Page 10 of Poster Girl

She’s squeezing the edge of the counter so tightly she’s lost feeling in her fingers.

“No,” she says. “Get out.”

Alexander puts his Elicit back into his pocket. He stands. Even though there is as much space between them as she can get, he feels too close.

“Have it your way, for now,” he says. “But I’ll be back in a few days. Hopefully by then you’ll have come to your senses.”

The three representatives of the Triumvirate visit the Aperture once a year, accompanied by a small battalion of journalists and peace officers. The stated purpose of their visit is to meet with Aperture leaders—each building elects two—but Sonya knows better. The Triumvirate are here to prove they haven’t forgotten. To make a show of mercy—but also to remind the public that the favored sons and daughters of the Delegation are still safely locked away.

David used to say that visitors to the Aperture made him feel like an animal in the zoo. Before he died, they spent visitation days drinking themselves into a stupor. Sometimes they put on old propaganda songs and sang them at the top of their lungs, in the hope that theTriumvirate would hear them through the walls. But most of the time they just fell asleep in David’s bed in the middle of the afternoon.

This year, a panicked Mrs. Pritchard finds Sonya right before the representatives arrive and asks her to change the dead lightbulbs in the maintenance hallway. The representatives will be touring the ground floor, and as Mrs. Pritchard says, “We don’t want them to think we don’t take care of ourselves.” Mrs. Pritchard is eternally embarrassed, always aware of deviating from a norm that only she is keeping track of. It’s easier to do as she says than to argue with her.

Sonya carries a stepladder and a bag of lightbulbs to the maintenance hallway. One by one, she unscrews the dark bulbs from their sockets and replaces them, then carries the ladder another few feet to do it again. She has made it to the end of the hallway when the door at the other end opens and the representatives of the Triumvirate walk in.

She doesn’t know their faces, but there’s no one else they could be, dressed like that. One wears a knee-length red dress, her hair sleek and almost as short as Sonya’s. Another is in a blue pantsuit, her fingers adorned with green stones. They are Petra Novak and Amy Archer—she doesn’t know which one is which.

The third, a tall man in a dove-gray suit, is the first to recognize her. His name is Easton Turner. He was elected sometime in the last few years. David heard about it on a radio.

“My, my,” he says. “Isn’t this unexpected.”

Sonya finishes screwing in the lightbulb, and descends the ladder. Nikhil and Mrs. Pritchard are close behind the Triumvirate representatives, and a few feet behind them are journalists with microphones extended and Elicits raised, likely recording video. Sonya straightens. She wishes she was wearing something neater than a pair of loose trousers and an old T-shirt with an unraveling hem. She wishes she didn’t look quite so much like the adolescent girl in everyone’s memories.

Easton says, “Don’t you recognize her, Petra? She’s the girl from the propaganda posters.”

“Wow,” the woman in the red dress says. Her fingernails are long and filed almost to points at the ends—precise and sharp. “So she is. What is your name, anyway?”

“Kantor,” Sonya says. “Sonya.”

“I forgot you were in here, Sonya,” Easton says. He’s handsome in a way that suggests he looked too boyish and soft when he was young and has only just found his face. His hair is salt-and-pepper, thick, short, trim at the neck.

“Whyare you in here?” the woman in the blue pantsuit—Amy Archer—asks Sonya. She sounds like a security guard who’s caught someone trespassing. “Didn’t the Children of the Delegation Act secure your release?”

“No,” Sonya says. “I just missed the age cutoff.”

“But we did approve something related to you, didn’t we?” Easton says. He taps the side of his nose, and points at her. “Yes, yes. A special exception, if you perform an act of service.”

“I heard something about that,” Sonya says.

Petra smiles.

“Oh, did you?” She laughs. “And?”

“And,” Sonya says, and she shoulders her bag of lightbulbs. “I wasn’t sure what to make of it.”

“What to make of it,” Petra says.

“I’m under the impression it isn’t compulsory,” Sonya says. “There’s a choice involved.”

“Of course,” Amy Archer says. “We simply assumed that you would jump at the chance.”

“Unless, of course, you are...” Petra’s eyes drop to the bag of lightbulbs at Sonya’s side. “Satisfied with your current station.”

Sonya clenches her jaw so hard her teeth squeak.

“Well,” Easton says. “I hope you make the right choice.”

Petra grins at Easton. “‘What’s right is right,’ after all.”

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