Replica

Here there were no neatly trimmed hedges or stone walkways. This area was cooler, shaded by coast oak and mature pines with old, sweeping branches, although to Lyra it all looked the same. As she walked, she thought about animals concealed in dark hiding places, gators crawling up beneath the fence, snakes nesting in the trees. Two years earlier, a wild hog had come bursting out of the undergrowth and run circles around the guards in front of the Box. It was one of the few times Lyra could remember seeing any of the doctors laughing.

Old tractors; rusted, coiled-up chains; plastic garbage bins; Dumpsters; even an old crane, arm raised as if reaching for the sky: Lyra moved down the long alley of broken-down equipment, her feet squelching in mud that became thicker and deeper as she approached the tidal flats. The insects were thicker here, and louder, too. She knew she was still within the limits of Haven—she could see the fence through the trees, and the flashing of the late sun on the vivid green marshes, and knew that the nearest guards were only a few hundred feet away—but she felt almost as if she had entered another world. As if she could keep walking forever, moving deeper and deeper into the trees, and never be found. She didn’t know whether the idea excited or scared her.

She spotted an old motorboat, propped up on cinder blocks and covered with a blue plastic tarp slicked with mold and moisture. A perfect hiding place. She felt a rush of sudden relief. She was so tired. For a second, when she stopped walking, she thought she heard footsteps behind her. But when she turned around, she didn’t see anyone.

She peeled back a portion of the tarp and froze, confused. The bottom of the boat was spotted with rust but relatively dry—and someone, she saw, was already using it for a hiding place. There was a folded brown blanket, standard Haven issue, as well as two neatly folded changes of pants, two shirts, and two folded pairs of male’s underwear. There was, additionally, a flashlight and several cardboard containers of powdered milk, a can opener marked Property of Haven Kitchens, and half a dozen cans of soup.

Something stirred in her mind—an association, a connection—but before she could bring the idea into focus, someone spoke.

“That’s mine,” a voice said behind her. “Don’t touch it.”

She turned and her breath caught in her chest.

Her first thought was that the boy was an outsider and had somehow made his way in. He looked so wild, so fierce, she felt he must be a different species. Her second thought was that he was hungry. His cheeks stood out sharply from his face, as if they’d been whittled with a knife. His forearms were marked with little diagonal scars, like a tiny staircase cut into his flesh.

Then she noticed the Haven bracelet—a White—and the idea she’d been reaching for earlier arrived, neat and obvious and undeniable: this was 72. The Code Black. The runaway.

Except he hadn’t run away, or at least he hadn’t run far. He’d been here, on the north side of the island, the whole time.

“I know you,” she said. “You’re seventy-two.”

He didn’t deny it. “How did you find me?” He took a step toward her, and Lyra could smell him then—a sharp animal smell, not completely unpleasant. “Which of them sent you?”

“Nobody sent me,” she said. She didn’t like being so close to him. She’d never been this close to one of the males, and she couldn’t help but think of Pepper, and a diagram she’d seen once of a pregnant woman, who seemed to be digesting her baby. But there was nowhere to go. The side of the boat was digging into her back. “I wasn’t looking for you at all.”

“Then what are you doing here?” he asked.

She hesitated. She was still holding the pillowcase with all her belongings, and she squeezed it to her chest. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” she said.

He shook his head. “I can’t let you go,” he said. He reached out, taking hold of her wrist.

And at that exact moment, the world exploded.

Turn the page to continue reading Lyra’s story. Click here to read Chapter 6 of Gemma’s story.

SEVEN

LATER THE RESIDENTS OF BARREL Key would tell stories about seeing the explosion. Several fishermen, bringing in their boats, were nearly thrown overboard by a freak wave that came racing over the sound—caused, it later turned out, by a portion of A-Wing crashing through the fence and collapsing into the shallows. Missy Gallagher saw a finger of flame shoot up in the distance and thought of Revelation and the end of days. Bill Collops thought of terrorists and ran into the basement, screaming for his wife to help him with the boxes of ammo.

The first bomb, detonated in the entry hall, directly next to the bust of Richard Haven, made shrapnel of the walls and beams and caved in the roof. It killed twenty-seven staff members, all of them buried under the rubble. The woman who was carrying the explosives strapped by means of a cookie sheet to her chest was blown into so many pieces that even her dental records were useless, and they were able to establish her identity only because she had left a bag explaining her motivations and affiliation with the Angels of the First Savior on the mainland, which would subsequently be discovered by soldiers. Her WordPress account, which referenced at length a website known as the Haven Files, suggested she was acting on directives from Jesus Christ to destroy the unnatural perversions at Haven and purge the sinners playing God. The blog had a brief three-hour surge of notoriety and readership before it was permanently and mysteriously erased.

The second and third bombs created a fireball that roared through the halls, reaching temperatures hot enough to sear metal and leave the plastic dinner trays as molten, shapeless messes. Things would not have been so bad were it not for the close proximity of a large shipment of amyl nitrate, which one of the staff members had signed for and thoughtlessly left still packaged in the entry hall, not entirely sure where it was meant to go.