Yarn (23 page)

And then, as if a set of complicated gears engaged, somewhere in the reawaking mysteries of my brain, I remembered being in the entervator Keep and Withor pointing at me. After the Europa Showhouse had exploded, the satins had stuffed me into a large cloth sack. I had been beaten unconscious.

I felt my face, but couldn't understand why I had one big scar down the middle. When had I been cut?

Steadying myself, I rose onto one knee, clenched my teeth, and then pushed myself up. I was standing, but I had to negotiate my own violent dizziness like a surfer pitching his weight from right to left and from the balls of his feet to the heels and back. Stepping off the cloth, my feet sank into the recycle-smelling mud. I saw tire tracks and figured someone had dropped me here. I wobbled twenty feet before I had to stop. Resting on my haunches, I huffed down the noxious air.

And while I knew this was the slubs from the smell, where was the corn, where were the houses, and where were the M-Bunny men? All around was nothing but mud and fog.

"Hello?" I held my head with both hands as the pain felt like it was going to split me in two. I shouted, "Is anyone here?" I heard nothing. "Hello? Anyone!" Pain blinded me for an instant.

I had been struggling inside the bag. I remembered trying to push my way out. It had been so black I had seen nothing but spirals and checkerboards. Then I remembered lying on a table in some noisy echoing space. From high above, I had seen harsh parallelograms of sunshine. And it was there-wherever that was-that my head had been torn and the flesh on my face had been sliced off with sharp metal gears.

And then I knew! I had been taken to M-Bunny headquarters. I remembered the factory skylights, the hum of machines, and the grinders that deboned the recycled. But unlike my dad, and Rik, and millions of others, I had somehow escaped. Feeling my head, I tried to find the hole where the bolt had gone in, but of course there wasn't one.

They hadn't given me Blue to stun me, nor had they mercifully killed me before they recycled me. I had been thrown straight in. But then something happened.

I heard a wet suck of mud. A second before I had been screaming in hopes of finding someone else, now a cold fear covered my skin. Turning around, I peered into the fog. I heard more squishing sounds. They were coming for me! I searched the ground, and grabbed at what I thought was a metal scrap but it turned out to be paper. Ahead I saw something shiny, and grabbed for a small shard of glass. Feeling the edges, I found the sharpest point and held it up.

I saw movement in the fog. A flutter of what looked like cloth. Glancing about, I wondered if I could try to run, but even as I stumbled backwards, the shape solidified. A man in a long coat-Withor!

My heart was hammering. My scar throbbed. Wobbling, I bent my knees like Kira in battle. First I would cut his throat with the glass. I'd slash it back and forth. Then I would bash his head. And bash it again. I would keep on slamming my fists into him until he stopped moving.

ANTARCTICA

It might have been prudent to slow on the tiled surface of the Antarctica Extension, as one moment tremors seemed to come from the nose of the car, and next the back would hum an odd harmonic, but I kept up my speed, afraid that I was falling behind.

Five hundred miles from my destination, an emergency call came in. "Mr. Cedar," said the cool voice of a Mz Foss of the Security Board, "I need to ask you a few questions."

I cursed myself for not turning off all communication. "Yes please… go ahead." I tried to make my tone as light and cheery as possible.

"You had a visitor."

"I did?"

"We believe a woman visited your design studio yesterday."

"A client did."

"We suspect this
client
may be a freeboot."

I shook my head even though she couldn't see. "I doubt that."

"This matter is of extreme concern." She had stretched the second syllable of
extreme
like spandex. "To be blunt, the woman in question is wanted for crimes against humanity."

"I didn't know. I don't quiz clients about their personal lives."

"Mr. Cedar," said Mz Foss, her voice shifting into a lower, more powerful, gear, "the Security Board is fully aware of your history, actions, and associations." She paused as if waiting for me to confirm.

"I am aware of your awareness," I replied.

"Am I to assume from your insouciant tone that you spoke with this wanted criminal and are possibly engaged in criminal acts yourself?"

"I'm just stating the facts as I know them, Boardmember." Grasping the steering, I mashed the accelerator to the floor for a moment in anger. Letting up, I finished, "Please accept my apology, Boardmember."

I heard nothing for several seconds. I hoped that the connection had been cut, but just as I had positioned my index finger above the off button, she spoke again. "You are hereby charged with aiding the enemy of the families. You must immediately report to the Security Board headquarters and plead your case."

"Yes, Boardmember," I replied, pulling down the skin beneath my eye to give her a
Red Hole!
"I'm on my way now." I switched off the communications and pointed the Chang toward the exit ramp activating the mercury brakes.

From the off ramp, I found the highway heading toward Birudu and sped along. The drivers here, mostly in ancient Wangs, Arlies, and Maxis, were an aggressive bunch, but not enough of a distraction from the call and its implications. A storm was building on the horizon, and I worried that Vada would be caught before I ever made it back. I hated to imagine what the satins would do to her.

I gazed out to my left, where the land slowly descended to reveal a tangle of crowded roads lined with shops and coffee houses and their twittering and blinking signs. The windowless, hulking warehouses, the drab slabs of factories, and above it all-the product of a hundred smoke stacks darkening the sky-a writhing mass of black smoke lit by the flashing licks of flame from the oilrigs below. A travel poster for hell.

KONG: THE PACIFICA SHOWHOUSE

Color began to saturate the coat. It seemed to change from near black to maroon. The collar and sleeves were trimmed in black, but the shirt and pants shone bright in the gloom. As I stood waiting, nearly hyperventilating, I noticed the man's gait. Rather than Withor's artificial tiptoeing bounce, this man's stride was solid, firm, and calm. He didn't carefully set his feet, but plopped them onto the ground with relaxed authority.

As the figure came closer, the maroon of his coat was revealed to be a vibrant red, and I could see that the trim was made of a fuzzy feather-like substance that shimmered and shook in the breeze. And when my mysterious visitor's features became clear-I knew for certain that it wasn't Withor. The eyes were dark with shadow. The bee-stung lips were burgundy; the eyebrows arched and curious. Each cheek was dotted with a large circle of rouge.

"Y-You!" I stammered. "You're dead!"

She stopped six feet away. Her initial smile turned to puzzlement. She glanced around. "Where the shit are they?"

"Who?"

"Those idiots! They weren't supposed to even bring you yet. And they weren't supposed to just leave you." Vada focused on me, and her eyes lingered on my nude body for a beat before I dropped the glass and covered myself. She laughed at my modesty. "How do you feel? Are you all right?"

"Not really."

She frowned sympathetically, gathered up the sides of her skirt to her hips, and began working down her full panties-a red and white pair with embroidered white dots and ruffles all over the bottom. Stepping forward, she held them out. "I don't know why you didn't even get a gown. I guess you have to be explicit with that shit hospital."

I didn't move. I wasn't sure this was a good idea.

"Oh, go on. They're clean and comfortable." Wincing, she glanced down. "You need something!"

In what felt like an emulsion of embarrassment and gratitude, I took them. Her warmth still lingered in the soft material. She turned to give me privacy and after I tried to scrape off some of the mud from the bottoms of my feet and ankles, I carefully inserted my legs and pulled the panties up.

"You look good!" she said with a smile. "Sort of. Are you really okay?"

I nodded. "I saw the Europa explode. They shot you down."

"Yes." Scowling, Vada let out a long exhale. "She
almost
got me."

She meant Bunné. "How'd you survive?"

"We got out of the ship a couple of seconds before." She pursed her mouth. "The United Sisterhood of Entervator Entertainers and Pilots."

I should have known that someone who could blow up a jacket only to make it reappear would have other tricks. "This is the slubs, right?"

"Outside of Kong." She squinted up at the sky, then down at the mud. "And what a cut of a rendezvous spot! This is shit. I'm sorry."

"What happened?"

She frowned. "Mostly awful things." Her shoulders sank and she peered at me doubtfully. "I'm very sorry. We thought you had much more time to get out of the Keep."

"Satins came for me. Withor was there. He said I killed the drap-de-Berry woman."

"I believe their original plan was to leave you next to that drap-de-Berry woman, as you call her. Your dead body was supposed to take the fall. Someone knotted it." She squinted at me. "Why didn't you tell us about Izadora?"

"I didn't know."

"From now on, please tell me everything that
might
be important. Actually just tell me everything." Vada looked skyward for a moment. "We got out of the ship before the rocket hit it, but on our way out of the city, Xavier was captured. They tortured him." She frowned at me.

"I'm sorry." I brought a hand to my face. "What happened to me?"

She pursed her mouth tenderly. "You were almost recycled. We checked outgoing from the city and found a prisoner who was returned." She shook her head slowly. "It was kind of lucky actually that the orders were to toss you into the deboner alive. They do that sometimes for special cases. When our sympathizer realized who it was, he shut down the line just as the blades started on your head."

"I kind of remembered that! It was terrible."

"I caught up by then. It was completely awful. I didn't know if you were going to make it. We pumped you full of nem-d. We headed across the Pacifica and… well… I'm very sorry."

I touched the stitches on my face. "Did you sew me up?"

"Oh no!" She snorted a little laugh. "Don't even think it. I couldn't. No, I know a tissue sculptor here in Kong. That's why we're here." She shrugged. "And it's a good place to start over." She gazed at me sympathetically. "You had very little flesh left. I want to warn you that you look a little different and you'll have some scars." Her eyebrows rose as if anticipating my surprise. "I had him do a flat-fell down your nose." She suppressed a smile. "That's my favorite."

A flat fell seam is formed by interlocking the seam allowances with two parallel rows of topstitching. I couldn't tell if she was joking or not.

She pointed her small nose aloft and snorted. "And of course
he's
late."

Who could she mean? I peered above wondering if some other Showhouse entervator was about to glide to a crash landing nearby.

Vada was still studying the sky. "How well can you sew?"

"I can sew. Thank you! Thank you for saving my life."

She made a face. "It was really close. I don't know how you really survived that grinder. Just getting you out of that thing was a huge mess, and then transporting you to Kong was a disaster. You almost died. We ran out of nem-d and had to stop in Fiji for more… anyway… everything completely unraveled."

"Why go to all that trouble for me?"

Vada stifled a smile like a gardener pinching an unwanted flower bud from a stem. "You have talents."

I was about to ask what they were, but crouched and caught myself before I fell into the mud. The earth seemed to have shaken.

She stooped before me. "You all right?"

"I just got dizzy."

"You need some rest and some food." Vada glanced up again. "Damn it, where are you?"

"What's coming?"

"The Pacifica."

"What's that?"

I heard a rush of air and looked up.

"There it is!" Vada raised a shiny black-gloved finger. And like a flower unfolding from the rumples of cloud and fog, a sky-grey dirigible silently emerged and floated down to the dark earth to where we were.

THE HIGH EUROPAS AND PACIFICUM: TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY COSTUMES IN TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY DAYS

Once we were inside what they called the low port or the mudroom, Vada buttoned the hatch. I touched the cloth walls and stared out one of the chiffon windows at the twists and curls of fog as we began to ascend. "Welcome honored consumer to the adjunct airship of the magical traveling show… we call her
The Pacifica Showhouse
." Vada's eyebrows rose with the promise of a marketer. "It is made of nothing but silk and longing." "I love it," I whispered as the ship breached the fog and the orange light of a sunset illuminated the cloth, the world, and us. To the right, I saw an impossibly huge city. I was used to Seattlehama, which was all height. This one wasn't as tall, but was easily a thousand times wider. Buildings, bubbles, towers, Turkishes, scrapers, and beepers created a dazzle of lights, grids, and patterns. It was a crazy tapestry-a jacquard loom gone mad. "That's Kong," said Vada.

Far to the left the sun melted into a glowing coal as it sank to the horizon.

"Listen," she said, quietly, "Xavier escaped, but was badly hurt. Don't ask him about it, don't look at him, or mention it. He hates that."

"Sure. I'm sorry. How'd he escape?"

Vada just grimaced. After a beat, she glanced at the sunset. "Kong is a glorious city."

I turned to the window. "That's where we're going?"

She shook her head. "South."

I had no idea where Kong was and thus no concept of
south
, but I was satisfied. Vada unbuttoned a door, and we stepped into the central hallway. The basketweave floor stretched and warped underfoot and I could sense that my weight slightly twisted and bent the whole craft. I tried to step lightly, and worried that even in my emaciated state, I was too heavy.