Changes were afoot within the Citium. The experiments were growing in scale, and that required increasing amounts of money. So new members were recruited: billionaires, financiers, people with their hands on the levers of government research spending. They were all cut from the same cloth: people who believed the world was on the brink of catastrophe.

The influx of new members was a turning point for the organization, a Rubicon crossed unceremoniously. On the surface, things remained the same. Dozens of Citium cells were conducting Looking Glass research, and the members met every quarter at a conference we called our conclave. But behind the scenes, the organization was fraying. Each member increasingly thought that their own Looking Glass project was the sole solution for humanity’s problems—and jockeyed for the funds they needed to make their vision a reality.

In 1972, I became head of Citium Security, a new organization dedicated to securing the cells and keeping our secrets. Only four of us, me and three of the Citium’s oldest members, knew the full breadth of the Citium. We were creating a monster.

At home, life had settled into a pattern. I was gone a good bit, but when I was home, I spent every spare minute with Lin and Andrew. He was growing up so quickly. We welcomed a daughter in 1973. We named her Madison—my mother’s maiden name. Andrew was the most dedicated older brother I’ve ever seen; he may have been even more protective than Orville Hughes had been in that orphanage in London after the war.

Lin worked herself to exhaustion. I worried about her, but the subject of how much she worked was a non-starter, so I gave up arguing about it. In marriage, as in war, some battles are unwinnable.

Our second daughter was born in 1977. We named her Peyton—Lin’s paternal grandmother’s maiden name. On the whole, she was more serious than Madison, and more inquisitive. She had the same curiosity and passion for adventure as Andrew.

I spent countless hours on planes and trains wondering what the three of them would be like when they grew up. And what sort of world they’d live in.