Replica (Replica #1)(31)

But Lyra had only been wondering at all her freedoms, at the fact that Gemma knew how to shop and get food and clothing. Wherever she’d been made, she must have lived for most of her life among real people.

“You need to eat,” Gemma said firmly, and seemed surprised—and pleased—when Lyra took the bowl and spoon and began to eat so quickly she burned the roof of her mouth. She didn’t even bother sitting down, both thrilled and disturbed by the fact that there was no one to yell at her or tell her to keep her seat.

“Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies,” Jake said out loud, still bending over his computer. “That’s a category of disease. Mad cow is a TSE.”

“Okay.” Gemma drew out the last syllable. “But what does that mean?” She went to sit next to Jake on the couch, and Lyra licked the bowl clean, after making sure neither of them was looking. Jake kept turning his soda can, adjusting it so that the small square napkin beneath it was parallel to the table’s edge.

“I don’t know.” Jake scrubbed his forehead with a hand and fixed his laptop so this, too, was parallel. “There are just references to it in the report.”

Lyra saw that next to Jake’s computer was the file she’d stolen from Haven. She set her bowl down on the table with a clatter. “You—you shouldn’t be looking at that,” she said.

“Why not?” Jake raised an eyebrow. “You stole it, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Lyra said evenly. “But that’s different.”

“It’s not like they’ll miss it now. The whole place is an ash heap.”

In Lyra’s head, she saw all of Haven reduced to a column of smoke. Sometimes the bodies that burned came back to Haven in the form of smoke, in a sweet smell that tickled the back of the throat. The nurses hated it, but Lyra didn’t.

“Jake,” Gemma said.

He shrugged. “Sorry. But it’s true.”

He was right, obviously. She couldn’t possibly get in trouble now for stealing the file or allowing someone else to see it—at least, no more trouble than she was already in. Jake went back to thumping away at the computer. Gemma reached out and drew the file onto her lap. Lyra watched her puzzle over it, frowning. Maybe Gemma couldn’t read?

But after a minute, Gemma said, “Lyra, do you know what this means? It says the patient—the replica, I mean”—she looked up as though for approval, and Lyra nodded—“was in the yellow cluster.”

The yellow cluster. The saddest cluster of all. Lyra remembered all those tiny corpses with their miniature yellow bracelets, all of them laid out for garbage collection. The nurses had come through wearing gloves and masks that made them look like insects, double wrapping the bodies, disposing of them.

“The Yellows died,” she said, and Gemma flinched. “There were about a hundred of them, all from the younger crops. Crops,” she went on, when Gemma still looked confused, “separate the different generations. But colors are for clusters. So I’m third crop, green cluster.” She held up her bracelet, where everything was printed neatly. Gen-3, TG-GR. Generation 3, Testing Group Green. She didn’t understand why Gemma looked sick to her stomach. “They must have made a mistake with the Yellows. Sometimes they did that. Made mistakes. The Pinks died, too.”

“They all died?” Jake asked.

Lyra nodded. “They got sick.”

“Oh my God.” Gemma brought a hand to her mouth. She seemed sad, which Lyra didn’t understand. Gemma didn’t know anyone in the yellow cluster. And they were just replicas. “It says here she was only fourteen months.”

Lyra almost pointed out that the youngest had died when she was only three or four months, but didn’t.

“You said colors are for clusters,” Jake said slowly. “But clusters of what?”

Lyra shrugged. “There are different clusters, and we all get different variants.”

“Variants of what?” he pressed.

Lyra didn’t know, exactly, but she wasn’t going to admit it. “Medicine,” she said firmly, hoping he wouldn’t ask her anything more.

Gemma sucked in a deep breath. “Look, Jake. It’s signed by Dr. Saperstein, just like you said.”

“Dr. Saperstein is in charge of the growth of new crops of replicas,” Lyra said. Despite the fact that she was still annoyed at Jake and Gemma for looking at the file—the private file, her file—she moved closer to the couch, curious to know what they were doing. “He signs all the death certificates.” Beneath his was a second signature, a name she knew well. Nurse Em had been one of the nicer ones: Nurse Em had taken care when inserting the needles, to make sure it wouldn’t hurt; she had sometimes told jokes. “Nurse Em signed, too.”

“Nurse Em.” Gemma closed her eyes and leaned back.

“Holy shit,” Jake said, and Gemma opened her eyes again, giving Jake a look Lyra couldn’t decipher.

“Nurse Em was one of the nicest ones. But she left,” Lyra said. An old memory surfaced. She was alone in a hallway, watching Dr. O’Donnell and Nurse Em through a narrow crack in a door. Dr. O’Donnell had her hands on Nurse Em’s shoulders and Nurse Em was crying. “Think of what’s right, Emily,” Dr. O’Donnell said. “You’re a good person. You were just in over your head.” But then Nurse Em had wrenched away from her, knocking over a mop, and Lyra had backed quickly away from the door before Nurse Em barreled through it.