Dr. Liam McGregor, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, and geologist, arrived at the Northwestern Institute for Interstellar Research, thanked his driver, and walked into the building. He was waved through the security area, despite the fact he forgot to badge in. This was a common occurrence. It had long been accepted by security and the director of the Institute that Dr. McGregor so frequently had his head in space, that he had a difficult time remembering more mundane things such as security badges and their use. The head of security simply made sure that whoever was on front desk duty knew Dr. McGregor, and how he normally behaved.

This morning, Liam almost walked into the security desk before he realized the officer was warning him. He blushed and smiled at the officer, then continued on his way, eager to get to work with his team on the new NASA proposal that the Institute had been asked to give.

Liam had his nose buried in his tablet as he walked down the hall to his office, checking the latest science news, even as he considered the necessary equations for launching a proposed probe to Europa. Only yesterday he'd been assigned the project, and he'd been working it out in his head ever since, considering and discarding various possibilities, until he had something worthwhile to bring to his team to work on. Lost in his thoughts, he didn't see the collision coming, and the next thing he knew, he was on the floor, with a bloody nose. What confused him was that security was suddenly converging on both of them. Why would that be? It took a few moments, but he pieced together what happened. One of his presumably about to be ex-co-workers hadn't just randomly collided with him in mutual inattention, as frequ...