The Windup Girl(45)

"Look, Akkarat has some experience with these matters. The white shirts have created a number of enemies. And not just farang. All our project requires is a bit of help gathering momentum." He takes a sip of his whiskey, considers the taste for a moment before setting the glass down. "The consequences would be quite favorable for us if it succeeds." He locks eyes with Anderson. "Quite favorable for you. For your friends in the Midwest."

"What do you get out of it?"

"Trade, of course." Carlyle grins. "If the Thais face outward instead of living in this absurd defensive crouch of theirs, my company expands. It's just good business. I can't imagine that your people enjoy cooling their heels on Koh Angrit, begging to be allowed to sell a few tons of U-Tex or SoyPRO to the Kingdom when there's a crop failure. You could have free trade, instead of sitting out on that quarantine island. I'd think that would be attractive to you. It certainly would benefit me."

Anderson studies Carlyle, trying to decide how much to trust the man. For two years they have drunk together, have whored occasionally, have closed shipping contracts on a handshake, but Anderson knows only a little about him. The home office has a portfolio, but it's thin. Anderson mulls. The seedbank is out there, waiting. With a pliable government…

"Which generals are backing you?"

Carlyle laughs. "If I told you that, you'd just think I was foolish and unable to keep secrets."

The man is all talk, Anderson decides. He'll have to make sure Carlyle disappears, soon, quietly, before his cover gets blown. "It sounds interesting. Maybe we should meet to talk a little more about our mutual goals."

Carlyle opens his mouth to respond then pauses, studying Anderson. He smiles and shakes his head. "Oh no. You don't believe me." He shrugs. "Fair enough. Just wait then. In two days time, I think you'll be more impressed. We'll talk then." He looks significantly at Anderson. "And we'll talk at a place of my choosing." He finishes his drink.

"Why wait? What's going to change between now and then?"

Carlyle settles his hat on his head and smiles. "Everything, my dear farang. Everything."

9

Emiko wakes to afternoon swelter. She stretches, breathing shallowly in the oven bake of her five-by.

There is a place for windups. The knowledge tingles within her. A reason to live.

She presses a hand up against the WeatherAll planks that divide her sleeping slot from the one above. Touching the knots. Thinking of the last time she felt so content. Remembering Japan and the luxuries that Gendo-sama bequeathed: her own flat; climate control that blew cool through humid summer days; dangan fish that glowed and changed colors like chameleons, iridescent and changeable dependent on their speed: blue slow fish, red fast ones. She used to tap the glass of their tank and watch them streak red through dark waters, their windup nature in brightest bloom.

She, too, used to glow brightly. She was built well. Trained well. Knew the ways of pillow companion, secretary, translator and observer, services for her master that she performed so admirably that he honored her like a dove, and released her into the bright blue arc of the sky. She had been so honored.

The WeatherAll knots stare down at her, the only decoration on the divider that separates her sleeping slot from the one above and keeps the garbage of her neighbors from raining down. Linseed reek billows off the wood, nauseating in the five-by's hot confines. In Japan there were rules about using such wood for human habitation. Here in the tower slums, no one cares.

Emiko's lungs burn. She breathes shallowly, listening to the grunt and snore of the other bodies. No sound filters down from the slot above. Puenthai must not be back. Otherwise, she would have suffered already, would have been kicked or f**ked by now. It's not often that she survives a whole day without abuse. Puenthai is not yet home. Perhaps he is dead. The fa' gan fringe on his neck was certainly thick enough the last time she saw him.

She squirms out of her slot and straightens in the narrow gap between the five-by and the door. Stretches again, then reaches in and fumbles for her plastic bottle, yellowed and thinned with age. Drinks blood-warm water. She swallows convulsively, wishing she had ice.

Two flights up, a splintered door gives way and she spills out onto the roof. Sunlight and heat envelop her. Even with the sun hammering down, it is cooler than her five-by.

All around her, clotheslines draped with rustling pha sin and trousers rustle in the sea breeze. The sun is sinking, glistening from the tips of wats and chedi. The water of the khlongs and the Chao Phraya glistens. Kink-spring skiffs and trimaran clipper ships glide across red mirrors.

To the north, the distance is lost in the orange haze of dung burn and humidity, but somewhere out there, if the pale scarred farang is to be believed, windups dwell. Somewhere beyond the armies that war for shares of coal and jade and opium, her own lost tribe awaits her. She was never Japanese; she was only ever a windup. And now her true clan awaits her, if only she can find a way.

She stares north a moment longer, hungering, then goes to the bucket she stowed the night before. There is no water on the upper levels, no pressure to reach so high, and she cannot risk bathing at the public pumps-so every night she struggles up the stairs with her water bucket, and leaves it here in anticipation of the day.

In the privacy of the open air and the setting sun, she bathes. It is a ritual process, a careful cleansing. The bucket of water, a fingerling of soap. She squats beside the bucket and ladles the warm water over herself. It is a precise thing, a scripted act as deliberate as Jo No Mai, each move choreographed, a worship of scarcity.