But tonight, desperate, he dug it out.

The lichen's surface became a landscape of crystalline towers and deep, emerald canyons. Tiny, jewel-like spores, perfectly spherical and patterned like honeycombs, floated in a matrix of translucent fungal hyphae. He could see individual cells, their nuclei like dark moons, their chloroplasts like scattered emeralds. He adjusted the focus deeper, and the fossilized pollen grains of some long-vanished Roman flower appeared, their surfaces etched with patterns no human eye had ever beheld.

Aris looked back at the screen, at the silent, ancient city of life thriving on a dead Roman brick.

He connected the scope, placed the lichen fragment on a slide, and clicked the software icon on his cluttered desktop. Nothing happened. He clicked again. An error message flashed: Device not recognized. Driver missing.