Reluctantly, Jeremiah followed him back to the living room, took his place on the couch and averted his eyes from the screen and from Brent. He had to do something. But without Brent’s help, he didn’t see what he could do.

He had to find some way to warn Diana, to warn the clone. There had to be a way to stop this.

Chapter 25

Day 147

Two days later, standing in the little galley kitchen in the lab, Jeremiah tried again to convince Brent the whole situation was spinning dangerously out of control, and again, Brent seemed reluctant to see it.

“It’s been two days and nothing’s happened. Diana is fine. You’re just under a lot of stress,” he said. “Between your mother, and the affair, it’s a lot to handle. Maybe you ought to talk to Natalie about your marriage. That is part of her job, after all. You should take advantage of it.”

“My marriage is my business. It doesn’t have the slightest impact on the clone or this project or anything else. And I don’t care about the affair. It doesn’t matter. What I care about is Diana. Why can’t you understand that?”

“I do understand,” Brent said, annoyance creeping into his tone. “But why can’t you understand that we need to be careful with this. We can’t afford to do anything that would raise suspicion right now. Let’s just play along for now and keep our eyes open.”

“Play along? We have to do something, Brent. If Charles Scott has the slightest suspicion that Diana knows something, she’s in trouble. Real trouble. You have to help me.”

“You keep saying that Scott is behind this,” Brent said. “But we don’t know that. What we saw implicates the army, the people behind the scenes. Scott is a scientist. He’s in this for the science, Jeremiah, and that science is sound.”

“You’re being played for a fool, Brent. Charles Scott isn’t the champion you think he is. He’s not in this for the betterment of the species, for the good of mankind. There are things you don’t know. You have to help me.”

“What do you expect me to do?”

“I don’t know. Find her. Just tell her to watch her back. Tell her she has to stay at home. Scott won’t try anything with all those cameras around. She’s safer in the house. If you could just tell her. Just try.”

“I can’t do that! I’d lose my job if I so much as glanced at Diana on the street. Are you out of your mind?”

“Your job? That’s what you care about? Your job?”

“Well, yes, actually. I do. And so should you. If I’m gone, Jeremiah, you have no one on the inside.”

Jeremiah shook his head. “You still believe in this, don’t you? Even after what we saw in those files. You still believe in this project? Are you out of your mind?”

“I’m a scientist. There’s still some merit in this, some intrinsic value. That’s what I believe. Cloning is inevitable. It’s the future.”