Replica by Lauren Oliver Read Free Book Online

her left eye is spasming? Myoclonus. That’s another indicator.”
    â€œMm-hmm. So it’s random?”
    â€œTotally random. The computer does it by algorithm. That way, you know, no one feels bad. Pass me the stethoscope, will you? I bet its heart rate is through the roof.”
    That night was very still, and the sound of chanting voices and drumbeats—louder, always, on the days the Suits had visited the island—carried easily over the water. Lyra lay awake for a long time, fighting the constant pull of nausea, listening to the distant rhythm, which didn’t soundso distant after all. At times, she imagined it was coming closer, that suddenly Haven would be overrun with strangers. She imagined all of them made of darkness and shadow instead of blood and muscle and bones. She wondered, for the first time, whether number 72 was maybe not dead after all. She remembered hearing once that the marshes were submerged islands, miles of land that had over time been swallowed up by the water.
    She wondered whether 72 had been swallowed up too, or whether he was out there somewhere, listening to the voices.
    She took comfort in the presence of the new addition to her collection, buried directly beneath her lower back. She imagined that the file pushed up heat, like a heart, like the warmth of Dr. O’Donnell’s touch. 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. She imagined the smell of lemon and antiseptic, as if Dr. O’Donnell were still there, floating between the beds.
    â€œDon’t worry,” Dr. O’Donnell had once said to her on a night like this one, when the voices were louder than usual. “They can’t get to you,” she’d said more quietly. “They can’t get in.”
    But about this, Dr. O’Donnell was wrong.
    Turn the page to continue reading Lyra’s story. Click here to read Chapter 5 of Gemma’s story.

SIX
    LYRA DID NOT SLEEP WELL. She woke up with a tight, airless feeling in her chest, like the time years ago when Nurse Don’t-Even-Think-About-It had held Lyra’s head in the sink to punish her for stealing some chocolate from the nurses’ break room.
    Side effects. They would pass. Medicines sometimes made you sick before they made you better. In the dim morning light, with the sound of so many replicas inhaling and exhaling beside her, she closed her eyes. She had a brief memory of a birther rocking her years ago, singing to her, the tickle of hair on her forehead. She opened her eyes again. The birthers didn’t sing. They howled and screamed. Or they wept. They spoke in other languages. But they didn’t sing.
    She was nauseous again.
    This time she wouldn’t risk throwing up inside. Shewould have to find someplace more remote—along the beach, maybe behind the tin drums of hazardous waste Haven lined up for collection, somewhere the guards couldn’t see her.
    She chose to pass through the courtyard, which was mostly empty. Many of the night nurses would be preparing to take the launch back to Cedar Key. She passed the statue of the first God, Richard Haven. It dominated the center of the yard, where all four walking paths intersected. Here she rested, leaning against the cool marble base, next to a plaque commemorating his work and achievements. He’d had a kind face, Lyra thought. At least, the artist had given him one.
    She didn’t remember the flesh-and-blood man. He’d died before she was made. The sculptor had depicted him kneeling, with one arm raised. Lyra guessed he was supposed to be calling out to invisible crowds to come , to look here , but to her it had always looked as if he was stretching one arm toward the clouds, toward the other God, the ones the nurses believed in. Their God, too, hated the replicas.
    She squatted next to twin drums marked with a biohazard symbol and threw up into the high grasses that grew between them. She felt slightly better when she stood up, but still weak. She stopped a