Author's note: In order to fully understand the premise of The Event, reading the information posted in my profile is essential!

Prologue

The everyday hum of activity droned on in Linda's ears, but she barely heard it. She had no willpower to focus on anything about her life now. She simply existed, moving from day to day with no care to keep an eye on the clock. What did it all matter now, anyway?

She walked at a steady pace down the brightly lit hallway, passing by without a glance the doors that led into conference rooms and the offices of the teachers who worked for the college of sciences. At first, working here at MIT had been fascinating. But Linda's life had no meaning anymore. Her reason for moving to Massachusetts was all but gone now.

Sheba…even the barest thought of her beautiful daughter was enough to bring tears to Linda's eyes. The past month had been the absolute worst of her life, starting from that day—had it actually been only a month ago?—when Sheba had collapsed and started screaming. Linda had never seen anything like it before. Sheba had thrashed and spasmed on the floor, shrieking as though she had been set on fire. And then she had knocked the cup of pencils off the desk, and…and then she had written them down. The accursed, meaningless numbers.

Linda didn't know why she kept the old tax form. Maybe it was some desperate, twisted hope she held. Maybe, if she kept it, one day some sort of meaning would come of it. And then she would have her daughter back.

She wasn't paying attention to where she was going. She was carrying a few books and a binder of papers to another office at the opposite end of the building, but her gaze was unfocused. She did not see the man step out of his office until she ran into him. Linda gasped in surprise as everything in her arms tumbled to the floor.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she said, shocked.

"It's okay. Completely my fault," the man replied, bending down with her to help retrieve the fallen books and papers. Linda's face was flushed with embarrassment.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled again.

"No worries!" the man assured, gathering the last bits of paper together. "No harm done…unless all this needed to be in a particular order. I think I've pretty much screwed it up if it is." He chuckled. "I'm John Koestler, professor of astrophysics."

"Linda Lewis…secretary," Linda replied, blushing again. "I…"

She froze. John had just picked up the last piece of paper, an old tax form. She saw his gaze instantly turn to the rows of numbers scrawled in miniscule handwriting across the paper. She saw his face twist in an expression of confusion.

"This is odd," he said, studying the paper closely. "Is this binary?"

"N…no," Linda replied quietly, averting her gaze to the floor. "My…my daughter wrote them."

John was silent. Through the corner of her eye, Linda could see he hadn't moved. She sighed.

"My daughter…was admitted to Snowden two weeks ago," she admitted. "For a month now she's been going into violent fits. The first time she did it, she wrote these numbers down. Nobody knows what they are, but they have to mean something. Sheba wouldn't just…she couldn't…"

Linda stopped, biting her lip to restrain sobs. She felt John's hand settle gently on her shoulder.

"Come into my office. I have a fresh pot of coffee," he offered.

Linda nodded without thinking. John carried the books and papers for her, escorting her through the open door next to them. John's office was cluttered with books and file cabinets, typical of a busy professor. A window at the far end of the small room looked out over the MIT campus, and a handsome wooden desk divided the room in two. John put her books down on a small table next to the door, and beckoned her to sit down in a padded wooden chair in front of the desk. He walked around to the other side and poured a generous measure of coffee into a mug with the words "I love NYC" on the side.

"How do you take it?" he asked.

"Black," Linda replied.

"My kind of girl," he replied with a smile.

Linda half-smiled as John handed her the mug. She took a sip. It was a very good brand, for it tasted delicious. Definitely higher end than what she normally bought.

"Thank you," she replied. "This tastes wonderful."

"You are very welcome," John replied. "Anything less than Emerald Bay and I can't stay awake through class."

Linda chuckled. Then she noticed that John, who had sat down at the desk, still had the paper in his hand. He had begun studying it again.

"Very strange," he said after a moment. "You think there's an actual meaning to these?"

"I'm positive," Linda replied. "I just don't know what."

John focused on the paper for a few minutes, an expression of genuine interest on his face now. She could see he was scanning it very slowly.

"I don't see any obvious numeric patterns," he said finally. He glanced up briefly. "But I might not be the one to ask. Hey, Julian!"

Linda turned around. A bespectacled man was standing at the doorway, clearly having been in the act of walking by only seconds before. He turned at John's call.

"What's up, John?" he asked casually.

"I have a question," John replied. "Julian, this is Linda. Linda, this is my good friend Julian. He's an advanced mathematics professor." John handed him the paper. "Can you make any sense of that?"

Julian took the paper and studied it. His expression shifted from curiosity to confusion within seconds.

"I've never seen a numeric code like this," he admitted. "What is it?"

"I have it on good confidence it means something important," John replied. "Are you sure you can't make sense of it?"

"John, the study of numerology is extremely imprecise," Julian replied with a half-grin. "It's a whole bunch of people sitting around with nothing better to do than find sense in a bunch of random numbers. And any one of them could come up with a theory that's as equally plausible as another."

Julian handed the paper back.

"If you think there's some meaning to those, go for it," he said. "But I don't think I can be of much help."

John nodded. Linda sighed, hanging her head as a sense of hopelessness rushed through her.

"I am sorry," Julian added, sounding sincere.

"It's okay," John replied. "You heading out tomorrow?"

"Yup. Jess and I are catching the 8:00 am flight to Orlando. Jess is my daughter," he added for Linda's sake. "She's really looking forward to it."

"I hope you and your daughter have fun," Linda replied, managing a smile.

Julian smiled back, saluted John playfully, and left. For a moment, there was silence between them. John shifted the paper in his hands.

"Julian is right. There could be a hundred explanations for this," he said. "For example…"

John pulled out a blank piece of paper and a pen. He wrote down a set of numbers on it large enough for Linda to see. She watched as 9, 1, 1, 0, 1, 2, 9, 9, 6 appeared.

"See…the double repetition of '1' and '9' might be a clue if it was continuous throughout. But it's not. It's more like…"

Suddenly, he paused. Linda stared at him, confused.

"Unless…" he murmured.

John drew hash marks through the numbers he had written, effectively splitting them into something resembling a date. Linda's jaw dropped.

"9/11?" she gasped.

"One possibility," John said quickly, turning to his computer. He typed in something, and stared at the screen for a moment. "A tribute to the fallen, in honor of the 2,996 lives lost that day."

John stared at the screen, then at the paper. Linda could see he was re-reading it with renewed interest.

"How exactly did Sheba come to write these?" he asked.

"She…she had a…seizure." It was the only way Linda could think of to describe it. "She didn't stop thrashing and screaming until she wrote those down. And she's…she's been out of her mind ever since. I couldn't handle her like that. I had to…had to…"

The tears were falling now. John was quick to pass her a tissue.

"May I borrow this tonight?" he asked, sympathy in his voice. "I can follow this theory I have now and see where it gets me."

Linda nodded without actually thinking, simply grateful that there was someone willing to help.

"How can I reach you?" he continued. "I'll call you tomorrow when I have something."

"You can call me at home. I won't be here tomorrow." Linda replied, writing down the number. "I have a lot of paperwork to do."

Linda set her coffee mug aside and stood, taking John's hand.

"Thank you," she said. "I hope you figure something out."

"I'll do the best I can," John vowed.

And so our saga begins. Those of you who have read my profile should now see what I mean when I say this thing is fanfiction taken to the extreme. But it isn't as though it is an original method. Half the fanfiction in the world takes a canon storyline and butchers it all to Hell. I can only hope mine does it with a bit more grace.

Trivia: The prologue was not the first part of The Event to be written. Book I was the first, with all the prologue story simply lurking in my head. Halfway through Book II I decided to write out the prologue in order to help keep the details straight.

**Take note of this for all future installments of the story: Not all details of all fandoms will be correct. Most details, even minute ones, may have been changed for one of several reasons. I either A) could not remember the right details at the time of original composition, and now am simply too lazy to correct them, or B) changed them to suite the story to my satisfaction.