“Yes, thank you Sam,” Maurice said, and, to his credit, without a hint of irritation in his tone. “So are there any more questions for me before we move on to my questions for Sam?” When no one spoke up, he nodded and turned to Sam. “I trust that you are still willing to discuss your experience of being returned? In case I haven’t mentioned my reason for wanting to delve further into it; My hope is that through analyzing your unique circumstance we could further our understand of the process of returning. And maybe, we could begin to theorize what it is that makes you so unique, so to speak.” His gaze was boring into Sam’s soul, and swear to god, Sam could see the muscles in Maurice’s arms tensing as he held the pen and notebook, ready to begin writing at a moment’s notice.

“Sure, I’d love to help you,” Sam said. “Although I have to admit to not caring all that much what makes my kidnapping—or even me—special.” Of course, that’s because I don’t have any interest, seeing as I already know. Well, I know why I’m special. I was Web-Web’s little hopeful Christmas miracle. Didn’t get to ask why that translated itself into me being built without a core or being in timeout before teleporting here. I would add this to the pile of questions, except I don’t really care about that. Probably for the best though, I’ll be better able to lie the less I know about this stuff.

“Good.” Maurice made eye contact with Sam and held it for way too long (almost a second) before nodding. Turning to Sarah, he said, “Make sure to jump in if a question occurs to you. Your memories of being returned are much more recent than mine, after all.” She nodded in affirmation.

What followed was almost an hour of meticulous questioning on the part of Maurice, and rather lukewarm answering from Sam in response. Per Maurice’s request, Sam began with retelling the incident to the best of his ability, and Sam was surprised at how much lacking it turned out to be. If it were anyone else but him, Sam would have found it funny that a person was able to forget so much about what was arguably the most impactful event of their life.

Sam recalled the major bits of the event and relegated them back to Maurice with complete honesty. Of course, buying that would require subscribing to a somewhat diminutive view of what counts as truth (a must have for any would be Kantian who doesn’t want the Nazis at his doorstep to kill the Jews in his attic). His streak of remaining honest by omission was cut short, however, when Maurice began questioning Sam about the voice he heard before being teleported to New Terra.

Now Sam was forced to lie. He knew the source of the voice, if not why they chose to speak to him at that moment. But to everyone else, he shouldn’t have known anything about that voice whatsoever. Last time he and Maurice talked about the subject, Sam mentioned the voice to him under the apprehension that it was part of every Taken’s experience, a big fucking mistake in retrospect. Thankfully, to everyone else, the mysterious voice wasn’t any more special than the other multitude of differences with Sam’s return.

“What did the voice sound like?” Felix joined the line of interrogators.

“I don’t know,” Sam responded in a higher pitch than he meant to. “Who pays attention to what voices sound like?”

“Well, just right now yours sounded like a chicken being plucked, so that wasn’t so hard to do.”

“That’s what we’re going to do now, make fun of my stupid high shrilled voice?”

“No.” Sarah’s hand blocked Felix’s face before he could respond. “Do you remember anything else about the voice?”

“You mentioned that it sounded like a robot when you first told me about it,” Maurice helpfully added.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Sam tried to act as though he wasn’t intimately familiar with what the voice sounded like. “Sounded like a text to speech, maybe. Of the genderless variety, or close to it. Don’t think there was anything else special about it. Except the fact that it spoke to me while I was in a complete void.” Which is very likely to be completely different from the void between worlds that exists outside of the conjured skies, Sam mentally recalled Maurice’s assessment.

Eventually, the discussion pivoted from his time in the void to his short experience of lying naked on the cold New Terran ground. This was great news for Sam because not only that meant an end to his need to lie, but also signaled the end of when Sam was the only witness available for the event. In fact, Sam had less knowledge than Maurice about his first moments in this new world, as the doctor had already armed himself with the incident report filled by the soldiers on duty. “Perhaps I ought to contact Major Valdez,” Maurice remarked once they got to the part where Sam lost consciousness.

“Who?” Sam asked.

“Javi,” Felix said.

“Indeed,” Maurice said. “The medic who was helping stabilize your body while it was forming its core.”

“Oh, you mean your apprentice?”

“Hardly. He was just one of the many New Point students I had the benefit of teaching. True, his commitment to the path of a dedicated healer resulted in him spending more time with me than most students. But that still does not qualify him as my apprentice.”

“What do you need from him?” Sarah asked. “He doesn’t know anything about the Taken.”

“True, this is more of a professional interest. I’m interested in his own analysis of Sam’s body before, during and after the core formation. Even if that sheds no new light on Sam’s mysterious return, studying the difference between Sam’s body then and now could lead us to some new insights regarding the interaction between the core and the body.”

“You’re thinking that it could help you understand better how magic regulates the body’s functions?”

“The human body, at least.” The two of them got into a heated discussion about the possible ramifications of such a discovery, and Sam was glad to see that he wasn’t the only one who was at a loss. Felix was lazily prodding the remains of food on his plate, and Yvessa was just staring ahead and at nothing in particular. It took three finger snaps for Sam to bring her focus back into the real world.

“What?” she asked, trying to mask her surprise.

“I just wanted to check if you had anything you wanted to ask. Everyone else had had their shot.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” she said, but seemed to reconsider her stance after a second. “What was the last thing you remember?”

“I don’t know… laying in hospital, I guess. The memories kind of blend together. But that’s par for the course for every one of us, no?” He directed the question towards Sarah and Maurice, drawing them out of their conversation.

“Indeed.” Maurice nodded. “None of us are able to pinpoint an exact date from which we were taken, and not only that, the last few months of our previous life are all blended together, making it even harder to recall exact dates.”

“That sounds awful,” Yvessa said.

“Maybe for these losers.” Sam struck a thumb towards Maurice and Sarah. “But I’m perfectly happy with having those couple of months mashed together. Real life hospitals are nothing like Scrubs, I’ll tell you that. It’s way more boring, especially when you can’t get out of bed.”

Sarah raised an eyebrow. “Losers?”

“Yvessa, Felix!” Sam leaned over to them. “Now is the time to prove your friendship. Protect me from this vile-tempered woman. She’s been out to get me ever since she found out what my stance on microwaving tea is.”

“Wait,” Sarah said, “what is your stance on microwaving tea?”

Sam’s eyes widened, but he was saved by the sounds of piano from Maurice’s phone; the doctor getting up and walking away from the table in order to answer the call. “Come to think of it. I still haven’t chosen a ringtone yet,” Sam consciously pondered aloud.

“What’s wrong with your old one?” Sarah mercifully asked.

“I actually really like that song but didn’t have it on my playlist because of it being my ringtone. So I’m wondering whether I want it more as a song to listen to or as a song to dread when I hear it.”

“And how’s your playlist going? Made it to a thousand yet?”

“Not even close. Yvessa didn’t let me do it while also listening to her lecture.”

“What?” Yvessa said. “You didn’t mention anything about any playlist.”

“Yeah, I knew that you were going to say no, so I figured that I shouldn’t waste my time asking you.”

“That’s asinine.”

“Were you going to say yes?”

“Of course not. That’s even stupider. How can you pay attention to what I’m saying while you’re also listening to music?”

“Very draconian teaching methods,” Felix muttered and gave a sad sigh with a shake of his head.

“Shut it. You were almost as disruptive to the lesson as the music would have been.”

“I beg to differ.” Sam came to Felix’s defense. “I wasn’t going to listen to the songs out loud, only picking based on what I remembered liking. So in actuality, Felix would have stayed the most disruptive factor in the lesson.”

“Wow, good to know you’ve got my back,” Felix intoned.

“What are you moaning about? You said you wanted to be seen as one of the cool kids, and being disruptive in class is a cool kid fixture.”

“My god.” Sarah laughed. “When did you grow up? The eighties?”

“Oh, come off it. Yeah, it might have changed by the time you, and maybe even me, were kids. But I assure you that in plenty of schools in the world, including my junior high, the popular kids were overwhelmingly the loudest ones in class.”

“Your upbringing sounds so sad,” Felix said with faked dismay.

“Fuck off, pretty boy. I grew up in the best time to grow up in. Late enough so that porn was easily accessible through the Internet. But early enough so that I didn’t see anything wrong with Friends the first dozen times I watched it.”

“Also early enough not to see the entire world engulfed in war and eventually destroyed,” Yvessa said.

“Good point! Although I don’t know if to count that as a benefit of the time I was born in or who I had the ‘luck’ to be born as. If I wasn’t a Taken, I would probably have lived long enough to see the end of days.”

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“You’re making it sound like being taken was the best thing that ever happened to you,” Sarah said, her voice shaking a bit.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sam responded on impulse, his brain already juggling in order to try and change the topic. “The best thing that ever happened to me is that one time I went to a supermarket with a friend. And while I initially didn’t want to buy anything, when I saw the fruit stand, I decided to buy a banana. And then when we got to the checkout, the teller let me go without having to pay for that one singular banana. Now that was a good day.”

“That does sound magical.” Sarah smiled. “Maybe we ought to go to buy some bananas for ourself, try and recapture that magic.”

“I don’t know… cause I think that it happened to me again a second time. And the fact that I’m not sure if it really happened leads me to think that after the first time, the wonder was lost. There’s a very heavy life lesson there for you kids.”

Sarah nodded in understanding and turned her head backwards. “Wonder what’s taking Maurice so long…”

“Think he bailed?” Felix asked.

“Why would he bail without telling us?” Yvessa shook her head.

“Maybe he felt uncomfortable with the way you were looking at him?”

“What?! I wasn’t looking at him!”

“So it must have been the way you didn’t look at him and slunk back in the chair trying to make yourself smaller.”

“What? I… Did you notice that as well?” she asked Sam and Sarah.

“Yvessa, I’m not going to lie to you,” started Sam, while Sarah just gave a nod and a small smile. “I forgot what I was going to say…” Sam admitted after a moment. “It’s not my fault, it’s a quote from Friends; I got distracted.”

“Who the hell are those friends you keep mention?” Yvessa asked him.

“Wha?” Sam was flabbergasted. He was shocked. Mostly, he was saddened by the fact he when he’ll end up blaming his behavior on Chandler in the future, it won’t land for a ton of people. “I can’t get into this with you right about now. We simply don’t have enough time for this. Let’s circle back to why you were acting like a nervous fan all lunch long.”

“So you did notice!”

“Duh. I was running out of ways to make fun of you in my head. You looked like me when I first saw a porn star in real life. Oh, there’s another one.”

“Don’t you have any jokes that don’t make fun of you as well?” Sarah asked.

“No. I’m like Chandler that way. Dammit! You did that on purpose!”

“Guys, can we focus here?” Felix raised his hands. “It should be clear to all by now that Yvessa has a crush on Maurice, and it’s our job as her friends to help her through it.”

“I don’t have a crush on anyone!” Yvessa hit his arm. “I was just a little nervous because he saved my dad’s life.”

“What?” all three of them exclaimed simultaneously. “When was that?” Sarah asked.

“Six years ago. He didn’t do it personally, of course. My dad had cancerous pathways.” That explanation seemed sufficient because Sarah and Felix nodded in understanding. Meanwhile, Sam was wondering how the hell cancer even works in a body with magic.

“It’s when for some reason,” Sarah said, turning to Sam, “be it ‘regular cancer’ of some form of a magical disease, and yes, there are some of those, a person loses control of their own pathways and they begin changing by themselves. It’s dangerous for a multitude of reasons, one of which, for example, is that your pathways might actually shrink.”

“Yeah, dad got it from lung cancer when he was young, our age. But he was only level 1 back then, and it took him longer than average to make it to level 4 and beat off the cancer for good. The doctors believed that by that time, the cancer had already started interacting with his magic, which eventually resulted in him getting cancerous pathways a couple of years down the road.”

“Shit, Yvessa.” Felix laid a hand on her shoulders. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry you and your dad had to go through that. Must have been awful.”

“Less awful than regular people whose wife wasn’t the Terran ambassador to the Kingdom of Sarechal,” she said with a self-deprecating tone. “Dad got to meet plenty of those while he was undergoing treatment, and most of them didn’t have enough money for the pricer symptom relievers. Anyway.” She shook her head and turned to Sam. “Maurice was the one, or at least the lead figure of the group, that came up with a new form of medication for cancerous pathways. It has more than ninety percent success rate and, thankfully, it worked for my dad. He’s been in perfect health ever since. So I hope you can understand why I was nervous meeting the person who might be the reason why I still have a father.”

“If I say no, will you hit me? Ow!” Sarah slapped him on the back of the neck. “I said if!”

“So why didn’t you say anything?” Felix asked Yvessa.

“I don’t know… What can I say?” Yvessa shook her head. “‘Hi, I’m the daughter of one of the people whose life you saved. Thanks a bunch?’”

“Doesn’t sound that bad to me. It’s not like he’s going to react negatively to you telling him that. At least I don’t think so, right?” Felix turned to Sarah.

“Of course not! He’ll be more than happy to have you thanking him, even if he won’t necessarily show it.”

“Maybe… I want to tell him it’s just… I’ll have to think about it.” Yvessa fidgeted in her seat.

Sam leaned back and looked at the ceiling in despondence. “Well, you’re going to have plenty of time by the way things are looking. Are you sure he didn’t just Irish exit our asses?” he asked Sarah.

“If want to leave, you can leave. No one’s forcing you to stay.”

“Yeah right. Where would I even go? I’m like a spouse that staying in an abusive relationship because she followed her previously secular husband to a fundamentalist country and now she can’t fucking leave because he took away her passport.”

“No one’s abusing you.”

“You hit me just two seconds ago.”

“You were being an ass.”

“That’s like saying it’s OK to hit a woman because she’s being a nag? It’s not something I can control, I’ll have you know, it’s just who I am.”

“Well be better!”

“Oh, sure, I’ll get right on that! I’ll just hop on over to the Sam store, wander over to the Anders aisle in the over twenty-one under thirty department, and pick up a better, less grating version of myself. And I won’t even have to pay out of my unlimited bank account because everything’s free on Thursdays.”

“Today’s Monday.”

“Well there goes that plan I guess.”

Sarah’s rebuttal was cut in its tracks by Felix, speaking up before her. “Seriously though, Sarah, I hate to side with Sam on this, but it’s already been a couple of minutes. I don’t want to ditch on Maurice or anything, but we have a class we need to get to.”

“What class?” Sam asked.

“Basic Patterns Two,” Yvessa answered.

“Wow. Sexy. Am I to assume that next trimester you’ll be studying Basic Patterns Three?”

“And next year is Intermediate Patterns and the year after that is Advanced.” Felix made a dismissive motion with his hand. “Can’t really complain, though. It’s literally the most important subject we’re going to learn.”

“I don’t agree with that at all,” Sam said. “You can always complain about stuff. Who’s been feeding you that contentedness with life crap?”

“It’s a great course,” Sarah said. “And there’s nothing wrong with the name. It gets the point across perfectly.”

“And we’re going to miss the beginning of it, unless we leave in the next couple of minutes,” Yvessa said.

“Or we can run,” Felix suggested.

“I’m not going to run to class like some sort of slob!”

“What’s wrong with running to class?” asked the B.A. who was very fond of leaving home late on school days.

“It makes you look like you have no self control when it comes to time. For propriety’s sake, a person ought to always be on time while arriving in a leisurely manner.”

“But what if we’re waiting on someone else and that guy is being late?” Felix smiled. “I mean, don’t manners dictate that we ought to bid Maurice farewell before leaving? What if he only comes back in ten minutes? The only way we’ll make it to class is if we run?”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “Not to mention that running between places is the most effective use of your time possible. Why waste fifteen minutes walking when I can get there in five and use those ten extra minutes to study or for some other form of self-improvement?”

“You two are just trying to trip me.” Yvessa crossed her hands. “Well it won’t work. In five minutes on the dot, we’re leaving for class, whether or not Maurice is back by then.”

Felix tilted his head. “What do you mean we? Weren’t you the one annoyed before by me making decisions in both of our names?”

“This is payback for then.”

“Oh, some payback. Fine, whatever… You heard the lady Sarah; we’re out of here in about… four and a half minutes now.”

“This is riveting stuff,” Sam drummed on the table. “A veritable race against time, but why don’t we up the stakes a little? Say if Maurice gets here in the next four minutes, you, Yvessa, will have to pour your heart out for him. But if he doesn’t, Sarah will owe each one of you a favor.”

“How come I’m the one that owes them a favor? Why not you?”

“What the hell are they going to do with a favor from me? What they’re going to ask me to make a list of must watch sitcoms of the twentieth century? A favor from you is actually worth somethi—”

“We’ll take it!” said Felix with a wide smile, putting his hand forward for Sam to shake.

Yvessa shouted out, “Hey!” just as Sam reached forwards to clasp Felix’s hand, and two seconds before he heard the chair next to him scraping the floor.

“Sorry for that,” Maurice said. “Someone needed my consultation, and it took longer than I thought it would. You’re probably needing to get to class by now, no?”

“We still have about three minutes or so,” Felix assured him.

“That’s a very exact estimate.”

“It’s all thanks to Yvessa. She’s a very punctual person. Got it at an early age from her dad.” Both Yvessa and Sarah shot Felix an angry look, although Yvessa’s was noticeably more venomous. Maurice looked at Sam in confusion, only to receive a sage-like affirmative nod in return.

“Very well,” Maurice said slowly, turning his head back towards the rest of the table. “Then before you leave, I want to thank the both of you for being Sam’s friends and willing to help him so much, despite having just met today. Also, for being Sarah’s friends, of course. I know how hard it can be for us Taken to find friends or for other people to become friends with us.” Felix’s eyes widened and he slowly nodded while Yvessa just stared back at Maurice with her mouth half open. Sarah’s face was blushing crimson red and Sam was unable to stop himself from laughing.

“Gee dad!” Sam said in his most head-cheerleader voice. “Way to like, embarrass as. Thank god Dan isn’t here or else the whole school would know just how big of a dweeb our father is.”

“Please don’t do that voice ever again,” Sarah said, having managed to gain back some control of her facial colors.

“You can’t tell me what do to! Dad! Sarah’s being mean to me again.”

“Why am I your dad in this scenario?” Maurice asked, his voice as cool as a river in autumn.

“Because that’s what parents say to the new friends of their socially challenged teenaged children. Could also be an older sibling if both parents are out of the picture, but you strike me as more of a dad than a big brother. Also, it’s already been more than a minute and Yvessa has something really important to tell you before she has to run to class.” This time, it was Sam’s turn to receive vicious glares from the two women while Felix was innocently looking away from the table.

“Of course.” Maurice turned to Yvessa. “I’m all ears.” Yvessa gulped; alternating glaring at Sam, looking at Maurice in hesitation and searching Sarah’s eyes for support. Sarah nodded her head in encouragement but mouthed “up to you.” Of course, Sam wasn’t so callus as to completely leave Yvessa out to dry by forcing her to do something she didn’t feel comfortable doing. If she wasn’t able to communicate with Maurice in the next couple of seconds, Sam already knew exactly what to say in order to help her out of this jam and on her way.

But as it turned out, there was no need for his social deflection skills, for Yvessa managed to convey her message to Maurice, albeit not with her usual conversational grace. “I wanted to thank you for helping invent the new treatment for cancerous pathways!” she blurted out, and without taking a breath, continued speaking in the same frantic manner. “My dad’s condition got really bad a couple of years ago. He almost died was how bad it was. If we were from a less fortunate family, he probably wouldn’t have made it. So you pretty much helped save my father’s life and of course so many other people also owe their lives to you so I just wanted to thank you and tell you how grateful I am, all of our family is, for what you did.”

Maurice cleared his throat and his face morphed ever so slightly to a kinder, more bed-side mannered version of itself. “It is very nice of you to say that. And although I won’t deny your appreciation, I would still like to mention that it was a group effort. Many other people, not all of them doctors even, helped in the development process. In fact, I was actually a newcomer to the group despite some of the claims in Terran media that the effort was my brainchild. Still, you are more than welcome, and I am very happy to hear that your father’s condition improved. I would be glad to meet with him when he visits. If he would like that.”

“I’m sure he would!” Yvessa gave a very affirmative nod and seemed to hesitate in what to say next. “But we have to go now,” she eventually said and grabbed Felix’s arm in one hand and her bag in the other before starting to make her getaway. “Thank you again!” she called out before speeding off towards the exit.

Sam clicked his tongue once she was out of eyeshot. “I didn’t want to say this while she was still here but does anyone else kinda of feel bad for her now?” Maurice gave a simple nod, but Sarah was looking at Sam with narrowed eyes, having already gotten to know him better. “I mean, think about it, what makes for a worst fantasy protagonist than having two living parents? Having two living parents after one of them was miraculously saved by a character the protagonist meets in the first book. She’ll never make as a main character it in today’s market. Let’s face it, the only fantasy bestseller that has both parents alive is Narnia and I’m not going to count the two of them as parents after how they treated Susan. Actually, I just thought of another example, but that one also has a caveat. What’s a person whose only sibling died is called?”

“An only child?” Sarah ventured.

“Nah. That doesn’t convey the full truth of it. I know, we’ll call them a last child. That way we can differentiate between the only childs, who had no deficiency of parental love (in a healthy household). And the last childs, who not only had to share in the love of their parents and wider family, but also have nothing to show for it, having lost their siblings. So you and me, for example, are an orphan last child. Making us prime suspects for being a fantasy protagonist.”