The Windup Girl

Emiko tries to distance herself from what is about to happen. She is trained to be clinical about such things. The crèche in which she was created and trained had no illusions about the many uses a New Person might be put to, even a refined one. New People serve and do not question. She moves toward the stage with the careful steps of a fine courtesan, stylized and deliberate movements, refined over decades to accommodate her genetic heritage, to emphasize her beauty and her difference. But it is wasted on the crowd. All they see are stutter-stop motions. A joke. An alien toy. A windup.

They have her strip off her clothes.

Kannika flicks water onto her oiled skin. Emiko glistens with water jewels. Her nipples harden. The glow worms twist and writhe overhead, sending out phosphorescent mating light. The men laugh at her. Kannika slaps her hip and makes her bow. Slaps her ass hard enough to burn, tells her to bow lower, to make obeisance to these small men who imagine themselves to be the vanguard of some new Expansion.

The men laugh and wave and point and order more whiskey. Raleigh grins from his place in the corner, the fond elder uncle, happy to teach these newcomers-these small corporate men and women high on fantasies of multinational profiteering-the ways of the old world. Kannika motions that Emiko should kneel.

A black-bearded gaijin with the deep tan of a clipper ship sailor watches from inches away. Emiko meets the man's eyes. He stares intently, as if he is examining an insect under a magnifying class: fascinated, and yet also repulsed. She has the urge to snap at him, to try to force him to look at her, to see her instead of simply evaluating her as a piece of genetic trash. But instead she bows and knocks her head against the teak stage in subservience while Kannika speaks in Thai and tells them Emiko's life story. That she was once a rich Japanese plaything. That she is theirs now: a toy for them to play with, to break even.

And then she grabs Emiko's hair and yanks her up. Emiko gasps as her body arches. She catches a glimpse of the bearded man staring in surprise at the sudden violent gesture, at her abasement. A flash of the crowd. The ceiling with its glow worm cages. Kannika drags her further back, bending her like willow, forcing her to thrust her breasts out to the crowd, to arch further still, to spread her thighs as she struggles not to topple sideways. Her head touches the teak of the stage. Her body forms a perfect arc. Kannika says something and the crowd laughs. The pain in Emiko's back and neck is extreme. She can feel the crowd's eyes on her, a physical thing, molesting her. She is utterly exposed.

Liquid gushes over her.

She tries to rise, but Kannika presses her down and dumps more beer in her face. Emiko gags and splutters, drowning. Finally Kannika releases her and Emiko jerks upright, coughing. Liquid foams down her chin, spills down her neck and breasts, trickles to her crotch.

Everyone is laughing. Saeng is already offering the bearded man a fresh beer, and he is grinning and tipping Saeng and everyone is laughing at how Emiko's body twitches and jerks now that she is in a panic, coughing the liquid from her lungs. She is nothing but a silly marionette creature now, all stutter-stop motion-herky-jerky heechy-keechy-with no trace of the stylized grace that her mistress Mizumi-sensei trained into her when she was a girl in the crèche. There is no elegance or care to her movements now; the telltales of her DNA are violently present for all to see and mock.

Emiko continues coughing, almost retching at the beer in her lungs. Her limbs twitch and flail, giving everyone a chance to see her true nature. Finally she gets a full breath. Controls her flailing movements. She reverts to stillness, kneeling, waiting for the next assault.

In Japan she was a wonder. Here, she is nothing but a windup. The men laugh at her strange gait and make faces of disgust that she exists at all. She is a creature forbidden to them. The Thai men would happily mulch her in their methane composting pools. If they met her or an AgriGen calorie man, it is hard to say which they would rather see mulched first. And then there are the gaijin. She wonders how many of them claim membership in the Grahamite Church, dedicated to destroying everything that she represents: her affront to niche and nature. And yet they sit contentedly and enjoy this humiliation of her even still.

Kannika grabs her again. She has disrobed now and has a jadeite cock in her hands. She shoves Emiko down, pushing her onto her back. "Hold her hands," she says, and the men reach out eagerly, grip her wrists.

Kannika pries her legs wide and then Emiko cries out as Kannika takes her. Emiko turns her face aside, waiting out the assault, but Kannika sees her avoidance. She pinches Emiko's face in one hand and forces her to show her features so that the men can see the effect of Kannika's ministrations.