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Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 16: Don’t Change the Channel
Part 5: Such Women Are Dangerous (Final Revision)
8 october 2014.
technosphere. Posted to LocaFantoma99’s Profile on 7 October 2014:
A cat attacks a rabbit. At first, the cat chases the rabbit. After a short squabble, the rabbit chases the cat. A few seconds later, the rabbit catches the cat-and humps it...
The cat is Mikan. The rabbit’s name is Peter, and he belongs to Shira’s grandmother, the children’s author Eleanor Richter. Shira shot the video herself three summers ago on a FlipCam. The soundtrack consists of angry feline meows and hisses, a lapine squeak or two, and the squeals and giggles of half a dozen children, including Shira and Kira.
red house. Shira and the girl with the violet eyes wake up in each other’s arms in the guest room bed. The nameless girl looks in Shira’s beautiful green eyes. Something feels not right. “You okay?”
“I feel a little odd.”
The nameless girl throws the covers off her. “On your stomach.” She carefully feels all over Shira’s bare buttocks, looking for a painful spot.
“No, I didn’t get an umbrella in the arse. Did you get a ‘truth serum’ injection?”
“Oh my—”
They join Charlie, Desiree, Melody, and Luna in the annex for breakfast. “Say, Charlie,” Shira asks, “you going to school today?”
“Sure. Why?”
“Maybe you could give me a checkup?”
“Not feeling well?”
“Not since Monday.”
Charlie and Desiree look at each other with concern. Desiree says, “Do it.”
mudlark house. Irina wanders still naked into the basement workshop where Jennifer, comfortably nude as usual, installs a new and more powerful computer brain into Pansy Persocom’s head. The old brain is mounted on the table next to Jennifer’s laptop. She looks around and marvels at the odd devices scattered all over. “Wow, you are inventor?”
Jennifer smiles sweetly. “I like to tinker.” She carefully fits the top of Pansy’s head back into place. It locks into place; Pansy opens her eyes; she’s on. Jennifer Bluetooth-syncs the computer to both brains; the new operating system and the old AI begin installation. “She won’t know who she is till she’s installed in her new brain.” She fondles the beautiful body. The monitor reveals Pansy’s reaction to her touch. “Come on, feel her.”
Irina feels the gynoid’s breasts. “She is cold.”
“I just turned her back on. She’ll warm up.”
She strokes the legs. “Does she have morality chip?”
“Designed it myself.” Jennifer looks into blue eyes slowly coming to life. “Such a sweet girl, so innocent.”
While they wait for Pansy’s system to upload and upgrade, Irina takes another look around the lab. “This look like madness place where mad scientist do mad science.”
“So what makes you such an authority on mad science?”
“You know Dr. Tukholsky, who make third Proletarian into superhero? He give me crazy tests before Russian army send me to war.”
Jennifer turns her head suddenly and fixes an intense gaze on Irina, making her flinch. “He gave you super serum.”
“Y-yes, I think.”
She pulls Irina close. “Irina, you gotta to school with us.”
“School?”
“My cousin Charlie’s the school nurse. She can run tests.” Jennifer stares into the Russian girl’s eyes, gently strokes tousled red hair, and gives her a long deep kiss.
Radisson: There is no need to panic. We here in the government are here to help you. We have everything under control.
bangor high. Student Councillors gather in the parking lot. “How come Bart’s not here?” asks Kelly.
“Probably evading treason charges,” Charmian answers. “He’s a mere fighter who knows nothing of
true war.”
“Why’s that?”
“Intelligence, not brute force, wins the war.”
“So how do we beat the enemy?”
“Gossip always works well. Except on Shira Thomas. She’s too amoral. And Jennifer Blair? Too potentially dangerous.”
“And Karen Kubota’s made of Teflon.”
“How about your Eurotrash cousins, then?”
Rachel looks at her in surprise and says nothing. Lucy says, “We tried Leila yesterday, but she only laughed at us and Debbie got mad.”
Debbie glares at her too close. “I’m
still mad.”
“Forget any of them,” says Kelly. “I know Shira’s weakness, and it ain’t Leila.”
Charmian suddenly turns to look at her. She reads the jealous look in her eye. She knows. “Then what is it, Kelly?”
“Sweet little Mimi. She’s a total wuss. I say we start with her.”
school lobby. The vidscreen bank at the school entrance greets Team Bremelo by relentlessly and narmily mourning King Patriot as if it believed it could bring him back from the dead through virtual tears alone. Shira snarks, “Looks like our American Stalin just turned into our Kim Il Sung.” Polly looks at her strangely. “Did you know Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are still co-heads of state in North Korea even though they’re dead? Now the ghost of old King Rodge can be co-ghost leader along with Emperor Jesus America, President Goldman Sachs, and Party Chairman The American Crusader.”
Polly sighs in frustration. “This is getting so weird, I feel like I’m trapped in a funhouse with monster clowns.”
“And I’m duelling the makeup artist. You think it’s weird? Now it starts getting interesting.”
As they walk toward the cafeteria, they notice the Fleer sisters arguing with unusual hysteria. They cannot hear what they’re saying because they keep talking over each other, but they notice Dorian failing to calm her younger sisters down and Christian succeeding in making her sisters more hysterical, and that what they’re arguing over is Spanner. “Losing their great-grandfather sure hit ’em hard, Karen observes.
“It’s even worse,” says Shira. “They’re afraid of the monster that killed him.”
Kelly intrudes angrily into Shira’s face. “I hope to God you’re not connected with that horrible terrorist.”
“You mean Spanner?” replies Shira. “That guy doesn’t need our help, and probably doesn’t want it either.”
Bart rudely pushes Kelly aside (Kelly: “Ow!”) and growls with a wavering half-hysteria he has never shown before: “That terrorist murdered our king!”
Shira smiles sweetly and shrugs. “How do you know he’s even dead?”
principal’s office. The tutors stand before the principals’ stare again. The girl with the violet eyes notices Benson and Robson missing. “Where’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?” she mocks. “Are they not feeling like real men?”
Falconer and Mobley sit resentfully to either side of Principal’s permasmirk; the school Party liaison Morton Spiekerman stands above them and the empty seats between. “They are, shall we say, on leave,” Spiekerman drawls. “I am now in charge of this miserable little school.” The principals try to glare at him without actually looking.
Shira smiles ironically. “Does that explain the heavily armed itchy trigger fingers you put in the halls to keep us unacceptably rational unpersons in line?”
Falconer stands up and shrieks, “You’re out of line, Thomas!”
“Don’t think we won’t punish you for your insolence, Miss Thomas,” Spiekerman warns.
“Are you sure you’re ready to take personal responsibility, Comrade Spiekerman?” asks Shira. “I’ll have to warn you that it's not just SPEC’s reputation on the line, but yours, personally.”
“If anything happens like last week’s shooting incident,” Jennifer adds, “you own it.”
Spierkerman stares at them in cold rage. The principals stare up at him nervously.
hallway. Daisy walks alone toward homeroom through the crowd of students. The students glance warily at the many volunteer armed guards, bearded Party men who glare at them with suspicion. The men stare at her as if she’s an alien invader from Mars. Suddenly she hears a young male voice behind her, a student: “Kon Hinagiku-san?”
“Don’t call me that name!” she snaps at—
Akane Ejimoto smiles at her. “You’re a true hero, Hinagiku-san. They’re stupid to treat you like an enemy. I want you to know...” He comes over to caress her cheek. “I worship you.”
She stares at him, stunned by his confession. “Akane-kun... please don’t...” He silences her with a gentle kiss. They silently stare at each other for several seconds. They scramble to a nook away from the guards’ paranoid view, then pull each other close and share a long and increasingly passionate kiss. She gasps, sighs, regains her breath. “What about your mother?”
“The hell with my mother.” They stare into each other's eyes, he with determination, she with amazement. They hold each other tight and share a long hot kiss.
A woman clears her throat. Polly. They blush furiously. “Move it, lovebirds,” she says, “class starts any second.”
cafeteria. The girl with the violet eyes finds herself surrounded by mean girls. Christian, Kelly, Debbie, and Lady get in her way and won’t let her move. The guards, though armed, keep their distance. Debbie protests, “Are you saying we’re responsible for those suicides?”
The nameless girl gasps. “Of course not!”
Debbie drapes herself over her and sobs, “Why do you hate me so much?”
Lady slaps her. “Don’t be a fool, Debbie. She’s nothing but a filthy Eurotrash whore.”
Christian says, “Debbie, I warned you about her years ago.”
Jennifer clears her throat. They look at her. “What would you want done to your body after your suicide?”
The Student Councillors stare at her strangely.
“In Pretty City,” says the violet-eyed girl, “they drive models to suicide and use their corpses for art.”
“It’s true,” says Rob. “It’s why we left.”
Debbie wails, "That's insane!"
“But these are the kind of Egoists,” Jennifer grimly explains, “who don’t care what happens to their bodies once they've liberated their Egos.”
The violet-eyed girl raises a finger. “The Molotov Twins insist it’s a waste of perfectly beautiful dead flesh.”
Shira winks. “You girls ever heard of
America’s Next Dead Model?”
The Councillors stare at her. They look at each other, then flee with a chorus of "Ew!"
homeroom office. In the men’s restroom behind the principal’s office, two gray-haired men in business suits (SPEC CEO Peter Ross, fat and bald; Teachers Guild local president Nolan Robson, tall and thin) and one in Party uniform (school liaison Morton Spiekerman) stand at adjacent urinals and talk business, unaware that Falconer installed a hidden camera because she suspects Principal Principal and Coach Mobley are gay. Dave, Karen, and Colette watch them on his monitor. “This Student Union thing’s seriously impacting our monetization plan,” says Ross.
Spiekerman asks, “Wasn’t it going smoothly until a few students started getting disobedient?”
Dave mutters, “If it wasn’t for you meddling kids.” The girls laugh.
Robson protests, “The plan was never going smoothly because of those meddling kids.” (Karen and Colette squeal and giggle.)
“You know who their leader is, Mr. Chairman?”
“Ah yes,” Ross replies, “your three-time cheerleader of the year who claims Buddha and not Jesus America as her savior.”
“Whose aunt just happens to be our enemy,” Robson adds.
Jennifer, Shira, and the girl with the violet eyes arrive. Jennifer and Shira sing “Hi cousin!” together and throw themselves in Karen’s arms. She kisses them both. Jennifer looks at the monitor. “Say, isn’t that nonentity assistant principal Robson with the Chairman?”
Shira frowns. “Actually, that’s nonentity puppet Guild chief Robson. Three guesses who they’re talking about, and the first two don’t count.”
“‘Paid vacation,’ eh?”
“Yeah.”
Robson says, “That popular girl who just came back, Nicolette Rosewater? She’s one of the key figures in the plot against us.”
“Do something about her too, then,” says Ross. “And do something about their ‘newtype’ friend Blair, too. King Patriot died for Our Nation. We cannot let a few little girls resurrect the Communist evil we spent our whole lives fighting, right under our noses.”
Spiekerman smiles knowingly. “I know exactly the man to teach a lesson or two to Miss cheerleader-of-the-year.”
Robson chuckles. “That should teach those little monkeys who’s boss.”
Ross zips his fly. “But beware of Shira Thomas.” Spiekerman and Robson, still holding their penises, stare at him in shock as he leaves.
clinic. Charlie pricks Shira’s fingertip. Mimi flinches. Cory, Polly, the Shelley siblings, and a redheaded non-student named Irina look on. Charlie touches the bead of blood with a diagnostic strip that absorbs it. The blood on the strip turns almost black. For a long moment she says nothing, just stares at the black strip. She holds it up for the others to see. The Shelley twins go pale. Shira slowly shakes her head. “Leave it to Locke Holmes to pull something that malicious.”
Charlie gasps. “
What?”
“Yep. Him. Monday morning.”
“How are you feeling now?”
“Kinda meh.”
“If this gets any worse—”
“Call Doc Whistler.” She looks at Irina. “And if she’s right about the super serum, we’ll need to bring her.”
harborside hotel. Amanda fumbles with her keys. She curses her inability to hold onto anything anymore below her breath. After a struggle she manages to get the hotel room key into the lock. Unlock, open the door, enter.
She turns on the light. She turns around. There’s a woman sitting in the recliner. Through the miracle of Resculpting, the woman looks exactly like her. She’s pointing a gun at her.
Amanda drops everything and holds up her hands. “W-what do you want?”
The woman smiles. “I wanna be you.”
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[
Revision 4, 2/6/13: Mostly new scenes added as a continuation of Fourth Revision continuity. Original title “Regarding Amanda”; formerly containing scenes now in 13.3 and elsewhere.]
[
Revision 4 Final, 2/10/12: Corrected one final text error.]
