Page 90 of Poster Girl

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Myth is your father,” she says.

Easton’s smile finally falters.

She goes on: “You clearly aren’t in agreement with the Army’s philosophy. But Myth still went to great lengths to ensure that his son’s name wasn’t sullied by whatever I found out when I traced Grace Ward’s UIA,” she says. “He must love you a great deal.”

She feels something sharp in her chest, something aching. She’s not sure that her father, who was so ready to take his wife and daughters with him during the uprising, would do such a thing for her.

“I’m sure he does,” Easton says, at last.

“He seems brilliant,” she says. “But a bit off balance, you know what I mean? I’m sure it’s difficult for you to be related to someone like that, given your choice of profession.”

“What are you getting at?”

“What I’m getting at,” she says, “is that I’d like to stop this whole game you’re trying to play with me.” She waves her hand between them. “I reached out to you because I had information that could ruin you. You knew I had it, so you brought me here. Let’s start there.”

“It’s interesting to me that you think you could ‘ruin me,’” he says. “From inside the Aperture, and without proof.”

“If I was so harmless, I wouldn’t warrant a face-to-face meeting with you.”

“Perhaps I brought you here to demonstrate how simple it would be to reach you, if that was something I wished to do.”

Sonya forces herself to laugh. She sets the letter opener down on the desk.

“But you’re a politician,” she says, “and you know that it’s silly to threaten someone who has nothing to lose—much better to bargain with them.”

His eyes narrow by a fraction. She wonders how he expected this meeting to go. She knows that she’s pretty, and as Marie reminded her, has a kind of natural blankness that causes people to project whatever they want onto her. Perhaps he expected to find what he read in the Delegation files. A girl with not much to offer.

But that girl—the poster girl—was never actually her.

“What is it that you want?” Easton asks, finally.

“To get out of the Aperture, obviously,” she says. “And for you to leave Alexander Price alone. He wasn’t responsible for this.”

“And what kind of guarantee will I get in return that you will not share any information you have?”

“My sincere oath?” She smiles a little. “I assume that if I break it, I’ll be found dead somewhere. It seems to be a simple task for your associates to accomplish. Is that not guarantee enough?”

He purses his lips, adjusts his shirt collar.

“You realize I could just do that anyway,” he says.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she replies. “My untimely death might trigger the release of material you don’t want to be made public.”

It is not exactly a lie; she said “might.” Let him wonder what that means. Let him wonder who she’s talked to, what damage they can do.

Easton’s chair creaks as he shifts his weight. Somewhere down the hall, or perhaps in the office next to his, someone is listening to opera. The soprano’s solo is just finishing when Easton makes his decision.

“Congratulations, Ms. Kantor,” he says. He smiles as if she only just arrived, the camouflage painted on again. “You completed your mission, and as promised, you will be granted your freedom from the Aperture under the Children of the Delegation Act. I suggest you take the evening to say your goodbyes.”

“Goodbye, Representative Turner,” she says.

Nineteen

She doesn’t relax until she’s back in the Aperture. The gate closes behind her, and she leans against the exterior wall of Building 4 to catch her breath. Where the two streets cross, Gabe, Seby, Logan, and Dylan are playing soccer, the goals just soup cans set six feet apart on the pavement, on either end of the square. Logan kicks the ball to Seby, dirt spraying behind it, and Seby scores a goal. Frustrated, Gabe kicks over one of the empty soup cans.

She walks around the corner to Building 4’s tunnel, and passes through the courtyard, where Mrs. Pritchard is weeding again. She looks up at Sonya and then does a double take, eyes wide.

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