The Windup Girl (59 page)

Emiko watched the fight to save the city for three days, and then the monsoons came and the last attempts at holding back the ocean were abandoned. Rain gushed down, a vast deluge sweeping out dust and debris, sending every bit of the city swirling and rising. People swarmed from their homes with their belongings on their heads. The city slowly filled with water, becoming a vast lake lapping around second-story windows.

On the sixth day, her Royal Majesty the Child Queen announces the abandonment of the divine city. There is no Somdet Chaopraya now. Only the Queen, and the people rally to her.

The white shirts, so despised and disgraced just days before, are everywhere, guiding people north under the command of a new Tiger, a strange unsmiling woman who people say is possessed by spirits and who drives her white shirts to struggle and save as many of the people of Krung Thep as possible. Emiko herself is forced to hide as a young volunteer in a white uniform works the halls of her building offering assistance to anyone who needs food or safe water. Even as the city dies, the Environment Ministry is rehabilitated.

Slowly, the city empties. The lap of seawater and the yowl of cheshires replace the call of durian sellers and the ring of bicycle bells. At times, Emiko suspects that she is the only person living. When she cranks a radio she hears that the capital has decamped north to Ayutthaya, once again above sea level. She hears that Akkarat has shaven his head and become a monk to atone for his failure to protect the city. But it is all distant.

With the wet season, Emiko's life becomes bearable. The flooded metropolis means that there is always water nearby, even if it is a stagnant bathtub stinking with the refuse of millions. Emiko locates a small skiff and uses it to navigate the city's wilderness. Rain pours down daily and she lets it bathe her, washing away everything that has come before.

She lives by scavenge and the hunt. She eats cheshires and catches fish with her bare hands. She is very quick. Her fingers flash down to spear a carp whenever she desires it. She eats well and sleeps easily, and with water all around, she does not so greatly fear the heat that burns within her. If it is not the place for New People that she once imagined, it is still a niche.

She decorates her apartment. She crosses the wide mouth of the Chao Phraya to investigate the Mishimoto factory where she had once been employed. It is shuttered, but she finds remnants of her past and collects some of them. Calligraphy torn and left behind, Raku
chawan
bowls.

A few times, she encounters people. Most of them are too occupied with their own problems of survival to bother with a tick-tock creature more glimpsed than seen, but there are a few who prey on a lone girl's perceived weakness. Emiko deals with them quickly, and with as much mercy as she knows how.

The days pass. She becomes comfortable entirely in her world of water and scavenge. She is so comfortable, in fact, that when the
gaijin
and the girl find her, scrubbing her laundry from atop a second-floor apartment rail, they surprise her utterly.

"And who is this?" a voice asks.

Emiko draws back, startled, and nearly falls from where she perches. She jumps down and darts splashing into the safety of the abandoned apartment's shadows.

The
gaijin's
boat bumps up against the rail.
"Sawatdi khrap?"
he calls. "Hello?"

He's old, mottled skin and bright intelligent eyes. The girl is lithe and brown with a soft smile. They both lean against the balcony railing, peering into the dimness from their boat. "Don't run away little thing," the old man says. "We are quite harmless. I can't walk at all, and Kip here is a gentle soul."

Emiko waits. They don't give up, though. Just continue to peer in at her.

"Please?" the girl calls.

Against her better judgment, Emiko steps out, wading carefully in the ankle-deep water. It has been a long time since she has spoken with a person.

"Heechy-keechy,"
the girl breathes.

The old
gaijin
smiles at the words. "New People, they call themselves." His eyes contain no judgment. He holds up a limp pair of cheshires. "Would you like to dine with us, young lady?"

Emiko motions toward the balcony rail where she has tethered her own day's catch just under water. "I do not need your help."

The man looks down at the string of fish, then up at her with new respect. "I suppose you don't. Not if your design is the one I know." He invites her closer. "You live near here?"

She points upstairs.

"Lovely real estate. Perhaps we could dine with you this evening. If cheshire is not to your taste, we would certainly enjoy a bite of fish."

Emiko shrugs, but she is lonely and the man and girl seem harmless. As night falls, they light a fire of kindled furniture on her apartment's balcony and roast the fish. Stars show through gaps in the clouds. The city stretches before them, black and tangled. When they are finished eating, the old
gaijin
drags his wounded body closer to the fire while the girl attends him.

"Tell me, what is a windup girl doing here?"

Emiko shrugs. "I was left behind."

"Ourselves, as well." The old man exchanges smiles with his friend. "Though I think our vacation will be ending soon. It seems we are to return to the pleasures of calorie detente and genetic warfare, so I think that the white shirts will once again have uses for me." He laughs at that.

"Are you a generipper?" Emiko asks.

"More than just that, I hope."

"You said you know about my. . . platform?"

The man smiles. He beckons his girl over to him and runs his hand idly up her leg as he studies Emiko. Emiko realizes that the girl is not entirely what she seems; she is boy and girl, together. The girl smiles at Emiko, seeming to sense her thoughts.

"I have read about your kind," the old man says. "About your genetics. Your training. . .

"Stand up!" he barks.

Emiko is standing before she knows it. Standing and shaking with fear and the urge to obey.

The man shakes his head. "It's a hard thing they have done to you."

Emiko blazes with anger. "They also made me strong. I can hurt you."

"Yes. That's true." He nods. "They took shortcuts. Your training masks that, but the shortcuts are there. Your obedience. . . I don't know where they got that. A Labrador of some sort, I suspect." He shrugs. "Still, you are better than human in almost all other ways. Faster, smarter, better eyesight, better hearing. You are obedient, but you don't catch diseases like mine." He waves at his scarred and oozing legs. "You're lucky enough."

Emiko stares at him. "You are one of the scientists who made me."

"Not the same, but close enough." He smiles slightly. "I know your secrets, just as I know the secrets of megodonts and TotalNutrient wheat." He nods at his dead cheshires. "I know everything about these felines here. If I cared enough, I might even be able to drop a genetic bomb in them that would strip away their camouflage and over the course of generations turn them back into their less successful version."

"You would do this?"

He laughs and shakes his head. "I like them better this way."

"I hate your kind."

"Because someone like me made you?" He laughs again. "I'm surprised you aren't more pleased to meet me. You're as close as anyone ever comes to meeting God. Come now, don't you have any questions for God?"

Emiko scowls at him, nods at the cheshires. "If you were my God, you would have made New People first."

The old
gaijin
laughs. "That would have been exciting."

"We would have beaten you. Just like the cheshires."

"You may yet." He shrugs. "You do not fear cibiscosis or blister rust."

"No." Emiko shakes her head. "We cannot breed. We depend on you for that." She moves her hand. Telltale stutter-stop motion. "I am marked. Always, we are marked. As obvious as a ten-hands or a megodont."

He waves a hand dismissively. "The windup movement is not a required trait. There is no reason it couldn't be removed. Sterility. . ." He shrugs. "Limitations can be stripped away. The safeties are there because of lessons learned, but they are not required; some of them even make it more difficult to create you. Nothing about you is inevitable." He smiles. "Someday, perhaps, all people will be New People and you will look back on us as we now look back at the poor Neanderthals."

Emiko falls silent. The fire crackles. Finally she says, "You know how to do this? Can make me breed true, like the cheshires?"

The old man exchanges a glance with his ladyboy.

"Can you do it?" Emiko presses.

He sighs. "I cannot change the mechanics of what you already are. Your ovaries are non-existent. You cannot be made fertile any more than the pores of your skin supplemented."

Emiko slumps.

The man laughs. "Don't look so glum! I was never much enamored with a woman's eggs as a source of genetic material anyway." He smiles. "A strand of your hair would do. You cannot be changed, but your children—in genetic terms, if not physical ones—they can be made fertile, a part of the natural world."

Emiko feels her heart pounding. "You can do this, truly?"

"Oh yes. I can do that for you." The man's eyes are far away, considering. A smile flickers across his lips. "I can do that for you, and much, much more."

Acknowledgments:

Without a number of supporters,
The Windup Girl
would have been a poorer effort. A heartfelt thanks goes out to the following people: Kelly Buehler and Daniel Spector, for hosting, tour guiding, and crash space in Chiang Mai while I was doing research; Richard Foss, for flywheels; Ian Chai, for kindly interceding and fixing glaring problems with Tan Hock Seng; James Fahn, author of
A Land on Fire,
for his expertise and insights into Thailand's environmental challenges; the gang at Blue Heaven—particularly my first readers Tobias Buckell and Bill Shunn—but also Paul Melko, Greg vanEekhout, Sarah Prineas, Sandra McDonald, Heather Shaw, Holly McDowell, Ian Tregillis, Rae Carson, and Charlie Finlay. I doubt I would have found my way to the book's conclusion without their wisdom. I'd also like to thank my editor Juliet Ulman, who helped identify and solve critical problems with the story when I was completely stymied. Bill Tuffin deserves a special note of thanks. I was lucky enough to get to know him when this book was still in its infancy, and he has proven to be both a rich source of cultural information in Southeast Asia and a good friend. And finally, I want to thank my wife Anjula, for her unflagging support over many many years. Her patience and faith are unmatched. Of course, while all these people helped bring out the best in this book, I am solely responsible for its errors, omissions and transgressions.

On a separate note, I would like to mention that while this book is set in a future version of Thailand, it should not be construed as representative of present-day Thailand or the Thai people. I enthusiastically recommend authors such as Chart Korbjitti, S. P. Somtow, Phra Peter Pannapadipo, Botan, Father Joe Maier, Kukrit Pramoj, Saneh Sangsuk and Kampoon Boontawee for far better windows into the Thai Kingdom and its many aspects.

THE END

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