Chapter 29

Day 161

Jeremiah had told Brent about the note he’d slipped to the clone. During the viewings over the next several days, both of them watched the clone with renewed interest and scrutiny to see if it had worked.

“You’ve got some balls on you,” Brent said. “I’ll give you that.” He’d seemed impressed and worried at the same time, but they weren’t able to talk about it out loud in front of Mel’s painting and the camera. They had to be careful.

Jeremiah was desperate to know if his risk had made a difference, whether he’d managed to get a warning to Diana. He held his breath for any glimpse of her during the viewings, any mention of her name or her whereabouts if she wasn’t present. It infuriated him that none of the viewings were at home while she was there.

Much of what they saw took place in the clone’s office where he continued to be lauded for his brilliant public relations ploy. It had evidently been a resounding success. The doctor who’d killed himself was being referred to as little more than a Meld-crazed addict on most of the mainstream news outlets. Holdouts from the web and fringe press, though, were still skeptical and continued questioning the drug’s safety. Jeremiah silently applauded them, something he’d never have believed he’d ever do. But he made a point to keep all thoughts to himself during every viewing, unwilling to give Brent any additional fodder for his report. He was more immediately concerned with Diana.

If he could have just seen her, he would have been able to relax a little. She was safe so far, he had gleaned that much, but that could have just been chance. He found himself peering into the eyes of his clone, trying to find some small measure of change in him. Every faraway glance, every hesitation when he spoke, suddenly took on new importance to Jeremiah. Had he found the note? Was he trying to work out the impossible discovery of such an ominous warning in his own handwriting? Was he aware of anything?

For his part, the brief foray back into his own life had had a profound impact on Jeremiah. He could still hear the echo of Parker’s voice on the phone. It pulled at him. And he remembered the look on Brenda’s face when he’d thought to say a single kind thing to her. Most of all, he remembered the fleeting things he’d been able to see of his clone’s mind during those few minutes when they’d been connected under the Meld. His double seemed to hold himself in high regard, to be so confident in his position with ViMed, his place in the world. But what was troubling was what he’d seen just underneath that: the clone seemed to understand that he was lying to himself, that none of that confidence was actually true. There was a real sense of doubt there, and although it had only been the briefest of flickers, Jeremiah had instantly recognized that doubt as his own. It had always been there, just under the surface, pushed away and rejected. It was a difficult thing to have seen, and he kept those thoughts to himself, too.