In the Virginia countryside, Wednesday…

Dr. Tyler's answer to the second question had been as equally puzzling as his answer to the first. He had said that they didn't want to lose any of their gene pool, that it was limited to begin with. They had been carefully chosen to have the maximum diversity in a small number of individuals so they couldn't afford to lose any of that diversity.

RP1 thought that answer strange. He had never been attracted to SW1, even though she looked just like SW2. How could I ever have children with either SW3 or SW4 if I ever lost SW2? It just doesn't make sense. It took them several nights of prying through Dr. Tyler's files before they had answers to those questions. Along the way, they learned a lot more about the Center. In particular, they learned that it really wasn't part of NASA. The doubts kept growing.

Not very far away that first night and at the same late hour, the head of the DHS financial section made two computer transfers. One was into an account on the west coast that had been used before on numerous occasions. The sum was large, yet not as large as the one that he transferred to a numbered account in a Zurich bank. He had no idea what either of the transfers was for; he just did his job, taking orders from on high. He had a wife and three kids. The oldest kid was a senior in high school, hoping to get into a college the family could actually afford, considering that his wife had health problems. He couldn't afford to lose his government job, even if it didn't provide full medical. So he didn't question his orders. He never did.