The Mirror Man, стр. 60
“What I saw in Mr. Adams was a levelheaded, rational man,” she said. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing unexpected. I was able to probe his thought patterns, his self-perception, and see a bit of how he views the world. To me, he seems content. He is a perfectly normal man.”
Whatever she saw when she looked at his mind through the Meld, Jeremiah thought, it wasn’t that.
Once the cameras were off and the producers began guessing at the viewership, Jeremiah found himself in the middle of a group of ViMed executives. Charles Scott was at his elbow.
“Great job,” someone said to him. “I think this is going to work.”
“Let’s hope so,” a nervous older woman said. “We’ve got too much riding on this.”
Jeremiah nodded and shook hands with several people without saying much.
“Come, Mr. Adams,” Charles Scott said. “I’ll walk with you to your car.”
He was likely in a hurry, Jeremiah thought, to get back and hook him up to the clone. Jeremiah’s stomach turned at the realization he’d have to undergo the Meld twice in a single hour, and this time with his double. He didn’t even want to imagine what that would be like, seeing what was basically his own mind reflected back at him under the drug. He turned on his heels, said his goodbyes and followed Scott out of the room and into the hallway.
They almost ran headlong into Brenda.
“Oh, Mr. Adams,” she said, “I’m glad I caught you before you left.”
Jeremiah said nothing but looked to Scott for some sort of cue. Scott looked ruffled for a moment and then quickly regained his composure.
“Ah, it is my heroine,” he said with a smile. “Do you know, Mr. Adams, I might have missed the entire event tonight if not for this charming lady. She was kind enough to come to my aid when I was hopelessly lost.”
“Brenda’s good at that sort of thing,” Jeremiah said, and then turned to her, hoping he sounded less anxious than he was. “You’re here late. I thought you’d be gone by now.”
“Well, the phones were ringing off the hook as soon as the broadcast finished,” she told him. “I just stayed to field the calls. Everyone wants a quote or an interview.”
“I’ll get to them in the morning, Brenda,” Jeremiah said. “Let the broadcast speak for itself for now.”
“That’s what I told them,” she said. “But I thought I’d bring you the messages, in case you want to contact anyone tonight. Your friend from the Times, Walt Thompson, called twice.”
She handed Jeremiah a sizable stack of notes.
“Thank you,” he said. “I don’t know how I’d ever get anything done without you, Brenda. I have a lot to thank you for.”
The look of slight surprise on Brenda’s face made him instantly aware that what he’d said was completely out of character for him. But he’d felt compelled to say something nice to her for once. Thankfully, though, the surprise left her face and she just smiled and shook her head.
“Just doing my job, Mr. Adams. I’ll see you in the morning.”
As soon as she was out of earshot, Scott leaned into him with a stern warning.
“Be careful, Mr. Adams,” he said. “That could have gone very badly. Let’s get back to your office before we run into anyone else.”
“Why don’t you tell me first, Dr. Scott,” he said, sensing his momentary upper hand, “what the hell the army was doing here?”
“Certain military people have an interest in all of this. Beyond that, it’s none of your concern.”
While Scott led him roughly by the elbow toward the elevator, Jeremiah took a certain delight in his own brashness. It felt good just to see Scott squirm.
Pike was pacing back and forth in front of the doors as soon as the elevator opened on the twelfth floor.
“Come, Mr. Adams,” he said tensely. “We need to get your memories into the clone as quickly as possible. The sedative won’t last much longer. We’ll do this in your office. It will make more sense if the clone regains consciousness there.”
The entire floor was empty at this time of night, and the silence made Jeremiah uncomfortable. The hum of the water cooler and printers reverberated through the deserted hallways.
“We had a brief encounter with the administrative assistant just now,” Scott told Pike. “That will need to be implanted.” He turned to Jeremiah. “Wait in your office, Mr. Adams. And put those messages where he’ll see them.”
He’d almost given up on another chance. But they were leaving him alone in here. It wasn’t over.
When the door closed and he was alone in his office for the first time in several months, Jeremiah felt so strange that he hesitated and wasted precious seconds just taking it in. He turned to look out his office window, but by now it was so dark outside that all he saw was his own reflection, looking disoriented and quite out of place here. He snapped back into clarity and grabbed for the phone, dialing his home number with barely a glance at the keypad. He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and listened anxiously as it rang three times, never taking his eyes off the office door.
Parker picked up.
Jeremiah froze for an instant at hearing his son’s voice on the phone. A wave of regret washed over him as he thought of all the things he wanted to say to his son. There wasn’t time.
“Parker, get your mother to the phone.”
“She’s not home, Dad. Hey, I watched you on TV. I can’t believe you took that stuff.”
“Where’s your mother?”
“Working, I guess.”
Jeremiah hung up the phone without even saying goodbye to his son and tried to remember Diana’s cell phone number. He’d only ever dialed it by pressing one button on