Page 46

She peers into the socket, her Insight casting a white circle on the ceiling. She reaches in, the metal grooves scraping her knuckles, and pulls up on the metal tab in the center of the socket. Then she screws in the bulb again and nods to Knox.

Knox flips the switch again, and the light turns on.

“Wow,” the clerk says. “How’d you do that?”

“It’s a common problem with these old fixtures,” Sonya says.

“Well... thank you,” the clerk says.

Sonya carries the stool back into the dressing room. When she comes out, the clerk offers Sonya a bag, and as she takes it, says, “You’re even prettier in person, by the way.”

Sonya pauses in the middle of shoving her clothes into the bag. Knox snorts.

“Thank you,” Sonya says, and she walks out, Knox at her heels.

“Wow,” Knox says. “She wasstarstruck.Doesn’t that just warm your cold little Delegation heart?”

“No. It doesn’t. Where are we going?”

“A little spot I like. You look like you could use some lunch.”

“What happened, you woke up and decided to play dolls?” Sonya says. “Dress me up and now we’re going to a tea party?”

“Something like that.” Knox smiles. “How’d you get to be so handy?”

As always with Knox, Sonya isn’t sure whether she’s being mocked or not.

“Everything’s always breaking in the Aperture,” Sonya says. “And I got tired of doing nothing.”

They turn down a narrow street that smells like wet cardboard and spray paint, and Knox stops in front of a small cafe. There are two round tables on the sidewalk with metal chairs around them, and one wilting bush next to the door with a few cigarette butts stabbed into the dirt.

Inside the place is dark, the floor faintly sticky. The walls are painted in bright colors above the wood paneling, one royal blue, one magenta, one orange, and the tables each have a layer of plastic over them. A man behind the counter greets them.

“Knoxy,” he says. “Long time no see.”

“Sammy,” she says. “No more mustache?”

He shrugs.

Sonya is looking up at the menu, written in chalk next to the counter.

“Black coffee, and my friend will have...” Knox gestures to Sonya.

Sammy sees Sonya over Knox’s shoulder, but his smile doesn’t falter.

“Hot chocolate,” Sonya says. “And a grilled cheese.”

Knox pulls a face.

“Coming right up,” Sammy says.

There are a few other people there, faces buried in books, sipping from multicolored mugs, scribbling in notebooks. Electronic music plays over the speakers, the beats at odds with Sonya’s heart.

Sonya fills a glass of water at a station in the corner and carries it to the table in the back where Knox sits waiting. She drinks the entire thing. She doesn’t usually get much to eat or drink outside the Aperture, unless she brings it with her.

“I keep forgetting it’s not like they’re paying you for this gig,” Knox says. “Is it strange not to get paid just for following rules?”

“No,” Sonya says. “It’s been a decade for me, same as you.”