I pulled the lid off the lunch box and began rummaging through the contents, removing everything one by one. The cap on one of the containers of e-cig fluid had loosened, and sticky liquid had leaked out of it, gumming up some of the objects beneath. I pulled out his atomizers, his ring, great-uncle Hugo’s watch, long-stopped. There were no key cards or even any old-fashioned metal keys. As I dug deeper, I realized with alarm that there was nothing like what Emil might have been looking for.

At the bottom of the box was an old print magazine, folded in half to fit inside the small space. The Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition from 2039, when my dad was thirteen. The cover proudly proclaimed, “75th Anniversary Collector’s Issue,” over the top of a barely-clothed blonde. Real classy, Dad.

Its back cover ripped off as I pulled it out of the box—it was practically glued to the bottom thanks to the spilled flavoring fluid. The corners of the front cover were stuck together, but eventually I managed to pry them apart. I started to leaf through the magazine’s sticky pages, figuring a key card might be stuck inside it somewhere.

But that’s not what I found.

There was writing on every page, scrawled in black felt-tip marker over the top of every skimpy bikini. I swallowed hard. Some of it was written in Dad’s handwriting. But other pages were written in the handwriting I recognized from the note: Emil’s. It was difficult to make out the writing on many of the pages. Several were permanently plastered together with the spilled flavoring. On many of the pages that I could separate, the marker had smeared to oblivion. But the centerfold was still relatively intact. I unfolded it and turned it lengthwise.

Known Atlantean Arch Locations, it read across the top. This was underlined, and underneath was a tally of sites on Earth: Santorini, Greece. Angkor, Cambodia. Odisha, India. The list went on, taking up the length of the centerfold. And at the bottom, Veracruz, Mexico. That one was circled, and below it, in my father’s handwriting: Ask Hector.

Abuelo, too? I folded the glossy paper back up and wiped my clammy hands on the sides of my pants. It was starting to feel like my whole torquing family was wrapped up in this. Who next, Celeste?

I glanced at the clock on my palmtop. It was quarter to eleven. California was eight hours ahead of us. I didn’t know how early Abuelo got up now that he was retired, but I couldn’t go without answers any longer.

So at midnight, I put on my Speculus headset and called him.