As if to atone to his previous crime of inattention, Sam tried giving every material object and passing locale that he came upon while following the colonel his utmost interest. Which was pretty hard because the material world turned out to be much more boring than Sam would’ve expected a mishmash of a sci-fi and fantasy setting to be. Although, by all rights, it shouldn’t have been that boring. After all, Sam was having his first look at what a real military base looks like. Which was part of the problem, because to Sam’s eyes, it looked very much like what he thought it ought to have looked like; from observations made a hundred of years in the past and before the introduction of magic into the equation.

Although, it would’ve been a tad unfair to lay the entirety of the blame for Sam’s lack of excitement at the feet of this regular looking base. Some of it would have had to be attributed to Sam’s much greater interest in something that was not at all external to himself, an actual pair of feet. Most of Sam’s attention was busy being directed at the fact that it turns out that walking is much like learning to ride a bike (except, Sam never learned to ride a bike and was thus always annoyed when he had to use this idiom), you never really forget it.

Walking is pretty fucking great, Sam thought to himself, unaware of the weird smile that started creeping upon his face. I ought to do a whole of a lot more now that I can get a mood boost just by going from place to place. Although, like all good things, this to will probably end sometime due to my psyche getting used to the new status quo, stupid psyche. Still, if I get the chance, I should make as much use as I can of this phenomenon while it lasts. Right after I take this helicopter ride, I guess.

Fortunately for Sam, their walk ended before elation had completed the job of disfiguring his face and making him look like a fool (unfortunate for strangers, because now they would have to spend time getting to know him before figuring it out). However, his trials were not yet over. He had followed closely behind Maya, almost too closely as it turned out (he was, incidentally, looking down at his legs at that moment) because he almost ran into her back. Thankfully, quick reflexes (on her part, obviously) saved him from making a fool out of himself without directly intending to do so for the second time in under a minute.

They had just finished crossing the base’s parking lot and stepped onto open tarmac, differentiated from the previous area by the lack of cars and parking spaces. The automotive vehicles, by the way, were also nothing to write home about as far as innovation in transport technology went. Now, he wasn’t a car person, not even of the smaller subsection of vehicles manufactured explicitly for military use (which were worth some amount of memory space in Sam’s mind, if not the will to put them there). But even with his total lack of knowledge on the subject, going by his basic skills in pattern recognition, afforded to him on the basis of being born human, he was almost confident that there wasn’t much difference between these cars and those that he was used to.

“Ah, here he is,” Maya said as she started making her way further up the tarmac. Looking where she was indicating, Sam could see a still helicopter (which also looked perfectly normal, but who can really tell with modern aircraft?) and a man in a suit who was leaning on its frame. Gulping, Sam tried to push away thoughts of the helicopter going down in a fiery crash (with him in it) and followed in Maya’s footsteps.

“Captain Chen?” Maya asked the suited man while presenting her hand forward.

“And you must be colonel Lvov.” The fed look-alike shook her hand (only now Sam knew that he couldn’t be a fed, they don’t get a military rank. But then again, the new, non-US, feds might). “I must commend you and your unit on your swift response and handling of this matter. I’m sure an official recommendation will be quick to follow. Has he… Uhm, has the Taken been informed of his situation?”

“Yes. I gave him, Sam, a short overview of his situation, which basically amounted to a couple of sentences on the Integration War. So I’d very much recommend that you, or whoever you’re taking him to, give him a much more detailed explanation.”

“I’ll make sure to recommend the same thing then. Thank you for the help, colonel. I’ll take him from here.” He turned towards Sam as though dismissing Maya without any further thought. That seemed good enough for the colonel because she lowered her head towards the both of them in farewell.

“I wish you the best in the future, whatever it may be, Sam,” she said before turning back the way they came from.

“Thanks, you too,” Sam said to her disappearing back, before turning to face the full scrutiny of captain Chen. “I guess I’m under your care, then.”

“Just for a short while, I assure you,” the captain responded with a smile that didn’t even reach his lips. “I’m just here for transport, taking you to where you’re supposed to go.”

“Which would a hospital, right? For a checkup?”

“Mabrook Hospital, yes. For a medical examination, amongst other things.”

“What other things?”

“I was not privy to that information. I assume some sort of orientation, though. Introducing you to this brave new world of ours, as it were. After all, if it was only a medical examination that was in store for you, then hospitals right here in Transit that are just as good as Mabrook. But enough about that, I’m here to take you to New Point and we’re not going to get there any faster by standing around out here. You may continue interrogating me inside, if you will.”

The captain gestured Sam to follow and led him around the helicopter, opening the far side door and patiently waiting until Sam would finally oblige to enter. It’s not that big a deal. Sam tried to pump himself up, making abundant use of his new legs for said purpose. After all, it’s cars that I’m afraid of, not aircraft, and I’m not one of those irrational people who have a fear of flying. I have a perfectly reasonable and rational fear of motor transport, which this doesn’t fall under.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Well?” said the captain.

“Hey relax man, will you? I’m getting there. Just give me a couple more seconds to get myself ready. This thing’s safe, right?”

“No aircraft of this model has ever been in an accident. And I’m more than an accomplished pilot. You have nothing to worry about.” Oh gee! He had nothing to worry about. There it was folks, PTSD was over and done for, we found a cure!

Using the burst of willpower he got from making fun of people inside of his own head, Sam rushed through the open door and settled down in the sit. That wasn’t the end of it, though. His mood was further worsened when the captain had to help him fasten his seat belts.

Satisfied that Sam was secured in his sit, the captain nodded and closed the door on his way back the other side towards the pilot’s sit. Once in place, he handed Sam a pair of headphones before proceeding to do whatever it was that he needed to do before taking off. None of it looked out of place to Sam’s eyes (as in that it didn’t change in a hundred years) but Sam wasn’t an expert. As far as Sam knew, he was actually dreaming and his brain was just making up what turning on a helicopter would look like.

Although, he wasn’t sure that his brain would bother making up the captain’s communication before taking off. “Transit Command, I have the Taken, Sam—what’s your last name?”

“Anders.”

“Sam Anders with me. We are taking off towards New Point. ETA twenty minutes.”

Sam didn’t hear what was relayed back to the captain. “So I don’t even get to be called ‘the package?’ Just plain old Sam Anders?” he moaned over the sound of the rotors firing up, falsely believing they would prevent him from being heard.

“Why would you? We’re on New Terra. The military’s lines are secure enough that there isn’t a reason to maintain operational confidentiality. No threats and whatnot. Oh sure, if you get an important enough foreign dignitary visiting than they might get a code name just so the guys on counter-intelligence feel like they’re doing something with their life. But it’s the proper military, TerrSec, that’s taken an interest in you and took you out of the hands of the Home Guard. They don’t bother with anything fancy when away from the front.

“Sure yeah… I have no idea what you said… So twenty minutes to New Point? That’s the city where the hospital is in? I’m confused.”

“Twenty minutes, yes. And no, we’re flying to New Point Military Academy, which Mabrook Hospital is situated in, or right by to. The academy itself is in New Alexandria. Pretty much the sole reason for the city’s existence.”

“Which Alexandria is it the new of?”

“I wouldn’t know. Not much for Earth history.”

“Great… there goes most of what I wanted to know about.”

“You’re going to get plenty of explanation once we get to the academy. Anything I tell you now will probably just get repeated if not corrected by someone there.”

“There at the academy or there at the hospital?”

“Both. You’ll see for yourself, but the hospital is pretty much just a second entrance into the academy.”

“If you say so… So I guess that there’s nothing for me to do but to sit in silence and pray to god that we don’t end up crashing.”

Chen looked at him with a spark in his eyes, his professional mask slipping off for the first time since their introduction. “You’re a religious man than Sam? God as in the one god? You’re an Abrahamic then?”

“What? You guys don’t have the three major splits anymore? We finally rolled them back into one? Also, what happened to all the other monotheistic religions?”

“Nothing happened. Or rather, the Integration happened, and they lost a huge chuck of their believers. But most of the old religions are still there. Take my sister-in-law, for instance. She’s an Ibadi, Ibadi! Muslim. Three whole forks in, as it were. Me, I’m much more inclined to the modern, broader religion, rather than the small sects and denominations of your time. But what am I asking? Abrahamics weren’t a thing in the old world, right? So you couldn’t have been one. Must have been a Christian by your name, no?”

“No… pretty much a straight agnostic ever since I learned what it was and that it allowed me to dunk on both groups of people.”

“I see…” The captain seemed disappointed with Sam’s answer. He must’ve really been starving for some religious dialogue, judging by how fast his strict sense of propriety crumbled.

Without captain Chen to speak to, the only other method Sam had available to him in order to pass the time outside of his own head was look outside (and no matter how pretty the view, it wasn’t worth the spikes of anxiety every time he was reminded that he was travelling in a metal bird). And so, after enough time passed for him to start going crazy inside of his own head (couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes) he decided to engage Chen in theological inquiry. “So most people this day’s are pretty much atheist then?”

“Most people are like you. They don’t care about religion this way or that. After all, yours is the only side of the debate that the Integration didn’t cause an existential shock to. But there are still plenty of religious people, of all creeds, to go around. I was just excited to talk with an old world Christian like I thought you were.”

“And I thought you were not interested in old Earth history.”

“Religion is not history.”

Sam laughed. “That’s… Depending on who you ask, not a very religious thing to say.”

“Truly? Well… there you go. I learned something new.”

“Happy to be of help. At least one of us did.”

“We’re almost there. Soon you’ll have plenty of people explaining stuff for you and enough explanation to go around that you’ll get sick of it. You’re going to wish that you were back here with me, flying without a care in the world.”

“Did you forget how we got on the topic of religion?”

“What do you mean? Oh, that. Don’t worry. I told you already, we’re not going to crash. In fact, if you would look down below you, you could just about see the outskirts of New Alexandria coming into view. Which means that our journey is due over in just two more minutes.” Sam mustered his courage and looked outside. And indeed, the outline of the city underneath was becoming more and more visible. And the city itself, just like everything up till now, also looked exactly as Sam would’ve expected a city to look.

The city passed below them in a blur, and before Sam knew it, they were slowing down. “That’s the hospital there.” Chen pointed at the building whose roof they were making their way towards. “And behind it is New Point Academy.” Both the hospital and academy also looked like Sam would’ve expected them to. Although it had to be said, the academy’s campus was pretty damn big if Sam got his fences correctly.

“Here we are,” said the captain as he set them down on the hospital’s helipad. “Stay seated. I’ll come help you out.” Despite having had quite enough in recent times of people helping him out of sits, Sam reckoned that it was best to heed the craft’s pilot and so it took him a couple of extra seconds before he was back on solid ground and in the all-encompassing hug of fresh air. Taking a deep breath, Sam bent down to touch his toes, making sure that he was still all there.