The Mirror Man, стр. 53
“Meld showed me a monster. How can we look at ourselves through someone else’s eyes and not be fundamentally changed? I cannot defend what I’ve seen. I cannot live with the monster. I cannot escape him. We are not meant to see this. We’re not equipped. It isn’t right. My only solace is that at least I can take him with me.”
The clone had gathered a small group of writers and PR reps in his office. “This is the first suicide in a clinical setting. This is where we need to focus. We need to turn it around. Maybe we can spin the idea that this guy was abusing Meld outside of his practice, using it wrong, maybe even addicted to it. There’s got to be someone out there—some disgruntled patient, a jealous rival, a jilted lover—who will talk if we plant that idea in the right ears. You need to find those ears. Now.”
Brent whistled through his teeth. “Wow,” he said. “Clone’s gone all cutthroat. No mercy there.”
“Seems a bit aggressive to me,” Jeremiah said. “I mean, this doctor has a reputation. A family. He just killed himself, for Christ’s sake. I think a little mercy is in order.”
More to the point, Jeremiah thought to himself, Meld was still killing people, and the clone was still trying to push it on the public. And, for all anyone knew, that clone was Jeremiah. Those were his own hands bloodied in every one of those deaths.
It had to end. He had to end it. Somehow. But Brent was right about one thing: if anyone realized he was no longer a willing player in all of this, if he showed his hand at all here, he’d be even more stuck than he already was. They’d make sure of that.
He had to play this cool.
Brent typed something into his laptop.
“Come on,” Jeremiah said, agitated by the idea that everything he said was being used against him. “Don’t you think this is overkill? I mean, you don’t need to ruin a man’s name to save the company’s image.”
“That’s his job, though,” Brent said. “That’s your job. Isn’t that what you’re paid to do?”
“I’m just saying, there’s no need to be so cavalier about it after a man has just died.”
On the wall, the clone wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and chewed on a pencil as he listened to the writers shoot off a series of ideas that wouldn’t work.
“Maybe he just has it in for ViMed,” someone said. “Maybe looking for a lawsuit.”
“Maybe the suicide note was a fake,” someone said. “A forgery.”
“What are we supposed to do?” the clone asked. “Prove it was murder? That won’t fly. We’re not detectives. No, we need to put the focus back on the idea that Meld is safe. That’s the key here. We need to keep the focus on safety—drive that point home.”
“I doubt the FDA is going to be much help there,” another writer said. “I don’t think they want to keep talking about how safe Meld is right now. And honestly, I don’t think people want to hear it.”
“Then we find another way to prove it’s safe,” the clone said thoughtfully. “Maybe it’s time we stop talking about it and start showing it.”
“How are we supposed to do that?” someone asked. “Take it ourselves?”
“Not you,” the clone said, looking up at the group with renewed energy. “Me. I can take it. I’ll take it on national TV, with a doctor. It’ll be all on the up-and-up. Supervised, monitored, everything. And I’ll let someone else select the doctor, someone independent. Christ, we’ll invite the FDA to oversee it themselves.”
“Could work,” someone said. “But wouldn’t it be better for some bigwig to take it? Someone higher up? Or maybe a scientist?”
“I don’t think so,” the clone said. “I think it says more if it’s just some regular joe who isn’t afraid to take the Meld. If I do it, I think it’ll go a lot farther to prove there’s nothing dangerous about it.”
“Is he out of his goddamn mind?” Jeremiah was stunned. After everything, the clone still believed in the Meld, believed the company was in the right. He was still toeing the line.
“I think it sounds like a pretty good stunt.” Brent laughed.
“I think it sounds like he’s an idiot!” Jeremiah stood up and turned away from the monitor. He paced back and forth in agitation. “After all these suicides and he wants to take the Meld? He’s crazy! He has a family to think of. My family! What if something goes wrong?”
“Obviously, he doesn’t think anything will go wrong, Jeremiah.” Brent looked genuinely confused. “Now you don’t trust the Meld, either?”
“I think it’s a mistake,” he said. “It might be good marketing, but this is a bad idea. For the clone.”
“Since when are you so concerned about the clone?” Brent asked.
“Think about it, Brent. If something happens to him, what happens to me? How can I go home again?”
Brent said nothing, but a change of expression showed he understood.
On the monitor, the clone was just hanging up his office phone.
“It’s a go,” he said to the writers. “We need to set this up as soon as possible. I’ll call CNN right away. Someone get on the phone with the FDA and get one of them on board with this. I want this to happen in prime time. Tomorrow. And I want it well advertised. Saturate social media. Call every one of the affiliates.”
The group