“Though Dr. Saperstein had just undergone a spectacularly public fall from grace, culminating in this week’s protests at his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, the police have denied reports that his death was a suicide. . . .”
Dead. Dead. Dead. The word kept drilling in Lyra’s mind. Dr. Saperstein was dead. God was dead. She should have been happy, but strangely, she was just frightened. It had never occurred to her that God would die, or that it was even possible.
She was less than fifteen feet from the exit. No one had seen her. And yet she couldn’t move, and even Caelum hesitated, teetering on the edge of the doorway as if it were a river he was worried about crossing.
Eight seconds, maybe ten. Twelve at a stretch.
God had died, and with him, the replicas’ only reason for being.
Was a terrible reason better than no reason at all?
“There they are. Get them. Get them.”
Lyra turned and saw Dr. O’Donnell charging them and trailing a small crowd of people behind her; among them were three guards and the girl who’d dropped the bakery box.
And at the same time, in response to her shout, everyone in the conference room turned and spotted Lyra.
She ran. Caelum was shouting over the sudden chaos, and though she couldn’t hear him, she could feel him a step behind her. They had a small advantage, but it was enough. They were steps from the door, inches, they could get outside, they would be free—
But even as Lyra reached for the door, it opened forcefully from the other side. Caelum managed to pull up, but Lyra was thrown backward by the blunt collision, as with a hard and hollow smack the door caught her in the side of her jaw. She landed on her back, breathless and dizzy. Through a fuzz of dark shapes she saw a whip-thin man, soaked with toppled coffee, gaping at her.
Caelum tried to get her to her feet but by then Dr. O’Donnell had caught up, and the guards drove him to his knees, and Lyra saw a thicket grow above her: a nest of mouths and unfamiliar faces, long arms that looked like weapons. Cold fingers locked her wrists in place. Someone sat on her ankles.
They look so real, somebody said.
You’d never know.
Be careful how you handle them, please. That was Dr. O’Donnell. It looks like they may be the last ones.
Turn the page to continue reading Lyra’s story. Click here to read Chapter 19 of Lyra’s story.
TWENTY
THIS TIME THEY WERE PLACED in an unused office whose only furniture was a set of metal filing cabinets and two chairs brought in for Caelum and Lyra to sit on, although Caelum remained standing. The door required a key. Dr. O’Donnell had locked them in herself.
“Give me a minute,” she’d told them, almost apologetically. She couldn’t stop pretending that she was on their side. She probably didn’t know the difference.
Standing with her ear to the door, Lyra could hear Dr. O’Donnell speaking to someone in the hall.
“She says they came here on their own, with no help. I doubt she knows a thing.”
There was only silence in response, and Lyra realized that Dr. O’Donnell was talking on the phone. Her skin tightened into a shiver. Dr. O’Donnell knew the Suits. How long would it be before they arrived?
“She hasn’t mentioned Gemma at all, but I can ask.” Another silence. “You think she ended up there by mistake?”
Lyra leaned so hard against the door, sweat gathered in the space behind her ear. For a long time, Dr. O’Donnell said nothing, and Lyra worried she might have hung up.
But then she spoke again. “I’m sure she’s okay, Geoff. I’m sure she made it out.” Then: “No, I understand that. But she’s a smart girl. You’ve said so yourself.”
Lyra put a hand on the door and pressed, imagining she could squeeze her rage out through her fingertips, harden it into blades that would slice them free. Geoff meant Geoffrey Ives. Though she didn’t understand much of the conversation, she understood that something bad had happened to Gemma.
Something had happened to her by mistake. She was in trouble. And Lyra knew, without question or doubt and without knowing how she knew, that it was because Gemma had come to warn her.
Had Gemma, like Rick, been taken away?
She thought of Jake Witz hanging by his belt, and the purple mottle of his face.
The memory brought back a roar of sound, a memory of Haven exploding into flame, and the char of burning skin carrying over the marshes. She nearly missed the next thing Dr. O’Donnell said.
“I see. So how many of them escaped?” Then: “We can still use them, you know. If we could spin it—” She broke off. After another minute, she spoke again, this time so close to the door that Lyra startled backward and could still hear her clearly. “Well, maybe it’s for the best. Public support will be the trickiest. If word gets out that they can be violent . . .”
The last thing she said was, “I’m praying for Gemma.”
Lyra couldn’t help but wonder whether anyone in the whole world was praying for her and for Caelum. She doubted it.
Then Lyra had to stumble out of the way, because Dr. O’Donnell turned the key in the lock and opened the door. For a half second, Lyra didn’t recognize her: the lines of her face had converged into a baffling question mark.
“Sit,” Dr. O’Donnell said. Neither Caelum nor Lyra moved. “Go on. Sit. Please. I won’t hurt you.”
“You’re a liar,” Caelum said. “Everything you say is a lie.”
Dr. O’Donnell sighed. She must have gone home at some point to change; she was wearing different clothing than she had been last night. Lyra hated her for this—that she would think to go home, that she would think to shower, that Lyra and Caelum were so small in the orbit of her life they hadn’t even caused a ripple in her routine.
“I wasn’t lying when I said I could help you,” Dr. O’Donnell said. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this, but you’re in a difficult position. You’re not supposed to exist.”
Although she said the words gently, Lyra knew them for what they were: sharp, weaponized things, knives designed to make her bleed. She wouldn’t argue, or cry, or show that they had landed.
“What happened to Gemma?” she said.
Dr. O’Donnell looked momentarily startled, and Lyra was glad: she had an advantage, however brief.
Dr. O’Donnell recovered quickly. “You’re very observant,” she said. “I’d forgotten that.”
“There wasn’t much to do but observe at Haven,” Lyra said. A wave of dizziness clouded her vision, and she wanted to sit down but didn’t want to give Dr. O’Donnell the satisfaction. “What happened to Gemma?”
“I don’t know,” Dr. O’Donnell said, after a short pause. “No one knows. It seems she disappeared on Sunday morning.”
So. It was Lyra’s fault.
Dr. O’Donnell moved away from the door—slowly, as if Caelum and Lyra might startle, as if there was anywhere for them to go. “Can I ask you a question?” She held up both hands when Caelum started to protest. “Then you can ask me anything you want, and I’ll be honest. I promise to tell you everything you want to know.”
Caelum’s eyes locked briefly on Lyra’s. She shrugged.