Yarn

by Jon Armstrong

  Bunné released the Reginald Ball Fairy, and peered at me suspiciously. She pointed one of her long fingers. "Advance."

  PART 4 TWISTS PER INCH

  ANTARCTICA: CRYSTAL OBSERVATION ROOM

  Pilla stood three feet away; the tip of the needle was just two. She was staring at me with those russet eyes of hers. All the sadness I had ever seen in them was long gone, replaced with diabolical curiosity.

  "Back then," she said, her voice distant, "I didn't know my kills. I just did them. I didn't really care."

  I said, "Ah," as if I were interested. In my peripheral vision, I was trying to measure the length of the titanium rope from the I-beam to the ring around her jugular.

  "Your eyes are still remarkable. Do people tell you?"

  "Sometimes," I said, as I furtively flattened my palms against the glass behind me. "A client wanted a shirt to match them."

  Pilla blinked several times, perhaps conjuring the item.

  "And actually…" Instead of continuing, I threw myself to the right and slid into the corner. Having caught Pilla off guard, she swung instinctively. The needle scraped nails-against-blackboard across the door. "You shit!"

  Meanwhile, I squeezed into the corner as tight as I could and as Pilla came toward me, I watched the tension on the titanium rope, hoping it would keep her from me like a toothy Dobershark's chain.

  Pilla followed my eye line up the rope to anchor on the ceiling. "I see!" She sounded delighted. "Clever. But I'm not sure you've guessed right!" She proceeded to move toward me inch-by-inch with her arm outstretched-the needle unicorning her way. When she was two feet away she stopped. "Still quite a bit of slack, Mr. Tailor."

  She was right. There was more than enough of the rope for her to jab the needle out the back of my spine. I cursed whoever had designed this prison. "Listen, Pilla, it isn't right what they've done to you! You're chained like an animal!"

  "What's happened to me is not right!"

  "I'm your best chance to get out! You're going to kill your best chance?"

  She touched her jugular tenderly. I could see that the ring passed under both the artery and a thick tendon. Ripping the thing from her neck would be impossible. Her eyes turned cold. "Don't worry about me. Your dead body will get me out. I'm going to send Bunné your head in a box!"

  "But then what? Maybe you will be out. But what will you have? I own a mansion in Ros Begas! I have a massive fashion collection-I don't know what it's worth. Take it. Take it all. You've never lived like that. I remember the lousy cuisines where you ate in Seattlehama. Live like a real celeb for once!"

  "You don't know me at all, do you?" Pilla scoffed. She stepped closer. The needle's point was a foot from my chest, quavering to the beat of her heart.

  "Okay! I'll take you to my place and you can smash all of my things! If you hate me, then destroy my studio! You can tear up all my projects." I stopped. She would never go for this, and I couldn't even imagine her destroying the yarn from my father in the display box before the entrance.

  She came closer and paused for just an instant. When her mouth tightened, I grabbed her wrist and pushed back just as she threw herself at me. It was like trying to stop a train, and the needle pierced my shirt and stabbed my skin.

  Grunting, she leaned her weight onto the needle while slapping me back and forth with the other hand.

  "No!" I screamed, even as the point began to pierce my sternum.

  Her teeth gritted, Pilla muttered, "Stab your damn heart." She anchored herself and tried to thrust the needle deeper, but with my elbows wedged against the glass, I kept her back.

  "Damn it!" She spit at me. She clawed my ear with her left hand. "Let go!"

  Focusing on the needle's point and the radiating pain from the deepening wound, I tried to push it out, but couldn't get leverage. I felt like I couldn't inhale or I might help the needle through the bone. All I could do was strain to hold her back. If I didn't, she would run me through.

  "Pilla! Stop!"

  "You corn!" She groaned, "Die!" Again she threw all her weight forward.

  I felt the spike bore in another millimeter. My arms ached. Sweat poured into my eyes.

  "Bastard Toue!" Her hair was jangled, her lipstick, smeared, mascara, running. She let up only for an instant to shove forward again. "Damn fuck!" Her hip bashed into my thigh. I tried to kick her backward, but I was losing purchase.

  She shifted her weight back again to finally drive the needle through. She had momentum and my arms were weakening. She gnashed teeth and smiled as a drop of sweat fell from her nose.

  When the pressure lessened, just before she leaned forward again, I let go.

  My move shocked her. Her eyes opened wide. "Ha!" she screeched, and just as she started forward, I raked my middle fingers across her face. With my yarn pulls, I snagged both of her eyelids and pulled straight down.

  The effect was like closing two tiny window shades. I stretched them as far as I dared and then dug the metal hooks into her cheeks, twisted hard, and snapped off the yarn pulls. The right took a chunk of my fingernail, but the left broke cleanly where it had been glued. Her eyelids were tacked down.

  She let loose a horrible screech of pain and fright. Instinctively trying to coddle the wounds, she wrenched her hands to her face and plunged the needle through the bridge of her nose.

  In an instant, she was a howling, writhing bloody mess on the floor.

  Sidestepping her, I adjusted the shoulders of my jacket, hurried to the inside door that led to the factory floor, and yanked it open.

  SEATTLEHAMA: CUT

  Bunné's beautiful eyes, streaked with white and sapphire, darted from my left to my right and back again. "You cross the divide… the walls of cells…" I didn't know what she meant, but her voice felt like a hand running over a wide swatch of chrome silk.

  Somewhere in the distance I heard a satin snarl, Hug and move! I positioned my arms with the left higher and the right lower and stepped before her. She smelled of tea and sweet musk. Bunné held up both hands to stop me from coming closer. "The tides of moon wash away lives, but never the yoke of our dreams… never the essence of the twisted yarn."

  I stood a foot from her. Empty instants ticked by. I needed to act, but felt spellbound.

  "I know you," I said. "I know who you are."

  Her eyes grew wide, but then narrowed warily. Her thin eyebrows tightened. "The vapors of history tell me that you are the cause of the twist… the force of the needle… the bias of the bias…" In a flash, her arms, which had been hovering between us, grasped me, and hugged me close. "You are the stolen prisoner! You are the illegal cut boy." Did she think I was a character from one of her epics? She began squeezing me so tight, I couldn't inhale. I tried to pull away, but her muscles were like steel cords. I couldn't breathe!

  "A predominate love!" said someone.

  "But what costume is he wearing?" asked an irritated voice.

  "Succession into arrest," muttered Bunné. "I sew vengeance."

  My lungs burned. It felt like if she squeezed any harder my ribs would collapse, but instead of trying to escape, I wrapped my arms around her, and felt the back of her jacket.

  When the Pacifica had stopped outside Union to let off most of the crew and fuel up, a strange scarred and wounded man, like Xavier, had come aboard and soon disappeared into the galley with Vada and Xavier.

  "They're talking about you again, Darn it." Gregg laughed.

  "I know."

  His smile faded. "Listen… if I had the chance, and the genes, and the stud buttons, I'd slice Bunné in half myself."

  I studied the resolve in his face. "Why do you hate Bunné?"

  Gregg snorted. "She's evil. She skinned my brothers alive. Listen," he continued, "you have all the reasons to hate the cut, too."

  Once the scarred man had left, Vada invited me into the galley, where she and Xavier sat at the table. He seemed to be glaring at me-although it was hard to tell since he glowered all the time. Vada pushed a drawing
toward me. On it was what they called a flat of Bunné's jacket. It had raglan sleeves, a short stance, and three buttons. Dashes around the notched collar probably indicated pick stitching. Fringe hung from the bottom. At the bottom of the sheet, several numbers and words were written, including core warp.

  I studied Vada. "That's what you want?"

  Xavier's voice was barely a grunt. "Rip a yarn."

  Without acknowledging Xavier, I asked Vada, "What do you need it for?"

  "Rip a yarn," Xavier repeated.

  "Well," said Vada, smiling even as the skin at her temples pulsed, "we need a sample."

  "Okay." I pushed the paper back. "What happens then?"

  "Just rip a yarn," said Xavier for the third time. "And hand it over to us."

  Despite all his scars, I wanted to give him another. I focused on Vada, who wearily pressed her eyebrows with her fingertips. "Bunné doesn't trust anyone with much of anything, so she's the corporate info depository. She carries everything with her in her jacket. If we can get pass-codes, some operatives, or even what they call p-junctions, we can break into her systems."

  "That's in the yarn?"

  Vada nodded slowly. "Everything's in the yarn."

  Xavier shook his head, fed up. "Just rip it!"

  "What happens when I do?"

  Vada's eyes fell toward the table. Her lips parted for an instant and then closed before she started again. "We don't know."

  "You don't know?"

  "We don't know exactly. But she… I mean… her clothes may be a part of her. Or maybe she's a part of her clothes." Some energy seemed to leave Vada. Her voice turned quiet. "She has been attacked before. And we've not succeeded, but we've never had someone with your skills. Anyway, there's a possibility that her clothes keep her alive."

  "You mean ripping a yarn is like ripping her?"

  "I doubt that taking just one yarn…" Vada stopped and glanced at Xavier as if for confirmation. "We don't think that will interrupt her." She swallowed. "That's what we think."

  I shifted my weight to the side. "What else?"

  Xavier slapped the table. "Just rip the yarn and give it to us!"

  Vada avoided glancing at him. "We have a plan. Please have a seat." I didn't move. "It is risky," she continued, "but it will work. You'll be fine. There's time to practice some maneuvers." She frowned at me. "Please sit and we'll go over everything."

  It was at that moment, standing before Vada and Xavier in the Pacifica galley, that I decided that this was Vada's fight. I wasn't going to tell her, but I wasn't going to go through with the yarn rip. Not really and not completely.

  The crowd around Bunné and my embrace cheered as if they were witnessing the reunion of two long lost lovers.

  "Behold the shine!" shouted someone.

  "She was hatched among the kernels of despair!"

  Her arms were as strong as hickory cloth, and I swear one of my ribs cracked. Pressed so tightly against her, I couldn't see the back center seam of her jacket, but I felt Core Warp yarns that Vada had described. I couldn't inhale and wasn't sure that my heart was beating, but I managed to position my pulls, cut the ends, grasp one side, and rip the yarn.

  I hurried down the steps that led to the mill floor. As I had seen earlier from above, the factory workers sat in large plastic recliners. Many were middle-aged, but some looked no older than fourteen despite their luminous white hair. They were all dressed in blue non-woven dresses. Above each one hung glass bottles filled with an assortment of liquids: some clear, some a milky pinkish, others as dark as coal. From the bottles, long tubes were plugged into a yellowish lump of jelly on the sides of their necks.

  Standing amid row after row of sleeping women, I understood the true horror of it. Stepping closer to one of the younger ones, I could see that her eyes weren't just closed, but had been sewn shut long ago. Beneath the wrinkles of skin and the faint comb of her eyelashes, I thought I could see her eyes moving back and forth as if dreaming…

  Beneath the loose gown, the girl's body looked emaciated. Her hands resting on the arms of the chair were bony, the straight-cut nails were the color of plucked chicken. Her skin was so translucent it was like looking at a cutaway diagram. The weight of long white hair hung behind her, supported by fine netting. The flowing strands were impossibly thin, barely the width of spider silk. It was so brilliantly bright that I couldn't look upon it for more than a few seconds before tears formed and I was forced to squint and turn away.

  Her hair was Xi! I'd heard the rumors. Xi was supposedly harvested from the heads of virgins. Afterward they were slaughtered and their bile was used to bleach the strands. I'd also heard that the women were fed nothing but spiders and silk worms. It was horrifying, preposterous. A story to scare children. And yet, here, these captive women were being fed chemicals like mutant orchids. A knot of anger exploded in my chest.

  I wanted to tear the needles from the girl's neck, but as I stood watching as the corners of her mouth tightened and relaxed, and her powdery white eyebrows, like two thin wisps of butterfly dust, narrowed over her nose, I didn't dare touch her for fear of harming her.

  It took me several moments to process the sound coming from my right. A female voice said, "You're not authorized to be in here."

  At the far end of the row, a worker dressed in a yellow jumpsuit and darkened visor was walking toward me. In one hand she held a screen; in the other, a large golden brush.

  "This is how they make Xi?" I demanded.

  The worker stopped fifteen feet away. Through the dark shield, I could just make out a frightened face.

  "This is barbaric!"

  "Kill that intruder!" shouted Pilla from the top of the stairs. She held a wad of bloody fabric to her face, her eyelids now unpinned. The leash at her neck was pulled taut. Pointing at me, she yelled, "Get some shears and cut him down! I order you to kill him."

  The woman came closer, but as I held up my hands, ready to fend off a blow from the golden brush, she stopped again.

  "Damn it! Do something, you little cut!"

  "Where is the Xi spun?" I asked her, determined to get what I needed and leave. "I need pure Xi yarn." She shook her head vaguely. "Where is it?"

  "Attack him! I'll kill you if you don't!"

  Stepping close, I grasped the worker's mask and yanked it off. Above fearful brown eyes, damp curls of wavy blue-black hair clung to her skin. "I'm sorry about this, but I need pure Xi."

  Cowering, she sputtered, "Spools are in the spinning room."

  "You're trapped in there, Tane. The guards are outside-you'll never make it. And get away from the girls!"

  "Where's the spinning room?" I asked the worker.

  She flustered a hand in the direction she had come.

  "Come." Gripping the back of her yellow suit, I hurried her beside me as we passed through rows of Xi girls. A few of them moaned softly as if Pilla's shouts had woken them. At the back of the factory, I found a large metal door.

  "This is it," the worker confirmed, tears trickling down her cheeks.

  When I opened the door, the loud hum of machinery burst through, carried on the cool air. To the right, I saw a cart filled with spools of brilliant white yarn. I had found it! When I released the worker, she turned and ran, knock-kneed and frantically. A few steps later, she tripped and fell flat.

  I couldn't find a label on the cones or the racks. Carefully wedging my pinky finger into the top of a spool, I picked it up, but didn't see any marks inside. Holding it toward the light, I studied the yarn itself, but other than the almost luminous glow, I saw nothing.

  Steeling myself, I placed my palm directly on the thread. It felt cold and slick, like a water-repellant monofiber. Within a second, a stream of warmth began traveling up my arm, like an injection of honey and compassion. It was pure! A whole rack of pure Xi! I had ten times what I needed.

  An instant later, the warmth turned hot and felt like molten metal traveling through my veins. Worse, I smelled an acidic smoke and when I yanked
my hand from the yarn, I saw that my palm had been seared. Through charred holes in my skin I could see clumps of yellowish fat, muscles, and tendons. Screaming, I threw the cone to the floor, but the burning raced up my arm and into my chest. Fire raged in my lungs, searing the delicate tissues. It travelled into my throat and a cloud of black smoke curled from my mouth.

  Falling to my knees, my whole body convulsed. And then the pain eased. I checked my hand. It tingled and smarted, but the flesh was whole and pink.

  In the distance I heard voices and footsteps. Leaving the cone of dark Xi where it had fallen, I stood and checked the next cart. Grasping one, I flattened my palm against it.

  The yarn felt cool and slick just like the previous one. And that was all. I waited, but nothing happened. Was this even Xi? And then I laughed out loud. And I kept laughing with the kind of cleansing near-hysteria that can surpass orgasm. An instant later, I saw myself standing before Kira, my rigid member encased in the expanded fabric of my perfect Troy and the tip an inch from the tight buttonhole of her Ten Million Yarn Super Channel-Haier. Then it wasn't Kira, but Vada in the same coat, and we were on the Europa entervator surrounded in purple and gold. She and I stood on the stage and the crowd was cheering us on. Over her face was a delicious Pearl River Love Mask, and I was kissing the infinite tender knit that covered her chin and neck. As I did so, my eyes were wide open, watching the intricate mathematics of the cloth playing over her skin.

  And then I was flat on the floor, the room spinning around me. My heart slowly returned to normal and my body, which had seemingly expanded to fill the universe, to contain all the atoms and all the galaxies and all the power and all the energy, gradually shrank to the shape I knew, that of my two legs, two arms, and a head. And even as I was relieved to have my body back, a part of me considered wrapping the rapture Xi around me, cocooning myself in its genius and love.

  Someone hammered on the door.

  Pulling the crochet hook and my snips from my jacket, I hurriedly unwound a foot of the pure Xi, balled it on the hook like spinning spaghetti on a fork, cut the end, and without touching it with my fingers, nudged the ball into the bloody hole in my chest. The bleeding and pain stopped instantly. Touching the cardboard cones, I stacked five spools one on top of the other, turned, and was about to start for the door, when I stopped, struck by an idea. I scooped up the cone of dark Xi. With all six stacked on top of one another, I was like a child balancing a huge cone of ice cream scoops. Whoever had been beating on the door had stopped. I pushed through with my back.