The Windup Girl

19

“You emphasized to Akkarat that this was a time-sensitive offer?” Anderson asks.

“What are you complaining about?” Carlyle toasts Anderson over a warm glass of rice beer. “He hasn’t had you ripped apart by megodonts.”

“I can put resources in his hands. And we aren’t asking for much in return. Not by historical standards.”

“Things are going his way. He might not think he needs you. Not with the white shirts bowing and scraping. He hasn’t had this much influence since before the December 12 debacle.”

Anderson makes a face of irritation. He reaches for his drink then sets it back. He doesn’t want more warm booze. Between the swelter of the day and the Sato, his mind is already dumb and clouded. He’s starting to suspect that Sir Francis is trying to drive farang away, slowly whittling them down with empty promises and warm whiskey-no ice today, so sorry. Around the open bar, the few other patrons all look as heat-stunned as he is.

“You should have joined up when I first offered,” Carlyle observes. “You wouldn’t be stewing now.”

“When you first offered, you were a blowhard who’d just lost an entire dirigible.”

Carlyle laughs. “Missed the big picture on that one, didn’t you?”

Anderson doesn’t respond to the man’s needling. It’s annoying to have Akkarat dismiss the offer of support so easily, but the truth is, Anderson can barely focus on his job. Emiko fills his thoughts, and his time. Every night he seeks her out at Ploenchit, monopolizes her, rains baht on her. Even with Raleigh’s greed, the windup’s company is cheap. In a few more hours, the sun will sink, and she will once again totter up on stage. The first time he saw her perform, she caught him watching and her eyes had clutched at him, begging to be saved from what was about to occur.

“My body is not mine,” she told him, her voice flat when he asked about the performances. “The men who designed me, they make me do things I cannot control. As if their hands are inside me. Like a puppet, yes?” Her fists clenched, opening and closing unconsciously, but her voice remained subdued. “They made me obedient, in all ways.”

And then she had smiled prettily and flowed into his arms, as if she had made no complaint at all.

She is an animal. Servile as a dog. And yet if he is careful to make no demands, to leave the air between them open, another version of the windup girl emerges. As precious and rare as a living bo tree. Her soul, emerging from within the strangling strands of her engineered DNA.

He wonders if she were a real person if he would feel more incensed at the abuse she suffers. It’s an odd thing, being with a manufactured creature, built and trained to serve. She herself admits that her soul wars with itself. That she does not rightly know which parts of her are hers alone and which have been inbuilt genetically. Does her eagerness to serve come from some portion of canine DNA that makes her always assume that natural people outrank her for pack loyalty? Or is it simply the training that she has spoken of?

The sound of marching boots intrudes on Anderson’s thoughts. Carlyle straightens from his slump, craning for a view of the commotion. Anderson turns, and nearly knocks over his beer.

White uniforms fill the street. Pedestrians and bicycles and food carts are scattering aside, frantically piling against the walls of rubble and factories, making way for the Environment Ministry’s troops. Anderson cranes his neck. Spring rifles and black batons and gleaming white uniforms as far as he can see. A streaming dragon of determination marching past. The resolute face of a nation that has never been conquered.

“Jesus and Noah,” Carlyle mutters.

Anderson watches carefully. “That’s a lot of white shirts.”

At some unknown signal, two of the white shirts peel away from the main group and enter Sir Francis’. They survey the farang lying stupid in the heat with barely masked disgust.

Sir Francis, normally so absent and unconcerned, bustles out and wais deeply to the men.

Anderson jerks his head toward the door. “Time to go, you think?”

Carlyle gives a grim nod. “Let’s not be too obvious, though.”

“A little late for that. You think they’re looking for you?”

Carlyle’s face is tight. “I was actually hoping it was you they were after.”

Sir Francis finishes speaking with the white shirts. He turns and calls out to his patrons. “So sorry. We are closed now. Everything is closed. You must leave immediately.”

Anderson and Carlyle both sway to their feet. “I shouldn’t have drunk so much.” Carlyle mutters.

They stumble outside with the other bar patrons. Everyone stands under the blazing sun, blinking stupidly as more white shirts stream by. The thud of bootfalls fills the air. Echoes from the walls. Thrums with the promise of violence.

Anderson leans close to Carlyle’s ear. “This isn’t another of Akkarat’s manipulations, I don’t suppose? Not like your lost dirigible or anything?”

Carlyle doesn’t answer but the grim expression on his face tells Anderson everything he needs to know. Hundreds of white shirts fill the street, and more keep coming. The uniformed river is unending.

“They have to be pulling troops in from the countryside. There’s no way this many white shirts work in the city.”

“They’re the Ministry’s front line, for the burnings,” Carlyle says. “For when cibiscosis or poultry flu gets out of hand.” He starts to point then drops his hand, not wanting to draw attention them. Nods instead. “See the badge? The tiger and the torch? They’re practically a suicide division. That’s where the Tiger of Bangkok got his start.”

Anderson nods grimly. It’s one thing to complain about the white shirts, to joke about their stupidity and hunger for bribes. It’s another to watch them march by in shining ranks. The ground shakes with tramping feet. Dust rises. The street reverberates with their increasing number. Anderson has an almost uncontrollable urge to flee. They are predators. He is prey. He wonders if Peters and Lei had even this much warning before Finland went wrong.

“You have a gun?” he asks Carlyle.

Carlyle shakes his head. “More trouble than they’re worth.”

Anderson scans the street for Lao Gu. “My rickshaw man’s gone missing.”

“Goddamn yellow cards.” Carlyle laughs quietly. “Always got their fingers to the wind. I’ll bet there’s not a yellow card in the city who’s not in hiding right now.”

Anderson grips Carlyle’s elbow. “Come on. Try not to draw attention to yourself.”

“Where we going?”

“To put our own fingers to the wind. See what’s happening.”

Anderson leads him down a side street, aiming for the main freight khlong, the canal that leads to the sea. Almost immediately, they run into a cordon of white shirts. The guards lift their spring rifles and wave Anderson and Carlyle away.

“I think they’re securing the whole district,” Anderson says. “The locks. The factories. ”

“Quarantine?”

“They’d have masks if they were here to burn.”

“A coup then? Another December 12?”

Anderson glances at Carlyle. “A bit ahead of schedule for that, aren’t you?”

Carlyle eyes the white shirts. “Maybe General Pracha has gotten the jump on us.”

Anderson tugs him in the opposite direction. “Come on. We’ll go to my factory. Maybe Hock Seng knows something.”

All along the street, white shirts are busily rousting people from their shops, encouraging them to close their doors. The last of the shop keepers are shoving wooden panels into sockets and sealing their storefronts. Another company of white shirts marches by.

Anderson and Carlyle arrive at the SpringLife factory in time to see megodonts streaming out of the main gates. Anderson snags one of the megodont men. The mahout switches his beast to halt and regards Anderson as the megodont snorts and shuffles its feet impatiently. Line workers stream around their obstruction.

“Where’s Hock Seng?” Anderson asks. “Yellow Card Boss. Where?”

The man shakes his head. More workers are hurrying out.

“Did the white shirts come here?” he asks.

The man says something too fast for Anderson to pick up. Carlyle translates. “He says the white shirts are coming for revenge. Coming to get back their face.”

The man motions emphatically and Anderson steps out of the way.

Across the street, the Chaozhou factory is also evacuating its workers. None of the street’s storefronts are open now. Food carts have all been dragged indoors or wheeled away in fright. Every door on the street is shut. A few Thais peer out from high windows but the street itself contains only disbursing workers and marching white shirts. The last of the SpringLife workers hurry past, none of them looking at Carlyle or Lake as they flee.

“Worse by the minute,” Carlyle mutters. His face has gone pale under his tropical tan.

A new wave of white shirts rounds the corner, six wide, a snake extending down the length of the street.

Anderson’s skin prickles at the sight of the closed shop fronts. It’s as if everyone is preparing for a typhoon. “Let’s make like the natives and get inside.” He grabs one of the heavy iron gates and hauls against it. “Help me.”

It takes them both to drag the gates closed and set the crossbars. Anderson slaps locks into place and leans against hot iron, panting. Carlyle studies the bars. “Does this mean we’re safe? Or trapped?”

“We’re not in Khlong Prem Prison yet. So let’s assume we’re winning.”

But inwardly, Anderson wonders. There are too many variables in play, and it makes him nervous. He remembers a time in Missouri when the Grahamites rioted. There had been tension, some small speeches, and then it had simply erupted in field burning. No one had seen the violence coming. Not a single intelligence officer had anticipated the cauldron boiling beneath the surface.

Anderson had ended up perched atop a grain silo, choking on the smoke of HiGro fields going up in sheets of flame, firing steadily at rioters on the ground with a spring rifle he’d salvaged from a slow-moving security guard, and all the while he had wondered how everyone had missed the signs. They lost the facility because of that blindness. And now it is the same. A sudden eruption, and the surprise of realizing that the world he understands is not the one he actually inhabits.

Is this Pracha, making a play for absolute power? Or Akkarat, causing more trouble? Or is it simply a new plague? It could be anything. As Anderson watches white shirts stream past, he can almost smell the smoke of burning silos and HiGro.

He waves Carlyle into the factory. “Let’s find Hock Seng. If anyone knows anything, it will be him.”

Upstairs, the administrative offices are empty. Hock Seng’s incense burns steadily, sending up gray silk streamers. Papers lie abandoned on his desk, rustling under the gentle breeze of the crank fans.

Carlyle laughs, low and cynical. “Lost an assistant?”

“Looks that way.”

The petty cash safe is unlocked. Anderson peers at the shelves. At least 30,000 baht gone missing. “Goddamn. The bastard robbed me.”

Carlyle pushes open a shutter, revealing roof tiles stretching down the length of the factory. “Take a look at this.”

Anderson frowns. “He was always messing with the latches on that one. I thought he wanted to keep people out.”

“I think he’s ducked out of it, instead.” Carlyle laughs. “You should have fired him when you had a chance.”

The tramp of more boots on cobbles echoes up to them, the only sound now in the street.

“Well, give him points for foresight.”

“You know what the Thais say: ‘When a yellow card runs, watch out for the megodont behind him.’”

Anderson surveys the offices one last time, then leans out the window. “Come on. Let’s see where my assistant went.”

“You serious?”

“If he didn’t want to meet the white shirts, then we don’t either. And he obviously had a plan.” Anderson hoists himself up and climbs out into the sun. His hands burn on the tiles. He straightens, shaking them. It’s like standing on a skillet. He studies the roof, breathing shallowly in the blast furnace heat. Down the length of the roof, the Chaozhou factory beckons. Anderson goes a few paces then turns and calls back. “Yeah. I think he went this way.”

Carlyle climbs out onto the roof. Sweat gleams on his face and soaks his shirt. They make their way over reddish tiles as the air boils around them. At the far end of the roof, their route terminates at an alley, shielded from Thanon Phosri by a winding of the lane. Across the gap, a ladder dangles to the ground.

“I’ll be damned.”

They both stare down into the alley three stories below. “Your old Chinaman jumped that?” Carlyle asks.

“Looks like it. And then went down the ladder.” Anderson peers over the edge. “Long way down.” He can’t help smiling darkly at Hock Seng’s resourcefulness. “Sly bastard.”

“It’s a long jump.”

“Not too bad. And if Hock Seng—”

Anderson doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. Carlyle flies past him, hurtling across the gap. The man lands hard and hits the roof rolling. A second later he’s up, grinning and waving for Anderson to follow.

Anderson scowls and makes his own run at the gap. The landing rattles his teeth. By the time he straightens, Carlyle is already disappearing over the edge, climbing down the ladder. Anderson follows, favoring a bruised knee. Carlyle is surveying the alley when Anderson drops down beside him.

“That way goes back to Thanon Phosri and our friends,” Carlyle says. “We don’t want that.”

“Hock Seng is paranoid,” Anderson says. “He’ll have a path worked out. And it won’t be on main streets.” He heads in the opposite direction. Almost immediately, a slot between two factory walls appears.

Carlyle shakes his head in admiration. “Not bad.” They squeeze into the narrow way, scraping along for more than a hundred meters until they reach a door of rusted tin. As they push aside the crude gate, a grandmother looks up from a bundle of washing. They’re in a courtyard of sorts. Laundry hangs everywhere, sun pouring a rainbow through damp fabrics. The old woman waves at them to proceed past her.

A moment later, they’re out in a tiny soi, which in turn gives way to a series of maze-like alleys that twist through a makeshift slum for the coolie laborers who work the levee locks, transporting goods from the factories to the sea. More micro alleys, laborers crouched over noodles and fried fish. WeatherAll shacks. Sweat and the dimness of overhanging roofs. Burning chile smoke that makes them cough and cover their mouths as they forge through the swelter.

“Where the hell are we?” Carlyle murmurs. “I’m completely turned around.”

“Does it matter?”

They thread past dogs lying dazed in the heat and cheshires perched atop refuse piles. Sweat runs down Anderson’s face. The buzz of afternoon alcohol is long gone. More shadowy alleys, more tight walking spaces, twists and turns, squeezing around bicycles and scavenged piles of metal and coconut plastics.

A gap opens. They spill out into diamond sunlight. Anderson sucks at the relatively fresh air, grateful to be out of the claustrophobia of the alleys. It is not a large road, but still, there is traffic on it. Carlyle says, “I think I recognize this. There’s a coffee guy somewhere around here that one of my clerks likes.”

“No white shirts, at least.”

“I need to find a way back to the Victory.” Carlyle says. “I’ve got money in their safe.”

“How much is your head worth?”

Carlyle grimaces. “Eh. Maybe you’re right. I need to get in touch with Akkarat, at least. Find out what’s going on. Decide on our next move.”

“Hock Seng and Lao Gu both disappeared.” Anderson says. “For now, let’s make like the yellow cards and lie low. We can take a rickshaw to Sukhumvit khlong, and then take a boat to near my place. That will keep us far away from any of the factory and trade areas. And far away from all those damn white shirts.”

He flags down a rickshaw man, not bothering to bargain as he and Carlyle climb aboard.

Away from the white shirts, Anderson can feel himself relaxing. Almost feels foolish for his earlier fear. For all he knows, they could have just walked down the street and never been bothered. No need to go running across rooftops at all. Perhaps… He shakes his head, frustrated. There’s too little information.

Hock Seng didn’t wait. Just gathered up the money and ran. Anderson thinks back on the carefully planned escape route again. The jump… He can’t help laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“Just Hock Seng. He had it all worked out. Everything set. As soon as there was trouble-Shooo! Out the window he goes.”

Carlyle grins. “I never knew you were keeping a geriatric ninja.”

“I thought—” Anderson breaks off. The traffic is slowing. Up ahead, he catches a glimpse of white and stands for a better view. “Hell.” The starched whites of the Environment Ministry are in the road, blocking traffic.

Carlyle pops up beside him. “Checkpoint?”

“Looks like this isn’t just the factories.” Anderson glances behind, hunting for a way out, but more people and cyclists are piling up, jamming the way.

“Should we make a run for it?” Carlyle asks.

Anderson scans the crowd. Beside him, another rickshaw driver stands on his pedals, studying the scene, then settles back on his seat and jangles his passing bell irritably. Their own rickshaw man joins the bell ringing.

“No one seems worried.”

Along the road, Thais barter over piled reeking durian, baskets of lemon grass and bubbling buckets of fish. They, too, seem unconcerned.

“You just want to bluff through?” Carlyle asks.

“Hell if I know. Is this some kind of power play of Pracha’s?”

“I keep telling you, Pracha’s had his teeth pulled.”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

Anderson cranes his neck, trying to glimpse what’s happening at the road block. From what he can make out, someone is arguing with the white shirts, gesturing as he speaks. A Thai man, deep mahogany skin and a flash of gold thumb rings on his hands. Anderson strains to hear, but the words are drowned out as more cyclists pile into the jam and join in the impatient ringing of their bells.

The Thais seem to believe this is nothing but an irritating traffic jam. No one is frightened, just impatient. More bicycle bells tinkle and chime, surrounding him in music.

“Oh… Shit,” Carlyle murmurs.

The white shirts yank the arguing man off his bicycle. His arms flail as he goes over. His thumb rings flash in the sunlight and then he disappears under a knot of white uniforms. Ebony clubs rise and fall. Blood whips from the clubs, glistening.

A doglike yelping fills the street.

The cyclists all stop ringing their bells. The street noise fades as everyone turns and cranes their necks to see. In the silence, the man’s ragged pleading carries easily. Around them, hundreds of bodies shift and breathe. People glance left and right, suddenly nervous, like an ungulate herd that has suddenly found a predator in its midst.

The dull slap of the clubs continues.

Finally, the man’s sobbing breaks off. The white shirts straighten. One of them turns and motions traffic forward. It is an impatient gesture, businesslike, as though the people have stopped to gawk at flowers or a carnival. Hesitantly, cyclists push forward. Traffic begins to roll. Anderson sits down in his seat. “Christ.”

Their rickshaw man stands on his own pedals and they start forward. Carlyle’s expression has gone tight with anxiety. His eyes flick from left to right. “Last chance to run for it.”

Anderson can’t take his gaze from the approaching white shirts. “We’ll be obvious if we bolt.”

“We’re fucking farang. We’re already obvious.”

Pedestrians and cyclists inch forward, merging through the chokepoint, shuffling past the carnage.

A half-dozen white shirts stand around the body. Blood pools from the man’s head. Flies already buzz in the red rivulets, sticky winged, drowning in the surfeit of calories. A cheshire shadow crouches eagerly at the periphery, blocked from the congealing pool by a white picket barrier of uniformed trouser legs. All the officers’ cuffs are spattered red, dew kisses of kinetic energy absorbed.

Anderson stares at the carnage. Carlyle clears his throat nervously.

A white shirt glances up at the noise and their eyes lock. Anderson isn’t sure how long they stare at one another, but the hate in the officer’s eyes is unmistakable. The white shirt raises an eyebrow, challenging. He slaps his club against his leg, leaving a bloody smear.

Another slap of the club and the officer jerks his head sideways, indicating that Anderson should look away.