Yarn (34 page)

"It was an accident! I just brushed against it." A giggle escaped, and he slapped a hand over his mouth. "Sorry!"

"Pheff," I sighed, "please."

"She'd be great at a rage party!" His enthusiasm soon faded, and then he nodded contritely. "Um…" he began, again, his voice quiet, "want me to stay?"

"No," I replied. "But thank you very much for your work tonight. It was your finest hour."

"Thanks, Tailor." He thumbed over his shoulder. "I forgot to mention, the night chef left fox and shoo-shoo corn soup. It's in the temp."

"No thanks. Take it with you if you want. Good night." Turning to the windows, I gazed out at the city of Ros Begas. Beyond the lights, the flutter of signs, the haze of motion, and the soft brush-stroke of the desert dust in the air, lay the dark slubs. I'd heard that the new crop had just been planted.

Pheff turned back. "You okay?"

"Yes." I faced him. "Thanks. I'm fine."

"The girl's going to be sync." He shrugged. "It's just going to take her a while to get used to… you know… food and everything."

I was glad that he, too, seemed to be discovering a fatherly instinct. "Sure."

He nodded toward the door, but didn't move. "I never imagined you a dad raising a child."

Glancing down at the front of my shirt where my wound was, I thought of the Xi sores I had seen on my father. I had never spoken of my father to Pheff. "At the end of my dad's life… I tried, but I wasn't able to help him. I mean, I couldn't save him, and I've always felt terrible about that. I guess in some way this journey was a way to
remedy…"
I stopped. "I don't know what I'm saying. I guess, when I saw the girl, I saw myself, and I couldn't leave without her."

He stared at me. "So where were you and what happened?"

I inhaled, not to tell the story, but to propose that we talk later, when a woman's voice said, "Tane?"

Vada stood beside the mannequin. By her left eye, an angry scar ran from her forehead to her chin. Her skin was slightly shiny, puffy and tender like the dough of a steamed dumpling.

"Oh!" Pheff 's gasp filled the workspace. "I-I'm sorry…" he stammered. With his head down, he said, "Excuse me," and sped toward the galley. A beat later the door clicked.

Vada stood as crookedly as a bent tree. She turned her attention to the coat and looked at it up and down as one might a newly groomed dog. I slowly stepped closer.

Her condition wasn't as bad as I had feared-she certainly wasn't a diseased lump-but my heart ached for her. Clearly she had been attacked and injured a dozen times. I guessed she was in pain.

A small laugh reverberated at the back of her throat. Her eyes met mine. "The coat is lovely. It's so… you know what? It reminds me of the wonderful costumes you made for me. It's not what I was imagining at all, but now, seeing it I think it's…" She stopped as if to gather herself. "It's exactly what I should wear." A tear trickled down her cheek. She wiped it away. "It takes me back."

She returned her gaze to the garment. "This represents who I want to be… and that is exactly who is dying." She looked at me again, and now I could see beyond the scar to the strain and ache in her face. "Like everything you made for me, it's wonderful." She finished with a whisper. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." I stumbled for my next words. "What happened?"

"More torture." She paused, her gaze going distant. "My life was filled with it." She shook her head clear of memories. "So," she said brightening, "they are still making Xi!"

"Antarctica. That's a whole other story." I considered mentioning the Xi girl, but didn't. My eyes darted from Vada to the coat and back again. She was a couple of inches shorter than before, and her body seemed thinner and bonier. I had made the Xi coat smaller than her old costumes, but I feared it was still too large.

Vada glanced around at the studio, and I saw her eyes light on the materials spread out across the worktable-the one hundred gold prints from the Miss Bunné's
Life and Love Compendium.

"I just got that today. I was looking it over before."

She didn't move.

To change the subject I said, "You'll never guess who's running the Xi mill down there." She didn't reply. "Withor and his wife… Pilla. That was an adventure."

Vada didn't seem surprised or especially interested. "I hope it wasn't terribly difficult."

"Actually… it was… somewhat."

"I'm sorry." Vada nodded once perfunctorily. "Thank you again." She started to reach toward the jacket as if to take it.

"If I could say something…" Stepping toward the worktable, I picked up one of the golden prints that depicted Bunné in a satellite silk bulimia dress from
Sensitive Dead Penisless Boys.
She stands with one arm raised to the heavens. Her mouth is open and she is about to sing the word
penis
. "Years ago, when I ripped that yarn from Bunné… I felt something really strange." I turned; Vada was gazing at the jacket. "At the time I didn't know what it was. But I just felt that I couldn't fight her. That I couldn't cause her death, if that's what would have happened. And today, Pilla said something in Antarctica that got me thinking. She called me a Toue. I didn't really notice at first, or maybe I just took it as a slur, but on the drive back… I began to wonder about that."

With her injuries, Vada's expression was especially difficult to read, and she still didn't speak.

"So, do you know?" Her eyes met mine. "Am I one of Bunné's egg-splits?" Egg-splits as they were called were the way the celebs bred, trading parts or their whole genome to other celebs, favored clients, and highest bidders.

Her answer came reluctantly, dredged from the depths. "A stolen one."

I was Bunné's son. That was what I had felt or intuited or guessed when she tried to hug me to death. That explained my strange affinity for her clothes, my lifelong aptitude for yarn. "That's why father hid me in the slubs."

Vada nodded once.

"So I'm half Toue." She didn't contradict me. "That's what I was thinking. And what I'm curious about is, I guess, when did you know this?"

"Much later."

I felt a twist in my gut that told me she had known when we were together. "I bring this up because there's a part of me… and I didn't know it until now… but I still have feelings for you. I didn't think I did, but I wanted to get you that Xi to show you something about me and how I feel. And now…" Vada stood staring at the jacket as if she didn't want to hear. "I was thinking about your main argument for why we shouldn't be together. You were worried that I would be dragged into
your
world." She seemed to be clenching her jaw. "But with Bunné as my egg mother, I'm half Toue. I was already halfway into your world."

She turned to me, angry. "It's not that! You would have been dead long ago! You would have been squashed." She pressed her lips together and continued more calmly. "You want to know what happened?" She touched her face. "This is just one cut. I have many, many more. I'm not going to show you; listen: Xavier was shot in the head. Gregg was cut in half. Marti was electrocuted. Haas was pushed off Wah Tower."

I felt like I'd been kicked in the gut. Memories of my time on the Pacifica Showhouse, of Gregg and the others, flashed in my head. I opened my mouth but it took a moment to find my voice. "And that cloak you wore yesterday, the basketweave… that was from the Pacifica Showhouse. It was part of the floor."

"Yes. The ship was shot down and burned." Her voice was saturated with frustration. She blew out a long breath. "The Toue have been killed off." She shook her head. "I tried to do what I could. I just wasn't… I mean… I've failed."

"I'm sorry."

She snorted a laugh, and said, "We're now, really gone. I always knew we were doomed, since that morning…" Her voice faded away for a moment. "But I didn't know that one of us would kill the rest." She stopped again. "I involved you, and I shouldn't have. I am sorry. I have come to regret it, but I am very glad I got you away from it before it destroyed you, too." She stared at me intently. "I'm glad I pushed you away… no matter what you are."

I nodded slowly. Truth burned in my stomach. Glancing at the worktable, I found another print and held it up. "My dad fell in love with Bunné, didn't he?"

She didn't glance at the image of Warrior Remon of Loin, but glared at me. "It's what killed him." She made a sorry click with her tongue. "Bunné poisoned him, and cut him."

"Because he stole an egg-split?"

"I believe he recycled himself to hurt her."

For several moments, I just stood there. I didn't think I could have mourned my father any more than I had, but the notion that Bunné had mutilated him and that he recycled himself for spite raised my horror and fury from the dead.

"Your father was an extremely complicated man. Remon was just one of a dozen roles he played… or
was
."

I thought of the Warrior Remon jackets I had worn for Kira and how close I had been to the essence of his tragedy. "One last thing, that yarn I ripped from Bunné… what would have happened if you had gotten it?"

Vada just shrugged and shook her head. "I can't stay. The satins aren't far behind. I must go."

I gazed down at my now-scuffed Celine-Audis. "What I really want to say is that seeing you again, and traveling to get the Xi, has been a real journey. Of space and memory. But I'm glad you came to see me for this, it means a lot." When I looked up, the mannequin was stripped. Vada was gone. I hadn't heard anything: not footsteps, not the rustle of fabric, nothing.

"Vada?"

The room was empty and still. She'd done it again! Rushing through the studio, I sprinted out the front door, and dashed down the spiral entrance, across the jatoba heartwood, past the fabric testing machines and the yarn from my dad. I came to the entrance and found it vacant except for the echoing clatter of my footsteps.

"Vada? Vada!" My voice echoed in the space and then faded to nothing. She was gone. Gone forever. "Goodbye," I said in a whisper. "I'm sorry."

In the far distance the whine of several sirens began to converge.

YARN

Finding the braided cord that operated the wing sleeves wasn't easy, as frigid air blasted me, spun me, and hurtled me down. The blur of light from Bunné's building was rushing by faster and faster. Finally, after tugging frantically at the inside pocket, and feeling all up and down the slick lining inside the jacket, I found the cord, and yanked it. An instant later the sleeves of my jacket unfolded and inflated and a flap stretched between my legs. Using all my strength to push against the wind, I twisted around and, even as I continued to spin, got my head oriented the right way. Then I tensed and held the wings open. I wasn't flying, but I wasn't falling.

After ten black vans had come to screeching stops in the garage, I stopped counting. The satins that piled out barely noticed me as they stormed past, the sound of their thick-soled boots spiraling toward the doors to my showroom, office, and design lab.

"Stop," I told them, without volume or expectation. "No one's here. You're too late. You're much too late…"

I had practiced using the wing sleeves twice by jumping from the Pacifica, but it hadn't been at night, as high up, or anywhere as cold. When I saw the circle of orange lights atop the Parfum Spaceship that was my target, it seemed a thousand feet lower than I expected. I feared I would sail right by and tumble into the black of slubs.

"I found a suspicious girl!" shouted one of the satins.

A second later I heard her begin to cry.

 
"Back away!" I said, marching back into the room. "That's my adopted daughter. Don't touch her!"

"What's the matter with her?" asked a satin, his mouth a scowl.

"Nothing. She's fine. Just back up." Picking up the girl, careful not to touch her hair, I calmed her as best I could while the satins pulled apart my storage units, tore open all the boxes of needles, and dumped the fabric bolts and samples, thread and yarn spools, the bobbins and the notions across the floor.

The top of the Parfum was just a hundred feet wide. Approaching it, I could feel that I was going too fast and was too high. As I neared the front edge, I relaxed my arms and began to plummet.

"She was here wasn't she? Where did she go?"

Staring into the featureless black visor, I said, "My last client left quite some time ago. I don't know where that client was heading."

He leaned in and barked in my face. "Tell me who it was and what's going on!"

"There's the matter of client privilege."

The skin around the barker's mouth turned white. "Look, Cedar, you've been accused of sympathizing with the enemy. You could be condemned." He came so close I could smell the shit of his breath. "I'll beat in your leathery skull myself."

"Then find the damn woman," I replied. "Prove it, officer."

The barker's grin twisted. "I will."

You won't
, I thought to myself with both satisfaction and heartache.

My feet slammed down against the roof. I fell forward in a twist of fabric, rolled, and came to a stop. A white flare of pain shot through my right leg.

"You okay?" The voice was Gregg's.

"My ankle!"

"Come on, I'll help you." He pointed a light in my face. "We have to get out of the city. You have the yarn?"

"No."

He stood there. After a split second, he asked, "No?"

"I couldn't get it," I lied. "I ripped it, but I lost it." Shrugging, I said, "I think Bunné was hurt bad."

The light in his hand fell from my face to the glossy-black tiles of the roof top. "Yeah," he muttered, "I just heard reports… she's still alive."