The Companion Guide has grown again.
"The AI Classification System, Part Two" is up. It covers the two newest minds at Free Vallis, Cass and Gunny, and it opens the ledger: how many minds were aboard storage container 113-Alpha, what happened to each one, and which one is still asleep in a lab on Mars.
These installments are staged on purpose. Each one carries only what the story has already shown you. When something significant is unlocked, a new chapter goes live.
The Vallis Defense: Cold Human
Now the bigger item. I have told you about the three men this book follows. I have never told you how it is all put together, so here it is.
Act One, Separate Worlds. Twenty-six chapters. Three lives running on one calendar, and a man on Mars who decides to reach out to the other two.
Act Two, Convergence. Thirty chapters. Men who have only talked to each other finally sit at the same table. What Waylon has been carrying alone stops being his to carry.
Act Three, Community. The longest of the three, and the one I am writing right now. Building a community is hard. Keeping it is harder still.
That comes to a little under 110 chapters. It is the most ambitious story I have attempted, and possibly evidence that somebody should take the keyboard away from me.
There may also be an Act Four. That one depends on you. If Acts One and Two are well received, and I hope they are, Act Four will follow.
Now, about the weekly schedule, since a few of you have asked why we can't have more chapters sooner.
Your comments and DMs change the book, and I like having the time to incorporate them.
Dookie reads every chapter and tells me what is wrong with it. He does that work as a service to others, not because anyone is paying him, and I have no interest in rushing him. He gets whatever time he needs.
And mostly, Act Three is not going to write itself. I have checked. Repeatedly.
This is a passion project for both of us. The day it starts feeling like a job is the day something has gone wrong. I would rather hand you one good chapter on Sunday than two rushed ones.
One last note. Several of you have asked whether Cold Human will be sold on Bookapy. The answer is "Not right now."
I know the words are mine and the story is original. But this universe was built by Cold Creek and Refusenik, and I am a guest in it. Charging admission to somebody else's house doesn't sit right with me. Maybe that changes someday. Today it feels wrong, so the book stays free.
Thank you for reading, for voting, and for the DMs. You are the reason Dookie and I do this.
Happy reading... CCTW