Page 69 of Poster Girl

C:\FortKnox\PosterGirl

C:\FortKnox\PosterGirl>“justincase.avi”

Something hums. An image of Knox fills the screen—no, a video.

She sits in the same chair Sonya is sitting in, in the sweatpants and loose shirt she wore the last time Sonya saw her. She brings a knee up to her chest, and starts to speak. Her voice comes from everywhere—ahead of Sonya, behind her, on either side, the apartment full of her voice.

“Well, if you’re watching this, things went sour in a big way,” Knoxsays. “Which was always a possibility. I’ve spent my entire life poking different bears with different sticks, and one of them was bound to get homicidal at one point or another. Still, I hope this program never triggers. Maybe one day I’ll show it to you, and we can have a nice laugh together. Do you think you and I are capable of laughing together, Sonya? I’m not entirely convinced you know how to laugh anymore.”

She reaches out of frame and picks up a mug of espresso. She holds it against her chest as she goes on.

“There are a few things you should probably know, if I’ve given up the ghost,” she says. “The first is that there’s something I didn’t tell you about stealing the Army’s data—I didn’t just steal it. I deleted it. My leech was... more like a screwworm. It attached to their systems, copied their data, and then devoured the original. Once the Army discovers that, they’re going to be...” She smiles, but it’s unsteady. “Incandescent with rage.”

Behind her, the sun is setting over the water. She must have recorded this right after Sonya left.

“I did this because I don’t think anyone should have this data,” she says. “Because I believe in creating stable systems. The Delegation used location data to root out their detractors. After the uprising, the very things that made a person favored by the Delegation made them a criminal to the Triumvirate, and vice versa. Just because you’re not committing a crime now, by going where you go, by seeing who you see, doesn’t mean that another government, another set of people with another set of priorities, won’t come along and call you a criminal one day. The players change, the rules change, that’s an inevitability... The most we can do is build a board that restricts what’s possible. We can createlimits to power.Understand?”

Sonya leans forward, because Knox is leaning forward, all traces of humor gone from her face, her eyes glinting. She is a zealot, too, Sonya realizes, just like Myth and the people of the Analog Army. But there’s less danger in this kind of zeal.

“My intention is to use the UIA database to help you find Grace Ward, and then delete it,” she says. “If I’m dead, I won’t be able to dothat—but you can. I can’t guarantee that you will. I simply have to believe it. I have to believe in you.” She laughs. “It’s difficult to believe in you, Sonya Kantor. Do you know how many teenagers were in the uprising? People who were raised to obey the Delegation, but saw it for what it was anyway, and were willing to die to dismantle it. People whodiddie to dismantle it. You weren’t one of them. You don’t get a free pass, Poster Girl, just for being young. But God, I don’t know, I think I have to believe that you’re not trapped in amber. I fucking hope so.”

She sits back, and clears her throat.

“In the bottom drawer, on your right, are two sets of instructions. Printed out.” She smirks. “The first will tell you how to use the UIA database to locate Ms. Ward. The second will tell you how to wipe my computer system. I wouldn’t recommend doing the second until you have actually laid eyes on Ms. Ward, just in case.”

Sonya rolls closer to the drawer unit under the desk and tugs the bottom one open. Two pieces of paper rest on top, one labeleduiadatabaseand one labeledendgame. Sonya folds Endgame and slides it into the inner pocket of her coat. She presses UIA Database flat, hands trembling. She starts to type.

Knox’s notes are a jumble, her handwriting cramped and difficult to read unless it’s describing code. Sonya types in nonsense sequences, her fingers unused to finding the forward slash, the carat, the brackets. She presses “enter,” and a new window opens on one of the other screens. It displays a huge, detailed map of the megalopolis, a web of fine lines that, for a moment, Sonya doesn’t even recognize.

Knox’s instructions tell her how to open the side panel and search for a name.

type in whatever name you got from the wards, surname first,they say. Sonya thinks of her note, waiting with the security guard downstairs the other night. The one that just missed Knox. She types inGleissner, Alice.

Nothing appears.

Sonya folds into herself a little. The map is moving, shifting, the lines redrawing. The grid of roads disappears in favor of wobbly lineslayered over each other, odd shapes, shading and numbers. Topography. The signal isn’t coming from the city; it’s coming from the landbeyondit.

In the center of the map is a blinking blue dot. A white square appears beside it, along with some text:

UIA #291-8467-587-382, “Gleissner, Alice Elisabeth”

47° 27′ 01.3″ N

121° 28′ 26.5″ W

Status: Online

Fourteen

The HiTrain creeps from stop to stop. Somewhere, a baby shrieks, and she feels an irrational desire to scream back.

Status: Online.The words pulse inside Sonya like another heart. Grace Ward is being held in the wilderness beyond the megalopolis; no wonder she was never found.

She fidgets. She doesn’t have a plan beyond going. She’ll go to the Aperture; she’ll pack what she has for the journey. She’ll find a map—somewhere. The library. The corner store. Possibilities unfold before her like she’s fanning the pages of a book, passing too quickly for her to acknowledge them all.

Status: Online.

She’s standing by the door when the train pulls into her station. She flies down the stairs to the street, and jogs in hard-soled, worn shoes to the Aperture entrance. Standing in front of the metal eye of the gate is Alexander Price, and he has that look about him like he’s about to give her a revelation and it’s not one she wants to hear. She stops a few feet away from him.

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