Utopia: An X-Men Story

Chapter 3

We all sat, gathered in a small circle on top of the desks, in the back of Dr. Dilly's classroom sharing a large pizza amongst ourselves. Pepperoni was ultimately the only thing we could all agree upon. I picked up a slice.

"Are you guys excited?" Alex asked as she smiled over her plate.

"Excited for what?" Bastian took a bite out of his crust.

"The field trip to the Museum of History. It'll be my first year being able to go."

"Oh that old place?" Nathaniel grabbed a napkin and wiped his mouth. "It's okay, I guess."

I look a bite of pizza and began to chew. "We go every year and they somehow find new ways to make us feel inferior to everyone else. And typically after each trip, someone slips a pie in my locker. I'm so sick of pie."

"Why pie?" Alex looked baffled.

"It's a Victor Creed thing," Abrielle whispered. "He killed his brother over a piece of pie."

"The x-nerds think it's funny to gag-bound us into corners like that," Nathaniel said as he clenched his fist in his lap. "Last year, for like a week after, no one would go near Abrielle and they all talked to Bastian in goofy accents."

"And what did they do to you?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

The room was quiet for a minute. "You know, Alex," I began, "some history would be best left forgotten."

She nodded and finished up her slice. The door slid open and Dilly walked in, his leather briefcase in hand. "Now I know I'm not smelling pizza in here." He smiled at us as he put his bag down and wandered over.

"Come take a slice. It's pepperoni." I set my slice down on a napkin and leaned back.

"Pepperoni, is it? Well, don't mind if I do." Abrielle grabbed him a slice and he took it. "Are all of you ready for class? I have a feeling there might be a little surprise quiz before the lesson."

"What's it on?" Nathaniel reached for his bag and grabbed his tablet.

"I can't tell you that, but I would definitely review the last idle country we studied." He went back to his desk, set the slice down, and opened his case, beginning to go through some papers and scanning them into the database system.

Nathaniel scrolled through his notes. "Idle country. Idle country. Idle country. Do you think he's talking about Old India?"

"Oh definitely."

"Yes."

"Of course!"

"Uh-huh."

"Why that country?" He scratched his head. "There has to be some form of significance to it."

Bastian looked over his shoulder. "Isn't that where he is from? Of course, they call it something different but why there?"

"We might be getting another life story today. That'll be nice. I mean, we only touched slightly in the government and economy of the place. Maybe now we'll actually be able to study the variations of mutation among the general population." Abrielle smiled and put her finger on her chin. "It is probably a lot different from the other idle countries we've been studying. They all sound super similar, but I mean, he never quizzed us on those."

Bastian looked over at her. "I swear you're a genius."

"It's just deduction. I mean, Old India as a country in itself is built on the idea that time doesn't exist, so all of its rules are designed to function well in the moment."

I looked over at Nathaniel's notes and skimmed them. There was a lot of information about the dictatorship rule that had grown accustomed to the small region and various statistics given out by their government about how the country was flourishing. It was not flourishing, according to Dilly and today we were finally going to learn why.

The bell ring and lunch was over. Alex walked the pizza box to the garbage can and we all took our seats. Nathaniel sat next to me and hooked his tablet up to the central computer system. I did the same. The classroom waiting screen popped up and the class chat opened on the side. I watched as my classmates walked into the room and logged in. The chat began to fill up with casual, excited conversations about the party coming up. I quickly put it on mute and opened up my notes. When class began, the screen froze, closed the chats, and Dr. Dilly rose from his chair.

"Good Afternoon Class! It's a fine sunny day today, isn't it?" The class murmured a general positive response. "Now, before we begin today's lesson, we start with a pop quiz! Don't groan now, I promise this one is easy. It's only five questions. No talking, alright? Good. You may begin."

My tablet screen changed from the waiting screen to an essay style exam. I picked my pen up and read over the question.

What is an idle-country?

A country that has not progressed in a way to allow its citizens to obtain freedom.

What is the name of the last idle-country we studied?

Old India.

What is the government style of this idle-country?

Dictatorship.

What is the economy like for this idle-country?

Unstable and forced by the government.

What is one fact you remember learning during our lesson?

I tapped my pen on my hand and thought for a minute before writing.

Dr. Dilly was born and raised in Old-India.

I tapped the complete exam icon on top right corner of the screen and sent it in. A small loading screen spun for a moment before a green smiley face appeared with the words "Good Job!" written right next to it. A 100% logged itself in my gradebook and my notes were pulled back up again.

It was another couple minutes until the whole class had completed the assignment. Dr. Dilly scrolled through his device with a smile on his face. "Good job class! Almost all of you got 100%. I'm very proud of you."

A couple kids a few desks in front of mine high fives and Dr. Dilly chuckled. "I am very glad to see that all of you are understanding the concept so well. Nations that not like our own are rather complicated, and I am not saying that as a way to discredit them. We have simply grown accustomed to our freedoms and rights, so outside systems tend to see strange, but I can assure you that there is none stranger than Old India."

He walked to a cabinet in the room and opened the glass doors, sliding a small drawer open and pulling out a face mask. "Can anyone tell me what is great about Utopia?"

Several students raised their hands and he skimmed the room. "Alex."

Alex beamed. "We have quite a bit of freedom. Like the freedom to do what we like, say what we like, and be who we want to be."

"Beautiful! Perfect answer." Dr. Dilly smiled and took a deep breath, sighing. "Old India is nothing like that."

He took the mask in his hands and strapped it around his head. It was like a muzzle, a small flat board pressed and bound against his lips. There was a smile painted on the board and he secured it to the back of his head. We all watched in silence as he walked back to his desk and held up a sign. It had a question written on it in big black lettering.

What if you couldn't say anything at all?

We all sat there and no one had anything to say.