Free to Fall by Lauren Miller Read Free Book Online Page B

wet-looking. “Even without a bell, you all can still be late,” our teacher said, then stepped into view. It was the woman I’d seen at the assembly yesterday. When I saw Dr. E. Tarsus on my schedule, I’d pictured a man, an older white one, with gray hair and thick glasses. This woman was the total inverse of that. Standing still, she had the countenance of an eagle, her shoulders broad and her posture perfect. But when she moved—as she did now, toward the front wall, with purpose—she reminded me of a jungle cat, the sharp, angular edges of her shoulders and hips visible beneath her clothes.
    She taught Plato Practicum, the official name for the practical reasoning intensive Dean Atwater mentioned at the assembly and the only class on my schedule that met every single day. She was also my advisor, so I wanted to make a good impression.
    As we filed into her classroom, milling around and looking generally uncertain ( do we stand next to the pods? inside them? ), Dr. Tarsus stepped up to the front wall and wrote with her index finger, her words appearing like chalk on the wall’s surface. Instantly the wall transformed into an old-fashioned chalkboard, and she was writing in chalk. I knew it wasn’t actually a chalkboard, just a rectangle of interactive wallpaper resembling one, but the texture was so reminiscent of the real thing that for a split second I wondered if somehow it was. The beginning is the most important part of the work, she wrote in impeccable script. Plato, The Republic, book two .
    “Pick one,” she said, turning to face us now. She gestured to the egg-shaped compartments. I went for one in the middle.
    “You should see a small square in the center of your screen,” Dr. Tarsus said as I sat down in my pod’s metal chair. I felt it adjust beneath and behind me, sliding forward a few inches and conforming to the curve of my spine. “Press your thumb firmly into the box,” Dr. Tarsus instructed. “Your terminal will activate.” The screen she was referring to was oblong and rounded outward like the nose of an airplane. When I touched my thumb to the little box, the door to the compartment slid shut, sealing me inside. Within seconds, the surface I’d touched and the walls around me had become completely transparent, like glass. I could see my classmates in the row in front of me, the walls of their enclosures as invisible as mine. Dr. Tarsus was perched atop a stool at the front of the room.
    She stood and began to make her way around the room as she spoke. “As Dean Atwater explained yesterday, this program is unique in its focus. You’re here to gain knowledge, yes. To learn the who and the what and the where and the why of literature, history, mathematics, psychology, and science. But you’re also here to pursue something that is far more valuable than knowledge, and much harder to attain.” She paused for effect. “ Phronesis ,” she said then. “Prudence. Wisdom in action. The ability to live well.”
    Something in me grabbed ahold of this idea. Wisdom in action. I want that . The conviction that I’d made the very best choice, without having to ask an app on my handheld to be sure. When left on my own, I waffled and wavered, second-guessing my decisions before I even made them. It was the reason I’d always sucked at sports. And gardening. And art. It was the reason I used Lux for nearly every choice I made, from the mundane to the major. I craved the assurance that I was on the right track, headed somewhere that mattered.
    I knew what Beck would say. That prudent genius was an oxymoron. That the greatest athletes and the most talented artists and the most brilliant thinkers went with their gut. But wasn’t that exactly what Dr. Tarsus was offering? A gut I could trust.
    Don’t exchange the truth for a lie.
    My whole body stiffened, bracing against the voice. Hearing it once was one thing. A fluke. But here it was again, less than twenty-four hours later, cryptic and eerie