Out from the Shadows

[Karl the Mad]

Fifteen years ago, cooling industry mavens Max & Bella Hauser died in a helicopter accident; two years later, their only son Preston was arrested for drug charges and a couple dead bodies, and put away in Chimera Row for what should have been twenty years. It ended up being five, but the young man's life would never be the same. He had always wondered about the accident, though; both his parents were accomplished pilots, even he had started learning a thing or two about flying. Helicopters weren't as fragile as the media wanted folks to think, so it had to have been one hell of an accident. Yet, for some reason, the authorities were reluctant to reopen the matter, especially at his urging.

Oh, he tried of course. But the felony charges, the time in prison, these had tainted him in the eyes of Law; he was a third-class person, less than human now. Asking for help only led to threats, hints of blackmail, mention of his cell being empty and waiting for his return. He could never tell the honest cops from the corrupt ones; they had all been Law to him, and Law was to be avoided. Eventually he stopped asking, but Law never stopped its threats and Preston found himself forced back into the shadows of crime and hypocrisy.

Now, though, that Preston is starting to come back into the sun, now that he had friends and powerful allies of his own, he can look back on those years of shadow and crime. He'd known all along that he had been framed for those murders, but someone had pressed the prosecution anyway. He should have gotten his inheritance after his release, criminal record or not... but it was still tied up in legal proceedings, even after all these years. And someone aside from him has been dipping into it; someone has been guiding and directing his company, Hauser Cooling & Conditioning, seemingly without anyone the wiser. Someone has been stonewalling him for years, keeping him from reclaiming the life that should have been his. Granted, he'd not done a whole lot to make it hard, but still.

Regardless, almost three quarters of a billion dollars is just sitting out there, accruing interest, sometimes being sifted off from; one of the world's largest coolant companies is still soldiering on, with or without its namesake. Preston is tired of being a bum, tired of being held down, tired of his name being dragged through the mud; whoever or whatever has plagued his life since the death of his parents, he's ready to drag them out and make them give it all back to him.

But he can't do it alone.

That's where his new friends come in.

[Karl the Mad]

And like everything else, this already complicated, decades-long affair only turns darker and more twisted as Preston and the team delve into it. Company secrets come back to haunt them, and the single clue he's gleaned in all those years, the name Alexandria Antiquities, leads them through a maze of assassins, control-freak police detectives and shadows to the feet of an immortal cultist, unimaginably powerful, who grows impatient with the politics and dickering of the Void Weavers, who seeks to circumvent the lot and implement his own global Doomsday...

What does Preston's company have to do with this? Why has he been kept in the dark so long, and why only now do circumstances align that he can start down this final road? More importantly, if he still stands after the dust settles and the last mysteries are torn away... which road will he choose?