The Windup Girl

15

There is a place for New People.

The hope of it runs through Emiko’s head every day, every minute, every second. The memory of the gaijin Anderson, and his conviction that the place truly exists. His hands on her in the darkness, eyes solemn as he nodded and confirmed.

So now she stares at Raleigh every night, wondering what the man knows, and if she dares to ask him about what he has seen in the north. About the route to safety. Three times she has approached him and each time her voice has failed her, leaving the question unasked. Each night she returns home, exhausted from the abuse that Kannika metes out, and falls into dreams of a place where New People dwell in safety, without patrons or masters.

Emiko remembers Mizumi-sensei at the kaizen studio where she taught all the young New People as they knelt in kimono and took their lessons.

“What are you?”

“New People.”

“What is your honor?”

“It is my honor to serve.”

“Who do you honor?”

“I honor my patron.”

Mizumi-sensei was swift with a switch, 100 years old and terrifying. An early New Person, her skin was nearly unaged. Who knew how many young ones she had shepherded through her studio? Mizumi-sensei, always there, always advising. Brutal in her anger, and yet fair in her punishments. And always the instruction, the faith that if they served their patron well, that they had attained their highest state.

Mizumi-sensei introduced them all to Mizuko Jizo Bodhisattva, who has compassion even for New People, and who would hide them in his sleeves after their deaths and smuggle them out of the hell world of genetically engineered toys and into the true cycle of life. Their duty was to serve, their honor was to serve, and their reward would come in the next life, when they became fully human. Service would yield the greatest rewards.

How Emiko had hated Mizumi-sensei when Gendo-sama abandoned her.

But now her heart beats again at the thought of a new patron: a wise man, a guide into a different world, one who can provide what Gendo-sama would not.

Another who lies to you? Who will betray you?

She squashes the thought. It is the other Emiko who thinks this. Not her highest self at all, as if she is nothing but a cheshire, bent on glutting herself, unconcerned with what her niche may be, overrunning everything. Not a thought appropriate to New People at all.

Mizumi-sensei taught that there are two parts to a New Person’s nature. The evil half, ruled by the animal hungers of their genes, by the many splicings and additions that changed them into what they were. And balanced against this, the civilized self, the side that knows the difference between niche and animal urge. That comprehends its place in the hierarchies of their country and people, and appreciates the gift their patrons provide by giving them life. Dark and light. In-Yo. Two sides of a coin, two sides of the soul. Mizumi-sensei helped them own their souls. Prepared them for the honor of service.

To be honest, it is only Gendo-sama’s poor treatment of her that makes Emiko think so badly of him. He was a weak man. Or, perhaps, if she is honest, she was not all she could have been. She did not serve to her utmost. That is the sad truth. A bit of shame that she must accept, even as she strives to live without the loving hand of a patron. But perhaps this strange gaijin… perhaps… She will not let the cynical animal into her mind tonight; she will let herself dream.

Emiko spills out of her tower slum into Bangkok’s cooling evening. A carnival feel informs the green-tinged streets, woks burning their nighttime noodles, offering simple dishes to the farmers of the market before they return to distant fields for the night. Emiko wanders through the night market, one eye out for white shirts, one on dinner.

She finds a vendor of grilled squid and takes one dipped in chile sauce. In the candlelight and shadows, she has cover of sorts. Her pha sin hides the movement of her legs. It is only her arms she must concern herself with, and if she is slow, careful, and keeps them close to her side, her movements can be mistaken for daintiness.

From a woman and her daughter, Emiko buys a folded banana leaf plate, cupping a nest of fried U-Tex padh seeu. The woman fries the noodles over blue methane, illegal, but not impossible to obtain. Emiko sits at a makeshift counter to shovel them in, her mouth burning at the spice. Others look at her strangely, a few make faces of distaste, but they do nothing. Some of them are even familiar with her. The rest have enough troubles without tangling themselves in the business of windups and white shirts. It is a strange advantage, she supposes. The white shirts are so despised that people don’t draw their attention unless absolutely necessary. She shovels the noodles into her mouth and again thinks of the gaijin’s words.

There is a place for New People.

She tries to imagine it. A village full of people with stuttering telltale motions and smooth smooth skin. She craves it.

But there is an opposing feeling, also. Not fear. Something she never expected.

Revulsion?

No, too strong a word. More a shiver of distaste that so many of her kind have shamefully fled their duties. All of them living among one another, and not a single one as fine as Gendo-sama. A whole village of New People who have no one to serve.

Emiko shakes her head forcefully. And what has service gotten her? People like Raleigh. And Kannika.

And yet… a whole tribe of New People, huddled in the jungle? What would it be like to hold an eight-foot laborer in her arms? Would that be her lover? Or one of the tentacle monsters of Gendo-sama’s factories, ten arms like a Hindu god and a drooling mouth that demands nothing but food and a place to put its hands? How can such a creature make its way north? Why are they there, in the jungle?

She forces back her revulsion. It is surely no worse than Kannika. She has been enslaved to think against New People, even when she herself is one of them. If she thinks logically, she knows that no New Person can be any worse than the client last night, who fucked her and then spat on her before he left. Surely, to lie with a smooth-skinned New Person could not be worse.

But what kind of life could it be in the village? Eating cockroaches and ants and whatever leaves haven’t succumbed to ivory beetle?

Raleigh is a survivor. Are you?

She stirs her noodles with her four-inch RedStar bamboo chopsticks. What would it be like, to serve no one? Would she dare? It makes her dizzy, almost giddy to think of it. What would she do without a patron? Would she then become a farmer? Perhaps grow opium in the hills? Smoke a silver pipe and blacken her teeth as she has heard some of those strange hilltribe ladies do? She laughs to herself. Can she imagine it?

Lost in her thoughts, she nearly misses it. Only luck-the chance movement of a man at the table across from her, his startled glance and then the duck of his head as he buries his attention in his food-saves her. She freezes.

The night market has fallen silent.

And then, like hungry ghosts, the men in white appear behind her, talking in their quick song-song to the woman at the wok. The woman bustles to serve, obsequious. Emiko trembles before them, noodles halfway between mouth and lips, her slender arm suddenly shaking under the strain. She wants to put the chopsticks down, but there is nothing to do. No way to hide herself if she moves, and so she sits frozen while the men speak behind her, looming over her as they wait.

“… finally overstepped himself. I heard Bhirombhakdi was screaming up and down the offices saying he was going to get his head. ‘Jaidee’s head on a platter, he’s gone too far!’”

“He gave 5000 baht to his men, every one of them, for the raid.”

“A lot of good it does them now that he’s been stripped.”

“Still, five thousand, no wonder Bhirombhakdi was spitting blood. It must have been half a million that he lost.”

“And Jaidee just charged in like a megodont. The old man probably thought Jaidee was Torapee the bull, measuring his father’s footprint. Looking to take him down.”

“Not anymore.”

Emiko trembles as they jostle her. This is the end. She will drop the chopsticks and they will see the windup girl, as they haven’t seen her yet though they cluster around her, though they bump against her with a self-confident maleness, though one white shirt’s hand is touching her neck as though accidentally pressed there by the jostle of others. Suddenly she will no longer be invisible. She will appear before them, fully formed, a New Person with nothing but expired papers and import licenses and then she will be mulched, recycled as quickly as they compost dung and cellulose, thanks to the telltale twitching movements that mark her as clearly as if she were painted in the excreta of glowworms.

“I never thought I’d see him khrab before Akkarat, though. That was a bad thing. We all lose face with that.”

There is a pause. Then one of them says, “Auntie. It looks like your methane is the wrong color.”

The woman grins uncomfortably. Her daughter’s smile mirrors the uncertainty. “We made a gift to the Ministry last week,” she says.

The man who has his hand on Emiko’s neck speaks, caressing her idly. She tries not to shiver under his touch. “Then perhaps we were told wrong.”

The woman’s smile falters. “Perhaps my memory is bad.”

“Well, I’m happy to check the state of your accounts.”

She keeps the smile on her face. “No need to trouble yourself. I’ll send my daughter, now. In the meantime, why not just take these two fish for yourselves? You don’t get paid enough to eat well.” She pulls two large tilapia off her grill and offers them to the men.

“That’s very kind of you, auntie. I am hungry.” With the banana-leaf wrapped plaa tucked in their hands, the white shirts turn away and continue their journey through the night market, seemingly unaware of the terror they spread before them.

The woman’s smile fades as soon as they’re gone. She turns to her daughter and pushes baht into her hands. “Go down to the police box and make sure that Sergeant Siriporn is the one you give the money to. I don’t want those two coming back.”

The touch of the white shirt burns on the back of Emiko’s neck. Too close. Too close by far. Strange how she sometimes forgets that she is hunted. Sometimes fools herself and thinks she is almost human. Emiko shovels the last of her noodles into her mouth. She cannot delay anymore. She must face Raleigh.

“I wish to leave this place.”

Raleigh turns on his barstool, expression bemused. “Really, Emiko?” He smiles. “You have a new patron, do you?”

Around them, the other girls are arriving, chattering and laughing with one another, making wais to the spirit house, a few of them making little offerings in hopes of encouraging a kind customer or rich patron.

Emiko shakes her head. “Not a new patron. I wish to go north. To the villages where New People live.”

“Who told you about that?”

“It exists, yes?” From his expression she knows that it does. Her heart starts to pound. It’s not just a rumor. “It exists,” she says more firmly.

He gives her an appraising look. “It might.” He signals Daeng the bartender for another drink. “But I should warn you, it’s a hard life out there in the jungle. You eat bugs to survive if your crops fail. Not much to hunt, not after blister rust and Nippon genehack weevil killed so much fodder.” He shrugs. “A few birds.” He looks at her again. “You should stay closer to the water. You’ll overheat out there. Take it from me. It’s damn hard living. You should look for a new patron, if you really want to get out of here.”

“The white shirts almost caught me today. I will die here, if I stay.”

“I pay them not to catch you.”

“No. I was at a night market—”

“What the hell were you doing at a night market? You want something to eat, you come here.” Raleigh scowls.

“I am so sorry. I must go. Raleigh-san, you have influence. People you can influence to help me get travel permits. To allow me to pass the checkpoints.”

Raleigh’s drink arrives. He takes a sip. The old man is like a crow, all death and putrescence sitting on his barstool, watching his whores arrive for their night’s work. He looks her over with barely masked disgust, as if she is a piece of dog shit stuck to his shoe. He takes another drink. “It’s a hard road north. Damn expensive.”

“I can earn my passage.”

Raleigh doesn’t respond. The bartender finishes polishing the bar. He and an assistant set out a chest of ice from the luxury manufacturer Jai Yen, Nam Yen. Cool Heart, Cool Water.

Raleigh holds out his glass and Daeng drops a pair of cubes in with a tinkling report. Out of the insulated chest, they start to melt in the heat. Emiko watches the ice cubes sag into liquid. Daeng pours water over the cubes. She is burning up, herself. The club’s open windows do nothing to catch the breeze and at this early hour the swelter inside the building is still overwhelming. None of the yellow card fan men have arrived yet, either. The club radiates heat from walls and floor, encasing them. Raleigh takes a swallow of his cool water.

Emiko watches, burning, wishing she could sweat. “Khun Raleigh. Please. So sorry. Please,” she hesitates, “a cold drink.”

Raleigh sips his water and watches as more of his girls filter in. “Keeping a windup is damn expensive.”

Emiko smiles embarrassment, hoping to assuage him. Finally, Raleigh makes a face of irritation. “Fine.” He nods to Daeng. A glass of ice water is passed across. Emiko tries not to lunge for it. She holds it to her face and neck, almost gasping with relief. She drinks and presses the glass against herself again, clutching it like a talisman. “Thank you.”

“Why should I help you get out of the city?”

“I will die if I stay here.”

“It’s not good business. Wasn’t good business to hire you. And it’s definitely not good business to bribe you all the way north.”

“Please. Anything. I will pay it. I will do it. You may use me.”

He laughs. “I’ve got real girls.” His smile disappears. “The problem, Emiko, is that you’ve got nothing to give. You drink the money you earn every night. Your bribes cost money, your ice costs money. If I weren’t so nice, I’d just throw you out in the street for the white shirts to mulch. You’re not a good business proposition.”

“Please.”

“Don’t piss me off. Go get ready for work. I want you out of your street clothes when the customers arrive.”

His words have the finality of true authority. Reflexively, Emiko starts to bow, acquiescing to his wishes. She stops short. You are not a dog, she reminds herself. You are not a servant. Service has gotten you abandoned amongst demons in a city of divine beings. If you act like a servant, you will die like a dog.

She straightens. “So sorry, I must go north, Raleigh-san. Soon. How much would it cost? I will earn it.”

“You’re like a goddamn cheshire.” Raleigh stands suddenly. “You just keep coming back to pick over the dead.”

Emiko flinches. Even though he is old, Raleigh is still gaijin, born and fed before the Contraction. He stands tall. She takes another step back, unnerved by his sudden loom. Raleigh smiles grimly. “That’s right, don’t forget your place. You’ll go north, all right. But you’ll do it when I’m good and ready. And not until you’ve earned every baht for the white shirt bribes.”

“How much?”

His face reddens. “More than you’ve made ’til now!”

She jumps back but Raleigh grabs her. He yanks her close. His voice is a low whiskey growl. “You were useful to someone, once, so I see how a windup like you might forget herself. But let’s not fool ourselves. I own you.”

His bony hand fumbles at her breast, seizes a nipple and twists. She whimpers in pain and wilts under his hand. His pale blue water eyes watch her like a snake’s.

“I own every part of you,” he murmurs. “If I want you mulched tomorrow, you’re gone. No one will care. People in Japan might value a windup. Here, you’re just trash.” He squeezes again. She takes a shuddering breath, trying to keep her feet. He smiles. “I own you. Remember that.”

He releases her abruptly. Emiko stumbles back and catches the bar’s edge.

Raleigh returns to his drink. “I’ll let you know when you’ve earned enough to go north,” he says. “But you’ll work for it, and work for it good. No more of your picky ways. If a man wants you, you go with him and make him happy enough that he wants to come back and try the novelty again. I’ve got plenty of natural girls offering natural sex. If you’re going to go north, you’d better start offering something more.”

He upends his drink, gulping it, and slaps the glass down on the bar for Daeng to refill.

“Now quit sulking and start earning.”