Oops, he typed. Sorry!

Another time, Brent’s guy kicked Clyde’s feet out from under him and ended up with the knife at Clyde’s throat.

Stop that, Jeremiah typed. That won’t happen.

I’m going to fight back.

Eventually, he figured out that he needed to overpower Brent’s avatar first with a few well-placed punches, get him to the ground, pin him there and go for one quick jab in the shoulder. No fancy moves, just a series of careful actions. They practiced it over and over until Brent seemed satisfied and finally took off his headset.

“There!” Jeremiah said triumphantly, adrenaline still pumping. “Satisfied? Had enough yet? I can beat you every time.”

“You say that like it’s going to be easy or something,” Brent said. “Don’t get cocky about this, Jeremiah. Remember, you’re not Clyde. You are a middle-aged marketing manager from Massachusetts. You’re not a warrior. It won’t be that easy.”

By early evening, Jeremiah found himself lying on the bed, unable to sleep. His mind was racing, Brent’s pacing in the kitchen sounded like line-dancing, and he was seriously doubting whether he’d be able to take a knife to his only friend once the time came. Stabbing him a hundred times over in virtual reality was one thing. In the real world, there was blood and guilt. Brent had reassured him that he’d “take care of it.” Jeremiah had no idea what that meant.

He closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind. He practiced the breathing exercises that he’d used so long ago, when he was first connected to the clone through the Meld. It had helped him then to stave off the terror of being sucked into the dark emptiness of his double’s blank mind. It didn’t work for him now. The moment he began to relax, new questions cropped up to trouble him: Where would he bury the body of the clone? What if the clone screamed and a neighbor came over at the wrong moment? What would happen once he took over his life again? How was he supposed to just seamlessly ease back into a life he hadn’t actually been living for six months? And how was he going to handle Parker? What if Parker noticed something was different?

After a few futile hours, Jeremiah got out of bed and went into the kitchen to find Brent putting two low-fat frozen dinners in the oven. His attempt to get a beer from the fridge was met with quick disapproval.

“Don’t start drinking now, Jeremiah. We still have a few hours to go. You need your wits.”

“Look who’s suddenly found his inner teetotaler? You’re right, though,” he said, and took a bottled water instead.

They ate in relative silence. There was little left to say. The only thing they had to do was wait.

Sometime after 1:00 a.m. they each took a single shot of whiskey and sat down on the couch, waiting for it to take effect. They had to force an argument, and if it was going to be enough for Jeremiah to take a knife to Brent, it had to be real.