The Thieves of Nottica

by Ash Gray

“Nah, just ah bag fulla rainbows, Mrs. Pimbernoodle,” Morganith teased, and Hari smiled sadly.

  Rigg knew Pimbernoodle was one of the many false names Hari often used to get by, as using her real name would have drawn the attention of the Hand. Now that Rigg knew about Nel, she realized it was very likely Hari had used such a name to acquire a marriage license as well. Morganith always said Pimbernoodle was the name that perfectly captured Hari’s playful and childlike essence. Before Arda’s death, Hari had been very cheerful and very optimistic, always rushing into danger with a laugh and a smile. She fully took joy in her work as a professional thief and was always on the hunt for a new job. Defying the Hand and living exactly as she pleased had become the center focus of her life to the exclusion of all else. Morganith often joked that Hari needed a real hobby, as even her tinkering was more about defying the Hand than actually enjoying her stolen freedoms.

  They took a shortcut through an alley, where small scuttling worker drones scurried up the walls with spidery legs. Each drone had a center that served as a paint bucket, and the drones would dip their paintbrush-hands into a small hole at the top of the bucket before applying paint to the wall. The Keymasters passed the drones without pausing, splashing up mud as they went, but Lisa stopped to stare.

  Rigg stopped at Lisa’s side, her hands in her pockets. “What is it, Lise?” she asked, glancing nervously left and right. There were cameras everywhere these days, even in alleys, and they couldn’t afford to linger. Just up ahead, Morganith called for them to hurry up.

  Lisa’s head was tilted back and she was staring at the wall with her mouth open. “It’s . . . beautiful,” she whispered, touching a slender hand to her breasts.

  “It’s graffiti,” Rigg said flatly.

  Lisa shook her head in awe. “And it’s beautiful.”

  Rigg peered up at the wall. “Huh?”

  “Can’t you feel the anger and pain?” Lisa answered. She curled her small hands into fists. “The sheer defiance.”

  “Yeah, ‘defiance’ about nails it,” said Rigg with a laugh.

  Someone had scrawled “FuCk THE HanD” in bright, sickly green, complete with a hand flipping a middle finger beneath. The worker drones were scurrying to cover it, slowly erasing it with a rusty red shade of paint that blended almost seamlessly with the metal wall. Rigg didn’t doubt that the vandal had been lynched. The smallest signs of resistance – even graffiti – were always met with swift and brutal punishment, usually public.

  “This person risked their very life,” said Lisa, frowning in amazement as she stared at the slowly disappearing graffiti, “to freely express themselves in an environment that would crush and oppose all forms of self-expression. They must have been quite . . . remarkable.”

  Rigg laughed incredulously. “You’re admiring a vandal.”

  Lisa blinked away her reverie and smiled fondly at Rigg. “Some would call you a vandal.”

  ***

  According to Hari’s navigation watch, the nearest boarding house stood near a fishing pier, a leaning ramshackle of a building called Madame’s Fisheye. The Keymasters always made a point never to stay at the same boarding house twice for fear of being captured, and they had never been to Madame’s Fisheye.

  On the pier outside the boarding house, a lazy-eyed man sat with a crooked fishing pole, his long gray hair draped in his eyes, his leathery black skin like an old shoe in the weak sunlight. He was human, clad in a long, dark blue coat, and too poor to afford prosthetic limbs for his legs. He sat on the pier without mechanical appendages, his half-legs wrapped in bandages, and Rigg saw Morganith glance at him in sympathy: she was a demon and was better off than him. He didn’t look up as they passed but glanced proudly at the mechanical crocodile that lay on display beside him. Its stomach panel had been opened to reveal the gears and cogs and synthetic sacks that formed organs inside. A sign beside it claimed the legless man had fished it out of the river, losing his legs to it in the process, and a tin can beneath the sign waited for riggits. Always appreciative of a good story – true or false – Morganith dropped a few riggits in the man’s tin can and exchanged a pleasant nod with him as she passed.

  Rigg was on the verge of reprimanding Morganith for not helping the severely mutilated man back in the square, but she bit her tongue when she remembered why the halfling wouldn’t have bothered. When Morganith had worked for the Hand, she had witnessed many humans who betrayed their demon friends to the government and were mutilated for helping demons regardless. In that light, it made sense why she would have suspected and even disdained the mutilated man more than having pitied him. Rigg quietly wondered if she hadn’t given her riggits to a man who’d betrayed his demon friends.

  They entered the boarding house to find themselves in a sitting room, the only occupant of which was a withered human woman who was absently rotating a toothpick in her yellow teeth. She slouched on one of the torn couches with her feet on the coffee table. Her matted gray hair was piled atop her head in a mess, broken welding goggles sat on her forehead, her brown face was smudged with oil, not smog, as if she’d been tinkering, and dull copper knuckle rings were on her thick fingers, whirling slowly with gears. She was reading a folded newspaper when the Keymasters came in, and given her nonchalant attitude, Rigg half-suspected she’d seen them coming a mile away on the surveillance screen that adorned her cracked and barren wall. When the bells on the door tinkled, she barely glanced over her paper and seemed indifferent about the fact that her strange visitors were suspiciously wet and reeking of feces.

  “Sign outside says you gotta room for rent,” said Morganith, approaching the couch with Hari.

  Rigg hung back near the door, half-expecting the woman to kick them out. After all, they looked – and smelled – plenty suspicious and any person in their right mind wouldn’t want to get involved with people who had ticked off the Hand.

  Lisa hung back at the door with Rigg and hovered nervously behind her. It took Rigg a moment to realize Lisa was avoiding the camera on the opposite wall. She let her face morph into that of an ugly human, then offered Lisa her gasmask, which Lisa gratefully strapped over her face.

  “So you can read, halfling,” grunted the woman, not looking up. She slowly turned a page and kept reading the paper. “How many nights?”

  “One. Maybe longer,” Hari said.

  The woman grunted again. “That’ll be ten riggits ah night. Five up front.”

  “That we can do,” said Hari and dropped five riggits on the coffee table.

  The sound of jingling coins caught the woman’s attention and she lowered the paper. With a groan, she slowly leaned forward and slid the coins into her hand. Rigg couldn’t believe it when she took out a loupe and examined one of the coins through it. “I been counterfeit before,” she muttered and paused to bite the coin. “These is real enough.” She rose with another weary groan. “This way then.”

  They followed the woman toward a flight of stairs, and she took a ring of keys off the wall as she led them. “If you ain’t put it together yet,” she said as she climbed, “I’m Madame and this here’s my Fisheye. If you want company for the night, I could send Daisy up for an extra five riggits. Though . . .” the woman chuckled, “I see you already got company.”

  “I am not a companion unit,” said Lisa irritably.

  “And it’s got personality,” chuckled the woman.

  They came to the second floor landing, where only three scratched and patched metal doors lined the walls. A door was on each side of the narrow hall, while the third door was at the very end with a camera hovering over it. The woman went to the door on the right side of the hall and fumbled with her keys. Rigg noticed with revulsion that her nails were brown, chipped, and uneven.

  “This here’s ya room,” the woman said and went on rapidly, “Toilet’s at the end of the hall. Keep quiet after five. No comin’ and goin’ all night. No racket. No bringin’ more people home: you paid for four and you’ll stay four. Breakfast is at ten, if
ya want it. Supper is always at six. I don’t do lunch. Mind the roaches, they bite.”

  “What’s your name?” Hari asked. “I don’t like callin’ you Madame.”

  “Madame is all the name you need,” said the woman with a laugh. “Ain’t nobody smart gotta name in Coghurst.” She finally found the right key and unlocked the door.

  “How much did you say Daisy cost again?” asked Morganith, and beside her, Hari rolled her eyes.

  Madame gave Morganith a crooked smile, revealing several crooked teeth. “Daisy is out, but you can have me tonight, pretty puss. On the house.”

  Morganith winced. “Er . . . I’ll pass.”

  “Get in the room, Morganith,” Hari said in exasperation and pushed Morganith through the door.

  Rigg wasn’t surprised when their room was small as a postage stamp. The walls were barren except for a few bits of wire, and a shabby double bed stood against the cracked plaster, draped in colorless sheets that were patched and faded. A single light bulb on a wire hung from the ceiling, and the small window on the opposite wall was covered by a tatty curtain, through the holes of which dim sunlight poured. Rigg laughed to see the camera in the corner of the ceiling had been covered with a patched sock: Madame quietly defying the Hand.

  Hari went to the center of the room, the wooden floorboards creaking under her as she knelt and started rummaging through her bag. The others wandered into the room as she pulled out a small mechanical device. It was a pewter teapot rigged on the inside with gears. The outside was scuffed, battered, and punched with holes that were shaped like fat goldfish. Hari cranked the teapot’s lever three times with her tongue in her teeth, then set it on the floor and started removing her boots. The teapot whistled and puffed out steam, and warmth filled the room as a small flame ignited in its center. The teapot itself began to slowly rotate, and all around them, silhouettes of fish drifted dreamily across the walls. Lisa watched the drifting fish with the round, hushed eyes of a child, and Hari smiled, proud of her contraption.

  In the past, Hari had often used her puffing teapot to dry their weapons and clothing when it was called for. She set her staff near the heat, then removed her socks, sat beside the teapot, and held them over the steam, wiggling her little toes and encouraging them to dry. She had three long toes on each foot, and her patched socks had three toes to match. Her satchel was on the floor beside her, and Rigg saw tiny metal Rivet scurry out of it and up to the teapot. The pocket robot made disgruntled whizzing noises as it shook the water off itself like a miniscule dog.

  Sighing with content, Morganith took a seat beside Hari and started removing her own boots. She took off her coat as well, revealing her half-arm and the mechanical limb that was strapped to it and dripping with water. “I can sleep with a roof over my head – at last,” she said, placing her folded shotgun near the heat.

  Hari rolled her eyes. “We were only in the forest three and ah half days.”

  “Three and ah half,” repeated Morganith in amusement. “Always so precise, Hari. Sure you ain’t ah robot too?”

  “Harilotecca is organic,” Lisa said factually.

  Morganith laughed. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  While the others were talking, Rigg was removing her coat. She slung it across a thin metal chair that was sitting under the window and joined her friends beside the teapot, her small, nimble fingers quickly undoing the buckles on her boots. She noticed Lisa standing awkwardly on the edge of their circle and paused. Though Lisa’s clothing was as drenched as everyone else’s, it didn’t seem to bother her. She made no move to undress and simply stood by, watching them contently with her head tilted to the side. Her arms were at her sides and her hands serenely lifted, as if she might twirl.

  “Lisa, honey,” Hari said with hesitation, “you should dry your clothes. I know the synthetic parts of you mimic organic skin, but you could still rust in other places.”

  Lisa blinked her large doll eyes and sat stiffly and abruptly beside Rigg, her legs snapping one over the other. She watched a moment as everyone held their socks in the hot steam, then she reached behind and started untying her apron.

  “What . . . er. What’re you doin’?!” Rigg asked in alarm when Lisa tossed her apron aside and started unbuttoning her dress.

  Lisa’s fingers halted on the buttons and she tilted her head, regarding Rigg with blank innocence. “I do not wish to wear this dress, Rigg,” she said somberly. “The sudden amount of water weighing it down has awakened me to the fact that it has always weighed me down.”

  “They’re your slave clothes,” said Morganith quietly.

  The three Keymasters fell silent, each remembering how every demon who came of age was given a work uniform and sent to the boilers.

  Hari awkwardly cleared her throat. “I understand you don’t wanna wear it,” she said gently to Lisa, “but we’ve gotta get you replacement clothing first. You can’t just walk around town naked.”

  Lisa blinked, as if she were on the verge of asking why. The gears buzzed in her head as she silently searched for an answer to her bafflement. When she found no answer, Rigg groaned when the words finally came from her mouth, “Why not?”

  Morganith burst out laughing.

  “Shut up, Mor!” Hari scolded, slapping Morganith with her wet sock, though Rigg could tell she was holding back a laugh. “Shut up!” she cried, laughter in her voice.

  Morganith laughed and laughed, shaking her head as she pulled out her cigarette case. She knocked out a cigarette and stuck it behind her ear. “Geez Louise.”

  Rigg fought back a smile as she said to Lisa, “It’s just . . . not somethin’ people do. You gotta wear clothes!”

  Lisa tilted her head and the gears in her head buzzed and whirled again as she searched her databanks for an answer. “Clothing serves three functions. One, it keeps hairless organics warm. Two, it is used to denote class and worth,” she said factually. “Three, it is used as a form of self-expression. Only humans may engage in the latter.”

  “Exactly,” said Hari darkly. “If you walk around in whatever you want instead of your uniform, people will think you’re human. Either that or a robot showing too much sentience.”

  “What if I want people to think I am human?” Lisa said sadly.

  Hari hesitated. She glanced anxiously at Morganith.

  “Think about it, babe,” Morganith said gently. “You’re travelin’ in the company of three demons. If you passed for human, people would think we’d kidnapped you.” She snorted. “We’re lucky no one has arrested us thinkin’ we stole you from your rich human master.”

  Lisa dropped her eyes. “I see.”

  “Maybe we’ll find you something you could wear in private,” Hari said soothingly. “Something small, like a scarf.”

  Lisa brightened. “That would be efficient,” she said, putting such a sigh on the word “efficient” that she might as well have said “orgasmic.”

  Everyone went back to drying their socks, and after watching the others for a time, Lisa slowly unbuttoned her ankle boots and pointed her damp stocking feet at the teapot.

  Rigg closed her eyes as the hot steam washed over her, warming her clothes, frizzing her draped and dripping cloud of hair until it stood upright on her head again. Her face was still that of an ugly human, and the steam went up her large nostrils, curling inside. She let her face morph back into its natural shape and massaged her aching cheeks.

  “You’ve been pretty helpful so far, Lisa,” Morganith said after a pause. “I mean, I guess if you were leadin’ us into ah trap, you woulda done it by now.”

  “Yes,” said Lisa with a small smile, “I would have.”

  Morganith laughed dryly. “And you really don’t know what Evrard wants from us?”

  Lisa blinked, as if it were common knowledge. “He wants exactly what you said he wants: for you to steal his lockbox back from Pirayo.”

  “Ah,” said Morganith darkly.

  “The note was meant to draw you to his
castle in pursuit of revenge,” Lisa went on. “He did not think you would come otherwise.”

  Hari swallowed miserably and stared at the fire. So did Morganith.

  Rigg tried to pushed away thoughts of Arda. She was tired of being sad, but each day she woke up, and it still hurt. Arda would tell them they were foolish for ever leaving Hardsmith, that there was no reason to go risking their lives just to get vengeance on Pirayo. It was in the Keymaster code never to seek vengeance. Doing so was how one was caught, and good thieves were never caught. Thinking about it now, Rigg grimly realized that everything they’d done in the last three or four days had broken their own code.

  “I solemnly swear that every word I utter is a lie,” whispered Rigg unhappily.

  Lisa tilted her head. “What was that?”

  Hari glanced at Lisa with hesitation. “It’s the Keymaster oath,” she said with a sad smile. “Nel, Arda, and me made it up back when we first formed the group. See, the Keymasters aren’t just a bunch of wild bandits. We’ve got rules.”

  Rivet chirruped proudly, rising high on its pencil-thin legs.

  “Rules that are supposed to protect our own people,” Morganith added guiltily.

  “A moral code,” stated Lisa.

  “Yeah,” said Morganith. She slowly smiled. “Eh, bucket head, if you’re gonna stay with us, you might as well say the oath. How d’you feel ‘bout becomin’ ah Keymaster?”

  Lisa brightened. “You mean . . . join you?” she said, her voice soft with disbelief.

  “Yeah,” said Rigg, grinning. “Whadda ya say?”

  Lisa smiled, her eyes clicking from face to face. “I would like that very much.”

  “Good,” said Morganith, “then repeat after us.”

  “I solemnly swear that every word I utter is a lie,” said Rigg, smiling.

  Lisa repeated the words in her soft, lilting voice.

  “That my lying tongue,” said Morganith, “will strike at the Hand and only the Hand.”

  Lisa repeated.

  “That my lies will defy every supposed truth put forward by the corrupt machine that violates us,” said Hari with sudden vehemence, “and in that defiance, I will remain aloof, hidden, and unseen, that I might strike again. I am a Keymaster!”