The Windup Girl(93)

The computers down here all have large screens. Some of them are models that haven't existed in fifty years and burn more energy than five new ones, but they do their work and in return are meticulously maintained. Still, the amount of power burning through them makes Kanya weak in the knees. She can almost see the ocean rising in response. It's a horrifying thing to stand beside.

"Thank you for coming," Ratana says.

"Of course I came."

No mention of earlier trysts. No mention of shared history, gone awry. That Kanya could not play tom and dee with one she would inevitably betray. That was too much hypocrisy, even for Kanya. And yet Ratana is still beautiful. Kanya remembers laughing with her, taking a skiff out across the Chao Phraya and watching paper boats glowing all around them during Loi Kratong. Remembers the feel of Ratana curled against her as the waves lapped and as thousands of little candles burned, the city's wishes and prayers blanketing the waters.

Ratana motions her over. Shows her a set of photos on her screen. She catches sight of Kanya's captain's tags on her white collar. "I'm sorry about Jaidee. He was… good."

Kanya grimaces, trying to shake off the memory of his phii in the halls outside. "He was better than that." She studies the bodies that glow in front of her. "What am I seeing?"

"Two men. From two different hospitals."

"Yes?"

"They had something in them. Something worrisome. It seems to be a variant of blister rust."

"Yes? And? They ate something tainted. They died. So?"

Ratana shakes her head. "It was hosted in them. Propagating. I've never seen it host itself in a mammal."

Kanya looks over the hospital records. "Who are they?"

"We don't know."

"No family visited them? No one saw them arrive? They didn't say?"

"One was incoherent when he was admitted. The other was already deep into blister rust collapse."

"You're sure they didn't just eat tainted fruit?"

Ratana shrugs. Her skin is smooth and pale from a life underground. Not like Kanya whose skin has darkened like a peasant's in the harsh sun of active patrol. And yet Kanya would always choose to work above ground, not down here, in the darkness. Ratana is the brave one. Kanya is sure of it. She wonders what personal demons have driven Ratana to work in this hellish place. When they were together, Ratana never talked about her past. About her losses. But they are there. They have to be, like rocks under the waves and froth of a coastline. There are always rocks.

"No, of course I'm not sure. Not one hundred percent."

"Fifty percent?"

She shrugs again, uncomfortable, goes back to her papers. "You know I can't make assertions like that. But the virus is different, the protein alterations in their samples are variants. The breakdown of the tissue doesn't match the standard fingerprint of blister rust. In testing, it conforms to blister rusts we've seen before. AgriGen and TotalNutrient variations, AG134.s and TN249.x.d Both of them offer strong similarities." She pauses.

"Yes?"

"But it was in the lungs."

"Cibiscosis, then."

"No. It was blister rust." Ratana looks at Kanya. "You see the problem?"

"And we know nothing about their history, their travel? Were they abroad maybe? On a clipper ship? Crossing into Burma. Over into South China? They're not from the same village, perhaps?"

Ratana shrugs. "We have no history for either of them. Just the sickness to link them. We used to have a population database with DNA records, family history, work and housing data, but they were taken offline to provide more processing power for pre-emptive research." She shrugs. "In any case, so few people were bothering to register, it didn't make any sense."

"So we have nothing. Any other cases?"

"No."

"You mean not so far."

"This is beyond me here. We only noticed it because of the crackdowns. The hospitals are reporting everything, far more than they normally do, just to show that they're compliant. It was an accident that they reported and another that I noticed it in all the other reports that are coming in. We need Gi Bu Sen's help."

Kanya's skin crawls. "Jaidee's dead. Gi Bu Sen won't help us now."

"Sometimes he takes an interest. Not just in his own research. With this, it's possible." She looks up at Kanya, hopeful. "You went with Jaidee before. You saw him convince the man. Perhaps he will take an interest in you, too?"

"It's doubtful."

"Look at this." Ratana shuffles through the medical charts. "It has the markings of an engineered virus. DNA shifts don't look like ones that would reproduce in the wild. Blister rust has no reason to jump the animal kingdom barrier. Nothing is encouraging it, it is not easily transferred. The differences are marked. It's as though we're looking into its future. At what it will be like after being reborn 10,000 times. It's a true puzzle. And truly worrisome."

"If you're right, we're all dead. General Pracha will have to be briefed. The palace told."

"Quietly," Ratana begs. She reaches out, grasps Kanya's sleeve, her face anguished. "I could still be wrong."

"You aren't."