The Mirror Man, стр. 90

street. There was no one to see what he was doing. He balled his good hand up inside the sleeve of his suit jacket and easily shattered the bottom pane of glass, knocking away the remaining shards so he could reach in and turn the doorknob. Once he was inside, he stood stone still, hardly daring to breathe, and listened for any sign that Parker had heard something. After a moment, he let out his breath and eased the door closed behind him as quietly as he could. Thank God for those expensive headphones, he thought.

He remembered the cameras. ViMed had eyes all over the house. If anyone were monitoring, they were probably looking right at him. And, he considered, they’d have no reason to believe they weren’t seeing his clone. If he played this cool, if he could just get his wits together and act casual, as though he were in his own house doing nothing suspicious, he could probably fool them for long enough. Unless, he thought, they were monitoring the clone at the office at the same time. That would certainly rouse someone’s suspicions. His only option was to destroy the cameras. Or at least turn them off.

He crossed the room quickly, opened the door to the basement and went to the breaker box. Standing there in the sudden pitch-blackness, he hoped Parker was on his laptop and still engrossed in his game. With a little luck, he probably wouldn’t even notice that the lights were out in the middle of the afternoon. But he worried about some sort of alarms going off at ViMed. He had no idea whether he’d done the right thing. But at least he could be sure no one would see him make the switch.

Back in the kitchen, he stood for a nervous few minutes until he saw Natalie approach the door, looking over her shoulders in a ludicrously conspicuous way. He let her in quickly and put a finger to his lips.

“Where’s Parker?” she asked in a whisper.

“Upstairs, on his computer,” he said.

“And his clone?” she asked.

“In the car, down the street.”

“And you’re sure about this? You’re absolutely certain you have the wrong one?”

“That kid in the car believes he is Parker,” he told her. “He’s not. You think I wouldn’t know?”

“All right,” she said, “I believe you.”

“How are we going to do this?”

Her eyes widened. “I thought you had a plan!”

“I didn’t exactly have all day to think of every single detail,” he said. “Did you bring everything you need?”

She nodded toward the leather bag slung over her shoulder.

“This is extremely precise work,” she told him. “Implanting memories with Meld is Pike’s job. I’m not even sure I can do this.”

“Well,” he said, “you’d better figure it out. This is my only chance. You said you wanted to help me. I need your help now.”

She inhaled deeply, a kind of resolve coming over her face.

“We’re going to have to bring them together for this transfer,” she said. “It will be easiest if the real Parker is under sedation to receive the memory implant. Luckily for you, I thought of that.” She took a syringe out of her bag. “The clone will need to be conscious during the procedure and then sedated just before the end, so he doesn’t remember seeing his own double.”

“I’ll get the clone,” Jeremiah said. “What do I tell him?”

“I don’t know. That’s up to you, Jeremiah. Let’s take care of the real one first. Then at least we can stop whispering.”

Taking the stairs as carefully as he could, avoiding the few spots where he knew they would squeak, Jeremiah led her to the second floor and down the hallway to where Parker’s bedroom door stood slightly ajar. Parker was inside, his back to them, obliterating video enemy forces with severe concentration, entirely oblivious to the fact that his own father was standing there about to subject him to Meld and essentially kidnap him.

Natalie wasted no time, but inhaled deeply, readied the syringe and walked up behind him with long, determined strides. She jabbed the needle into Parker’s right shoulder. He jumped violently and turned with a terrified expression, but slumped over onto his desk before he could utter a single word. Natalie settled the boy’s head into a more comfortable position and Jeremiah let out the breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding in.

“I’ll go get the clone,” he said. “Wait here.”

Halfway down the stairs he ran headlong into his own clone coming up.

Chapter 44

For a moment they stood there, facing each other without a word, neither of them fully comprehending what they were seeing. For his part, Jeremiah was simply surprised to see the clone home so quickly. He hadn’t considered this contingency at all and the shock of it stopped him in midstep. He imagined his clone’s concern was a little more urgent, as he’d literally walked in on a home invasion. He was probably also wondering whether he’d lose another body part.

It was the clone who spoke first.

“You!” He stared at Jeremiah while his face raced through a series of expressions from fear to confusion to rage and back again. “Parker?” he called over Jeremiah’s shoulder. “I swear to God if you’ve hurt him... Parker!”

He pushed past Jeremiah with a sudden show of strength and took the remaining stairs two at a time, almost tripping in the process, and burst into Parker’s bedroom to find Natalie Young standing over the boy. Jeremiah came in at his heels. Natalie looked from one identical face to the other and then settled on Jeremiah.

“Jesus!” she said. “This is all we need. You didn’t think to lock the door?”

“He has a key, remember?”

“What the hell is going on here! What have you done to him? Parker!” The clone rushed past Natalie and grasped the boy by the shoulders, a look of absolute terror creeping over his face when he saw Parker’s head fall awkwardly to one side.

“Oh, my God! No. No. What have you done?”