The Thieves of Nottica

by Ash Gray

  Lisa smiled, her golden eyes crinkling up. “Ate your first pie. Is that a euphemism?”

  Rigg didn’t look at Lisa, but her lips curled in a half-smile. “You want it ta be?”

  Lisa smiled and hugged her knees. “What was the festival like?”

  “Beautiful. They let go of all these paper lanterns that drifted up in the sky, and for the first time, the ugly green sky wasn’t so ugly.” Rigg gazed off wistfully, remembering. “Turns out I wasn’t the only demon who thought to rob the festival,” she said with a laugh. “Gov’nor Wallace was there receivin’ tribute and had a huge guard of mechs to protect him. He was real paranoid, always thought us demons were gonna assassinate him one day, and he woulda deserved it,” Rigg said darkly. “He’s easily one of the worst gov’nors of the Hand. Hari says that before the Hand were gov’nors, they was kings, real brutal kings, who did more than just shoot people for steppin’ outta line. Governor Wallace worshipped his ancestors and tried to imitate everything they did. Demons weren’t just arrested and taken to jail under his rule. We were raped, mutilated, and beheaded. No quiet executions in Sixsmith. No, sir.”

  Lisa looked at Rigg with wet sadness echoing in her eyes.

  “Everyone was bringin’ this bastard piles of riggits,” went on Rigg and suddenly grinned, “and durin’ the ceremony, he opens the bags – and they’re fulla feathers!”

  Lisa giggled. “What!”

  “Pounds and pounds of chicken feathers!” Rigg cried happily and tossed her hands. “There was ah uproar. Mechs runnin’ everywhere, lookin’ for the thieves, humans panickin’ because they was in deep shit, and Gov’nor Wallace screamin’ ‘Off with their heads!’” Rigg cried in a mock-masculine voice. “Like some monster in a fairy tale! ‘Off with their heads!’ I leave the festival laughin’ my ass off, and I’m the only one who notices a mysterious truck parked at the end of the street. It’s covered up, and there’s notta person in sight. I go over to it, thinkin’ there’s no way in hell I’mma ‘bout to find the missin’ riggits. But that’s exactly what I find. I lift up the canvas, and Morganith is sittin’ between dozens of bags of riggits, makin’ out with Arda. A woman grabs me by the arm, and it’s Hari. She asks me what I’m doin’, and I can barely answer. I mean, I’m face ta face with the Keymasters! Rebels against the Hand! The mechs notice us then, so Hari throws me in the back of the truck and takes off. And there ya have it.” Rigg grinned. “That’s how I joined the Keymasters!”

  “But they kidnapped you!” laughed Lisa.

  “Well . . . yeah,” Rigg admitted, scratching the back of her great bushy hair. “They didn’t have much ova choice. The Hand woulda thought I was involved either way, as they’d already seen me with Hari. I went back and saw my parents once after I left, those Aerta demons I told you about? They was so sacred to have anything to do with me, they just . . .” Rigg shrugged miserably, “slammed the door in my face.” Rigg fell silent. After a moment, she felt Lisa’s small hand close on her arm. They smiled at each other.

  “Hey,” said Rigg, “I want you ta have somethin’.”

  “What is it?” Lisa asked with the pleasant curiosity of a child.

  Rigg opened her mouth, letting her jaw sag to her lap. Lisa watched in amazement as the Aonji reached down her own throat and drew out a chain with a key dangling on it. Her jaw retracted and she adjusted it. “Been keepin’ it in my second belly since I left home,” she said, looking at the key. “Aonji demons have got this other belly we don’t use. It only activates when the first belly gets hurt, so it shouldn’t be wet or anything. . . . go on.” She smiled. “Take it.”

  Lisa took the key with round eyes and cradled it in her small hands. As Rigg had said, the key was completely dry, though warm from riding nestled in Rigg’s flesh. “What does it open?” Lisa asked, turning her round eyes to Rigg.

  “My old house back in Harlie,” Rigg answered with a sad smile. “My parents might be gone by now for all I know. If you ever needa place to go . . . a place to stay . . . well, it might be abandoned. You could go there.”

  Lisa clutched the key to her chest, looking at Rigg intently. Rigg couldn’t read her expression, and for several seconds, she stared awkwardly at the fire, hoping she hadn’t done something foolish.

  “Rigg . . .”

  Rigg glanced nervously at Lisa. “You don’t havta take it --”

  “I want it,” Lisa said at once. In a hushed voice, she said to herself, “No one has ever given me a gift before.”

  Rigg kept her eyes on the fire, listening as Lisa happily dropped the key around her neck. Her lashes fluttered when Lisa kissed her on the cheek. Lisa’s lips were soft and gentle and left a warm tingling on Rigg’s skin. They sat in happy silence for a long time, and Rigg didn’t think she’d ever get to sleep now. After that kiss, she was wide awake, as if an electric shock had gone through her.

  “You should rest, Lisa,” Rigg said. “I’ll keep watch now.”

  Lisa blinked at the fire. “I do not need to rest.”

  “Lettin’ your engines cool would let your hardware live a lot longer, trust me,” Rigg said with a laugh. “You won’t get another chance to shut down for a long time.”

  “Alright,” Lisa agreed. “I admit I could use some downtime. It would save oil.” She smiled. “What shall I dream?”

  “I thought robots didn’t dream.”

  “We can make something up,” Lisa said. She laid back on Rigg’s coat, the rusty golden key resting between her breasts. Rigg smiled and laid at the robot’s side. Together, they stared at the great spider webs overhead and the stars that blazed beyond them, winking innocently in swirls of blue-black.

  “How does this work for you?” Rigg wondered. “Most units have some kinda internal clock or . . .”

  “I will shutdown and reinitialize in one hour.”

  “Oh.”

  “How should my dream begin?” Lisa asked quietly, happily.

  “Most of the time we dream about stuff that could never happen in real life.” Rigg’s face brightened. “Like findin’ ah mountain of candy! Or. . . . . meetin’ the girl of your dreams.” She glanced furtively at Lisa.

  An oil tear filled Lisa’s right eye as she whispered, “I would like to be a person. That would be a fantastic dream. However, I would wake up the next day and still be an object.”

  Rigg frowned. “What? You are ah person.”

  Lisa laughed sadly. “The world does not see it that way, Rigg.”

  Rigg was silent as she realized Lisa had a point.

  “If I were a person,” Lisa whispered, “I would wear whatever I wanted to wear. There would be no factory number on the back of my neck, so no one could use it against me. Men would not grope me or mistake me for a companion unit. No one would be afraid of me.” She laughed sadly and her voice trembled. “Instead, people would admire my great strength. No one would coerce me into performing services, carrying luggage, or fetching dropped items. No one would refer to me as ‘girl’ or ‘it’ but by my name. And at the end of each day,” her lips trembled in a miserable smile, “someone, somewhere, would tell me they loved me.”

  Rigg sadly glanced over at Lisa, only to find her eyes had closed and she was still: she had shutdown. Pity shimmering in her eyes, Rigg gave Lisa a soft kiss on the cheek and whispered, “I love you.”

  Chapter 7

  The Trimorphous

  The giant spiders that roamed the wastelands were widely known as nocturnal creatures. The ones that dwelled in the vast emptiness beyond the forests were of the burrowing kind, sleeping in their holes the day through and emerging only in the dark of night. The ones in Forest Purva would normally have descended on the Keymasters’ camp as soon as night fell, but they remained in their webs instead, watching with pinchers softly clicking as Rigg and Lisa spoke in intimate whispers beside the fire, almost as if they silently approved.

  In the morning, after waiting for Hari to finish puking off in the bushes, the Keymasters packed up camp and set out again
, passing through the eerily silent trees and beneath the cold shadow of mournful ancient temples. It was days before they reached the other side of the forest, and during that time, Lisa talked with the Keymasters every evening around the fire, becoming little by little more immersed in their company. Rigg was pleased when Hari seemed to take an immediate liking to Lisa and fell to laughing with her easily. Even Morganith let down her guard, and talked with Lisa amicably.

  One day as they were walking, Lisa nearly tripped and fell, and Rigg caught her in her arms. They stammered and scrambled apart, and the tension between them was so obvious, it wasn’t long before Morganith was calling Rigg and Lisa lovebirds and Hari had attempted a parental sex talk with Rigg.

  Rigg didn’t need a parental sex talk, though. She’d had sex once with a boy. It happened one year after she joined the Keymasters, when she was seventeen. She loved to draw, especially humans, and that year, the Keymasters were living in Tinktun City, in Realm Fixitt, a place with more humans than quite possibly any place else in Fixitt. Tinktun was the capital of automaton production. The impoverish humans who worked in the factories went home everyday, smudged in dirt after having assembled a thousand robot pieces, as the Hand didn’t trust robots to make other robots. Rigg would sit outside the factory and sketch the factory workers as they were coming out. Their tired, smudged human faces fascinated her. One evening, she was sketching as usual when a voice whispered in her ear, “Why don’t you draw a real man?”

  Rigg leapt and glanced over her shoulder. She was relieved to see the boy leaning over her was actually a demon and not some human man who – for the thousandth time – thought she was fair game. Whenever Rigg went out at night, she always made her face into a boy’s face in the hope that it would deter men looking to take advantage of some lone girl. Unfortunately, such tactics often drew the attention of men looking to take advantage of some lone boy.

  The demon boy leaning over Rigg’s shoulder was about her age, an adolescent Ainmik demon with pretty slanted eyes that were yellow as fire and long, flowing black hair thick as sheep’s wool. Small horns curled from his temples, and his skin was a beautifully smooth and flawless brown. He was wearing his filthy work shirt and trousers, his hair was frizzy as if he’d just come from the boilers, he was covered in soot and sweat . . . and yet he still looked like cake with legs.

  Ainmik demons were famously attractive. They were so attractive, they had historically been used by humans as concubines and were still widely sexualized in cartoons and silent films into the present day. With the creation of the companion units, it had become illegal for Ainmik demons to peddle their services, though many still did so to get by.

  Embarrassed by her childish scrawl, Rigg hid her drawing against her coat and looked back and forth with mock enthusiasm. “A real man? Where?” she teased.

  The boy laughed softly. “I’m all man, son. What’s your name?”

  Rigg dropped her eyes. “I’m . . . notta boy. Go away. I don’t have any riggits anyway.” She started off, but the boy caught her arm. She looked back at him, stiff and ready to snatch herself free.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” the boy said, frowning in amazement. “You . . .” He laughed incredulously. “You think I’mma prostitute?”

  Rigg winced. “Well. . . yeah. Sorry.”

  The boy let her arm go, and they stood awkwardly on the corner, under the street light, as human workers filed out of the factory. Eventually, the boy said, “Whadda you mean you’re notta boy?”

  “I’m . . . not.” Rigg bit her lip. She couldn’t possibly tell the boy that she was actually a shapeshifting Aonji demon. If he was a Hand informant – or just had a big mouth – such information could get her killed. She was glad when the boy seemed to sense her hesitation and didn’t push her. “So . . .” he said, “you gotta name, Notta Boy?”

  “It’s Rigg,” Rigg answered.

  “No, it isn’t,” the boy said at once and laughed.

  Rigg glowered.

  “Look,” said the boy, “I been around, alright? I know ah moniker when I hear one. When’d ju start callin’ yourself Rigg? When ya stole your first riggit?”

  “. . . yeah,” Rigg admitted sheepishly.

  The boy grinned and slipped his hands in his pockets. “Don’t worry,” he said and winked at her. “I won’t tell no body.”

  Rigg’s heart fluttered and she looked away, wishing he weren’t so incredibly handsome. He was taller than her, and very slender, almost feminine. Rigg noticed he’d drawn eyeliner around his eyes, even though his face was smudged with soot from the city smog like everyone else. His nails were also dyed black, and his hands were shaped so nicely, she half-wanted to draw them.

  “What’s your name?” Rigg asked the boy.

  “Wise,” he said.

  “No, it’s not,” Rigg said at once, and they laughed.

  “Alright, you got me,” the boy said. “We’re both ashamed of our past, it seems. All the more reason we should fuck.” He wagged his brows and grinned.

  Rigg spit a piffing laugh and looked away. “Look, you’re cute an’ all, but why’re you still talkin’ to me? You like boys, don’t ya?”

  “I like girls, too,” he said seriously. “You like girls, too?”

  “Yes,” Rigg whispered shyly.

  “Then we’re perfect for each other,” Wise joked, but his eyes were serious. He offered his hand, and after hesitating, Rigg took it. Wise guided her to his home in the Low Quarter, where demons and halflings lived in squalid rows of squalid houses, with gears and clocks and windmill blades ever ticking and turning along the avenue. Wise introduced Rigg to her first pleasures as a woman, and that night, she learned why he’d chosen the moniker Wise.

  “Kinda weird the spiders are just lettin’ us mosey on through,” Morganith said, shattering Rigg’s reverie.

  They had been in Forest Purva for three days now and were finally coming to the other side. Hari walked at the lead of their procession, while Morganith walked at the back, and Rigg and Lisa walked side by side in the middle. Lisa was still wearing Rigg’s key, and the sight made her happy.

  Morganith was holding her shotgun and jerked her head at the branches above, where the spiders slept. “Not that I’m complainin’. Woulda been real cliché to have fought the damn things.”

  “Cliché?” Lisa repeated curiously.

  “Yeah,” said Morganith, chucking her cigarette stub. “There’s notta story in existence where the heroes don’t fight giant spiders.” She wiggled her fingers, mimicking the spiders. “Not that we’re heroes, but there’s even some stories about us fightin’ ‘em.”

  “Really?” laughed Rigg. She glanced back at Morganith, who was stamping through the dead grass with the signature swagger that always made her tatty leather coat flare out impressively behind her.

  “Really,” Morganith answered with a laugh. “I was inna bar --”

  Hari and Rigg groaned in unison, and Morganith cried, “What?”

  “Every time you start a story with ‘I was inna bar,’ ” Hari complained.

  “You go off into some craziness that can’t possibly be true,” Rigg added wearily.

  Morganith waved an impatient hand. “Don’t listen to them, Lisa,” she said, and Lisa giggled. “Like I said, I was inna bar, and I’d just beaten this guy inna poison drinkin’ competition. I swear, I musta drank ah vat of poison before I won. When it was over, the whole bar started callin’ me Iron Gut --”

  Rigg groaned and mouthed, “Help me!” to Lisa, who laughed.

  “Did the other man die?” Lisa asked Morganith.

  “Yeah, but that’s beside the point,” Morganith said dismissively, and Rigg shook her head. “So this guy sits down to buy me those drinks his dead friend owes me,” Morganith went on, “and as we’re sittin’ there drinkin’, he starts goin’ on and on about how he saw the Keymasters kill ah giant spider. Said the thing rose outta the fountain in Parue and we battled it with fire from our eyes.”

  Hari lau
ghed. “Exactly how drunk were you?”

  Morganith snorted. “More like he was drunk.”

  “The spiders have an aggression level of 2.1,” said Lisa factually. “We should be safe until we have exited the perimeter.”

  “Because of me,” Hari said.

  “More Alteri stuff?” said Morganith wearily.

  “My people were at peace with the spiders,” said Hari. “We herded them like cattle. They know by my smell that I’m Alteri, so --”

  “More Alteri stuff,” Morganith sighed.

  Hari rolled her eyes. “Fine, Morganith, I’ll make you ah deal. I won’t burden you with random snippets about the Alteri for an entire hour.”

  “Hallelujah,” Morganith muttered.

  They had been traveling for some time in silence when a howl made their procession stop. It had come from behind them, deep within the trees. Night was falling, and the encroaching blue-black that swallowed the gray sky made it difficult to see. The four of them turned and drew close together, facing the hair-raising screech as they listened, still as mice. Rivet was perched on Hari’s shoulder and shivered meekly at the horrifying sound, spindly legs clicking together in fear.

  “What the holy hell was that?” Morganith muttered, dark eyes rolling to the sky as she listened. Her shotgun was in both hands, and Rigg saw the moonlight gleam on a hint of metal that appeared through a hole in her glove.

  The howl came again, a bone chilling sound, like a wild beast yowling at the scent of blood. Somewhere to the left, something monstrous crashed through the underbrush as it rolled toward them like a tank, shaking twigs down to the earth, casting an ominous silhouette as it came. In the branches above, the giant spiders shrieked in terror and scuttled away. The Keymasters exchanged wary glances: that did not bode well.