Waiting by the front desk, Jeremiah was preoccupied with trying to act normal. He didn’t know why. He’d never seen this receptionist before. She didn’t know who he was. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d somehow give something away, ruin everything in the final moment. He stood there imagining an intricate scenario that involved her pressing some secret button under her desk and alerting the police that there was an imposter posing as a parent.
When Parker walked into the office, Jeremiah almost didn’t recognize him. The height he’d noticed the day before was more jarring up close. Parker was nearly as tall as he was now. He was dressed in torn jeans, a flannel shirt open over a light blue T-shirt and the ever-present earbuds around his neck. His reddish hair had grown shaggy, and Jeremiah noticed, maybe for the first time, that it was the exact same shade as Diana’s hair had been. To his dismay, there was the first hint of a mustache over Parker’s lip. He tried not to stare, but it wasn’t easy. Parker shrugged his shoulders and looked at Jeremiah with some agitation.
“What’s going on?” he asked sullenly. “I don’t have a doctor’s appointment today.”
“Yeah, it’s just your physical. They called right after you left. Must have been something Mom scheduled and didn’t tell me about.” Parker cast his eyes down slightly at the mention of his mother, and Jeremiah cringed. “She probably meant to tell me,” he said, his voice catching in his throat.
It had been so long since he’d spoken a single word to his son. He found it disgusting that the first thing he said to him was an outright lie.
“You know, Parker,” he said after a moment, “I know you miss your mother. I miss her, too. But I’m here for you. If you ever want to talk. You don’t have to go through this alone.”
“Whatever,” Parker said, and turned to leave. Jeremiah looked at the receptionist, who smiled and waved at him. It seemed she’d decided against pushing her secret button.
In the car, Parker slumped into the front seat, tossed his backpack into the back and grunted.
“You’re the one who needs the doctor’s appointment,” he said. “I didn’t cut off my own finger with a chain saw.” Jeremiah had wondered what story the clone would concoct. It sounded fishy and desperate to him. What would he possibly have needed a chain saw for first thing in the morning as he was leaving for work?
Halfway back to ViMed, Parker informed him this wasn’t the way to his doctor’s office.
“It’s a different doctor,” Jeremiah said. “A new guy.”
When they pulled into the complex, Parker was thoroughly confused.
“Isn’t this your office, Dad? What the hell?”
“Some new thing with the health insurance,” he told him. “Routine exams can be done right here at ViMed now for everyone in the family. It’s the best health care money can buy. A new perk—very high tech. Wait and see. It’s cool—like one of your video games.”
Parker shrugged. “Whatever,” he said. “How long is this going to take?”
“Not too long,” Jeremiah told him.
They walked through the front entrance, followed at a discreet distance by Scott and a lone security guard, and were met in the hallway by Dr. Pike.
“Good morning, Mr. Adams,” Pike said with a bit too much enthusiasm. “This must be Parker. Nice to meet you, young man. If you’ll both follow me.”
Parker looked at Jeremiah with a puzzled look. “That’s kind of weird,” he said. “We don’t even have to check in or anything? No waiting room?”
“Like I said, this is only for employees and families,” Jeremiah told him. “They aren’t exactly overbooked around here.”
He followed Dr. Pike and Parker into a small examination room and Parker climbed up on the table and stared at his father.
“You don’t have to stay, Dad,” he said. “I can take it from here. I’m not five, you know.”
“No, I’d rather stay,” he said. “In case the doctor here has any questions. Isn’t that right, Dr. Pike?” He wasn’t about to leave Parker alone with anyone.
“It’s customary for a parent to remain in the room during this part of the exam,” Pike said. “Nothing to worry about, young man. I assure you, this part is all routine. No embarrassing questions. I’ll save all of those for when your father is out of earshot.”
Parker stripped from the waist up and Pike began a typical check of his vitals.
“Am I going to need any shots?” Parker asked.
“I doubt it,” Pike said, and directed Parker to take a deep breath. “If you’re not up to date the scan will detect it.”
“What scan?”
Pike removed the stethoscope from his ears and opened the side door that led into the scanning room Jeremiah had entered so many months before. He directed the boy to take a seat in the hydraulic chair and Parker looked at him quizzically.
“What’s all this?” he asked. “This doesn’t very seem routine to me.”
“It is a high-velocity bio-scanner,” Pike explained. “ViMed created it. It is the only one like it in the world. In fact, you’re one of only a few people to ever use it. This machine can detect all manner of illness and disease right down to the cellular level. It even gives a full medical history. It can do the work of ten doctors in a fraction of the time. It’s quite safe. Nothing to worry about. Take a seat.”
He handed Parker a pair of dark glasses to guard against the lasers and told him to buckle up. Jeremiah tried to act unconcerned as Pike closed Parker in the room and he followed the doctor to a complicated panel of controls in an adjoining hallway. There were no windows between Parker and the control panel. He couldn’t see his son, but he could hear him clearly through a speaker system connecting the rooms.
“There will be a series of bright lights, Parker, and a lot of movement as the machine begins to scan your body. Remain still and don’t be alarmed.”
“Dad?”
“I’m here, Parker,” he said. “I can hear you. You okay in there?”
“What the hell is this thing? What’s this for? Do I have cancer or something?” The tinge of real fear in his son’s voice was alarming, and Jeremiah swallowed hard before answering.
“Oh, my God—no, Parker, you don’t have cancer! You’re fine. Everything’s fine. This is all just routine. I’m telling you, it’s nothing to be worried about. I’ve done this myself. It doesn’t hurt.”
About an hour later, Jeremiah steadied his son with a hand on his shoulder and they walked back into the adjoining examination room.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Jeremiah said, trying to sound as casual as he could.
“Not really,” Parker told him. He looked a bit pale. “Can we leave now? Can you just take me back to school?”
Jeremiah looked at Pike, who nodded quickly toward the door as he began looking through the test results.
“Yeah, we can go, Parker. But there’s only a few hours left of school. Why don’t you just take the day off? We can grab some lunch and you can spend a few hours with me at the office. I’ll show you around. It’s pretty cool.” He still had no clear idea of how he was going to explain all of this, how he was going to tell Parker he would never be going back to his school again. That he would never be going back to the life he knew again.
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.”
&nbs
p; 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,” the clone said. “Thanks, I guess. I’ll be home at the usual time. You sure you’re all right? You need to talk or anything? I have time.”
“Yeah, no, I’m all right,” Parker said, looking at Jeremiah again with an expression that entirely contradicted the remark. “I gotta go, though. I’ll see you tonight.”
“See you tonight.” The clone hung up the phone with a shrug. Parker let his own phone fall from his fingers and remained absolutely still.
“This is incredible,” he said. “I can’t believe it.”
“I know,” Jeremiah told him. “I know it is. You all right?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Parker looked at him with a thousand questions in his eyes. “Dad,” he finally said, his voice unusually hushed. “Dad, was Mom a clone, too? Was that a fake Mom in that car? Is Mom here somewhere?”
Jeremiah’s heart sank.
“No,” he told his son as gently as he could. “No, Parker. That was really Mom. I’m sorry.”
“How could you do something like this, Dad?” he asked after a moment. “Why did you do it?”
“I don’t know, Parker. I’m still trying to figure that one out. But in a strange way, despite all of it, part of me is glad I did. Because now things will be better. I missed the hell out of you, though. I can tell you that.” He put an arm around his son and gave him a quick kiss on top of his head and Parker didn’t even flinch.
“Better, how?” There was a hint of anger in Parker’s voice. Jeremiah could see he felt betrayed. He didn’t blame him.
“Not better,” Jeremiah said. “Different, maybe. Watching that clone, I got to see where I went wrong. I’ve made mistakes, Parker. A lot of mistakes. I wasn’t the best father to you, and that was wrong. I should have done better. I should have been more involved, paid more attention. Now, I will. I only wish I could do the same with your mother.”
Parker let his head fall.
“I know you’re angry, Parker,” Jeremiah said. “I know all of this is confusing and a lot to take in after what you’ve just been through. I’m angry, too. I wish your mother was still here. I wish a lot of things. But that’s why this whole thing has to end. Now. I couldn’t have you alone with the clone, after your mother and all. It had to end. We need each other.”
“So, now what?” Parker asked. “What did you say about starting a new life? About getting away from here?”
“Just me and you. We’re going to start fresh. Just the two of us.”
For a long minute, Parker said nothing, and he looked as if he were fighting off tears.
“Hey,” Jeremiah said, “I know you like this game Infinite Frontiers. I’ve been playing it a bit myself, you know. It’
s pretty cool. I want you to see my guy. He’s totally badass.”
With the remote, Jeremiah switched from the clone monitor to the new gaming console and the scene on the wall filled with the image of a simulated battlefield. As soon as Clyde materialized on the screen, larger than life, Jeremiah looked at his son, who was staring at the avatar with a look of complete bewilderment.
“You’re Clyde?” he asked. “That was you?”
Jeremiah nodded.
“I kept looking for you. You were never online again.”
“It was just that one time. It was sort of a fluke,” he said. “But yeah, that was me.”
“And you beat me,” Parker said. Some of the anger seemed to fade from the boy’s eyes.
“Only when you tripped over that land mine. I’m not anywhere near your level. Not yet, anyway.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Stupid move.”
Jeremiah smiled and bumped Parker’s shoulder with his own. “I’d have nailed you, anyway,” he said. “You want a rematch?”
Each of them put on their headgear and took a controller. Parker glanced at his father with some wariness and then back at the wall. For the next forty minutes the room vibrated with simulated bomb blasts and laser fire and it was only then, immersed in his own element, that Parker finally began to relax. More than anything Jeremiah had shown him or said, it seemed like it was playing the game that finally convinced him of the impossible. Jeremiah decided to let him win. As Parker wiped out Jeremiah’s last stronghold with a bright blue blast of plasma fire, Parker turned to his father and looked at him with an expression Jeremiah couldn’t read. But there was an element of trust in there, and something bordering on respect.
“This is insane,” Parker said finally. “I can’t believe you play Infinite Frontiers. And you’re good at it. You sure you’re not the clone?”
Charles Scott came into the room just as they turned off the game. He nodded to Jeremiah and held out a hand to Parker.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, young man. It’s nice to finally meet you.” Parker shook his hand with some uncertainty and then looked back at Jeremiah.
The Mirror Man Page 28
