Chapter Text
Los Angeles was the type of rebellion against god that, in a just world, would have been swallowed up by the earth. It was a city that had been stretched like skin on a rack. Everything sprawled, cell-blocks of houses extending out into infinity with barely enough green to look like humans lived there. Freeways ran through everything, clotted veins packed tight with cars. Somewhere to the right of us— partially hidden by all the smog — downtown jutted out like a row of broken teeth. Beyond that were the mountains, graciously trying to keep it all contained and away from others.
This was a view of LA people would probably kill for. All to myself, if you didn’t count the PRT grunts acting as bodyguards. I took one look and stopped caring after that.
A full day of traveling, a six hour flight, hustled the entire way like a lost child, and I still didn’t know why I was here.
We were aiming for the Los Angeles PRT Department. After the Griffith Observatory had been turned to molten slag back in nineteen ninety-seven, the PRT had slapped a massive complex over the ashes, with a shiny black tower at the tip of it looking over Los Angeles. Every two-bit movie shot here just had to include the tower. It was as tired an LA staple as the Hollywood sign or homeless encampments.
The sound of the rotors was a constant whir, dull and heavy. At least the headphones I’d been given cut out the worst of it. There were three PRT officers here with me: two in the cockpit and one sitting on the other side of the aisle. I moved the microphone a little closer to my mouth and tried to signal the guy in front of me.
“Hey,” I said into the mic. My voice came out crisp and clear despite the noise.
He hadn’t been looking at anything in particular but his gaze shot to me after I spoke. “Is there a problem?”
“No problem, just wondering. What should I be expecting when we land?”
“To get right to it,” he responded, before turning away from me again.
Asshole . I didn’t want to ask why the hell they’d brought me out here, because I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to know. Carol hadn’t considered it important enough to tell me and I didn’t want to look like an idiot asking the most basic question about all this.
“But are we going to be meeting anyone before we ‘get to it?’ Am I seeing people right away? What is the plan?”
“You’ll be getting right to it,” he repeated, “any other information is on a need-to-know basis. Outside my paygrade.”
He went back to his watch and I leaned back in my seat. Fucking asshole .
When I’d first gotten powers, there’d been a time where I was carted around the country like a freak show. Healing powers were rare and the Protectorate wanted to know every nitty gritty detail they could manage to wring out of me. Attempts to cure capes with altered physiologies, strange power interactions they hoped I could work past, some of the fuck-ups in the Parahuman Asylum. Nothing major, I’m sure they’d say, just “light inquiries” into how far my power was willing to go.
Those had started to taper off the longer time went on. Carol had tightened the leash quick and hard . The fact they’d managed to convince her for this meant something big.
I didn’t like it. Why would they call me out here? Didn’t they have their own healers?
No one who was as useful as Panacea apparently. I thought the days of every asshole with enough authority pulling me out of Brockton to come heal a papercut were over. Another wasted weekend of my life, running ragged to fix people who I couldn’t even bother to care about.
The helicopter banked hard and I got the first glimpse of the Protectorate complex. I’m sure every jogger and dog walker in LA had complained that they’d paved over a park for this . Lackluster shades of concrete and steel dominated the eye, the only standout was the tower. I hated how good it looked, black glass and stone made up a building that almost looked like a lighthouse perched over the city, as if anything could cut through the smog. There was a helicopter pad on top and we aimed for it, coming down only a little rougher than the rest of the flight had been.
The engine hadn’t even slowed before I was being rushed again, the guy across the aisle unbuckling the straps for me like I was a baby in a fucking carseat.
“Come on, the pilot called in ahead for you,” he said.
I didn’t respond, pulling my hood over my hair and trying to wrap myself up in my gown for protection as I followed him out. It didn’t help at all, the helicopter was kicking up wind fierce enough that I was fighting past every stray piece of fabric the whole way to the door. The guy flashed a badge to a reader and input a code before I heard the thrum of an elevator.
The doors opened, we piled in, and descended down. I spat out hair and tried to straighten out a frumpled robe. No one said a single word the minutes it felt like it took before the doors opened up again.
The officers stepped out and I followed into a madhouse. It was like the last bell on the day school let out. Crowds of officers, technical staff, and capes moved in a rush of bodies; everyone walking with purpose, quick and focused. I felt like I was stepping out into the middle of a marathon, apologizing with every step I took as I got in somebody’s way.
And then suddenly it stopped, like the eye of a tornado, a bubble formed around us. It only took a second to see why.
“Gentlemen, I will be taking it from here,” Alexandria said.
The men departed, fading away into the crowd. I stood a little straighter, my fingers fidgeting against each other as I tried to meet her eyes. Even with her visor hiding half her face, I could feel her focus on me. Like staring down a lion who was trying to decide how full it really was. It was like her face was carved out of stone. She took a painfully long time to make a move.
“Panacea. Thank you for coming. Follow me.”
She turned on a dime and strode forward, way faster than I expected. I had to nearly run to keep up. Each of her steps was measured, each motion calculated. The regular staff parted around her, like they were worried she’d carry them off with her if they got in her way.
“I was told someone would be explaining things once I got here. Is that… are you going to be the one doing that?” I asked in between huffs to catch my breath.
“No. An explanation would be a waste of time. The situation will explain itself easily enough.”
Still not a fucking answer, but I didn’t have it in me to argue with Alexandria. We moved through a labyrinth of corridors and offices. The layout was odd, like hallways twisted around on each other. I got lost after the first three turns, but I had the impression it was almost like a spiral. Offices disappeared, replaced by windowed rooms behind bulletproof glass. I’d get a second to look in at PRT officers staring out or talking to each other before we were gone.
“What are we headed to?”
Alexandria didn’t respond. We came to a steel door that we breezed through with a few motions from the cape. More corridors, more turns, more gates. The protectorate building was massive and the deeper we went in the more my paranoia spiked.
Why the hell had they brought me here?
As we got to the first set of cell doors I realized exactly where we were in the building. Capes in prison uniforms stared out at us behind what looked like plexiglass, some yelling things, but others just silently watching, judging. I tried not to look at them, tried not to think about it.
Alexandria came to an abrupt halt and I smashed into her. It was like hitting a steel girder for how much it moved her. Her hand shot out to grab me; it was the only reason I didn’t fall on my ass. It took a second to reorient and another to be stable enough to stand on my own two feet. I looked at Alexandria, questioning, but her attention was focused on the door in front of us.
No window to the inside, just a slit up top that I couldn’t see through. Black letters on gray background: A01. There was a complex looking number pad next to the door that she fiddled with. She leaned forward into what might have been a camera. “This is Alexandria. I’m here with Panacea to see the prisoner.”
A loud buzzer sounded off above and she stepped back, pulling the door open with her. She gestured forward into the room, her stare bearing down on me like an oncoming train. My hands balled into fists as I ducked my eyes to the floor and walked forward. Alexandria followed behind, the door sealing shut like a casket lid.
Like a nesting doll of a prison, we had finally reached the center. The room ahead of us was blindingly white and the air reeked with some kind of chemical smell. The room was small, barely ten feet, with another set of steel and glass separating us from the rest of the room. There were only three things calling that space home: a bed, a toilet, and a girl.
She sat on the mattress, kicking her legs slowly, heavy tinker manacles fastened on her hands with the regular kind around her legs. She had a child-size prison uniform — where the hell would you even get a prison uniform for a kid—and her hair had been cut into an ugly, uneven bob.
After a second, I realized I recognized her. I’d seen her face hundreds of times, from staticy gas-station cameras on the news to warnings on half a dozen different websites. She just looked so different like this, my brain hadn’t made the connection.
She looked over. Her mismatched eyes stared me down and the sad little frown on her face slowly turned into a grin. She spoke and her voice came out unsteady.
“Oh, Panacea. I should have expected you.”
I stepped back, trying to move, but Alexandria’s body blocked me. Her hand landed on my arm like a steel cuff. Her presence alone was a push to stay rooted where I was. I pulled back anyway, for all the good it did.
“That’s Bonesaw,” I said, not even trying to whisper.
“I’m aware,” she replied.
“Why is–” I stopped, the sentence stalling out as I tried to figure out what I was even trying to say.
I turned back, not willing to take my eyes off the villain. She was standing now. Her arms drooped down in front of her, maybe from the manacles, or maybe as a play at looking weak. Bonesaw was everything I hated in a villain. She was a monster, a fucked up reflection of my powers turned wrong, hurting people where I fucking forced mine to do good.
Alexandria stepped forward, pushing me one step closer with the motion. “Riley was paramount in a recent raid that saw the break-up of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Without her, we would not have succeeded in the capture of Cherish and Burnscar, or the killing of Mannequin and the Siberian.”
There was no way Alexandria didn’t see her flinch as she said that.
“For now, we are keeping her here as a prisoner, while the Protectorate determines what is to be done with her. She poses a serious risk, as I’m sure you are aware.”
“I’m still here, I can hear you,” she said, whining like a child.
Alexandria was staring Bonesaw down, as if she’d be able to ascertain something, some buried secret that could be found with a careful gaze and the right knowledge. I didn’t want to stay in this room another fucking second.
“Unfortunately, until we can ascertain her intentions and mental state, she will remain a significant threat. She’s operated on her own body and there are still numerous pieces of tinkertech remaining inside of her. We cannot remove them without surgery and no normal doctor will be able to understand the workings of whatever she’s done to herself.”
Now, Alexandria’s gaze was on me. I looked between Bonesaw and her, forced into the realization faster than I wanted to be.
“I can’t, I’m just a healer,” I told her.
Alexandria’s face told me how much she believed that.
“I don’t, I can’t–”
“You can,” Alexandria said, pushing me forward again. “You can and you will because you are the only one who is able. Lives hang in the balance, Amelia Dallon, and I will be personally supervising.”
She pressed a hand against a computer screen and the final door slowly slid open. A rush of air, the chemical smell now becoming harsh as it filled the whole room. Another step, another push forward, I didn’t even try to fight it at this point.
Bonesaw hadn’t moved from where she stood next to the bed.
The door closed shut behind us. I was sandwiched between the two capes and Alexandria’s hand moved to my back, a threat. I stepped forward cautiously, waiting for Bonesaw to jump out and grab me, to do anything. She only stared, a smile working its way across her face. She raised her arms slowly, manacles clicking with the motion.
“Sorry to say, but I don’t think I can give you my hand.”
I grabbed her wrist instead and her biology unfolded itself in my mind.
I had seen and cured just about everything the human body could have done to it: cancers, tumors, sickness, and bleeding. But that glimpse inside of Bonesaw might have been the most fucked up thing I’d ever seen.
It was barely even distinguishable as human, altered and twisted into some horrific facsimile of life. Extra organs, meat sacks, and all sorts of sharp and wicked things rolled around in her guts, under her skin. Anatomy I’d normally deem vital had been lanced, replaced, or upgraded. Even with my power, it took a while to fully understand what I was looking at.
“I’m not sure if I can do this,” I said. “There may not be enough material left to grow some of these things back if I—”
“You can,” Alexandria interrupted. “Rework whatever is inside of her. She has more than enough material for you to play with. Remove it. All of it.”
I scowled, took a deep breath, and started working. Her insides were a minefield of tinker constructs, most biological but some not. I worked slowly, trying to understand the nature of how her whole fucked up body had been put together. Extra organs were liquified, viruses and diseases in them neutralized, then whatever mass was left over reformed into an intestinal tract that had been carved out. Unusual anatomy along her spine, arms, and legs, was fixed and slotted back into place. Extra joints, muscles, and tendons were returned back to normal human levels.
“There’s some stuff in here my power can’t break down,” I muttered. “Stuff around her organs, some things inside her fingers.”
“She wrapped her organs in a wire mesh to prevent grievous injuries. Subdermal implants to stop someone from just shooting and killing her. Take what you can out, our thinkers have estimated those to not be a significant risk.”
I frowned, trying to work out the best way to remove it and was left with only one option. I pulled at her skin, forcing openings to part as I dredged every inch of tinkertech I could out of her body. Syringes, needles, and mesh, dropping wetly to the ground around us. Her body was a labyrinth of pointed objects and noxious compounds, and it was hell trying to piece every single bit of it together without killing her or setting something off.
I didn’t numb any part of her. She wasn’t someone who deserved that, but throughout the whole thing she didn’t make a sound. The smile had left her face, instead she looked blank, pensive. Only once she noticed my attention did something resembling it return. I ignored her as I turned my attention up.
“She’s done something to her brain. I can’t take care of that.”
“What is it?”
“Not sure,” I muttered. “There’s a few things in here and they only look somewhat related.”
“I could remove them if you’d like.”
Her voice made me jump. She’d been quiet throughout so much of it that I thought she’d decided to keep her mouth shut.
“If you watch, you can say for sure I got them all out. I’ll just make a little incision. Hey, you could take the saw to my head if you’d like. I’m sure you’d love to . I just need some pliers and a scalpel.”
She was growing more excited the more she spoke, like a child playing out a character: all enthusiasm, no substance. I could feel adrenaline pumping, her heart rate beating, nerves coiled like springs, but all that showed on her face was that stupid fucking smile.
“Don’t try to be nice. It’s creepy.”
I saw receptors flip in her brain, something so obviously foreign it had to have been inserted by her, and all mirth left in a flash. It took a second for me to realize what had happened.
“You altered your brain to force yourself to be happy?”
No grin returned, nothing even like it. Her eyes looked older, far older than the twelve year old she was, and her mouth remained set in a firm line.
“Jack didn’t like it when I wasn’t like that. He wanted me…”
She licked at her lips, her eyes dropping down towards the floor.
“He wanted me to be a good girl,” she said, her voice rough and dry.
I didn’t know what to say, I looked back at Alexandria for help, guidance, anything.
“Is that all you see? Additions to stop pain receptors?”
Why the fuck aren’t you intervening?
“No, there’s something else here. A tumor? I’m not sure. I can’t tell. It’s integrated into the rest of her brain, but I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be doing.”
Alexandria hummed. “If you cannot remove it and cannot determine what it’s doing, we’ll need thinker assistance. I’ll speak with Watchdog, we have some of their staff observing for today, trying to help deal with this problem.”
I expected her to pull out a phone or something, but when I turned back, Alexandria was already halfway out the door. I was too surprised to let out a sound.
“If you believe she’s attempting anything, even the hint that she’s acting out, you have full permission to do whatever you believe necessary to keep yourself safe.”
The door slammed shut with a guillotine’s sharpness. My grip on Bonesaw’s arm was so tight it hurt my fingers. She didn’t even seem to react to it.
The room had felt tiny before, but right now it felt miniscule. Locked inside a steel box I could barely stretch my arms out in, with Bonesaw . This was a nightmare. Something out of a horror movie. Even with what I did to her, I didn’t feel safe standing this close, forced to watch for a single move on her part. It was like standing on a bear trap and waiting for it to snap shut on your leg.
When I looked back at Bonesaw, that stupid smile was back.
“Do you know why they brought you here?” she asked.
“Don’t say anything to me,” I said.
“They have so many options for people in the Protectorate. Maybe they could have used a tinker in a pinch. Even brought in Dragon, she’s seen enough of my stuff over the years. Why would they pick you?”
“What did I say about talking to me?” I asked, trying to sound tough.
She gave a chitter of laughter. “Jeeze Amy, lighten up.”
I scowled, trying to stand taller, trying to intimidate a serial killer. “Did you not hear what Alexandria said? I have free reign to do what I need to keep myself safe. If I feel threatened I can do things to you so bad–”
“So bad that I would have done them?”
The way she said it was so sincere, so cutting, that it made me want to kill her right there. I could feel every cell in her body and imagined exactly what I could do to her. Rip her muscles apart, turn her organs into jelly, just blow her heart out then and there.
But I was a hero. I’d be proving her right. I couldn’t do anything like that. I let out a deep breath as I glared at her and she laughed, a mad giggle. She leaned a little closer and whispered, almost conspiratorial. “The reason you’re here, the reason they asked for you.”
I didn’t respond, I wasn’t going to give into the bait, but she took my silence as consent to keep going.
“I’ve been mastered.”
My mask cracked. “What?”
She leaned back, shifting from foot to foot as she did. It was awkward, unsure. She laughed and then seemed to catch herself, forcing her face back to neutral. The same sad little frown from before.
“I got mastered,” she said, “at least we think. Not sure how, not sure who, but it’s the reason I’m locked up in here instead of…”
She mimed a knife stabbing — difficult with the manacles wrapped halfway up her forearm — and then attempted to do a nose with the length of chain holding her hands together.
“I get it.”
She dropped her arms again. “You’re here to see if I’m still me, the new me I mean. Figure out if the effects are going to fade away.”
The only actual explanation I had gotten through this entire trip and it was from the fucking Slaughterhouse Nine member. It didn’t mean I had to like her. Mastered or not, fuck her. Bonesaw was the kind of reprehensible you just shouldn’t be allowed to come back from. She crossed lines hundreds of times, broken taboos. Fuck her.
She kept talking. “And because they’re watching me. They think I’ll push someone like you, someone that could understand–”
“Stop,” I said. “Don’t say I’d understand.”
“Well you would,” she said, “no one else would get it.”
“I’m not like you,” I said, jabbing my finger into her chest.
She rolled her eyes and sighed. Was she fucking mocking me?
Her eye roll turned into a wince. “Ugh, ow. Okay, sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
I had stopped paying attention halfway through what she was saying. The tumor had flared up. I watched it, looking for some sort of activity. Some hint at its purpose that made sense to my powers. And it did have that, just not exactly what I was looking for. It was normal brain activity, neurons and thoughts firing in a way that lined up with the average human brain.
“What was that,” I said.
“Ugh, I told you already, I’m mastered .”
I frowned. “That was…”
A tumor that regulated how she thought? An artificial brain added to control the way she acted? It didn’t…well, it sounded like the kind of thing she would have removed if someone had given it to her. Maybe it stopped her from being able to, but then why couldn’t I see that here? Looking now, it was almost indistinguishable from the normal parts of her brain.
“Is it in the frontal lobe or parietal lobe?” She asked suddenly.
“Parietal,” I muttered before I could stop myself from responding.
“Hmm, must have hijacked the anti-master stuff I put in there a while back,” she said with a laugh. “Kinda ironic.”
Well, I wasn’t laughing.
“Anyway, does it look like it’s something that’s going to stick around, or are they going to blow my head off?”
She reached up slowly, pulled down the lip of her jumpsuit, and I got to see the bomb attached right above her collar bone, a plastique explosive choker. Her smile was less calm, less sad. It was like staring into the face of a feral animal trying to fake docility. An alien trying to recreate the visage of humanity, but not quite sure how to recreate.
I told myself this wasn’t breaking my code, I wasn’t touching anything, just observing. It looked like a normal part of the brain, minus the fact no other brain would have something like this inside of it. All the connections it had were secure, I couldn’t see any degradation, any failure indicating it was going to stop working any second.
“It looks fine to me…”
The smile she gave me this time was subdued, scared, and shockingly human.
“Good.”
All the tension drained out of her like a dam bursting. I hadn’t realized just how tense her muscles had been because of how fucked her biology was when I’d first looked at it. An unhealthier house of Usher, collapsing in on itself until she fell to the bed.
I refused to sit next to her, but I was curious.
“What is it even doing to you?”
“It’s making me feel bad.”
Are you fucking serious.
“Are you fucking serious?”
“Hey, don’t–” she bit the sentence off. “Don’t judge me. I’ve never felt this stuff before. It sucks!”
She fucking killed people and this was what got her to turn herself in. A murderer and the only reason she’d given up her murder friends was because a master had made her feel bad about turning people inside out. An uncomfortable feeling bubbled up in my gut and I was ready to make it her problem.
Something in her brain spiked. The tumor. My anger dropped itself back into my stomach and I watched, trying to decipher what the hell was going on in this freak’s head. Bonesaw stared off in space for a second before her eyes refocused on me.
“Victoria,” Bonesaw said.
I wrenched her back, my hand squeezing tight on her bicep. “What did you say?”
“Yowch,” she whined.
“Why did you say that?”
She smiled and it looked so much more sinister this time. “Your sister's name is Victoria, isn’t it?”
“How the fuck do you know that,” I whispered, my voice tight and dark.
“A few more things came with all the feelings. Knowledge about people, powers, stuff like that. It comes and goes, so much information I can barely keep track of all of it. I’d love to hear your theories, because I’ve got a whole list of ideas that they won’t let me test out”
I could barely hear her because the blood pumping through my ears was too loud. I’d fucked it up. Of course I’d fucked it up. Victoria got brought into this and it was all my fault. If I hadn’t been here this wouldn’t have happened. If I hadn’t pushed, hadn’t put her into that spot, had acted with the authority Alexandria had told me to have.
My hold on her arm felt limp even thinking that. She wasn’t wrong. I couldn’t go through with it. Cause I’m the only person who had to hold themselves back, had to push themselves while people die because I’m not doing enough.
“And what did it say about me,” I say, trying to refocus her attention away from Victoria.
“It said you're a really difficult person to be around.”
“Yeah, for some reason I’m not a fan of mass murderers.”
For the first time, a barb hit. I saw her deflate a little, huddling with her back against the wall. Something drained out of her eyes, out of her face. The act fell away and I saw the girl under it.
“I didn’t want to be a part of that stuff.”
The pathetic act wasn’t going to work on me. I felt myself regaining my footing in an instant. “Didn’t want to be a part of it? You still fucking were, so what does it matter if you wanted to or not.”
“It matters to me. That I didn’t want to do it.”
“Tough shit,” I said. “You didn’t know it was bad to hurt people? You think because you feel bad about it you’re suddenly in the clear.”
The look she gave me was like I kicked a puppy. If it was anyone else they might have made them back off, feel bad. I wasn’t anyone else.
“You deserve to carry all that shit,” she said hollowly, “deal with the hate.”
“What?”
“Someone said that to me, I think. Maybe the master. It was one of the first things that came after I started feeling things.”
It felt like the wind had left my sails for a minute and I wasn’t sure where to pick up or go.
“Well maybe they were right,” I said. “Maybe you do deserve it.”
“Yeah,” she replied, “maybe I do.”
The door opened behind us in a rush of air. I turned and Alexandria was waiting for me, two officers behind her. She stepped in and the second door opened up. They all crowded in as I stepped back towards them.
“Are we done,” I asked.
“We’re done,” Alexandria said.
I waited for more, but she didn’t provide anything. She stepped back, but the officers stayed, one holding a loaded rifle, the other a tank and sprayer.
“A cleaning solution,” Alexandria offered, “to make sure nothing grows that she can work with.”
As I left the two men packed themselves into the doorway. Bonesaw gave a weak wave, her hands clinking together with the effort.
“Bye bye Amy. I hope I’ll get to see you again soon.”
The last thing I saw was an attempt at a smile. The effort was so forced I couldn’t even find it in me to be mad about it. The spray started, a cloud of Clorox that covered everything in eye-watering fumes. As I followed Alexandria back out of the maze, my heart pumping and vision still a little wobbly, I could only think one thing.
I hoped I wouldn’t see her ever again.