The Windup Girl (32 page)

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 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.