She'd camped outside the Haven trading post for days until someone was willing to let the deformed, shit-smelling girl hitch a ride towards October. Finally, a truck carrying cattle grain let her hop in the back, but they were only going halfway, to Carcasses, and Vanessa was too hungry and weary to wait for a better ride.

Once in Carcasses, a town much larger than Haven but still so small compared to the great cities, Vanessa wandered about for days with no success. She drank from toma troughs and ate from garbage piles. As time went on, she became dirtier and smellier and the chances of getting a job seemed to dwindle to nothing. Begging was something she'd heard of before, but never tried. Perhaps it was time to try.

Every day, she went to each home with a barn at the edges of town, to every business in the center of town, asking if there was work, never daring to walk past the entryway. She called out her skills pertaining to each place, as best she could, never lying.

"Damn it, Jordan, that's a center loin, I said sirloin!" a man yelled as she walked toward the butchers again.

Curious, she stepped into the alley to peek through a window

A teenage boy stood off from a hog carcass, scowling, arguing. But the older man insisted that the cut was wrong, that any fool could see. "I bet she could do a better job!" he insisted, pointing in Vanessa's direction.

She wanted to hide, but knew she shouldn't. She nodded. "I know how to butcher a hog, and I need a job, please," she asked.

The teenager scoffed and returned to cutting the hog, but the older man turned to Vanessa and twirled his mustache. "What's he doing wrong?"

"The sirloin is further to the rear of the hog's side at the hip, and should be cut at right angles rather than diagonals," she replied easily.

"Jordan, you're fired," the man called without letting his eyes leave Vanessa's. "Miss, you're hired. Here's an advance on your first week," he added, holding out a few double dollars. "Go get cleaned up and presentable, you'll start tomorrow prompt at second rise. You run off with my money, I WILL be sore!"

Vanessa smiled with mouth closed despite the young man's cursing. She took the money and counted it, fifty! Where could she get cleaned up?

"Where can I get a bath?" she finally asked someone on the street, a woman carrying a baby.

"You certainly need one!" the woman exclaimed, "But no one's bound to give it for free!"

"I can pay!" Vanessa retorted.

"Cheapest inn in town's 3 blocks south, little gray building with a dog painted on the front. Don't let them charge you over 25$$ a week."

"Thank you!" the girl exclaimed, ignoring the stares and whispers around her as she walked through the streets with her hood down, ears covered by the scarf but hump still obvious.

Vanessa did as Yu'd asked, and was ready for work early and clean. It was a marvel how well she cleaned up, though the hump "is a shame," as Lu commented to his brother in a whisper she could hear.

After getting the blade sharp enough, she worked at twice the speed and at perfect accuracy compared to the other butcher's assistant, who was fired after Vanessa'd been on the job a mere 3 days. Lu and Yu hardly needed to touch a knife at all with her around, and she seemed happy with the low pay – it was a wonderful situation. Though, as Lu mourned in whispers she could still hear in the back, "We could do better if she hadn't the hump, we could have her in the front sometimes…too bad about that."

For 50$$ a week, she worked 6 days of 7 and was allowed to study after close. She kept a room at the inn and fed herself like other people did. Because she could, she bathed two, sometimes three times a week, and she bought used clothes that fit better, still men's clothing. The most expensive expense was the journal, which cost her a week's salary for only 200 pages, but paper being as rare as it was that was a reasonable cost and one she willingly paid.

---

The hog was not a human, but it still matched the medical texts somewhat. Her only entertainment in the white room, as a very young child, were the medical texts they left lying about the shelves in the room. She delighted in the color photographs and diagrams in the few that had color, and loved the long, complicated words and names that things had. There were a several non-medical books on the lower shelves; an old poetry book by Swift and a few novels, but she spent most of her empty days studying the medical books and singing along with the old (now, 'lost') music floating from down the hallway.

She sliced into the hogs' organs, pretending they were human, which they were close to being, especially the heart. The brain's areas were much like a person's, but obviously so different.

There were not nearly enough pages in her journal book to write down all she'd memorized from the texts; it would all have to remain only in her mind. What she did write down, however, were details about the functioning of the organs and systems she'd only read about before. These functions could break down, could be changed, fixed, broken.

Vanessa studied and dissected and fingered all she could before the light of the world dimmed against her, when she'd lock up as asked and shuffle 'home'. By lamp light, she corrected what she could, altering it to be applicable to a human and not a pig. When a diagram was perfect, each chemical and tissue and action plotted out in fine detail, she inked it and it remained preserved.

She spent days, weeks, months, and finally, a year at this work, toiling at the butchery for Yu and Lu. At such a point the hogs could teach her no more. She no longer stayed late to study at the butchery, but rather went back to the inn to pull things from memory alone, to try to build a working knowledge of the human brain and such with no physical evidence at all. It was stressful work, and resulted in many sleepless nights, trying and cursing at herself for not readily remembering everything. She came to work frustrated on many a morning, but said nary a word to her employers, nor did she let her work falter.

On occasion, she would simply stroll the streets idly, observing and thinking, sometimes taking a moment to buy a roll or skewer to munch on while drawing in the sand alongside a building. Children watched her draw but would not talk to her. She envisioned their optical nerves' workings as they watched, their inner ear balance allowing them to stand and shift as they watched.

There were only a few books in stores, and they were nonfiction only. No doctor lived in town; Haven's doctor visited on occasion, and she learned (from listening through a window outside the local clinic once in a while) that the only persons in town with medical knowledge at all were doing quite simple work. They had nothing to teach her.

She felt that Carcasses no longer had anything for her.

Vanessa listened in on the conversations of travelers, and finally bought a compass and map for herself. She had to sew a backpack and cloak from used clothing and cloth scraps from the tailor, and ended up fashioning a few primitive canteens from preserved hog bladders.

Yu was angry when she broke them the news one morning before work, but Lu understood. "You go become a famous butcher in the big city," he encouraged her, while his brother stewed, wondering where they'd find talent like hers again. "Here's your pay for the week so far – go ahead and take the day off, that should give you more time to get a ride."

She smiled slightly. However, she would not be finding a ride, since she'd decided not to try that route again. No, she'd be going straight to October on her own, on foot. "Thank you. Oh, and I drew up some instructions for your next assistants on the wall in the back, if that's ok. It should make it easier for them," she added helpfully.

Yu looked confused, as did his brother, but they waved good-bye to her as she strode off to gather her things from the inn and set off for good.

Entering their shop, the brothers went to look in the back room, where, upon two walls, a set of diagrams they didn't understand were painted out life-size in hog blood.