The Perfect World (The Perfect World Series Book 1) (40 page)

“Yeah, you’re making us uncomfortable,” Xavier put in, to which the others around the table laughed.

“Okay, okay.” Cyrus waved off the remark. “I’ll lay off with the gratitude, but I still meant what I said.”

“We all know you do,” Sahane assured him.

The rest of the meal passed normally enough. Cyrus and his friends ate, chatted and laughed together as if it was just another day. To Cyrus, however, it was anything but normal. It was the first day when he truly felt he was getting closer to his goal.

The next day after his meeting with Scott and the others, Cyrus waited and asked General Gray about getting a raiding class put together. He explained that he and his friends were the ones behind the petition to get the raids going again and wanted to start the class in case it was approved. In his head, he secretly hoped he came off as optimistic rather than overly eager.

To his relief, General Gray did not seem to suspect anything was amiss. In fact, he was incredibly receptive and enthusiastic on the matter. He praised Cyrus and the others on their efforts to get the raids started again. He also assured them that he could open a weapons training course for them.

In spite of General Gray’s enthusiasm, it still took another month to file all the paperwork and get the approval that they needed. However, after waiting for one excruciating month, everything was set up. Cyrus was made the commander of the raiding class, a class that grew to include about twenty people. It had started with Priscilla, Xavier, Sahane and himself. Scott joined the class after his internship finished and Victor, who had missed their initial meeting due to a school exam, but was filled in about the details afterward, also joined them. He met a bit of resistance from General Gray about Scott’s enrollment since he had just started the Physical Training class, but Cyrus had been so adamant about the issue and eventually General Gray had allowed it.

At the beginning of their training, they met at the same school field that they had their morning Physical Training course. The class commenced at six o’clock in the evenings three days a week. Cyrus had wanted to do more, but General Gray had explained that doing the Physical Training course and the raiding class every day wouldn’t accomplish anything except wear everyone down. The reasoning was sound, so Cyrus hadn’t argued about it after that. This was especially true after the first week had finished, and he couldn’t believe how tired and sore he was. Physical Training had gotten them in shape, but it didn’t prepare them for the long marches, weight training, and tough drills that the raiding class had to offer. The first few weeks were absolutely brutal for Cyrus and the others, with all of them sporting bruises by the end of the course.

In addition, every Saturday Cyrus and the others participated in a weapons training, a class that started by trying to teach them how to properly handle various types of firearms. The class was run by a retired army general named Marshall Owen. General Owen may have been retired, but he was still incredibly fit considering his age of sixty and his long record of service. The team found General Owen to be a very patient man, though he would not tolerate any mistreatment of his weapons. The man treated his weapons almost like they were his children. Cyrus found it to be a little over the top, but General Owen was a good teacher, so he never said anything about it.

Cyrus enjoyed learning how to maintain and handle firearms, even if he wasn’t very good at using them when the class first started. He loved the part of the class where they took apart the various guns, and they learned how they worked. The actual firing was a different story. It not only took Cyrus a while to actually be able to hit a target, but he also had a problem keeping the gun steady when it fired. They had started with a nine millimeter gun as General Owen believed that was the easiest one for beginning students.

Cyrus, as stubborn as he was determined, worked to improve his aim and firing skills as quickly as he could. He knew that unless he could fire a gun properly and with precise aim, he would be useless to any raiding party that could be formed. He, Scott and Victor, though by no means terrible, were the ones who had to work the hardest during the weapons training course.

Priscilla had a few issues with the kickback from the gun during the first two classes, but she was fine after that. Xavier was a natural with a gun, partly due to having military parents who had taken him shooting before. Though Xavier was an excellent shot, he wasn’t the best shot in the class. That honor went to Sahane, who had extraordinary aim. Put a gun in her small hands and she rarely missed a target. And when she did, it wasn’t by much.

Cyrus more or less expected this as Sahane was one of the hardest working people he had ever met in his short life. Everything she did, even if she didn’t particularly care for it, she did to the best of her ability. And, as Cyrus noted, the best of Sahane’s ability on something she didn’t like was better than the efforts of some people who absolutely loved it.

Of course, Cyrus wasn’t the only one to notice Sahane’s talent. General Owen noticed Sahane’s precise aim immediately and thought she would benefit from sniper training. She humbly accepted the offer and she stayed on an extra half hour with their teacher for some private sniping lessons. Cyrus noticed that Scott often asked Sahane for some tips on how to aim his shots better. Sahane obliged him without a second thought and spent the majority of her time with him. He saw their hands touch and linger in place as she helped him adjust his grip on his gun.

When Cyrus wasn’t participating in the raiding classes, he was busy gathering inside information from two different sources. One of them was Julian, who would give them frequent updates on the status of individuals stuck inside the Dead Zones. In private, Julian gave Cyrus updates about Melody’s status. So far, her status had not changed, and there had been no move to take her or anyone else to a Disposal Zone. Cyrus was relieved every time Julian told him her status was unchanged and hoped that there would be enough time for him to save her.

Though Julian’s reports were immensely helpful to both Cyrus and his team, Julian was not their only source of classified information. It turned out that Victor’s mother, Elena Baxter, was the branch manager of the biggest library in the entire Pittsburgh Dome. Though the electronic notebooks that many of the residents possessed could download books at the touch of a button, there were still hardcover and paperback books available to those who still preferred to read the old-fashioned way. In addition, there was some information, both digital and otherwise that was only accessible by those who worked in the library.

In fact, Cyrus was hastily walking down the street to get to the library before it closed. Cyrus found himself wishing the weather was still as cold as it had been in winter. It was the beginning of April now, and Cyrus was perspiring by the time he reached the entrance to the Carnegie Library.

As he walked inside, Cyrus took a moment to catch his breath. He always enjoyed the quiet of the library with all of the knowledge it had to offer. Even before Cyrus had started meeting Victor here to get information on the perfect world, Cyrus had often come to the library. He would walk among the many shelves of books, looking at all the different subjects he could learn about. Sometimes he would pick a few books out to take back with him or he would write down the titles to download on his electronic notebook later.

Cyrus wandered around the library, searching for one of the black library carts the library pages used for shelving books. Victor worked part-time as a library page when he wasn’t going to school or participating in the raiding classes. He finally found Victor in the history section of the library.

“Hey,” Cyrus said from behind Victor, who was in the middle of trying to get a heavy book back on the highest shelf. The greeting startled Victor, who ended up dropping the book back onto the black, rolling page’s shelf. It hit the shelf with a loud bang, resonating throughout the quiet library. Cyrus and Victor both smiled and muttered apologies as the other patrons turned to glare at them.

“Sorry,” Cyrus told Victor as he helped pick up the fallen heavy book.

“It’s fine. Sometimes I really lose myself in my work.”

“Are you busy now? I could come back tomorrow if you are.”

“No, I’m actually done with my shift. I’m just finishing this last cart to help out since we’ve been pretty busy today.” Victor managed to get the heavy book back in its place at the top of the shelf. “I’ll be finished in ten or fifteen minutes. Can you wait at our usual spot?”

The usual spot was a table with two chairs towards the back of the library that was typically deserted. Cyrus, Victor and the rest of his secret raiding team often met back there to discuss strategy.

“Of course. Take as much time as you need,” Cyrus told him amiably before strolling over to their designated table. His green eyes wandered over the varieties of books as he settled in to wait.              

The wait only took about ten minutes before Victor was bustling over towards him. He had an old paper notebook in one arm and several books in the other.

“I got some more of the information we need,” he said as he placed the notebook and books on the table. Cyrus reached out to take the first book and saw that it contained detailed maps of the areas outside the Pittsburgh Dome.

The maps outlined where the closest Dead Zones were to the Pittsburgh Dome. Cyrus’s old dormitory, which he now knew was called the Stephen’s Dormitory, was the closest to the dome. There were several others nearby, each of them designated as boys’ or girls’ dormitories. According to Julian’s list, Melody was being held in the  Davis Dormitory, which was very close to their old dormitory.

Cyrus and Victor studied the maps together, looking for the best routes to approach the Dead Zones and rescue the students when the time came. The pair of them went over the location of the Dead Zones in relation to the Worker Zones, Military Zones and Disposal Zones. Cyrus had been displeased to see that there was a Military Zone not very far away from the Dead Zones. It didn’t help that there were Worker Zones nearby with large steel factories that came with their own sets of guards that could be called for duty.

As Victor and him traded potential routes, Cyrus found himself feeling very grateful for his help in gathering these maps. Of course, Cyrus had tried finding this information on his own via the internet back when he had first learned the truth about destiny. When that had failed, he had tried coming to the library to find what he needed. His attempts to find information inside the library had been just as unsuccessful as his attempts to garner it through the internet. Only with Victor’s help had he managed to get what he needed, and Victor always made it seem like it was something he wasn’t supposed to be doing.

When the pair of them had managed to find the best potential route to use for the raiding team, Cyrus decided to ask Victor the question that had been on his mind for some time.

“Hey, Victor,” Cyrus said as he watched Victor gather the maps together. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“When I tried to get more information about the perfect world, I looked for these maps,” he gestured to the books and maps the other young man was holding, “but I could never find anything. There was nothing on the internet or in the library that I could find. Why is that you can access all of this, but I can’t?”

Victor dropped the books and maps he had been arranging back down on the table and sat down heavily. “There is an answer to that question, but it’s a long one. You know how the American government currently functions, right?”

“The local governments run things at the dome level, but the larger national government makes the laws they must abide by.”

“Yes, and the national government is the reason why you can no longer access this material. They declared martial law after the last raid failed so that they could control the messages being given to the public.”

“I thought martial law was a temporary thing.”

“Technically it is. Its repercussions are not.”

Cyrus noticed that Victor was gripping the table rather tightly, and his expression had gone sour.

“I hate it, you know,” Victor admitted quietly. “That I have to steal this information like I’m some kind of thief to give it to people who should be allowed to access it without any problems. It shouldn’t be like this!”

Cyrus heard the vehemence in the statement and said, “So it hasn’t always been this way.”

Victor’s dark eyes turned cold. “Not until recently. Things changed after the last raid went wrong. The politicians were eager to capitalize on public fear and started making decisions about what information the people of the dome could or could not see.”

“The people of the Pittsburgh Dome allowed that to happen?” Cyrus asked with a bit of shock.

“At the time, yes. Although I think a lot of people may not have known what the government was doing since it happened so quickly after the last raid. Eldrick and several others spoke out against it, including my mother.”

Victor heaved a sigh. “It didn’t make a difference in the end though. Most people were too busy being upset to make the connection between what the government prior to the perfect world did and the dome governments are doing now. That deciding what information the public would be allowed to receive was crucial to getting the perfect world started. That’s why I’m studying to be a journalist.”

Cyrus was surprised. He knew Victor was very skilled at working with his hands and would have done well as an architect. “I never would have guessed.”

“Well, you’re not alone. My mother was surprised when I told her. So was Julian, since he’s known me my whole life and figured I’d be in the architectural field or something.”

“I would have said the same,” Cyrus admitted.

Victor shrugged. “It’s not that I wouldn’t have liked to work in that field, but I just think this is more important right now. We need more journalists who are willing to get the information the public needs and not just parrot the talking points that everybody agrees upon.