He was awoken by the sound of laughter. Amare and Oseye were talking. He tried to sit upright but he was covered in blankets. “You’re awake,” he said and they stepped closer.

“Mild hypothermia,” she said. “Like this loser,” she pointed to Amare.

“Hey, I didn’t know!”

“So, you and him talk all the time and all of a sudden he decides to do the same thing you did?”

“I—I didn’t tell him about it.”

“He didn’t ask what was wrong with your face?”

“He did, but I didn’t tell him that it was dangerous to fly so high!”

“So, you conveniently left out that part and he goes on to do the same thing a couple days later.”

“Right,” he said defeatedly. “You’re right, Oseye. I should have told him.”

“I’m just saying. I’ll tell Shuang he’s awake.”

“Andrew, what’s going on here?” he pointed to the screen. “It’s not letting me access the ‘Value’ variable.”

class TestClass { int Value; } void Main() { TestClass x1 = new TestClass(); x1.Value = 1; }

“The ‘x1.Value’ line is throwing an error.”

“Here,” pointed Andrew at the error message. ‘The field TestClass.Value is inaccessible due to its protection level.’

class TestClass { public int Value; }

The error was gone. “Classes’ protection level is ‘private’ by default?”

“Yes, in the language you’re using, it is. You had to mark it as ‘public’ to be able to access the variable from outside of the class.”

“How are you feeling?” asked Amare.

“Amare,” said Vick with a pitiful look. “I saw her.”

He knew without another word who Vick was talking about, and the smile on his face vanished. He took a seat beside the bed. “Did she reach for you, too?”

“She did.”

He covered his face with his hands and began sobbing.

“Amare,” worryingly he said and tried to reach out to him but the blankets were wrapped around his arms. “Amare,” he said again. “Maybe it was a hallucination.”

“I have to—” he said through his tears. “I have to—I have to go up there again.”

“Amare, no. You can’t.”

“But, she’s waiting there.”

“We don’t know if it is her.”

“You said,” he looked at Vick, “it was her.”

“Amare,” he paused, and he wanted to take back his words, he had never seen him in such despair. “I thought it were her because you thought it were her.”

“No, I swear it were her. Didn’t they disappear over the clouds? Lost on the radar, above how many meters?”

He tried to remember, and it didn’t take long. He remembered the incident like it were yesterday. “Fifteen-thousand.”

“Fifteen-thousand meters, Vick. We have to go back.”

“With a heater,” he responded instantly.

“I honestly like this better than class,” said Willard. “We should meet to review occasionally.”

“Mister Vick sucks at teaching,” said Roy. “That’s for sure.”

“Mister Vick looked tired yesterday,” said Gus.

“I’m sure that was the reason for his absence today,” said Andrew. “Everyone’s got to take breaks. He’ll be better equipped to teach us soon.”

“Andrew,” said Roy. “I set it to one here, but when I print it out, it’s two.”

“Oh, that’s because the variable is a reference to the object.”

void Main() { TestClass x1 = new TestClass(); x1.Value = 1; TestClass x2 = x1; x2.Value = 2; Console.WriteLine(“x1: ” + x1.Value); Console.WriteLine(“x2: ” + x2.Value); }

“Object?”

“Yes, an instance of a class is an object.”

“Ah, now I remember Mister Vick teaching us that. The class is like a blueprint and using the ‘new’ keyword makes an object from that blueprint?”

“Exactly. You seem to be catching on quick, Roy.”

“That still doesn’t explain why both of them are—” he paused. “I see, reference type?”

“You figured it out on your own.”

“You helped jog my memory, thank you.”