Life and friendships are important, survival and friendships are even more important. Lieutenant Carrol was my best friend and I lost him in an instant and my world changed forever. Some powers are the result of training and exercise and some apparently happen by accident. My biology is based on my DNA and my DNA is unique, but it can be altered and the rest of my life now knows that. My salvation is the love of my life and I just need to know that and I can deal with whatever comes my way. We are more than the sum of our parts and Jude, a new medical school graduate and I, Staff Seargent JJ Cruise, Army Rangers, will be our own salvation.

I am a Vietnam veteran, a retired computer consultant from small town Illinois and a former Advisory Programmer with a subsidiary of IBM in Silicon Valley. I was born and raised in Long Beach, California, and educated in California, I attended several colleges in California and received a BS degree in accounting. I was a CPA in California for a few years and worked in public accounting for 4 years in Los Angeles, Newport Beach and Chicago. I also had stints as assistant

Controller and Controller for divisions of major U.S. corporations. I spent the last 30 years working as a computer consultant in Northwest Illinois and retired at age 72.