“Where did ViMed get the funding to develop tech like this?” Jeremiah had asked, astonished.

“Meld is quite a profitable drug, Mr. Adams,” Pike told him. “Its release provided substantial cash flow for other avenues of research.”

“And just in time, it seems.”

“There are also some well-endowed investors behind this project. Interested parties with deep pockets,” Pike said.

After the scan, Jeremiah had been injected with experimental nanotechnology that had served as a vaccine against any further viral infections and most bacterial illnesses from that point up until the cloning. The measure ensured that he and his clone would start out medically identical in every way. The idea of microscopic robots swimming around inside him had unnerved him, but Scott had only scoffed when Jeremiah asked about it later.

“It’s perfectly harmless, Mr. Adams. If it makes you feel better, I’ve tested it on myself without adverse effect.”

It hadn’t made him feel better at all. In fact, he found it disturbing that Scott would subject himself to untested technology when he must have had a lab full of rabbits at the ready. There was so much about him that Jeremiah found disturbing, though.

It was reasonable, he supposed, in the quiet of the room, that his thoughts drifted to his family. He’d left them that morning and wouldn’t return for an entire year. He hadn’t even been able to say a proper goodbye. During his walk with Louie that morning, he’d lingered a bit longer than he usually did, allowing the dog to sniff every tree they passed and giving him an extra lap around the block. Scott had cautioned him to act normally, not to give anything away by altering his usual routine. But Jeremiah had found that almost impossible. He knew that an imposter—an inhuman copy—would be coming home in his place for dinner that night. He was leaving them in the hands of an untested science experiment. How does anyone act normally knowing that?

So, as Parker brushed by him out the door to make the school bus, Jeremiah had given his son a quick, impulsive kiss on the top of the head, a gesture so out of character that both Parker and Diana had paused and stared at him like he’d just lost his grip on reality. Jeremiah had made a show of shrugging it off. But what, he wondered now, would his clone do with that memory? They had erased the memory of why he’d done it, certainly, but Parker and Diana had seen it. Presumably, the clone would need to remember that moment in case it ever came up in conversation. The effort of wrapping his brain around that enigma wasn’t going to help his headache, he decided, and he almost welcomed the disruption of someone knocking at his front door.

Before he could get himself out of bed and into the living room, Dr. Natalie Young had already let herself in. She’d have to, he figured, since he was incapable of even opening his door from the inside.