Freedom to Fail

Okay next on the billing is the aptly named Freedom to Fail, which I can't actually remember whether I named before or after the several month hiatus in which I wrote Borrowed Wings and Not Human. Basically I got really hung up on Hawk and Rainbow's conversation and ran out of things to say, ironically this is pretty much the same reason Not Human stalled but I am now writing the ending to that (29.12.07)

Anyway there is only really one thing I dislike about this chapter and that's Weird's big evil villain moment which doesn't seem to be in character, I'll blame it on temporary insanity or the fact that mars was in the third house that morning or something. I think I've said before that I won't be altering the Freed in any way now I've finished, partly because it would take about four hours to read all the way through but mostly because I could keep fiddling around with it for months.

And now some things you didn't know about this chapter…

Err. Okay, there isn't much unexpected about this chapter though thinking about it Gale always seems to get the morning watches. Amazing what you realise when scrabbling around for content. Anyway, Weird has her new trick about sensing pain which I think she might have actually been able to do all along but didn't mention it to me. It would certainly explain why she's so empathetic for an eight year old. This is also the first time she kills anyone with her power, intentionally and unintentionally which was something I hadn't thought of when I started writing this chapter, still it was effective, and helped give Weird the motivation to blast them out of there. The actual high speed trick is, at this point, by far the most energy intensive thing Weird's ever done and that explains why it didn't quite work properly.

…and now I realise that the chapter has another whole section. Doh! It's been quite a while since I read these, shortly before I posted them as it happens.

Now this next bit has a lot of Hawk angst, and I think there's actually more in this arc than in the whole rest of the story and contrary to common belief I actually dislike angsty characters; I got enough for a life time after writing Soph. In all fairness Weird ending up half a mile away isn't really Hawk's fault but I say they should have stayed as a group; on the other hand I'm the omniscient in this story. It did however allow me to get another good flying sequence when I really though I wouldn't get another until Freedom to Fly.

Okay now I'll move swiftly onwards to Freedom to Try before I embarrass myself anymore.

Freedom to Try

Freedom to Try is another chapter I like, though I have to admit that first section really ran away with me, I'll be saying that a lot from here on in. (I have no idea why I keep saying I liked the chapter, I liked all of them, that's why I put them in.) Originally Gale and the others were only supposed to be taken into a temporary Eraser camp and I had a good scene planned with Hawk, Rainbow and Weird skipping through the tree tops but after about three months half thinking about it, I apparently decided another secret lab would be cool. In hindsight there are probably a few too many of those but it is a global conspiracy after all. Actually in storyline terms Carry-On Industries is just a regular pharmaceutical company that is owned by Itex, the only real 'Lab' employees there were the Erasers but that wasn't relevant to the story. See, I actually have quite a lot of back-story which Hawk never pays attention to. Mutters something angrily

Now as I've said before the first section I had no idea it was going to be that long and I also came up with Hawks trick with the walky talky on the fly. Weird's little display was basically a way for me to stop the scene at whatever length it was just then as I could have easily dragged it out another whole chapter. Personally I like Weird's psychosis moments simply because it gives me an excuse for the really amazing things to happen, I've got this little idea in the back of my mind that Weird's subconscious knows how to use her power much better than she does and so she only really lets lose when she panics. Unfortunately, like most subconscious', Weird's is hardly subtle and she has a tendency to overreach herself and pass out. And if you want a good comparison as to how much she is over reaching, controlling the weather, which she does in this chapter, is as different to levitating objects as the Manhattan Project was to a match.

Hmm, I'm sure I decided to dedicate a section to telekinesis; I'll get back to the chapter and talk about it later. Most likely in the next section.

Also in this chapter we have Hawk's first foray into the internet which I was looking forward to for months. Now from a friend of mine who's good with computers I learnt that data packets can be interpreted in just about any way you can think of, so the internet will appear however Hawk thinks it should, and that's why it flickers between forms a bit before Hawk decides what it should look like. I hadn't actually thought of Hawks trick of borrowing processing power at this point but it was only a matter of time seeing he was already doing it while hacking. Oh and if your wondering how Hawk seems to be able to bypass any security system it's a cough plot device - I mean a side effect of his power. He simply bluffs the computer into thinking that the password was given which I'll explain in the powers section; I suggest you bring a book on quantum mechanics.

Now for one of my favourite parts which is Gale's section. Weird's are cool and all but I prefer writing in first person and Gale is less crazy, though as she and Hawk were arguing about what font she's going to be in, that's a relative term. I'm not actually sure at what point when I decided Gale should have a power, possibly around the same time I decided Cam should have a power but I can't really think what kind of power Tapper would have, for some reason she already seems rather super powered so it will probably never revel itself.

The split perspective thing is interesting to write; technically both events are taking place at the same time but that could just be used to pad the story and it can get boring to read the same bit over and over again. In this case though I wrote Gale's perspective to get into her head a little as she was at that point the character I knew least well, and I quickly saw she still has some lingering self confidence issues, I probably shouldn't have messed with her giving her a power just as she realised how dangerous Weird was but she deserved some edge over the Erasers and super powered punches seemed right up her alley.

As you can probably guess Gale was never going to be really as powerful as Weird, partly because she didn't have the same type of gene and so couldn't draw as much energy but mostly because she and Weird don't think the same. Personally I fall on the same side of the fence as Weird, but Gale doesn't make the same links between moving an object and heating an object that Weird does.

Now I should wrap this up before I hit a thousand words on one chapter… So… Yeah, Hawk knocking out the state grid. Cool.

Freedom to Fly

Unlike the previous arc I had been planning this since the beginning, so anyone still angry at me over Hawk's near death experience, yes I am that cruel, and if I can get my audience swearing at me over a character I know I'm doing my job. Now one of my biggest worries was putting Dr Martinez into the story. The odds of Hawk actually coming down in that area are remote, unless I start putting the sticky fingers of the Voice behind it. This is why he's such a good plot device; you don't even need to have a rational behind it to get you audience to dodge the problem. Simple.

And with that brilliant little cover up in mind I'll announce this particular incident is actually just dumb luck. The odds are low but the helicopter is actually from the Death Valley Lab and engages them within about thirty miles of the area Max crashes. Hawk lands on the ambulance due to Weird's interference and is immediately rushed to the local hospital, a bird specialist is called as Hawk is only loosely defined as a mammal, and Dr Martinez is dragged into another mess.

Now this was supposed to be a chapter with a lot of exposition of Hawk's past in the lab and you can see just how well that worked out. It's the long standing issue of trust in my stories; my characters just don't trust anyone but themselves and a select few, and that curtails the exposition somewhat as those select few were either there or already know. Fortunately I think Hawk mentions most of his back-story throughout the book but still there are a few good moments that never got into the story.

Okay there isn't a stunning amount of character development in this chapter so I've only got two more main things to talk about. First are the FBI agents who were another surprise entry into the story, I swear people are just clamouring to get in, and were there as a counterpoint to the FBI in the cannon storyline as these were totally trustworthy. They actually half mention that, as they aren't in the department that the Director runs, though you can see just how long they last against the Erasers. I didn't realise that they would become recurring characters when I wrote them but you always need some guy ready to believe in the conspiracy and they were useful to bring back purely for their access to the big guns.

Finally we have Hawk thinking with the internet which is probably the only power in the whole book that works perfectly though has its own limitations. Namely Hawk needs an internet connection in order to use it, something I'm always keen to remove though he begins to outsmart me in the later chapters. I do make reference to the sheer amount of processing power Hawk is using and this is mostly because he isn't actually using a program or anything like that, he's actually using part of the power to figure out what calculation to do, another part to do the calculation and yet another to interpret the results. This is highly inefficient and so when he actually has to do something complicated he ends up using a third of the world's processing power. I, and Hawk have both said, he is many things, but subtle he aint'.

Freedom to Rest

Freedom to Rest, like most of my endeavours in writing, this after word included, was far longer than I ever thought it was going to be. Actually when I started writing Freedom to Rest I was worried that it wasn't actually going to be long enough and I really had to scrabble around for some content as you may or may not be able to notice. Seriously, nothing really happens beyond me wrapping up a few plot lines and that train sequence that I'd been planning since Freedom to See.

That said, you can get to the point in some particularly long stories where there doesn't even need to be an overriding storyline for there to be plot and I suppose this is a fairly a good example of that. The ironic thing is that for a section where I was just blabbering on, quite a lot happens, Weird gets some limited use of her power back, (you can see how long that one lasted, oh well), Gale starts learning telekinesis, Cam's power's relieved, Hawk sorts out his problems with the computers (I still love that segment) and at long last they get to San Francisco.

Some of you may be interested just why I picked San Francisco and the simple answer is I consider it to be my home city as I've lived there longer than any other city (cough four months). Still, it was more or less inevitable the Freed would end up there eventually, even if it was just because I actually knew some of these places. For example the diner they land in is one of my favourite restaurants and the I-spy Tapper uses is mine, also if you actually bothered to trace the routes Hawk describes on his flights in the next chapter they actually make sense, admittedly I do skip some bits for brevity but they more or less make sense, even the Humvee hitting the bay.

Okay now a few interesting things about this chapter. Gale really should have been able to patch up her problems with Weird without Hawk, and probably would have if she hadn't been spending twelve hours a day keeping an eye on Hawk but I stopped her. Mostly because it meant that Hawk had to escape on his own, more or less. As a random fact, Gale and the others did actually try and reach Hawk while he was still in the hospital though left pretty snappily when they saw the FBI agents and learnt that he was unconscious and on life-support, hence Gale keeping watch until he was well enough to move.

Now onto the powers used in this chapter and there are actually quite a few what with Gale learning to control her power. Interestingly you may have noticed Gale like Weird uses her power much better subconsciously though if anything Gale's is even deeper than Weird's. Weird can do things that she doesn't understand, Gale does things without even realising that she's doing them and that's why only about every third punch is super powered. Simple eh?

This chapter also sees Weird stop an entire train using telekinesis. Personally I would have put the brakes on but Weird's first instinct is to cancel out the train's momentum even though she could far more easily displace said momentum in other forms. That's what following the preconceptions of physics does to you but I shouldn't drift over to explaining Weird's power just yet.

And randomly it was this chapter that I realised just how good at games Tapper is; it seams an odd skill for an adventure story character but still that's Taps for you. I still haven't figured out how she knew to look up for the satellite photo.

Freedom to Free

Freedom to Free was one of the few chapters that I actually knew about at the beginning of the story and it was a relief to finally get to it, especially as I had been planning it for about a month. Anyway all the action scenes in this chapter follow real world locations and I have one vivid memory of me writing the first segment with Google maps to hand. Now this segment is a clear sign of just how much I was beginning to love jerking around the audience, something I learnt after Freedom to Fly, and personally I think I did a good job of keeping everyone guessing about just who was chasing Hawk. I can't really be impartial on this one though but if you could figure it out from the first "Ta…" then give yourself a pat on the back.

Anyway this was the beginning of the end for the Freed which is the one and only reason I mentioned the date in this chapter, purely so it would begin to tie in to the cannon, and you can thank that for the cheesy lines. Also I loved this chapter because it was essentially a full twenty thousand words of action and I far prefer writing the action scenes than the talky scenes. Maybe it's because I don't have to think as much about the action, maybe it's because I keep having to redo the conversations, or maybe it's that three seconds in an action scene is a paragraph and three seconds in a talky scene is a sentence. Yeah that's probably it.

Okay, so I think it was on this chapter where I first starting to try and update Mondays and after so long just posting it 'whenever' it was quite odd to actually write a definite amount a week. While it took a bit of fun out of the whole process it did actually encourage me to write more and I only remember one Sunday when I was up until eleven beta-ing. I shouldn't complain though as I essentially wrote four thousand words a week for six consecutive weeks.

Now although this was essentially a chance for me to do a few long overdue action scenes, I did try and get some plot development in and you wouldn't believe just how long I was planning what they had done in the week I skipped. Personally I love some of the stuff Hawk's got up to with his power though by this point I gave the Lab a way of resisting his power. Note that I said resist, in all honestly if Hawk went all out the firewalls they put up would last about five minutes, and if he ever wanted to I'd give Hawk two weeks to take over the world, at the outside.

I think I'm digressing a little here. This chapter was the first where I actually got to do an entire aerial battle rather than just skirmishes, while I don't think I ever really added it up in the story the were about two hundred Erasers and Fly Boys in that chapter and if I didn't have that deus ex Weirda at the end then I could have at least doubled the length of that segment. It was fun throwing in a curve ball and having the Erasers as the good guys for once; though against Hawk and Weird the Fly Boys are as threatening as a poodle I did have to have Erasers as the bad guys in the later chapters but supported by Fly Boy's.

Oh yeah, I can talk about the Dragons now. I literally knew that these guys would be in the story from the start and as you can guess they are heavily influenced by traditional Chinese dragons (ironically I just made the link between these guys and the Chinese New Year's parade in San Francisco so I suppose there's a joke there), they are also rather a hark back to the first imaginary world I ever came up with which had an aquatic culture. Don't ask for anything from there though, I think I was about seven and didn't write anything down but still it's nice to see old ideas resurfacing.

One of the hardest parts of writing this chapter was actually the final segment, the rest more or less wrote itself and I let the story run on its own momentum but the last bit I actually had to start thinking of ways to reach an acceptable length. That's why there are a load of Hawk and Gale moments that, though fun to write, don't actually need to be there. Then again if I cut the Freed down to only what needed to be there it would be a much shorter story and no where near as much fun to read.

Freedom to End

The clue that this was the last chapter was there in the title though I don't particularly know of anyone who actually picked that up and one of my biggest initial problems was figuring out just how to get my characters clear across the continent, again, especially as it took something like forty thousand words last time. I was fairly sure that the lab was going to be involved somehow but there were a few contrivances I had to rig first, biggest among these was actually getting my characters to an area that the Erasers would both be able to ambush them and would logically be there, especially as now the lab can't track them and the Voice can't reveal their position without giving himself away. Jeb's house was an obvious choice for this ambush, and I actually had debated having my characters stumble upon it on their way from New York though I abandoned that after I realised just how lost they would have had to be.

What I thought would be the really tough part would be shifting Hawk and his cronies for their hidy hole in the cliffs but actually that was pretty easy to overcome with the Lab's blatant overreaction. Personally I would be a bit annoyed if someone had broken into my lab and messed up all the experiments but when there's a global conspiracy in the place of that 'my', well then you get one or two Erasers knocking on your door.

As a little side note this chapter was kind of redundant, as ending the Freed just after they themselves had freed a load of experiments has a certain sense of symmetry to it, but I still had three days to go until the end of the second book and I wasn't going to change my mind. And the idea of ending it there just occurred to me.

Anyway the first segment was an excuse for me to do a bit of fun writing and I was kind of overdue for a lone Hawk bit as he hadn't had anything since Freedom to fail though I must admit the segment kind of ran away with me and I only just finished in time to get it posted. The second segment was almost cruelly short and my only defence was it at least gave me time to write the bumper one by the next week, also there wasn't much to write about and the only reason I got as much as I did was due to that scene in the hotel. Also if anyone figured out it was the Voice messing with the top in order to get them over to the house, give yourself a cookie and a tinfoil hat.

Now the final segment really got away with me and if you'll notice there were only a handful of actual necessary events, the white coat (Jeb) giving them the key, rescuing Gale and Weird, shutting off 'the thing' and actually escaping. Somehow four events managed to stretch themselves a little and I ended up with a seven thousand word segment that was longer than some of the chapters.

That doesn't particularly mean any of the other events don't matter, for example Hawk's kamikaze run is particularly relevant as he is really beginning to push the limits of his power and starting to figure his way round the computer imposed sanctions. Actually it was just an excuse for me to have a go at playing matrix but it was fun and had a serious message with Hawk taking his first intentional life. In all honesty at least some of the Erasers have died at Hawk's hands throughout the story, but they're the first ones that Hawk actually killed intentionally, and that makes it much more emotional.

I also got the excuse for me to do some cool Weird powers though you can tell Hawk's beginning to get tired of the light show, I guess there's a limit to the amount of Weirdness you can take before it becomes mundane. A few random facts for this section, Weird actually collapses the staircase not by blowing it up but by cooling it down so much that it just falls apart, that's why she has to discharge. In addition, I have no idea where the idea of creating a wall by reforming the asphalt came from, they were supposed to be hiding behind a desk, and if you're interested Weird actually kills by taking all the electrical energy from the victims brain - death is practically instantaneous and completely painless, but it's still killing.

As a final note the cannon story is going on in the background of the final segment and you probably noticed a few clues, the small explosion was a pretty big one but also the date was right and suspiciously Hawk is asked to do something that has no bearing on the plotline. Also there was a ten minute lag after the White Coat gave them the key before Hawk escaped, in order to give him time to get into position. Sadly I couldn't actually tell you directly what was happening as Hawk didn't and still doesn't know but it a small nod to the book that the biggest unexplained mystery in the second book, why the holograms switched off, is actually perpetrated by Hawk, four stories below, something I decided would happen about week two of writing the Freed.

Next time, characters and powers…