***Los Angeles, April 25th, 1976, 8:00 P.M.***

Nicole sat in the kitchen, waiting for her husband to return. It was 8 o'clock, and he said he'd be home by 7. She and her son, Michael had to eat dinner without him. By now, their 7-year-old son was up in bed, asleep for all she knew. But she didn't know that little Mikey was not sleeping so easily as he had been in his younger years. He had come down with Spring Fever: a girl named Alice who lived across the street from him had recently become the object of his affection. At night he would think of her, and think of nothing but her. In fact, he was a little ashamed of it. Boys his age were still convinced that girls had cooties. In a way, he believed that too, but at the same time he knew that Alice was different. His thoughts were interrupted by a slamming door coming from downstairs.

"Where have you been?" Nicole asked impatiently of her husband.

Sighing, Will didn't even say anything. He just sat down at the head of the kitchen table, and began eating the long since cold chicken that lay on his plate.

"Well?" she asked again.

"I was out with the guys," Will replied with a far off voice.

"Oh right," she said, almost as if it was obvious. But her sentences reeked with sarcasm. "Out with the guys. How many of these fights are we gonna have to have before you get it? If you say you're gonna be home, I expect you to be home!"

With a swallow, he looked up and stared at her with eyes beaten down from a long day's work. "You really want to know where I was?"

She realized that this was one of those times that they had talked about before. Where he was lying to keep her safe. To keep her alive. "No," she confessed. "Don't tell me."

"That's better!" he said with an aggressive voice. "Now, let's not have this talk again, you hear me?"

In almost fear, Nicole cowered back. "I hear you, I hear you."

"Good," he said. "Now let me finish my dinner."

Nicole was suddenly terrified of her husband. In shambles, she ran up to her room. Michael heard the pounding footsteps, and quickly closed his eyes. His mother's bedroom door slammed, and Michael heard crying from within his mother's room. He wanted to console her, but there was school tomorrow. He needed his rest. So he turned over, fitfully and tried to get to sleep. And ignore the fight that he knew was yet to come.

Downstairs, William felt guilty about having to send his wife away like that. He couldn't tell her where he really was: she wouldn't believe him for one. But also because he needed some privacy. He reached into his briefcase, and pulled out an aged, yellow page. He tried to analyze it, again. Diagrams for a special machine; blueprints for the battery to power it, and then, there was more. A prophecy, involving a man. The hair on the man in the picture was full and fluffy. He was young, and the picture showed him as physically fit. William felt almost destined to find this picture, and the most amusing thing about the picture was that the face was frighteningly familiar. But from where?

He tried to piece it together in his head, but it just wouldn't come.

"You know where that face is from, don't you?" a strange voice hissed from nowhere. William looked up, startled. No one was in the kitchen. He sat back down in his seat, and there, sitting across from him, was an old man in his hundreds, with no question. His white hair with gray streaks was running down his back, which was clothed in a light brown shirt. His beard, too, was white and gray, although it was a far darker shade of the two complimenting colors.

"Rambaldi?"

"It's good that you recognized me this time. I must say, it is quite wonderful to finally be here in the flesh, though. I thought you might realize that I was real in your dreams. But no, it just didn't click for you, did it?" Rambaldi stood up and walked around the room. "Nice place you got here," he said, with his back facing William.

TBC…