Hi,
Thanks to everyone who read this story, and in particular the three of you who reviewed it. I'm grateful, both for any praise and any suggestions, and it improved my ability to write it as I went. I didn't really go into it with any exact idea about the themes or the plot and it developed as I went. Some of it emerged as a result of reviews.
A couple in particular I wanted to mention:
"The sentences you included from the opening credits reminded me of the video and added perfectly to the whole atmosphere."
Yeah, there's quotes from the opening credits in every chapter. And a lot of the other events, such as Jensen's heart attack or the rather overly dramatic removal of Jensen's arms with an orange laser saw, are based on visual cues in the opening credits. I tried to integrate as many of the events in the trailer into the story as I could. It gave me plot hooks so I didn't have to think of everything and I liked the idea of the whole story being the same story as the opening credits but from another, less-drugged and differently-biased perspective.
"If Jensen's heart has stopped already, wouldn't it be impossible to bring him back with a defibrillator? I learned that they are only useful if there's ventricular fibrillation, to get the (still beating) heart to beat regulary again with an electric shock and that in case of no heartbeat, you should perform CPR."
Ha, yes, you got me there. I had to go back and correct that in Ch. 10, where Vera hangs a lamp on that. At the time, it was mostly just drama via cliche, and I kinda liked the idea of Vera going 'Clear!'. It's a big enough cliche that there's even an article on it: Google 'Magical Defibrillator' on .
"Interesting choice to wake Adam up for this chapter so we can see how he feels and stuff, heart-wrenching as it is. ;_; And it's also interesting you mention memory erasure, that's one neural aug I can't believe the game never brought up!"
Funny thing, they kinda did. Just once, though. There's this soldier guy you can meet in the sewers under Hengsha, a black ops commando who finds out his superiors had installed an aug to wipe his memory for particularly awful missions.
"I like the opposition of Sarif and Dr. Marcovic, Sarif pushing forward and just rushing past all doubts and Dr. Marcovic forcing him to see what he's actually doing."
What about Yan? I meant them to be a trinity, more than anything else. Sarif's biased towards technological development to save everybody, Yan's biased towards putting the needs of the many above the needs of the few, and Vera's biased towards just looking after her one patient. I tried not to write it so that any of them acted unequivocally for or against the interests of Jensen-at least, as Jensen would define his interests. And their motivations are more caricatures and stereotypes of the roles they play in society than anything else, which I want to point out in case any surgeons read this and get offended by Yan's... freeform... approach to medical ethics. There are no similarities whatsoever between Yan and any modern medical professional that has ever existed outside of House.
Again, thanks so much for the reviews and support!
