In the end I chose Miriam's scene because it sets up a hook that is of obvious importance for future stories — most readers can probably guess that there WILL be a reckoning of some kind between Miriam and Malcolm, once she is freed — but it doesn't do anything to tip off the big secret of Jared's importance.

I also liked the scene from a stylistic standpoint: I envisioned doing it entirely as radio drama, with just voices and sound effects. The addition of prose narration was a concession to the needs of a text-based format, but it did give me the chance to present a unique narrative POV. I may or may not keep the narration in the podcast version.

As for Chapter 30, I knew that I had to keep the ball rolling at that point and get us to the action as quickly as possible. I'd been over the Del/Trace guilt complex so many times that I didn't want to belabor the point now; there's no way they're not going to forgive him after the way he saved Fiona, and the loss of Sasha makes Del and Trace's deaths seem small by comparison. I had to hit the key emotional points and move on to the final confrontation.

I'm not sure which part you're referring to you when you mention "Victor's reaction to it all falling apart." There are a number of things falling apart around him during this story, after all. :)

At any rate, THANK YOU for sticking with me through this long, long process! All the way since May 14, 2007 — you've been waiting for this conclusion longer than anyone. I hope that, on the whole, it was worth the ride. :)

There are parts of Chapter 30 that feel rushed and glossed over, particularly Dan's revelation about his involvement in Del and Trace's deaths and Victor's reaction to it all falling apart.

All in all the tie-ups in Chapter 31 worked to provide the necessary closure to the various subthreads. I'd have moved the Miriam Epilogue piece to just after the section beginning with "Fiona never saw Miriam Bahktavar again" or just after the Malcom and Braddock section. There's not enough distance between the first to build suspense, and the ending I think is better served by having one of the other sections come last. A section with the new Sommer's cell would be more appropriate to the lion's share content of the story, but I almost want to recommend ending with the Jared bit as an epilogue as it leads strongly into the critical MK2K plot of the future and unlike the Miriam piece DOES have the greater distance/suspense from the last time it was examined in text.

But YAAAAY, it's done!

Only thing I noticed is this
"He wiped down the gun with careful, deliberate motions before pressing into Victor's hand. "
It seems to be missing a word in there.

1) WRITE MOAR. Er, I mean keep up the good work.

Heheh, thank you!

2) As soon as Sasha was separated from the others I knew she wasn't going to survive the looming encounter with Victor. Because it was the obvious answer to a question that's been in my mind since the start of this story. - Why isn't Sasha in the car at the end of Troubled Minds?

Yeah, I suspect that Sasha's death is something that a lot of people will see coming. What I think will take people by surprise is the way that Sasha "lives on" by integrating with Abbey. This solved a problem that I was wrestling with since the start of the story: why would the Sommers cell so readily accept Abbey into their ranks after she basically got Sasha killed? (Sure, it wasn't really her fault, but emotions aren't rational, and teeps are more emotional than the average.) After Artax's earlier comments about the malleable nature of the soul, and how you can break off a piece of it and give it to someone else, the solution became clear. It also allowed me to preserve a piece of my favorite character in the story without it feeling like too much of a cheat. :)

There's just one thing that bothers me. In chapter 26 Leena seems very much to be channeling Malcolm. Now, this makes sense because he is the one who "tamed" her and taught her what the life of a thrall would be like but it seems to me that she would more want to model her behavior after Miriam, who is her new savior. *Shrugs* It's your story but the dominatrix bit here seems a bit over the top. If she were trying to pass on the kind of discipline that Miriam used I'd think something a bit more disappointed parent like would fit more.

Though, if you were going for a sudden swelling of a sense of power after being let out from under Malcolm's heel, then the slight out of place-ness would be within the character and not the story and that works. Just depends on what you were aiming for.

Yeah, that's part of what I was going for: Leena is aggressively recapturing her assertiveness under Miriam's tutelage. The other part of it is, well, Leena's not Miriam. She was a smart, tough and hard-headed business woman before Malcolm got his claws into her, and that side of her has grown back with the position of authority that Miriam gave her. Unfortunately, her soul has also been contaminated by Malcolm's over the long years of exposure, and as a result she's picked up a ruthless, vindictive streak. That dark side is tempered by the compassionate idealism at the core of her nature, so she never turns truly malicious — but it has given her a love of power-play that fits in all too well with the syndicate's culture.

Miriam, by contrast, has only been under Malcolm's control for a few months, and he hasn't devoted himself to systematically breaking her like he did with Leena. She is powerless to resist his commands, but she retains much more of her essential identity. Leena has practically had to rebuild her identity from half-remembered fragments, and the darkness that Malcolm exposed her to has changed her significantly — something that Miriam alludes to in her conversation with Fiona.

1) WRITE MOAR. Er, I mean keep up the good work.

2) As soon as Sasha was separated from the others I knew she wasn't going to survive the looming encounter with Victor. Because it was the obvious answer to a question that's been in my mind since the start of this story. - Why isn't Sasha in the car at the end of Troubled Minds?

3) About the darker turn of the story following Miriam's turning, it was well written. From someone who does enjoy that particular cup of tea (My two favorite authors are Anne Bishop and Jacqueline Carey. If you don't know who they are look them up on Amazon and take a peek at the book reviews and you'll see what I mean.) I very much like the portrayal of the thralls. There's just one thing that bothers me. In chapter 26 Leena seems very much to be channeling Malcolm. Now, this makes sense because he is the one who "tamed" her and taught her what the life of a thrall would be like but it seems to me that she would more want to model her behavior after Miriam, who is her new savior. *Shrugs* It's your story but the dominatrix bit here seems a bit over the top. If she were trying to pass on the kind of discipline that Miriam used I'd think something a bit more disappointed parent like would fit more.

Though, if you were going for a sudden swelling of a sense of power after being let out from under Malcolm's heel, then the slight out of place-ness would be within the character and not the story and that works. Just depends on what you were aiming for.

Heh, I've had some time to prepare for tail end of 29 and the beginning of 30, so I won't make any requisite revenge longer or more painful than necessary. It's a crying shame that neither Sasha nor Abbey had combat oriented Psi powers.

Yes indeed. Of course, we knew where this story was going from the outset; we just didn't know how we were going to get there.

I think the sections were written very well. A lot of suspense, excitement, and emotion at the appropriate points.

Glad to hear it!

As it plays out, and I'm not sure whether this is the intent or not, it sounds like Victor is intent on destroying Darla. Given the fact his driving motivation to leave the collective was to find a breeding avenue, it seems like it would be more powerful to me if his focus was to try and take Darla, not able to process in his insanity that the process of cutting her out will kill her.

That's a great idea! Let me see how I can tweak the text to make that work.

I personally find leaving Miriam unsupervised with her telepathic abilities still active to be somewhat risky. Especially if a general alert of her condition hasn't gone out. The stake in the heart might be a dead give away, but people have missed more obvious things before.

Heh, true. I should have made it clearer that, while staked, Miriam (1) is free from Malcolm's compulsions and (2) is only capable of a faint shadow of her usual powers. She can't do much more than talk to somebody like this. I don't know if that scene is the place to bring up the details, but perhaps Fiona can justify her decisions later. It's not like she told anyone that Miriam could still talk to her…

Oh, and part 3 of Chapter Thirty is now up.

I think the sections were written very well. A lot of suspense, excitement, and emotion at the appropriate points.

Miriams ability to say goodbye telepathicly even while staked was a nice twist.

Sasha persisting somewhat in Abbey's head is not something I saw coming. I'll be interested to see how this plays out.

A couple quibbles:
As it plays out, and I'm not sure whether this is the intent or not, it sounds like Victor is intent on destroying Darla. Given the fact his driving motivation to leave the collective was to find a breeding avenue, it seems like it would be more powerful to me if his focus was to try and take Darla, not able to process in his insanity that the process of cutting her out will kill her.

I personally find leaving Miriam unsupervised with her telepathic abilities still active to be somewhat risky. Especially if a general alert of her condition hasn't gone out. The stake in the heart might be a dead give away, but people have missed more obvious things before.

I would say "enjoy", but in this case I think "don't hate me" is more appropriate…

Chapter Twenty-Nine was a fun action read, though I question the raw amount of power we saw Brian using during the fight. It doesn't seem in line with the levels we saw from him during the break-in.

Brian was pushing himself to his limits here, and he wasn't trying to run away at the same time. With all of his focus on the offensive use of his power, he was able to do more, and the desperation of the circumstances compelled him to do all he could.

I also question the use of the battlecry when Dan attacked Miriam at the end. You were emphasizing the benefits of his training and discipline against foes of superior phsyical prowess, and unless there is some tactical benefit I am unaware of, I would have thought battlecries would have been trained right out.

Sorry I didn't make that more clear; the purpose of the battle cry was to make Miriam look up from feeding on Fiona, thus separating her noggin from Fi's so that Daniel could pull his little stunt.

I thought when Fiona first cried out that you had killed Sasha.

I wouldn't kill Sasha off-screen! :)

I also need to go back and read over the Vampire article again to refresh myself on what things do what to Vampires. Given the Collective ingrained hatred of Vampires, it seems unlikely they'll do anything but dust her, but I'm curious as to whether you can leave one staked indefinitely.

You can, though of course it's risky to do so. If anyone removes the stake, the vampire's full motive power returns.

Chapter Twenty-Nine was a fun action read, though I question the raw amount of power we saw Brian using during the fight. It doesn't seem in line with the levels we saw from him during the break-in.

I also question the use of the battlecry when Dan attacked Miriam at the end. You were emphasizing the benefits of his training and discipline against foes of superior phsyical prowess, and unless there is some tactical benefit I am unaware of, I would have thought battlecries would have been trained right out.

I thought when Fiona first cried out that you had killed Sasha.

I also need to go back and read over the Vampire article again to refresh myself on what things do what to Vampires. Given the Collective ingrained hatred of Vampires, it seems unlikely they'll do anything but dust her, but I'm curious as to whether you can leave one staked indefinitely.

I just posted a ~2000-word addition to Chapter Twenty-Eight. Hopefully I'll be able to put this chapter to bed tomorrow…

I didn't see any hints of "Author on board" throughout the scene. In fact it meshes very well with the Sasha you have shown us throughout the story. Her perspective of faith comes off as a vary natural part of the conversation you introduced with the traumatized Abbey and is broken up appropriately to not seem "preachy."

Cool, thank you!

On first read-through, I got the inkling that Abbey's reaction at the time didn't seem quite like Abbey. I read through a second time and the feeling was still there. I looked through and although she is resistant, defensive to the comfort offered by Sasha's explanation about her Ecclesiatic beliefs, she seemd to take hope too quickly for someone who had been so traumatized. It might just be me though.

Thanks for the input. I was trying to show Abbey as weary and slightly sedated in that scene; her problems haven't gone away, but she's gotten just enough reassurance from Sasha to be able to get to sleep. I'll think about the scene further, though, and see if anything suggests itself to make that a little clearer.

On first read-through, I got the inkling that Abbey's reaction at the time didn't seem quite like Abbey. I read through a second time and the feeling was still there. I looked through and although she is resistant, defensive to the comfort offered by Sasha's explanation about her Ecclesiatic beliefs, she seemd to take hope too quickly for someone who had been so traumatized. It might just be me though.

First of all I think its a weird sort of question and perhaps a sad commentary on our times that a half page of religious discussion is possibly too much for a 28 chapter novel to support.

*nods* I know what you mean. But the SF community, you may have noticed, is often hostile to organized religion — not entirely without cause, granted, but sometimes people can get just a bit hypersensitive to "evangelistic" messages in fiction. That's why I wanted you guys to check me on it, to make sure it fits with the tone of the book and doesn't seem ham-handed.

I think it was a nice include. If anything, I would have liked to see it expanded a bit. There are natural questions about the perspective of an Ecclesiast in the Collective. We've seen Joanne's perspective earlier, choosing religion over the Collective, now would be a great opportunity to see Sasha's contrast on how to reconcile and/or cope with some of the seemingly obvious contradictions between the her faith and Collective culture.

Yeah, I wish I had more time to get into that stuff. I identify a lot with Sasha's perspective: she was raised in an organized religion, and she still holds fervently to its central tenets and doctrine, but she has decided that her church was wrong in its interpretation of some social issues (including, obviously, polyamory and homosexuality — or at least bisexuality). Her faith in Eli hasn't been shaken at all, but she no longer accepts the Ecclesia as the sole arbiter of truth or the ultimate authority in how she is to live her own life. She still sees the Ecclesiasts as fellow-travelers, but she can't walk alongside them in everything anymore.

But, as it happens, this story isn't really about Sasha's religious life, so we must needs be brief and move on. :)

I think chapters 27 and 28 are so far the best in a long time. The story is flowing and progressing after what, in retrospect, feels like something of a stall.

*nods* The setup with Miriam's side of the story took some time, and I had to answer the mystery I had set up earlier in the story with Fiona. Now that all the pieces are in place, it's Hell in a Handbasket time. :) I imagine I'll get better at pacing such things as I write more novels, but hopefully I've given people enough interesting things to chew on that they'll still enjoy the ride.

The setup for the near but failed information swap between Dan(ni) and Sasha was nicely executed, and not annoying as such things sometimes are in stories.

That's a relief! I know I'm playing the dramatic irony pretty darned heavily in this story, and I don't want to lose the readers because they find it implausible.

Dan's entry into the fight didn't go as I expected (I expected more of a tail them and operate independently approach) but this works out better for the story I think. I'm also trying to guess if Morgan has already been converted or not under this revised timeline.

She hasn't. She doesn't show up on Braddock's radar until she gets hired by the police, and that's a couple years down the road from here. Anyway, if she were a vampire she and Sasha wouldn't be getting along too well. :)

Thanks for the feedback! I'm hoping to knock out the rest of Chapter 28 this weekend.

I think chapters 27 and 28 are so far the best in a long time. The story is flowing and progressing after what, in retrospect, feels like something of a stall. The setup for the near but failed information swap between Dan(ni) and Sasha was nicely executed, and not annoying as such things sometimes are in stories. Dan's entry into the fight didn't go as I expected (I expected more of a tail them and operate independently approach) but this works out better for the story I think. I'm also trying to guess if Morgan has already been converted or not under this revised timeline.

I'm trying to do a few things with this scene:

1. Reveal a bit more about the Ecclesia and its analogues to Christianity.
2. Delve a little more into Sasha's personality and the way her faith expresses itself when she's alone.
3. Give Abbey a new mentor of sorts — someone to interpret what's happened to her and give her a new sense of purpose for her life. The Abbey we see in "Troubled Minds" is driven to help others, even at great risk to herself; I wanted to start planting seeds for that here in her conversation with Sasha.

Let me know what you guys think of the scene. Is it too much religion for the story to support? If it needs to be toned down, how would you recommend that I go about it? The key concepts here are redeeming suffering and using one's experiences to help others, since that's what is most relevant to Abbey's future; if anything changes, the essence of that message needs to be preserved.

Can't say I noticed anything in the spelling or grammar department, but those are not my strengths so don't rest too easy with that assessment :)

Duly noted. :)

The forest analogy works out well, as did the ocean analogy before as a means of exploring the mind.

Thanks! I couldn't figure out a good way to illustrate the nature of the damage with the ocean analogy, so I changed the metaphor. Glad to see that it worked.

Nothing too shocking about the Victor as villain in Fiona's past. He seemed a bit cruder in the role than I'd expect from what we've seen earlier in the story, but I suppose that can be chalked up to youth.

*nods* That's what I was going for. This is Victor before MID gave him 15 years of polish; his temper and his chauvinism are still there, but the older Vic has learned how to mask them better.

Fiona's story does server to cast more negative light on the Collective, given it's soft stance on psychos and suspicious child acquisitions.

Heh. I love portraying the moral ambiguity of the Collective, and this is one of the stickier situations the Hive has had to deal with. Even if they suspect that Egan and Victor might have been complicit in Red's death, it's strategically beneficial to feign ignorance and reward them for bringing in the child. Why not pull the truth out of their brains and then punish them? Because that would set a nasty precedent that no one with secrets is safe
in the Collective, and everyone has things they want to keep to themselves. Worse, it would encourage those who have similar "accidents" in the future to simply kill all the witnesses. This way, at least the child was saved, so Red's genetic inheritance carries on and becomes part of the Collective.

Is it morally just? Not exactly. But what do you do when the most morally just action you can take will result in greater evil being done down the road?

I don't have any answers to that one, but it's a thought-provoking question. :)

We also have Fiona being set up for another let down on the authority front. First her military mentor turns out to be generally evil and more specifically the murderer of her mother, now her newfound idol is a vampire sabotaging the Collective from within. She took that first one a little better than expected, but that could be Fiona just being Fiona. :)

Yeah, that was an interesting balancing act. I decided that, after venting 15 years' worth of suppressed grief and rage, she wouldn't have enough energy left to muster more than a sort of tired resignation. She still wants very much to go after Victor, as we'll see later on — but until they get a solid lead on where he is, and get Abbey out of the line of fire, she's willing to file away that thirst for vengeance until it becomes useful. :)

Thanks for the continued feedback! I'm currently working on getting Episode 13 ready to go, but I hope to do some more writing next week.

The forest analogy works out well, as did the ocean analogy before as a means of exploring the mind.

Nothing too shocking about the Victor as villain in Fiona's past. He seemed a bit cruder in the role than I'd expect from what we've seen earlier in the story, but I suppose that can be chalked up to youth.

Fiona's story does server to cast more negative light on the Collective, given it's soft stance on psychos and suspicious child acquisitions. We also have Fiona being set up for another let down on the authority front. First her military mentor turns out to be generally evil and more specifically the murderer of her mother, now her newfound idol is a vampire sabotaging the Collective from within. She took that first one a little better than expected, but that could be Fiona just being Fiona. :)

No complaints at the moment. The story has recently been going through areas that don't particularly appeal to me (namely blood sucking, sex, and human degradation), but that is a conflict of personal taste rather than any craft.

<nods> Some parts of it are uncomfortable for me, too — but they're supposed to be. While vampires in general aren't inherently evil, I want to make clear the sorts of evil that Malcolm and Braddock represent. Up 'til now we haven't seen why the Psi Collective hates the Syndicate so much; here, we start to see the first examples of it. The scenes with Leena were one of the hardest things I've written, but I knew I had to make the reader feel the horror that Miriam felt.

I think Miriam's intro to vampiredom was a plausible explanation of the experience.

Thanks! Are you referring to the physical/sensory experience that she goes through, or the social "training" that Malcolm conducts with her to teach her her place in the hierarchy?

The link you've tossed out between Abby and Dan/ni gives things an interesting twist, and it's nice to see that something of the more intelligent Abbey exists at this stage in life. She's been notably absent up until now :)

Heheh. Well, to be fair to young Abbey, she hasn't seen everything we've seen. Being rescued by Victor — and kept removed from his acts of brutality — has given her a bit of a skewed perspective. :)

I think Miriam's intro to vampiredom was a plausible explanation of the experience.

The link you've tossed out between Abby and Dan/ni gives things an interesting twist, and it's nice to see that something of the more intelligent Abbey exists at this stage in life. She's been notably absent up until now :)

A word of warning: New updates may be few and far between for the next couple of weeks. On January 12th I take the CSET exams to prove that I'm competent to teach General Science in California schools, and on the 13th I have an interview with the Oakland Teaching Fellows. I need to prepare for those events, and that's going to leave me little time for writing. I thank you in advance for your patience, and when I get back I hope to throw my full efforts into finishing this thing. :)

It's after 1 AM here, so I'm going to call it a night and pick this up again tomorrow. Expect further updates over the next few days as I endeavor to make the most of my Christmas vacation…

I think it does work out better beforehand, though I will admit I find the chapter division a bit quizzical. Almost like the Miriam and the vampires should be their own chapter 22 and the stuff afterward should be shifted back toward 21.

That, I'll admit, was deliberately written with podcasting in mind. I wanted to end Chapter 21 on a cliffhanger, with Miriam in peril. The later stuff with Danni is going on at about the same time Miriam is fighting for her life, so it could have gone either before or after the train scene; I went with the train scene first because I wanted to lead off the episode with action, then keep the listener in suspense about what would become of Miriam until the end of the chapter (which is what I'll be writing next).

plus it would make a nice follow up to the "Maybe, she thought, it’s all going to work out, after all. Maybe everything’s gonna be all right." I'm sure you have something else suitable unpleasant to work with that, but this provide a more consistant build of badness rather than the reader already having literary evidence of trouble by the time Rebecca tempts fate.

Heh. Personally, I rather like dramatic irony. :) To me, it works better to follow up on Rebecca's thought by having Miriam waking up dead (which, as you've probably surmised, is the next section). The reader has had some idea for a few chapters now that Victor and the vamps were targeting Miriam, and I like the idea of ending the chapter with that plan coming to its resolution (and thereby opening up a whole new plot arc for Miriam herself).

I think the Sasha/Fiona scene worked out really well. The ocean/underwater metaphor worked out perfectly, and having the psychic strangling mirrored by the real life effect was brilliant, dramatic, and gave it a greater sense of credibility.

Cool, thank you! That scene came to me very organically as I sat down to write this weekend, and I'm glad that it worked.

I'm curious about how the circumstances surrounding Miriam are going to develop. I'm curious what the nature of a psionic vampire is. If it's too powerful or grants the Syndicate too much access to the Collective, I would wonder why it hasn't happened more frequently. Perhaps it does, and that's another reason for the ironically named Collective's highly top-down nature? (Given that Elders would be very difficult to capture compared to the rank and file?)

Heh. Capturing someone like Miriam is definitely a first for the vamps; they would never have been able to manage it without Victor's intel on her preferred means of travel and the best way to track her. That's a large part of why the vamps haven't done it before: Victor's the first psi who was sociopathic enough to rat out his own people to the syndicate. Malcolm ard'Valos is also cautious by nature, so it wasn't worth the risk until the Collective staged its raid on Viscount, which was a blatant affront that (by gangster logic) could not go unanswered. As you'll see in the next chapter, Malcolm realizes the magnitude of the prize he's obtained — and he's going to be very careful how he uses her…

I think the Sasha/Fiona scene worked out really well. The ocan/underwater metaphor worked out perfectly, and having the psychic strangling mirrored by the real life effect was brilliant, dramatic, and gave it a greater sense of credibility.

I'm curious about how the circumstances surrounding Miriam are going to develop. I'm curious what the nature of a psionic vampire is. If it's too powerful or grants the Syndicate too much access to the Collective, I would wonder why it hasn't happened more frequently. Perhaps it does, and that's another reason for the ironically named Collective's highly top-down nature? (Given that Elders would be very difficult to capture compared to the rank and file?)

I've added a Danni/Rebecca scene to Chapter Twenty-Two, and I've also inserted a scene between Sasha and Fiona in the middle of Chapter Twenty-One. This was originally going to go after the Danni/Rebecca scene, but as I was about to write it I realized that it worked better if I inserted it earlier in the timeline. Enjoy!