Spanner 16.2: Pick Up the Pieces

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Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 16: Don’t Change the Channel
Part 2: Pick Up the Pieces (Final Revision)

the highways. It begins in a trickle. At first it moves quickly. As the last of the Party’s pilgrims flee the Babylon they failed to banish, the traffic starts to grow in the other direction. The people of the city are coming home.

In Shira’s Mustang, Desiree drives. Her sister and wife Charlie sits in the passenger seat; she turns back to smile at their daughters Melody and Luna. “Luna Celeste Richter-Thomas.” Luna beams back proudly. To Desiree: “I bet Jackie’s pissed.”

“Let him rage,” says Desiree. “He’s nothing to me. The name’s all he’s got left.”

Melody interrupts. “Uh, what about her number?”

“Nothing a little litigation can’t fix. Angela’s already on it.” Desiree winks at her in the rear view mirror.

penguindrome. “So they’re saying there’s a new sheriff in town,” says Jennifer as she walks through the door.

Alex lets in Shira, Jennifer, Irina, Amanda, Sparks, the girl with the violet eyes, the little girl Flower, Lizzie McPhail, and the still-naked sexbot named Pansy Persocom. “How come they didn’t crucify you on sight?” says Wellspring.

Shira smiles mischievously. “Like they’re willing to risk getting sued out of existence. Angie’s got ’em by the short ’n’ curlies.”

“They got only two options now,” Sparks adds, “Plausible Deniability and the Rat Bastard.”

Nick rolls his eyes. “Oh, joy.” Alex shuts and locks the front door.

The KCUF crew transmit Anonymous videos from the Darknet onto the broadcast airwaves while they still can. Deth Pussy, wearing his Mariners cap backwards, puts down his grand salami sandwich. “My oh my, we done took out two big gods in two months! At this rate, we’ll be punching out Cthulhu by Christmas after next!”

“We killed Jobs’ ka,” says Nick, carrying a six-pack of cerveza, “but he still ’borged himself to Apple like Murdoch did to News. King Patriot’s dead dead dead.” He gives a bottle each to all the teenage girls; they drink it with pleasure.

Twelve robots sit together in the makeshift robotics lab downstairs; six gynoids get their brains replaced with the latest upgrades and eight identical copbots have their operating systems wiped. Pansy sits meekly beside her sisters and shuts off. The Krewe notice Flower. “Yo, who’s the cute kid?” asks Evil the Cat.

“Her name’s Flower,” Shira replies, “and no, she’s not a loli.”

“Like it’s easy to find one, even,” says Punisheroach. Shira leans seductively into him. “Whoa, babe, you’re one of a kind.”

“One half.”

“Kira. Oh yeah.”

Flower asks, “My twin sister. You’ll meet her eventually.”

Lizzie nudges Jennifer. “Tell me you didn’t really kill ten thousand jihadis.”

Jennifer smiles. “Well, that’s just about what they credited me with. I’m not arguing with ’em.”

Amanda stares in her eyes. “Do you realize that makes you as much a legend as the Red Fang himself?”

Irina looks her over carefully. “Red Fang, Blonde Phantom...”

The nameless girl crosses her arms. “Then what does that make me?”

Jennifer sweeps her into her arms. “Trouble.” She winks, then plants a kiss on her lips.

The first of the upgraded sexbots wakes up. She looks around. She smiles. “Hi! I’m Primrose Persocom. Who are you?”

cpmc headquarters. The Fearsome Foursome meet in the boardroom. “Grandfather’s dead and Uncle Harry blames us,” Brinkman says grimly. “What next?”

“Walter, you know Father says,” Jack replies. “There’s only one way to reverse the prophecy.”

“Get that blessed gospel out of my prodigal daughter’s hands.”

Everson asks, “Y’all got a creative way of getting it out of her hands?”

“Lean on Will,” Fleer says.

Jack snaps, “The hell he will.”

They stare at each other. The silence is long and uncomfortable. Brinkman breaks it. “Our problem can be clearly seen in that girl who corrupted our Leila. It’s supers who refuse to realize we’re supposed to be supreme! Our Revolution was supposed to establish the eternal dominion of those blessed by God with power. So what in Jesus America’s name do we do?”

Another deadly silence. No one can come up with an idea. Jack throws out his arms in frustration. “Why don’t you call your Rat Bastard, Walter.”

Brinkman spins his chairman’s throne around and places a call on the videophone.

seattle. The Marriott-owned slaves have cleaned up the Westin penthouse suite; repair robots efficiently replace the windows. Ignoring the activity and rain, R. G. Litton soaks in the hot tub and does his business on his iPad with a cigar in his mouth. A notification pops up. Brinkman. He accepts the call. The bearded face has a double-take when he recognizes what’s behind Litton’s bald head. “Litton, what the hell are you doing in Drusilla’s room?”

“What the fuck do you think I’m doing?” snaps Litton. “Renting it. Girl trouble?”

“Double trouble.”

Litton chuckles. “Ah, the prodigal.”

“She’s got the gospel.”

“I got the key.”

“I know you can decode it, Litton, but first we’ve got to get it.”

“You’ll have to go through the Wilder Foundation.”

Brinkman growls in frustration. “God damn it!” he barks.

“The ‘monkeywrench.’ Whoever’s behind him’s a genius, one with serious balls. Killing the King in front of the whole fucking world must’ve earned her some serious glory and Achievements. I bet it’s your Leila’s new lesbo squeeze.”

“So what the fuck do we do about the bitch?”

Litton grins. “We steal her sock puppet.”

“You mean Spanner?”

“Spanner’s really just another costume, an image, a meme, no more real than Batman or Harry Potter. Everybody’s a sock puppet in America, or our Revolution’s in vain. He’s mine, and so’s his mudblood bitch.”

“Then do it.”

“Consider it done.”

In her virtual dojo, Jennifer speaks to the girl with the violet eyes. Both wear frilly red-and-black magical-girl dresses and matching berets in the style of twentieth-century revolutionaries.

Jennifer: There’s a few things you have to know about being a revolutionary. First, it’s not one faction taking over from another identical faction. That’s the lamestream media stereotype the enemy want you to think it is. That’s coup d’état, not revolution.

Second, you have to know the right target. The Conservative Revolution’s billed as a revolution against the people. Real revolution means putting an end to the kind of authority Conservatives worship.

Third, you have to know who the revolution’s for. Whose freedom? an aristocratic elite of supermen, or the oppressed and suffering masses?

Last but not least, you must never, ever substitute your own individual heroism for the action of the masses. That was the Conservatives’ fatal error. Individuals can make the evolution, but only the masses working together to put an end to the System can make the revolution. The people are the revolution. (smiles sweetly) Any questions?

Nameless girl: Why are you telling me this?

Jennifer: Do you know what you did yesterday? I don’t mean wipe out half the Party, Church, and Cartel leadership and scare the shit out of the rest. You did what even Spanner himself couldn’t do.

Nameless girl: What did I do?

Jennifer: Started a revolution. Face it, girl, you jumped out of the frying pan right into the fire. You’re deep in the game, so you’d better know the rules.

Nameless girl: The rules of Tournament?

Jennifer: The way to end Tournament.

mudlark house. Alex drops off Jennifer, Connor, Brandi, Irina, Shira, and the girl with the violet eyes. Brandi shakes her head sadly. “I can’t believe you’re even involved with her.”
Jennifer holds Irina tight. “We have a special bond shared only by those who face death together.”

“Jenni, she’s a killer.”

“She’s on our side now. Besides, she needs me.” She pulls Brandi into her embrace and kisses her. “I’m still in love with you.”

Shira’s phone rings. “They’re here! We gotta go.” She kisses her cousins, takes the nameless girl by the hand, and runs back to the garage.

winkie’s. To the place behind the dumpster behind the busy restaurant on busy Wheaton Way, Shira brings lunch to the blind black Vietnam vet known only as the underground information broker called the Buzz, and along with it some buzz of her own. “Hey old many, do I have news for you.”

The Buzz doesn’t give his typical cynical reply. “You’re dealin’ with the Crusader now.”

“I knew that going in.”

“You don’t know who he’ll send after you.”

“I know who, what, and how. I got the exact details.”

He takes a bite. She lets him chew and swallow it. “The man’s an evil mastermind.”

“He’s as predictable as the planets.”

“He can control minds.”

“I can uncontrol ’em. That’s why he hates me.”

He takes another bite. He chews. He does not see her ironic smile. He swallows. “So whaddya gots?”

“Everything I need to take down CPMC. What do you got to trade me?”

“Pure kryptonite. Could even destroy your girlfriend.”

Her eyes go wide; he can hear her almost jump. “Hmmm...” She gets the uncomfortable feeling he can almost hear her think. She makes her decision. “Okay, then. Shoot.”

He gives her a gaptoothed grin. “And it goes like this...”

A message to Amanda from her dead sister:

Yolanda: If you’re watching this, you’re already beginning to remember. Just remembering me may be traumatic to you. But there are two things erased from our memories. One, I lied. I’m not Factor Positive. You are. Two, the man who betrayed us is... our father. Admiral Currie. He still owns our name. Now that you know, know this: if you want to live for much longer, you have to free yourself from his name. The only way to do that is to erase it. Goodbye. I love you... bright-eyed girl.

shira’s apartment. Catalina greets Shira, Amanda, and the nameless girl ecstatically. Shira hears the sounds of pouring cat food. She finds Ayla in the kitchen, the cats devouring their dinner at her feet. She throws herself into Shira’s arms and cries. “It’s okay, darling, we’re safe now.”

“You’ll have to stay with us now,” the nameless girl tells Amanda. “You won’t be safe otherwise.” She holds her close and kisses her; Shira holds her from behind and showers her shoulder and neck with kisses.

“Is she your new girlfriend?”

Shira pulls Ayla close and whispers conspiratorially, “She’s my first girlfriend ever.” She winks.

Suddenly uneasy dreams are invaded and Shira goes lucid. The sinister Owners take the aspect of adorable moé boys perpetually smiling, anthropomorphisms like those she battled in Japan, creeping her out. No need to ask how they got in her dreamspace; there’s more than enough executives so fanatical they sacrifice their sleep believing it’s unproductive and a waste of time. The crime banks and vulture funds sneer down at her. “Rebel Styles!” demands Dictel Corporation, “why do you hate us?”

“Why do you eat us?” she shoots back.

“The Law of Social Darwinism decrees it!” shouts Yoyodyne Industries.

“You underestimate how dangerous we humans can be.”

“We are God’s true creation!” roars Lockheed Northrop Boeing Dynamics. “Accept your fate: our destiny and your doom!” The crime banks and vulture funds laugh with sneering contempt.

Hovering over all, the monstrous spectre of the ultimate cannibal, Chinese Corporatist Party (Holdings) Limited, hungering for all under heaven — the girl with no name appears in front of her and Repulses the Owners back into the giant monster—

knock knock

She wakes up with a start: someone’s knocking on the door, relentlessly and hard. The nameless girl sleeps peacefully, arms around her, Ayla sandwiched between them. Shira grumbles and forces herself awake. The knocking refuses to stop. The girl opens her violet eyes. Shira smirks and chuckles.

The Party Chairman keeps knocking. The crazed look in the big man’s eyes scare even his United States Police Force praetorian guard of six armoured soldiers who have no idea how personal this is. They remain silent. Henry Becket keeps knocking.

He hears the door’s three locks unfasten. At last the door opens. A young bronze-skinned woman with wild red hair greets him with a cockeyed ironic smile and stares into him with her mischievous green eyes. The red tabby cat in her arms glares at him hatefully. “Well, well, well. What up, Doc?” Shira holds Mikan out toward him. “Wanna stroke my pussy?” The cat hisses and scratches at him and tries to kill him. He flinches to avoid the feline assault. The guards raise their rifles at her. She brings the terrified cat back to her body and pets her to calm her down, but Mikan stares at the Doctor with a warning in her eyes.

Dr. Becket points at her and hysterically spits, “You have disrespected rightful authority long enough!”

“Whatever happened to ‘with great power comes great responsibility’?”

“Get that thing away from me!”

Shira tosses Mikan aside, strikes a sexy pose, smiles sarcastically; the Patriot enforcers convulse in prudish rage. “Pot, kettle...” She points above them in mock panic: “Anvil!“

“Get her!”

She projects a Reality Distortion Field so powerful it makes their senses of balance and direction go haywire like a ship’s compass in a magnetic storm; the unworldly superhero clumsily knocks over the enforcers flailing and moaning in complete disorientation. “What’s the matter, boys? Can’t move anymore, like in a bad dream?”

“It’s her Reality Distortion Field! Counter it now!”

“Boss!” the team leader screams. “Our own computers are attacking us!”

“Basic security, boys,” says Shira. “The whole building sees you as a threat.”

“You installed the virus!” spits the Doctor. “Damn you!”

“It was already there, the one in your brain.”

Suddenly Shira steps backwards; her nameless lover replaces her, equally nude, pure hate in her beautiful violet eyes, projecting a power aura rivalling Becket’s — the strike cops try to shoot her, she blocks their barrels to Repulse the bullets so they blow up their guns — she Repulses Becket’s gut, knocks the wind out of him, blocks his nose and mouth so he cannot breathe — “Chief!” shrieks the terrified strike leader. “She’s using her power!”

“Leave,” she coldly commands, “or your new messiah dies.” The strike cops flee as fast as their crippled armour lets them. She stares down at Becket with a knowing smile. His eyes go madder with hatred and fear as the realization sinks in. Tyrant and nemesis, they share the same thought: the Prophecy...

The Party Chairman struggles to his feet and stumbles away. The girl with the violet eyes slams the door. She lets herself lean over slightly and pant hard. “Lover, we gotta celebrate.”

“I know just the place.” Shira winks.

cemetery. “Murder’s all too acceptable these days,” Shira says, “terrorism created the United State, rape creates Manhood, torture creates justice, even cannibalism’s a perfectly modest proposal. The ultimate transgression is to make love to a child.” Two blocks up from Bremerton High, the Ivy Green Cemetery contains graves over a century old, even the mouldering remains of sailors and officers. Shira and her nameless lover, standing together nude in open defiance of Echelon, intend to have sex with her ten-year-old loli under the oldest largest maple tree using its fallen leaves as their bed.

The nameless girl holds Ayla close. “We’re doing this ’cos we’re in love with you.” The naked child trembles more from anticipation than the cold of this clear night.

“Ready, Ai-chan?”

Ayla nods enthusiastically. “Mm!”

They attack her tender body with tongues, teeth, ticklish fingers; they attack her cunt and anus with mouths hungry with desire; they lie her down, Shira assaults her cunt with hers, the nameless girl commands her to drink deep from hers; they inflict on her a pleasure she never before experienced and may not be able to handle — even if the Eye can see them, even it is helpless to stop them now that the girl with the violet eyes has come into her power, so with impunity she and her cinnamon-skinned lesbian lover commit the ultimate crime on a willing child among the graves of the indifferent dead.

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Copyright © 2013 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

[Revision 4 Final, 1/30/13: Highly condensed and revised for Fourth Revision continuity, with new scenes added. Original title “The Knock on the Door”; final title originally from 16.3.]