"So we have nothing. Any other cases?"

"No."

"You mean not so far."

"This is beyond me here. We only noticed it because of the crackdowns. The hospitals are reporting everything, far more than they normally do, just to show that they're compliant. It was an accident that they reported and another that I noticed it in all the other reports that are coming in. We need Gi Bu Sen's help."

Kanya's skin crawls. "Jaidee's dead. Gi Bu Sen won't help us now."

"Sometimes he takes an interest. Not just in his own research. With this, it's possible." She looks up at Kanya, hopeful. "You went with Jaidee before. You saw him convince the man. Perhaps he will take an interest in you, too?"

"It's doubtful."

"Look at this." Ratana shuffles through the medical charts. "It has the markings of an engineered virus. DNA shifts don't look like ones that would reproduce in the wild. Blister rust has no reason to jump the animal kingdom barrier. Nothing is encouraging it, it is not easily transferred. The differences are marked. It's as though we're looking into its future. At what it will be like after being reborn 10,000 times. It's a true puzzle. And truly worrisome."

"If you're right, we're all dead. General Pracha will have to be briefed. The palace told."

"Quietly," Ratana begs. She reaches out, grasps Kanya's sleeve, her face anguished. "I could still be wrong."

"You aren't."

"I don't know that it can jump, or how readily. I want you to go to Gi Bu Sen. He will know."

Kanya makes a face. "All right. I'll try. In the meantime, put out word to the hospitals and street clinics to look out for more symptoms. Draw up a list. With everyone already worried about crackdowns, it won't even look suspicious for us to demand more information from them. They'll think we're just trying to keep them on their toes. That will tell us something, at least."

"There will be riots if I'm right."

"There will be worse than that." Kanya turns for the door, feeling sick. "When your tests are done and your data is ready for him to examine, I'll meet your devil." She makes a face of distaste. "You'll have your confirmations."

"Kanya?"

She turns.

"I'm truly sorry about Jaidee," Ratana says. "I know you were close."

Kanya grimaces. "He was a tiger." She pulls open the door, leaving Ratana to her demon's lair. An entire facility dedicated to the Kingdom's survival, kilowatts of power burning all day and all night, and none of it of any real use.

25

Anderson-sama appears without warning, sitting down on a bar stool beside her, ordering water with ice for her and a whiskey for himself. He doesn't smile at her, hardly acknowledges her at all but still Emiko feels a rush of gratitude.

For the last several days she has hidden in the bar, waiting for the moment when the white shirts will decide to mulch her. She exists on sufferance and astronomical bribes and now she knows as Raleigh looks at her that it is unlikely he will let her go. He has too much invested in her now to allow her departure.

And then Anderson-sama appears, and for a moment, she feels safe, feels as though she is back in the arms of Gendo-sama. She knows it is her training that does this and yet she cannot help it. She smiles when she sees him sitting beside her, under the phosphorescent light of glow worms, his gaijin features so strange amongst the sea of Thais and the few Japanese men who know of her existence.

As is proper, he does not acknowledge her existence, but he stands and goes over to Raleigh and she knows that as soon as her performance is done, that she will sleep safe tonight. For once since the crackdown, she will not live in fear of the white shirts.

She is surprised when Raleigh comes over immediately. "Looks like you're doing something right. The farang wants to fine you out early."

"No show tonight?"

Raleigh shrugs. "He paid."

Emiko feels a rush of relief. She hurries to ready herself and then she's slipping down the stairs. Raleigh has arranged that the white shirts will only come and raid at specific times, and so she has assurance that within the confines of Ploenchit she can do as she likes. Nevertheless she is cautious. There were three raids early on, before the new patterns were settled. A number of owners spat blood before a new detente was agreed upon. Not Raleigh though. Raleigh seems to have a supernatural understanding of the workings of enforcement and bureaucracy.

Outside Ploenchit, Anderson is waiting in his rickshaw, smelling of whiskey and tobacco, his face rough with evening stubble. She leans against him. "I hoped you would come."

"I'm sorry it took so long. Things are a bit unsettled for me."

"I missed you." She is surprised to find that it is true.

They ease through the night traffic, past shambling shadow megodonts and cheshire flickers, past burning candles and sleeping families. They pass white shirt uniforms patrolling, but the officers are busy checking a vegetable stall. The green illumination of the gas lights flickers over them.

"Are you all right?" He nods at the white shirts. "Is the Ministry raiding?"

"It was bad at first. But now it is better."

There was panic during the first raids, as the white shirts stormed up the stairwells rousting mama-sans, shutting off pirate methane taps, swinging their batons. Ladyboys screaming, owners rushing to find more cash and then falling under the clubs when they failed to bribe their way free. Emiko had huddled amongst the other girls, still as a statue as the white shirts stalked the bar, pointing out problems, threatening to beat them all until they couldn't earn. Not a trace of good humor in them, only anger at the loss of their Tiger, only an urge to teach lessons to everyone who had ever laughed at white shirt rules.

Terror. Nearly pissing herself as she held still amongst the girls, sure that Kannika would shove her out and reveal her, that she would choose this moment to effect Emiko's demise.

Raleigh, performing careful obeisances to all of them, a farce for some of the regular takers of his bribes, some of them even looking directly at her-Suttipong and Addilek and Thanachai-all of them fully aware of her and her role in the place, having gone so far as to sample her even, and all of them staring at her, trying to decide if they would "discover" her. Everyone playing their roles, and Emiko waiting for Kannika to break the charade, to force everyone to look at the windup girl that had been so lucrative a source for bribes.

Emiko shivers at the memory. "It is better now," she says again.

Anderson-sama nods.

Their rickshaw stops in front of his building. He climbs down first, checks to ensure that no white shirts are about, then ushers her inside. The paired security guards scrupulously ignore her existence. When she leaves, she will tip them to make sure that they forget entirely. She may disgust them, but they will play along if she is respectful, and if she pays. With the white shirts on edge, she will have to pay more. But it can be done.

She and Anderson-sama enter the elevator, and the elevator woman calls out the estimated weight, her face carefully expressionless.

Safely inside his flat, they come together. Emiko is surprised at how happy she is that he delights in her, that he runs his hands over her skin, that he wishes to touch her. She has forgotten what it is to look almost human, to be nearly respected. In Japan, there was no such compunction about looking upon her. But here she feels as if she is an animal every day.

It is a relief to be loved, even if it is only for her physicality.

His hands run over her breasts, down across her stomach, slip between her legs, burrow deeper. She is relieved that it is easy, that he will know her pleasure. Emiko presses herself to him, and their mouths find one another, and for a time she forgets entirely that people call her windup and heechy-keechy. For a moment she feels entirely human, and she loses herself in the touching. In Anderson-sama's skin. In the security of pleasure and duty.