by Ash Gray
The sewage pipe was, needless to say, a foul place, dismally dark, and reeking of urine, feces, and things rotten and rotting. Tiny eyes flashed like twin flames in the gloom, small feet scuttled, and the constant drip, drip of water echoed like the ticking of a clock.
“Humans and demons and halflings,” Morganith sang bitterly as they sloshed along, “livin’ in our neat little categories of superior and inferior, and the only way we come together is when we shit.” She barked out a laugh.
It was not the Keymasters’ first field trip through a sewage pipe, though. Ten years back, when Rigg was about sixteen or seventeen, their car broke down after they completed a job robbing the world’s most heavily guarded and elaborately booby trapped bank. The bank was known at Grimis & Grimis and was located in Realm Sixsmith, in the city of Gearvec. Its vaults were lined beneath Gearvec in a bottomless maze that spread the width of the city. Rigg recalled that the job had been an ordeal all around, calamity after calamity, starting when Morganith stepped in the gum that led her to trip a wire and ending when their car broke down, forcing them to flee inside a nearby sewage pipe to escape a mechanical bear – in nothing but their underwear.
The sun was rising when they emerged at the other end of the sewage pipe. The pipe’s fluids bubbled and oozed into the heart of a great forest, whose twisted black trees reached endlessly to the pearly gray sky. The forest was so silent and empty, it gave Rigg an uneasy feeling, as if the trees had eyes, and for several seconds, she couldn’t move. Rigg felt Morganith put a comforting hand on her shoulder, and catching the halfling’s encouraging eyes, she walked on, cautiously entering the solemn quiet of a desolate wasteland.
Anger and pain seemed to echo in the forest. If Rigg closed her eyes, she could almost hear the wailing. Dark storm clouds rolled above the spidery fingers of the naked branches, and it was still raining lightly, the patter hitting the withered gray grass in a symphony that was almost soothing. Rigg pulled her hood over her puffy hair and saw Morganith fumble at the goggles that were hanging around her neck, covering her eyes with them.
“Expectin’ ah fight?” Rigg asked Morganith.
Morganith snorted. “I’m always expectin’ ah fight.” She nodded at the branches above, and Rigg followed her gaze and went still. Glossy white spider webs stretched between the branches overhead like netting. They dripped with rain and shook gently in the breeze, reminding Rigg of the hanging laundry on those rare sunny days back in Hardsmith. Enormous brown spiders huddled in the webs, legs tucked, pinchers clicking, ready to spring. Their bristly hairs stood upright all over their round bodies, their many eyes gleamed like drops of blood. Rigg realized with a jolt that the musty smell hitting her face was the spiders. She put her gasmask back over her face and wondered if Lisa could smell the spiders as well. Could automatons smell? Lisa didn’t seem fazed by the stink, though, anymore than she’d been bothered by the stench in the sewage pipe.
It was actually rare to see organic animals anymore. Because of the ongoing pollution, most animals across Nimestil had gone extinct. The human solution to everything was to replace it with something mechanical. Demon slaves had already been replaced with humanoid automatons, wild animals with mechanical ones. Before long, humans themselves would disappear, leaving only the humanoid robots to rule in their place as overlords. The spiders, however, would probably remain, the last organic beings in existence when the dust had cleared in some distant apocalyptic future. They were extremely durable and extremely adaptable, which made them extremely difficult to kill. According to Hari, their biological makeup had already altered to suit the environment: each giant spider now had a natural filter that turned pollution into clean air. Rigg thought that if the humans were smart, they would find some way to use the spiders to rebalance the environment. But only the Alteri knew how to actually tame the spiders, and humans were proud: they would rather slowly go extinct than admit they needed help from demons. The humans had to maintain the illusion that they were superior, which meant only humans had the answers to life’s conundrums.
As Hari led them through the trees, she told them the forest was once a green and thriving rainforest. It had been the city of a sacred sect of Alteri, who were mostly native to the entire area of Realm Fixitt. The ancient Alteri were marched from their home at gunpoint and gunned down on the outskirts of the forest. The humans then used the forest for its wealth of resources, chopping, hunting, and taking, until the forest withered and shrank away to nothing, like a beaten child.
The ruins of the ancient Alteri loomed in the distance as Rigg and her friends passed through, standing hollow in silent mourning, monoliths of mossy stone towering massive between crowds of dying trees, the relics of a hidden city whose name had long been forgotten. The forest was yet another piece of land that had been renamed by the humans when they invaded ancient Nottica. Hari told them with great bitterness and disgust that the forest’s name had been changed to Purva.
Rigg frowned as her translator clicked in her ear, searching fruitlessly for the word Hari had uttered. “Purva” was not a word in the chip’s database, which wasn’t surprising, as it was an Alteri word. Most Alteri languages had been forgotten by humans and were unaccounted for. For this reason, the Alteri themselves were not allowed to speak their languages, as any language humans did not have direct access to was banned entirely. Thus, most demons spoke Coglish in a broken jargon whilst naturally speaking their own tongue with perfection. By decree of the Regime – the greater machine behind the Hand -- every person was chipped with a translator at birth, so there could be no secrets between the races.
Rigg found the sad irony acute, for according to Hari, it used to be that demons were encouraged by humans to speak their various languages, as doing so would keep them confused and divided. Because today’s technology had allowed everyone to understand everyone else, demons were more united than ever, yet the very technology that united them through language kept them oppressed through slave labor: though robots slaved above ground to keep each city in good repair, demons still toiled in boilers beneath every city in Nottica and, indeed, in Nimestil. It was through observing this fact that Rigg learned the cunning of those who crave power: silence was a greater weapon by far than confusion. Being a Keymaster meant shattering the silence, it meant speaking out and speaking up, and disrupting the peace and content of those content to stand on the shoulders of others. Breaking the silence of oppression with a defiant bang and a laugh was Rigg’s favorite part of being a Keymaster. In the old days, anyway, when they used to do such things.
“Purva means pussy,” Morganith quietly told Rigg when she noticed the young woman’s confusion. She darkly shook her head. “Whatta slap in the face.”
Rigg wasn’t sure she wanted to know how Morganith knew dirty Alteri slurs.
The forest was so endless in its rolling hills and polluted streams, it would be a few days before the Keymasters had crossed into Realm Kettell, where the governor waited for them in the city of Ironmire. Coghurst was but the first stop for the traveler approaching Kettell’s capital. The Keymasters obviously wouldn’t be able to waltz through the front gate, which meant finding yet another sewage pipe. Coghurst was a city that was built over a great lake and had many sewage pipes that would allow anyone entry. The kicker was, a person had to know how to swim, as well as hold their breath underwater for long periods at a time. The sewage pipes in Coghurst ran through the bottom of the lake, which was several feet deep. There were many who thought they’d bypass the city gates by entering through the sewage pipes – perhaps to smuggle goods or fulfill a mercenary contract – only to find themselves drowning in the cold and dark, having miscalculated the lake’s depth.
Because every city was operated by a combination of electricity, wind power, and steam, every city had its lower tier of boiler rooms, even Coghurst. The buildings in Coghurst were elevated on metal stilts above the water, and beneath each and every building were boiler rooms connected by rickety metal bridges and walkwa
ys in a wide and tangling maze that spread the width of the town. The boiler district in every city was known as the Low Quarter, the place where demons and halflings toiled night and day to keep the city running, conveniently hidden away in their labors so that upper class humans would not have to look at them. In the past, the boiler workers of Coghurst were only too happy to let the famous Keymasters – the rebels who gave the finger to the Hand -- into the city, but Rigg knew Morganith and Hari were now so paranoid, they would likely suggest some other means of entering that was far less pleasant.
Some time after noon, the rain let up and the group stopped to set up camp as Hari and Morganith argued back and forth about whether or not to risk taking a ride from Kito to Ironmire. Morganith was in favor of finding their own way, no matter how long it took, but Hari seemed anxious to meet with the governor and put the entire matter to an end. Morganith insisted on taking the tram out of Coghurst, which was connected to Metalton, the next city over. Coghurst had a small train – widely known as the “trammel” – that was suspended on elevated tracks high above the city. It sped around the city nonstop, carrying citizens from one end to the other, between Coghurst and Metalton, in a never ending routine. The train was jokingly called the “trammel” because it was yet another way for the Hand to monitor its citizens and their personal lives: the entire train was operated by humanoid automatons with the standard cameras built into their eyes. Unfortunately, the tram was also the fastest and easiest way out of the city, but acquiring tickets meant risking their identities.
“Even if we don’t take Kito’s offer, we still won’t take the tram,” Hari warned, “because it’s simply too risky. Which means we’ll have to walk miles and miles to Metalton. And to cross Coghurst, we’ll have to take a ferry.”
Morganith made a face. “I hate ferries.”
Rigg smiled as she poked the fire with a stick: Morganith was prone to seasickness.
Hari was sitting beside Morganith, and Rivet had crawled out of her satchel and was perched on her shoulder, clicking softly near her pointed ear. “Ridin’ the tram is outta the question,” Hari said and scowled. “Geez, Mor. Do you care more about your grudge against Kito than what would happen to us if we were caught?”
Rigg noticed Lisa’s curious expression and knew she was wondering who the others were speaking of. The night they were almost captured and killed at Castle Atrocitas, Kito took his sweet time coming for them during their escape. He swept his airship in at the last minute, saving them just as mechanical attack dogs had been released to catch them. Rigg knew Morganith resented Kito’s sluggish move to intercede, for the halfling believed that if Kito had moved faster, Arda wouldn’t have had to sacrifice herself so they could get away. Morganith and Kito had a terrible argument, and Kito hadn’t spoken to them since. Hari accused Morganith of shaming Kito and wrongfully hurling blame at him, but deep down inside, Rigg felt Kito was partially responsible for Arda’s death as well.
Morganith didn’t answer Hari. She flicked her lighter open with a rough jerk and lit a cigarette. The harsh smell of it wafted across the fire and hit Rigg in the face. Rigg wasn’t wearing her gasmask and irritably waved the smoke off, but Lisa sat indifferently as the smoke engulfed her.
“Doesn’t anything bother you?” Rigg asked Lisa in amazement.
Lisa’s mouth twisted in a slow half-smile. “The sales return rush after Rasmas?” she offered.
Rigg laughed and watched in silent surprise as Lisa’s small black eyelashes clicked mechanically across her golden eyes, polishing them clean like windshield wipers.
“We could take another airship, we don’t need Kito,” Morganith said around the cigarette in her lips. She took it between two fingers, and her black nails gleamed as she tapped ashes into the fire.
“We don’t have the riggits for another airship,” Hari said at once.
Morganith smiled and dropped a sack of coins on the grass between her boots. Rigg froze, and Hari gasped. Lisa looked at the coin purse indifferently.
“Where did you get . . ?” Hari snatched up the sack and eagerly started counting the coins inside. She gasped happily. “Six hundred riggits!” On her shoulder, Rivet chirruped cheerfully.
“Where did you get that?!” Rigg asked, eyes round and admiring.
“My secret stash. Even Pirayo couldn’t find it,” Morganith answered. She took a weary pull on her cigarette and slowly exhaled smoke. “Arda and I were savin’ it for . . .” Her eyes clouded. “A rainy day.”
Hari’s eyes softened fondly. “So that’s how you kept payin’ for things.” She shook her head. “You coulda told me.”
“Yeah!” agreed Rigg indignantly. “You had me stealin’ from the market when I coulda just bought food.”
Morganith shrugged apologetically. “I was tryin’ ta hold on it. It meant something . . . I . . . couldn’t let it go.” She sniffed and shrugged again, waving off Hari’s sympathetic expression.
Looking at Morganith, it suddenly dawned on Rigg where she’d gotten the riggits from. A few years back, Morganith had proposed to Arda, never dreaming that Rigg had overheard the entire thing. They were taking a ferry on their way back to Realm Fixitt after yet another job, and Rigg had been coming up on deck when she stumbled upon Morganith and Arda, who were looking at the stars near the railing. Morganith was feeling sick and had come on deck for air. Arda had come along to keep her company. Rigg scrambled behind a pile of crates and watched dreamily as the lovers kissed, then Morganith told Arda she wanted to marry her. Because the Hand chose every citizen’s life partner for them at the age of eighteen, those who wished to choose their own life partner had to pay a fee. Arda reminded Morganith that demons and halflings had to pay more than twice the amount in fees to get married. It was a law orchestrated by the Regime to deter non-humans from marrying as they chose, for most lived in poverty, and those that weren’t lucky enough to live in poverty lived in the sewers instead. The marriage of a demon or halfling to anyone cost five thousand riggits. On top of the marriage fee, there were the fees to have identification cards forged and notaries silenced, for Arda and Morganith were living outside the law. Altogether, the endeavor would come to almost ten thousand riggits. Arda argued that ten thousand riggits was too much for one piece of paper proving they were committed to each other, but Morganith was determined to give Arda everything “a human could give her” and promised she would save the coin. Apparently, she only made it to six hundred riggits before it was too late.
Present-day Rigg looked at Morganith sympathetically, and it suddenly occurred to her where Morganith had gotten the money for Hari’s abortion: Hari had spent Morganith’s savings on jellybeans.
Hari also seemed to connect the dots, for she looked at Morganith apologetically for a beat. Morganith silently acknowledged the apology and looked away.
“It would be foolish to spend this onna airship,” Hari said, “when we could just trust Kito, our dearest and oldest friend. I think I’ve wasted enough of your money anyway.” She tossed the coin purse back to Morganith, and the halfling caught it deftly in her gloved mechanical hand. “Keep it for a rainy day, Mor.”
Morganith shook her head. “No,” she said at once, and Hari sighed heavily in defeat. “I don’t trust Kito, Hari. And neither should you.”
“Why?” Hari demanded irritably. “Because he’s human?”
“Because he’s ah worm,” Morganith returned in disgust. “He thinks fightin’ the Hand is ah game, like he’s inna soap opera or some shit. For us, it’s real and the only other choice is the boilers. You really shocked he’d back out? Abandon us for six months?” She shook her head. “No. There’s gotta be some other way to Ironmire.” She blinked as something occurred to her. “Hey, bucket boobs,” she said to Lisa, whose face darkened. “What happened to the airship you came to Hardsmith on? If it stopped in Coghurst, maybe we could jack it.”
“Her name is Lisa, Morganith,” Rigg corrected irritably.
“It is alright, Rigg,” said Li
sa gently. “Morganith despises me because I am an automaton, though she herself is part automaton. Both her right arm and a small vibrating apparatus inside her genitalia are mechanical.”
Rigg choked back a bursting laugh, and Hari pinched the wrinkled flesh between her eyes, as embarrassed as if she were the one whose sex toy had been exposed.
Morganith’s eyes narrowed. “Did you scan me?”
“It is no different than her hatred of humans, though she herself is part human,” went on Lisa, ignoring Morganith’s indignation. “I have come to learn that such internal conflict is wholly necessary to the sentient experience. When I experience such conflict, I will know I am alive.”
“The tin can philosophizes. Whadda ya know?” said Morganith bitterly.
“Scanning is . . . kinda intrusive, Lisa,” Hari scolded gently.
Lisa blinked. “My sincere apologies.” She looked at Morganith. “To answer your inquiry, Morganith, Evrard’s private airship would have returned to the castle by now. I was on it when I escaped.”
“Whoa,” said Rigg, resting her elbows on her knees. “What d’you mean?”
“I jumped out a porthole,” Lisa said simply, and the three Keymasters looked at her in amazement. “I landed somewhere outside the city walls. A group of scavenging cyborgs found me. They tried to h-harvest me for parts . . . so I killed them.” Her lip trembled. “I had n-never hurt anyone before. I thought the Hand would discover what I had done and that I would be scrapped. I was s-scarred, so I ran . . .” Her voice broke.
“It’s alright, Lisa,” Hari said, frowning sympathetically. “You don’t have to go on.” Rivet chirruped sadly on her shoulder.