It was midnight as Michael Van Lue stared up at the run down apartment building, on the bad side of town.  Michael took a last drag off his cigarette before dropping it to the street and crushing it out with his toe.  "Man this is gonna suck."  He looked down at his recovered knife in his right hand, "Yeah."  Then he reached into his pocket with his left hand, and withdrew what appeared to be a yellow christmas light, that was glowing brightly, even though it wasn't plugged in, and instead of a light buld screw it had what looked more like a computer USB plug.  "Yup it's gonna suck, but I need help, and I don't think I can trust anyone else, not even Zak."  He walked to the apartment building, and up the dimly lit staircase, mostly ignorant of the graffiti and gang symbols on the walls.  He stopped in front of a door on the third floor, hesitated briefly before knocking.

     "Yeah one second" came the male voice from the other side.  The door opened until the safety chain pulled taut.  The face on the other side looked surprised, then his brow furrowed in anger.  "What the hell are you doing here?"

     "I need your help Bernie"

     "Yeah like I needed yours.  You said you'd take care of it.  Instead me and Andrea had to testify at Patch's trial, We had to look at....crime scene pictures.  So you want my help asshole?  Fine the streets behind you, now get to steppin and hit the bricks!"  The ddor summarily slammed shut.

     "Bernie please.  It's Karen and Lyndi, they've been kidnapped." Thirty seconds passed,  Michael was about to turn and go, when the door slowly swung open.  Michael exhaled a sigh of relief, and slowly walked inside, and closed the door behind him. 

     The apartment stank of old cigarettes, full ashtrays were on almost every flat surface,  garbage from chinese and pizza delivery joints littered the floor.  The only furniture was a pullout sofa and a computer desk, with a high class computer system on it that stood in stark contrast to the surrounding apartment.  The larger man, had curly red hair, and apparently shaved more as a guideline then an actual rule.  He lit a cigarette, took a long thoughtful drag.  "Karen AND Lyndi huh, so who'd you go see first, me or Jenks?"

     Michael shrugged and slowly pulled the knife out of his pocket.  Bernie smiled.  "Jenks must've been pissed."

    "Understatement...look Bernie I wouldn't bother if I though I had any other..."

   "I know. Tell me what happened."

     "I'm not exactly sure, I was sleeping, I awoke to a scream.  Karen and Lyndi were gone.  Lyndi's room looked like there was a fight in there.  The only thing I found was this."  He pulled the light out of his pocket.

     "What is it?  It's got a USB plug.  What's causing the light?"

     "Hell if I know.  That's why I'm here.

     "Bernie fingered the light.  "I've never seen anything like it.  Let me try something. "  Bernie plugged the light into a port in an auxillary computer.  "If it fries something, I want it to fry this piece of shit, and not my main system....well its got a program in it, but nothing that my stuff can recognize."

    "Can you tell me anything?"

    "I can read a the program name thats about it....'TIME LINE BIOHAZARD 147'.  Does that mean anything to you?"

    "No I....whoa!"

    "What?"

    "Remember when I told you I could sense the location of the knife pretty much anywhere?"

    "Yeah."

    "Well I'm sensing another knife, just like this one, its about 250-300 miles from here. What the hell?"

     Bernie shrugged his shoulders.  "Road trip?"