Material Girls (32 page)

“Sorry.” He sat down and put his arm around me. It felt nice—but awkward, too. Neither of us was much in the mood for kissing.

At one point, the lock turned and I panicked, but it was only Felix's roommate. A huge grin broke out on his face when he saw me. “Just dropping off my stuff,” he said, planting his briefcase by the door. “Let me grab a jacket and you guys can get back to doing . . . whatever.” He said it in this smarmy way. “Hey, Felix, you need me to crash at Gavin's tonight?” I really did not like this kid. I wondered if roommates were assigned in Tap housing.

“No. Just go,” Felix muttered.

The roommate paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Oh, heard about the Torro-LeBlanc strike. Sorry. But it's pretty much what everyone expected would happen, don't you think?”

“Get out!” Felix barked at him. After the door closed, he got up and locked it again. “Sorry,” he said, turning back to me. “Mike's a dick.”

“Agreed.” I poked at Ivy's bag with the toe of my shoe. I'd kept it with me even as we fled. “I wonder if Ivy's okay. Her Unum's probably in here.”

“Let's take a look.” Felix grabbed the bag and loosened the drawstring.

I didn't feel great about going through her purse. I would never want anyone to see the stuff in mine—like oil-blotting paper for my face and emergency tampons. “That's her private stuff,” I protested.

“Eh, she's not going to sue us.” He looked at me playfully. “Well, maybe you. But she likes me. I'm safe.”

I rolled my eyes.

Felix had it open in no time, but we found only an Unum, a couple of dollars, a pile of cosmetics, and a manila envelope. Felix pinched the metal clasp open and withdrew a handful of photographs. He handed them to me. I looked at the faces of the girls, but I didn't understand what they were.

Felix scratched his ear. “Vivienne showed these to me once. They're workers at one of the Torro-LeBlanc factories.”

“What?” I examined the crowded sleeping quarters, the factory workstations. “This isn't in La Reina, is it?”

Felix shook his head.

“And I thought being a drafter was rough,” I said slowly. I'd never thought much about how clothes were mass-produced. No one on the upper floors at Torro talked about it. I'd had this weird mental image of a bunch of adult men standing around drinking coffee in a clean, spacious factory—the floors and walls were white—and sort of supervising as machines did all the cutting and sewing. Finished garments flew off a conveyor belt and folded themselves into shipping boxes. All the workers had to do was punch the clock, check some boxes on their clipboards, and enjoy a nice long lunch break.

Looking at the pictures, I realized how naive I'd been. There wasn't magic involved in clothing production. Buttons and zippers might be sewn by machine, but someone had to maneuver the cloth. Loose threads needed to be clipped. Fabric had to be pressed. Labels needed to be added. For each and every garment of each and every trend.

I scanned the faces in the photos. If Torro-LeBlanc treated its Taps as replaceable, disposable employees . . . how did it treat these workers? “What's Ivy doing with these pictures?” I asked.

Felix shrugged.

“Well, she obviously was going to do something with them if she had them in her bag. Maybe she was trying to give them to a reporter. You see, you underestimate her.”

Felix frowned at the pictures. “Maybe.”

I picked up the Unum. “She's definitely missing this.”

We put everything back in the bag. After a while, once I got up my nerve, we ventured into the common room, which had mostly emptied out, and turned on the television. The news reporters declared the strike over, with Torro-LeBlanc offering terms “able to please most.” The cameras panned broadly over the brawl, but every channel broadcast a special clip of Vivienne's attack on the agent. The footage also showed workers streaming back into the design house through the open doors. It was hard to watch.

“Disgusting,” Felix said.

He rode the train with me back to my apartment. To my great surprise, a teary-eyed Karen embraced us both when she opened the door. She alternated “I'm so glad you're safe” with “I've been worried sick.” I immediately felt terrible for not having called. She invited Felix in, but he said he ought to get home before it got even later. I waved an awkward good night to him. Once the door was closed, Karen hugged me again and started crying fresh tears.

“I'm okay,” I said, patting her on the back. “Really.”

“I made flan.” Karen gestured to the custard on the table and wiped her eyes. “I didn't know what else to do. I went down to Torro to try to get you, but they'd closed off the street. Your father is still out searching.”

I felt another surge of guilt. “I'm sorry I didn't call. We barely got away.”

Karen led me to the kitchen table. Suddenly feeling hungry, I dug into the flan. After a brief call to Walter, Karen joined me.

Less than ten minutes later, a loud knock at the front door startled us both.

“That can't be your father—he was all the way down at Yardley Station,” Karen said, standing.

Plus,
I thought to myself,
he wouldn't knock.

Karen tightened the belt of her bathrobe—Torro-LeBlanc's, I noted wryly—and answered the door.

Behind her, I could see a male CSS agent and a woman in a white lab coat in the doorway. “Karen Klein?” the woman said, flashing a badge. “We're from Corporate Security and Surveillance. We have orders to speak with your daughter, Marla.”

I set down my spoon. I'd been a fool to think hiding at Felix's would make any difference. They'd probably been watching the apartment. I swallowed and steadied myself for whatever was coming.

The intruders asked to sit down in a way that made it impossible to refuse. They stationed themselves next to me at the kitchen table, and Karen joined them.

“The short of it, Miss Klein,” the woman began, “is that you have been identified as a threat. Numerous witnesses have confirmed your part in organizing the Torro-LeBlanc labor strike. Your actions were unlawful. We will not tolerate another uprising.”

Through my anxiety, I felt an odd glint of pride. Yes, I had been an organizer. They had needed an army of troops to bring us down. They were right to be threatened.

“Our organization aims to avoid litigation and incarceration whenever possible,” the male agent said. “We have found a sixty-day monitoring period using legal surveillance methods to be highly effective. Once we confirm that you have ceased to engage in disruptive behavior altogether, you're free to continue your life.”

“She has stopped,” Karen said firmly.

The man smiled at her. “Then she has nothing to fear. First, Marla, please retrieve your Unum and Tabula for us.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Do what they say, honey,” Karen urged.

“If you do not cooperate,” the man said, still smiling, “we will have no choice but to arrest you.”

Wouldn't you at least try drugging me first?
I wanted to say. But I figured now was not the time to be smart. I retrieved my devices and watched as the agent placed his own Unum in between them. He turned everything on and waited until a blinking light on the central Unum stopped flashing and remained lit.

“There,” the man said. “You are prohibited from communicating on devices other than these two for the sixty days. We'll be receiving all communications. We will also be monitoring your whereabouts using the Unum. You must keep it on you at all times. Odds are, you already do.”

“Am I not allowed to go certain places?” I asked.

“Go wherever you like,” the agent said. “But know we'll have a record.”

I didn't like the feeling of my messages being read, but I was already thinking of ways around the restrictions. Would they really be able to tell if I made a call from someone else's Unum? And how would they know if I went somewhere without my Unum?

Then again, if they had been watching the house, they might keep tracking me by sight, too. I thought about asking—but wondered if I could trust their answer.

The woman stood. She walked to the kitchen sink and washed her hands. “We're also installing subdermal floss for sixty days.”

“No,” said Karen. I had never heard of subdermal floss, but my mother looked stricken. “You'll be listening to her Unum,” Karen pleaded. “Why do you need to do that?”

“We have our orders,” said the man. “If she has nothing to hide, it won't matter.”

The woman returned to her seat and withdrew medical gloves from her bag. “On the upside, the floss stimulates collagen production,” she said, pulling on the gloves. “She's getting a face-lift for free.”

Karen didn't smile. I looked at the gloves apprehensively. “Karen? What's going on?”

While my mother hesitated, the woman ripped open a packet containing a small piece of wet gauze and ran it along my jawline. From the smell, I guessed the gauze was soaked in alcohol. The woman gave the alcohol a moment to dry; she then opened a tub of cream and rubbed it vigorously into my cheeks. “Anesthetic,” she said simply. She pulled the gloves off inside out and put on a new pair.

“Karen?”

From a sealed bag, the woman pulled out a needle about four inches long and curved like a rainbow. Attached to the end was sparkling gold wire.

“This floss picks up everything you say and everything said to you. It's fine to curse us for an hour after it's in—we've heard it all before. Go ahead and talk freely. We're only interested in discussions of potentially subversive activity.”

Breathing fast through my nose, I backed away from the sharp point. “Mom? Mom, please?”

“This is
unnecessary,
” my mother said. “Marla's a good girl. She's learned her lesson.”

I nodded crazily. “Don't put that thing in my face.”

The woman sighed. “We can't leave until the floss is installed.”

After a pause, my mother leaned forward and held both my hands tightly. “I'll be right here. It's not supposed to hurt, honey. I saw something about it on
Hardline
once.”

The woman gripped my chin with one hand and tilted my head to the side. She picked up the needle. “Your mother's right. This may feel awkward, but it shouldn't hurt. Don't move.”

I forced my head to stay motionless. Out of the corner of my watering eye, I watched the needle penetrate the flesh near my ear. It didn't hurt, exactly, but the tugging sensation as the woman worked the needle under my skin turned my stomach.

The needle emerged near the side of my mouth, and the woman pulled it through until the gold wire poked out. She clipped both ends close to the skin.

“Perfect,” the woman said, patting my cheek. “Now for the other side.”

The woman packed up her materials after she finished. “You might bruise a little in the next couple of days, but go ahead and apply concealer. If either end of the floss starts poking out, give us a call. Otherwise, we'll be back in sixty days to remove it.”

Gingerly, I touched my cheeks. The flesh was still numb, but I thought I could feel the hardness of the tiny wires beneath the surface. Every word I uttered, every burp, every snore, every kiss—they would be listening.

“Now comes the fun part,” the woman said.

The man, who had left in the middle of the floss insertion, came in through the front door wheeling a trunk on a dolly. He set it down in the middle of the foyer.

“Here's your new wardrobe,” the man announced, patting the trunk. “As a public show of faith in our design houses, we expect you to wear trends for your surveillance period. Here are the latest styles from the Big Five.” He clicked open the lock and lifted out some garments wrapped in tissue paper. “If you point me to your room, I'll be installing a metal plate in your mirror to monitor your clothing choices.”

“Well, that could be worse,” said Karen, patting my knee. She gestured up the stairs toward my room.

The man approached and held out his hand. “Of course, we'll be taking your flower, too,” he said.

It took me a moment to realize he was referring to the plastic flower on my lapel. I touched its petals. Eco-chic wasn't going to be a real trend—at least, not my version of it. But they didn't have to take everything. “No.”

“Marla,”
my mother said.

“It's my design. I want to keep it.”

My mother grabbed my lapel and detached the pin herself. As she handed it to the man with a weak smile, a raw feeling—a mix of despair and exhaustion—suddenly overwhelmed me. “Are you done yet?” I blurted out. “I'd like to get some rest now.”

Turning away, the man climbed the staircase without answering.

The woman stood. “There's one final thing. You should know that you have been added to the national Do Not Hire list. No established corporation with a branch on domestic soil will employ you.”

“For sixty days?” I asked.

“For life,” the woman replied. “Be quick, Agent,” she called up the stairs. “We have a few more houses to visit.”

The CSS agents, or kidnappers
—whichever they were—had escorted Ivy out of the elevator on the top floor of the Warwick Records building. They'd walked her down the hallway with its rose-colored carpet and shoved her through the door at the end. Here she was in the oval conference room, two years after entering it for the first and only other time.

Miles Jackson, looking as imposing as she remembered, sat at the end of the granite table. He was leaning back in his chair, resting his steepled fingers against the bridge of his nose. He glanced up as they entered.

A man sat to his left, deeply engaged in his Tabula.

Ivy wasn't surprised to see Miles and an assistant. She hadn't, however, expected the shouting.