Replica (32 page)

“A disease?” April repeated. She stared openmouthed at Gemma. “And you brought them
here
?”

“It isn't contagious like the flu is.” Gemma felt queasy thinking about it. She hoped she was right. She hadn't truly understood everything Jake was reading to her. The boy seemed all right, almost normal. But she'd seen the girl stumble. Motor coordination problems were some of the first symptoms, he had read. “You can't get it except through tissue or organ transfers or—ingestion. And it takes years to work. It's like mad cow disease, or Alzheimer's, or something like that.”

“My grandparents would kill me,” April said, and Gemma's anger notched up again. Twenty feet away were two people who had been raised as human petri dishes, and all April could think about was getting in trouble. “What do you think they're doing in there, anyway?”

“I don't know.” When Gemma turned, she saw they were no longer in the living room. They must be in the kitchen or bedroom, and out of view. Irrationally, she was glad. She didn't want April to see them. April didn't
deserve
to see them. “I don't know. Eating. Sleeping. Trying to relax. Whatever people normally do.”

April laughed in a way Gemma didn't like, as if Gemma had made a joke. “And you're sure they're not going to, like, infect us?”

“Only if you decide to go zombie on them and eat their brains,” Gemma said sarcastically, but April actually
nodded, as if she was reassured. She was still staring into the guesthouse. A glass of water and an open can of Coke on the coffee table were the only signs that someone had been there at all.

“And they can, like, talk and stuff?” April asked. “And eat normal food?”

“Yes, they can
talk and stuff
.” Gemma's voice sounded overloud, but she didn't care. “They're
people
.” If she'd considered even for a second telling April about the girl with Gemma's face, she knew now she never would. She couldn't.

“Okay, okay. Jeez. Calm down.” April rolled her eyes, as if Gemma was the one being unreasonable. “Sorry if I'm not a clone expert.”

“Replica,” Gemma corrected her automatically. “They don't like being called clones.” She didn't know how she knew this, only that she'd noticed Lyra flinch whenever she used that word, the way April did when someone referred to her
dyke
parents, or Gemma did when she heard
fat
.

“Are you serious?” Again, April laughed.

“Yes, I'm serious.” She was suddenly way past anger. She was furious. She wasn't tied to the girl on the marshes and yet she was: they were bound together, they were the
same
. Which meant that Gemma had died, too. Just a little. But she had died. “They can talk, they have feelings,
they have likes and dislikes, they dream and breathe and hurt like anybody else.”

“Okay, okay. I'm sorry.” Now April was squinting at Gemma as if she didn't know her. “I'm just a little freaked out, okay?” Gemma said nothing. “You have to admit it's weird. . . . I mean, you said yourself they were
engineered
. Shake and bake, test-tube style.”

“I hate to remind you,” Gemma snapped, not even sure why she was so angry, “but so were you.”

Instantly, she knew it was the wrong thing to say. April went very still. “You're comparing me to one of
them
?” she whispered. Gemma wasn't deceived by her tone of voice. The quieter April got, the angrier she was. “You think because my moms are gay, that makes me some kind of freak?”

Gemma already felt guilty. But it was too late to take back the words. And what would April say if she knew that Gemma had a clone floating around somewhere—possibly
more
than one? That Gemma remembered Haven from her childhood? “I'm just saying.” She couldn't stand to see the naked hurt on April's face, so she looked away. “Plenty of people would think you weren't in a great position to judge.”

“I know.” April's voice was sharp as a slap. “I just didn't know you were one of them.”

She turned away and Gemma saw her bring a hand
quickly to her eyes. April
never
cried. Gemma was suddenly filled with wrenching guilt. She thought her stomach might actually twist itself up and out of her throat. She nearly put a hand on April's shoulder—she nearly begged for forgiveness—but then April spoke again.

“Maybe you should leave.” She didn't turn around, but her voice was steady and very flat, and Gemma thought maybe she'd been wrong, maybe April hadn't been crying at all.

“What?”

“You heard me. Maybe you should leave. You
and
your new best friends.” She turned just slightly, so Gemma could see the familiar ski-slope jump of her nose, the soft curve of her cheek, a sweep of dark hair, and she knew in that moment that something had changed forever. “I'll give you until morning,” April said.

She moved soft-footed across the grass and into the house. Gemma wished she'd stomped off instead. She wished an earthquake would come, or rifts would appear in the ground—anything other than this terrible silence, the peacefulness of the crickets in the trees and the low drone of TV, the world humming along while hers was ending. April didn't once look back. After she closed the door, Gemma heard the lock turn.

Then she was alone.

Turn the page to continue reading Gemma's story.
Click here
to read Chapter 11 of Lyra's story.

GEMMA WOKE FROM A NIGHTMARE with her cheek saddled up against a band of old plastic striping and the sun hard in her eyes. Immediately she remembered her fight with April. She had a horrible, sticky feeling all over, as if something wet was clinging to her. She couldn't remember her nightmare, but she was left with the disturbing idea that something had been hunting her, wouldn't leave her alone.

She sat up, touching her cheek where the chair had indented it. The windows of the main house threw back the light so she couldn't see beyond them, but she thought April must still be asleep. She checked her phone: nine thirty. She noticed her notebook wasn't on the ground where she'd left it. But she must have stuffed it into her backpack.

Even before she figured out what to do about the
replicas, she was determined to apologize to April, to
explain
. April was her best friend—her
only
good friend, unless you counted Pete, and she wasn't sure she could. April was freaked out by the replicas, but anyone would be. And Gemma had been horrible. She had deserved to sleep outside, deserved the stiffness in her neck and shoulders and the taste of dead fish in her mouth.

She would make coffee. She would apologize. She would tell April everything, including the truth about the dead girl Gemma had seen out on the marshes.

She went up the stairs and was encouraged to find the back door unlocked. It seemed like a sign that April might be ready to forgive her. The kitchen was empty, but there was coffee in the pot and a dirty plate sitting on the table next to a ketchup bottle. So April was awake. Gemma was about to call out to her when she saw the note, anchored to the counter by a red mug that said
San Francisco
.

The note was very short.

           
Going for a run and then to play tennis. Will be back around noon. Please be gone.

           
—April

Gemma balled it up and threw it in the trash can. She felt like throwing something but she didn't want to get in trouble with April's grandparents, so instead she opened
the back door again and slammed it three times. She was furious again. Fucking April. Gemma had been out slogging through the marshes, nearly getting shot, hiding from the
military
, rooting out her family's deepest, darkest secret.
She'd found
her own fucking clone.
And April had been going for a run and taking tennis lessons and was chucking Gemma out because of one stupid thing she'd said. Meanly, Gemma thought now she was even glad she'd said it.

She took a shower, leaving hair in the drain and not bothering to clean it out, and then brushed her teeth vigorously. At least she looked slightly better after sleeping, less like a zombie from a horror movie brought back to life by its taste for brains.

Downstairs, she poured some coffee into a mug—pleased, again, that she could use the last of the milk—and tried calling Jake. His phone rang but he didn't pick up. She waited a few minutes and tried again. Then, when he didn't answer, she sent him a text.
You awake?
It was only ten, but she couldn't imagine he was sleeping in, not after yesterday and all they'd discovered about Haven.

She was halfway back to the guesthouse when something crunched beneath her foot: her ChapStick, which had somehow escaped from her backpack and rolled across the pool deck. She saw now that her bag was lying on its side, and when she went to return the ChapStick
to it, saw that everything inside was a jumbled mess, as if someone had rifled through it. Instinctively she reached for her wallet. Her credit cards were there, but she'd taken out three hundred dollars from the ATM in Walmart the day before, and all of it was gone.

She felt as she had the single time her mom had caved and taken Gemma to an amusement park, and they'd ridden a roller coaster called the Cobra together. As they'd inched up, up, up toward that first crest and then the first downward hurtle, Gemma had known she'd made a huge mistake, that she didn't want to see what was on the other side.

The guesthouse was empty. That was obvious as soon as she walked in. It even
felt
empty, and she was afraid to speak out loud because she didn't want to hear her voice sucked away by the carpet. Still, she went from room to room, checking the bathroom, even opening the closet doors as if Lyra and 72 might be hiding there. For a brief, delirious moment, she even imagined Lyra, 72, and April out together somewhere near the ocean, dressed in tennis whites, working on their game.

But there was no pretending. The replicas were gone.

Jake still hadn't texted her back. She tried calling again, then remembered he had said his aunt's house was pretty rural and cell phone service was bad. He'd written down
his address and home phone number on the back of a piece of tinfoil that looked like it had come from a cigarette pack, and she tried calling this as well, three times in a row. She switched back to trying his cell phone, and her next two calls went straight to voice mail. She couldn't understand what it meant, but she was afraid. Printouts from the Haven Files had been recovered from the bomber's bag. It seemed obvious that he would get in trouble. Maybe he was with the cops even now. What if they thought he'd had something to do with the explosion?

It was ten thirty now, and she was getting desperate. No way was she going to be here when April returned—she'd rather hitchhike. She'd rather
walk
.

Then she remembered Pete.

He picked up on the first ring. “This is your knight in shining armor,” he said, in a baritone. “To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”

“A lady in distress,” Gemma said. The sound of his voice lifted her spirits, just a bit. “I need help.”

Pete cleared his throat. “You're in luck. That's what knights in shining armor
do
. Helping is basically our bread and butter. What's the trouble?”

“I need you to pick me up”—she gave him April's address in Bowling Springs—“as soon as possible. I'll explain when you get here.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Pete said. “Be there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means sit tight. I'm coming.”

She hung up, feeling better already. Pete could be annoying, but he was reliable and sweet. A distraction, too. Kind of like having a fluffy Pomeranian for company. If Pomeranians could drive and knew all the words to “Baby Got Back.”

He was there in less than half an hour, and her heart lifted again when she saw the ridiculous purple minivan swanning down the road. He leaned over to pop open the door for her, and she nearly sat on a bag of doughnuts in the passenger seat.

“Figured you hadn't eaten,” he said. “There's coffee, too, if you want it.” Two jumbo Styrofoam cups were straining against the cup holders.

Pete must have gotten sun yesterday, because his arms and the bridge of his nose were more deeply freckled. But the freckles looked good on him, like a dusting of stars. She was super aware of the fact that when she sat, her shorts cut hard into her thighs, and wished she had worn jeans instead. Even her
knees
looked fat. To conceal her embarrassment she looked down, fumbling with the lid of her coffee.

“You weren't kidding about the knight-in-shining-armor thing,” she said.

He beamed at her. Actually beamed. His smile nearly blinded her. “So where to?”

She knew that there was no point in trying to go after the replicas. She wasn't Sherlock Holmes, and there were no footprints to track. They had most likely left in the middle of the night and could have been anywhere. She needed to talk to Jake. He might have ideas about what to do next. Fortunately, he'd written down his address when he'd given her his aunt's landline. At least the replicas hadn't stolen her entire wallet. Small mercies.

“Here.” She fished out the piece of foil and handed it over to Pete. He raised his eyebrows.

“Is this a clue or something?” Pete said. “Because I think it was Sergeant Pepper in the pantry with an egg cozy.”

“Just drive, okay? I need to talk to my friend Jake,” she said. “He's not picking up his phone.”

Instantly, Pete's face changed. “When you said
help
, I didn't think you needed a ride to your boyfriend's,” he said, and although he put the car in drive, she could tell he was hurt.

“Jake isn't my boyfriend. Trust me,” she said. “He's—” She was about to say he was way out of her league, but she didn't think this would make Pete feel any better. Especially since she was kind of starting to hope Pete might be
in
her league. “Look, he's been helping me. It's
complicated. . . .” She trailed off.

Pete made a face, as if he wasn't convinced. “So why couldn't Prince Charming come and get you?”

“I told you. I can't get in touch with him,” Gemma said, and Pete snorted. “Look, you've got it wrong. Jake's dad was a big Haven freak. After he died, Jake kind of took over for him.”

“Haven?” Pete looked confused. “The place we heard about on the radio? The one that got blown up?”

“Yeah. That one.” Gemma took a deep breath. The GPS was directing them out of the subdivision now, speaking in its measured mechanical voice, and Gemma found herself unconsciously scanning the streets for April in her jogging clothes. She was seized by the sudden idea that once they turned onto the highway, that was it. She would never see April again. And she knew, in part, it had been her fault. She should have talked to April, trusted her sooner, let her in on the secret, explained. She turned back to Pete. “There's a lot of stuff I haven't told you. It's going to sound crazy, okay? If I tell you, you're going to think I'm bananas. You have to promise not to think that.”

“I swear,” Pete said. He didn't seem upset anymore.

“
Turn right on County Route 39
,” said the voice of the GPS. Gemma looked once more for April, and the streets were totally empty. As if they were just waiting for
something, or someone.

“It's kind of a long story,” Gemma said. Her heart was elbowing up against her rib cage, like it was trying to force its way through them. How would she even begin?

Pete smiled, just a little. “You've got eighty-seven miles,” he said, reaching for the doughnuts. “So start talking.”

It was easy to talk to Pete. Gemma hadn't expected him to be such a good listener, but he was. He didn't interrupt with stupid questions or squawk in disbelief when she told him about stumbling across the replicas—
literally
stumbling—in the marshes. Only once did he interrupt, when she described finding the dead girl with her exact face. Her replica. And then he just said, “Jesus,” and then, “Go on.”

By the time she finished telling him everything—about the long slog back through the marshes, and the folder that Lyra had smuggled out of Haven, about
transmissible spongiform encephalopathies
; about waking up to discover the replicas missing with all her money; about Jake and his dad and the Haven Files and Angel Fire and her mission from God—they had reached Jake's road.

Jake hadn't been lying about his aunt's house being rural. Route 12, on the outskirts of Little Waller, was a treacherous narrow dirt path studded with holes. On
either side of the road, behind growth so riotous it looked like the trees were launching some kind of major offensive, prefab houses, little more than glorified trailers, sagged in the midday sun, doing their best to stay on their feet in the wilting heat. Gemma felt an unexpected rise of pity. No wonder Jake had been obsessing about his father's death for years. She couldn't imagine there was much else to do. This was a lonely place.

They had to squeeze by a Florida Energy truck that was teetering in a deep gutter on one side of the lane; a man in a hard hat was high on the pole, fiddling with the wire, and a group of workers were doing nothing but watching. Gemma was relieved to see that Jake's car was in the driveway, or the small patch of dirt that counted as one. For the first time she noticed the bumper was plastered with bumper stickers, so overlayered and old that most were illegible. She wondered whether it had been his father's car.

Pete pulled into the driveway behind Jake's car but made no move to get out. Instead he hunched forward over the steering wheel, peering up at the house. It was an ugly yellow color, with brown shutters, two of which were hanging at weird angles. Someone had made an effort to clear a patch of front lawn—Gemma thought of Jake, lining up his utensils neatly, and imagined it must be him—but the trees were reclaiming their territory slowly
and the window boxes were empty except for dirt. No one had taken much pride in the house, for sure.

“Well,” Pete said, with his usual cheerfulness. “At least we won't have to take our shoes off.”

Gemma licked her lips. The coffee had been too sugary and now her mouth had a weird, gritty feel. Pete still hadn't responded to her story, not directly. Maybe he didn't believe her. “Look. All the stuff I told you . . .”

Pete turned to her. His eyes were the color of Rufus's. Toffee brown, warm. “You can trust me,” he said. It was as though he read her mind. “I won't tell anyone.”

It was as if a bubble of air in her chest had been released. “So . . . you don't think I'm crazy?”

“People who pay five bucks for coffee are crazy,” he said. Then he frowned. “But you're in some deep shit.” She'd never heard him sound so serious, and in that moment she realized he was handsome. Not just cute. Not goofy-looking.
Handsome.
Clean jaw and a little bit of stubble, all those golden freckles, the hair falling softly across his forehead. “I'm worried about you. Powerful people went to a lot of trouble to keep Haven's work a secret. My guess is they won't stop now.”