Prologue
Prologue
Raul Muyres was a very intelligent man. He was a Wizard, with a PHD in Metaphysics from both Harvard and MIT. He knew as much about magic, physics, biology, and chemistry as any wizard, and more than most.
He was adept at problem solving, and loved riddles and puzzles. When he read murder mysteries he’d often solve the mystery himself before they revealed the answer in the book.
He knew many things. He’d memorized the weights and composition of coins from all over the world, and from various time periods. A 1943 penny for example was almost certainly made of zinc-coated steel, unless it was one of the extremely rare copper ‘43s.
He knew hundreds, maybe thousands of common molecular chains, and how and why they formed, how they could be changed with the introduction of another molecule or element.
He knew hundreds of energy formulae, from the mathematical expressions of Newton’s Laws to quantum spin probabilities.
But more than anything he knew his own limitations. He understood that there were things he couldn’t do alone, so he developed a talent for finding people who could help fill in the gaps in his skillset, and a knack for inspiring trust and loyalty in those people.
He knew a lot. What he didn’t know was that tonight he was going to die.
He pulled his car - a classic 1961 Austin-Healey 3000 - into the lot of the storage unit he’d rented just south of Terre Haute Indiana. The unit was a double-wide, large enough to store his car, with enough room left over to set up a workspace for his project. It even had a second, normal door so that he wouldn’t have to open the garage style door whenever he wanted to go in and out.
Giddy with anticipation, he hopped out and opened the sliding door, parked his car inside, and closed the door again.
He didn’t see the black SUV that had parked just outside next to the storage unit’s wrought-iron fence.
He pulled his sub sandwich out of it’s paper wrappings and sat at his workbench eating quickly and looking over his notes. When he was finished he closed his journal and put it safely away.
He didn’t hear the boots on the pavement outside walking slowly and carefully towards the door of his unit.
He pulled his white smartphone out of his back pocket and turned on the camera, and began to speak excitedly.
Two minutes and 54 seconds later he died in an explosion.
Oddly, it wasn’t his first choice in how he would have liked to go, but it was on his top five.
What he would have REALLY liked was what happened next, which even he, in a million years, could never have known.