The Mirror Man

by Jane Gilmartin

  “I’m sorry to wake you, Mr. Adams.” Scott stepped inside and the door closed slowly behind him. “I’m afraid something has happened.”

  Jeremiah rubbed at his eyes and yawned.

  Scott put two fingers to Jeremiah’s elbow and decisively led him to the couch. Jeremiah sat down and tried to shake the sleep from his head.

  Scott scrutinized him with narrowed eyes and inhaled deeply through his nose before speaking. “I have terrible news,” he said. “Your wife, Diana, was in a car crash about an hour ago. I’m afraid she didn’t survive.”

  Jeremiah stared up at Scott blankly and tried to determine whether he was actually fully awake. He couldn’t comprehend the words. They made no sense to him. He couldn’t connect them with any kind of truth. He had written the note. He had warned his clone. He had saved her. He had made a difference.

  Diana.

  “Did you hear what I said, Mr. Adams? Your wife was killed in a car accident tonight.”

  “Parker...” Jeremiah started to rise up from the couch before falling back down again.

  “She was driving alone. Your son is safe at home with the clone.”

  Jeremiah shuddered at those words. There was no such thing as safe anymore.

  “An hour ago? In the middle of the night? Where was she going in the middle of the night? What happened?”

  “The accident occurred just a few blocks from your home,” Scott told him. “We don’t know whether she was coming home or going away. There were no other cars involved. Apparently, she lost control and went off an embankment. She was pronounced dead at the scene. We’re still trying to piece together the information. You know about as much as I do at this point, I’m afraid.”

  Jeremiah fell silent again as the news took shape in his mind. There should have been rage. He should have lunged toward Charles Scott and strangled him where he stood. But all he could feel in that moment was a horrifying sensation of falling, of being engulfed. Hot tears began to sting the back of his eyelids. He didn’t know how to react to this. He buried his face in his hands and pushed hard against his forehead and temples to keep from crying outright. None of this made any sense.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Adams. If I could have foreseen all this tragedy happening in your life in these few months... Well...we never know what the Fates have in store for us, do we?”

  Jeremiah almost welcomed the anger those words began to coax from him. Fate? This was murder! But his shock and a sudden shred of senseless hope pushed it down again.

  “Are you sure about this?” he asked. “I mean, are they sure it was her? Maybe it was some sort of mistake. How do you even know? I mean, unless you were watching her, how do you know?”

  “We’re sure,” Scott said, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. “We have safeguards in place so that we are warned about things such as this. I’m sorry.”

  “She was only forty-six, for Christ’s sake. She can’t be dead.”

  “I know. It’s a terrible loss. Terrible.”

  “You’re planning to let me out now, right?” Jeremiah looked the older man hard in the eyes. “I mean...this experiment is over. It’s done now.”

  “Right now, Mr. Adams, I would like to turn on the viewer. The police should be arriving at your home to inform the clone. Dr. Young thinks it’s important that you experience this in real time. I want to make certain that happens.”

  Jeremiah looked up at the wall without words as an image appeared of his double switching on the hallway light and opening the front door. He was dressed, like Jeremiah, in a bathrobe, his hair messy and his face tired. Two uniformed police officers, one male, one female, stood on the front steps, hats in their hands in front of them.

  “Jeremiah Adams?” the woman asked, turning the volume down on a radio hooked to her belt.

  “Yes.”

  “Is your wife Diana Adams?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sir, I am Officer Mahoney, this is Officer Towle. May we come in?”

  The clone opened the door wider and stepped aside to give them entry. Jeremiah noted the clone’s eyes darting nervously back and forth, from one officer to the other, and his face grew markedly paler. Police holding hats in the middle of the night will do that to a man, he thought, even to a copy of a man.

  “Sir, we regret to inform you that your wife was killed in a car crash tonight on Route 18, about an hour ago.”

  On hearing the words, the clone instantly wobbled, as though his knees had given out, and the male officer caught him by the arm and gently led him to a nearby chair. Jeremiah felt hot waves of renewed pain sweep over him, as though hearing it from the police somehow made it more real. As a man, he and his double hung their heads and lifted identical hands to their eyes. Scott, quite out of character, tentatively touched Jeremiah’s shoulder. He shrugged violently to be rid of that treacherous hand.

  “What happened?” the clone asked weakly. “What do you mean a car crash? Where?”

  “Just down the street, sir,” the male officer told him. “It looks like the car lost control, went off an embankment and hit a tree.”

  On the screen, the female officer handed the clone a card. “I’m afraid you’ll need to identify the body at this address,” she said. “We could take you now, or you could go in the morning if you prefer. There’s no rush, sir.”

  “N-no, no,” the clone stammered. “My son is asleep upstairs. I’ll go in the morning.”

  “I’m very sorry for your loss,” she said, and her sincerity showed in her face. “You can reach me or Officer Towle at the station if there’s anything you need. If you have any questions. Anything at all.”

  “Yes, of course. Yes. Thank you.”

  They let themselves out the front door, closing it softly behind them, and left the clone sitting, half-slumped, in shocked disbelief.

  “Turn it off,” Jeremiah said.

  “Are you sure, Mr. Adams? The clone may be about to speak to your son. You’d want to see that, I think.”

  “No. I don’t want to see it. What I want is to be there with my son. Turn it off. Just turn it off.”

  He did, and without another word, Charles Scott left the apartment. The door closed slowly but absolutely behind him. Jeremiah didn’t even look up.

  Chapter 30

  He remained on the couch, unmoving, wondering how it could have happened. Not just Diana, but everything. How could his life have come so undone in such a short span of time? How could he have let that happen? For forty-seven years, it seemed, his world had moved steadily, mostly in a predictable straight line, everything happening pretty much as expected. There were hurdles and hiccups, but nothing he couldn’t see beyond, nothing without an answer. What was it about him, he wondered now, that had so easily swayed him to leave? What kind of weakness was that? What kind of selfishness? How could he pick up the pieces now? How was he supposed to walk back in? What was he supposed to do?

  In a way, since this whole thing began, right up to this moment, he’d been able to pretend all of it was happening to someone else. He could look up at that screen and almost convince himself the clone was a different, separate person. But not now. Now he felt buried under all of it. The weight of his own ruined life was crushing. His own blame in that was overwhelming. So, he sat there, unable to move, and wondering why he wasn’t sobbing.

  Sometime around 6:00 a.m. Natalie Young knocked once and then came in through the door in his living room. She was dressed in a neat red dress with matching heels, her white lab coat unbuttoned over this, and her hair pulled back in its usual tight knot. She looked every bit as though the world was still exactly as it ought to be. She took a seat across from him, pulling up the chair and sitting on its edge, so that her knees were almost touching his. She waited a few minutes in silence, looking at him with pursed lips and a cool, somewhat studious expression.

  “Oh, Jere
miah,” she said at last, and left it at that.

  “I don’t want to talk right now.”

  “I think we need to.”

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  He stood up then, tightened the belt around his bathrobe again and walked into the kitchen without looking at her. He switched on the light and busied himself with the coffeemaker, measuring French roast with slow, purposeful movements, and filling the carafe with water from the refrigerator dispenser. He laid the preparations on the counter, and closed his eyes, breathing deeply, putting his hands before him to steady himself. After a moment, she followed him, and stared at his back until he finally turned around.

  “Talk to me, Jeremiah. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  He was silent. She didn’t want to know what he was thinking.

  “I need to make sure you’re coping with all of this. I need to make sure you’re all right.”

  “No.”

  “We could take the Meld. I can see it that way, if that would be easier for you than talking right now.”

  “I’m not taking the Meld. I’ve taken too much of that stuff already. And the last time it was twice in one day. I don’t like letting you peer into me like that.” He hesitated just a moment and looked her hard in the eye. “I don’t think you understand what you’re seeing,” he told her. “I think you made mistakes.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked. Jeremiah thought he detected a hint of apprehension in her voice.

  “I think you should go, Natalie,” he said, turning back to his coffee. “Please. Just go.”

  “Mr. Higgins will be here soon,” she told him. “Talk to him. I’ll see you tomorrow, Jeremiah, for our scheduled session. Please try to get some rest today. If you need me, let me know.”

  He said nothing and watched her walk out the door. Without conscious thought, in sure, robotic motion, he got himself showered and dressed. When he came back out to the living room, Brent handed him coffee and motioned him to the couch without a word.

  “I told you. I tried to tell you,” Jeremiah said.

  “I know.”

  “You didn’t listen.”

  “I know.”

  “She was my wife. What am I supposed to do now? This isn’t even my own life I’ll be going back to anymore. Everything’s just so fucked up now.”

  “I know.”

  “And Parker. Jesus. What happens to Parker?” Jeremiah could hardly get the words out. He didn’t even try to hide the tears on his cheeks. He just let himself cry. Brent put a hand firmly on his shoulder and said nothing. After a moment, Jeremiah wiped his eyes roughly and pulled himself together enough to speak again. “Parker is alone with that clone now. He needs his father. He needs his real father.”

  “I get that,” Brent said. “But they’re not going to let you go.”

  “They have to. This is finished. I am not leaving my son alone with that thing.”

  “He’s not alone. For all Parker knows he’s with his father. He’s going through this with you. I mean, Parker doesn’t know the difference. He’s okay for now.”

  “What do you mean?” Jeremiah stared at Brent. “He’s not okay. Nothing is okay. Don’t you get that by now, Brent? Don’t you understand? I have to do something.”

  “Let’s play a game of IF,” Brent said, out of left field.

  “What? I don’t want to play the fucking game, Brent. Just go, will you? I want to be alone.”

  “I think it will help,” he persisted, and proceeded to turn on the controllers and the headsets.

  “How the hell is that going to help? You’re crazy!”

  “It’ll be a diversion. Come on. Just one quick game. Please? Humor me.” Brent’s eyes were fixed on Jeremiah, his mouth tensed in a straight line across his face, urging him to accept. “Please.” Something in his eyes was deadly serious. “I want to help you.”

  Reluctantly, Jeremiah took the headset and put it on. The wall in front of them morphed into an image of the virtual battlefield, fixed at the precise point they’d left it several days before. Brent didn’t touch the avatar but began typing a message with his controller. Jeremiah watched as words appeared on the sidebar.

  Type. Don’t talk. Natalie told me she saw something under the Meld. She saw that someone out there knew.

  Knew what?

  That it wasn’t you.

  Diana didn’t know.

  Are we sure? Maybe she did know. Maybe what she said was true.

  Diana didn’t know. It wasn’t her.

  Who, then?

  Doesn’t matter.

  Who?

  Louie.

  Dog?

  Yes. He knows. He knew from the first day.

  She must have seen that. She must have thought it was Diana. Then they saw the tape, heard what she said. I should have listened to you. I should have helped you. I’m sorry.

  Jeremiah didn’t type a reply. A dread washed over him as Brent’s words sunk in. He read them over again, then took his headgear off and laid it gently on the table in front of him. He walked out, through the bedroom and into the bathroom, where he thought he might vomit. He was shaking, and his reflection in the mirror was ashy. He steadied himself against the sink and breathed in and out slowly, trying to settle his churning stomach.

  All of this was his own fault. He’d been so smug, so self-righteous, trying to keep secrets from them. It was impossible to keep a secret under the Meld. From his suspicions about Charles Scott—his illness, the fact that he’d released Meld to fund his personal clone—to the emails he’d read about the army’s involvement, it was all there in his head. The Meld just distorted all of that, mixed it up and spit it back to her as vague red flags.

  And Louie, he thought. Why had he held on to that so hard? Like it was some twisted trophy, as though it were the last remaining vestige of his own identity. He’d been a fool to think it mattered, arrogant to think he could keep it hidden. It wasn’t the clone who’d destroyed his life. It wasn’t Charles Scott, even. He’d done it himself.

  And Parker was out there. Under their scrutiny. Unprotected. Alone.

  Brent began knocking at the bathroom door. “Are you all right?”

  Jeremiah turned on the shower full blast, hoping that would get rid of him, and said nothing. Brent eventually stopped knocking.

  The mirror began to fog over, and Jeremiah wiped at it with the sleeve of his shirt and studied his own face in the swath he cleared. He looked old. He looked tired. He looked different than he had when this whole thing had started several months before, and not just physically. He wasn’t the same man he saw on that monitor every day. He was separate. He was different. He was changed. And something in him welcomed it, accepted it, for better or worse.

  For a few startling minutes Jeremiah seriously considered the idea of killing Charles Scott.

  Never in his life had he been prone to violent thoughts, but they came easily to him in that moment. He imagined strangling the man with his bare hands, delighting in the agonized contortions of his face as he gasped for air and realized he was dying. The man was evil. He deserved it. And part of Jeremiah longed for that revenge, so much so, that his hands balled into tight fists as he considered it. But another part of him, a surprisingly logical part, understood that this wasn’t the answer. He stared into his own eyes and, with considerable effort, reined in his anger. If he killed Scott, he went to jail. Or worse. And that would leave Parker alone with that clone, helpless under the scrutiny of these people. Jeremiah couldn’t allow that, no matter how much he wanted Scott dead. This wasn’t about what he wanted. This was about Parker. This was all about Parker.

  He was going to get out of here. He was going to get to his son. And if they wouldn’t let him out, he’d find a way to break out. If they wouldn’t let him trade places with the clone, he would have to take the clone’s pla
ce. He knew that. Looking at his reflection, he realized he would have to do something drastic. For once in his goddamn, miserable excuse of a life, he would have to take action. No more halfhearted attempts. He would make his own decisions, take control and create his own ending.

  Chapter 31

  Day 162

  Jeremiah was going to kill his clone.

  Somehow.

  He lived quietly with that knowledge for several hours, growing into it, getting comfortable. He rolled the words over on his tongue, becoming familiar with their shape: Kill. Murder. Dead. He allowed himself ample opportunity to back out, to change his mind, but even when he looked for a reason not to do it, he couldn’t find one. This was the only way. As the idea took root in him, it became more focused and seemed to give him purpose. He saw it like a shield, solid protection against anything else this experiment could throw at him.

  They had largely left him alone after the news about Diana. Apparently, the abbreviated viewing with Charles Scott would count as the full four hours for the day. Even Brent had disappeared by the time Jeremiah had finally come out of the bathroom, and he used the solitude to formulate a plan. He wanted to research all the various ways a person could be murdered, to find the cleanest, most reliable method. But he knew they’d certainly be monitoring his internet use. Googling murder probably wasn’t the best idea. Instead, he played IF on his own, morphing into his avatar, steeling himself for the task taking shape in his mind. He tried to think like Clyde, to push away every trace of sympathetic thought. Clyde wouldn’t think twice about killing that clone. He probably would have done it a long time ago. Brent had left a final message on the sidebar of his screen: I’ll be there tomorrow. Keep quiet. Stay calm. I’m going to help you.

  Eventually, he realized, he’d have to tell Brent what he was planning to do. The only conceivable way out of here would be with his help. And Brent knew the truth. He could be convinced. Maybe.

  It would prove difficult, he knew, to hide his state of mind from Natalie Young. But he had the motivation he needed to do it. He’d have to concentrate, lock his intentions away in some dark corner of his mind and just fake his way through their conversations.