Chapter 2
(The Future)

     “Wait,” said Kurt, looking across the polished chrome kitchen table at his father. “Maybe you shouldn’t start quite so far back. I can only stay until about three o’clock.”

     “Okay,” his father answered, happy that his son would be visiting for another couple of hours, remembering how much he loved having him around. “The fact is, there’s not a whole lot more to tell until Mr. Hancock was in college. I don’t know much more, anyway. As far as I know, he had a pretty normal mid-western upbringing. He went to school, he lettered in wrestling, he went to church, he and his father liked to hunt. You know, pretty much normal stuff for back then. Why are you interested in this guy, anyway? He was only a minor figure in the run-up to the Catalyst. As I’m sure you remember from high school, Dr. Randal Howard was the central pre-Catalyst figure.”

     “Someone left me a short note that had Chase Hancock’s name on it.”

     If Kurt had been paying more attention, he would have seen his father’s face lose a shade or two of color. For most of Kurt’s life, his father had worried that something like this might happen. And now apparently it had. “What kind of note, what did it say?” Kurt’s father asked slowly.