PROLOGUE:

FEBRUARY 12, 9:30 PM - 6:27 AM

            "So many roads, so many towns, so much pain..."

            The bile green ElDorado rust bucket hurtled down the dark highway, the faint crackling yellow glow of the nearest town still visible in the rear-view mirror.

            The car was older than dirt. It was held together by bondo, rust, primer, and duct tape. The wise guy who owned the car had left a tape in the player, the radio sang Ode to My Car from Adam Sandler.

            "Appropriate," the driver mumbled groggily to himself.

            He suddenly had to jolt himself out of the nether realm between asleep and awake, then decided that he needed sleep. He pulled into a rest area, locked the doors mumbling something about "homos..." and climbed into the backseat. He found a reasonably comfortable position, the one without the spring in his back, and drifted off to a fitful sleep. He dreamed.

            "Mornin Professor!"

            The return of Terry, the over eager intern, Professor Wiltmore thought grimly to himself, Theres a horror movie worse than even Wes Craven could come up with.

            It was a beautiful morning, and sunlight filtered into the normally drab and sterile halls of C. Hunter corp.

            "I got the status on your project, professor, but, uh, its all in some weird kinda code, uh, what does it mean?" Terry blurted in his 23 cups of coffee kind of way, "Dont mean to pry, but could you help a guy out...I am your assistant, right?"

            Ignoring the second question, the professor said, "The last intern asked me that very same question, you know what I told him?" Terry shook his head, "Dont ask."

            "But...." Terry said, not used to not getting his way.

            "We all got one Ter, go get me some coffee please," he asked.

            "Y..Yessir," Terry slunk away with his proverbial tail between his legs as the professor stepped into the hallway. Third door on the left,  two security checkpoints, and a retinal scan, security was tight.

            He'd just received a private lab, and Terry, the day before, though he still didnt know why. For the time being however, he was content to sit in the silent lab and wait for his coffee.

            After about 15 minutes he realized, "Hey waitaminit..." he grinned, "Terry cant get in here without me, hehHA!"

            He emerged from the lab to find Terry impatiently arguing with one of the security guards, "You have to let me in, Im his assistant!" the stone-faced guard smirked as he watched Terry splash coffee on himself in the tirade, "Sorry Bud, no card, no entry..."

            "I dont freakin believe this!" Terry put what was left of the coffee down and stormed off. He contemplated following him, but thought better of it and just retrieved his coffee.

            "What is that guy on?" one of the guards asked.

            He just shrugged, gave the universal eh response, then headed back to the lab. He sipped his coffee, he flinched. Not enough sugar. He thought about Terry, only reason that little weasel is my assistant is because hes the owners nephew. Ah well, whatever, he's harmless.

            "Hey Joe, you hear the ruckus out there?" He asked the guard at the second checkpoint.

            "Oh yeah, that guy was raising holy hell," the aging man said, "I thought I was gonna bust a gut!"

            "Heres a funnier thought, hes my new assistant..." He studied the older man. He was in his seventies at least, and had bleach white hair and mustache. He was thin, almost fragile looking, but gave off a silent power the belied his years.

            Joe looked shocked, then giggled, still a child at heart, "Youre my man Friday Ty," he said.

            "But Joe, its Thursday..." He said with a sly grin. It was an old joke from when he was an intern himself. He patted Joes shoulder, "See you later Bud."

            "Later Ty," Joe said and continued to read his book.

            Joe was the only person in the company who called him by his first name, or at least part of it, and he liked it that way.

            He thought about what he had told Terry about the last intern. It was kind of an untruth, the project only existed for about a day and a half, and the last intern was himself, but at least it shut him up.

            He picked up the folder Terry had handed him before. It was a manila envelope stuffed thick with papers and secured with all kinds of clips, elastic bands, and staples. He hated to admit it, but even if he had wanted to tell Terry what the project was about, he couldnt, it was all written in some weird code that he didnt recognize. At least until he found the sheet with the decryption algorithms.

            It took him a few hours to decrypt the whole thing, but when he did, he froze in his tracks, "whoa..." he sighed.

            Narrow red glowing eyes gleamed at him, a cold metallic chuckle came from everywhere and nowhere at once.

            He jolted awake and sat bolt upright so fast he nearly put his head through the roof of the car. He heard a tapping, and when his vision cleared he saw a man tapping on the window with a Billy bat. His shoulder bore a patch that read Montana State Police.

            He dropped his head into his hands and wiped the sleepiness out, "Please step out of the car Sir," the policeman looked impatient.

            He got out, leaning heavily on the door, still exhausted. The door creaked menacingly, as if it were about to fall off, in fact, it probably was. "Want to tell me what exactly you were doing, Sir?"

            "I--I had to get some sleep or I woulda crashed..." he said.

            "Not that Sir, what are you doing with that car?" his hand hovered over his pistol.

            "It's mine," he lied, "I was just visiting family in..."

            "Wrong answer, but thanks for playing, thats my car, now put your hands on top of your head," He reached for his handcuffs.

            The bulge on his left arm twitched as he lifted his arms, and his left eye flashed bright red for a split second, "Damn."

            "You have the right to remain silent..." he started, but suddenly stopped himself when he spotted the bulge, "Sir, lift your sleeve, slowly," he drew his gun and aimed it, "slowly," he repeated.

            The man dropped his arms and pulled up his left sleeve, revealing a control panel embedded in his arm that was about the size of two cigarette packs laid end to end. Snaking out from under the panel, and covering all of his exposed skin except his face, was circuitry. Before the policeman could say anything, a metal tentacle sluiced out from under the control panel, whipped out, grabbed the cops hand, pointed the gun at his head, and fired.

            The gunshot was deafening at this distance, and the tentacle quickly retreated, apparently in pain.