But after their union, her depression returns.

Anderson-sama brings her cool water, solicitous of her exertion. He lies down beside her, naked, careful not to touch, not to add to the heat she has built up. "What's the matter?" he asks.

Emiko shrugs, tries to make herself into a smiling New Person. "It is nothing. Nothing that can be changed." It's almost impossible to speak her needs. It goes against all her nature. Mizumi-sensei would strike her for it.

Anderson-sama watches her, his eyes surprisingly tender for a man with scars that crisscross his body. She can catalogue those scars. Each one a mystery of violence on his pale skin. Perhaps the puckered scars on his chest came from spring gun attacks. Perhaps the one on his shoulder came from a machete. The ones on his back look like whip marks, almost certainly. The only one she's certain about is the neck scar, from his factory.

He reaches out to touch her gently. "What's wrong?"

Emiko rolls away from him. She can barely speak through her embarrassment. "The white shirts… they will never let me out of the city. And now Raleigh-san has paid more bribes to keep me. He will never let me go, I think."

Anderson-sama doesn't respond. She can hear his breathing, slow and steady, but nothing else. Her shame is all encompassing.

Stupid greedy windup girl. You should be grateful for what he is willing to provide.

The silence stretches. Finally, Anderson-sama asks, "You're sure Raleigh can't be convinced? He's a businessman."

Emiko listens to the sound of his breathing. Is he offering to buy her free? If he were Japanese, it would be an offer, carefully couched. But with Anderson-sama, it is hard to tell.

"I do not know. Raleigh-san likes money. But I think also that he likes to see me suffer."

She waits, straining for a clue as to what he is thinking. Anderson-sama doesn't ask for more information. Leaves her hint dangling. She can feel his body though, close to her, the heat of his skin. Is he listening still? If he were civilized, she would take this lack of response as a definitive slap. But gaijin are not subtle.

Emiko steels herself. Presses again, almost gagging with humiliation as she overcomes her training and genetic imperatives. Fighting to keep herself from cowering like a dog, she tries again.

"I am living in the bar, now. Raleigh-san pays the bribes to keep the white shirts away, triple bribes now, some to the other bars, and some to the white shirts, to allow me to be there. I do not know how much longer I can last. My niche is vanishing, I think."

"Do you…" Anderson-sama breaks off, hesitating. Then says, "You could stay here."

Emiko's heart skips. "Raleigh-san would follow, I think."

"There are ways to handle people like Raleigh."

"You can free me from him?"

"I doubt I have the funds to buy you out."

Emiko's heart crashes as Anderson-sama continues, "With tension so high, I can't provoke him by just taking you away. Not when he could just send the white shirts hunting here. It would be too risky. But I think I can arrange for you to sleep here at least. Raleigh might even appreciate the lessened exposure."

"But would this not create problems for you? The white shirts do not like farang, either. You are very precarious now." Help me fly from this place. Help me find the New People villages. Help me, please. "If I were to pay Raleigh-san's fines… I could go north."

Anderson-sama tugs her shoulder gently. Emiko lets herself be pulled back to him. "You hope for too little," he says. His hand traces across her stomach. Idle. Thoughtful. "A lot of things may be changing soon. Maybe even for windups." He favors her with a small secretive smile. "The white shirts and their rules won't be here forever."

She is begging for survival, and he speaks of fantasy.

Emiko tries to keep her disappointment hidden. You should be content, greedy girl. Grateful for what you have. But she can't keep the bitterness from her voice. "I am a windup. Nothing will change. We will always be despised."

He laughs at that, pulls her close. "Don't be so sure." His lips brush her ear, whispering. Conspiratorial. "If you pray to that bakeneko cheshire god of yours, I might be able to give you something better than a village in the jungle. With a little luck, you might end up with a whole city."

Emiko pushes away, looks at him sadly. "I understand if you cannot change my lot. But you should not tease me."

Anderson-sama only laughs again.

26

Hock Seng crouches in an alley just outside the farang manufacturing district. It's night, but still there are white shirts everywhere. Everywhere he goes, he finds cordons of uniforms. On the quays, clipper ships sit isolated, waiting for permission to unload cargo. In the factory district, Ministry officers stand on every corner, preventing access for workers and owners and shopkeepers alike. Only a few people are allowed in and out, ones who show residence cards. Locals.

With only a yellow card for identification, it took Hock Seng half the evening to traverse the city, avoiding checkpoints. He misses Mai. Those young eyes and ears made him feel safe. Now he crouches with cheshires and the stink of urine, watching white shirts check another man's identification and cursing that he is cut off from the SpringLife factory. He should have been brave. Should have simply robbed the safe when he had the chance. Should have risked everything. And now it's too late. Now the white shirts own every inch of the city, and their favorite target is yellow cards. They like to test their batons on yellow card skulls, like to teach them lessons. If the Dung Lord didn't have so much influence, Hock Seng is sure that the ones in the towers would already be slaughtered. The Environment Ministry sees yellow cards the same way it sees the other invasive species and plagues it manages. Given a choice, the white shirts would slaughter every yellow card Chinese and then make a khrab of apology for their over-enthusiasm to the Child Queen. But only after the fact.

A young woman shows her pass and clears the cordon. She disappears down the street, deeper into the manufacturing district. Everything is so tantalizingly close, and yet so impossibly out of reach.

Looked at objectively, it is probably best that the factory is closed. Safer for everyone. If he weren't so dependent on the contents of the safe, he would just report the line's infections and be done with the tamade thing entirely. And yet, in the midst of all that illness, ensconced above the miasma of the algae baths, the blueprints and specifications still beckon.

Hock Seng wants to tear out the last of his hair with frustration.

He glares at the checkpoint, willing the white shirts to go away, to look somewhere else. Wishing, praying to the goddess Kuan Yin, begging to fat gold Budai for a little luck. With those manufacturing plans and the support of the Dung Lord, so much would be possible. So much future. So much life. Offerings for his ancestors again. Perhaps a wife. Perhaps a son to carry on his name. Perhaps…

A patrol stalks past. Hock Seng eases deeper into shadow. The enforcers remind him of when the Green Headbands began patrolling at night. They started out looking for couples holding hands in the evening, displaying immorality.

At the time, he told his children to watch themselves, to understand that the tides of conservatism came and went and if they could not live as freely and openly as their parents had, well then, what of it? Didn't they have food in their bellies and family and friends whose company they enjoyed? And within their high-walled compounds, it was irrelevant what the Green Headbands thought.

Another patrol. Hock Seng turns and slips back down the alley. There is no way to sneak into the manufacturing district. The white shirts are determined to shut down Trade and hurt the farang. He grimaces and begins the long circuitous route back through the sois toward his hovel.