The Windup Girl (41 page)

Pai shakes his head.

"You took it to Ratana?"

He nods. "It wasn't tagged as a suspicious death. It took some effort to find. This is like looking for a silver minnow in the rice paddies."

"Not even tagged?" Kanya sucks in her breath, lets it out in an irritated hiss. "They're all incompetent. No one remembers how it always comes. They forget so quickly."

Pai nods easily, listening to his mistress rant. The pits and holes of his face stare back at her. Another worming disease. Kanya can't remember if it was a genehack weevil that did it, or a variation on
phii
bacteria. All Pai says is, "This makes two, then?"

"Three." Kanya pauses. "A name? Did the man have a name?"

Pai shakes his head. "They were careful."

Kanya nods sourly. "I want you to go around to the districts and see if anyone has reported any missing relatives. Three people missing. Get photos taken."

Pai shrugs.

"You have a better idea?"

"Perhaps forensics will find something to link them," he suggests.

"Yes, fine. Do that as well. Where is Ratana?"

"She has sent the body to the pits. She asks for you to meet her."

Kanya grimaces. "Of course." She tidies her papers and leaves Pai to his futile searches.

As she leaves the administrative building, she wonders what Jaidee would do in this situation. For him, inspiration came easily. Jaidee would stop in the middle of the road, struck suddenly by enlightenment, and then they would be off, running through the city, hunting for the source of contamination, and invariably, the man would be
right
. It sickens Kanya to think that the Kingdom must rely on her instead.

I am bought,
she thinks.
I am paid for. I am bought.

When she first arrived at the Environment Ministry as Akkarat's mole, it was a surprise to discover that the little privileges of the Environment Ministry were always enough. The weekly take from street stalls to burn something other than expensive approved-source methane. The pleasure of a night patrol spent sleeping well. It was an easy existence. Even under Jaidee, it was easy. And now by ill-luck she must work, and the work is important, and she has had two masters for so long that she cannot remember which one should be ascendant.

Someone else should have replaced you, Jaidee.
Someone worthy. The Kingdom falls because we are not strong. We are not virtuous, we do not follow the eightfold path and now the sicknesses come again.

And she is the one who must stand against them, like Phra Seub—but without the strength or moral compass.

Kanya strides across the quads, nodding at other officers, scowling.
Jaidee, what is it in your
kamma
that placed me second to you? That placed your life's work in my fickle hands?
What joker did this? Was this Phii Oun, the cheshire trickster spirit, happy to see more carrion and offal in the world? Happy to see our corpses piled high?

Ahead, men wearing filter masks jump to attention as they spy her pushing open the gates to the crematory grounds. She has a mask issued, but leaves it dangling around her neck. It does no good for an officer to show fear, and she knows the mask will not save her. She places more faith in a Phra Seub amulet.

The open dirt expanse of the pits lays before her, massive holes cut into the red earth, lined to keep out the seep of the water table that lies close below. Wet land, and yet the surface bakes in the heat. The dry season never ends. Will the monsoon even come this year? Will it save them or drown them? There are gamblers who bet on nothing else, changing the odds on the monsoon daily. But with the climate so much altered, even the Environment Ministry's own modelling computers are unsure of the monsoon from year to year.

Ratana stands at the edge of a pit. Oily smoke roils up from the burning bodies below. Overhead a few ravens and vultures circle. A dog has gotten into the compound and skulks along the walls, looking for scraps.

"How did that get in?" Kanya asks.

Ratana looks up and spies the dog. "Nature finds a way," she observes dully. "If we leave food, it will reach for it."

"You found another body?"

"Same symptoms." Ratana's body is slumped, her shoulders bowed inward. Below them, the fires crackle. A vulture sweeps low. A uniformed officer fires a cannon and the explosion sends the vulture screeching skyward again. It circles. Ratana closes her eyes briefly. Tears threaten at the corners of her eyes. She shakes her head, seeming to steel herself. Kanya watches sadly, wondering if either of them will be alive at the end of this newest plague.

"We should warn everyone," Ratana says. "Inform General Pracha. The palace as well."

"You're sure now?"

Ratana sighs. "It was in a different hospital. Across the city. A street clinic. They assumed it was
yaba
stick overdose. Pai found them by accident. A casual conversation on his way to Bangkok Mercy to look for evidence."

"By accident." Kanya shakes her head. "He didn't tell me that. How many could there be out there? Hundreds already? Thousands?"

"I don't know. The only good thing is that we haven't seen any sign that they themselves are contagious."

"Yet."

"You must go ask Gi Bu Sen for advice. He is the only one who knows what sort of monster we face. These are his children, coming to torment us. He will recognize them. I'm having the new samples prepared. Between the three, he will know. "

"There's no other way?"

"Our only other choice is to begin quarantining the city, and then the riots will begin and there will be nothing left to save."

* * *

Rice paddies sprawl in all directions, emerald green, bright and neon in the tropic sun. Kanya has been inside the sinkhole of
Krung Thep
for so long that it's a relief to see this growing world. It makes her imagine that there is hope. That the rice grasses will not wilt red under some new variant of blister rust. That some engineered spore will not float over from Burma and take root. Flooded fields still grow, the dikes still hold, and His Royal Majesty King Rama XII's pumps still move water.

Tattooed farmers make
wais
of respect as Kanya cycles past. By the stamps on their arms, most of them have already done corvée labor for the year. A few others are marked for the start of the rainy season when they will be required to come to the city and shore up its dikes for the deluge. Kanya has her own tattoos from her time in the countryside, before Akkarat's agents tasked her with this burrowing into the very heart of the Environment Ministry.

After an hour of steady pedalling down raised causeways, the compound materializes. First the wires. Then the men with their dogs. Then the walls topped with glass and razor wire and high bamboo stakes. Kanya keeps to the road, avoiding trip patches. Technically, it is simply the home of a wealthy man, perched atop an artificial hill of concrete and Expansion tower rubble.

Given the loss of life over the last century it is an impressive focusing of human labor for something so silly—when dikes need repairs and fields need sowing and wars need fighting—that a man was able to channel labor into the building of a hill. A rich man's retreat. It was originally Rama XII's, and officially it is still the property of the palace. From the vantage of a dirigible passing overhead, it is nothing. Just another compound. An extravagance for some branch of royalty. And yet, a wall is a wall, a tiger pit is a tiger pit, and men with dogs look both ways.

Kanya shows the guards her papers as mastiffs growl and lunge against their chains. The beasts are larger than any natural dog. Windups. Hungry and deadly and well-built for their work. They weigh twice what she does, all muscle and teeth. The horror of Gi Bu Sen's imagination, brought to life.

The guards unpattern encryptions with their hand-cranked code breakers. They wear the black livery of the Queen's own, and are frightening in their seriousness and efficiency. Finally they wave her past their dogs' straining teeth. Kanya cycles toward the gate, her neck prickling with the knowledge that she can never ride as fast as those dogs can run.

At the gates, another set of guards reconfirm her passes before guiding her inside to a tiled terrace, and a blue jewel swimming pool.

A trio of ladyboys titter and smile from where they lounge in the shade of a banana tree. Kanya smiles in return. They are pretty. And if they love a
farang
, then they are only foolish.

"I am Kip," one of them says. "The doctor is having his massage." She nods at the blue water. "You can wait for him by the pool."

The scent of the ocean is strong. Kanya walks to the edge of the terrace. Below her, waves lap and curl, scrubbing white across beach sands. A breeze pours over her, clean and fresh and astonishingly optimistic after the claustrophobic stink of Bangkok behind its seawalls.

She takes a deep breath, enjoying the salt and wind. A butterfly flutters past and alights on the terrace railing. Closes its jewel wings. Opens them gently. Folding itself over and over again, bright and cobalt and gold and black.

Kanya studies it, stricken by its beauty, the gaudy evidence of a world beyond her own. She wonders what hungers have driven it to fly to this alien mansion with its strange
farang
prisoner. Of all the things of beauty, here is one that cannot be denied. Nature has worked itself into a frenzy.

Kanya leans close, studying it as it clings to the rail. An unwary hand might brush it and grind it into dust without ever realizing the destruction.

She reaches out with a careful finger. The butterfly startles, then allows her to gather it in, to walk it into her cupped palm. It has come a long distance. It must be tired. As tired as she feels. It has travelled continents. Crossed high steppes and emerald jungles to land here, amongst hibiscus and paving stones, so that Kanya can now hold it in her hand and appreciate its beauty. Such a long way to travel.

Kanya makes a fist on its fluttering. Opens her hand and lets its dust drop to the tiles. Wing fragments and pulped body. A manufactured pollinator, wafted from some PurCal laboratory most likely.

Windups have no souls. But they are beautiful.

A splash comes from behind her. Kip is wearing a bathing suit now. She flickers under water, rises, pushing her long black hair back and smiling, before turning and beginning another lap. Kanya watches her swim, the graceful crawl of blue suit and brown limbs. A pretty girl. A pleasant creature to watch.

Eventually, the demon wheels out to the pool edge. He is much worse than when she last saw him.
Fa' gan
scars mark his throat and curl to his ear. An opportunistic infection that he fought off despite the doctor's prognosis. He is in a wheelchair, pushed by an attendant. A thin blanket covers his stick legs.

So his disease truly is progressing. For a long time, she thought it was only a myth, but now she can see. The man is ugly. Horrifying in his disease and his burning intensity. Kanya shivers. She'll be glad when the demon finally goes on to his next life. Becomes a corpse they can burn in quarantine. Until then, she hopes the drugs will continue to suppress his contagion. He is a crabbed hairy man with brushy eyebrows, a fat nose, and wide rubbery lips that break into a hyena grin when he sees Kanya.

"Ah. My jailer."

"Hardly."

Gibbons glances at Kip where she swims. "Just because you give me pretty girls with pretty mouths doesn't mean I am not jailed." He looks up. "So, Kanya, I haven't seen you in a while. Where is your upright lord and master? My most favorite keeper? Where is our fighting Captain Jaidee? I don't deal with subordinates—" He breaks off, studying Kanya's collar ranks. His eyes narrow. "Ah. I see." He leans back, regarding Kanya. "It was just a matter of time before someone disposed of him. Congratulations on your promotion, Captain."

Kanya forces herself to remain impassive. On her previous visits it was Jaidee who always treated with the devil. They went away into interior offices, leaving Kanya to wait beside the pool with whatever creature the doctor had chosen for his pleasure. When Jaidee returned, it was always with a purse-lipped silence.

On one occasion, as they left the compound, Jaidee had nearly spoken, had nearly said whatever was churning in his head. He opened his mouth and said, "But—" a protest that remained half-formed, dead as soon as it passed his lips.

Kanya had the impression that Jaidee was still carrying on a conversation, a verbal battle that pinged back and forth, like a
takraw
game. A war of words, flying and ricocheting, with Jaidee's skull as the playing court. On another occasion, Jaidee had simply left the compound with a scowl and the words, "He is too dangerous to keep."

Kanya had responded, confused. "But he does not work for AgriGen any longer," and Jaidee had looked at her surprised, only then realizing that he had spoken aloud.

The doctor was legendary. A demon to frighten children with. When Kanya first met him, she expected the man to be bound in chains, not sitting complacently and scooping out the guts of a
Koh Angrit
papaya, happy and grinning with juice running down his chin.

Kanya was never sure if it was guilt or some other strange driving force that had sent the doctor to the Kingdom. If the lure of ladyboys and his imminent death had caused it. If a falling out with his colleagues had driven him. The doctor seemed to have no regrets. No concerns over the damage he had inflicted in the world. Spoke jokingly of foiling Ravaita and Domingo. Of wrecking ten years' labor for Doctor Michael Ping.

A cheshire steals across the patio, breaking Kanya's thoughts. It leaps into the doctor's lap. Kanya steps back, disgusted, as the man scratches behind the cheshire's ears. It molts, legs and body changing hue, taking on the colors of the old man's quilt.

The doctor smiles. "Don't cling too tightly to what is natural, Captain. Here, look," he bends forward, makes cooing noises. The shimmer of the cheshire cranes toward his face, mewling. Its tortoiseshell fur glimmers. It licks tentatively at his chin. "A hungry little beast," he says. "A good thing, that. If it's hungry enough, it will succeed us entirely, unless we design a better predator. Something that hungers for it, in turn."