The Windup Girl

by Paolo Bacigalupi

  At the door, the object of Jaidee's hunger stands.

  Men pour in through the door ahead of him. Jaidee draws his pistol, but they fire and blades slash into his gun arm. He drops the pistol . Blood pours. He turns to run for the office's windows, but men tackle him, skidding on the wet marble. Everyone goes down in a tangle of limbs. Somewhere far away, Jaidee hears Somchai bellowing. His arms are yanked behind him. Zip straps bind his wrists in rattan bonds.

  "Tourniquet that!" the man orders. "I don't want him bleeding to death."

  Jaidee looks down. Blood is welling out of his arm. His captors staunch the flow. He's not sure if he's lightheaded from blood loss or the sudden lust he has for his enemy's death. They yank him upright. Somchai joins him, his nose pouring blood, his eye closed. Teeth red. Behind him on the floor, two men lie still.

  The man studies the two of them. Jaidee returns the gaze, refusing to look away.

  "Captain Jaidee. You were supposed to have entered the monkhood."

  Jaidee tries to shrug. "My kuti didn't have enough light. I thought I'd do my penance here, instead."

  The man smiles slightly. "We can arrange that." He nods to his men. "Take them upstairs."

  The men yank him and Somchai out of the room, drag them down the corridor. They reach an elevator. A real electric elevator, with dials that glow and designs of the Ramakin on the walls. Each button a small demon's mouth, and busty women playing saw duang and jakae around the edges. The doors close.

  "What is your name?" Jaidee asks the man.

  The man shrugs. "It's not important."

  "You're Akkarat's creature."

  The man doesn't answer.

  The doors open. They come out on the roof. Fifteen stories into the air. The men shove him and Somchai toward the lip of the building.

  "Go on," says the man. "You wait up here. Over by the edge, where we can see you."

  They point their spring guns and order him forward until he and Somchai stand at the lip, looking down on the faint glows of the methane lamps. Jaidee studies the plunge.

  So this is what it is to face death. He stares down into the depths. The street far below. The air waiting for him.

  "What did you do with Chaya?" he calls back to the man.

  The man smiles. "Is that why you are here? Because we didn't return her to you soon enough?"

  Jaidee feels a thrill of hope. Could he have been wrong? "You can do what you want with me. But let her go."

  The man seems to falter. Is it guilt that makes him hesitate? Jaidee cannot tell. He is too far away. Is Chaya dead then, for certain? "Just let her go. Do what you want with me."

  The man doesn't say anything.

  Jaidee wonders if there is anything he should have done differently. It was brash of him to come here. But she was lost already. And the man has made no promises, no taunts to suggest she is alive. Was he foolish?

  "Is she alive or not?" he asks.

  The man smiles slightly. "I suppose it hurts not to know."

  "Let her go."

  "It wasn't personal, Jaidee. If there had been another way. . ." The man shrugs.

  She is dead. Jaidee is sure of it. All part of some plan. He shouldn't have let Pracha convince him otherwise. He should have attacked immediately with the full power of his men, taught Trade a lesson in retribution. He turns to Somchai. "I'm sorry about this."

  Somchai shrugs. "You were always a tiger. It's in your nature. I knew that when I came with you."

  "Still, Somchai, if we die here. . ."

  Somchai smiles. "Then you will come back as a cheshire."

  Jaidee can't help a bark of surprised laughter. It feels good, this bubbling noise. He finds he can't stop. The laughter fills him up, lifting him. Even the guards snicker. Jaidee catches another glimpse of Somchai's widening smile, and his mirth redoubles.

  Behind them, footsteps. A voice. "Such a humorous party. So much laughter for a pair of thieves."

  Jaidee can barely master himself. He gasps for breath. "There must be a mistake. We just work here."

  "I think not. Turn around."

  Jaidee turns. The Trade Minister stands before him. Akkarat in the flesh. And beside him. . . Jaidee's hilarity leaves him like hydrogen gusting from a dirigible. Akkarat is flanked by bodyguards. Black Panthers. Royal Elites, a sign of the palace's esteem to have them on his leash. Jaidee's heart goes cold. No one in the Environment Ministry is so protected. Not even General Pracha himself.

  Akkarat smiles slightly at Jaidee's shock. He surveys Jaidee and Somchai as though examining tilapia in the market but Jaidee does not care. His eyes are on the nameless man behind him. The unassuming one. The one. . . Puzzle pieces click into place. "You're not Trade at all." He murmurs. "You're with the palace."

  The man shrugs.

  Akkarat speaks. "You're not so bold now, are you Captain Jaidee?"

  "There, I told you you were famous," Somchai murmurs.

  Jaidee almost laughs again, though the implications of this new understanding are deeply troubling. "You truly have the palace's backing?"

  Akkarat shrugs. "Trade is in ascendancy. The Somdet Chaopraya favors an open policy."

  Jaidee measures the distance between them. Too far. "I'm surprised a heeya like you would dare come so close to your dirty work."

  Akkarat smiles. "I wouldn't miss this. You've been an expensive thorn."

  "Do you intend to push us yourself, then?" Jaidee taunts. "Will you stain your own kamma with my death, heeya?" He nods at the men around them. "Or will you try to put the stain on your men? See them come back as cockroaches in their next life to be squashed ten thousand times before a decent rebirth? Blood on their hands for killing in cold blood. For the sake of profit?"

  The men shift nervously and glance at one another. Akkarat scowls. "You're the one who will come back as a cockroach."

  Jaidee grins. "Come then. Prove your manhood. Push the defenseless man to his death."

  Akkarat hesitates.

  "Are you a paper tiger?" Jaidee goads. "Come on then. Hurry up! I'm getting dizzy, waiting so close to the edge."

  Akkarat studies him. "You've gone too far, white shirt. This time, you've gone too far." He strides forward.

  Jaidee whirls. His knee rises, slams into the Trade Minister's ribs. The men are all shouting. Jaidee leaps again, moving as smoothly as he ever did in the stadiums. It's almost as though he never left Lumphini. Never left the crowds and the roar of gamblers. His knee crushes the Trade Minister's leg.

  Fire crackles in Jaidee's joints, unused to these contortions, but even with his hands tied behind his back, his knees still fly with the efficiency of a champion's. He kicks again. The Trade Minister grunts and stumbles to the building's edge.

  Jaidee raises his foot to drive Akkarat over the precipice but pain blossoms in his back. He stumbles. Blood mists in the air. Spring gun disks rip through him. Jaidee loses his rhythm. The building's edge surges toward him. He glimpses Black Panthers grabbing their patron, yanking him away.

  Jaidee kicks again, trying for a lucky strike, but he hears the whine of more blades in the air, the whir of pistol springs unwinding as they spit disks into his flesh. The blooms of pain are hot and deep. He slams against the edge of the building. Falls to his knees. He tries to rise again, but now the spring gun whine is steady—many men firing; the high-pitched squeal of releasing energy fills his ears. He can't get his legs under him. Akkarat is wiping blood off his face. Somchai is struggling with another pair of Panthers.

  Jaidee doesn't even feel the shove that sends him over the edge.

  The fall is shorter than he expected.

  18

  The rumor travels like fire in the dead timber of Isaan. The Tiger is dead. Trade is in ascendancy for certain. Hock Seng's neck prickles as tension blossoms in the city. The man who sells a newspaper to him does not smile. A pair of white shirts on patrol scowls at every pedestrian. The people who sell vegetables seem suddenly furtive, as if they are dealing contraband.


  The Tiger is dead, shamed somehow, though no one seems to know the specifics. Was he truly unmanned? Was his head truly mounted in front of the Environment Ministry as a warning to the white shirts?

  It makes Hock Seng want to gather his money and flee, but the blueprints in the safe keep him bound to his desk. He hasn't felt undercurrents like this since the Incident.

  He stands and goes to the office shutters. Peers out to the street. Goes back to his treadle computer. A minute later, he moves to the factory's observation window to study the Thais working on the lines. It's as if the air is charged with lightning. A storm is coming, full of water spouts and tidal waves.

  Hazards outside the factory, and hazards within. Halfway into the shift, Mai came again, shoulders slumped. Another sick worker, sent off to a third hospital, Sukhumvit this time. And down below, at the heart of the manufacturing system, something foul reaches for them all.

  Hock Seng's skin crawls at the thought of disease brewing in those vats. Three is too many for coincidence. If there are three, then there will be more, unless he reports the problem. But if he reports anything, the white shirts will burn the factory to the ground and Mr. Lake's kink-spring plans will go back across the seas, and everything will be lost.

  A knock comes on the door.

  "Lai."

  Mai slips into the room, looking frightened and miserable. Her black hair is disarrayed. Her dark eyes scan the room, looking for signs of the farang.

  "He's gone to his lunch." Hock Seng supplies. "Did you deliver Viyada?"

  Mai nods. "No one saw me drop her."

  "Good. That's something."

  Mai gives him a miserable wai of acknowledgment.

  "Yes? What is it?"

  She hesitates. "There are white shirts about. Many of them. I saw them at the intersections, all the way to the hospital."

  "Did they stop you? Question you?"

  "No. But there are a lot of them. More than usual. And they seem angry."

  "It is the Tiger, and Trade. That is all. It can't be us. They don't know about us."

  She nods doubtfully, but does not leave. "It is difficult for me to work here," she says. "It's too dangerous now. The sickness." She stumbles on her words, finally says, "I'm very sorry. If I'm dead. . ." she trails off. "I'm very sorry."

  Hock Seng nods sympathetically. "Yes. Of course. You do no good for yourself if you are sick." Privately, though, he wonders what safety she can really find. Nightmares of the yellow card slum towers still wake him at night, shaking and grateful for what he has. The towers have their own diseases, poverty is its own killer. He grimaces, wondering how he himself would balance the terrors of some unknown sickness against the certainty of work.

  No, this work is not a certainty. This is the same thinking that caused him to leave Malaya too late. His unwillingness to accept that a clipper ship was sinking and to abandon it when his head was still above the waves. Mai is wise where he is dull. He nods sharply. "Yes. Of course. You should go. You have youth. You are Thai. Something will come to you." He forces a smile. "Something good."

  She hesitates.

  "Yes?" he asks.

  "I hoped I could have my last pay."

  "Of course." Hock Seng goes to the petty cash safe, swings it open, reaches in and pulls out a handful of red paper. In a fit of reckless generosity that he doesn't quite understand himself, he hands the entire wad over to her. "Here. Take this."

  She gasps at the amount. "Khun. Thank you." She wais. "Thank you."

  "It's nothing. Save it. Be careful with it—"

  A shout rises from the factory floor, then more shouts. Hock Seng feels a surge of panic. The manufacturing line stalls. The stop bell rings belatedly.

  Hock Seng rushes to the door, looks down at lines. Ploi is waving her hand toward the gates. Others are abandoning their posts, running to the doors. Hock Seng cranes his neck, seeking the cause.

  "What is it?" Mai asks.

  "I can't tell." He turns and runs to the shutters, yanks them open. White shirts fill the avenue, marching in ordered ranks. He sucks in his breath. "White shirts."

  "Are they coming here?"

  Hock Seng doesn't answer. He looks over his shoulder at the safe. With a little time. . . No. He's being a fool. He waited too long in Malaya; he won't make the same mistake twice. He goes to the petty cash safe and begins pulling out all the remaining cash. Stuffing it into a sack.

  "Are they coming because of the sick?" Mai asks.

  Hock Seng shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. Come here." He goes to another window and opens the shutters, revealing the blaze of the factory rooftop.

  Mai peers out over hot tiles. "What's this?"

  "An escape route. Yellow cards always prepare for the worst." He smiles as he hoists her up. "We are paranoid, you know."

  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 sc
attering 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."