The Windup Girl

31

Anderson finds Emiko huddled outside his door, and all at once a good night becomes an uncertain one.

For the last several days he has worked frantically to prepare the invasion, all of it crippled by the fact that he never expected to be cut off from his own factory. His own piss-poor planning forced him to waste extra days scouting a safe route back into the SpringLife facility without being caught by the plethora of white shirt patrols that cordoned the manufacturing district. If it hadn’t been for the discovery of Hock Seng’s escape route, he might still have been lurking around the back alleys, wishing for an access method.

As it was, Anderson slipped in through the shutters of the SpringLife offices with a blackened face and grapple slung over his shoulder while giving thanks to a crazy old man who just days before had robbed the company’s entire payroll.

The factory had reeked. The algae baths had all gone to rot but not a thing moved in the gloom, and for that he was grateful. If the white shirts had posted guards within… Anderson held a hand over his mouth as he slipped down to the main hall and then down along the manufacturing lines. The stink of rot and megodont dung thickened.

Under the shadow of algae racks and the loom of the cutting presses, he examined the floor. This close to the algae tanks, the stink was horrific, as if a cow had died and rotted. The end-stage reek of Yates’ optimistic plan for a new energy future.

Anderson knelt and pushed away desiccated algae strands from around one of the drains. He felt along the edges, seeking purchase. Lifted. The iron grate came up with a squeal. As quietly as he could, Anderson rolled the heavy grate away and set it with a clank on concrete. He lay down on the floor, prayed he wouldn’t surprise a snake or scorpion, and plunged his arm down the hole. His fingers scrabbled in the darkness, questing. Straining deeper into moist blackness.

For a moment he feared it had slipped loose, had floated down the drain and on through the sewers to King Rama’s groundwater pumps, but then his fingers touched oilskin. He peeled it from the drain wall, drew it out, smiling. A code book. For contingencies that he never seriously believed would come to pass.

In the blackness of the offices, he dialed numbers and brought operators alert in Burma and India. Sent secretaries scurrying for code strings unused since Finland.

Two days later, he stood on the floating island of Koh Angrit, arranging the last details with strike team leaders in the AgriGen compound. The weaponry would arrive within days, the invasion teams were assembling. And the money had already been shipped across, the gold and jade that would help generals change their loyalties and turn on their old friend General Pracha.

But now, with all the preparations completed, he returns to the city to find Emiko huddled at his door, miserable, and covered with blood. As soon as she sees him, she lunges into his arms, sobbing.

“What are you doing here?” he whispers. Cradling her against him he unlocks the door and urges her inside. Her skin burns. The blood is everywhere. Slashes mark her face and scar her arms. He shuts the door quickly. “What happened to you?” He pries her off him, tries to inspect her. She’s a furnace of blood, but the wounds on her face and arms don’t account for the sticky spattering that coats her. “Whose blood is this?”

She shakes her head. Begins sobbing again.

“Let’s get you cleaned up.”

He leads her into the bath, turns on cool water spray, puts her under it. She’s shivering now, her eyes fever bright and panicked as she looks around. She looks half-mad. He tries to peel off her half-jacket, to get rid of the bloody clothing, but her face twists, enraged.

“No!” She slashes at him with her hand and he jerks back, touching his cheek.

“What the hell?!” He stares at her, shocked. Christ she was fast. He’s hurting. His hand comes away bloody. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

The panicked animal flicker leaves her eyes. She stares at him blankly, and then seems to recover herself, becomes human. “I am sorry,” she whispers. “So sorry.” She collapses, curls into a ball under the water. “So sorry. So sorry.” She lapses into Japanese.

Anderson squats down beside her, his own clothing becoming soaked in the spray. “Don’t worry about it.” He speaks gently. “Why don’t you get out of those clothes? We’ll get you something else. Okay? Can you do that?”

She nods dully. Peels off her jacket. Unwraps her pha sin. Huddles nude in the cool water. He leaves her in the spray. Takes her bloody clothes and bundles them into a sheet and carries them down the stair, out into the darkness. People are all around. He ignores them, walking quickly into the shadows, carrying the clothes until he reaches a khlong. Tosses the bloody garments into the water, where snakehead fish and boddhi carp will consume them with an obsessive determination. The water roils, splashing as they tear at the blood food scent.

By the time he’s back in his apartment, Emiko is out of the shower, her black hair clinging to her face, a small frightened creature. He goes to his medicine supplies. Pours alcohol on the cuts, rubs antivirals in after. She doesn’t cry out. Her nails are broken and ravaged. Bruises are blooming all across her body. But for all the blood she arrived with, she seems miraculously little damaged.

“What happened?” he asks gently.

She huddles against him. “I’m alone,” she whispers. “There is no place for New People.” Her shaking increases.

He pulls her to him, feeling the burning heat through her skin. “It’s all right. Everything will change soon. It will be different.”

She shakes her head. “No. I do not think so.”

A moment later, she is asleep, breathing steadily, her body finally releasing its tension into unconsciousness.

Anderson wakes with a start. The crank fan has stopped, run out of joules. He’s covered with sweat. Beside him Emiko moans and thrashes, a furnace. He rolls away and sits up.

A slight breeze from the sea runs through the apartment, a relief. He stares out through mosquito nets to the blackness of the city. All the methane has been shut off for the night. Off in the distance, he can see a few glimmers in the floating sea communities of Thonburi where they farm fish and float from one genehack to the next in a perpetual seeking of survival.

Someone pounds on his door. Hammering insistently.

Emiko’s eyes snap open. She sits up. “What is it?”

“Someone’s at the door.” He starts to climb out of bed but she grabs him, ragged nails digging into his arm.

“Don’t open it!” she whispers. Her skin is pale in the moonlight, her eyes wide and frightened. “Please.” The banging on his door increases. Thudding, insistent.

“Why not?”

“I—” she pauses. “It will be white shirts.”

“What?” Anderson’s heart skips over. “They followed you here? Why? What happened to you?”

She shakes her head miserably. He stares at her, wondering what sort of animal has invaded his life. “What happened tonight, really?”

She doesn’t answer. Her eyes remain locked on the door as the thumping continues. Anderson climbs out of bed and hurries to the door. Shouts, “Just a second! I’m getting dressed!”

“Anderson!” The voice from the far side of door is Carlyle’s. “Open up! It’s important!”

Anderson turns and looks pointedly at Emiko. “It’s not white shirts. Now hide.”

“No?” For a moment relief floods Emiko’s features. But it disappears almost as quickly. She shakes her head. “You are mistaken.”

Anderson glares at her. “Was it white shirts that you tangled with? Is that where you got those cuts?”

She shakes her head miserably, but says nothing, just huddles in a small defensive ball.

“Jesus and Noah.” Anderson goes and pulls clothes out of his closet, tosses them at her, gifts that he bought her as tokens of his intoxication. “You might be ready to go public, but I’m not ready to be ruined. Get dressed. Hide in my closet.”

She shakes her head again. Anderson tries to control his voice, to speak reasonably. It’s as though he’s talking to a block of wood. He kneels and takes her chin in his hands, turns her face to him.

“It’s one of my business associates. It’s not about you. But I still need you to hide until he goes away. Do you understand? You just need to hide for a little while. I want you to hide until he’s gone. I don’t want him to see us together. It might give him leverage.”

Slowly, her eyes focus. The look of hypnotized fatalism fades. Carlyle bangs on the door again. Her eyes flick to the door, then back to Anderson. “It is white shirts,” she whispers. “There are many of them out there. I can hear them.” She suddenly seems to collect herself. “It will be white shirts. Hiding will do no good.”

Anderson fights the urge to scream at her. “It’s not white shirts.”

The banging continues on his door. “Open the fuck up, Anderson!”

He calls back, “Just a second!” He pulls on a pair of pants, glaring at her. “It’s not the damn white shirts. Carlyle would slit his throat before he’d get into bed with white shirts.”

Carlyle’s voice again echoes through the door. “Hurry up, goddamnit!”

“Coming!” He turns to her, orders her. “Hide. Now.” Not a request anymore, but an order, driving at her genetic heritage and her training.

Her body goes still, then suddenly she becomes animated. Nodding. “Yes. I will do as you say.”

Already she is dressing. Her stutter motion is fast, almost a blur. Her skin gleams as she pulls on a blouse and a pair of loose trousers. Suddenly she’s shockingly fast. Fluid in her movements, strangely and suddenly graceful.

“Hiding will do no good,” she says. She turns and runs for the balcony.

“What are you doing?”

She turns back and smiles at him, seems about to say something, but instead she plunges over the balcony’s edge and disappears into the blackness.

“Emiko!” Anderson runs to the balcony.

Below, there is nothing. No person, no scream, no thud, no complaints from the street as she spatters across the ground. Nothing. Only emptiness. As though the night has swallowed her completely. The banging on the door comes again.

Anderson’s heart thuds in his chest. Where is she? How did she do that? It is unnatural. She was so fast, so determined at the end. One minute on the balcony, the next gone, over the edge. Anderson peers into the blackness. It’s impossible that she jumped to another balcony, and yet… Did she fall? Is she dead?

The door crashes open. Anderson whirls. Carlyle spills into the apartment room, stumbling.

“What the-?”

Black Panthers pour in after Carlyle, slamming him aside. Combat armor gleams in the dimness, military shadows. One of the soldiers grabs Anderson, whirls him about and slams him into the wall. Hands search his body. When he struggles they jam his face against the wall. More men pour in. Doors are being kicked open, splintering. Boots thud around him. An avalanche of men. Glass breaks. Dishes in his kitchen shatter.

Anderson cranes his neck to see what is happening. A hand grabs him by the hair and slams his face back against the wall. Blood and pain flood his mouth. He’s bitten his tongue. “What the hell are you doing? Do you know who I am?”

He chokes off as Carlyle is dumped on the floor beside him. He can see now that the man is tied. Bruises pepper his face. One eye is swollen shut, black blood scabs on the orbital bone. His brown hair is clotted with blood.

“Christ.”

The soldiers wrench Anderson’s hands behind his back and bind them. They grab his hair and jerk him around. A solider shouts at him, speaking so fast he can’t understand. Wide eyes and spittle in his face as the man rages. Finally Anderson catches words: Heechy-keechy.

“Where is the windup? Where is it? Where? Where?”

The Panthers tear through his apartment. Rifle butts to smash open locks and doors. Huge black windup mastiffs scramble inside, barking and slavering, snuffling everywhere, howling as they catch their target’s scent. A man shouts at him again, some kind of captain.

“What’s going on?” Anderson demands again. “I have friends—”

“Not many.”

Akkarat strides through the door.

“Akkarat!” Anderson tries to turn but the Panthers slam him back against the wall. “What’s going on?”

“We have the same question for you.”

Akkarat shouts orders in Thai to the men tossing Anderson’s apartment. Anderson closes his eyes, desperately thankful that the windup girl didn’t hide in the closet as he suggested. To be found with her, caught out…

One of the Panthers returns, carrying Anderson’s spring gun.

Akkarat makes a face of distaste. “Do you have a permit to be armed?”

“We’re starting a revolution and you’re asking about permits?”

Akkarat nods to his men. Anderson slams back against the wall. Pain explodes in his skull. The room dims and his knees buckle. He staggers, barely keeps his feet. “What the hell’s going on?”

Akkarat motions for the pistol. Takes it. Pumps it idly, the heavy dull thing massive in his fist. “Where is the windup girl?”

Anderson spits blood. “Why do you care? You’re not a white shirt or a Grahamite.”

The Panthers slam Anderson against the wall again. Colored dots swim in Anderson’s vision.

“Where did the windup come from?” Akkarat asks.

“She’s Japanese! From Kyoto I think!”

Akkarat puts the pistol to Anderson’s head. “How did you get her into the country?”

“What?”

Akkarat strikes him with the butt of the pistol. The world darkens.

— water gushes into his face. Anderson gasps and splutters. He’s sitting on the floor. Akkarat presses the spring gun to Anderson’s throat, pushing him to climb up to his feet again, then to teeter onto his toes. Anderson gags at the pressure.

“How did you get the windup into the country?” Akkarat repeats.

Sweat and blood sting Anderson’s eyes. He blinks and shakes his head. “I didn’t get her in.” He spits blood again. “She was a Japanese discard. How would I get my hands on a windup?”

Akkarat smiles, says something to his men. “A military windup is a Japanese discard?” He shakes his head. “I think not.” He slams the pistol butt into Anderson’s ribs. Once. Twice. Each side, cracking. Anderson yowls and doubles over, coughing and cringing away. Akkarat drags him upright. “Why would a military windup be in our City of Divine Beings?”

“She’s not military,” Anderson protests. “She’s just a secretary… was just a—”

Akkarat’s expression doesn’t change. He spins Anderson around and forces his face against the wall, grinding bones. Anderson thinks his jaw is broken. He feels Akkarat’s hands, prying his fingers apart. Anderson tries to make a fist, whimpering, knowing what is coming, but Akkarat’s hands are strong, prying them open. Anderson experiences a moment of tingling helplessness.

His finger twists in Akkarat’s grip. Snaps.

Anderson howls into the wall as Akkarat supports him.

When he’s done whimpering and shaking, Akkarat grabs him by the hair and pulls his head back so that they can look into one another’s eyes. Akkarat’s voice is steady.

“She is military, she is a killer, and you are the one who introduced her to the Somdet Chaopraya. Where is she now?”

“A killer?” Anderson shakes his head, trying to think straight. “But she’s nothing! A Mishimoto discard. Japanese trash—”

“The Environment Ministry is right about one thing. You AgriGen animals can’t be trusted. You call the windup a simple pleasure toy, and so conveniently introduce your assassin to the Queen’s protector.” He leans close, eyes full of rage. “You might as well have killed royalty.”

“But that’s impossible!” Anderson doesn’t even try to keep the hysteria from his voice. His broken finger throbs, blood fills his mouth again. “She’s just a piece of trash. She couldn’t do something like that. You have to believe me.”

“She killed three men and their bodyguards. Eight trained men. The proof is unassailable.”

Unbidden, he remembers Emiko huddled on his doorstep, soaked in blood. Eight men? Remembers her disappearing over the balcony, plunging into darkness like some kind of spirit creature. What if they’re right?

“There’s got to be another explanation. She’s just a goddamn windup. All they do is obey.”

Emiko in bed, huddled. Sobbing. Her body torn and scratched.

Anderson takes a breath, tries to control his voice. “Please. You have to believe me. We would never jeopardize so much. AgriGen doesn’t benefit from the Somdet Chaopraya’s death. Nobody does. This plays right into the Environment Ministry’s hands. We have too much to gain from a good relationship.”

“And yet you introduced the killer to him.”

“But it’s insane. How would anyone get a military windup here and keep it under wraps? That windup has been around for years and years. Ask around. You’ll see. She bribed her way with the white shirts, her papa-san had that show running for ages…”

He’s babbling, but he can see Akkarat listening now. The cold rage is gone from the man’s eyes. Now there is consideration. Anderson spits blood and looks Akkarat in the eye. “Yes. I introduced that creature. But it was only because she was a novelty. Everyone knows his reputation.” He flinches as a new surge of anger twists Akkarat’s face. “Please listen to me. Investigate this. If you investigate, you’ll find out it wasn’t us. There has to be another explanation. We had no idea…” He breaks off, tiredly. “Just investigate. ”

“We cannot. The Environment Ministry has the case.”

“What?” Anderson can’t hide his surprise. “By what authority?”

“The windup makes it a case for their Ministry. She is an invasive.”

“And you think I’m the one behind it? When those bastards are controlling the investigation?”

Anderson works through the implications, hunting for reasons, excuses, anything to buy time. “You can’t trust them. Pracha and his people…” He pauses. “Pracha would set us up. He’d do it in a second. Maybe he’s caught wind of our plans, he could be moving against us right now. Using this as cover. If he knew the Somdet Chaopraya was against him—”

“Our plans were secret,” Akkarat says.

“Nothing’s secret. Not on the scale we’re working. One of the generals could have leaked to their old friend. And now he’s just assassinated three of ours, and we’re pointing fingers at each other.”

Akkarat considers. Anderson waits, breath held.

Finally Akkarat shakes his head. “No. Pracha would never attack royalty. He is garbage, but still, he is Thai.”

“But it wasn’t me, either!” He looks down at Carlyle. “It wasn’t us! There has to be another explanation.” He starts to cough with panic, a cough that becomes an uncontrolled spasm. At last it stops. His ribs ache. He spits blood, and wonders if his lung is punctured from the beating.

He looks up at Akkarat, trying to control his words. To make them count. To sound reasonable. “There must be some way to find out what really happened to the Somdet Chaopraya. Some connection. Something.”

A Panther leans forward and whispers in Akkarat’s ear. Anderson thinks he recognizes him from the party on the barge. One of the Somdet Chaopraya’s men. The hard one with the feral face and the still eyes. He whispers more words. Akkarat nods sharply. “Khap.” Motions his men to push Anderson and Carlyle into the next room.

“All right, Khun Anderson. We will see what we can learn.” They shove him down on the floor beside Carlyle. “Make yourself comfortable,” Akkarat says. “I’ve given my man twelve hours to investigate. You had better pray to whatever Grahamite god you worship that your story is confirmed.”

Anderson feels a surge of hope. “Find out everything you can. You’ll see it wasn’t us. You’ll see.” He sucks on his split lip. “That windup isn’t anything other than a Japanese toy. Someone else is responsible for this. The white shirts are just trying to get us to go after each other. Ten to one says it’s the white shirts, moving on us all.”

“We will see.”

Anderson lets his head loll back against the wall, adrenaline and nervous energy firing under his skin. His hand throbs. The broken finger dangles useless. Time. He’s bought time. Now it’s just a matter of waiting. Of trying to find the next fingerhold to survival. He coughs again, wincing at the pain in his ribs.

Beside him, Carlyle groans, but doesn’t wake up. Anderson coughs again and stares at the wall, collecting himself for the next round of conflict with Akkarat. But even as he considers the many angles, trying to understand what has caused this rapid change in circumstance, another image keeps intruding. The sight of the windup girl running for the balcony and plunging into darkness, faster than anything he has ever seen, a wraith of movement and feral grace. Fast and smooth. And at speed, terrifyingly beautiful.