He remembered the cameras. ViMed had eyes all over the house. If anyone were monitoring, they were probably looking right at him. And, he considered, they’d have no reason to believe they weren’t seeing his clone. If he played this cool, if he could just get his wits together and act casual, as though he were in his own house doing nothing suspicious, he could probably fool them for long enough. Unless, he thought, they were monitoring the clone at the office at the same time. That would certainly rouse someone’s suspicions. His only option was to destroy the cameras. Or at least turn them off.

He crossed the room quickly, opened the door to the basement and went to the breaker box. Standing there in the sudden pitch-blackness, he hoped Parker was on his laptop and still engrossed in his game. With a little luck, he probably wouldn’t even notice that the lights were out in the middle of the afternoon. But he worried about some sort of alarms going off at ViMed. He had no idea whether he’d done the right thing. But at least he could be sure no one would see him make the switch.

Back in the kitchen, he stood for a nervous few minutes until he saw Natalie approach the door, looking over her shoulders in a ludicrously conspicuous way. He let her in quickly and put a finger to his lips.

“Where’s Parker?” she asked in a whisper.

“Upstairs, on his computer,” he said.

“And his clone?” she asked.

“In the car, down the street.”

“And you’re sure about this? You’re absolutely certain you have the wrong one?”

“That kid in the car believes he is Parker,” he told her. “He’s not. You think I wouldn’t know?”

“All right,” she said, “I believe you.”

“How are we going to do this?”

Her eyes widened. “I thought you had a plan!”

“I didn’t exactly have all day to think of every single detail,” he said. “Did you bring everything you need?”

She nodded toward the leather bag slung over her shoulder.

“This is extremely precise work,” she told him. “Implanting memories with Meld is Pike’s job. I’m not even sure I can do this.”

“Well,” he said, “you’d better figure it out. This is my only chance. You said you wanted to help me. I need your help now.”

She inhaled deeply, a kind of resolve coming over her face.

“We’re going to have to bring them together for this transfer,” she said. “It will be easiest if the real Parker is under sedation to receive the memory implant. Luckily for you, I thought of that.” She took a syringe out of her bag. “The clone will need to be conscious during the procedure and then sedated just before the end, so he doesn’t remember seeing his own double.”

“I’ll get the clone,” Jeremiah said. “What do I tell him?”

“I don’t know. That’s up to you, Jeremiah. Let’s take care of the real one first. Then at least we can stop whispering.”