The Windup Girl

Emiko lies passively as her attacker continues to stab her. Anderson pulls out his gun. The man leaps off the bicycle-driven rickshaw and runs away. As Emiko burns up, Anderson orders the rickshaw driver to the ocean, where Anderson tries to cool Emiko. Her heavy body initially sinks, but after some struggle, she suddenly springs back to life after the intense heat dissipates.

Anderson berates himself for saving her, for the last thing he needs is white shirts nosing around him. Still, Emiko’s body and presence perversely fascinate him, and he learns that her Japanese owner had brought her to the Thai Kingdom as a translator, secretary, and companion. Her owner found it more economical to leave her because of the price of dirigible tickets for windups and humans.

As they pass through a group of white shirts at the head of an alley, Emiko snuggles close to Anderson, to avoid being detected. Anderson wants to throw her away from him but then conceals her. At the end of the chapter, while still in the rickshaw, Anderson fondles her body: “He’s shaking. Trembling like a sixteen-year-old boy. Did the geneticists embed her DNA with pheromones? Her body is intoxicating” (116).