Yarn

by Jon Armstrong

  Vada's face crinkled in confusion. "No. It's been here for about fifteen… almost twenty years."

  I didn't want to say it. The muscles in my throat fought me, but I got it out. "They took him here."

  Vada frowned. "I know."

  The roughness in her voice made me feel worse. "I already hate M-Bunny."

  A sad smile flitted across her face. "Good," she whispered.

  When I reached toward her, she gently clasped her fingers around mine.

  SLUBS: M-BUNNY HEADQUARTERS

  A man opened the door. His face and hands were caked with dirt and what I soon realized were blood and bits of flesh. The front of his B-shirt was so encrusted that the slogan had long been obliterated. The material across his belly, under his arms, was cracking like dried mud. The hollow emptiness of his eyes didn't seem to connect to anything human. They were two fleshy cameras processing lights and darks, identifying corn, food, cola, and things to recycle.

  "You gotta change," was the first thing he said. I heard the sloppy, guttural accent that I had lost by then. As he showed us to a corner where B-shirts and shorts hung from pegs, Vada and I glanced at each other. She smiled and raised her eyebrows in a casual if fretful well, here we are kind of way.

  The place smelled mostly like solid recycle, but there were notes of rust and salt. And swirling in the air were what seemed like a dozen different sounds: the harmonic and enharmonic whine of several motors, soft thuds, wet splashes, and occasionally what sounded like distant gun shots.

  I took off my jacket, hung it, unbuttoned my shirt, released the cuff locks, and unbarred it from my foundation. Next I released the tension hook on my pants and slid them down my legs. Finally, I stood in my chemise, socks, and briefs, reluctant to continue. Pinching the B-shirt that hung before me between my thumb and index, I held it up, and grimaced at Vada.

  "I know." She was pulling on a pair of near-black shorts over her tan stockings.

  It hadn't occurred to me that I could leave on my foundation, but I decided to do the same. Sniffing the shirt, its pungent sweat and sewage odor, made me sick. When I was a slubber, my B-shirts had been dirty, but I didn't think they were this bad. I pulled up the shorts up over my briefs and then stood there, afraid to move. Vada and I looked at each and grimaced.

  "This way," said our guide.

  As we followed, I whispered to Vada. "Who is he?"

  "A recruit for the opposition."

  We walked past large metal vats darkened by years of splatters and drips. Here and there the uneven floor was covered with puddles. Some smelled like chemicals; others, salty meat.

  Following the guide up a set of stairs, we got a view of the whole place. It was easily two hundred yards long and half as wide. From translucent squares in the ceiling, parallel blocks of light dappled the machinery and men in a checkerboard.

  "They come in here," began our guide, raising his voice over the din as a large garage door began to open at the far end. Through it, I could see blacktop and a triangle of nearby corn. "They come on the buses." As he spoke, several slubbers began to wander into the door where a couple of workers greeted them.

  "We give them a special M-Bunny cola. It stuns them. We call it Blue, because it's sort of bluish." He shrugged. "I mean the syrup is." Frowning, he finished, "Let's go down."

  From the platform, he led us through a maze of machines, conveyers, and holding pens. Two dozen men now stood just inside the garage door. Some were looking around, but most stared down at their feet with what seemed like a sad resolve. A worker passed out plastic cups. "Proud day," he told each of the men. "Proud day for M-Bunny."

  "It stuns them," whispered our guide. "I've tried it. It's good. Real syrup."

  The slubbers were then instructed to take off their clothes. "Final recycle. Final recycle!" was the call.

  In the middle of the group, I saw a man with sorrowful eyes and a long nose. I shouted, "Rik!"

  He gazed at me for a beat. His brown eyes seemed distant and faded.

  "It's me, Tane."

  Rik had been my best friend. I hadn't seen him for two years, but he seemed to have aged ten. As he came toward the link fence that separated us, I saw that his right hand was crusted with blood and dripping puss. The smell made me gag.

  He studied my face and my hair. "Where have you been?"

  I didn't know how to answer. I just shrugged and glanced at his hand. "You injured?"

  He nodded slowly. "I cut it digging up asphalt. That black tar isn't good for the crop, and it isn't good for the earth." He looked at his rotting fingers. "I tried the pest gum and the corn salve, nothing worked." His voice was calm and his eyes were filled with acceptance.

  "That's not so bad, Rik. That can be healed."

  He smiled at me and began to recite one of the M-Bunny's songs. "Our earth… we cherish you. And today as the day before, we have tried to help you."

  "Rik, listen to me!"

  "We hope you can feel the souls of our feet, the way we walk with modesty upon you and the way we use only that of you we need. And corn… the eyes… the life… and the ears of our earth, we tend to you. We nurture you… we feed and water you with ourselves… we honor you and we ask that you grow strong and recycle our love."

  When we were young we tended the corn together. I had admired how gentle and nurturing he was with the crop. "You don't have to recycle yourself for that. They can cure your hand."

  "They?" He looked me up and down. "You live in the city?"

  "It's good there. It's different, but it's a million times better."

  He scowled at me. "Are you a t'up now?"

  I didn't know if I really was or not. "Rik… they can fix your hand." I looked at Vada to confirm, but she had turned the other way, as if to give me privacy.

  Rik shook his head. "It's time to recycle."

  "Remember the rash my dad had? It wasn't anything. Remember I spit the gum juice on him? It wasn't a rot or smut." I could see that Rik didn't understand or believe. "Really, they can fix your hand! It's not worth recycling."

  "I missed you." He smiled. "I was sorry they traded you away." Now he frowned. "I tried to be your friend, but maybe you weren't meant for the corn. I remember you fixing shirts like they weren't good enough." With a shrug, he finished: "We're all just kernels of corn. One isn't better than the other."

  One of the workers shouted for Rik, "Over here!"

  "He's coming with us," I told Vada.

  Vada smiled stiffly.

  "He was my best friend," I told her. "He really knows the corn." As I spoke, I could see what I imagined was a tinge of confusion and even disdain in her eyes. Like all city people, she could not really understand the beauty of corn, dirt, and wide skies. "But they can fix him, can't they? It's just his hand."

  "Not allowed," said our guide.

  Ahead of Rik, several nude men had lined up. A worker nearby held a pneumatic gun attached to a machine. The gunner had a long face with drooping eyes. If I had seen him in another context, I might have described his expression as serene. "You won't feel nothing," he said.

  "You are all helping the corn and M-Bunny," shouted the other worker, now collecting the cups. "Good work!" he said to one of the naked men, who gulped down the last of his Blue cola.

  The gunner raised the blackened device toward the first man's head. For an instant, the man peered up at the end with confusion and maybe awe. With slow, deliberate motions the gunner then pressed it to the man's forehead, and held it there

  as if to let him get used to its temperature.

  Run, I thought. Turn and run!

  Nothing moved for a beat. Sound ebbed away until a staccato but muffled pop came from the pneumatic gun. The man jerked, his legs, spine, and neck going soft. Before he collapsed, the gunner set a hook through the bottom of his jaw attached to a chain that carried the body up and into the workings of the factory.

  "The bolt kills them without pain," said our guide. "The conveyer takes them up to the de-boners. Bo
nes are used for one thing… flesh for another." He shrugged. "Different levels of toxins from the pollution. It's all sorted."

  "You won't feel nothing," repeated the gunner as the next man stepped up.

  Rik started to turn.

  "Wait!" I said grabbing the chain link between us. "There's a whole world beyond the corn. It's not like they told us, Rik. It's unlike anything you can imagine."

  "The corn had such hopes for you." He eyed Vada for a confused moment-she was surely the first woman he had ever seen. "The crop is good." Rik nodded at me as if he were the one who understood. "Goodbye, Tane."

  "Rik! Stop." I turned to our guide. "How much?" I dug out my MasterCut from a pocket on my foundation.

  He laughed and shook his head. "I'd like to take your money."

  "Rik, stop! Hold on!" To the guide I asked, "How much? I'll pay!"

  Rik tugged his B-shirt up and over his chest and head. "I don't want that, Tane. I love the corn." His belly was distended. The skin was smooth, almost as if it had been burnished to a shine. I didn't know was wrong, but figured a simple dose of something from the city would cure it, too.

  "Rik, hold on! Listen to me! It's not what you think. It's killing! M-Bunny is just killing you like they killed my dad!"

  "They are recycled," refuted the guide. "Everything is reused."

  "Rik!" I screamed. "I know the corn. I know what it is. I love it, but it's not everything! There are other things… there are other worlds." Now he wouldn't even turn around and look at me. I smashed my fists into the fence. It rattled and wobbled. "Rik listen to me!"

  "Don't knock that!"

  I turned to the guide, my hand raised. Vada stepped before me.

  "Tane," she said coolly and softly. "I'm sorry."

  What are the chemical and mechanical processes that cause one's throat to tighten, eyes to water, and chest to harden like cement?

  The pneumatic gun fired again. Now there were only two ahead of Rik. He stood with his back straight and his chin high as if to prove his righteousness.

  Something came halfway up my throat before I could choke it back down. "Let's get out of here," I told Vada.

  She stroked my shoulder, and said to the guide, "His dad was recycled."

  "No," I told her. "He had a rash. M-Bunny took him."

  "For smuts and rots… that's called a cultivation," said the guide, as the gun discharged.

  "It was a Xirash," I screamed at him. "No one in the slubs knew what the hell it was! It was nothing. He died for nothing."

  The man frowned and pointed past me. "Cultivation is on the other side of the building." The gun fired again. "I can show you."

  I had to get away. I turned and started walking. We passed large dirty machines that chugged and rattled so loudly I couldn't hear Vada or the guide. The hot air smelled terrible and I thought I was going to vomit.

  We stopped in a clearing of machinery. "Those are the incubators." The guide was pointing to a row of what looked like portable enterjohns. One was being washed out by a man wearing a soiled non-woven mask over his mouth and nose.

  And then, above the noise, I heard the gun clearly. Rik. I stopped. Water swelled in my eyes and my throat seemed to shut. Years ago, when we were only half as tall as the mature corn, we had pretended to be men together. We had pulled clumps of silk from the ears and stuck it on our faces to make mustaches, laughing when it fell off.

  Vada stepped beside me. "I'm sorry. I had no idea we would see someone you knew."

  Wiping my eyes, I wanted to turn and run, but I couldn't even speak, my windpipe was so taut.

  The guide was going on about how long the sick men were kept in the boxes, what they were fed, and how the germs were harvested if they got worse.

  Before I knew it, the tour was done and Vada and I stood outside again in the dry swirling heat. The sky was impossibly bright and the corn leaves reflected the sun like mirrors. Closing my eyes for a few moments, I exhaled all the way, trying to empty my lungs of the bitter factory air. I could hear Vada beside me still fastening her clothes.

  "I hate this place." I squinted at the undulating leaves. "It should be destroyed. This shouldn't exist. I mean all of this… the corn… the men… the reps! And this damn building! It's all a huge lie, and I used to believe it. I used to think that the cities were the problem and that we were saving the world. I loved the corn and thought it was better than people."

  Vada closed the last button at her neck and nodded. "This is a nightmare created by Bunné. There are fifty other buildings like this. She has to be stopped."

  I could have ended up exactly like Rik. If my father hadn't found me, and if I hadn't taken that yarn from him, I would have eventually walked into the recycling center beside Rick, proud and ready. I had eaten Miss Bunné's EcoDogs, her KobNockers, her TakoDrops, and drunk her colas. I had worn her awful B-shirts and shorts. And most of all, I had believed the promise of M-Bunny's vision: of her sweet corn, of her reclaimed land, of her quiet and gentle men, of the stinging, beautiful smell of her pollen drop.

  Vada looked up. "We need to get back to the Europa."

  SEATTLEHAMA: FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE INCOMPARABLE SUPREME CELEB: MISS BUNNÉ AND A BLUE MINI-T

  Once I knew what to look for in Seattlehama, I began to see Miss Bunné's influence everywhere. She hadn't just influenced Kira, her warTalk, and her skivvé. While Miss Bunné's face wasn't as ubiquitous as Tinyko 200, Elodi, or Strawberry Five, I learned that all songs, dance, and stories were cloth woven with Bunné yarn. If it didn't reference her, it didn't exist. She was language; the rest, merely words. I watched clips of her epics from popular surveillance. The sapphire of Seattlehama was a tall, beautiful woman with sharp cheekbones, green eyes, and a wide, pouting mouth. Some said she was just eighteen, others speculated that she was closer to one hundred and eighteen. To me, she looked like she might be in her early forties with hints of age around her eyes and mouth. Sometimes her hair glittered chrome, others a rich neon black, others a glowing isotope red. And as malleable was her hair, so were her mannerisms, and from what I could tell, her personality. Sometimes she was demure and shy; her head tilted slightly to the side and her eyelids fluttering like moth wings. Other times her eyes glowed with fury, bright beams in the night.

  Her epics, Wicked Lover Coma Dancer, Sweet Way Surgery Duo-and her biggest-Sensitive Dead Penisless Boys were violent, heroic happening/dramas that always began with her in distress only to be saved by her real-life love interest. They included impossible feats of group fighting, syrupy songs, speeches, elaborate dance numbers with thousands of participants, grotesque sex scenes, and long talks about her philosophy, opinions, and shopping experiences.

  During my times in Seattlehama I rarely heard anything but admiration for her, so it wasn't until years later that I heard rumors about her shadowy underworld origins, immorally auctioned egg-splits, her influence on the Xi yarn factories, the reports of killing squads, and the massive corruption of her corporation.

  After returning to the city, still shaken and angry, I headed back to Pilla's bedroom thinking she would be concerned. Instead she was furious.

  "Where were you?" she demanded. "You didn't even show up at the haberdashery! I looked all over!"

  "I was shopping."

  She stepped closer. "After your work, come straight here. No more shopping for you. Understand?"

  "Zanella told me to study women's clothes."

  "The only women's clothes you will study will be my Pearl Rivers."

  I laughed at her. "You don't own me."

  Pilla scowled at me. "You shouldn't be walking around the city like you are! Trust me, get a makeover. Dress like some epic character."

  I snorted. "Like who? Rose Farmer Soundless Assassin?" I had tailored a Rose Farmer at YeOld#1, and recalled the elaborate and absurd petal-covered mask.

  "No assassins! Get something good. Do you understand? I thought you were dead! I had no idea what happened. You must be careful!"

  Guilty, i
magining her running down hallways shouting my name, I wondered if she was afraid of Withor or his yarn rippers finding me. I didn't dare tell her that I'd run into Vit.

  "I'll tell the haberdashery you're going to be another couple of hours." Before she headed to the Xi boutique, she dropped me off at a salon near her place and, for the next hour, I sat in an enterchair while my hair was bleached and lengthened and my eyes darkened. I was then dressed as epic character Fleece Swansdown from Super Cut Powder Boys in a layered blonde suit and a floor-length gulix jacket.

  When I arrived at the haberdashery the saleswarrior in charge just shrugged and pointed me toward the design room. Inside, I found a jumble of weaving machinery, design equipment, shirts, stays, handkerchiefs, belts, ties, and cufflinks across the floor.

  "You the new one?" asked an old warrior, sitting at a sewing machine. "Start straightening up."

  "What happened?"

  "Attempted hostile takeover."

  For hours I silently picked, sorted, and stacked up the stuff from the floor while the old warrior scowled. I hated the job, but didn't care as all I could think about was heading up to the top of the city to see Bunné's Boutique.

  When the store closed, the warrior grunted, "Be on time tomorrow."

  I nodded on my way out. From the store, I raced out to the nearest entervator port, boarded the Ring Bell, and headed up to floor 999 of The Zea Building.

  While the entertainers in the Ring Bell, dressed as decapitated cats, danced and fought with long, sharp claws, I wondered what I would find, but assumed it would be like the usual Seattlehama store with lots of empty space, loud, live music, soulless saleswarriors, and dresses, parasols, fleck shoes.

  It still seemed impossible that the M-Bunny I knew, the one of suffering, and corn, could be the same powerful celebrity whose boutique capped the city I had gazed up at from the crop so many times.

  It took thirty-five minutes to reach floor 999. The pure white port was nearly empty and the platinum-floored shopways weren't crowded with the usual hordes. Only a few shoppers strutted here and there and they wore real and elaborate costumes-not the rented junk from places like YeOld#1CostumeShoppee.