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was enclosed by its own fence. Unlike the rest of Haven, the G-Wing had no windows, and extra security required Nurse Curly to identify herself twice and show her badge to various armed guards who patrolled the perimeter.
    Curly left Lyra in the entrance foyer, in front of the elevator that gave access to Sub-One and, supposedly, the concealed subterranean levels. Lyra tried not to look at the doors that led to the ER, where so many replicas died or failed to thrive in the first place. Even the nurses calledthe G-Wing the Funeral Home or the Graveyard. Lyra wondered whether Lilac Springs was there even now, and how long she had left.
    Soon enough, the elevator doors opened and a technician wearing a heavy white lab coat, her hair concealed beneath a cap, arrived to escort Lyra down to see Mr. I. It was, as far as Lyra could tell, the same tech she’d seen the half-dozen or so times she’d been here in the past month. Then again, she had trouble telling them apart, since their faces were so often concealed behind goggles and a mask, and since they never spoke directly to her.
    In Sub-One, they walked down a long, windowless hallway filled with doors marked Restricted . But when a researcher slipped out into the hall, Lyra had a brief view of a sanitation room and, beyond it, a long, galley-shaped laboratory in which dozens of researchers were bent over gleaming equipment, dressed in head-to-toe protective clothing and massive headgear that made them look like the pictures of astronauts Lyra had occasionally seen on the nurses’ TV.
    Mr. I sat by itself in a cool bright room humming with recirculated air. To Lyra, Mr. I looked like an open mouth, and the table on which she was supposed to lie down a long pale tongue. The hair stood up on her arms and legs.
    â€œRemember to stay very still,” the tech said, her voicemuffled by a paper mask. “Otherwise we’ll just have to start over. And nobody wants that, do we?”
    Afterward she was transferred to a smaller room and told to lie down. Sometimes lying this way, with doctors buzzing above her, she lost track of whether she was a human at all or some other thing, a slab of meat or a glass overturned on a countertop. A thing.
    â€œI don’t believe Texas is any further than we are. It’s bullshit. They’re bluffing. Two years ago, they were still infecting bovine tissue—”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter if they’re bluffing if our funding gets cut. Everyone thinks they’re closer. Fine and Ives loses the contract. Then we’re shit outta luck.”
    High bright lights, cool sensors moving over her body, gloved hands pinching and squeezing. “Sappo thinks the latest variant will do it. I’m talking full progression within a week . Can you imagine the impact?”
    â€œHe better be right. What the hell will we do with all of them if we get shut down? Ever think of that?”
    Lyra closed her eyes, suddenly exhausted.
    â€œOpen your eyes, please. Follow my finger, left to right. Good.”
    â€œReflexes still look okay.” One of the doctors, the woman, parted her paper gown and squeezed her nipple, hard. Lyra cried out. “And pain response. Do me afavor—check this one’s file, will you? What variant is this?”
    â€œThis is similar to the vCJD, just slower-acting. That’s why the pulvinar sign is detectable on the MRI. Very rare in nature, nearly always inherited.”
    They worked in silence for a bit. Lyra thought about The Little Prince , and Dr. O’Donnell, and distant stars where beautiful things lived and died in freedom. She couldn’t stop crying.
    â€œHow do they choose which ones end up in control, and which ones get the different variants?” the male doctor asked after a while.
    â€œOh, it’s all automated,” the woman said. Now she held Lyra’s eyes open with two fingers, ensuring she couldn’t blink. “Okay, come see this. See the way