The Windup Girl(148)
With the wet season, Emiko's life becomes bearable. The flooded metropolis means that there is always water nearby, even if it is a stagnant bathtub stinking with the refuse of millions. Emiko locates a small skiff and uses it to navigate the city's wilderness. Rain pours down daily and she lets it bathe her, washing away everything that has come before.
She lives by scavenge and the hunt. She eats cheshires and catches fish with her bare hands. She is very quick. Her fingers flash down to spear a carp whenever she desires it. She eats well and sleeps easily, and with water all around, she does not so greatly fear the heat that burns within her. If it is not the place for New People that she once imagined, it is still a niche.
She decorates her apartment. She crosses the wide mouth of the Chao Phraya to investigate the Mishimoto factory where she had once been employed. It is shuttered, but she finds remnants of her past and collects some of them. Calligraphy torn and left behind, Raku chawan bowls.
A few times, she encounters people. Most of them are too occupied with their own problems of survival to bother with a tick-tock creature more glimpsed than seen, but there are a few who prey on a lone girl's perceived weakness. Emiko deals with them quickly, and with as much mercy as she knows how.
The days pass. She becomes comfortable entirely in her world of water and scavenge. She is so comfortable, in fact, that when the gaijin and the girl find her, scrubbing her laundry from atop a second-floor apartment rail, they surprise her utterly.
"And who is this?" a voice asks.
Emiko draws back, startled, and nearly falls from where she perches. She jumps down and darts splashing into the safety of the abandoned apartment's shadows.
The gaijin's boat bumps up against the rail. "Sawatdi khrap?" he calls. "Hello?"
He's old, mottled skin and bright intelligent eyes. The girl is lithe and brown with a soft smile. They both lean against the balcony railing, peering into the dimness from their boat. "Don't run away little thing," the old man says. "We are quite harmless. I can't walk at all, and Kip here is a gentle soul."
Emiko waits. They don't give up, though. Just continue to peer in at her.
"Please?" the girl calls.
Against her better judgment, Emiko steps out, wading carefully in the ankle-deep water. It has been a long time since she has spoken with a person.
"Heechy-keechy," the girl breathes.
The old gaijin smiles at the words. "New People, they call themselves." His eyes contain no judgment. He holds up a limp pair of cheshires. "Would you like to dine with us, young lady?"
Emiko motions toward the balcony rail where she has tethered her own day's catch just under water. "I do not need your help."
The man looks down at the string of fish, then up at her with new respect. "I suppose you don't. Not if your design is the one I know." He invites her closer. "You live near here?"
She points upstairs.
"Lovely real estate. Perhaps we could dine with you this evening. If cheshire is not to your taste, we would certainly enjoy a bite of fish."
Emiko shrugs, but she is lonely and the man and girl seem harmless. As night falls, they light a fire of kindled furniture on her apartment's balcony and roast the fish. Stars show through gaps in the clouds. The city stretches before them, black and tangled. When they are finished eating, the old gaijin drags his wounded body closer to the fire while the girl attends him.
"Tell me, what is a windup girl doing here?"
Emiko shrugs. "I was left behind."
"Ourselves, as well." The old man exchanges smiles with his friend. "Though I think our vacation will be ending soon. It seems we are to return to the pleasures of calorie detente and genetic warfare, so I think that the white shirts will once again have uses for me." He laughs at that.
"Are you a generipper?" Emiko asks.
"More than just that, I hope."
"You said you know about my… platform?"
The man smiles. He beckons his girl over to him and runs his hand idly up her leg as he studies Emiko. Emiko realizes that the girl is not entirely what she seems; she is boy and girl, together. The girl smiles at Emiko, seeming to sense her thoughts.
"I have read about your kind," the old man says. "About your genetics. Your training…
"Stand up!" he barks.
Emiko is standing before she knows it. Standing and shaking with fear and the urge to obey.
The man shakes his head. "It's a hard thing they have done to you."
Emiko blazes with anger. "They also made me strong. I can hurt you."
"Yes. That's true." He nods. "They took shortcuts. Your training masks that, but the shortcuts are there. Your obedience… I don't know where they got that. A Labrador of some sort, I suspect." He shrugs. "Still, you are better than human in almost all other ways. Faster, smarter, better eyesight, better hearing. You are obedient, but you don't catch diseases like mine." He waves at his scarred and oozing legs. "You're lucky enough."
Emiko stares at him. "You are one of the scientists who made me."
"Not the same, but close enough." He smiles slightly. "I know your secrets, just as I know the secrets of megodonts and TotalNutrient wheat." He nods at his dead cheshires. "I know everything about these felines here. If I cared enough, I might even be able to drop a genetic bomb in them that would strip away their camouflage and over the course of generations turn them back into their less successful version."