"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." -- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History

Thursday, April 8, 2010

V 1.6: Floating Witches

A good V 1.6 the other night, which centered around Anna's continuing campaign to root out and destroy the V 5th column, just as 5th columnist Ryan goes up to the ship hovering over New York on a mission with two purposes.

Anna has discovered a way to identify 5th columnists: show them images of human suffering, and see if that evokes an emotional, lie-detector-like response.  Visitors loyal to Anna feel no emotion.  Fifth columnists do.  The test is not 100% perfect - it yields a small degree of false positives, or IDs of Visitors as 5th columnists, when in fact they are not.   Anna's response to this is nicely instructive:  order everyone identified as a 5th columnist to take their own lives.   Only loyal Visitors would do that.  When they do, Anna knows that they were loyal, and those who didn't take their own lives are 5th columnist traitors.   Reminiscent of how witches were tested for the Middle Ages and after:  throw the suspects into the water, weighted with stones, or whatever.   If the suspect did not come up, that proved they were human (but now dead).   If the suspect did come up, floated to the top, they meant she was a witch, and she was then killed.

With all of this in motion, Ryan goes up to the ship.  It's a dangerous mission, with the object of getting a message of hope out to the 5th columnists, inserted into one of Anna's worldwide broadcasts.   But Ryan has another, private, reason.   Valerie needs a phosphorous supplement, in order for her hybrid pregnancy to proceed well for both her and the baby.   Ryan gets the phosphorous, and inserts the message of hope into the V-cast.  But-

A V security guy noticed that Ryan reacted with a touch of emotion when he heard a human baby cry in a line of people in the ship for a tour or whatever.  He takes Ryan for testing.  Ryan fails the test.   But-

The doc, as we already know, is himself a 5th columnist, and so, we discover, is the security guy.   A good twist.  Ryan is safe - or as safe as he can be - and leaves the ship.

But Georgie, who has also gone up to the ship to help Ryan, is taken into custody, and Lisa, looking irresistible in jeans, is at the front of Tyler's father's house.   Erica has brought him there for safekeeping...

The invasion story continues.

See also V Returns to TV ... V 1.2: The Effects and The Characters ... V 1.3: Multiple Twists and Lizard Visions ... V 1.4: Good Medicine for Television ... V's Back in 1.5



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