The Mirror Man

by Jane Gilmartin

  Meet Jeremiah Adams. There are two of him.

  The offer is too tempting: be part of a scientific breakthrough, step out of his life for a year, and be paid hugely for it. When ViMed Pharmaceutical asks Jeremiah to be part of an illegal cloning experiment, he sees it as a break from an existence he feels disconnected from. No one will know he’s been replaced—not the son who ignores him, not his increasingly distant wife—since a revolutionary drug called Meld can transfer his consciousness and memories to his copy.

  From a luxurious apartment, he watches the clone navigate his day-to-day life. But soon Jeremiah discovers that examining himself from an outsider’s perspective isn’t what he thought it would be, and he watches in horror as “his” life spirals out of control. ViMed needs the experiment to succeed—they won’t call it off, and are prepared to remove any obstacle. With his family in danger, Jeremiah needs to finally find the courage to face himself head-on.

  Praise for The Mirror Man

  “A story that is both profound and artfully contained. Claustrophobic and disturbingly intimate. Simply brilliant.”

  —Sylvain Neuvel, bestselling author of The Themis Files trilogy

  “An incredible debut, fascinating in concept with characters that grip you from the get-go. A timely and touching novel.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham

  “A first-rate science-based thriller...and a subtle and ultimately gripping examination of what it means to be human... A complex, intelligent and ultimately illuminating look at life, love and destiny.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Carsten Stroud

  “Seamlessly weaves together clones and family for a fascinating story about the lies we tell ourselves—and what we might do with second chances. Tense, poignant, and frequently funny, Gilmartin’s debut waxes lyrical on the human condition while racing to an unforgettable finish.”

  —Mike Chen, author of A Beginning at the End

  “A remarkable debut...Great concept and brilliantly executed.”

  —John Marrs, internationally bestselling author of The One

  Jane Gilmartin has been a news reporter and editor for several small-town weekly papers and has enjoyed a brief but exciting stint as a rock music journalist. A bucket list review just before she turned fifty set her on the path to fiction writing. Previously checked off that list: an accidental singing career, attending a Star Trek convention and getting a hug from David Bowie. She lives in her hometown of Hingham, Massachusetts.

  The Mirror Man

  Jane Gilmartin

  In memory of my mother and David Bowie

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Day 1

  The first time he saw his own replica, laid out on a bed, its eyes closed as though it might be dreaming, Jeremiah choked on his own breath. He’d never seen himself from this angle before. There was a slackness to the skin around the jawline; it draped down slightly on either side of the face in a way that was distinctly unattractive. He was riveted—enthralled and repulsed all at once.

  “It’s uncanny, isn’t it? The resemblance?” Dr. Charles Scott spoke with his typical detachment, which, in the moment, Jeremiah wished he could share. But that was his own image he was looking at, exact in even the smallest detail. For him, detachment was impossible.

  His eyes zeroed in on a dry, pinkish patch on the clone’s left cheek and Jeremiah absently lifted a hand to the same spot on his own face, where he’d scraped himself with a worn razor just a few days ago. Uncanny resemblance didn’t begin to describe what was on that bed.

  It was uniquely unsettling, like standing on the face of a mirror. His mind couldn’t work out where his own body began and ended.

  “Is it... Is he alive?” Without thinking, without actually wanting to, he reached a tentative hand out to touch his double.

  Scott deftly blocked Jeremiah’s hand with his own. “Oh, yes, very much alive. At least in a biological sense.”

  His eyes wandered from the face for a moment and only then did Jeremiah notice the steady, slow rise and fall of the clone’s chest.

  The thing was breathing.

  “What other kind of alive is there?” he asked.

  “At the moment, the clone is nothing but a shell. He has no mind, no inner workings. He’s empty.” Scott looked quickly from the clone back to Jeremiah, with an expression that suggested smug satisfaction. “Once we input your neural platform—your memories and synaptic patterns—then he’ll be alive in a more definitive manner.”

  “Unbelievable,” Jeremiah said. “It’s really unbelievable.”

  “And the whole process shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours,” Scott told him. “Once we administer the Meld you will be neurologically connected until the procedure is complete.”

  Almost as if on cue, Dr. Philip Pike entered the room, setting down a tray with two syringes. He barely acknowledged Jeremiah’s presence with a nod, but immediately checked the clone’s pulse and then dispensed something from a dropper into each of its eyes. He made a careful scan of the medical monitors around the clone’s bed and jotted hurried notes on a clipboard. Once he seemed satisfied with whatever the readings told him, he began to affix a tangle of colored wires to various points on the clone’s head. He did all of this in silence and at a pace that might have suggested he had somewhere more important to be, although Jeremiah knew that was certainly not the case. At the moment, he thought, this small hospital room, tucked away in a hidden basement of ViMed Pharmaceutical, was the epicenter of the entire scientific universe—and only a handful of people were privy to that fact. Somehow, inconceivably, Jeremiah was at the heart of the whole thing.

  “So, during this transfer,” he asked of no one in particular, “am I supposed to think about anything specific? Is there something I need to focus on?”

  “Not really, Mr. Adams.” It was Dr. Pike who spoke, and Jeremiah noted again the tinge of a British accent, something softened and obscured by years of living in the United States. “But you may want to think about a pleasant memory—something you can easily recall—to help with the initial disorientation you may experience under the Meld.”

  The prospect of taking the drug again made Jeremiah’s stomach churn. He’d taken it once already with the project’s psychiatrist without any lasting effects, but it had been a
strange experience, and he couldn’t shake the idea that it was risky. His fears were ironic, to say the least. As one of ViMed’s marketing managers, he was literally paid to dispel those very notions, persuading the public and the bureaucratic watchdogs that Meld had been thoroughly tested and was perfectly safe. But when illegal street use had erupted in a rash of baffling suicides, his job had grown progressively more difficult. And the most recent suicide wasn’t “just” another junkie. It was a forty-two-year-old housewife from New Jersey who had stabbed herself in the throat with a corkscrew while in the throes of an intimate moment with her husband. The media had gone crazy, and Jeremiah had become acquainted with migraines under the burden of finding a positive spin. She was a regular person, some poor slob who thought a little jolt of Meld might put some magic back in the bedroom. If it could happen to her, he thought, it could just as easily happen to anyone. It could happen to him.

  It was one thing to sway public opinion. It was proving harder to suppress his own doubt, though—especially since he now knew the whole truth about Meld—that it had been specifically created for this project, especially made for him, in a way. And he’d have to take it multiple times over the next twelve months. Beside the doctors who were using it in practice, no one had ever done that before, as far as he knew. The implications of being the guinea pig sat on his shoulders like lead.

  “Is it okay to take it again so soon?” he asked. “I mean, it hasn’t even been a month since the last time. Are you sure this is safe?”

  “Perfectly safe,” Dr. Pike told him. “Under proper medical supervision the chance of any serious side effects is virtually nonexistent.”

  The words offered little comfort. Jeremiah had written that company tagline himself. He’d believed it at the time. He had been just as impressed as everyone else at the prospect of a drug that could literally allow a direct link to the human mind. But now, as he waited to be injected again, he couldn’t help but see the whole thing from a different perspective. What if there really was something to it? What if Meld really was doing something to make people want to kill themselves? He didn’t harbor any such desires—not that he knew of at least—but that did little to calm his nerves as he stared at the syringe.

  His thoughts must have been evident on his face.

  “Mr. Adams.” Charles Scott’s tone was laced with a hint of irritation. “Our scientists have just created an exact replica of you. You are staring into the face of a scientific miracle. A perfect human clone. The Meld should be the least of your concerns. If the FDA can see fit to keep Meld on the market, there is obviously nothing for you to worry about. Of all people, I’d think you’d be the last one to doubt the Meld.”

  Jeremiah took his place in a chair next to the bed and tried to swallow his worry. He nearly gagged on it.

  Dr. Pike began to connect Jeremiah’s brain to that of his empty double, and he felt a bit as though he were about to be syphoned like a gas tank. But he knew it didn’t work that way. In actual fact, he supposed, it was more like being copied. He began to wonder what his clone would do with all the conflicted thoughts swimming through his mind, all the personal turmoil and philosophical struggle he’d faced in the weeks leading up to this moment. He’d agreed to have himself illegally cloned. He was walking out on his family and leaving a replica in his place. It hadn’t been an easy few weeks. What a thing to wake up to, he thought.

  “What’s with all the wires? There weren’t any wires when I took it before.”

  “This is a different kind of connection,” Pike told him. “Normally, Meld acts as a neural stimulant on the brains of both subjects. The clone has no active neurons yet. This is a one-way thing. Think of it as a download. The physical connection is necessary.”

  “Besides,” Scott said, “hardwiring prevents the accidental input from anyone else in the room. It wouldn’t do to have the clone picking up random thoughts from me or Dr. Pike.”

  Jeremiah nodded and turned his attention to something he hoped would be easier to grasp.

  “Does it have to be so cold in here?”

  “For the moment, yes,” Pike said without explanation.

  “Mr. Adams,” Scott said tersely, “please relax and allow Dr. Pike to do his job.”

  He couldn’t relax.

  “If the clone is going to know everything in my mind, doesn’t that mean he’ll immediately realize he’s a copy?” Jeremiah asked. “Won’t he remember everything that’s happened up to this moment? The agreement? Our conversations? All of it?”

  “I will make sure that doesn’t happen, Mr. Adams,” Pike said. “I’ll be connected to each of you so I can monitor everything that’s going into the clone’s mind. Everything will go from your mind, through me and into the clone. I’ll have full, precise control over the entire thing.”

  “When we implant the memories,” Scott added, “we can be as selective as we need to be. All the information about the cloning—every thought you’ve ever had about it—will be withheld from what we insert into his mind. We can filter it. Everything else will be preserved. He will wake up thinking he is—and always has been—Jeremiah Adams. He will remember leaving for work this morning, exactly as you do, and he will remember a car accident. It will all make perfect sense to him.”

  “A car accident?”

  “We needed some sort of reasonable explanation for the lapse in time,” Scott told him. “We will transfer him to a secluded room in a nearby hospital, which is where he will wake up. There needs to be a reason for that. We have someone taking care of the corresponding damage to your car as we speak.”

  “Damage? I’m still making payments on that car!”

  “It is unavoidable,” Scott said. “Stop worrying about the trivial.”

  “So, he’s going to remember something that never even happened?”

  “It’s a false memory,” Dr. Pike explained. “Something lifted from someone else.”

  Jeremiah was shocked. “You can do that? You can pick and choose what he’s going to remember?” A whole new set of worries seeped into his mind.

  “It is an amazing achievement, that little drug,” Scott said as though that were what Jeremiah had implied. “If we were so inclined, Mr. Adams, we could be just as selective with you. We could wipe out every memory you have of this whole arrangement and even you wouldn’t realize you’d been cloned. But, of course, that wouldn’t serve our needs for the project at all, would it? We need your mind intact.” He shot a tense smile at Jeremiah, which did little to lighten the weight of the insinuation. If Meld could be used to implant precise, tailored memories, the possibilities were endless. And sinister. It made his skin crawl.

  If the public had even an inkling of what Meld could actually do, the suicides would almost be beside the point.

  Meld had been fast-tracked from the start, and the medical community had gone giddy at the drug’s potential. The ability to actually see into a patient’s mind—even the somewhat foggy glimpse that Meld offered—had implications for all manner of physical and psychiatric mysteries. Jeremiah hadn’t been surprised at how quickly the drug had been accepted. It was a marvel. But had they seen the other edge of that sword, he wondered, or known what Meld was really for, would it have passed the initial trials? More to the point, he thought, would he have been so keen to help push it on the public?

  Charles Scott glared down at him with a glint in his green eyes that felt like a warning, and Jeremiah replayed in his head the man’s ambiguous threat during their first meeting several weeks before.

  “You now know as much about this project as anyone else involved,” he’d said. “It wouldn’t do to have too many people walking around with this kind of information. Our investors have a tendency to get nervous.”

  Although Scott had quickly followed that remark with the matter of Jeremiah’s substantial compensation, there was no mistaking the implication: the moment he’d been to
ld about the cloning project Jeremiah was already in. That first meeting hadn’t been an invitation so much as an orientation, and the contract he’d later signed had been a formality, at best. And the entire thing had done nothing but gain momentum from that moment on.

  Dr. Pike continued to affix the wires to Jeremiah’s head. Jeremiah focused on the man’s gleaming black hair and the deep brown of his sure, professional hands, and he struggled to remember the allure of the $10 million payout he’d get at the end of the whole thing. That kind of money could fix a lot of problems. It would change things. The prospect of that fortune had been enough to make him turn away from principles he thought were unshakable. Every man has his price, he supposed.

  Somewhere in the back of his mind he also acknowledged the real temptation of a twelve-month sabbatical from his own life. It had seduced him every bit as much as the money had. Maybe more. Between a job that had already begun to make him question his own morals, and a marriage that felt increasingly more like a lie, stress was eating him alive. And into his lap fell a chance to just walk away from all of it—without consequence and without blame. A free pass. He could simply walk away without anyone even knowing he was gone. There isn’t a man alive, he told himself, who would have refused. Despite the ethical question, despite that human cloning was illegal the world over, it would have tempted anyone.

  Dr. Pike injected the clone with Meld and then turned wordlessly to Jeremiah with the second syringe poised above his left shoulder.

  Jeremiah closed his eyes and rolled up his sleeve.

  After the initial stab of the needle, he felt nothing. Which is not to say he didn’t feel anything; he literally felt nothing. Seconds after the injection, he became aware of a total emptiness, like a towering black wave that threatened to sink him into an immeasurable void. The experience was unlike anything he’d ever known. He imagined an astronaut suddenly untethered from his ship, floating helplessly into unending darkness. Without thinking, he immediately felt his body recoil. His mind screamed against it.