Nick and Michelle got an early start Monday morning hoping to put three hundred miles behind them with a targeted destination of Salina off the I-70, the last stop before crossing two hundred miles of high mountainous wilderness ending at the town of Green River in eastern Utah.

They stopped for fuel and a lunch break in Cedar City a town some fifty miles south of the I-70 split named for the evergreen trees that grow there..Trees which are in fact drought tolerant junipers not cedar, the latter of which need a much milder climate than the topography here could provide. They were making good time, and by 1:PM with Michelle's Harley leading the way, they headed eastward up the I-70 passing the town of Sulphurdale where the road began a twisting up hill route set between sheer limestone cliffs rising from red rock canyons at stark ninety degree angles.

The day was warm reaching nearly one hundred degrees. Waves of heat rose off the blacktop like dripping shower curtains creating pools of watery mirage at their bases. Between sculptured rows of weather worn peaks, forests of pinion, ponderosa and bristle cone pine cast belts of diffused sun light across the highway producing pockets of forced shade and cooler temperatures which the biker's experienced in unique fashion, as do all who's travel makes close the natural surroundings of nature.

The steady rise in altitude was apparent by increasing clusters of vegetation nestled among craggy hollows of engelmann and blue spruce that opened to meadows of juniper shrubs and yellow-orange aspens showing their fall colors..It was a area of vast open spaces used by campers, hikers, fishermen, and hunters during the weekends, and with no major metropolis between them, not uncommon to travel miles at a time without any sign of traffic excepting the occasional late departing motor home, or logging truck, making a slow progression through the twisting switch backs carved against the mountains on one side, and flimsy guard rails set against steep drops on the other.

Michelle rounded a sweeping right bend to steep cliffs that sandwiched the roadway and a quarter mile of straightway that appeared thick and foreboding due to a condensing blanket of amber cloud resting between the cliffs on either side..She slowed slightly, squinting into what she determined to be perhaps the mouth of a tunnel just beyond the opening of semi-transparent swirling fog, and with Nick still somewhere behind her, she pushed into the gradient darkness.

Ever since leaving the I-15 for the eastbound 70 he'd felt an uneasiness...Not unlike a growing nausea in the pit of his stomach.. The route by all means was the most direct line through the center of the state bringing them to the Colorado border within another day's ride..He'd considered it safer as well by the fact it was less traveled then the I-15 to Salt Lake City, and furthermore, a highway made for the likes of motorcyclists with it's twists and turns, short straightaways, spotty hamlets, and magnificent vistas...The dreams had returned last night and he considered their un-tuned nature a deciding factor in his general state of mind..He hadn't mentioned them to Michelle wishing to spare her spirits an accounting of his world of strange visions..She was a glowing soul, quick of wit, and always choosing to live life on the bright side. A side he found selfishly attractive because her effervescence rubbed off making his world so much the lighter.

He shook his head realizing his involvement in thought had slowed his progress to fifty miles per hour, and in doing so had lost sight of her..Compensating for the lag, he pushed through an upcoming long right bend at faster speeds only to break downshifting in reaction to what he could only describe as a dark funnel of moving air directly before him...He stopped on the preceding shoulder alarmed she was not here waiting for him, and with a rising fear for her safety, realized she had already rode into it..He set the bike in neutral and sliding down the kickstand felt a weakness in his knees. The result of a rising premonition the anomaly before him was the makings of some inherent danger..He stepped off the bike hoping that any second now she would re-appear to him by means of the opposite lanes proving his suspicions false, but as he walked the roadway approaching the amber curtain he heard no sound of her approaching Harley to rest his mind.

Standing just before the translucent mass he stepped forward with his left boot testing the barrier then quickly yanked back in response to a burning sensation at the bottom of his foot he perceived as intense heat..Falling back against the tarmac the boot emerged sticking against the blacktop, it's sole squishy as if subjected to molten heat..A sudden mournful cry escaped him realizing Michelle could not have lived even a few seconds immersed in such an inferno..As quickly, a hopeless dark rage of fury and loss possessed him dictating he no longer wished to live..His body shook in a violent response and taking what he resolved to be a last breath of air, flung himself through the barrier with the intention of meeting her similar end.

Cold...

Bone chilling cold sucked away his body heat in an instant..He sprawled face down on what was a frozen sheet of tarmac just inside the partition with his jacket and jeans melding to it's surface. His breath poured from his mouth and fell out in a combination of sheet ice and white fume. Daring not inhale, he clawed against the brittle surface with his riding gloves attempting to drag back toward the entrance tearing away the cloth at the knees of his pant legs..His fingers, like solidified hooks, felt as if they would break off at the joints, or tear his hands away at the wrists against the suffering of their labor..Shoulder muscles bunched and knotted screaming against the slightest motion as metal binding against metal..His legs already numb and now of no use, were dragged as dead appendages, un-relentless weight slowing any hope of escape..Unable to lift his neck, the side of his helmet slid forward inch by inch scraping the frozen floor..With no more strength left in his hands and arms, and no more oxygen to sustain him, he rolled over in a last desperate measure onto his back and over again finding himself just outside the cloudy mass staring down at the sun baked roadway..

He breathed, choking back air as his body wrestled in mid-decision..To live, or to shut down in response to shock..He breathed again, and felt absorption emanate from the heated blacktop as a tingling of a thousand pins and needles working through his flesh from the inside out..And with it's thaw, set back his mind to an action of despair regarding her loss..

He lay there for an unknown period slipping from frequent states of unconsciousness as shifting oily shapes towered above him taunting in mocking slurred voices...His bones shook at the joints like metallic ratchets first swelling against the chill then unleashing to radiant sensations of heat that seemed to grow with intensity. Spirit forms surrounded and swirled about like greasy lightning as if by some daunting task, were attempting to carry away his essence to some molten place deep inside the earth.

And then he awoke..Feeling himself inside his body drenched in a thick sweat his limbs aching and weak but able to move..He pulled at his chin strap and slid out of the helmet realizing his face and hair were soaked in salty brine..After removing the gloves he wiped slick residue from his face confirming while unconscious he had been weeping..The Soft Tail still sat at the side idling as he'd left it, and hearing it's steady thumping grounded him once again to the present..With some effort he pushed upon all fours and crawled to the side of the road..Using the bike as a means of support he pulled himself up and stood shutting off the motor..

A notion now emerged within his mind allowing a kind of surmise to his situation..There had been a change within the aspects of the aberration..On first encounter,..heat..Then, when he'd flung through the mass in despair,..cold. As if the conditions inside the realm were by some fashion in a state of change..He dared consider a faint hope..Could she have entered the curtain to severe cold instead of the extreme heat he'd first experienced, and if so might she have passed through given the speed of the bike, and survived?..He had been inside it's borders for several seconds himself before emerging again,..and lived to consider it.

Taking a wide stance to support shaking legs he moved in rigid steps reminding him of the Frankenstein image he supposed back at the cabin that morning slipping in the mud..Along the side of the road rough brush grew against the embankment, and he slowly made his way there seeking an instrument..He found one in the form of a stout dead stick of juniper bush some three feet long...Using the thicker end as a handle he pushed the stick against the amber cloud penetrating it momentarily and then pulled back viewing the end of the dead limb with wide eyed astonishment...The end of the stick a moment ago dead and brittle now flourished with a tip of sprouting green twigs and leaves. He watched dumbstruck as the branch gained weight and living fiber working it's way down the shaft to the point he still gripped in his hand..And in that split second, as the process wrapped the entire length of wood, it's core enveloped his hand causing him to release the limb in response to his life flashing before his eyes in a series of slide show still frames..It had happened once before in his childhood when wearing a life jacket he'd fallen off a wooden dock to a swift moving current that swept him under and up, into a tiny air space between the structure and water surface..Trapped there and sure he would drown, the same event flickered through his vision as it had just now...A recognition of deja vu however was no less the disconcerting, and he lay there on his back against the macadam surface fearing an instant re-play.

It was in the strength of his own awareness another change had taken place inside the anomaly that embolden him to animate in hopes she may have survived..Staggering to the roadside he removed yet another limb from the bushes and preceded as previously making mental notes of his unhappy experiment..This time the stick came back on fire succumbed to a heat so intense he dared not continue it's grasp..Shaking his head against his own inefficiency he returned to the brush grabbing three more pieces of dead wood and found as he'd hoped a succession of rotating order triggered when penetrating the curtain..Hot..Cold..And,...rejuvenation?

Doing a quick calculation back to his initial contact with the cloudy mass he had experienced the hot aspect..Michelle had passed through the substance one penetration previously giving him a soaring hope she had escaped the hot and cold conditions and had experienced what he now intended himself riding through on the Harley Soft Tail..After pulling the remaining stick back through and acknowledging it's frozen state, he strapped on his helmet and mounted the motorcycle.

Risking a head on collision he drove back up the road toward the bend and then made a sharp U-turn twisting the throttle wide open..At 6k r.p.ms he slammed second gear dangerously raising the front end, and did almost the same catching third..Just pulling the gear shift to fourth and releasing the clutch he puncher the barrier at sixty-five mph, and perhaps the worst experience of his young life.

Denver Colorado sprawled from it's eastern dry plains borders ever westerly as if seeking a much needed quench of thirst promised by the snow capped summits that rose straight up meeting the sky in the western horizon...A brilliant cobalt sky sporting patches of puffy white clouds dotted the heavens as viewed by Hal and Samantha's circling helicopter..A fly by maneuver, as they were clear to land at Denver's international airport some twenty five miles northeast of downtown..Below them, City Park spread out looking much like a golf course with it's rolling spreads of green grass, bordered by golden red foliage distinctly that of turning aspen's, and periodic sapphire colored lakes, all hemmed within surrounding bicycle paths and walking trails...In the near distance, snow bearing Rockie Mountains circumvent the westward region like a giant horse shoe ring of protection formed by two cupped hands.

Their meeting with Universal Music studio executive Sal Fox was scheduled for 3:PM at the corporations temporary offices located inside the convention center. A preliminary of sorts with Mister Fox agreeing to provide them detailed plans for the upcoming event. He had been very cooperative with Hal on the phone and insisted meeting them with a car at the airport to provide their transportation.

They landed at concord A and took the underground train that whisked them to the Jeppensen terminal resembling the local mountain peaks with it's white tension fabric roofing, and found Mister Fox exactly where he'd suggested, sipping a complex mixture of exotic juices, the name of which bore no less than eight syllables ending with the word latte, at a designer coffee shop housed within the main terminal building..

Samantha's first impression of the impeccably manicured middle stature man was an acknowledgment of his acquired taste for the finer things in life..Donning a Giorgio Armani charcoal-grey 2-button wool suit, tri-colored diagonal striped silk necktie, white collared solid chevron blue Finamore dress shirt, blue faced Rolex wrist watch, and Allen Edmonds Easton black oxfords..Perhaps forty years of age, a full head of swept back sable hair, grey eyes, straight nose, capped teeth, and full lips, the man might have passed for a Gentlemen's Quarterly model. After the inital introductions were behind them including Fox's easy mention of Samantha's beauty, she decidedly rested the man squarely within the rising ranks of neologism metosexuality, and the narcissistic male persona that flocked there finding security in a life of less certain identity, compensated by so much more interest in ones image, or the interest of being looked at, as a means of concrete certainty that one does exist.

He lead them to the front exit doors with his right hand periodically resting against the small of Samantha's back, and the jet black stretch limousine he had standing by complete with chauffeur..

Although the day was full of bright sunshine temperatures hovered just over fifty degrees coupled with a slight breeze that made the real feel substantially less..The diverse landscape of the region was apparent sweeping by the south bound lanes of the E-470..Here the flat level land Denver was built upon was as unremarkable as Kansas broken only at times by rolling hills sparce of vegetation, as if the climate was subject to a thick belt running north and south that allowed westerly moisture to quench the lands thirst in only that limited direction. It was over in the scenic west the passenger's eyes transfixed to an ever continuing flow of thick of aspen and pine forests, or rock gorges with flowing streams and thick vegetation near it's banks...Further on, the expanse of wilderness leading to the bases of the Rockies that make up the summer outdoor recreational areas including camping, hiking, mountain biking, fishing, hunting, running and walking trails, rock and mountain climbing.

Fox was a non-stop chatter box of public relations regarding the Battle of the Bands event and the historic Red Rocks Amphitheater..Located fifteen miles west of the city, the 9,450 seat facility is wedged between three huge red sandstone boulders and considered by the many famous music groups who have performed there to be one of the most stunning sites in the world.. Soon after passing the southern fork of the Platte River via a westerly course on I-70 they junction with the south bound 25 which brought the limo into the city proper..

Located in the heart of downtown the Denver Convention Center is a reflection of modern architectural design with its full glass front exposures on every floor..Fox did the honors using Samantha's pocket sized digital camera taking pictures of the two detectives to the backdrop of the sites famous Blue Bear statue as it's smiling face peeking in the lobby windows...

"My son will love these," Samantha's commented and noted from that moment on the music executive's apparent need to distance more space between the two of them.

The short term leased offices of the three music corporations involved in the event were located on the third floor..Mister Fox introduced his secretary and lead Hal and Samantha into a corner office that viewed a large chunk of surrounding real estate through large panel glass exteriors on two sides..The decor was a southwest collection of colors and paintings depicting a historical reference to Denver's gold rush beginnings.

Hal took the liberty of asking Fox about his own personal experience in regards to last Wednesday's events..

Sal nodded and spoke from what Samantha felt was maybe the first true reflection of the man himself.."I was in the Atlanta office at the time..It proved to be one of the most harrowing days of my life."..He then continued telling them of his experiences that day in greater detail..When finished, and after some pause, he seemed to collect himself and launched into yet another somewhat staged company agenda advising of the 'healing' process the up coming event was intended to accomplish..He also let the two detectives know in relation to the event it had been assigned to him the promotional task of expounding on the 'Music Gone Bad' campaign and the big three corporation's commitment to installing future safe guards within the entire packaging divisions of the industry.

Both Samantha and Hal could not help but noticed the office reflect evidence of just such an advertising campaign in the making as about the room on easels were several billboards depicting dark comedy directed at Herman Gilespie in an obvious attempt to make him and the song King Of The World the target of an escape goat..Merchandising was also in the works as noted by prototype bubble-head Herman Dolls who's heads spun around in true 360 degree fashion when subject to vibration..Also in the works were a variety of Halloween masks from full rubber head covers to cheap plastic strap-on's depicting Gilespie in several somewhat grotesque stages of expression from devil's advocate to a reflection of personal bewilderment..

It was Samantha who spoke after waiting patiently for Sal to finish his latest spiel.

"Mister Fox you should be advised the FBI has evidence that suggests Herman Gilespie may have intentions of presenting himself in some fashion at the Battle of the Bands event."

Hal then added, "We have every intention of coordinating a measure of beefed up security with both the private sector and local authorities Mister Fox, that is one of our main reasons for being here..However, we have reason to believe Mister Gilespie has been in route to Denver over the course of the last couple of days, and may in fact already be somewhere in the area."

On hearing this news Sal Fox's bubbly public relations countenance shed like a snake skin and the color in his face suddenly brought to Hal's mind the old Procol Harem standard A Lighter Shade of Pale.

"He might be apprehended before that time, correct?" Sal asked.

Both Hal and Samantha agreed advising the man they were doing everything in their power to make it so..They followed up advising Fox they had reason to believe Gilespie was not working alone, and there was still much work to do on the Mad Muse Case before they would feel the public was out of danger.

Hal then requested detailed plans of the event's itinerary for both Saturday and Sunday of October 18th & 19th including the name of the private security company the music corporation had hired to police the event..Sal offered a detailed schematic of the Red Rock Amphitheater grounds including the areas set aside for the many vendors that planned to participate. All information the detectives advised would be helpful..

Samantha stated, "All this anti-Gilespie promotional material frankly bothers me Mister Fox..Given Mister Gilespie's certain desperate state of mind, it must be considered that this kind of blatant exposure might aggravate his tendency toward violence."

"I would agree with that as well." Hal commented.

Sal responded.."It is of course not within my power to shelf the promotion, but your points are well taken..I will need to confer with my superiors regarding the information you've given me today and any action will be of their choosing."

"We will be back up this way in the next day or two to view the amphitheater site ourselves.".Hal said..."I would expect at that time you'd be able to advise us of your superior's decision?"

"I expect so." Fox said.."In fact, I plan to take the matter up as soon as possible and if I get a confirmation would you like me to contact you before then?"

"Absolutely." Hal said.

Fox excused himself leaving the office to have his secretary prepare copies of the requested documents..

"Can we take a cab back to the airport?" Samantha asked Hal with a slight smirk.He nodded and she immediately dialed information using her cell phone.

After a few minutes Fox returned with the copies and seemed genuinely relieved when Hal made mention he and his partner had ordered a taxi as they had some concurrent business to attend before leaving for the airport.

With the meeting ended and after formal hand shakes, Hal advised Fox they would see their way out..As soon as the two detectives left the office Sal sat down at his desk and picked up the phone.

The first experience Nick recalled after entering the quarter mile section of foggy yellow mass was another occurrence of streaming life history that did not stop at birth but continued to reflect stunning images of what he determined to be subsequent events from his own past lives..He had gripped the handle bars with all his might before entering the curtain and now as the bike progressed his forward vision was masked by ensuing flashes of life experience making controlled navigation impossible...He did however for a short time, glimpse two disturbing images in his perimeter vision that might have effectively anchored an otherwise fading sense of reality while speeding down the section of highway..Ajar to the right hand side of the roadway a hulk of charred mass lay in ruin the semblance of what may have been a large commercial vehicle, and just beyond it partially blocking the opposite lane, was a passenger car so compacted in frozen matter it appeared as an grotesque ice sculpture with it's frame works embedded somewhere far beneath the surface..If not for his center course of travel he might have slammed unknowing into the back of either vehicle..But these concerns did not enter his mind at the time for he was filled to capacity with a certain knowledge that the body currently mounted on the speeding motorcycle was no longer that of whom he might recognize as the same one that only moments ago entered the strange deviation..He was still himself,..his essence of spirit was present, of that he was certain, however as the reflection of past lives experience flashed through his vision like shuffled playing cards, his spirit bore the likeness of those bodies that had once temple his soul..A woman, a man, followed by a boy child, then another woman, and yet another man, that suddenly gave way to a series of animal like creatures of whom his intellect could not fashion a name for..After perhaps ten seconds of elapsed time the Harley was now in full charge of its own destiny as the hands of what some years previous were the makings of Nick, had long vanished in the succession of events until at the half way point in the quarter mile stretch of roadway the process suddenly reversed itself..The procession of events now began to re-play themselves starting from a distant prehistoric past rushing forward through his perception at a break neck speed toward the present time.

Ten seconds later the Soft Tail broke the barrier at the opposite side of the curtain to the vise gripped hands of Nick Flannery clenched around the ends of it's handle bars.

Never before had he fully realized the agonizingly slow process of consuming time it took to park a motorcycle, find neutral, put down it's kickstand, shut off the motor, and lift a right leg to dismount it, as he'd just done while taking in the streaming tears of the raven haired woman parked next to him some one hundred feet past the exit of the dense foggy anomaly.