Spanner Chapter 14: Plots and Plans (Revision 4)

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Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 1: Rock City Blues
Chapter 14: Plots and Plans (Revision 4)

King Patriot of America, emperor of the world, has declared holy war on Seattle! Fearing another Spanner Incident — or worse — the people who can afford it do the prudent thing and get the hell out of Metropolitan Seattle as soon as possible, leaving the poor and homeless majority to face the Empire’s wrath.

Now that Team Bremelo have the run of Bangor High and the entire decaying suburb, they can do what they want without the danger of spies like Kelly alerting their enemies. They have three free days to follow their bliss: mass skinny dipping in the pool, showering together coed, loving whoever they want. But this idyll will end soon, so they must prepare for war.

They fight the first battle at home. Team Bremelo join forces with the Slasher Hunters on an antiterror expedition against the property of Oliver Thorwald and the meeting of the Syndicates being held there, involving a blood sacrifice of pit bulls and Muslim virgins, in preparation for a terror attack of their own on the Conservative Revolutionary leaders. Then they join the guerrilla hackers of the Wrecking Krewe to take the fight to the king of the world...

Fasten your seatbelts, faithful readers! The pirate ship Spanner is about to shift into warp drive, and the real chaos is about to begin!

Table of Contents:

1. City in Flight (August 24, 2011, Final Revision 12/26/12)
2. I Choose Free Will (August 25-26, 2011, Final Revision 12/28/12)
3. B Krool 2 Ur Scuel (The School Invasions Part II) (December 31, 2012)
4. When the Cat’s Away (August 27, 2011; Final Revision 1/4/13)
5. His Satanic Majesty’s Request (August 28, 2011, Final Revision 1/7/13)
6. Last Chance for Free Play (August 29, 2011, Final Revision 1/9/13)

Now incorporating a new nested flashback structure invented in homage to the “mid-season clip show” episodes of anime; includes condensed flashbacks to earlier installments and the still unwritten Book 0, backstory flashbacks, and “scenarios” of alternate versions of events.

Original title: “When the Cat’s Away,” now the section title for 14.3; the final title was originally used for 15.1 R2. Original R2 section titles: “Fujoshi Paradise” (14.2), “Optional School Day” (14.3), “I Choose Free Will” (14.4), “For His Satanic Majesty” (14.5); same titles for 14.1 and 14.6. New R4 thread introduced: “The Return of Alice Company.” From the Project Notebooks: the scene where Leila (now “the girl with the violet eyes” as of 12.4 R4) hugs Daisy, now extended to incorporate the new thread; Irina Lanskaya, now appearing one chapter earlier than in R2 and a major character in the new thread (her first scene has been moved and edited accordingly); Shane Chantry, originally to be introduced in Book 3. From pop culture history: a version of the infamous Max Headroom cable hack. Several R1 and R2 scenes condensed or eliminated; the rest have been edited to fit Fourth Revision continuity. There is no Third Revision version.

The original introduction and revision notes to the far less complex First and Second Revision versions:

So far, most of the action following Chapter 1 has been a series of fight scenes that I've had a hard time translating from comics script fragments into unvisual prose. From now on, it's no longer going to be just a series of Challenges in the never-ending "Tournament" that invaded the schools from the streets. Now we leave the high school corridors and go back to the mean streets where the gangsters, terrorists, and cops rule. And the cops have just gotten their bloody hands on the very latest in bleeding-edge law enforcement technology. Expect the crooks to steal it from the cops soon, just like they always do.

So far, the yuri fans have gotten all the fun. Now at last it’s time for them to take a back seat for once and make way for the yaoi fangirls. The girls have gotten to throw themselves at each other since Chapter 3; now the boys get to go at it. Face it: the boys want beautiful Robert Shelley just as badly as the girls do. But to balance this out, I’m going to introduce another of the great clichés of manga and anime, the Evil Bishounen. Arvid Shield is starting to get too ambiguous, so I need a beautiful boy who can incarnate pure hideous evil. So, from the pages of my unfinished prequel Bad Company: A Corporate Terror Story, I bring you one of its major villains.

Scenarios taken from my Project Notebooks of the early ’00s: the Law of Plausible Deniability, the coed shower scene, the band called Gang and their frontman Eddie Evil, the interrupted sacrifice, and the police [correction] Slasher Hunters’ raid on the pit bull fights.

Second Revision Update: The original introduction refers to certain problems with the first draft, and to the still unfinished prequel/trial run Bad Company: A Corporate Terror Story. Other than that, the major changes fit this chapter into the stronger second-edition continuity.

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Copyright © 2012, 2013 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.