“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.
Chapter 7
Days 50-51
By the time Jeremiah had entered high school, he had lived in six houses in four different towns. His mother liked to wander. Sometimes they’d move because she’d found a better job somewhere, other times it might have been because she was just bored of the neighborhood. He’d never been in one place long enough to make a best friend, and honestly never understood the feeling of being settled. Until he spent four consecutive years at Boston University, in fact, he’d never fully understood the notion of feeling “at home.” It was no wonder that he’d decided to stay in the area after graduating. He felt comfortable there, connected, and it seemed an obvious choice when he and Diana suddenly had to put down some roots. But even then, complacency never came easy to him. He could never escape the nagging feeling that things could change in an instant. Uprooting never seemed entirely out of the question to him. So, several weeks into the experiment, when he began to feel at ease and familiar with his routine and even a little bit comfortable with Brent, he should have been ready for the monkey wrench. But it caught him off guard, the way monkey wrenches will.
It was a Thursday, early evening, and he and Brent were scheduled to watch the clone at home. Jeremiah had already secured the last of a half-gallon container of coffee chip ice cream and had settled in on the couch.
“This is Family Dinner Night,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “Probably going to seem pretty lame to you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, it’s just a silly weekly routine. Diana makes a dinner, and we all have to clear our evening to make sure we’re there. It’s our scheduled family time, you know, to catch up and talk about things. You might find it sort of mundane, is all.”
“I think it’s kind of cool. My family never did that. What do you talk about?”
“Normal stuff, I don’t know. We’re just supposed to talk, reconnect and all that. Diana is a real stickler about it.” He didn’t mention, of course, that it was really all a charade—that he and Diana talked about pointless, useless things, avoiding discussion of any real issues. Secretly, though, Jeremiah had been looking forward to watching a Thursday dinner, eager, perhaps, for even the false sense of family they’d become so practiced at.
And that’s why he was so surprised when Diana wasn’t even there. The screen turned on to the clone and Parker sitting alone at the kitchen table, eating
