“Jeepers,” she said, rolling her eyes toward the kitchen. “He’s a real a worrywart. Good thing he pays so well. I don’t usually do house calls, you know, but Dr. Scott there is paying me more for this one haircut than I’d make all day at the salon. And that includes tips! You must be someone pretty important. You famous or something, Mr. Adams?”

“No.”

“You live here?”

“For the time being.” Every time he spoke, Jeremiah had to suck in on the cotton and swallow a nauseating mix of saliva and blood.

“It’s pretty fancy for a basement apartment. Me, though? I couldn’t stand living without windows. I like to let the sun in, you know? It’s been proven that a lack of sunshine can make you depressed. You ever get depressed here?”

He wanted to tell her yes. Yes, he got depressed all the time. This wasn’t a basement apartment. He was a prisoner here. But he said nothing and just shook his head.

He was surprised Scott had let in a total outsider for something as simple as a shave. Everyone else involved in the project so far had been painstakingly vetted and probably made to sign an airtight nondisclosure agreement. But the urgency of the situation likely had left Scott little choice. He had to look completely like his double when he walked into ViMed. Scott needed a pro for this job. There was no way around it. In a way, he thought, it was nice to talk with someone who was unconnected to the whole thing, who didn’t know him as the guinea pig. Under different circumstances, he might have even enjoyed it.

She took her supplies out of the tote and laid them meticulously on the coffee table.

“I’m going to warm this up for you in the kitchen,” she said, grabbing one of the towels. “We’ll start with the shave before that mouth of yours swells up anymore.”

The steaming towel felt good on his aching jaw. Miss Phillips stopped talking and set right to work. As promised, she was very careful with the shave, lifting and angling his chin with a gentle touch and paying particular attention to his swollen right side. After a few minutes, Jeremiah began to relax.

She went on to the haircut, starting with wild chopping and then more precise snipping and, finally, tight shaping behind the neck and ears, the last of it with a razor. It was easily the most time he’d spent with a barber in decades. He had almost forgotten how long he’d gone without a haircut. When she was finished, and held a mirror up for his approval, Jeremiah was shocked to see the clone staring back at him. That’s what it felt like at first glance—like he was seeing someone else’s reflection. He hadn’t realized, until that moment, how successful he’d been at distinguishing himself from his double. It had been a conscious decision at the start, to grow a beard, but then it had become as much laziness as anything else. He’d gotten used to the scruff. Here he was now, clean shaven and cropped, and he looked like the man he’d been watching on the wall every day. He turned his face back and forth and quickly decided he didn’t like it. He looked older, and much more dignified than he felt he had a right to be.