Replica by Lauren Oliver

drink, nowhere to go.
    â€œLook.” The boy was talking to Lyra. Maybe he’d decided she was easier to talk to. Maybe he hadn’t forgotten that 72 had a knife. “I know you must be tired—you’ve been through—I don’t even know what you’ve been through . . .”
    â€œJake . . .” Cassiopeia’s replica pressed her hand to her eyes.
    â€œThey’ve been living in Haven, Gemma,” the boy said quickly. “My father died for this. I need to know.”
    Father. The word sent a curious tremor up Lyra’s spine, as if she’d been tapped between her vertebrae. So Lyra was right about him: he was natural-born.
    â€œJake, no .” Cassiopeia’s replica—the boy had said her name was Gemma, Lyra remembered now—looked and sounded like one of the nurses. Jake fell silent. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “I literally don’t believe you. These poor people have been through God knows what—they’re starving and cold and they have no place to go—and you want to interview them—”
    â€œI don’t want to interview them. I want to understand.”
    Lyra took another sip of water, swallowing despite the pain. “Not people,” she said, because the girl had been nice to them and she thought it was worth correcting her.
    Gemma turned to stare at Lyra. “What?”
    â€œWe’re not people,” Lyra said. “You said, ‘These poor people have been through god knows what.’ But we’re replicas. God didn’t make us. Dr. Saperstein did. He’s our god.” She stopped herself from pointing out that Gemma, too, must have been made by someone, even if she didn’t know it.
    Gemma kept staring, until Lyra finally felt uncomfortable and looked down at her hands. Had she said the wrong thing again? But she was just reciting what she knew to be true, what everyone had always told her.
    Finally Gemma spoke again. Her voice was much softer now. “We should camp here for the night,” she said. For an instant, she even sounded like Dr. O’Donnell. “We’ll go back to Wahlee in the morning.”
    â€œWe’re not going anywhere with you,” 72 said quickly. Lyra was surprised to hear him say we . She had never been a we . Maybe he’d only confused the word, the way she still confused I and it sometimes.
    â€œNo,” Gemma said. “No, you don’t have to go with us. Not unless you want to.”
    â€œWhy would we want to?” 72 asked. In the dark he was all hard angles, like someone hacked out of shadow. Now Lyra wasn’t sure whether he was ugly or not. His face kept changing, and every time the light fell on it differently he looked like a new person.
    Cassiopeia’s replica didn’t blink. “You can’t plan on staying here forever. You have no money. No ID. You’re not even supposed to exist. And there will be people looking for you.”
    The girl was right. You’re not even supposed to exist. Lyra knew the truth of these words, even though she wasn’t sure exactly what they meant. Hadn’t that been the pointof the guards and the fences? To keep the replicas safe, and secret, and protected? Everyone who had known them had despised them. You’re not supposed to exist. Wasn’t that what the nurses were always saying? That they were monsters and abominations? All except Nurse Em, all those years ago, and Dr. O’Donnell. But both of them had gone away.
    Everyone went away, in the end.
    â€œCan I have more water?” she asked, and so somehow it was decided. 72 turned to look at her with an expression she couldn’t read, but she was too tired to worry about him and what he thought and whether they were making the right decision.
    Neither of the strangers wanted to sleep near Cassiopeia’s body, so they moved instead through the thick patch of hobble-backed trees and tall grasses