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yours, he told Danny.
    â€œMaps.” The immersion room came to life. “Find Reed’s last known location.”
    Reed never left an address, but Danny had tracked the IP address on his emails, cross-referencing his point of access and snooping through his activity.
    He was good at that.
    The image of Earth rotated on the immersion room’s spherical wall and floor until Boston was beneath him. His stomach lurched as the clouds soared up and the city zoomed toward him. His feet were directly over Holworthy Street in Roxbury, an everyday neighborhood with tall, narrow homes.
    â€œStreet View.”
    The details twisted and formed a three-story house, the siding beige, the door new. A white van with a missing hubcap was parked out front. Reed was living on the second or third floor.
    Why here, in the middle of the city?
    Danny walked near the still form of a man on the sidewalk captured by Google’s roaming Street View vehicles. He was wearing a blue sweatsuit, white stripes down the legs. His pit bull was caught sniffing the curb.
    â€œZoom.”
    He pointed at the third-floor window and the view pixelated for a fraction of a second before enhancing. Danny clutched at empty space, turning the view to the side of the house. Nothing of interest there, he went up and down the street and got as far as four blocks before returning.
    He might not even be here anymore.
    He began to call the immersion room off, couldn’t waste the day deciphering an amateur poem and wandering the streets of south Boston. But a small detail caught his eye. It was the second story. The curtains in the window were crumpled.
    A small flash had been captured, like a reflection. But the angle was all wrong for the sun to be reflecting off the window.
    Danny pulled the view closer. The window zoomed but pixelated. It took a few moments for the computer to process the details.
    A jar .
    He pulled the view so close that the window towered over him, warping across the domed ceiling’s curve. He stepped closer. There was something beige inside the jar, hidden beneath the hot flash. At first, he thought it was blurring across from the house’s siding. When the details finally crystalized, he recognized the contents.
    Sand .

6.  Danny Boy
    Valencia, Spain
    â€œ Por favor. ” Danny raised his cup.
    A waiter arrived, minutes later, with another espresso.
    Santiago, a plump Spaniard with bristled mustache and thinning hair, sat opposite Danny. Always dressed impeccably, he kept his collars unbuttoned, where a tuft of curly black hair emerged. His attention was buried in his phone, his thumbs busy. Another email to answer, another report to read. He would stop to rub the birthmark high on his forehead that resembled the state of Florida.
    Danny cocked his head. There was something off about Santiago, something he couldn’t quite place. Did he trim his mustache? Dye his hair? Maybe he lost weight?
    He meant to ask him, but forgot. Much later, he would understand what had changed. And why.
    From where they sat, Danny could smell the port and see the beach, the flat line of the ocean’s horizon. It smelled different, more fragrant. Like a flower. Lilacs again. Children were laughing somewhere. This was a good place to do business.
    A good place to live life.
    The Spaniard excused himself. Danny crossed his legs and watched a ship cross the horizon before pulling the reflective disc from his pants’ pocket. It was too thick to be a DVD or a Blu-ray. There were no grooves or inscriptions. He tried inserting a pencil into the holes, attempting to turn the disc like a template but they were too small. He even compared the pattern to various constellations, but nothing matched.
    All he saw when he looked at it was his reflection. Build the bridge, Danny Boy .
    He couldn’t build a bridge with a disc, unless it contained plans that he hadn’t figured out. Maybe Reed would send a special disc reader, but why all