Skin by Kathe Koja Page B

Bibi's-tearing on clothes while shrieking at Bibi who shrieked back, threw something; missed, and Tess hunched-still-at the worktable, yelling red-eyed Shut the fuck up! to the banging door, Paul's shouts in the street and Bibi slamming the window, hard; then with a shrug, apology, opening it wide again for Tess who socketed her gun, rubbed her eyes hard with the burned heels of her hands.
        "You want coffee?"
        Tess's nod, stepping to the shower and Bibi's commentary, half to herself and half-unheard in the shivering burn of the water. Full day's work ahead, Actual Torque actually on schedule but no thanks to Paul, or even Tess's three, all of whom seemed to have more pressing work elsewhere; true, they had pickup jobs but still their time seemed oddly fragmented; there when she needed them most, but only then. Maybe they were going to quit to form their own group.
        
***
        
        The time between shows had lengthened in proportion to the planned complexities; maybe time was the key to all the bickering. Bibi looking, bringing coffee, half smile pale as a little ghoul, scratches across her breasts and neck, one long and arrow-straight directing the eye down. Tess, gesturing with her own cup to the answering-machine light: blinking; it was always blinking these days.
        "That guy called again, from AntiTrust . He said you were going to give him an interview before the-"
        "I know, I know." Frowning, unconscious fingers rubbing the reddest of the scratches. "I don't have time, this time. Shit! There's too much to do."
        There was too much to do: the Triple Deaths first and foremost, and almost done: the Claw Hammer, the Drill, and the Guitar Pick, they could not walk but they could move; motion so distorted it became ultimately hateful to the eye, like the long-ago tape played at that first dance, a rhythmless rhythm that put teeth on edge, made the heartbeat feel miscadenced, the breathing too fast or too slow. Optimum distortion, Jerome called it; when he was there. Which was seldom. "I think," Tess said, "Jerome's going to quit on me."
        "What? No," shaking that pale head, positive. "Not Jerome. He thinks you're God."
        "Well, something's going on." Too tired to work, too much to do; no time to waste. A week and a half, tickets sold, supplies bought; strobes and smoke and the Triple Deaths through their paces, everyone in black and stretched rubber, rubber to burn, nauseating smoke another facet of discomfort: this time let's fuck them up, Bibi's mantra and Tess agreed. The Surgeons were about more than plain performance; or should be. Would be.
        So: coffee drunk like medicine, Tess's head hung low and Bibi toweling her dry, "Your hair's so long," rubbing vigorous to the point of pain: "There. If you're still asleep now, you're dead," and into the shower herself as at the door Paul, silent hands full of pastries, yellow crust and fat red fruit filling like split innards; bags down to strip and join Bibi in the wet and Tess back to the worktable, back-hinge hurting, solder smoke like the rising funnel of incense in the church of the endless burn.
        His name was Andreas, long hair and long fingernails and he was late, almost time for the performance before he came with his needles, his scalpels, his black rubber gloves. Unnecessarily deferential to Tess, jokey and fey with Bibi, who seemed to find him funny. Or something. Tess perched, vulture, atop one of the heavy black-sprayed crates, sore-eyed watch as one trio set up another: Nicky and Peter and Jerome, the Drill, the Claw Hammer, the Guitar Pick. Even she had to admit she was pleased: long ropy cables like necrotic veins, slippery oil and they moved as they were meant to: around the rusty drums meant for the rubber and the fire, around the splintered plywood table on which Bibi would be cut. More cabling from the ceiling, long U-shaped loops where the dancers would hang as frenzied as webbed