Worlds War One

xxxv [Quest]

When Quest was in college, he dated a pretty girl from Nebraska who maybe thought she was being rebellious seeing a guy who called himself queer. For weeks, the most radical thing she'd witnessed was when he'd taken her out to dinner with his two dads. But then Quest had grown bored with the girl who thought he was a novelty. Maybe he'd thought she was a novelty, too. He should have broken it off like a gentleman, but instead, she'd walked in on Quest making out with a guy from Kappa Sigma.

"This was a mistake, Quest Ramírez," she had cried. "You're a mistake."

Now, many of the Misfits couldn't stand to see what was about to happen to Ji-Sung Choi. Saanvi had retreated with Fox and Drill and Madam Modo. Lieutenant Robinson stayed by Ji's side, standing sentry like a guard at her post. Maybe she was warding against any entities who wanted to take Ji's soul before the possessed Dr. Frankenstein finished fixing him. Ji had no fingers left to hold the protective ring that protected the squad from being possessed by Mot. Fortunately, the Seal of Solomon wasn't ingestible, and the dragon had spit out the magical ring after it had eaten Ji's arms. Quest had recovered it and now held it ready for when Ji received his new hands.

Autumn maneuvered Dr. Frankenstein's hands like a maestro making music. Penina acted as an apprentice, handing the puppet Genius instruments as indicated while Quest stood by her. He couldn't quite explain it, but he didn't want to leave Penina's side.

Autumn sewed the arms recovered from Hristos's corpse onto Ji's body, mismatched Magi appendages attached to a nephilim's torso. Quest slipped Solomon's ring on Ji's new Magi hand, protecting him from possession if Johnny Rotten happened to stroll into the mad scientist's laboratory. The process took the better part of an hour. Accomplished, Autumn stood back and appraised the work. IVs full of glowing liquids and wires leading to instruments measuring all sorts of vital signs came off Ji's body. Autumn wiped the sweat from Edgar Frankenstein's face.

"That's that," she said. "But we don't have a leg. The dragon swallowed the Magi's lower half."

Penina stepped forward. "I can spare eeeenough spirit to give him mine."

"You are willing to donate your leg?" Quest sounded like someone at the barracks had volunteered for bathroom duty.

"It will grow back," Penina said. "But I have to give him eeeenough of my life-force to hold it together. Otherwise, it will beeee meeerelyyyy inanimate stone. I can deeeeevote eeeeenough to make his leg work."

"Kind of like a Human donating a kidney," Autumn suggested out of Edgar's mouth. "One is extra, but give up both, and you would die."

"Correct." Penina reached down and detached her left leg like a part that could be loosed by bolts. Quest kept her steady as she handed it over to Dr. Frankenstein. Then Autumn went back to work. After another half hour, Ji had a marble leg.

Autumn reviewed her work. "The eye," she said.

"Doesn't the doctor have a store of . . . specimens?" Penina asked. She already had a short stub extending down where her left leg had been. The marble had begun to regrow.

Autumn smiled Edgar's mouth. "He does," she acknowledged. "I know just the thing."

Shortly after that, Ji-Sung Choi was whole again, wholly new. "This is unholy," Edgar Frankenstein declared, his faculties restored after the surgery was complete. Autumn had dispossessed him, the Ghost now standing back and observing her accomplishments. "The Illuminati will damn us all for this offense of nature."

What did some elusive group of elites know about unholy? Many had shunned Quest his whole life for being something that some judged as being unacceptable. When he was in grade school, some people had not understood having two dads. When he'd dated boys when he got older, there were a few who thought he was sinning. When he'd said he was bi, many looked at him like he'd been offered cake or pie for dessert and took a slice of both.

Now there was Penina. What was the term for the feelings he had for an entity made of earthly materials? Would people accuse him of some perverted form of bestiality? Quest considered the story he'd heard when he was young, about a woman who'd petitioned the county to recognize her marriage to a concrete garden gnome. He'd thought she was crazy. Maybe he was the last person who ought to judge.

Quest helped hold Penina steady as her stump had grown into a thin stilt, still unsteady, like a pirate getting used to a peg leg. At this rate, Penina's extremity would be fully restored soon enough. Self-healing after amputation, maybe one could make a case for the medical benefits of stone over flesh and blood.

Lieutenant Robinson had never left Ji's side through the entire procedure. Now fully reassembled, she held his new hand. He looked peaceful at that moment, and for the first time since the dragon had started rending Seaman Choi limb from limb, Quest wondered if maybe he ought to have been left to rest in peace. Left in pieces. What if this amalgamation of a man was a mistake?

You're a mistake.

Quest shook his head. Ji was different now, but different wasn't the same as wrong.

"Are you alright, Quest?" Penina whispered beside him.

"You're the one who's regrowing a limb, Nina," Quest said. "I think I'm fine."

"That is a physical maladyyyy," Penina replied and put her hand on his heart. He could feel her touch through his jacket, hard as stone and somehow soft and gentle. "I am asking about something else."

"I hope he's okay," Quest said.

Not everyone could handle being different. Last year, Quest had become interested in another recruit going through basic training. Private Lewis had been sullen and standoffish. Quest had had a feeling that the kid was queer. Quest had attempted to make conversation, to make being different seem mainstream. "We are just biological machines. All made with defects, Ramírez," Private Lewis had grumbled before he walked away. "Some of you accept what's wrong with you and wear your cracks and dents as a kind of badge of honor. But the rest of us try to become what we're supposed to be. I'm trying to fix what's wrong."

You're a mistake.

Even Penina was fixing what was wrong, regrowing her leg rather than accepting what was missing. What was the line between defect and being different? Had they made Ji into a monster or simply into something unique? What had Penina said? The truth is two twists from the telling.

Now Quest was falling for a living statue. Where was the line? What was the limit? When did he become the woman who married her garden gnome?

"It's okay," Penina said softly, a sound opposed to the toughness of her stone shell.

Quest nodded. Ji awoke. Penina wobbled. Autumn grinned.

Lieutenant Robinson was right there. She was the anchor, or Ji might have become unmoored. He sat up, examining hands that were Caucasian and a leg that was marble. The stainless surfaces of the walls around them reflected the image of the whole group in every direction. Ji looked at himself, staring at his new eye. It flickered in and out of his socket, a Ghost eye utilized from some anonymous donor. He was something else. Something new.

Lieutenant Robinson moored him to reality.

"You're alive," she said.

"I am," he agreed with a smile.

But Quest couldn't help but wonder—Was this a mistake?