A World Without Secrets

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 changed his life forever. Before dawn, on a day in early spring, a reputedly empty warehouse across from his apartment building on New York City's West Side, erupts into a giant fireball. Government agencies later attributed the blast to a gas leak.

As the massive firefighting and cleanup effort begins, Colton collects personal papers and property from a bent and twisted hulk that had, until a half-hour 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.