The Tiger Flu

“The tendril information scales Kora’s got plugged into the single-band halo that circles her head wave gently. For all Chang is so close, the people of Saltwater Flats don't have access to him anymore. Only the citizens of the glass towers in Saltwater City can tap in. As soon as she can afford it, she'll add rings to her halo, or even a full helmet, so she can get wiser quicker. She needs all the help she can get.” 

Information is passed through “scales,” a unique feature of the dystopian universe that Larissa Lai has created in The Tiger Flu. Intelligence, in this universe, is no longer something must necessarily be earned; it can now be bought, sold, or stolen through scales.

“We pretty maids, we Sisters Grist, some call us tub puppets, fuck moppets, matchstick monkeys. Who cares? We will outlive them all, in beds of our own making.”

The Grist Sisters are viewed as provincial outliers by many, but Kiri does not care what others think. She only cares about the longevity of the Grist sisters (“we will outlive them all”) and about living and dying in peace (“we will die in beds of our own making”).

“We split, we slit, we heal, we groom, self-mutated beyond the know-how of the clone company Jemini that spawned us, and the host scale and microchip factories that bought our grantees to work for them. But there are flaws in our limited DNA—the DNA of just one woman.”

This is the Grist origin story, boiled down to just a few sentences by Kiri. Her sing-song tone is seen mostly in earlier chapters when she is relaxed and happy among her people in Grist Village. In later chapters, she adopts a gruff and more straightforward manner of speech.

“Through its use, we cultivate what we remember and what we forget in order to make Grist history. Under my mother double’s watchful eyes, I developed my own strain to suit first and foremost the needs of Peristrophe Halliana.” 

In addition to being a doctor, one of Kiri’s gifts is her talent for using herbs and plants for medicinal purposes. Here, Kiri discusses how she developed a particular strain of plant that causes the user to selectively forget or remember. As Kiri points out, this plant can be used as a tool to shape collective memory.

“I know they have a second sex they call ‘men,’ and that men are useful in Salty doubling technology. When I was a sprout, Glorybind Groundsel showed me a pair of post-storm slugs on a log slipping and sliming over one another period she intended to demonstrate it was natural.” 

An affirmation of her own queerness, Kiri is confused (and slightly repulsed) by sexual relations between human men and women. In addition, Kiri’s background as a groom has her humorously refer to sexual relations as “doubling technology.”

“Kora tries to imagine how people from the time before got them up there. Uncle Wei told her once about a thing called a ‘rocket,’ and black, sticky stuff that used to make the world go round.”

The “black, sticky stuff” that “used to make the world go round” is oil. As Kora imagines how people in the time before the tiger flu would have explored outer space, she does not know that things like rockets existed. Oil, in the universe of The Tiger Flu, is no longer a viable resource.

“There I sit for the rest of the day, stewing in a vengeful hatred of all the Salties in the world.”

Though Kiri is one of the only characters with pure intentions in The Tiger Flu, she is fiercely protective of the Grist sisterhood and, as such, she is prejudiced against Salties. Throughout the book we see characters using derisive names to describe opposing groups of one kind or another.

“All around the fire my sisters gather, their beautiful faces lit by orange light. Each is the slightest variation of the next. Give or take a scar here, a wrinkle there, the length of hair, the choice of dress, any of them could be Peristrophe Halliana.”

Since Grist sisters propagate through parthenogenesis, they are clones of one another, as Kiri notes here while looking upon the faces of her sisters—who all look like her—at the funeral for Peristrophe Halliana. While any of them could be Peristrophe, Kiri remarks to Glorybind that none of them are. This adds to the idea that there is an essential individuality to everyone that cannot be replicated or displaced with technological interventions.

“If these are the proceeds of my generosity, then my generosity is over and done. I'll hunt that Salty like an animal. I'll stick a knife in it, slice it open like the walking carcass it is. If this is war and all is fair, I'll get my share.”

At the outset of the novel, Kiri is filled with rage and hatred at the Salty, who she thinks is the one who brought the flu that killed her beloved Peristrophe to Grist Village. As Kiri’s character evolves (and as it is discovered that the Salty is a Grist sister herself), Kiri’s hatred toward Salties cools.

“I survey the vast field of bodies and burnt homes. Something hits me in the head. It knocks me over and my mouth fills with fur. Nails gore my chest.”

Kiri is attacked by a Cordova girl wearing a catcoat, and the catcoat’s stealth and power is on full display. Kiri does not see the attack coming; she is simply struck, and then her “mouth fills with fur,” which is the signature of a catcoat.

“‘Are you OK?’ she yells, stupidly, into the stairwell. There is no answer. She could go check on him, but she doesn't. She fires at the handle and the door pops open.” 

The Cordova girls Modesta and Soraya take Kora to forage in a “plague house,” which is a suburban house in Saltwater City with occupants who are all suffering from the tiger flu. In this moment, Kora pillages a house filled with corpses for their canned goods, until she is stopped by an old man, who is clearly dying. He chases her and tries to stop her, but she kicks him down the stairs. When she asks if he is okay, she shows her divided nature: She is not cruel, but she must commit acts of violence to survive.

“Although I’m not sure why I do it, I check my hands to see if I still have both. Flex and stretch the fingers of each, marveling at their wholeness.”

Upon awakening at the New Origins Archive, Kiri checks to see if she still has both of her hands. This moment echoes an important scene earlier in the novel, when red-haired Salty loses her hand and foreshadows an important moment to come when Kora loses her hand.

“She passes three women in expensive dresses. They have the relaxed faces of people who live in the glass towers of HöST, walled in by the great Isabelle Chow to keep dancing girls and their ilk out.”

A corollary of themes surrounding greed and corruption is the persistence of inequality in the universe of The Tiger Flu. There are haves and have-nots, and those who have tend to have it all (for instance, Isabelle Chow and Marcus Traskin), while regular citizens (for instance, Kora and the Cordova girls) tend to have very little with which to survive.

“The elevators are new. That's strange. And there's an odd smell in the air, like rotten fish. Cora presses the shiny new button. Bright steel doors open, and they step in. The fish smell intensifies. Are those fish bones on the floor?”

Kora and K2 return to the Woodward Building, upon Kora’s request, to see Charlotte and Uncle Wai one last time. The new elevators in the building, as we learn later in the novel, are LïFT technology installed by HöST. Their significance is explained in later chapters, when it is revealed that Charlotte and Wai have been uploaded.

“Myra marches at the head of the parade, turning an airy grey pennant in a figure eight so that the fabric undulates above the motley crowd, like the tail of a sorrowful dragon.”

In Chinese culture, dragons often symbolize imperial power and authority. It is fitting, then, that Myra waves a pennant that resembles a dragon for the death of their leader. Elements of Chinese culture are woven throughout The Tiger Flu.

“A scream erupts from deep in her lungs and pours out of her. She screams and screams and screams and can’t stop screaming.”

This is the moment when Kora realizes that her hand, which was infected with gangrene, has been amputated. The sense of frenzy evoked by the sentence’s construction parallels the scream’s sudden “eruption” as it pours out of Kora, emphasizing the horrific nature of this scene.

“Not for much longer, beloved sister. Not Kai Wai and not Charlotte. And in the meantime, they can’t exactly run the factories, can they? You behave now. If you don’t, I’ll be forced to kill you, too.”

In Chapter 33, K2 is overcome by his own greed for profit, going so far as to betray his own sister and threaten her life. The harm that comes with running Jemini and controlling the lucrative the sale of tiger wine, even at the expense of a devastating national plague, is no matter to him. Morality and family bonds mean nothing to him when faced with the prospect of being rich.

“The screams I hear will never be heard in a world ruled by Our Mother. Blessed are the sheep, and blessed are the roses—I won’t be afraid.”

This is the moment in which Velma, an innocent young girl—one of the kindest souls at the Cordova School—dies in an explosion at the hands of Pacific Pearl soldiers. Upon hearing the screams, Kiri invokes a spiritual sentiment, that “Our Mother” would never allow such atrocities to happen. This is the emotional tone that concludes Part 3.

“Elzbieta’s look of sympathy might be genuine, but there is something beneath it that unsettles me […] I beam brighter to hide the squirming in my belly.”

The Elzbieta that is portrayed in Chapter 38 is not the same as the one who greeted Kiri and the Cordova girls in Chapter 22. Kiri can sense that something is amiss with Elzbieta but cannot put her finger on what is different. What Kiri does not know in this moment, but will soon find out, is that Elzbieta is now competing with Isabelle Chow for power, and thus her motivations are sullied. Friendship and sisterhood no longer motivate her.

“The Dark Baths are a place of interface. Eventually, the pool drains your being and transfers it to Eng. But not always whole. Isabelle is working on the path to anger as an experiment in sensation. She calls it the deep download. It’s designed to make us more real than we were before.”

In Kiri’s N-lite fueled dream-state, she speaks with her mother double, Glorybind, who tells her Isabelle’s true purpose with the Dark Baths. The Dark Baths are a portal to Eng that drains a person of their “being” or mind, which is “uploaded” to Eng. Afterward, their body is transform into foodstuff and consumed by others. Glorybind—or this version of Glorybind—argues that Isabelle’s version of people are even “more real” than they were before.

“She strokes her arm, and the catcoat hugs her tight, purring. She throws off the blanket and wanders out of the kitchen and down the faintly lit hallway […] the catcoat embraces her more and more tightly, the N-lite smell intensifies.”

Both Kora and Kiri have N-lite visions that show them the most beloved people and things in their life. Kiri sees Glorybind and Peristrophe, while Kora sees her mother Charlotte, her pet goat, and her catcoat. In this passage, we see Kora’s connection with the catcoat, how it comforts and soothes her.

“Projections flicker on the walls, the floors, the high-domed ceiling, even across the face of Chang himself as he lumbers upwards to the apex of the Dome.”

During the Feast of Abundance, the N-lite creates a group hallucinatory vision among all the guests at the New Origins Archive in which personal and cultural histories are projected like movies onto the walls of Chang Hall. Against her will, Kiri projects the memory of the destruction of Grist Village. The projections add to the chaotic, emotional ambiance of this scene.

“The sun is going down. It sends rays of light through water vapour, smoke, dust, and radiation from the death of Chang. It makes a cloud ocean of fabulous purple, moth, silver, and gold. The batterkite dives into this dirty but miraculous beauty, free to glide us home.”

When Kiri, Kora, Bombyx, and Corydalis make their escape from the New Origins Archive, the joy of the moment is conveyed through the beauty of the scene. The rich colors of the “cloud ocean,” though tainted by human interference (the radiation from the death of Chang), still make this a “dirty but miraculous beauty.”