The Windup Girl

Kanya rides her bicycle to Gibbons’ mansion, to consult with him about the new disease that has now killed three men. These men are the ones who became ill in the factory, and whom Hock Seng had Mai take to different hospitals. Kanya enters Gibbons’ mansion. Gibbons appears in a wheelchair by the swimming pool. He is old, ugly, diseased, and dying. Kanya refers to him as “the demon” who, “when [he] finally goes on to his next life,” “becomes a corpse they can burn in quarantine” (241). Kanya considers him the epitome of the calorie man, a member of the demographic that has caused the massive problems with the food chain. He is practical and cynical and tells her “we should all be windups by now. It’s easier to build a person impervious to blister rust than to protect an earlier version of the human creature. A generation from now we could be well-suited to our environment” (243).

Before Kanya, Jaidee dealt with Gibbons. Gibbons asks Kanya what the Thai Kingdom will do when he dies:

And then what will you do when AgriGen and its ilk launch another assault? When spores float to you from Burma? When they wash up on the beach from India.