Page 39 of Poster Girl

Audio file was a dead end, but I have another idea. Come by my apartment tomorrow and we’ll negotiate. Don’t bring your minder; he’s a drag.

—Knox

Eight

The lobby of Knox’s apartment building is empty and quiet, except for the bubbling of the fountain. Sonya stands in the center of the room, before the screen, waiting.

Emily Knox’s apartment is a lion’s den.

The screen glows green. “Access granted,” the cool feminine voice says, and the security guard on the right side of the lobby beckons to Sonya, then gestures to the elevator bank.

“Thirteenth floor,” the guard says, her eyes lingering on Sonya’s Insight.

“Thank you.”

The only sign that the elevator is moving is the changing numbers on the screen above the doors, and the shifting pressure around Sonya’s ears. It eases to a stop at the thirteenth floor, and Sonya steps out into a white hallway with a white marble floor. A plant—devil’s ivy—spills over a pedestal near one of the apartment doors.

Sonya moves toward it. She doesn’t know the number of Knox’s apartment, but there are only three options to choose from, and set into the middle of one of the doors is a mechanical eyeball. When she stands in front of it, a ring of white light appears around its artificial pupil, a mockery of an Insight. The eye blinks, and the door opens.

“Guest: Kantor, Sonya,” a computerized voice announces.

Her name crawls in red light across the ceiling. There is still no sign of Knox, but Sonya walks into the apartment anyway.

The living space has the look of a place that was meant to be elegantand simple—a wall of windows opposite the door, looking out over the bay; a floor of huge stone tiles; airy, high ceilings—but Knox has filled it with wires and screens, keyboards and lamps, fans and tools. It puts Sonya’s collection of bits and pieces to shame.

A desk arcs around the middle of the living space, a grid of computer screens dangling above it, of all different sizes and shapes. Cords hang in bundles across the ceiling, moving in different directions; tags dangle from them, labels that Sonya can’t decipher. A strip of pink LED lights wraps around the edge of the desk. A small army of figurines, cobbled together from old computer parts, stands on the kitchen counter. There are bowls stacked high in the sink.

Before the door closes behind her, Sonya grabs a screwdriver from the table near the door and sticks it in the doorjamb, so the door stays open.

Knox sits in a desk chair in an oversized T-shirt and no pants, wool socks up to her knees, her black hair hanging loose over her shoulders. Perched on her nose is a pair of glasses meant for a larger face than her own. She holds an apple against her chest, half-eaten, with one hand, as she types with the other.

“How does your apartment know my name?” Sonya says to her.

“I taught it to log your Insight upon your arrival,” Knox says, without looking up. “Now you’re in the system. I’m surprised your minder let you come.”

“He didn’t ‘let’ me,” Sonya says. “But he’s probably listening in.”

“Not for long.” Knox reaches under the desk into a little metal drawer unit. She fumbles around in one, swearing under her breath, and then another, finally coming up with a curved metal band that looks like a headband or a broken crown. She presses something on the side, and Sonya hears a sound like a bulb dying. Knox gets to her feet, and reaches for Sonya; Sonya steps back.

“Relax,” Knox says. “Just put it on, would you?”

Sonya takes the headband from her and slides it into place over the crown of her head. It buzzes against her skin.

“I thought you said you couldn’t disable Insights,” she says.

“I didn’t,” Knox says. “I created an audio disturbance, that’s all.”

She sits down again and lays her hands over the keys of one of her keyboards. She does it with the grace of a pianist, long fingers fluttering as she types.

“Oh.” Sonya touches the humming metal. “Thanks.”

She looks at Knox’s grid of screens. She can’t tell what she’s looking at exactly, except a series of open terminals full of white text. Beneath them is Knox’s desktop wallpaper, a desert landscape with rocky red mountains and a cluster of cacti.

“A girl can dream,” Knox says, when she catches Sonya staring. “Travel permits between regulated zones are not much easier to come by now than they were under the Delegation’s control, if you can imagine it. Apparently our current government is too unstable to be trustworthy.”

“You can’t make a counterfeit permit?”

“Believe it or not, skill with computers doesn’t translate to falsifying paper documents,” Knox says. “Though I’m sure if I asked the right person, with the right leverage...”

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