Colton James was just an ordinary man, struggling like the rest of humanity to earn a living from his innate talents and training, until a fateful event in early spring changed his life forever. Before dawn, a reputedly empty five-story apartment building across the street from his flat on New York City's Lower West Side, erupted into a giant fireball. Government agencies later attributed the blast to a gas leak.

As the massive firefighting and cleanup effort began, Colton collected personal papers and property from a bent and twisted hulk that had, until minutes earlier, been his automobile. A box of photocopies he'd left on the backseat had wound up outside the vehicle and he was forced to sift through assorted street trash to recover as much as possible. Unaware that something extra had gotten mixed in with his personal items, he carried the bundle up to his apartment. When he later began to separate the papers in the privacy of his third-floor walk-up, he discovered something among the detritus that couldn't possibly exist, yet obviously did.