Page 21 of Poster Girl

“Who is she?” he says.

“So you don’t know her, then,” she says. “I thought maybe you would know her name. Her parents would have passed through your office once they were caught.”

Before the uprising, Nikhil worked for the Delegation, like Sonya’s father. He determined sentencing for people guilty of serious violations of Delegation protocol—people who had more than one child without a permit, or who tampered with their Insights, or smuggled Undesirable or illegal goods into the underground markets. It was a miracle he escaped the fall of the Delegation with his life. Plenty of the unlawful people who had passed through his office to receive their punishments became dissidents in the uprising.

It helped, perhaps, that he didn’t run.

“Too many people passed through my office,” Nikhil says. “Too many for me to recognize all their names. Though I did always feel sorry for the ones in violation of Protocol 18A. Of all the crimes a person could commit, wanting a second child is not so terrible.”

Sonya raises an eyebrow.

“But it was a supremely selfish act,” she says. “Protocol 18A was put in place to ensure that we had enough resources for every child. Your desire to replicate your genetic material shouldn’t supersede the common good—”

“I can’t believe you still have all that memorized,” he replies, with a wry smile.

“I don’t have itmemorized,I just...” She thinks about the assessment in her file, the one that said she had a good memory for rules and regulations.

“Grace didn’t have a file,” Sonya says, tapping the paper. It’s rumpled and worn already, from how many times she’s folded and unfolded it. “I was surprised by that, because I assumed the Delegation would keep a record, even if she was illegal.”

“The Delegation would.” Nikhil frowns at the paper. “Maybe it was only digital.”

Sonya sighs.

“Did you ever read that fairy tale—about Vasilisa the fair?” she says. “My father read it to me, once. Vasilisa’s stepmother hates her, because she’s beautiful, because she’s nothers.So she sends Vasilisa into the woods to get fire from Baba Yaga, a witch who boils people and eats them.” She stares at her hands, clasped loosely on the table, her fingers curled. “She doesn’t expect Vasilisa to come back. She expects her to die. Giving her that task... it’s just a way to get rid of her.” She smiles a little.

“You believe they have sent you to get fire.” Nikhil picks up the wrinkled paper and chews a tomato. “Well, perhaps you’re right. The Triumvirate capitulated to public demand with the Children of the Delegation Act, but they are likely not excited about the idea of freeing asymbolof the Delegation. But if you can’t find anything in the official record... you might consider consulting with the unofficial one.”

Sonya raises an eyebrow.

Nikhil puts the paper down, and folds his hands on the table. His hands are spotted now, shriveling like figs in the sun. He still has hair, feather-light and white. It reminds her of dandelion seeds, standing high in hope of a breeze.

“Many of the people I sentenced had committed Evasion, which meant they paid someone to temporarily suspend their Insight’s feed—making them invisible, essentially, just for a few hours at a time,” he says.

“I didn’t know that was even possible.”

He nods. “Difficult, yes, and expensive... but possible. Most of them used that time to indulge their worst impulses. Everything you can imagine, and more.”

“Who?”

Nikhil waves a hand vaguely at the city beyond her wall tapestry. “Anyone, everyone. Delegation insiders and outsiders. There are depraved people everywhere, but some are better at masking it than others.”

She thinks the Aperture has made this obvious. The polished young men and women of the Delegation now cook euphoric poison in their basement, fight in the street, and steal from each other’s unlocked apartments, among other things. Even Mr. Nadir had kept his small refrigerator behind plywood so no one else knew about it.

“What does this have to do with Grace Ward?” she says.

“Ah,” Nikhil says. “In the last few days before the uprising, I met a remarkable woman who had facilitated many of these Evasions. Emily Knox was her name—though she was known only as Knox. I don’t know that she will know your girl, but if I had to look forunofficialinformation of any kind, I would go to her.”

Sonya nods.

“What sentence did you give her?”

“I don’t remember,” Nikhil says, with a sigh. “But I did not often show leniency to the focal points of Undesirable activity.”

The tomatoes are gone, their wiry stems in a pile on the table. Shouts echo from the street beyond the Aperture, as they do every night at sundown, when it’s easier to peer into the windows of Building 4. The crowds are thinner on this corner than near Buildings 1 and 2, where the Aperture residents frequently throw trash at onlookers from their windows. Tonight, at the corner store across the way, it’s just a loud, laughing conversation. Sonya feels—and suppresses—the urge to crack open the window so she can hear what they’re saying.

Nikhil clears his throat.

“You didn’t tell me Alexander was your Triumvirate contact.” He says it like he’s setting down something heavy, and she realizes he’s been waiting the whole conversation to bring it up.

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