Emiko is the windup girl of the novel’s title. When she first appears, she functions as a perverse oddity exploited by Raleigh at a club, the Ploenchit, and ridiculed by Kannika for the sadistic enjoyment of the men who frequent the club. As a windup, she has been built for biological perfection in terms of her speed, her reflexes, her vision, and her immunity to diseases that would infect or kill humans. Her biggest problem is that her pure skin has no pores, and her tendency to overheat can only be addressed by a drink of water with ice, which is expensive, and which Raleigh only grudgingly provides.

Emiko has fallen a long way. She arrived in Bangkok as part of a Japanese delegation, as a geisha-like interpreter, secretary, and translator to a powerful figure, whose presence guaranteed her safety, since she is viewed as a soulless, odious, outcast. When her protector leaves her because she is too expensive to fly back with him, she falls under the protection of Raleigh. He bribes the white shirts not to mulch her because she is a valuable commodity to him at the club. Her on-stage orgasms, for example, have been genetically engineered in her, and while she feels degraded and humiliated, she has no control over them.