It was almost a decade later and Victor was at a NASA press conference announcing the proposed launch of a second mission to send a rover to the Pluto/Churon system. The schedule was rushed because the dwarf planet was still heading out of it's perigee and would soon be too far from the sun to reach with any certainty. Victor spotted Antonio, one of his old colleagues from those first heady days.
“Antonio, hey.”
The man clearly hadn't aged well and looked closer to retirement age then Roger would have expected. But his gate was strong as he made his way over and his face was bright and smiling. He stood only a couple of centimeters taller then Victor did and wore his usual button shirt and vest.
“Victor you old dog. The Americans actually let you in? I thought they had better security around here.” He laughed, and Victor joined him and slapped the man on the back.
“Well they'd better. I'm helping to design the transmission dish on this bucket.”
Antonio made a big 'O' and pushed air through it. “Really? They let you on the project after Maria's fiery fall from grace?”
“Didn't have a choice. The Chinese are calling the shots now, these guys are just holding onto the twilight of their influence now.”
“True true. So are you still raking in the pesos from your book?” Victor detected a note of envy in the older man's voice. The book deal had been a no-brainer. His publisher assured him it would be on the best-sellers list, and it stayed there for two years running.
Doing his best to be convincingly humble, he waved his hand. “Oh you know how it is with these cinco minutos of fame. People get all fired up about someone, and then it goes away. It's not me who's important, I'm just the lucky stiff who happened to be at the screen. It's the MIBs that are the real prize.” It was a term that came out just a couple of days after the original announcement. Some blogger called them the Most Improbable Beings, and the term MIB stuck.
“Did you know that a Chinese scientist confirmed that the line cutting through the Wendaleze range really was a road of some sort? The woman theorizes it based on the faint square and rectangular outlines that appear alongside it on both sides. She says that it looks just like an urban map in Beijing.”
Antonio looked thoughtful, trying to grab at the scraps of memory. “Yes, I did hear about that.
About three or four years ago I think. They were hoping to find some kind of vehicle, but it's hard to imagine anything surviving these millions of years.