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.

The worker woman held a pair of shears larger than her head.

"Stab him!" Pilla's voice came from above. "Stab his neck or gut!"

On command, the worker thrust forward. Swinging a foot, I knocked her hand and sent the scissors clattering on the floor. The woman let out a squawk and stumbled backward.

"Shit!" screamed Pilla. "You're a useless cut! Tane! Tane, come here! You can have all the Xi you want, just come up here. I have to tell you something."

I ran past the moaning Xi girls, and as I swerved around the stairs that led up to the crystal room, where Pilla's stream of shouts and pleads fell upon me like welding sparks, I passed the first girl I had seen. She opened her mouth and let out a plaintive little groan, a cry, a lament. I slowed for an instant, gazed at her sewn-shut eyes, but then kept going.

At the far end, I could see large doors outlined in glowing light from the sun-but after a dozen more steps, I slowed, stopped and gazed questioningly at the cones of Xi in my arms. I had all I came for, and yet, I couldn't leave. Hurrying, I returned to the Xi girl's side and imagined what it might have felt like to have my eyes sewn shut.

Still balancing the spools with one hand, I tugged the feeding needles from the jelly on her neck. She flinched, but hopefully not in pain.

"It's okay," I told her, not sure she could hear or understand. Then I set the spools of Xi on the floor. I couldn't believe what I was about to say: "I'm taking you away from here."

"Stop!" shouted Pilla. "Don't touch her, damn it! Get away from her."

Once I had unlatched the seatbelt that held the girl down, I raised her in my arms. She couldn't have weighed more than sixty pounds. Draping her over my left shoulder, careful not to touch her hair, I could feel how skeletal and fragile she was.

"She'll die! You take her away and she'll die!"

"You're going to be fine." I told her. Crouching, I picked up the stacked spools of Xi, and like some kind of circus plate-balancing act, made my way to the doors again. A man stood before them.

Bunné's arms wilted and slipped from me like vapor. She staggered backwards. Grasping the yarn rip between my index and thumb, I turned and immediately pushed through the crowd toward the back of the stage.

A second later, Bunné's scream burst in the air-loud, horrible, and animal. Glancing back, I saw her on the black stage, writhing in pain. And though I didn't quite believe her, figuring this as an exaggerated display, another show-a sick knot settled in my stomach.

"Contain!" a satin shouted as he rushed toward her. "Contain the area."

"Secure Bunné."

"Get the medics."

"Emergency red! Emergency red!"

A satin tried to grab me, but the satin material of his gloves on my super-float jacket was like oil on grease. His hand slid off, and I raced past.

Flashing lights made the air into a vibrating storm. I turned again to see a Pink Dollop Boy dash toward Bunné as if to help, only for a saleswarrior to pull out her water-shears and, with a compressed hiss, slice him in half. The torso keeled over. The legs toppled a moment later.

I wedged myself past a group of Choky Bears and crawled the rest of the way to the wall. From here all I had to do was scale the partition and make my escape. But just as I laid my hand against my pounding heart, I realized that I no longer held the yarn I had just ripped.

Frantically, I glanced all around the black floor, but couldn't find it. Then I raised my eyes and saw it. Up above-floating over everyone's heads, caught in an updraft of the crowd's wild frenzy, flew the sliver of yarn.

"You?" I wanted to smack my forehead in surrender, but of course I was carrying both the Xi and the Xi girl.

"I'm terribly afraid so." He lingered on the word terribly, riding the first syllable over a hill and then the second and third down a wide ironic gully. As he spoke, he patted his black-and-whitepatterned tie with his hand, checking the links, locks, pins, and bars that held the cravat in its un-fashionable bondage. "And," he continued, arching this word like a suspension bridge as he eyed the girl over my shoulder, "I'm doubly afraid to see you still acting like the talentless slubber, corn worm you always were."

Withor appeared almost exactly as I remembered him except that his hair was a shade darker, his teeth brighter, and his skin taut, not with youth, but stretched like an overripe plum.

I laughed. "You run this hell hole?"

"Put the creature down," he said, flatly.

"She's not a creature."

From far back, I heard Pilla. "I have this under control! He's not getting out with her!"

Nodding behind me, I asked, "What's she doing here?"

"In fact," he frowned bitterly as he tugged at the knot of his tie, "that cut is my wife. We have a devotion-disgust relationship." He smiled toothily. "She is devoted to me. I find her disgusting." Muttering, he added, "I should have tethered up the useless cut years ago."

I had always wondered about their connection. Adjusting the weight of the Xi girl on my shoulder, I said, "You're the brains and she's the muscle."

"In a manner of speaking."

"But what the hell are you two doing here?"

"In Antarctica? I'm here for exactly the same reason I find your miserable countenance before me. The mysteries of Xi." He patted his clipped-down necktie as he spoke. "Fashion has its cycles, and while we still have a small but lucrative market, we are poised for a new wave of popularity. It's starting to happen, only this time, consumers want to explore the dark side of the yarn."

"This damn factory is a nightmare!"

"Hardly! Bombyx mori used to be dropped into boiling water to preserve their precious silk! Our yarn-makers live until old age. They're fed. They're wiped clean every couple of days." He pulled a ceramic knit revolver from a pocket. "Anyway, enough of these dreadfully unpleasant pleasantries. Put the creature down and hand over that Xi."

I stared at the object in his hand. I knew little about guns, but it looked deadly enough. I stepped toward him. He grimaced as I handed her over, and while he warily adjusted her on his shoulder, keeping her hair away from his skin, I quickly plucked the MiniAir-Juki sewing machine from my pocket, pinched a thread of the dark Xi between my fingernails, and stabbed it into the uptake hole. I ran the silent Juki up and down the shirt sleeve of his right arm sewing a messy zigzag with the dark Xi.

"The hell?" Withor pulled away.

Dropping the Xi cones on the floor for a distraction, I palmed the Juki and tucked it away. "Shit!" I stooped to gather the yarn.

"Don't get the product dirty, corn!" He waved the gun at my head. "Hurry up, you incompetent rot!"

As I worked carefully to stack them up again, I snuck a look at his sleeve. When I had tried the Mini-Air-Juki back in the studio, it had been badly out of adjustment leaving snarled knots of extra thread on the bottom of the piece of test muslin. I hoped it had spewed a similar mess of dark Xi on the inside of his sleeve.

Reaching awkwardly around the girl, he peered at what I had done. "What is this shit?" Just then the girl began to howl. "Shut up!" he barked, giving her a rough shake.

Come on, I urged the dark Xi. Start working.

In the background I could hear Pilla. "You got that slubber Toue? I caught him. He counts as a kill!"

"What a cut!" Withor rolled his eyes.

It wasn't enough dark Xi. I had wasted my one chance at escape. What else could I do?

"Corn boy, take those back to the spinning room… and then we'll… we'll have to…" Withor stopped and a strange sickly expression came over his face. Pushing the girl farther up on his shoulder, he inspected the sleeve I had sewn. "Is that… that dark? You slubber shit!" His eyes bulged. He frantically tried to unknot his tie and take off his shirt, but all those clips, bars, and tacks made it impossible. His lips shrunk from his teeth and a ghastly sound boiled up from his gut.

I knocked the gun from his hand, and took the girl as his knees buckled, and he hit the floor.

"You… shit… you… fucking slubber shit!" In a spastic maneuver, Withor tried to grab at me, but flopped face down on top of the cone of dark Xi. He began to shriek and writhe. "No! Help I'm burning! Damn it! Kill! Shit!"

Gathering up the cones, I glanced down at my former boss. His impeccable hair wild, skin flushed, he sputtered and writhed on the ground like an animal trapped in a sick nightmare. Using the heel of my Celine-Audi, I kicked open the doors and started up a set of worn stone stairs into the light and haze of Antarctica.

"Stop!" The fat guard stood silhouetted by the sun. "Put that… that…" his eyes bounced from the yarn to the girl, "those things down."

"Withor's dying!" I snapped with as much panicked authority as I could muster. "The mill's on fire. Get the other girls out!" He stood staring. "The girls! They're inside. There's a fire! Get them out!"

Once he rushed in, I headed across the dust and gravel. The Chang-P was where I left it. I saw Mash man leaning against the driver's side. As I neared him, the girl began to moan and sob. "It's okay," I soothed her. "Everything's okay now. The bad couple is gone."

Mash's head was down. Straightening, he blinked. "There you is!"

"Please, get off the car's finish."

  "No… wait… sorry… listen…" he slurred. "I want to say this: I'm sorry about before… you know… with the knife. I'm… listen… the thing is… I really admire you!" Between his blurry gaze at my face, and the upraised bottle, I wasn't sure who was the lucky object of his affection. For a moment he seemed confused at what was over my shoulder. "Syrup!" he cried, his eyes growing wide. "Let's plant her!"

Stepping to his right, I lifted my leg and placed the sole of my shoe against the side of his shorts. Then, as he gazed down at my Celine, curious and confused, I gave him a solid push. With the mash lubricating his joints and sense of balance, he stumbled, and fell in a cloud of dust, snot, and profanity.

Setting the yarn on the roof of the car, I opened the door, and gently placed the girl in the passenger seat. She muttered fearfully.

"You'll be fine," I said, not sure she could even understand.

I heard a shout and saw two other guards running toward us. One held a 'tricity stick in his hand. I tossed the Xi cones into the back. While I was careful to only touch the cardboard, a few fibers must have come in contact with my skin, as once I was in the driver's seat with the door closed, I began to giggle uncontrollably. The guards are coming, I told myself. The idea seemed hysterical. And they've got a 'tricity stick! Those can shoot lightening bolts and fry a man to a carbon crisp!

Slapping my face a few times, I finally got the car in a forward gear, and jammed the accelimeter. First I swerved around Mash, who was scrambling after the slowly emptying bottle, then turned hard, and headed straight for the two guards. I gunned the forwards, scattering them, squealed away at the last second, and headed back to the highway, back to my life.

Two saleswarriors carried in the hospital bed from the show and set it beside Bunné. Through the bodies moving back and forth, I saw her rise, with help, and lie down. She was alive, then.

"All exits are sealed. Remain in your positions!"

"Be calm."

"We will be searching everything and everyone."

I kept my head down, pulse pounding as I wove my way through the panicked swarm of woolen Dead Breeders and sheer Maiden Hunks. Every few seconds, I looked up to spy the yarn floating above us, now caught in some powerful current, twisting and turning, falling and rising like a dandelion puff along the back of the stage, taking my fate with it.