Replica (Replica #1)(39)
It was better to ride in a bus than in a car. It made her less nauseous. But still the world outside her window seemed to go by with dizzying speed, and there was ever more of it: highways rising up over new towns and then falling away into other highways; stretches of blank land burned by the sun into brownness; building and building and building, like an endless line of teeth. After an hour she spotted a monstrous coil of plastic rising into the air, twisting and snakelike and vivid blue, and an enormous billboard tacked into the ground announced Bluefin and Water Park, and several other words between them she didn’t have time to read.
They passed a parking lot glittering with cars and people, natural humans: children brown from the sun, only half-dressed and carting colorful towels, men and women herding them toward the entrance. She saw a mother crouching in front of a girl red in the face from crying, touching her face with a tissue—but the bus was moving too quickly and soon a line of trees ran across her vision, obscuring it.
The driver announced Palm Grove and stopped the bus in front of a run-down motel named the Starlite. Lyra had been imagining a grid of houses in pastel shades, like the neighborhood they’d left in the middle of the night. But Palm Grove was big: big roads with two lanes of traffic, restaurants and gas stations, clothing stores and places to buy groceries. Signs shouted at them from every corner. Milk, 3.99. Guys and Dolls, Albert Irving Auditorium, Saturday. One-Hour Parking Monday through Saturday. She didn’t even see any houses, and she counted at least a dozen people on the streets, passing in and out of shops, talking on phones. It was so hot it felt like being inside a body, beneath the skin of something, filmy and slick. How many humans could possibly be here, in one town?
“And now what?” 72 said. He’d been in a bad mood all morning, ever since she had asked him why he had the scars on his forearms, which were different from the scars she and the other replicas had, the ones from spinal taps and harvesting procedures—all of it, she knew now, to test how deep the prions had gone, how fast they were cloning themselves, how soon the replicas would die.
He had only said accident, and had barely spoken to her on the bus. Instead he had sat with his chin on his chest, his arms folded, his eyes shut. She had counted fourteen scars, four on his right and ten on his left. She had noticed a small mole on his earlobe, had felt a secret thrill at sitting so close after years of seeing no male replicas at all.
“Trust me,” Lyra said, which was what the nurses always said. Shhh. Trust me. Just a little pinch. Stop with that noise. Trust me, it’ll all be over soon.
Lyra worked up the courage to stop the first person she saw who looked to be about her age. The girl was sitting on the curb in front of a store called Digs and was bent over her cell phone, typing on it. When she looked up, Lyra saw that she was wearing makeup and was vaguely surprised—she’d somehow thought makeup was for older humans, like the nurses. “Hello,” she said. “We’re looking for Emily Huang.”
“Emily Huang.” The girl looked Lyra up and down, and then her eyes went to 72. She straightened up, giving him a smile that reminded Lyra of the actresses the nurses used to watch on TV and look at in magazines they left lying around sometimes. Lyra didn’t like it, and she was for the first time aware of the difference between her body and this girl’s. This girl was all curves and prettiness, all smooth skin and beautiful solidity and long, flowing hair. Lyra, in her drab clothing and her sharp bones and the scar above her eyebrow, thought of that word again, ugly. “Emily Huang,” the girl repeated. “She go to Wallace?”
“I—I don’t think so.” Lyra suddenly wished they hadn’t stopped.
“Sorry.” The girl did look sorry, but she kept her eyes on 72. “Don’t know her.” Then she turned and gave Lyra a smile that wasn’t friendly—more like she’d just eaten something she shouldn’t have. “Cool scalp, by the way. Dig the Cancer Kid look.”
They went on. Lyra could still feel the girl staring and wondered if 72 did, too. All he said was, “Too many people,” and she nodded because her throat was too tight to speak. Ugly. Which meant the other girl was pretty. What a strange way to live, among all these people—it made Lyra feel small, even less important, than she had among the thousands of replicas grown like crops in the barracks.
The next person she stopped was older and ugly: wrinkles that made it look as if her face was melting, pouchy bits of skin waggling under her chin. But she didn’t know who Emily Huang was and only shook her head and moved off. They stopped a man, and a boy about twelve who rode a flat thing fitted with wheels that Lyra remembered only belatedly was called a skateboard. No one knew Emily Huang, and Lyra didn’t like the look the man gave them.
She was hot and thirsty and losing hope. The town kept expanding. Every time they came to the end of a block she saw a new street branching off it with more buildings and more people.
“We’re never going to find her,” 72 said, and she disliked the fact that he sounded happy about it, as if he’d proven a point. “We might as well keep walking.”
“Just hold on,” she said. “Hold on.” Spots of color floated up in front of her vision. Her T-shirt clung to her back. She took a step and found the pavement floated up to meet her. She grabbed hold of a street sign—Loading Dock, No Standing—to keep from falling.
“Hey.” 72’s voice changed. His arm skimmed her elbow. “Are you all right?”