Replica (Replica #1)(32)
But that couldn’t have been a real memory—she remembered a janitor’s closet but that couldn’t be right, not when the nurses and doctors had break rooms. And Nurse Em had been crying—but why would Dr. O’Donnell have made Nurse Em cry?
“Let me see that.” Jake took the file from Gemma and leaned over the computer again. Lyra liked watching the impression of his fingers on the keys, the way a stream of letters appeared as though by magic on the screen, far too fast for her to read. Click. Click. Click. The screen was now full of tiny type, photographs, diagrams. It was dizzying. She couldn’t even tell one letter from another. “This report—all of this terminology, TSEs and neural decay and protein folding—it’s all about prions.”
“Prions?” Gemma said. She’d clearly never heard the word before, and Lyra was glad that for once she wasn’t the one who was confused.
“Bacteria, viruses, fungi, and prions,” Jake said, squinting at the screen. “Prions are infectious particles. They’re proteins, basically, except they’re folded all wrong.”
“Replicas are full of prions,” Lyra said, proud of herself for knowing this. The doctors had never said so directly, but she had paid attention: at Haven, there was very little to do but listen. That was the purpose of the spinal taps and all the harvesting—to remove tissue samples to test for prion penetration. Often when replicas died they were dissected, their bones drilled open, for the same reason. She knew that prions were incredibly important—Dr. Saperstein was always talking about engineering prions to be better and faster-acting—but she didn’t know what they were, exactly.
Jake gave her a funny look, as if he had swallowed a bad-tasting medicine.
“I still don’t get it,” Gemma said. “What do prions do?”
He read out loud: “‘Prion infectivity is present at high levels in brain or other central nervous system tissues, and at slightly lower levels in the spleen, lymph nodes, bone marrow. . . .’ Wait. That’s not it. ‘If a prion enters a healthy organism, it induces existing, properly folded proteins to convert into the disease-associated, misfolded prion form. In that sense, they are like cloning devices.’” He looked up at Gemma, and then looked quickly down again. “‘The prion acts as a template to guide the misfolding of more proteins into prion form, leading to an exponential increase of prions in the central nervous system and subsequent symptoms of prion disease. This can take months or even years.’” He put a hand through his hair again and Lyra watched it fall, wondering whether 72’s hair would grow out now, whether it would fall just the same way. “‘Prion disease is spread when a person or animal ingests infected tissue, as in the case of bovine SE, or mad cow disease. Prions may also contaminate the water supply, given the presence of blood or other secretions. . . .’”
“So prions are a kind of disease?” Gemma asked.
“The bad kind of prions are disease,” Jake said quietly.
“That can’t be right,” Lyra said. She was having trouble following everything that Jake was saying, but she knew that there, at least, he was wrong. She knew that replicas were physically inferior to normal humans—the cloning process was still imperfect, and they were vulnerable. That was the word the doctors and nurses always used when they lined up vitamins and pills, sometimes a dozen in a row. But she’d always thought—and she didn’t know why she’d thought this, but she knew it had to do with things overheard, sensed, and implied—that prions were good. She’d always had the impression that this was a single way in which replicas were superior to humans: their tissue was humming with prions that could be extracted from them.
She felt a curious tickle at the back of her throat, almost as if she had to sneeze. Sweat prickled in her armpits.
Jake wouldn’t look at her. She was used to that.
“Listen to this.” Jake had pulled up new writing—so many lines of text Lyra felt vaguely suffocated. How many words could there possibly be? “Google Saperstein and prions and an article comes up from back in the early 1990s. Saperstein was speaking at a conference about biological terrorism. ‘Chemical weapons and viral and bacterial agents are problematic. Our soldiers risk exposure even as the weapons are deployed against our enemies. War is changing. Our enemies are changing, growing radicalized and more diverse. I believe the future of biological warfare lies in the isolation of a faster-acting prion that can be distributed via food supply chains.’” Jake was sweating. And Lyra had been sweating too, but now she was cold all over. It felt like she had to use the bathroom, but she couldn’t move. “‘We might cripple terrorist groups by disseminating doctored medications and vaccinations, which will be unknowingly spread by health care workers in dangerous and remote environments immune to normal modes of attack.
“‘All known prion diseases in mammals affect the structure of the brain or other neural tissue and all are currently untreatable and universally fatal. Imagine’”— Jake was barely whispering—“‘terrorist cells or enemy insurgents unable to think, walk, or speak. Paralyzed or exterminated.’”
“Oh my God,” Gemma said. She brought a hand to her lips. “That’s awful.”
From nowhere a vision came to Lyra of a vast, dust-filled field, and thousands of bodies wrapped in dark paper like the Yellows had been, still and silent under a pale-blue sky.