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facilities, he passed by David’s front room.
A large DMR casement was playing the highlight reel of the last Roughriders
football game. At the bottom of the flat screen was a scrolling newsfeed, and it
was one of the sentences there that caught his attention.
    He quickly moved in for a closer look, but only caught the
last part of the announcement:
    “…NASA spokesman discounts the impact of the missing Mayan
scroll.” Then the newsfeed went on to other political matters.
    Michael sat on the couch next to the control pad and typed
in a command to flip the screen to his favorite bulletin board. He cursed when
he had to physically toggle back and forth between pages.
    Within a few minutes, however, he had the entire story—the
kidnapping of Yaxche and the theft of the ancient scroll—and his face grew
dark.
    “What’s wrong?” asked his brother from the doorway.
    “Who uses a damned DMR casement anymore? Why don’t you
upgrade to a holoslate with an organic user interface?” Michael asked. “You
know, haptic consoles have been around for five years now.”
    “I really don’t need to multitask while watching the Jays
get beat by the Cubs,” David said matter-of-factly. “I’m fine with one screen
at a time.”
    Taking a deep breath, Michael said, “Sorry.”
    “Hey, no problem. You okay?”
    Michael looked up. “Looks like the Cruzados kidnapped that
Mayan translator, Yaxche. He was the one who helped us interpret the Mayan text
from Pluto.” He flipped a page on the casement. “And they also stole the scroll
that was supposed to help us figure out how to use the Kinemet.”
    “Oh?” David blinked. “I thought they had given up on that.”
    “Yeah. They had.” Michael glanced back at the casement. “And
it looks like they won’t be doing anything about this either.” He sighed.
    “Well, if NASA and everyone else thinks the document is a
dead end, why would the Cruzados go to all this trouble?”
    “I don’t know.”
    David spoke again, and Michael could tell his brother was
trying to make it sound casual. “Why don’t you call up that Calbert Loche
fellow? Get your info straight from the horse’s mouth.”
    For a moment, while Michael had read the boards, there had
been a spark there, a hint of the passion that had fired him throughout his
forty-year career. David was obviously trying to fan those flames.
    Michael had to admit that his natural curiosity had gotten
the better of him for a moment.
    He said to his brother, “You know, I think I might do that.”
    ∞
    Most nights Michael couldn’t sleep. His thoughts troubled
him: how much he missed Melanie; his lack of purpose; his growing disconnection
with everyone who had been a part of life.
    That night, however, he couldn’t sleep for another reason.
His mind kept working over and over again about why, after so many years and
after NASA and Quantum Resources had devalued the worth of the Mayan scroll,
that anyone would go through the trouble to steal it. Or kidnap Yaxche. Did
they want to hold him for ransom? Who was going to pay?
    Unable to sleep, Michael threw on a thin robe and went to
his computer. Although many of his files were classified and confiscated when
he ‘retired’ from Quantum Resources—both as director and as a consultant—he
maintained a folder of his own collected data and musings. Shorthand notes that
held no meaning to anyone but himself were added to various documents he had
downloaded off the mesh. He also kept a copy of all the declassified material
that had been on his computer when he left the company.
    Michael began the long and arduous task of sorting and
filtering through every file on his computer. He hoped, somewhere in the morass
of information, there might be something they had missed. Maybe someone else
had stumbled on a vital piece of datum that would reopen the doors to
interstellar travel.
    It was three in the morning when Michael finally noticed the
time. He yawned and rubbed his eyes. He