Replica

One of the websites cited most frequently was called HavenFiles.com. When she clicked over to it, a bright-orange warning, exuberantly punctuated and capitalized, flashed at the top of the screen.

Don’t be fooled by phony websites and reports!! it said. HavenFiles.com is the NUMBER ONE source for TRUTHFUL and VERIFIED reporting on the Haven Institute!!

Half-amused, half-curious, she began to read. The website was, as far as she could tell, operated by some guy down in Florida named Jacob Witz, who had, for whatever reason, dedicated his life to reporting on various theories, rumors, and phenomena pertaining to Haven. His bio showed a picture of a gap-toothed middle-aged guy squinting into the sun, wearing a fishing hat feathered with different lures. He looked exactly like the kind of person you’d expect to see tipsy and railing about the time he was abducted by aliens. In his bio, half treatise, half manifesto, he revealed that he’d been a journalism major at the University of Miami and that he was devoted to “integrity,” “uncovering the facts about one of the military’s best-kept SECRETS,” and “delivering KNOWLEDGE to the AMERICAN PUBLIC in accordance with the tenets of FREE SPEECH.” This last sentence was punctuated with about forty exclamation points.

“All right, crazy,” Gemma said out loud. “Let’s see what you got.”

His website was like one of those all-you-can-eat buffets where food keeps getting replenished, no matter how much you load up: every page led to more and more pages, every link to more and more links. Gemma felt as if she were falling down a well. There were detailed maps of Haven as imagined from above, and blurry pictures of the buildings taken from a distance and obviously from some sort of boat. (Reading between the lines, Gemma felt sure that Witz had never actually set foot on the island, which was guarded by troops and enclosed within a jail-style fence. He had pictures of this, too, dreary chain-link fitted with barbed wire that Gemma estimated to be about sixteen feet high.) Dozens of pages were devoted to the various theories about the experimentation done at Haven, and Witz argued carefully, in great detail, against the idea that Haven was manufacturing monsters or performing tests on aliens—although he was quick to say that he was an “expert” in military cover-ups of alien landings and had even written a self-published book on the subject (The Secret Others: What the US Government Doesn’t Want You to Know!).

Several whole pages were devoted to something called the “Nurse M controversy”: Nurse M, real name unknown, who supposedly committed suicide after working at Haven, the day before Witz, who had tracked her down but at least on the site refused to reveal her real name, was supposed to interview her. She found a link to a three-year-old news story in which Haven was named, supposedly because a nationwide hospital system was illegally selling off embryonic and fetal cells to research facilities. An embedded video showed one of the hospital execs leaving a courtroom, swarmed by reporters and right-to-life protesters holding graphic handmade signs.

Gemma’s back was sore and her eyes burned from staring at the screen. She was shocked to see she’d been at it for three hours already. Still, she had more questions than she had answers. Her father’s company had contracted Haven to do research and development for them. So what? Fine & Ives was one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the country. They contracted plenty of research facilities—and besides, her father had already left by that point, after a protracted court battle with his former partner.

Why did the man in the parking lot think she’d know anything about Haven? And why was it important in the first place? What did go on at Haven? Why all the secrecy, and the guards, and that fence?

There was something she was missing, something obvious and yet hidden, like one of those visual riddles where a picture can be viewed two different ways. She wished she could get into her father’s office, but he of course kept the door locked. Besides, she didn’t even know what she was supposed to be looking for.

She stood up, did a clumsy approximation of a yoga stretch, and nearly fell over. Rufus raised his head and blinked at her.

“So much for Zen,” she said. Obviously unimpressed, Rufus flopped back onto her pillow.

Almost instantly, the buzzer sounded downstairs. Someone was at the gate. Rufus sprang to his feet and dove off the bed, barking furiously, charging for the stairs. For a second, Gemma worried it might be Chloe again, maybe back to do a second round of damage.

But that was stupid. Chloe wouldn’t bother buzzing—besides, she was probably on spring break getting trashed on cheap tequila shots with the rest of her pack wolves. And though she’d been certain only a few days ago that Chloe had been the one to throw the Frankenstein mask, now she was having doubts. Maybe, if all the rumors about Haven and monsters were true, it really had been a message for her dad, even if she still couldn’t understand the connection.

She checked the security camera and was surprised to see Perv Rogers, leaning half out of the car, the shock of his white-blond hair visible despite the low resolution. But she buzzed him in without asking him what he wanted. Perv was harmless. Well, except for being a pervert and maybe keeping girls’ underwear strung around his basement for sniffing. Maybe keeping girls in his basement.

Rufus was still barking two minutes later, when Perv’s car—a purplish minivan that looked like a giant, mobile eggplant, obviously borrowed from one of his parents—came rolling up the drive. She had to hold Rufus by his collar so he didn’t bolt into the front yard.

“Sorry,” she said, over the sounds of his continued barking, even as Perv climbed out of the car and began edging cautiously toward the door. “He doesn’t bite, I promise. He just likes to make a lot of noise. Sit down, Rufus.” Rufus finally sat, and even licked Perv’s hand when Perv bent down and presented it for sniffing.