SEATTLEHAMA: FULL-SPEED TAILORING

With a disgusted expression, Kira looked Green up and down. "Shopper, are you interested in fantasy skivvé?" To me she said, "Remon, retreat to the design room." I stood firm. "Kira, moving closer to Casper Union doesn't seem like a good idea."

Her eyes widened first in surprise and then in outrage. "Return to the safety of the design room, Chief Executive Knitter Remon!"

The green saleswarrior spoke calmly. "He doesn't want this anymore. He doesn't want to die for your loops."

Kira grimaced at the warrior's clothes. "A woven dress of pure shame!" She stepped closer. "Are you lost? Are you without credit and starch? What say you, consumer?"

Green bristled, but did not reply.

In a flash Kira pulled out her needles and screamed. "Go or I will release the blind snakes of your gut!"

I cursed myself; I had just started another fight. "I learned so much from you, Kira, I'm grateful for your belief in me, I really am, but when I started I didn't know you actually killed each other. And your new flagship seemed like self-destruction. There are a dozens of them!"

When Kira glanced at me angrily as if to curse me, the green saleswarrior drew her silver shears. "Get back or I'll cut your cut," she said.

Kira laughed at her. "Is that your warTalk? Is it from a beginner's textbook or the back of a cuisine court coupon?"

Green jerked her shears at Kira's face, but she didn't flinch. Instead, she snapped her needles at the woman's mouth and said, "Let me knit your tongue into a true beast of language."

"Kira, please… I'm just saying that this move is too dangerous. We're going to be killed."

Without taking her eyes from the other saleswarrior, she replied, "Words of disgust! Would you rather die of time and boredom?"

Green said, "Let him go."

"Get your own talented Remon." Curling a lip, Kira moved closer. "Who are you, salescut?"

The green saleswarrior bristled. "A jobber."

"A jobber!" Kira snickered. "A jobber of what? Cloth? Felt? Backing?" She shook her head. "Maybe you're a jobber of torn buttonholes."

Green's mouth tightened. "He doesn't want to knit your boy panties for you anymore."

I said, "Casper Union is going to come back. They're going to kill us."

Kira turned and glared at me. "Without the threat of death there is no life! Those fallen heroes of skivvé have given everything for us." She shook her head slowly. "In our post-capitalism and dragons… in our glorious fashion… in our loveeffort… I will knit and I will kill until the very last fiber of my blood."

While she glared at me, the green saleswarrior smashed her scissors against Kira's needles. Kira was knocked off balance, and Green bashed her shoulder into Kira's chest. The maneuver seemed crude compared to the deadly ballet of the knitters.

And yet Kira was knocked flat onto the hallway floor. Her needles clattered against the store window. She looked small and defenseless. The squashed tube of her blue skivvé rested across her thigh. "Wrinkled fighter!" she cried at Green. "Iron your ways! No warTalk! No grace!"

"You sick, knitting cut!" The green saleswarrior pulled back her shears.

"Stop!" I shouted.

Green froze. Her eyes met mine.

I pushed her away from Kira and began running down the hallway as fast as I could. A second later, I heard Green following.

As we flew down one set of showstairs after another, I kept checking behind us but Kira hadn't followed. Finally we came to an entervator port. While I still was catching my breath, we boarded.

Part of me felt guilty that I had left Kira, another part was elated to be away from her, her needles, and her lust for blood.

"Thank you for stopping me." Green eyed me. She wasn't as young as Kira, nor was she as old as Vada. But her eyes were confident. "You still want to leave skivvé knitting?"

I nodded and said, "What do you think will happen to Kira?"

"I don't know."

"Do you think she'll come looking for me?" I hated to add her to my list of enemies like Casper Union, the ghost who killed drap-de-Berry, and Withor.

Green shook her head. "Even if she did, it's a huge city."

I slumped forward and held my head in my hands.

We exited at the lowest level, the Keep as it was called, and Green led us past the tourist places to a dim little cuisine court. We sat at a small round table. We ordered from a bored waitressrebel in beetle green super-shorts and were soon snacking on cabbage, octopus pancakes, and mercury waters.

I asked Green, "So, who are you?"

She smiled as if she had been waiting for my question. "Pilla."

  "And how do you know me?"

"I've heard a lot." She smiled as if at a private joke.

"From where?"

Pilla opened her mouth and then turned her head to a look at the scraggly man approaching our table. He plunked down in the seat next to me.

"Why meet in this lonely selvage hole?"

Pilla nodded at the man while introducing me. "Kastle owns a famous costume store. I think it'd be a good place to work for a while."

"YeOld#1CostumeShoppee," he said proudly, "is the second largest in Seattlehama. Our salessoldiers are completely dedicated to our grand mission of economically and fashionably dressing the tourists in their epic dreams."

I wished he would just go away so I could talk to Pilla. "Salessoldiers?" I asked her. "I thought you said this was safer."

"It is," she insisted.

"You can work your way up to salessoldier," said Kastle, "but you'll start in our alterations army. We all work from shopping dawn to dusk. It's hard but rewarding." He smiled dimly, but I didn't know what to say.

"He's interested," Pilla said. "He can do it."

The man narrowed his eyes as he glanced from me to her and back again. "You start tomorrow." He opened a case and handed me a shiny screen. "That's got all our costumes. Look them over. You'll have to get your own hand-Juki, so I've put a small advance on a MasterCut." He slid a rubbery purple card toward me, stood, and said, "Welcome. Remon." With that, he shrugged at Pilla and headed off.

"I don't want this," I told her. "Alterations army?"

"Relax." She laughed and then peered at me. "This is just a place to start. You'll be sewing plushes and wovens. Believe me it's better than that loopy world of knitting."

"Who are you, really?"

Pilla seemed taken aback. "I'm here to help. Come on." She stood. "Let's get your equipment. I think you're going to like this."

"I want a straight answer. How do you know my name?"

She sat back down, wiped her face with a crumpled silk napkin, and sighed. "I know you through Withor."