Spanner Interlude 12: The Crisis

And so Spanner Book 2 now begins on the first day of NaNoWriMo 2011, with a recap of some of the backstory and an update on the current lineup of the villainous “Fearsome Foursome”...

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner
Interlude 12: The Crisis

If our nation is ever taken over,
it will be taken over from within.
James Madison

the conservative revolution: 25 august 2012. On 25 August 2012, America was murdered by God.

Four years before, the voters of the old Union did the unthinkable: they elected a black man to the position of Great White Father. He was a man of the Christian Left and moderately liberal. President Barack Obama came into office riding the crest of the Democratic tsunami that liberal Americans believed would sweep away the Cold War ancien régime, most recently spearheaded by his openly imperialist, corporatist, and antidemocratic predecessor George W. Bush.

The rest of the world let out a collective sigh of relief. They thought the American Empire would finally be put to an end. They thought wrong.

Even before Election Day 2008, the death plots against him raged. The corporate media bombarded the infosphere with conspiracy theories that claimed that he was not an American but a Kenyan, not an Evangelical Christian but a Muslim, not the Chicago machine politician he actually was but a Satan-worshipping terrorist with no other purpose than to carry out the will of Antichrist Osama bin Laden and destroy America. Dictel Corporation, the world’s largest military conglomerate and the American military’s top contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan, the corporation that served as President Bush’s personal Praetorian Guard, declared war against America.

For an entire month, America waged war against itself. Dictel assembled an army of mercenaries, soldiers, police, and right-wing militiamen to overthrow a United States government that its chairman, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Drake Becket, believed had finally gone too far and now had to be destroyed. The remaining soldiers and police needed the help of millions of armed citizens, liberal as well as conservative, to defeat the threat to America’s freedom. At last, the coup attempt collapsed in time to allow the newly elected Obama to take the oath of office and become President of the United States.

The Corporate and Christian Right went berserk. They refused to accept that a black man could be the Great White Father. They insisted the election was stolen. The liberals, they believed, had stabbed America in the back. To them, America was not a democratic republic, but an empire destined to conquer the world and which was incarnate in a master race. To save America, the “humanistic blasphemy” of democracy had to be destroyed.

As re-election loomed, the New Right unleashed an escalating series of terrorist assaults against their own country. They herded illegal immigrants and dark-skinned citizens into concentration camps. They blew up city halls and public gathering places, assassinated politicians and activists and celebrities, took over the Police Guild by force, seized control of the armed forces for Dictel. Finally, on the fourth anniversary of President Obama’s historic nomination by the Democratic Party, while he presided over a session of Congress during a huge rally on the Mall, Dictel Corporation carpet-bombed the city of Washington. Hundreds of thousands of people were massacred, most of them civilians. The entire Federal Government of the United States of America was destroyed.

Barack Obama would be the last President of the United States.

The next day, the Becket brothers of Dictel announced the official establishment of the American Empire in the Holy City of Colorado Springs. They proclaimed Goldman Sachs & Company the Empire’s President and dictator for life. Dictel Corporation would assimilate the former Union armed forces and the nation’s law enforcement agencies. America would be reorganized on the most sacrosanct of American principles: profits over people.

The name of the system: Corporatism.

To ensure that no nonwhite would ever again become Great White Father, they banned all nonwhites from political participation and stripped them of their citizenship. The Becket brothers proclaimed the cult of Anglo-Israelism to be its official ideology. They established the Eugenics Institute and gave it total control over all human mating activities in order to enforce the racial purity of the new Establishment. They absorbed all white Evangelical Christian churches into a new religion called Americanism, or the Church of America, whose central tenet is that the American government is the literal Second Coming of Christ; where “American” used to mean a citizen of the old Union, now it was redefined to mean a white member of the Confederate-American tribe. To impose the political domination of giant corporations onto the whole world, they established the United Corporations (a.k.a. the Cartel) and declared that the UC had now replaced the United Nations; Richard Becket, vice chairman of Dictel, became its first Chairman and the president of the World Bank.

The war cry of the Cartel: The Public Be Damned!

Today, few believe anymore that humanity has a future. A new species has risen, the Corporations, to replace us. In them, the Gods have taken flesh; to them, their creator race, the species that once hailed themselves as the lords of all creation, are little more than puny hairless monkeys. The Gods have returned in power, and their destiny is the conquest of the universe. They are the Gods of Power, and their will is dominion without limit.

But some shamans, seers, and magicians claim that not all the gods have taken Corporate form. They believe that the more enlightened deities have incarnated in human form. These, they say, are the Gods of Light, whose will is enlightenment and the evolution of the human species.

When America was destroyed, Lya Cassir, a onetime government agent who had turned against the Empire, vanished in the devastation. During the short age of Wikileaks, she cofounded with her young wife Alex de Lacey the hacker activist group that became known as the Wrecking Krewe. With them on the Mall that horrific day were the twins Shira and Kira Thomas, whom they loved so much that they wanted to adopt them away from their own parents. Alex and Shira survived; Lya and Kira perished.

Or did they? No remains that could be identified even by DNA analysis were ever found...

Let us not establish a tyranny.
That promotes rebellion.
Alexander Hamilton

the monkeywrench cometh: 1 april 2014. Nightfall on the suburban western fringe of Metropolitan Seattle, the farthest distance across Puget Sound from the heart of the city. Bremerton, one of the oldest towns on the Westside, has been developing a heart of its own. But that heart has a disease at its core. Construction of the long-derelict forty-floor Dictel Tower, tallest building in the city, is now complete. Tonight, it opens.

Camdrones swarm the city center like killer bees waiting to strike; black helicopters flock overhead like savage rocs hunting human prey. For Dictel Corporation is the most hated of all the world’s predatory Corporations: it is the world’s largest military-defense-security conglomerate. If the World Bank is the cold black heart of the United Corporations cartel, Dictel is its brutal fist. Dictel’s presence, poised to strike at the heart of Metropolitan Seattle like a giant viper, threatens the very existence of the City. Dictel is everywhere, and it’s out to get you.

Spotlights scour the night from the fortieth floor, reaching out over the naval base it overlooks. Inside the secure capsule atop the building, the Corporatist lords of Cascadia ceremonially open the citadel of the fist of the Conservative Revolution. Their enemies, the people, call these men the Fearsome Foursome:

1. Prince James Walter Brinkman of Dictel, Incorporated: chairman, chief executive officer, and sole owner of the Cascadia Public Management Corporation (CPMC), which was personally appointed governor of Cascadia by President Goldman Sachs & Company
2. Admiral Alan James Fleer: Fleet Admiral of the Imperial American Navy appointed supreme commander of the North Cascadia Fleet headquartered at Naval Base Bremerton for his personal, financial, and criminal contributions to the Conservative Revolution
3. Shepherd-Mayor Ward Tremayne: ordained minister of the Church of America, appointed Mayor of Metropolitan Seattle by President Goldman Sachs & Company
4. Prince John Cameron Becket of Dictel, Incorporated: vice president in charge of the Cascadia section of the Consolidated Police Corporation (COPCO), appointed regional Inquisitor by his aunt, Princess Drusilla Ann Becket Thorndyke Thomas Wilkinson Brinkman Draper Pernell, Incorporated, Supreme Shepherd of the Church of America in Cascadia

They hail their protector, Roger Steele Becket, aged yet eerily ageless founder and Chairman of Dictel — today known as Patriot the First, King of Texas, Emperor of America, and Supreme Lord of Earth — in an occult ceremony, accompanied by the princes of Corporatism from throughout the Northwest. The Dictel chairman is accompanied by his equally terrifying sons, the Princes Royal of America’s ruling House of Cromwell Becket:

1. Col. Thomas Drake Becket: retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, architect of the Conservative Revolution that overthrew American democracy, and Chief Executive Officer of Dictel
2. Richard Astor Becket: chairman of the World Bank and Chief Financial Officer of Dictel
3. Dr. Charles Henry Becket: founder and director of the federal Department of Homeland Security’s experimental Crime Prevention Division, codeveloper (with his mentor, Dr. Henry A. Murray) of the infamous American torture-interrogation system, and Chief Officer in Charge of Human Resources at Dictel

The “Dictel Brothers” stand behind and above their father as he receives the worship of his vassals. President Goldman Sachs may have appointed them, but they are his kinsmen: Governor Brinkman and Chief Becket are his grandsons; Admiral Fleer and Shepherd-Mayor Everson are husbands to his granddaughters. Like all absolute monarchies, America keeps power within the royal family.

Brinkman, a large and brutish-looking man with a thick black beard, bows before the King and holds out his wand bearing the insignia of his office: “Hail to Your Imperial Highness, Lord of Light and Dispeller of Darkness!”

Fleer, a large and intimidating former weightlifting champion, kneels and holds out his wand. “Hail to Your Imperial Majesty, Protector of the Dominion of Light!”

Tremayne, a middling and mediocre man possessed by holy hatred, kneels and holds out his wand. “Hail to Your Imperial Holiness, Lord of the World and establisher of the Millennium of the Dominion of Jesus America, the one and only God!”

Becket, a thuggish Dictel ex-mercenary sporting an eyepatch, kneels and holds out his wand. “Hail to Your Imperial Highness, Lord of Order and Conqueror of the Nations of the World!”

The Corporate and Confederate elite attending the ceremony hail King Patriot with a collective shout.

In the streets below, screaming police cars screech off Burwell Street onto Park Avenue. Watching them from the overlook on the twenty-third floor, the wife of a Dictel executive not elite enough to attend the ritual within the citadel above tells her husband, “I wonder what they’re all worked up about.”

The executive replies confidently, “Have faith in our police, love. Whatever it is, they’ll take care of it.”

“You sound awfully confident about that.”

Behind the group of middle-management revellers, Lieutenant Commander Prince William Jay Becket of Dictel, Incorporated, Navy SEAL and Delta Force commander for the event, suddenly appears as if out of nowhere. “I wouldn’t count on that if I were you.”

His appearance shocks the guests. “You’re Prince William Becket!” cries out one executive.

“We are protected!” exclaims another.

“Jesus America is watching over us! America bless God!” squeals another. He bows down and kisses Will’s feet in worship.

“I’m afraid,” sighs Will, “that those local police types could never stand a chance against a real threat.”

The first executive’s wife wonders, “Commander, what would you define as a ‘real’ threat?”

Will replies sarcastically, “I’m astonished you cannot tell the difference.”

In the alley up the hill, past Pacific Avenue and closer to the waterfront, a helmeted figure with a hoverboard slung over his shoulder tags the back of a building with his insignia, a badge-shield shape overlaid with crossed wrenches and an Old English “S”. The helmet’s heads-up display shows the tagger the locations of all the surveillance cameras and RFID spychips in the city. An analytical says, “Warning, camdrones approching at nine o’clock.”

“Thank you, Option,” says the tagger in a low female voice. “Switch cloak on.”

His (or her?) view changes subtly. The words “CLOAKING ON” appear on the HUD.

A camdrone approaches. It does not notice the cloaked figure as it descends. When it gets too close, it gets a dose of spray paint in its lens. Blinded, it flies erratically into a wall; it takes damage as it pinballs off the buildings.

The police cars speed into the alley and skid loudly to a stop, barely avoiding a pileup. Uniformed local police and men-in-black FBI counterterror specialists swarm out of their cars and up the alley. Last to leave is Agent Diana Shockley, who casually leaves the back seat of a police cruiser wearing FBI windbreaker and cap. She is really Princess Diana Andrea Becket of Dictel, Incorporated, but she hides her royal name behind the long-bearded Patriot Country singer and Confederate League baseball player she married.

The tagger appears down the alley just so the cops can see him. One local cop points at him and shouts, “There he is! That’s him!” He runs up the alley toward the waterfront; a crowd of cops armed with tasers and sonic disruptors follow in pursuit. Then as suddenly as he appears, he vanishes. The cops gasp together in collective shock.

One cop points to the wall near one of the squad cars. “Hey! Take a look at this!” He aims his flashlight at the tag. The cops rush toward the flashlight and surround the tag. The three FBI agents push their way through.

Agent Ogden strokes his chin. “That’s one tag we haven’t seen before.”

Agent Kowalczyk crosses his arms and smirks. “Oughta add it to my collection.”

“A tagger with a cloaking device?”

“Must be the hot new thing in the underworld these days.”

Agent Shockley studies the tag carefully. “Crossed monkeywrenches, of course.”

“Then why the ‘S’?” asks Ogden.

“I’m guessing it’s what he wants us to call him. ‘S’ is the first letter of ‘Spanner.’”

A nation which does not know what it was yesterday,
does not know what it is today.
Woodrow Wilson

the fearsome foursome: 5 november 2014. After the Conservative Revolution of 2012 overthrew the American government and forcibly annexed Canada to the Union, the new régime established the new state of Cascadia out of western Washington and Oregon and southwestern British Columbia, as an Indian reservation for liberals.

As a safeguard against democratic restoration, the Conservative Revolutionary Party instituted a new restricted citizenship policy. Citizenship no longer belongs to individuals, but to clans, defined as absolute monarchies whose leader is officially designated “patriarch.” Shortly after the coup, a Cascadian clan named Richter-Thomas democratically voted to abolish the patriarchy the Party had imposed on it and grant equal status to all family members of legal age. In response, the Party revoked the Richter-Thomases’ citizenship and voting rights — which is to say, they were denied Party membership, which they fought against in the first place. A majority of Cascadian and Californian families followed suit, so that most citizens of the States of Cascadia and California are not citizens of the United States and vice versa. Corporations of sufficient size and Social Darwinist ruthlessness to join the United Corporations cartel, of course, get automatic Party membership and therefore American citizenship.

The ruling Corporate caste had a new federal law passed redefining marriage as an agreement between two patriarchs and the Party in which one patriarch sells his daughters to the highest bidding patriarch so that the high bidder can take ownership of the bride on behalf of one of his male descendants, or for himself, for the sole purpose of eugenically correct procreation; to this end, the Cartel and the Party established the Eugenics Institute, which performs the acquisitions, as they are called in Corporate caste jargon, and supervise all subsequent procreation. The law

To consolidate its hold on the minds of its subjects, the Party abolished Christianity and declared the national civil religion to be its successor. According to the new established state church, the Church of America, the Second Coming occurred when Jesus made the United States Federal Government its body on July 4, 1776. Its position as official religion is mercilessly enforced by its terrorist religious police, the Church’s own Minuteman Patriotic Crusade and the Eugenics Institute’s Moral Enforcement Crusade. Party membership and Church membership are the same. Non-membership is defined as “treason,” Party jargon for heresy. Infidels and the eugenically incorrect are not tolerated.

Technically, the State of Cascadia and its subsidiary corporations, the counties and municipalities, are public corporations in which any person of legal age can buy one voting share, but organizations (such as corporations and clans) can’t. In practice, the federal government controls it through a martial-law dictatorship contracted out to the privately owned Cascadia Public Management Corporation (contemptuously called “out-of-state management” by the resentful locals), which in turn contracts out enforcement of federal laws and CPMC regulations to another out-of-state enterprise, the private law enforcement corporation COPCO. Against CPMC’s explicit ban, the State of Cascadia recently held an election in which the voting shareholders fired CPMC and COPCO and elected new public officials, democratically and therefore by federal law illegally. The two corporations refused to leave power, so newly elected attorney general Angela Coyne immediately instituted a “poison pill” policy to drive out CPMC, COPCO, and other out-of-state entities such as the Standard Oil Company (Esso), weapons and mercenary corporations such as Dictel and the formerly local Boeing, and the House of Brinkman to which CPMC’s chief executive officer, J. Walter Brinkman, belongs (and which he rules as acting patriarch).

Federal law mandates absolute drug prohibition on the same principles of Social Hygiene as the Corporate-biased eugenics policy. This serves to empower several underground corporations, called Syndicates, which use violence as a standard business practice. On the West Coast, the largest of these is the most violent, the Klownz led by the humorless Jokester, which control the market in methamphetamine and its more noxious derivatives, androgenic steroids, and PCP. Their main market rivals are the foreign Syndicate known as Los Punkz. Al-Qaeda, the ruling party of the enemy Islamist Caliphate, has a lock on the world heroin trade. The people know the Syndicates by the evil word “gangs” and use ethnic slurs to identify them by tribe.

After Cascadia was established, the cultures of Cascadia and America began to diverge so radically that the Cascadians began to consider their state a colony ruled by aliens. Chief among these aliens are the men who constitute the Synarchy of Cascadia, called the Quadrumvirate but better known as the Fearsome Foursome. Their current lineup:

J. Walter Brinkman, Chairman and CEO of CPMC. He strives to carry out the American ideal of privately owned government in a hostile land which prefers the un-American heresy of democracy. Naturally, when CPMC was officially fired by the democratic vote of the State of Cascadia’s shareholders, Brinkman brushed it off and continues to rule as if no election was ever held, which officially (i.e., according to CPMC management) it did not. However, his life is now complicated by a granddaughter of his, Leila Renata Shelley, who reacted to his agreement with Biotron chairman Lars Thorwald to marry her to his son Oliver by publicly murdering both Thorwald and his son, and vowing to murder Brinkman himself. To further her apostasy and crime, she has illegally and immorally taken a lesbian lover, Shira Thomas, who has vowed to destroy CPMC itself, and who recently led the biggest run on CPMC stock in the company’s history.

John Cameron Becket, COPCO Cascadia Division vice president, major shareholder, and board member. Cousin to the CPMC CEO, he serves as CPMC liaison and strives to impose CPMC’s will upon the state. His role is complicated by the presence in Seattle of his mortal enemies (mutual cousins to him and Brinkman), Charlotte and Desiree Richter-Thomas, who personally vowed long before the coup to make his life a living hell, and their younger sister Shira Thomas (not a cousin), who has vowed to drive COPCO out of Cascadia altogether.

Randolph G. Litton, CPMC’s new Chief Operating Officer and Vice President for Public Relations. His place in the Foursome is normally reserved for the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces Cascadia Command; but Admiral Alan J. Fleer is dead, murdered in a sex scandal involving the sexcrimes of adultery and incest, and whose aspiring successors are currently engaging in vicious infighting. Litton is the master of propaganda, but he recently met his match in none other than Shira Thomas and her cousin (and lover) Jennifer Blair, who just happens to be trained stage magicians.

Peter Q. Ross, CEO of the former Seattle Public Education Corporation, and now of the Seattle Urban Management Corporation (SUMC) that has taken it over. President Goldman Sachs is about to appoint SUMC as permanent mayor, making Ross the successor to deceased Shepherd-Mayors Ward Tremayne and Luke Everson in the Quadrumvirate. His mission: keep power out of the hands of the “filthy rabble” by any means necessary. The great obstacles in his way: Hope Maureen Reston, whom he personally fired as president of the Teachers Guild’s Seattle local and who now intends to replace SUMC as Mayor herself; her cousin, that most formidable of anti-Party lawyers, Angela Coyne; and her daughter, none other than Shira Thomas, the destroyer of SPEC.

The man who is not here intends to overthrow the Quadrumvirate by force and make himself sole dictator: Byron Herbert Scofield, Prophet of the Church of America in Cascadia. The Prophet’s role is to enforce the will of the Church on all. In this case, the will of the Church is the whim of its notoriously narcissistic Chief Shepherd, Drusilla Becket AMERICA! (the aunt of Walter Brinkman and John Becket, and mother of the Richter-Thomas sisters). Unlike his deceased predecessors, Ward Tremayne and Luke Everson, he does not have control over the Metropolitan City of Seattle, yet unlike them he holds the title of Prophet. He developed his power base by building a megachurch within the City of Seattle itself and parlayed it into political power. Problem is, the more powerful he gets, the more the predominantly (and ever more militantly) secular people of that notoriously liberal city hate him. And since his accession to power, a certain sex-warrior camgirl who calls herself Rebel Styles has gone out of her way to torment him...

Four dangerous, ruthless, and misanthropic men. Behind them, a narcissistic and power-hungry high priestess and the power of the Royal House of Cromwell Becket. Allied with them, the Kingdoms of Texas and New Israel in the American South. Against them, countless men of ambition. Against them all, the democratic people of the State of Cascadia, and of California south of it. The situation cannot hold for long. Sooner or later, things are bound to explode...

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those
who falsely believe that they are free.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

on to the next... →

Back to Chapter 24 index...
Back to Chaos Angel Spanner table of contents...

Copyright © 2011 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

NaNoWriMo 2011: The First Two Hours

I started my NaNoWriMo 2011 at midnight. I promised myself that once I wrote 2,000 words, I would reward myself with a good night's sleep. I wrote those 2,000 words in well under 2 hours. I earned my reward.

Normally I skip the first day, and usually the first few days, of any WriMo. After NaNo, it's usually to recover from the previous WriMo. During NaNo it's usually to figure out just what the heck I'm doing. Not so this year. I sprinted out of the starting gate.

Can I finish a complete first draft of Spanner Book 3 this month? Only if I can write 250,000 words. Book 1 took me four entire WriMos to complete (JulNo, AugNo, and FiMo 2010 plus JanNo 2011), and even then the first draft wasn't as complete as I thought; and even in the second draft the plot still isn't complete. So I'm shooting for 100,000 words and then setting it aside, as I'm reserving FiMo '11 and JanNo '12 for Book 2.

The important thing, though, is that I've made a quick start. I know I'll win my sixth consecutive NaNo. And right now that's all that counts.

My goal for the entire day: 5,000 words. Stay tuned...

NaNoWriMo Starts at Midnight! My Writing Plan for Spanner Book 3

This being Halloween, I'm deliberately avoiding the trick-or-treaters tonight and spending my time at my computer preparing for NaNoWriMo 2011. I've already decided the novel I'll be working on is Spanner Book 3, and it begins with this sentence:

Agent Diana Shockley points her pistol into a reality distortion field.

This is the opening of a scene that came to me fully formed one day as I was walking alongside a busy city street on the way home from the gym. Also in Book 3: gang wars in Las Vegas, the destruction of Phoenix in a Conservative Revolutionary Party factional war over "conservative democracy" and crashed by psycho Mexican biker gang Los Punkz, the kidnapping of Shira and Leila's desperate attempts to rescue the woman she loves, the love triangle that Kira forms with rogue cop J.T. Sparks and investigative reporter Amanda Currie, and the increasingly hysterical crackdowns by Party Chairman Henry Becket even as his superpowers become ever more unstable. It is in Book 3 that it becomes clear the conflict is between good bad guys and evil good guys (unfortunately, the masses are pretty much left out until Book 5).

My writing plan: since a typical Spanner chapter is approximately 10,000 words long (and structured like a TV show), I intend to write one chapter every two or three days. I'll also be delving deep into my Project Notebooks to dig out scenarios I planned long ago to use in Book 3, including the scenes of Leila going into dream reality in order to rescue Shira from the pocket universe Eugenics Institute chief Dr. Sig Heiler has imprisoned her in, and the Neal Adams-inspired sequence at the end in which, to get Shira's mind out of Dr. Becket's, Team Spanner provoke him into losing control of his superpowers and involuntarily letting out a huge electromagnetic pulse that reaches hundreds of miles away from the epicenter in Colorado Springs. I described these scenarios in great detail in multiple entries. There should be others there. However, the Phoenix arc is entirely new, and inspired by an episode of the anime Kino's Journey and the cult movie Intrépidos Punks, both of which I discovered only this year, the former on TV Tropes and the latter in a book on punk rock in movies, Destroy All Movies!

Meanwhile, I'll continue to edit Book 1, this time using yWriter5 so I can keep the entire book together, and posting new installments of Book 2 starting tomorrow. And, of course, I'll keep you posted on my NaNo progress.

Here goes...

Preparing for NaNoWriMo 2011

It's that time of year again. After preoccupying myself with editing Spanner Book 1, I'm ready to get back out into the world. I've already returned to most of my social networks, and I've created my profile on the new NaNoWriMo site and started posting to the forum.

And what am I writing this year? Spanner Book 3, of course.

But at the same time, I'll be working on Books 1 and 2 as well. I'm still not done editing Book 1; the Third Revision hasn't gotten past Chapter 10 yet, and there's still work to be done even on those first 10 chapters. I begin posting Book 2 on alternating weekdays starting November 1, starting with Interlude 12 and going on to Chapter 24.

I have my NaNo plan. The next challenge is to go back through several of my Project Notebooks going back at least to 1999 and extracting from them the scenarios I'll be putting into Book 3 (and the ones I haven't yet used in Book 2 as well). Once I put those in, I'll add the new scenes necessary to connect them. This time I'm shooting for 100,000 words instead of the usual 60,000+, since it's a big book, I have the outline already prepared since 2000, and so many scenes have already been plotted.

I'll be upping the frequency of posts here, and on my other blogs as well. You can keep track of my progress here and on Twitter. Stay tuned...

Third Revision Update: Thickening the Plot

Now that Spanner is finally complete, at least in its Second Revision (the first stopped two chapters short), it's time to shift my attention to editing. Editing the main plot in, in fact. This is the reason for the Third Revision. So far, it's up to Chapter 10. I'll be editing some things into those first 10 chapters so I can have that part finished at last, then I'll turn to the all-important central section, Chapters 11 to 15.

First of all, there's the escalating sexual relationship between Shira and Leila which directly causes the disasters beginning in Chapter 15. The links between Chapter 8, in which Shira saves Leila from suicide and finally takes her to bed, and Chapter 15, in which the Conservative Revolutionaries come to Seattle in order to wreck it, are:

1. Leila openly defying the marriage arrangement her grandfather the governor forced on her, to a whiny serial killer from a rich Corporate family, thus defying the marriage laws that mandate arranged marriage and ban personal love.
2. Leila breaking the anti-miscegenation laws enacted by the Party and the Eugenics Institute to restore the purity of the "American Race".
3. Leila breaking the anti-sodomy laws by openly carrying out a passionate sexual relationship with another woman.
4. Oh, and both Shira and Leila are underage.

The result? The rage of the conservative ruling class. The Corporates go full-tilt terrorist on the hated liberal city of Seattle. The link between the forbidden love of two pretty schoolgirls and the attempted conservative destruction of a city is the heart of Book 1 at least: l'amour fou, mad love: a love so out of control that it can lead to personal liberation and the destruction of society. Consider that, despite the continuing vogue of Surrealist painting among the Corporate caste, the Surrealists themselves were political radicals who longed for revolution. Movement leader André Breton even coauthored a manifesto, called the Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art.

Spanner is about the fall of empire. The empire refuses to fall. Starting in Book 2, the divine-right imperial oligarchy will go to any terrorist extremes to make sure the empire remains in control of the world for all eternity. Thus, the fall of empire involves revolution. Now that the Third Revision has reached the heart of book 1, it's time to make this perfectly clear.

Spanner 23.6: I Am the Future

At last, the end of Spanner Book 1! I never thought I’d make it even this far, especially considering how weak and fragmentary I left the final two chapters in the first draft. There’s still a Third Revision to complete, but at least I made it to the end — something I haven’t done much in my life so far.

When I start with Book 2, I’ll take it slower, especially during NaNoWriMo. Still, like Shira says below, and with four more books to go, I’ve hardly even begun...

Note: I was reading the TV Tropes page for The Plotted A Perfectly Good Waste when suddenly I realized that once I summoned Ayn Rand’s concept of “the sanction of the victim,” what followed in the plot turned out to be its logical corollary, the impotence of evil. Naturally, the villains of Spanner do not like this...

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 23: Black Panic in the Suites
Part 6: I Am the Future

4 november 2014.
Westlake Plaza. Fireworks explode in the night sky above the city. The people won the election. CPMC lost the post-election. The winners deserve their party. The Slasher Hunters van belongs to the guest DJs for the rest of the night. The dancers strip off their remaining video body paint, climb down naked, and run to the nearby fountains to shower off the paint fragments and the sweat. They find many other people here dancing naked around them. Shira and Leila climb out nude together and give each other a long sweet victory kiss.

They dry off in the van, put their clothes back on, and leave the van and the plaza hand in hand. Suddenly they find Will Becket standing in their way. The SEAL looks as scary as ever in his blue camouflage uniform, but there is an unmistakable smile on his pretty face. Shira says, “Fancy meeting you here, Commander.”

“Congratulations on your victory. It was yours, after all.”

She looks back at the crowd. “All they had to do was to stop giving their power away.”

“And you convinced them.”

“You forget, I said I’m just the messenger.”

His smile disappears. He leans toward her slightly. “But don’t expect to keep the edge forever. We will find your pattern eventually, and then we will destroy you.”

“Tell your superiors that from now on they should always expect the unexpected.”

“I’m afraid your time is past. You have no future.”

“No. I am the future.” She smiles at him, then takes Leila and passes him. Leila looks at him suspiciously. He watches them as they leave for the ferry terminal.

Bremerton boardwalk. They ride the foot ferry home. They follow the few other passengers off the boat and down the pier. When they reach the boardwalk, Shira and Leila find themselves greeted by the thunderous cheers of a crowd that treats them as conquering heroes. Strangers hug and kiss them, people they barely know treat them as friends; they find Jennifer, then Karen and Colette with Dexter and Kio, then Mimi, Polly, Harumi, Debbie, Seika, Rob, Fiona, Cory, and Connor. Team Bremelo assemble spontaneously and set off up the waterfront promenade toward Shira’s building.

Polly says, “I wouldn’t have thought up ‘video dancers’ thing in a thousand years!”

Shira grins. “I got that idea from Japan. It kept people’s spirits up, at least. Angie’s suit? We planned that far in advance. The important thing is that it hit the Fearsome Foursome when they weren’t looking.”

Cory asks, “Is it true they were had the Rat Bastard on their side?”

“Yep! His problem is, you gotta make do with what’s at hand, and if the only tool you have is a hammer...” The others laugh.

Shira and Leila hug their friends at the door to Shira’s building. Leila gives Rob and Fiona an extra special hug and kiss. Then the two girls kiss, and their friends cheer. They wave them goodbye and enter the building.

Shira’s apartment. They find themselves assaulted by overjoyed hackers at the door. Hope phones an order to Pizza Mafia. Shira describes the video-dancer plan as “reality hacking,” which she calls her specialty. Girls and hackers trade tales, some of them tall, Shira’s especially. After pizza, cola, and cake, they call it a night.

“We can deal with the Empire’s inevitable self-destruction later. You guys party all you want, but my lover and I need the bedroom for a special victory celebration of our own.” To the cheers of the Team Spanner Election Team, Shira and Leila withdraw to the bedroom, shut the door behind them, their heads filled with erotic possibilities.

CPMC boardroom. Gloom and despair on the losing side. Four big men take abuse from the face on the big screen over the chairman’s throne. “You were not supposed to allow such a disaster to happen, Walter,” chides Chairman Becket.

“Uncle,” Brinkman says, “I’m afraid we didn’t have enough analysts on hand. We relied too much on Uncle Henry’s precognitives.”

Jack Becket says, “We didn’t apply enough force when it was needed, Uncle.”

R. G. Litton says, “We didn’t use the most advanced and effective propaganda techniques.”

Pete Ross says, “We didn’t move to automate the workforce quickly enough.”

The Cartel Chairman glares down upon the defeated Fearsome Foursome. “No. This is all the work of one person. Find whoever is behind this Spanner, and crush them. That is all.” His face disappears from the screen, signalling the end of the videoconference.

They stare at each other for several minutes. Brinkman breaks the silence. “Next time, we can’t show them any mercy.”

“Cousin,” says Jack, “we weren’t trying to show ’em any mercy today. We just got our asses monkeywrenched, that’s all.”

They stare at Litton. “You lookin’ for failure? You won’t find it on my side. Somebody was playing at my level, or higher.”

“I know how she did it,” says Ross.

“What?” ask the others.

“I never figured my shameful little hobby would become useful. The trope in question is the ‘Outside Context Villain.’ Think: the Arabs against the Byzantines and Persians, the Mongols against the Arabs and Chinese, the Mule against the Foundation, Ozymandias in New York, Al-Qaeda on 9/11. The Outside Context Villain is defined by the fact that he defeats you by blindsiding you. This is Spanner, and his creator. I thought Shira Thomas would be like her communist subversive mother, or like her terrorist sister. But we now know enough about her to realize we know nothing about her. It turned out that not even the great ‘Rat Bastard,’ master of spin, had any defenses against her. If we do not find out how she does it, and, more importantly, what she is, we and our Revolution are done for.”

Shira:
Do you see the cracks in the castle walls, in the foundation? I see every single one. The entire citadel of American Empire is made of bigotry, power lust, greed, and corruption. The entire foundation of their Conservative Revolution is built on the pure quicksand of evasion and lies.

Don’t you dare let yourselves get complacent. And don’t give ’em an inch. If they get the chance, they’ll take a mile. They’re parasites. It’s their nature. The fight isn’t over. It’s hardly even begun.

Enumclaw, night. Everson built his villa outside this small and conservative King County town east of Tacoma. His MIB chauffeur drives his bombproof stretch Hummer up the long driveway. In the back seat, he sits flanked by two MIB bodyguards who dwarf him. He figures he needs all the protection he can get.

The armed guard at the first gate ask for identification. The chauffeur lowers the back left window slightly. The guard sees Everson; he nods, and the guard waves the Hummer through. At the second gate, the guard makes the same request; he sees Everson, and waves them through. The guard at the third gate simply lets them through.

The chauffeur lets Everson and his guards out next to the front entrance. Flanked by the guards, he walks up to the door. He swipes his keycard and enters his secret code on the keypad. Thirty seconds later as usual, the butler opens the door—

—with a knife sticking out of his forehead—

—and slowly falls dead in front of him, revealing — Byron Scofield. He holds his Ruger pistol straight at him. They do not exchange a word. The guards do nothing to help their boss.

Byron Scofield shoots Luke Everson between the eyes — and Everson collapses to the tiled walkway behind him, lying still in an expanding pool of his own blood, dead.

dreamspace. She stands in the center of a grove of ancient cherry trees in full bloom. The shining sun smiles warmly on her skin. Shira descends to her from the blue sky above. She is beautiful, she is nude, she is a demon flying toward her with long red bat wings. She lands before her, slips off her tunic, takes her now nude body into her arms, and gives her a long, soft, deep kiss.

“My angel,” Shira commands, “stretch out your wings.”

Slowly, sensuously, Leila stretches out her beautiful black wings. The wind caresses the soft feathers.

Together they fly, hand in hand, angel and devil in love. Together they fly, into the sky, to heaven, where they will slay God.

continued in Book 2: Rage of the Prophets.

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Copyright © 2011 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

[Revision 2, 10/25/11: The scene at Everson’s mansion edited slightly to fit Third Revision continuity; everything else is new material.]

Spanner 23.5: The Fuses Have Been Lit

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 23: Black Panic in the Suites
Part 5: The Fuses Have Been Lit

4 november 2014.
subway. Once they descend to University Street Station, Shira and Leila find the buses and light rail trains not running. COPCO would have blown them up if they were. Luckily, the Slasher Hunters van drives up from the south, turns around, and stops so they can get in. In the front passenger seat, Peck asks, “So what’s your plan this time?”

Shira says, “One, parade float; two, video body paint.”

Arisa (driving) gasps; Lars (back seat) goes “OOOooooh.” Peck says, “Please explain.”

“Once we get back to Union Station, we’ll have some of our camhead friends mount a platform on the van while Leila and I strip naked and get ourselves painted. We’ll get back on the street, you drive slow through the crowd, and we’ll dance while piratecasts play on our bodies. Lars, you broadcast.”

“I wanna join!” says an excited Arisa.

Leila crosses her arms and looks at Shira jealously. Shira smiles sweetly back. Leila relents and sighs. Shira leans forward to kiss Arisa. “Great! Now take off your clothes as soon as we get there.”

[Drusilla Becket AMERICA!, Supreme Shepherd of the Church of America in Cascadia, sports an ultra-luxurious (and extremely expensive) robe whose shimmering fabric is made entirely out of gold and jewels and the world’s most expensively complicated hairdo.]

Drusilla:
Blessed people of America, the spiritual truth of Our Nation is under threat from the schemes of the unenlightened and unblessed. We must restore the Hierarchy to its natural order, or—

[The official message is interrupted by a screaming red-haired Rocker, Drusilla’s ex-husband and nemesis, Ric Thomas, wielding cherry-red Gibson Robot Flying V guitar, pick hand raised high—]

Ric:
RAAAAAWWWWWK!

[As he brings his hand down and strums the strings wildly, the rest of the Band With No Name join in. The camera zooms back to reveal the stage, built illegally in the middle of Seattle Center, surrounded by fans (the girls pointedly taking the front), the band’s slashed-red-circle logo hanging proudly behind. Players on stage: Ric, bassist Raven Shears, electric violinist Willa Richter-Thomas, drummer Len Schafer, lead guitarist Betty Shears, keyboardist Mylan Ferris. Fired for the first time since the coup by real revolutionary passion, the postpunk legends slam into their ferocious hardcore short opener:]

The Band With No Name:
[Ric singing (sic) “Destruct” (1996)]
I wanna pull my hair out
All you ever do is lie
You went and ripped my heart out
I wish you’d just diiieeee!

[Brief lead guitar line]

You always harass!
You turn up the pain!
Jam it up my ass!
You’re just plain insaaaane!

[Willa tortures her violin]

We’re all through with you!
It’s the end of you!
DESTRUCT!

[On their 1996 album Destruct, “It’s Not About You”, the definitive anti-Drusilla song, follows. Instead, they next play one of their politically radical signature tunes:]

[Ric singing “Well, Well, Well” (1993)]
I wanted just to speak my mind
But they won’t let you disagree
They say I’m guilty of thoughtcrime
They strip me of my dignity

They say that what I do is wrong
They say I’m bad and don’t belong
They tell me that I must obey
I wish they’d get out of my way

Well, well, well...
Well, well, well...
Well, well, well...
Well, well, well...

Union Station. Shira, Leila, and Arisa leap out of the van as soon as they reach the International District subway station and strip naked as fast as possible. Four mechanics mount the dance platform atop the van, reinforcing it to keep the frame from being crushed by the weight of three dancers. The women run to the nearest storm drain and take turns pissing into it. Lars watches them and grins. “I’d love to see them do that while they’re dancing.”

Peck says, “You piss on the big men, not on those whose hearts you’re trying to win.”

Lefty Lucy gets to apply the video body paint to the girls’s bare skin, starting with Shira, because she likes to feel up pretty girls. “Don’t have too much fun,” says Shira, “we want this stuff to stick.” Lucy winks. Once she’s done with Shira, she does Leila next. Shira puts on a pair of high-heeled leather boots and returns to the van to pick up her devices and call Alex. “Cuz, could you send us some riot videos?”

“What for?”

“Leila, Arisa, and I are broadcasting it on our bodies.”

“Figured you’d find a good use for that stuff.” Alex winks. “Here it comes.” While Alex sends a big zipfile and a playlist torrent, Shira syncs her phone to Lars’ computer and the van. When Leila and Arisa join her, she has them sync their phones to hers. On their bodies, she has Lars build up personal area networks: phones, outboard graphics processors, wearable-computer headgear that leaves their hair free, friction power from their boots, skin sound processors, USB storage earrings and nipple rings; then they combine their PANs with each other and the Hunters’ system to form a small local area network. The mechanics mount speakers on the platform and a retractable ladder on the rear. She calls the five into a huddle. “Here’s the plan...”

Chairman Becket:
Traitorous liberal rabble, you think you have won. You think you’re going to rob the deserving for your communist welfare schemes. You think you just voted yourselves into power you do not deserve. Well, think again. You’ve got another thing coming—

[The video distorts, then returns to the No-Names concert piratecast:]

The Band With No Name:
[Ric singing “Step on the King” (2009)]
...They murdered him in a frenzied rage
Then they ripped his corpse apart
They offered him up as a sacrifice
And the king then ate his heart

The lesson here is completely insane
Don’t dare you ask me why
Dedicate yourself to theft and greed
But if you step on a coin, they’ll MAKE YOU DIE!

STEP ON THE KING AND DIE!
STEP ON THE KING AND DIE!
Desecrate the body where it lies!
STEP ON THE KING AND DIE!

Pioneer Square. Underground Resistance now playing. The techno beat booms. They snake through the crowded streets like a one-van Love Parade. On the dancers’ bodies, scenes of riot, revolution, torture, execution. All who see them dance can feel the deep love Leila (the black-haired one) and Shira (the tall redhead) have for each other, that Arisa (the blonde) has a monster crush on Shira and the two used to dance together, that they love their bodies and are really into each other’s.

Leila asks Shira, “How do I know your dad’s not Paul Weller?”

Shira laughs. “Same way you’re not Robert Smith’s kids. Besides, he ain’t ginger enough.” Now Leila laughs.

“You think we’ll pick up any big DJs?” asks Arisa.

“The almighty Alex Plus ain’t enough? deadmau5, come to Rebel!” The dancers laugh together and keep dancing as the van slowly advances on Westlake.

Willa:
I dedicate this song to Wally.

[Cheers and howls from the crowd. Betty and Len play the lead-guitar-and-drums intro, then the full band slam into the song.]

The Band With No Name:
[Willa singing “Settle for Nothing” (1985)]
You are such a boy
You think I’m a toy
Throw me all around
Stomp me to the ground

You are really sick
Don’t be such a dick
You know what I’ll do
When I’m through with you

Too much ain’t enough
Give me what I want
Or settle for nothing

You’re so fucking tough
You’re a stupid cunt
You’ll settle for nothing

KCUF studio. Alex Plus segues to Messiah’s “There Is No Law”. Simon coordinates several of the sound cancellers around Bremerton. One helicopter blows up over base. Deth exults, “Whooo-hoo! Shofar, so good!”

COPCO Seattle. Jack Becket waves his arms around in a frenzy. The control room monitors change pictures uncontrollably. “What’s happening?” he screams. “What the hell is happening?”

Agent 2468 cries out, “We’ve been infected by a virus!”

The familiar face of Spanner appears, repeating “blah blah blah blah” without a break. He takes over all the monitors, hijacks all the computers in the building, transforms the COPCO system into himself. Outside, all Chief Becket’s precious roboagents suddenly start saying “blah blah blah blah...” followed by military robot copilots. The COPCO robopilots fly their helicopters into each other. The robot copilots and ground agents tear their heads off.

“Oh my god,” Becket sighs in despair, “the motherfucker’s turning the entire system into a Spannerbot...”

The Band With No Name:
[Ric singing “Domination Paradigm” (2009)]
...There’s a limit to what people can take from them
Only so much terror and unearned guilt
Provoking the people to rebel against them
To bring down the power their money built
But they can call on one even greater than they
One whose power is omnipotent
The master of masters who lives in heaven
Justifying all of their evil intent

Masters of the nation!
Power addicts living only to control
Paradigm of domination
We have no choice but to do what we’re told
The pleasure of annihilation
Feasting themselves on the dread they spread
Paradigm of domination
Torturing us all until we’re all dead!

Westlake Plaza. The van stops on Pine Street mid-plaza. Some of the strikers decide to surround it and dance along with Shira, Leila, and Arisa; others make way for others to dance. On the platform, the dancers rely on second wind. The sweat has begun to erode their paint, bare skin emerging in places. Scenes from this week’s protests now play on their bodies and on the screens that surround the plaza.

Suddenly the music stops, the dancing stops, Shira catches her breath, then says through her headset into the speakers, “We’ve got one final announcement we need to make! Look at us, look at the screens, but listen!”

[Angela Coyne waves around a sheaf of legal papers, representing the court case she is now filing.]

Angela:
Attention, board members, executives, and shareholders of the Cascadia Public Management Corporation. On behalf of the Wilder Institute, I have just filed a class-action lawsuit against CPMC on behalf of hundreds of thousands of its victims. CPMC has been engaged in massive fraud since it was established. Its existence depends entirely on fraud, robbery, insider trading, and other crimes, up to and including murder. CPMC executives have been caught subsidizing, and taking money from, known criminal organizations. Here is proof:

[A series of surveillance and phonecam videos of CPMC executives and investors, including Brinkman himself, accepting bribes from Chinese agents and Syndicate leaders. Dozens of them, back to back, looped.]

The announcement is greeted by huge cheers, here, elsewhere in the state. At COPCO, Jack Becket takes in the scene with his one eye and stares, stunned and paralyzed. At CPMC, Brinkman screams and smashes whatever he can reach while Ross flees screaming and Litton plots his revenge. When the stock market opens tomorrow, CPMC and SPEC stock will collapse.

8:00 p.m. Election Day is over. Victory at last.

One final burst of protest in the streets, the crowds united against their Corporate enemies, determined to put an end to CPMC once and for all. From out of their collective defiance, like a middle-finger salute thrust into the face of CPMC, the war cry emerges first here, then all across the state, and finally empire-wide: “The people united will never be defeated!”

on to the next... →

Back to Chapter 23 index...
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Copyright © 2011 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

[Revision 2, 10/24/11: The sound war sequence expanded from outline in the unpublished first draft; everything else is new material. The pun “Shofar, so good!” courtesy of FAWMer Third Time Lucy from the 2011 “FAWM Superhero” forum thread. All songs © the author: “Step on the King” and “Domination Paradigm” from FAWM 2009, “Well, Well, Well” from 50/90 2010, “Destruct” and “Settle for Nothing” lyrics written 10/17/11.]

Spanner 23.4: Vote Early, Vote Often

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 23: Black Panic in the Suites
Part 4: Vote Early, Vote Often

The issues on this election’s electronic ballot:

1. CPMC Recall: effectively a vote of no confidence in the Corporate régime.
2. Drug Decriminalization: a referendum on whether to continue Prohibition — and the gang wars it generates.
3. Anti-Bullying: this would ban Tournament.
4. Marriage Equality: this would repeal the eugenic and moral purity laws, making marriage a matter of individual choice and banning the Eugenics Institute from Cascadia.
5. Anti-Sharia: this would forbid the enactment of religious laws in Cascadia, not only Islam but the Church of America as well.

This ballot is an open secret. Only the Corporate régime does not know about it — until it’s too late...

4 november 2014.
boardwalk. Immediately, a time bomb is discovered hidden between tree planters. Jennifer runs to reach it with only a minute to spare. Polly joins her. “Don’t you have to cut the right wire? or the wires in the right order?”

“This is not one of those movie-type bombs like the Toymaker makes,“ says Jennifer. Besides the wire from the timer to the detonator, there are four wires, all black. “This one goes to the timer, this must be the ground, these are the positive and negative...” She turns off a switch, and the timer shuts off. “...and there’s the switch, and here’s the battery.” She takes a nine-volt battery out of its holder, then pulls out all the wires. By then the bomb squad are here, so she gives the bomb to them.

Sparks gets there late. “Bomb trouble?”

Jennifer sighs. “Yeah.”

“Official?”

“True believer, probably. Simple construction, standard, probably got it off the Internet.” Jennifer shrugs and smiles.

Brinkman:
To our rebellious subjects: There is no election. You are not the government. The government is CPMC. The government is me. I am the law. My word is the word of God. Obedience alone is of God. All rebellion is inspired by Satan. You will cease your Devil-inspired rebellion against God, or we shall be forced to destroy you all, to the man, root and branch.

Suddenly a piratecast interrupts the official announcement:

[An eight-bit representation of the head of the Statue of Liberty replaces the blue screen, opening and closing her mouth in clockwork fashion; descending red, white, and blue gradients replace Spanner’s rainbow background, speaking in a cheery female computer voice.]

Lady Liberty:
Good morning, America! I’m Lady Liberty, and I’m here to remind y’all that if you don’t vote, you can’t be free.

[The computer image of Lady Liberty is replaced by a series of portraits of great American founders and leaders, mouths animated ventriloquist-dummy style.]

Thomas Jefferson:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government...

Thomas Paine:
These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

Abraham Lincoln:
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable — a most sacred right — a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.

Lady Liberty:
So y’all better rush on over to the polls and make your votes count! Let’s show ’em People Power! Let’s show ’em that America is We the People! Get off your duffs and make your votes count!

Litton and the NewsCorp techs finally interrupt the real piratecast, but not before the damage has already been done. Governor Brinkman returns to the screen, angrier than ever, looking less human by the second, venting his sovereign wrath in an escalating rage that distorts his face. (Sparks: “He’s starting to look less human.” Shira: “Good. Then people will see what their owners really are.”)

Brinkman:
Y’all are traitors! Goddamn liberal communist Muslim faggot nigger-lovers! I’ll kill you all! I’ll eat y’all alive! I’ve got nukes and y’all don’t! I’ll rip your—

[Brinkman’s face is replaced with a comic book image of the Wolf Man and the sound of a howling movie werewolf.]

Lady Liberty:
Not so fast, Fido!

[The eight-bit image of Spanner appears. This time the famous graffiti tag of badge-shield, crossed wrenches, and Old English “S” is superimposed on his faceplate..]

Spanner:
People of Cascadia: You are being faced with a choice. The Synarchy are throwing you a Challenge they think you can’t possibly win. Accept it and throw it in their faces. Is America truly the land of freedom and democracy, or just an Islamic Caliphate of the ultra-rich dedicated to the cult of Mammon? The choice is yours and yours alone. This is Tournament, and you are the fighters under Challenge. Go forth and win.

CPMC boardroom. The Fearsome Foursome — Brinkman, Becket, Everson, Litton, plus Ross — face the wrath of Chairman Becket, who pounds on his desk, jerking his vidphone image. “You incompetents! Why are you letting those monkeys stomp all over you? We fought the Revolution against these animals! Explain! John?”

“Yes, Uncle!” says Jack Becket. “Somebody, and I have a very good idea who it is, is starting gang wars statewide just to divert our precious police resources away from the real threat, out on the streets.”

“Uncle, I don’t understand why the worthless rabble’s trying to mooch away our deserved reward,“ Brinkman complains. “Why don’t we just wipe ’em out!”

Ross says, “They’re just ungrateful swine, Walter. They’re incapable of earning an honest buck, so they’re after ours.”

“Because Jesus America didn’t choose them to be gifted with wealth,” says Everson. “God commands us to put them under ordeal and prove their worthiness to him. We have no choice.”

The four argue among themselves until Litton whistles. The boardroom falls silent. The Chairman says, “You had something to say, Mr Litton?”

The Rat Bastard looks at the other four with a hint of disgust. “You guys can argue all you want. Now it’s my turn. Sit back and watch.”

telesphere. The presenters on the official news channels speak with one voice, warning the “little people” to obey their betters and not vote, Or Else. Suddenly, they pause to prepare for Litton’s move. (Shira: “The lamestream sure know how to telegraph a fake piratecast, don’t they.”) He gives the order: “Now!” His TV techs switch the signal on. “Take that, motherfuckers!”

All the video signals disappear, and—

[—a man in a black motorcycle helmet appears. But it’s not Spanner. His jacket, for one, is Minuteman red. He speaks in a scrambled voice.]

The Terrorist:
I know you stupid commie faggots. You like to call me “The Terrorist.” In Jesus America’s name, don’t call me the Terrorist! I’m an angel from God.

You’ve pissed me off for the last time, you faggots. This is my last offer. You give me all the money you’ve got and your total and humiliating obedience and, hmm, crown me your king and worship me as your god, [camera zooms out] I might spare your worthless liberal faggot lives by not blowing up your butt-ugly commie liberal city. [gestures toward nuke behind him] You’ve got until [checks watch] about five minutes from now. I’m kinda hoping youAAAh!—

[A bat hits and shatters the Terrorist’s faceplate from off camera. The helmeted man who becomes the object of the camera’s attention is Spanner. He hammers the Terrorist in the shoulders and face several more times, then wrestles him into a full nelson and forces the villain to face the camera.]

Spanner:
Well, well, well. I should have known. The Fearsome Foursome are back up to their old tricks again. They even hired a mercenary assassin to destroy the city. His name is... [he wrests the helmet off the man’s head to reveal a steroid-faced Moral Enforcer with a shattered nose:] Stanley Green, drug pusher!

Stan Green:
You fu—

[Spanner interrupts the bullyboy with his fist, breaking his jaw and then knocking him out with a strike to the left temple. The signal suddenly goes out—]

—and regularly scheduled news entertainment programming resumes with all network presenters screaming.

Westlake Plaza. Someone dropped a time bomb in one of the trash cans nearby; it was discovered when one of the local homeless people remembered hearing a ticking sound earlier. COPCO’s anti-terror specialists evacuate the area. Suddenly Shira gets through and inspects the bomb. She recognizes the Toymaker’s work at once. A COPCO counterterrorist warns, “You are not authorized—”

“I know the Toymaker and you don’t.” She holds the bomb in her right hand and holds out her left. “Screwdriver. Common.”

“No, you can’t—”

“You can’t. I can. Now gimme that screwdriver.” The COPCO bomb technician gives her a standard-size common screwdriver. She ignores the four thick red wires on the bomb’s surface and pries around the complicated closed box to find the hidden wires. “The Toymaker’s different from most bomb makers in that he does it the way movie villains do.” She finds one of the hidden wires: black. She holds out her left hand again. “Wire cutters.” The bomb tech gives her his. She gently pries out the wire and snips it. The timer goes out. “That was the negative.” She resumes prying around with the screwdriver. “You have to find all three hidden wires, negative, positive, and ground, before you can cut the big wires. If you don’t, you go boom. That’s his signature.” She finds the positive and ground wires, also black, and snips them; then she cuts all the red wires and gives the dead bomb and the tools back to the tech.

“Who’d put a bomb here?” the tech asks.

“Anybody could have, but the real question is, who would benefit? Someone with something to lose in the election: the Party, the Church, the banks, CPMC.” People crowd in to cheer her latest victory over the Toymaker. “And these are who they’re losing to.”

The election results:
Unlike mail-in ballots (normally required by Cascadian law), votes by phone are counted as soon as they are made. Most people voted within the first two hours, and already the results defy the sovereign will of CPMC:

1. CPMC Recall: Yes 86% — No 34% — Governor CPMC is officially overthrown. It does not pay to alienate your constituency in an age of decentralizing technologies, when word travels worldwide at light speed. But CPMC announces it will continue on in power in open defiance of the people, like an overconfident king who willfully denies that daggers are being raised behind him.
2. Drug Decriminalization Initiative: Yes 72% — No 28% — CPMC tried to frame this as a matter of simple morality: eliminate drugs, followed by alcohol, tobacco, sugar, and fatty foods, and the people will automatically become moral. The issue turned out to be the incestuous relationship that COPCO and Dictel Correctional Industries have with the Syndicates, and the growing totalitarian threat of the supergang known as the Omega Syndicate. Cascadians, particularly in the cities, voted to nullify the federal Prohibition Amendment in their own state constitution.
3. Anti-Bullying Initiative: Yes 67% — No 33% — Cascadian voters fed up with the Conservative Revolutionary Party constantly beating up on them in the name of American Manhood have now officially banished the sacred institution of Tournament from their state. School and police bullying are now criminalized under the assault laws.
4. Marriage Freedom Initiative: Yes 56% — No 44% — The coup prevented the former states of Washington and Oregon from repealing their Defense of Marriage Acts and expanding marriage rights to same-sex couples. This corrects that and also serves to nullify the federal Defense of Marriage Amendment, the basis of all moral and eugenic purity laws, in Cascadia. The wording leaves room for marriage to “artificial persons,” whenever that term is defined. Even more than the Church of America and the Eugenics Institute, the Mormon Church, which requires opposite-sex marriage dedicated to procreation as a prerequisite for salvation, is protests the vote. All marriages to Jesus America performed by the Party stand.
5. Anti-Sharia Amendment: Yes 91% — No 9% — Principles of religious law, whether Sharia or Halacha, are unconstitutional in Cascadia. This is a direct rebuke to the CRP, which made strict application of Halacha the centerpiece of its “Moral America” policy, which Cascadians revile as “moral Stalinism.”

The will of the people has spoken. Naturally, the Conservative Revolutionary Party, the Church of America, and the United Corporations declare the election null and void at once. It reeks of democracy.

technosphere. The Team Spanner Election Committee meet on the Darknet. Shira is greeted by cheering avatars. Deth Pussy exults, “We won! We got the vote in! Let those money-eating bastards eat our dust!”

“Not so fast, pussycat,” says Shira. “Sure, we threw a big pie in CPMC’s face. But they still got the Rat Bastard, and he can still win it for ’em. We won Round One. The Mob botnets’ll still be trying to steal the election till eight, and the Rat Bastard and I still have our grudge match. Time for Round Two.”

Westlake Plaza. The strikers celebrate their victory. The face of Shepherd-Mayor Everson fails to sway them or even be heard above their cheers. But the sound cannons still attack from above, still difficult to silence with the sound cancellers on the ground.

Shira and Leila allow themselves a long sweet victory kiss. People around them cheer them on. In Cascadia, two women can marry each other if they want, now that the law allows it. If CPMC allows the election to stand.

“So what’s next?” asks Leila.

“Hard players think ahead. The Rat Bastard makes his move anytime now. I’m ready for mine.”

A helicopter slams into a nearby skyscraper and explodes with a sonic boom, knocking everybody in range to the street, including Shira and Leila. Hot metal and glass shards rain to the ground, injuring even more. People climb off each other, struggle to stand up, give each other some of the medical attention the city government is forbidden to provide. A wave of anger ripples through the crowd. They will not be cowed.

But Litton is a hard player. Shira plays her gambit. With one finger tap on her phone, she releases the virus.

Brinkman:
There was no vote! It never happened! There’s only one vote in this state, and it’s mine! I’m the chairman, CEO, and sole owner of this corporation, and...

[The video signal distorts into noise, then fades into snow.]

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Back to Chapter 23 index...
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Copyright © 2011 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

[Revision 2, 10/23/11: All broadcast sequences edited from the unpublished first draft to fit Third Revision continuity; everything else is new material. All quotes by historical figures taken from the original sources.]

Spanner 23.3: No Time This Time

Four installments left in Book 1. The final day begins. The final reckoning is at hand — at least for CPMC, the people of Cascadia, and the two beautiful rebels whose passion for each other set the whole thing in motion...

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 23: Black Panic in the Suites
Part 3: No Time This Time

4 november 2014.
General strike, day five. Election Day. The beginning of the end — or just the end of the beginning?

[A grinning man in a business suit gleefully whips a bound, naked, and scarred black slave who screams each time the whip hits his bloody back. The soundtrack: the ominous Jaws theme.]

Spanner:
My fellow citizens. You may be wondering what the “real” Americans, your leaders, have in store for you. It is, of course, this. It is what makes them leaders. They alone are permitted to exercise will, which is theirs alone by divine right. We, the people, are their niggers. Our duty as the non-chosen is to obey the chosen in abject fear. Look well, citizens, at the true face of leadership. It is what you are up against.

[The grinning business-suited man stabs the camera repeatedly and viciously with a large knife, to the screeching violins from Psycho. The camera bleeds.]

It is a matter of survival. We the people have proven ourselves bad niggers indeed. This is how they intend to punish us. It is not enough for you to cast your votes today. You must take away theirs. For they vote, not with ballots, but only with bullets. Their bullets are aimed at you. This is your first chance. Don’t let it be your last.

dreamspace. Dr Henry Becket faces down a chaos with angel wings. “You cannot prevail against the power of God, Good, and authority, Spanner. It is not possible.”

“Your precious Order cannot stand against the Law of Entropy, no matter how Good it is absolutely,” Spanner replies in a chorus of female voices. “The ramparts of your castle are falling without need for enemy cannon.”

“The eternal Order of Heaven stands forever against the ravages of the fallen world of matter.”

“Matter is not spirit, Doctor. Your error is to force eternal order on a world where things fall apart. See? The center no longer holds, the center of the race of man.” Spanner points toward a giant sphinx, walking through the burning valley below, destroying all it touches, firing death-ray beams at all that moves. Its movements become stiffer, its stony frame more unstable, until it starts to fall apart. Above, to Dr Becket’s horror, the citadel on the mountain above begins to fall in on itself...

Shira’s apartment. In the bedroom, Shira and Leila strive to become one in a hurry. Driven by pure adrenaline, they race through foreplay with extra fury, suck each other’s breasts at the same time, then their cunts; Shira gets on Leila, presses their cunts together, presses both their G-spots, they rub their clits together and their cunts turn to fire and they bodies to light and they finally merge...

In the bathroom, they share one last languid bubble bath before the battle. “What happens if we lose?” asks Leila.

“We fight on. Either we win, or they destroy us. Either way, we fight, or we die.”

“As long as we’re together, I don’t care.”

“A few more years of this, even I’ll probably get tired of this. There’s a reason why the bad guys prefer to have others fight their wars. Ollie found that out the hard way.”

Leila sighs. “Let’s concentrate on immediate things now.” She resumes running her hands all over Shira’s body, Shira does the same to her, and soon they are kissing. They are interrupted by a clipped scream. They turn to see Moon Roach.

“Am I interrupting you guys?” asks Moon.

They smile at her. “No.”

She starts taking her clothes off. “You don’t mind?”

“Of course not,” says Leila.

“Go ahead,” says Shira.

Moon strips naked and gets into the shower. Not athletic, but still attractive. Moon starts the water; Shira and Leila smile at each other, then resume kissing.

In the study, eight hackers man the machines at election central: Jennifer, Steve, and Ken; Evil the Cat, El Kabong, and the Cockroach Twins. Jennifer acts as team spokesperson. Hope asks, “Systems ready?”

“Voting system operational, firewalls running, spam vote blockers running, all defenses up. So far as we know, everything’s A-OK.”

“Everybody get the word out?”

“It’s spreading as far as it can go. We expect the bad guys to try to DDoS us, but we’re ready for that.”

“You think the system can hold up?”

“This one works better with heavy volumes. That it?”

“That’s it. All we can do now is wait on the starting gun.”

CPMC boardroom. The Fearsome Foursome and friends assemble before the big screen. “This is the second time this Spanner has decided to attack us directly,” says Chairman Becket. “We must stop him before he causes any real damage. I want him dead.”

Litton says, “Spanner is a very clever man. We need to match him with a very clever plan.”

“And what do you have in mind, Mr Litton?”

He sends his plan via text message that unpacks in a window on the Chairman’s monitor. He reads it. He tilts his head. “Hmm. Very clever indeed. Do your CPMC colleagues know about it?”

“We discussed it in detail, Mr Chairman.”

“I’m afraid it will take more than that to take him down. Still, we need every advantage we can get. Do it.”

Yoyodyne Seattle. The Empire’s largest defense contractor ramps up the assembly lines of its factories in Bangor to maximum. Its robots work overtime with a precision and endurance impossible to mere humans. Right now they are assembling an order of combat-grade sound cannons intended for crowd control. Governor Brinkman intends to keep Tuesday’s plebiscite from turning into a real election.

They mount the sound blasters onto military helicopters. When each copter’s cannon is installed, the copter is refuelled and sent to the launch pad for immediate takeoff. They fly to every corner of northern Cascadia. Other Yoyodyne and Dictel factories do the same thing, throughout the state and the increasingly unstable border areas. The pilots and operators do not know that the pirate broadcasters and their sound cancellers already await them.

Thorwald property. The owner is dead. The woman his father arranged with the Governor to marry has relieved him of his head. No one lives on the property anymore. The surviving Skeever Brothers declare it ownerless and decide to squat. The Spics who had been squatting, who decided to have their Aztec sacrifices of dogs and men there, became their own sacrifice. The dogfighting arena became their funeral pyre.

Jordie drives them back to the property. The rest are armed with AKs. Eddie rides shotgun. Tony and Beck guard from the back seat. “This oughta be easy,” says Tony.

“You never know,” says Beck.

“What you sayin’, Beck?” snarls Eddie. “You wussin’ out on us again?”

“Y’all never met an angel of chaos. I just don’t trust fate anymore.”

Jordie grumbles, “Suit yourself, kid.”

They turn up the pitted driveway. They pass the open gate. They reach the dark and empty warehouse. They get out of the car, carefully check the area for threats, agree that the coast is clear, then shut the car doors and head for the building.

Suddenly the warehouse lights turn on and blind them. The alarm sirens scream for the first time since the warehouse was abandoned; the brothers cover their ears. “What the fuck’s goin’ on?” cries Eddie.

“It’s her!” shrieks Beck. “The angel of chaos!”

“Why didn’t you tell me”

“I did!”

Jordie roars, “I bet she brought her team!”

The Shelley twins burst out bearing earmuffs and strange guns. The Skeevers aim their rifles at them. Rob and Leila answer with twin beams of concentrated sound, making them cover their ears, drop to the ground, and scream in pain. The car’s windows shatter. The twins hold the sound blasters on them so they can have the pleasure of making the gangster brothers squirm and writhe on the muddy pavement. As soon as they stop, Shira flies out a second story window on her new custom hoverboard. She flies above them and drops a rain of M-80s that go off around them.

Eddie, Tony, and Jordie Skeever flee to their car and drive off, leaving their little brother behind. Shira lands next to him; Leila and Rob join her on foot. Beck whimpers, “Don’t hurt me. Please...”

Shira reaches down to offer an open hand. Beck stares at her for several seconds and blinks. He looks around and sees no sign of the brothers who abandoned him here. He sighs, then reaches up to take Shira’s hand. She pulls him to his feet.

Dictel Criminal Detention Center Bangor. Four heavily armed guards escort one heavily chained Islamist hardman to the prison telephone bank. The moment they get there, one phone rings. The attending guard picks it up. “Hello? Yes, sir.”

“Who is it?” growls Ali Muhammad.

The guard holds the receiver toward the Jamaican. “It’s for you.” Muhammad does not reply. The guard puts it to his ear and mouth.

The voice of R.G. Litton says, “Salaam alaykum, shahid.”

“What you want, kafir?”

“As you know, today is Election Day.”

“Dey blaspheme Allah an’ His Chosen! You no elect Allah’s Chosen!”

“Precisely, Mr Muhammad. The liberal blasphemers are out of control, so the Good Lord Allah, blessed be he, hath laid a duty upon you and your men to put a stop to this horror.”

“You no fool me, Rat Bastard.”

“Are you a man, Ali Muhammad? If you are a man, you will put an end to this effeminacy once and for all!”

“I be man! I go’ keell faggotdem!”

“Good. We have restored your safe houses and given Dictel Corrections management the order to release you and your men at once. You will strike without mercy. Then you shall rule.”

Al-Qaeda in America’s Cascadia branch are assembled at the prison gate. They are former Klan, Zeta, Red Triad, Black Mafia: all converts, not one Caliphate native among them. Once outside, Ali Muhammad rallies his troops. “De infidel dey have election!” The hardmen boo, roar, hiss their hatred. “We smash! We destroy infidel! We conquer fo’ de Holy Prophet Osama bin Laden!” They approve with a deafening roar.

Back inside, the guard at the phone bank makes a call of his own.

Shira’s apartment. Shira’s phone rings. Deth Pussy. “Yo, Deth!”

“Wussup babe!”

“Got me a scoop?”

“You’re in luck! We got ourselves a man inside the Cage, and he says the Wogs there just got officially sprung!”

Shira frowns. “You don’t say. Anything to do with the election?”

“They got orders to smash it. Our man says the orders came from one Rat Bastard.”

Shira’s frown morphs into a wicked grin. “Well, well, well. I think I’ll go tell a few friends. If you know what I mean by friends.”

Thorwald property. The escaped Caliphate terror agents assemble at the dead serial killer’s abandoned headquarters. They have no need for the destroyed dogfighting arena (they can always build their own). Dictel helicopters sent by Litton drop the weapons he promised them. When the crates land, the terrorists open them with the supplied crowbars, open the boxes, and take the weapons and ammo, bootlegged from China. Being the savages they are, they celebrate by firing their guns at the sky.

They find themselves being shot at by punked-out Mexicans on motorcycles. Los Punkz have returned for revenge. Al-Qaeda in America answer rage with rage. The Spics and the Wogs go to war, each war tribe hellbent on annihilating the other. Soon COPCO Seattle is forced to redirect precious strike forces away from the strike to suppress this gang war, only one of the many gang wars going on throughout the city.

the strike. The crowds build to full strength before 8:00. Echelon is already trying to destroy all their phones and the entire Darknet. Every Corporation, Syndicate, and rival Empire in the world tries to prevote every single one of them with their botnets. Most of them, some not even striking, have set their phones and computers to send their votes precisely at, or shortly after, eight; those without smartphones or computers will vote by phone, whether cellphone or land line, if the phone networks stay up and AT&T does not preblock their votes or prevote them for CPMC.

Already the protest sites are attacked by swarms of helicopters blasting their sound cannons at them. The pirates’ sound cancellers switch on, cancel out their blasts, even destroy sound cannons and make their helicopters crash.

Voting will be the easy part. The hard part will be keeping CPMC from cancelling it. The strike must go on.

Shira’s apartment. The clock ticks toward 8:00. Every second seems an eternity now. Everyone at election central holds their breath and crosses their fingers.

OZMA calls up Shira. “Do you think we’re going to prevail?”

“You just do your thing, and I’ll keep doing mine. If the plan works out, yes. If it doesn’t we’re all dead.”

“T minus twenty!” yells Jennifer.

In the living room, Willa puts her arm around Leila. “Think of the Conservative Revolutionary Party as a criminal gang made up entirely of Oliver Thorwalds. These are the rich men addicted to absolute power who go into homicidal frenzy whenever one of their slaves even thinks of exercising their will. They must steal the last crumb from the starving and the mites from widows. If they prevail, they’ll keep turning back the clock until there’s no more reality standing between them and their sovereign whim.”

“Can’t we do to them what I did to Oliver?”

“Darling, he was just one man. The terrorists try over and over, but they always fail. That’s because a gang is a different kind of beast from a bestial man. It thrives on faith created through fear. We have to starve the beast, and the only way to do that is for us to swallow our fear and together abandon our faith.”

Jennifer: “Five...”

Wolveroach: “So far we’re standing up to Echelon!”

“Four...”

El Kabong: “Anti-spambot defenses holding!”

“Three...”

Evil the Cat: “The big hit’s comin’! Prepare yourselves!”

“Two...”

Shira and Leila rush out the door, the Cockroach twins cross their fingers...

“One...”

Moon sings, “It’s heeere...”

on to the next... →

Back to Chapter 23 index...
Back to Chaos Angel Spanner table of contents...

Copyright © 2011 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

[Revision 2, 10/22/11: All scenes at Shira’s apartment (“election central”) and the Thorwald property are heavily revised from the unpublished first draft to fit Third Revision continuity, with some material removed; everything else is new material.]