Spanner 13.1: Know Your Enemy

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Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 13: The Girl with No Name
Part 1: Know Your Enemy (Final Revision)

Destroy, destroy unto me
the good and the just!
Friedrich Nietzsche

Stop using sex as a weapon...
Pat Benatar Girls’ Purity League

John Peck in the center, flanked by Martin Lansky and Lars Magnus Izquierdo: three mighty warriors with the answers. Asking the questions: Charmian Fleer, Bart Green, Debbie Becket, Beck Skeever, Christian Fleer. The subject: Shira Thomas. “You wanted to know what you’re up against,” says Peck. “We will tell you.”

Lansky says, “You don’t realize you’re in over your heads.”

Lars says, “Don’t tell us we didn’t warn you.”

29 september 2014.
dreamspace. She can see the spirits already agitated, like flocks of birds taking flight to escape the coming earthquake. They scatter before the onslaught of the terrifying hordes of dreamers the Scarab has summoned to speak her name. They surround her from all directions, above and below and all sides in eleven dimensions, and chant her name. All she says is: “No.”

The Spiritual Warfare Bureau part like the Red Sea. The Scarab manifests like a god from the clouds, Richard Becket in full Egyptian superhero regalia, bearing the divine power of the Nine Principles of God in the glowing crystal at the head of his staff. “Leila Renata Shelley, thou canst not deny thy name.”

“What name?”

“By thy name I command thee! Leila Renata Shelley, return to thy duty!” She does not respond to the spell. He responds with shock and fury to the mockery in her pretty eyes.

“What was my name!”

“Damn you, obey!“

“Say it, Scarab! Say my name!” She laughs him into a fury of wounded Egoism—he channels it into the power stone of the Nine on his staff—he unleashes it in full at her delicate form—a crystal forms before her and glows indigo, a reality distortion field forms around her, the Scarab misses his target and screams in rage—

shira’s apartment. The girl with the violet eyes wakes up in Shira’s arms. She sighs with relief and kisses her, happy to be alive and in love. Her kiss is so intense, it makes Shira gasp when it’s over. She smiles mischievously. “Sore loser.” They laugh together.

“Hey girl,” Shira says. They gaze into each other’s eyes and smile radiantly.

“It’s only my first full day without a name, and already I feel uninhibited.”

“Let’s celebrate, then.” Shira leaps off the bed and returns with a wicked grin and her strap-on.

Her attention captured, the violet-eyed girl takes and inspects it. She smiles mischievously. “This must be the same model as the one I used to use on Clarissa back in Pretty City.”

Shira’s eyes go wide at the sound of the name; she grins wickedly. “Clarissa Eglantyne?”

“Mm-hmm! Sweet Clarissa offered to be my love slave and gave me this.”

“Well, you’d better show me how you do her.” Shira winks.

Ayla hears the soft sweet sounds of lesbian lovemaking in the next bedroom over. Curious as to what they’re doing, she sneaks over, opens the door slightly, and peeks in. She is surprised to see an eager Leila using the strap-on on Shira. Hope spots her, pulls her away, and shuts the door. “But—“

“Shhh. Don’t disturb them.” Ayla slinks sadly away.

The violet-eyed girl lying on her back on the bed. Shira lights a candle. “You’re one of those who likes this?”

She smiles. “My nervous system’s hardwired to turn pain into pleasure. If you hurt me just right, you can torture me all the way to heaven. Now bring it close enough I can feel it and let it drip on my nipple.”

Shira caresses her lovely conical nipple, so hard with anticipation. She brings the candle close, tips it, and lets a drop of hot wax fall onto it. The violet-eyed girl shudders and gasps in pain, then melts and sighs with pleasure. “Yes, like that,” she sighs. “Now again.” Shira pours a stream of wax onto the nipple; the girl cries out, then lets out a melting sigh.

Lying together, sharing a deep romantic kiss. “You fascinate me, nameless girl,” Shira says. “The more I know you, the more you surprise me. And I love you for it.”

The violet-eyed girl’s expression turns serious. “Making the decision’s only the first step. Next, we have to make it official. Problem is, how?”

“Well, I always draw up a Plan A and a Plan B, and sometimes even a Plan C. But usually I end up following Plan Z.”

“What’s that?”

“Winging it.”

Leila rolls her eyes. “Great.”

“If we’ve got the will, we always get it done.”

The police-siren ringtone sounds on Shira’s phone. Leila asks, “Who’s that?”

“J.T.” She sits up to read the phone’s screen.

Bad news: King's popping by on the 5th.
     Doesn't like this election thing.
     Wants to put a stop to it. He'll meet
     w/Fleer to try & get Wally to end it.
     Expect full-city lockdown.

     Spread the word, but keep it secret.

     --J.T.

Shira feels her entire body go cold, and then numb. She texts a quick reply.

:O Thx! Keep me posted, cya soon <3 S!

She forwards Sparks’ email to Charlie and Desiree, and then to Alex, who will tell the Krewe. Leila asks, “What’s wrong?”

“Royal visit next Sunday. Gotta show us puny humans who’s boss. Never good.” She gets up and walks out of the bedroom.

“What are you doing?”

“Plan Z.” Shira returns with something in her hand. She holds out her hand and lets the object slide out.

The violet-eyed girl gasps—the power crystal falls into her hands. “Where’d you find this?”

“Swiped it right off Ollie’s neck the day Spanner bit the Big Apple.”

“How come you kept it from me so long?”

Shira shrugs innocently. “Forgot.”

“Hmph!” The girl with the violet eyes holds up the crystal in her hands, focuses, directs her power, till it glows indigo, then stops. She holds it out for Shira to see. “Plan Z...”

“Expect the unexpected.”

Her eyes grow cold; she stiffens in anger. “I’ll make sure those monsters don’t know what hit ’em.”

Christian: Why does she always have to fight naked? Shira in the gang invasion of Bangor High, fighting the Dictel Park gangs nude, evading their blows, using their clothes as her weapons, mercilessly mocking

Peck: It’s called nudefighting. Shira in Washington, D.C., dancing naked before Oliver Thorwald and Johnny-Johnny Johnson, taunting them, preparing to strike

Lars: Jennifer Blair invented it. Jennifer Blair on Blake Island in the hard cold rain, stripped of clothes and everything else but hard reason and cold will, taking the hitman down, dislocating his arm, flinging him bodily into the waiting knife of a serial killer

Lansky: The reason is that wet skin is hard to hold onto. Shira versus Stan Green: he grabs her bare sweaty body to crush her, she slips out of his embrace, kicks his groin then his face and laughs

nameless girls’ apartment. “Before I go tell my family, I need to tell you,” says the girl with the violet eyes to her new friends, the anonymous beauties. “I’m going public.”

The slender girl gasps in horror. “No! Please don’t do it!”

“You’ll only bring attention to us!” says the blond girl.

“No,” the violet-eyed girl says calmly, “I’m drawing attention away from you to myself. Who cares about a few pretty girls leading quiet lives when an Imperial Princess is erasing her name?”

“Why even bring attention to yourself at all?” asks the slender girl. “It defeats the whole point of anonymous living.”

“A princess can’t live anonymously,” the violet-eyed girl says. “But I believe I’m in a unique position to fight for your freedom. I don’t want us to live underground like mole people anymore. I really can go public with this. I’m doing it because I love you.”

“I believe you,” says the brown-haired girl.

“I trust you,” says the slender girl.

“I know you can do it,” says the blond girl.

They give her a group hug. “Thank you!” The girl with the violet eyes kisses them all in gratitude.

Debbie: How does she manage to beat so many opponents at once?

Peck: She uses them as weapons. Shira five-on-one: one charges, one tries to restrain her from behind, she pulls her captor into the attacker’s fist

church of america bangor. Pretty sanctuaries are for girls. Real Americans do manly. Byron Scofield’s temple looks like a grotesquely decorated sports dome in the dead suburban heart of Bangor, as steroid-boosted as the righteous men of violence who bow before him and hail him as Prophet. He resides here in the opulent splendor befitting the Church’s ideals. Byron Herbert Scofield, Chief Shepherd of the Church of America in Bangor, wears his top hat, round pink shades, power business suit, and cascading gold chains the way the ancient pagan priests of Egypt and Babylon wore their bejewelled vestments.

Stanley Green, Commanding Shepherd of the West Sound division of the Moral Enforcement Crusade, prostrates before him to make a request. “Holy Prophet! I beg to speak. This is urgent!”

“You may rise, Brother Green,” says Scofield in the sonorous twang of the Duchy of Carolina. Stan rises to one knee. “I know exactly what you are about to say. It is about one particular monkey who has become more of a thorn in our side than her traitorous mother. I saw what she did to you last night. Everyone did. But none of them saw her truly, the way we did.”

Stan shakes his fist. “That Shira Thomas is a menace! We can’t let her even grow up, or she’ll destroy everything we’ve worked for all these years, since long before we were even born!”

“She is not ‘Shira Thomas.’”

“Wha—”

“Her name is Rebel Styles.”

“What? Her? No! That can’t be—”

“Yes, it is. Furthermore, she is not of origin human or divine. That traitor is not her mother, but her familiar. Her true mother is Lilith, and her father is Satan himself. She is a demonic entity materialized. I have seen this with my very own eyes. I have watched every single one of that sick little whore’s repulsive videos, over and over, both as Rebel Styles and as Aya Shibata. It was she who murdered the man who laid his hands upon me to gift me with prophetic powers, Prophet Tremayne, by that very means. So when I heard the name Aya Shibata, I knew that it was she. What you saw at the fighting arena was her true demonic form.”

“You mean I was fighting a demon?”

“Indeed. That was spiritual warfare. It is a truth that spiritual evil cannot be defeated through the methods of the flesh. If anyone knows this, it is Rebel Styles.”

“Then what can we do?”

“We do what we must. Right now the demon holds the Governor’s prodigal child in captivity of foul sin. I have sworn by Jesus America himself to save her immortal soul from eternal damnation, the destiny and honor of the noble House of Brinkman, and Our Nation’s holy dominion over this bizarre and barbarous democratic desert of spirit. The moment to act is at hand. God shall prevail.”

“By any means necessary.”

“Yes.” Byron Scofield’s voice remains calm. But nothing can disguise the madness in his eyes.

Beck: I wonder how the bitch keeps outta jail.

Peck: Tournament.

Beck: What?

Lars: She’s the master of the Challenge.

shelley house. Breakfast. Ian notices his eldest daughter is preoccupied enough to play with her food. “What’s on your mind, Leila?”

She smiles. “Have you ever wondered what would happen if you lost your name?”

“Sounds like a nightmare scenario right there.”

“I’ve lost my name.” The others half-stand and stare at her in shock. She smiles. “It feels like a dream come true.”

Rob grins at her. “I bet this has something to do with Shira’s new neighbours.”

“They showed me I can have no name and still be fully myself. Now my name feels like it belongs to somebody else. I don’t need it anymore.”

Taylor stands up grinning and snaps her fingers. “You wanna lose your name, girl, I know just the way!”

angela’s office. Angela picks up the phone. “Hi, Taylor! It’s been so long since I’ve seen you! What can I do for you?”

Taylor answers, “Hey, redhead, you know any way to get rid of a name?”

“Having trouble with a name change?”

“Leila wants to go nameless.”

“Ohhh, those new neighbours must have put ideas in her head. Well, you can’t just get rid of a name entirely—without exploiting technicalities, that is.”

“Which ones?”

“Did you know aristocratic names are legally the trademarks of their Houses?”

“The House of Brinkman in this case.”

“Right! Here’s the plan.”

“Shoot.”

“I can put an Intellectual Property lock on Leila’s name so it’ll be illegal for her to use it. Then she can be as name-free as Shira’s neighbours.”

“Do it, Angie! You’re a lifesaver as always.”

“Always glad to help.”

Bart: I ain’t seen anybody hit her. Why’s that?

Peck: She’s a master of misdirection. Shira versus Oliver: she feints poking his eyes, slips through his legs; when his eyes open she’s gone till she kicks him from behind

Lansky: You cannot predict her. Shira in Dictel Park: weaves and dodges Bernkastel’s blade at seeming random, appears and vanishes, blindsides him with loaded Go-Yo

dictel park. “Why here?” asks the girl with the violet eyes.

Shira checks the smartwatch on her right wrist. “We’ve got time.” She pulls off the shirt of Leila’s uniform to bare her sensitive breasts to the chill fall morning air, then takes off her own blouse and tosses them both on the grass near her hoverboard. She faces the girl toward the living heart of the park, embraces her from behind, gently caresses her breasts, and, as the sensation of the life inside the girl’s body shifts her into another world, adds her own soft moan to hers. In a reverie she rhapsodizes, “The trees are dancing. You can see and hear it. Flying insects navigate the wind currents on tiny wings. I can see the networks of tracks that crisscross the whole world, animal, human, and machine. Spiders tell me a footprint’s age. I can see the wind currents and the flight patterns of birds and insects. I hear the wind hold conversations with the birds; sometimes they talk to me. Right now I feel your blood coursing, your heart beating, your feelings and thoughts and the energy that makes you alive.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“The world is alive, my love. All my Tracker training made me hypersensitive to it. It’s beautiful beyond words. The best thing is, none of this beauty needs an artist; it designs itself.”

“But the human world is dead here.”

“Just like any other stifling conformist small-town backwater. If you want to partake of the living spirit of humanity, you have to go to the city. But you’re right about our Conservative so-called friends, to whom reality’s just a dead heap of abstract objects they feel the compulsion to destroy and convert to cold cash they can mainline into their Egos. The world isn’t dead, neither to us nor them; they are dead to the world.”

“And we’re still alive.”

“Exactly.” Shira spins her around to gaze into her eyes and hold her tight. “The weathermen say there’s a storm coming this weekend. The cold crystalline Conservative Order is dead by design, like the old Soviet Union it unconsciously imitates. All it’ll take is one big storm for the whole lifeless construct to come crashing down.”

The girl with the violet eyes smiles. “Let’s make it happen.” She presses her lips to Shira’s; they share a long passionate kiss.

Jennifer puts her arms around them both and clears her throat. They look at her. She gives them a sweet smile. “Hey, lovebirds, I love you two to pieces, but we’ve got things to do before class. Okay?” They wink in acknowledgment; she winks back. Shira and her violet-eyed girl put their shirts back on, Shira slings her hoverboard, and together arm-in-arm the three dare the Eightieth Street traffic.

Charmian: Well, I want to know how we can beat her. Charmian in the octagon, cradling her rival in an inescapable hold: one, two, three

Peck: You can’t. Annabel Lecter in the airfighting pit, thrusting his Rapeman Special at the angel of chaos, drilling through nothing

Charmian: Surely she can be beat. Anybody can. Debbie in the ring, flying kick, knocking her out

Lars: (smirks) You can’t beat something that’s not there. Byron Scofield, surrounded entirely by fight-crazed Shiras, all mirage

And they stare at the Slasher Hunters, flush with frustration, humiliation boiling their blood—and yet they vow again to bring the high-flying angel of chaos back down to earth.

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Copyright © 2012 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

[Revision 4 Final, 12/10/12: The Shira/Leila love scene, “Wake-Up Call”, was the original 13.1 R2; expanded and modified for R4 continuity. The Team Valiant-Slasher Hunters framing sequence was the original planned 12.1 R3 addition, now finally added and condensed, and gives this section its final name. The Scofield-Green scene unmodified except to fit R4 continuity. Everything else is new to the Fourth Revision.]