The Mirror Man, стр. 85
Back in the apartment, Parker looked around excitedly, taking in the sleek design of the place.
“Whoa,” he said. “This is where you work? Is this your office?”
“Check it out, take a look around.”
“This is awesome,” Parker said as he went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Rooting through the freezer, he immediately went for the ice cream and Jeremiah almost tripped in his rush to physically push the boy away and close the door.
“That’s for later,” he said with a bit more force than he liked. “Go ahead and take a soda, though. Make yourself at home.”
Parker took his bottle into the living room and stopped short when he saw the video game console, which Jeremiah had placed conspicuously on a table.
“That’s a Sparx Four,” he said, stunned. “That isn’t even supposed to be released for, like, another six months. No one has that yet. How did you get one of those?”
“Parker,” Jeremiah said. “Sit down for a minute. I need to talk to you. You can check that out later.”
But Parker had gone over to the console and picked up the headset. “This is amazing,” he said. “Are there any games?”
“Yeah, later, though. I need to talk to you. Put that away for a minute and come and sit down.”
Chapter 41
Day 172
“I think you must have lost your mind along with that finger, Dad. Clones? Really?”
Jeremiah had just spit the whole thing out without taking a breath, and Parker had listened with a blank expression and then burst out laughing.
“Parker,” he said, “I’m serious. I know how it sounds, but this isn’t a joke. I haven’t been home in six months. I’ve been here. I’ve been watching. I saw the whole thing with your mother. I saw everything, right there on that TV set on the wall. But I’m back now.”
“Yeah, whatever, Dad, very funny,” he said. “Can I just play a game on this thing now?”
“Think about it,” Jeremiah said. “Louie knew it. Remember how he just suddenly turned on me? Started growling at me for no reason? He knew that wasn’t me! When have you ever known that dog to treat me like that? Remember how you thought that was so weird? You asked me if I kicked him or something.”
Parker said nothing, just picked up the headset again and tried it on for size.
“Look, I can prove it to you, Parker. I can show you that everything I’ve told you is the absolute truth. But you need to be prepared. You need to understand. I don’t want you to freak out on me.”
“I don’t think I’m the one freaking out, Dad.” He twirled a finger at his temple.
Jeremiah touched a button on a remote control Scott had supplied him with, and the entire wall in front of them flickered on like a television, resolving into a clear image of the clone sitting in his ViMed office, twelve floors above them.
“That’s him,” Jeremiah said as Parker stared at the wall and then back at his father. “That’s him, right this minute. He’s at work. He’s up on the twelfth floor, and I’m sitting here with you.”
Parker said nothing, but a slow smile crept over his face. “What is this?” he asked. “Are we on one of those TV shows on the Science Channel or something? Okay, you can come out now Mr. Announcer Dude—I don’t believe you! You failed!”
“Parker.” Jeremiah took him by the shoulders and looked him directly in the eye. “Look at my face. This isn’t a trick. It isn’t a joke. There’s no TV show, no secret announcer dude. This is the truth. You’ve been living with my clone all this time. The whole thing was a ViMed experiment, something for work I agreed to take part in. But it’s over now. And you and I need to leave. We have to get away from here. Everything’s been taken care of. We’re going to start over. Have a new life, just the two of us. Everything’s going to be different now. Everything’s going to be better.”
As he spoke, he watched several expressions come and go over his son’s face: disbelief, confusion, shock, something approaching acceptance and then finally full disbelief again. He looked at the scene playing out on the wall and then back at his father several times and shook his head. Jeremiah never let go of his shoulders.
“That’s just a video or something,” he said. “You set this whole thing up.”
“Look at the clock on the wall behind him,” Jeremiah pointed. “It’s the same exact time, down to the minute. It’s true, Parker.”
“Dad,” he said, and didn’t finish the thought.
“Do you have your phone on you?”
“Yeah, of course I do.”
“Call me.”
“What?” Parker looked even more confused.
“Call me at my office right now.”
Parker slowly took his cell phone from his front pocket, pushed a few buttons and held it to his ear, staring at Jeremiah the whole time.
“Um, hi,” Parker said into the phone. “Can I speak to Mr. Adams? This is his son, Parker.”
On the wall, they both watched as the intercom sounded at the clone’s desk and he picked up the receiver.
“Thanks, Brenda,” he said. “Put him right through.”
Parker looked again at Jeremiah and then back at the wall.
“Hey, Parker,” the clone said. “What’s up? You okay?”
Jeremiah watched as shock crept over his son’s face. It was obvious that he heard the same words uttered in his ear exactly as they heard them from the monitor. The boy was absolutely silent as the impossibility of it set in.
“Parker?” the clone said, a look of slight concern on his face. “You there? Everything okay?”
“Y-yeah,” Parker stammered into the phone, eyes fixed now on the clone’s face. “I, um, I just wanted to let you know I’m staying after school today.”
“Oh, well, that’s fine,”