“What do you think?” Miss Phillips asked with a grin.

“I look like a completely different man,” he said.

Jeremiah swallowed three pills to help ease the swelling on his jaw and nodded sullenly as Scott went over his “ground rules” for his brief foray back into his life the next evening. The man seemed genuinely worried.

“You are not to speak to anyone at ViMed at all,” Scott repeated for the third time. “Just get in, do your stint with the Meld and get out of the offices as quickly as you can.”

“But what if someone talks to me?” Jeremiah asked. “Am I just supposed to pretend I don’t hear them or something? Ignore them?”

“Keep it as brief as possible, Mr. Adams. And don’t, under any circumstances, say anything that might raise suspicion. Be succinct and then make an excuse to move on. We can’t have you starting any conversations that the clone will not remember.”

“If I am taking his place for this publicity stunt,” Jeremiah said, “it seems to me there will be a lot the clone doesn’t remember.”

“Leave that to us,” Scott said. “We’ll use the Meld for that. We’ll do a quick download after the broadcast. He will remember everything you do exactly as if he’d done it himself. There will be no discrepancy there. But you need to hold up your own end. You can’t do or say anything that might throw him off track. You can’t raise suspicions in anyone. Keep everything simple.”

“So I’ll be taking the Meld twice? In one night?”

“It’s necessary.”

“I still don’t see how you’re going to pull this off,” Jeremiah said. “How do you propose to make the switch?”

“Those details do not concern you.”

“They sort of do. I mean, at least I ought to know where to be, what to do.” He was fishing for some indication that he’d have a chance to reach out to Diana.

“Again, Mr. Adams, that doesn’t concern you. Leave that to me. You need only to do precisely as I ask of you. Nothing more, nothing less. Follow my direction and this will all go smoothly.”

“So you’ll be there the whole time? How’s that going to work? I mean, as far as he’s aware, the clone has never even met you. And suddenly, you’re going to be hanging on him like you’re his best friend?”

“I have already arranged to act as ViMed’s scientific liaison to this endeavor,” Scott said. “I’ll be overseeing everything. But there will be several ViMed executives milling around, as well. Almost your entire marketing team. That’s unavoidable, I’m afraid. You are not to talk with them any more than necessary. A few of them know all about this project, but the great majority do not.”

That surprised Jeremiah. Who else in ViMed, he wondered, was involved in this?

“And I suppose those details don’t concern me, either,” Jeremiah said.

“They do not.” Scott scrutinized Jeremiah for a long moment, as though he were trying to decipher his thoughts. “Remember, Mr. Adams,” he said. “Right up until the moment you take the Meld, I will be right beside you. When you take the drug, I will be close by and I’ll be watching you.”