The Mirror Man
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