Caelum had to put an arm around Lyra’s waist just to haul her backward. Her feet had stopped obeying her. Her whole body felt as if it were as flimsy, as weightless and useless, as an empty sheath of skin.
But Caelum wouldn’t give up. “Come on, Lyra. Come on. Move.” He was still shouting, although it was suddenly very quiet.
And then, with a start, she realized why: the fire truck’s engine had stopped growling. No more exhaust plumed from its tailpipe. And almost as soon as she noticed, the door opened again, and the firefighter dropped to the pavement from the cab. Another one followed, a woman, this time from the passenger side. Both of them wore heavy rubber suits that made funny squirting noises when they walked—that was how quiet it was.
“Is there a problem?” The firefighter who’d been driving had sharp eyes, placed very close together, as if they’d been made that way just to notice every detail.
“Please,” was all Lyra could say. She was still winded, still gasping for breath—partly from the run, partly from a dizzying sense of relief.
Dr. O’Donnell pivoted neatly to face him. “There’s no problem.” In an instant she transformed. She had been begging them to listen, begging them to stop. But in a split second, she shimmied into a new skin, and Lyra was seized by a sense of dread. “I’m sorry you had to come all the way out here. Honestly, we didn’t expect them to react like this.”
He looked from Dr. O’Donnell, to Lyra and Caelum, and back again. “What do you mean, ‘react’?”
“They’re patient volunteers,” Dr. O’Donnell said smoothly.
“She’s lying,” Caelum burst out.
But Dr. O’Donnell didn’t miss a beat. “Sometimes our volunteers get anxious. Sometimes they get paranoid. It’s the first time anyone’s ever tried to stage an escape, though.”
She slid over the words as if she’d been waiting for years to use them. And Lyra hated her so violently, the hatred blew her apart into a thousand pieces.
Because the worst part, the absolute worst part, was that Dr. O’Donnell truly believed she was good. She was surprised that Lyra and Caelum weren’t grateful; that they didn’t see the way she wanted to use them as a kind of gift.
Because deep down she thought, of course, they didn’t deserve it. Because she thought that it was obvious they didn’t.
And that made her worse, even, than Dr. Saperstein. Saperstein had treated the replicas like objects, but at least he never pretended.
Dr. O’Donnell thought the replicas should love her for helping them pretend that they were worth something, when it was so obvious they weren’t.
The woman’s coat was folded down at the waist. She thumbed her suspenders. “So it’s some kind of medical research?”
Dr. O’Donnell smiled. Lyra couldn’t believe she’d ever loved that smile. “That’s exactly right,” she said. “Medical research, pharmaceutical testing. All voluntary, obviously.”
“She’s lying.” Lyra could finally breathe, but the effort of speaking, of trying to be believed, made her words come in hard little bursts. “She’s been keeping us locked up. She won’t—she won’t let us go.” Then: “You can’t believe her.”
Dr. O’Donnell didn’t even glance at Lyra. “Paranoia, like I said.”
The firefighters exchanged a look. “They seem pretty upset,” the man said doubtfully. But Lyra could tell he was wavering.
“Of course they’re upset. They’re having a bad reaction to a new SSRI.” Dr. O’Donnell grew taller, swelled by her lies, or maybe the world shrank around her. She sounded calm. She looked calm. Lyra couldn’t imagine what she and Caelum looked like. “And I can’t help them unless we get them inside. They should be monitored. We should be watching their heart rates.”
Lyra saw at once that Dr. O’Donnell had won. She watched the firefighters tip over into belief; she saw them shake off their doubts, like a kind of irritant.
“Please—” Caelum tried again. But his voice broke, and Lyra knew that he, too, had seen.
“Thank you for coming out here,” Dr. O’Donnell said. “We really appreciate it.”
The firefighters had already turned back to their truck. Though they were only a few feet away, Lyra saw them as though from the bottom of a pit, as if they had already vanished into a memory.
“Wait.” She cried out from the bottom of a long tunnel of anger and fear. “Wait,” she said again, as both of them turned back to face her.
Dr. O’Donnell showed her irritation, but only briefly. She was busy playing a role. “Really, we should get them inside—”
“She said she would let me call my mom,” Lyra blurted out. Caelum tensed.
But Dr. O’Donnell looked at her with blunted astonishment: it was as if her polish was only a mask, and someone had elbowed it off.
“She promised,” Lyra said, feeling her way into the lie. If Dr. O’Donnell was going to make up a story, Lyra could get in there, could hook her hands around it and make it hers. “She said I’d be able to call if I got scared.”
Dr. O’Donnell licked her lips. “I never—”
But this time, the firefighters were on Lyra’s side. “For God’s sake, let the kid call her mom,” the man said.
For a half second, Dr. O’Donnell and Lyra locked eyes. Dr. O’Donnell squinted as if they were separated by a hard fog, and Lyra wondered what she saw. That Lyra was small and young. That she was stupid. That she was dying. Just like Calliope, all those years ago, and the bird. It was broken, she’d said. It’s better to kill it. For weeks afterward Lyra had dreamed of the bird coming back to life, but enormous, and swooping down through the dorms to peck their eyes out, one by one.
Dr. O’Donnell even looked vaguely amused. Of course she knew that Lyra had no mother.
Of course she knew, or thought she knew, that Lyra had no one to call.
Maybe that was why she didn’t put up more of a fight.
She shrugged. “Okay,” she said. She took her phone out of her pocket, and, after punching in her code, passed it wordlessly to Lyra.
She’d been trained to memorize number series, of course, so that the doctors at Haven would be able to collect data points, would be able to track how quickly her mind was breaking up. And she’d been trained to observe, too: not intentionally, but she had been trained.
And in the real world, she’d been trained to lie.
Lyra pressed the numbers very slowly, making sure she got them right.
Now Dr. O’Donnell was frowning. “Honestly, this isn’t standard. . . .”
But the firefighters said nothing, and stood there, watching.
Lyra brought the phone to her ear. She pressed it hard, the way she had with those seashells Cassiopeia had collected long ago, and her breath hitched. It was ringing.
Once. Twice.
Answer, she thought. Answer.
Dr. O’Donnell lost patience. A muscle near her lips twitched. “Okay. That’s enough.”
“Wait,” Lyra said. Her heart was beating so loudly she lost track of the number of rings.
Answer.
And then a fumbling sound, and a cough, announced him.
“Reinhardt.” His voice sounded rough, but also comforting, like sand.