The Windup Girl (42 page)

"We've run the analysis of that," Kanya says. "The food web only unravels more completely. Another super-predator won't solve the damage already done."

Gibbons snorts. "The ecosystem unravelled when man first went a-seafaring. When we first lit fires on the broad savannas of Africa. We have only accelerated the phenomenon. The food web you talk about is nostalgia, nothing more. Nature." He makes a disgusted face. "
We
are nature. Our every tinkering is nature, our every biological striving. We are what we are, and the world is ours. We are its gods. Your only difficulty is your unwillingness to unleash your potential fully upon it."

"Like AgriGen? Like U Texas? Like RedStar HiGro?" Kanya shakes her head. "How many of us are dead because of
their
potential unleashed? Your calorie masters showed us what happens. People die."

"Everyone dies." The doctor waves a dismissal. "But you die now because you cling to the past. We should all be windups by now. It's easier to build a person impervious to blister rust than to protect an earlier version of the human creature. A generation from now, we could be well-suited for our new environment. Your children could be the beneficiaries. Yet you people refuse to adapt. You cling to some idea of a humanity that evolved in concert with your environment over millennia, and which you now, perversely, refuse to remain in lockstep with.

"Blister rust is our environment. Cibiscosis. Genehack weevil. Cheshires. They have adapted. Quibble as you like about whether they evolved naturally or not. Our environment has changed. If we wish to remain at the top of our food chain, we will evolve. Or we will refuse, and go the way of the dinosaurs and
Felis domesticus
. Evolve or die. It has always been nature's guiding principle, and yet you white shirts seek to stand in the way of inevitable change." He leans forward. "I want to shake you sometimes. If you would just let me, I could be your god and shape you to the Eden that beckons us."

"I'm Buddhist."

"And we all know windups have no souls." Gibbons grins. "No rebirth for them. They will have to find their own gods to protect them. Their own gods to pray for their dead." His grin widens. "Perhaps I will be that one, and your windup children will pray to me for salvation." His eyes twinkle. "I would like a few more worshippers, I must admit. Jaidee was like you. Always such a doubter. Not as bad as Grahamites, but still, not particularly satisfactory for a god."

Kanya makes a face. "When you die, we will burn you to ash and bury you in chlorine and lye and no one will remember you."

The doctor shrugs, unconcerned. "All gods must suffer." He leans back in his chair, smiling slyly. "So, would you like to burn me at the stake now? Or would you like to prostrate yourself before me, and worship my intelligence once again?"

Kanya hides her disgust at the man. Pulls out the bundle of papers and hands them across. The doctor takes them, but doesn't do anything else. Doesn't open them. Barely glances at them.

"Yes?"

"It's all in there," she says.

"You haven't knelt yet. You give more respect to your father, I'm sure. To the city pillar, for certain."

"My father is dead."

"And Bangkok will drown. It doesn't mean you shouldn't show respect."

Kanya fights the urge to take out her baton and club him.

Gibbons smiles at her resistance. "Shall we chat awhile then, first?" he asks. "Jaidee always liked to talk. No? I can see from your expression you despise me. You think I'm some murderer, perhaps? Some killer of children? You won't break bread with one such as me?"

"You
are
a killer."

"Your killer. Your tool entirely. What does that make you?" He watches her, amused. It feels to Kanya as if the man is using his eyes to carefully cut open her innards, lifting and examining each organ in turn: lungs, stomach, liver, heart. . .

Gibbons smiles slightly. "You want me dead." His pale mottled face splits into a wider grin, his eyes mad and intense. "You should shoot me if you hate me so." When Kanya doesn't respond, he throws up his hands in disgust. "Fuck me, you're all so shy! Kip's the only one of you who's worth a damn." His eyes turn to the girl where she swims, watches her, mesmerized for a moment. "Go ahead and kill me. I'd be happy to die. I'm only alive because you keep me this way."

"Not for much longer."

The doctor looks down at his paralyzed legs, laughs. "No. Not for long. And then what will you do when AgriGen and its ilk launch another assault? When spores float to you from Burma? When they wash up on the beach from India. Will you starve the way the Indians did? Will your flesh rot off you as it did for the Burmese? Your country only stays one step ahead of the plagues because of me, and my rotting mind." He waves at his legs. "Will you rot with me?" He pulls aside his blankets, shows the sores and scabs on his pale fishy legs, pasty with the loss of blood and weals of suppurating flesh. "Will you die like this?" He grins mirthlessly.

Kanya looks away. "You deserve it. It's your
kamma
. Your death will be painful."

"Karma? Did you say karma?" The doctor leans closer, brown eyes rolling, tongue lolling. "And what sort of karma is it that ties your entire country to me, to my rotting broken body? What sort of karma is it that behooves you to keep me, of all people, alive?" He grins. "I think a great deal about your karma. Perhaps it's your pride, your hubris that is being repaid, that forces you to lap seedstock from my hand. Or perhaps you're the vehicle of my enlightenment and salvation. Who knows? Perhaps I'll be reborn at the right hand of Buddha thanks to the kindnesses I do for you."

"That's not the way it works."

The doctor shrugs. "I don't care. Just give me another like Kip to fuck. Throw me another of your sickened lost souls. Throw me a windup. I don't care. I'll take what flesh you throw me. Just don't bother me. I'm beyond worrying about your rotting country now."

He tosses the papers into the pool. They scatter across the water. Kanya gasps, horrified, and nearly lunges after them before steeling herself and forcing herself to draw back. She will not allow Gibbons to bait her. This is the way of the calorie man. Always manipulating. Always testing. She forces herself to look away from the parchment slowly soaking in the pool and turn her eyes to him.

Gibbons smiles slightly. "Well? Are you going to swim for them or not?" He nods at Kip. "My little nymph will help you. I'd enjoy seeing you two little nymphs frolicking together."

Kanya shakes her head. "Get them out yourself."

"I always like it when an upright person such as yourself comes before me. A woman with pure convictions." He leans forward, eyes narrowed. "Someone with real qualifications to judge my work."

"You were a killer."

"I advanced my field. It wasn't my business what they did with my research. You have a spring gun. It's not the manufacturer's fault that you are likely unreliable. That you may at any time kill the wrong person. I built the tools of life. If people use them for their own ends, then that is their karma, not mine."

"AgriGen paid you well to think so."

"AgriGen paid me well to make them rich. My thoughts are my own." He studies Kanya. "I suppose you have a clean conscience. One of those upright Ministry officers. As pure as your uniform. As clean as sterilizer can make you." He leans forward. "Tell me, do you take bribes?"

Kanya opens her mouth to retort, but words fail her. She can almost feel Jaidee drifting close. Listening. Her skin prickles. She forces himself not to look over her shoulder.

Gibbons smiles. "Of course you do. All of your kind are the same. Corrupt from top to bottom."

Kanya's hand slides toward her pistol. The doctor watches, smiling. "What? Are you threatening to shoot me? Do you want a bribe from me as well? Would you like me to suck your cunt? To offer you my not-quite girl?" He stares at Kanya, hard-eyed. "You've taken my money already. My life is already shortened and full of pain. What else do you want? Why not take my girl?"

Kip looks up expectantly from the pool, treading water. Her body shimmers under the clear ripples of the waves. Kanya looks away. The doctor laughs. "Sorry, Kip. We don't have the bribes this one likes." His drums his fingers on his chair. "What about a young boy, then? There's a lovely twelve-year-old who works my kitchen. He would be happy to perform. The pleasure of a white shirt is always paramount."

Kanya glares at him. "I could break your bones."

"Do it then. But hurry up. I want a reason not to help you."

"Why did you help AgriGen for so long?"

The doctor's eyes narrow. "The same reason you run like a dog for
your
masters. They paid me in the coin I wanted most."

Her slap rings across the water. The guards start forward, but Kanya is already drawing back, shaking off the sting in her hand, waving away the guards. "We're fine. Nothing is wrong."

The guards pause, unsure of their duty and loyalties. The doctor touches his broken lip, examines the blood thoughtfully. Looks up. "A sore spot, there. . . How much of yourself have you already sold?" He smiles showing teeth rimed bloody from Kanya's strike. "Are you AgriGen's then? Complicit?" He looks into Kanya's eyes. "Are you here to kill me? To end my thorn in their side?" He watches closely, eyes peering into her soul, observant, curious. "It is only a matter of time. They must know that I am here. That I am yours. The Kingdom couldn't have fared so well for so long without me. Couldn't have released nightshades and
ngaw
without my help. We all know they are hunting. Are
you
my hunter, then? Are you my destiny?"

Kanya scowls. "Hardly. We're not done with you yet."

Gibbons slumps. "Ah, of course not. But then, you never will be. That is the nature of our beasts and plagues. They are not dumb machines to be driven about. They have their own needs and hungers. Their own evolutionary demands. They must mutate and adapt, and so you will never be done with me, and when I am gone, what will you do then? We have released demons upon the world, and your walls are only as good as my intellect. Nature has become something new. It is ours now, truly. And if our creation devours us, how poetic will that be?"

"Kamma,"
she murmurs.

"Precisely." Gibbons leans back, smiling. "Kip. Get the pages. Let us see what can be deciphered from this puzzle." He drums his fingers on his ruined legs, thoughtful. Smirks at Kanya. "Let us see how close to death your precious Kingdom lies."

Kip swims to collect the pages, rippling through the water as she gathers them to her, pulling them dripping and limp from the pool. A smile flickers across Gibbons' lips as he watches her swim. "You're lucky I like Kip. If I didn't, I would have let you all succumb years ago."

He nods to his guards. "The captain will have samples on her bicycle. Get them. We'll take them down into the lab."

Kip finally emerges from the pool and sets the sopping stack of papers on the doctor's lap. He motions and she begins pushing him toward the door of his villa. The doctor waves for Kanya to follow.

"Come on, then. This won't take long."

* * *

The doctor squints over one of the slides. "I'm surprised you think this is an inert mutation."

"Three cases, only."

The doctor looks up. "For now." He smiles. "Life is algorithmic. Two becomes four, becomes ten thousand, becomes a plague. Maybe it's everywhere in the population already and we never noticed. Maybe this is end-stage. Terminal without symptoms, like poor Kip."

Kanya glances at the ladyboy. Kip gives a gentle return smile. Nothing shows on her skin. Nothing shows on her body. It is not the doctor's disease she dies of. And yet. . . Kanya steps away, involuntarily.

The doctor grins. "Don't look so worried. You have the same sickness. Life is, after all, inevitably fatal." He looks into the microscope. "Not an indie genehack. Something else. Not a blister rust. Nothing of AgriGen's markings." Abruptly, he makes a face of disgust. "This is nothing interesting for me. Just a stupid mistake by some fool. Hardly worth my intellect at all."

"That's good, then?"

"An accidental plague kills just as surely."

"Is there a way to stop it?"

The doctor picks up a crust of bread. A greenish mold covers it. He eyes the stuff. "So many growing things are beneficial to us. And so many are deadly." He offers the piece of bread to Kanya. "Try it."

Kanya recoils. Gibbons grins and takes a bite. Offers it again. "Trust me."

Kanya shakes her head, forcing herself not to mouth superstitious prayers to Phra Seub for luck and cleanliness. She envisions the revered man sitting in a lotus, forces herself not to respond to the doctor's taunts, touches her amulets.

The doctor takes another bite. Grins as crumbs cascade down his chin. "If you take a bite, I'll guarantee you an answer."

"I wouldn't take anything from your hand."

The doctor laughs. "You already have. Every injection you took as a child. Every inoculation. Every booster since." He offers the bread. "This is just more direct. You'll be glad you did."

Kanya nods at the microscope. "What is that thing? Do you need to test it more?"

Gibbons shakes his head. "That? It's nothing. A stupid mutation. A standard outcome. We used to see them in our labs. Junk."

"Then why haven't we ever seen it before?"

Gibbons makes a face of impatience. "You don't culture death the way we do. You don't tinker with the building blocks of nature." Interest and passion flicker briefly in the old man's eyes. Mischief and predatory interests. "You have no idea what things we succeeded in creating in our labs. This stuff is hardly worth my time. I hoped you were bringing me a challenge. Something from Drs. Ping and Raymond. Or perhaps Mahmoud Sonthalia. Those are challenges." For a moment, his eyes lose their cynicism. He becomes entranced. "Ah. Now those are worthy opponents."

We are in the hands of a gamesman.

In a flash of insight, Kanya understands the doctor entirely. A fierce intellect. A man who reached the pinnacle of his field. A jealous and competitive man. A man who found his competition too lacking, and so switched sides and joined the Thai Kingdom for the stimulation it might provide. An intellectual exercise for him. As if Jaidee had decided to fight a
muay thai
match with his hands tied behind his back to see if he could win with kicks alone.