The Thieves of Nottica

by Ash Gray

  “That’s why I’m not going to help Pirayo,” answered the robot derisively. “Pirayo, who used me and molested me? Pirayo, who thinks anything with tits is fair game? I will give Evrard the lockbox and never leave the castle again.” Her eyes narrowed on Rigg. “No one will ever steal parts of me again.”

  “How did you know it was me?” Rigg asked unhappily. “I mean . . . when I took the chips, I thought you were shutdown.”

  “I wasn’t,” the robot flung the words contemptuously.

  “I’m sorry,” Rigg answered helplessly.

  “Enough questions!” the robot said in disgust. “School is out. You want the lockbox? Come and get it.” She smirked. “Or is the little bitch scared of heights?”

  Rigg swallowed hard.

  “Rigg, just a little higher!” Morganith called. She was climbing just beneath Rigg, and the pair of them were scaling an immense clock tower. They were up so high, the world below was like a miniature model, with little people frozen in quaint poses and tiny trolleys snaking through plastic trees. Rigg had turned her hands into grappling hooks, and they were embedded in the side of the tower. She and Morganith had their harnesses rigged together: just one slip, and they would both fall.

  “Just ah little higher!” Morganith encouraged. “Come on!”

  Rigg’s hands started to shake. They were tired. She’d never morphed them into grappling hooks before. And she was young. Before joining the Keymasters, she’d hardly ever morphed her hands. They started to shake uncontrollably as she thought of the dizzying fall to the ground below. The air hit her back, reminding her that nothing was there to catch her.

  “Come on, Rigg!” Morganith called. “If we don’t make it before the clock strikes, we’re in for --”

  It was then that bats flew out of the tower and into Rigg’s face. Rigg screamed and let go of the wall. She and Morganith went tumbling down, slapping the brickwork until their bodies were bruised and bleeding. In a wild panic, Rigg’s arms changed into everything except wings. She knew wings, but she couldn’t do it, couldn’t focus, and they were going to die!

  They plummeted through the sharp, cold air, and as it whistled past them, the terror shrank Rigg’s heart. The ground was coming up fast. Rigg closed her eyes and prepared for the impact that would shatter her like a broken doll. It never came. Morganith’s arm locked around her waist, catching her in its metal wall, and they jerked to an abrupt halt, stopping so hard, Rigg bit her tongue and tasted blood. She huddled against Morganith’s chest, her hair in her face, shivering and horrified after the terrifying fall. Her body was aching with little scratches and her head was still spinning, and for several seconds, she just clung to Morganith and cringed. When she finally opened her eyes again, it was to find that she and Morganith were hanging from a grappling hook: Morganith had brought a grappling gun and had fired it when Rigg lost her hold. They dangled lazily on the end of the rope, Morganith’s boots against the wall, their faces to the sky. Morganith’s hard mechanical arm was comforting and strong, and she was smiling at Rigg when she opened her eyes.

  “See?” Morganith said, gently rocking them with a sway of her knees, “I’ve got ya. I’d never let ya fall.”

  “S-Sorry I let go.”

  “Nah, it’s alright. One day, you’ll fly. And then we won’t need this crap.”

  “Ya think so?”

  “Yeah, Riggy. You can do anything you want to, kid. You just gotta let go.”

  “Of what?”

  “All the what ifs.”

  Rigg moved to the very edge of the roof, letting the toes of her boots rest on air. She lifted her chin, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in her leg, the threat of a dizzy spell, the taste of sick on the back of her tongue. The wind beat back her puffy hair, urging her to leap. Her heart was pounding as she lifted her arms either side her body, and as the robot watched in amazement, her arms morphed into sails like the propellers of an airship, shredding her sleeves as they burst to unfold. She took a breath and flew the space between them, and all time seemed to slow as the empty air, the fire, the raging in the streets passed beneath her. Her boots thumped deftly beside the robot, and she dropped her arms, letting them melt to their true shape once more.

  The robot took a frightened step back. “What are you going to do to me?” she whispered. Her voice had always been identical to Lisa’s, but for the first time, she sounded like the Lisa Rigg knew: timid and uncertain.

  Rigg’s heart was still thumping in her ears. Flying, drifting so smoothly through the air had been more invigorating than she could have guessed. Her arms were aching from the endeavor, but every second had been worth it. It took her a moment to realize the robot was staring at her in fear, waiting for a response.

  Rigg shrugged. “Just . . . go.”

  The robot turned her head slightly, as if she hadn’t heard Rigg. “Just go?”

  “Go,” Rigg repeated with another shrug. “Take the lockbox back to Evrard. Take Lisa’s place.”

  “And . . . you will never hurt me again? I am free?”

  Rigg blinked sadly as she realized: cutting the sensory chips out of the robot’s head had hurt her. The robot perceived her as a malicious bully who took what she wanted for her own use, without any thought or care as to how those actions impacted others: just like the Hand.

  “Yeah,” Rigg said guiltily and slid her hands in her pockets. “You go and we’ll be square, right? Not sure what else I could do to make up.”

  The robot’s eyes rolled back and her brain clicked, searching her databanks for a definition. “Square,” she said factually, and her eyes rolled forward again, “a rectangle with sides of equal length and a rhombus with all right angles.” She looked at Rigg in confusion.

  Rigg laughed helplessly. “Nah, I mean we’re even.”

  The robot’s golden eyes darted over Rigg. “No,” she said, “you are slightly taller.”

  Rigg laughed flatly. “No, I mean . . . Consider this my apology . . . for those sensory chips I took.”

  Understanding filled the robot’s eyes and she solemnly nodded. Instead of going, however, she simply looked at Rigg for a time, and her golden eyes were curious. She tilted her head, and Rigg was surprised when the corner of her mouth lifted in a smile.

  “. . .what?” Rigg asked uncertainly.

  “Lisa may have been foolish,” the robot said, “but she was very lucky to have found you.”

  “I found her,” Rigg said, thinking of the sewage pipe.

  The robot slowly shook her head, still smiling. “No,” she said in amusement, “she found you.” With that, the robot turned and fled across the rooftops.

  ***

  Rigg returned to the apartment to find Hari on her knees over Pirayo’s body, bent over and hugging herself as she sobbed. Her staff was forgotten on the ground beside her and its buzz saws were caked in gooey blood. Pirayo lay on the floor, on his back, and his face was such an indistinguishable heap of gore, Rigg could only recognize him by his clothing and his mechanical legs.

  Rivet stood near Hari, scratched and dented, chirruping sadly and rubbing against the mechanist, like a forlorn housecat comforting its mistress. It was obvious at a glance that Rivet had dismantled Pirayo’s legs during the struggle. His mechanical legs lay in scattered sections near his torso, and the rivets were rolling across the floor, gleaming in the dim light.

  Hari was sobbing wretchedly, but to Rigg’s surprise, her mouth was actually grinning. Her head tipped back, and her bloody face was streaked with tears as she laughed in pure and ecstatic relief to the ceiling. She got to her feet, and after staring at Pirayo for another beat, she took up her weapon, set little Rivet on her shoulder, and turned away.

  Morganith was sitting on the floor near Hari, clutching her shotgun and hunched over in pain. Her mechanical arm still lay on the floor, and her half-arm was still blooding. She lifted her face as Hari turned to her, and the light shown on her eye, which was a mass of congealed blood and shredded flesh. As Rigg drew n
ear, Hari helped Morganith to her feet, and the half-demon immediately limped toward Natasha, who was sitting against the wall, clutching her bloody side and glaring at the Keymasters as they approached her. Natasha’s clothes were so shredded, it became apparent at once that she had attempted to stop Hari’s attacks on Pirayo, only to fall victim to her buzz saws. The three Keymasters halted, staring down their noses at her in deepest loathing.

  “What are you waiting for, Keymasters?” Natasha wheezed. She dropped her eyes. “Do it. Kill me. Razor will go on.”

  “This isn’t about Razor,” Hari said, voice trembling with anger.

  “You’re the reason Arda’s dead, you’re the reason for Pirayo,” said Rigg, shaking her head with bitter incredulity. “You’re the reason for everything. Pirayo couldn’t have screwed us over without your help. That you think this is about Razor is fucking insane.”

  “I had no choice,” Natasha said bitterly, breasts heaving between weak breaths. “I wished . . . to stop the Hand. . . . Pirayo’s way was the only . . . the only way . . . . Humans are . . . stronger . . . they can end the Regime . . . Pirayo was the only way --”

  “Helping him beat us and rape us,” Hari shouted, “was the only way to stop the Hand?!”

  “No, Hari, let ‘er whine,” said Morganith, peering at Natasha in disgust. “Go on, Natasha! Tell us how badly Evrard treated you. Give us your version of the hard-knock life in Nottica!” Having only one hand, she pointed her shotgun at the ceiling and cocked it roughly. “Arda – the love of my life – is dead because Pirayo sent us on that job! And you helped him every steppa the way!” She stared at Natasha grimly, and Rigg knew she was silently scolding herself for ever having trusted her. She aimed her shotgun at Natasha’s face, but her hand shook and she didn’t fire.

  Natasha slowly smiled. “You . . . can’t do it,” she wheezed, licking her bloody lip. “You . . . can’t do it . . . Morganith. You aren’t that cold.”

  “Yes, I am,” Morganith whispered in a low gravelly voice and blew Natasha’s face open.

  Chapter 15

  No Vacancy

  Rigg stood in Hari’s old workshop on the Parasol, an oilcan in hand, staring at the robot that lay silent on the table before her. Two years of searching every junkyard, every scrapheap, every floating island of stinking garbage. Two years, and now the robot was finally assembled. Rigg had used a head from a broken model from Lisa’s line, so Lisa’s face still looked the same: sweet and youthful and nestled in a mass of downy soft black hair. But the body Rigg slapped together was a patchwork quilt of pieces from different models, all of which Rigg made certain were actually nonfunctioning before harvesting. The torso had belonged to a musical unit, so the belly was actually an accordion, but the musical unit had been designated female, so a pair of high breasts sat above the accordion midriff, while the realistic pelvis below had been taken from a companion unit to give Lisa a sex, and the neck above the accordion was quite long for the admission of sound. One leg was thin as a broom and had belonged to one of the old mail carrier models, so the thigh was covered in postage stamps. The other leg had belonged to one of the acrobat models that were manufactured to entertain the rich and powerful, so the calf was thick and round and the entire leg itself was shapely and athletic. The arms were actually from Lisa’s line, as Rigg had found them in the same place she’d found the head, as were the delicate hands.

  Not wanting Lisa to lay around naked as she was rebuilt, Rigg had covered her in a white sheet from the neck down. All the pieces were in place. Lisa’s databanks were inserted in the head compartment, the compass was in her chest. Everything was screwed shut, welded shut, and polished. Rigg had even brushed Lisa’s hair, and on a chair near the table, a new dress was neatly draped, complete with a corset, waiting for Lisa to don it. All Rigg needed to do was pour in the oil. But she didn’t move.

  “Done it yet, Riggy?” said Morganith, entering the room behind Rigg.

  Two years hadn’t changed Morganith, except now she wore an eyepatch to cover the eyelids that were shriveled over her empty eye socket. She was without her tattered leather coat and chest guard, wearing instead a simple ensemble consisting of an undershirt with the sleeves rolled up and brown leather pants. The same heavy boots thumped her into the room, accompanied by the sound of infant coos.

  Rigg glanced over her shoulder, and the corner of her lips lifted in a half-smile. Little Ardicus, two years old now, sat up on Morganith’s shoulders, squealing as he played with Rivet, the tiny spidery robot scuttling over his head and tickling his ears.

  Hari had laid her egg not long after the final confrontation with Pirayo, and three months later, the egg hatched to reveal Ardicus, who Morganith often called Ardi. The boy was part human and part Alteri demon, but he could have passed for a full demon. He had the small, sharp horns of male Alteri, as well as the cyan eyes and narrow pupils of his demon side. But unlike his mother, his thick matted hair was black and fell in long tendrils behind his shoulders. He was cutting his first pair of fangs and had been chewing nonstop on anything he could find. At the moment, he grabbed Morganith’s welding goggles off her forehead and chewed them. Rivet clicked disapprovingly, sitting perched on the boy’s head.

  As Ardicus rode Morganith’s shoulders, Morganith had to hold onto the boy by his knees because he had no legs past them. Like Pirayo before him, Ardicus had been born without lower legs. That the boy could not walk distressed Morganith everyday, and they were afraid to approach anyone to make a special pair of legs for him. At one point, Morganith pointed out the sad irony of the situation: the one person who could and would have made Ardicus a pair of legs had passed away.

  Rigg wished she knew how to make things like Hari. She had barely managed to slap together Lisa’s new body.

  “I still can’t believe,” said Morganith with a laugh, “that after all the shit we literally went through, you let that robot go. You coulda used her body to boot up Lisa.”

  “No,” said Rigg and frowned. “The robot had already been through enough.” She sighed and set the oilcan on the table, bowing her head over Lisa.

  “What’s the matter, Riggy?” Morganith said, coming up beside Rigg. Her brows were creased in concern. “Gettin’ Lisa back is all you’ve talked about more than two years now. You can finally turn her on, and you’re hesitatin’.”

  “What if she doesn’t love me anymore?” Rigg worried.

  “There you go again with your what ifs. If you’re gonna love somebody in this world, expect to leave all fear behind. There’s no room for it.”

  Rigg bit her lip.

  “Why wouldn’t she love you?” Morganith asked softly.

  “When I turn her on,” Rigg said heavily, “she’ll be exactly the same as when I turned her off. But I’m not. I’m not the same person I was, Morganith.”

  “No, you aren’t,” agreed Morganith. “You’re even better.”

  Rigg smiled.

  “Come on, kiddo,” Morganith said, reaching up to tickle Ardicus, “let’s go fly ah kite.”

  Rigg listened as Ardicus giggled shrilly and Morganith’s heavy boots thumped them from the room. Her eyes softened as she looked at Lisa, whose face was solemn and serene as she lay on the table, eyes closed.

  Rigg gently turned Lisa’s head and poured in the oil.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Ash Gray lives in an alternate universe with sixteen cats and nine tortoises.