Thanks for the questions Kitt! Let's see if I can answer those questions for you (and anyone else that might have them heh)
Collar change - I don't think I actually said anything about this in the story but the reason I put that change in was so that it was harder for the kid(s) to be saved from them without risking bodily harm to them. There was a reason the collars were used that I haven't touched on yet but will... hopefully soon
Kevin - With him "defecting" and all, it was actually a sudden change for him. You see him through the story just doing his thing, mostly the right thing, and eventually pressures got to him and he basically lost all of his moral compass since he saw an easier life, a way out of being in charge. He never really wanted to be in charge of his little orphanage but he took over when no one else will. And since he did that at such a young age, the lack of a real childhood caught up to him in a way.
Kevin + Zane - In regards to this, it goes back to Kevin just snapping a bit. It also didn't really help matters when Zane, being more rebellious and more arrogant than everyone else there kept rubbing Kevin a bit raw. Sure they loved each other but as the story progressed Zane's personality ended up being more of a negative in Kev's eyes.
Kevin + Travis - To be honest, I don't have much to say on this point other than to me it made a bit of sense to give those two some history before the story even got underway. It helps to give Kevin reasons for wanting to help Travis and Jesse, even with their sometimes limited resources. This point is something I do want to expound upon eventually.
Freeing the collard kids - Once Julian figured out how to free Jesse, he's able to fix it so that he can help the rest. It took some time for him to do as, even being a kid, it was hard for him to explain the procedure to others - he more or less got lucky with Jesse and managed to get lucky a second time. Once he got a few collars under his belt he was better able to explain what he was doing and it helped to speed up the process.
Riley getting pregnant - This actually stemmed from an earlier idea I had about Riley. First he started off as just a robot but then I evolved him and, when going into his creation a bit, got the idea that when he was being built he was both male and female for a good length of time, only getting a final gender right before completion. So in that regard Riley has all the stuff a female has internally and was fully functional. And then that's when it hit me - why not make him still be able to give birth? The moment I thought it I got excited and helped me to churn out some more writing - I was having a bit of writer's block at that moment in the story (ick!).
The reason I went ahead and said all this is because I feel what I did say was either already covered or (in a lovely error on my part) thought I wrote it in when I actually didn't (!). If it's the latter ,don't worry! I'll get it taken care of... somehow heh.
Glad you liked the story and once again good to hear from you and also to all the ones that have left reviews on the story! It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside reading all that stuff.