My old
partner, Max Stein, would have wanted to skin me alive for what I had done.
Myself, I thought I was creative. Among the items Max had collected and stashed
were books. Some of them were in recognizable languages, but a few were
completely indecipherable, written in a dead language that even scholars at
DeGradi University couldn’t speculate on.
But the
books were old, which meant they were valuable at least to a certain crowd, and
I had a flair for the dramatic when it suited me.
I walked to
the displays for medieval history, specifically that of Central Asia, where I
was able to see a book on display under a glass case. Like most documents, the
book was sealed in the case to prevent air from further deteriorating it, and
the glass was tinted against specific wavelengths of light.
Best of
all, was the plague underneath reading, “On loan from the estate of Matt
Kinney.”
I had
always liked that alias, and it didn’t take much to convince someone of
authenticity more than an authentic artifact, which every scholar knew the book
had originated in medieval Asia. It was just undecipherable. But I got to use
the museum’s security to keep it safe.
I continued
on my tour, walking into the special exhibit of Ancient Mayan artifacts. Wonder
if I have something I can pass off as Mayan.