Chapter 1

"Damn! Why won't this thing work?"

The yellow glare of the computer monitor reflected weakly off the pale face of twenty two year old software engineer Daniel Mortinson. In the darkness of his living room, with the curtains drawn against the afternoon sun, his mind worked furiously to locate the error that had been keeping his program from functioning. Staring back at the seemingly endless lines of code in front of him, his eyes slowly went out of focus as he mentally ran through various operations, trying desperately to work out whatever could be causing such an odd numerical deviation.

Frustrated and annoyed, Daniel stood up and stretched. Standing at just under six foot tall, his gangly body always seemed to be just a bit uncoordinated. It wasn't that he was clumsy, per se; it was just that his mind always seemed to be moving a little bit faster than the rest of him.

Daniel's gawky nature and extreme intelligence had been a continual source of grief throughout his middle and high school years. For some reason, the chess club just didn't seem to hold the same level of interest as the football team for most of his peers, and his less than athletic form was definitely not appealing to the local jock-oriented female population.

To be honest, he hadn't really found university life at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to be much different. With a course load that would have been considered ridiculous by the worst sweatshop owners in China, he had never really found the time to meet people. And even though the local female population would probably have been a bit more interested in a man of Daniel's particular qualities, he was far too involved in his studies to pursue the matter. However, at the young age of twenty one, Daniel Mortinson finally took his leave from the educational system with a PhD in Computer Engineering. Hard work and no play may not have gotten him laid, but it had created one of the best software engineering minds in the country.

Pulling himself forcefully from his daydreaming, Daniel reminded himself of the job at hand.

If I can't get this module working by this weekend, he thought to himself, General Crowe is going to pull our funding for sure. God, I hope Stan has got that interface working.

The Stan in question was Stanton Moorehead III, of the Connecticut Mooreheads. Having been brought up among the circles of the rich and well to do, Stanton had been expected to study law at Harvard, as both his father and grandfather had. To the astonishment and consternation of his family, he decided instead to attend MIT. He wanted to pursue his own dream, not that of his parents. He didn't want to end up like his father, with a law practice that slowly drained the life from him, leaving nothing behind but a wealthy corpse. Having made his decision, he devoted all of his passion, as well as his considerable intellect, to his work in electrical engineering, allowing him to excel in a school widely known for its intensely difficult curriculum.

Rooming with Daniel for his last two years at MIT had been one of the luckiest breaks of Stanton's life. Frustrated with his overbearing relatives and completely sick of their stuffy airs and better-than-thou attitudes, Stanton's spirits had been slowly faltering. Returning home every few months to beg for more tuition money was slowly and inexorably killing him. In contrast, Daniel's quiet self confidence had been a breath of fresh air. While Daniel may have been powerfully driven to succeed, he never seemed to brag about that success when achieved, or to continually ask Stanton why he wasn't doing the same thing. For the first time in his life Stanton didn't have to pretend to be someone that he wasn't, didn't have to measure up to someone else's expectations for his life. He felt truly free for the first time, and unexpectedly discovered that he could in fact exceed even his own expectations. In return for this, Stanton did his best to watch out for his fairly naive friend, often drawing from his own background to help Daniel across the dangerous pitfalls so common in university politics. Without Stanton, Daniel would probably have never achieved his doctorate at such a young age. Without Daniel, however, Stanton would have eventually burned out, giving up on a world that never seemed quite able to understand or accept him as he was.

After graduation, it only made sense for the two of them to go into business together. Daniel mentally winced as he remembered those first few months, frantically trying to get Twisted Logic Design off the ground. He remembered the frenetic search for capital, the constant wondering about whether or not they would 'make it'. It had definitely been pretty hairy there for a few months, and they had almost given up on several occasions.

Unbeknownst to them, however, Stanton's doctoral thesis on neural networks had gained the attention of the U.S. military. Three months into their search for a sponsor, a military research contract came seemingly out of the blue. Bringing with it much needed funding, Project Neuromancer offered them an opportunity to pursue a technical path that had remained close to their hearts from their college years. Having fallen in love with movies such as 'The Matrix' and the 'Neuromancer' books, as well as being avid video game buffs, the two engineers had been naturally drawn to the concept of neural interfacing. This project was a godsend for them. While they might not be doing any of the hard research for the project — that was for the poor scientist weenies forced to work in a secure lab — TLD would be quite heavily involved in the actual development of a neural device. As an added bonus, with most of the highly secure information being wrapped up solely in the research, the application development itself didn't rate a top secret designation. With this fact in mind, they had surprisingly worked out a contract that allowed them to work from their office in Michigan.

'Project Neuromancer' was being run by a two star general by the name of Rodney Crowe. At five foot ten, two hundred thirty-five pounds, General Crowe was everything Daniel would never have expected from the U.S. Army. Yes, he was arrogant to a fault. Yes, he was clueless at the level of technology being developed for Project Neuromancer. However, he was a man who actually realized his technical limitations, and he tended to step back and allow his scientists and engineers to do what they did best. But when there were political issues to be dealt with, funding to be chased after or even the occasional annoying government official to be placated, General Crowe was a certified genius. He knew where all the bodies were buried, and he had the amazing ability to cut straight through the convoluted mazes of red tape always involved with any Pentagon-based project. As long as his people were making acceptable progress, he let them do their jobs. This was not at all what Daniel and Stanton expected when they decided to take him up on the consulting contract they were offered, but they were definitely pleasantly surprised.

Now, if he could just get that stupid activation algorithm working...

After he finished stretching, Daniel stumbled tiredly into the kitchen to refill his ever emptying coffee mug. Just having left his darkened living room, he winced as his eyes slowly adjusted to the late afternoon sun streaming in through the kitchen windows. Decorated in early Salvation Army, his kitchen set consisted of a few rusty folding chairs and a beat up fiberboard table that had seen its better days. An old microwave, with its once white paint peeling from its frame, occupied the only section of counter not cluttered with discarded food containers and soiled dishes. Sitting on top of the decrepit microwave was an old tape driven answering machine he had found at a garage sale a few months previous.

Glancing at the clock on the microwave, Daniel mentally kicked himself. He had been planning on calling in to the office today, but it was almost six in the afternoon. Cindy, his office manager, would probably be headed home already.

After replenishing his diminished caffeine supply, Daniel noticed a small red light blinking on the old answering machine. He had apparently missed a couple of calls. Daniel figured that he must have been too deeply involved in his work on the other end of the apartment to hear the telephone ring. Exhaustedly jabbing his index finger towards the play button, he settled down onto a folding chair with his fresh mug of coffee. The first message began to play through the old dry-rotted speaker, the audio occasionally crackling, sounding quite literally as if it was coming from out of a tin can.

"Mr. Mortinson, this is Gerald Simms with the bank. You still haven't taken care of those non-sufficient fund fees we discussed the other..." — click.

How am I supposed to pay your stupid fees with an empty checking account, you moron? Daniel thought to himself as he stabbed at the delete button. We've really got to make some progress, or we'll never get paid for this development phase. Hell, I can't even afford a decent answering machine!

The nasal voice of the collection agent was thankfully replaced with Stanton's. "Hey Danny boy, I've got some good news. Call me when you get a chance. Ciao."

Thank God! Either Stan must have made some progress on the neural net device, or Crowe authorized our time extension for this phase. Daniel breathed a sigh of relief. At least something is going right today.

As the last message began, Cindy Chandler's voice came through the tinny speaker. "Mr. Mortinson, I need to know when you are planning on coming back into the office. I need your authorization to pay out on several invoices, and it would be nice to see you in here once in a while. I know you're busy with the software, but please call me back when you get a chance. I'll be in the office until about six-thirty this afternoon, working on some filing. Thank you."