Spanner 2.1: Lethal Lolita

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Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 2: Sex Bomb
Part 1: Lethal Lolita (Final Revision)

reality distortion field:
the aura projected by an
extremely charismatic person,
so powerful that it distorts
perception and/or judgment

All that is solid melts into air.
Karl Marx

20 august 2014.
secret location. In a dark smoke-filled room somewhere in the TrumpCity™ Administrative Zone, five men hold an emergency meeting to discuss a plan of action against Spanner: United Corporations chairman Richard Becket, FBI director Karl Radisson, COPCO CEO Brendan Sparks, Dictel CEO Lt. Col. Thomas Drake Becket (U.S. Army, Retired), and, dominating this meeting with his grim imposing presence that intimidates even his brothers, a visibly disturbed Homeland Security Secretary C. Henry Becket. Secretary General Stephen Harper and Vice President Sarah Palin observe by satellite from Holy City and let the experts plan. President Goldman Sachs and TrumpCity™ owner TrumpCo signal their presence with giant logos looming overhead to remind them who is in control.

“I think our terrorist intended to embarrass the Cartel,” says the Chairman. “He certainly succeeded.”

“No, I think this terrorist wanted to embarrass me,” says the Colonel. “He cut through my defenses like butter.”

“I still think Apple’s jealous competition hired him to keep it out of the Cartel,” says the COPCO CEO. “Paul, you’d better get it investigated.”

“I’m convinced this was an anarchist assault on the Revolution,” says the Director. “We’re already looking into every Anonymous cell we can sniff out.”

The Secretary slams his fist down and thunders, “Stop this nonsense!” The others fall silent. “If that terrorist is not stopped now, our Revolution will be destroyed, and the fate of America with it!”

september 2012...
Kira and Shira were so close no one knew where one ended and the other began, so intimate they made love in their dreams. After the coup robbed Shira of her second self, her wounded passion invaded her mother’s dreams. Two weeks after, Hope woke up to find sleeping Shira making love to her. She tried to stop her, break her, even punish; Shira begged, wailed, said she couldn’t stop — and she didn’t. Eventually, Hope gave up; Shira has cried her eternal gratitude and adoration ever since...

apartment, bremerton. —two souls explode into one — Hope wakes up, Shira collapses onto her, hot sweat streams down and tickles their skin, they settle into an embrace at once hard and gentle. Hope caresses Shira’s soft buttocks; Shira moans softly and answers with a long soft kiss. Hope sighs. “You’ve gotten so good at this...”

Shira’s tears fall onto her face; she smiles. “Anything to worship you.”

Hope laughs gently. Mother and daughter have shared one bed since they lost Kira. Their bodies are completely comfortable with each other, their minds intimate with each other’s thoughts, their hearts bound by deep love and a shared void where Kira once was. “Everything was successful?”

Shira grins. “We got the Tachibanas out, took the book, and gave the Man a big juicy surprise with extra bacon and cheese. I say mission accomplished.”

Hope’s expression turns deadly serious. “Fun’s over now, darling. They’re mad like raging bulls. Expect their answer any time.”

Trembling with enthusiasm, Shira sits up and pumps her fist. “I say let the bulls out! This fight’s only begun.”

early morning. On all official channels, the news spreads the pleas of terrified Americans crying out for a hero. On all screens, the strong and serious face of Secretary Becket appears to deliver a warning to the Nation and the world.

Tonight, a terrorist attacked the economic heart of the Empire. From previous messages we have intercepted, we know his purpose is not in the service of an enemy nation, but solely out of nihilistic hatred of America. His methods are beyond normal human comprehension. America’s heroic military and law enforcement personnel are doing their part to stop this menace that eats at the heart of Our Nation. But America is in desperate need for even greater heroes. We shall find these heroes, and they shall save America. May God bl—

On all screens, another face suddenly interrupts: black motorcycle helmet, skull and crossed wrenches emblazoned above the faceplate, eight-bit pixelized, Atari rainbow rising in the background, tickers above and below repeating the word SUBVERTISEMENT. In a Votrax voice, the apparition speaks:

The lamestream is now done spinning its lies. Now I will unspin the truth. Call me Spanner.

Last night I sent a clear message to the American supermen. But greed, faith, and self-infatuation has turned their minds to mush. Therefore, I will explain.

They claim they defend freedom. But their freedom is that of the bully who robs others of theirs. Their blindness tells them the only true freedom is freedom from freedom itself. Their freedom will self-destruct.

They emptied an entire city for — what, a business meeting? For one little party, they enraged millions. The people will not tolerate a repeat.

Their ideal is no ideal. They call it Synarchy. We call it central planning. It never works. It violates the Law of Entropy. The people can run their lives just fine without interfering rulers. That is anarchy.

Don’t try to find me; I am everywhere. You cannot identify me; I am anyone and no one. You cannot punish me; I am the virus in the System. I am not the superhero come to save you from yourselves. I am the Angel of Chaos.

This message will self-destruct in five... four... three... two... one...

On all screens, the color-bar test pattern. The long long beep. A standard male television announcer voice interrupts.

This is the Emergency Alert System. A Code Red Terror Alert has been issued for the entire East Coast in the wake of the terror attack on TrumpCity tonight. FBI Director Karl Radisson is offering a twenty-five million dollar reward for the identification and capture of the terrorist known as Spanner. A spokesman for President Goldman Sachs & Company says the President wants the terrorist eliminated as soon as possible.

On all screens, the news. You are watching ESPNBC. A standard blond news presenter pretties up the screen. Her name, for all it is worth, is Amanda Currie. From the studio TelePrompTer, the pretty blond newsreader reads the news prettily.

...the destruction caused by the Spanner incident, TrumpCo has put itself under Chapter 11 protection and will not prevent displaced residents from returning to the city. Homeland Security Secretary Henry Becket has issued a temporary blanket ban on all hoverboards for the next four days, until Revolution Day celebrations are finished. Now on to other breaking news...

You change the channel. Fox, Sun, ABCNN, QVCBS: Spanner is the news. ABC, NBC, CBS, CBN, TBN, CW, ION, Fox Entertainment... the regularly scheduled edutainment and infomercials all pre-empted by news, and the news is Spanner. You are about to throw the remote through thetelevision when Secretary Becket himself calls you over the Party hotline.

The Conservative Revolutionary Party intranet is one of the privileges of power in Imperial America. You are Ward G. Tremayne, Shepherd-Mayor appointed to dominion over the traitorous liberal city of Seattle, a single-mindedly devoted Patriot, the spiritual rock of the dreaded “Fearsome Foursome” who wield iron-fisted dominion over the American State of Cascadia. The evil socialist rabble hate you. Their hate feeds your power. You click the button that brings the Secretary’s image on screen. His face looks visibly unnerved.

Shepherd Tremayne. We have a problem.

“Mr. Secretary! I take it we didn’t catch the terrorist?”

There is a reason why the Crime Prevention Division’s precognitive agents went mad. This “Spanner” is no mere terrorist, but a new kind of weapon, not a man but a virus. He has already infected the media, as you have seen. The perfidious rabble are already inflating him into a superhero.

“You are describing a supernatural threat, Mr. Secretary. This is an act of spiritual warfare, aimed at us by the forces of Darkness.”

Not Darkness, Mr. Tremayne. Chaos. It is not just the life of Our Nation that is in danger, but the very order of things. The first law of Heaven is Order. We are under direct assault by Chaos itself. Universal destruction is in our future if we are not at all times vigilant. Gird your loins, Mr. Tremayne, and prepare for war.

“I understand, Mr. Secretary. God bless America!”

America bless God.

The Secretary’s face disappears, and the news of Spanner resumes. You have never before seen such worry nor heard such fear in the stolid stonelike visage of the man who was once America’s superheroic defender against Communism. Henry Becket is the rock of the Nation, yet this Spanner has shaken him. You click and click in search of a Spanner-free channel but do not find it. The Secretary is right: Spanner is a virus. He has infected the media. The entire Telesphere is dying of his disease. You can feel all Anonymous laugh at you.

Suddenly, the channel changes itself. You click and click, but the channel now refuses to change. To your horror, you see a dark-skinned blond girl, lying on her side on a luxurious-looking bed, facing left. She is beautiful. She is charismatic. She is utterly seductive, totally nude, insanely horny, completely without shame. She is the infamous Rebel Styles, and she is your deepest, darkest secret.

She is a child of no more than eight.

Slowly she rolls over to face you, smiling seductively. Discreetly she keeps her left hand between her legs, as if to disguise her gender. In her right hand, she holds a television remote. The image gradually zooms in on her pretty face. She coos:

Come to me. I know what you want. I can see deep into your heart. I know the desires you’re most afraid to see. You want me.

You cannot resist Rebel. You are utterly entranced.

Suddenly, she stares straight into your eyes and says nothing for an endless moment. Still smiling enigmatically, she says:

Will you die for me?

Your will is no longer your own. Under her compulsion, you say, “Yes, my love, I will die for you.” She smiles sweetly.

You reach for your revolver. At first, hoping to murder Rebel, you point it at the screen. But then your sick desire for this child seductress compels you to turn the pistol at yourself. You plead weakly, “Jesus America, please forgive me.” You insert the barrel into your mouth. At last, you pull the trigger.

You were Shepherd-Mayor Ward Tremayne, spiritual rock of the Fearsome Foursome. Now you are dead.

BREAKING NEWS FLASH!

Amanda Currie: (breathlessly) Word has just come in to the ESPNBC Newsroom that the Shepherd-Mayor of the Metropolitan City of Seattle sponsored by Boeing Defense Industries, Incorporated, has been assassinated!

Cub Reporter: (on the scene) That’s right, Amanda! It has now been confirmed that the man who committed suicide in this house is indeed Shepherd-Mayor Ward Tremayne, dictator of Seattle appointed by Chief Shepherd Drusilla Becket herself. FBI spokesman J. Locke Holmes announced that the murder weapon was a curse.

J. Locke Holmes: (at FBI press conference room) We have found no signs of physical damage or struggle, or even natural causes, so we had no choice but to conclude that this was a supernatural attack.

Amanda: As expected, the Caliphate claimed responsibility.

Spokesterrorist: (in mountain lair) You decadent Western infidels have not yet unconditionally surrendered to the eternal dominion of our immortal Mahdi, blessèd be he forever. We shall continue to escalate our death prayers until either you surrender to Allah or you are all dead and suffering eternal torment in Hell, with weeping and gnashing of teeth. Glory be to—

Amanda: The Earth Revolutionary Front also claims responsibility.

Spokesterrorist: (in forest lair) As long as you people continue to rape Our Mother, we will continue to work and pray toward your destruction until you and all your Earth-destroying technology and pollution are all purged and cleansed from her body. Blessèd be! Down—

Amanda: The Socialist Revolutionary Organization refuses to comment. So far we have heard no further word from Spanner.

last night...
dreamspace. The monster chases Leila, and she runs. She bears no clothes no armour no defense: she is beautiful slender pale vulnerable and she runs. Every time she looks back to see how close or far it is, it takes a completely different shape. She doesn’t know why she’s there or what she’s doing, but still she runs. Through alleys pathways traffic garbage crowds, through scuzzy apartments clean skyscraper offices stifling fuming factories she runs. As long as she keeps running, the spectre will never catch her. But she’s afraid, and so she runs.

Then the spectre attacks her in its true form, the huge grim figure in the mirrorshades in the dark, and it begins. The wars the civil wars strife terror hate, the burning oil spills the hurricanes tornadoes earthquakes, and the world is about to end the same way it always does and the same way the spectre wants it to end, and the robot zombie apocalypse is about to begin — but after the nuclear warheads launch, a roaring tigress attacks the spectre and he panics and the world goes into chaos and dream visions go random—

hotel, portland. Leila suddenly wakes and sits bolt upright, the covers flying off her bare drenched skin. Dripping sweat glues her short black hair to her forehead. She breathes heavily, gasping for air.

She struggles out of the bedcovers and sits at the side of the bed and lets the sweat run down her skin. She has never experienced anything like this. The vision always ends the same way. But not now. The wordless sense that something huge is about to happen overwhelms her. She tries to think about it for a while. Then she gets up to take a long cold shower.

shopping arcade, fort vancouver. The exhausted girl sits listlessly in the food court and watches Apple try to beat Microsoft into the Cartel on the television screens above and the world take one step closer to the end, and despairs. And then the same thing happens to the Cartel that happened in her dream that morning: the whole scene descends into chaos. But this time the chaos is caused by a man — a mystery man on a hoverboard wielding smoke bombs, exploding flares, and a monkeywrench. And the talking heads are calling him after the monkeywrench: Spanner. The world tries to take one more step to oblivion, and an angel of chaos descends to trip it.

For the first time in over a year, Leila does not take her daily antidepressant. The despair has fled. All that is left is shock...

house, bremerton. Now she dreams that Shira is making love to her. She wakes bolt upright. For how long she cannot count, she sits there stunned, remembering last night’s dream, wondering if Shira has anything to do with that Spanner...

She showers, dresses, meets her mother at breakfast, idly traces her tattoos with her finger. Taylor asks, “Darling, you look like you just had a nightmare or something.”

“Have you ever dreamt that Shira Thomas was making love to you?”

Taylor laughs. “You haven’t met her yet?”

“Of course not!” snaps Leila.

“She wants to, of course. I’ve even heard rumors she built a shrine to you.”

“Well, I hope she stays far away then.”

“Oh, you’ll be meeting her soon, I guarantee it. You’re in Shira country now. In Shira country, what Shira wants, Shira gets, and what she wants is you.” Taylor winks.

Leila’s eyes go wide, her jaw drops; she stares at her mother in shock.

sunrise. Donald K. McTeague is chairman of Yoyodyne Industries and America’s defense industry fuhrer, and he is currently attempting a hostile takeover of the Boeing Company. He watches the news of Tremayne’s death. “This was no suicide,” he mutters to himself. “I know who murdered him.”

He tries never to sleep because he believes sleep is unproductive and a waste of time: so much to do, so little time. But the new anti-sleep drug he’s taking makes him hallucinate one night before the big screen in his hotel room. Eventually the swirling vision takes the form of his greatest fear.

“I know what you want,” she calls to him in her seductive lilting voice. “You want Rebel Rebel. You want me more than anything else in the world.” McTeague stares at her in utter fascination, like a bird hypnotized by the eyes of a cobra. “Take me. Ravish me. I’m yours and only yours.” He obeys her command, climbs through the television screen and into her world, and tries to rape her — only to find himself trapped forever inside the screen. Rebel laughs at him as he screams in absolute terror.

When Chairman McTeague fails to come to work, his assistants send corporate security agents to his mansion. Soon he finds himself locked in a rubber room at Western State Hospital, irrevocably mad, never to return to the outside world. The Boeing acquisition fails.

Amanda: More breaking news!

Cub Reporter: (at Western State) The chairman of Yoyodyne Defense Associates, America’s defense industry leader, has gone mad! Boeing has broken off merger talks.

Amanda: In other news, Lockheed Martin Northrop Grumman Dynamics has announced its intent to acquire Boeing to create one of the most spectacular business enterprises ever, second only to Standard Oil itself! The combined company will be called Lockheed Northrop Boeing Dynamics...

mudlark house. Home. Overjoyed to be alive, too excited to sleep, Jennifer leaped into Willa’s bed, kissed the length of the iridescent Chinese dragon tattoo coiled around Willa’s body, made love to her all night — sustaining the height of ecstasy as long as they can till it seems an eternity, heaven and earth collapse into one another, mother and daughter-wife lose their identities in each other and the whole universe, for hours and hours—

They collapse into each other’s arms, hold tight each other’s drenched bodies, attack each other with deep delirious violent kisses till the sun comes up...

The small bathtub for them alone always knows when they are ready. Jennifer programmed it. She leads Willa by the hand into a fresh bubble bath. “I’ve never felt so alive in my life.”

Willa laughs. “Now you know exactly what terrorists and bank robbers live for.”
“I thought they were in it for the money and that idealistic kinda stuff.”

“Oh, those are just game achievements, proof on the scoreboard that you won. In truth they crave the thrill of cheating death and getting away with murder, the same way addicts crave drugs. Idealism? Pelf? Cover stories.”

Jennifer cuddles up tight. “That’s why I’m so glad Shira and I have you and Hope to ground us.”

“Well, keep us connected so you don’t come unmoored.”

Her expression turns grim. “Like Talia...”

mid-morning. “I know what you did,” she purrs to Jesse Jameson, state Party chairman, “and I know you want more. You can never get enough. Do it to me again.”

He stabs his wife over a hundred times. He shoots up the Salem COPCO office and steals several Toymaker bombs set to explode on impact. He recklessly races his rigged Range Rover into Cascadia Public Management Corporation headquarters, through the gate, right into Chairman Walter Brinkman himself.

Fully transformed into invulnerable werewolf form, Brinkman suffers not a scratch; reverting to his usual half-transformed state, he surveys the damage around him as angry COPCO agents arrive. “Investigate this Rebel Styles,” he screams through the phone at Chairman Sparks. “I demand you put an end to this madness now!”

Amanda: Even more breaking news!

Cub Reporter: (at CPMC corporate headquarters outside Salem) Party state chairman Jesse Jameson just killed himself in a bizarre suicide bombing attack on CPMC headquarters!

Brinkman: (dusty, slightly ruffled) Whoever’s commanding these demons is making his intention clear now that he’s openly committing magic terrorism against the Nation, the Revolution, and our company.

Amanda: In emergency session, the Party Central Committee has appointed J. Stoneman Becket as interim state chairman...

boathouse. While still moored in Eagle Harbor off Bainbridge Island, Karen once again dreams of Kira trapped in the Arizona concentration camp where the Kubotas were once imprisoned for racecrime. While her parents sail Rich Passage, she kneels before the family Buddhist altar to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo with absolute determination: for the people’s happiness, for their liberation from this hell of tyranny, and for her twin cousins, without a single thought of herself.

By the time she has spent her hour in the Buddha’s enlightenment, the Kokoro has arrived in Bremerton. Shira and Jennifer are here. She is ready to face the world.

late morning. “Come and play with Rebel Rebel,” she coos to Justice J. Jasper Johnson, the executioner of child pornographers who has publicly vowed to personally slay this demoness. “I’m your lover forever. You cannot possibly resist me.” He hates her with all his heart because she tortures him with uncontrollable desire. He shoots every television in his house, then murders his sleeping wives, children, and slaves. He sets fire to his mansion, not to cover up the crime but to exorcise the succubus from his mind once and for all.

He fails. When Jasper Johnson arrives late at the courthouse, he brings his beloved assault rifle to his office and massacres his entire staff. He is shot dead by antiterrorist strike police.

Amanda: Still more breaking news yet!

Cub Reporter: (at the Supreme Court in Salem) Cascadia’s Chief Justice, J. Russell Johnson, has just massacred his entire staff! The FBI is looking into allegations that terrorists summoned demons to possess him.

Amanda: Thank you. In yet more breaking news, Cascadia Public Management Corporation CEO J. Walter Brinkman and Church of America in Cascadia Chief Shepherd Drusilla Becket Pernell have appointed Shepherd Luke Everson as the new Mayor of the Metropolitan City of Seattle now brought to you by Lockheed Northrop Boeing Dynamics!

shopping arcade, bremerton. Shira, Jennifer, and Karen meet downtown in the coffee shop that is not Starbuck’s or Tully’s, where Keenan Sasser and Ada Paulette wait for them. Their beautiful, elegant Korean-American friend Daisy Kwon says, “Hi, guys!” They rush over to hug her and the friend she’s tutoring, Marina Reyes.

At Keenan and Ada’s table, the meeting begins. “Girls!” says Keenan. “You won’t believe what else Spanner unleashed.”

“All morning there’s been news of Party leaders going nuts or killing people,” Ada explains, “and they all had one thing in common, and you won’t guess what.”

Shira fidgets with anticipation. “What?”

Ada narrows her eyes and says conspiratorially, “Rebel Styles.”

The girls gasp. Shira goes, “Oooooooh!”

“You have something to do with that?” asks Keenan.

Shira protests, “I didn’t know a thing about that till you told me!”

At that moment, Ariel Shield walks in. She double takes at the sight of Shira. “Oh Shira, how nice to see you!” She rushes over, Shira gets up, and they hug.

“Did you bring Leila to me?” whispers Shira.

“She’s here.”

Jennifer stands up at the shock of the name. “What?!” Daisy and Marina gasp.

“Oh boy,” Ada says grimly. “this is gonna get real fun.”

telesphere. A new channel blinks into existence. The chaos Spanner created on the airwaves gives it the margin of freedom it needs to be born. A man with a Bristol accent reveals its existence to the world.

Announcer: Pirate Television KCUF is now on the air.

FBI headquarters. The FBI are swamped enough with mafia- and Nazi-related child porn cases, many of them snuff, that they are tempted to pass the Rebel Styles case by. But Special Agent Joseph Ogden is disturbed enough that he argues the case to Director Radisson. “Men going nuts all over the country, offing themselves, going berserk. Important men, even. And all of ’em have one thing in common, and it’s these Rebel Rebel videos. There’s similar cases in Japan too. I say we need to stop this Rebel Styles before she goes viral and does some real damage.”

The tall blond woman he has just interrupted is Special Agent Diana Shockley. “I agree with Agent Ogden. This does sound urgent.”

Secretary Radisson says in his Australian accent, “You two are the most effective agents we’ve got, so I’m putting you on the case. COPCO operatives will meet you as soon as you get to Seattle.”

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

[Revision 2.1, 6/22/11: Much of the NaNoEdMo ’11 edit of this section was omitted. It is now restored.]
[Revision 3, 9/8/11.]
[Revision 4 Final, 7/2/12. Expanded and fully integrated into Revision 4 continuity. Shira and Leila scenes moved here from Chapters 3 and 4 respectively.]

Spanner Interlude 1: Rocket Ready

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Chaos Angel Spanner
Interlude 1: Rocket Ready

You are dreaming. You watch three crazy beautiful teenage girls prepare to launch a model rocket.

One is copper-haired and bronze-skinned; she wears a Spanner-insignia flight jacket, trendy short black-and-pink-striped tennis dress, black lace-up boots, and black stockings high up her thighs. She is Shira Thomas, and she is directing the operation.

The tallest girl has long blond hair and pale skin. She looks like a supermodel who could rule Pretty City, but she has the brilliant mind of a scientist. She wears pragmatic clothing: faded blue jeans, salmon pink “Science Girls” T-shirt, and old tennis shoes. Over her rimless round glasses, she wears laboratory safety goggles. She is Shira’s cousin and BFF, Jennifer Blair, and this rocket is her creation.

The short girl sports short tousled brown hair and silver-trimmed black schoolgirl sailor fuku. She is cute, Japanese, and genki genki genki. She is an exchange student, and her name is Harumi Tachibana.

The rocket stands erect, ready to launch. Jennifer checks her mission control computer to make sure everything’s A-OK. Harumi slips in behind her. When the genki girl sees the big red button blink temptingly, she gleefully prances over to it and pounds it hard with her fist. When Jennifer sees the rocket start spewing exhaust, she turns around and is shocked to see the interloper.

At the top of her lungs, Harumi yells out, “LAUNCH!”

The mission control computer announces, “LAUNCH SEQUENCE ACTIVATED.”

Jennifer throws her safety goggles to the ground in frustration. “Haru-chan, stop it at once!”

Harumi sticks out her tongue and says “Bleeeeehhh!”

With a mighty thrust and a cloud of exhaust, the rocket launches into the air. It makes several loop-de-loops before it finally decides on a stable course, pointed straight toward you. “TARGET ACQUIRED,” it says. It gets bigger and bigger as it rockets toward you. It reaches its destination and lodges itself in your brain. You are annoyed. You mumble.

The rocket takes up the entire center of your field of vision. Jennifer appears to the left. She inspects the rocket and your head. Then she crosses her arms, looks up at an angle, and says “Mumble.” To the right, Harumi jumps up and down and squeals “Yatta!” Shira enters your field of vision in closeup. She inspects the rocket from the left. Then she inspects your head from the right. She flashes you a mischievous cockeyed grin that tells you that she’s not about to pull the rocket out of your brain. Instead, she digs in her jacket pocket, pulls out a bomb timer, sticks it to the rocket, and starts it ticking.

Jennifer frowns at Shira. Shira grins back at her naughtily. Harumi giggles. Annoyed, you grumble.

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

[Revision 3, 9/13/11: Restored one detail (Shira’s jacket) from the first draft, correcting an in-chapter continuity error; corrected one text error.]
[Revision 4 Final, 7/2/12: Added a few details and corrected others to bring it fully into Revision 4 continuity; corrected one text error.]

Our Cyberpunk World: Punch You Dead with My Electric Gauntlet

2011 Invention Awards: A Crime-Fighting Armored Glove (Popular Science)

You think fascist tech isn't advancing? Soon, the cops, starting in LA, will be wearing their own zap gauntlets. The inventor of the BodyGuard is saying it'll be used for catching crooks. But we cyberpunks know better. It's going to be used when the shit comes down, to electrocute dissidents. At least that's what COPCO, the private police monopoly in Spanner, uses them for.

Now for the Law of Unintended Consequences: soon the crooks will start getting their own zap gloves on the black market, and then the never-ending war between the cops and the gangs will start getting scary...

And no, civilians can't have it. It's being sold to police departments and the Pentagon only. Which is why I call it fascist tech: its intended customers intend to use it against us.

Author's note to himself: the BodyGuard combines 1) stun gun 2) video camera 3) laser pointer 4) armoured gauntlet. Now watch JT take down a gang of steroid-maddened klownz by himself with a souped-up set of these things. And those work gloves Jennifer turns into datagloves? She could just as easily turn them into zap gloves by adding stock stun gun components...

Our Cyberpunk World: Your Very Own Kitty Ears

The article: Augmented Body: Wear Cat Ears Controlled By Brain Waves (Bit Rebels)

And you thought catgirls were some silly Japanese animation thing. Well, think again. Now you too can have your own kitty ears! Just put on a set of Necomimi — which means, of course, "cat ears" in Japanese, and by extension "cat-eared person" — and you can actually be a catgirl. Or catboy, if you're a bishounen.

Oh yes, and the ears move. Now if only Neurowear would put out a model that allows you to move one ear at a time, for that adorable cocked-ear look that all the cutest catgirls get...

Spanner 1.5: The Virus Has Been Spread

The grand finale to Chapter 1, rearranged and condensed from the initial second-draft version from NaNoEdMo 2011, with new material added. These are just the initial aftershocks of last section’s big event. The real chaos is yet to come...

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Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 1: Spanner in the Works
Part 5: The Virus Has Been Spread (Revision 3)

19 august 2014.
“Suppress it!” commands Henry Becket. “No word must get out, period!”

Spanner’s image infects the Eye, imprinting his image onto the unnatural mind of Echelon. Wherever there is thoughtcrime, it will see Spanner. Wherever there is underground resistance, it will see Spanner. Wherever the excesses inherent in Corporatist tyranny drive desperate masses into revolt, in the colonies or in the Homeland itself, it will see Spanner. The last thing it ever sees will be Spanner.

In Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Karl Radisson declares him Public Enemy Number One and thunders the order in his Australian drawl: “Find the masked terrorist who calls himself Spanner! Sniff him out, smoke him out, tear off his mask! Find out who he is, and bring him to me at once, alive or dead! We must burn out this virus before it destroys our sacred Empire!” The official news channels carry the message: “A $25 billion reward is being offered for the capture of this terrorist. Anyone with any information about him is urged to contact the National Police Agency at once. The number is...”

The Pentagon orders all domestic counterterror units, from Delta Force to Dictel’s Strike Division, to hunt and kill the terrorist wherever he manifests himself and in whatever form. Meanwhile, disgruntled conscript soldiers and underpaid mercenaries in the occupation forces abroad and at home adopt Spanner as a shield behind which to conceal their own plots against the Corporatist régime.

In TrumpCity, the Becket brothers oversee the evacuation of all personnel, alive or dead, from Madison Square Garden to secret secure locations that Trump has scattered throughout the city he owns. Richard Becket calls the COPCO field office. Since clone resurrection is a time-consuming process, Agent 42 now stands in for the currently incapacitated Agent 6.

“COPCO Command. This is Agent 42. May I help you, Mr. Chairman?”

“Find any Trump Security video with Spanner in it after he left Madison Square Garden.”

“Sir, we’ve been trying to do that since the incident, but we have no record of him even leaving Madison Square Garden.”

“You aren’t looking hard enough!”

“Or even of him entering. Sir, I believe he’s cloaked.”

“What?”

The hacker underground spreads the media virus to the whole world as fast as the transmission channels can take it. A tribe of phone hackers have found a way to piggyback their signals onto others carried by the communications monopoly AT&T without Ma Bell’s own hypervigilant spybots noticing. They are AT&T’s shadowy longtime nemeses, the Phreaks.

Before the “Spanner Incident” begins to die down, one particular Phreak codenamed Debaser leaves the COPCO lines to take his position among the Mole People beneath the empty city. Sparks forwards the tapped security video to mafia-owned servers in Nigeria, Russia, and Mongolia. From there, guerrilla hackers edit, tweak, and transform the raw footage.

Other Phreaks throughout the vast territories of the American Empire receive, in separate transmissions, a series of bootleg concert videos of DisneyPop SuperStar Minty Fresh and a Sudoku game. The number of possible solutions of a Sudoku puzzle is 6.71 × 1021, which comes out to somewhere around 70 bits binary. DES encryption uses a 56-bit key. The Phreaks use the Sudoku puzzles to decrypt the video and reveal the Spanner footage within the Minty Fresh video. The Spanner video is then posted to clandestine Darknet servers worldwide.

The time: 26 minutes.

The news spreads throughout the worldwide underground in minutes. Soon, the corporate media can no longer ignore it. Defying Dr. Becket’s orders, the networks compete to see who can swarm TrumpCity with news copters first. Hordes of reporters invade Manhattan accompanied by the networks’ own security agents and broadcast their stories to the world:

Fox: Spanner—
Sun: Spanner—
ABCNN: Spanner—
QVCBS: Spanner—
ESPNBC: Spanner—

The story gives the networks their highest news ratings since the coup. People overwhelm the phone system to spread the news. They text, tweet, and email the security video. Spanner is the subject of all conversation, the new obsession of America and the world.

The virus has been spread.

on to the next... →

Back to Chapter 1 index...
Back to Chaos Angel Spanner table of contents...

Copyright © 2011 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

[Revision 2.1, 6/14/11: Text and continuity corrections.]
[Revision 3, 9/8/11: Final version. Two continuity errors corrected.]

Spanner 1.4: Enter the Monkeywrench

The original Chapter 1 written during JulNoWriMo 2010, on July 16, and first posted on November 1, 2010, for NaNoWriMo, now revised to fit the second edition’s new and stronger continuity. Third Revision Update: Nothing further needed to be changed — except for one thing. Instead, the rest of the chapter was largely rewritten to fit its continuity much more strongly with this section.

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 1: Spanner in the Works
Part 4: Enter the Monkeywrench (Revision 3)

19 august 2014.
twilight. From the roof of the abandoned warehouse on the Jersey Shore that serves as his hideout, standing tall in the unceasing heavy rain, the mystery man known as Spanner gazes through the darkening night at the dead lightless towers of the Manhattan skyline. Behind the black trench coat and motorcycle helmet, no one can see his true face. Echelon’s compound eyes stare down from the sky above and stare unblinking in all directions from mounted spycams and swarms of hovering camdrones, but they do not notice him as long as his stolen Dictel Research prototype cloak stays working. Mother Nature herself helps him by blurring the Eye’s vision with hard rain.

He watches the predatory flocks of black helicopters hover over the abandoned city like starving carrion birds. The empty island is completely surrounded by warships like alligators infesting a castle moat. Its Corporate owner, Donald Trump, Incorporated, had bought New York City after the coup and renamed it after himself. Tonight Prince Richard Astor Becket of Dictel, Incorporated, is his guest of honor. The United Corporations chairman evacuated the entire TrumpCity® Administrative Zone merely to initiate one god into the inner circle of the Cartel, a Corporation based on the opposite coast from here. The disastrous evacuation has already begun to backfire: enraged at Chairman Becket’s boundless hubris, his disenfranchised subjects have already started to revolt in every city throughout the American Empire, straining the imperial government’s police and military contractors to the breaking point. Now the sewers and subways that serve as home to the outcast Mole People will prove the perfect hideout for an invisible man.

What is Spanner: man or monster? man or woman? terrorist or hero? a real person, or just a figment of the collective imagination? Whatever, or whoever, he is, no one will be able to forget him after tonight.

Before he came, he heard that during the evacuation of Manhattan a veteran archaeologist disappeared outside the mainstream media’s constricted field of vision. He carried some ancient scrolls he’d stolen during the chaos of the Egyptian revolution back in 2011, and attempted to sell them to a downtown antiquities dealer. He never expected the dealer to double-cross him. He is presumed dead.

The antiquities dealer had no intention of paying for the scrolls. He intended to make a fortune, and no one else was getting a cut. The man he intended to sell the scrolls to was Richard Becket, a collector of ancient Gnostic scriptures known to pay eight figures in euros. He didn’t know till it was almost too late that the Chairman had no intention of paying, either. He took the armoured valise containing the scrolls with him down into the sewer tunnels. By now the Mole People have taken care of him. Spanner’s virtual agent has put a trace on it; he will retrieve it on his way out of New York.

Alex Plus’ head appears without a window on the helmet’s HUD. Her pale and pretty face is ringed by a laminate-spiked platinum halo. “They’re almost ready now. They’ve just established the comlink to San Fran.”

Shira appears next to her, grinning. “Looks like he really is crashin’ the big shindig tonight.”

Next to her, Jennifer winks. “Notice anything about the activity pattern?”

“Anybody with eyes can see Dick Becket’s signature all over the place,” replies Spanner. ”He’s almost too easy to read.”

“Memorized the schedule yet?”

“Chapter and verse. AEGIS?”

The steampunk owl head pops in next to Shira. “Yes?”

“Can you shift Echelon’s attention away from us?”

Shira says, “Hey, let’s pretend there’s terrorists trashin’ Trump property away from the island and nothing’s going on here. Can you do it?”

“I believe I have enough processor power to pull it off,” AEGIS answers.

“Gotcha,” says Spanner. “I’d rather rickroll the bastards, but this is war.”

“Rock ’em for me, monkeywrench,” says Jennifer, “rock ’em hard.”

“Brought out the heavy metal just for tonight.” He picks up the large pipe wrench at the foot of his tricked-out homebrew hoverboard and tosses it spinning high, making sure to catch it on camera so that Alex catches his meaning. He brings the business end of the wrench close to the helmet’s stereoscopic twin cameras: in its mouth, locked tightly in place, is a black device with a blinking LED.

Alex asks, “Plastic explosive?” asks Alex.

“No. Plasma disruptor to break the monitor from inside and turn the bulletproof screen into hot plastic rain.”

Shira laughs. “I don’t think the ghost man’s ego can stand up to that.” She winks.

Together the women say, “Good luck!” All the faces disappear, leaving the view of Manhattan clear.

Spanner grips his wrench like a sword and rests it over his shoulder. His target hides behind the darkness the Archons created among the empty skyscrapers of Midtown. Behind the mirrored faceplate, he smiles. He steps onto his hoverboard and switches on the ignition. A thunderbolt strikes the Empire State Building’s lightning rod to light the way.

earlier... Before Spanner left Seattle, in the basement Alex uses as her war room, she told Shira: “It’s not official yet, but it’s obvious to everybody he’s joining the Cartel.”

Shira cocked her head. “Why him?”

“Why not? That way, he gets an enforceable monopoly on computers, phones, and set-top boxes.”

“So when did you figure this out?”

“When they disappeared Fake Steve.”

Spanner holds the wrench up like a samurai wielding his katana. He thrusts it forward, spins it to form a virtual shield, then sheaths it into the holster hanging from the left side of his belt. This one’s for you, my love. Shielded from view by his cloaking device, he takes off on his hoverboard toward the captive city.

night. Spanner views the scene from the top of a nearby skyscraper as the armoured hordes swarm around Madison Square Garden. They are heavily armed with the latest antipersonnel tech. All of midtown Manhattan has been evacuated and security-locked for the ceremony. One can’t sneak in at ground level. Infiltration has to be from the air, and fast.

The swarm allows only approved stretch Hummers and Strykettes inside. Those militarized armoured limos contain the top executives of entire sectors of the Cartel, particularly the tightly locked telecom sector into which the new initiate is being assimilated. Its legendary chairman isn’t among them. For security reasons (read: to keep Spanner away from him), he’s staying in his executive office at the core of his new spaceship-shaped Arcology in a secret location in the mountains outside the Bay Area and its socialist regulations. Still, despite his physical absence, he remains Spanner’s prime target. He will appear on the giant plasma screen inside. Spanner wants to wipe that arrogant expression off his face in front of the world.

Alex asked, “Why did they pick an urban location? Doesn’t the Cartel hate cities? And why Manhattan, of all places?”

“To show us city people who’s boss,” said Jennifer sourly.

“Part of the Moravec Plan?” Alex sighed in frustration.

Jennifer shrugged. “Who knows? But first, the Moses Plan.”

Inside the arena, one entire side of seats has been removed and replaced with a platform dominated by the giant screen behind it. Seats fill the basketball court and the floor constructed in front of the platform. Each seat contains a man in gray flannel suit and black hood, a Corporate aristocrat masked with the golden double-barred dollar-sign insignia of Corporatism. Fully armoured COPCO agents posted throughout the arena look over them warily. The catwalks above are manned by Delta Force snipers, prepared for the expected terrorist invasion. Outside, Spanner cocks his flaregun.

Shira said, “So what happens if they pull off this Acceptance?”

Alex stared at the screen before her. “The Cartel will finally assimilate the entire Technosphere.”

“Then nothing, but nothing,” lamented Jennifer, “will be able to stop the Moravec Plan.”

Shira stared Jennifer in the eye. “Not unless we stop it.”

The arena lights go down. Spanner fires up his hoverboard.

Alex’s laptop sat in the center of her circular kitchen table. She, Shira, Jennifer, J.T., and the Skeleton Krewe hacker called Deth Pussy sat around it wearing Bluetooth-linked augmented-reality goggles. They all wanted to see the Technosphere from within in case the Cartel defeated Spanner and succeeded in destroying it. Right now a beautiful kaleidoscope of lines and nodes of data surrounded them in the virtual space. Small companies, crowds of independent and team users, and a few huge international corporations holding out from the Cartel and shielding the Technosphere. If Spanner failed, all this would be quickly reduced to perfect stasis, the all-consuming iLogo subjecting it to the totalitarian icelock of Corporatism.

The countdown flashed on their monitors. Time was running out. They broke the link. They would have to plan the operation as fast as possible. The plan needed to be virtually foolproof. But whatever they lacked in rational foresight, Spanner would make up in chaotic action.

Shira said, “We need to do one last thing before we take off.” She went to the guest room at opposite side of the basement, where Krewe cofounder Lya Cassir once slept, and the others followed. She picked up the framed photograph of the beautiful dark face ringed by snow-white hair, flanked by five-year-old Shira and her twin sister Kira, their red hair framing their faces like halos of fire. They stared at it as if this were the last time they would ever meet them. “This one’s for you, teach,” said Shira. “And for you too, Kira.” She kissed the picture.

This was not really about some insanely ambitious Corporate aristocrat at all. Their intention was to send a message to President Goldman Sachs and the Becket brothers. Shira put the photograph back down on the end table. Together, they left the room to go upstairs. Spanner would soon send their message in person.

Spotlights light up the platform. The anthem of the United Corporations begins playing. Spanner switches his cloaking device to full power.

The Skeleton Krewe, a legendary team in the hacker underground, secretly met at a vacant house on the far western edge of Bremerton for a ceremony of their own. Six years ago, Lya and Alex assembled the Krewe in order to stop Dictel Corporation, the world’s largest military conglomerate, from destroying America. This time they were joined by the masked vigilante known only as Spanner, wearing his air-pirate helmet emblazoned with his crossed-wrenches emblem.

First, the libation in honor of their fallen leader. All the hackers and monkeywrenchers held their bottles of Mexican cerveza high. Amplified by the helmet’s speaker, Spanner cried out: “For Lya!” In unison the entire Krewe shouted out the name of their fallen leader: “For Lya!” They poured out the cerveza onto the overgrown grass.

“Now for the sacrifice!” Every Krewe member took out an iPhone and raised it. Jailbroken or otherwise, these iPhones had to be sacrificed to Eris, goddess of discord and strife. All of them were on, for Eris demanded a live sacrifice. The Krewe took their sacrifices to the clearing they made in the center of the backyard, in the middle of which they built a mound of compressed dirt. They embedded the phones into the mound, kicking them into the hard dirt if necessary. They reached for their holsters and pulled out their pistols. These pistols were illegal: they all had oversized magazines and were all silenced so the sacrifice wouldn’t bother the neighbors.

“Ready!” The Krewe surrounded the mound.

“Aim!” They aimed their guns at their intended victims.

“Fire!” They unleashed a hailstorm of bullets. Screens shattered, chips flew, cases bent and distorted spasmodically. The iPhones were quickly destroyed. Soon the guns ran out of bullets and started clicking. The sacrifice was complete.

Spanner raised his pistol. “Hail Eris!”

The Krewe raised their guns in exultation. “All hail Discordia!”

Prince Richard Astor Becket of Dictel, Incorporated, all-powerful President of the World Bank and Chairman of the Board of the United Corporations, walks onto the platform. All the Corporate princes rise. Chairman Becket raises his arms barely above his shoulders (why he can’t raise them higher: war wound). The Corporates raise their hands into a V-for-victory above their heads and emit a collective howl of affirmation as he gestures the sacred Sign of the Dollar.

Discordia’s chosen launches his hoverboard and swoops down toward the service entrance.

Chairman Becket solemnly intones into the microphone, “Brothers! we are gathered here today to celebrate the final changing of the game!” The men in the gray flannel suits rise up and applaud thunderously. At his signal, they cease and sit at once. “Today, on the second anniversary of Capitalism’s triumph over the mooching masses, we possess at last the opportunity to eliminate the final contradiction standing between us and the establishment of a new order!” The Corporates stand up again and add their roars of approval to their thunder.

The guards and workers in the cargo bay are suddenly hit by an unexpected strong gust. One guard says to another, “What was that?” One worker says to the worker next to him, “Was it Superman?” The other answers, “I hope to Jesus America it ain’t!”

“...that nothing shall ever again contradict the eternal truth of Free Enterprise.” Chairman Becket exults: “Soon the Technosphere will be ours!” Once again the Corporates rise in unison, cheer to the limits of their lungs, and thunder their applause loud enough to raise the roof.

Why 2014 is not like “1984”: if the runner from the original Macintosh commercial had tried to destroy the image of Big Brother today, she would have quickly been neutralized by sonic booms from Yoyodyne’s newest Sonic Disruptors. Then power-armoured guards armed with machine guns would have immediately surrounded the fallen runner and blasted her into bite-size bits. Thirty years make all the difference in the world. Then, Steve Jobs fancied himself the liberator. Who would have guessed thirty years ago that he himself would become Big Brother?

Two years ago, such a runner tried to save the life of Barack Obama, last President of the old Union. Lya Cassir failed: no one could have survived inside the blast radius. Along with the President, his Secret Service detail, and several hundred other people, Lya was obliterated. The American Republic was overthrown, the American Empire saved, the tyranny of corporate socialism established under the rule of the Conservative Revolutionary Party, and Goldman Sachs & Co. enthroned as President-for-Life. If Spanner succeeds in his mission, President Goldman Sachs will not get to make its epiphany on the big screen and seal the new initiate into the Synarchy of the Archons.

Chairman Becket looks up at the screen. The spotlights shut off, restoring darkness to the Garden. The screen turns on, the Beatles song “Revolution” begins to play. The assembled Corporates stand up in unison and let out a deafening cheer as their newest initiate appears on the screen. The face, that of the young idealist; the expression on it, the contempt and ruthlessness of the Corporate despot. Steven P. Jobs, Incorporated, looks down on them, the epiphany of a god: his discarnate ego become god, Apple its body; through it he lives. The evidence on the screen tempts Spanner to believe. And the first words the ghost speaks:

Contradiction is truth. The evolution of the free market advances through contradiction and creative destruction...

Back in Seattle, Alex Plus leans forward on her couch and stares at the face on her big widescreen monitor. “There’s something wrong with his reality distortion field. I think it’s consumed him.”

Her partner, Nick Cyphers, replies, “You mean he’s starting to believe his own lies, right?”

“No. Even worse. It’s scrambled his brain completely.”

Behind them, a deep voice booms: “It’s what happens when you walk on the dark side.” Alex and Cyphers turn around to see the long-bearded old master hacker Paul Wellspring enter the living room, cerveza in hand. “When you allow yourself to be seduced by power, your power will devour you and eventually destroy you. This explains Steve Jobs.”

The giant face is visible from the hallway. When Spanner sees it, he fires a battery of foul-smelling smoke bombs out of the hall and into the arena. The Corporates duck and try to cover their noses. Cloaked by cloak and smoke, he whips out his flaregun and fires exploding rounds at the catwalks to knock them down. Delta Force snipers fire wildly at the whirlwind as they fall to the floor. Their team commander, the Navy SEAL, LCDR William Becket, watches in horror. “Spanner?”

His father, the Doctor, watches the scene unfold from the safety of the COPCO field office, protected from the light by wraparound sunglasses. He pounds the table in front of him in rage. “Spanner!”

The last word Agent 6 can manage to squeeze out before the falling debris crushes him is: “Spanner?”

The Chairman stares at the chaos in front of him, watching as a dead man emerges from the swirling cloud of black smoke to threaten another. He thought he had slain the Monkeywrench two years earlier during the coup, and yet here he is, standing before him in mid-air.

The Angel of Chaos himself. In terror and rage, Richard Becket gasps: “Spanner—”

Spanner unsheathes his monkeywrench and holds it high. He spins and spins to build velocity, then throws the wrench directly at the screen above the Chairman. Time slows down: the Chairman tries to run away from the screen, the Corporates below panic and run and trample each other to death, the catwalks crash and bring death and injury to Corporate and counterterrorist alike. The giant face watches impassively, unable to look through the screen at the chaos below or the projectile coming toward him.

And then it hits. Its plasma disruptor hits the giant screen at the exact spot of the apparition’s third eye. The armourplastic-reinforced glass cracks and splinters as the wrench enters its body. The superhot plasma escapes through the cracks in hot flares of light. The screen explodes in a burst of blinding light and splintered glass that shoots into the crowd. And the face of Big Brother vanishes in a supernova that consumes the entire inside of Madison Square Garden.
Taking advantage of the chaos he has created, Spanner vanishes as if he were never there.

“Find that goddamn terrorist! Now!” screams Chairman Becket, his face contorted with rage and burning humiliation. “Put him out of my misery! Kill him!”

The surviving Corporates and counterterrorists are being evacuated. Soon all the hospitals in Manhattan will be overcrowded with them, and they will take priority over everybody else because they are the System. Police and military helicopters, personally commanded by Will Becket under his uncle the Chairman’s direct command, search and scour the city for signs of Spanner. Chairman Becket orders the entire TrumpCity Administrative Zone put under martial-law lockdown and total surveillance, even the outer parts of the city that were not evacuated; but still there is no trace of Spanner.

on to the next... →

Back to Chapter 1 index...
Back to Chaos Angel Spanner table of contents...

Copyright © 2011 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

[Revision 2.1, 6/14/11: Text and continuity corrections. Major corrections in the “seeing the Technosphere” flashback to bring it into the revised continuity.]
[Revision 2.2, 6/23/11: One continuity revision involving Jennifer’s backstory.]
[Revision 3.0, 9/8/11: Same as previous version except for a few text corrections.]
[Revision 3.1, 9/28/11: Corrected one continuity error.]
[Revision 3.2, 10/5/11: Changed the appearance (or apparition) of Steve Jobs after his death today, added soundtrack, plus symbolism of the dashed hopes of the Sixties generation.]
[Revision 3 Final, 10/7/11: Gave the ghost of Steve Jobs a line, contradicting that of the face of Big Brother in the 1984 Macintosh commercial. Changed Richard Becket’s line to match Big Brother’s in the commercial (which FYI is: “Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology — where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests purveying contradictory truths.”). Final version.]

Spanner 1.3: The Lost Cause

Part three of the expanded Chapter 1. This section adapts a scene added to the Script Frenzy 2011 TV script.

Third Revision Update: The second scene, which hardly identified Shira, is now much expanded to include her meeting with several other major protagonists, itself now connected with Shira and Jennifer’s entrances in the revised Part 1 and Part 2, the all-important events of Part 4, and the entire subsequent story. Narrative coherence is a good thing.

The big question this installment asks: whose is the lost cause?

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 1: Spanner in the Works
Part 3: The Lost Cause (Revision 3)

19 august 2014.
Newark ghetto. To Christians, it is the year of Our Lord, 2014. But to the neofeudal Corporate aristocracy that rules the American Empire with an iron fist, it is really the year of Our Ford, 116. To prepare for Revolution Day, one of the high holy days of the American Religion, the Federal Emergency Management Administration contracted the national police corporation COPCO and the giant private military corporation Dictel to forcibly evacuate the New York area for — a business meeting? Since this is a convention of the United Corporations, the cartel of corporate titans that owns America and its empire, the people forced out of their city truly believe this is a disaster on the level of a hurricane or major earthquake, only completely unnatural. Other than the expected die-hards, some of whom were taken by force out of the city, the only ones who refuse to leave are the criminal gangs, the fringe cults, and the terrorist groups.

One terror group, the right-wing Minuteman Defense Alliance, rampages through the shantytowns built on the ruins of Newark’s slums, hoping to find poor people to kill, especially racially incorrect “mudbloods.” Believing they have the support of the ruling Conservative Revolutionary Party, they smash and burn everything they can get find. They are the dregs of the white underclass, some of them ultraviolent prison gangsters with large Satanic crosses (formerly known as swastikas) burnt onto their heads as curses; but they believe they can rise to the level of the Corporates by killing all the people the Law of Social Darwinism says should die.

Suddenly, they find themselves under fire. Militants get shredded by machine-gun rapid fire and blown up by grenades. The survivors scatter and try to run away, only to discover that they’re completely surrounded by militants of another radical faction.

A shadow forms in the smoke. The shape consolidates into that of a man with military bearing. At last, the intimidating figure of Adam Gabriel emerges. In his Colombian accent, he demands: “Surrender now, if you want to live.”

One cursed Minuteman militant raises his AK at Gabriel and screams, “Fuck y—” Gabriel quick-draws his Glock 9mm and shoots him dead.

“Next victim?”

The surviving Minutemen drop their guns and hold their hands up. Gabriel’s men take them away. His wife and comrade Talia Espinoza comes up beside him. “How come we’re mopping up lowlifes?”

“Criminal gangs like Minuteman are where the PMSCs recruit. We take down Minuteman, and COPCO and Dictel will eventually fall. Without COPCO and Dictel, the Corpos are fish in a barrel.”

“But do we have to look like we’re assisting Delta Force while we’re at it?”

“We are the Socialist Revolutionary Organization. We hunt the Blond Beast. Our crusade does not end until we free the people from his power.”

tenement. The place stinks. It smells of poor people. Inside, the Cracker hears all that goes on outside. She suppresses an annoyed sigh. To her, the SRO are little different from the MDA, just another TLA with guns. She has concluded that the SRO exists just to fight the CRP and vice versa. She decides they need to be hacked.

The terrorists outside do not notice the Cracker as she slinks away from her tenement’s window to the tablet computer that provides her room with its only light. A hoverboard leans against the desk. She sits sideways on the chair so Harumi can lean against her and hold her tight from behind. She slips on her homebrew datagloves and flicks one finger at the screen to call up the agent called AEGIS: the Advanced Electronic Global Intelligence System. The interface tiles scatter from the screen, and the steampunkish image of a brass mechanical owl with Harry Potter eyeglasses zooms to take over the screen. “How may I help you, Miss Fantoma?” it asks squeakily.

“Somebody needs to spray some WD-40 on your mandible joints,” Shira says. “Turns out the SRO’s in town to crash the big shindig.”

“Currently they are clearing out the criminal element from the periphery.”

“That’s just a distraction, of course. Their real plan couldn’t be more obvious if they tweeted their plans to every screeching chickenhawk on the lamestream news.”

“So what is your plan?”

She rolls her eyes. “I thought you were the expert system here. Anyway, we use our terrorist friends as cover. Once they suffer their latest Götterdämmerung on national TV, we slip Echelon a mickey. Then Spanner strikes.”

Someone knocks on the front door. “By the way,” says AEGIS, “your cousins are here.” Someone opens it to let them in. There is a commotion as Harumi’s sisters and Shira’s cousins greet each other ecstatically. Shira takes the tablet and Harumi to the kitchen; by the time they get there, Sparks arrives with an order of Chinese food.

Nine chopstick-wielding people sit on five chairs and one stool and hold a meeting in the kitchen, lit only by a small battery-powered lamp, while terrorists and gangsters fight outside for the right to champion their lost causes against the revolutionaries in power. All four Tachibana sisters are here: smart girl Natsumi, tough girl Akimi, girly girl Fuyumi, and weird girl Harumi. Their mother Umi named them after the four seasons and the character of her name (meaning “sea”); their father is Korean-Japanese and lives among the Korean settlers of Fort Lee to the north. Shira sits on Sparks’ lap; Jennifer sits sideways on Connor’s lap; Akimi sits on Alex’ lap facing her so she can give her a sloppy kiss. Harumi sits on the kitchen footstool, looks around the derelict house, and asks in still unsteady English, “Why we have to have meeting here?”

Alex winks at her. “This dump? Darling Haru-chan, this is the best place for a secret meeting.”

Sparks looks at her skeptically. “You mean, we can keep it a secret, even with all those terrorists going at each other outside.”

“All the terrorists are here,” Shira answers, “and they’re all preoccupied with sticking it to the man, while the gangbangers try to bag ’em for money and Tournament points. If anybody from COPCO asks what we’re doing here, we can flash ’em our cards and tell ’em we’re here to bag some terrorists. We’ve got it all covered.”

Alex says, “We’re assuming the terrorists have been planning their preemptive counterstrikes since the big shindig was first quietly announced and the foreign moles told ’em.”

“Knowing how their factions work and how predictable they are,” Jennifer adds, “I’ve got a very good idea of what their plans are.”

“Let me guess,” says Natsumi, “the SRO will take the subways, the neo-Nazis will take the freeways, the ERF will take the sewers, Al-Qaeda in America will disguise themselves as private security guards, and the anarcho-terrorist groups will just barge in throwing bombs.”

“In other words, the usual. By the way, are your girls seducing that adorable cousin of yours yet?” Jennifer winks.

Akimi huffs, “Would we not seduce our sweet Sei-chan?”

“He’s way too cute to resist,” Natsumi adds with a wink of her own. “By the way, Shira, will that sexy reporter you like be there?”

Sparks facepalms and groans. Shira replies, “Nah, this is a private party, and the news ain’t invited.”

“Neither are we.”

“But we’re crashing it anyway.” Shira gives Natsumi a mischievous wink.

“So what’s our plan?” asks Sparks.

“First we let the terrorists destroy themselves as expected. The Corps will predictably get overconfident and show us their weak points. Then we give ’em what they least expect.”

“Talia’s Colombian boyfriend was foolish enough to tell us the entire SRO plan,” Jennifer adds. She checks her wristwatch. “They should be making their move right about — now.”

COPCO field office. “A terrorist strike force is coming our way,” proclaims the Terrorism Fuhrer to his brother, United Corporations chairman Richard Becket. “We have already predicted their every move. Delta Force is in perfect position to intercept and destroy them.”

“Did your precogs envision this beforehand, brother?” asks the Chairman skeptically.

“We did not even need the precogs. I analyzed the SRO mathematically. They operate on a series of simple set patterns. We are using these patterns to bring them to us—”

“—and lure them into our trap. How clever.”

“We had no need for cleverness, either. Like I said, they operate on fixed patterns.”

“So now we know they pose little or no threat. But what about this...anomaly your precogs have been seeing? This chaos?”

“It’s the signature of someone who follows no discernable patterns at all.”

“Or random ones. Do you think, Harry, that your people can prepare themselves against a man who operates strictly by whim?“ Henry Becket stares at his brother grimly, saying nothing. “You know you must prepare, whatever the cost.”

subway. The stolen COPCO security aircars move swiftly through the PATH tunnel. Their best fighters, Rodor and Michalski, take the front; the most vigilant, Gabriel and Espinoza, take the rear. The Amazons, Mike “the Dyke” Blaney and Miho Saionji, follow behind the front; Lynch and Persson fly second from the rear. In the middle is their commander, Bram Rodchenko. Personnel carriers flank the commanders’ vehicles. Together, the SRO expeditionary force numbers forty. All of them are dressed in COPCO SWAT gear.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” says Talia.

Adam replies, “Don’t worry about it. We have the advantage of speed and deception. The COPCO forces will not realize until it’s too late that their comrades are not their comrades. We will win.”

COPCO field office. “Zoom in,” says Henry Becket. The map on the wall screen zooms in to focus on the PATH tunnel and follow a group of blips travelling at high speed through it. “This is Adam Gabriel’s technique: steal the face of your enemies until you are among them, and then launch a surprise attack. I myself used that tactic against the Communist invaders in Afghanistan. As I said, they are completely transparent.”

“They’re moving awful fast,’ Agent 6 comments.

“This does not matter. Their single route is a bottleneck. We have sent a detachment of Dictel forces to intercept them before they reach the World Trade Center station. The terrorists have already lost.”

subway. “Up ahead!” shouts Rodor.

“Incoming!” adds Michalski.

“Fire!” commands Rodchenko. Missiles fire from air vehicles and hand-held grenade launchers at the Dictel mercenaries up ahead. The militants take out their rifles and spray cover fire at the enemy.

But the missiles explode before they reach their target. The mercenaries retaliate with a solid wave of sound. High-powered sound blasters shatter glass, torture eardrums, send the militants twitching and screaming in unbearable pain; they lose control of their vehicles, which spin in mid-air and bounce off the sides until they fly out of control and crash. Five air cars and six transports slam against a solid wall of sound.

COPCO field office. Talia was injured in the crash, but still her captors tie her naked to a restraining frame. A sound cannon blasts her, torturing every nerve, making her scream and convulse for what seems to her an eternity. As suddenly as it began, the torture stops, and she can hear.

The grim, implacable face of Henry Becket stares at her through his thick dark glasses. He barks, “Now where is Spanner and what are his plans?”

Talia laughs. “I bet he just gave us to you as a Revolution Day gift, all gift-wrapped and everything.”

“Tell me — now!”

Her laugh subsides into a chuckle. “You know where Spanner is. He’s always where you least expect. And his plan’s to do what you least expect him to do. He disrupts. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be Spanner.”

Dr Becket growls and suppresses the urge to tear the woman’s head off. He turns around and commands, “A long period of solitary confinement should be sufficient time to meditate upon the error of your ways and to repent of your sins. Take her away.”

His men stare at him until he leaves through the open door. Then they turn off the sound cannon and untie the weakened woman from her restraint.

Suddenly, loud klaxons sound and the lights go red. The building AI’s female voice repeats, “Warning. Cyber defenses breached.”

“I assume this must be our Spanner,” says Agent 6.

Dr Becket punches all the way through the wall. “Damn!”

on to the next... →

Back to Chapter 1 index...
Back to Chaos Angel Spanner table of contents...

Copyright © 2011 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

[Revision 3.0, 9/8/11: Scene 2 expanded to incorporate new “kitchen meeting” scene, introduce new characters not introduced before, and continue the expanded continuity from Parts 1 and 2 into the main events of Parts 4 and 5. Corrected text errors.]
[Revision 3.1, 9/28/11: Corrected text errors.]
[Revision 3 Final, 10/5/11: Added new two-sentence opening to scene 2, edited third sentence. Final version.]

Spanner 1.2: Mathematics of Chaos

The second part of the expanded version of Spanner Chapter 1. The first section is unchanged; the third and final section is modified to fit the new continuity. The middle section is new.

Third Revision Update: Shira’s video is now at the beginning of the chapter where it belongs. Scene two, which used to be just a largely expository dialogue, is now a real scene with a plot and serious later consequences. It now fits perfectly into the chapter’s plot, and subsequent events are now more understandable.

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 1: Spanner in the Works
Part 2: Mathematics of Chaos (Revision 3)

ESPNBC News. Amanda Currie reporting. Very attractive, some say cute; her hair bleached blond because all Conservative beauties are blond by definition. Some are Resculpted into nondescript prettiness; she is a natural beauty. You want her.

“Breaking news just in: The Honorable Senator George C. Ryder has just been martyred by terrorists. America’s heroic Special Forces are scouring the area for the devil-worshipping liberal humanist traitors who snatched him away from service to Our Nation. Several hundred terrorist organizations from all over the world have called in to gloat over the heinous atrocity. Senator Ryder is now home in Jesus America for all eternity. America Is God!

“In other news, the Church of America is sending a team of exorcists to New Jersey to bind and banish the Jersey Devil after several scary, scary encounters...”

19 august 2014.
interrogation room. “I was only doing my sacred duty as a Patriot,” Oliver Thorwald says smugly to the tall blond man across the table. The blue-camouflaged soldier sporting a military-police armband is Thorwald’s onetime commander, Lieutenant Commander William Jay Becket. Even as tall and intimidating as he is, he looks too much the Aryan beauty to be a Navy SEAL. But Will Becket is a Hero of the Nation awarded both a Gold Star and a Congressional Medal of Honor for slaying Osama bin Laden. The Evil One had to be buried at sea because Will Becket drank his blood and ate his brains and heart.

For Will Becket is a hereditary vampire. Vampires make the ideal super soldiers.

His cold blue eyes fix his prey. He smiles ironically. His accent: Boston Brahmin, carefully cultivated. “Your insistence on extracurricular... fun under my command so compromised our last SOG op in Siberia that not only does the CIA deny your existence, but the Army was forced to discharge you... dishonorably. I believe the problem is your Corporate sense of... entitlement.”

Thorwald squirms. Becket’s odd speech mannerisms affect the rangy young killer like fingernails on a blackboard, and Becket knows it. Thorwald chuckles. “You mean those worthless lowlifes? Your aunt the Good Witch told me herself, ‘Do your duty, then do your will.’”

Becket twists the knife deeper. “I mean those... cops.”

“Those rent-a-cops shouldn’t have gotten between me and that baby-rapin’ filth.”

“And... a United States Marshal.”

“U.S. Marshal, hmm? Those government parasites shoulda had the sense to butt out of internal Party affairs and let us purge our corruption.”

“I happen to be one of those... nosy government parasites, Lieutenant.”

“As long as I remain a hero in the eyes of Jesus America, there ain’t nothing you can do to stop me.

“But are you the greater hero? Hmm?”

Thorwald’s glib mask disappears. He leans forward threateningly. “Well then, G-boy. Fuck with me, you fuckin’ leech, you fuck with Jesus America. I guess I’ll have to have my fun at the expense of your pretty little wife.”

Becket does not lose his ironic smile nor his unblinking stare. With unperturbed calm he fires back, “You forget... she’s my conscience. Take away my conscience, and I shall tear you limb from limb without the slightest shred of... remorse.” He smiles sweetly in triumph.

The killer slinks back into his seat and shudders, disturbed by the sight of this beautiful smiling monster, terrified that Will Becket will haunt him all the way to his grave.

In the next room, a grinning Johnson tells his interrogator, “I love kids. They make great snacks.”

airplane. The way too cute face of Harumi Tachibana hijacks the non-brand smartphone’s screen. She waves her hand. “Hi, Jen-chan!” she sings.

Shira hugs her from behind. The bespectacled blond beauty on the receiving end of the call lets out a massive sigh of relief. “I love me some Haru-chan, but cute as she is, she can be a bit of a nuisance.” She shoves Harumi out of the way.

“Hey!” protests Harumi.

Jennifer Blair, teenage scientist with an English accent she got growing up in Victoria, is Shira’s cousin. They have been deeply in love since the age of four. “The important thing is, she’s smart. I’m keeping her. So what’s the news, cuz?”

“No news. All officially denied. They hire a couple hitmen fresh from the Siberian front, send ’em after a compromised Party hack, say it’s over some child sex slave, proclaim the victim a martyr. The Party have perfect deniability, the slashers get off scot-free, and the Wicked Witch has clean hands. Very clever. Has the Rat Bastard’s signature all over it.”

Jennifer gives Shira one of her sudden serious looks. “It’s not about deniability.”

Shira looks at her funny. “Tell me you can’t see the obvious when it’s hitting you over the head.”

“What does the serial killer represent to the [clears throat; air quotes] ‘Real American’?”

“What’s this got to do with—”

The ideal sovereign Ego, complete in itself, perfect in will, unfeminized by any trace of mushy human sentiment. Forget deniability, Shira. This is hero worship.”

“Johnny-Johnny was trying to eat that poor little girl—”

“Precisely why Ayn Rand so adored William Hickman.” Jennifer smiles sweetly.

Stunned, Shira says nothing.

“I love you to pieces, Shira, but never forget for a microsecond what final girls think of serial-killer groupies.”

“Like the entire Conservative Revolutionary Party.”

“Exactly.” Jennifer winks. “By the way, your big sister Talia’s on our flight. In fact, she’s sitting right next to me.” She points her phone camera at the young dark-skinned beauty with stawberry-blond hair in the airliner’s next seat: Talia Espinoza, strike agent of the Socialist Revolutionary Organization.

Shira lets her eyes and mouth go wide and takes an audible deep breath. “Oh hi Tal! I just happen to be headed your way.” She flashes Talia a huge sweet smile.

The man sitting next to Talia grabs Jennifer’s phone, “We’re on a mission, Shira. Don’t interfere.” He is Adam Gabriel, Talia’s husband and comrade, a former right-wing Colombian terrorist whose love for Talia turned him left-wing.

“I have no intention of getting in your way, or letting you get in mine, so no worry.” Shira winks.

No one on the plane dares say even a word. The dead air marshals at the feet of the men hiding their faces with red bandannas and wielding AK-47s are example enough.

Jennifer says to Shira, “Tell ’em about the little thing you pulled on a certain pair of assassins back in D.C.”

“They tried to eat a little girl, so of course I beat ’em up.” Shira winks. “I love you, Jen.”

“We’ll meet at the appointed time. Make sure to bring me my Haru-chan! Love ya.” She blows Shira a kiss, Shira blows her a kiss back (Harumi winks and giggles cutely), and both switch off.

A woman slightly older than Talia with short spiked blond hair slips into the seat behind Jennifer and leans forward to put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m amazed at how you and Shira manage to keep the moral pit bulls at bay,” says Alex de Lacey, Jennifer’s half-sister fifteen years her senior, known to the underground as Alex Plus: New Rave DJ, clandestine hacker, and underground legend. She is supposed to be in San Francisco tonight. The plane speeds toward New York, now privately owned under the name TrumpCity®. She finishes off her last slice of pizza.

“We don’t. We just deflect ’em. They have a clue about us, but they can’t do a damn thing about it unless we let ’em. They don’t realize what a good thing love is.”

Gabriel growls, “You people must be into that West Coast Free Love subculture thing.”

“Our family helped create it. Our Jewish great-grandparents even brought it over from Germany with the Gestapo and Ahnenerbe hot on their tail.”

“It won’t help you in TrumpCity®.”

“And it doesn’t matter. We’re practical people. We do what’s necessary to get the job done.”

“And what job would that be?”

“If you had my pattern vision,” Jennifer explains, “you’d see the traditional Rugged Individualist as something like a cross between a porcupine and a skunk, with some packrat to taste. Add some scorpion, rabid pit bull, and great white shark, and you get the perfect egos of the slashers the Corporates squee so hysterically over. Add King Ghidrah, the Blob, and a bit of Cthulhu, and you get Jesus America. Not a pretty sight, to say the least.”

“What do giant monsters have to do with Corporate egos?” asks Talia, frustrated again by Jennifer’s strange metaphors.

Jennifer rolls her eyes. “Obviously you don’t understand the Corporate cult of Egoism. It’s not actually about one’s actual psychological ego. It’s about publicity.”

Talia sighs and crosses her arms. “You defeat me again, Jennifer. Explain.”

“You know what Shira and I learned from the Rat Bastard? The seat of the soul is not the body, but one’s public image. The bigger and stronger your public image, and the more control you have over it, the higher you can rise in the social hierarchy. Any Corporate can routinely get away with murder, and a celebrity can commit even the worst sexcrimes with few if any consequences. Own your public image, and you have legal personhood whether you’re human, corporation, robot, or alien. But if you don’t, whoever owns your image owns you. Even worse, if you’re one of the ‘little people’ with no public image, you’re not a person at all.”

“That’s why we have to take back the people’s voice. Because they’re no longer able to claim it for themselves.”

“Yes, they can. They just don’t know it yet. The victims still think they’re victims. When they find out what they really are, they’ll withdraw their victims’ sanction and stop feeding the parasites, and then the System will collapse under its own weight.”

“It’s not our job to bring it down,” Alex adds. “It’s already coming down. That’s why the Party are so desperate. All we have to do is convince the caryatids to stop holding it up. By the way, Jen, what’s the lamestream propaganda media denying this time?”

Jennifer grins mischievously. “You heard about the non-killers Shira didn’t catch, who didn’t assassinate that non-pedophile Senator about an hour or so ago?”

Alex rolls her eyes. “Who hasn’t.”

“In other non-news, did you know that FEMA did not evacuate New York, I mean TrumpCity?”

“Oh yes, I heard they didn’t.”

“Other than those allegedly non-bloody non-crackdowns on anything resembling dissent, which like homosexuality officially by definition doesn’t exist, or those doomsday devices they’re obviously not working on, they allegedly aren’t initiating a new member into the Cartel. Of course, they’re saying nothing about who they’re allegedly not initiating, so it must be so important they aren’t even denying it. The patterns so leapt out at me, I compiled them into a database in almost no time.”

The airliner hits sudden turbulence. The voice of the SRO man in the cockpit says, “We’ve encountered sudden resistance. We might not make it to Newark.”

Jennifer slides out her phone’s keyboard. “I’ll take care of that.” She starts an xterm window and runs a program from the command line. Outside the window, the drones harassing the plane start shooting each other down. The turbulence ends; the plane begins its approach to a smooth landing. She closes and pockets her phone, then gives Talia a sweet smile of triumph.

Talia asks Gabriel, “What should we do with the hostages?”

“Leave ’em,” Jennifer answers sharply. “Let ’em go.”

Gabriel waves his finger in her face. “Who made you—”

Jennifer grabs his finger. “If you don’t let these people go unharmed, the next set of passengers you hijack won’t forget. They like living, so they won’t let you live.” She smiles sweetly.

“Okay. Have it your way.” To his comrades he commands: “When we land, get off immediately and leave the passengers and crew alone. I repeat, leave them alone.”

At the airport, Gabriel orders the pilots to fly back to Philadelphia. The SRO load up a van and squeal away; Alex steals a rental Beetle and drives it toward Jersey City. “By the way, how’s our little operation going?”

“You want the Vegas spread?”

“Hit me.”

Jennifer winks. “Odds are, the bastards won’t know what hit ’em.”

Jennifer Blair
see between the lines

dreamspace. The vision starts unambiguously, almost clearly: the meeting, the assembled Corporates in the arena, the figure of United Corporations Chairman Richard Becket on the platform beneath the huge screen to the thunderous unified applause of his people, preparing to welcome one of their own into the ranks of the Chosen. This man is greater than most of the Corporate aristocrats in the arena for the ceremony of Acceptance, for all Corporates know that he is no mere man: his true body is a Corporation, the first of the tech companies to join the Cartel. He shall be called...

But then the vision dissolves into chaos. Men die and live and die again. The arena is destroyed and reassembles into bizarre expressionist antiforms. Angels and demons cut each other to ribbons overhead. A shoggoth attacks one of the dreamers, and she screams. Suddenly the shattered vision goes black—

COPCO New York field office. The alarm klaxon screams; the monitor room goes red. Doctor 56 cries out into his microphone, onto the PA: “Emergency! Precog 18C has gone mad! I repeat! Precog 18C has gone mad!” Two white-clad interns drag the screaming, writhing Precog 18C, a gaunt middle-aged woman, out of the lab and past the security monitors. The Psychic Lab erupts into chaos.

Doctor 42 slips in behind Doctor 56. Doctor 42 (civilian name: Edgar Bryce) is the head of the Psychic Detection Lab owned by COPCO’s Crime Prevention Division. Under his breath he quietly emits the un-Scientistic epithet: “Damn...” To the Doctors watching the security monitors in front of him: “Untank all the precogs! We can’t lose any more of them! Hurry!” He runs out of the monitor room into the Deputy Director’s office, making sure to close the door tight. He lets his eyes adjust to the darkness so he can avoid tripping over the chess pieces and table fragments scattered across the floor.

The Division’s founding Director himself, Dr C. Henry Becket, Incorporated, sits grimly behind the division president’s huge desk. The office is dark because a war wound he suffered in Vietnam ruined his eyesight and made him painfully light-sensitive. He is the Conservative Revolutionary Party’s Terrorism Fuhrer now, and he insists on personally commanding this specific Crime Prevention operation. He only does this if he judges it crucial. This Acceptance ceremony is too important for him to leave it to anyone else, for it promises to shift the balance of power massively toward the Cartel. Even in near total darkness, Director Becket is as huge and intimidating as the super soldier he once was. Dr Bryce trembles in the presence of a man so dangerous.

“She was hunting them,” says the Director.

“W-what?”

“She did not bother to hide herself form us. In a Tracker, that is a sign of perfect confidence — or suicidal arrogance.”

“Uh... sir?”

“In any case, my darling sister Drusilla got her desire, that mudblood changeling of hers had her will, and we have one less potential spy for the Chinese to use against us. What do you want, Doctor 42?”

“About the precogs...”

“You lost another. This is not good.”

“You are right, sir.”

“They are not public men. They are nothing to us.”

“Indeed, sir.”

“Even so, they are useful tools to us, so they must be maintained in good working order.”

“Yes, sir. That is why we fear the coming of this angel of chaos.”

Dr Becket raises his gaze to stare directly at Dr Bryce. The light reflects off his thick glasses. “Terrorists, like serial killers, have a signature, a fixed set of patterns,“ says Dr Becket darkly. “We have analyzed them with such mathematical precision that our computers are now able to predict all their moves in advance. But confronted with these persistent anomalies, we are helpless to understand them even with the mathematics of chaos. You know what this means, do you not, Doctor 42?”

Bryce trembles. “Yes.” He takes a deep breath to regain his courage. “Chaos is coming.” Even his fear of the Terrorism Fuhrer cannot mask his terror of Chaos.

“He is coming.”

“Spanner?”

Dr Becket picks up his com receiver. To the security chief he hand-picked for this operation, he barks: “Double the guard! No, triple it!”

Agent 6 (civilian name: classified) cannot disguise his alarm. “You can’t be serious, Chief. He isn’t coming. Isn’t he?”

“He is,” says the Director grimly. “You have no choice but to stop him. He’ll ruin everything.”

“Yes sir!” The signal disconnects.

To Dr Bryce, the terror fuhrer warns, “Never forget, Doctor 42, that we are sacrificing our freedom to fight for the sacred freedom of Our Nation, which alone is the Light of the world. You do not want the Light snuffed out by a demon, now do you?”

“No, sir! Perish the thought.”

“You are a man of great faith. Dis-missed!”

Bryce salutes. “Yes sir!” He runs out the door and closes it.

Dr Becket sits silently at his huge desk for a seemingly endless moment, trying to assimilate the fact that the dreaded Angel of Chaos has targetted this particular event.

“Spanner,” he finally says. Then, in an un-Corporate moment of uncontrol, he slams his mighty fist down on the desk. “Damn!”

C. Henry Becket, m.d.
fight the future

on to the next... →

Back to Chapter 1 index...
Back to Chaos Angel Spanner table of contents...

Copyright © 2011 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.

[Revision 2.1, 6/14/11: Text corrections.]
[Revision 3, 9/4/11: Final version. Major revisions in the middle section. Setting changed, plot added, and next section’s major players introduced. New video introduction added, introducing another major character. Original Shira video moved to the beginning of Part 1.1, as in the first draft, where it belongs. Character taglines added for Jennifer and Dr Becket (his is one of the originals from 1994, along with Shira’s and Leila’s in Part 1.1). Major continuity corrections and some text corrections.]
[Revision 3.1, 9/28/11: Publication version. Corrected dialogue and text errors.]