Jeremiah watched the clone with a certain empathy and cringed when he heard Brenda’s cheery rapping on his closed door. He almost laughed when he saw his double snatch the telephone receiver and hold it up to his ear. When Brenda poked her head in, he covered the mouthpiece with one hand and offered her a shrug of his shoulders and an apologetic expression. “Sorry,” he mouthed. She nodded and ducked back out, closing the door behind her, and the clone slipped the phone back onto its cradle with a quick sigh of relief.

“You don’t like cake or something?” Brent asked Jeremiah.

“It’s the middle of the workday. Those things are a nuisance. One week there were three cakes in two days. He’s got work to do. Can’t blame him.”

“Yeah, right, fake phone calls are so important. God, what a hard-ass.” Brent chuckled. “It’s cake. Loosen up a little, man.”

A half hour later, when the coast was clear, they watched the clone slink out into the hallway and over to Brenda’s desk. She smiled at him and handed over a paper plate with a lopsided slice of chocolate cake on it.

“I saved you some,” she said.

“Thanks. I couldn’t get away. Sorry about that. I’ll be sure to stop by his desk when I get a chance. Tom, right?”

“Tom. Not the editing Tom, the one in Accounting.”

“Got it.”

“Oh, Mr. Adams,” she said as the clone turned away, “while I have you here, I need to leave a little early on Friday, if that’s all right.”

“Sure,” the clone told her, and attempted to walk away. She came out from behind her desk and moved in next to him, brandishing her cell phone in one hand.

“My niece is coming in for the weekend,” she told him, scrolling through her phone and then showing him a photo of a skinny, smiling teenage blonde. “She’s visiting colleges. Can you believe it? They grow up quick, don’t they?”

Jeremiah watched the clone smile lamely and inch away from her.

“Isn’t Parker getting ready for the big college search?” she asked. Brenda made a point of knowing the names and approximate ages of everybody’s children. “He’s a junior this year, isn’t he?”

“A sophomore,” the clone told her. “Pretty soon, though, yeah.” The clone smiled again and turned on his heels, sensing a reasonable escape. “Take whatever time you need on Friday,” he called over his shoulder.

As the clone walked the short distance down the hallway back to his office, the ViMed camera hovered for another instant on Brenda, and Jeremiah saw something almost imperceptible change in her face. It stung him.

“That was kind of rude,” Brent said.

“He’s got work to do,” Jeremiah protested. “People can’t just sit around chatting all day, you know.”

“Still.”

Silently, Jeremiah agreed and made a mental note to look up Brenda’s birthday before he got out of here. He realized at that moment that he couldn’t remember a single one of those gatherings being organized for her.