“That’s because they ain’t got it right yet.” Lazy Ass shook her head. “All’s I know is they better be for real about how it doesn’t catch.” She was still watching Lyra through half-narrowed eyes, evaluating, drumming the stack of test results as if an answer might come through her fingertips.
“I’ve told you, it isn’t contagious. Not like that, anyway. I’ve been here since the start. Do I look dead to you?”
Lilac Springs began to cry—loudly, a high, blubbering wail, like the cry of one of the infant replicas in the observation units. Go Figure had to practically drag her to her feet and out into the hall. Only when Lyra could no longer hear Lilac Springs’s voice did she realize she’d been holding her breath.
Lazy Ass slid the papers a half inch toward her. Lyra stood up so quickly the chair jumped across the tile floor.
“Straight through and no stopping,” Lazy Ass said. “And if anyone asks you where you’re going, keep walking and mind your own business. Should be Werner down at the desk. Tell him I sent you.”
Lyra could feel the muscles around her lips twitching. But Lazy Ass would be suspicious if she looked too happy. She took the papers—even the sound of paper was delicious—and held them carefully to her chest.
“Go on,” Lazy Ass said.
Lyra didn’t want to wait, fearing Lazy Ass would change her mind. Even after she’d turned into the hall, she kept waiting for the nurse to shout, to call her back, to decide it was a bad idea. The linoleum was cold on her bare feet.
Haven consisted of six wings, A–G. There was no E-Wing, for reasons no one understood, although rumor among the staff was that the first God, Richard Haven, had an ex-wife named Ellen. Except for the Box, officially called G-Wing, all the buildings were interconnected, arranged in a pentagon formation around a four-acre courtyard fitted with gardens and statues, benches, and even a paddleball court for staff use. Electronic double doors divided the wings at each juncture, like a series of mechanized elbows. Only the Box was larger—four stories at least, and as many as three more, supposedly, underground, although given that they were at sea level, that seemed unlikely. It was detached, situated a solid hundred yards away from Haven proper and built of gray cement.
The fastest way to A-Wing from the testing rooms was through F-Wing. She’d already decided that if anyone asked, she’d say she was on her way to the Stew Pot for lunch.
But no one asked. She passed several nurses sitting in the dayroom, laughing about two women on TV—replicas, Lyra thought, with a quick spark of excitement, until she recognized from small differences between them that they were just twins. Then came the dorms: smaller rooms for the lower staff, where nurses and researchers might sleep as many as four to a room, bunk-style; then the doctors’ quarters, which were more spacious. Finally, the Stew Pot. The smell of cooked meat immediately made her stomach turn.
She hurried on, keeping her head down. When she buzzed into A-Wing, the guard on duty barely glanced up. She passed through the marble lobby with its stone bust of Richard Haven, the first God, which someone had draped in a red-and-blue cape and outfitted with a funny-looking hat: it was some game, Lyra understood, something to do with a place called U Penn, where both the first and second Gods had come from. A plastic Christmas tree, originally purchased for Haven’s annual party, had for three years stood just inside the main entryway, though during the off-season it was unplugged. Photographs of strangers smiled down from the walls, and in one of them Richard Haven and Dr. Saperstein were much younger and dressed in red and blue. They even had their faces painted.
Today, however, she didn’t stop to look. She pushed through the doors that led into the stairwell. It smelled faintly of cigarettes.
The closer she got to Admin, the greater the pressure on her chest, as if there were Invacare Snake Tubing threaded down her throat, pumping liquid into her lungs. Sub-One was always quieter than the ground floor of Haven. Most of the doors down here were fitted with control pads and marked with big red circles divided in two on the diagonal, signs that they were restricted-access only. Plus, the walls seemed to vacuum up noise, absorbing the sound of Lyra’s footsteps as soon as she moved.
Administration was restricted-access, too. Lazy Ass had said Werner would be behind the desk, and Lyra’s whole plan depended on it. Twin windows in the door looked into a space filled with individual office cubicles: flyers pinned to corkboard, keyboards buried under piles of manila files, phones and computers cabled to overloaded power strips. All of Haven’s paperwork came here, from mail to medical reports, before being routed and redirected to its ultimate destination.
Lyra ducked into an alcove twenty feet beyond the entrance to Admin. If she peeked into the hall, she had a clear view of the doors. She prayed she had arrived on time and hadn’t missed her chance. Several times, she inched into the hall to check. But the doors were firmly shut.
Finally, when Lyra had nearly given up hope, she heard a faint click as the locks released. The doors squeaked open. A second later, footsteps headed for the stairs. As soon as she heard the door to the stairwell open, Lyra slipped into the hall.
Lyra had been occasionally sneaking down to Admin ever since Dr. O’Donnell had vanished abruptly. She knew that every day, when most of the other administrative staff was still eating in the Stew Pot, Werner snuck away from his desk, propped the doors of Admin open, and smoked a cigarette—sometimes two—in the stairwell.
Today he had wedged an empty accordion file into the double doors to keep them from closing. Lyra slipped inside, making sure the accordion file stayed in place, and closed the door gently behind her.