So I told you all about what goes on with ZeCat last night, and, whether you like it or not, I'm doing the same thing with Freedom! HA! Sorry that I keep posting long, confusing things about my characters, but I am personally having kind of a blast with it, so unfortunately I must continue. Also, now that I've started doing this it only makes sense to continue because all of my plots fit together to make the book. Basically Death List is like one big puzzle, and it would be rude of me not to give you all the pieces...or at least that's how I'm going to rationalize my excessive posting :p Anyway, you are now about to read all about Freedom's journey. Like ZeCat's thing, this is kind of a bare-bones outline of what generally happens, meaning that there are events that will flesh this thing out that I haven't quite figured out yet or am just not including because they aren't important right now. So, without further ado, I'm going to jump into it!
*Where he starts out: In a crappy apartment building near the middle of Paradise City. He lives here by himself. Ziv lives in the same building, though neither of them are aware that they live near each other.
*Where he ends up: A rebel camp that is approximately 230-240 miles inland from where he ends up after escaping Almost Heaven.
*How he gets there: So Freedom is introduced to the reader when he is in his apartment giving himself surgery on his hand. He's a pretty shady person in this early stage, but he's not a bad person. He has no interest in getting involved with criminal activity that could hurt anybody but himself, but he has a seed of rebelliousness that will really blossom later on. He is a good actor (by which I mean he's a good liar) and kind of cocky sometimes. More than anything, however, he is technology-obsessed, kind of naive, and afraid of death. This fear is death is VERY pivotal to the development of his character because it motivates a lot of his decisions.
Anyway, Freedom's story really starts when he is mugged by Wolfe on his way to meet Ziv at the Station Five monorail station to purchase a special lubricant for the machinery in his hand. Wolfe wants Freedom's money, but Freedom is so desperate to hold on to it that Wolfe ends up stabbing him and Freedom is taken to the hospital. Really quickly, just to remind you, this mugging was witnessed by ZeCat, right? Anyway, Freedom is easily healed and sent home just hours after his incident, but he hasn't learned anything from it about his lifestyle; he's already planning to pick up the lubricant later. He comes home to discover a notice on his door from the Department of Gallagherite Affairs that instructs him to go to the restaurant, The Violet, at six o'clock that evening. Even though he's nervous (with good reason), Freedom goes...only to discover that officials from the Department are waiting for him with bad news. As it turns out, when he went to the hospital after being stabbed, the doctors discovered his very illegal technological implants. The officials at The Violet inform him that his Date has been moved, that he is guilty of a number of crimes, and that he is going to be taken to Almost Heaven immediately because he has proven to be such a danger to society. Freedom is escorted from the building by Roth (a main character of mine who is a police officer) and another policeman, but he decides to give escape a try and breaks away in a panic. This fear (told you it was an important force for him) fuels him to kidnap Vine off the street and to hide out in what turns out to be an abandoned life house. This is a huge turning point for Freedom. It's nothing but downhill for him from here for a while.
After he gets over the adrenaline rush from the kidnapping and from outrunning the police, Freedom starts to feel guilty and worthless. Or not worthless, exactly, but he thinks he's scum and a completely horrible person. He is still terribly afraid of dying, but he isn't sure he deserves to live after he's proved that he is such a monster--a serious moral dilemma. This dilemma comes to an end, however, by the next day when Vine come around and a shred of hope reveals itself. I don't think that I've mentioned this, but Vine is the son of some very influential city officials. In fact, the Fairfaxes are officials for the Department of Criminal Acts and Conducts, which is the reason that Freedom seized the opportunity to kidnap Vine in the first place. Anyway, once Freedom and Vine get to talking, Freedom tries to get Vine to force his parents to change his Date back to when it was before. What actually happens, however, is that Freedom and Vine sort of befriend each other and Freedom opts to let Vine go. Vine says that he's willing to talk to his parents to see if they can catch Freedom a break, but he never has the chance; the police barge into the abandoned life house, whisk Vine away, and arrest Freedom, who is taken to jail...and through in the cell across the wall from Wolfe. Freedom ends up recognizing Wolfe as the person who mugged him and convinces himself that everything he is now going through is Wolfe's fault. Wolfe is taken away and Freedom is left behind to stew in his cell for a few days before the police come for him. He is informed that he is going to be sent to a place known as the Cornelius Gallagher Center for the Technologically Abusive to have his implants removed, which happens to all tech-heads. What's different about what happens to Freedom, though, is that he won't go on to Almost Heaven afterwards. He's so fused with his wires and steel and whatnot that they won't be able to remove everything without killing him...so he's going to die in that hospital instead of Almost Heaven. Needless to say, this horrifies Freedom. Not only is he going to die, he's going to be forced to have all of his precious technology removed, which he loves more than almost anything.
In something of a daze, Freedom is taken to the hospital, which turns out to be located just beyond the city wall. This is a big deal, because NO ONE gets out of Paradise City unless they're about to die. Consequently, Freedom has never been beyond this wall before, and it sort of blows his mind. Anyway, there turns out to be a little town-ish thing beyond the wall where people are essentially prepared to be killed. Freedom is dropped off at the CGCTA and is given a room on the third floor of the hospital, which is the highest security floor in the hospital. He meets a doctor, Dr.Walden, who tells him that testing on Freedom will begin soon so they can essentially decide how they're going to take him apart. Very soon after being admitted, Freedom runs into Vine and Ziv (why they're there will be addressed once their plots are typed out up here.) After they all get reacquainted with one another, Ziv and Vine leave Freedom's room, but Freedom is determined that this is not the last he will see of them. He has already started to take a turn for the worst at this point; his escape from the hospital is starting to take priority in his mind over everything else. He believes that now that he has "friends" on the inside (Ziv and Vine are working there, not being detained there) that he has a much better chance of getting out of the hospital alive. While he undergoes the standard tests he has to go through and gets used to the routines of the hospital, he is forever plotting and planning. He realizes that the easiest place in the hospital to escape from would be the huge sitting area in the entryway (this hospital is very unusual.) He starts spending a lot of time there once he is allowed to be outside his room, observing the guards' and doctors' routines. After consulting Vine and Ziv, he learns that the guards in the watch towers surrounding the perimeter of the hospital switch shifts every six hours and that (after his own observations) there is a short period when there are no guards in the towers at all...though this doesn't provide him with any immediate help. He meets with one of the head doctors in charge of the hospital and is granted permission to go outside for a half an hour every afternoon with the lower security patients, but he has to be in a straight jacket. Unfortunately, the guards are all in the towers when the patients are outside, so that doesn't help at first either. What's ore, the doors to the hospital itself are locked and will not open unless a doctor or hospital employee opens them so it's not like Freedom can just make a mad dash for it. No, he is forced to be more sophisticated with his planning. He wants to escape during the night time so that he will have the cover of darkness on his side and so that the men in the guard towers will be more tired and all-around-less wary of escape. He will have to go through the front doors, since those are the only exists from the building. He learns through Ziv and Vine that there is a shift of doctors that comes in at eight o'clock pm and a shift that goes home at the same time. Dr. Walden is in the shift that is leaving. All Freedom would need to do would be to get Dr. Walden in his room for some reason, incapacitate him, steal his uniform and clothing to make him look like a doctor, and use Walden's thumb (still attached to his body) to open up the door to his room. Just so you all know, all of the doors in the hospital are programmed to recognize the thumb prints of the staff and they can only be opened that way. A lot of the apartments and houses in Paradise City are programmed the same way. So, yeah.
After he completes the part of the plan that I just typed about, Freedom figures that from there all he would have to do would be to walk briskly down the hall and out the building and not let anyone get too good a look at his face. The only thing he needs Vine and Ziv to do is to open the doors at the front of the building. Long story short (but not that short, obviously) Freedom's plan would work...sort of. There would be complications, but I won't get in to them. Just know that he gets away and that Ziv and Vine end up coming with him. Freedom ends up going straight to Dr. Walden's apartment (the doctors' residences are, like, directly next to the hospital, so they're easy to find.) Here he stocks up on provisions before getting out of there, leaving Ziv and Vine behind. He then starts plotting a way to get back into Paradise City, which is exactly the OPPOSITE of what he should be doing. At this point in the story, Freedom has made a complete 180 from where he was before in terms of character. The reason he wants to go back into the city is so that he can murder the highest official in the entire place: Cadmus Buck-Edwards. He has somehow convinced himself that if Cadmus is dead, then everything will go back to the way it is supposed to be, which obviously makes no sense. He has become a completely different person. In the beginning he would never have done anything to hurt anyone on purpose, and now he is risking his life (he was terrified of death, remember) to kill someone. So obviously there is some major inner turmoil here.
Anyway, Freedom has a very easy time sneaking back into the city; the cops only check the vehicles that are going out, not coming in. He boards a truck filled with the remains of old buildings and is shipped back into the confines of the city wall. The first thing that he does is go back to his old apartment to see if he's still "allowed" there. He discovers that the city hasn't gotten around to getting rid of all of his things and reprogramming the door yet, so he decides to stay there for as long as he can while he plots Cadmus's murder. He finds that Cadmus lives near the Fairfaxes and calls his old "connection" to get a gun. Then, once there's nothing left for him to plan out, he goes in for the kill. This isn't all easy sailing for him, though, in terms of the moral implications of his actions. He experiences plenty of misgivings, mostly when he's trying to sleep, but by the time he gets up every morning he is still as certain as every that he wants to kill Cadmus. Eventually the day comes and Freedom goes to the Buck-Edwards residence. He makes it in and has every opportunity to kill Cadmus...but he can't. Not because he isn't a killer (which he's not) but because one of Cadmus's servants sees what is happening and calls the police, who come and take Freedom away...again. This time they don't screw around with putting him in the CGCTA; they send him straight to Almost Heaven. On the way there he meets Price, who, in a very short time, puts him back on the track to finding himself again.
Once he's in the death camp that is Almost Heaven, he gets assigned to work in the basement of the hospital, or maybe just to clean the hallways or something. At any rate he uses his position to help with the rebellion that Price sets into motion. He becomes dedicated to the movement as sort of a way of self-healing, but not in a creepy religious way or anything like that. His determination to escape Almost Heaven and to help the people around him escape is the force that helps him to reach out to others and to become stronger as a person. The way that he goes off to kill Cadmus was an act that demonstrated his determination and guts, yes, but the way that he ultimately escapes Almost Heaven is a testament to this same determination and new bravery and inner goodness that finally becomes more prominent in his character. There's some other in-depth character stuff that's going on at this time, but I'll spare you guys the details and move forward.
Finally, the day to make the great escape would come and everything would be set into place and perfectly on track...except for the fact that ZeCat and Wolfe are scheduled to die that day. Freedom would be informed that ZeCat and Wolfe are in trouble by Leala, who accompanies him to the Road to Heaven Building. Bryony-Rose is there as well, and the three of them make it into the building and manage to locate where their friends are being killed. Obviously they make it in time to save ZeCat, but not Wolfe. Wolfe's death will leave some sort of impression on Freedom, but I haven't planned that out yet. Freedom, Leala, Bryony-Rose, and ZeCat will flee will ultimately make it away from Almost Heaven. The story from here was already described in ZeCat's account of things because Freedom is with him from this point forward, or at least until they reach the rebel camp. The people of this rebel camp are determined to free the people of Paradise City, and, after having had a taste of what it feels like to liberate a lot of people, Freedom decides that that sounds pretty good to him. When everyone else decides that they want to move on and travel to Xenophon, Freedom stays behind to fight for he good of mankind, which he now feels like he was destined to do from the very beginning. And that's where Freedom's story ends. The reader doesn't really know what happens to him from this point onward, but things look hopeful for him. At last he is no longer on the run, literally or metaphorically, and he has overcome all of his fears. After all he has been through, he ends his journey a better man. So I guess that's all I have to say about Freedom.
Thanks for reading through all of this, guys, if you made it to the end!
-Iridian
Wow! That's really cool, Rachel. I need to read Death List when it's finished. xD
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