by Tiffany Tsao
“Actually, it’s because you’re the assholes,” he smirked once he was done. “Ann, you’re a good Questian—the One’s star pupil.” He rolled the words star pupil around on his tongue. “And your memory is second to none. At what age was I taken from the Known World? Would you happen to know?”
“Three,” Ann answered. “And you weren’t ‘taken’—you made a choice.”
“And in your opinion,” continued Hans without skipping a beat, “is a three-year-old child capable of making a rational, informed choice about an important matter? A matter that will change the course of his entire life?”
Ann paused. “You know that was a mistake,” she said, finally recovering herself. “It was acknowledged that some Oddfits had been recruited at too young an age. You especially so. The guidelines were changed afterwards: no one under the age of seven—”
“And don’t you think,” said Hans, cutting her off, “that it’s still an awfully big decision for even a seven-year-old to make? Or a ten-year-old? Or a fifteen-year-old for that matter?”
Ann kept her gaze level. “No, I don’t. Exploring the More Known World is what Oddfits are born to do. If a potential recruit is still oddfitting enough to experience a strong attraction to the More Known World when his or her recruiter informs them about it and exposes them to it, then the choice is entirely vali—”
“Lies,” Hans declared, waving Ann’s explanation away like smoke. “What does a child know about what’s best for him? Nothing. The Known World. That’s what’s best for him. Staying long enough in it to adapt. Staying with family. Staying in his home.”
“Even under extenuating circumstances?” asked Ann, eyebrow raised. “You’ll recall there were good reasons for the urgency of your recruitment. The burn marks on your back—are they still there? They must be. The Other said they were pretty bad.”
At this, Hans lost all semblance of calm. Gripping Ann tightly by the shoulder, he shook her hard. “And how do I know the burns didn’t come from the Quest? How do I know you didn’t make it all up?” He flung her against the backrest of the “sofa” with a loud thud. “They would have loved me once I’d adapted! They would have loved me if I’d stayed!”
“If you’d survived,” muttered Ann, defiant to the last.
“To stop the unethical kidnapping and exploitation of children,” Hans barked, turning away from her to address the room at large. “That is the purpose of the Anti-Quest! To prevent other ignorant children from being lured from their homes and loved ones for the sake of some abstract and supposedly ‘noble’ cause! That is why this organization exists! What happened to us was a travesty. A crime against humanity. We will not stand idly by and let it ruin others’ lives as it did ours!”
The rest of the Anti-Quest broke into applause.
“Now, Murgatroyd,” Hans continued, perching himself on the edge of Murgatroyd’s armchair. “Don’t you think this an admirable goal?”
Murgatroyd was troubled, for indeed, it seemed it was—at least, when Hans put it that way. He himself had felt such exhilaration and relief upon leaving the Known World that the idea of an Oddfit regretting the decision to join the Quest had simply never occurred to him. He had thought all Oddfit Questians felt the same. He glanced at Pierre, who was nodding approvingly at Hans’s summation of the Anti-Quest manifesto. Apparently he was wrong.
Hans continued. “Ripped from our native soil before we could put down roots, rendered alien to the world of our birth before it could adapt us and make us its own, we are the casualties of the Quest’s great mission.”
“You’re also the exceptions,” observed Ann. “Is this all of you? Are these all the people you’ve managed to rope into your pathetic noncause?”
“So what if our numbers are few?” Hans asked. “Do they make our grievances any less real? Do they make our cause any less just?”
There was the briefest of pauses before Ann spoke. “But the recruitment guidelines have changed,” she said quietly in lieu of answering Hans’s questions. “No recruits below the age of seven, and absolutely no coercion of any form when—”
“Oh, then, that’s all right,” sneered Hans. “We’re sure that’s fixed everything, aren’t we, Pierre? You were recruited after the guidelines were revised, weren’t you? There were no problems there, am I right?”
Murgatroyd gazed wide eyed at his abodemate as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully and spoke. “I didn’t know any English back in Senegal. My family spoke Wolof and a little bit of French. To be honest, I didn’t know what the Other was telling me. I was bewitched when he let me glimpse the More Known World. I didn’t know I would never be able to return.”
“But you can after the first few years,” reasoned Murgatroyd.
“Only for a few hours,” said Pierre. “And less and less after that.”
“Until you can’t at all,” another Anti-Questian piped from the back—a woman with close-cropped black hair and electric-blue socks.
“And tell me,” Pierre continued, calmly and sadly, “how can a child simply walk back into their family after disappearing for so many years without any explanation?”
“I was too young to remember where I lived,” said the woman in the blue socks.
“By the time I realized how much I missed them, they’d moved,” said another.
“Most of us were too young to remember anything about our families at all,” said Martin.
“I was recruited at the age of eight,” said Pierre. “When I was finally able to return at the age of twelve, my father drove me away with a stick. My accent had changed too much. He said I was an imposter, not his son.”
For a long time, no one said anything—as if a moment of silence were being held for the alternate lives in the Known World the Anti-Questians had never led. Then, tentatively, Nutmeg spoke.
“Benn, what does this have to do with you?”
Benn gazed sadly at her. “Everything. And not just with me. With us.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The Anti-Quest is the best chance we have of stopping the Quest for good. Before it harms others like these people here. And before it harms us as Yusuf feared it would.”
“But these p-people,” Nutmeg stammered. “They’re insane.”
At this, the Anti-Questians broke into a murmur of collective outrage. But Nutmeg continued, nevertheless. “They are! You can’t help them, Benn! You mustn’t!”
“Why not?” said Benn, raising his voice. “They’re the only ones who will help us! Who else will rid our people of the Quest? These two?” He jabbed a finger in Ann and Murgatroyd’s direction. “They’re the very enemy itself! Even Yusuf failed us in the end, thanks to his continued association with the Quest. Even Yusuf couldn’t be trusted.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Nutmeg.
“Yusuf was going to betray us. He would have told the Quest about us if I hadn’t stopped him.”
Something about the way Benn said this made Nutmeg’s breath catch in her throat. “Stopped him how?”
Benn was silent long enough for the three captives to know the answer.
“He was deluded. Said that Murgatroyd held the key to making it all right,” Benn mumbled, ashamed despite his conviction that he had acted for the best. “He said the boy had . . . special abilities. That he could fix all the things the Quest had done wrong, but for it to work, there could be no more secrets.”
Murgatroyd began to cry.
“Murderer,” snarled Ann.
“I had no choice!” roared Benn.
The matronly woman stepped forward into the centre of the room. “Shhh, shhh,” she said, holding her hands up in a plea for general calm. “Let’s all count together. One . . . two—”
“Shut up!” snapped Ann.
The woman lowered her hands. “A tranquil mind is the enemy of no one,” she said evenly. But she didn’t resume counting either.
“He killed Uncle Yusuf,” Murgatroyd blubbered softly, addressing no one in part
icular.
“I bet he was the one who killed Nimali too,” added Ann.
Benn shook his head. “I didn’t kill her.” He looked at Murgatroyd. “When I said it wasn’t me, I was telling you the truth.”
“I killed her,” said Pierre, stepping forward. “I didn’t want to. But it was in the name of a greater good.”
“Yes, random throat slittings—always necessary for a good cause,” quipped Ann.
“Not entirely random,” said Hans, rejoining the conversation. “Designed to sow doubt and fear among the Quest’s ranks. One death a year—enough, over time, to bring the Quest to a halt. We’ve started with the explorers, but we won’t stop there. We’ll move on to the Sumfit Questians as well. Perhaps someone in the Compendium—who knows? No one is safe—that’s what people will think after a while. Let’s see what happens to the Quest then.”
“So you’re going to kill us too?” asked Murgatroyd.
“Not you,” said Hans consolingly, patting him on the back. “At least, we hope not. You heard Benn: you’re very special. We need you alive. And anyway, Pierre says you’re a decent fellow, even if you’re not very bright.”
Then Hans turned to Ann with a nasty smile. “It looks like we’ll have to get rid of you, though,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll be able to win you over.”
In confirmation of this, Ann promptly spat on Hans’s shoes.
Murgatroyd’s heart sank lower by the second. “But you’ll let Nutmeg go, right? She doesn’t have anything to do with the Quest.”
“Of course,” Benn exclaimed.
“We’ll see,” said Hans at the same time.
Benn stared at Hans. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“She’s obviously sympathetic to their cause,” explained Hans. “Can she be trusted if we let her go? What if she tells the rest of the Quest about us?”
Benn shook his head vigorously. “She won’t. Nutmeg, tell him you won’t.”
Nutmeg was silent.
“Tell him!” Benn urged again.
But Nutmeg would do no such thing.
“She won’t,” said Benn hastily. “You have my word.”
Hans looked sceptical. “Why don’t we see how things go,” he said.
Benn gave a curt nod, but Murgatroyd could see his fists were clenched and trembling.
“You said Murgatroyd is very special,” Ann broke in. “And that you need him alive. What did you mean?”
Murgatroyd had been too worried about Ann and Nutmeg to dwell on the ominousness of what Hans had said about him. But now, as Ann repeated Hans’s words, his heart began to race.
Hans shrugged. “Exactly what I said.”
“What are you going to do with him?”
Hans tilted his head and frowned, as if deliberating how he should answer.
“Why don’t we all go into the other room?” he said at last. “It will be easier to explain there. Pierre? Benn? If you please.”
The two men produced squat, heavy wooden clubs and herded the three captives, bound and hopping, through the door.
CHAPTER 18
The room had no windows, though there were tiny jagged panes of green and brown glass overhead through which sunlight streamed, giving the space a spotty, mouldy appearance. The atmosphere was stagnant and heavy. As they stood there among the shadowy forms of what Murgatroyd supposed was furniture—they were draped in white sheets—his heart began to pound.
“I originally wanted it to be completely devoid of natural light,” explained a chestnut-haired woman in a white lab coat who had hitherto been silent. “But installing electric lighting would have been too impractical. Our solar generators barely provide enough power to run the equipment we’ll need.”
The other Anti-Quest members murmured approvingly. This was evidently the first time they’d been allowed into the lab as well.
“This whole lab is Rosalyn’s handiwork,” declared Hans. “She’s the brains behind this project.”
The woman in the white coat beamed.
“What do you need a lab for?” asked Ann.
“First things first,” said Hans. “Have a seat.”
Rosalyn sidled over and whispered something in his ear.
“Ah, I see. Roger, fetch some stools from the kitchen for our guests.”
A diminutive bearded member of the group trotted off and returned with three wooden stools of dubious-looking stability.
“This lab has only the essentials,” Rosalyn apologized. “I didn’t think about chairs.”
“Can we sit down as well?” piped the woman in blue socks. “We’ve been standing for a very long time.”
Hans rolled his eyes. “Oh, very well,” he said. “Roger, stools for everyone. Except me. I prefer to stand for effect.”
Off Roger trotted again, reappearing with three more stools, then four more, until at last everyone was uncomfortably seated. The stools really were very wobbly.
Hans looked at Rosalyn. “Is it time? Should I elaborate more on the project now?”
From where she was sitting, Rosalyn nodded. And for some reason, Murgatroyd couldn’t help but feel that there was something familiar about all this—their current surroundings, how events were unfolding.
Hans cleared his throat and began to speak.
“As I mentioned earlier, the main mission of the Anti-Quest is to bring the unethical activities of the Quest to a complete halt. As victims of the Quest, we feel it our duty to prevent any other Oddfit children from being abducted before they can complete the adaptation process as nature intended.”
“Hear, hear,” cried the woman in blue socks.
“However,” continued Hans, “the Anti-Quest does have a secondary mission as well: to reverse the deleterious effects of being removed from the Known World at such a young age; to enable Oddfits like us to once again return to the Known World without triggering an allergic reaction from its immune system.”
Murgatroyd tilted his head to one side. “Like what Uncle Yusuf could do?”
“Exactly,” said Hans. “And what no one else can.”
“I’ve termed it the Allfit phenomenon,” Rosalyn piped. “It was a quality no one else but he possessed—to our knowledge.”
Hans nodded. “Unfortunately, Yusuf is dead. Was long dead by the time the Anti-Quest came into being. We even thought about exhuming his body so we could examine his remains, but you see, all of us except Pierre were recruited at such a young age, the Known World would kill us immediately if we transferred there. And Pierre can only stay for, what, half an hour at most?”
“Forty-five minutes when the plan was still under discussion,” said Pierre. “It’s hard to dig a body up in just forty-five minutes.”
“And then there’s the question of transferring,” added Rosalyn. “As you know, human beings are very difficult to transfer, even when dead. If there were, say, only a leg left, it still would have been hard for Pierre to get it back here.”
Pierre frowned. “That’s not how decomposition works. But yes, unfortunately, I’m not as strong as Benn. I wouldn’t have been able to transfer human remains.”
All this talk of Yusuf as a body or a leg or remains made Murgatroyd sick. The room’s stuffiness didn’t help.
“To make a long story short,” said Hans, “even if Yusuf is the best example of what we hope to attain, he’s no longer available for us to learn anything from.”
“Benn, you actually want to help these people?” Nutmeg exclaimed.
“Be quiet,” Benn hissed. “Or they won’t let you go!”
“Still,” resumed Hans, waving aside the interruption, “I remained obsessed with Yusuf. Fixated, if you will. I was convinced that the secret to returning to the Known World lay in him and him alone. I would take trips to Himalaya-Ablaze for the specific purpose of combing Yusuf’s abode and roaming the Great Freezer in the deluded hope of stumbling upon some clue—any clue—that would reveal the secret of Yusuf’s allfittingness. That was how Benn and I found each othe
r, in fact. Benn, what were you doing there, again?”
“Reminiscing,” said Benn curtly, the memory fast turning sour.
“Ah yes. I remember now. And you said it was the first time you’d been back there in ages, so it was quite the coincidence that we met! We got to talking—about Yusuf and the evils of the Quest, of course. But then, while we were speaking of Yusuf’s allfittingness, Benn mentioned a boy—an Oddfit boy who Yusuf was convinced was something very special in and of himself. A boy with the power to heal. To make right what the Quest had made wrong.” Hans smiled. “Can you guess who this was, Murgatroyd?”
Murgatroyd had always been bad at leaving rhetorical questions unanswered.
“Me?” he ventured.
“Yes, you. Nothing came of it at the time. Benn didn’t know what happened to you. But then, not long after, Pierre told us about his new abodemate. A Murgatroyd Floyd, from Singapore, who had somehow managed to resist adaptation by the Known World, yet continue living in it until his recruitment.”
Ann saw where all this was leading, even if Murgatroyd didn’t.
“Murgatroyd doesn’t have that ability anymore,” she said. “He’s just an ordinary Oddfit now. You won’t be able to learn anything from him.”
“Learn from me?” exclaimed Murgatroyd in bewilderment. “Learn what?”
Hans ignored him. “True, he’s not like Yusuf. But you never know. If he was born with it, the secret might be tucked away inside him still. In his CNA.”
“DNA,” corrected Rosalyn.
“What secret?” yelped Murgatroyd.
“The secret to remaining in the Known World and being extremely oddfitting at the same time,” Rosalyn said impatiently. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Murgatroyd’s eyes grew wide. “Erh, no?”
Hans rubbed his hands together in glee. “The power to make right what the Quest had made wrong—Yusuf thought it was inside Murgatroyd. And Yusuf was a wise man. And principled. I admired him, I tell you, I really did.”
“Well, if you want to respect his memory at all,” said Ann, “you should leave Murgatroyd alone. Yusuf wouldn’t have done this.”
“True,” Hans admitted. “Yusuf probably had some other method up his sleeve. A kinder one. And less risky. But we can’t all be Yusuf, can we?”
