by Ash Gray
The Thieves of Nottica
Ash Gray
Copyright © 2017 Ash Gray
All rights reserved.
For the forgotten
CONTENTS
The Note <> 9
Opportunities in the Workplace <> 20
Hari’s Choice<> 44
Nanny Mech No. 916 <> 54
The Forest Pussy <> 59
Artificial Dreaming<> 88
The Trimorphous <> 103
Etcetera <> 126
Edge of Nowhere<> 144
Take My Heart <> 177
In-Betweenses<> 194
Self-Evident Truths <> 228
The Fault in Their Stars <> 241
Square <> 262
No Vacancy <> 293
Chapter 1
The Note
Oil and a lit match was about the only thing that could rouse Morganith, the immovable lump, who was still drunkenly slumped at the kitchen table when Rigg returned to their hideout that afternoon, her cheek smashed in a gross stain of Rigg-didn’t-want-to-know-what. Morganith wasn’t wearing her mechanical arm, and her organic hand clutched a beer, the dark brown bottle near her face as she grunted in her sleep. She was clad sloppily in a dirty t-shirt and boxer shorts, her socks pulled to the knees by garters, her mass of black hair obscuring her face as she snored gently. She didn’t move when Rigg stomped into the kitchen trailing mud.
The room was shadowy and dreary, as if Morganith’s listless presence had sucked the life and light from it. The walls were peeling, the long-suffering refrigerator was giving the usual cough that begged for the sweet oblivion of a pulled plug, and the single, small window over the sink was slightly open to admit the chilly, wet breeze. The air smelled as if a fish had been caught in the garbage disposal, and a rusty red stain on the ceiling dripped every now and then like blood. It was raining.
Rigg was a young woman in her late twenties, wearing a tattered coat and a face that would have given anyone who looked at her the impression she was an unfortunately hideous crone. She was an Aonji demon, which meant she could shapeshift into anything she touched, though she often restricted her morphing to her face and hands. The phenomenon was known as polymorphing, an ability the Aonji alone possessed and for which they were often hunted and killed on sight. For this reason, most Aonji kept their abilities hidden, passing as halflings or some demon race from outside of Nottica. It was believed that most if not all of the Aonji race had been wiped out with the initial invasion of the humans, though Rigg sometimes noticed a pigeon that didn’t quite act like a pigeon and had to wonder if there weren’t more of her people thriving in the shadows than the humans suspected.
Rigg let her face morph back into its own, round and childlike, with brown freckles sprinkled across a brown nose and cheeks that were nearly gaunt after six months of ceaseless stress, constant relocation, and near starvation. She pulled off her hood, and her great hair sprang out, standing upright on her head in a soft, voluminous cloud like the seeds of a dandelion. If it weren’t for her hair, her long pointed ears would have been immediately apparent but were hidden instead in the magnificent wreath. Her teeth were brown and crooked, and her eyes oily black, the narrow pupils like twin flames in her calm and often pensive gaze. On her forehead was a pair of welding goggles, and hanging out of the deep pocket of her long coat was a floppy gasmask, which she wore when venturing through the more polluted side of town.
Rigg massaged her aching cheeks as she stepped into the flickering light of the naked bulb that swung listlessly above, cutting through the thick gloom like a dying beacon. The screen door slammed hard behind her, and she paused to slam and lock the door just as hard, flashing a guilty wince of a smile to find a short woman glowering at her with her hands on her hips.
Harilotecca stood in the doorway leading from the hall, looking on the verge of a lecture. She was an Alteri demon, with the great ram-like horns spiraling from her temples and hair that was a ruddy umber falling in long, matted coils down her back. Like all Alteri demons, her eyes were a bright cyan and the pupils narrow, folds of skin wrinkled over her round nose, her face was deceptively young, and she was brown as rusty metal. They mostly called her Hari.
Rigg thought Hari looked strange without her pockets weighed down by tools and scribbled notes. Instead of her usual overalls and oil stains, she was wearing a long, baggy sweatshirt, striped drawers, and long, dingy socks, and the umber tendrils she usually kept back in a braid were loose around her face. On Hari’s shoulder was Rivet, the small spider-like robot she often used to pick the more elaborate locks during jobs. Seeing Rigg, Rivet chirruped cheerfully, its gears and cogs whizzing in excitement.
“Hey, Rivie,” Rigg said to the tiny robot, and Rivet’s small pinlights blinked in greeting. Rigg pulled her heavy satchel from around her shoulders and slammed it on the kitchen table (Morganith didn’t stir an inch), and in an attempt to make Hari smile, she cheerfully pealed out, “I managed ta snag some riggits from this old hag with the longest nose hairs --!”
Hari dragged Rigg’s satchel across the table – accidentally smacking an indifferent Morganith on the head with it -- and rifled through it. “And that cheap beer Morganith is guzzling suicidally,” she added wearily. She shook her head, clutching the beer to her chest as she looked around for some place to hide it. “What have I told you ‘bout feedin’ that beast?” she scolded, indicating Morganith with a jerk of her head. She finally decided on a high cabinet, and climbing up on a rickety stool, she opened it and pushed the beer inside to the far back.
Rigg couldn’t help noticing Hari’s belly when her sweatshirt lifted to reveal it. It was slightly round and swollen as a balloon, and she stared at it for a moment, flabbergasted and caught off guard. She remembered six months ago, she had eavesdropped on a low, bickering argument between Hari and Morganith. “I won’t have his child,” she heard Hari say quietly, solemnly, “I saw to that.” Something in Hari’s voice broke, then a door slammed. Present-day Rigg shook her head and hoped Hari had only gained a little weight.
“Did she even get up while I was out?” Rigg asked wearily, her eyes on the top of Morganith’s messy head. Beneath her coat, Rigg was wearing a gray thermal shirt with long sleeves, a long cargo skirt with just enough pockets to haul away the whole of the Hardsmith market, and a leather chest guard covered in even more pockets. Rigg removed her coat and flung it over a chair, which led her to notice the round red cherry sucker gleaming innocently from one of the pockets on her chest guard. A bit of lint was stuck to it and it was large as a paddle ball. She looked at the candy with delight, and ignoring the lint on it, crammed it in her mouth before flopping on a rickety stool near the door.
“We gotta make Morganith get up,” Rigg said. “You an’ me could carry her, if we tried.” Several riggits jingled in Rigg’s pocket when she shifted on the stool, and remembering how easily she’d picked them off various oblivious victims at the market, she pulled the coins out with a fingerless glove and started contently counting them.
Hari snorted. “She’s better off at the kitchen table. At least in that position she can’t choke to death on her own supper.”
Rigg’s mouth lifted wearily at the corner. “Yeah, she can just stew inna puddle of it,” she said, glancing at the green puddle Morganith’s cheek was nestled contently in.
“No one saw you, did they?” Hari demanded sharply. She pushed the fridge door open with her hip and started cramming the groceries inside. Rigg could smell detergent on her and knew she had just come from rescuing the laundry from the rain. She shook her head: if the Hand ever caught them, they would have hanging panties to blame.
“No one saw you come here? You remember where ta go if you’re recognized?” Hari went on.
Her busy fingers never paused as she put the groceries away, her eyes never stopped counting and darting. Sometimes she stopped entirely to glance in hyper paranoia out the window, and Rigg couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t stand to see all of them scrambling and running like frightened mice from the Hand, when before they used to laugh in their face. Now here they sat, the three surviving Keymasters, once notorious rebels of the Hand, now cowed and defeated and scared shitless like everyone else.
“You didn’t run into any Crows, did you?” Hari asked. “They might’ve followed you here.”
Rigg glanced out the window and could see no black-clad soldiers with leather beak-masks marching their way. She’d run into the occasional Crow while shoplifting in the market, but none had taken notice of her or even attempted an arrest. All had believed her an ugly human with sticky fingers, and because they believed she was human, they were willing to look the other way when she slipped her hand into a pocket or two. One human who witnessed her filch a large loaf of bread out of a woman’s grocery bag took her aside and lectured her –then gave her a coin to buy bread and sent her off. Such was the leeway that came with passing for human.
“I been thinkin’,” Hari said from behind the refrigerator door, “we should move again. This time to Copperstone. I’ve got connections there . . . If they haven’t betrayed us,” she added darkly.
Rigg wearily slipped the riggits back in her pocket, and sitting on the stool with her boots hooked in the rungs, she thought she’d never seen Hari so high-strung. She was suddenly tired of it. For six months, they had lived in fear, believing Pirayo and his cyborgs would come back to finish beating them. Maybe he’d kill them. And with Arda dead and gone, it only made the danger all the more real, as if any one of them could be the next stiff body, lying sprawled in a pool of their own blood. Rigg closed her eyes, trying not to think of the last time she’d seen Arda, the way she’d just lain there . . . silent and staring. All that for a lockbox, and they didn’t even know what was in the damned thing.
“Arda . . .” Morganith moaned sadly in her sleep, then frowned and growled in a low voice, “Pirayo.”
Hari tensed to hear Pirayo’s name but kept putting away groceries, her brows pinched sadly.
Pirayo was a human with mechanical legs, who had hired the Keymasters to steal a lockbox from Governor Evrard, one of the elite members of the Hand. Pirayo and his people were cyborgs, the slang term for people who’d had limbs replaced with mechanical pieces. Unless they were human and rich, most cyborgs were feared, shunned, and often accused of having stolen their parts, either from harvested robots or factories that made the limbs for the disabled rich. While many cyborgs actually needed their mechanical limbs, there were still many others who wanted the same limbs for little more than instilling fear in their enemies or because they coveted the strength and power of automatons. Such people were viewed as criminals and deviants, and the stigmas their practices created were the reason Morganith always kept her mechanical arm hidden. Demons, unless they were in the employ of the Hand, were not allowed to have mechanical limbs regardless.
The job Pirayo sent them on was successful in that they had gotten away with the lockbox. Their success, however, came at a high price: Arda died in the process, sacrificing herself so the others could escape. With the job completed, the Keymasters returned to Pirayo with the lockbox, only to have him burst into their hideout the next night, drag them out of bed, and assault them. He targeted Hari specifically, who had been a frazzled mess since the event, while Rigg still had nightmares and often awoke with Hari’s screams echoing in her mind.
“Hari . . .” Rigg began in a small, miserable voice, “you should rest. Lemme put those away --”
“It’s fine, Rigg, I’ve got it,” Hari said at once.
Rigg’s chest heaved. She tried to hold back but burst in exasperation, “No, you ain’t got it, Hari! You ain’t got nothin’! We ain’t got nothin’!” She hadn’t meant to raise her voice and realized with a jolt that her heart was thundering in her ears. She took a shuddering breath and tried to calm down.
Hari stood upright to hear Rigg’s sudden outburst and just regarded her, clutching the groceries to her gray sweatshirt. Rivet, who was helping Hari put away groceries, paused mid-scuttle on the counter with a can of Morganith’s favorite beans on its back. The small robot remained still, as if waiting for the tension to pass.
“Riggy . . .!” Hari began, voice soft and surprised. She frowned.
Rigg swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired of livin’ like this. Livin’ in fear.” She shook her head. “What the hell has happened to us, Hari?” She waved a hand at Morganith. “What the hell has happened? And how could you let it hap --?” Rigg bit her lip, trying to stop the last words, but it was too late: the blame had been laid.
Hari dropped her eyes and slowly, heavily went back to putting away the groceries. She took the can from Rivet and put it up in a cabinet, her back to Rigg as she said solemnly, “What do you want from me, Rigg? You want me to just pretend he didn’t violate me? Just get over it an’ go back to regular jobs?” She turned to face Rigg and slowly, angrily shook her head. “I can’t do that. I c-can’t wave my hand and make all the pain go away --!”
“Why not!” Rigg demanded, hating herself for her childishness, but she just wanted Hari back, the old Hari. She wanted everything to be the way it was before, when Arda was alive and they were all together, living free and happy and defiant. She was trembling all over and bowed her head, trying to make the trembling stop. After a tense pause, she felt Hari’s hand on her shoulder and looked up to find Hari’s cyan eyes peering at her mournfully. The naked bulb flickered overhead, and as the light brightened, Hari’s pupils narrowed catlike against it.
“I know, honey,” Hari whispered soothingly. “I miss Arda, too.”
Rigg dropped her eyes.
Hari turned and continued putting away the groceries. “You gonna fix that garbage disposal like I asked ya?” she said quietly. She smiled at Rigg over her shoulder.
Blinking back her sadness and anger, Rigg’s lips curled in a small smile. She hopped down from the stool and went to the scummy sink, where the garbage disposal gurgled like a dying beast. Her small hand turned into a wrench on silent command, and as she slipped it down the drain, she thought with a pained heart of Arda.
Ardrilonel, who often went by Arda, had been Hari’s twin sister, which meant she’d looked exactly like Hari, except she’d been shorter, a dual pistol wielding thief with a loud laugh and a louder ego. Arda and Hari had been as opposite in personality as night and day. Where Arda was cocky and proud, Hari was humble. Where Arda was daring, Hari was cautious. When Arda was singing, laughing, and hooting, Hari was silently reflecting and meditating. Given Morganith’s fiery temper, she and Arda had been a rowdy pair, and between their intense roaring matches and love making sessions, Rigg often thought it was a wonder they’d never been captured by the Hand.
Rigg remembered the last time she spoke to Arda. Arda had insisted on giving Rigg her lucky yo-yo with the sad explanation that she didn’t need it anymore but perhaps Rigg would. The toy was handmade: two rusty cogs held together with a rivet on a string. Rigg couldn’t understand why Arda was giving it away: the yo-yo was a family heirloom, something her father had given to her and his father before him. Now she was giving it to Rigg out of nowhere? Looking back now, it almost seemed as if Arda knew she was going to die. Rigg wouldn’t have been surprised if she did know. Alteri demons were psychic and many had visions of the future, as well as the past.
“I miss her cooking,” Hari said wistfully. She had paused in the middle of putting away a can of hash and was staring almost dreamily out the window at the rain-swept sky and the black frothing pollution that loomed dour over the sleepy town of Hardsmith.
Rigg knew Hari was referring to Arda. She smiled, jimmying her wrench-hand in the garbage disposal. “I miss her stupid knock knock jokes.”
“I miss how she used ta s
wear when she stepped in shit.”
Rigg and Hari exchanged grins.
“I miss her laugh. . . .” Rigg’s voice trailed away and her face clouded. There would be no more laughter now, just rain clouds over Hardsmith.
Drowning in her miserable thoughts, Rigg didn’t heed the hesitant knock on the kitchen door. The screen rattled as the visitor knocked a second time. Rigg stiffened with fear. She glanced at Hari and saw the woman frantically snatch a butcher knife up from the counter. Hari crept past Morganith’s slouched and snoring body toward the door. Her hair was half in her eyes when she called nervously, “W-Who’s there?”
No answer.
“Morganith! Morganith!” Hari hissed. When Morganith didn’t move, Hari snatched up a newspaper and whacked the drunk’s black hair with it. “Get up, for god’s sake! Someone’s come!”
“Just don’t answer!” Morganith snapped irritably. She smacked her lips and turned her head the other way, intent on going back to sleep.
With the cherry sucker still in her cheek, Rigg grimly turned her hands into buzz saws and moved toward the door with them raised and ready. Whoever was on the other side had to know whose hovel they’d stumbled upon. Only fools wandered around the Low Quarter, knocking on doors unannounced.
“What if it’s the Hand?” Hari insisted.
Morganith snorted out a humorless laugh. “The Hand wouldn’t knock, Hari.”
“I said get up!” Hari grabbed Morganith by the hair, and Morganith roared as she was dragged into a sitting position.
With her face revealed at last, Rigg could see Morganith’s eyes were lined and baggy. Rigg saw herself as ugly and Hari as attractive, but she thought Morganith was a true beauty. Morganith was a halfling, half Anikye demon and half human, and while she could have almost passed for a human, her features were clearly that of an Anikye. Her ears were pointed, though hidden in the wreath of her wild hair. Her face was narrow, her cheekbones high, her dark, rich eyes slanted and wreathed in thick lashes. Her lips were full and raisin-dark, and a small mole was under her left eye. She had a scar across her cheek that she claimed to have earned in a fight against a mechanical dinosaur – Proto-Dino, she called it – and her black eyebrows were slightly bushy. Like most Anikye demons, she was very tall, and her body was toned and fit.