Chương 40: Second Class

Class ended with little fanfare. The professor seemed to have shot me some kind of look as I got up, she had been reviewing the cards. Hope I didn't flag myself too hard with that. Worst case, I'd tell her it was made up. Looking over the schedule, I reviewed the room number for my next class. Pre-Algebra. It was a close number to the room I was just in on the latter end, just started with a 20 instead of a 10. Must be a floor up.

Swerving towards the stairs, I clambered up them before making my way to that side again. No hallway that lined up with the one below. There were three instead. I fucking hated this building already. Sweeping through each hall, it took me going down the third one to see the room number on a door at the far end. It wasn't even part of the hallways. I couldn't prove it, but I felt this was some kind of curse inflicted on me by Tancred.

Making my way into the room, I saw a haggard-looking older man cursing to himself as he messed with a large screen at the end of the room. Same size as a whiteboard. Similar layout to the English class in terms of materials, though there was one window off to the side. Circular, for some inexplicable reason. The desks were different as well. Instead of flat little desks with independent chairs, they were instead teardrop-shaped hunks of polymer sticking out of the chair. No budget for consistent desks?

Taking my seat, I quietly focused on the clock and the sounds of the room. Just footsteps, mutterings. Muttering might be useful intel. I tried to tune out footsteps, focus on words.

"I'm telling you, if it weren't for that horse, I don't think she would have graduated last year." Useless.

"My dad had a football signed by The Saint when the New Orleans Saints went to the Super Bowl a few years ago. I got grounded for suggesting he sell it on eBay." Also useless.

"You see what The Darling King had put out on Twitter? That Technofiend guy apparently worked for YggTech."

"He tweets like sixty times an hour, dude, I gave up on keeping track after he started begging to get a free TED Talk." Now we had something. Technofiend mentioned YggTech in the attack. Made sense. YggTech from what I could recall was basically just a big tech company. They had hands in every industry. They were financing The Wave of Hope at this point as well, since one of the members was sponsored by them. Tyr. I'd have to figure out how to look at The Darling King's Twitter thing.

Maybe I'd just ask one of the others to do it. That'd be easier. A voice broke out from the haggard old man, who spoke.

"Alright, alright, introductions time. My name is Doctor David Wood. Now you may be asking yourself, 'Why is a doctor teaching Pre-Algebra?' I shall tell you, and I shall tell you once so we can move on from it. I used to be a theoretical physicist. My particular field was in statistical mechanics. As is the curse of statistical mechanics, I fell to self-sabotage. Though I didn't kill myself, as you can see." He reminded me of Tancred, a little.

"Instead, I had imbibed a haunting amount of a mix of mescaline and scopolamine mixed into a yogurt called 'The Devil's Snot,' joined an Anarcho-Communist group, was arrested for defiling a war memorial, and had all my grants taken from me. I only kept my doctorate because I begged MIT to not take it from me and threatened to become the third death in statistical mechanics." I could not predict a single word in that sentence. Every phrase struck me like one of Technofiend's fists.

"My wife of 40 years left me due to my frequent affairs with several members of the group, all of whom were named things like Tapioca or Chestnut, who then also abandoned me because I was and still am a depressing train-wreck of a 'man.'" Doctor Wood used air quotes for that last word.

"So now, I teach remedial mathematics courses in a community college, in order to afford the motel room where I watch the Golden Girls and debate selling all of my worldly possessions and joining an abbey." The silence that accompanied every confession this man made was actually almost haunting. There was no form of torture that could bring these words out of me, and here he was telling them as his first impression. It was matter-of-fact to him, like he would say this when he went out to buy groceries.

"Take this also as a warning: If you fool around, I am what the most successful rock bottom looks like. And you cannot threaten me to improve your grades, because I have literally nothing. And yes, someone has tried. They didn't understand I have no stakes in anything anymore. He failed out and now makes money salvaging broken CRTs. We make about the same wages, but he doesn't pay taxes. It keeps me up at night." There was, for once in my life, a feeling that I was glad to be where I was.

If I were this person I would have probably become a supervillain. I wondered if he secretly was also one. He'd have an obvious set of motivations. Best to hope not.

"Now let me begin explaining the class to you. This is Pre-Algebra," he started going to his own desk where he lifted two stacks of papers and dropped them on one student's desk.

"Pass those around for me, will you? You still look like you don't park on train tracks and wait five minutes before cursing God and resuming your commute." The young woman he spoke to just nodded and took to handing out the papers.

"Right. This is Pre-Algebra. We'll be going over the fundamentals of arithmetic with things like integers, fractions, decimals, ratios, percentages, order of operations, linear equations, and graphing on a coordinate plane. This is all outlined in the syllabus the young miss here is passing out. She looks like my ex-wife. She has the same disgust in her eyes." I considered giving him Eliza's phone number. Maybe it would help him. Maybe it would make Eliza worse.

Perhaps I should give him Tancred's phone number instead out of spite.

"I plan on this course being self-paced, as most people encounter these kinds of arithmetic on their own. Most of the course material is online, the means of access being printed on that syllabus. While I do host lectures here, you are free to skip classes so long as you attend on test dates and follow your homework assignments on time. Your final exam will be a standardized test." This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Online.

I'd need to learn to use that laptop. Had to consider who I could ask for that. May would probably have the best layman's answer, but Sam would be more technologically aware. And secure. Maybe her.

"The other paper is your diagnostic quiz. It's not graded, but you need to complete it to the best of your ability so I can input the information online and your work on the online portal can be appropriately tailored. If you cannot figure out a question, you are free to skip it and come back to it later. If you ultimately cannot figure out the answer, draw a little X next to it." I received the quiz and the syllabus, which I began looking at. Very inscrutable language was listed out to me.

"Don't feel bad if you skip quite a few. I knew someone who handed in a blank sheet, never came into class except for test days, and finished the class with the highest grade. A smart young man. Unfortunately he smelled like piss due to a mutation that made his sweat glands produce urea." At this point was where I began to just actually hate this man. He needed to shut the Hell up and not keep complaining. Was this how I sounded to people? No, I didn't talk that much. Was that better or worse? No idea.

Had to focus on the test, which I went through with all the vigor of a root canal. It was arcane to me. Some of it I understood fine. I've had to math out money, plan times, estimate numbers of hoodlums, all sorts of things. Math isn't impossible on its own. But the way I interpreted it was more like the numbers were chewed up in my brain, which then spat out new numbers. The processes didn't make sense to me at this point. But here it was discussing all sorts of things, using symbols I wasn't familiar with.

Why were there two straight lines surrounding a number? I knew what a parenthesis was but these weren't those. What the fuck is an integer? Then letters came into it, and I had to just start crossing off questions. Over half of them were crossed off. Whatever instincts people saw in me were nonsense. I couldn't even do basic math. I dropped off my test with the professor, who thanked me. He started to say something about if he were as tall as me, his life wouldn't be Hell and I just ignored it.

Looking at my phone, I had a break period that was normally an hour and a half that got extended into an hour and forty-five minutes. Wasn't sure when that lady would pick me up to go to UVA. So I took to something else while I waited: Navigation. If I was going to be here three days a week, I had to learn to navigate it. Even if it was just one tiny corner I had to be in, anything could happen here.

Knowing how to get in and out from different ways, how to reach different points in the building, all of it was worth its weight in gold. This was surprisingly not a complex task. Despite the terribly laid-out positioning of rooms, most of the place had a clear almost spiderwebbing situation going on from the opening. Multiple exits everywhere, both intended ones and places I could just push my way through if I had to.

There were some administrative offices I couldn't justifiably step into, but I would find a way into those later. The next challenge was figuring out where anyone could, instead of exit, ente-"Hey, you alright?" A young man's voice interrupted my thought. Turning to face him, it was someone probably closer to Chris' age. Very short hair, buzzed. Dark complexion. Visible concern on his face.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Am I not supposed to be here?" I asked, ready to see if I could do my lunge backwards to get out.

"Oh no this place is fine, I think. No one ever told me I couldn't be here, and I come back here to think all the time. You just looked a little pissed off is all." In my defense, I never knew how I looked.

"Sorry, my face just sits like that. Was just learning the layout of the school. It's my first day." He nodded, putting on a large grin and extending a hand.

"I get you. Name's Tyson, yours?" Carefully, I shook the hand. Didn't even really let my wrist bend.

"Leo. You said you come here all the time, so it's obviously not your first day?" Another nod.

"Yeah, it isn't, this is my third semester. You going for an Associate's here or are you just getting some credits?" My hands sat in my pockets, trying to think of the best way to explain it. There wasn't, so honesty had to work as the default.

"Just doing a couple remedial credits here. Half my classes are actually at UVA." Tyson's eyebrows raised, hand on his chin.

"Oh damn, so are you majoring something there?" I thought about the schedule. I had a theater class and a politics class. Which one would be the right one to say? The latter sounded more impressive, but maybe...

"I'm part of the theater program, not really sure on a major yet. Just taking it as it goes."

"Bit expensive to 'take it as it goes,' don't you think?"

"I'm not paying for it, the government is," I admitted. Technically not wrong.

"Oh you're on one of those fancy like, presidential scholarships?" Yeah, sure, go with that. I took that alibi with a nod.

"I really lucked out." Not a lie. But only because sarcasm doesn't really count as lying.

"You did. I'm just taking classes here and it's still burning every dollar I got. At this point it's cost as much as a used car."

"So why are you doing it?"

"Got told I couldn't. I don't like people saying I can't do shit, so I'm doing shit." Knew that feeling well. I gave a nod.

"That's pretty cool. Been there before. Hit a point where it was either here or jail in some people's eyes." He did this sort of raspberry-esque motion, blowing air through his lips as though he fought off a laugh.

"Look, bro, I'm not saying you're making up bullshit but that's funny as Hell to me. You end up with a fancy government scholarship while also being what, a juvie risk? How old are you?"

"Eighteen."

"Alright, alright, so what? Good studies but whenever you weren't studying you were up to some bullshit?" Tyson managed to temper his bemusement down, rubbing his face.

"You could say that." Never studied, but I was up to a lot of what you could call bullshit. Maybe there was a correlation.

"I see, I see. Must have been one of those at-risk programs. I won't judge, though. Glad you're here and not in jail. We need more people here." A little snap of wit entered my mind.

"What, you think if more people come here you might not have to pay as much tuition?" He threw his head back with a laugh.

"I fuckin' wish, dude. They'd make shit go up. I'm gonna go get myself some lunch, you eat yet?" Shaking my head, I replied.

"No, I was actual-" My phone rang for a second. Only one though. Different sound too. Pulling the phone out, I examined it. Huh. There were words on it. Text message. Never knew that's how they worked. Opening the message, it was an unlabeled phone number that said Ride's here in parking lot Must have been her. I put my phone away before looking back to Tyson.

"Gotta go, actually." Tyson gave a short hum before he nodded, tapping the back of his hand on my arm.

"You're good. What's your full name though? Just in case we see each other again. I like remembering whole names." I shrugged.

"Leo Holt. What's yours?" The same hand tapped his chest.

"Name's Tyson Hart." Hope that was a coincidence.