The knife was quite sharp, and Crazy Doc Sanger stuck it deeply into a slab of meat. "Now, if you want to impress people with your expertise," he said, "you've got to be firm. I don't mean rigid, Dingo," he sighed at one of the near-human kids in the Interrogation class. "Firm. Confident. If all the subject sees is how intense you are, they have to comply."

"But won't that make them back up and get all... I dunno, resistant and stuff?" Asked Alala, "I mean, I would."

Sanger looked at the girl, whose physique already was several notches stronger and more 'cut' than his own. "Yes, but Alala, dear, I as a professional would never allow myself to come into contact with you, if you were to be interrogated."

She grinned widely, and someone muttered about him calling her 'dear' and stuff, that usually got someone beat.

"But I would probably use an electric cattle prod instead," Sanger said, spinning on her with one. Where it had come from was a mystery, but it stood alive in his hands, and the muscle bound "mz universe in training" leapt out of her seat like a cat.

"Jeez, Doc!" Alala said, laughing and waving her hand in front of her face like she had the vapors, "way to surprise a gal.

"It's not meant to be funny," he said. "If you - or someone built like you - were my subject I would take every opportunity to both embarrass and injure them before moving in closer. Understand?"

"What about tranq darts?" Asked Daverin.

"They take way too long to work," Taylee pointed out. "Not that I've tried them or anything."

"Of course you haven't, Taylee," Doc Sanger grinned. He put the cattle prod back behind his desk, where it zapped gently until the charge left it. "Look, I know it's almost break. But you know they want me to give you a test. How am I meant to test you if not... To actually have you interrogate people?"

"Who do we get?" Asked Dingo, a little eagerly.

"You'll have to find someone yourselves," Sanger said, looking at a clipboard. "You have until midnight on Friday. Between now and then, I want you to select a subject, bring them in to the room," he tilted his head and indicated the darkened chamber at the back of the classroom - it was supposed to be a teachers prep room but for this class he turned it into an impromptu isolation chamber. "And get information out of them."

"What kind of information?" Alala asked. "We can get normal stuff out of anybody just by asking."

"Asking is always part of the procedure," Doc Sanger reminded her. "Ten questions, at least two of which would be personal in nature and not something that would be easily gotten. And I do not want you all bringing in geeks from the Hypercalc lab. They're way too easy."

The class chuckled and wrote some more notes, as the bell was about to ring. Right before it did, Sanger looked sharply up at Daverin and said, "no you may not bring her, she is off limits."

"I didn't even-" Daverin started to say, but Sanger stood and shook his head, eyes wide open enough to display their whites, which was a bit odd for him. Normally he was sedate and his almond shaped eyes showed only the peacock blue iris. So something got him. But what?

"You do even, and I know you have Hypercalc with her, so don't even think about it. They are off limits, I said." His tone was stern but Daverin merely shrugged.

"Okay, okay, I just thought it would be fun."

"Fun is not what I would call it. The less she's in my presence the better, Daverin, and you know that. Now have fun and think of good questions." Sanger's tone turned from that steely one to a kind of false sweet, and the bell rang sharply. He'd disabled the ringer in his room so they had to rely upon the other ones in the hall. The building shook with the footfalls of every student ready for their afternoon off. Seventh period Advanced Interrogation on Monday ended their day.

While most of the students left, one or two were apt to remain on for a while and chat. However with Daverin being the way she was, that had put Sanger in a mood. Only Taylee stuck around, and she tilted her dyed-green head in a kind of concern.

"Who was she gonna bring?" She asked simply. Sanger growled a bit, while he tried to look like he was cleaning up his desk. "Well you said that just asking was always a part of our job, Doc. It's just a question. Everyone wanted to ask it."

"Keenae Sengihr, the Zekiran student. The green one." He said, gruffly.

"Oh, that biatch," Taylee rolled her eyes. "What's wrong with her? Other than being so totally full of herself no one can stand her more than five minutes at a time?"

That actually got a bit of a laugh out of the professor. "She... it's a long story, Taylee."

"Oh - one of those girls getting a little too close for comfort?"

"It was far more comfortable than you'd think," he muttered, found himself blushing, and turned back to pick up the cattle prod. He thought about using it on himself. "She ... Came here to Carramba for one reason, and that was to breed."

"To ... breed? What, with you?"

"And why not with me?" Crazy Doc stood up tall, huffy, that way he would when his honor or whatever was being insulted.

"Because you're like three hundred years old and live with some gay archangel?" Taylee said.

Sanger's huff turned to pure surprise and awkward amazement. "You know about that?"

"I know enough."

"He's not gay," Sanger said, kind of disappointed.

"Then why do you live with him?"

"I'm not gay either!" He laughed, "and it was a purely platonic relationship until he went to war - when I had to bring him back it got a little ... personal."

"You're totally dodging my question," Taylee said.

"... Yes, I am." Sanger sat on the desk, and Taylee leaned on the work bench nearest. "When she got here it was kind of a surprise, because she was really coming on like a fucking banshee. Literally."

"She's all over everyone's boyfriends," Taylee said.

"She can't help it, actually," Sanger said. "Her genetics are like that. So are mine, apparently, and that is the problem. I don't know why she's still at the school - unless it's another doppleganger universe and this one hasn't gone and done what I know she did."

"Which was...." Taylee prodded.

"She and I have a son, named Simon, who lives on Zekira." He said. "You'd think that would be the end of it, except that there is more to it. She is a genrehopper, do you know what they are?"

"I've met Aern and Ruben, yeah," Taylee said. "She leaps from one universe to the next. So she came here looking for a booty call, and you answered the phone?"

"Essentially, yes. It took some convincing and I ... wish that I hadn't made the mistake of allowing her to leave, once she'd concieved."

"But why? I mean, she's here, why not ask her? Why not let Daverin do her paper on Keenae?"

"Because she owns Simon, Taylee. She is his Lady - he's her slave. That's how it works there. He's come here a couple times, looking for a way to escape."

"Wait - wait," Taylee said. "Back up. She's only like seventeen, and you said this was when?"

"I didn't say. Technically it was three years ago. And no, she is not seventeen. She - at least the one I met up close and personal - is closer to forty. Zekirans age differently and she could pass for a teenager anyway. She left shortly after, and then came back to announce him, a few days later. And about three weeks in, Simon came on his own, looking to be ... I don't know, about twelve? They travel in time as well as space, Taylee. It's a messy power they have. I went to Zekira with him, tried to get her to free him, but she wouldn't hear it, and later on I guess they both bonded to dragons, and off he went. He's been on the run ever since, and I... know the feeling. I just don't want to be reminded of that mistake."

"Then punish her for it," Taylee said, sliding from the work bench and reaching up to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Or let me do it. Me and Red and Black would do it for free."

"How about I think on it for a while," Sanger said, smiling honestly. It was a load off his chest telling someone about that problem with Keenae, and even though Daverin was enfatuated with him in this world, she just didn't understand his feelings. He was still a professor, still responsible for bringing a Slave into the world of Zekira, and ashamed to admit that he could do nothing at all to free his own son from the same slavery that had plagued him when he was still on his home dimension.

Did she know that about him too? She seemed to know a lot, this green headed kid. She left and Sanger continued to clean up, wondering who would bag the best subject before the deadline.

***

It turned out to be an unexpected student, from the fourth period class. He brought in one of the CCTV students, a young woman who fancied herself the next news anchor for the local station. When the near-human boy was done asking her the ten questions everyone was absolutely certain she would be the best reporter ever. She was challenging, she was Rue after all...

By Friday, though, Taylee had brought in her choice of a cat-boy that she'd suspected of stealing books from the store a while back. He confessed to that crime, and half a dozen others, before she got to her sixth question. With a triumphant grin, Taylee looked back at the Doc who waved her out of the room and let the poor siamese-morph go home for the break.

But it was also by Friday that Hollis and the other dragoneers had contacted him about the Ten and their potential for dragon riding. It got him thinking. If Taylee and the other girls - sorry, "grrlz" - could go and get their own dragon then dammit, so could he.

He was tired of stealing Sixth away from Kalkin, it wasn't fair on the genetic engineer, now was it? It would be nice to have his own close bond resting in the artificial dragon caverns just next to the campus rock wall. Yes.

Doc Sanger watched as the group of dragons took the girls away. One by one they blipped back again, to prepare the caverns and do their normal day to day things, until the girls were bonded with hatchlings to their name. He pulled H'lis aside and leaned against the retaining wall that framed the field.

"Where should I go?" Doc Sanger said, and H'lis looked at him with a little concern.

"Go? You're leaving?"

"No - no," Sanger shook his head and laughed, "I mean to bond a dragon. Sixth is great, but ... I think it's about time for my own. With his own name, and all, right?"

"You're telling me," H'lis said, "I think Kalkin will agree. Why not get him to take you?"

"Because I want it to be more of a surprise," Sanger admitted. "You know we went off and about looking for others of me, right?" H'lis nodded, and the Doc went on. "Well it'd be much easier if I didn't have to share the ride. I don't have to explain that to you," he drew his long fingers through his dark hair, "I just guess I need to convince myself that it's time."

"It's been time, Sanger," H'lis said, "I'll hook you up. We'll take you to Ryslen."

That surprised the older man. "Really? They'd take me?"

"They take a lot of people worse than you," H'lis said. "And there are usually a ton of eggs. Get packed."

"What, you're not going to officially Search me?" Sanger said. He was looking at the big bronze dragon H'lis rode, when he said it, but it was a moment of pure silliness when H'lis began patting the dark skinned man down.

"You're clean, I've searched you." H'lis said with a big grin.