Spanner Chapter 23: Black Panic in the Suites (Final Revision)

← Chapter 22

Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 1: Rock City Blues
Chapter 23: Black Panic in the Suites (Final Revision)

Election day, 2014. It was not supposed to happen. The Conservative Revolution was supposed to have liberated America from politics. Governor J. Walter Brinkman, Chairman of the Cascadia Public Management Corporation that owns the government of the state of Cascadia, said so himself.

It’s happening despite his most desperate efforts. Furthermore, what was originally intended to be a high-school anti-bullying rally has exploded into a statewide general strike that threatens to spread throughout the American Empire and beyond.

His solution: destroy Cascadia. Some of the Empire’s strongest supers will do whatever it takes to stop him — especially his granddaughter who erased her name and her lesbian lover Shira Thomas, who came into their powers one month ago and killed King Patriot...

The end begins here.

Table of Contents:

1. Welcome to My Revolution (October 20, 2011, Final Revision 4/15/13)
2. Warriors of Rock (October 21, 2011, Final Revision 4/19/13)
3. The Television Will Be Revolutionized (October 22, 2011, Final Revision 4/21/13)
4. Burn the Polls, Ye Sons of Freedom (October 23, 2011, Final Revision 4/22/13)
5. The Fuses Have Been Lit (October 24, 2011, Final Revision 4/23/13)
6. I Am the Future (October 25, 2011, Final Revision 4/24/13)

Book 2 Previews: (for the ebook edition)

• Interlude 14: The Crisis (May 2, 2013)
• 24.1: School’s Out Forever (The School Invasions Part V) (May 9, 2013)

For the Fourth Revision, I have made massive changes from the Revision 2 version and even the Revision 3 plan. Many scenes have been not only massively revised for the new continuity, but severely condensed. All song lyrics and some entire plot threads have been entirely removed, while new threads have been added, including a massive multi-character super-battle that acts as a direct sequel to Chapter 23. The entire chapter now takes place on a single day: November 4, 2014.

Original R2 section titles: “Settle for Nothing” (23.1), “Spanner Q&A” (23.2), “No Time This Time” (23.3), “Vote Early, Vote Often” (23.4), “The Fuses Have Been Lit” (23.5), and “I Am the Future” (23.6). The Revision 1 version was never completed; there is no Revision 3 version.

As there are no revision notes for previous versions, here’s the Second Revision introduction:

At last! After ten months’ delay, Chapter 23 is finally being posted, and Spanner Book 1 is finished at last! And so we come full circle, with the Conservative Revolution facing its first real Populist threat since it saved the American Empire from democracy. Spanner throws himself into the works and even holds a press conference, while the Wrecking Krewe and the rest of Team Spanner pit their souped-up boom trucks to cancel out the Fearsome Foursome’s helicopter-mounted giant sound cannons as the crowds battling the authorities below attempt to turn Brinkman’s sham plebiscite into a real election. And of course the Man declares war against the People and tries to force them back into slavery. For the threat of equality promises the end of sovereign freedom, the divine right of oligarchs. And when the victims withdraw their sanction, the predators perish...

The balance of power in Cascadia is shifting. Nothing will be the same after this. As for Byron Scofield, fanatical Prophet of the Church of America: he has decided that the time for tolerance has ended, and the time for war is now...

And so the stage is set for Book 2, Rage of the Prophets [final title: Love Terrorists], which contains some of my strangest and most interesting plots and characters (particularly villains). Book 1 was just the intro. Now it’s time for the Author to bring his A game. Now we get serious.

to be continued...

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Copyright © 2013 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

Spanner Chapter 22: There Is No Law (Final Revision)

← Chapter 21

Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 1: Rock City Blues
Chapter 22: There Is No Law (Final Revision)

Bangor High School has been all but destroyed by its own leaders. The Seattle Public Education Corporation is collapsing. Its chairman is dead. The anti-bullying rally that Peace Committee leader and devout pacifist Karen Kubota transforms into a districtwide student strike against SPEC, quickly joined by the teachers whose Guild rules forbid them to strike.

But rebellious lovers Shira, Jennifer, and the girl with the violet eyes know what even the Student Union and the dissident rank-and-file teachers don’t: this is no mere strike against a predatory corporation, but the beginning of the Populist revolution against the aristocratic Conservative Revolution and everything it stands for — including its eugenics-oriented moralism. Their love, they realize, is itself a weapon against the System. Shira’s sister Desiree joins their love revolution, abandons her superhero costume, takes her own nameless daughter as her lover, and does battle with both her mother and mortal enemy Drusilla and the entire privatized COPCO police force — just as its Syndicate moles go to war within the company, in effect repealing the Law. The girl with the violet eyes duels her unwanted Corporate suitor Oliver on live television, Lord Richard Becket, the World Patriarch himself, is drawn in, Spanner makes his spectacular return in unexpected form...

And the strike of students and teachers against SPEC balloons into a full-blown general strike.

The time of reckoning has come at last.

Table of Contents:

0. Interlude 13: This Is Not America (April 5, 2013)
1. Teenage Resistance (October 14, 2011, Final Revision 4/8/13)
2. Lovecrime Conspiracy (October 15, 2011, Final Revision 4/9/13)
3. Fight the Power (October 16, 2011, Final Revision 4/10/13)
4. Massive Retaliation (October 17, 2011, Final Revision 4/11/13)
5. Total Police Breakdown (October 18, 2011, Final Revision 4/12/13)
6. The Naked Killers (October 19, 2011, Final Revision 4/13/13)

The Intro ends: Chaos theory states that perfect foreknowledge of the development of a system is impossible, and that the slightest change in one variable changes the future of the system completely... In the Fourth Revision, I have made so many changes and additions to the Second and Third Revisions that the new Chapter 22 is almost unrecognizable from the R2 original. The general plan may be the same, but the specific outcome is different. I have also integrated the stylistic experiments of the R4 Interludes directly into the text of the main story.

Heavily revised and edited, with many old scenes and threads deleted and new ones added, to fit Final Revision continuity and provide a cliffhanger ending that leads into Chapter 23. Original Revision 2 section titles: “Contradiction Is Truth” (22.1), “Working for the Crackdown” (22.2), “Brinkmanship” (22.3), “Bring the Hammer Down” (22.4), “The Spanner Show” (22.5), “The Naked Killer” (singular; 22.6). There is no Third Revision version; the ending is new to the Fourth Revision.

Because the First Revision version was never completed nor posted, the original introduction is that to the Second Revision and there are no R2 (or R3) revision notes. The R2 introduction:

The first edition of Spanner Book 1 never got this far. Why? I left these two final chapters half in outline, that’s why. The plot had collapsed by this point; such things tend to happen in a first draft. Now, for the first time ever, exclusively for the second edition, I bring you Chapter 22.

Principal Principal and Vice Principal Falconer are dead. So are Admiral and Mrs Fleer, leaving the Fleer sisters orphaned. Bart Green is a cripple; Team Valiant has been destroyed. Spanner has exposed Mayor Pete Ross and Shepherd Luke Everson as complete and utter fools. Their failure to violently suppress the peaceful protest at Bremerton High School now allows the demonstrations to spread to every single junior high, high, and technical school in the Metropolitan Seattle School District, and from there to every single metropolitan school district in the State of Cascadia. At long last, the Populist majority have thrown their puppet oppressors, the Fearsome Foursome, the long dreaded Public Challenge, and they have two big demands: a free election, and the end of Tournament. The Law, needless to say, responds with lawlessness.

As the crisis snowballs, Team Bremelo race to save Karen from a hitman, the Wrecking Krewe initiate a full-scale Anonymous strike on AT&T and the FCC, the remnants of Valiant and Pretty Teams plot their revenge, Shira flies one last delivery, and Leila takes advantage of the chaos to put an end to the arranged marriage her hated grandfather, the leader of the Foursome, forced her into — with a final Challenge of her own, which only one can survive! And at long last, Spanner makes his first public appearance since the TrumpCity disaster on Revolution Day!

Chapter 23 →

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Copyright © 2013 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

Spanner Chapter 21: High School Banned (Final Revision)

← Chapter 20

Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 1: Rock City Blues
Chapter 21: High School Banned (Final Revision)

Team Bremelo defeated Team Valiant in the Team Challenge. Shira has taken the title of Tournament Leader from Bart and is technically Head Boy. The Bremeloes got away with the huge rave they held in celebration. They’re hoping to take some time to recover.

SPEC, the reconstituted Fearsome Foursome, and the collapsing Student Council refuse to give them any time, but especially not the Patriot militants enraged that a high-school fighting team of “Real Men” were defeated by mere girls. Naked girls — Team Bremelo’s nudefighters. Their sacred Manhood mortally offended, they riot.

The Bremelo girls take the battle to them. Protected by the new powers that Shira and the girl with the violet eyes developed in the King Patriot incident and the legal sorcery of Shira’s lawyer cousin Angela, they take their nudefighting public. They develop devious and dangerous new strategies against the Patriots, and test them on the Syndicates.

But then they catch the attention of SPEC Chairman Peter T. Ross. And he decides to return to Bangor High for the first time in two months, to stare down three young women who have become far more dangerous to his company and the Conservative Revolution itself than even this suspicious man realizes. To prevent the Student Union’s anti-bullying rally from ever taking place, he is more than willing to destroy the school...

Table of Contents:

1. No Leaders for the New Revolution (October 7, 2011, Final Revision 3/28/13)
2. Show Me Your Plan (October 8, 2011, Final Revision 3/29/13)
3. Man Rage vs. Nudefight Girls (October 9, 2011, Final Revision 3/30/13)
4. Test Your Might (October 10, 2011, Final Revision 3/31/13)
5. Undressed for Action (October 11, 2011, Final Revision 4/1/13)
6. Burning Down the House (The School Invasions Part IV) (October 12, 2011, Final Revision 4/2/13)

To avoid the fatal weaknesses of Revision 2’s ending (to both this chapter and Book 1), I removed more scenes than in any other chapter so far, including two entire plot threads (“the rescue of Karen,” now just a single scene in 22.1, and “the rape of Ayla,” removed entirely), and enough new scenes and threads added that 21.5 is now almost entirely new and serves as a prelude to the events of 21.6, which itself got a new cliffhanger ending leading directly into Chapter 22. The central scene of 21.3 R2 was completely rewritten for the proposed Revision 3 version, then further revised for R4 and moved to the opening of 21.6, where it would have its greatest effect. The nudefighters arc replaces the Karen and Ayla threads and follows directly from the events of 20.3, though it really started all the way back in Chapter 1.

Original section titles from Revision 2: “No Leaders” (21.1), “High Tension” (21.2), “The Descent from On High” (21.3), “Test Your Might” (21.4, unchanged in R4), “The Endless Struggle” (21.5, featuring the now removed Karen arc), “Burning Down the House” (21.6). Except for the above mentioned scene, there is no Revision 3 version.

Below are the original introductory notes to the First and Second Revisions. There were no revision notes, so this will be short.

First Revision Note: The action gets fast and furious as we approach the climax of Book 1. The two big clashes, though, are yet to come.

I’ll just shut my trap now and let the story speak for itself. But not before I make sure you know that you still ain’t seen nothing yet...

Second Revision Introduction: The rave ends, the rapists are caught, little Ayla is rescued, the Tournament Leaders are overthrown. One school week left until the Student Union holds its scheduled anti-bullying demonstration. One more week before the state election that CPMC is so desperate to prevent. The week of living dangerously has begun. Violent men are determined to ruin everything, but Shira and her fight club are ready for them. She has many tricks up her sleeve that she’s anxious to try out on them. She puts into action a plan to get her pacifist cousin Karen out of jail. But the losers in the Team Challenge, Valiant Team and its leader, now former head boy Bart Green, are out for revenge, and they intend to get it at any cost...

Book 1 enters the homestretch at last! This is the last chapter whose first draft [i.e. Revision 1 version] I posted [because Chapters 22 and 23 R1 were never fully completed], and the conclusion of the School Arc that began in Chapter 5. The shit is finally hitting the fan. After this, the shit gets serious.

Chapter 22 →

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Copyright © 2013 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

Spanner Chapter 20: Stand or Fall (Final Revision)

← Chapter 19

Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 1: Rock City Blues
Chapter 20: Stand or Fall (Final Revision)

The Bangor High Student Council implodes.

The Student Union try to seize the opportunity.

Team Valiant throw them a Challenge in retaliation.

Team Bremelo accept the Challenge.

The winners earn the right to take over Dictel Stadium to celebrate.

After this, the real trouble will begin...

Table of Contents:

1. The Fall of the Student Council (October 1-4, 2011; Final Revision 3/24/13)
2. The Team Challenge (October 5, 2011; Final Revision 3/25/13)
3. Temporary Autonomous Zone (October 6, 2011; Final Revision 3/27/13)

Unusually for Spanner, the three sections of this chapter are the length of two sections of any other chapter. 20.1 is condensed from the first four R2 sections, with certain threads removed and a few scenes added from Chapters 19 and 21; 20.2 and 20.3 are expanded from R2 to double length. What remains is heavily revised to fit the Final Revision continuity. New to the Fourth Revision is the Modernist- (and comics-) inspired experiment with sentences spilling into the next paragraph, scene, section, and even chapter.

Revision 1 title: “Working for the Crackdown”; Revision 2 title: “Things Fall Apart”. Original Revision 2 section titles: “Game Over Man” (20.1; the title scene is now in 19.6), “Simple Matter of Planning” (20.2), “Broadcast Crime” (20.3), “Scandal Wars” (20.4), “The Team Challenge” (20.5), “Temporary Autonomous Zone” (20.6). There is no Third Revision version.

The original Revision 1 and 2 revision notes, the story parts of which are of course no longer relevant:

First Revision Notes: You’d probably expect from the title to find a traitor in Team Spanner. Except for one thing: with all the surveillance tech the government’s overusing, is there even a need for traitors and spies anymore? Besides, Jennifer can spot a spy whenever she takes her glasses off, and Shira can Charm them into betraying the agency that sent them. In this chapter, then, the major villains take the spotlight. And then they try to hog it at each other’s expense.

Meanwhile, the Hackers of Reality continue their assault on the media system from the safety of the Darknet. Desiree takes on the role of point man. Shira manipulates from the shadows, and then tells everybody that (and whom) she’s manipulating. Karen earns her martyr cred at the villains’s expense. Team Spanner argue over how to spring her.

We find out that some of the villains are actually human, some despite themselves. Others, of course, are increasingly, or completely, inhuman. The Cartel’s “Moravec Plan” will explain what Ariel calls the “gods of power” in the seemingly materialist terms the Corporates understand.

Scenarios from the Project Notebooks of the early ’00s: exactly none. New characters introduced from the ’90s Notebooks: Option [not present here in the final version, appearing in Chapter 4 instead].

The battle now kicks into high gear. Expect casualties.

Second Revision Update: The Fearsome Foursome are starting to fall apart. This only makes them angrier than before, and they lash out even more wildly. But Shira, Spanner, the KCUF News Team, and the Wrecking Krewe know where their weakness are, and hit them harder and harder. Leila finally provokes school Tournament champion Bart into losing all control and throwing the Challenge that Team Bremelo has expected all along, the two high-school fight clubs battle their way to disaster, and the School Arc races toward its cataclysmic conclusion next chapter...

The original title was “Working for the Crackdown” (now the name of Part 22.2 [in Revision 2]). Like Chapter 18 (but with more holdovers from the first draft), the new chapter is completely different.

Chapter 21 →

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Copyright © 2013 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

Spanner Chapter 19: Hackers of Reality (Final Revision)

← Chapter 18

Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 1: Rock City Blues
Chapter 19: Hackers of Reality (Final Revision)

After a series of murders over a Bangor High Student Council member’s iPhone, SPEC Chairman Ross fires the trigger-happy volunteer guards he hired last chapter; COPCO Seattle section chief Jack Becket and Admiral Alan Fleer get their turn against Shira Thomas and her high-school crew of reality hackers. Chief Becket loses a lot of money in the attempt, and more. Admiral Fleer loses his mind...

Table of Contents:

1. The iPhone Murders (September 25, 2011, Final Revision 3/11/13)
2. Building the Perfect Girl (September 26, 2011, Final Revision 3/12/13)
3. Read Between the Lies (September 27, 2011, Final Revision 3/18/13)
4. The Copbot Suicides (September 28, 2011, Final Revision 3/19/13)
5. Living Dead Girl (September 29, 2011, Final Revision 3/20/13)
6. Drag You Down With Me (September 30, 2011, Final Revision 3/21/13)
7. Interlude 12: Portrait of the Death of the Artist (March 23, 2013)

Most of 19.1 is a new scenario mixed with older scenes; the rest of the chapter is condensed from the Revision 2 version along with scenes from Chapters 18 and 20, all heavily revised to fit in the new Final Revision continuity. The chapter title combines the titles of the late-1980s cyberpunk magazine Reality Hackers (the predecessor to Mondo 2000) with the Black Sabbath album Masters of Reality. Original section titles changed from Revision 2: “Into the Snake Pit” (19.1), “The Perfect Girl” (19.2), “The Memetic Terrorists” (19.4), “Live Zombies” (19.5). There is no Third Revision version — except for 19.2.

The original Revision 1 and 2 revision notes:

First Revision Notes: [Yes, it begins with a quote, something I normally limit to the opening sections of chapters.]

A man cannot spin a character out of his inner consciousness and make him really life-like unless he has the possibility of that character within him — a dangerous admission for one to make who has drawn as many villains as I.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I have a nasty temper. I have a social conscience. When the two come together — watch out!

Or just read this chapter and find out just how evil a Dennis Jernberg villain can truly be.

In this case, the villains are Admiral Alan Fleer and his partner in crime, Honey Sue Falconer. I put my full fury into them. You want to know just what Team Spanner are up against? Consider this: Spanner is the most cynical gangster epic in the history of fiction. The word “gangster” is properly defined as the kind of serial killer that runs in packs. This explains the importance of the Slasher Hunters to the story. There is no tyranny without the most vicious gangsterism to back it up with terrorism. That’s right: tyranny, terrorism, and gangsterism are one and the same thing. It cannot be any other way. Cascadia’s ruling “Fearsome Foursome” — Admiral Alan Fleer, Governor J. Walter Brinkman, Seattle Mayor Rev. Luke Everson, and NPA Cascadia Section Chief John Cameron Brinkman — are mob lords, and Cascadia is their turf.

Is it any wonder that those Evangelical Christians who remained Christian despite the extreme temptation of power willfully risk their lives to call “Jesus America” the Antichrist?

So how does a hero take on such a synarchy of supervillains? Not by force. Not by mass protest, at least not at first. By hacking reality itself. Turn the spin against the spinmeisters. Take the battle to the enemy at a higher level. Make them fight you on your home territory. Strike the killing blow with weapons they cannot defend against.

Scenarios from the Project Notebooks of the late 1990s: the robot suicides and the Mexican standoff. Characters: the Skeever Brothers.

And now the battle is joined at last...

Second Revision Update: After a Chapter 18 of almost all new material, I’m now mixing and matching material from Chapters 18 through 23 of the first draft into a more workable order and adding new material wherever I feel it’s needed. By this point, the Second Edition is far superior to the first draft, as the plot escalates toward the climax of Book 1 in Chapter 23. For those of you who read the first draft already, I have some surprises up my sleeve...

I wrote the original chapter in a bad mood. This partly explains the tone of the original introduction. Interestingly enough, that introduction (quoted below) applies much better to the new Chapter 19 than the original. And just because a villain’s minions fail doesn’t mean he isn’t still evil...

Chapter 20 →

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Copyright © 2013 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

Spanner Chapter 18: White Riot in the Streets (Final Revision)

← Chapter 17

Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 1: Rock City Blues
Chapter 18: White Riot in the Streets (Final Revision)

In the aftermath of the Socialist Revolutionary Organization’s bombing that killed Seattle’s scandalous new Party chief, the Conservative Revolutionaries riot throughout the city. Ambitious Party leaders turn it into a deadly manifestation of Tournament in a battle royal to succeed the slain leader; Party militants use it to crusade against the food riots already ongoing; street criminals use it as the perfect excuse to launch a crime wave.

Shira’s twin sister Kira, long thought killed in the Conservative Revolution, has returned, but Dr. Hiram Whistler finds himself forced to use the latest experimental version of his notorious Whistler Process to keep their powers from killing them. But they survive, and Kira returns home to an ecstatic reunion with the family and friends who thought her dead.

Then the celebrity assassins of the reality TV show called TerrorVision invade Bangor High...

Chaos ensues yet again.

Table of Contents:

1. Rage Against the People (September 19, 2011, Final Revision 3/4/13)
2. Lost Girl Homecoming (September 20, 2011, Final Revision 3/5/13)
3. No Enemies to the Right (September 21, 2011, Final Revision 3/6/13)
4. TerrorVision (The School Invasions Part III) (September 22, 2011, Final Revision 3/7/13)
5. Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas (September 23, 2011, Final Revision 3/8/13)
6. Permanent Riot (September 24, 2011, Final Revision 3/9/13)

Few scenes have actually been preserved from the Second Revision; most of them have instead been replaced by new and Project Notebook scenes better fitting the title. The entire KCUF News sequence is now in Chapter 19, replaced by a new “hitman reality show” sequence incorporating several of the best scenes I wrote as scenarios for the Project Notebooks and now tied into Fourth Revision continuity.

The original Revision 2 section titles: “Steal from the Poor, Give to the Rich” (18.1), “Fight Club City Smashers” (18.2), “Rage Against the People” (18.3), “All State Lockdown” (18.4), “Knife in the Back” (18.5), “Chaos out of Order” (18.6). From the Project Notebooks: the Whistler Process (18.1), the hitman reality show (18.4-6), the Patriot attack on the school (18.4), the Yakuza hitman Slice (18.4-5), killer cyborgs Chainsaw and the Gat, Barney SATAN!’s headless rampage (18.5), and the final Shira-Debbie scene at the climax of 18.6. Originally written for Book 2: the interrupted-rape sequence and accompanying flashback in 18.3, and the return of Kira. There is no Third Revision version.

The original Revision 1 and 2 chapter introductions and revision notes:

First Revision Introduction: The reckoning is getting closer. Hope and Karen take their proper place in the heart of the action. (Requiring, of course, that I retcon them back into earlier chapters. But not now...) The villains show their power, yet pull their punches; right now they intend to intimidate, not exterminate. And at last, Bart Green and his Valiant Team throw their Team Challenge out to Team Bremelo [a scene now in Chapter 20].

The time is coming closer. The day of reckoning approaches for Governor Brinkman, Admiral Fleer, Mayor Everson, and Police Chief Becket. They control all the guns, thanks to the Neo-Confederate police of gun control. But the amorphous opposition have weapons of their own, weapons that do not kill, yet destroy. Weapons like popular discontent and the Law of Plausible Deniability. And, as Shira and Jennifer explain, the Old Confederacy was a lost cause because of the ruling slavelord élite’s contempt for the masses led them to lose it to the capitalist-led North. If there’s any ideal that’s pie-in-the-sky, it’s Synarchy [secretive oligarchic dictatorship worshipped as the Ideal].

First Revision Notes: Scenarios from the Project Notebooks of the early ’00s: the redneck gang attack, Shira’s Go-Yo, the Team Challenge (now in its final form) [but now in Chapter 20], Shira's duel with Bart [ditto], her continuing chess game with Dr. Becket, and the Moravec Plan.

The disaster is snowballing. The horror unfolds, but you can’t avert your eyes...

Second Revision Introduction: Suddenly, the Corporate rulers of Cascadia find themselves confronted with the desperate poor rioting for food. But then amoral Corporate youth, starting with a certain high-school fight club, decide to take advantage by having themselves a looting party. Then ethnic gangsters decide they want to loot them, and fight club battles engulf the city. COPCO tries to suppress the fights. The National Guard tries to suppress the fights. The price of the Cascadia Public Management Corporation stock goes down. And the Fearsome Foursome try to overthrow each other...

And Spanner encourages them.

Second Revision Update: As the plot was already imploding at this point in the First Revision (which is why I neither finished nor posted Chapters 22 and 23 [until late 2012]), I’ve decided to write an entirely new chapter under the old name. Parts of the old chapter have been relocated to Chapters 19-21, where they now fit better. And so most of the original introduction is now inaccurate. However, three of the Project Notebook scenarios listed below (the Moral Enforcer attack in 18.4, the introduction of the Moravec Plan in 18.5, and the continuing chess game, none of which made it into the original chapter) are now restored.

To get some of the background behind this chapter, this blog post (not mine) will give you a quick introduction.

Chapter 19 →

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Copyright © 2013 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

Spanner Chapter 17: Power, Corruption, and Lies (Final Revision)

← Chapter 16

Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 1: Rock City Blues
Chapter 17: Power, Corruption, and Lies (Final Revision)

Spanner and the Rat Bastard escalate their media war. A special delivery gives Shira an extra special weapon to use against the Fearsome Foursome, a weapon contained entirely on a single flash memory card. Debbie’s mother, a celebrity Shepherd of Jesus America, uses the school to perform Ex-Gay Faith Therapy on some of its students; Debbie is not the least bit pleased, and chaos ensues. Shocking revelations fly left and right, starting with the Dictel-related origin of Bangor High itself. The new Conservative Revolutionary Party chief for Seattle escapes getting caught in a compromising position by the Slasher Hunters, only to receive a nasty surprise courtesy of the angry left-wing vigilantes of the Socialist Revolutionary Organization, giving the Fearsome Foursome in turn all the excuse they need to take that extra step too far. And someone everyone thought dead pulls a shocking surprise of her own...

The shocking events of Chapter 15 couldn’t have been enough. The revolutionary élite haven’t just been hurt; they’ve been offended. They cannot tolerate the actions of a mystery man and a teenage girl determined to provoke the Enemy — i.e., the people — against their dictatorship. But a nation that defines wealth as virtue and corruption as salvation must eventually face down the people its rulers step on. The conflict snowballs, and the reckoning is at hand...

Table of Contents:

1. We Control Your Signal (September 12, 2011, Final Revision 2/11/13)
2. Sinister Secrets of Bangor High (September 13, 2011, Final Revision 2/13/13)
3. Special Delivery for the Man of Mystery (September 14, 2011, Final Revision 2/15/13)
4. Pray Away the Gay (September 15, 2011, Final Revision 2/18/13)
5. The Sexcrime Videos (September 16, 2011, Final Revision 2/20/13)
6. The Law of Plausible Deniability (September 17, 2011, Final Revision 2/22/13)
7. Interlude 11: The Gun Is Your Penis, Go Forth and Kill (March 2, 2013)

As with the last two chapters, major revisions have been made for the new Fourth Revision continuity, new scenes and threads added, and old ones deleted or moved. Some scenes moved here from Chapters 6-8. The “Amanda with a gun” scenes are now in 13.3; the remaining scenes continue her “nameless woman” thread from 16.6, with some scenes from 17.1 now forming the first half of 17.4. Colette (Nicole in Revision 2) returns to Bangor High in 16.3 now, and she’s been reset to her original pleasant personality and pacifist idealism (part of the unused Revision 3 plan); the Peace Committee sequence is now mostly in 17.2. The hunt for the city councillor in 17.2 is now the hunt for the new city Party chief in 17.6; the “special delivery” scene in 17.2 is now the sequence that forms the heart of 17.3. The final confrontation with Big Baddd has been moved from 17.4 to 17.2. Newly added from the Project Notebooks: the hate-metal riot in 17.6, originally written for Book 2. And not one but two major twists added to the end — but I’m not telling...

Original Revision 2 section titles: “No God but Mammon” (17.1), “Hunting Bigger Prey” (17.2), “The Nuclear Option” (17.3), “The Faither You Heal, The Booster You Die” (17.4), “The Rape Tapes” (17.5), “We Officially Deny” (17.6). Interlude 11 is new to the Fourth Revision. There is no Third Revision version.

The original revision notes for Revisions 1 and 2:

First Revision: The Neo-Confederate reaction against the upcoming election in Cascadia is getting increasingly violent and hysterical. It’ll only get more so once people start learning what’s behind the Confederate dictatorship in the first place. Cynics like to call it the “Golden Rule” — no, not that one. The one that states: “He that hath the gold, maketh the rules.” I’ll get deeper into this subject in later chapters. But always keep in mind that in Spanner, nothing is what it seems.

Scenarios from the Project Notebooks of the early ’00s: the school assembly and the Big Baddd incident.

I’m running out of “liner notes” right now, so I’m putting part of the story onto the main page this time.

The third act of this play has begun. Now it’s time for Shira to start dropping bombs.

Second Revision Update: There’s a lot more changes from the first draft than in previous chapters, all of it added to lead the plot into the climactic Chapters 22 and 23 (unfinished in the first draft and therefore never posted). Among the revisions, the term “Neo-Confederate” has been replaced with “Conservative Revolutionary” to reinforce the “neo-Jacobin” angle. There are many, many new scenes. This is the point in the first edition when I started skimping on introductions...

Chapter 18 →

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Copyright © 2013 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

Spanner Chapter 16: Don't Change the Channel (Final Revision)

← Chapter 15

Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 1: Rock City Blues
Chapter 16: Don’t Change the Channel (Final Revision)

The Conservative Revolutionaries came to Seattle to transgress against the people of the city. Driven by pure love and a power crystal, two teenage lesbian lovers and their rogue AI turned it back against the transgressors. Now the refugess return only to find the Party has wrecked large parts of the city in ruins and stuck them with the bill. The Consortium that owns the Metropolitan City is already issuing lawsuits. The city's own intelligence gives the girls and their cop and reporter friends the shocking secret details. After escaping punishment, not satisfied with mere destruction, Shira and her nameless girlfriend consummate their mad love right under the Eye and commit the ultimate crime with a willing child. Still it remains mere transgression...

After the school shooting (14.3) and the shocking death of King Patriot (15.4), Bangor High is now under heavy armed guard — not to prevent more such disasters, but to punish the students and to enforce the relentlessly inflating mandatory costs that SPEC Chairman Ross, typical Corporate that he is, imposes to satisfy his ever escalating monetary demands. It doesn’t stop the Student Union and Team Bremelo. They ally themselves a group of foreign exchange students and the KCUF pirate broadcasters. But new Party chairman Henry Becket intends to get personal revenge. The Party’s propaganda fuhrer Randolph G. “Rat Bastard” Litton takes his place among Cascadia’s ruling “Fearsome Foursome” and attempts to hijack Spanner for himself. And Amanda, pretty reporter now in disgrace, finds herself face-to-face with a homicidal identity thief...

Table of Contents:

1. Urban Intelligence (September 5, 2011, Final Revision 1/28/13)
2. Pick Up the Pieces (September 6, 2011, Final Revision 1/30/13)
3. Faith and Suicide (September 7, 2011, Final Revision 2/1/13)
4. Live on Pirate Television KCUF (September 8, 2011, Final Revision 2/4/13)
5. Such Men Are Dangerous (September 9, 2011, Final Revision 2/6/13)
6. Stalking the Wild Newtype (September 10, 2011, Final Revision 2/8/13)

There are so many changes between the Second and Fourth Revisions it’s no longer possible for me to keep track. Parts 5 and 6 are almost entirely new. There is no Third Revision version.

The original chapter notes and Second Revision update:

First Revision Notes: “Media Wars” is the third of the proposed chapter titles I took from my Project Notebooks of the Nineties and early ’00s (after “Spanner in the Works” and “Better Living Through Chemistry”). This title encapsulates one of the major cyberpunk themes contained in such CP-SF novels from the classic era as William Gibson’s Mona Lisa Overdrive, Norman Spinrad’s Little Heroes, and Bradley Denton’s Wrack & Roll. Above all, there was Max Headroom. A title like “Media Wars” was a complete no-brainer back when I was trying to write Spanner as science fiction. Now that the Media Wars are actually happening, what was science fiction then is reality today. I’ve updated the concept to include the Internet and social media — or what little is left of it after a little dust-up called World Infowar I...

One more obscure influence on this chapter in particular is a book from the mid-Seventies called Decadence, a post-mortem of the Sixties counterculture by one Jim Hougan (who was then living in exile on Ibiza a decade before the rave culture of the Nineties started developing there and ended its backwater obscurity). Its one major point, besides identifying America as something of a giant robot doomed to move in one direction until (in our near future) it crashes, is his antithesis within pop culture of alpha culture and omega culture. Alpha culture is the decentralized culture of the people; omega culture is the hypercentralized culture of the Man. Omega culture is a parasite that continually struggles to assimilate all potentially threatening alpha culture and lock it into unthreatening stasis. More than ever, the Man has a huge edge. But now we have the means to subvert the Man’s omega-cultural tyranny: the Internet, social media, and file sharing. After the Neo-Confederate coup and the Infowar, the Man seems to have total control. But in its hubris it has spawned the cancer that will kill it: the Darknet. (Here’s the book on it, an article on it, and the reply by Freenet’s creator.).

Scenarios from the Project Notebooks of the early ’00s: the Doctor’s visit and the terror group that calls itself the Socialist Revolutionary Organization. From the early Notebooks of the Nineties: the Rat Bastard (mostly on index cards, actually), the Pirate Television Network and its local station KCUF, and the cult known popularly as the TV Heads. The original cover concept for the proposed manga episode: a line of cartoon fish, escalating in size, all about to eat each other.

Special Mentions: Go-Man and Mister X!
Special Guest Star: Rupert Murdoch is News Corporation — literally!
Original soundtrack by Emergency Broadcast Network.

Now press play, and listen...

Second Revision Update: After revealing its existence to Shira and Sparks, Seattle’s “urban intelligence” gives them a shocking revelation about COPCO and the Party. Governor Brinkman and the Cascadia Public Management Corporation, humiliated by Spanner’s appearance last chapter, hires the Party’s public relations master, a man known to his countless enemies as the Rat Bastard. The terrified school administrators of Bremerton High summon their Party overseer to help them deal with the escalating feud between the Student Council and Team Bremelo. Shira and the pirate broadcasters at KCUF wage a PR duel with the Rat Bastard, with sexy star reporter Amanda Currie as the target and the prize. And Jennifer tinkers with her own prize, a beautiful robot girl salvaged from the post-assassination robot riots...

The third part of Rock City Blues begins, and it threatens to rock the foundations of the American Empire...

The name of this chapter was changed from “Media Wars”; I’m now reserving that title for a chapter of Book 2 set during the Pretty City arc. Neither Rupert Murdoch nor his corporation-body, Prime Minister News Corporation, appear in person (he/it will be a major player in the later chapter), nor does the SRO. The School Arc climaxing in Chapter 21 resumes. Much of the introduction to the original Chapter 15 has been superseded as the chapter was revised for the Second Edition. But some of it is still correct, or at least interesting...

Chapter 17 →

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Copyright © 2013 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

Spanner Chapter 15: Start the Violence (Final Revision)

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 1: Rock City Blues
Chapter 15: Start the Violence (Final Revision)

Now you’ve done it, Shira. You’ve stolen Leila Shelley’s heart, stolen her from the serial-killing Corporate cad her grandfather the Governor is trying to force her to marry, and started a snowballing political crisis in the process. Governor Brinkman has called his grandfather: King Patriot I of the American Empire, the man formerly known Roger Steele Becket, the World War II superhero Super Patriot and the founder of Dictel Corporation, and now the King is coming to Seattle to do bad things to it. There’s only one thing you can do now, and you know exactly what it is. But at the same time, you’ll have to keep your now nameless girlfriend’s revenge from turning both King and Governor into martyrs the Party can use against you. And Jesus America himself shall appear right before your eyes...

You’ve now put yourself right smack in the middle of the crisis at the heart of the Conservative Revolution — and there is no escape until the American Empire has been brought down. If the world can even survive that long...

And so the second movement of Spanner Series 1 comes to its cyberpunk-operatic climax. Now it’s time to rock!

Table of Contents:

1. The Calm Before the Storm (August 30, 2011, Final Revision 1/11/13)
2. The Ingathering (August 31, 2011, Final Revision 1/14/13)
3. Invocation of the Nation (September 1, 2011, Final Revision 1/16/13)
4. Epiphany of the God-King (September 2, 2011, Final Revision 1/18/13)
5. Things Fall Apart (September 3, 2011, Final Revision 1/21/13)
6. Message Coming on Channel 12 (September 4, 2011, Final Revision 1/23/13)
7. Interlude 10: You Have Lost the Game (January 25, 2013)

Based on the outline for the never produced Third Revision, with the section titles for all but 15.5 final in that version (15.5 R3 was to be called “Robot Riot”). Incorporating: an abstract “Scream Gems” version of Rebel Styles in 15.4; the terrorist Ogden (of Chapter 2) from Revision 1; originally from Book 3: Shane Chantry, Oswald Bean, Radica Maxx; from the Project Notebooks (besides Shane): the Westin Hotel (and the mention of its two towers in reference to a recurring Sherlock Holmes theme), the terrorist organizations with obscene acronyms, and the computer in Shira’s head; from Revision 4 continuity: healing factor, human sacrifice, Patriot Metal, Leila’s power crystal, and the nameless “Rejectionists” (including Leila herself); new elements: the “finder’s right” idea and the “mermaids” in 15.1, and the hotel heist in 15.6. Sequences removed: the digressions to Port Townsend and Ocean Shores which made it even into the R3 plan. New to R4: the continuous narration with two time tags and one location tag as a counterpoint to the fragmented (in place and time) narrative of Chapter 1, which the Chapter 15 plot otherwise echoes, and to the narrative technique of other chapters with its location tags inspired by a convention of cinematic political thrillers borrowed from newspaper journalism.

Original section titles from Revision 2: “Plots and Plans” (now the title of Chapter 14), “The Calm Before the Storm” (now the title of 15.1 as of R3), “Hard Times in the City,” “Epiphany of the God King,” “You Are the Demons,” and “Message Coming on Channel 12.” The new Interlude 10 combines the R2 Interludes 3 and 11 with material new to R4: the infamous mind virus that inspired the title and a “three minute rock opera” based on the “standard rock opera plot.”

The original Revision 1 chapter notes and the Second and Third Revision notes:

Faithful readers, school is now out. Sure, there’ll still be scenes set at school, but that’s not where the main action is anymore. It’s out in the streets. All the high school kids are about to find that out for themselves once class resumes next chapter. This weekend belongs to the emperor of the world, his would-be assassins shooting for eternal glory, and the Angel of Chaos out to pwn them both. The final act of Spanner Book 1 begins here.

The original canon of cyberpunk science fiction coincides with the end of the political thriller’s heyday, the Eighties. The Left died with the Soviet Union as Stalin’s last and biggest victim. But still there is a political strain within cyberpunk, even if a minor one; naturally, it tends anarchist, just like punk rock itself. (Fortunately there’s still no fascist strain corresponding to Nazi street punk.) Even The Matrix skirts the edge of political cyberpunk, even if the sequels lose themselves in tech-gnostic obscurity. Now, I’m not yet avoiding the problems with political thrillers; the masses have even left the city to avoid getting hurt or killed when the assembled “Cons” (Neo-Confederates) start trashing it. But the Cons and “Corps” (Corporates) are the American Imperial élite. The masses will make their début soon, and then they will make their presence known.

Scenarios taken from my Project Notebooks of the early ’00s: the first visit to Ariel’s New Age shop (which occurred earlier in the 2008 Script Frenzy script) and the police riot (in Seattle, no less); from the early Notebooks of the Nineties come the names of the three networks ABCNN, QVCBS, and ESPNBC.

Now we start rockin’...

Second Revision Update: From the first edition, I’ve made some significant changes. (Also since then, a fascist strain of cyberpunk has unfortunately developed courtesy of first-generation cyberpunk K.W. Jeter, whose recent novel Noir might as well be official RIAA propaganda with extra added ultraviolence, making me wonder if he’s one of that ruthless cartel’s most ruthless lawyers.) Also, in the scene set in Ariel’s shop, the visitors are different yet again (originally Shira and Leila, then Charlie and Desiree in the first draft, and now Ric and Willa in this edition). Otherwise, the original introduction still mostly fits.

Third Revision Update (summary of original plan): Let’s begin with the precogs from Chapter 1. Let Spanner have his say. Then open with a cinematic montage like the ones just before the third acts of Mamoru Oshii anime movies (Patlabor and Ghost in the Shell). Then keep the action directly in the city with no digressions to Port Townsend, Ocean Shores, Victoria, or anywhere else.

Chapter 16 →

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Copyright © 2013 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

Spanner Chapter 14: Plots and Plans (Revision 4)

← Chapter 13

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.

Chapter 15 →

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

Spanner Chapter 13: The Girl with No Name (Revision 4)

← Chapter 12

Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 1: Rock City Blues
Chapter 13: The Girl with No Name (Revision 4)

The Slasher Hunters warn the Student Council’s top fighters about what they face if they throw a Challenge at Shira and Team Bremelo. Chairman Becket attempts a dreamspace attack in superhero form on Leila. Sparks sends word that King Patriot himself is coming to scare the fear of Jesus America into the Cascadia’s stubborn liberals on Sunday and gives Shira something to fight Chief Jack Becket’s copbots. Prophet Scofield plots revenge against Leila and her girlfriend Shira, his beloved Drusilla’s accursed changeling. Spanner makes his move against Amanda—and Shira, Leila, Sparks, and the nameless beauties next door attempt to save her. One of those nameless women has a surprise reunion with Ayla and provides Sparks and Desiree with a clue to the fates of Kira and Lucie. The first-period history teacher attempts to coerce Shira into sex, not knowing what she’s capable of. At the Team Bremelo picnic in Bremerton’s Evergreen Park, the team and their friends find themselves facing the Council fighters, Stan Green’s Moral Enforcers, Scofield and the church ladies from the Party’s Spiritual Warfare Bureau—and the dreaded Travelling Shovel of Death. And Leila, determined to break her marriage arrangement to Oliver at all costs and inspired by Shira’s neighbours, destroys her name...

Table of Contents:

1. Know Your Enemy (August 18, 2011, Final Revision 12/10/12)
2. Hello Nothing (August 19, 2011, Final Revision 12/12/12)
3. Breaking Amanda (August 20, 2011, Final Revision 12/14/12)
4. Guess Who’s Coming (August 21, 2011, Final Revision 12/17/12)
5. Sex as a Weapon (August 22, 2011, Final Revision 12/19/12)
6. The Battle of Evergreen Park (August 23, 2011, Final Revision 12/21/12)
7. Interlude 9: City on the Edge of a Dream (December 24, 2012)

Originally planned for R3 and added in R4: the Slasher Hunters-Team Valiant framing sequence which now gives 13.1 its name (R2 title: “Wake-Up Call”). Moved from R2: 13.2 is now 13.4 R4; 13.3 is now 13.5 R4; 13.4 is now part of Chapter 9 and replaced by the new 13.2; 13.3 R4 contains scenes from Chapters 14, 16, and 17 R2 and the original 12.6; Interlude 8 R2 (“Scary Monsters”) is the basis for the new Interlude 9 R4 (a prose poem with a song structure) linked above. New thread in R4 continuity: “Anonymity Is Freedom,” featuring (the soon to be ex-) Leila and Amanda. Original title in Revisions 1 and 2: “The Battle of Evergreen Park,”, now the title of 13.6 R4. There is no Third Revision version.

The original introduction and revision notes:

Halfway into a story, you expect something important to happen that will power the story to the shocking conclusion. Well, we’re now well into the second half of Spanner, which means the Author had better pick up the pace. And how better to do that than by having one villain draw a higher-ranking villain into his fight? Charmian Fleer has done this already. Now it’s Stan Green’s turn. Next — who knows?

From the Project Notebooks: the homeroom teacher’s question, “Ilsa, She-Wolf of Hollywood,” the mock fainting spells, Mimi in the locker room, the battle in the park, the loaded yo-yo, and the policebots (and what Shira does to them). All are from the early ’00s except for the robot idea that has remained essentially the same since the ’90s.

So far, I’ve neglected some major players and elements in the story. I left them behind when I took the story to high school. But now the strife is beginning to spread outside the school. Particularly from Chapter 5 onward, I downplayed some of the story’s more political aspects so I could introduce important plotlines and focus on the interplay of specific characters. That’s done. Now it’s time for me to start kicking the story into high gear.

Since Team Bremelo are holding a big gathering with family and friends invited to come, I’m taking the opportunity to bring some of the back. I’m also debuting another major villain, one I originally created for a very early version of Chapter 1 I plotted out in the later Project Notebooks. He’s a major player in my still unfinished prequel, Bad Company: A Corporate Terror Story. But he never appeared in the Script Frenzy 2008 comics script. So he hasn’t yet had an opportunity to start making trouble — till now.

Beware: the Travelling Shovel of Death craves blood...

Second Revision Update: The original introduction remains mostly relevant, except for two things pertaining to this second revision and the upcoming third: the political aspect now draws much more strongly on previous chapters, and the characters I neglected in the first edition are now much better developed in the second and especially third editions, carrying over their story threads from previous chapters. And Byron Scofield, having made his first [Second Revision] appearance in Chapter 3 part 6, is no longer such a new menace...

Chapter 14 →

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Copyright © 2012 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

Spanner Chapter 12: Bad Girls Can't Win (Revision 4)

← Chapter 11

Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 1: Rock City Blues
Chapter 12: Bad Girls Can’t Win (Revision 4)

Bangor High’s most psychotic ’shipper is murdered! Will the mean girls get off? Well, are their parents rich? Also, Amanda reveals a secret life; the world’s most annoying goth-loli kogal tries to swipe her loli-chan Ayla back from Shira; her beaten-down boyfriend, the world’s most pathetic Yakuza, escapes her lair while she’s gone and sets off on a quest to suffer sweet defeat at the hands of the now grown-up ex-loli he still worships (i.e. Shira); Leila, Oliver, and Christie challenge the marriage arrangement and fail; Shira takes on all challengers in the airfighting pit at Game Wars; and Shira’s new neighbours, a trio of women who claim to have no name, give Leila an idea of how to break that marriage arrangement to an evil man she hates, even as Drusilla reveals her plot against her...

Table of Contents:

1. Gangster in a Strange Land (August 13, 2011, Final Revision 11/26/12)
2. Waking Up with the House on Fire (November 28, 2012)
3. Mean Girl Murder Case (August 11, 2011, Final Revision 11/30/12)
4. Anonymity Is Freedom (August 14, 2011, Final Revision 12/3/12)
5. Dark Side in Your Mirror (August 12, 2012, Final Revision 12/5/12)
6. Showdown at Game Wars (August 15, 2011, Final Revision 12/7/12)

Moved from R2: 12.1 (“I Want My Loli-chan”) is now 12.5 R4 (“Dark Side in Your Mirror”), condensed with new scenes; 12.2 (“Mean Girl Murder Case”) is now 12.2 R4, greatly improved; 12.3 (“Gangster in a Strange Land”) is now 12.1 R4 with slight modifications and a few new scenes; 12.4 (“Pretty vs. Sexy”) is now part of 13.4 R4 (“Guess Who’s Coming”); 12.5 (“Showdown at Game Wars”) is now 12.6 R4, heavily modified and with new scenes; 12.6 is now part of 13.4 R4 (“Breaking Amanda”). Interlude 8 R2 (“Scary Monsters”) has been massively transformed into Interlude 9 R4 (“City on the Edge of a Dream”) and now comes after Chapter 13. New thread for R4: “Anonymity Is Freedom,” featuring the nameless women next door to Shira, and now involving both Leila and Amanda. Original Revision 1 title: “Medium Cruel,” a title now being used for a chapter in Book 2. There is no Third Revision version.

The original introduction and revision notes:

If the title of this chapter [“Medium Cruel”] sounds punny, that is entirely deliberate. It’s also no coincidence that Shira starts to look even more amoral than in previous episodes, particularly considering which major villain is making his début here. After all, morality is not really the point. In the school scenes, this time the mean girls get their day in the fighting spotlight that the bullyboys have hogged till now; believe it or not, they’re actually better fighters than the Tournament-obsessed boys. Willa, Ayla, and Nenene also get major roles this chapter, and the Yakuza ex makes his first appearance in second person.

Once again, this chapter contains mostly new material written during NaNoFiMo 2010. Even so, it still contains some material originating in my early ’00s Project Notebooks: the girl-on-boy love-hotel rape scenario, the dance-off during which Shira wins the Japanese national championship (though the character of Nenene didn’t exist then), and the Aya Shibata arcade battle. The character of Byron Scofield is, along with Henry Becket and Diana Shockley, one of the original three villains I created back in 1992, but the only one of the three I forgot. Now he takes his rightful place in the story I created him for.

And the seemingly science-fictiony high tech returns as the savior of the video arcades. The first two versions of the fighting-game scene involved motion capture (which I first saw used to control a fighting game at Seattle’s GameWorks) and immersive virtual reality; one is now becoming standard home console equipment and the other is better suited to MMORPGs and related environments such as Second Life (the original Metaverse in Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash can be described as Second Life plus immersive VR). I asked myself, What would be the cutting edge of Japanese arcade technology in 2014? The answer I guessed below is related to hoverboard technology.

Now featuring mid-air drunken monkey kung fu!

Second Revision Update: This chapter contains some of my best writing so far, in the sections “I Want My Loli-chan”, with its strange Japanese subculture vulture speaking in broken English; “Gangster in a Strange Land”, written in second-person POV from the perspective of her put-upon gangster boyfriend; and “Showdown at Game Wars”, which ultimately leads into the later virtual reality plotlines that come to the fore once the School Arc ends. These sections were so cool from the beginning, they remain mostly unedited in the second edition.

If much of this chapter is good and/or cool enough to remain unedited in the second edition, the introduction to the first-edition version is every bit as relevant to the content as ever. If it can be believed, the first sentence is even more true than it was when I called this chapter “Medium Cruel”.

Chapter 13 →

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Copyright © 2012 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

Spanner Chapter 11: Everybody's Talkin' 'Bout (Revision 4)

← Chapter 10

Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 1: Rock City Blues
Chapter 11: Everybody’s Talkin’ ’Bout (Revision 4)

People have come to believe that Shira defeated Minty in last night’s song war. But now her classmate Nancy, never the most stable student at Bangor High, has gone mad: Leila must die for her ’ship! Oliver has also decided Leila must die, and he may have done something to Nancy. So Leila brings Team Bremelo and the Slasher Hunters together to deal with Oliver. Meanwhile, Nancy’s psychosis is becoming an embarrassment to the Student Council, so they try to come up a way to deal with her themselves...

Table of Contents:

1. Dream Love Babylon (August 5, 2011, Final Revision 10/1/12)
2. Psycho Fangirls (August 6, 2011, Final Revision 10/3/12)
3. Let’s Make a Deal (August 7, 2011, Final Revision 10/5/12)
4. Lead Us Not (August 8, 2011, Final Revision 10/8/12)
5. Crash the Murder Party (August 9, 2011, Final Revision 10/10/12)
6. Friday Night Slumber Party (August 10, 2011, Final Revision 10/12/12)
7. Interlude 8: Rebel, Rebel (November 2, 2012)

The original introduction and revision notes:

First Revision: Now three episodes into the middle “light novel” of Spanner Series One, Shira faces a huge offer from the biggest rap tycoon in the Fashion-Industrial Complex, Leila seeks revenge against the serial killer her grandfather Governor Brinkman is still trying to force her to marry, her beautiful twin brother Rob finds himself facing his most psycho fans, and Shira and Leila so intensify their already intense love affair that they threaten to provoke the Law itself. Then Jennifer brings all her female friends to her house for some hardcore female bonding when tragedy strikes...

Second Revision Update: This is the first full chapter I’ve written during the 2010 edition of NaNoFiMo (National Novel Finishing Month), the writing month that follows NaNoWriMo. There are two scenarios here from earlier: the sleepover scene, heavily modified from the original scenario I recorded in the early-’00s Project Notebooks; and the serial killer scene that came to me after Steve Irwin’s death, now the climax to a complete sequence combined with another post-notebook scenario involving a school clique of outcasts latching onto a serial killer, and featuring not only the plucking of the knife and the ensuing quip from Shira, but also NaNoWriMo’s infamous Travelling Shovel of Death. Everything else is new material I wrote to fill in the plot.

This chapter introduces a new Slasher Hunter character I didn’t introduce in Chapter 8. It also introduces Marina Reyes, another of the original Team Spanner members I came up with back in 1992-5 while I still belonged to my college’s anime club; this leaves only one more Team Spanner original left before the original team is complete at last. Rap producer Jayzus dates back to 2000 or so, as do his rivals in the Wu-Tang-like rap group called the Chi-Sah Gang whom I’ll introduce later.

What’s with all the sexual incorrectness? Why do some characters don’t care about what gender one’s lover is or bother to wear their clothes at home when both are illegal and viciously punished? There’s a point to this that will be revealed later. Ever since I started plotting Spanner in 1992, the Culture War has been one of its major themes. Time to sit back and watch the war play out...

There’s now one significant change to the original chapter from the first draft, called “Bad Girls Can’t Win” (now next chapter’s title): the knife-plucking scene in the serial killer scenario has been replaced with something else entirely, connected to the new second scene of Chapter 1 part 1. Otherwise, the original intro remains fairly accurate, and the Official NaNoWriMo Travelling Shovel of Death remains...

[The Revision 2 title of this chapter was “Talk of the Town”. This is the first chapter for which there was no Third Revision.]

Chapter 12 →

Back to Chaos Angel Spanner table of contents...

Copyright © 2012 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

Spanner Chapter 10: Fashion Meltdown (Revision 4)

← Chapter 9

Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 1: Rock City Blues
Chapter 10: Fashion Meltdown (Revision 4)

Minty Fresh is back — for revenge! Shira puts a “lust song” on the Darknet just to bait her, and she answers with a Challenge to a song war. But Shira has to deal with more than just one angry pop idol. Unwanted fiancé Oliver wants to steal Leila back, preferably violently. The head of Seattle’s Russian mob wants to steal Leila from both. The Klown gang known as the Badd Boyzz want her just plain dead...

Table of Contents:

0. Interlude 7: Pop Will Eat Itself (August 4, 2011, Final Revision 8/30/12)
1. Song for Minty (July 30, 2011, Final Revision 12/10/12)
2. Exploding Youth (July 31, 2011, Final Revision 9/15/12)
3. She’s Got the Look (August 1, 2011, Final Revision 9/17/12)
4. For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (August 2, 2011, Final Revision 9/19/12)
5. Battle of the Pop Idols (August 3, 2011, Final Revision 9/19/12)
6. Vengeance and Fashion (August 4, 2011, Final Revision 9/20/12)

Moved from Chapter 4: the “exploding Klownz” scene. New major characters: Frank Becket, Misty Everson Thorwald, Christina Lopez (final appearance), and Vitaly Rodchenko (first appearance). New thread in Fourth Revision continuity: Shira’s new neighbours introduced in 10.1, who will become important starting in Chapter 12.

The original introduction and revision notes:

First Revision (2010): Here’s the first major episode in the “Fashion War” plotline that will be running throughout Spanner. Once again, I’ve cobbled together several fragmentary scenarios and pulled them into a coherent whole. The music video (narrated, of course) and the “fashion war” itself are new; but the “school shooting,” “serial killer clique,” and “Pie Kill” scenarios, the “Wild Style” idea, and the characters of Arvid Shield, Minty Fresh and Lala Sun-Microsoft come from the early-’00s Project Notebooks (numbers 11-14) from before I started doing NaNoWriMo.

This is the last chapter of Spanner Book 1 that I wrote during the 2010 editions of JulNoWriMo and AugNoWriMo. Starting next chapter, I’m using NaNoFiMo (National Novel Finishing Month) as my excuse to finish the rest of Book 1. This is, in fact, the first new chapter to use material written during FiMo. (The expanded Chapter 2 contains the first material I wrote for FiMo ’10.)

This time, I’m not just throwing in the usual wild plot pyrotechnics here. Now we’re getting into Wild Style!

Oh yeah: this time there’s songs, too...

Second Revision (2011): Minty Fresh returns, and she wants revenge! So she Challenges Shira to a Song War. Shira being Shira, all chaos proceeds to break loose. Meanwhile, Shira and Leila find themselves forced to defend their love for each other, and Shira uses her Charmer power on a pair of heavily armed delinquents hellbent on a massacre...

Unusually, I wrote the opening Interlude last. It was hard to write, since my intention was to write it in a pop-musical style (actually swiped from Barry N. Malzberg’s psychedelia-influenced 1973 New Wave science fiction novel The Men Inside), but I’m convinced it was worth it.

Second Revision Update: The introduction to the original chapter remains almost perfectly relevant [Revision 4 note: not quite so much anymore], except for two things: 1) I renamed the Fashion War plotline to the Pretty City Arc; and 2) I never finished the first-draft version of Chapters 22 and 23, so I never posted them (I’ll finally be posting the revised and expanded [Second Revision] versions in October 2011 [which I finally did]).

Note: This was the last chapter in the incomplete Third Revision. Everything from this point on is revised from the even more inferior Second Revision. Some of the Revision 2 chapters are half the Revision 4 length, so the difference in places will be vast. Just so you know...

Chapter 11 (Revision 2) →

Back to Chaos Angel Spanner table of contents...

Copyright © 2011, 2012 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

Spanner Chapter 9: The Girl You Want (Revision 4)

← Chapter 8

Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 1: Rock City Blues
Chapter 9: The Girl You Want (Revision 4)

The first day of college for the Bangor High tutors, complete with a riot, courtesy of SPEC chairman Ross himself. There’s trouble back at the high school, too; the mean kids take advantage of the tutors’ absence, only to find that the “lesser” kids are tired of being bullied; the Student Union shows its teeth for the first time.

The first day that Shira and Leila are a full-fledged couple. But two police agents, one mad and disgraced, the other entangled with both, try to keep them away from each other by revealing their dark past. They have other ideas, though, and let the violent Corporate to whom Leila is unwillingly engaged know in the most effective way possible...

Either for Shira and Leila, or for society, this will not end well.

It may be that your whole purpose in life
is simply to serve as a warning to others...

Table of Contents:

1. Interlude 6: The Monkeywrench Cometh (September 5, 2012)
2. The Morning After (July 23, 2011, Final Revision 9/6/12)
3. Dead Angel Lives (July 24, 2011, Final Revision 9/7/12)
4. New School of Hard Knocks (July 25, 2011, Final Revision 9/8/12)
5. Nymphetamine (July 26, 2011, Final Revision 9/7/12)
6. Eurotrash Girl (July 27, 2011, Final Revision 9/7/12)
7. She’s My Man (July 28, 2011, Final Revision 9/7/12)

9.4 and 9.5 remain mostly intact from Revision 2. The opening to 9.6 has been condensed, with more revelation and less expository dialogue. New to Revision 4: the Biotron Labs and Touhou Online scenes; the college and Student Union threads. From the Project Notebook: “Mr. Whitmer’s Question” in 9.2, which was in Chapter 16 in Revisions 2 and 3; “Ariel’s New Age Shop” now in 9.3.

Original chapter intro plus revision notes:

Back during JulNoWriMo, I wrote this under a different name. The final title — modified from a band, not a song — fit much, much better, even if it eliminated a chapter title drop (which also happened to Chapter 3), though I made up for it in the final section. The lesson for one ex-Interpol agent and one would-be Navy ship captain is: be careful what you ask for, you might get... something completely different...

This is the last chapter I actually began writing during JulNoWriMo and AugNoWriMo. Everything that comes after this will be new — except, of course, unless I take it out of the Project Notebooks from the last decade and a half. (The beauty pageant scene is excerpted from a longer script in the Notebooks; the love scene and the morning after reappear here nearly intact.) And this is the first scheduled to be published during December 2010 — that is, during NaNoFiMo, when of course I’ll write 30,000 words for the win finish Spanner Book 1.

Second Revision Update: Here’s the introduction to the originally posted Chapter 9, then called “Checkered Pasts”. The “different name” is now the permanent name for 9.4, “Nymphetamine”. Note that I never managed to finish the first draft, since the plot imploded by the time I got to Chapters 22 and 23. First drafts sometimes do that. That’s why we edit...

Shira and Leila are in love now, and the central relationship of Spanner has finally been established. Sure enough, neither the school establishment nor the cops are able to take it well...

Third Revision Update: ...much less Oliver Thorwald, the evil man to whom Leila was arranged to be married, nor her grandfather, Governor Brinkman, the clan patriarch who arranged her marriage. She belongs to Shira alone now, she defiantly tells them, and they can do nothing about it. Leila’s all-consuming love for Shira threatens the entire fabric of Conservative Revolutionary society, and it will only be a matter of time before society fights back...

Chapter 10 →

Copyright © 2011, 2012 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.