Page 56 of Poster Girl

“Which returns us to the reason why you are here,” he says. “You believe we now have this data, and there is someone else in this city—outside of the Triumvirate—who very much wants access to it.”

Sonya’s hand squeezes the leech on her wrist so hard she thinks it could crack under the pressure.

“What has Emily Knox asked you to do, exactly?” he says.

She’s small and young again.

“You’re mistaken,” she says. “I mean—yes, I heard a rumor that youhave the Delegation data, and yes, that’s why I’m here, but I—all I want to do is find Grace Ward.”

“I am not mistaken,” Myth says. “We know you are working for Knox; it is the entire reason you are in this building. Do you really think I would agree to meet with someone who simply wanted to find a missing girl from ten years ago?”

“Have you been following me?” Sonya says. “I may have met with Emily Knox once, recently, as part of my investigation, but—”

“If you wanted to convince me of that,” Myth says, quietly, “you would have avoided referring to the Aperture as a ‘birdcage,’ as I know only one person who uses that sobriquet, and you wouldn’t have picked it up if you’d only met her once.”

Sonya falls silent. She can feel Eleanor at her back, the two men who escorted her here near the door. There’s nowhere to run.

Myth says, “It’s all right. Like I said, it’s the reason you’re here. I want to offer you a deal.”

Trades again,Sonya thinks. She trades all the time, in the Aperture market, salvaged radiator knobs for wires, Nikhil’s mended socks for buttons, patched-up tech for cans of chicken soup. And outside of the Aperture, too—Rose Parker’s questions for Emily Knox’s address; a Delegation song for Knox’s help; Grace Ward for Sonya’s freedom. Trades rely on trust, the belief that if you give what you agree to give, you will receive what is promised. Try as you might to secure a trade, someone still has to go first, someone still has to have that weightless moment where they give without receiving.

Myth won’t be going first. That much is certain.

“If you truly only care about finding Grace Ward,” Myth says, “then we will do everything in our power to help you. In return, I simply ask that you tell me Emily Knox’s intentions, for this meeting and for the future.”

Sonya’s Delegation-trained brain makes columns and starts comparing them. She’s already in the middle of a deal with Knox in which she went first, in which she trusted the most. Risk herself by going, unprepared and unqualified, to the Analog Army’s headquarters, and shemaybe may mighthave Knox’s help, using Grace’s UIA. But nowher chances of meeting her end of the deal are next to zero. She won’t be able to attach the leech, no matter what she does. If she betrays Knox, it’s possible Myth won’t follow through on his end—but there’s a chance, at least, that he will.

In one direction, she thinks, there is certain failure. In the other, possible success. It’s not a difficult comparison to make. But there’s another one at work in her mind, harder to quantify—the cost of giving information to a bunch of extremists, the danger it could pose to Knox, the weight of that guilt. Heavier than a loss of DesCoin.

“You want me to betray her,” Sonya says, not because she needs clarification on that point, but because she wants to buy herself some time to think.

“What did she do to win your loyalty?” Myth says, cocking his head to the side. The Veil ripples again, and again Sonya sees that warm brown eye.

There is no answer to that. Knox humiliated her in the Midnight Room; she was full of scorn and derision; she offered no help, no exit plan.

“She saw me,” Sonya says. “Instead of the poster.”

“And you think I don’t?”

“I think I have no reason to believe any of you will actually help me,” Sonya says. “And even if I tell you what Knox wants, you’ll have no way of verifying whether it’s true or not.”

“Maybe it’s your best chance.”

“Maybe.” Sonya sighs. She runs her fingertip along the edge of the leech cuff, thinks about taking it off and showing him the underside, meant to drain and duplicate his data. Her heart races. She stares at the rippling Veil.

“She sent me to get a look at this place,” Sonya says. “My Insight has recorded its layout. My contact at the Triumvirate has agreed to hand over the footage if Knox helps me.”

“Oh really,” Myth says. “And for what purpose does Emily Knox wish to know the layout of this building?”

“It’s your base of operations,” Sonya says, shrugging. “Maybe she wants to rob you. Maybe she wants to spy on you. I didn’t ask.”

Myth’s head tilts. His arm creeps along the back of the sofa.

“Is it?” he says.

“Is it what?”

“Is this”—Myth gestures to the room around them—“our base of operations?”

---