Raleigh is normally fanatic about the privacy of guests. He has even talked about building a separate stairwell for patrons, simply so they will not be seen entering and leaving Ploenchit tower at all, an access passage that would allow them to enter from a block away, under the street. And yet now he wants her to reveal so much.
“The boy?” she asks, stalling for time, unnerved by Raleigh’s eagerness to expose a guest, and a white shirt, at that. She glances at the stranger again, wondering who he is, and what sort of hold he has on her papa-san.
“Go on,” Raleigh motions impatiently, the opium pipe gripped in his teeth. He leans into the opium lamp to smoke again.
“He was a white shirt,” Emiko begins. “He came with a group of other officers …”
A new one. Brought around by his friends. All of them laughing and egging him on. All of them drinking free because Raleigh knows better than to charge, their good will worth more than the liquor. The young man, drunk. Laughing and making jokes about her in the bar. And then stealthily returning later, in privacy, hidden from his colleagues’ prying eyes.
The pale man makes a face. “They’ll go with you? With your kind?”
“Hai.” Emiko nods, showing nothing of what she thinks of his contempt. “White shirts and Grahamites.”
Raleigh laughs softly. “Sex and hypocrisy. They go together like coffee and cream.”
The stranger glances sharply at Raleigh, and Emiko wonders if the old man can see the disgust in those pale blue eyes or if he is too stoned on opium to care. The pale man leans forward, cutting Raleigh out of the conversation. “And what did this white shirt tell you?”
Is there a flicker of fascination there? Does she intrigue him? Or is it simply her story that interests him?
Despite herself, Emiko feels a stirring of her genetic urge to please, an emotion that she hasn’t felt since her abandonment. Something about the man reminds her of Gendo-sama. Even though his blue gaijin eyes are like pools of chemical bath acid and his face is kabuki pale, he has presence. The air of authority is palpable, and strangely comforting.
Are you a Grahamite? she wonders. Would you use me and then mulch me? She wonders if she cares. He is not beautiful. He is not Japanese. He is nothing. And yet his horrifying eyes hold her with the same power that Gendo-sama used to exercise.
“What do you wish to know?” she whispers.
“Your white shirt said something about generipping,” the gaijin says. “Do you remember?”
“Hai. Yes. I think perhaps he was very proud. He came with a bag of newly designed fruits. Gifts for all of the girls.”
More interest from the gaijin. It warms her. “And what did the fruit look like?” he asks.
“It was red, I think. With … threads. Long threads.”
“Green hairs? About so long?” He indicates a centimeter with his fingers. “Thickish?”
She nods. “Yes. That’s right. He called them ngaw. And his aunt had made them. She was going to be recognized by the Child Queen’s Protector, the Somdet Chaopraya, for her contribution to the Kingdom. He was very proud of his aunt.”
“And he went with you,” the man prompts.
“Yes. But later. After his friends were gone.”
The pale man shakes his head impatiently. He doesn’t care about the details of the liaison: the boy’s nervous eyes, the way he approached the mama-san and how Emiko was sent up to wait for him to follow a safe time later, so that no one would make the connection. “What else did he say about this aunt?” he asks.
“Just that she rips for the Ministry.”
“Nothing else? Not where she rips? Where they have test fields? Nothing of that sort?”
“No.”
“That’s it?” The gaijin glances at Raleigh, irritated. “This is what you dragged me here for?”
Raleigh rouses himself. “The farang,” he prompts. “Tell him about the farang.”
Emiko can’t help but show her confusion. “Sorry?” She remembers the white shirt boy, bragging about his aunt. How his aunt would be given a prize and a promotion for her work with ngaw … nothing of farang. “I don’t understand.”
Raleigh puts down his pipe, scowling. “You told me he talked about farang generippers.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “He said nothing about foreigners. I am sorry.”
The scarred gaijin makes a face of irritation. “Let me know when you’ve got something worth my time, Raleigh.” He reaches for his hat, makes to stand.
Raleigh glares at her. “You said there was a farang generipper!”
“No …” Emiko shakes her head. “Wait!” She puts out a hand to the gaijin. “Wait. Khun, please wait. I know what Raleigh-san is talking about.” Her fingers brush his arm. The gaijin jerks away from her touch. He steps out of reach with a look of disgust.
“Please,” she begs. “I did not understand. The boy said nothing about farang. But he used a name…. it could have been farang.” She looks to Raleigh for confirmation. “Is this what you mean? The strange name? It could have been foreign, yes? Not Thai. Not Chinese or Hokkien …”
Raleigh interrupts, “Tell him what you told me, Emiko. That’s all I want. Tell him everything. Every single detail. Just like you’re talking to me after a date.”
And so she does. As the gaijin sits again, listening suspiciously, she tells everything. About the boy’s nervousness, how he couldn’t look at her, and then how he couldn’t look away. How he talked because his erection would not come. How he watched her undress. How he talked about his aunt. Trying to make himself seem important to a whore and a New People whore at that, and how strange and silly that had seemed to her, and how she hid her thoughts of him. And then finally the part that makes Raleigh smile in satisfaction and the pale scarred man’s eyes widen.
“The boy said the man Gi Bu Sen gives them blueprints, but he betrays them more often than not. But his aunt discovered a trickery. And then they made the successful rip of the ngaw. Gi Bu Sen did hardly anything for them with the ngaw. It was all his aunt’s work, in the end.” She nods. “That is what he said. This Gi Bu Sen tricks them. But his aunt is too brilliant to be tricked.”
The scarred man studies her closely. Cold blue eyes. Pale skin like a corpse. “Gi Bu Sen,” the man murmurs. “You’re sure that was the name?”
“Gi Bu Sen. I am sure.”
The man nods, thoughtful. The lamp that Raleigh uses for his opium crackles in the silence. Far below on the street, a late-night water seller calls out, his voice floating up through the open shutters and mosquito screens. The noise seems to break the gaijin from his reverie. His pale eyes focus on her again. “I would be very interested to know if your friend returned for another visit.”
“He was ashamed, afterward.” Emiko touches her cheek, where she hides a fading bruise with makeup. “I think he will not—”
Raleigh interrupts. “Sometimes they come back. Even if they feel guilty.”
He shoots her a dark look. She makes herself nod in confirmation. The boy will not be coming back, but it will make the gaijin happy to think so. And it will make Raleigh happy. Raleigh is her patron. She should agree. Should agree with conviction.
“Sometimes.” It’s all she can manage. “Sometimes they come back, even if they are ashamed.”
The gaijin eyes them both. “Why don’t you go get her some ice, Raleigh?”
“It’s not time for her next round. And she’s got a show coming up.”
“I’ll cover the loss.”
Raleigh clearly wants to stay, but he’s smart enough not to protest. He forces a smile. “Of course. Why don’t you two talk?” He looks at her significantly as he leaves. Emiko knows Raleigh wants her to seduce this gaijin. To entice him with herky-jerky sex and the promise of transgression. And then to listen to him and report, as all the girls are asked to.
She leans closer, letting the gaijin see her exposed skin. His eyes trace across her flesh, following the line of her thigh where it slips beneat
h her pha sin, the way her hip presses against fabric. He looks away. Emiko hides her irritation. Is he attracted? Nervous? Disgusted? She cannot tell. With most men, it is easy. Obvious. They fit such simple patterns. She wonders if he finds a New Person too disgusting, or if perhaps he prefers boys.
“How do you survive here?” the gaijin asks. “The white shirts should have mulched you by now.”
“The payments. As long as Raleigh-san is willing to pay, they will ignore.”
“And you live somewhere, too? Raleigh pays for that as well?” When she nods, he says, “Expensive, I suppose?”
She shrugs. “Raleigh-san keeps a tally of my debts.”
As if summoned, Raleigh returns with her ice. The gaijin pauses as Raleigh comes through the door, waits impatiently as Raleigh sets down the glass on the low table. Raleigh hesitates, and when the scarred man ignores him, he mumbles something about enjoying themselves and leaves again. She watches the old man’s departure thoughtfully, wondering at the hold this man has over Raleigh. Before her, the glass of icy water sweats, seductive. At the man’s nod she reaches for it and drinks. Convulsive. Before she knows it, it is gone. She presses the cold glass against her cheek.
The scarred man watches. “So you’re not engineered for the tropics,” he says. He leans forward, studying her, his eyes moving across her skin. “It’s interesting that your designers modified your pore structure.”
She fights the urge to recoil from his interest. She steels herself. Leans closer. “It is to make my skin more attractive. Smooth.” She draws her pha sin above her knees, lets it slide up her thighs. “Would you like to touch?”
He glances at her, questioning.
“Please.” She nods permission.
He reaches out and his hand slips along her flesh. “Lovely,” he murmurs. She feels a flush of satisfaction as his voice catches. His eyes have gone wide, like a child unmoored. He clears his throat.
“Your skin is burning,” he says.
“Hai. As you say, I was not designed for this climate.”
Now he’s examining every bit of her. Eyes roaming across her, starving, as if he will feed upon her with his gaze. Raleigh will be pleased. “It makes sense,” he says. “Your model must only sell to elites…. they’d have climate control.” He nods to himself, studying her. “It would be worth the trade-off, to them.”
He looks up at her. “Mishimoto? Were you one of Mishimoto’s then? You can’t be diplomatic. The government would never bring a windup into the country, not with the palace’s religious stance—” His eyes lock with hers. “You were dumped by Mishimoto, weren’t you?”
Emiko fights the sudden flood of shame. It’s as though he has sliced her open and gone rooting through her entrails, impersonal and insulting, like some cibiscosis medical technician making an autopsy. She sets her drink down carefully. “Are you a generipper?” she asks. “Is this how you know so much about me?”
His expression shifts in an instant, from wide-eyed fascination to smirking slyness. “More like a hobbyist,” he says. “A genespotter, if you will.”
“Really?” She lets him see some of the contempt she feels for him. “Not, maybe, a man from the Midwest Compact, perhaps? Not a company man?” She leans forward. “Not a calorie man, possibly?”
She whispers the last words, but they have their effect. The man jerks back. His smile remains, frozen, but his eyes now evaluate her the way a mongoose evaluates a cobra. “What an interesting thought,” he says.
She welcomes the guarded gaze after her own feelings of shame. If she’s lucky, perhaps this gaijin will slaughter her and be done with it. At least then she can rest.
She waits, expecting him to strike her. No one tolerates impudence from New People. Mizumi-sensei made sure that Emiko never showed a trace of rebellion. She taught Emiko to obey, to kowtow, to bend before the desires of her superiors, and to be proud of her place. Even though Emiko is ashamed by the gaijin’s prying into her history and by her own loss of control, Mizumi-sensei would say this is no excuse to prod and bait the man. It hardly matters. It is done, and Emiko feels dead enough in her soul that she will happily pay whatever price he chooses to extract.
Instead, the man says, “Tell me again about the night with the boy.” The anger has left his eyes, replaced by an expression as implacable as Gendo-sama’s once was. “Tell me everything,” he says. “Now.” His voice whips her with command.
She wills herself to resist, but the in-built urge of a New Person to obey is too strong, the feeling of shame at her rebellion too overwhelming. He is not your patron, she reminds herself, but even so at the command in his voice she’s nearly pissing herself with her need to please him.
“He came last week …” She returns again to the details of her night with the white shirt. She spins out the story, telling it for this gaijin’s pleasure much as she once played samisen for Gendo-sama, a dog desperate to serve. She wishes she could tell him to eat blister rust and die, but that is not her nature and so instead she speaks and the gaijin listens.
He makes her repeat things, asks more questions. Returns to threads she thought he had forgotten. He is relentless, pecking at her story, forcing explanations. He is very good with his questions. Gendo-sama used to question underlings this way, when he wanted to know why a clipper ship was not completed on schedule. He bored through the excuses like a genehack weevil.
Finally the gaijin nods, satisfied. “Good,” he says. “Very good.”
Emiko feels a wash of pleasure at his compliment, and despises herself for it. The gaijin finishes his whiskey. Reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wad of cash, peels off several bills as he stands.
“These are for you, only. Don’t show them to Raleigh. I’ll settle with him before I leave.”
She supposes she should feel grateful, but she instead feels used. As used by this man with his questions and his words as those others, the hypocritical Grahamites and the Environment Ministry’s white shirts, who wish to transgress with her biological oddity, who all slaver for the pleasure of intercourse with an unclean creature.
She holds the bills between her fingers. Her training tells her to be polite, but his self-satisfied largesse irritates her.
“What does the gentleman think I will do with his extra baht?” she asks. “Buy a pretty piece of jewelry? Take myself out to dinner? I am property, yes? I am Raleigh’s.” She tosses the money at his feet. “It makes no difference if I am rich or poor. I am owned.”
The man pauses, one hand on the sliding door. “Why not run away, then?”
“To where? My import permits have expired.” She smiles bitterly. “Without Raleigh-san’s patronage and connections, the white shirts would mulch me.”
“You wouldn’t run for the North?” the man asks. “For the windups there?”
“What windups?”
The man smiles slightly. “Raleigh hasn’t mentioned them to you? Windup enclaves in the high mountains? Escapees from the coal war? Released ones?”
At her blank expression he goes on. “There are whole villages up there, living off the jungles. It’s poor country, genehacked half to death, out beyond Chiang Rai and across the Mekong, but the windups there don’t have any patrons and they don’t have any owners. The coal war’s still running, but if you hate your niche so much, it’s an alternative to Raleigh.”
“Is it true?” She leans forward. “This village, is it real?”
The man smiles slightly. “You can ask Raleigh, if you don’t believe me. He’s seen them with his own eyes.” He pauses. “But then, I suppose he wouldn’t see much benefit in telling you. Might encourage you to slip your leash.”
“You’re telling the truth?”
The pale strange man tips his hat. “At least as much truth as you’ve told me.” He slides the door aside and slips out, leaving Emiko alone with a pounding heart and a sudden urge to live.
4
“500, 1000, 5000, 7500….”
Protecting the Kingdom from a
ll the infections of the natural world is like trying to catch the ocean with a net. One can snare a certain number of fish, sure, but the ocean is always there, surging through.
“10,000, 12,500, 15,000 … 25,000 …”
Captain Jaidee Rojjanasukchai is more than aware of this as he stands under the vast belly of a farang dirigible in the middle of the sweltering night. The dirigible’s turbofans gust and whir overhead. Its payload lies scattered, crates and boxes splintered open, their contents spilled across the anchor pad as though a child has recklessly strewn his toys. Sundry valuables and interdicted items lie everywhere.
“30,000, 35,000 … 50,000 …”
Around him, Bangkok’s newly renovated airfield spreads in all directions, lit by high-intensity methane lamps mounted on mirror towers: a vast green-bathed expanse of anchor pads dotted with the massive balloons of the farang floating high overhead, and, at its edges, the thickly grown walls of HiGro Bamboo and spun barbed wire that are supposed to define the international boundaries of the field.
“60,000, 70,000, 80,000 …”
The Thai Kingdom is being swallowed. Jaidee idly surveys the wreckage his men have wrought, and it seems obvious. They are being swallowed by the ocean. Nearly every crate holds something of suspicion. But really, the crates are symbolic. The problem is ubiquitous: gray-market chemical baths are sold in Chatachuk Market and men pole their skiffs up the Chao Phraya in the dead of night with hulls full of next-gen pineapples. Pollen wafts down the peninsula in steady surges, bearing AgriGen and PurCal’s latest genetic rewrites, while cheshires molt through the garbage of the sois and jingjok2 lizards vandalize the eggs of nightjars and peafowl. Ivory beetles bore through the forests of Khao Yai even as cibiscosis sugars, blister rust, and fa’ gan fringe bore through the vegetables and huddled humanity of Krung Thep.
It is the ocean they all swim in. The very medium of life.
“90 …100,000 …110 …125 …”
Great minds like Premwadee Srisati and Apichat Kunikorn may argue over best practices for protection or debate the merits of UV sterilization barriers along the Kingdom’s borders versus the wisdom of pre-emptive genehack mutation, but in Jaidee’s view they are idealists. The ocean always flows through.
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