He had loved them as children, these two beautiful, personable, and brilliant kids. They had shimmering emotional lives. But they also had extraordinary skills. He’d used some alien genes in the mix, most particularly those that involved antigravity. They could jump hundreds of feet. If trained, they could probably even fly, at least for short distances.

The third generation could be matured much faster, as fast as the reptiles that provided the bulk of their genes. So it was possible to go from embryo to finished infant in a month. Additional in vitro maturation could be chemically accelerated even more.

They could not fly, largely because he didn’t have enough of the genetic material involved. He would have given them that, though, had he been able.

His lab—look at it, the most important place in human history, reduced to an ugly, trivial little television station. By now, it should be a museum. By now, he should be a Nobel Prize winner and have his own department at a great university.

Instead he slithered along at DARPA on his Senior Executive Service Level salary, working on the primitive, almost hopeless task of designing robust replacement organs for human soldiers. Inner Iron, the project was called. Knowing what existed beneath this place while using primitive gene-splicing processes was a particular torture.

He circled the block, then turned into the alley behind the building. Underneath where the old basement had been, there was now a parking garage. He drove down inside and parked in a visitor space.

This was good, this would mean he had no reason to expose himself to any receptionists or explain his presence.

The garage was silent, dimly lit, and small. A scooter was chained to a bike rack, and beyond it was the manhole that they’d left if access to the facility was ever again required.

It was the same Department of Public Works cover they had originally chosen, and it certainly did not appear to have been disturbed. But why would it be? DPW records had been altered to show that it covered a feeder tunnel that led to the Channel Pump Station. It was listed as a nonaccess pressure-relief duct designed to vent water during a flood of some sort in the sewer system, so nobody needing to enter the tunnel would try to use it.

He opened his trunk and pulled out the lid lifter he had purchased when he’d first realized that this journey might be necessary. Just below would be the old vestibule area, with the elevator that led to the deep facility. That wouldn’t be operating, of course, because they had shut it down, but the spiral emergency stair should still be viable.