Replica (Replica #1)(35)

Finally he looked away. “That’s why I ran,” he said. “I wanted to know whether we could be good for anything else. I wanted to try.” To her surprise, he smiled, just a little. “Besides, even roaches run away. Rats, too.”


They went through the guesthouse, looking for anything that would be useful. In a bedroom closet beneath extra pillows they found an old backpack, which they filled with the remaining granola bars and bottles of water, plus the bathroom things that Gemma had bought for them. Lyra knew they likely wouldn’t need soap but couldn’t stand to leave the pretty, paper-wrapped bars behind, so different from anything she’d ever owned.

Jake had left his cell phone charging in the corner and 72 took it, although they had no one to call. It excited Lyra to have it in their possession, to touch the screen and leave fingerprints there. Only people had cell phones.

They took knives from the kitchen, a blanket from the otherwise empty cabinet by the bed. She didn’t feel guilty about stealing from Jake and Gemma, who had helped them. She felt nothing at all. Maybe, she thought, the nurses had been right about replicas. Maybe they didn’t have souls.

By then the main house had gone dark. 72 suggested they turn the light off too, so in case Jake and Gemma were looking out for them, they would believe Lyra and 72 had gone to bed. They waited there, in the dark, for another twenty minutes just to be sure. They sat again on the sofa side by side, and Lyra thought of her dream of entanglement, all those inches and inches of exposed skin. She was glad he couldn’t see her.

Finally he touched her elbow. “It’s time,” he said. His face in the dark was different colors of shadow.

Outside, the sound of insects and tree frogs startled Lyra: a rhythmic and almost mechanical thrumming that recalled the throaty roar of Mr. I.

“Wait.” 72 nudged her. Gemma was curled up on a plastic deck chair, still wearing her clothes, using several colorful towels as blankets. Lyra was confused. Had she been watching them? Trying to make sure they didn’t escape? She couldn’t imagine why she would have otherwise chosen to sleep outside.

Before she could stop him, 72 was already moving closer, stepping very carefully. Lyra followed him with a growing sense of unease. Gemma’s face in the moonlight looked so much like Cassiopeia’s, she wanted to reach out and lay a hand on Gemma’s chest, to feel her breathing and believe Cassiopeia had come back to life. But she didn’t, obviously.

Lying next to Gemma on the pool deck was an open notebook. A pen had rolled into the binding. As always Lyra was drawn to the words scribbled across the page. They appeared to glow faintly in the moonlight. Gemma’s writing, she thought, was very beautiful. The words reminded her of bird tracks, of birds themselves, pecking their way proudly across the page.

Then a familiar name caught her attention: Emily Huang. Nurse Em.

She placed a finger on the page, mouthing the words written directly beneath the name. Palm Grove. The words meant nothing to her. There were other names on the page, all of them unfamiliar except for Dr. Saperstein’s, which was joined by a small notation to the Home Foundation. She didn’t know what that was, either, but beneath it was at last another word she recognized: Gainesville. This, she knew, was a place. A big place. Jake and Gemma had argued about whether they should be getting off at the highway exit to Gainesville and Jake had said, No one wants to go to Gainesville, and then Gemma had said, Except the half a million people who live there. She figured that Palm Grove might be a place, too.

She took the notebook. Jake had taken the file folder she’d stolen, so it was a fair trade. She straightened up and saw that 72 was rifling through Gemma’s bag to get to her wallet. She grabbed his shoulder, shaking her head. Once, years ago, Don’t-Even-Think-About-It’s wallet had been stolen from the mess hall, and she remembered how terrible it was, how all the replicas’ beds were searched and their cubbies turned out, how Don’t-Even-Think-About-It was in a foul mood for days and backhanded Lyra for looking at her wrong. They had found it, finally, in a hole torn out of the underside of Ursa Major’s mattress, along with all the other things she’d scavenged over the years: dirty socks and a lost earring, ferry tokens, soda can tabs, gum wrappers.

But she couldn’t speak without risking waking Gemma, and even as she watched he removed a wedge of money from her wallet and, pocketing it, returned the wallet to her purse. Lyra put back the notebook anyway. She wasn’t likely to forget Palm Grove.

They scaled the gate because they didn’t know how to make it work and, once they were on the other side, on a street made liquid dark and shiny by the streetlights, began to walk. Bound on either side by houses with their hedges and gates, Lyra did not feel so afraid. But soon they reached a road that stretched blackly into the empty countryside, and she felt a kind of terror she associated with falling: so much space, more space than she’d ever imagined.

Only then did Lyra speak. They’d gone too far to be heard by anyone. Besides, she hated the emptiness of the road and the streetlamps bent silently over their work, like tall arms planted in the earth.

“I know someone who can help us,” she said. Their feet crunched on the gravel at the side of the road. Now she was grateful for the tree frogs. At least they were company.

“Help us?” 72 tilted his head back to look at the sky and the stars spread above them. She couldn’t tell whether he was frightened, but she doubted it. He didn’t seem afraid of anything. Even dying. Maybe he’d just had time to get used to it. She had known that replicas were frailer than real people, more prone to illness, sicklier and smaller. But on some level she’d believed that at Haven, she might be safe.