by Rayya Deeb
Just like the nanobots that once quantum entangled brains with a mainframe in Claytor Lake, Dom and I were two entangled souls now. No matter where each one of us was on the planet, no matter how much space and time stood between us, each of our hearts held a piece of the other. It was quite something how the thought of this made me warm and fuzzy yet empty at the same time. I missed him like crazy. I wanted him back. I resisted the urge to communicate with him via flex because I didn’t want to implicate him in anything I was doing, and I definitely didn’t want to call attention to the fact that he had a flex implant that could be hacked like mine was. I had asked Ellen if he and Reba were okay and back in Hub 144, and she assured me they were. At least I could have some peace in knowing that.
As I left my dad, I tried to breathe out my worries and breathe in the propensity for faith because I was not moving forward on pure facts alone. I took deep, concentrated breaths in and out as Senator Gilroy, Ellen, and Jadel accompanied me to the flighter.
We took an underground acoustic carrier inside Hub 48 to an ascension dome that, after a long ride up, deposited us in the Aboves. As per usual, it was in a heavily treed area. It was the middle of the night but still hot outside, and damp. There was an awaiting flighter with one mute driver in black.
We got in. I sat in the third of three rows and looked out. Ellen sat next to me. Senator Gilroy and Jadel got in last and sat in the middle row.
It had been quiet up until that point for everyone knew that inside a Senecan common area such as an acoustic carrier or ascension dome, anyone could be listening.
Senator Gilroy kicked off the conversation as the flighter took off. “As history has taught us,” he asserted, “war will rage on endlessly for power over land. That has been the model of societal hierarchies here on earth for millennia upon millennia. What is happening now is that the old kings and queens have shifted their focus away from engaging in these petty wars of man. They have concluded that the only way you can potentially claim a new society and keep it is by settling it and creating it. Not by pitching a flag. Not by building bigger armies. No, strength, they have come to realize, lies in usurping knowledge. They have tackled and claimed elements, commodities, technology, and as you saw in Hub 48, a dynamic power source from deep within the earth— geodynamic power, is now on the table.”
I nodded as I wondered just how much of the information coming at me Brittany already knew. Every word that came out of Senator Gilroy’s mouth made complete sense. I mean, what would be the point of making up such an extravagant story? This wasn’t Broadway. I had a better understanding of what my dad’s life work was all about. “I don’t understand the problem though.” I asked, “Why would they keep Doromium from fixing the damage done to the earth if it can actually do that? Instead of just letting the earth continue to… go to hell? Who would make such a stupid decision?”
Gilroy replied, “The decision isn’t actually all that ‘stupid.’ In fact, it was calculated in a way we want you to understand, but this understanding is a process. There are so many pieces for you to absorb that make up the whole picture—”
Ellen cut in, “And you have been doing that, Doro, faster than I imagine anyone ever could, let alone someone your age. I knew you’d be able to. Do you remember when I first met you and I told you I knew your potential?”
“I remember every detail of that day.”
“Me, too. I didn’t know exactly how, but I knew we would end up here.”
Ellen was good.
Jadel was dead silent the whole time, but he was good, and so was Gilroy. They were all so darn on point I suddenly felt that in order to be a solid team, I wanted to bring what I could to the table. If you are only as good as your weakest link, there is no way I was going to be that.
Senator Gilroy continued, “Doro, I want you to think about this. If we can harvest geodynamic power, then hell, everyone should have free power, right? But the kings and queens want to monopolize and charge for it. They want to control these free elements and global resources, and the patents, and then re-sell it all to the people. Because if they control Doromium, the one hope for this world to exist, they also control everything that can destroy our world, and that secures their grasp on complete power. In conjunction with this, all of the technology in the world has been absorbed into Seneca. We’ve got this puppet government that believes we are operating a model for an ideal society, and granted, we are doing a pretty great job considering, but really the very few families that control Seneca will have all the patents under their umbrella. These families are very secretive— and the Wallingsfords are in this inner-circle.”
“But,” I said, “you said it before, and it is true: as long as there is man, there will be a struggle for power, so what can we do really?”
“You’re right. But power has never been absolute. This faction inside Seneca has one agenda only and that is to realize that level of power. In order to attain it, they will ravage our Earth, deplete us of everything and leave us behind with nothing.”
“But where will they go?”
“Their ultimate goal is to leave the planet and colonize Mars with all of humanity under their rule.”
“No way.”
Gilroy nodded as he clamped down on his lips.
As we were quiet for a beat, the notion of a great exodus to Mars filled my ether.
“Many intellectual leaders of the twenty-first century have been suggesting that going to Mars is what we need to do to survive, and, well, this is no longer just a theory. As a matter of fact, they are very close to it. But we— Ellen, myself, your dad, and many others, don’t want to abandon the earth and fellow brothers and sisters that don’t make the choice to follow. We want to take care of our planet. We want to repair and build a better, more harmonious life for everyone here,” he said. “We believe in championing diversity of thought, whereas they believe in: think like us, join the Departers and follow us to the promised land… or stay behind and see the end. To us this is the land of promise.”
“There’s no way they can get away with that.”
Ellen was quick to respond, “I used to say things like that too, Doro. But one thing I know for sure. In Seneca, if something is even remotely possible, don’t disregard it.”
Gilroy painted the big picture. “The goal of the Repairers is to use the Earth’s resources to repair the earth. We want to keep digging deeper and deeper to access more resources and to stop using fossil fuels which are destroying our atmosphere. The Earth’s electromagnetic energy needs to be affordable to the people, and Doromium should be released to repair what has been destroyed. Right now, Doro, your dad’s discovery is being weaponized, and you are being weaponized.” Gilroy was the first person I’d met in Seneca that wasn’t giving me bits and pieces of information through ambiguous comments. He was an information man, and I was a data girl. The Gilroys were my kind of people.
Ellen added, “The game has changed, Doro. You changed the game by challenging the deceit.”
Ellen wasn’t against me— she wasn’t against me at all. All along I’d been unsure. She hadn’t been simply playing both sides of the fence as I’d assumed. She was doing what she had to do, making political moves with a solid head on her shoulders, and I just didn’t have the information to comprehend that before today. Knowing what I knew now, I realized yet again how much more there was to know and that I needed to keep not only my eyes and ears open, but my mind as well.
“So, then, it’s settled,” I said with conviction.
Gilroy’s eyebrows lifted, eager for further explanation, but the look on Ellen’s face said it all. She knew I was familiar with addition, and this was all adding up. It was about to go down.
“We have to stop them!” I exclaimed and then inquired, “I assume you have a plan?”
Ellen replied very bluntly. I’d heard this strong tone from her several times before, one being the first time we met. It’s what earned her my respect to begin with. “You have an illegal i
mplant and it's been hacked once before. You might have solved that problem for the time being, Doro, but now that you’ve got the implant inside your brain, you are always going to be susceptible to attacks. I warned you of this in the debate.”
“I like to learn the hard way.”
“Yes, well, that’s also how you’ve compromised the big picture.”
I knew what she was getting at, and I was prepared to assume responsibility. “I am sorry if you think my choice to get the implant was irresponsible. But you made it, too, once.”
“I had a much different set of parameters guiding my decision, and I clearly don’t mean as much to the other side as you do. They know what you mean to your dad. They know that he’s given up everything for you and your future. They know your mind is equally as brilliant as his.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “I don’t quite believe I am as smart as my dad, but it is becoming more clear to me, the part that I play in all of this. So what matters now is that we get to the bottom of who did it, we expose them to everyone and I reclaim jurisdiction over my own mind.”
Senator Gilroy nodded. “That’s the right idea, Doro.”
Ellen added, “But we can’t get ahead of ourselves. This isn’t about exposing. This about counterintelligence and understanding. Step one is that we find out the workings of the enemy. That means, identify exactly who placed this virus on you, exactly how, and exactly why. We need to get to the bottom of who planted it and identify their goals.”
Senator Gilroy agreed. “Ellen is right. This is a matter of knowing thy enemy.”
I agreed, too. “There is only one way I know how to make that happen. I do know a thing or two about working backwards with coding inside a hack to identify a source. But the problem is, I don’t have the tools I need.”
“Which are?” Gilroy asked.
“Computing systems advanced enough for me to reinstate the bug that was wiped from my implant.”
“We can make that happen,” Ellen assured me.
Gilroy wasn’t sold on me handling this alone. “We can assign you a team—”
“No team,” I replied. “I need solitude and focus.”
Gilroy looked to Ellen. “She’s got this,” Ellen assured Gilroy. “Any outsiders would only meddle in her process.”
I asserted, “I’ve made it inside all of the most secure gambling sites across the world, I’ve cracked the Iranian Ministry of Defense Systems, and I uncovered the Necrolla Carne conspiracy inside Seneca. I can do this.”
“Alright then,” Gilroy said, and I sensed relief by the sigh in his voice. He didn’t know me well enough to know I didn’t need much convincing for techie games of cat and mouse.
“I will find these suckers.” I was certain.
Ellen smiled. “I love your enthusiasm, Doro. I know your father explained to you the importance of fragmented information and never, ever telling another soul what is going on.”
“Of course.”
“In a way, you are untouchable, but that level of untouchability doesn't extend to your friends or even your mom. There is just too much at stake, and the reality is if they know too much, they'll be taken out without impunity. Your boyfriend, Dom, and your friend, Reba. There will be no hesitation.”
I knew it was true. “I get it. They know my relationships, they know all of our relationships, don’t they?”
Senator Gilroy and Ellen both nodded, and she said, “We know there is an enemy, but we don’t know the scope and reaches of that enemy.”
Not if I could help it. “It’s time to find out.”
Ellen nodded. “Yes it is. Keep your friends close,” and I finished her thought, “but your enemies closer. The only way to do that is to go into the eye of the storm.”
My mind churned at full speed. This suddenly felt exhilarating in a way I’d been missing. It was as if ‘old me’ was here with ‘new me’ brewing the perfect combination of fire and confidence for ‘future me.’ “I will lure them in and we will see their cards.”
The flighter made a smooth landing on a simple runway in a remote part of the Peruvian jungle.
Unlike LAX or Dulles, the two airports I had taken off from and landed at the last time around, this runway had no physical building on it. It was a pop-up runway of sorts lined with lavender lights and there was only this one BoomJet on the runaway when we showed up. Senator Gilroy, Ellen, Jadel and I boarded the BoomJet.
I braced myself in the black rubber seat as the engine powered up with that breathtaking deep whir that massaged my bones. My second-ever BoomJet flight was about to take off and it borderline excited me as much as the first, only this time I knew where I was going and what I had to do.
28
THIS TIME THE BoomJet landed not at Dulles Airport, but on a hidden runway edging up to the heavily populated domain of Northern Virginia. Night had pushed us into the wee hours of day— a time I had fallen in love with without realizing it when it happened. These early mornings blew a peace into me that nights too often stole. I associated dark hours with battles for sleep, whereas sunrise was synonymous with fresh starts. I could take on the world the way I wanted to instead of the world taking me on. Don’t get me wrong. I was a Cali girl for life, but this morning, moody, blue-gray-skied Virginia took me by the hand and the heart and welcomed me back.
It was cool and quiet as I stepped off the BoomJet into the lush green landscape that instantaneously engulfed my whole being. I held on tight to the moments between each step down to the tarmac, finding inside each breath an infinite space to do cartwheels. If only I had known how to do cartwheels. A girl can dream. I was ready to rock Seneca and find justice for my father’s dream, and life on our beautiful, broken, betrayed planet.
We took a flighter from the BoomJet into the golden ring location in Great Falls where I had come for my very first journey into the glorious Seneca City.
When we were parked, Senator Gilroy, Ellen and I stepped out of the flighter, but Jadel did not. Ellen and Gilroy both said their piece to Jadel, and Jadel said his to them, then Ellen and Gilroy moved on like it was the obvious time to part with him. But for some reason I hesitated. It was as if my heart told me Jadel was supposed to stay with us. I looked back through the door at him, confounded. We spoke only through our energy.
He nodded and smiled at me.
I nodded and smiled back. Never did I imagine I could feel a real connection with someone in S.O.I.L. There was still so much mystery, so much left unsaid, yet we understood something deep about each other. It didn’t make sense on paper. I still had so much to learn about this guy, but my heart fed me the words to say nonetheless, “Thank you.”
I leaned into the flighter and hugged him, then backed away looking at him. He gave me a nod as he squinted his eyes and quietly said, “The gratitude is mine.”
I’d never forget that emerald sparkle. I turned and followed Ellen and Gilroy to the golden ring. When I looked back over my shoulder, the flighter was gone. My stomach sank because I didn’t know if Jadel and I were just two passing ships and that was that, or if we’d meet again one day.
There was a man in black waiting for us at the golden ring. We went through the motions of entering the ring, being encased in the glowing iridescent dome, and descended into the earth.
By the time I was back in the heart of Seneca City the morning bustle was alive and kicking. The ghost sensation of Reba greeting me for the first time darted through me and it brought joy to my soul. I loved it here. I loved the people, I loved the place, I loved the possibility. I couldn’t go on living knowing I didn’t do everything in my power to protect that.
“Welcome home,” Ellen said.
I was about to lose my mind again, but by choice this time. I wanted to see my mom before that, knowing it could very well be the last time, but believing in myself that I would do everything in my power to make sure it wasn’t.
“It’s good to be back.”
“I bet it is.”
Senator Gilr
oy put his hands on each of our shoulders. “If you two will excuse me, I want to get a chance to give my daughter a hug before her day of sessions begins.”
“Of course. And please give her one for me as well,” Ellen replied.
“And me,” I added.
“Will do.” He turned to me. “Ellen knows how to be in touch with me if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Get some sleep and Godspeed to you both.” With that, off he went.
Ellen looked to me. “I’m sure there are a few people you want to see as well.”
“It’s crazy. I haven’t had a moment to actually enjoy the fact that I have my mom here. I want to do that this morning.”
“You do that. We have a long road ahead, starting bright and early tomorrow morning.”
“Okay.”
I suddenly felt sorry for Ellen, wondering whom she would go see. I knew she didn’t have any loved ones here. Ellen had to leave people behind in the Aboves, too, including her son, Connor. I knew how hard that was for her and I hoped one day soon she would be reunited with him. She had buried herself in her work, but I pondered if that ever got to her. I couldn’t imagine that those feelings could just be squashed. With no family in Seneca, with whom did she connect, whom did she love? “Who will you go see today?” I asked.
A hint of sadness washed across her face, but it was gone in a flash. “Too much to get done, there’s no time to socialize today. I’ll pick you up in the morning.”
Ellen forced a smile, then turned and went.
I watched her go for a moment before I headed to the main citizen residences where my mom had her place. I was so excited to see her and hug her and hear about her first month in Seneca City. I wished I had been there for all of her firsts— especially her first Ty’s Sushi experience!
