Page 80 of Poster Girl

“It wasthattechnology that I was most interested in,” Naomi says. “Think what we could do if we could marry the synthetic and the organic so perfectly in other ways! We could give people back their missing limbs; we could replace their malfunctioning organs with perfectly operational new ones. We could extend life for decades. Wear out one heart, one spine, one pancreas—get another. It would be a world without the ailments that so often divide us or limit our potential.” Her eyes sparkle. This is the warmest she’s sounded since they arrived, and she’s talking about replacing spines. “It’s unfortunate that our government was so unambitious. All they wanted to do with this marvel of science, thismiracle,was to peep into your bedroom window.”

Naomi was never in government, Sonya remembers. She taught at the university. She taughtKnox.

“What I’m trying to say to you,” Naomi says, “is that I never really intended for the Insight to become a surveillance device. I made the technology I was asked to make because I had my own goals, and those goals were ignored in favor of the Delegation’s goals.”

They sit, Sonya catching her breath; Naomi finishing her coffee, hands trembling slightly; Alexander staring out the window at the forest beyond the house.

“I need to use the bathroom,” Alexander says, suddenly.

“Down the hall, to the right,” Naomi says. “Don’t go wandering.”

Sonya meets Alexander’s eyes for just a moment, just long enough to register that Naomi Proctor seems to be hiding something. Or someone. The longer they stay here, the longer they give the Triumvirate to catch up to them, or Naomi to warn them. She just isn’t sure that’s something Naomi will want to do.

Alexander disappears down the hallway. Naomi moves her—now empty—coffee cup to the side and folds her hands in front of her. There are no rings on her fingers. She examines Sonya’sface like she’s trying to read it. Sonya wonders if she sees the blank canvas Marie saw, or the sharp edges Knox did. She seems toknowSonya’s father, enough to know about his daughters. What else does she know?

“I really am sorry to hear about your father,” Naomi says. “He was a kind man. Very proud of both his girls—but he had a special fondness for you, I believe. His poster girl.”

Something cold spills into her chest.His poster girl,Naomi called her. But Naomi Proctor died—or seemed to die—when Sonya was a child, long before she ever posed for that poster.

“How did you know him?” Sonya says.

“We sometimes moved in the same social circles.”

“It’s just,” Sonya says, frowning, “you’d think he would have mentioned meeting Naomi Proctor, famous inventor of the Insight. But he never did.”

Naomi shrugs a little. It isn’t an answer. She asks, “Did they kill him in the uprising?”

“He killed himself, actually,” Sonya says. “My whole family did. With Sol. Rather than be arrested.”

“Ah, Sol. The mercy drug.”

“Is that what they called it?”

“The company that developed it, Beake and Bell, had a real knack for marketing terrifying things as if they were nice and friendly,” Naomi says, with a small smile. She affects a high-pitched, gentle voice: “‘Don’t let your loved ones suffer another moment of pain. Sol: the mercy drug. Give them peace.’”

“To be fair,” Sonya says, flatly, “it did look like they were having fun, in the end.”

“So you were there.”

Sonya nods.

“I wonder,” Naomi says, “where he got it.”

“The Sol?”

“Yes. It was a highly controlled substance. Not easy to get your hands on. Every single dose was tracked by the government . . . or so I thought.” Naomi tilts her head, studies Sonya. “You know, you stillremind me of a Delegation girl. The way you sit, the way you speak. You still act like you are under surveillance.”

“I still am,” Sonya says, gesturing to her right eye.

“I suppose that’s true,” Naomi says. “But I have to wonder, if you weren’t anymore, how you would act. Who you would be.”

“The Insight used to feel like a friend,” Sonya says. “Like it was watching over me. You don’t feel threatened by a parent checking on you when you’re a kid, sleeping, do you?” She shrugs, and looks out the window. “But lately, it feels... it feels like it must have felt for everyone else, back then. Like someone’s waiting for me to fuck up. Like they’re looking for a reason to come after me.”

Outside, a squirrel leaps from one branch to another. The branch bows under the creature’s weight, and it scrambles toward the trunk, undeterred.

“Are you going to send them after me?” she says to Naomi.

“I may prefer the Triumvirate to the Delegation,” Naomi says. “But I really have no interest in governments, in general.” She reaches across the table and lays a hand on Sonya’s arm. Her touch is gentle, but Sonya still jerks her arm away, startled. Still, Naomi says, arm outstretched, palm flat on the table, “Some unsolicited advice for you, my dear. When you leave this place, keep walking until you come to a place where no one knows you. That’s the only way you can figure out who you are when no one is watching.”

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