“Well, we were all asked to interview,” he said. “So, I suppose, in a way, I was handpicked.”

“Did you know what you were applying for, though? The details, I mean. If everything is so hush-hush, how could they afford to have that many applicants involved?”

“We had no idea what we were applying for. I had zero clue about the project until after I was actually hired. A few weeks afterward actually. All I knew was it was a special one-year assignment and that it was being run by the top brass. There weren’t any details at all.”

“And that was enough for you?”

“Hell, yeah, it was. I can write my own ticket after this. It’s a pretty good feather in my cap, you know, being pulled out of a grunt job in the IT department into something like this. I have a graduate degree, you know.”

“If any of this gets out you might be writing your own ticket to federal prison,” Jeremiah said. “We’re breaking a lot of pretty big laws here. Human cloning is illegal. Weren’t you worried when you found out what it was you signed on to?”

“Maybe a little, at first,” Brent said. “But there are a lot of very important people behind the scenes here. Powerful people. There are serious safeguards, believe me. And this is cutting edge, you know? This is the future, and what we’re doing is helping to shape it. It’s exciting. It’s important work.”

“You sound like you swallowed Charles Scott.”

“Well, he isn’t wrong, Jeremiah,” Brent said. “Human cloning is coming, whether we like it or not. And you, of all people, must believe that. I mean, you’re in this deeper than any of us.”

“It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

“Tell me about it. You’re making a tidy little sum off this, as I hear.”

“Yeah,” Jeremiah said. “That, too. But doesn’t it worry you, Brent? I mean, human cloning. Don’t you wonder what all of this is for? What it means?”

“It means a better world. This technology can solve a lot of problems.”

“I suppose, sure. But don’t you think it’s dangerous? Especially if it ends up in the wrong hands. I mean, what if someone decided to clone the president? Or create a whole army of mindless, disposable people? You know what I mean.”

“I don’t think Scott is focused on anything like that,” Brent said. “When he shook my hand, he told me I was helping to make a difference, helping put an end to human suffering. He seemed passionate about it. He sees this as a good thing. I believe him. I trust him. You should, too.”

Jeremiah wanted to say something about the way Charles Scott had seemed almost too passionate about it, as though it was more than just the science driving him. But before he could say anything, the monitor switched on. Brent’s posture straightened almost imperceptibly, morphing seamlessly from casual urban hipster to scientist. On the wall, they watched Jeremiah’s double slog through another uneventful afternoon at ViMed and then sit silently in traffic, listening to news radio on the drive home. Before he even pulled into the garage, the monitor switched off again. Though he did nothing even remotely interesting—hardly uttered a word out loud, in fact—Jeremiah watched with his usual intensity, trying to find something—anything—that made him feel like he wasn’t watching himself up there. Some tiny mistake. Some flaw. He didn’t find it. He never found it. He might as well have been looking in a mirror.