Will is began as a prodigiously intelligent child with an insatiable curiosity and thirst for knowledge, born into poverty, who at the age of twelve attracted the attention of a wealthy benefactor willing to pay for an advanced education. After earning his first doctorate in chemistry, Will's benefactor's generosity had reached a limit, and in exchange for funding his further education, Will entered into a term of what was effectively indentured servitude to his benefactor, working in the research & development labs of his benefactor's large conglomerate. During the following decades Will earned further doctorates in physics and astronomy, and completing advanced studies in biology, quantum mechanics, and geology. Due to the top secrecy of the research he participated in, Will was not allowed to leave the large underground complex of the laboratories in which he worked and lived for two decades. By the age of 42, having completed his education to his satisfaction and fulfilled the terms of his servitude with his benefactor, Will decided he would leave his research and go out on his own for the first time. His benefactor, however, mortified at losing one of his best researchers and the prospect of the various projects Will was involved with suffering, refused to let Will go, fabricating a large debt that Will owed him for various expenses over the last several decades. Kept in the labs by force under armed guard, Will labored for another 9 years, continuing his research and slowly planning for his escape. At the age of 51, Will finally took an opportunity provided by chance, and escaped the lab complex in which he had been imprisoned, taking some data and a small box of lab equipment with him as he went. Now Will is hunted, on the run from his former benefactor's corporate goons and wanted by the law for exaggerated claims of theft.

His initial plan after escaping was to reach friends in New Mexico, who would help hum get a new identity and start a new life. But very shortly after he reached them, corporate goons showed up and tried to capture him. In the ensuing fight, one of Will's friends was shot, the other captured, and Will was forced to flee in his friend's car. In hiding and now without help from anyone, Will finds himself holed up in a dingy motel outside Phoenix, AZ.