The shrill tone of the telephone woke Katherine Ancora as the morning sun filtered through the draperies of her spacious bedroom. She struggled into a near sitting position and answered to phone.

"Yes." She looked at the digital clock on her dresser after her groggy response, 7:14 am.

"Kathy? It's me, Steven. Sorry to wake you."

"Why this early? It's Sunday."

"There's been some trouble at the plant. I'm down here now."

"What kind of trouble?"

"Jon Lemke is dead. There's been a break-in."

"Who?" The executive vice-president of Ximark Control Corporation furrowed her brow trying to remember Jon Lemke, but to no avail.

"He's one of our engineers. Uh ... was."

"My God! I'm sorry. What happened?"

"They're not sure yet. He wasn't working on the Protoculus, but he was found in the Protoculus assembly area."

"They? Yet?" she quickly asked Steven Webster, the company's president.

"The police --- they're here now. They called me in about an hour ago and now they want us to go through whatever we think may be missing. I'm calling in Fred Dietz too."

"Okay, I'm on my way." She hung up, still distressed that she could not place Jon Lemke in her memory.