The Perfect World (The Perfect World Series Book 1) (30 page)

As the lesson came to an end, Cyrus protested a bit since he wanted to continue. Mr. Schumacher seemed pleased, but he was firm about moving on to their English lesson. Cyrus agreed halfheartedly, and Mr. Schumacher promised they’d have just as much to discuss tomorrow.

The lesson switched to English, and he watched as Mr. Schumacher pulled three different books out of his stack. He placed them on the table, and there were different colored tabs on the side of the book, along with several loose-leaf pieces of paper. Though it looked thoroughly disorganized, Mr. Schumacher knew the purpose and use of every single item. As the young man examined his teacher again, he noticed though his teacher was clean, his hair was quite unkempt as if he couldn’t quite control it. Cyrus ran his fingers through his own bushy hair and smiled. It seemed like Mr. Schumacher lived in a form of organized chaos. Cyrus decided he liked Mr. Schumacher a lot.

English wasn’t quite as interesting as history was, but he still found it enjoyable. Soon enough, that hour had come to an end as well. Mr. Schumacher closed his books and held out a hand to Cyrus, who eagerly shook it.

“Well, Mr. Wright, I have certainly enjoyed teaching you today. You have a good mind. I’m sure we’ll make great progress and you’ll be ready to join your technical classes in no time.”

Cyrus blinked. “What do you mean, be ready? I thought I was signed up.”

“You are, but you’re not allowed to move into those classes until you’ve completed all your remedial courses. Signing up for those classes was to gauge where your interest lies.”

“Oh.” Cyrus was disappointed.

Mr. Schumacher laughed. “Don’t get too downtrodden. With the progress you made today, it won’t be long before you move into your  technical classes.”

Cyrus looked up at him and felt a bit more encouraged. “Okay, thanks.”

“No problem,” Mr. Schumacher told him as he collected his many books and papers, balancing them all in his arms. “I have to be going now Cyrus, but it was a pleasure meeting you. I will see you again tomorrow.”

“Yes, I’ll look forward to it.”

Mr. Schumacher waved and headed out of the classroom. Cyrus collected his things, shut the door and went back into the lobby. While Cyrus was still unused to the number of people milling about, he stopped a moment to focus more on the faculty he saw amongst the crowds. There was something he felt from all the teachers he was seeing here that was lacking when he was in the perfect world. His other teachers had seemed lifeless or cruel as if they knew the class wasn’t going to learn anything that day. These people were different. It was clear to Cyrus that they knew their material and more importantly, they loved it. The energy was catchy and Cyrus decided he liked the atmosphere of the school. 

Cyrus, after gazing around the lobby and waving goodbye to the friendly secretary, headed outside to meet Scott. Scott was sitting on one of the benches outside the school and straightened out when he saw Cyrus.

“Hey there, Scott said as Cyrus pulled up. “How was the first day of school?”

“Surprisingly good.” Cyrus grinned as he thought of all he went over. “I’m looking forward to going back tomorrow.”

Scott grinned back at him. “See? I knew you’d be fine. There was no reason for you to worry so much.”

“Guess you were right about that.”

“You’ll find I’m right about most things,” Scott replied smugly.

Cyrus snorted at the remark, and to his surprise Scott laughed about it. There had been a time back in the perfect world where Scott couldn’t take a joke very easily. He was too angry. Today, though, there seemed to be something lighter about him. No, not just today, but all the time. Cyrus briefly wondered if this place had brought that out of him.

“Fine, fine, you don’t have to believe me—yet.” Scott turned his back and motioned him to start moving. “Come on. We gotta get you to the psychiatrist, and I have to go back to my internship. Let’s go.”

The walk went by fast as Scott asked him about his first day of school. Cyrus had a lot to tell him, but before he could finish, they found themselves in front of the psychiatric building. Scott said goodbye and Cyrus went into the building. He went up to the small front desk and asked about where he needed to go to receive an appointment. The woman behind the counter directed him to walk up the stairs to the second floor and go into room 212. He thanked her and went on his way.

After a swift journey up to the second floor, he found room 212 on the right-hand side. Hesitantly, he knocked on the door and heard someone call, “Come in!” Cyrus pushed open the door and found Dr. Schultz sitting on a chair beside a red couch.

“Hello, Mr. Wright. Take a seat right here,” she pointed to the couch, “and we’ll get started.”

Cyrus did as he was asked, and the session started right away. Dr. Schultz began by first asking him how his day had been, and he explained about how he had enjoyed his first school day. Then it moved on to other questions and tests that Cyrus did as well as he could have. Finally, Dr. Schultz put her brown electronic notebook down as the session drew to a close.

“I think that’s everything I wanted to ask today,” she said as she stretched a little in her chair. “Do you have any questions for me.”

“No,” Cyrus replied at first, wanting to go back home as soon as possible. Then he remembered how everyone had been staring at him for the past two days, and he changed his mind. “I mean—actually, yes, I do.”

“Go on,” Dr. Schultz encouraged.

Cyrus briefly outlined his situation from the past two days while Dr. Schultz listened intently. When he finished, she smiled at him sympathetically.

“No, Cyrus, there isn’t any mark on you that labels you as from the perfect world. I think there are two reasons that people are staring at you when you go out. The first is that there have been rumors floating about that someone had recently managed to escape from the perfect world. It was confirmed by our media people, but your name was withheld as was the time of your release from the hospital. When the people of this dome see a new face among them, it’s likely they assume that might be you.

“The other reason that may not have occurred to you given how little time you’ve been here is that most people in this Dome know one another, especially in the neighborhoods that are close together. The Pittsburgh Dome is a larger dome than some, but it’s not terribly large. To see a new face is unusual, and it’s natural people would have questions.” Dr. Schultz shrugged. “After all, you have to get permission to teleport between domes and move. Permission that isn’t lightly given as it takes a lot of time and energy to move someone. It’s only done when it’s necessary.”

“Teleport?” Cyrus had never heard of that before. “What’s that?”

“It’s how we move between domes without having to go outside of them. When the domes were first built, the only way to get between them was to risk driving vehicles. This was quite dangerous, given that the armed forces of the perfect world were often left loitering close to the domes. Our own armed forces had to escort these vehicles, and there were usually casualties involved.”

“Casualties?”

“Dead people,” Dr. Schultz clarified. “Fortunately now, many of the domes are equipped with teleportation devices so that all we have to move is one person’s body and they can be moved within the domes, not outside of them. Still, that technology is mostly limited to government or business people. It’s not very common for your every day person to use it to move between domes.”

“So people are staring at me because they don’t know who I am?” Cyrus inquired, trying to get back to the original conversation topic.

“That’s right.”

“Not because there’s something wrong with me?”

“Do you think there’s something wrong with you?” Dr. Schultz asked curiously.

“No,” Cyrus answered truthfully, “I was just wondering if there was some mark on me that labeled me as forever part of the perfect world.”

“There’s nothing physically that distinguishes you from us,” Dr. Schultz reassured him. “You’re as healthy as any other person in the Pittsburgh Dome.”

“Thank you, Dr. Schultz.”

“It’s my pleasure, Cyrus,” she said as she got up from her chair. “We can discuss this again at our next appointment if it is still bothering you.”

“The next appointment is the last one, right?”

She smiled at him. “Yes, the last one will be the last one. Just make sure you arrange your appointment before you leave today, okay?”

“Okay,” Cyrus said as he got up to leave, “goodbye Dr. Schultz.”

“Take care, Cyrus.”

Cyrus walked back down the stairs, feeling a lot better about his current situation. He signed up for his last appointment and headed for home with a light heart.

The next few weeks were a blur for Cyrus. His final psychiatric appointment came and went with him being declared mentally fit. He adjusted to his school schedule quickly enough and his lessons always gave him a lot to think about when he went home. The knowledge he gained each day was very rewarding, but also a bit frightening. Rewarding because of the sense of achievement he got when he mastered new concepts at the end of his lessons and fear because of how much he still didn’t know.

He had cleared the basics lessons in mathematics with ease and was moving into Algebra. Cyrus found he learned the new material quickly enough since it was just expanding upon what he already knew. He wasn’t sure if he really enjoyed math or not, at least not the way Mr. Davis did. However, he didn’t hate it and he seemed to be talented at it.

As for science, it had taken Cyrus a while to get used to scientific methods. Cyrus found the class both liberating and intimidating at the same time. When he’d finally gotten a good grasp of the scientific methods, they had moved on to human anatomy and were now just starting biology. Science class was often the one where Cyrus asked the most questions as he had always been curious about  how things worked. Being able to finally have those questions answered was so exciting for Cyrus that sometimes he wasn’t sure where to begin or followed one question right after the other in an attempt to garner information. Mr. Davis was very patient about this and encouraged Cyrus’s enthusiasm.

His favorite class, however, was history. Cyrus, having believed there to have only ever been six countries worldwide, was fascinated by the diversity of nations and cultures he found in history. What impressed him the most, however, was the diversity of thought. He had never imagined there were so many different ways of looking at the world. Granted, he agreed with some and completely disagreed with others, but it was nice to actually be able to compare viewpoints rather than just be told exactly what to think.

English class was probably his least favorite of his required courses. He still enjoyed the lessons, but he didn’t find learning English grammar particularly engaging. The different tenses in English could be pretty confusing to him sometimes as well since he’d never had much education on the subject before. What he really enjoyed from the lessons were the books he was assigned to read. He was being assigned short classic novels from each of the genres of literature so that he could understand the differences between each genre. So far, he found he was a big fan of mysteries, along with science fiction and fantasy.

His current school day had started off normally. He finished his first three classes without any trouble. During his American history course, Mr. Schumacher was going over the Revolutionary War with him. The lessons were taking longer than anticipated mostly because Cyrus had so many questions. He couldn’t help it though. It was fascinating to him.

Mr. Schumacher was explaining the reasons behind the Revolutionary War, touching briefly on taxation, but focusing upon the more important matter of God-given rights and freedom. The concept of God or gods had been brought up in both his world history and American history courses. The idea of a God or gods for that matter, was so foreign to him that he hardly knew what to think. The other part, about rights and freedom, was easier for him to grasp.

When his teacher had finished explaining, and Cyrus had all of his questions answered, he sat back for a moment and let it all sink in.

“I understand them, I think,” Cyrus said, lost in his thoughts.

“Why is that?” Mr. Schumacher prompted.

“It’s because of where I grew up. The perfect world.” He paused for a while and Mr. Schumacher was about to say something when Cyrus continued. “It was like that in the perfect world. We were their subjects, and there was nothing we could do to change what happened to us. If we questioned anything or said something they didn’t like, we were punished. So, I understand what they did. I would have done the same if I were them.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” his teacher said with a somber look. “We need people who understand the idea of rights and wish to fight to preserve them, now more than ever.”

“Sir?” Cyrus asked him, thinking he seemed a bit grave.

“Oh, it’s nothing we need to discuss now,” he remarked quickly, seeming to snap out of his momentary funk. Cyrus was about to ask  another question, but he raised his hand to stop it. “We’ll get to it some other time. There’s no need to worry about it now.” He closed the history book and shuffled through its many papers. “Besides, it’s time for your English lesson.”

Cyrus shut his mouth, though he still wasn’t satisfied. He felt a little grumpy as he did his sentence diagrams, but eventually the mood passed. The lesson passed by quickly as it always did, and it was time for him to leave before he knew it. As he was packing up to go, Mr. Schumacher cleared his throat and said, “Cyrus, one more thing before you leave.”

Cyrus finished packing, slung his bag on his back and looked up in curiosity. Mr. Schumacher rustled through his pile of papers before he pulled out the one he was looking for and handed it to him. Cyrus looked it over and saw a change in his schedule.

“What’s P.T.?” Cyrus asked, never having seen this acronym before.

“It stands for Physical Training,” his teacher explained. “Every  man and woman begins P.T. when they reach eighteen. You would have started it when you first came to the Pittsburgh Dome, but since you were injured when you arrived, the hospital signed a waiver that you couldn’t do this class until you were fully healed. Now that you’ve recovered, and there are no side effects, you’ll be required to start this course.”

“Okay, so what am I supposed to do in P.T.?”

“You’ll be doing a series of exercises meant to make you healthy and increase your stamina.” Cyrus gave him a look that said he didn’t know that word and Mr. Schumacher smiled at his mistake. “Stamina is how long you can keep doing a certain exercise, like running or swimming.”

“It sounds kind of like going to that gym in the perfect world,” Cyrus commented, not knowing if he would really like this class or not.

“Yes, something like that,” Mr. Schumacher hedged with a tilt of his head. “Our training program will be a bit more rigorous though. I wouldn’t be too worried though. Plus it will be a good opportunity for you to meet other people your age.”

“Other people?”

“Of course. As I said, everyone does a P.T. class at age eighteen.”

“Oh.”

“Does that make you nervous?” Mr. Schumacher asked gently.

“Maybe a little,” Cyrus admitted. “I mean, there’s still so much I don’t know. I haven’t been living here that long. What if I do something stupid?”

“Everyone does something stupid from time to time.”

“Even you?”

That made him laugh. “Yes, even me. Anyway, I’m sure your instructor will know of your situation and will be able to assist you with anything you don’t understand.”

That made Cyrus feel a little better. “Okay. Thanks for letting me know. When does this class start?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Cyrus repeated in disbelief.

“Yes. You’ll need to arrive at this school’s football field at six in the morning. Make sure you wear clothes you don’t mind getting dirty and bring something to change into afterwards. You’re going to be working up a sweat.”

“Thanks for the advice,” Cyrus mumbled, feeling like he’d just been whacked over the head with a hammer.

“It’ll be fine Cyrus. I went through it when I was your age, and I survived it. I’m sure you’ll do the same. Who knows? You might even enjoy it.”

“Maybe,” he replied in a tone of voice that said he didn’t believe it.

Mr. Schumacher seemed amused by his response. “You won’t know until you show up tomorrow and try it. Good luck, Cyrus. I will see you tomorrow.”

“Yes, see you,” Cyrus said halfheartedly as he stared down at the sheet of paper. He walked out of the school and headed for home.

Once he got to his house, he found Scott sitting at the dinner table eating an apple.

He waved at Cyrus, swallowed and said, “Hey, how was your day?”

“Fine. Well, at least until the end,” Cyrus said with a sigh, dropping his bag to the floor.

“Why? What happened?”

“I got assigned to this P.T. Class. Apparently, it starts tomorrow.”

“Oh? Is that all?” Scott shrugged and took another bite of his apple.

“What do you mean ‘is that all?’ Did you know about this?”

“Of course, I did. I have to take physical training as well, you know,” Scott said as he put the apple core down on his paper towel.

Cyrus cocked his head at that. “Then, how come I always see you at breakfast in the morning? My teacher says mine starts at 6 a.m.”

“It’s because of my internship at the computer lab. I have to work there from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., so I was able to get a waiver for the class. I’ll have to take it after my internship is finished though. Everyone has to take it, after all.”

Cyrus’s brows furrowed. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

Scott shrugged again. “It wasn’t on purpose. There’s been so much to tell you that it slipped my mind. Sorry.”

Cyrus waved it off. “So, why do we have to take this class anyway?”

Now Scott’s face turned somber. “We take it in case the perfect world soldiers ever decide to attack the dome. Everyone here is trained to fight just for that scenario.”

“Soldiers?” Cyrus asked, not liking the sound of that.

“You remember those tall guys in the full black body armor we saw at school sometimes?” Cyrus nodded. “Those are the soldiers who fight for the perfect world’s government. The government’s personal armed forces if you will. They’re trained at their headquarters in the DC area and then they’re sent to the different Military Zones of North America to make sure that the perfect world’s agenda is carried out.

“Not all of them are just assigned to small schools like ours though. There’s a large standing army in DC made up of hundreds of guys like them. If they ever figure out how to bring down the dome’s barriers, then they’ll send that army out to crush us and bring us under their rule.”

Cyrus felt a little ill. “That won’t ever happen though, right? I mean, the barrier seems pretty strong.”

“I don’t think it will happen for a while,” Scott admitted cautiously, “but I think we need to be prepared for it all the same.”

“I guess you’re right.” Cyrus sighed. “How long do I have to take this class?”

“It depends on how you do. Everyone takes physical training for two years at least. If you’re proven to be physically fit, and you complete the course with a good mark, then you move on to weapons training. There they’ll teach you how to wield knives, guns, and other long range weapons. Once both of those trainings are completed, you’re free to go. This usually takes a good two to three years in total. If you want to go further with the training then, you can, but it’s your choice. They can’t force you to do more after you’ve passed physical training and weapons training.”

“This sounds like it’s going to be difficult.” Cyrus groaned, putting his head in his hand.

“It’s tiring at first,” Scott admitted, “at least that’s what I’ve heard. Although, I’ve also heard that once you get used to it, it’s not so bad. Plus, you get to train with a bunch of people in our age group. It’ll be a good chance for you to make some new friends.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” Cyrus stated, though truly he didn’t know what to feel. He hadn’t really talked to anyone his age since his classes were so long, and he had a good chunk of homework to do once he got back home.

The more prominent reason for his isolation, however, was that he wasn’t really sure how to act around people here. He had spent so much time in the perfect world that the idea of socializing was foreign to him. What if everyone just thought he was some kind of freak because he’d been stuck in that system for too long? What if they didn’t want to be around him?

“Cyrus, you need to stop worrying so much,” Scott advised as if he could hear Cyrus’s thoughts. “The people I’ve met in this dome are really decent people. While I haven’t liked everyone I met, I liked the vast majority of them. Besides, it’ll be good for you to talk to someone other than me and Ms. Linda. It might help you adjust to being here a little better.”

“Fine, I’ll try not to dwell on it until tomorrow,” Cyrus said with a sigh.

“Where are you supposed to train? Did your teacher say?”

“My history teacher says I’m supposed to meet my class at the football field behind the school.”

“Do you know where that is?”

“Yeah, I pass by it all the time when I’m walking,” Cyrus replied, feeling a bit more confident. He had spent a good deal of his free time just wandering around the streets of the Pittsburgh dome. Once he had figured out where he was, he found he had a good sense of direction.

“So, you’ll be okay getting there by yourself?” Scott asked with a raised eyebrow.

Cyrus snorted. “Now who’s worrying too much?”

Scott smiled. “Fair enough. Just make sure you get enough sleep tonight, okay? If there’s one way to make your first day of physical training miserable, it’s by being tired.”