Spanner's World

Spanner Editing Update: Chapter 1 R4 Done, Back To Chapter 11 R3

2012-01-22T21:49:00.000-08:00

After stopping Book 2, the first thing I did was to copy the entire 250,000+ word Book 1 into yWriter5. The second thing was to start editing Chapter 1. That's right: I started Revision 4 even though I'm still less than half finished with Revision 3, which only goes up to Chapter 11. But there was a reason for that: I wanted the best opening possible for Spanner, and I spent nearly a month just on the opening. Together with the Intro (to which I added two sentences providing a clue to the pilot's identity) and Interlude 1 (still unchanged), Chapter 1 represents the pilot episode of the hypothetical TV series I'm novelizing. Now that I feel the "pilot" is as solid as I can make it, I can go back to Revision 3 and the Shira/Leila relationship line in Part 2 (Chapters 9-15).

Here's the problem I'm about to work on: how do Shira and Leila escalate the passion of their love, and how does it connect with the political disaster in Chapter 15? Part 1 leads up to the point at which they establish their relationship. In Part 2, they defy the entire political order (which, in Cascadia, is led by Leila's grandfather Governor Brinkman, who, being the Corporate overlord he is, thinks he owns her) in order to love each other, and it should end up enraging Brinkman into decreeing the takeover of Seattle that turns catastrophic for the Conservative Revolutionary regime. The Shira/Leila relationship line is the heart of Part 2, but in the current Revision 2 it's incomplete.

Of course, I'll be taking my time with this, since right now I'm preparing to take part in the 2012 edition of February Album Writing Month. If I can complete Spanner's relationship line (and therefore Revision 3) up to Chapter 15 before National Novel Editing Month starts in March, then good. Otherwise, it'll be my first order of business when NaNoEdMo begins.

So far, every new draft improves the story greatly. The improvements shall continue apace...

Spanner Book 2 Suspended: Book 1 Demands Edited, Hijacked Muse

2011-12-31T18:05:00.001-08:00

If you’ll notice, I haven’t been posting new installments of Spanner Book 2 lately. The reason is that my muse can’t multitask. Book 1 so demands to be edited that it even hijacked my muse. Thus my “SpaNoWriYe” – the year and a half during which I was completely obsessed with writing Spanner – is now over, and my latest futile attempt to win NaNoFiMo along with it.

One idea changed everything. While I was still trying to write Chapter 27, I procrastinated by playing Persona 3 on my PlayStation 2. It uses something called “Social Links” as a game mechanic. The strength of your connections with other characters in the game increases the power of your “Personas” during the dungeon battles. Suddenly, during one game session, it suddenly hit me that social links were the idea I omitted from Spanner Book 1. Without social links, the Student Union plotline and the protest and revolution sequences and story arcs are conventionalized and sentimentalized to the point of meaninglessness, and the inevitable failure of individual terrorism to cause meaningful social change except in a reactionary direction cannot be understood. “Substitutionism” is the belief, underlying government and terrorism alike, that command and control hierarchies can do what is possible only through social links among equals. Sociopaths, technocrats, fanatics, and Corporates are incapable of forming social links; conversely, when enough people are idealistic enough to build large enough social links, they can bring down tyrants, as demonstrated in Tunisia and Egypt early in 2011.

Once this idea popped into my head, Book 2 became unwriteable, because Book 1 remains incomplete without it. So now I find myself working on the Fourth Revision of Book 1, starting with the Intro and the first eight chapters. My plan for ebook publication involves releasing Book 1 in three parts, each one the equivalent of a Japanese “light novel”.

And now “SpaNoEdYe” – my year of editing Spanner – begins tonight.

Spanner 26.4: Send in the Klownz

2011-12-16T17:00:00.000-08:00

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 26: Youthcrime
Part 4: Send in the Klownz

13 november 2014.
Shira’s apartment. Shira calls Jennifer on the phone. “Goin’ badside. Somebody there I gotta meet. Wanna come?”

“Come? No bloody way I’m letting you out of my sight!”

“Better knuck up, then. There might just be a wee bit of trouble comin’ our way.”

“I’ll take the blue kit today. Don’t wanna mess up the yellows, after all.”

“Me, I’m stylin’.”

“So who’s taking us?”

“Remember those gorgeous twins we met at the Bangor Jail? They got just what we need.”

over Puget Sound. Jennifer: blue sailor fuku, letter jacket. Leila: black uniform from an unknown school, black tights, black ninja boots, black leather jacket. Shira: tie-dyed dress shirt, pleated tartan skirt, striped absolute-terror stockings, black stomp boots, flight jacket with Spanner-tag insignia emblazoned on the back. Ace Harding flies the aircar. “You’re goin’ badside?”

“Yep,” says Shira. “Someone we wanna talk to, and we gotta go through Bludz and Predatorz turf to reach ’em.”

“We’ll get you close,” says Deuce, “but we can’t join you.”

“No prob. Better you stay safe. This kind of danger’s our specialty.”

“Who knows,” Leila adds, “we might cash in a few Slashers.”

“If you say so.”

South Seattle. When a city neighbourhood becomes sufficiently dense, there’s enough people on the streets, or looking down onto them, that it becomes far too risky for any gang to hold. Above a certain critical mass, the city polices itself. But neighbourhoods the density of a small town or a suburb are unsustainable in a large city filled with strangers. They become slums. The worst slums become what Cascadians call “badside.”

Some true urban districts are forming in Seattle’s southeast quadrant, known as South Seattle. Most of them are concentrated around the light rail stations. But most of the quadrant remains suburban. Downtown is Styler country. But badside, the War Tribes rule.

The Harding twins drop the girls off near the Beacon Hill station, close enough to downtown to be fashionable and safely away from the slum districts. As the aircar takes off toward Bremerton, the girls enter the station, descend the elevator to the platform nearly fifty meters below, and buy their tickets. On the train, Shira spots Lefty Lucy sitting alone; she sits next to her and has Jennifer and Leila take the opposite seat. “Well, well, well.”

“Yo, babe, what’s stylin’?” She kisses Shira on the lips.

“You two know each other?” asks Jennifer.

Shira winks at Jennifer. “Style Planet’s a small world. Lefty Lucy, this is my cousin Jennifer Blair.”

“As in the girl from Blake Island? Sweet! Say, what’s it like bein’ the Loca Fantoma’s cousin?”

“It has its perks.” Jennifer winks.

A young man dressed up for courier work pokes his head over the seat. “‘Loca Fantoma’?”

“Oh hi Tad,” says Shira. To Lucy: “Fellow courier back in Bremerton.” To Tad: “Remember the day I first brought my hoverboard? Those two Spic slashers that tried to rob the place? I dared ’em to beat me up? You didn’t see me either. I did mad damage every hit, while all they were punching was air. Anticristo officially dubbed me ‘una fantoma loca.’ I thought that would make a way stylin’ handle, so I’ve been ‘Loca Fantoma’ to the underground ever since.”

“Oh,” says Tad. “Never figured anything like that.”

“Oh, you were too busy trying to get above water to notice.”

Lucy shoots Tad a jealous look. He backs down and returns to his seat. She says to Shira, “So you girls still stuck in Bummertown?”

“Well, you might have heard there’s been trouble going down there lately.”

“Knowin’ you, Shira, I bet you be causin’ trouble right in the middle of all that.”

“Only for the troublemakers. They deserve it.”

“Speakin’ o’ trouble, if you girls goin’ badside, better watch out for Klownz runnin’ loose.”

Shira holds up her fighting-gloved left fist. “Trouble finds us, we’re ready.”

Shira, Leila, and Jennifer get up and grab straps as the train approaches Rainier Beach Station. Lefty Lucy (standing half a foot shorter) grabs Shira and plants a hot kiss on her lips. Jennifer can see Shira visibly blush. She looks back to see Tad blushing even more furiously. When Lucy gets done with Shira, she sees Jennifer silently ask for a kiss of her own. Lucy grins, puts her arms around her, and kisses her too. She turns back to Shira and says, “Your cousin’s a real good kisser.”

“She better be. I’ve been doing her for eleven years.” Shira winks.

As they leave, Lucy calls out the streetcar door, “Hey, don’t get your girlfriends in trouble!”

“You mean the klownz better not get in trouble with us. See ya!”

“Holla back!”

Once the train departs, the girls discuss strategy. Shira says, “I’m familiar enough with this area to say, once we leave the station area, it’s all jungle, so we better prepare to fight.”

Jennifer straps her kubotan to her wrist beneath the coat sleeve so she can slip it out at short notice. “I’m ready.”

Leila has hers holstered to her belt. “Same here.”

Shira pats her yo-yo pouch. “Let’s go.”

On cold late-autumn nights when the sun goes down early, badside streets get eerily deserted. “Nobody here,” Leila observes. “Is this a bad sign?”

“Damn right it is. Too dangerous for civilians.”

Jennifer smiles sideways at Shira. “You know I’m really here to keep trouble off your back, girlfriend.”

Shira winks back. “If trouble’s looking for me, cuz, it’s in for a big surprise, whether you two are here to reinforce me or not.”

Suddenly they are surrounded by a gang of big men and their girl toys in fetishistic leather and spikes. Leila rolls her eyes. “Oh brother.”

Shira smirks. “Well, well, well. Speak of the devil.”

They are the Predatorz. With a “z”. Once they considered themselves Juggalos, part of Insane Clown Posse fandom, a subculture with special appeal to those suburban youth who have always hated middle-class blandness and overcompensate for it with feral wildness. But quickly it attracted bullyboys who formed street gangs that gave it such a bad name that the subculture expelled them even before the coup: the infamous Klownz. The Predatorz are the oldest of the Klown gangs in Seattle, eternally warring with the other gangs of Badside, crusading alongside them against the “fag” city.

They murder. They rape. They’ll even do it for a price, the bigger the better. For they are the Predatorz.

With a “z”.

The Predatorz still speak “gangsta” (Shira says “wanksta”), betraying the ICP origins of the Klown underground. They still paint their faces, though now they prefer the black metal fashion of corpse paint along with their Mad Max fetish gear. They named themselves after evil Hollywood space aliens, so Shira likes to make illegal-alien jokes at their expense. The Stylers reserve their greatest contempt for the kinds of “B4dd d00dZ” who think violent machismo is the essence of cool.

She flashes devil horns at the biggest of the Predatorz. He is Bob Zilla (or Bobbzilla), their leader, whose rep among the Klownz is heavy, but not heavy enough for the Loca Fantoma. He’s currently out of jail on bail while he awaits trial for the murder of a mentally ill homeless man whom Shira had befriended. “Yo Boobzilla! Wuzzuuuuup!”

“Aw fawwwwk! What the fuck you doin’ here, Loca fuckin’ Fantoma?!”

“Oh, I was just doin’ my biz when all y’all decided to go all baka wanksta on me and get in my way. So get out of it.”

Bobbzilla cries out to his crew, “Yo dawgz, scope the smokin’ hot babesicles my hoe Loca Fantoma done brung us!” To Shira: “I mad pimpin’ now!”

Shira holds out her right arm to stop Leila. She looks at her and sees a murderous look on her face. She pulls her into her arms, kisses her lustfully on the lips, smirks sideways at Bobbzilla, and mocks, “Leila Shelley’s my smokin’ hot babesicle, if you wanna know. But she’ll play with you if you want. Just don’t expect to survive. Oh, and the blonde? Remember Blake Island?” She winks evilly.

Several Klownz gasp in fear; some of their molls flee screaming. But Bobbzilla remains unmoved. “You bitches be rapin’ our turf—”

“I’m sure Gub’nor Wally and his COPCO mercenaries are all pleased to know that.” Shira points at Bobbzilla as if surprised to find something new. “Hey! Is it just me, or you all been heavy man juicin’ in my absence? Man, you’ve grown some mighty mighty bitch tits! You’re gettin’ bigger out front than Chesty Morgan, Boobzilla! I bet your balls be shrinkin’ to match!”

“An’ how big’s yo’ pythons, ho?” Zilla flexes a pair of overpumped arms as grotesque as Scott Steiner’s.

“You just ain’t gettin’ it, Boob. If you and your roadkill army don’t get outta my way and let me do what I’m here to do, I’ll be hard stylin’ on your asses like Devil May Cry! So beat it or eat it!”

Double G, Bobbzilla’s second, spits, “Fuck y’all, fuckin’ bitches! Y’all ain’t no Men! We gonna whip y’all into proper submission, yestaday!”

Shira laughs at him. “Well, you better be ace with that whip, ’cuz the way you be juicin’, the only thing keeping y’all Men’s the illegal prescription!”

Double G rushes Shira to tackle her. Shira trip-throws Double G with ridiculous ease. “Wow. I mean, wow. So that’s the kind of candy ass shit y’all call Manly.”

Jennifer ostentatiously yawns with feigned boredom. “This Challenge’s gonna be easy peasy.” Two Predatorz attack her from behind; she unholsters her mini spade and whips it into the side of one’s head, sending him careening into the other, knocking them both down as they speed past her. “Yawn,” she faux yawns.

Bobbzilla runs at Shira. He telegraphs his next move: he intends to power punch her. When he throws his punch, she disappears. He swings wildly at nothing. Nothing hits him on the back of the head and laughs. He takes more wild swings at nothing. Nothing kicks him in the tailbone, then hammers down on his shoulder with her elbow. He screams and roars and swings and claws and continues to hit nothing while Shira dodges and weaves and goes behind him and through his legs and hides right in front of his eyes. Tired and dizzy, he flails until his flails degenerate into arm twitches. Shira hops onto her arms and double kicks his jaw, lifting him up a meter and sending him backwards several. Then what was nothing pops into plain view in the form of Shira’s mocking face staring down into Bobbzilla’s as he lies half-conscious, sprawled supine on the pavement.

After taking out a few more Predatorz, Jennifer yells at Shira, “Watch out for the girls! Don’t let your guard down!”

Shira winks at her. “Don’t worry, love. I hate these boy toy bitches even more than you do.”

Right then one of the female Predatorz jumps Shira and hangs off her back, holding her by the neck. “Stop bangin’ on my man, ya pervo bitch!”

“Hmph!” Shira trips her and falls backward to land on her as she lands hard on her back on the hard pavement. “I love you too, darling.” She snaps her head back to break the gangster girl’s nose, making her yell in pain and break her grip. “Baka.” Shira springs up to see Jennifer kick another gangster girl toward her; she intercepts her for a backdrop. The first one rushes her and speeds right into a roundhouse that sends her flying sideways. The gang girls keep their distance from Leila.

The Predatorz take a rest to pick themselves up and try to figure out some kind of strategy despite their obvious inability to think. Sensibly, they stay away from Leila. Shira and Jennifer take defense position in the center of the circle of Predatorz forming around them. Just then, another gang arrives. This one’s black. They’re also here to rumble. Leila smiles. “And here come the Bludz.”

“Like the cavalry, even,” Jennifer adds.

Shira shouts toward Bobbzilla, “Yo Klownz! Your Niggaz so-called friends are calling y’all girls!”

The Predatorz turn completely around to face the black gang. The Bludz, one of the New African syndicates, are bigger than all the Klownz combined. The Predatorz and Bludz trade an escalating volley of obscenities, then rush each other to fight once the insults have reached the level of “fag.” Each gang throws a Challenge at each other and each gang accepts, so the girls get out of the Predatorz’ way to avoid being run over. Not wanting to be caught in the middle of a Team Challenge, they sneak away from the fight.

The battle quickly becomes dangerous enough that several of the more paranoid slum dwellers call the cops. Sure enough, screaming sirens announce the arrival of the riot police. The girls make sure they’re absent when the real rumble begins.

Shots fired in the background, tear gas in the air. Navigating a warren of shanties and twisted back alleys, Shira says, “Now it gets worse.”

“As if we weren’t running into enough trouble already,” says Jennifer.

“So we make like ninja,” says Leila

“Let’s hope they don’t find us.”

“They didn’t see us leave,” says Shira. “Besides, they’re awful preoccupied right now.”

“I hope you’re right. I had a bad feeling about this even before you called.”

“So where’s this meeting?” asks Leila.

“This way,” Shira says. She points toward Lake Washington.

Jennifer explains, “There’s a New Rave commune camped out in Seward Park.“

Leila says, “I assume this has something to do with the gangsters trying to kill your mother.”

“Wally’s a sore loser,&dquo; says Shira, “so I suspect he’s hiring hitmen. We’ve got friends at the commune we think can help somehow.”

“If you say so.”

Shira grins. “C’mon, let’s go!” She takes both Leila and Jennifer by the hand, and they head together toward Seward Park. No cops or gangsters come around to molest them, though they do beat up a mugger on the way.

to be continued...

Back to Chapter 26 index...
Back to Chaos Angel Spanner table of contents...

[Revision 1, 12/14/11: edited from the original written for NaNoWriMo 2010.]

Spanner 26.3: The High Price of Freedom

2011-12-15T17:00:00.000-08:00

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 26: Youthcrime
Part 3: The High Price of Freedom

12 november 2014.
Shira’s apartment. While Ayla and Lucie make passionate love in the guest room, Shira and Leila take a long bubble bath together. “This place is already empty without... your mother,” says Leila.

Shira laughs. “‘Without Hope’ would be a cruel pun. The Foundation had to put her and Charlie up somewhere in downtown Seattle while they’re busy riding that alien invader Scofield out of town on a rail, hopefully tarred and feathered.”

“That man is a complete psycho. What’s that catchphrase he keeps throwing around?”

Scofield:
Freedom is not free!

“That’s your standard conservative boilerplate. What it means is, to be free, you gotta sacrifice all your freedom to the Nation. Which sounds a lot to me like Soviet Democracy, where everybody had the right to vote, but they all had to vote for Stalin if they wanted to live. That’s the spirit of Conservative Freedom in a nutshell right there.”

Leila languidly lies down on top of Shira. “We won’t let ’em be conservative with our freedom. They know what’ll happen to ’em if they get in the way of our love.” She kisses her.

“Funny, it was only a couple months ago you were trying to die.”

“But you wouldn’t let me. Now I’ve never felt more alive in my life. I can never thank you enough...” Tears begin to well up in Leila’s eyes. “...and I’ll love you forever.” They share a long deep kiss.

hospital. Karen and Colette make sure to visit the gangster Shira and Jennifer beat up, and the girlfriend Shira put into the bed beside him. The girl cries, “Why did she have to be so cruel? I thought she was this hero!” Karen holds her and tries to comfort her.

The Punk himself is being interrogated by COPCO antiterror agents. “Don’t be so hard on the guy,” says Sparks. “We don’t want him to clam up.”

Agents Johnson and Thompson barge into his face. He does not flinch. Johnson says, “You think he’s such a good guy, don’t you, kid. Well, think again. He’s wearing colors, which makes him a psycho killer by definition.”

“He wouldn’t be wearing gang colors if he wasn’t already a psycho killer,” adds Thompson.

“Like I said. We gotta be tough on these tough guys.”

“Or being nice to him will unman you? If he’s the real psycho you say he is, stroking his ego’s the way to go. Stroke him enough, and you won’t be able to stop him from bragging about his crimes.”

“Who did you hear this from?”

“John Douglas. The Mindhunter himself. I’ve read all his books.”

“Books don’t mean nothing, Jimmy boy.”

“Well, I tried it on Johnny-Johnny himself, and it worked like a charm. Too bad his daddy was high enough up in the Party hierarchy to buy him sovereign immunity, or he’d be sitting pretty on the electric chair by now. Not that it helped him anyway.”

Thompson chuckles. “Yeah, your hot girlfriend smothered him with her pretty ass. I don’t know about him, but that’s the way I’d like to go.”

Shira says, “You wanna try it now?” Everybody in the hospital room jumps in surprise. Right then, Leila and Jennifer enter the room, Peck and Lansky behind them.

The gangster panics. “Oh no! It’s her!”

Sparks crosses his arms and flashes her a betrayed look. “What in the hell were you thinking, girl?”

Shira sighs. “Well, on the one side, there’s the gang, which says join or die. On the other, there’s the Law, which says leave the gang or die.” She looks to the crippled gangster. “If you aren’t pulling my leg, if you really are serious about leaving the gang, you’re going to have to renounce your gang membership publicly. That includes burning your gang uniform, shaving off your hair, and having all your tattoos removed. Problem is, Anticristo considers you his personal property, and your girlfriend too. In fact, you’re really just a gun to him. A weapon, and not a man. His weapon gives him shit, he throws it away, meaning your corpses fed to the sharks. But you have to do it, or you’ll end up in a suicide squad fighting screaming fanatics to the death on the North African front. Some of those might even be your former Cartel comrades. You know you’re in deep shit. Both of you.”

Karen walks up to Shira. Shira tries to wave, but Karen angrily attempts to slap her. Peck catches her hand before it can hit Shira’s cheek. “Why did you have to hurt her, Shira?” she yells.

Peck answers, “Either she must renounce her boyfriend, or her boyfriend must renounce terrorism. As long as he remains part of the Cartel, he is automatically guilty of aggravated first-degree murder. If she remains with him while he’s still wearing colors, she’s automatically an accessory to serial murder. The Law is utterly inflexible on the matter of terrorism. So your cousins had no choice but to beat them both mercilessly. They earned their reward on behalf of the Slasher Hunters.”

Shira says to the gangster and his girlfriend, “Whether or not we pay off your medical bills with our reward money depends entirely on you.”

“Please do it, Carlos!” the girlfriend begs. “We can finally have our life together!”

“I’m scared, Maria,” sobs Carlos, “more for you than me. I don’t want you getting hurt, and they’ll hurt you.”

Shira says, “I’ll protect you this time. In fact, I think I’ll pay Anticristo a personal call.”

Everyone gasps. “You can’t be serious, Shira,” says Sparks.

“He’ll kill you!” warns Carlos.

Shira grins. “You wanna know the truth? Fact is, he’s afraid of me.”

Several people cry out, “What?!”

“Consider his choice of handle. The boy’s superstitious. He absolutely believes in the Devil and all those evil voodoo gods. I can kill him using his own faith as my weapon. Someone that superstitious stands no chance against a Charmer.”

Agents Johnson and Thompson crowd Shira. Johnson says, “You musclin’ in on our jurisdiction?”

“Maybe I should let him humiliate you cop types yet again? He’s got a strategy that works against what he considers that rival gang called COPCO. He can hold his own against any gang. But against someone who can kill him with his own faith? He’s helpless. But if you guys wanna get owned again, I won’t get in your way.”

“Make sure you don’t,” says Thompson. The two agents leave.

Sparks says to the Slasher Hunters, “You guys can go now. Karen and Colette have the fort, and I’ve got their back.”

Shira says, “Just make sure to make it worth forgoing our reward, Jim.” She kisses him.

Peck looks at her. “What did you say?”

“We aren’t that mercenary. At least if we have a conscience, we aren’t.”

Lansky laughs. “She’s right!” He backslaps her. “Shira, I like you.” She winks.

mayor’s office. “You can’t win, Reston,” Brinkman threatens.

Acting Mayor Hope Reston tells the man on the monitor, “You’re just telling yourself you’re not a coward.”

Charlie purrs contemptuously, “You’re in denial, cousin. Admit to yourself and the world that you’re afraid of muggles.”

“You haven’t been informed of my mandate? My job here is to get the government out of the way of the people. The Peter Principle has a corollary you probably haven’t learned about: the longer you stay at or near the top of any hierarchy, with all those layers of bureaucracy insulating you from reality, the greater your incompetence. It’s a form of entropy, and one cause of the notorious phenomenon of groupthink that leads to disastrous collisions with reality, as you should have realized just last week.”

“I. am. the leader,” grunts an increasingly frustrated Brinkman. “Don’t you forget that!” He breaks the call abruptly.

Charlie slaps her forehead and shakes her head. “What a git.”

Suddenly the door shatters into splinters. A psycho killer with chainsaws for arms bursts in.

“Hey! That’s Chainsaw Eddie!”

“Stand back,” says Hope. “I got him.” She whips open her desk drawer, takes out her Colt .45 semiauto, and points it at him. He freezes. “Gun beats saw.”

She shoots him between the eyes. He falls backwards onto the floor. The corpse twitches, the chainsaws spin and flail erratically, before it finally falls still.

The mayoral staff run in accompanied by security guards. Hope says, “That was a gift from Governor Brinkman. Never, ever underestimate him, or Scofield. They will go to any length to take back the power that properly belongs to the people alone. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Now let’s return this unwanted gift and get back to work.”

on to the next... →

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[Revision 1, 12/15/11.]

Spanner 26.2: The Country of Old Men

2011-12-14T17:00:00.000-08:00

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 26: Youthcrime
Part 2: The Country of Old Men

11 november 2014.
CPMC headquarters. “That was a clever stunt, Brendan,” Brinkman growls. “Try and find another way of making the Populists even angrier. Try it again, and it’ll cost us even more in damages.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, Wally,” says the COPCO CEO on the screen, “the courts’ll dismiss all suits against us with prejudice. The perks of sovereign immunity, you know.”

“You keep underestimating Phil Reston and his spawn, especially our adversary Hope. They keep coming up with ingenious ways to bleed us of money.”

“For great justice, blah blah blah.”

The image of Richard Becket pushes Brendan Sparks’ face to the side of the giant monitor. “Do you men know how the Wilder Foundation managed to defeat you and crash your stock prices?”

Litton says, “Our CEO friends made some idiot moves, and the Foundation took full advantage of ’em.”

“Not so, Mr Litton. The Foundation was able to unite the disgruntled city people against us.”

“Cascadia is a state made up of big cities, Mr Chairman,” says Chairman Sparks, “and cities are notoriously liberal and hard to police. It’s hard to force conservative virtue on five or six Manhattans full of liberal traitors.”

“But this is what human nature aims toward. As social animals, they find themselves strongest when united in crowds. This is the metaphysical secret behind Communism. We must become stronger than them, and to this end we must transcend the human.”

“And what do you mean by that, uncle?” asks Brinkman.

“First, we must transform ourselves into gods.”

“And by that you mean posthuman supermen?”

“Exactly. And as Dragonites, Walter, you and I and our race already have an advantage. But to defeat man, we must not become just supermen. We must make ourselves immortal.”

Downtown Bremerton. As the coffee shop owner arranges a ride for the children, Shira, Jennifer, and the Shelley twins agree to walk with Ariel up Pacific Avenue to the new Bremerton location of her New Age bookstore. Sanitation men and concerned citizens continue to pick up trash and debris left behind by the military marchers and Party faithful. “Looks like the Party don’t believe in keeping city streets clean,” says Leila scornfully.

“They don’t believe in cities, period,” Jennifer replies. “They much prefer small towns and suburban subdivisions. They were designed to be easy to control.”

“Not that it’s doing ’em much good these days,” Rob comments. “People can’t afford to live there anymore, so they’re either stagnating or turning to ghettos. The Party can’t be happy with that.”

Shira smirks. “Like I said, they’ve got a problem with reality.”

“Be glad you have adult accompaniment,” Ariel warns. “The authorities don’t no longer tolerate young people getting together.”

“Hey, we whippersnappers got a nasty habit of thinking for ourselves.”

“Just don’t say it out loud. They might hear you.”

The Sky Dancer Metaphysical Bookstore feels like a separate reality. Incense, meditation music, low lighting, and shimmering crystals combine to induce a trance state in everyone who enters the store. Jennifer says, “Wow! Who needs drugs.”

“Drugs are an artificial way of inducing altered states of consciousness. Hallucinogens especially have been the tool of shamans for millions of years. The danger of drugs is that their abuse can serve as a way of avoiding real spiritual development.”

Jennifer looks through the books and is not at all pleased with what she sees. “Hmm... Astrology, numerology, feng shui... same old claptrap we should have already. Figures.”

Ariel grabs her by the shoulder and leads her to the desk. “If you want something to be skeptical about, I suggest the works of Drusilla Becket and her channelled spirits. I believe they hold the key to the mystery behind the Conservative Revolution itself. Not in what she or her spirits actually say, but in whom they refer to. In fact, maybe you and your cousin should accompany me into the back room, where I’ve collected a not-so-small library of the metaphysical writings that have been the foundation of European conservatism for centuries.”

“I thought Conservative Revolutionaries were all-American conservatives,” says Shira.

“On the exoteric level, yes, their conservatism does derive from Evangelical Christian fundamentalism. But Gnosticism teaches that there is an esoteric meaning to all scripture and doctrine.”

“Like the Sufis?” asks Jennifer.

“Precisely. Sufism is Islamic Gnosticism. But Europe and America are traditionally Christian, and therefore so is their Gnostic tradition. Esoteric Christianity is the rock upon which the Conservative Revolutionaries have built the political system they call Synarchy, and upon which they are trying to rebuild the American Empire.”

“And the form of esoteric Christianity that appeals most to power-hungry Corporates is the Nicolaitanism of the Illuminati, right?”

“That’s what we’re talking about.” Ariel shows them a whole wall of books, some of them old or in languages other than English, particularly French. “Behold! Saint-Martin, Maistre, Saint-Yves, Papus, and many, many others. The Fascist movements that turned the twentieth-century world into a giant battleground were inspired by the ideas of these metaphysicians. And the idea that resonated with them the most was not even Gnostic at all, but Calvinist: the dominion of the elect, as instituted by Calvin himself in the aristocratic form of government he established in Geneva.”

“And in America by the Conservative Revolutionary Party,” says Shira.

“Gnosticism itself has a built-in danger, the self-isolation of a spiritual élite from the outside world. Combine it with Calvinist dominionism, and you get Nicolaitanism and its Synarchist politics, a supremacism of the spiritual élite.”

“Which makes Drusilla Becket the key to the whole Conservative Revolution, right? Gnostic fundamentalism, European conservatism, and the dictatorship of arrogant adepts?”

“Now do you realize what we’re up against?”

Jennifer says, “The Buddhist ten-worlds theory would say that this kind of mentality is lower than the compassion of the bodhisattvas.”

“And the two vehicles, Learning and Realization, are notorious for being prone to arrogance,” adds Shira, “which is why so many sutras claim that voice-hearers can’t become Buddhas.”

“What they mean by ‘Realization,’” Ariel explains, “is pratyekabuddha, which means ‘enlightened for oneself alone.’”

“They sure brag a lot about their ability to stand alone.” In the main store, Leila sighs in disgust.

“The reason why the pratyekabuddha world is lower than the bodhisattva world is that the bodhisattva’s vow is to delay their passing into nirvana until they bring all living beings to enlightenment. The Nicolaitan doctrine is especially pernicious because it teaches that other living beings are māyā, illusion, an obstacle to personal enlightenment. This is the mainspring of the spiritual arrogance that has led them into political tyranny. To them, Corporatist dictatorship is not a means of bringing order to a world without it, but as an absolute spiritual necessity. By this means, they plan to ensure the eternal victory of spirit over matter.”

“No matter how many people they kill.”

“Or how many millions of souls they destroy.”

Shira and Jennifer stand speechless and stunned. Right then, Uma bursts in and pulls at Shira’s skirt. “C’mon, Shira, you need to see this!”

Shira sighs. “Okay, Uma. What is it?”

Uma takes her by the hand and leads her out of the back room to a corner in the back of the store, where the Tibetan tapestry hangs. She points to the nude dancing goddess of the icon. “Look! She looks just like you!”

Leila gasps beside Shira. “Come to think of it, she really does!”

“Her name is Kurukulla,” says Ariel, “and she is a Dākinī, one of the ‘Sky Dancers’ in whose honor I named this store. She was originally the love goddess of a land called Uddiyāna, until the Arabs destroyed it. Since then, she has dedicated herself to the bodhisattva path as a Dharma Dākinī, even though the land where her kingdom once was is now under the tyranny of the Caliphate. Like all Dākinīs, she is nude because she is free of attachments, and her dance is the freedom of emptiness. Her blade cuts away all attachments and karmic debts. Like her mother Kālī, she wears a necklace made from the heads of 108 demons. Like her father Śiva, she dances on the body of a demon representing man’s lower nature, or ‘fundamental darkness’ as your Buddhist friends call it.” She embraces Shira from behind. “You’re almost her living image. You should be more like her.” She kisses Shira’s cheek.

Holy City. They wear hoods with the All-Seeing Eye insignia to hide their identities. But these men are some of the highest-ranking Corporates in the Party hierarchy. They are old men who intend to live forever. They are about to transfer their consciousness into new bodies cloned from them, young and strong. One of them says to Richard Becket, “How come you and your brothers refuse to make yourselves young again?”

The Chairman replies, “We have built up so much power in these bodies over the years, above and beyond our spiritual power, that we are not willing to risk losing it, especially not now. Besides, our father lived nearly a hundred years in his original body. But when he recovered from last month’s Seattle incident, all his power was gone, every bit of it. We can’t risk that now. It’s too urgent.”

Another “Renewer’ says, “There should be a way to transfer your powers into a new body, Mr Chairman.”

“So far, our best scientists have not been able to do it without killing the new body, and potentially the man with it. But right now other scientists are perfecting a way of creating immortality in one’s original body, using nanotechnology.”

A third man says, “But with nanotech, you risk it falling into the hands of our inferiors.”

“That is a risk. But they cannot gain for themselves the superpowers we enjoy without risking madness. Power control needs absolute self-control, and that comes only with decades of intensive spiritual practice. Even so, we must keep strictest control over the means of immortality. If we are to preserve our superiority, we must make sure they remain mortal.”

The first man says, “But what about reincarnation?”

Chairman Becket frowns and strokes his chin. “Hmmm. If our seers’ visions are correct, that may indeed be a problem.” He smiles. “But that is a small problem. Incarnation begins with forgetting of one’s past. The enemy will continue to die young, but we shall live long enough to make Methuselah green with envy. The deserving are those chosen to live forever. To us belongs the universe.”

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[Revision 1, 12/14/11.]

Spanner Chapter 26: Youthcrime

2011-12-14T13:00:00.000-08:00

← Chapter 25

Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 2: Rage of the Prophets
Chapter 26: Youthcrime

Old men rule the world. How do they stop the “virus” of mass revolt from killing the old order? How can they coerce their victims to give back their sanction for good? The standard one-size-fits-all American imperial solution is to bomb the cities. The Becket brothers insist on this: if the Archons are to preserve the old order forever, they must make themselves immortal, and become gods...

Table of Contents:

Dissent Is Treason (December 13, 2011)
The Country of Old Men (December 14, 2011)
The High Price of Freedom (December 15, 2011)
Send in the Klownz (December 16, 2011)
School of Anarchy (December 17, 2011)
Rage for Order (December 18, 2011)

Chapter 27 (coming soon...)

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Spanner 26.1: Dissent Is Treason

2011-12-13T17:05:00.000-08:00

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Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 26: Youthcrime
Part 1: Dissent Is Treason

Hypocrisy has its own elegant symmetry.
Julie Metz

11 november 2014.
Bangor Jail. Every youth and every non-member of the Party are rounded up by COPCO, Dictel, and the Military and unceremoniously crowded in the increasingly massive Bangor Jail complex. “What did we do?” wails Polly.

“We’re guilty of ‘whippersnappery,’” Shira says.

“And what is that?”

“‘Whippersnapper’ is the evil word old people use to mean ‘worthless youngling.’ The heinous alleged crime is like Driving While Black.”

“Silence, infidel!” shrieks the guard, a Party militant. “You fools refuse to surrender your worthless selves to Jesus America! He is all that exists! He created the universe, including y’all, but in your selfishness y’all refuse to believe it! Believe in Jesus America and y’all will be saved! Or else!”

Sparks pats Shira on the back. “Darling, America is a religion, not a nation. All the Beckets have been screaming this in your face for years, especially the mad Doctor. So though they say they’re teaching you a lesson, they really want you out of their hair so they can do their holy American thing without rational people laughing at ’em.”

“Thanks, Jim.” Shira kisses him on the cheek. “What I was getting at when our Party overseer so fervently interrupted us is the fact that the entire Party leadership is not just rich, white, and male, but old. Angry old rich men like the Becket and Koch brothers. They resent our youth. It reminds ’em of their mortality.”

The guard screams, “Shut up! Stop blaspheming the Chosen Ones of Our Nation! You are nothing but undeserving moochers! Without the men God blessed with wealth, you would still be swinging out of trees! They created you! You are nothing without them! You think you’re so strong together? You’re weak! The only ones who are strong are the ones who stand alone!”

Shira smiles contemptuously at him and sashays over to the cell door. “Do you know why I always win against your kind? You rugged individualists are all the same. This is not unintentional; the Holy Prophet Ayn Rand herself said that difference is an illusion and all rational men are the same in essence. You even use the same strategy, the same old technocratic one. You look at me and underestimate me at once; then I do the thing you least expect. I knock you off balance, and then I win.”

“What do you think you are?!”

“Why, I am an independent woman of business. All you people do is government.”

In the warden’s office, the warden’s assistant tells him, “Watch out for this one. She’s got family connections.”

“What kind?” asks the warden.

“The records say here she’s the great-granddaughter of Doc Wilder himself.”

“He was a troublemaker and a half.”

Shira says, “But he made a fortune making trouble. My mama taught me, don’t rely on your old man’s fortune, but make your own way. That way, you don’t become a welfare parasite like most of the rich people I know.”

“Hmph! You think we’re parasites, don’t you. You don’t get it. America is God, and He rewards us for worshipping Him with the blessings of wealth and punishes those—”

“Like I said. Worship the State, and it rewards you with corporate welfare. That’s exactly the way things work in Russia, China, and any number of crony capitalist tinpot dictatorships in Africa and Latin America. And I thought we had a free market. Sure shows me.”

The assistant warden says, “She thinks our Revolution’s gonna fail.”

“It already has. It did the moment you replaced American freedom with Chinese Corporatism. Your decisions made a lot of overseas investors rich, you know.”

The warden demands, “Are you trying to make the Revolution fail? Are you working against us?”

“No, I’m betting money against you. I’m selling you short. Your Party’s already done the rest. All I need to do now is sit back, watch you fail, and cash in. Simple as that.”

“What do you think you are?!”

“I happen to be an Enterpriser. Unlike you Corporates, I produce things people buy. I don’t do weapons or dodgy investments or other economy-destroying stuff. I give the people what they want, and they gladly pay me for it. I make my money honestly.”

“You and your worthless friends will only be making money for us once we get you convicted of insubordination. How do you like them apples?”

“The more labor you conscript, the fewer consumers you got—”

“We don’t need consumers anymore.”

“In other words, you people found the perpetual motion machine that creates infinite wealth for the politically connected, *ahem* I mean you deserving and chosen ones. Namely, corporate welfare through higher taxes on the general public, leading to more crushing debt burdens — in other words, corruption. And then what happens when your big Ponzi scheme collapses? That’s all your Revolution is, a pyramid scheme based on total world domination and screwing the people. That’s why your Corporatism has no more future than Communism. Which was really monopoly Corporatism. Don’t understand me? Then you need to get a new brain.”

“We’ll be glad to refer you to our more, mmm, efficient interrogators.”

“And I’ll be happy to refer you to my lawyer. You and your bosses better hope your balance sheet’s able to afford the damages, ’cuz I have my doubts.”

Back in the cell, Belle Shockley cries for her mother while her second cousin Lucie holds her tight and kisses her to try to comfort her. Shira’s cellmates discuss their predicament. Shira says, “This is what they’re punishing us for. Not being antisocial enough to stab each other in the back for the sake of personal advancement.”

Jennifer says, “They don’t realize that there’s strength in numbers, like the many separate cables that together are strong enough to hold up a bridge.”

“That would be believing in reality, Jen. They don’t believe in reality. They want wishes to be horses.”

Lucie clings to Shira’s arm. “Don’t they even believe in love?”

Leila sighs bitterly and takes Lucie’s hand. “No, Lucie darling, that would be a personal attachment. True Corporates like your father believe that love, friendship, and compassion are obstacles interfering with the only things they value: money, power, and their other ego attachments. So they sneer that love is nothing but sex misspelled. We’re better than that.”

Two pretty boys, twins with long blond hair, nineteen or twenty years old, spot Shira and recognize her. They come up to her. “Say, aren’t you Shira Thomas, the hoverboard racer?”

Shira gasps. “The Harding Twins? Ace and Deuce?”

Polly stumbles over and blurts, “Oh my god, is it really you? You’re even more beautiful than your pictures!”

“I bet you’re in here for alleged youthcrime too. Lemme guess: disturbing the peace? intellectual property infringement? traffic violations?”

“Nah,” says Ace (on Shira’s left), “more like allegedly being too pretty for guys.”

“Those Party people hate it when you’re too good looking,” Deuce adds. “But you girls already know that.”

Leila says, “Only the religious types believe that. Corporates want their beautiful women without brains. Most of us are here for being too smart for our own good.”

Suddenly, once the military parades are over and the Party commissars are satisfied that they have shown the people who’s boss, everyone not officially charged with crimes against property or morality are released, including even Shira. “What happened?” asks Polly.

Shira grins. “My lawyer cousin tells me CPMC, COPCO, and Dictel Corrections were being hit by too many lawsuits, so they decided to cut their losses. But not before they had their big military collective wank for the TV cameras.”

“People aren’t too happy about being held prisoner just for that,” says Ace Harding.

“Clearly the Party are too satisfied with their own authority. They don’t understand human nature, least of all the Corporates with their cult of selfishness.” She whistles to get everybody to stop talking and listen to her, then yells, “Hey, everybody! How about we have a big pizza feed, courtesy of Pizza Mafia! Governor Wally’s paying, so it’s on the house!”

The crowd of former prisoners cheer their approval.

coffee shop. Ariel says, “Do you know why dissent is considered treasonous?” Leila and Rob shake their heads. Belle, Lucie, and Ariel’s daughter Uma are too busy enjoying their BLTs and each other to listen.

“The reason is actually religious,” Shira replies. “Dissident, traitor, terrorist, and other words like that are really synonyms for infidel. They mean merely those who haven’t accepted the United States Federal Government as their personal Lord and Savior. In other words, they’re just duckspeak signifiers for political incorrectness.”

“They kill people for unbelief, you know.”

“Meaning America’s no different from the Caliphate. We fought Communist Russia and became Corporatist. We fight Al-Qaeda and the Caliphate, only to end up under the control of a cult. He who fights monsters, as they say.”

“Do you realize what the Party leadership really believe?”

“I’ve read Ayn Rand, if that’s what you mean.”

“They’re actually Illuminati, as the conspiracy theorists claim. They happen to be paranoid conspiracy theorists themselves. Their religion is not the Rationalism of an Ayn Rand, but the fundamentalist form of Gnosticism called Nicolaitanism. The name signifies ‘victory over the people,’ and the political system they created to secure that victory is what they call ‘synarchy,’ or the rule of an enlightened élite.”

While chewing her sandwich, Leila says, “Synarchy is just the Greek word for junta.”

“So the Party are being hypocritical when they say one who stands alone can stand against everybody else together,” says Shira.

“Is that what they say?” asks Ariel.

“That’s what you learn from Ayn Rand. It’s right there in the Book of America where all the Party faithful can read it.”

“Have you ever heard of Extropy?”

“Oh yeah!” Shira slaps her forehead. “Extropians and other Posthumanists want to turn the rich and powerful into gods who can defeat the entire human race by themselves.”

“They don’t know that there are already gods among us.”

Shira looks at Ariel skeptically. “Explain.”

“Do they realize that gods have become human for the sake of humanity? Or have they in their lust for divine power forgotten this?”

“Hmmm...” A mischievous smirk grows on Shira’s face. “Maybe you ought to introduce me to some of these gods.”

Ariel smiles. “You already know one. You see her in the mirror.”

Shira’s eyes go wide in surprise. Everybody stares at her. “Whether you achieved godhood in ancient times or through the evolution of your soul here on earth,” says Ariel, “if your will is free and you are confident in your power, you can stand alone against them all. Together, we are invincible.”

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[Revision 1, 12/13/11.]

Spanner Interlude 13: Six Degrees of Keenan Sasser

2011-12-12T17:00:00.000-08:00

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Chaos Angel Spanner
Interlude 13: Six Degrees of Keenan Sasser

“Keenan Sasser in the Tommyverse,” an article by _____:

The husband-and-wife team of writer Keenan Sasser and artist and producer Ada Paulette Wintergreen have a favorite game they love to pull on Hollywood people. Some people like to play a game called “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” Keenan and Ada have twisted it into “Six Degrees of Tommy Westphall.” They claim that every story that has ever been shown on television is a figment of an eleven-year-old autistic boy’s imagination, within six degrees of crossover with St. Elsewhere, the Kevin Bacon of TV shows. You remember the last scene of that series’ final episode, don’t you (you know, before they killed off Mimsie the MTM Kitten in the credits)? The whole series was just a dream, and the dreamer was one Tommy Westphall. Except “Tommy Westphall” was his name only in the dream (i.e., St. Elsewhere). Characters from that series crossed over into other series, which crossed over into other series, which crossed over into still more series—until the imagination of “Tommy Westphall” took over the entire television universe. When Keenan watched that last episode (imaginatively titled “The Last One,”, by the way), he was merely disappointed at how the show ended, and he was not alone in that. It was Ada who dropped the mind bomb on him. While they were having sex.

Any other series created by Tom Fontana? Tommy’s dream. Anything else put out by MTM Enterprises? Tommy’s dream. Anything by Desilu/Paramount, including I Love Lucy, Mission: Impossible, and Star Trek? Tommy’s dream. Brand and Falsey, or Dick Wolf, or Joss Whedon? Check. Doctor Who? Red Dwarf? Battlestar Galactica (both of them)? The Fresh Prince of Bel Air? Any show with Detective John Munch in the cast? If the show has any connection to any show with a connection to St. Elsewhere, Tommy dreamt it. Even Fontana himself claims that nearly 90 percent of all TV shows, well over 300 and counting, took place in the mind of that autistic child, and he seems determined to bring the entire fictional universe into Tommy’s dream. And if Mr. Spock’s claim to be descended from Sherlock Holmes is correct, then Tommy must have dreamed the entire series of events that began with the landing of a certain meteor in Yorkshire when Holmes’ own ancestor was in the area. But if that’s true, then Keenan never actually lost his virginity to Willa Richter-Thomas five blocks from a certain hospital back in 1992, not long after he started classes at MIT...

Keenan watched a lot of television shows (and a lot of MTV as well) when he himself was an autistic child in the 1980s. He caught that last episode back in 1988. His family remember him crying over MTM kitten Mimsie’s death at the end of the credits. (Strangely enough, Mimsie herself died shortly before that episode aired, though by then she was already an elderly cat of twenty. The Mimsie you know is the adorable kitten she was in 1968.) What he himself remembers is the dream he had that night. He dreamed of Tommy. Tommy was looking at him from the other side of a mirror. It was a magic mirror that allowed one to see other realities. Keenan and Tommy both realized they were dreaming each other. Keenan never forgot this.

But what about Bob Hartley dreaming the entire run of Newhart? “Let’s think of it this way,” Keenan says. “Was Tommy dreaming Bob? Sure he was. But you can argue with equal plausibility that Bob was dreaming Tommy. And it’s possible, even likely, that they were dreaming each other. But remember that a story is a collective dream, so everything both Tommy and Bob ever dreamed was also dreamed by their creators, and by you.” Ada likes to point out that there may be an infinite regress involved: Bob and Buffy dreaming their entire series and all the shows they crossed over with, dreamt in turn by Tommy, who in turn (if you’ve read The Crying of Lot 49, where all this Yoyodyne stuff came from) being dreamt by Oedipa Maas (is Tommy her Tristero?), who was dreamt in turn... It is entirely possible that the last five minutes of St. Elsewhere are the only television show, ever, period. Everything else is a daydream.

Thing is, the end of Newhart was a joke that worked — at the expense of both Dallas and St. Elsewhere. Go figure.

Keenan always had an extremely overactive imagination. He published his first story when he himself was a strange child of eleven. 1988 was also the year he learned how to program a computer, learning BASIC on his beloved Amiga. Eventually he would combine his two interests when he created the story-creating programs that brought him his fame, culminating in his 2009 short story collection Robot Love Stories. For a period of about five years (roughly coinciding with his early thirties), he was a bestselling author, until the coup of 2012, in which he was blacklisted for what he calls political incorrectness. Until recently, he was working on a series of pulp novels—until the increasingly nightmarish stories he was dreaming started seeming too real. The increasingly clueless publishers stole the Civet franchise from him and sicced their increasingly inept hacks on it.

But can you prove his vision is not true? And are you dreaming Tommy dreaming, or is Tommy dreaming you?

“Science Fiction Is Dead, Long Live Science Fiction” an article by Keenan Sasser published in August 2012:

There are two kinds of literature: Literature, and Pulp. Literature is read by Cultured People. Pulp is read by Unwashed Barbarians. A special kind of pulp is Science Fiction, said to be pulp fiction with weak plot and characters written in impenetrable technospeak by absent-minded professors to be read by autistic teenage boys. Now, I’m not knocking autistic teenage boys, since I used to be one myself. But I’ve been told that science fiction is too complicated for lesser minds than mine, and yet also simplistic stuff involving spaceships, rayguns, and jetpacks. If both of these are true, and most people who aren’t geeks and/or “fen” believe it is, then the genre is being defined as a self-contradiction, and therefore science fiction does not exist.

Okay, you tell me, but look at the sci-fi section in the bookstores! They’ve never been so big and well stocked! My answer is, look more carefully and you’ll find that most of the new fiction in that section is urban fantasy. Vampires outnumber scientists ten to one, minimum. All of it is purest Pulp. Besides, Americans were never too fond of scientists anyway. They’re too smart. Being smart in America is like being gay or black; it’s a no-no.

Science fiction is also said to be boring because science itself is said to be boring. That’s exactly wrong, but you wouldn’t know it from the institutions. Nowhere is technocracy so oppressive than in the scientific institutions. My guess is that in America, science is not even primary; it’s considered just a way to generate theoretical principles for engineers to use for designing the superweapons that defend the supremacy of the corporations that make America great.

Which brings us to another roadblock: the publishers. Their corporate owners decide what gets published and promoted. The Establishment once decreed that science fiction be promoted in order to inspire boys to become engineers it could use to create the superweapons that would destroy Communism. But after Communism dropped dead, the Establishment started treating science like some occult knowledge that must be kept away from the general public lest it empower them; so it decreed that science fiction is only for geeks, then promoted big-city vampire lovers and detectives for the rubes.

Science fiction is dead — but only because the media cartel declared it dead. I say it’s comic-book dead, just like comics itself.

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[Revision 1, 12/12/11. The first part originally written during NaNoWriMo 2010.]

Spanner 25.6: Terrorists vs. Gangsters

2011-12-11T19:00:00.000-08:00

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Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 25: The Public Be Damned
Part 6: Terrorists vs. Gangsters

10 november 2014.
CPMC headquarters. Brinkman stares at the line of grotesque cyborg mercenaries standing before him. “You paid for this?”

Litton grins. “The most dangerous hitmen money can buy. You’re looking at expensive enforcers, Wally. Can’t find any better on the open market.”

“These are grotesque.”

“No more than you are, wolfman.”

Brinkman storms into his face and yells, “At least I’m only a monster part of the time! These are abominations!”

“And that’s exactly what you need to put down this cesspool of commie faggot traitors that persist in denying our God-given dominion over them. They don’t surrender unconditionally, we got them.” Litton gestures toward the mercs. “And if that don’t work, we got drones and nukes. Remember, Wally, we got a revolution to save. The rabble’s our enemy. We gotta put ’em down, starting with their leaders.”

“That would mean the whole Consortium, starting with the Wilder Foundation. That’s a lot of companies, and their unions. We might as well lob nukes.”

“Try nationalizing ’em, Wally. Don’t forget that public management corporations have the legal right to seize any and all property for any or no reason, and that includes entire corporations. If their leaders give us any shit, we’ll send these agents to take ’em out, then COPCO will seize their assets and give ’em to us.”

“Sounds like a clever plan. But we can’t forget the enemy’s got some formidable Players of their own: Thurston Wilder, Philip Reston, Hope Reston, Willa Richter-Thomas, Shira Thomas. They’ve got plans of their own, and we need to make sure we can counter ’em. They beat us on the election. You got that, Litton?”

“I’ll try and keep that in mind. Meanwhile, we got ours.”

11 november 2014.
Bangor squats. On the border with the subdivisions, there is an abandoned Dictel worker housing complex of seven huge apartment buildings now occupied by warring gangs. Officially, one of the high holy days of the cult of Jesus America, Veterans’s Day, is beginning. But at the stroke of midnight, the Socialist Revolutionary Organization show their contempt for America’s imperial war efforts by declaring war on the gangs. The time bombs mark their gambit.

The entire complex blows up in a massive fireball that can be seen across Hood Canal and even in Seattle.

The timers were disposable cellphones; the detonators were Radio Shack parts; the bombs belonged to the gangs themselves.

Bram Rodchenko:
[The SRO commander, his beard flecked with white, speaks in an obviously Seattle accent.]

Attention, narcoterror syndicates. Your reign of terror is about to end. Everybody knows that Wally Brinkman and his Wall Street owners paid you to massacre the people of the city for rejecting the tyranny of Corporatism. We had to strike first. We will strike again, and again and again until you’re zeroed.

We are not terrorists. We are counterterrorists. The police are corrupt and useless. COPCO has no purpose other than defending the tyranny of the ultra-rich against the people. We are GK.

Harborside Commons. Team Bremelo and a few friends watch the news and Rodchenko’s communiqué on the screens in the food court. Debbie marvels, “How the hell did they take out all those Slashers in one blow?”

Shira sighs. “Maybe I’ll have to give you a lesson in elemental military strategy. Take out the enemy base, and you cripple the enemy. Hackers call it a single point of vulnerability. Here you had seven gangs in an abandoned barracks, seven big buildings arranged around their battlefield, all playing war nonstop. The Army would have used massed drone bombers; the SRO used stealth agents. Same result.”

“But ain’t the Army got bases? Ain’t that the same thing?”

“They also have jet fighters and weapons emplacements to defend ’em. It’s hard to do that when you’ve got seven gangs squatting one abandoned barracks. You’re actually trained to do what my sister, her husband, and their leader just did.”

“You’re saying, the terrorists are soldiers?”

“Not entirely. Not all the terrorists are soldiers, but all the elite ones are combat veterans, some of ’em decorated, all of whom feel they got screwed by Jesus America. Bram Rodchenko was even part of the SEAL raid on Abbottabad, helping your Uncle Will sink his fangs into the Evil One’s neck. Their quest for revenge is entirely separate from the Populist movement, though they try to hijack it and twist it to their purposes.”

“The enemy of our enemy, in other words, is not necessarily our friend,” Jennifer adds. “You probably know some Conservative Revolutionary youth leaders who don’t realize that, the ones who put their blind faith in the Party and Jesus America rather than their faction and leaders.”

“My infallible gaydar says you have a longtime unrequited crush on one.” Shira leans seductively toward Debbie, making her blush. “Too bad she’s stuck on me, hmm?”

A banana hits the side of Shira’s head; she catches it as it bounces off, then turns to the direction it came from to see an angry Charmian storm up to her. “Shira Thomas, I’m not your girlfriend!”

Leila drapes herself seductively on Charmian and purrs, “Of course you aren’t. I am.”

“Ew! Get off me!” Charmian struggles to escape Leila’s embrace, then stares at the ironically smiling beauty.

Polly points at the screens. “Uh-oh! Spanner’s on!” The now familiar eight-bit Eight-Man-clone avatar appears on every monitor.

Spanner:
Dear Corpos: Don’t you like the Veterans’ Day gift the terrorists just gave you? Just think: the illegal terrorist corporations that profit by selling the morally unforgivable merchandise you have vowed to prohibit forever are getting smashed by the terrorist factions set up by enraged veterans to get revenge against you. They’re mad as hell and refuse to take your shit anymore, and they’re patriotic enough to show their appreciation for you on this holy day created to honor the lives so many working class warriors sacrificed for the sake of our corporate owners’ infinite profits. How do you like them apples?

On a trivial note, “Tory” is Gaelic for thief. Happy Veterans’ Day, Conservatives.

Will Becket stands intimidatingly over the Team Bremelo table. “Is it true that ‘Tory’ means thief?”

Leila replies, “As a Gaelic speaker, I can confidently tell you that tóire is indeed Gaelic for thief. The labelling of the Conservative Party as tóiridh is indeed accurate, and always has been.”

“I see. Watch out for Rodchenko and his men, ladies. He’s a master of counterterror.”

“I’m afraid counterterror is all he knows,” says Jennifer. “Professional counterterrorists like Rodchenko don’t know people. That’s why they so often alienate the people by turning terrorist against them.”

“How are you so sure there’s any difference among our nation’s enemies?”

“Think of it in Wild West terms, Commander,” says Shira. “The SRO are the posse come to the God-forsaken frontier town of Bangor to purge it of bandits. That’s exactly how Conservative Revolutionaries see themselves. But the Socialist Revolutionaries see the Conservative Revolutionaries as nothing more than bandits themselves, in the employ of Rockefeller, Harriman, and Pinkerton. All too often, the posses turn into bandits or, what’s even worse, tyrants. It’s happened all over the West. The people get caught in the middle and find themselves forced to defend themselves against both sides if they wanna survive. Populism’s always been about the little guys getting justice for themselves when the big guys run roughshod over ’em. In fact, Populism gave Cascadia and its predecessors their democratic constitutions intended to keep the big guys in check. That’s your lesson in civilian politics for today, soldier.”

Will crosses his arms. “I thought the Revolution was intended to do away with politics.”

“All it did was replace democratic politics with archaic court politics. That’s why the factions and syndicates are celebrating this Veterans’ Day with a bang.”

Downtown Bangor. Through the wide streets and vast parking lots of the strip-mall district the city of Bangor’s founders were proud to call a downtown, biker punks rampage unchecked. The remaining businesses are closed, the civilians have fled for their lives, gangsters blaming their rivals for the bombing shoot at each other and kill several.

The SRO militants have not left. As soon as they detonated the gang hangouts, they took positions on the downtown roofs. They emerge at the building edges to lob bombs and fire rockets at the warring gangs. Some gangsters are lucky or well positioned enough to get away; others aren’t.

Sparks and Kowalczyk watch the battle from the protection of their COPCO van hidden at the edge of the battlefield. Kowalczyk marvels, “I never thought I’d see terrorists go vigilante.”

“You keep forgetting this is America. The posse’s come to Dodge to clean out the bandits. Classic Wild West. Better yet, they’re back from fighting Indians, and in this day and age I don’t mean Native Americans.”

Someone taps on the driver’s side window. Sparks turns to find Talia pointing a rifle at him. Kowalczyk whistles. Sparks rolls down the window.

“What are you doing here?” she demands.

“Just watching you soldiers do to the bandidos what we lawmen ain’t. Since lawmen are useless in this situation, we decided we’d just sit back and watch. Who knows, we might even learn something.”

“Just don’t interfere.”

“No problem, soldier.” He rolls his windows back up. Talia takes a few steps back, then turns to run back to the battlefield.

“What’s with her?” asks Kowalczyk.

“You haven’t seen Sergeant Espinoza’s file yet? Her unit just beat the Taliban when the Revolution happened and they found they had to answer to Dictel and the mining cartel. She was just one of many soldiers who got dishonorably discharged for insubordination, right in the middle of the Afghan winter. A lot of ’em turned guerrilla. The SRO explained.”

“They do cyberterror?”

“No, they’re strictly military minded. They got nothing to do with Anonymous, or the Russian and Chinese cyberagents.”

“Nice to know.”

They watch as the SRO crusade against the criminal gangs of the Bangor slums the same way they battled the Islamist guerrillas of Afghanistan. “Watch carefully, Stu,” says Sparks. “This is exactly what the Party, wielding Dictel and COPCO as its weapons, want to do to the people of the state of Cascadia.”

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Spanner 25.5: Hate Disease

2011-12-10T18:00:00.000-08:00

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Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 25: The Public Be Damned
Part 5: Hate Disease

10 november 2014.
Bremerton High. Walking on the way to the college, Shira and Jennifer suddenly notice someone among the portable classrooms. Then smoke starts to rise above one of them. They stare at each other. “Stan,” says Jennifer.

“Shit!” exclaims Shira. They climb onto the fence, leap over it, and run to the source of the fire to confront the Terrorist.

Stan leaps back when he sees the two angry girls suddenly block his way. Jennifer sneers, “I assume this is your way of saying that ignorance is bliss, right, Terrorist?”

Shira says to her, “Stupid is as stupid does, cuz.”

“I always marvel how stupidity gets so militant these days.”

“I thought militancy made people stupid. Just take a look at the creationists trying to lynch scientists.”

Stan rushes them screaming “Shut up!” They cut him off and double-flip him into the air; he lands hard on his back with his head audibly bouncing off the pavement. As he curls into fetal position, holds the back of his head, and groans, reinforcements rush in to help him. Jennifer kicks one Moral Enforcer into another; Shira pulls one into another’s punch and then spin-kicks the other, leaving Vince Corson. But Vince knows he’s still weak from his latest resurrection, in no condition to take on two teenage Amazons who have hardly even broken a sweat. Jennifer punches him out anyway.

Shira whips out her phone, calls the fire department, and shows the fire to them on her phonecam. Soon the sirens get closer as the trucks speed in and the firefighters take over.

Olympic College. Across the street from the high school, the college campus is filled with frustrated students angry that they cannot return to class because of the legal wrangling over the Cascadian public school systems. They silently and not so silently curse Governor Brinkman, his Attorney General son Marshall, and CPMC for ruining their education with their petty legal battles. Jennifer and Shira stop in front of the library entrance. They look inside; none of the lights are on, and neither presumably is the heating system on this cold and drizzly November day. Just to express her frustration, Jennifer grabs a door handle, rattles the door, and growls.

A faceless security guard hurries over to snap at her. “No tresspassing allowed! No one is allowed inside any of the buildings! That’s the Governor’s direct order! Obey his orders, or you’ll be punished!”

Shira and Jennifer trade scornful looks. Jennifer asks, “Why do these rent-a-cops always have to be so touchy?”

Shira replies, “Because that’s the way Governor Wally is. What you did just wounded his ego.”

“Like I said, touchy.” They glare at the guard. He sensibly backs off and returns to the job the Governor hired him to do, harassing students.

Soon enough, Los Punkz bikers swarm in from one side and Moral Enforcers from the other. Students flee the inevitable fight screaming. The cousins plunge into the heart of the chaos: Jennifer to rescue trapped students, Shira to misdirect the assailants.

One Punk flees with his girlfriend. Jennifer knocks him down with a hard left hook. “Leave her alone!”

Shira snarls, “No girl huntin’ on our watch, Slasher!”

“Hey!” the Punk protests. “I only wanted you to help me.”

Shira plants her foot on his head. “As long as you’re in gang colors, you’re beyond help. The definition of ‘gang’ is ‘pack of serial killers,’ meaning you’re still out to get everybody, Slasher.”

Jennifer points down at him. “You’re not a human being, Slasher. You’re a modular biological weapons platform, owned and operated by Anticristo. You’re not a man, you’re a gun.”

His girlfriend pounds futilely on Shira. “Stop it! He’s not what you think—”

Shira and Jennifer beat her up. When she hits the ground, Shira pulls her back up by the hair and glares into her eyes. “Serial killer groupies,” she snarls, “they make me sick.” She jujitsu-throws her — “Grievous harm with a body!” — right onto her boyfriend.

The cousins wipe their hands on their skirts. Jennifer says, “So how do you save one of these hopeless cases that actually want to be saved?”

“The only way is to cripple it. That way you take it out of play.”

They look toward the heart of the campus, where the Moral Enforcers and Los Punkz beat each other to a pulp. Content that the thugs are taking each other out, they walk away.

Harborside Commons. After an exhausting day, they’re back in the food court and decide to take it easy for dinner: Shira, Jennifer, Leila, Polly, Debbie, Schuyler, and Courtney. “Does every day have to be like this?” sighs Polly.

Jennifer puts her arm around Polly’s shoulder and draws her close. “Yes, Polly darling, as long as the people in control remain out of control, every day will have to be like this.”

“I don’t think it does, Jen,” Schuyler says.

“Sky, I clearly said ‘as long as the people in control remain out of control.’ For one thing, school’s out indefinitely due to legal problems, remember?”

“Fine by me,” says Debbie. “They don’t teach nothing at school anyway.”

Charmian storms up to the table. ”Did you girls ever realize that there’s actual human beings inside those gang uniforms?”

Debbie laughs at her. Jennifer stands up and crosses her arms. “Excuse me, Charmian, but no. Legally and strategically, there are no actual human beings inside gang uniforms. It cannot be otherwise. There is only one actual being in the gang, and it is the gang itself, a collectivized ego. All its members are but extensions of it, like the exobodies of a multibot. To assume otherwise is strategic suicide. You above all should know that, Lieutenant.”

Shira stands up. “Charms, you obviously don&rsquo't know how a Player thinks. Gangsters, like all soldiers, aren’t people, they’re gamepieces. Players who truly believe in the Game, such as the men of your family, have only one objective, and that is supremacy, the closest you’ll ever get to victory in the Tournament that never ends. Every other Player is an opponent. His men are gamepieces. One way of defeating other Players is by either eliminating or capturing their gamepieces. Human pieces are equivalent to inanimate pieces in Tournament. Basically, they’re weapons. As for civilians, or mundanes as they’re also called, they too are considered pieces suitable for either capture or elimination. So in Tournament, there’s no such thing as people, only Players and pieces. All gangsters think that way. That’s why you show mercy to a gangster by crippling ’em. It’s the only way to eliminate an active human gamepiece without killing the person.”

Leila adds, “The same thing goes for cults and terrorist groups. Individuals don’t even exist within ’em. There’s only the group and, well, its pieces. Sometimes the holy MacGuffin is more of a person than the cultist. You get such bizarre situations whenever you give up your own power, something I still will never let you do no matter how much you try, Charmian.”

Charmian stares at them in disbelief. “This is insane.”

Everybody at the table nods in enthusiastic agreement. Jennifer says, “It’s the very definition of collective insanity.”

dreamspace. Five lucid dreamers and a shaman take on a dream monster created by Jack Becket out of his own rage and sent to kill Locke Holmes. It got distracted when it saw Shira in her goddess form; because the one-eyed man hates Shira even worse, his monster decides to take her out as well.

Accompanying her are Jennifer, Leila, Polly, and Karen. Behind them, Ariel spreads out her black angel wings and prepares to do battle. Shira looks back and says, “Don’t bother. We’ve got it all taken care of.”

Polly slaps her. “We can’t take on a giant hate monster by ourselves!”

Jennifer shoots a Don’t be stupid look at her. “Pretend we’re in an RPG, where revive spells and phoenix down kill zombies.”

She and Shira look at Karen. “Polly, we’ve got a powerful love mage with us,” says Shira. “Love does to hate monsters what revive dies to zombies. So let’s get our Care Bare Stare on!”

Karen puts a love spell on all the girls just as the hate monster begins its Burning Resentment attack. The girls fix it with a powerful love stare.

The monster screams with pain, attempts its Jihad Explosion suicide attack, fails to hurt them, gradually shrinks until its substance vanishes and then its scream’s final echoes fall silent.

After their victory, Ariel retracts her wings. “I’ve been wondering why so many game players win so easily in dream wars.”

Jennifer replies, “Some skills can be transferred between realities. That’s why both visualization and simulators improve real-world skills so well.”

“Does that mean lucid dreaming skills work in the real world too?” asks Leila.

“They should,” says Ariel. “Most people in the real world are sleepwalkers. Lucidity is freedom.”

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Spanner 25.4: Bogon Flux

2011-12-09T18:00:00.000-08:00

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Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 25: The Public Be Damned
Part 4: Bogon Flux

10 november 2014.
Shira’s apartment. It would have been school lunch time right now had not the district’s legal problems it might as well not exist. So five young women sit together on Shira’s living room couch: Shira and Jennifer on the left, Debbie on the right, and their mutual cousins Courtney and Schuyler between them, eating a Big Boss pizza Shira flew in from Pizza Mafia and watching some anonymous CMPC flack spin the company’s recent disaster into a certain glorious future. To the business press reporters, he says, “The recent disorder is just a glitch. We are implementing ways to bring the social disorder under control, make this state worthy of our great Nation, and bring our stock prices back up to where they were before. We owe it to our investors.”

Jennifer shouts, “Bogon flux is rising, rising!”

“What the—” blurts a confused Debbie.

Schuyler leans over Shira. “What language are you speaking this time, Jen?”

“Oh, just my usual tech speak.” Jennifer peers over the other girls and smiles at Debbie. “Say, Debbie, you know what a ‘shit detector’ is?”

Debbie stares back at her blankly. “Uh, some gadget that detects shit?”

Jennifer narrows her eyes. “I see critical thinking is not an educational priority in the House of Becket. ‘Shit detector’ is the street name for the a notional machine that detects lies. That’s a metaphor for the ability to think critically. We geeks prefer to call it a ‘bogometer.’ How ’bout I teach you how to build one?”

“Uh, okay.”

Jennifer stands up proudly before them, raises her finger, and proclaims, “Introduction to Quantum Bogodynamics!”

Debbie’s jaw drops at the indigestible words. “What?”

“Oh, you’ll understand what I mean once this short lesson is finished.” Jennifer winks. “I’m sure you’ve heard the word ‘bogus.’ Literally it means ‘counterfeit,’ like the funny money printed by the Federal Reserve, and in this case the fake currency is truth and the gang that counterfeits it is the Party. Bogosity is the noun, the bogon is the alleged subatomic particle carrying the force of bogosity the way electrons carry electricity, and bogon flux is the bogosity field emitted by a speaker or institution or their memes. Got it?”

“I guess so.”

“Good! You’ve heard of quantum physics, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Quantum electrodynamics is the branch of quantum physics that deals with electromagnetism. By analogy, quantum bogodynamics deals with bogosity fields. Politics deals with how people collectively manage their affairs. Corporatism is based on a specific political system called technocracy, in which people are governed from above by a hierarchy of experts, similar to the hierarchy of priests in a religious institution and the hierarchy of officers in an army or navy. The top commanding officer of a hierarchy is generally called a ’ruler.’ Political scientists generally class hierarchical systems under the term ‘authoritarianism.’ Democracy is the opposite, the governed collectively governing themselves, taking the ruler’s place. Naturally, it avoids hierarchy not just like the plague, but as one. Hierarchical power, you see, is built on a pyramid-like structure in which each level of command isolates the levels above from those below. If rulers and bureaucrats are so clueless, this is why. They are isolated from society, some say even from reality. Some people like to say they live in reality bubbles or pocket universes. Quantum bogodynamics says they emit bogosity fields. Bogon flux, or bogosity levels, can be measured by a mental device similar to a Geiger counter called a bogometer.”

“A shit detector.”

“To build this machine, first you need to know a little logic. I can get into the basic mechanics of reasoning when we have more time. First, let’s learn a few fallacies, or types of false arguments. Some of these are doozies. First off, we have the argument from force, whose form is, ‘This is true, or I’ll beat you up.’ Whatever bogus truth requires police or vigilante violence to make one believe falls under this fallacy. Because they take the same form, religious doctrines you are required to believe if you want to avoid going to Hell are bogus in the same way. As an example, how about this: You shall believe that is true that liberals are evil devil-worshipping commie faggot traitors, or you are an evil devil-worhsipping commie faggot traitor. The argument from force. Got it?”

“Wow! Seems pretty obvious to me now that you mention it.”

“Excellent! The next one’s another classic. Its famous Latin name is argumentum ad hominem, meaning argument against the person. Its form is: ‘You suck, therefore your argument is false.’ Whenever you hear the word ‘liberal,’ this fallacy is about to be committed. Other catchwords signifying ad hominem include ‘traitor,’ ‘terrorist,’ ‘homosexual,’ and ‘girl.’ Those last two relate to the official Party doctrine that women, homosexuals, nonwhites, and other Party non-members, like animals, have no souls and are incapable of reason. ‘Materialist’ is another, meaning that people in touch with reality, such as scientists, deny that the real world is false and the imaginary world is real. But the real meaning of all those insult words is ‘you suck,’ and they always take the logical form ‘you suck, therefore you’re wrong,” the argument against the person.”

Debbie’s face lights up with dawning realization. But Jennifer notices that Courtney and Schuyler’s jaws have dropped. Schuyler says, “You mean all the Party truths are based on these fallacies?”

“Just like all those religious doctrines that scientific understanding left in the dust long ago. Speaking of which, one fallacy the American Religion relies on every bit as much as any cult is the appeal to authority: it’s true because God, my guru, the great leader of the nation, or that celebrity spokeswhore on TV said it is. Then there’s the argument from conformity: it’s true because everybody else believes it’s true. Finally, and this ends our first lesson, there’s the circular argument, also known as begging the question: it’s true because it’s true. Is your bogometer working yet, Debbie?”

Debbie frowns. “You mean everything I was taught to believe, everything we’re being said is true, is actually false? How could it be?”

“Because the Party and the House of Becket use all these fallacies for one and only one reason: to increase their power over us by clouding our minds. That’s why critical thinking is so important. The bogometer is a weapon that kills fascists. That’s why the government banned it.”

Shira adds, “They want to deny what you see, that the emperor’s completely naked. If necessary, they’ll use brute force to make you deny the obvious.”

“What we just saw on TV was Uncle Wally’s professional liars emitting a bogosity field so strong it hurts most people. He pinned the gauge on my bogometer. Flacks do that to me. Those without bogometers equipped, better known as the blindly faithful and the gullible, can absorb huge amounts of bogosity, sometimes so much that they can then emit strong bogosity fields themselves. Those whose energy fields are entirely bogus are themselves called ‘bogons,’ like the particles. Bogosity is the Party’s entire source of power. Now do you understand, Debbie? Hmmm?” Jennifer underlines her question with a smile.

Everybody stares at Debbie. Her face goes red, her eyes go wide, terror slowly overcomes her as she realizes Jennifer has just planted a bomb in her mind. She giggles nervously. “Uh, you think they’ll find out?”

“Just think of it this way,” Jennifer replies. “The course of the Conservative Revolution has disappointed a lot of people. The more they justify their doctrines and policies with false reasoning and brute force, that is, the stronger the collective bogosity field they project, the more minds they lose because they see through the lies. The more minds they lose, the stronger the bogosity they feel they have to project to compensate. The result is social entropy, which leads to the decay of hierarchical systems such as the Imperial government. The masters of the Empire are complete bogons themselves because they deny that the Empire is in such an advanced state of decay that it’s on the verge of collapse no matter what they do. The more they deny the reality, the more they rely on lies. Then when the lies fail to work, they resort to force. The psychological mechanism that produces bogosity fields is evasion. You see now?”

Now Debbie stares ahead, torn by a war inside her mind. One voice says, reason is treason; the other says, Denial is suicide. Suddenly she stands up in panic and blurts, “Oh no I gotta go home.”

Schuyler and Courtney, fearing for her, get up and grab her arms. “Please don’t go home,” says Schuyler.

“You can spend the night with us,” says Courtney.

Debbie lets out a huge smile and lets her body go limp in their grasp. “Okay, I guess I don’t really have to go home.”

Her delighted cousins lock her in a double hug. “Great!” says Schuyler. She kisses Debbie on the cheek.

The CPMC flack onscreen continues to evade the business reporters’ questions, no matter how softball.

technosphere. The naked victim struggling helplessly against the ropes tying her to the bed is recognizable by her long wavy blond hair as videogame star Marisa Kirisame. The equally nude brown-skinned woman standing above her and contemplating the horrors she will inflict on the poor adorable witch looks like Shira but with straight hair and pointy ears: Aya Shibata, most depraved of evil dark elves and superstar of fighting games, dance games, and Vocaloid music videos. The super-deformed graffiti-art avatar of the Debaser pops in behind her, arms crossed, staring at her skeptically. “What the hell are you up to this time, Shira?” asks Sparks.

Shira looks over her shoulder to grin at him. “You’re in Aya’s Love Hotel now. I’m just having a little fun while boosting my rep among the yuri otaku. Now sit back and watch like everybody else. Option! Strap on!”

Her all-purpose construct zips over to her and starts forming the virtual version of Shira’s infamous strap-on — but stops halfway. Its mon detector suddenly activates. Now Sparks grins. “Well!”

The door flings open and Option rushes out. Shira and Sparks run out after it. Standing before them is a node of random data. Shira gasps; Sparks blurts out, “What the—”

AEGIS appears on Shira’s shoulder. “It’s a Glitch, the rarest and most coveted of all the mons in the Technosphere!”

Shira says, “I heard about ’em, but I never thought one would seek me out.”

Sparks says, “I heard if you capture one, you can equip it with any power or any combination.”

“But if you do,” AEGIS warns, “you risk erasing everything. At best, you would have to start all over at Level 1. But if you’re connected directly via brain-computer interface, it could kill you.”

“I’ll risk it,” says Shira. “Option! Capture the Glitch!” Option zips over to the Glitch, engulfs it, absorbs it, and files it away in her MonDex.

As they walk back in, Sparks says, “You think you can use that thing?”

“Why not?” says Shira. “I’m the Chaos type. It’s compatible.”

They look at Marisa. She stares at her tormentor in horror. Shira and Sparks look at each other. “I think she knows.”

“Fun’s over, yuri otaku! For now, anyway. Option! Let’s out!” Option forms a hoverboard, Shira hops on and pulls Sparks on behind her, and they fly out the door.

Marisa shakes off her fear paralysis enough to scream, “Tasuketeeeee!”

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[Revision 1, 12/9/11. The “Introduction to Quantum Bogodynamics” scene is a scenario from the early-’00s Project Notebooks.]

Spanner Chapter 25: The Public Be Damned

2011-12-09T13:00:00.000-08:00

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Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 2: Rage of the Prophets
Chapter 25: The Public Be Damned

Some call it the consent of the governed. Some call it the sanction of the victim. Whatever it’s called, the people of the state of Cascadia decided to withdraw it on Election Day 2014. Their defiance drove the share prices of the Cascadia Public Management Corporation down to penny-stock levels and obliterated the Seattle Public Education Corporation.

The commissars of the American government’s ruling Conservative Revolutionary Party are not about to take the withdrawal of their victims’ sanction lying down. They intend to keep their power absolute by any means necessary. They have the weapons. They have the entitlement mentality, the divine right, and the sense of having evolved beyond humanity. They are the chosen ones of Jesus America, the one true God (because all the other “one true Gods” are false by definition).

The government declares war against the People. The reign of terror is at hand. The prophets and crusaders give themselves over to holy hatred. Republic? What republic?

But what can rage and absolute power do against an Angel of Chaos?

Table of Contents:

Zombie Republic (December 6, 2011)
Money Changes Everything (December 7, 2011)
Tyranny for You (December 8, 2011)
Bogon Flux (December 9, 2011)
Hate Disease (December 10, 2011)
Terrorists vs. Gangsters (December 11, 2011)
Interlude 13: Six Degrees of Keenan Sasser (December 12, 2011)

Chapter 26 →

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Spanner 25.3: Tyranny for You

2011-12-08T18:00:00.000-08:00

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Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 25: The Public Be Damned
Part 3: Tyranny for You

10 november 2014.
Harborside Commons. The interchangeable blonde presenter du jour who is not Amanda Currie parrots the official Party line like an unnaturally coiffed robot. As video of a tax protest being ruthlessly crushed by armoured COPCO strike agents wielding shields, truncheons, and sound cannons plays, she announces, “Today yet another demand for unearned subsidies was put down with righteousness and justice by the heroic police agents of COPCO, defending the Homeland from terrorists and moochers since the Revolution. COPCO, Jesus America thanks you!”

Most of the people in the food court either struggle to tune it out or groan at the annoying gratuitous advertising that the Party’s Corporatist policy has made so inescapable. Shira, however, laughs. The friends at her table (and Leila’s aunt Ariel) stare at her.

“What’s so funny?” demands Debbie.

Shira replies, “Merely the way the lamestream network robo-Barbies keep flubbing their reports in the exact same way, that’s all.”

Leila sashays up to her and flirtatiously hip-bumps her. “Don’t forget, girlfriend, that this is the actual cultural standard. The entire Corporate society really is like that.”

“Only it don’t play too well outside Corporate circles. It’s like Barney Dinosaur, only justified.”

Polly throws her hands up and sighs in despair. “Why do they keep treating people like they were terrorists when all they want to do is put food on the table?”

Ariel explains, “You cannot understand unless you think like a Corporate. To Corporates, money is not a physical thing at all. It’s metaphysical. It’s not a reward for hard work, nor for prosperity consciousness.”

“It’s their blood,” Shira adds. ”Their real blood, that is.”

Polly crosses her arms. “That’s impossible!”

“Not if you think of Corporatism as a cult. Unlike us mundanes, to use the Gnostic fundamentalist term, a Corporate’s soul is in the public image, not the body, making money not just their blood but their life force. That’s why Corporates are so paranoid and bigoted: they think everybody below ’em in the hierarchy are out to raise themselves at their expense by stealing their money. They think we’re vampires!”

“Polly,” adds Leila, “I’ve been around Corporates long enough to know that Shira is exactly right. The richer you are and the higher up you are in the Party hierarchy, the more likely you are to believe this superstition. It’s worst among the bankers and oilmen, and it goes double for those princeling heirs of theirs who never had to actually earn money even once in their lives.”

Debbie snarls, “And I assume you actually earned money, Miss Expert?”

“Rob and I actually had to work our way up from the bottom tier of Pretty City models.”

“Lemme guess. Y’all were too lazy to handle the work, so you quit.”

“Oh, we could handle the work just fine, Debbie, which is why our fellow Corporates look down on us. It’s just that we were too sensitive to handle the constant humiliation the Fashion-Industrial Complex inflict on its models as a matter of policy. Which is also why Corporates look down on us.”

“You weren’t too sensitive to chop off that devil man’s head.”

“He deserved it. Ollie had backup clones, but I needed to piss off my grandfather into granting my wish for a pre-emptive divorce.”

Jennifer interjects, “That’s another reason why Corporates look down on ‘mundanes.’ Thanks to the miracle of Cold War defense technology, they’re now able to buy themselves immortality. They can afford to live without a conscience now. They’re even social-engineering the social animal out of human nature. I won’t be surprised to find them developing the custom of killing each other as a way of saying hello, like Formic hive minds in Card.”

A small detachment of COPCO agents enters the food court to enforce the Party ban on social gatherings, which are considered inherently subversive to Party dictatorship. “Uh-oh,” says Polly, “I think we’d better split up.” The girls divide into three teams (Shira and Debbie, Jennifer and Polly, Leila and Ariel), silently agree to reassemble at their next meeting place, and leave by three different entrances.

Bremerton High. They join the rest of Team Bremelo on the Ohio Avenue sidewalk overlooking the parking lot crammed with portable classroom trailers. Polly is surprised to find they’re empty. “Isn’t there supposed to be school today?”

Cory answers, “Yeah, but not while CPMC’s suing the Consortium for control of the District. They can’t hire teachers while the suit’s going on, and Boss Wally’s gonna be suing for a long time. Therefore, no school.”

“The Party was always against quote-unquote ‘edjamacayshun’ anyway,” says Jennifer bitterly. “Shutting down the schools was actually one of their primary goals. Ignorance makes obedience blinder, after all.”

Zac Finney, the head custodian, joins them. He says in his charming hillbilly accent, “You know what’s even better than that? They won’t even let the custodians clean up the school. They talk about filthy rednecks? Y’all oughta see the huge messes the Corporates like to make outta entire states.”

“And to suppress the truth, they hire their mercenary COPCO agents to bash heads. Is it any wonder nobody likes ’em?”

“They don’t care whether anybody likes ’em,” says Ariel. “They’re superhuman now, or so they believe. Humans are an inferior species. The old cur actually comes out and says it.” She turns to Zac. “The twins’ mother and I happen to be the Governor’s prodigal children. We know him better than anyone else. Our mother stayed behind in Europe when he left during their divorce to keep him from turning werewolf and eating us alive in public.”

“That’s one reason why they insist on cracking down on us. Their entire superhuman society is based on fear of the threat from below. Right, Debbie?”

Jennifer’s mention of her name catches Debbie off guard. “Wha—”

“I just think everybody not already bought off by the Party resents being kept down by the Party,” Shira says. “If we actually had an actually free society, there wouldn’t be near as much resentment. But the Corporates and quote-unquote ‘Real Amurricans’ gotta indulge their entitlement mentality in the most authoritarian ways, then project it onto their victims, a.k.a. mooching vampires who only wanna mooch off the deserving rich people who are only ‘deserving’ by definition.”

Jennifer adds, “And because the Corporate notion of ‘freedom’ strongly implies the antisocial nature of their posthuman species, they express it in the form of Tournament: a society based on dominance hierarchy, social advancement through treachery and backstabbing, and, above all, tyranny. It’s their nature, and it goes completely against ours. We being mere puny humans, of course. Keeping us down is the Party’s entire purpose, after all.”

Debbie half-whispers in half-panic, “Don’t say it where they can hear! They’ll torture us for it! Remember?”

“So when did you develop a conscience, Becket?” asks Leila scornfully.

Shira answers for her. “Since her own mother outed her as a lesbian sex criminal and caste-slash-species traitor, and she had to find friends to turn to. Meaning us, love. So be nice to her now. She needs us.” She goes over to Debbie, hugs her, and gives her a kiss on the cheek.

Debbie blushes. “Oh, thank you, Shira. I love you.” Leila stares at them with a pang of jealousy. Debbie sees the look on Leila’s face; fearing that she could unleash her power in a jealous rage, she rushes over to Leila to give her a hug and a kiss. Leila sighs.

Zac’ phone rings. He looks at the on-screen caller ID. “Deth.”

Shira says, “Switch to speakerphone mode.”

“Gotcha.” He taps the screen to switch the audio mode. “Hey, kitty, what’ goin’ on?”

“Dude!” exclaims Deth Pussy’s voice over the phone. “You gotta see the Moral Enforcer riot goin’ on downtown! Scofield’s bringin’ ’em in from out of state, Homeland holy warriors venting their holy hatred unto big bad Babylon. They’re torturing everybody they can get their claws on, slingin’ tear gas and pepper spray, wreckin’ everything in sight—”

Shira laughs. “And the Consortium’s got no agents yet, and they can’t rely on COPCO, which no doubt is enabling the wreckers. Byron, darling, you want a gang war? I’ll give you one!”

Scofield:
Man was not meant to build Babylons and build their towers into the heavens to challenge God. Man was commanded by God to obey Him and offer himself up in sacrifice to Him. I have vowed unto God to dedicate my life to purging the Nation to restore unto Him its glory! The tyranny of the Lord must be restored and made absolute!

I am his chosen one, the agent he has commanded to do his work. I shall purge Babylon from this earth, and the evil ones who serve the dominion of demons over it, as the Lord commandeth! I shall not fail!

Bangor squats. Talia’s phone rings. It’s Shira. “What do you want, you little brat?”

“I love you too, big sis. You and your vigilante friends got a counterterror plan against Scofield yet? You know you need one.”

“That’s none of your business, Shira, and you know it.”

“Ohhh, but it is my business, and always has been. I just told all the gang bosses that Scofield’s out to conquer their turf, steal their loot, and declare himself king of kings. Fortunately, they aren’t taking the news too well. Gangland terror against Moral Enforcer terror. Nice day to be a guerrilla warrior, ain’t it.”

“Okay then, if it really is your business, then you’d better spring that do-gooder cousin of yours and her friends. Stan Green and his goons are probably raping ’em as we speak.”

“The Terrorist. Figures. Can’t get enough o’ them knuckle sandwiches, can he. We’re already on it. ’Bye, sis, love ya!”

COPCO Bremerton. The local police headquarters has been hijacked by Stan Green and his Moral Enforcer militia. Team Bremelo lurk behind a nearby apartment house. “Looks like the Party’s havin’ a party,” says Rob.

“On our faces, no less.” Shira adds.

Debbie looks at Shira. “So we’re gonna crash the Party’s party, right?”

“That’s the idea.” Shira winks.

Suddenly a bomb goes off at the entrance. Shira says, “That must be big sis and her boyfriend.”

“Terrorists?”

“Yep. The Socialist Revolutionary Organization, vigilante posse of the revolution. But they’re not alone. Here come the gangsters to punish our good fiend the Terrorist for disrespectin’ ’em, something he’s quite good at.”

The loud sound of souped-up chopshop Harleys approaches from the hill above: Los Punkz. Hot-rod vans approach from downtown: the Klownz. They lob rockets at the police station; the Moral Enforcers shoot back.

Taking advantage of the chaos, three disgruntled COPCO lead out prisoners, some of them helping others who have been injured, accompanied by Amanda and Scope. J.T. Sparks, Stu Kowalczyk, and Lavette Perry urge the escapees across the street, through yards, to the vans waiting in the alley between Burwell and Fourth, where Lars Izquierdo, Arisa Saionji, and John Peck of the Slasher Hunters are ready to whisk them away from the hot zone. The Bremeloes meet them in the alley once the vans take the prisoners away. “That was one slick misdirection, redhead,” says Sparks.

“Made the operation so much easier,” Perry says. “How’d you manage to tip off the gangs?”

Shira shrugs. “I insulted ’em. Called ’em girls for letting the Terrorist insult ’em. Works like a charm on those gangster egos.”

Jennifer adds, “We didn’t notify the terrorists, of course. They were already decided long before. You were counting on this, of course.”

“We should go join the others,” says Leila. “I’m sure our rescued prisoners have a lot to tell us.”

Bangor squats. In the abandoned ministorage the Slasher Hunters use as their headquarters, they have set up an impromptu medic station. One rescued political prisoner says, “They were crazy! Completely irrational! Anything we said or did would set ’em off. You couldn’t reason with ’em.”

Another prisoner: “Their leader said they were punishing us for being un-American, whatever that is. They were like some crazy cult, like this was North Korea or something.”

Charlie is the one who set up the medic station with some of her fellow nurses and Willa as the attending physician (since she’s an M.D. as well as a Ph.D.). While Willa directs the nurses around as the injured prisoners need them, Charlie attends to her injured cousin Karen. “It’s amazing how much they have it in for you.”

Karen smiles. “We won’t back down, we won’t give in, we won’t let ’em beat us. Right, Colette?”

“I’m beginning to have second thoughts about this, Karen,” says Colette woozily.

“Peaceful nonresistance requires tough people, Shira.” Karen winks.

Shira winks back. “Hacking the Party hierarchy takes smart people, Karen. We gotta use our brains wherever we need ’em.”

“Especially against those who would force a moratorium on brains,” Jennifer adds. ”Wherever they’re weak, we need to strike.”

Sparks says, “And their weakest point is right up there at the top. The single point of vulnerability.”

Shira puts her arm around him. “And what is tyranny but centralizing all power in the single point of vulnerability at the top? Nobody seems to learn the lesson of the Soviet Union, that central planning of everything never works.”

“Of anything, more like.”

telesphere. Amanda Currie sends in her report from the field.

Amanda:
New Chief Shepherd Byron Scofield’s latest attempt to seize complete control over Metropolitan Seattle was foiled by the angry response of rival factions and criminal gangs. He has vowed to crush all rivals to his power, including the Seattle Consortium, Acting Mayor Hope Reston, COPCO Section Chief Locke Holmes, and CPMC vice president Peter Ross. Everyone we’ve talked to expects the struggle for power to continue indefinitely.

technosphere. Debaser asks Anonymous to avoid taking credit for the Moral Enforcers’ latest destructive failure. A certain Angel of Chaos with the standard Windows robot voice must get his word in, however:

Spanner:
The Moral Enforcers are just another gang. Byron Scofield is just another crime lord. His crime, however, is not black-market contraband sales, or the trade in slaves or whores or sexbots. It is tyranny, crime made political.

Everything the Party believes in is just an excuse. It was power lust, and that alone, that created the Conservative Revolution. The Corporates and the Americanists are so consumed by power lust they’ve gone paranoid. Just look at their conspiracy theories about we the people. They’re junkies tweaking on the ultimate drug. They’re so high on power and money, they’re incapable of seeing that we’re mad as hell and won’t take their shit anymore.

We have no choice but to take away their drug. We have no choice if we want to survive. I know I do. But do you? Your mission is to prove it.

This message will self-destruct in...

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Spanner 25.2: Money Changes Everything

2011-12-07T19:00:00.000-08:00

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Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 25: The Public Be Damned
Part 2: Money Changes Everything

10 november 2014.
City of London. Once it was the headquarters of the Bank of England. The Conservative Revolution made it the seat of power for the economic dictatorship established over first the United Kingdom, then the entire British Commonwealth; in effect, the Bank of England overthrew Parliament and usurped its theoretical power of absolute monarchy. Quickly it consolidated with the European Central Bank, and then the United States Federal Reserve System. Finally, it merged with the World Bank.

The architect of this consolidation, of the economic dictatorship, of the entire Conservative Revolution sits in the executive chair that serves as the throne of the world. Lord Richard Becket, President of the World Bank and Chairman of the United Corporations, stares with contempt across his desk and lectures the free-market economist standing before him. He assures himself that he is teaching the economist a lesson. The economist senses that he is actually on trial for heresy. For to Lord Becket, economics is not science but theology. His many enemies grumble that he is the pope of the new dark age.

The economy tries to speak. Lord Becket rises from his throne to shout “Silence!” One of the heavily armed Interpol agents grabs him from behind and puts his gauntlet over the man’s mouth. Becket sits back down and speaks down more calmly. “I don’t understand you free-market types. You assume the primacy of material reality. You do not realize that it is not real at all, but pure corruption. Hence your fixation on gold. Which is, from the proper spiritual perspective, mere metal, no more valuable than lead or iron.

He leans forward and wags his index finger like a professor’s pointer. “The truth is otherwise. Money is not mere wampum, whether of gold metal or cowrie shells. It is not exchange value. It is blood — the blood of the new gods who have manifested on earth to replace Man. The blood of the Corporations. It is ichor. Men are but vampires drinking it.

“Your foolish idea of freedom is no longer the way the world works. It is merely license for glorified monkeys to do as they please. You have not the intelligence of the gods, nor the lifespan, nor the spiritual perspective. The future has moved away from exchange value among puny little beasts that falsely believe themselves intelligent. The future has moved away from the material world of corruption. The gods are free at last from their dependence on mere human faith. They have found new flesh and are manifest in new incarnations. At last, we are conquering the world of corruption and placing it once again under the eternal dominion of spirit.

“Science! You mere humans make a fetish out of the alleged objectivity of corruption. There is no science in matter. The true science is that of eternity. The only objective world is that of pure spirit. There is no other. Even I debase myself in order to lead the revolution of eternity against corruption. Your race are but phantoms, easily dispelled.” Lord Becket blows his palm as if dispelling sand. “That is all. Guards! Take him away.”

Red House. Shira hides behind an open doorway to listen as Thurston Wilder throws a stack of letters onto the living room table. “The Foundation’s been receiving demands from our good friend Mr Becket demanding we pay money or swear fealty, preferably both.”

Ric laughs. “He wants us to pay tribute for the privilege of him letting us exist.”

Hope sighs. “Sometimes I wonder what’s wrong with those people.”

“They think wishes are horses, darling. They’re magicians, not economists. They’re in the job of magicking money into existence. That’s why they call it ‘fiat’ money. The Latin word basically means ‘abracadabra.’ Once they’ve magicked the stuff out of government debt and our hides, they grant their magic to whoever and whatever will give them the most power.”

“You’re saying Becket and his cabal are really black magicians,” says Thurston, “right?”

Ariel walks into the room eating a handful of strawberries. “That’s exactly right. It really is magic to them.” The others look at her as she joins them at the table.

Willa says, “You sound like my mother, Ariel.”

“You’re familiar, of course, with the conspiracy theories surrounding the Illuminati. They’re right, but only in a sense. The important thing is not what they control, but what they believe.”

“What they are,” adds Ric, “is Gnostic fundamentalists.”

“The fundamentalist doctrine is called ‘Nicolaitanism.’ The Nicolaitans are almost as old as Gnosticism, the same way the Khawarij and their Salafi doctrine sprang up almost as soon as the Prophet Muhammad died. The word means ‘victors over the people’ and designates the elitist strain of Gnosticism, which in Hellenistic and Roman times had more than a trace of elitism from the beginning with its division of people into knowers and sleepers. Nicolaitanism is unlike any other Gnostic school in that it teaches that the sleepers can never be awakened to true knowledge. It is from this assumption that the reigning political doctrine of Synarchism derives: if the sleepers can never be awakened, the awakened few therefore possess the divine right to rule over them with absolute power.”

“You mean Dick Becket believes this stuff?” asks Thurston.

“With absolute faith.”

Ric says, “The notorious neocon contempt for reality? That’s Platonic at minimum and Nicolaitan at worst. The Beckets were never known for their realism, to understate it severely. Consider their black-magic economics.”

Thurston asks, “And that’s why they shoot thunderbolts at anybody showing favor to a gold standard.”

“There’s no better anchor to reality than a precious-metal currency. The proper term for black-magic economics, by the way, is counterfeiting. Greenbacks are no more valuable than Monopoly money unless Lord Chancellor Dick magically transubstantiates ’em like a Catholic priest of Mammon.”

Shira shows herself and shifts all attention to her. “One black magician controls the entire world money supply? That makes the World Bank the ultimate single point of vulnerability.”

Thurston tries to control his surprise. “What do you mean, Shira?”

“Lord Dick’s magical devices, the printing presses, are controlled from a central computer. That makes it very hackable. But we don’t even need to hack the Imperial Mint system. Any hacker can counterfeit funny money. You got the computer and the link, you can download all kinds of money-maker software from the Darknet, and voilà: instant electronic greenbacks.”

“Giving Anonymous its own nuclear option...”

“Electronically counterfeit enough money to flood the system, and we can kill the dollar.”

Ric grins. “And the whole fucking Empire with it.”

“Leaving nothing left but gold,” says Thurston. “Does Lord Dick know about this?”

“Of course he does,” Shira replies. “That’s why the Imperial Mint’s so encrusted with ICE, and why he’s cut off the system from the Darknet.”

Hope says, “That would also give any terrorist the means with which to bring down the system.”

“But most terrorists don’t dare because what they really wanna do is take it over and make it their own weapon. They believe in magic, too.”

“Just don’t get yourself in trouble trying it.”

“Don’t? We’re already in trouble, Mom. The whole world is. Saving it requires a weapon. Better yet, why not take his?”

Jennifer’s car. “You guys talk about anything interesting?” asks Jennifer.

“Oh, nothing,” Shira answers, “only how to fight back when almighty Lord Dick tries to use black magic to get around his unpopularity and save his ill-gotten power.”

“Black magic?”

“That’s what Dad says Unca Dick uses to ‘magic’ fiat money out of nothing, using government debt and the magical power of transubstantiation. I said any hacker with a money-maker program can do the same thing. What I didn’t say is it gives me a bludgeon to hit Unca Dick back with.”

A traffic cop turns on his lights and siren. “Uh-oh, speed trap.” Jennifer pulls over and pulls out her driver’s license and smartcard. “Time to shake our money makers.” She rolls down the window. As the grinning traffic cop walks toward the car in an “intimidating” way, Jennifer and Shira can see the greed in his eyes. They know what he doesn’t: all greenbacks are bogus. The scammer will never know he has been scammed.

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Spanner 25.1: Zombie Republic

2011-12-06T19:00:00.000-08:00

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Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 25: The Public Be Damned
Part 1: Zombie Republic

To every problem, there exists a solution
that is simple, elegant, and wrong.
H. L. Mencken

9 november 2014.
Church of America Seattle. Shepherd Byron Scofield is not happy to find out he is not automatically Mayor as well. In his infinite self-regard, he does not realize that killing his predecessor in order to steal both his positions may not have been a good idea.

Scofield:
Brothers, this is a travesty! Do the men of the Consortium not realize that I am the only bulwark defending the moral purity of this city? They made a non-American their mayor! This is an unforgivable insult against America!

I hereby declare a holy crusade against the traitors of the Consortium! We must take this city back and put it back under Jesus America’s dominion. If it resists, then we must destroy it!

The Conservative Revolution must continue! America bless God!

Municipal Building. Mayor Hope Reston sends out her response to Scofield’s declaration of holy war against her. Her stepdaughter Charlie Richter-Thomas acts as her bodyguard and stands protectively behind her.

Hope:
Men with such power shouldn’t be putting out hit contracts on public officials like mob bosses. Many of us suspect the Party’s alliance with the Minuteman militias and the anti-Mexican drug gangs allied with them during the Revolution has corrupted them. If the Church of America is acting like a mafia, is the Party of CPMC no better? They have become a mirror of the Caliphate they crusade against.

Just more proof that we cannot trust our self-appointed masters. Any threat Scofield or Brinkman makes against me is a threat against all of us. We the people must stand together against their jihad. We must never back down for even one second. We can’t let these gangsters win.

CPMC headquarters. CEO J. Walter Brinkman is angry at both Hope’s appointment and Scofield’s call to terrorist action. “We need to get Reston out of the way, but we also need to teach Drusilla’s pit bull a lesson.”

“I can take care of the rabid dog,” says Litton. “As for Reston? The hard part’s dealing with her employer. It won’t be easy trying to take on every single damn business in the city. Personally, I think that Consortium bit’s a brilliant idea. You don’t like the state being run by one company? Team up fifty thousand. And you know what? It gets even better.”

Brinkman sighs. “How in the hell could it get any worse?”

“One, instead of giving each member the vote proportional to its size, the Roman way I personally prefer, Reston has the Consortium giving each member one equal vote. Small businesses demand an equal vote, she says, so give it to ’em if you don’t wanna be accused of conspiring with bad old CPMC.”

“What the hell?”

“That’s right, Wally, she’s using us as her blunt instrument. Two, she’s got ’em to add the unions and neighbourhood councils. Next it’s the worker councils and activist groups. Before long, she’ll have ’em give all those dirty city people an equal vote, and then we’ll be right back where we started, with the democracy we fought the Revolution to put a stop to, right back on the liberal road to socialism. You should be very scared, Wally. I sure as fuck am.”

Brinkman pounds his desk. “Damn! You’re right, R.J., I am scared. This is exactly what I was afraid of. The filthy rabble deserve nothing! I say we help Mr Scofield terrorize them. That should teach the dirty pigs a lesson.”

Litton smiles triumphantly. “I’ve got just the men to help you put the rabble back in line.”

Underground City. Night beneath the streets of Pioneer Square. Three blocks down from the techGothic, in a sleazy brothel run by Russkies and protected by paid-off COPCO agents, a screaming naked prostitute runs into the main room, bleeding profusely from the nipples. Her customer strides in, grinning wickedly as he chews the nipples he bit off. He is a Corporate princeling like Oliver Thorwald. The Law decrees that it is perfectly legal to kill sex criminals, including lowly whores. But where Thorwald took advantage of this legal loophole to wage a vigilante war against the whores and their pimps, this man simply murders his victims for fun and then welshes on his fees, citing the Law. Thorwald wanted his righteousness and his fun too. This man is only in it for fun.

He is Frank Becket, son of the former Cascadia section chief of COPCO. The dying sex slave’s owner, mobster Vitaly Rodchenko, points his revolver in his face. “You’re costing me money, pretty boy. Pay up or I’ll have my collection agents make you.”

Frank laughs. “You can afford it, Russky. Have your men clean it up. I’m untouchable, you see. I’m under Party protection.”

“Your daddy’s not COPCO chief anymore, Frankie. There’s a new chief in town, and he don’t like you. Pay up, or I might just let him have you.”

“Funny, I just met him today. He’s awful pretty. Too bad he’s a total bitch. He knows I got him by the short and curlies over the Alabaster case. Raping that invisible girl was a bad, bad idea. You’re paying, Vitaly. I had my fun. I gotta go now. Go clean up your mess. ’Bye.” Frank walks away, out onto the street, not paying.

Vitaly’s lieutenant Stanek says, “I hate those Corporate creeps.”

“It’s that stuck-up entitlement mentality of theirs, Boris,” says Vitaly. “They think the world owes ’em everything. They owe us their revolution. They couldn’t have done it if we hadn’t taken out their liberals. They keep treating us like this, it’s gonna come back to bite ’em in the ass.” He stares at the still body of the dead whore, lying in a pool of blood, bled out through the breasts off which Frank Becket ate her nipples. “The Corpos owe us, Boris. One of these days, we’re gonna collect.”

Mudlark House. After they take turns in Willa’s big bathtub, they dry themselves off and do not put their clothes back on. Present: Willa, Jennifer, and Connor; Hope and Shira; exchange students Anna St. Cyr, Régine Coury, and Bobby Visser; and children Ayla and Lucie. They meet in the living room. Anna and Régine let the children sit on their laps and shower them with affection. Bobby flirts with an interested Tansie.

“America doesn’t seem very civilized these days,” Régine sighs.

Willa says, “One of the marks of civilization is peaceful cities not being destroyed by terrorists.”

“There’s other markers that make it even easier to tell if a society is fully civilized,” Jennifer adds. “Acceptance of ethnic minorities, acceptance of gays and lesbians, generally an easy tolerance of diversity. Anna, are the Americans cracking down on public nudity in Germany yet?”

“Cracking down?” sighs Anna. “They seem to be trying to establish some kind of Sharia. Believe it or not, they’re asking us why we hate Hitler so much. Apparently they won’t take ‘the little shit destroyed our country’ for an answer.”

“Figures. You’ll be pleased, so to speak, to find out that Nazi drug gangsters helped the banksters overthrow American democracy two years ago. They wanted to keep their turf free of Mexicans, you see. The Party helps them keep a monopoly over the meth trade.”

“The so-called ‘Real Amurricans’ pride themselves on not being civilized,” Shira says. “It must be some sort of redneck thing. They don’t even shower or take baths out of fear of being called girls.”

“Don’t forget, Shira. All civilized people are sodomites by definition.”

“That’s what they say in the Caliphate.”

Hope interrupts. “The question is, how do we keep these self-described enemies of civilization from destroying ours?”

“Plenty of ways, Mom. One just came to me right now.”

Everybody stares at Shira, including Tansie.

“I’ve got a few friends I want Byron to meet. If you know what I mean by... friends.”

Seattle streets. As his chauffeur drives the bombproof black stretch Hummer, Scofield stares through the tinted bulletproof windows at the city and does not like what he sees. He cannot help but think of what kinds of horrible sins go on behind the scaffolded walls of the city buildings now under repair. He prays once again for God to deal to all cities the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Four armed men in decadent-looking business-type suits make themselves visible as the Hummer passes them. They wear wraparound shades in defiance of the darkness of night. They stare at the Hummer; silently they speak to him and warn him to fear them. He can tell they are Russkies, mobsters connected with the ultra-rich oligarchs obsessed with resurrecting the lost glory and dominion of the Russian Empire. They warn him that they will not make his crusade easy.

Scofield stares back at the mobsters. He is no girl. They will not take him down or even distract him from the holy mission commanded unto him by Jesus America. His glare answers theirs.

The stretch Hummer leaves the Russkies behind. He snorts and adjusts his top hat.

telesphere. Chairman Richard Becket delivers his closed-circuit message to the men of the United Corporations.

Chairman Becket:
Last week the insolent rabble of the traitorous liberal state of Cascadia decided to defy us. They defy the natural order of things. God established Nature as the strictest hierarchy, on earth as in heaven.

We must not treat this as an isolated thing. We must remind them all that we are the chosen ones of God and they are nothing. I will order the Imperial government to double all taxes on mass consumption. This will double our revenues, and put the fear of God into them. If they do not obey, I will order them to use maximum force.

We cannot allow the authority given us by God himself to pass out of our hands. Our Revolution is in danger. We must defend it to the death. Theirs.

KCUF studio. “And they call this a republic?” marvels Deth Pussy as he watches the intercepted video.

“They use ‘republic’ to distinguish their system from democracy,” Desiree replies. “Their problem is that, like the dinosaur corporations of their Cartel, their precious republic is a zombie. One good push, and the whole house of cards will all fall down.”

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Spanner 24.6: No More Miss Nice Guy

2011-12-05T19:00:00.000-08:00

Now that the technical difficulties and my recovery from NaNoWriMo victory are over, NaNoFiMo is here and I can concentrate on Spanner Book 2 again. The madness resumes, once again on a daily basis.

So I drafted one Locke Holmes, boy detective turned infamous manga villain based on Professor Moriarty? But remember the “high concepts” behind the characters of Diana Shockley and her brother Will Becket back in 1992: she is “Deunan Knute as a villain” (I will forever hate Deunan for killing Chiffon in Appleseed book 1); he is Char Aznable, American. Likewise, their archenemy Arvid Shield was the long-haired “Evil Bishounen” of horror anime (particularly Apep in Seraphic Feather), at least until he picked up some of the characterization of Ayn Rand’s hero Francisco d’Anconia. And of course the Beckets stab each other in the back like the Royal House of Torumekia. But these are just the starting points. What I learned after I created those three characters is that eventually, everything changes — something they themselves will find out the hard way. And this Locke Holmes is also part Lelouch from Code Geass...

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Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 24: Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud
Part 6: No More Miss Nice Guy

9 november 2014.
CPMC headquarters. “What?!” Brinkman spits his coffee all over his huge executive desk and chokes.

“I said,” Litton repeats, “the new Seattle Public Management Consortium hired Hope Reston.”

“Those fools! Don’t they realize they’re only enabling treason in their midst?”

“You think that’s interesting, listen to this. The consortium head just delivered us a series of left-handed compliments, to wit: ‘Thank you, CRP and CPMC, for giving America the benefits of economic stagnation and a Third World economy. We congratulate you for making unprecedented profits selling out our country to Chinese and Russian corporate raiders. You know exactly what makes America great.’ That kinda shit. I think they have it in for you, Wally.”

Brinkman slams his fist down on the desk. “They call themselves men of business? They don’t know what capitalism is! They’re defying the natural order of things! This must be stopped!”

Westlake Center. Hope Reston accepts the position of acting mayor of Metropolitan Seattle to the thunderous acclaim of the multitudes in the plaza. “Thank you! Now let’s get down to the first order of business. The Consortium board has voted to allow all locally based businesses, large or small, to buy an ownership share in the Consortium. Outside companies, domestic or foreign, are not invited. Our goal is to keep the city running. To this end, the board has also voted to eliminate all protectionist regulation currently on the books in all jurisdictions within the Metropolitan District. Small businesses are the creators of jobs and the generators of growth. We need as many as we can get. We are striking the first blow against Corporatism.”

The crowd erupts into even louder cheers.

“Corporatism is nothing more than Soviet Communism for ultra-rich parasites who can’t tell the difference between production in a free economy and parasitic finance. The nomenklatura of the so-called Revolutionary Party is sucking America dry. We call it corporate welfare. We call it un-American. From now on, corporate Communism has no place in this city. The commissars of CPMC have no place in a free country. Together, we must take back our state.

“We are holding all-city elections next year. If you are a thirty-day resident of the Metropolitan District, please make sure to register to vote, and then make your voiced heard. We must move away from ownership back to citizenship! Join me, and together we’ll take our city back!”

COPCO Bremerton. The last thing Shira remembers is becoming dizzy all of a sudden and blacking out. Now she finds herself back in the interrogation room, facing not just her number one hater in the FBI, Diana Shockley, but a new man. It takes her a while to focus her eyes again. But then she recognizes the cold blue eyes, the weak chin, the cowlick. Her eyes and mouth slowly go open as she recognizes him; she takes a long deep breath. Then she grins. “Well, well, well. I never figured I’d have an audience with Inspector Moriarty.”

His eyes go wide; his lips go tight; his shoulders go tense and make his head sway; he snorts and blows his cowlick. John Locke Holmes, COPCO’s new Cascadia section chief, hisses in a fading English accent that could be the fading Boston accent of a Becket, “We’re onto you, Shira Thomas. You and your democratic rabble. We’ll stop you from destroying the natural order of things. Now tell me who your leaders are, and I might let you off easy.”

Shira laughs. “You forget you’re not dealing with the Invisible Maniac now. Leaders? You must be thinking the election was some kinda military operation like you people do. Clearly y’all don’t live in the twenty-first century. The beauty of this operation is that masses of people pulled it off without leaders.”

“You people clearly have no understanding of the nature of things. Where there is action, there is command and control.

“Obviously you don’t understand the meaning of the word ‘anarchy.’ It doesn’t mean ‘battle royal of the central planners’ the way you people think it does. It means the complete absence of central planning authority. ‘Archon’ means central planner. The problem with central planning is that it doesn’t work. It forces you central planners to deny all reality outside the central planning hierarchy. It wasn’t really America that brought down Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. It was central planning. Corporatist America is doomed for the same reason. So stop playing games and face up to reality, okay?’

“I should warn you, Miss Thomas. Unlike Dr Becket, I don’t play games.”

Languidly, Shira plants her elbows on the table, clasps her hands, and leans forward to rest her chin on them. “You say you’re Locke Holmes, super detective? Or are you really Lochlan Macbeth, superhero of the Conservative Revolution, with the chimera army swiped from Biotron? You forget the first rule of Tournament, your much beloved ‘Law of Social Darwinism.’ You’re not only playing the game, you’re trapped in it. Your mentor knows it. You don’t seem to.”

He puts on his sunglasses — to hide his intentions behind a poker face, or in a futile attempt to shield himself from her own unnerving stare? “Doesn’t matter. All your games are over for good. I shall see to that.”

“I like a man who lies to himself. You just told me that the real game has begun. Face it: you just tossed me the Challenge of a lifetime. And if you and the Doctor decide to tag-team it, I’ve already got the right partner. She’ll be more than happy to take you on — in court.”

Mudlark House. “You’re late,” says Jennifer as Shira slams the front door. “What took you?”

“Oh, I was, how you say, inconvenienced. World’s greatest detective? Lousy interrogator is more like it. He’s so arrogant, he makes even mean old Doc Becket look humble and considerate.”

Jennifer frowns. “Locke Holmes, you mean.”

“You can’t mistake that combination of forelock and Moriarty stare.”

“Sounds like the old Doctor’s decided to step up his game.”

“Big Daddy Sparks, more like it. He came out of the dugout with the hook and yanked Ol’ One-Eye off the mound. Holmes must be his newly acquired ace reliever. He just threw me his big pitch. All that’s left for me to do is hit it right outta the park.”

A mischievous smirk grows onto Jennifer’s face. “Speaking of Ol’ One-Eye, why don’t we introduce our new friend to his prodigal son.”

Shira answers with a cockeyed smirk of her own. “Anticipate my move, why don’tcha.”

Jennifer takes her cousin into her arms. “The more I know you, the more I understand you. And I’ve known you longer than anyone else in the world.” She kisses Shira on the lips.

Skeever property. You want games? reads the note in Shira’s beautiful handwriting. I cordially invite you to the canine gladiatorial games at the House of Skeever, where there’s someone I’m dying for you to meet. The note gives the address.

Holmes is at the address, outside the jerry-rigged stadium with which the Skeever brothers replaced the one Team Spanner burned down during the pre-election riots while Oliver Thorwald still owned it before he re-enlisted in the Army to get away from Leila Shelley. He is here because John Becket failed to suppress the riots. Shira told him the one-eyed incompetent’s depraved son Frank is coming. He’s prettier than you, and he came by his sense of entitlement honestly, by being born to it. I think you’ll like him.

“Tell me about your nephew Frank,” he tells Diana.

“One, he’s completely amoral and in it only for himself. Two, he’s a hero to the Corporate élite precisely because he’s only in it for himself. Three, he’s prettier than you, and twice as vain. I’d smack him again, but I gave up when I found out he liked it. Fortunately, he knows what’s good for him, because if he gets too close to my daughter, I’ll tear him to pieces with my bare hands.”

“You think you could actually do that?”

“For as long as you’ve worked with my father, you clearly don’t understand my family. We’d sooner stab one another in the back than say hello.”

“I shall try to remember that whenever I am forced to deal with them.”

Frank Becket surprises them from behind. “You must be that ‘world’s greatest detective’ old man Sparks hired to replace my dad. You think you can take on the insurgent rabble by yourself, world’s greatest detective? You didn’t handle that one invisible super soldier too well, now did you.”

“Shira Thomas did say you were a pretty boy. Blond, too. I wonder how you fend off all those steroid-maddened gangsters trying to rape you.”

“You don’t look to bad yourself, Holmes. But don’t forget who put you back together after the invisible soldier tore you apart.”

Holmes crosses his arms and frowns deeply. “I am fully capable of destroying you by other than superheroic means. If I wanted, I could rape your pretty corpse myself and get away with it.”

Frank laughs. “The world’s greatest detective can’t resist my charm! And no, Aunt Diana, I didn’t touch Belle. I didn’t even go near her. But if I do, it’ll be to save her from that creature Shira Thomas. You know what she does to pretty girls. You should see what she’s been doing to that little Jap loli of hers.”

Holmes says, “And she probably bought the ownership Exception to do her with. Shame about Ollie Thorwald, though.”

“Him? He can kill all he wants in Siberia, but he can’t handle one pretty girl. Mind you, that beauty’s a beast. Leila Renata Shelley’s her name, and she’s already tried to kill me twice. I think she likes me. Did you know she bit off Johnny-Johnny Johnson’s johnson? Not with her teeth. The otheer teeth, down below. She and the creature are doin’ each other now. Go figure.”

“And you’re not a criminal? You think you’re not the kettle calling the pot black?”

“You think I’m a criminal? At least I don’t do sexcrime, not with lads or lolis. And I don’t do intellectual property rape. Or at least I don’t have a Wilder Foundation to get in Lady Mendelson’s way, or something like that. Not since One-Eyed Daddy disowned me and called me a whore. And who’s a whore? One-Eyed Jack ain’t the one to ask. You have my permission to call him that, Chief. Because he hates it. By the way, you’d better get back in disguise. The owners are coming.”

When the Skeevers return, they find among the howling crowd in the stands two strangely calm people, a blond man who looks like Frank and a pretty young woman with short black cowlicked hair and a strong resemblance to an untattooed Taylor Brinkman. Johnny grabs Frank and growls, “You sure that ain’t your Uncle Will? ’Cuz if it is him, we’re fucked, and so are you.”

Frank grins. “No, Johnny, that’s his big sister, Agent Shockley. Don’t mess with Aunt Diana, or you’re fucked.

Eddie sneaks up on the the black-haired girl from behind and starts fondling her. “Looks like Frankie brung hisself a tenderoni. I’m gonna have me a bite.” He licks her neck.

She grabs his tongue hard enough to make him scream in pain and says in a male voice, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Eddie.” Holmes lets go. The Skeever Brothers stare at him in disbeliefe.

Johnny slaps his forehead. “Great. The fucking world’s greatest detective thinks he’s gonna pick on us in drag. Well, mess with us, world’s greatest detective, and we’re fucking well gonna mess with you.”

Holmes flashes them a pretty smile. “Your funeral. Ta.” He turns and slowly walks away. Shockley follows him, keeping her eyes on the Skeevers and her hand near her service pistol.

Shira’s apartment. Henry Becket, Will Becket, Walter Brinkman, Peter Ross, Byron Scofield, Brendan Sparks, John Locke Holmes, Drusilla Becket AMERICA!, the Rat Bastard. All of them have one thing in common: they refuse to recognize the loss of their victims’ sanction. They are not men but gods, and their victims’ fear and faith is their food. They will do anything to get it back, anything they feel necessary, even turn the entire State of Cascadia into a radioactive wasteland.

The Team Spanner core meet in the living room. Present: Shira, Jennifer, Connor, Leila, Rob, Cory, Kio, Polly, and Colette from Team Bremelo; Alex, Sparks, Deth Pussy, and Moon Roach from the Wrecking Krewe. Shira says, “Sorry, I love you to pieces, Jen, but I say we won round one. It wasn’t no knockout, ’cuz we didn’t knock the Man out. He’s back up and swingin’, meaner than ever, and this time he’s going for the KO.”

Jennifer says, “Apology accepted, darling. But let’s think team sports. They lost some players, but they’ve got a deep bench. Some of the subs are mean like Colonel Green; others are diabolically clever like new chief inquisitor Locke Holmes. Both of ’em are masters, but you gotta play ’em differently.”

Sparks smirks. “John Holmes. Isn’t that a dead porn star’s name?”

“Wrong Holmes. This one’s related to No-Shit Sherlock, not Johnny Wadd.” Sparks loses his smile and sighs.

Leila stares at Sparks’ face. “Are you really sure I took your face, that this John Holmes didn’t take it and replace it with his own? You look an awful lot like him.”

“That must be your ingenious disguise. I must admit, your new face looks a lot prettier. Girls like that.” Shira winks.

“But the real Locke Holmes is here now. That’s bad news indeed.”

“Think: what do bad guys do when they lose the first round? They up their game. They ain’t been cheating so far? They will. So we up our game too. It’s time for us to tell the bad guys: no more Miss Nice Guy.”

on to the next... →

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

[Revision 1, 12/5/11: First entry written and posted during NaNoFiMo.]

NaNoWriMo 2011: Panic Time Part 5: The Spectacular Come-From-Behind

2011-11-30T19:21:00.001-08:00

After a gruelling four days of writing writing writing, following a day of distraction and block following in turn another day of desperate writing, my shift into Panic Mode finally paid off. I won! I have succeeded in claiming my sixth consecutive NaNoWriMo victory!

I knew what I had to do. To get the 50,000 words I needed to win writing Spanner Book 3, I had to set Book 2 aside. That’s why I delayed the end of Chapter 24 until the end of November. Since my muse can’t multitask, I had to choose one or the other, either victory number 6 or nonparticipation as a “NaNo Rebel”. I chose to win.

Next comes NaNoFiMo. That’s when I’ll start writing and posting Book 2 again. Since Book 2 remains far from finished, I’m turning the serialization of Book 2 that resumes tomorrow into my FiMo project. Once again, I’ll set 50,000 words as my goal. I’m certain my first FiMo victory in four years of taking part won’t need to be so come-from-behind. I won’t need Panic Time.

My final word count for NaNoWriMo 2011: 50,256.

Now all that’s left to do is celebrate. I’m already pouring the bubbly stuff into the glass. Here’s to victory number 6! Then, I’ll take a rest. My first day of FiMo will not be this intense, or this hard on my shoulders and hands…

NaNoWriMo 2011: Panic Time Part 4: Fool! No TV Tropes For You

2011-11-29T14:54:00.001-08:00

I managed to write nearly 10,000 words last night in my late-minute Panic Time attempt to win my sixth consecutive NaNoWriMo. Sure enough, I came upon one final obstacle to my mad yet certain to be achieved quest:

TV Tropes.

That’s right. Last night, TV Tropes made an attempt to derail me. It almost succeeded. After all, everybody knows that TV Tropes will ruin your life.

But I’m back, and determined to get those last 14,000 words separating me from NaNo victory in one session. I will not allow TV Tropes to distract me from that goal, useful though it may be. (I can no longer count the tropes I’ve borrowed into Spanner since I discovered the site.) I have no other goal but to get that win. So the only site I have my browser set to right now is NaNoWriMo.org.

I’m concentrating on pulling off one of the most spectacular come-from-behind victories in my entire WriMo’ing career. Nothing will distract me. Especially not TV Tropes.

Now to claim my victory, and the purple bar beneath my NaNo avatar…

NaNoWriMo 2011: Panic Time Part 3: Now It Gets Serious

2011-11-28T15:25:00.001-08:00

Some panic I pulled last night. I only wrote about 4,800 words. I need to write over 7.8K words a day for the next three days if I want to get my sixth consecutive NaNoWriMo victory. Today I’m going to down a couple energy drinks and write over 10K.

So what happened? I suspect the dreaded Inner Editor kicked in and kicked the muse out of my brain, even before I reached 5K words. He got me playing PlayStation games again. Time to give him the boot again and cajole the muse back.

I have more than enough distractions in my apartment: books, videogames, videos, music albums, musical instruments. The Internet itself is more than distraction enough. Hell, there’s always something poised to take over my brain and make me think about stuff instead of actually writing. No time left for any of that, though. I have much writing to do.

As for Spanner Book 2, I need to stop thinking about it until December 1. In fact, due to NaNoWriMo-related constraints (namely, writing those last 23,000 words in three days), I’ll have to delay the last installment of Chapter 24 for one more day, till December 1, when everything I write in Chapters 24 through 46 in December counts for NaNoFiMo. And I’ll go back to posting new installments daily, which will motivate me to write at least 100,000 words during FiMo, and then maybe 100,000 more to finish off Book 2 for JanNoWriMo.

But until then, I need to keep my focus on Chapters 47 through 69. Spanner Book 3 needs just 23,000 more words, and then I can lay it aside until JulNoWriMo and AugNoWriMo, when I can go back, finish it, and get it out of the way so I can start on Book 4 (Chapters 70 through 93) next NaNo.

Anyway, back to writing. 10,000 words or more, here I come…

NaNoWriMo 2011: Panic Time Part 2: Don’t Bother Me, I’m Panicking

2011-11-27T18:07:00.001-08:00

One thing I just noticed about Panic Time, that final week of NaNoWriMo during which I panic and then write way too much, is that on the second day of my shift into Panic Mode, I tend to stop and get distracted. My muse must be more scared than I am. Yesterday, I got distracted by PlayStation games. I’ve got well over 100 of ‘em, you see.

Naturally, this kind of distraction leads me to panic even more, because I write nothing and thereby fall even further behind.

So, I’m going to complete my shift into Panic Mode by attempting to write 10,000 words tonight. It’ll make my hands ache. It may even make my writing completely incoherent. But if I really do want to win my sixth consecutive NaNoWriMo and get another volume of Spanner closer to completion, I must do it. There’s only a few days left, and the weekend’s almost over.

Here goes…

NaNoWriMo 2011: After Writer’s Block, Panic Time!

2011-11-25T17:37:00.001-08:00

Those “wrimos” who know me know about Panic Time: right after Thanksgiving, if I’m behind in the word count, I panic — I go into Panic Mode — and write in a frenzy in a desperate attempt to catch up and pull off a come-from-behind victory. This is one of those times.

Lately, I’ve been suffering bouts of writer’s block. Sure, I’ve been able to edit, but writing turned out to be something my muse didn’t really want to do. Besides, she can’t multitask: I was trying to serialize Spanner Book 2 while writing Book 3 for NaNoWriMo. Thus, I fell behind in my NaNo word count. The only way I can pull off my sixth consecutive NaNo victory is to put Book 2 on the back burner till NaNoFiMo in December, and shift into Panic Mode to put my full effort into getting that win.

Thus, I’ll have to delay the end of Chapter 24 till November 30. But since my FiMo project is Book 2, I’ll resume the Spanner serialization on a daily schedule. That’ll be my excuse to win my first FiMo, anyway, and my first JanNoWriMo in three years as well.

Anyway, here goes…

Spanner Chapter 24: Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud

2011-11-19T13:00:00.000-08:00

← Book 1/Chapter 23

Chaos Angel Spanner — Book 2: Rage of the Prophets
Chapter 24: Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud

The Fearsome Foursome lick their wounds and replace their dead members. Team Spanner regroup and plan their next set of moves. The Cascadian strikers go back to work, but with a warning. CPMC is forced to hand management of Seattle over to a consortium of local employers while taking over its school system from the bankrupt SPEC. The Becket brothers and COPCO’s Brendan Sparks announce their intention to interfere with everything, while the Beckets’ wayward niece Ariel Shield interferes with them. Oliver Thorwald says goodbye to Leila, even as Liz McPhail barges her way into Shira’s life. Charmian and Debbie plot to take Shira for themselves, against each other, Jennifer, and Leila. And Dr. Henry Becket, the Cold War lion from MKULTRA, begins his rise to supreme power in his attempt to put an end to the future and singlehandedly save the collapsing American Empire...

Meanwhile, the Author departs from his usual daily schedule so he can win his sixth consecutive NaNoWriMo, while drawing upon the fragmentary Book 2 manuscript from NaNo ’10 and various scenarios from 15 years of Project Notebooks. This chapter debuts the Cybernauts and their virtual reality. Soon we will meet the Dream Travellers, the TV Heads, the League of Chaos, and, last but not least, the lords of the Fashion-Industrial Complex — the grotesque Molotov Twins — in their home arcology, Pretty City.

At last, Spanner Book 2 begins!

Table of Contents:

Interlude 12: The Crisis (November 1, 2011)
Taking Profits (November 3, 2011)
The Innocence of Murder (November 8, 2011)
Know Your Enemy (November 10, 2011)
Turn It On Again (November 14, 2011)
The Reality Escapists (November 18, 2011)
No More Miss Nice Guy (December 5, 2011)

Chapter 25 →

Back to Chaos Angel Spanner table of contents...

Spanner 24.5: The Reality Escapists

2011-11-18T17:00:00.000-08:00

Okay, I’ve finally succeeded in overcoming a nasty case of mid-NaNoWriMo writer’s block. So, returning to this installment, I had to reach deep within, and managed to retrieve one of my earliest story ideas, the first one I discussed with my friend and fellow anime-club member, cartoonist Tony Angelino, in the local mall’s food court way back in 1992. So now, from deep within my earliest project notebooks, I present the first of the true virtual-reality scenes! After some more political trouble is dealt with first, of course...

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 24: Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud
Part 5: The Reality Escapists

8 november 2014.
telesphere. The Leaders of the Nation spar in duelling messages over what to do with the people.

Lord Chancellor Richard Becket:
Virtue has never been with the ignorant mass. It belongs only to the deserving. God alone chooses who is deserving and undeserving; he blesses the deserving and punishes the undeserving. He says in His Word that he will give more to those who hath, and take away from those who hath not. To his chosen, he hath given eternal dominion. This is the eternal principle of religion and government.

We have heard suggestions that we reduce the rabble to servitude. If we must, then so be it.

Lt. Cmdr. William Becket:
My uncle says the fundamental principle of government is the “golden rule.” To wit: he who hath the gold, maketh the rules. Which is just another way of defining the Law as his personal whim.

His faction, the Corporates, have no honor. They live by greed and power-lust alone. Honor, they tell us over and over, is for losers, meaning those unblessed with Jesus America’s denominated green-paper blood. Uncle Dick insults all the men of honor who have taken up arms and shed their blood in sacrifice to the Nation. We do not give our lives so that Uncle Dick and his cabal can heartlessly profit off them. We do not shed our blood just so the men of wealth can mix it into their bloody Marys over their deals. It is time the men of honor take dominion away from the truly undeserving, the men of greed who worship corruption, and restore Our Nation to honor.

Those who sacrifice must become those who rule. If this means eternal martial law, then so be it.

COPCO CEO Brendan Sparks:
I’ve been hearing Chairman Becket saying the rich should rule over the poor, and his nephews tell me the soldiers should rule over the civilians. But rich people are in the business of making money, and soldiers are in the business of killing the enemy. We’re the police. Our job is to keep everybody in line. If President Goldman Sachs gets out of control, we’ll arrest it. If the Cartel Chairman himself get out of line, we’ll arrest him, and we’ll take no guff from that power-hungry greedhead.

Face it, nation. President Goldman Sachs blew it. It let King Patriot die, for God’s sake. Out in Cascadia, Wally Brinkman and his government company blew it, too. He let the rabble ruin his dominion. So we’re launching a hostile takeover of Cascadia Public Management effective immediately, and I’m firing Wally and Jack. While they’re running to the City of London to bawl on Uncle Chairman’s lap, I’m replacing them with far more effective directors: Michael Corson in management, J.L. Holmes in enforcement. So there.

Westlake Center. Workers gather this Saturday to underline their demands. Employers try to find common ground with them and explain that they too are at the mercy of capital, especially the small employers who, explain the big consumer-oriented companies, are the foundation of the entire city economy.

Richard Becket is offended. The United Corporations chairman has decided to make a personal appearance so he can smash the rally himself. A large contingent of bodyguards surrounds him as soon as he steps down from his helicopter on the Westlake Center tower’s roof. He yells at his nephew Jack, “Get those fools out of here! They’ll only be getting in my way!”

“Chairman’s orders, Uncle.”

“Fuck chairman’s orders! Can’t he get it through his thick skull? I’m a superhero, goddamn it! Get those idiots away from me, or I’ll be sending them back to your chairman in pieces!”

The bodyguards part in a wave advancing toward the Chairman. Ariel Shield parts them like a human Red Sea, comes toward her granduncle, smiling sweetly, followed by her own niece Leila and her girlfriend Shira, until she blocks his way. Chairman Becket flinches. Both he and Ariel know that she can trap him within one of her Repulse fields and use his own Destruct field as a weapon against him. “Hello, Uncle. Going on a super jihad again, aren’t you.”

“Ariel, you’re not supposed to be here. Get back to where you belong.”

“I belong here. I was expecting you, so I decided I’d pay you a visit early.”

The Chairman leans into her face. “You know what this is about?”

Ariel does not flinch and continues to smile ironically. “Quote, ‘We must keep the mooching parasites from sucking the blood of Our Nation dry,’ unquote. Quote, “Money is the blood of Our Nation, which we must defend from the parasitic masses by any means necessary,’ unquote. Yes, I know all too well. And that’s why I’m not letting you have your little jihad.”

“Oh, and those business types here?” adds Shira. “Unlike you finance types and your quote-unquote ‘holy blood,’ we actually make things, and those people in the street work to earn the money to buy them. You’re looking at the Producers, Mr Chairman.”

Chairman Becket pokes Shira’s chest. “If you’re such an economic wizard yourself, little girl, you know full well that production has nothing to do with profit, not in a genuinely free market.”

Spanner:
Corporatist definition of “free trade”: freedom to commit fraud without getting arrested.

Leila says, “If I remember my aristocratic education correctly, ‘reality’ means ‘doing deals with eldritch abominations to receive maximum power and profit without consequences.’ But have you sussed out yet that the price is your soul?”

“Why don’t you go read your Ayn Rand. Did you know you’re in Atlas Shrugged, Dick? No, not who you think. You’re no Midas Mulligan, Mr Chairman. You’re Orren Boyle.”

The Chairman laughs contemptuously. “You fool! Ayn Rand knew nothing about anything!”

“So then, where’s the growth?”

Spanner:
Corporatist definition of “growth”: constantly rising profits for bankers. For workers? Even for employers? Sorry, producers. It’s a zero-sum game. The Nation has only so much blood to go around.

“Voodoo, Mr Chairman. Pure voodoo. As Cartel chairman, you’re the cult's high priest. As dictator of the Bank of England, you just happen to be Lyndon LaRouche’s recruiters’ wet dream. Economic reality? Gods forbid, facts? Blank-out! Oh, and I speak as one of those consumer-oriented business-owner fools upon whom you look down and like to spit.”

Chairman Becket glares down at Shira incredulously. “You think you’re one to laugh at me?”

“Every Econ 101 student with any grade higher than F already is. They can see that the emperor, as the saying goes, has no clothes. I should know. I took it last year.”

Jennifer pushes her way through the crowd of MIBs to pull Shira away. “Come on, dear cousin, don’t talk to that clueless old witch doctor. He’s incapable of speaking anything but voodoo.”

Shira tells the Chairman, “I’m sorry to have to give you the bad news, Chairman, but one of these days reality’s gonna have its revenge.” Jennifer takes Shira by the hand, Shira takes Leila by her hand, and the three walk single-file, hand in hand, toward the elevator.

Ariel, still smiling, gets back in the Chairman’s way and refuses to let him pass. “Sorry, Uncle, but I’m not leaving until you do.”

In a huff, Richard Becket gets back on his helicopter and orders the pilot to take off. The dumbfounded bodyguards look at each other. Jack Becket crosses his arms and storms over to Ariel to attempt to intimidate her. She smiles, snaps his eyepatch, and says, “

Down below, the worker rally continues as planned and goes off without a hitch. No one below the roof knows that the Cartel chairman came and went.

Game Wars. Back in Bremerton, Shira, Leila, and Jennifer check out the game center’s huge new virtual reality annex. Connor, Rob, Cory, and Polly wait for them at the double table next to the Tully’s outlet, ready to get them coffee and whatever they want to eat with it.

Polly looks at the crowded VR pods. “Just look at ’em. These reality evaders make me sick.”

Jennifer winks. “Some people just aren’t tough enough to handle reality. That requires politics.”

“How do they know the tyrants of our world won’t just try to take over theirs?” asks Leila.

“They don’t. But it could be worse. Grandma Nelly introduced me and Connor to some people called ‘soul travellers’ who try to spend all their time in dreamspace and suffer from virtual-world sickness as a result. That’s what these people will end up with if they spend too much time away from reality. Virtual-world sickness. You feel your soul fading away into nothing.” Connor rolls his eyes and sighs sadly.

“You know somebody like that?”

“Mother of an ex-girlfriend,” says Connor. “She was heavy into this New Age spiritual stuff. Then she decided to go off into the deepest reaches of dream reality, so now here in hard reality she’s catatonic. That cured me of the ‘cosmic foo-foo’ thing.”

Shira stands up. “I’m gonna have me a look-see. Put on your AR goggles and link me if you wanna come along.” Before the others can protest, she runs off to take an empty pod. They sigh and put on what look like ordinary eyeglasses or sunglasses but are really computer monitor goggles for use with augmented-reality software in their personal area networks. Jennifer plugs two pairs of AR goggles into her bra, a wearable computer, and puts one pair on Leila, then rubs her shoes back and forth on the floor to generate extra power from their friction. Once Shira is locked up in her pod, they all find themselves in her room.

Dr Hiram Whistler and his assistant, the engineer Isaac Finney, installed a hyperadvanced computer into Shira’s skull at the same time Jennifer was battling serial killers to the death on Blake Island. Her personal virtual reality system has a home base in the form of a cluttered expandable room. They see from her perspective. Right now she looks at the mechanical-owl avatar of her analytical, AEGIS. In a squeaky voice that needs oiled, it says, “I hope you’re not getting your friends stuck in a trap, Shira.”

“Don’t worry about that. They’re not really with me, they’re just seeing what I see. I get in trouble, they’ll autojack out.”

A dot of light resembling a virtual version of the stage Tinkerbell flits about the room. To Shira’s “tourists,” AEGIS explains, “This is Option. Shira can use it to absorb, generate, and evolve powers she can use here in virtual reality but which will be of no use in your reality. There is also a subspace link she can use to contact me in the event she finds trouble.”

Shira says, “Don’t know about you guys, but I’m ready. Let’s see just how these people are fleeing reality. I suspect games.”

Shira becomes visible to her friends. In a burst of light, she morphs into her virtual alter ego, Aya Shibata, the sexy cyborg dark elf with flaming red hair. (Polly [catching her breath]: “I can see why that otaku boy married her avatar.”) Shira’s viewpoint resumes, the room’s door to the outside world dilates, and she flies through it as Option orbits her like an electron.

This virtual reality is organized like a huge city on the inside of a space colony. This being Game Wars, Shira notices that the buildings are actually arenas, each one containing a game. She flits toward the fighting games. One simulates the prison-gladiator show Pit of Death: the players can be condemned criminals fighting to the death without actually dying. $1 a minute. She spies Game Wars itself (mid-air fighting without the danger or the glitches), plus VR versions of such classic fighters from late-twentieth-century video arcades: Mortal Kombat (specifically, MK Ultra), Street Fighter, World Heroes, Samurai Shodown... The surviving arcade game companies are determined to make their mark on the new virtual world.

Next stop, the wargames. Most of these arenas contain complete virtual worlds for the still-faddish military first-person shooters from such cash-cow franchises as Call of Duty, Battlefield, Medal of Honor, and SOCOM, every single one of them fully funded by, and showering with profits, the Pentagon, which hopes to recruit from the field of players.

She looks around: the platform worlds, the MMOs, the strategy wargames, the society simulators, the virtual nightclubs made famous in cyberpunk novels. But no matter how much she looks around, there’s something specific she does not find, and probably cannot find at a place like Game Wars. “Nope! No political sims! Maybe I should claim it as my niche? I could make a fortune.”

She rises from her pod and leaves it for the next customer. Her friends take off their AR goggles. “Games,” says Leila. “Figures.”

“Well, if you can’t do arcade gaming the old-fashioned way anymore, why not take it virtual.”

Jennifer says, “They can do bigger games that way, bigger ones than even the consoles can hold even on multiple BluRays.”

“Why don’t we get a tour of that dreamspace those ‘soul travellers’ are so keen on playing around in,“ says Cory conspiratorially.

Shira brushes him off. “Nah. Too long to get in. Gotta meditate, shift perspectives, count sheep, and all that. Too much fuss and bother for a quickie tour.”

Rob says, “You say they’re running away from politics, aren’t they, Shira.”

“Like I said, some people just aren’t tough enough for it. Problem is, sooner or later, politics is gonna invade their dreamspace, and they won’t be able to evade that. Maybe us hardcore hackers can handle it, but I don’t know if these people can.”

“We’ll find out eventually,” Jennifer warns.

to be continued...

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[Revision 1, 11/18/11. The virtual reality scenes and the characters AEGIS and Option come from the earliest Project Notebooks and the original Cybernauts concept from the early-to-mid 1990s.]

Spanner 24.4: Turn It On Again

2011-11-14T20:05:00.000-08:00

Sorry if today’s installment is somewhat late. I had to take extra time to finish it, then encountered technical difficulties (i.e. a brand new bug in Blogger). But here it is at last. Enjoy.

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 24: Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud
Part 4: Turn It On Again

7 november 2014.
Thorwald property. Oliver Thorwald sits alone in his warehouse and stares through the open truck doors and mopes. It may be dark inside, but the lights outside are on so he can see the burned-out ruins of his dogfighting arena. The billions of dollars he was supposed to inherit from his father are now tied up in legal fees, so that one born at the top of the world must start all over at the bottom, as a junior executive. He dreads the prospect of having to do actual managing work; after all, junior executives are notorious for working themselves to death. Because Leila killed all his mature clones in front of his eyes, and the remaining three stashed elsewhere will take eight more months to a year to mature, he must now consider himself temporarily mortal. Before her mother killed his father, she made sure to poison all his clones; Dr Lars Thorwald of Biotron, Incorporated, is now dead. All the Thorwald family’s stake in Biotron was stripped from them by the bankruptcy court and sold off to financial speculators who will surely ruin his father’s work. Even the sovereign immunity he retains by virtue of being Corporate, which allowed him and his point man to kill any number of mundanes without possibility of penalty, can bring no more pleasure. Besides, his point man is dead. He himself killed Johnny-Johnny Johnson. He was foolish enough to try to kill Shira Thomas while her beautiful bare arse was locked onto Johnny-Johnny’s face. He smothered to death, and he knows it’s all his fault. He is too depressed to cry like a girl.

He can see Leila’s silhouette in the doorway. It comes closer to him. He does not move; he sits in his chair and accepts his fate. When she reaches him, breathtakingly beautiful in her yellow sailor-suit school uniform, she pulls something out: not a sword, not a gun, but a pack of unfiltered cigarettes. Turkish. She flicks it so three cigarettes stick out. He stares at her uncomprehendingly. “Take a fag,” she says. “I’ve got a light.” He takes one and puts it in his mouth; she takes one for herself, takes out Thorwald’s Army Zippo lighter, and lights it. She leans down to him and lights his cigarette with hers, then puts the lighter in his hand. They take a deep drag that makes them cough hard. Their bodies are not used to the smoke: she quit long ago; his new body has no tolerance. When Leila recovers her breath, she says, “You know, Oliver, tobacco is the perfect gateway drug. Once we build tolerance so the buzz no longer comes, we find ourselves seeking it from other drugs: cocaine, amphetamine, PCP, super steroids. Right before it kills us, we find out our quest for the perfect buzz has lost us our humanity. Not that I wanna ban it or anything, mind you.”

“I getcha there. But I think alcohol’s better. Start with beer, go on to liquor, then barbiturates and heroin and even stronger shit, till you’re so clinical even meth can’t work, so you deliberately OD. You were well on your way to throwing yourself off that bridge when that hot girlfriend of yours put you right back on the wagon.”

“Sorry if I drove you mental, Ollie. I was pretty mental myself.” They laugh together, then take another long drag on their cigarettes. This time their lungs don’t react against it as violently.

“I hope you’re not here to end me, Leila.”

“End you? Why should I? I’ve won, we’re free of each other, and that’s enough for me.”

“I sold the place.”

“Skeevers?”

“Yeah. Say, let’s you and me give those fuckers a housewarming present they’ll never forget.” He raises his lighter. “I got the fire.”

Leila raises the blouse of her uniform. “How about we warm it with a little body heat first?”

“As in, friendly goodbye fuck?”

“Yeah. Our patriarchs never got to marry us. Yours is dead, and mine wants me dead. We never fucked hello, so why the fuck not.” They laugh. They strip off their clothes, giggle like naughty children, throw themselves on his tattered old bed — except Leila stops short. She stops right in front of the bed, standing so he can watch. She grins wickedly. “Before you fuck me, you gotta suck me. You know how to do that?”

He grins back. “If I don’t, you can always coach me.”

She opens his mouth wide, then sticks her left breast into it. “Let’s begin your first lesson.”

Shira’s apartment. A persistent knock on the door wakes Shira up. Groggy, she forces herself up from the recliner and shambles to the door, not bothering to put a robe over her naked body. She peers through the peephole and sees a pretty young woman who looks about Shira’s own age, smiling sweetly, whom she recognizes as Liz McPhail. What’s she doing here? She opens the door.

Liz is pointing a gun at her. She is completely naked.

Shira shifts her weight seductively onto her right leg, fondles Liz’s gun hand, and flashes her a cockeyed smile. “Well, good evening to you, too, neighbour.”

“Y’know, I’d kill for a smoke.”

“Put that gun down and I’ll give you a drink too.”

“By the way, I only bat right.”

“Lucky you. Pierre’s the tool you need.”

Liz lowers the gun. Shira lets her in. “Hella nice place you got here.”

“Not just mine. Filtered or unfiltered, take your pick. How do you like your poison, Scotch or Irish?”

“Scotch? You got the real shit?”

“Straight outta Scotland. Straight or on the rocks?”

“Straight.” Liz takes an unfiltered cigarette out of the pack Leila left on the endtable near the door and lights it. Shira pours her a shot of scotch, then walks over to hand it to her. Liz downs it in one quick gulp. “That’s more like it.” She takes one long drag off the cigarette.

Shira takes her hand. “C’mon. Let’s go meet Pierre.” Liz grins and follows her to the bedroom.

Thorwald property. As soon as they put their clothes back on, Leila and Thorwald sit together and share one of her unfiltered cigarettes. “Since this is your last night here,” says Leila, “why don’t we give the new owners a little housewarming gift.”

“So what kind of present you got in mind?”

“I was thinking of something, say, too hot to handle.” She gives him a wicked smirk.

He slaps his forehead. “Now why didn’t I think of that in the first place.”

“You were too busy moping. You tend to do that.”

“Oh yeah.”

He leads her to his fuel stash. They spread gasoline and kerosene throughout the warehouse. They take his remaining fireworks and place them in strategically located places, especially in the fuel storage room, where they can do the most damage. Then they pour a line of gasoline out of the warehouse, down the cracked old blacktop, to the old van where Johnny-Johnny committed several of his murders. Shrunken heads of Thorwald and Bunny Strakeljahn that Leila lopped off their previous bodies decorate the rear-view mirror. She gets into the passenger seat.

Thorwald grins. “They’re gonna find themselves a nice hot surprise tonight.”

“Come on, hurry up before they get here.”

“Yessir.” He drops his cigarette onto the gasoline fuse.

When the Skeever brothers arrive, they find Thorwald’s van gone and the warehouse in flames. “Aw, fuckin’, shit,” says Johnny.

Jordie pats his shoulder. “Hey, Johnny, think of it this way. We can do to this place whatever the fuck we want.”

“Forget Ollie,” says Tony, “he’s over.”

Johnny chuckles. “I guess you guys are right. But first thing we gots to do, we gotta build ourselves a new stadium.”

Shira’s apartment. Leila unlocks the door with Shira’s key and enters only to hear the unmistakable sounds of Shira making love to another woman with her strap-on. She slams the door, sighs in frustration, and storms into Shira’s bedroom, where she sees her fuck Liz McPhail like a man. She laughs.

Shira turns to her and winks, then returns to working on her helplessly moaning, writhing guest. Leila understands the implication and winks back. She takes off all her clothes, watches the spectacle before her, and pleasures herself.

8 november 2014.
The fat man sits silently, sleeplessly, motionlessly on his couch and stares in worship of his giant-screen liquid-crystal god. All night the deity has fed its worshipper his nightly dose of news, information, and entertainment. As soon as the light outside begins to sully the purity of the light emanating from the screen, the entertainment ceases and the news and information begin flowing in. This is when he starts his morning ritual of restless news surfing.

Local News:
The Cascadia Public Management Corporation has agreed to sell its Seattle division at a loss to a consortium consisting of the city’s leading businesses and charitable foundations. Seattle Public Management’s interim CEO, Thurston Wilder, announced in a press conference—

click

Thurston Wilder:
There are three priorities we must take care of if we want to be able to fully recover from the recent disasters. First, we must repair the damage to our city and its buildings. Second, we must find a way to fight crime in this city without having to rely on such unreliable outside contractors as COPCO. Last but not least, we must do everything in our power to regain the trust in the city’s people.

click

Henry Becket:
It is a fundamental truth that when authorities lose control, crime always takes advantage. The evil nature of man will always out. This is especially true when the authorities lose control over themselves, and allow themselves to give in to the temptations of greed and corruption.

I have put CPMC under ultimatum. If its management cannot regain control over themselves, the company cannot purge the corruption from society, and the Party will find itself forced to assume direct control, by force if necessary.

click

Byron Scofield:
In the name of Jesus America, I hereby take dominion over the City of Seattle and the State of Cascadia! In the name of Jesus America, I banish the demons of lust, corruption, liberalism, and Islamofascism! In the name of Jesus America, I shall purge this land of the forces of evil and make it a holy land—

click

Hope Reston:
Any authority unaccountable to the people is necessarily unaccountable to reality. Brinkman, Ross, and especially Scofield are living in the clouds. And you wonder why America has gone to the dogs. Reality will have its revenge.

click

Rebel Styles:
Hello, lover.

He tries and tries to change the channel, but he cannot. The virus has infected his television set. His god has itself been possessed by a demon, in the form of a charming child seductress. But it is not in despair that he throws away his remote, but out of lust. He has no morality.

I know what you want. You wanna see more. You wanna climb into your TV set and rape me. I know you want to. I’m such a tease. Be careful what you ask for, boy. You just might get it. [giggles]

She controls the camera. She works it like a master. She zooms in on her hairless cunt. Her nether lips speak.

Don’t even think of changing the channel. I control the vertical and the horizontal. I control brightness, saturation, and chroma. And now I control you. Please tell me you’re mine. Tell me.

She owns him body and soul now. “I’m yours, Rebel Rebel.”

You are my slave.

“I am your slave.” He stares, paralyzed and helpless and consumed by desire for her, as the camera pans upward, caressing her body with its TV eye. She sensuously writhes her sleek slim body. He drools.

When the camera image reaches her face, it zooms in on a closeup of her beautiful painted lips. She commands:

Come to me, lover. Come to Rebel.

He lets his desire for her possess him. He moves closer to her lips. He holds out his arms to embrace her. He places a sloppy drunken kiss on her lips. They part seductively—

—and suck him into the television screen. He lets the giant lips suck his fat body into her mouth’s womblike caress. Gradually he disappears into the screen, until there is nothing left. His dog barks nervously.

Rebel takes her time to chew up her crunchy victim. She swallows him with a loud gulp, licks her lips, lets out a satisfied sigh, and smiles beautifully. In its panic, the dog knocks over the television, it falls to the ground, its screen shatters, waking up the fat man’s wife.

Groggy, she stumbles into the living room, bothered by the terrified dog, carrying her coffee. “Melvin?” She sees no sign of her husband. “Melvin?”

ESPNBC News:
This just in. Local authorities in the Seattle area have received a panicked call from a housewife who claims her husband was eaten by a television set...

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[Revision 1, 11/14/11: The “fat man” scene originated in the mid-’90s Project Notebooks.]

Spanner 24.3: Know Your Enemy

2011-11-10T17:00:00.000-08:00

As I catch back up to my normal NaNoWriMo pace, next week I’ll begin the Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule that I’ll be sustaining through March (and NaNoEdMo). Conveniently, the plot shifts back into high gear next installment. Not that there’s no fun or bizarre stuff this installment...

← ...from previous

Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 24: Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud
Part 3: Know Your Enemy

6 november 2014.
Evergreen Park. The overhead lights lead the way as the Shelley twins stroll the park’s paths late during the night and talk about being sixteen. “I don’t feel any older,” says Rob.

“Lucky you,” his sister replies. “At least you were blessed with not having to deal with being born female. The law says I’m an ‘old maid’ already. Now that that psycho Grandfather forced on me is oout of my hair, he’s bound by Law and sacred honor to get me into the kitchen of some rich lord and master as fast as possible.”

“Doesn’t your love for Shira disqualify you?”

“Not in Grandfather’s eyes. He refuses to let me be, for the sacred honor of the House of Brinkman, he says. All that’s missing, it seems, is the plantation with the docile black slaves secretly plotting to strangle Massa when he ain’t looking. I may have to kill him myself.”

Suddenly Frank Becket, pretty, blond, and evil, blocks their way, smiling at Leila with wicked intent. “Leila Shelley,”

“As if the devil we were speaking of weren’t bad enough.”

Frank approaches her and tries to stroke her cheek. She flinches in revulsion. “A spirited filly, I am told. Now that that loser Thorwald is crying over his clone tanks, I believe I can cure you of your sick little perversion and claim your honor for myself.”

“What perversion? My attraction to a woman, or to her dark skin? But I know, it is my desire for freedom from lords and masters such as yourself that you consider perverted. I’m afraid my values are completely alien to yours, and those of your precious Empire.”

Frank makes like he’s about to force himself on Leila, but then he looks at Rob, backs off, and laughs. “I ahall have you, Leila.”

Leila smiles ironically. “But not for long, Franklin. You see, I’m a succubus. I’ll suck you dry.”

Bangor. The squats are remarkably free of violent crime, mainly because the Populists there will not tolerate it in their peaceful neighbourhoods and have set up a crime watch. The subdivisions have no such protections once the income level sinks beneath middle class. The suburbs of the twentieth century were designed so that upper-middle-class people could share their lives together, out of the nostalgia rich people have for the stifling conformism of small towns. Upon this social foundation, the entire worldview of Conservative Revolutionism was built. But when the rich return to their beloved small towns and leave the big-city suburbs behind, poorer people with fewer opportunities take their place. The rich have much in common, and they are very smug about it. Poor people tend to have little in common. Where there is no public sphere, in the now dead projects or the now abandoned suburbs, the requirement that much be shared leads the poor to share nothing. Inevitably, the poor residents divide into factions, form gangs, and go to war.

Within the subdivisions of Bangor, there are five large parks: Jackson Park (not to be confused with the Navy family barracks in Bremerton) and Magnuson Park after the mid-twentieth-century senators who got the federal pork-barrel money to build them; Freedom Park and Liberty Park after the Party’s alleged ideals; and, in the centerless center of the city, Dictel Park, after the company that employed most of Bangor throughout the nostalgically remembered Cold War. In Dictel Park, two all-white “street” gangs battle for control of the city: the Freedom Bay Americans and the Libertywood Freedom Fighters. They scream as they brawl. Reno Corson, war chief of the Freedom Fighters, gave the order to attack when Americans chief Frank Becket left to pursue Leila Shelley. The scene is like an ancient-war movie, with fists and found weapons replacing the swords and arrows.

“Give the fuckers no quarter!” exults Reno. “Go get yourself fucked, Frankie boy! When you get back, I’ll own the city and you’ll eat my shit!”

“Hmph!” replies his once-killed, twice-disgraced moll, German idol singer Bunny Strakeljahn. “And then he’ll do the same to you while we are in bed.”

“You shut up! I’m a real man, not like pretty boy! I gotta show him who’s the man and who’s the girl-faced faggot!”

Bunny sighs. Around them, crew-cut steroid-bodied white gangsters beat each other to a pulp.

7 november 2014.
Their work done for now, the workers of greater Seattle end their general strike and go back to their jobs. To keep the corporations in line, they make sure to threaten their management with another strike if they get out of line. Management are not in a position to do anything about it at this time. CPMC stock is falling to penny-stock levels, the survivors of the Fearsome Foursome are licking their wounds, COPCO is trying to recover from its humiliation, and the corporations must now deal with the threat that Byron Scofield and his militant Party fraction will seize the city government and plunge the city into full-blown war.

Dr Henry Becket meets with Scofield. The Shepherd bows before him in obeisance. “My lord! Tell me what to do!”

“You shall put the fear of God back into the black hearts of the sinful rabble. We are his Chosen. We must make them know that God has made us the head, and they are but the tail. The head of the Nation is to rule the nation, and the tail is but to follow. This is the order of Heaven. Do you understand, Mr Scofield?”

“Yes, my lord!”

“You must re-establish our dominion by any means necessary. If that means unleashing terror, then so be it.”

clone bank. Vince Corson puts the pistol in his mouth, pulls the trigger, and immediately wakes up in a clone tank. The first thing he does is pick up the gun from his bloody corpse and shoot Oliver Thorwald. When Thorwald emerges from his tank wet and naked, he roars in frustration and vows revenge. Johnny Skeever says, “Yeah, like a pathetic shit like you would give a fuck.” Thorwald shoots him. Skeever emerges from his tank still swearing.

Leila strides casually in, still wearing her temporary black-and-silver Bangor High sailor-suit school uniform that matches her hair, armed with an automatic rifle. Thorwald shrieks in panic when he sees her. She grins evilly. “Hello, Ollie. Miss me?”

“No no no, don’t you dare touch my clones.”

While Thorwald watches on, Leila empties a full extended clip into his clone tanks. He screams in horror as the glass shatters and bullets perforate his carefully grown backup bodies.

Johnny Skeever, still naked and carrying his pistol, laughs at him. Leila exchanges the empty clip for a full one and shoots him.

Mudlark House. They are the kind of professionals who would not be out of place in a typical thriller: Amanda Currie, investigative reporter; James T. Sparks, police detective; Angela Coyne, defense lawyer; Willa Richter-Thomas, psychologist.

So far, so according to the Standard Thriller Template.

But they are not what they seem on the surface, or in the guild membership lists: Amanda Currie, nude art model; James T. Sparks, guerrilla hacker; Angela Coyne, (name this); Willa Richter-Thomas, postpunk rocker and author of thrillers. The template has strict limits. They disregard them. The problem with thrillers, and especially the standard political thriller, is that they pit one person or a small ragtag crew against a seemingly all-powerful conspiracy. They leave out the masses. They leave out the sanction of the victim. Above all, they leave out the significant fact that when the masses renounce the sanction of the victim, the conspiracy proves not so powerful at all. Willa has complained about this throughout her entire writing career, stretching back to the 1980s. As she likes to say, if you write, say, left-wing political thrillers, whenever you leave out the masses what you get is The Parallax View, in which the conspiracy wins.

Willa breaks the silence. “My evil ex is about to make his move. Shira already told me her strategy: meet terror with chaos.”

“It’s worked so far,” says Angela.

“But Harry Becket’s different from most Corpo patriarchs. He’s an experienced terrorist. Fidel Castro respects him and Kim Jong Il fears him. He has no sense of compassion whatsoever. He would be like the serial killers Shira and her bounty hunter friends are cashing in, but unlike them he always sacrifices his victims to the big picture.”

“Hell hath no fury like a technocrat who finds religion.”

Sparks says, “So the standard antiterrorist tactics won’t work, I take it.”

“He invented the, Jim,” Willa replies.

“So how do we expose him?” asks Amanda.

“We tell the world what I found out the hard way back in ’92. They need to know that his ideals are not so ideal after all.”

Thorwald property. Outside the warehouse, next to the burned-out dogfighting arena, the members of Team Bremelo and the Slasher Hunters sit in the grass and discuss round two. Ric Thomas tells them, “As you know, I used to be married to a Becket, and my sister Willa was married to none other than Henry Becket himself. Now you gotta know your enemy if you wanna beat him. To understand what we’re up against, you have to understand the Beckets. To understand the Beckets, you gotta know Dictel, and the key to Dictel is what happened to the company in 1948. That event ultimately led to the Conservative Revolution, the Church of America, and the dictatorship.”

Seika asks, “So what happened in 1948?”

“Israel gained independence from Britain and won the First Arab-Israeli War. Roger Becket of Dictel turned against his former Nazi allies, fired all the Nazis he’d been shielding from justice up to that time as part of the infamous Ratline, declared the Israeli victory a sign from God, and became an acolyte of one Herbert W. Armstrong. He was a schismatic Seventh-Day Adventist preacher who founded his new church, the Worldwide Church of God, on a combination of two Evangelical Christian heresies, the Dispensationalism of John Nelson Darby and a nationalist cult known as British Israelism that was once the official ideology of the British Empire. The future King Patriot believed Armstrong when he said that British Israelism was the key to the Bible and therefore the world-historical destiny of America, ‘therefore’ being the key word here.”

The Tachibanas look at Ric in shocked disbelief. “Wow,” says Harumi.

“You really shouldn’t be surprised at all. Armstrongism is America’s own State Shinto, and it’s right there in the Book of America, which is really Armstrong’s central work, The United States and Britain in Prophecy, rewritten and expanded to include American and Israeli nationalism and UFO cultism. If you wanna know why the Corpos insist on stoning all Nazis to death, it’s right there in the Book of America, which says the Nazis, including the Christian Identity ‘apostates,’ are descended from the Assyrians, which the doctrine claims are the race descended from Satan, and the purpose of World War II was to purge their blood from Europe before they could destroy all the Jews, prevent their return to Israel, and thus overthrow God.”

Ariel adds, “Did you know the Jews have their counterpart? It’s called ‘two-house theology,’ one of the pillars of British Israelism. After the Messianists established the theocracy in Israel, they made it, and therefore British Israelism, an official state ideology. Which means, of course, that since the purge of non-Orthodox Jews, if the Israelists believe it, the Jews do not. But this is what unites the Kingdoms of Israel and America, and it’s why those British Israelists who are not Christian Zionists are considered traitors by the Party.”

Ric continues, “Israel was built by Holocaust survivors newly fired by Zionist ideals. Then the ideal soured. Only the Messianists believe in it anymore. Them and their ultra-rich sugar daddies who run the American Empire through their Conservative Revolutionary Party. But believe me, idealism to them is little more than a license to kill. Don’t think the Corpos are like the LibDems back in Japan, or even the nationalists. Knowing Harry Becket and his sister Drusilla the way I do, I can honestly tell you, they’re more like Aum Supreme Truth.”

The Tachibana sisters gasp. “Is that really true?” asks Natsumi.

John Peck replies grimly, “I’m afraid it is so. Aum Shinrikyou was an armageddonist cult. So is Americanism. And Henry Becket fully intends to be its Asahara Shoko.”

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[Revision 1, 11/10/11.]