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now that I thought about it, I didn’t see any digital or electronic devices in the mansion yet, which made me wonder if Grandfather wasn’t into electronics. Given how old he was, that wasn’t surprising.
    Grandfather pulled open the top drawer of his desk and then pulled out a manilla envelope, but he didn’t put it on the table. He just held it in his lap, where we couldn’t see it, and seemed reluctant to show it to us.
    “All right,” said Grandfather. “I hoped, Kevin, that our first meeting together would not be under such tense circumstances, but it is now clear that my enemies know where I am. So I believe you have every right to know about this, though I must ask that you keep it a secret from your friends and allies outside of this room.”
    I wondered what was so important that Grandfather wanted me to keep it secret from everyone else, but since I doubted it was going to be anything that bad, I said, “Sure.”
    “Mr. Mieko, can I ask you to keep this a secret as well?” said Grandfather. “I know I am not one of your clients at the moment, so you are technically not under any legal obligation to keep my secrets for me, but I must ask that you do anyway, for safety reasons.”
    “Don’t worry, Mr. Jason,” said Triplet. “I promise not to mention a word of this to anyone outside of this mansion. You may not be one of my clients at the moment, but you were at one point, so I am perfectly willing to keep whatever secrets you need me to keep.”
    “Excellent, excellent,” said Grandfather. He looked at us both with a serious face. “Now, have either of you ever heard of something called Project Neo?”
    “Sure,” I said. “It’s a secret government program meant to help the government create and test the next generation of high tech weaponry.”
    “Is that what it is about now?” said Grandfather. He shook his head. “My, how it has strayed from its original intent.”
    “How would you know what its original intent is?” said Triplet.
    “Because,” said Grandfather as he slapped the folder on the desk between us, “I was one of the Project’s original founders.”
    Triplet and I leaned forward to get a good look at the folder. It was labeled ‘PROJECT NEO MATTHEW JASON RECORDS, JUN 1984-OCT 1986.’
    Looking up at Grandfather again, I said, “What do you mean that you were one of the Project’s founders?”
    “I mean exactly what I said,” said Grandfather. “I was one of the original architects of the Project. I, along with a few other men, put it together at the behest of the government to study certain people who were then referred to as ‘differently evolved human beings,’ or DEHBs for short.”
    “I’ve heard the term before,” said Triplet. “That was an early term used to described the first neoheroes, though as I understand it, it was mostly used among researchers and academics and fell out of use after the Neohero Alliance was founded.”
    “Correct,” said Grandfather. “The term ‘neohero,’ of course, was coined after the Four Founders of the Neohero Alliance defeated Nuclear Winter in nineteen eighty-seven. I still sometimes call them DEHBs, however, because I grew so used to it.”
    “So you’re telling us that you were one of the founders of Project Neo?” I said in surprise. “Dad never told me that. Did he know?”
    “He knew,” said Grandfather. “I never told him much about it, due to its top secret nature, but he knew I was involved with it in some way.”
    “But I don’t understand,” I said. I pointed at the folder on the desk. “Why does this file cover nineteen eighty-four to nineteen eighty-six? The first neoheroes were not discovered until nineteen eighty-six, when Omega Man, Dad, and several others first became known to the world. How were you studying neoheroes before then?”
    Grandfather shook his head. “Kevin, just because that is when the first neoheroes became known to the public does not mean that Omega Man, Genius, and