Chapter Thirty-Two

Using Gwen and Bernie to communicate between the two groups was a late arriving stroke of inspiration.  I was wracking my brain trying to figure out how to get everyone in the right place when there was no logical reason for the Harrises to know about the urgency of the situation.  Then I woke up in the middle of the night, scrambled for my notebook and wrote down what I thought was the solution.  In the morning, I discovered I’d written ‘Dead see everything” in scrawling letters.  After another few days of confusion while I tried to figure out what I meant, I realized it really was the logical solution.

For McBride, I used his character to explore a question which I’ve pondered for a long time.  Why would someone undergo a painful procedure to transform themselves?  In real life, we have plastic surgery.  In fiction, people get bionic implants, transform into animals or are magically enhanced.  I wanted to show that it wouldn’t be a painless or simple procedure.

I also took the opportunity to share a possible explanation of how people with actual superpowers could have developed.  Having Vincent share it made it a little more entertaining for me.  The ancient astronauts theory was originally suggested by Erich von Daniken, who proposed that aliens had visited Earth to jumpstart human development and technology.  The idea that all the ancient legends could be factual accounts of what happened fascinates me (although I think humans were more than capable of developing on their own).  People being able to incinerate their enemies with a glance or fly or build massive structures overnight, that would have been quite an exciting world to see.