Work Text:
A girl fell out of the sky. Not high up enough to kill, but enough to hurt.
"Oof!"
Bonesaw groaned, rubbing her head. There was going to be a bump there. Worth the trouble of going under the scalpel? Probably not. Working on herself was such a pain.
She got to her feet, dusting her dress off and looked around.
The portal had deposited her on a grassy hill overlooking a city. Bonesaw squinted, her eyesight magnifying a hundred times. An old city. With soot-stained brick-and-mortar buildings, smokestack factories and horse-drawn carriages. Old-timey, like Mary Poppins old.
Bonesaw bit her lip. Hopefully that didn't mean what she thought it did. Jack wasn't going to like this one bit.
But no point in just standing here. Idle hands and all that nonsense. Bonesaw walked down the hill and set off for the city.
Bonesaw smelled the city before she entered it. A familiar aroma, the mix of smoke, shit and rotting flesh. But there was another smell, layered atop all the others that muted them. A neutralizing agent? A chemical had started to collect in her lung's filter sac. She'd have to study it later.
"Hey there!"
A man among six waved at her. There was a tollbooth behind him, and judging by his pressed uniform that was his usual post. The man - young man, fresh-faced and boyish - approached her with an bemused smile like he wasn't sure what he was seeing.
"What are you doing out here, miss?" The baby-faced guard asked.
Bonesaw eyed the rifle (old-timey like everything else) on the guard's back, as well as his compatriots similarly armed who stood stock-still by the booth.
A smile blossomed on her face. "Oh nothing, sir, just trying to find some flowers," Bonesaw answered sweetly.
"Flowers?"
"Yessir, flowers."
"There's no flowers around Radham."
No? That was interesting. Bonesaw held up her hands. "Well, that explains why I didn't find any, sir."
The guard frowned. "Your mother know you been out in these woods?"
Bonesaw looked down, kicking at the dirt. "She will if I'm not back soon."
The guard stared at her for a moment longer, deciding what to do with her. FInally he sighed and waved a hand. "Alright, get on home, don't let me catch you wandering into the woods again. Dangerous around there."
Bonesaw grinned at the guard. "Thank you sir!"
She ran off at a girlish pace - better to sell the illusion. She started to pass the tollbooth where the guard's compatriots stood and shot them a sheepish grin.
None of them reacted.
Bonesaw slowed to a stop and looked over her shoulder at the five statuesque guards.
Was she just seeing things? Imagining operations before they actually happened? Bonesaw backpedaled, craning her neck to get a better look. She came to the side of one of the guardmen and looked up at his face.
The man really was like a statue. His skin was ashen, his eyes blank and unfocused, but most noticeable of all and what set Bonesaw's mind off was the stitching she saw weaving around the man's eye. The skin of his eye and his face were different shades.
"Hey! What are you doing!"
The other guard - the live one. Bonesaw took off running, holding nothing back this time.
She had to find out where these creatures came from.
Stitched what a wonderful name for the undead men! Way, way better than Frankensteins or whatever. Blueprints flooded her mind, designs demanding to be made. She so badly needed to experiment, to test out this new rush of ideas, but she had to control herself.
There were still questions that needed answering.
Bonesaw stood outside Radham Academy which the local citizens spoke of with both quiet respect and hushed fear. A very nice reaction, if Bonesaw said so herself, her level of respect for the mad scientists of Radham went up a notch.
The gate into the academy was watched over by another living guard and a few dead ones, but these fellows were more busy than the other. Carriages (drawn by stitched horses!) went in and out with regularity, but were stopped and checked by the guard and his entourage of stitched.
Bonesaw probably couldn't just walk through like she had at the city road. What to do? She could kill the guard easily, but what about the stitched? Would her poisons and paralyzing agents work against them? If it came to it, could she fight them in a straight-up fight? Bonesaw had seen the Frankenstein movie and all its assorted remakes like a million times and the one ever-lasting trait every Frankenstein monster had was that they were strong as heck.
Bonesaw didn't care to test their strength out. Which meant she would have to sneak into the Academy somehow. Climb the fence somewhere less secure, hijack a student when they left or -
"You seem awfully interested in the Academy."
Bonesaw turned to look at the voice. A boy with messy black hair smiled at her, far too smug for a kid six inches shorter than her.
Behind him was a girlish looking boy with blonde hair, thick glasses and a hefty tome in his arms. He did not seem to share his friend's amusement, frowning.
"Waiting for someone? Or just admiring the sight?" The smug boy asked.
Bonesaw raised an eyebrow, no point in playing cutesy with a kid. "What's it to you?"
The boy shrugged. "Nothing. Just curious." He looked at her and smiled again. "I've never seen you before."
"Oh? And do you remember everyone you meet?"
His grin grew wider. "No, but Jamie does." He jerked his thumb at the bookworm kid who only frowned more.
"Please leave me out of this," Jamie said with well-worn exasperation.
"You're the one who pointed her out," the smug boy shot back. He turned back to Bonesaw, still grinning. "Satisfy my curiosity, Blondie, that's all I ask."
Blondie. Bonesaw wasn't sure whether to be offended, but then what was the harm. These two seemed to know quite a bit about the Academy, maybe they knew some older boys that went there. Assuming that the Academy was like a university. But if it wasn't... if it wasn't, maybe they were the students! What a fantastic world!
Bonesaw smiled sweetly at the smug boy, "I'm waiting for my friend. He's one of the students."
"Oh really? What's his name?"
"Jack Shaw."
The smug boy snorted. "Stupid name. Sounds made-up."
"No, it isn't!" Bonesaw protested.
"Jamie?" The boy asked.
The blonde boy sighed and adjusted his glasses. "It's a fairly common name actually. Do you know what year your friend Jack is in?"
"Ninth," Bonesaw said, saying the first number that came to mind.
Jamie shook his head. "There's no Jack Shaw in the ninth year. There's no such thing as a ninth year."
Shoot. Darn. Crud! Bonesaw tried to play it off, shrugging. "Then I don't know, that's what Jack told me."
"Oh baloney," the smug boy declared, "You don't know any Jack Shaw. You don't have any friend here at the Academy. Why don't you tell us what you're really here for?"
Bonesaw scowled. So much for tricking these brats. Her fingers twitched, the paralyzing needles itching to be unleashed.
The smug boy shifted and his smile went away.
"Sorry," he said quickly and Bonesaw's eyes snapped to him. He was looking off to the side like a teacher was forcing him to apologize. "I didn't mean to make you upset. Like I said, I was just curious."
Bonesaw relaxed. What harm could it do?
"I want to see how they're made."
The boy looked up. "They?"
"The stitched. They're fascinating. A little crude, kinda slipshod and messy as all heck but there's a spark of genius there. The key to everything else. I know it's there, I just need to... I need to get my hands in them. I need to see how they really work."
The boy didn't respond, he looked to his friend. Jamie only sighed again, adjusting his grip on his book.
The smug boy turned back to her, his grin returned. "Okay, then what if I told you, I could get you in?"
Bonesaw broke out into a grin of her own. "That would be amazing!"
"Alright, just follow us," the boy said as he started walking.
Just like that? How easy! Bonesaw had a bounce in her step as she followed the boys. They were heading right for the front gate. They must be students after all. They showed the guard some sort of badge and indicated Bonesaw as their guest and then they were free to just go in. No killing or body-control necessary! Bonesaw giggled to herself, sometimes you just needed to ask!
The boy looked at her and his grin didn't seem quite so smug. It was almost friendly. "I'm Sylvester by the way."
Bonesaw hesitated a moment. "I'm Riley," she said.
Sylvester nodded, appraising her name. "I like it."
He took her hand and Riley let him.
"Come on, there's someone I want you to meet."
"Lil!" Sylvester called, knocking at the door, "You there?"
"I'm busy, Sylvester." A girl's voice replied.
Sylvester pulled the door open anyways. A girl about their age sat on a high stool, her feet dangling. Before her and occupying the girl's hunch-backed attention was a corpse laid out on a stone grey slab.
Riley felt her pulse quicken from the rush of possibilities, but also from simple excitement. A girl her age doing work like her's. What a magical place this was.
"Riley, this is Lillian." Sylvester explained.
Lillian looked up, noticing Riley for the first. "Who's this?"
Sylvester rolled his eyes. "I literally just said her name. This is Riley."
Lillian shot him a glare, but back to Riley, she only had a questioning stare. "Okay, Riley, what are you..."
Bonesaw didn't much care for the exchange, her interest had shifted back to the cadaver. It was one of the stitched. Or at least it was stitched. Bonesaw ran a finger along the body's leg. Clammy, ashen to the point of bloodless, but it was warm. Her grin grew.
"Hey, um, Riley."
She looked up.
Lillian was frowning at her.
"Do you mind? I was working here."
Bonesaw felt a twinge of annoyance. Oh how easy it would be to activate the acid sacs in her cheek and spit it in the girl's face.
But no, that was stupid. This girl was a Tinker, too. She knew things. She could help Bonesaw.
"What are you working on?" Bonesaw asked innocently.
Lillian glanced Sylvester's way, but he only gestured for her to go on.
"Well," she said, addressing Bonesaw, "If you must know, I was just doing some maintenance on-"
"Maintenance?" Bonesaw cut in, her mind already on fire with that little bit of information, "They need maintenance? What kind?"
Lillian scowled and looked again at Sylvester.
"Humor her and then we'll be out of your hair, I promise," Sylvester said.
She sighed. Resigned to Sylvester's ways. "Yes, stitched require maintenance. Depending on the quality of them, they can go for months or years without needing it. But this one is fairly new, so it's odd that it broke down so suddenly. That's what I was trying to figure out before I was interrupted."
Bonesaw ignored the jab. "It broke down? How?"
"This one worked at the slaughterhouse. It broke down while managing some of the cows. Just collapsed." Lillian sighed, turning her attention back to the stitched. "No signs of overheating, no signs of muscle atrophy, Wollstone ratios are all proper. Et cetera."
Bonesaw nodded along, ignoring the mystifying mention of 'Wollstone ratios'. "So what are you trying now?"
"I was going to inspect the stitched's cerebellum, see if there's anything hampering it."
Bonesaw's eyes went to the corpse's head which was marked with black dotted lines. "Go on then," she said.
This time Lillian did glare at her. "You want to watch?"
Riley didn't flinch. "I want to do it myself, but I'll let you."
The other girl huffed loudly and for a moment Riley thought she would storm out, but maybe fearing Riley would tamper with the corpse, she instead resumed her work. Lillian took out a bonesaw - Bonesaw smiled at the sight - and began to cut her way into the cadaver's skull.
Lillian was obviously not very strong, but that was the thing about saws, strength didn't matter so much as persistence. The cut was clean, no shaky hands and not even that much blood. The stitched's scalp popped off like a bottle cap. Lillian carefully set it aside and turned to inspect the stitched's brain.
A huge chunk of it was missing. The entire frontal lobe cut clean out (very fine scalpel work) - was that out of necessity or out of mercy?
Lillian picked up a flashlight and began to examine the brain in detail, muttering under breath as she did.
"Motor and sensory cortexes are fine... Parietal lobe intact, occiptal and temporal lobes... Brainstem, all fine."
Lillian blinked, forgetting for a moment her rude intruder as she puzzled over this mystery. She dove back into the brain.
"Waitaminute," Lillian murmured, "What's this?"
Bonesaw looked over shoulder and grinned.
"I know what that is."
Lillian flinched a little, as if just remembering the other girl. She seemed a little angry that Bonesaw was there at all.
"What are you talking about?"
"That growth there." Bonesaw pointed at the lump between the two halves of brain. "You're thinking it's cancerous right?"
"Are you saying it's not?"
"Hah, maybe," Bonesaw's grin grew wider, "It's called a corona pollentia."
"A corona pollentia? What is that?"
"You wanna know?"
"If you're not just making it up," Lillian frowned, "Yes."
Bonesaw hopped onto a stool and sidled close to the other girl.
"Tell you what. I'll make you a deal. I tell you what I know and you tell me what you know. A trade."
Lillian eyed her suspiciously. "Who are you?"
Bonesaw laughed. "I'm your new best friend."