“Necessary for what?” the boy asked, agitation in his voice.

“Parker,” Jeremiah began, “there’s something else I haven’t told you. These men have agreed to help us make a new start. They’re giving us plenty of money, brand-new identities, just like one of those witness protection programs you see in the movies. But before they can do that, I’ve agreed to let them make a clone of you. Your clone will be going back home, staying with my clone. To them, it will seem like nothing’s changed at all. I should have told you sooner. I’m sorry. But this was the only way I could make this work. The only way I could get back to you.”

Parker stared at Jeremiah for a long moment.

“They’re going to make a clone of me?” he asked, a conflicted smile spreading across his face. “An actual clone?”

“Yeah,” Jeremiah told him, still unsure of how his son was taking the revelation. “That’s all this world needs, right? Two Parkers.”

“And he takes my place, like at school and everything?”

“That’s right,” Jeremiah said.

“Why can’t the clones leave? I mean, I don’t know if I want to leave school and all my friends. I don’t want to leave everything. Maybe we could stay and send them somewhere else.”

“I know it’s hard, Parker,” Jeremiah told him. “I know. But it’s the only way this can work.”

“But that’s where Mom was, Dad. It’s our house. We can’t just leave.” Parker looked again as though he were trying not to cry. Jeremiah felt instantly guilty for not considering that aspect. He’d been trying to treat it like an adventure, like a game. It wasn’t a game to Parker. Jeremiah was asking him to leave the last place he’d had his mother. It was a heartless thing to do.

“I’ll have someone go to the house for a few things,” he told his son. “Some photographs, maybe a few personal things for you to hold on to. Any ideas?”

Parker shrugged and considered it. “Her hairbrush, maybe? Or one of those bracelets she liked?”

“We’ll get both,” Jeremiah said, looking to Scott for some assurance. Scott nodded, a look of slight irritation flashing over his face.

“Okay,” Parker said reluctantly. “I guess so.”

“It’ll be okay, Parker,” Jeremiah told him. “You’ll see.”

“Well, at least there’s one good thing,” Parker said.

“What’s that?”

“At least the clone will have to take my French midterm.”

Jeremiah smiled. “I suppose he will,” he said, and he stood up to walk with his son to Pike’s lab. He was eager to get a look at his son’s clone, which had been in incubation for forty-eight hours, grown from a few cells from Parker’s cheek at school as part of a bogus health screening.

Scott stared at him. “You can’t be present for the Meld, Mr. Adams. You know that.”

“I don’t need to be in the same room,” Jeremiah said, “but I want to go with him.”