Replica (Replica #1)(24)

72 took a quick step forward. “You have food?”

The boy looked to Cassiopeia’s genotype, and she made a quick, impatient gesture with her hand. He shrugged out of his backpack and squatted to unzip it. Lyra had never had the chance to observe two males so close together, and noticed he moved differently from 72. His movements were slow, as if his whole body hurt. 72 moved with a quickness that seemed like an attack. “Sorry. We didn’t bring much.”

72 came forward cautiously. He snatched up a granola bar and a bottle of water and then backtracked quickly. 72 tore open the granola bar with his teeth, spitting out the wrapper, and began to eat. He kept his eyes on the boy—Jake—the whole time, and Lyra knew that he was worried the boy might try to take it back from him. But Jake only watched him.

72 opened the water, drank half of it, and then passed it to Lyra without removing his eyes from Jake. “Drink,” he said. “You’ll feel better.”

She hadn’t realized how raw her throat felt until she drank, washing away some of the taste of ash and burning. She wished that Jake and Cassiopeia’s replica would leave so that she could go back to sleep. At the same time, she was worried about what the morning would bring when they found themselves alone on the marshes again, with no food, nothing to drink, nowhere to go.

“Look.” The boy was talking to Lyra. Maybe he’d decided she was easier to talk to. Maybe he hadn’t forgotten that 72 had a knife. “I know you must be tired—you’ve been through—I don’t even know what you’ve been through . . .”

“Jake . . .” Cassiopeia’s replica pressed her hand to her eyes.

“They’ve been living in Haven, Gemma,” the boy said quickly. “My father died for this. I need to know.”

Father. The word sent a curious tremor up Lyra’s spine, as if she’d been tapped between her vertebrae. So Lyra was right about him: he was natural-born.

“Jake, no.” Cassiopeia’s replica—the boy had said her name was Gemma, Lyra remembered now—looked and sounded like one of the nurses. Jake fell silent. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “I literally don’t believe you. These poor people have been through God knows what—they’re starving and cold and they have no place to go—and you want to interview them—”

“I don’t want to interview them. I want to understand.”

Lyra took another sip of water, swallowing despite the pain. “Not people,” she said, because the girl had been nice to them and she thought it was worth correcting her.

Gemma turned to stare at Lyra. “What?”

“We’re not people,” Lyra said. “You said, ‘These poor people have been through god knows what.’ But we’re replicas. God didn’t make us. Dr. Saperstein did. He’s our god.” She stopped herself from pointing out that Gemma, too, must have been made by someone, even if she didn’t know it.

Gemma kept staring, until Lyra finally felt uncomfortable and looked down at her hands. Had she said the wrong thing again? But she was just reciting what she knew to be true, what everyone had always told her.

Finally Gemma spoke again. Her voice was much softer now. “We should camp here for the night,” she said. For an instant, she even sounded like Dr. O’Donnell. “We’ll go back to Wahlee in the morning.”

“We’re not going anywhere with you,” 72 said quickly. Lyra was surprised to hear him say we. She had never been a we. Maybe he’d only confused the word, the way she still confused I and it sometimes.

“No,” Gemma said. “No, you don’t have to go with us. Not unless you want to.”

“Why would we want to?” 72 asked. In the dark he was all hard angles, like someone hacked out of shadow. Now Lyra wasn’t sure whether he was ugly or not. His face kept changing, and every time the light fell on it differently he looked like a new person.

Cassiopeia’s replica didn’t blink. “You can’t plan on staying here forever. You have no money. No ID. You’re not even supposed to exist. And there will be people looking for you.”

The girl was right. You’re not even supposed to exist. Lyra knew the truth of these words, even though she wasn’t sure exactly what they meant. Hadn’t that been the point of the guards and the fences? To keep the replicas safe, and secret, and protected? Everyone who had known them had despised them. You’re not supposed to exist. Wasn’t that what the nurses were always saying? That they were monsters and abominations? All except Nurse Em, all those years ago, and Dr. O’Donnell. But both of them had gone away.

Everyone went away, in the end.

“Can I have more water?” she asked, and so somehow it was decided. 72 turned to look at her with an expression she couldn’t read, but she was too tired to worry about him and what he thought and whether they were making the right decision.

Neither of the strangers wanted to sleep near Cassiopeia’s body, so they moved instead through the thick patch of hobble-backed trees and tall grasses streaked with bird guano, leaving the corpse behind. Lyra didn’t understand it. She liked being near to Cassiopeia’s body. It was comforting. She could imagine she was back at Haven, even, that she and Cassiopeia were just lying in separate cots across the narrow space that divided them.

Gemma, the girl, suggested she try a soda. Lyra had never had soda before. At Haven, the vending machines were for the staff only, although sometimes the nurses took pity on the younger replicas and gave them coins from the vending machines to play with, to roll or flip or barter. Her first impression was that it was much, much too sweet. But she felt better after a few sips, less nauseous. Her hands were steadier, too.