Prologue:

It was just like any other fall night in rural Washington State. On Jacobs Lane, a small road which cuts through the Cascade mountains, there was an eerie quiet, save for the pitter-patter of raindrops colliding with asphalt, a sound that could often be heard in a deciduous rain forest. If one didn't know better, they might find themselves entranced by a sense of awe at the serenity of their surroundings. They would probably lose track of time due to the repetitive cadence of the falling water; they would probably find it hard to see due to the almost total absence of light or any other sign of human intervention. They probably would not see the white 1994 Chrysler New Yorker flying down the road at speeds well in excess of the posted limits until it was too late.

Sergeant Seth Vincent of the Washington National Guard didn't give any of this a second thought has he shattered the tranquility of the ecosystem in front of him. He was too busy beating himself up.

I can't believe that I over-slept! Seth thought to himself, pounding his steering wheel furiously as he drove toward Ft. Rhodes, located about 50 miles due East of Seattle. The General is going to have my ass for this one. I am a dead man!

Fate has a way of fulfilling the prophecies that no one really wants to come true.

The New Yorker's engine wheezed under the speed, having to perform much more work than the that for which the car had ever been intended. Its tires screeched threats of hydroplaning, and the rain, which by now was a virtual monsoon, covered its windshield with water faster than its worn-down wipers could clear. All of these things should have signaled to Seth to slow down, but by now, the Sergeant was erratic.

Only 30 minutes left, and I'm still an hour away!

He didn't see the turn coming up.

Why does this keep happening to me.

His tires lost all traction on the road and he was literally sliding at 60mph.

Sometimes I wish I could just...Oh Shi-

Seth didn't finish that exclamation. A strange flash of light on the road snapped him back to reality and he saw that his car was about the head over the side of the mountains. He cut the wheel as hard as he could, but the only thing that he succeeded in doing was breaking his car's suspension. The old vehicle ran into the side rail and bounced over, sliding into the trees in the riven below the road. Nineteen times out of 20, a person in an accident like that would have been killed on impact. Unfortunately for Seth, he wasn't one of them.

He stumbled out of his now-completely destroyed sedan. Coughing and huffing as he walked around to inspect the damage, his vocabulary became one formed entirely of profanities. He felt himself over and found that he had no major injuries, other that what felt like a twisted lower leg and perhaps some cracked ribs. He began the climb back up from the road, counting his blessings on one hand, and cursing the inconvenience of wrecking in the middle of no where on the other.

After sloshing his way back onto the pavement, Seth decided that there was really no better option than to start the walk West on the road and hope to run into someone. "Damn it all to hell!" he cried as he stepped in a big puddle of water. He moved to get out of it, when he noticed his foot was stuck. Had there been more light available to him, Seth may have noticed that the "water" was not a clear color, but rather a metallic silver. Had he been a chemist or metal worker, Seth may have been been able to identify the metallic liquid as an alloy of Columbine-Tantalite, also known as coltan. Had he had intimate knowledge of the future, Seth may have realized that he just made the biggest mistake of his life.

Despite his ignorance on three fronts, Seth found himself coming to the horrible realization that something was wrong. He tried with everything he had in him to pull his foot away, but his leg just seemed to keep sinking. He reached down with both hands to try and pull it out. But the puddle grabbed the three of the limbs and tugged them further in. He cried with fear as he collapsed into the platinum goo. The liquid moved up his torso and onto his face.

Seth yelled as the liquid invaded his mouth and nose. It made its way down his esophagus and through his intestines, rupturing his organs and poisoning his blood stream. He began to cough up the bile that was his guts His bones scattered under the immense force and his muscles dissolved as if they were sugar cubes tossed in water. Seth would have screamed for help at the top of his lungs, had they not been already filled with liters of dense, viscus, cold death. His body no longer obeyed him as his mind could do nothing by watch in horror as every living cell in its body cavity was liquefied and excreted out of the nearest orifice. Then came a pop from inside his head and Seth's world went dark.

***

As passing motorist noticed a body lying just off the side of the road and stopped to check on it. As he approached, Seth arose, although he was decidedly not the Seth that fell to ground less than 30 minutes earlier. His viscera, pluck and damn-near everything else in his body was gone, splashed across the asphalt in front of him. His bones were now made out of solid coltan. His organs were now replaced with replicas made out of the most advanced computer technology that the world would ever see. And in the hearth were his soul once lay, a vast, empty void took its stead.

"You alright buddy?" the motorist asked, with a look of concern.

"Yes," Seth replied, in a monotonic, almost mechanical voice. And before the motorist could see what was coming, a metal spike shot out of Seth's right hand and straight through the motorist's eye, rupturing his brain.

"I'm just great," Seth finished, before breaking into a very maniacal cackle. "Killing you worthless meat-bags is much more enjoyable in person."

With those final words, Seth took the motorist's keys and sped off in his car. Destination: Los Angeles.