My Costume

He unrolled a couple of feet and let a fold of it drape across the yellow wood of the table. I had thought it was gray at first, but lying on the yellow-stained wood, it looked to be the same color as the table. Bambi and I examined it closely. She flipped over the end and we saw that the underside was gray. Until then, I had assumed that the cloth was translucent, and we had been seeing the color of the table through it.

Mr. Morton smiled at our puzzled looks. "You are partly correct," he said, "The fibers do carry the light and pass the color along their length, but it is a surface effect only and it is polarized. That is, it only works on one side of the finished fabric. Watch this."

He took a piece of dark blue cloth and put it under the fold of fabric on the table. Instantly the fabric turned dark blue. He replaced the blue cloth with a red swatch and it changed the fabric red. Then he laid out the blue and red swatches so that both colors showed and when he put the bolt on it, it became striped with both colors.

"As you can see," he said, "the effect is linear. Only the woof threads, that is, the threads running the length of the weave carry the light. The warp, or crosswise threads do not. Here. Try to cut it." He handed Mrs. Reynolds an open pocketknife.

Bambi tested the blade to satisfy herself that it was sharp and slid it across the fabric. When she picked up the blade, there was no cut. There was no damage at all that I could see.

"What is that, Kevlar?" I asked.

"Something much newer," Mr. Morton said. "I got this from a friend in the research lab of one of the major textile companies. I cannot tell you which one. Confidentiality works both ways in this case, I'm afraid. No, this is a fabric that has no use at the moment. Its peculiar properties have no application that my friend has been able to describe to the marketing people he works with. It is several times stronger than other aramid fibers, but it is very difficult to work because of this. The surface optical effect would seem to make it a natural for camouflage clothing, but the difficulty of making anything with it makes it too expensive for that purpose."

He was smiling too much to be telling us that he had failed. He reached into a drawer and took out a glove of the material. He handed it to me and I pulled it on. It fit perfectly. It was incredibly light and it stretched as I moved.

"I found that, while it is indeed very difficult to cut and sew, it can be melted and welded by my laser-cutters. You will note that the seams are almost invisible. I was able to fuse the ends together without adding any additional stitching."

While I held my gloved hand in the air, the fabric appeared to be a neutral gray, like looking at a pile of raw fiberglass. When I put my hand on the table, the glove picked up the color of the table and my hand almost disappeared.

"I have some sketches I would like to show you," Morton said. He opened the drawing pad and displayed his concept of a skin-tight catsuit made from the amazing cloth. The figure in the drawing was obviously me. I wondered if Morton had enjoyed duplicating my curves on paper. The drawing certainly showed a great attention to detail, but then, Mr. Morton was a very detail-oriented man.

"If you like, I can have the rest of the garment finished by the close of business on Friday," he said. I got the impression that he hadn't stopped at one glove, but he didn't want to tell us that he had done more work than what he had shown us.

"This is much more than I had ever expected," Bambi told him. "You have exceeded my greatest expectations. But this must be very expensive to do. How much will this cost?"

"Nothing," he said with an air of finality. "I do not want money for this." Something about the way he phrased that told me that he wanted some form of non-monetary compensation.

Seeing my expectant gaze on him, he opened a drawer and took out a metal bar that was about a foot long and a half-inch in diameter. It looked like a piece of a fireplace poker. He placed the bar on the table in front of me and I knew immediately what compensation our dear Mr. Morton wanted.

Bambi looked puzzled as I picked up the bar. She didn't understand. She and Morton watched as I took an end of the iron rod in each hand. I knew this would be hard, so I closed my eyes and tranced as soon as I had a good grip.

I focused my mind on adding all the strength I could to my arms. I pictured the bar in my mind. I imagined it bending. I visualized it curving. I pushed and pulled on the bar as hard as I could and with one great exertion I twisted that piece of metal into the shape of a pretzel and dropped it onto the table, where it landed on the swatches of fabric with a loud thud.

The thud seemed to echo in the small office. I detranced and rubbed my hands together to work out the impression that the bar had made. Both Mr. Morton and Bambi stared at the twisted metal object in the middle of the table as though it had magically appeared out of thin air. I was startled as well. Bending the bar had been much easier than I had expected. Not for the first time, I had an uneasy feeling about being so freaking strong.