The search results were a ghost town. Broken forum links from 2015. YouTube tutorials with greyed-out “KMS” buttons that no longer worked. One final link—a dusty blog called El Tío de los Cracks —offered a download: “Activation Crack – 100% Working.”

Marcos sighed. Microsoft had long ago killed support for Office 2010. But buying new licenses for six PCs? That would cost more than a month of café sales.

Marcos ran a small cybercafé on the outskirts of Madrid. It was 2026, and most of his customers were abuelas checking Facebook or kids too poor to own laptops. His six bulky PCs ran on relics: Windows 7 and Office 2010.

The PCs rebooted one by one. The blue locks vanished. The red banner returned on every screen—but everything worked. Documents saved. Spellcheck squiggled.