Paolo Bacigalupi - The Windup Girl

Anderson returns to the paperwork. Tax forms here. Paychecks there. The workers cost twice as much as they should. Another problem of dealing with the Kingdom. Thai workers for Thai jobs. Yellow card refugees from Malaya are starving in the street, and he can't hire them. By rights, Hock Seng should be out in the job lines starving with all the other survivors of the Incident. Without his specialized skills in language and accountancy and Yates' indulgence, he would be starving.

Anderson pauses on a new envelope. It's posted to him, personally, but true to form the seal is broken. Hock Seng has a hard time respecting the sanctity of other people's mail. They've discussed the problem repeatedly, but still the old man makes "mistakes."

Inside the envelope, Anderson finds a small invitation card. Raleigh, proposing a meeting.

Anderson taps the invitation card against his desk, thoughtful. Raleigh. Flotsam of the old Expansion. An ancient piece of driftwood left at high tide, from the time when petroleum was cheap and men and women crossed the globe in hours instead of weeks.

When the last of the jumbo jets rumbled off the flooded runways of Suvarnabhumi, Raleigh stood knee-deep in rising seawater and watched them flee. He squatted with his girlfriends and then outlived them and then claimed new ones, forging a life of lemongrass and baht and fine opium. If his stories are to be believed, he has survived coups and counter-coups, calorie plagues and starvation. These days, the old man squats like a liver-spotted toad in his Ploenchit "club," smiling in self-satisfaction as he instructs newly arrived foreigners in the lost arts of pre-Contraction debauch.

Anderson tosses the card on the desk. Whatever the old man's intentions, the invitation is innocuous enough. Raleigh hasn't lived this long in the Kingdom without developing a certain paranoia of his own. Anderson smiles slightly, glancing up at Hock Seng. The two would make a fine pair: two uprooted souls, two men far from their homelands, each of them surviving by their wits and paranoia…

"If you are doing nothing other than watching me work," Hock Seng says, "the Megodont Union is requesting a renegotiation of their rates."

Anderson regards the expenses piled on his desk. "I doubt they're so polite."

Hock Seng's pen pauses. "The Thai are always polite. Even when they threaten."

The megodont on the floor below screams again.

Anderson gives Hock Seng a significant look. "I guess that gives you a bargaining chip when it comes to getting rid of the Number Four mahout . Hell, maybe I just won't pay them anything at all until they get rid of that bastard."

"The union is powerful."

Another scream shakes the factory, making Anderson flinch. "And stupid!" He glances toward the observation windows. "What the hell are they doing to that animal?" He motions at Hock Seng. "Go check on them."

Hock Seng looks as if he will argue, but Anderson fixes him with a glare. The old man gets to his feet.

A resounding trumpet of protest interrupts whatever complaint the old man is about to voice. The observation windows rattle violently.

"What the-"

Another trumpeted wail shakes the building, followed by a mechanical shriek: the power train, seizing. Anderson lurches out of his chair and runs for the window but Hock Seng reaches it ahead of him. The old man stares through the glass, mouth agape.

Yellow eyes the size of dinner plates rise level with the observation window. The megodont is up on its hind legs, swaying. The beast's four tusks have been sawn off for safety, but it is still a monster, fifteen feet at the shoulder, ten tons of muscle and rage, balanced on its hind legs. It pulls against the chains that bind it to the winding spindle. Its trunk lifts, exposing a cavernous maw. Anderson jams his hands over his ears.

The megodont's scream hammers through the glass. Anderson collapses to his knees, stunned. "Christ!" His ears are ringing. "Where's that mahout?"

Hock Seng shakes his head. Anderson isn't even sure the man has heard. Sounds in his own ears are muffled and distant. He staggers to the door and yanks it open just as the megodont crashes down on Spindle Four. The power spindle shatters. Teak shards spray in all directions. Anderson flinches as splinters fly past and his skin burns with needle slashes.

Down below, the mahouts are frantically unchaining their beasts and dragging them away from the maddened animal, shouting encouragement, forcing their will on the elephantine creatures. The megodonts shake their heads and groan protest, tugging against their training, overwhelmed by the instinctual urge to aid their cousin. The rest of the Thai workers are fleeing for the safety of the street.

The maddened megodont launches another attack on its winding spindle. Spokes shatter. The mahout who should have controlled the beast is a mash of blood and bone on the floor.

Anderson ducks back into his office. He dodges around empty desks and jumps another, sliding over its surface to land before the company's safes.

His fingers slip as he spins combination dials. Sweat drips in his eyes. 23-right. 106-left… His hand moves to the next dial as he prays that he won't screw up the pattern and have to start again. More wood shatters out on the factory floor, accompanied by the screams of someone who got too close.

Hock Seng appears at his elbow, crowding.

Anderson waves the old man away. "Tell the people to get out of here! Clear everyone out! I want everyone out!"

Hock Seng nods but lingers as Anderson continues to struggle with the combinations.

Anderson glares at him. "Go!"

Hock Seng ducks acquiescence and runs for the door, calling out, his voice lost in the screams of fleeing workers and shattering hardwoods. Anderson spins the last of the dials and yanks the safe open: papers, stacks of colorful money, eyes-only records, a compression rifle… a spring pistol.

Yates.

He grimaces. The old bastard seems to be everywhere today, as if his phii is riding on Anderson's shoulder. Anderson pumps the handgun's spring and stuffs it in his belt. He pulls out the compression rifle. Checks its load as another scream echoes behind. At least Yates prepared for this. The bastard was naïve, but he wasn't stupid. Anderson pumps the rifle and strides for the door.

Down on the manufacturing floor, blood splashes the drive systems and QA lines. It's difficult to see who has died. More than just the one mahout. The sweet stink of human offal permeates the air. Gut streamers decorate the megodont's circuit around its spindle. The animal rises again, a mountain of genetically engineered muscle, fighting against the last of its bonds.

Anderson levels his rifle. At the edge of his vision, another megodont rises onto its hind legs, trumpeting sympathy. The mahouts are losing control. He forces himself to ignore the expanding mayhem and puts his eye to the scope.

His rifle's crosshairs sweep across a rusty wall of wrinkled flesh. Magnified with the scope, the beast is so vast he can't miss. He switches the rifle to full automatic, exhales, and lets the gas chamber unleash.

A haze of darts leaps from the rifle. Blaze orange dots pepper the megodont's skin, marking hits. Toxins concentrated from AgriGen research on wasp venom pump through the animal's body, gunning for its central nervous system.

Anderson lowers the rifle. Without the scope's magnification, he can barely make out the scattered darts on the beast's skin. In another few moments it will be dead.

The megodont wheels and fixes its attention on Anderson, eyes flickering with Pleistocene rage. Despite himself, Anderson is impressed by the animal's intelligence. It's almost as if the animal knows what he has done.