by Rayya Deeb
“A few more of these and we can get you to the train station,” he said.
“Train station?”
“Yes, you must want to get back to your home, your familia. I am sure they are worried.”
I ruminated on that for a moment but then I put it back on him. “Where is home for you?”
“Me, I am always traveling. Mostly alone.”
“What about your family and friends? Where are they? Don’t they worry about you?”
“I keep the people in my life at a great enough distance that they never have to worry about me.”
“But do you worry about them?”
“Worry is an illusion and what will be, will be. I can not stop living my life because problems might come up.”
“I’m not exactly sure I agree. I mean, some worry is justified and you can worry and still live your life.”
Jadel shrugged.
So I asked, “You’re worried about me right now, aren’t you?”
“I am helping you because you need it and it’s the right thing to do.”
I noticed a long leather cord hanging around Jadel’s neck. A tiny medallion made of blue rock hung at the end of the cord with an intricate "Dm" symbol carved on it inside of an unblinking eye. I knew that symbol— from Seneca!
“Your necklace, what is that?”
Jadel looked down at the medallion.
“Oh, this I got from a place I sometimes visit.”
“A place?”
Jadel took the Dm between his fingers. “Yes, a town. It’s not too far from here actually.”
My brain was inundated with so many questions in that instant that I felt like an interrogator about to unleash on a suspect, but I had to keep my cool. I couldn’t scare away the one person helping me who also had a necklace with the Dm on it— an emblem that is on lapels all over Seneca.
“I want to go there. Can you take me?”
Jadel smiled. “I don’t think so, it is very hard to get to.”
I absolutely had to convince this guy to help me get there.
“So what, I can handle it. Try me.”
“Wow, why the sudden interest in the town where I got this necklace?”
“I’m here on this trip searching for my dad. He had something just like that.”
Jadel nodded inquisitively. “Why, is he missing?”
I had to tell him just enough to earn his sympathy, but not so much that he’d be freaked out by the whole thing.
“He left my family, and I just want to understand why.”
Jadel looked genuinely sad for me and I could sense I was one step closer to being led to the source of the Dm necklace.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Thanks. Jadel, I know you just met me. But you may be my only hope to help me find the place my dad could be.”
Jadel seemed to be every bit as kind as he was beautiful and I couldn’t imagine he would deny me this request. I mean seriously, Jah-del. His name rolled off my tongue in ways that I knew my name never could. He was this sweet, normal Aboves person and he was going to help me find an entrance point.
Jadel smiled and dipped his chin. He spoke softly, but that sexy rasp still came through. “Shhh. If you listen to the universe, it will tell you… oh, do you hear that?” He held his hand up to his ear and summoned in a message from out in the universe. “I can hear it say, ‘Your purpose, Doro and Jadel, is to travel to the town that made this necklace, together.’
6
I AWOKE TO the faint vibrating hum of the speeding train. I slowly lifted my numb cheek from Jadel’s shoulder and straightened my stiff neck as I contemplated the fact that I had never rested my head on a shoulder like that. I tilted my ear to the left and then to the right to stretch the discomfort away. Jadel was asleep and I didn’t want to wake him. He’d spent a lot of time taking care of me, with everything from hydration, to bandaging my feet, to finding me new clothes and navigating us out of the wilderness. If anyone deserved rest, it was him.
I watched Jadel breathe, admiring the stubble of a beard that had emerged overnight. I noticed I had drooled on his shirt. I was horrified and hoped he’d sleep for long enough that it would dry before he awoke.
The people across the aisle from us were a worldly looking American family: a man, a woman, and their children, a girl and a boy, both of whom appeared to be college-aged. They were playing cards. I gazed over through their window as we rode through a village alongside the sparkling browns and ochres of the Huatanay River. It was like an illustration in a children’s book. I saw a black cow tied to a post, a chicken and three pigs following a woman in a long, red clay-colored dress and goggles, balancing a crate of laundry on top of her head, with a baby strapped to her back. The scenes were all very enchanting, like a window into the past. Despite the forward progress of most of the world, Peru had remained the same for centuries with the exception of the people’s sun protection gear. The sky was dolphin gray with a layer of foam clouds that hushed the sun. There was no way to really know for sure how long we had been traveling. Time was elusive. My head felt like a murky, silt-filled pond and I was certain the clamminess I was experiencing all over my body was a response to being on the other side of the equator.
I definitely didn’t feel like myself down here and I wondered if maybe Reba was right when he FigureFlexed me— Had I really been hacked? If so, what did that mean for me? This wasn’t some far-fetched science-fiction situation and I wasn’t a cyborg as some people might believe. This was real life, and I was just a girl, albeit hardwired with super-computing capabilities. There was no way my mind could be controlled because it was still a human brain after all, and not some electronic device. I definitely felt like my thoughts were my own in that moment, and not controlled by an outside force. What could I do about it even if it had been? What would a hack really feel like? My connection to the grid was so shoddy that my Veil couldn’t serve me properly anyway. I couldn’t abort my mission just because my flex implant had gone wonky. This mission was everything. I figured I’d just avoid activating my FlexOculi altogether and keep my mindset au naturel until I could get into Seneca proper and figure things out.
Jadel began to stir, and I darted my eyes to the spot of drool on his shoulder. Oh god— it was still there.
“Buenas tardes,” he said the second he opened his eyes. I could feel my face warming. “Buenas tardes.”
“You alright?”
I nodded my head, felt a lump in my throat. This guy got more beautiful by the second. Especially when he smiled. Jadel took my hand. I felt excited, and guilty. Was I betraying Dom even more?
“I like you, Doro.”
No matter how bad we had left things off, I still loved Dom wholly. I knew in the long run, after I had taken care of the task at hand, my goal was to get back together with him. All of this other stuff was just a test. A distraction.
“So how old are you anyway?” I asked Jadel.
“Twenty.”
“Four years older than— wait a second. What’s today?”
“Sixteen June,” he replied.
“Oh my gosh three years older than me! I’m seventeen! Yesterday was my birthday!”
Jadel sat forward in his seat. He looked at me with big eyes and his mouth slightly agape and then he stood up.
“Friends!” He called out to the entire car with his hands up in the air.
“Jadel, what are you doing?”
He stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled so loud I thought the windows might shatter.
“Friends! If I may have your assistance in honoring the birthday of mi amiga!”
I smiled, embarrassed, but so appreciative that he would do this for me.
Jadel looked at me with that great smile of his and began to sing, “Happy birthday to you…” The American family across the aisle joined in, “…happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear— I quickly shouted out,“Brittany!”
“…happy birthday to you!”
The w
hole train clapped for me.
I said it before and I’ll say it again, Jadel was a gift. My birthday gift. I might have indeed gained an admiration for this good looking, green-eyed, dreadlocked dude, but I didn’t go searching for this to happen. Down the long line of cause and effect that we were on, this was all fated to occur.
“Brittany Gilroy?” Two train attendants, one male and one female loomed over us. Jadel looked back and forth between me and the man who spoke.
“No.” Jadel said, “I am Jadel and this is—”
“Who is asking?” I interjected as I nudged Jadel with my knee.
The woman grilled me like I was a terrorist as the man spoke loud and clear enough for everyone around me to sprout blistering levels of unease. “There are some people who need to talk with Brittany Gilroy. They are awaiting our arrival at the next stop.”
My stomach dropped like it did all too often since my Senecan life began. I looked at Jadel, as he twisted his puzzled gaze up to the man and asked, “Who is waiting?”
“Señor, this is confidential information. We are just the messengers.” He turned to me. “But if you are not Brittany Gilroy, we have a big problem.”
I had to buy time. “I am Brittany Gilroy.”
“Miss Gilroy, we kindly ask that you promptly disembark the train when we arrive in La Raya.”
“Okay, no problem.”
This was a huge problem. Massive. Everything could be destroyed if S.O.I.L. figured out what I had done. Even though in that instance a million thoughts shot through my brain like high-powered lasers at a concert, what was I going to do? What would Jadel think? How much did S.O.I.L. know? Who told them? One thought I couldn’t kick was, had I gotten Brittany in trouble over this? She had gone out on such a limb for me. She was the first real girlfriend I had made in Seneca. We struck a legit bond under dire circumstances, and each time after that it had only grown stronger. She shared so much and it was extremely unsettling to think she’d pay for that on my behalf.
7
WITH MY EYES closed for a second and a half tops, the entire scene raced through my mind, body and soul:
Brittany was on a Palomino and I was on a Paint. They were her two horses that lived inside the sprawling Seneca Hub 144 equine facilities. I was fortunate to receive an invite from Brittany to join her for a ride early that Sunday morning. She was trying to get her mind off of G.W. as they were on a “break.” They faced uncanny pressure to stay together from their parents who saw this as an arranged marriage of sorts between two notoriously affluent families. Even though Brittany had love for G.W., they just didn’t jive on that many levels. For one, she was surprisingly intellectual, and although nobody could deny G.W. was smart in his own right, he was definitely more interested in being the life of the party and showing off his quick wit to all than exercising his intellect. G.W. loved being in the spotlight while Brittany was a low-key type of girl.
“Athena likes you,” she had said as she slowed down so that we rode side-by-side. I stroked the horse’s bristly neck. “I like her, too. I’m kind of realizing I’m a horse person.”
“Well, you’re in good company.”
We both smiled. I remember thinking how incredible that place was. I wanted to absorb every ounce of it, to numb the turmoil of my mind. “This place is so beautiful. It’s no wonder you come here every Sunday.”
“It’s my happy place.”
“I can see why. I’m so glad you asked me to come. I wish you could’ve seen me the last time I was on a horse.”
“Oh yeah, where was it?”
I smiled. Remembering the farm, the smell of Buck… but my smile vanished when my memory moved on to the storm and the mosquitoes.
“Doesn’t seem like it was the most memorable experience.”
“Well, memorable, yes, but not in a good way.”
Brittany had looked at me inquisitively.
“It’s a long story.”
“Good thing we don’t have sessions today.”
Brittany was all ears.
I opened up and told her everything on that ride, short of the details of Operation Crystal. She was probably one of the best listeners I’d ever known. She didn’t have any sort of reaction that made me question if telling her was the wrong thing to do. I wanted to tell her more. That Sunday morning I told her all about the bio-engineered mosquito attack on Dom and me when we were on the run from S.O.I.L., and how I woke up on Anika’s farm. I just had to share all of it because I knew that if I couldn’t tell her, I couldn’t tell anyone. Brittany was my first real girlfriend since I’d been to Seneca and left my best friend Julie behind in the Aboves. I treasured this new friendship. The in-between period was tough and reminded me just how unfathomable life without good girlfriends was. I missed Julie terribly. I thought about her and the things we shared every day. Not just experiences, but emotions, beliefs, fears, everything. She knew nothing of what I’d been through in the last six months. I held on to the hope that one day we’d be reunited and I would tell her everything.
Brittany had that same introspective demeanor as Julie, only Julie was an artist and Brittany was a fierce advocate for animal welfare. She was an animal science scholar, specializing in equitation science. Her goal was to continue the research on preventative health measures for horses in addition to the most effective ways to treat illness and injury based on advances in science, medicine and technology. She cared for horses in a way that I could only wish all people would care for each other. I appreciated her warm heart and dedication to those innocent beasts who had no voice. It inspired me to be a better person because I knew that there was a dire need for more people like her.
“So, after all that, you decided to stay in Seneca,” she said, somewhat surprised.
“Yes, well, I think you and I have a completely different set of choices, and the alternative to staying in Seneca that I was presented with wasn’t something I could accept after I had learned of Seneca's existence.”
“That makes perfect sense.”
“And what I’m faced with now… look, I don’t want to put any information on you that could get you wrapped up in this—”
“Doro, I am already so wrapped up in this. Everyone with a heartbeat is wrapped up in this in some way.”
“Yeah, but, it’s just so different.”
“Right, but we’re all connected, so at the end of the day…”
“You’re absolutely right.” I had hesitated but something inside of me had said, “Tell her, tell her Doro, you must tell her now…”
“And on the topic of connection— I know your dad goes to the South American Seneca hubs a lot, and I just found intel that my dad, who went missing three years ago, is possibly alive and living down there.”
Brittany brought her horse, Prince, to a stop. It made Athena stop, too. She looked at me and put her finger over her lips as if to suggest that nothing we said in that moment was private. She turned and looked behind herself. She clicked and Prince neighed as he turned around. Athena followed.
We just rode… and I awaited her cue. I knew one was coming. I remember wondering what had been going through her mind on that ride. I had wondered where we were headed, but trusted that it was the right direction.
We had ridden twenty minutes, across the pasture that felt much like the one I saw where we picked up Buck, only even more pristine and endless. The grass was carpet-like and in Seneca there were no such things as weeds. At least, not the nuisance type.
We arrived at a point along a mirrored wall that extended all the way across the pasture. Brittany jumped down from Prince. She came over to me and offered her hand to help me down from Athena.
She pointed her flexer to the ground and commanded, “Post.” A golden post rose from the ground. She tied the horses to it with Girl Scout-like precision, never breaking her concentration. She was so stoic. She always was, with the exception of the night of the flighter crash.
Brittany looked at me as if to say, “I want to co
ntinue this conversation, but you need to stick with me.” There was this incredible level of non-verbal communication passing between us. I remembered watching her shift her gaze from me to the mirrored wall that extended at least twenty stories up and then she said, “Door.” As an arched doorway appeared, leading into a dark area with a subtle orange light, I knew that Brittany Gilroy was someone that I felt comfortable following into even the darkest of nights.
“Plug your nose,” she whispered.
It was too late. The stench knocked me on my butt.
It was horrendous.
“I can’t—” Gag. I pulled my shirt over my face.
“This is the first stage of the equine poo-renewal.”
“So my telling you I thought my dad was alive made you want to bring me here? That’s weird.”
She laughed, and then I laughed, too. Before we knew it, the two of us shared in a small episode of uncontrollable laughter as I tucked my face into my shirt trying to avoid the all-encompassing stench of humid crap.
“I know it’s weird,” she said, “but this is one of the few places I know of inside this hub where there is no audio surveillance. My dad showed it to me when I was thirteen and I first arrived in Seneca. He told me this is where I should bring him or my mom if there were any secrets I ever needed to share with them. It’s our safe place.”
“That’s how old I was when my dad went missing.”
Brittany looked at me empathetically.
“Why do you think your dad is in South America?”
“Dom and I uncovered some really strong evidence that his DNA is on record as being in Colombia.”
“That’s crazy, Doro. My dad goes to Colombia all the time.”
Brittany and I sat in a silence that spoke volumes to the scope of the potential connection between us. We didn’t break eye contact, and in those soul-sharing moments I saw that she wanted to figure it all out, too. I recognized that her life was also burdened by a gigantic mystery. We were two peas in a synthetic pod that was about to be deconstructed. I realized that Brittany could be the key to the information I sought, and that I could be the key to a truth she was seeking herself. “He’s got to know something about my dad. He has to, and if we can find out—”
