The Windup Girl

by Paolo Bacigalupi

  He makes a face. "There's nothing going that far, not much past Ayutthaya. The rivers have gotten too low. Some people are using mulies to pull their way north, but that is all. Some kink-spring skiffs. And the war. . ." He shrugs. "If you need to go north, the roads will be dry for a while yet."

  She masks her disappointment and wais carefully. No river then. By road or nothing. If she could go by river, then she would also have a way to cool herself. By road. . . she imagines the long distance through the tropic blaze of the dry season. Perhaps she should wait for the rainy season. With the monsoon, the temperatures will fall and the rivers rise. . .

  Emiko starts back over the seawall and down through the slums that house dock families and de-quarantined sailors on shore leave. By road then. It was foolish even for her to go looking. If she could get aboard a kink-spring train—but that would require permits. Many, many permits, just to get aboard. But if she could bribe someone, stow away. . . She grimaces. All roads lead to Raleigh. She will have to speak with him. To beg the old crow for things he has no reason to give.

  A man with dragon tattoos on his stomach and a takraw ball tattooed on his shoulder gawks at her as she walks past. "Heechy-keechy," he murmurs.

  Emiko doesn't slow, doesn't turn at the words, but her skin prickles.

  The man follows her. "Heechy-keechy," he says again.

  She glances back. His face is unfriendly. He's missing a hand as well, she's horrified to notice. He reaches out with the stump and prods her shoulder. She jerks away, stutter-stop reaction, betraying her nature. He smiles, and his teeth are black with betel nut.

  Emiko turns down a soi, hoping to escape his attention. Again he calls after her. "Heechy-keechy."

  Emiko ducks into another winding squeezeway, breaks into a faster walk. Her body warms. Her hands become slick with sweat. She pants rapidly, trying to expel the increasing heat. Still the man follows. He doesn't call out again but she hears his footsteps. She makes another turn. Cheshires scatter before her, shimmers of light flushed like cockroaches. If only she could evaporate as they do, fade against a wall and let this man slide past.

  "Where are you going, windup?" the man calls. "I just want to get a look at you."

  If she were still with Gendo-sama she would face this man. Would stand confident, protected by import stamps and ownership permits and consulates and the awful threat of her master's retribution. A piece of property, true, but respected nonetheless. She could even go to a white shirt or the police for protection. With stamps and a passport, she was not a transgression against niche and nature, but an exquisite valued object.

  The alley opens onto a new street, full of gaijin warehouses and trading fronts, but the man grabs her arm before she can reach it. She's hot. Already flushed with her rising panic. She stares at the street longingly but it is all shacks and dry goods and a few gaijin, who will be no help for her. Grahamites are the last people she wishes to encounter.

  The man drags her back into the alley. "Where do you think you're going, windup?"

  His eyes are bright and hard. He's chewing something—an amphetamine stick. Yaba. Coolie laborers use them to keep working, to burn calories that they do not have. His eyes sparkle as he grips her wrist. He pulls her deeper into the alley, out of sight. She's too hot to run. There is nowhere to go, even if she did.

  "Stand against the wall." he says. "No." He shoves her around. "Don't look at me."

  "Please."

  A knife appears in his good hand, glinting. "Shut up," he says. "Stay there."

  His voice has the power of command, and despite her better instincts she finds herself obeying. "Please. Just let me go," she whispers.

  "I fought your kind. In the jungles in the north. Windups everywhere. Heechy-keechy soldiers."

  "I am not that kind." She whispers. "Not military."

  "Japanese, same as you. I lost a hand because of your kind. And a lot of good friends." He shows her the stump where his hand is missing, pushes it against her cheek. His breath gusts hot on her nape as he wraps his arm around her neck, pressing the knife to her jugular. Indenting the skin.

  "Please. Just let me go." She presses back against his crotch. "I'll do anything."

  "You think I'd soil myself that way?" He shoves her hard against the wall, making her cry out. "With an animal like you?" A pause, then. "Get down on your knees."

  Out on the street, cycle rickshaws clatter over cobbles. People call out, asking about the price of hemp rope and whether anyone knows the time of the Lumphini muay thai fight. The knife hooks around her neck again, finds her pulse with its point. "I saw my friends all die in the forests because of Japanese windups."

  She swallows, and repeats softly, "I am not that kind."

  He laughs. "Of course not. You're some other creature. Another one of their devils like they keep in their shipyard across the river. Our people are starving, and your kind take their rice."

  The blade presses against her throat. He will kill her. She is sure of it. His hatred is great, and she is nothing but trash. He is high and angry and dangerous and she is nothing. Even Gendo-sama couldn't have protected her from this. She swallows, feeling the blade press against her Adam's apple.

  Is this how you will die? Is this what you were meant for? To simply be bled out like a pig?

  A spark of rage flickers, an antidote to despair.

  Will you not even try to survive? Did the scientists make you too stupid even to consider fighting for your own life?

  Emiko closes her eyes and prays to Mizuko Jizo Bodhisattva, and then the bakeneko cheshire spirit for good measure. She takes a breath, and then with all her strength she slams her hand against the knife. The blade slices past her neck, a searing line.

  "Arai wa?!" the man shouts.

  Emiko shoves hard against him and ducks under his flailing knife. Behind her, she hears a grunt and thud as she bolts for the street. She doesn't look back. She plunges into the street, not caring that she shows herself as a windup, not caring that in running she will burn up and die. She runs, determined only to escape the demon behind her. She will burn, but she will not die passive like some pig led to slaughter.

  She flies down the street, dodging pyramids of durian and hurdling over coiled hemp ropes. This suicidal flight is pointless, yet she will not stop. She shoves aside a gaijin haggling over burlap sacks of local U-Tex rice. He jerks away, crying out in alarm as she flashes past.

  All around, the traffic of the street seems to have slowed to a crawl. Emiko weaves under the bamboo scaffolding of a construction site. Running is strangely easy. People move as if they're suspended in honey. Only she is moving. When she glances behind her, she sees that her pursuer has fallen far behind. He's astonishingly slow. Amazing that she even feared him. She laughs at the absurdity of this suspended world—

  She slams into a laborer and goes sprawling, taking him down as well. The man shouts, "Arai wa! Watch where you're going!"

  Emiko forces herself up to her knees, hands numb with abrasions. She tries to stand but the world tilts, blurry. She collapses. Pushes upright again, drunken, overwhelmed by the furnace heat within her. The ground tilts and rotates, but she manages to stand. Leans against a sun-baked wall as the man she hit shouts at her. His rage washes over her, meaningless. Darkness and heat are closing in on her. She's burning up.

  Out in the street, in the tangle of mulie carts and bicycles, she catches sight of a gaijin face. She blinks away the closing darkness, stumbles forward a step. Is she mad? Does the bakeneko cheshire toy with her? She clutches the shoulder of the man who is shouting at her, staring into the traffic, searching to confirm what her boiling brain has hallucinated. The laborer cries out and recoils from her touch, but she barely notices.

  Another flash of the face in the traffic. It's the gaijin, the scarred pale one from Raleigh's place. The one who told her to go north. His rickshaw shows briefly before disappearing behind a megodont. And then he's there again, on the other side, looking toward her. The
ir eyes lock. The same man. She's sure of it.

  "Grab her! Don't let that heechy-keechy get away!"

  Her attacker, shouting and waving his knife as he clambers through bamboo scaffolding. She's amazed that he's so slow, so much slower than she would have expected. She watches, puzzled. Perhaps he is also crippled from his time in the war? But no, his gait is correct, it's just that everything around her is slow: the people, the traffic. Odd. Surreal and slow.

  The laborer seizes her. Emiko lets herself be dragged, scanning the traffic for another glimpse of the gaijin. Did she hallucinate?

  There! The gaijin again. Emiko throws off the laborer's grasp and lunges into traffic. With the last of her energy, she ducks under the belly of a megodont, nearly crashing into its great columnar legs and then she's on the other side, pacing the gaijin's rickshaw, reaching up to him like a beggar. . .

  He observes her with cold eyes, completely detached. She stumbles and grabs at the rickshaw to steady herself, knowing he will shove her back. She is nothing but a windup. She was a fool. She was stupid to hope that he would see her as a person, a woman, as anything other than offal.

  Abruptly he grabs her hand and pulls her aboard. The gaijin shouts at his driver to ride, to ride—gan cui chi che, kuai kuai kuai!—to hurry up. He spews words in three different languages and then they are accelerating, but slowly.

  Her attacker leaps onto the rickshaw. He slashes her shoulder. Emiko watches as her blood sprays the seat. Jewel droplets suspended in sunlight. He raises the knife again. She tries to lift a hand to defend herself, to fight him off, but she's too tired. She's limp with exhaustion and heat. The man slashes again, screaming.

  Emiko watches the knife descend, a movement as slow as honey poured in winter. So slow. So far away. Her flesh tears. Heat blur and exhaustion. She's fading. The knife descends again.

  Suddenly the gaijin lunges between them. A spring gun gleams in his hand. Emiko watches, vaguely intrigued that the man carries a weapon, but the fight between the gaijin and the yaba addict is so very small and far away. So very very dark. . . Heat swallows her.

  10

  The windup girl does nothing to defend herself. She cries out, but barely flinches as the knife bites. "Bai!" Anderson shouts to Lao Gu. "Kuai kuai kuai!"

  He shoves the attacker away as the cycle lurches forward. The Thai man hacks clumsily at Anderson, then goes after the windup girl again, slashing. She does nothing to escape. Blood spatters. Anderson yanks a spring pistol from beneath his shirt and shoves it into the man's face. The man's eyes widen.

  He drops off the rickshaw, running for cover. Anderson follows him with the barrel, trying to decide if he should put a disk in the man's head or let him escape, but the man ducks behind a megodont wagon, robbing him of the decision.

  "Goddamnit." Anderson peers through the traffic, making sure the man is truly gone, then shoves his pistol back under his shirt. He turns to the slumped girl. "You're safe now."

  The windup lies inert, clothes slashed and disarrayed, eyes closed, panting rapidly. When he presses his palm to her flushed forehead, she flinches and her eyelids flutter. Her skin is scalding. Listless black eyes stare up at him. "Please," she murmurs.

  The heat in her skin is overwhelming. She's dying. Anderson yanks her jacket open, trying to vent her. She's burning up, overheated by her flight and poor genetic design. Absurd that anyone would do this to a creature, hobble it so.

  He shouts over his shoulder, "Lao Gu! Go to the levees!" Lao Gu glances back, uncomprehending. "Shui! Water! Nam! The ocean, damn it!" Anderson motions toward the dike walls. "Quickly! Kuai, kuai kuai!"

  Lao Gu nods sharply. He stands on his pedals and accelerates again, forcing the bike through the clotted traffic, calling out warnings and curses at obstructing pedestrians and draft animals. Anderson fans the windup girl with his hat.

  At the levee walls, Anderson throws the windup girl over his shoulder and hauls her up uneven stairs. Guardian naga flank the stairs, their long undulating snake bodies guiding him upward. Their faces watch impassive as he staggers higher. Sweat drips in his eyes. The windup is a furnace against his skin.

  He tops the levee. Red sun burns against his face, silhouetting drowned Thonburi across the waters. The sun is almost as hot as the body draped over his shoulder. He stumbles down the other side of the embankment and heaves the girl into the sea. The splash soaks him with saltwater.

  She sinks like a stone. Anderson gasps and lunges after her sinking form. You fool. You stupid fool. He catches a limp arm and drags her body up from the depths. Holds her so that her face floats above the waves, bracing himself to keep her from sinking again. Her skin burns. He half expects the sea to boil around her. Her black hair fans out like a net in the lapping waves. She dangles in his grasp. Lao Gu jostles down beside him. Anderson waves him over. "Here. Hold her."

  Lao Gu hesitates.

  "Hold her, damn it. Zhua ta."

  Reluctantly, Lao Gu slides his hands under her arms. Anderson touches her neck, feeling for a pulse. Is her brain already cooked? He could be trying to revive a vegetable.

  The windup's pulse whirs like a hummingbird's, faster than any creature her size should run. Anderson leans down to listen to her breathing.

  Her eyes snap open. He jerks away. She thrashes and Lao Gu loses his grip. She disappears under water.

  "No!" Anderson lunges after her.

  She surfaces again, thrashing and coughing and reaching for him. Her hand locks on his and he pulls her to the bank. Her clothes swirl about her like tangled seaweed and her black hair glistens like silk. She stares up at Anderson with dark eyes. Her skin is suddenly blessedly cool.

  * * *

  "Why did you help me?"

  Methane lamps flicker on the streets, turning the city ethereal shades of green. Darkness has fallen and the lampposts hiss against the blackness. Humidity reflects on cobbles and concrete, gleams on people's skin as they lean close around candles in the night markets.

  The windup girl asks again. "Why?"

  Anderson shrugs, glad the darkness hides his expression. He doesn't have a good answer himself. If her attacker complains of a farang and a windup girl, it will trigger questions and attract white shirts to him. A foolish risk, considering how exposed he already finds himself. He's far too easy to describe, and it's not far from where he found the girl to Sir Francis', and from there to more uncomfortable questions.

  He forces down his paranoia. He's as bad as Hock Seng. The nak leng was obviously high on yaba. He won't go to the white shirts. He'll slink away and lick his wounds.

  Still, it was foolish.

  When she fainted in the rickshaw he was sure that she was about to die, and a part of him had been glad. Relieved that he could take back that moment when he recognized her, and against all his training, tied his fate to hers.

  He glances over at her. Her skin has lost its terrifying flush and furnace heat. She holds the remnants of slashed clothes around her, keeping her modesty. It's pitiable, really, that a creature so utterly owned clings to modesty.

  "Why?" she asks again.

  He shrugs again. "You needed help."

  "No one helps a windup." Her voice is flat. "You are a fool." She pushes damp hair away from her face. A surreal stutter-stop motion, the genetic bits of her unkinking. Her smooth skin shines between the edges of her slashed blouse, the gentle promise of her breasts. What would she feel like? Her skin gleams, smooth and inviting.

  She catches him staring. "Do you wish to use me?"

  "No." he looks away, uneasy. "It's not necessary."

  "I would not fight you," she says.

  Anderson feels a sudden revulsion at the acquiescence in her voice. On another day, at another time, he probably would have taken her for the novelty. Thought nothing of it. But the fact that she expects so little fills him with distaste. He forces a smile. "Thank you. No."

  She nods shortly. Looks out again at the humid night and the green glow of the street lamps. It's i
mpossible to say if she is grateful or surprised, or if his decision even matters to her. However her mask might have slipped in the heat of terror and relief of escape, her thoughts are carefully locked away now.

  "Is there someplace I should take you?"

  She shrugs. "Raleigh. He is the only one who will keep me."

  "But he wasn't the first, was he? You weren't always. . ." He trails off. There's no polite word and, looking at the girl, he doesn't have the appetite to call her a toy.

  She glances over at him, then out again at the passing city. Gas lights puddle the street with low green pockets of phosphor, separated by deep canyons of shadow. They pass under a lamp and Anderson catches her face, dimly illuminated, humidity sheened and pensive, before it disappears again in darkness.

  "No. I was not always this way. Not. . ." she trails off. "Not like this." She falls quiet, thoughtful. "Mishimoto employed me. I had. . ." she shrugs, "an owner. An owner at the company. I was owned. Gen—my owner acquired a temporary foreign business exemption to bring me to the Kingdom. A ninety-day permit. Extendible by palace waiver because of the Japanese Friendship. I was his Personal Secretary: translation, office management and . . . companion." Another shrug, more felt than seen. "But it is expensive to return to Japan. A dirigible ticket for a New Person is the same as for your kind. My owner concluded that leaving his secretary in Bangkok was more economical. When his assignment here ended, he decided to upgrade new in Osaka."

  "Jesus and Noah."

  She shrugs. "I was given my final pay at the anchor pad and he went away. Up and away."

  "And now Raleigh?" he asks.

  Again the shrug. "No Thai wants a New Person for secretary, or translation. In Japan, okay. Common, even. Too few babies born, too much working needed. Here . . . " She shakes her head. "Calorie markets are controlled. Everyone is jealous for U-Tex. Everyone protects their rice. Raleigh does not care. Raleigh. . . likes novelty."