After spending the rest of the season trying to identify the neurotransmitter neutralized by caffeine in that race, and making relatively good progress, Lokath asks a new favor of Killanaus just as they finish their day in the lab.

  “I know you might not like this, but, once again, please, meet me behind the mall at midnight. Once again, don’t bring anyone!”

  “What is it now?” Killanaus’ skin turns grey.

  Not again! The last two times I met with him at midnight behind the mall, it was about suspicious matters. What kind of suspicious matters is it now? Killanaus starts to feel dread about having to meet his advisor behind the mall for the third time this year.

  “Once again, it’s about matters that are too sensitive to be discussed on campus!” Lokath tells him.

  “The first two times, it was about me, so I was willing to let that slide. But I have enough of being some sort of confidante for sensitive matters!” an angry Killanaus yells at him.

  “One of these matters is about you. But other matters aren’t about you alone…”

  “I wonder if there are matters common to both Aqqar and I…”

  “That I’m not at liberty to tell you just yet. However, if you don’t come, I won’t write you that rec letter!”

  Once again, he feels the need to warn his mom about having to meet with Lokath behind the mall at midnight:

  Killanaus: Lokath wants to meet me behind the mall at midnight

  Killanaus’ mom (sighing): I guess, I have no choice but to let you go that late

  “But until then, we need to sort out your schedule for the season. You have ten days left to register for next season’s courses!”

  “Abduction and Society is the one course I already know I’m taking. But I can’t decide between policing and youth protection!”

  “You learned some pharmacokinetics as well as toxicology to get your part of the project done, but it’s very fragmentary. So I’d say toxicology since you know enough about genetics to function in either career! And you might also want to take early childhood development!”

  “Very well...”

  “However, because coursework will get more intense, you may only take four courses per season now, as opposed to five!”

  “I’d take the first capstone project course”

  “While I don’t think the project will end before the season starts, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to take an entire course just to finish what you started during the off-season...” Lokath shares his reservations.

  “But, at the same time, research projects are highly unpredictable”

  “Undergrads can’t take part in abduction voyages while courses are in session, so I urge you to reconsider, and take this TA position, which comes with a course slot”

  The hardest two courses last season were cell signaling and bioethics. The other three didn’t require as much work. But that was brutal, Killanaus reflects on his last season of courses.

  “Now you’re talking!”

  But this time around, since Qinlei already had a prior commitment, she couldn’t spend time with him prior to his third “night behind the mall” so he decides to remain on-campus until the time comes to go behind the mall.

  When the midnight chime strikes, and Lokath arrives behind the mall, without lighting:

  “I apologize for making you meet with me behind the mall, but it’s about the future of abduction as a profession. Before you ask, this concerns you in so far that your career will start while these changes are being made!” Lokath starts speaking.

  “Whoa!” Killanaus gasps. “Since I knew you, you were perhaps a little uptight, legalistic even, and every concern about rule-breaking was dealt with outside of the regular channels!”

  “During the voyage, you raised concerns that so many harbored in secret in the abduction world. Excessive regulations getting in the way of scientific research, for one, and so many clamor for reforms!”

  “You never talked about any push for reforms among the abduction profession! But, if history is any indication, abduction reforms take place because of major accidents!”

  “We can’t wait for the next one to happen! at this rate, these archaic rules will be more likely to provoke one than to prevent one!”

  “I could see an accident caused by a research abductor botching a criminal’s abduction. But why, suddenly, do you see fit to talk about abduction reforms?”

  “I didn’t believe you’d understand the need for reforms until you got a taste of the profession! Even if it lasted only one season!”

  “Is Aqqar aware of your reform plan?”

  “All that you need to know about Aqqar is that she won’t be affected by this the same as you. The main aspect of the reform plan is that license classes won’t be cumulative any longer”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “I guess, there are a lot of complaints about how research abductors do a very poor job as police or youth protection abductors... But why tell me this in private, behind a mall at night?”

  “These reform plans might paint me as a target if I told you about that on campus!”

  “Also, what concerns do you harbor about me and these reforms?”

  “Under this new reform plan, people who want to become police or youth protection abductors no longer need to earn a degree in biology or a related field, but still need to take some courses in these areas! My main concern is that your people skills might be a little limited to function in these fields!”

  “What do you mean, my people skills are a little limited to function as a police or youth protection abductor? I spent last off-season as a hospital orderly! Might not transfer one-to-one to police or youth protection...” Killanaus sighs.

  “For the past two years, your social interactions have been with a pretty narrow range of like-minded people. As an abductor, police or youth protection, you’ll need to interact with a much wider range of people. That’s part of the problem with living out your academic life among people who live and breathe biology, as well as with cumulative licensure; it becomes much more difficult to interact with people outside of your field!”

  “What do you plan to do about that?”

  “I’m running for one of the AAA Council’s seats earmarked for universities!”

  I never thought of Lokath as a would-be reformer. Being brought in to be told how I’m one of the main driving forces for reform, behind a mall past midnight, makes me feel like I’m just a puppet in Lokath’s hands, Killanaus sighs while questions surface in his mind.

  “First, what makes you think you might have a chance to win any of these seats, and, second, how much of an appetite for reform is there?”

  “Year after year, abductors kept saying the same things: not only in alumni satisfaction surveys, but also about how some police abductors feel like requiring an entire degree in biology or a related field to start training in policing is far too much! But the current councillors are content to just exercise stewardship over the profession!”

  “What does this reform plan imply for getting into these programs? Other than only requiring a handful of bio courses…”

  “The biology background isn’t lost, it just means that you’ll have a wider array of students to work with. I’ll send you an email with sample degree plans under these new reforms, and also of prereqs under each. The research abduction track remains mostly unchanged; the non-research tracks will be the ones that will change”

  And, of course, what it means for licenses going forward. However, a lingering question makes the undergrad feel uneasy, even as he receives an overview of the reforms.

  “Let’s backtrack a bit. You said that even working as a hospital orderly may not be enough to alleviate any social concerns you might have about me working as a class-two abductor...” Killanaus sighs.

  “It’s not lost, since, as an orderly, you might have had a range of patients with their own vulnerabilities. The adjustments would be smaller for doing youth protection than if you wanted to become a police abductor. It takes a different mindset to be a police abductor...”

  Now I understand why the AAA’s personality test was inconclusive: while I might not have the right kind of fortitude to be a police agent, I’m not the best active listener either, Killanaus reflects on the results of the personality test he took a while back. And it ignored backgrounds and one’s past experiences, too!

  “Struggling to interact with others outside one’s area of expertise isn’t a concern sensitive enough to justify having to meet me behind a mall at night!” Killanaus retorts.

  “I feel like you previously believed that abduction, as a profession, kept its issues hidden from the public eye. But hiding the issues from the public eye will only make them worse!”

  I couldn’t have become a vice chairman of the biology department if I wasn’t a respected administrator of abduction license-granting graduate degree programs, Lokath muses, as he plans on giving every undergrad aiming for an abduction license an overview of the reforms.

  “Public opinion towards abduction is generally more favorable to non-research abductors than to research ones...”

  “If you may excuse me, I need to write a proposal to the university’s Senate as well as the AAA Council for allowing, on a pilot basis, to admit students to class-two programs from a broader range of programs, and only require a few courses: general biology, chemistry, stats and, depending on the track, either toxicology or some childhood development biology!”

  “If the need for reforms was so great, why didn’t other abductors make any attempt to push their own plans for reforms? Or even engage in online activism?”

  “We could discuss the topic all night, but we need to cut that short here!”

  As with his first trip behind the mall, the undergrad is driven back home by the prof. With a heavy heart, he realizes just how disconnected the AAA has been from the realities of life as abductors.

  Upon arriving home, he briefly looks at the current composition of the AAA Council, in what little time he had before going to sleep. It seems like the senior leadership of the profession is mostly made up of people who sat on the Council for many years now. Pre-retirement-aged even, he muses while he falls asleep.

  AAA Council Chamber, Xorrak’s capital. Abductors, veterans and new, along with some prospective abductors, both in undergrad and in grad school, were gathered like never before in abduction history. As the session began, the crowd began to make their voices heard:

  “For far too long, we abductors silently endured archaic regulations and procedures! Now is the time to put our issues into the public eye!” one of Killanaus’ dad’s previous bosses, now a police abductor, began shouting before the AAA’s security was called into the chambers.

  “Down with cumulative licensing!” Lokath yelled, about to sling a beaker in the councillors’ direction.

  “Academic requirements for getting licensed are far too strict!” Killanaus followed suit.

  But never did they suspect that the protest inside the AAA Council Chamber would even draw some people who weren’t involved in the abduction profession. Sensing the disturbance brewing, the AAA president intervened:

  “Security!” the AAA’s president screamed into the Chamber’s PA system.

  However, the AAA headquarters’ security guards posted all over the building were overwhelmed by a horde of protesters who seemed to have axes to grind against either the police or abduction. As well as angry abductors.

  “Cumulative licensing is an insult to the expertise of these abductors keeping us, and our youth, safe!” a youth protection abductor yelled at the security guards. “I wouldn’t trust a research abductor to keep our youth safe!”

  Killanaus awakens from this bad dream, where he found himself the victim of ham-fisted riot police, along with abductors from all branches of the profession.

  During breakfast, his parents realize that his skin is grey. His face shows other signs of discomfort:

  “Honey, what happened behind the mall this time?” his mom asks him, feeling that something is amiss.

  Killanaus’ tone of voice leaves no doubt that he’s unsettled, that what he knew was shattered behind a mall at night. “Until last night, I thought that abduction was a relatively healthy profession, that what issues it did have, were dealt quietly and away from the public!” He then starts crying. “Now, I’m not sure if I still want to practice abduction for a career! It seems like abductors are very unhappy with the direction of their profession!”

  “You used to talk about abduction as if you knew for certain that you’d practice it three years from now! Does training have anything to do with why abductors are unhappy with the profession?” his dad asks him.

  “Yes… a biology degree is overkill for some to start learning abductions!”