at the same time, victor is plotting with the sociopathic gangster metapsychic kieran o'connor to bring down the government with their metapsychic powers. this culminates in a showdown at the end of the book where denis calls out to all the present and absent metapsychics of goodwill to join in a "metaconcert" against an attack by victor and kieran. the watching milieu agents invisible in the sky hear this call, and the subsequent metaconcert, and therefore intervene. victor, meanwhile, goes after rogi who has learned too much. through his metapsychic power of "creativity", rogi uses a mental laser to put victor into a vegetative state. rogi never understood how he could have overcome such a powerful metapsychic as victor, until the family ghost reveals decades later that he assisted.