The Perfect World (The Perfect World Series Book 1) (6 page)

“Young man,” scolded the red-haired attendant, “what did I tell you about spending all your time with this puppy?”

“I’m sorry,” Cyrus said quickly, though he really wasn’t feeling sorry at all, “I tried to do what you wanted, but the puppy followed me. I think he likes me best.”

“Young man, that is a selfish and silly thing to think,” the woman spoke in a sharp, angry tone. “No animal likes any person more or less than any other. It’s a logical fallacy to think such a thing.”

Cyrus tilted his head to the side to show he didn’t know what a ‘logical fallacy’ was. He figured if he asked the question verbally he would just be rebuked even further.

“You’re thinking is wrong,” she explained with a voice that told him he shouldn’t push it if he didn’t want to get into more trouble. “Thinking that any living creature likes you more than your fellow students is unhealthy. It could hurt the feelings of your classmates and I will not tolerate such indecent behavior.”

“Sorry, Ma’am,” he said without meaning it.

“Save it,” she spat back at him and pointed towards Ms. Linda. “Go back to your caretaker and stay there. Your dog privileges have been taken away for the day.”

Balling his fists and holding back tears, Cyrus made his way over to Ms. Linda. He looked back over his shoulder to see the other boy Cyrus had been standing with was holding the collar of the puppy to keep it from following him. The puppy glanced up at Cyrus with his black eyes and looked at him with pity. The young boy could hear the puppy whine about being left behind. Feeling all the worse because of it, Cyrus turned away and walked disconsolately back to Ms. Linda. When he made it to her, he didn’t look at her. He put his focus on his socks, which had gotten pretty dirty from wandering around in the grass.

“You got in trouble again, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” Cyrus answered sullenly.

“I figured,” Ms. Linda said mildly. “You can sit over by the fence for the last few minutes. If it makes you feel better, you aren’t missing very much.”

Cyrus doubted that, but he sat down by the fence without comment. He stared at the grass in front of him, pulling some of it up and scattering it as it pleased him.

The minutes passed slowly for the grouchy boy, but soon enough the others returned. Ms. Linda ordered them back into line and told them it was time to go. The attendant for the dogs gave Cyrus one last dirty look before they exited the field. The young boy felt like sticking his tongue out at her, but refrained from doing so. A small bark made him turn back briefly, only to see that the little golden puppy had followed him to the fence. He waved back at the puppy and silently promised he would be back.

They silently marched to the front of the building where they put their shoes on again. Then, they made their way back to the van without a single sound except for the crunching of bark under their feet. Once they had arrived back where they had parked, Ms. Linda opened up the doors to the van again and put the children on the benches on either side of the vehicle. Then, they were off.

Cyrus stared at the van floor, thinking of the little golden puppy. He briefly wondered what would happen if Big Guy and the little golden puppy were to meet. The images of a thoroughly grumpy cat dealing with a hyperactive puppy amused him until he made himself stop thinking about it. After all, what was the point?

If I asked for that, I’d just get in trouble again. It would never happen anyway.

It seemed to Cyrus, as the van came to a halt, and he was escorted back to his room that the things that brought him joy in life also gave him the most trouble.

Three times during the day, the lock to Cyrus’s door would click open and allow him the privilege of walking to the bathroom on the other side of the hall. When the lock clicked some time in the mid afternoon, the young boy got up, happy for the opportunity to walk down the hall. It gave him a break from staring at the white walls of his room.

Opening the door and shutting it behind him, he walked slowly down the hallway to lengthen the time away from his room. He looked at all the numbers on the brown, wooden doors as he walked to the bathroom. They all started with three and ended with odd numbers. The room he came out of was number three hundred twenty-nine, and the numbers decreased as he went along.

He reached the bathroom where the stained, blue carpet ended, and the cheap white tile began. Heading into the bathroom, he chose the first stall, which was lime green in color. There was a line of five toilets, each separated by two walls connected to the back wall and a door with a sliding lock. Heading inside the first one, he was finished soon enough, but when he unlocked the door, he was surprised to see that he wasn’t the only one in the room. Standing by the sink was the shorter boy who sat next to him in class. The small boy with black hair and dark eyes grinned as Cyrus spotted him. 

“How’d you get in here?” he asked dumbfounded. In all the times he had been sent to use the toilet, it had been alone. The locks on the doors activated at different times for each person, and Cyrus suspected this was done on purpose so that none of the kids talked to one another outside of group discussion.

“I just decided to take longer than usual,” he said with a sneaky smile. “You see, your room’s right next to mine. I can usually hear when you leave the room to go here. I get out of my room right before you do, so I figured I’d hang around so that we could get a chance to talk without having to answer everything together.” He scrunched up his face to show his distaste for the matter.

“Or without being told what we can say?” Cyrus added, washing his hands.

“Exactly,” the younger boy said with a grin. “Or having to deal with that Ms. Amelia and her classes.” He blew a raspberry at the thought of her and Cyrus chuckled a bit.

“So, what do you want to talk about?” he asked as he dried his hands.

“I guess, I don’t know.” The other boy shrugged. “I just wanted to talk to you. That’s okay, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” Cyrus said, sounding a bit surprised. “Why wouldn’t it be? Except that they don’t want us to, but …” He shrugged back at the other boy and he nodded in understanding.

“Yeah, I know. That’s part of why I wanted to talk to you. You’re, well, different. I feel like you’re,” he trailed off and ran a hand through his black hair searching for the right words. His dark eyes brightened as he found the answer. “I know! You’re like me.”

Cyrus blinked. “Like you?”

“I just mean that you don’t seem to agree with what we’re being told.” He gave Cyrus a long look with his black eyes. “All this stuff about feelings and not liking anything more than anything else. That stuff about not knowing something unless everyone else does, or that bit about everyone being special.” The boy seemed to bounce in place as all these ideas poured out of him. “It just feels …”

“Wrong?” Cyrus put in, knowing he had the same thought before.

“Yeah!” the boy said with conviction. “I think something isn’t right, but we can’t ask anyone why.”

“And if we were allowed to ask why, everything would make sense.” Cyrus mused aloud the thought that had been with him for so long. “If we just had it, we wouldn’t be so frustrated all the time.”

“Exactly!” he said again, this time with some relief. It’s clear he’d been bottling up his emotions on the subject for a while. “This is why I wanted to talk to you. I knew you’d understand. I just knew you would.”

“Yeah, I guess I do …” he said slowly. He had never really put into words what he was feeling. He had never really had the chance to. Now that he had, now that he could just talk to one other person about it, he felt so much better.

“Well, I think I should get back to my room before you do. I don’t think Ms. Linda will be coming by soon, but I don’t want to be gone if she comes,” the other boy told him as he quietly walked past him.

“Sure,” Cyrus replied agreeably. “I’m glad I got to talk to you. Hey, wait a minute! What’s your name?”

“Scott Strago. What’s yours?”

“Cyrus Wright. Nice to meet you.”

“Yes, you too,” Scott said sincerely. “I’ll try to get out again at the same time so we can talk more. See you in class.” He made a face about the last bit before hurrying off.

Cyrus hung around the bathroom for another few minutes, looking at his appearance in the mirror. He thought he might have gotten a new freckle on the right side of his crooked nose. Frowning, he tried to rub it off, to no avail. Giving up on it, he made the slow walk back to his room.

As he walked to his room, he made a mental note to check the number of the room next to his. He had always thought of it as room 331. Now he could call it Scott’s room. Cyrus thought it was odd as the door to his own room clicked shut, that such a simple thing could make him feel so happy.

Cyrus yawned noisily as he made his way to the bathroom in the afternoon. There was another group discussion class in the morning, which had left him feeling even more tired than when he had woken up in the morning. Ms. Amelia had made the class repeat the same two words ad nauseam that they had been learning for weeks now. Cyrus only had to imagine her forced gap-toothed smile to remind him of how much he was beginning to detest these morning slogs.

Fairness, Cyrus heard in his head in Ms. Amelia’s whiny voice, something that occurs when everyone has the same things, everyone has the same abilities and everyone feels good about themselves.

He paused at the elevator to push the up and down buttons, waiting to see if anything happened. When nothing did, he continued on his way, thinking of the next definition.

Special: something that every person on the planet is.

Out of this entire morning class, there had been one word that the class seemed to be focusing on today. That word was ‘destiny.’

Apparently, back in Uncivilized Times, people chose what they would do with their lives. That system wasn’t fair because some people were able to have more things than others, resulting in negative feelings. The Experts deemed it better for humans if they were all given a destiny instead of choosing one themselves. Ms. Amelia explained that people made bad decisions on their own, and it was much better to have those who ran the perfect world system, known as The Enlightened, to assign destinies to every person on their twenty-fifth birthday. Why twenty-fifth? Because that was a special age, or so Ms. Amelia told them. Cyrus rolled his eyes at the memory.

Destiny: something that everyone receives on their twenty-fifth birthday.
Cyrus recited the definition in his head, wondering why every time he learned a new word he felt like he understood what was going on around him less than ever.

Once he was inside the bathroom, Cyrus realized he wasn’t alone again. Scott was waiting for him by one of the sinks.

“Hey,” the dark haired boy gave him a friendly wave.

“Hey,” Cyrus replied with a grin. “You want to talk about something again, right?”

“Of course!” Scott said, throwing his arms up in the air. “Don’t you ever get tired of just sitting in that stupid white room all day with no one to talk to except Ms. Linda when she comes by? I know I do.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” He ran his fingers through his messy hair as he mulled it over. “I tried asking Ms. Linda why we couldn’t go out of our rooms when we wanted to. She didn’t answer me though.”

“Probably because it would hurt someone’s feelings,” Scott stated snidely.

Cyrus allowed some of his exasperation to show at the remark. “What does that
mean
anyway?”

“Exactly! What does any of it mean?” Scott jumped back into the conversation with his finger pointed at the other boy. “Like this ‘destiny’ stuff Ms. Amelia talked about today. I don’t understand it at all.”

“Neither do I,” Cyrus admitted with a shrug. “I mean, why twenty-five? What’s so special about being twenty-five? Why can’t we be told now? If it’s so great, wouldn’t they want to tell us now?”

“Maybe it’s part of being special or fairness or something,” Scott mused with a shake of his head.

He grinned at the comment, which sounded so much like what he’d thought in his head earlier. “It feels like, to me anyway, the more we learn, the less we really know. Like something’s missing, something that we need to understand what’s going on. Only … only where do we find it? Where?” Cyrus blinked after he had spoken, surprised by the sound of desperation in his voice.

“I don’t know,” Scott replied honestly. “I want to know that too. Scott abruptly got up from the sink, brushed past him and said, ”I need to get back to my room. I don’t want to, but I don’t think I should stay much longer. I’m glad I got to talk to you again,” he added as he paused in the entryway.

“Maybe you can find the answer on the way back to your room,” Cyrus joked as Scott walked out of the entryway.

“Hey, why not?” Scott said with a smirk. “See you.”

Cyrus gave a little wave as Scott departed. He completed his business, made some faces in the bathroom mirrors and then walked back to his room. When he got there, he was surprised to see that Ms. Linda was already inside. She raised her eyebrow at him as he closed the door behind him.

“Where have you been?” she demanded as he sat down on his bed.

“Bathroom,” he said shortly, feeling that the fewer words he used to explain himself the better.

“It normally doesn’t take you that long,” the severe woman commented as she folded her arms across her chest.

“I just needed more time,” he said, turning redder with each word. His stomach was turning itself over with nervousness. Giving him a long stare, she seemed to accept his answer, perhaps mistaking the nervousness for embarrassment.

“All right, but if you’re having trouble going, let me know. I can give you something to help with that.”

“Sure,” he said, thankful to be off the subject.

“Now, where’s your garbage, young man?” Ms. Linda asked, getting down to business as usual.

“Oh, it’s, uh—” He searched for where he put it and then found it on the top of his dresser. “Here. Here you go.”

“Thank you,” she said as she got out a large, black trash bag. His caretaker dumped it all into the bag and twisted it shut.

“Is there anything else you need?” the short woman inquired of him as she always did when she came to check.

“Um …yeah,” he said slowly, trying to come up with a question  to make up for lying to her. By chance, he glanced out the window and saw the strange glowing wall known as the Quarantine Dome. “Why is that thing there?”

Ms. Linda followed his finger and saw the color-changing wall he was pointing to. Frowning, she slung the bag over her shoulder and made a move towards the door.

“That,” she said in an even, severe tone, “is something we don’t talk about.”

“Why?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Because it’s a bad place.” Ms. Linda gritted her teeth and reached for the door knob.

“Why’s it a bad place?” He scooted over to the edge of the bed, trying to stop her from leaving without answering his question.

“It’s bad because it’s a place that no one should end up. Sick people were taken there a long time ago, and it was sealed off from the rest of us. It was a good thing for our society.”

“Why?” Cyrus asked, feeling more confused than ever.

“Because Cyrus. Because.”

“Why were they sick? What was wrong with them?”

“I don’t know,” Ms. Linda responded quickly before shutting the door behind her.

Cyrus wondered at the tone of her voice for a moment. She hadn’t sounded angry with him when she left. She had sounded tired, like she was worn down from something. Cyrus fixed his green eyes on the glowing, colorful wall outside his window and wondered if it was really such a terrible thing.

He was left pondering the question until the evening when his computer class started. When the computer turned on with a snap, Cyrus was drawn from his bed and sat down on his wobbly stool. He pulled a notebook and pen from his desk, placing them on the surface next to the computer.

After the roll call was finished, and Cyrus had said his name, he waited for a word in green text to appear on the screen. Tonight was another vocabulary lesson where a word would appear on the screen, and a disembodied voice would pronounce the word for the class. They would each say it back to the machine and then they would listen as the word was played back with thirteen different voices. Once that was done, the machine would define the word for them. They were to write the definition down in their notebook and then press the enter key when they were finished. When every person on the floor had done this, they were given a new word. It was all pretty dull, and Cyrus found himself writing slowly just to eat up the time it took to get a new word.

The words for the day hadn’t been all that interesting for the bored young boy. Most of the vocabulary consisted of types of food or everyday objects. Closing his eyes for a moment, he was startled awake when his elbow slid on the desk and caused the stool to lurch forward. Steadying himself with his hands clutching the desk, he sat up straight and rubbed his eyes to try to get the sleepiness from them.

Oh well,
he thought as he blinked his eyes a couple times,
it’s better than doing nothing, I guess.

Finally, a new word blinked onto the monitor, and Cyrus leaned forward to see it. His heart skipped a beat as he read the word “sick.” The conversation he had with Ms. Linda and about the glowing barrier came flooding back to him as he stared anxiously at the word on the screen. He looked out the window again at the changing colors on the strange wall, hoping that this time he would get an answer.

“Sick,” the disembodied voice said to him as he sat on his stool. It phonetically showed the word to him, then said it again. “Sick.”

He waited impatiently for further instructions from the machine until finally it told him to repeat the word for it. He did so and then the machine responded by telling him it had accepted his answer. He then waited some more for the machine to get the responses from the other kids. After what seemed like eons to Cyrus, the word was finally spoken thirteen times with his voice included. After that had been done, the computer placed the definition on the screen for him. He hastily scribbled it down.

“Sick: A disease of the mind where a person believes that they are better than others or know better than the Experts. A person who causes negative emotions in others and society. The person must be taken away from others in order to stop the spread of the disease. If sickness becomes permanent, extreme measures must be implemented for the good of all.”

Cyrus read the definition over and over again. It gave him the same feeling that he had when the class had been discussing destiny. There was the information, but he still had so many questions. What did ‘extreme measures’ mean? 

When the computer lesson was finished, he read the definition of ‘sick’ one more time and then put his  notebook and pen away in his drawer. He sprawled out on his bed and stared at the ceiling, pondering this new information. His caretaker would be coming in soon, so maybe he could ask her more about it.

Cyrus was startled back awake when his dinner landed in his food slot. Sitting up on his bed, he opened the slot and pulled out his dinner. He grimaced when he saw that the main course was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Not this again,
Cyrus thought as he squished the sandwich between his fingers.

He had once voiced his dislike of these sandwiches to Ms. Linda. He’d explained to her that the sticky salty peanut butter and the sweet jelly didn’t mix well. She had replied that he actually liked the sandwich because everyone likes the same things. He just didn’t know that he liked it yet. Cyrus had told her that he did like it if he took the two sides apart and ate them separately. Ms. Linda had mildly scolded him for this answer, but by the way her mouth had twitched, he could tell she was trying not to smile.

Cyrus pulled the sandwich apart and started eating it one side at a time.
At least it’s not oatmeal,
he thought as he choked the two sides down. When he was finished, he pulled his cup out of his drawer, filled it with water from the sink and gulped it down. It helped to get the taste out of his mouth. He nearly dropped his cup when the lock clicked open, and Ms. Linda walked in with her garbage bag.

“Good afternoon, Cyrus,” she said in her curt manner. “Where’s your garbage?”

“Right here,” he said, grabbing the rolled up wrapper. He threw it away for her.

“Anything else?”

“No, that’s all for today,” he said honestly.

“Good. Well, then I won’t have to stay long—”

“Ms. Linda,” he started, but she knew what he was going to do and interrupted him.

“Cyrus, if this is more of your questions you know I can’t—”

“Even if it’s important?” he cut in, letting some of his anxiety show up in his voice. Ms. Linda stared at him with an unreadable expression before putting the bag back down with a plop.

“What is it now, young man?”

“It’s about the computer lesson today.” He spoke quickly, knowing there was only a small window of time he could use to get her to answer with. “We learned the definition of ‘sick.’”

Ms. Linda’s eyes widened ever so slightly, but she did not stop him. The young boy plunged on, hoping she wouldn’t leave without answering him.

“The definition was different from the one you taught me,” Cyrus recalled as the words escaped from his lips almost before he had finished his thoughts. “My throat was really scratchy, and I kept coughing. You told me I was sick then, right?”

“That’s right,” his caretaker agreed carefully.

“But today the computer said that a sick person is someone with a disease of the mind. So, which one is right?”

Ms. Linda considered this carefully, then said, “The computer definition is more important.”

Cyrus tilted his head to the side at the words. “Why is it more important? Is it more dangerous?” His green eyes flashed as he thought of something else. “What does ‘extreme measures’ mean?”