Terrence changed way more than I would have imagined at the start of the campaign. As someone who works as a store manager in retail (Best Buy) I know what it’s like to have to walk that corporate line, where your input is expected in order for you to seem like a team player but at the end of the day it’s totally irrelevant.

When I first wrote these vignettes I didn’t include that much about Alcy but I added more in during the revisions because she’s really one of the motivating factors in Terrence’s life. He loves his wife very much and wants to keep her happy, but he thinks that to do that he needs to keep her father happy. Alcy is absent through most of the story because Terrence is never home, precisely because her father has him constantly moving between the farthest flung locations in Rivertown. While the geographic distance between the northernmost and southernmost parts of the city isn’t more than six miles or so, and it’s the same distance out to Concord, the travel would be very slow and very dangerous. I remember all those chance occurrence roles made as I made my way up the Tombstone and back to Ol’ Federal and thinking how lucky I was that I didn’t have many encounters and was able to slink away from the ones that did happen. When Barrett sent me to Concord to spy on the alleged enemy in his own base I got to thinking, “Wait a minute, this guy doesn’t care about Terrence’s safety at all, which means he doesn’t care that much about his daughter’s happiness either!” I can just see Barrett stroking Alcy’s hair telling her that Terrence was very brave and died doing the good work of the MPD when, in reality, he was sending him through the most dangerous parts of Rivertown tracking down a hunch.

It was so fitting that the whole thing turned out to be in-fighting among the families. I was just disgusted to find out that’s why I’d been risking my characters life, so I can imagine how Terrence must have felt! Shocked, betrayed, and royally pissed off. But realistically, what can he do? Take on the whole MPD? Don’t think so. But I remember reading a management report that said a huge amount of petty theft in retail comes from disgruntled employees who feel its owed to them, so I thought that’s a fitting way for him to strike back and purge some of his guilt. He could empty the MPD coffers as much as possible and, using his stealth skills, give it to the needy scavengers struggling to get by. Then he could always go home and ask for more. How long could he get away with that? It’s an intriguing question, isn’t it?

As for Alcy, I wish I could have had more of a relationship with her but I like how we worked her in at the end. It’s like this really pointless, negative part of Terrence’s life has drawn to a close and Alcy was absent during that phase. The story ends on a kind of high note where Terrence has found some agency at last, and who is there by his side helping him do it but his wife? It seems pretty likely that she would be fed up being “kept” like she was, and I also wanted her to be a genuinely good person. It seemed like so many people in the MPD were greedy jerks, so I’m glad I had the opportunity to show everyone wasn’t like that.

--Terrence