The Unraveling

by Benjamin Rosenbaum

  “I don’t—”

  Ve took zir hand, pulled zir closer. “Show me.”

  Fift wrapped zir arms around Shria, scooted nearer, zir hip pressed against virs. Ze leaned down, put the side of zir head against vir chest, zir cheek on the softness of vir breasts. They were little breasts, firm, four of them in a row. Shria wrapped Fift up in vir arms. Ze rested against vem. Ze closed zir eyes.

  Shria smelled good, fresh and mellow and rich, like something from the surface, or some newly invented spice.

  Had Fift done something horrible? Was it horrible, what ze had done?

  In the supper garden, weariness was sinking into zir arms, zir legs. Ze walked among the vines, reaching out to touch their velvety surfaces, the harder ridges at the edges of the cuts where the spice-gnats swarmed. Green light filtered through the leaves. The ceiling of the garden disappeared in a tangle of vegetation.

  Zir agents were prodding zir, in the supper garden: homework, news, invitations, drab Long Conversation rankings gossip from zir not-really-friends in the local prep group. Ze pushed them away.

  Shria stroked zir rough, stubbled scalp. Ze nestled against vem. Ze wanted to be closer still, to flow into vem, to merge, to be sheltered somewhere deep and safe inside vir fiery storm, but ze could not. There was an indissoluble border of skin and bone between them. Ze was trapped on this side of it.

  Shria breathed deep. Fift could feel the muscles of vir back relaxing, one by one, under zir arms.

  “It’s not so different at first,” Shria said. “This snuggling. From just embracing, I mean. But then if you wait, it actually—”

  “Shria,” Fift said. “Hush.”

  “Oh,” Shria said. “Okay.”

  Ze lay down in the supper garden and watched the still green vines overhead.

  Their breathing slowed. Their heartbeats slowed, a bit at a time, one and then the other, like slipdancers circling their common center, closing in, slowing, coming together, until they were almost, almost, one.

  After a while, a good long while, ze sighed.

  “You had one more big secret,” ze said.

  “Mmm,” Shria said. Ve was resting on zir, vir chin against zir scalp. “Right. Well, I still don’t know if I should . . .”

  There was a ping in their headspace; a message wriggling through the anti-surveil, stirring their drowsing agents, vibrating with Mother Pip’s barely concealed impatience. Muffled but insistent, wondering what was taking them so long.

  “Fuck,” Shria said.

  “We’d better go,” Fift said.

  “Fuck,” ve said. “I’ll—wait. Wait. I’ll tell you.” Ve leaned down, put vir mouth by Fift’s ear.

  “It’s about the Clowns,” ve whispered. “The Cirque. When they were here. People relax here, you know? They trust the anti-surveil. No one pays attention to the apprentice setting up the scopes—”

  The ping came again, the insistence no longer concealed.

  “They want,” Shria whispered, “to ‘put the Midwives in their place.’”

  A bolt of cold drilled through Fift’s spine. “What?”

  “That’s what they said. They have some kind of plan. Something big.”

  “Like what?”

  Shria shrugged. Ve let go of Fift and stood. “Come on,” ve said, and one of vir bodies dove through the dilating cervix of the room.

  In vir other body ve reached back and gave Fift’s shoulder a squeeze. Ve looked a little relieved, a little scared. “Come on,” ve said again. “Let’s not get in more trouble.”

  Fift got up, unsteadily, from the couch.

  4

  The Clowns didn’t strike that summer. Fall came, draining chlorophyll from the leaves of the deciduous trees on the surface far above Fullbelly, so that the forests were lit up like fire. The mornings were frosty, and bodies on the surface shivered with the chill. It was hunting season, and surface time was oversubscribed. (Father Smistria cackled at the slackwits freezing themselves half to death to pretend they were ancient hunter-gatherers; Father Nupolo chided vem for ignoring the benefits of the surface-going minority for planetary resilience.) Then the first snows came, and the queues at the elevators disappeared.

  Shria sent {Hi} and Fift sent {Hi} back; after that, they didn’t know what to say. They kept trying—discussing, with grinding awkwardness, homework and food, and recommending each other clip-opera series (Shria liked Goopfield Pratfalls With Perm and Trink, though ve said it was mindless; Fift sort of liked Middleborn at Three Hundred Why Mother Why?!, though plenty of it was overdramatic mugging for the feed.)

  Fift told Shria about zir new cousin. The new cousin was Chalia Rigorosa Spin-Nupolo of name registry Yellow Peninsula Sugarbubble 3, which made Chalia and Fift name-cousins as well as birth-cousins. Everyone said that was lucky. Iraxis cohort was busy that fall, with preparations for the birth and the naming ceremony, and helping the new parental cohort get settled in Slow-as-Molasses. It was a great honor for Father—and now Auntie—Nupolo, that vir sibling Ellix’s parental cohort, all twenty-two parents plus the new baby, had moved there to benefit from vir child-rearing wisdom, and so Chalia could grow up near Fift.

  “And naming it after you, Nupes!” Frill said. “What a coup!”

  “It’s too much,” Nupolo said, fiercely, shaking vir head. “I don’t deserve such acclamation.”

  “You do, though,” Arevio said shyly, slipping vir hand in Nupolo’s.

  That winter, Fift rarely saw more than one of Nupolo’s or Squell’s or Arevio’s bodies at home. They were always out fussing over the new family. Fift got to hold Chalia, in vir fragile first body, when ve was a week old. Ve looked up at zir with questioning eyes, as if asking zir, “Well? How is it here? Have I made it to the right place?” Ze wished ze could answer vem with any certainty.

  Fift and Shria’s messages tiptoed through a goopfield of too-dangerous topics. When ze told vem about Chalia’s birth, ze avoided saying anything about the Midwives who’d come to gender the baby, even though that was the climax of the whole thing. Ze didn’t ask about Vvonda, or about Shria’s work. Shria, too, often trailed off into silence. Even topics that seemed safe at first—gossip about mutual acquaintances, complaints about their parents—tended to run into walls, into {okay, I gotta go, bye}, {Bye.}

  They knew their parents would be reading their messages, and Fift was terrified that zirs would begin to wonder about the lost hour, when their child was utterly hidden from the world.

  It was as if a secret doorway had opened during that lost hour, a doorway to a magic world where anything could happen. And anything had. Ze had been intoxicated. Ze had lost zir hold on the center, had been flung free, into the void.

  They certainly never mentioned the Clowns.

  What would it be like if ze could see Shria in person, body near body, near enough to feel vir warmth? Ze tried to stop thinking about it. Ze didn’t dare visit, or invite Shria over; what if zir parents noticed something? Ze even avoided watching Shria over the feed; the feed made everything flat and strange and hollow anyway.

  There was nothing to do but survive these years, to buckle down and learn, to sit and pass spoons, to recite (ze was working on the various addenda to the alternate codification of the twelfth emergent mode), to ponder, to wait.

  A couple of times, Shria mentioned where ve’d be that day in a way that sounded like an invitation. But of course it was never anywhere with even a modicum of privacy, never mind the rock-solid anti-surveillance of Stiffwaddle Somatic Fashions, and Fift didn’t go.

  Mother Pip, of course, had not become one of the region’s premiere banker-historians by being oblivious to emotional nuance. Ze knew that Fift was infatuated with Shria.

  Had ze suspected how far things had gone, ze would have been appalled, enraged; but ze didn’t. Ze assumed the attraction was one-sided. A Staid’s adolescence was full of crushes—intense, muted, stifled longings—and if the target this time was, inappropriately, a vailchild, well . . . this sort of thin
g did happen. Ze sympathized. Vails had always captured zir own imagination, even early on, in zir own unusual childhoods.

  Father Grobbard, now: had ze suspected Fift of forming such an attachment, ze might have felt it necessary to impose a complete separation, in order to impress upon Fift the importance of propriety for a young Staid of good family. And if Squell or Arevio or Nupolo had suspected, they might have panicked at the thought that Fift was gendering poorly.

  Pip took a different view.

  Ze had suffered, in zir own childhood, from the intolerance of others. No one could fault zir cool analytical precision; but ze had a boldness—a brashness—even an impatience—that many found unseemly in a Staid. This had not endeared zir to zir age-mates. Even later, in zir Courting Century, Staids tended to avoid zir; Vails found zir boldness endearing, but mildly ridiculous, and zir physical appetites hilarious.

  But these trials had forged zir character and honed zir will. Ze could consider disapproved-of things calmly, when others shied away. Pom Politigus was not the only client Pip had taken on as a struggling maverick only to see zir become a star.

  Fift, to be sure, was not overly bold. Fift was awkward; a loner; mediocre in school and (worse) in the Long Conversation; plodding as an apprentice. Worst of all, from Pip’s point of view: ze lacked ambition. (Really, ze was already as emotionally impoverished as an elderborn: one might as well just cast the chance-sticks again and have a second child. If only one’s cohort was not so exhaustingly deadlocked in the matter! But then, with seven lovely, infuriating, emotional, fractious Vails and only dear, accommodating old Grobbard to calm them down, what did one expect? They’d barely held together this long. Miskisk, particularly, continued to be a problem. It was all a lesson in the dangers of succumbing too thoroughly to one’s inclinations.)

  At any rate, this Shria—ve was ambitious. The work ve’d done for the Cirque—at such an age! And Pom’s patronage already secured. Perhaps, then, this . . . association . . . shouldn’t be too harshly discouraged? Crushes could be helpful in the formation of character. Some of Shria’s verve and vision might rub off on Fift.

  Obviously, Pip could not say this to the others. Ze didn’t want to be accused of encouraging Fift in vailish pursuits (never mind pursuits of Vails)! No, if ze was to extend any aid in the matter of zir child and Pom’s star apprentice, it would have to be subtle enough that ze would not have to hear about it at zir next hundred breakfasts. So ze bided zir time.

  It was late winter when Pom’s letter arrived, with the Ticket enclosed. The Cirque had announced a new performance series, not housed in their usual arenas and amphitheaters, but “in the midst of life.” The posting read:

  O person! O child of fate!

  (They always had been a little pompous, Pip reflected.)

  Have you wondered if This is the World For You?

  Why not find out?

  The Cirque Fantabulous—jesters to the church of the inveterate Trickster (raspberried be Vir name) since the Age of War, fandanglers of chaos, marsh-mellows of Marshes that Died Before Time, pickpockets of the Wallet of Blessed Kumru—spit on your pieties and snuggle your rioties, and invite you (should you have a Ticket) to their (who are we kidding? our!) next series of performance events:

  Unraveling: A Revolution!

  This event is unwalled! Look for it in no stadiums, line up in no lines! Do Not Come to See Us! If you have a Ticket, we will Come to See You!

  It went on in this vein for a good while, very clever and self-congratulatory. Unsluiced blockage, really. But it was a great coup for Politigus to have received a pair of the very hard-to-come-by Tickets in recognition of zir work on the somatology of the Cirque’s local chapter.

  {I trust you’ll find a use for this.} Pom’s note accompanying the ticket read. {No time to go myself, alas, so I’ve given mine to Shria; I’m sure ve will fill me in on the details. With compliments.}

  Pom Politigus was no fool, either.

  So when Fift hinted for the third time, somewhat more directly than before, that perhaps there were one or two new developments in the books of Stiffwaddle Somatic that might—of course, who was ze to say, but possibly, in zir provisional judgement, wherein ze would defer to Pip absolutely, but simply to bring it to zir attention, perhaps a visit might be in order, and if Pip had no time, ze was sure ze . . .

  “No, no, that’s all wrapped up,” Pip said gruffly. “Here.” Ze handed Fift the Ticket. “Compliments of Politigus. Some kind of show. I have no time for this nonsense, but we can’t let them go unused.” Fift stared at the thing in confusion. Pip lay a hand on zir shoulder. “Banker-historians must do a great many things, Fift, to cultivate relationships with their clients. If that means walking the byways with a Ticket, looking to be ambushed by a band of pretentious Clowns, so be it. You’ll want to contact Pom’s apprentice . . . what was vir name, Shria Kwonk Fnax? Ve’s going too. The show isn’t anywhere in particular, but take a body and wander around the below and beyond for a few hours, and you might see something or other . . .”

  5

  They’d never been this deep before. They’d never been this far from home, either, unless you counted field trips to the surface, but that was out—boring trees and cold dirt and badly cooked bunnies—and this was in.

  They could pick out both Foo and Stiffwaddle in the middle distance above their heads, two colorful landmarks amid the several hundred thousand habitations visible from the platform where they stood: Foo grinding in its slow rotation with ponderous solidity, Stiffwaddle dangling and glimmering in gracile wispiness. Far above, the roof of Fullbelly was mottled like a forest floor at noon, with light from the glowtubes far below filtering through the jumbled array of habitations.

  “What do you think?” Fift said.

  Shria squinted over the edge. “Let’s take the fast sluice over there.” Ve pointed at a pair of travelers zipping down the twisting ribbon of the sluice, impact-dampening foam sloshing around them. “It’s the quickest way to that pavilion.”

  Fift chewed zir lip. “Hardly anyone in the polylogue thinks the sighting at the pavilion was real.”

  Worldwide, about three million people had Tickets to the Cirque Fantabulous’s latest Show; in Fullbelly, the number of Ticket Holders was two hundred thousand, roughly one per million inhabitants. A few tens of thousands of them could be found on the “Ticket Holders In Search Of the Show!” polylogue.

  “I don’t think any of the sightings are real,” Shria said. “I don’t think it’s started yet.”

  “Do you think there even is a show?” Fift asked. “Or is it like . . . a meta thing? Where looking for the show is the show?”

  Shria shrugged. “Maybe. But I doubt it. I think it’s going to be real.” Ve looked off into the distant habitation-sprawl and vir eyes grew hungry. “I think it’s going to be big.”

  Fift felt a stab of unease in zir stomach. This felt like an allusion to Shria’s secret about the Clowns, and ze was acutely aware that zir parents were probably watching. Ze’d checked at the first sluice they’d taken: Fathers Grobbard, Squell, and—weirdly—Miskisk had been listed in zir audience. Since then, ze hadn’t wanted to look.

  “But if the sightings are fake, then why . . .” ze said.

  “We should go somewhere,” Shria said. “And in the pavilion down there they have mangareme fluffies.”

  At the other end of the platform, the sluice operator stood, singlebodied, a middle-aged Vail in full sluice operator regalia: a heavy jacket with multiple frilled ridges, glittering sashes inked with schematic diagrams of population-flow logistics, a purple Ascensionist devotional plume towering above vir hat, and epithets—Guardian of Fullbelly’s Energic Balance, Regulator of the Flow—spelled out in the air around vem by swarms of glowflies.

  At least it was a sluice ve was guarding, and not an elevator—they weren’t asking to be hauled upwards yet. But they were so far from home that the sluice operator was unlikely to believe they would walk all the way up again on stairw
ays.

  Ve glowered at them. What could they offer, vir eyes asked—two sixteen-year-olds from unremarkable cohorts, marooned in the wasteland of First Childhood, with no reason to be here other than a vague hunch about a possibly nonexistent performance?—to justify the additional energy, the logistical complexity, the risks and annoyances of permitting them to descend another three hundred bodylengths, on vir sluice?

  How could Fift and Shria possibly prevail in the transaction?

  On an ordinary day, they couldn’t have. Fift wouldn’t dare try, and even Shria would have been bested by that cold glare, knowing ve had no real reason to venture so far from home and insufficient emotional capital to stare the sluice operator down.

  Today, they’d done it three times already, two sluices and a spinbounce. Each time, they’d prevailed. But each time, they got farther away from home, and it got harder.

  “Come on,” Shria said, taking Fift’s hand. Ve grinned.

  The sluice operator’s eyes narrowed as they approached, taking the measure of them. Fift read vir story from lookup, too, with a banker-historian’s eye: Thesid Minorict of name registry Understandable Deviation 4, 3-bodied Vail, 368 years old, elderborn. Part of a provisional proto-cohort with two other Vails and one Staid; a diligently practicing Ascensionist (An ironic religion, Fift thought, for a sluice operator; an elevator would be more ascensive!); at this job for the last fifty years; staunch, well-regarded, unexceptional; no challenges on the mats, ever; no particular martial or aesthetic or somatic glories; but vir confidence was displayed in the very thoroughness with which ve allowed vir stolid ordinariness to be detailed in lookup. Economic-emotional status firmly, immovably, in the satisfied/​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​contributing zone.