It all started with that envelope.

You know, the one Rod Bellar placed on the ground before doing his "disappear into the shadows" routine.

In it was "a round trip airline ticket to Walker Airfield in Grand Junction, Colorado. A map of the area along with coordinated map of a house outside of Aspen. A pre-paid cell phone with two numbers in the phonebook. $4,000 in $100 dollar bills."

You'd stared at it for days, wondering. Then you made the call and told the smooth baritone voice on the other end of the line that you were in, you'd definitely be there for the meeting. There was an almost unnoticeable moment's hesitation, and the voice thanked you, congratulated you, and confirmed your travel plans before politely disconnecting.

For the Prologue to Episode One of Time Rifters, describe for us your trip to Walker Airfield, and then the beginning of your trip from the airfield to the house.

We only need a few paragraphs, but take what you need to give us a sense of your character's personality and mindset.

Separate your story from the previous one by copy/pasting the line of asterisks below. Chapter One will commence when all eight entries are in, or by October 10th, whichever is soonest.

Begin.
*******************
Dylan stopped in St. Louis and landed near the Verizon amphitheatre. He knew he would have to take breaks now and then if he was going to make it to Grand Junction Colorado. The place was empty tonight. There were no concerts and no employees around, so he sat for a few moments, closed his eyes, and collected his thoughts.

He didn’t like just running off on her like that. He liked even less keeping her presence from his mind. He missed her…terribly. “Dammit, Anna,” he said aloud. “I could do this. I know I could. Why don’t you trust me?” Dylan picked up a rock and hurled it into the darkness. It didn’t do him any good. “Well I’ll show you I am not just a kid anymore!” Rested, angry, and driven, Dylan Hayes, alias Nocturne, took to the skies with full speed. He set his path to Grand Junction and Walker Field.

He arrived while it was still dark. He quietly landed on the edge of the airfield where he could see the house. He was nervous and exhausted from the last leg of his flight here, but he needed to get to that house. He was going to have to walk, but he knew he needed to stay out of sight. I have to be there before she arrives, he thought. It’s the only way she will let me stay. Dylan dashed and darted amongst the shadows and trees as he headed quietly yet quickly to the house and the meeting.

*******************
Aedan dressed conservatively -- yellow tweed jacket and faded denims, with a magenta sweater -- over the blue singlet. It'd taken him several days to get the formulation and structure of the synthetic silicate to closely match a vinyl wrestler's outfit.

He'd intended it to turn out black, but it somehow the silicate refused to take any color at all, or blue. A clear costume defeated the purpose, so blue it was.

No one would see it anyway, Aedan thought to himself, completing his wardrobe with a baseball cap and dark glasses. This is a perfectly routine, perfectly civil, ordinary, normal trip to meet a prospective sponsor. Satisfying curiousity. That's all. No chance the outfit would be needed.

The flight would be a chance to do some light reading -- his knapsack contained nothing but books. He was reviewing potential textbooks for next semester, as part of the curriculum committee -- one of the punishments the Dean meted out to associate professors who'd missed too many alumni fundraising functions.

O'Neil carried the cell phone from Rod Bellar with him. His own was destroyed in 'the incident'. He didn't expect it to function for long, but just having a cell phone in his pocket was reassuring, as he approached the information booth at Logan Airport, and asked where he could find his flight. It felt.. normal.

Security screening was not difficult, he'd taken the precaution of tuning his positronium field to synchronize with the metal detectors, becoming invisible to them. Wouldn't last, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to reproduce the effect, but Aedan isn't given to thinking ahead on the whole.

He couldn't sleep on the flight. He couldn't even get motion sickness by reading. It wasn't stellar writing, but textbooks on bioremediation seldom were. A nice sidebar on extremophiles excited him briefly, but half the books in the carryon were leafed through and annotated in pen and hiliter by the time O'Neil's flight touched down.

From there.. what were the instructions? He had the instructions, Aedan was sure of it, standing in the departures lounge of the airport. He'd packed the map and directions with his.. Oh. He left them in his other jacket pocket, O'Neil recalled. The black one, with the chalk stains. The one he didn't bring.

Well, how big can Denver possibly be?

There's a way to solve any problem.

It all seemed more logical, once Aedan found an Internet cafe in Grand Junction. Not Denver. Denver had nothing to do with it.

O'Neil just hadn't been paying close attention before the flight. Concerningly so. He'd even lost track of which day it was, what with getting used to his newly disturbed sleep cycle. Well, non-sleep. Too much excess energy.

This explained the comments from the comely attendant at the airport about 'stand-by' and 'you're in luck.' MESH was distracted focusing on keeping his positronium radar in lock step with the metal detectors.

Why did radar have to feel so much like physical touch at extremely close range? That would not be something O'Neil'd get used to soon, while trying to carry on conversations in person.

Aedan had the illusion MESH could almost feel the young woman's pulse, while checking in for the flight. And in line-ups, very bizarre. MESH kept expecting the lady in front of him to turn around and slap Aedan's face.

At the Internet cafe in Grand Junction, O'Neil accessed his Google account's map search log. All the satelite imagery of MESH's destination, and from there it was easy to get directions. How hard is 'due east'?

Aedan looked at what cab fare would.. wow, associate professors do not make what cab drivers do, O'Neil figures. O'Neil senior, his father could've _bought_ a car for that, at his age. It would have to be the Amtrak. But was MESH a day early, or a half day late?

A few minutes giving into the temptation to surf.. Interesting what you find on the Web these days. Some of it hitting close to home for MESH. Blogs. Fan sites. News reports. The weather in Colorado.. well, that last at least was something MESH was immune to. Not like O'Neil's clothes weren't already rumpled and worn.

Getting up, paying on his way out, the introspective O'Neil almost trips over the young clerk's much-used bicycle, parked by the door.

The transaction is negotiated in next to no time. For what the cab would have cost, O'Neil's on slightly slower, but far more versatile than Amtrak, transportation. Besides, Amtrak doesn't let you steer or feel the wind in your hair.

Given MESH's new strength, tirelessness, radar sense, toughness, and ability to cling to anything, a bike ride through the mountains in the dark seems just the thing. There would be dark zones, where radio would be silenced. Two hours without ceaseless chatter in his ears.

It's a world of pinpoint starlight, silence, soft white moonbeams, and strange shapes looming in the shadows of the scientist's mind. Aedan does not see, but still MESH knows, every dip and boulder. The figure skims mountains and canyons, putting the bike's engineering to tests its designers no doubt never imagined.

On the way, far offroad, not yet at Mosquito Lake, Aedan comes across a strange pile of rubble. Stopping to investigate, MESH digs through the collapsed wall and girder of what might have been an old mine entrance. Interesting.

Turning the LED from the bike onto what feels like a sign, O'Neil reads the lettering, bemused. "Danger. Radiation." Something else that can't affect MESH any more, he knows now. O'Neil feels like a postal worker. Nor rain, no hail, nor sleet nor snow, nor fallout, nor vacuum, nor.. Okay, that's enough of a break, if Aedan's trying to compose odes to what he doesn't feel.

With a shrug, the investigator reburies the wreckage of the mine opening, resolving to return and explore more, soon, to satisfy his curiousity.

Back to the bicycle. Air moving over Aedan's face. Pedaling effortlessly. So much better than a cab ride. Even the starlit avalanche doesn't faze O'Neil, or dampen his spirits. Holding the pedaled vehicle high to avoid crushing it, MESH leaps and rolls and braces his way through the rocks and snow.

It's an exhilarating experience. In a handful of seconds, O'Neil has objectively and directly collected more and better observations of avalanche phenomena than any remote watcher could. Aedan feverishly makes detailed notes immediately after, before continuing on his way.

Idly, Aedan wonders what a cabby would have had to chat about on the two hour drive. Avalanches, hidden caved-in radioactive mines, how wicked the mountains are? He doubts it.

Before long, lights again. It must be Aspen, Aedan calculates. O'Neil's kept landmarks to diligently through the wilderness, and.. no. Aedan must have lost track somewhere in the dark. Concerningly so.

Too small for Aspen. Approaching on bicycle in the dark of night, Aedan comes upon the signpost indicating Snow Mass Village. There's even a pub open there. Over a Kokinee that has no effect on MESH at all, checking the map Aedan'd printed off in Grand Junction, O'Neil sees he's nearly there.

But a half day early, or a few hours too late?

*******************

The flight to Aspen went smoothly, surprisingly so.

When Misa got the money and airline ticket, she went online and did a little research, and then did a little more concerning prices. A couple of phone calls, a few requests, and her flight had been changed from landing in Walker Field to landing in Aspen. There was really no way she could rent a car, not at her age, and while she could run the distance or fly it in the space of a couple of hours, that also had the tendency to attract attention. A minimal amount of attention seemed to be appropriate here.

Besides, swapping out the ticket actually made the airline more money, since a flight from the Bay to Grand Junction was more expensive than one to Aspen. The commuter flight to Aspen was even more expensive than the flight from San Francisco, and since she didn’t have a credit card, paying in cash would be exceptionally conspicuous these days. Not that she was going to avoid getting attention, she thought as she braided her hair out of the way.

Still, she had her new Zentai suits, some nice clothes for the trip, and even a new set of luggage for the flight. She might as well indulge in being a bit of a tourist, she thought, which was why she ended up on an earlier flight. The plane landed and she caught a shuttle bus to the hotel, where her room awaited. The hotel wasn’t expensive, but it was nice, and the room was larger than her apartment back home. Surprisingly, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

She awoke late in the evening, refreshed from her nap, and she stepped out of the room to get some food from a diner or some such, and maybe just wander around the town. It was refreshing, in a way, but also very different from her roots as a child and the life she lived in Oakland. But she still picked up attention, even with the hoodie. Not too much and not too bad, thankfully. She really wasn’t in the mood to deal with people.

Still, later that evening she found a place and changed into Kitsune, so she could check out the meeting place. She moved quickly and quietly, not really stealthy but not trying to call attention to herself, either. She did wonder whether the other people coming would gain notice, and get people to wonder what was going on here in this quiet community.

Now would be a good time to look at the house, she thought to herself. No time like the present to get a look at things, and it ought to be fairly quiet. At least that's what she hoped... and also hoped that the Author wasn't going to make things difficult this time...

*******************

Well, it was time.

The waiting had been the hard part. Even now, he was probably going to arrive way too early. But Brian eagerly wanted to get started in this new superteam. He wanted to make his uncle proud of him, show him how good he was.

Hopefully, the meeting wouldn't take too long. He was working the early shift in the morning updating the secondary alarm system at the Mountain. And, of course, there was still Masque and that idiot the Clown King to weed out.

Brian stepped over to the single, small table in his room. He looked over the contents of The Envelope again and, specifically, at the map of Aspen. He had studied it intently for the last couple of days since making the call and knew it like the back of his hand. He was ready.

Taking a deep breath he bent down and placed two of his fingers against the electrical socket in his meagre apartment. Electricity crackled from the socket but Brian felt nothing but a slight tickle as the energy entered his body and travelled along his form. Within microseconds, he was Blitz, electrical energy being and the living personification of lightning!

Brian had decided to make the first part of his trip by trusted power cable transportation. It was quicker than flying and didn't attract as much attention. So, with his fingers still touching the power socket, Blitz concentrated and willed his form to enter Denver's power lines.

Blitz's electrons flowed along the cables and powerlines of Denver, riding the electric field that carried power out of the city. He did his best to steer a straight course for his destination - the hydroelectric power station near Georgetown where he'd recently saved some workers from a fire. Within seconds, Blitz had arrived.

Electricity arced from one of the power cables and stuck the ground. Where there had been been nothing a moment before, now Blitz stood, his electrical energy form crackling and spluttering. Nearby workers suddenly stopped what they were doing, looked, pointed and stared. A few even gasped. With a smile and a wave, Blitz addressed them.

"Xzorry folkx! Can't zztop, just pazsing though...xszx..", he announced, his voice fizzing with electrical energy.

From here, he could continue travelling by wire but the power lines to the house in Aspen might not be able to take the sudden surge of his body flowing through them. And anyway, it would be useful to scope out the area... just in case.

Energy fluxed and seethed as Blitz changed his polarity, causing the similarly charged ground to repel him and lifting him off the ground. With a crack of lightning, Blitz flew off into the sky above the power station and zapped off towards the meeting with Uncle Rod Bellar.

*******************

Vincenzo sat in his office, a mahogany paneled, high ceilinged, largely dark room hung with spot-lit contemporary art, framed newspaper articles, and an assortment of engraved plaques thanking him for his donations. The art was a hobby, the articles were vanity, and the plaques were redemption. A green shaded banker’s lamp sat on the desk along with a wireless keyboard and mouse. On a projection screen unfurled over the mantelpiece of a neatly shuttered fireplace, stock information from a plethora of the world’s markets scrolled by, and video of four trading floors cycled through a sequence showing order, disorder, open calling, and polite interaction, depending on the nation. Vincenzo wore a European tailored Egyptian cotton shirt, blue with white collar and French cuffs, and the flat fronted slacks that this season determined looked best on a man. Gold cufflinks matched the necklace that as always showed above the open collar of his shirt. The room smelled of the leather of the desk top, oil polish for all the hardwood, and a small but powerful cup of espresso. A twisted strip of leman peel on the saucer completed the man’s breakfast. Outside the window, the early morning light was starting to show over Chicago, raising the yellow black curtain of a city night to the many dirty grays of a modern metropolis in Autumn. He held a cell phone in front of him – it no longer functioned as anything other than an object for meditation, but it was serving that purpose well.

“Call Janice,” he said aloud to the room. A parabolic mike in either corner picked up his request, and the computer knew what to do. His financial planner was of course not at work yet, but she would get his message when she got in. “Janice, that six thou I was toying with – send it to Sister Agnes and make a note for the quarterly tax filing. Mille Gratzi. Ciao.”

“Lee Choi,” Vincenzo said. Almost immediately, the image on the screen on the wall was replaced by an image Lee Choi, reading a local Chinese language paper for the second time. It was a bi-weekly paper, and Lee Choi read each one at least twice, hopeful of fending off homesickness and finding community in a world that grew increasingly foreign. Since they left Venice and Italy for Chicago, he had been overwhelmed by the cultural shift. The people were all so fat, and yet so hurried. So tight-fisted, and yet they drove cars the size of whales. The leisurely pace of Venetian life had taken him some time to get used to after leaving Shanghai. Chicago was likewise an adjustment. His beard, thin and white and long, accentuated his angular cheeks and almond shaped eyes. Vincenzo could see Lee Choi was already dressed in a coverall, which meant another day of tinkering in his shop, working on another invention, and the Italian made a mental note to drop the Patent Attorney a note later.

“Bon Giorno, Lee. Como?” Vincenzo wanted the old man to be happy, and tried to be as cheerful as possible in hopes that it would rub off.

“Shien shien,” he replied somberly. They routinely spoke to each other in any number of languages, and this morning's dialogue was almost a formalized ritual by now. He put his cigarette down, and picked up a coffee mug full of green tea. The cup said “Happiness is a warm puppy,” and was stained at the rim nearly black with tea. The cup was a gag gift from Vincenzo, and was his way of taking the sting off of some of the more disappointing western misconceptions.
“I’ll be taking a trip out to the Rockies, and I’ll need a bag packed with my mountain gear, and my work clothes. Use the hideaway luggage you designed.”

“Must we use this awful rangua – language? It sounds like crashing cars and mating cats.”

“Chicago is our new reality, Lee, so yes, we must adjust to English. Sorry about that. Would you like to come with me? You could tour Aspen, hike up a mountain, take a few days to relax in the great outdoors.”

“Thank you. I am very close to stretching the range on your whiskers, and I shouldn’t leave it yet.” True to his culture, he could not say no, even when that was exactly what he meant.

Vincenzo barely resisted the urge to pressure him, and let the old man off the hook. “You choose wisely, as always. I’ll be leaving this afternoon, so I’ll get that bag from you at lunch. Gratzi, amico. Ciao.”

“By which of course you mean thank you and goodbye,” Lee Choi replied with an eyebrow raised.

With a few more calls, the Learjet he co-leased with a few other businessmen was fueled and ready on the tarmac when he rolled up in the restored 1972 Fiat Spider that Vincenzo suspected his mechanic thought of as his child’s college tuition fund. With American speed limits, he tended to prefer the car that was fun even in the lower speed ranges – the Ferrari was just too depressing at 70 miles per hour. The pilot tried to help with his luggage, but Vincenzo demurred – he wasn’t going to let a former fighter pilot waste his talent and energy hoisting luggage around like a common stevedore, and he told him so. The pilot, Towson, thanked him and headed to the cockpit.

In a few hours the town of Grand Junction was in view, and the landing followed soon after. The car rental agent presented him with the luxury class car – a full sized American behemoth that handled like a gondola – and in a few moments, his kidskin gloved hands on the wheel, his luggage on the passenger seat, he rolled out of the airport and onto route 70 East, ETA Aspen, 2 hours. The sun was behind him, the day was lovely, and the mountains were beautiful. It was a new idea for him, joining a team. He was used to working alone, but some company would be nice. With a hand, he might have gotten to keep Strega Rosa in custody for the Polizia Provinciale, instead of waking up on the cobblestones with Sister Agnes looking at him with that look of continued reproach that came so naturally to her.

*******************

"What the hell. It might actually work..." As a last ditch effort to make heads or tails out of the map, Stephen turned it upside down. A quick comparison to the surrounding roadsigns confirmed to him that the map did indeed work better inverted. "Sarah, remind me to fire you tomorrow" he said to the air, growling at the fact that his high-powered agent had to get a map off the internet for Christ's sake.

The flight into Aspen had been remarkable only because the gentleman beside him kept elbowing Stephen in the ribs as he talked to the woman he was with. No matter how Stephen shifted, here came the elbow. And the inevitable apology, of course, but first was the elbow. It made for a long trip. Add that to the inevitable "Aren't you that actor guy I saw in that thing that time? You were with whatsisname, right?" from the lummox and his night was just about complete. Staring out the window of the plane, wondering just what was ahead of him had seemed the best solution, since Stephen found it impossible to concentrate on the novel he had brought along.

Now, of course, he was lost somewhere in the middle of Aspen, looking for a house. He'd been to Aspen before, mostly in the company of the Cousin Who Shall Not Be Named... the bastard. Stephen accepted that not all actors got the fame and the glory, but did it have to be that his own cousin had turned into one of the more famous men on the planet? Even with the man's recent career slump, he was still being mentioned in the trades and appearing on magazine covers. There simply was no justice to it all. And just because the man had a house up here and that Stephen had visited didn't mean he was an expert on Aspen...

He continued his musings while driving, and had finally come to the conclusion that he would strangle his cousin and dump his body into the Pacific when he found the right road. Now he just had to find the house...

*******************
Mike knew that as much as his new neighborhood benefited by his nightly patrols, he would need to get away from it all in order to decide exactly what to do about the opportunity his chance encounter had provided. In so doing, he went home to San Antonio, to seek the advice of the only person he had ever trusted with his secret, the very man that had been a father and mentor to him ever since adopting him years ago.

The trip had been mostly uneventful, with only a couple muggings to break the quiet respite. Mike reasoned that this was most likely due to San Antonio having its own group of protectors, but had to admit to himself that the trip would have been more exciting had he been able to protect more people, and thereby of course have fun playing with the would be criminals. It was in fact during one of these interventions on behalf of one would be mugging victim that he came to a decision. He'd been explaining to the police exactly what the situation was, when it dawned on him exactly how much he could accomplish, how many more people he could help, and how much more fun he could have as part of a team.

That decision made, he leaped back to the dojo that had been his childhood home. There he explained to his father exactly what he had decided and asked him if he could get someone to cover for him at his gym for a while until he could work something out. That done, he called the number on the cell phone, attempted to joke around with the voice on the other end of the line until it became obvious it was just a machine, and then ended the call.

The rest of the trip could be summed up as visiting friends and saying farewells. He knew he'd be back, but he also knew it more than likely wouldn't be for a while. After all, there'd be training, getting to know each other, and general do gooding. He'd be lucky to even see his gym four hours away very often for a while.

Upon reaching the airport, Mike rented a fairly new LeSabre and used the GPS unit included in the package to plot the most scenic route to the meeting place. After all, Mike had made a point to arrive a couple days before the scheduled date, as he wanted to get a feel for the city and a feel for its people as well. He'd be putting his life on the line for these people, the least he could do was get to know some of the people that included.

The area's beauty impressed him, though at his first stop it had almost been ruined. A man, noticeably drunk, was harrasing two teenagers who were just desperately trying to get around him without causing the situation to get worse, the drunk however had other plans.

If Mike hadn't been trained so well, if he hadn't have had his quarterstaff laying in his back seat, and if he hadn't have had his mask available, the teens would have been in trouble. The drunk noticed that the teenagers had been trying to get away, and somewhere in his addled brain had decided the reason was that the teenagers had decided they were too good for him, and had broken the empty bottle he had been holding. As was, the teenage woman had been slashed on the cheek, and the boy had slashes on his arms from trying to protect his girlfriend by the time that Grinning had gotten to them.

"Now that seems to be a waste of a fine brew," Shadow quipped as he slapped the drunk's hand causing him to drop the bottle, "For that matter, why don't you take this and go get some rest somewhere?" With that, Shadow distracted the drunk by throwing two of the hundred dollar bills at the drunk.

He then took out the cell phone, called 911 and waited with the teens until the ambulance arrived. Finally, he'd gotten in his car and driven to another diner, hiding his mask and staff once again enroute.

He hoped that the rest of the trip would not be as eventful.