The Windup Girl

Kanya and Jaidee travel by boat to Mishimoto & Co., where she meets Mr. Yashimoto. The Japanese technology company is likely illegal, but Yashimoto maintains they are friends to the Thai. The exchange discomforts Kanya as a windup girl, Hiroko, translates between Japanese and Thai. Kanya gradually learns that Emiko, as well as Hiroko, could possibly kill a person, but it is unlikely. Their lack of porous skin subjects them to overheating, unlike the military windups, which are built differently. Mr. Yashimoto explains how “poor Hiroko here would die if she exerted herself like that over any significant amount of time. But all windups are potentially fast[…]” (300). Hiroko explains how “it would take an extraordinary stimulus” for a standard windup to become a killer, for “New People value discipline. Order. Obedience. We have a saying in Japan, ‘New People are more Japanese than the Japanese’” (300). Yashimoto recommends that Kanya find and destroy Emiko, and that Hiroko can help Kanya do so.

Kanya, Jaidee, and Hiroko return from the company by boat. Hiroko asks Kanya why she hates windups so much. Kanya tells her that they have no soul, no karma, and that they ape humans without being any bit human themselves.