
Sally, Kitty, Chris, and Elsie look at each other. They shrug and start taking off their clothes.
warehouse. Oliver slowly steps down from the platform of his throne holding his shovel level with both hands. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he warns.
“You wanted to kill me, Oliver,” says Leila. “Why not do it now? I’m just another stepping stone for your Egoist ambition, and so is Christian Fleer. Besides, Frank’s right.”
In irrational rage he charges her with the shovel. She dodges, kicks him hard in the groin, steals the shovel, and knocks him down with it. Frank knocks Johnny-Johnny to the floor with a punch. Leila kicks Louie Louie in the groin and then the chin, knocking him down hard; with a feral war cry she plunges the blade down into his chest. Louie struggles in vain to pull it out, twitches, gurgles, and falls limp — but the shovel stands straight up out of the dead man’s chest. Oliver stares in shock and goes, “Fawwwwwk.” Frank laughs.
mudlark house. The Moral Enforcer dressed MIB stalks the spacious yard. Two shots should end the threat to the holy Empire’s eternal dominion. The cloaking device should make him invisible; the blaspheming traitors shall know that Jesus America himself slew them. Slowly he approaches the door unnoticed by beast, robot, or woman. But suddenly he finds himself on the ground electrically twitching. When the seizure stops, the Moral Enforcer leaps to his feet and faces his attacker.
Desiree stands between him and the door wearing shades — no, an HUD like his. She can see him. Directed by absolute faith he raises his gun, aims it between her eyes, and shoots.
Willa, Courtney, and Schuyler hear the shot. They run to the door and open it — and find the Moral Enforcer lying at Desiree’s feet, dead from a bullet between the eyes. Desiree turns to them and shrugs. “Those Party goons never get a clue.”
Desiree and Willa pick up the corpse and carry it to the catapult in the back yard. They lay it on its back, feed it lead shot, arm and aim the catapult, and launch the corpse into the middle of Kitsap Lake where it quickly sinks to the bottom alongside the many other comrades who failed to end Willa Richter-Thomas.
warehouse. Another voice behind them says, “You got yourself a fucking mess here, Ollie.”
Oliver growls, “You’re late.”
“Well, lookeee what we brought’cha.” Four vicious men in gaudy godfather suits with cigarettes hanging from their lips the same way. The Skeever Brothers. One is bald and marked with the black swastika brand of the condemned serial killer: Eddie. With the military cut: Tony. With the expensive do: Johnny. The big one: Jordie. He holds terrified Ayla off the ground in a choke hold.
Oliver blithely pulls his shovel out of his dead minion’s chest and grins. “Well, you’re here just in time for the main event.” He raises the shovel over his head and thrusts it at Leila, intending to spear her. She stands there and smiles.
The shovel stops in mid-air. Thorwald looks in front of him to see what he hit, only to find Shira standing in front of Leila. She caught his shovel on the way down. He gasps in horror. “Y-you?”
“I love you too, darling. Now keep your hands off my girl.” Shira lands a wicked roundhouse upside his jaw that sends him bouncing off his own men knocking them down. He keeps his grip on the shovel as he falls to the concrete. The Skeever Brothers laugh until Shira painfully pinches Jordie’s shoulder so he lets Ayla go.
Oliver finds himself surrounded by whimpering minions rolling on the ground and covering their ears. He springs back up to charge Shira with the shovel. The Slasher Hunters have arrived with sound blasters. She disappears into the mercenaries; he fights through them only to get hit upside the head by Debbie’s bat, into a pile of boxes remaining from the warehouse’s Dictel days; they fall and cover him. He struggles to fight his way out.
Leila looks at Debbie as if she’s about to take the bat to finish him off. She takes his shovel instead. Six tattooed killers surround her and hold their guns at her sideways. She spins the shovel like a sword. Six killers stagger back holding their bloody throats.
The Shovel boys attack Shira and Jennifer. In a fraction of a second Shira’s Go-Yo smashes John in the chin, Lance upside the temple, and Scotty on the tailbone; all three go down whimpering and writhing in pain. Lucy tries to knife Marina, but Brandi punches her out with her gloved fist. Lady jumps Brandi; she backs up to smash Lori against the garage door frame; Lori loses her grip and falls off. When Lance tries to climb up to his feet, Arisa kicks him in the face with a steel-toed boot, knocking him back down. Scotty springs up, rushes Debbie, screams “Debbie, you traitor!” She smashes him in the temple with the bat to knock him on his face unconscious.
Christie quickly punches out Brandi, Arisa, and Marina. She slowly approaches Debbie. Her blond cousin fixes her with feral eyes and holds the bat in attack position. Suddenly Leila throws the shovel at her, knocking her out. Debbie runs over to high-five her, but gives her a kiss instead.
Oliver climbs to his feet, picks up the shovel, and advances slowly on Shira, his face twisted with hatred. “You killed my father, you fuckin’ mudblood bitch.”
“No,” says Lansky. “I did.”
Oliver stands paralyzed, unable even to gasp. “No...”
“And Leila’s own mother hired me to do it.”
Oliver screams.
The Skeever Brothers advance on Ayla threateningly. She fixes them with a seductive look, unbuttons her shirt, and languidly removes it to expose her naked child flesh to capture the attention of gangsters, criminals, mercenaries, all drooling over her. She removes the tie. “I dare you to rape me.” Suddenly she puts the tie over the closest criminal, pulls it tight and ties it in a knot. The dying killer falls to the ground trying futilely to remove the tie. At that moment, the Slasher Hunters ambush the men.
Johnny-Johnny lets out a blood-curdling war cry and rushes Shira with his crowbar. She does a flying somersault and catches his face in the crack of her bare buttocks; he stumbles backwards dropping the knife, his head lands audibly on the concrete, he struggles to pry her off his face, but her butt muscles lock his face so hard he cannot. “Promise you’ll lay off the helpless civilians and go back to the front, and I’ll let you live.” He tries to nod. She smiles.
The crowbar spins across the floor. Jennifer dives for it; Tony Skeever jumps her; both get their hands on the crowbar. He wrestles her onto her back — and stares in horror when he recognizes her face. She head-butts his nose and knocks him off her with the crowbar.
Oliver comes hard down on Shira with his shovel; she catches the blade in her hands before he can plunge it into her heart. He pushes down as hard as he can, putting his whole weight on her, pinning Johnny-Johnny. “You stole my wife, fuckin’ mudblood bitch!” he grimaces madly.
“Get up, Ollie, or your butt-buddy dies.”
Powered by pure rage, he pushes down on the shovel even harder, straining his muscles to their limit. “Fuck you! You’re gonna die!”
Shira smiles. “I’m completely relaxed, Ollie. You can’t move your shovel. Johnny-Johnny’s smothering down there. If you don’t let up, your comrade’s gonna die.”
Johnny-Johnny whimpers and flails in panic. Oliver ignores him; his focus has narrowed to getting his shovel into Shira’s heart. But Shira’s relaxed muscles lock his arms in place and keep her butt clamped hard on the slasher’s face. Johnny-Johnny weakens, goes limp, pisses and shits himself.
Leila jumps him, curls her arms around his neck, tries to strangle him to no effect. Debbie grabs the shovel — “That — shovel — is — mine!” He does not budge. He only presses down and looks down with insane eyes. Eventually he weakens enough that Leila and Debbie can throw him backward onto the concrete floor. His head bounces off audibly; he knows at once he has a concussion. Leila kicks him in the groin as hard as he can. He curls up like a fetus, writhes around, clutches his ruined manhood, whimpers in pain. Shira springs up off Johnny-Johnny's face; the corpse's head turns, grinning stupidly, and lets out a stream of vomit.
The Skeever Brothers are nowhere to be found. The Slasher Hunters stand over a small army of unconscious mercenaries. Ayla stands in the middle, still naked. Jennifer flips Oliver onto his back and smiles down at him. He stares at her in horror of recognition. He gives her a conciliatory smile, drops the shovel over his head, raises his arms in surrender. “Okay, you win.”
Shira takes Jennifer’s place. “I win, Ollie. Go take your princess. Leila belongs to me. Just don’t whine to mommy. You might end up destroying a great kingdom.”
The victors leave Oliver Thorwald writhing and whining among the unconscious bodies of his hired mercenaries. He complains out loud that soon they’ll be demanding extra money.
on to the next... →
Back to Chapter 11 index...
Back to Chaos Angel Spanner table of contents...
[Revision 4, 10/10/12: Heavily revised to fit Final Revision continuity, with new characters added. Two of the sequences in 11.6 now begin here.]
[Revision 4 Final, 10/12/12: Restored an omitted sentence four paragraphs from the end.]
No comments:
Post a Comment