The Windup Girl

"No!" She slashes at him with her hand and he jerks back, touching his cheek.

"What the hell?!" He stares at her, shocked. Christ she was fast. He's hurting. His hand comes away bloody. "What the hell's wrong with you?"

The panicked animal flicker leaves her eyes. She stares at him blankly, and then seems to recover herself, becomes human. "I am sorry," she whispers. "So sorry." She collapses, curls into a ball under the water. "So sorry. So sorry." She lapses into Japanese.

Anderson squats down beside her, his own clothing becoming soaked in the spray. "Don't worry about it." He speaks gently. "Why don't you get out of those clothes? We'll get you something else. Okay? Can you do that?"

She nods dully. Peels off her jacket. Unwraps her pha sin. Huddles nude in the cool water. He leaves her in the spray. Takes her bloody clothes and bundles them into a sheet and carries them down the stair, out into the darkness. People are all around. He ignores them, walking quickly into the shadows, carrying the clothes until he reaches a khlong. Tosses the bloody garments into the water, where snakehead fish and boddhi carp will consume them with an obsessive determination. The water roils, splashing as they tear at the blood food scent.

By the time he's back in his apartment, Emiko is out of the shower, her black hair clinging to her face, a small frightened creature. He goes to his medicine supplies. Pours alcohol on the cuts, rubs antivirals in after. She doesn't cry out. Her nails are broken and ravaged. Bruises are blooming all across her body. But for all the blood she arrived with, she seems miraculously little damaged.

"What happened?" he asks gently.

She huddles against him. "I'm alone," she whispers. "There is no place for New People." Her shaking increases.

He pulls her to him, feeling the burning heat through her skin. "It's all right. Everything will change soon. It will be different."

She shakes her head. "No. I do not think so."

A moment later, she is asleep, breathing steadily, her body finally releasing its tension into unconsciousness.

* * *

Anderson wakes with a start. The crank fan has stopped, run out of joules. He's covered with sweat. Beside him Emiko moans and thrashes, a furnace. He rolls away and sits up.

A slight breeze from the sea runs through the apartment, a relief. He stares out through mosquito nets to the blackness of the city. All the methane has been shut off for the night. Off in the distance, he can see a few glimmers in the floating sea communities of Thonburi where they farm fish and float from one genehack to the next in a perpetual seeking of survival.

Someone pounds on his door. Hammering insistently.

Emiko's eyes snap open. She sits up. "What is it?"

"Someone's at the door." He starts to climb out of bed but she grabs him, ragged nails digging into his arm.

"Don't open it!" she whispers. Her skin is pale in the moonlight, her eyes wide and frightened. "Please." The banging on his door increases. Thudding, insistent.

"Why not?"

"I-" she pauses. "It will be white shirts."

"What?" Anderson's heart skips over. "They followed you here? Why? What happened to you?"

She shakes her head miserably. He stares at her, wondering what sort of animal has invaded his life. "What happened tonight, really?"

She doesn't answer. Her eyes remain locked on the door as the thumping continues. Anderson climbs out of bed and hurries to the door. Shouts, "Just a second! I'm getting dressed!"

"Anderson!" The voice from the far side of door is Carlyle's. "Open up! It's important!"

Anderson turns and looks pointedly at Emiko. "It's not white shirts. Now hide."

"No?" For a moment relief floods Emiko's features. But it disappears almost as quickly. She shakes her head. "You are mistaken."

Anderson glares at her. "Was it white shirts that you tangled with? Is that where you got those cuts?"

She shakes her head miserably, but says nothing, just huddles in a small defensive ball.

"Jesus and Noah." Anderson goes and pulls clothes out of his closet, tosses them at her, gifts that he bought her as tokens of his intoxication. "You might be ready to go public, but I'm not ready to be ruined. Get dressed. Hide in my closet."

She shakes her head again. Anderson tries to control his voice, to speak reasonably. It's as though he's talking to a block of wood. He kneels and takes her chin in his hands, turns her face to him.

"It's one of my business associates. It's not about you. But I still need you to hide until he goes away. Do you understand? You just need to hide for a little while. I want you to hide until he's gone. I don't want him to see us together. It might give him leverage."

Slowly, her eyes focus. The look of hypnotized fatalism fades. Carlyle bangs on the door again. Her eyes flick to the door, then back to Anderson. "It is white shirts," she whispers. "There are many of them out there. I can hear them." She suddenly seems to collect herself. "It will be white shirts. Hiding will do no good."