The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi Page B

people's remover of obstacles, to every god he knows. He leans on the handle.

    One thousand jin of steel push back, every molecule resisting his pressure.

    Hock Seng lets out his breath and steps back, forcing down his disappointment.

    Patience. Every safe has a key. If Mr. Yates had not been so incompetent, if he had not somehow angered the investors, he would have been the perfect key. Now it must be Mr. Lake instead.

    When Mr. Yates installed the safe, he joked that he had to keep the family jewels safe, and laughed. Hock Seng had made himself nod and wai and smile, but all he could think about was how valuable the blueprints were, and how stupid he had been not to copy faster, when they had been easily available.

    And now Yates is gone, and in his place a new devil. A devil truly. Blue-eyed and gold-haired and hard-edged where Yates was soft. This dangerous creature who double-checks everything Hock Seng does and makes everything so much harder, and who must somehow be convinced to give up the secrets of his company. Hock Seng purses his lips. Patience. You must be patient. Eventually the foreign devil will make a mistake.

    "Hock Seng!"

    Hock Seng goes to the door and waves down to Mr. Lake, acknowledging the summons, but instead of going downstairs immediately, he goes to his shrine.

    He prostrates himself before the image of Kuan Yin and begs that she will have mercy on him and his ancestors. That she will give him a chance to redeem himself and his family. Beneath the golden character for good fortune, suspended upside down so that it will gush down upon him, Hock Seng places U-Tex rice and cuts open a blood orange. The juice runs down his arm; a ripe one, clean of contamination, and expensive. One cannot cut too close to the bone with gods; they like the fat, not the lean. He lights incense.

    As smoke streams into the still air, filling the office once again, Hock Seng prays. He prays that the factory will not close, and that his bribes will bring the new line equipment through the bamboo curtain without difficulty. That the foreign devil Mr. Lake will lose his head and trust him too much, and that the cursed safe will open and reveal its secrets to him.

    Hock Seng prays for luck. Even an old Chinese yellow card needs luck.

    3

    Emiko sips whiskey, wishing she were drunk, and waits for the signal from Kannika that it is time for her humiliation. A part of her still struggles against it but the rest of her—the part that sits with her midriff-baring mini-jacket and tight pha sin skirt and a glass of whiskey in her hand—doesn't have the energy to fight.

    And then she wonders if she has it backwards, if the part that struggles to maintain her illusions of self-respect is the part intent upon her destruction. If her body, this collection of cells and manipulated DNA—with its own stronger, more practical needs—is actually the survivor: the one with will.

    Isn't that why she sits here, listening to the throb of beating sticks and the wail of pi klang as girls writhe under glow worms and men and whores shout their encouragement? Is it because she lacks the will to die? Or because she is too stubborn to allow it?

    Raleigh says that all things come in cycles, like the rise and fall of the tides along the beaches of Koh Samet, or the rise and fall of a man's prick when he has a pretty girl. Raleigh slaps his girls on their bare bottoms and laughs at the jokes of the new wave gaijin and tells Emiko that whatever they want to do with her, money is money, and nothing is new under the sun. And perhaps he is right. Nothing that Raleigh demands has not been demanded before. Nothing that Kannika conceives to hurt her and make her cry out is truly different. Except that she draws cries and moans from a windup girl. This, at least, is novelty.

    Look! She is almost human!

    Gendo-sama used to say that she was more than human. He used to stroke her black hair after they had made love and say that he thought it a pity