The Mirror Man, стр. 59

Chapter 28

The eighth-floor conference room had been emptied of its furnishings, except for several chairs, which were arranged in a semicircle. Facing those were of a bank of cameras and bright lights mounted on metal stands. Jeremiah took his place in the center chair. Dr. Young took the seat on his left, Charles Scott, to his right and an FDA agent who introduced himself as Nathan Christopher sat next to Scott. Jeremiah didn’t recognize him, but that, he knew, meant nothing. For all he knew, the man might have been privy to the entire experiment. Three network news anchors sat on the other side of Dr. Young. There was no audience to witness the event, but a small number of ViMed executives and scientists stood in a quiet huddle in a far corner of the room, out of the camera shot. To his dismay, Jeremiah also saw two older men standing off to the other side of the room, both in what appeared to be full-dress army regalia. From the number of medals on them, they looked to be fairly high-ranking. He swallowed hard. They weren’t here to provide security, he knew. They were here to make sure no threats would need neutralizing.

A balding producer who smelled heavily of cough syrup fastened a microphone to Jeremiah’s lapel and talked to him in clipped, hurried sentences.

“Let the anchors set it up. They know what to do. When you speak, look at them and not at the camera. Be yourself. You’ll do fine.” He stood up and moved quickly out of the frame. “In three. Two. One,” he said.

Charles Scott shot a severe glance at Jeremiah. There was no mistaking what he meant.

The lead anchor, an impeccably dressed and angular man, began by introducing the participants, ending with a direct question to Jeremiah.

“Are you nervous about taking the Meld today?”

Jeremiah stammered for a moment. “N-no, not really,” he said. He was momentarily distracted by the producer rolling his hand in the air in front of him, as though to encourage him to elaborate. “Meld is perfectly safe when used in a clinical setting. I’m sure I’m in very good hands with Dr. Young.”

“And even with all these suicides connected to the drug, that doesn’t worry you?” the anchor pushed.

“Well, as ViMed has always maintained, those deaths occurred while taking Meld in an unsafe manner, without medical supervision. And we also suspect the drug was adulterated once it hit the streets. I am not worried.”

“Why are you doing this, Mr. Adams?” the anchor asked. “Why you? Why now?”

He wanted to say he had absolutely no idea, that he’d been asking himself the same questions and couldn’t find an answer. To any of it. But he felt Scott’s eyes boring into him, so he said what he was supposed to say.

“I want to demonstrate that Meld is not only safe, but to remind people that this is a drug that saves lives,” he said. “Meld has already had tremendous impact on treating mental illness, Alzheimer’s disease and reaching the conscious minds of comatose patients. There is reason to believe that this drug might have other benefits we aren’t even aware of yet. Imagine the implications for people suffering from ALS—people who become trapped, essentially, in their own failing bodies, who’ve lost the ability to speak. Meld could help them, too.”

The last bit was entirely ad-lib and meant for Scott’s ears. But if Charles Scott was worried about it, he didn’t let on. Still, Jeremiah was pleased with himself that he’d found the nerve to throw it in.

At this point, the news anchors, spectators, film crew and producers began to file out of the room, along with Charles Scott and the man from the FDA. All of them would watch the actual Meld demonstration from the safety of a remote location to guard against any of their thoughts being accidentally picked up. While Jeremiah was relieved he wouldn’t have to risk getting an intimate view into the mind of Charles Scott, he couldn’t help wondering if it might have answered some questions and confirmed his suspicions.

There was absolute silence when Natalie Young finally injected both Jeremiah and herself with the two different compounds of Meld and then moved her chair to face him head-on. Jeremiah closed his eyes and waited for the initial barrage of images he knew would come—snippets from her internal dialogue, odd bits of conversation with people he didn’t know, random yearnings and shadows of things she’d rather hide. But the first, fleeting image he saw from Natalie’s mind was something unexpected—a vague sense of shock. There was distinct hesitation from her. Almost the instant it appeared, she retrieved it and pulled it back. He didn’t understand what it was, what it meant, but Jeremiah was certain she’d been genuinely surprised by something she’d seen in his mind. Had she picked up so quickly on his suspicions about Scott? His desperation to warn Diana? Had those thoughts been that close to the surface? He fought to empty his mind, to think of something else, but before he could do it, she had already switched gears. She reined in her own emotions, and her mind began to bore into his as it usually did when they took the drug. He was helpless to do anything but give in to it. She was adept at this. The next thing he knew, he was cognizant, alone in his mind and free from the Meld’s hold. The panel filed back into the room and allowed him a few minutes to compose himself before rifling him with questions.

“How do you feel, Mr. Adams?”

“What do you remember?”

“Can you describe the experience for the viewers at home?”

“Do you feel any sudden depression?”

Jeremiah answered warily, saying all the things he was supposed to say, hitting all the buzzwords and, generally, behaving exactly