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starting to give them trouble. The only computer system capable of slipping through those firewalls was MindReader, and it could more easily decrypt the data.
    They’d already tried putting a mole in the DMS to try to steal a Mind-Reader unit or obtain specs on it. They acted on a tip that there were some security holes in the organization, but they hit only brick walls and wasted over a million dollars that they would never see again. Using the Vice President had been Sunderland’s grand scheme, and he’d already banked a lot of Jakoby cash just to set it in motion. If the plan failed, there was no chance in hell of getting a refund from the fat blow-hard. That, they both agreed, was one of the downsides of being criminals. Unless you could pull a trigger on someone there was just no accountability, and Sunderland was not someone they could dispose of.
    “Well, there’s still the Denver thing,” Paris said after a long silence. “The way Dad reacted when we told him about it . . . there must be something amazing down there. Maybe even the schematics for Mind-Reader.”
    “More likely it’s early genetics research,” cautioned Hecate. “Could be a complete waste of time for us.”
    “Maybe,” Paris said diffidently. One of the many goals of Sunderland’s gambit with the Vice President was to keep the DMS too busy to notice anything happening in Denver. The discovery of a trove of old records belonging to one of Alpha’s oldest colleagues was huge. The Twins had long suspected that Alpha had ties to groups who had pioneered genetic research, and the existence of a legendary trove of data based on covert mass human testing had long been the Holy Grail of black market genetics. No one knew exactly what was in it, but since the 1970s more than a dozen people had been murdered during the search for it. Alpha had mentioned it several times and had slyly gotten the Twins to look for it, but when they said that they thought they hada solid lead on it in a records storage facility near Denver, Alpha had tried to play it down as a whim that had passed. The Twins hadn’t believed him. There had been a moment of naked hunger in Alpha’s eyes that had electrified them.
    The Twins were using this trip to visit Alpha as a way of distracting him and the Sunderland gambit as a way of distracting the DMS. If everything went according to plan, then Paris and Hecate would have the contents of those records by the time they returned to the Dragon Factory.
    “You’re right. When it comes right down to it,” Hecate said with a smile, “it’s not like we don’t have a Plan B. Or a Plan C.”
    “Or Plan D,” he said brightly.
    She held up her glass and he reached over to clink.
    Paris took her glass and refilled it.
    “Why does Dad need the new sequencers?” asked Hecate.
    “He wouldn’t say, of course. He never does unless he can stage a big reveal. God, he treats this like a fucking game show sometimes. When I pushed for an explanation he just rattled off some mumbo jumbo that wasn’t even real science. He refuses to tell me anything specific unless you’re there. He wants both halves of the Arcturian Collective to bear witness.”
    “ ‘The Arcturian Collective’? Is that our new name?”
    Paris nodded and sipped his vodka.
    “Well,” Hecate said, “it’s better than the Star Children. That one sounded like a late-seventies glam rock band. I keep hoping he’ll settle on Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.”
    Despite his sour mood, Paris grinned. “How about the Space Oddities?”
    “Now that,” Hecate said, “would be too close to truth in advertising.”
    They both burst out laughing. The girl moaned and turned over in her sleep. Hecate got tired of looking at her and pulled a sheet over her, a sneer touching the corners of Hecate’s mouth. How could she have thought those big cow breasts were attractive?
    Paris made fresh drinks and handed one to her.
    “You don’t think he suspects,”