‘Poor, poor fella,’ sighed Liam. ‘I really liked him. Reminded me a bit of my grandfather, so he did.’

They ate in silence for a moment.

‘It’s strange, though,’ said Sal. ‘We’re part of this… this agency, but it doesn’t feel like we’re part of anything, if you know what I mean.’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Liam. ‘Like it’s just the three of us in this little archway all on our own. No contact with anyone else.’ He looked up at Maddy. ‘Did he not say there were other groups like us? Other field offices?’

She nodded. ‘He did.’

‘But we never ever hear from them. There’s no information about them, or about this agency. No one has contacted us, right?’

‘No one.’

Sal put down the poppadom she’d been holding. ‘What if it really is just us, just us alone… here?’

The other two looked at her.

‘What if we are the agency?’ she added.

Liam’s eyebrows arched and his jaw dropped open. ‘God help us all if that’s the case.’

Maddy shook her head. ‘It’s not just us. Someone else stashed those foetuses back in 1906, right?’

‘Could that not have been Foster?’

‘Could be.’ Maddy shrugged. ‘But then you’ve got to ask who genetically engineered the foetuses? That’s gotta need other people, some facility somewhere.’ The other two had no answer for that. ‘Fact is,’ she continued, ‘there’s more to this agency than just us. There are others out there somewhere or some when.’

‘So how do we talk with them?’ asked Sal. ‘How can we meet them?’

‘I think that’s exactly the point. I think we’re not supposed to.’ Maddy slurped her Dr Pepper. ‘Maybe we’re a bit like some sort of terrorist organization; for all of our safety, no one group can know where another group is. We operate in isolation. It’s just us… until

…’ Her words tailed off and they sat in silence for a while contemplating where that sentence ended.