Author notes

SPARKS FLY UPWARDS, Page 32

alschroeder

on Aug. 9, 2013

I wanted to emphasize this…Thunderous is NOT a good guy. He's an amiable guy in many ways, a good guy to party with–and he's also totally merciless. He's like a hit man on the SOPRANOES, interesting in many ways but totally amoral and sociopathic at heart.

Yes, he slaughtered the remaining villagers. No excuse. He did it purely to hide the Next Level's secrets. That way Stalin's police would find some eradicated villages, but no real clue to what did it.

It's true that Stalin or Hitler, his then-ally, later enemy, learned of the Next Level and their abilities is a frightening thing. But that doesn't excuse what Thunderous did.

Lafferty genuinely likes Thunderous somewhat. So it startles him to see the ruthless interior to his "friend".