by Rayya Deeb
The corners of his lips tilted up. There was a smile breaking through. The freeze was over, thank goodness.
21
WHAT WAS IT with the men in my life? Or should I say men, dudes and for the most part, boys. They were all so elusive and unpredictable. From my dad's disappearance to Reba's avoidance of me, to the constantly unknown location of Dom, I was always left wondering where someone was physically or where he was at in his head. And if any of it had something to do with me.
I hadn't seen Dom since our surreal Saturday at Difficult Run. It was pretty strange that we hadn't exchanged flexer contacts. Which made it extra strange that I had both Jennifer and G.W. Wallingsford's. I wanted to see Dom more than ever, but I couldn't flex him. The initial crush had blossomed into something so much more. We hadn't even hooked up or anything, but we had such an intense mental connection that my thirst for what could follow was left completely unquenched.
An internal battle began to brew. My curious, determined heart kept luring me to follow it and try to track him down. My logical, but much less persistent, mind, told me to chill. Back-off. Don't chase the guy. Let him chase you. Besides, it would be a tumultuous road that could only end in either eternal love or heartbreak. It was a classic scenario, and my first foray into the trials and tribulations of heart versus mind.
My mind folded; my heart won. I went to Ty's sushi joint. Sessions had ended for the week and I couldn't go on leaving our next meeting up to fate. It was on the early side for dinner and the restaurant was already packed. I wasn't surprised. I made my way to the bar and found Ty, hamming it up for a group of four women in their mid-50's. Beneath the blue they were all ravishing and elegant. Social status bled through their pores. Their laughter was contained, but genuine. They savored this sushi and praised Ty. He soaked up the accolades, and when he caught me watching he enthusiastically waved me over.
"There she is!"
"Hey, Ty, nice to see you again. How's it going?"
"Bad bad bad. American bad. I'm bad, I'm bad, I know it, I know, woo!"
"M.J. Nice. Love the reference."
"Back for the jalapeno lime halibut cheek?"
"I'd love some yes, but actually, I was looking for Dom. I haven't seen him in a while and thought I might catch him here."
Ty leaned in onto the counter with a mischievous grin. "Ah ha. You are here for my friend, not my halibut. I see how it is."
"Well, both. I'm here for both."
"Give me a minute."
Ty spun around like M.J., and disappeared through the back door. As I waited, I did some people watching. Clusters of patrons were eating sushi as if we were all within heaven's gates, where angels sprinkled a little bit of dust on each bite. Welcome to heaven via the Sushi Seneca gate. I chuckled to myself. And then I remembered the main reason I’d come there. Would Ty be able to work some relationship magic just the way he was able to take people to heaven with sushi?
Ty came back through the door with a grin. I liked the look of it.
"Doro Campbell, today is your lucky day. First, come, come."
I darted to the sushi bar and stood just behind the group of women. Anticipation felt so good. Ty moved behind the bar like a mad scientist with a ballerina's poise. In no time, a plate of jalapeno lime-infused halibut cheek was placed on the bar. Glistening and chanting my name like a choir. Two of the important women parted like the Red Sea so that I could reach between them and retrieve my passage to nirvana. I wanted to be polite and sophisticated and savor these two delectable pieces of Ty's food art, but I couldn’t. The moment this sushi touched my tongue, the intense flavor triggered the bliss I had experienced the week before, only this time it was even more potent. I chewed fast, eyes closed, swirled my tongue around to get every bit of flavor onto every millimeter of taste bud inside my mouth. Time stood still. And then I swallowed, and snatched up the other piece from the plate like a toad taking in a fly with its tongue. The intensity amplified with the second piece. I finished. I opened my eyes. Ty was a prophet.
"Come, come." He waved me to follow him and, before I'd even taken a step in his direction, he disappeared into the back.
I skipped around the sushi bar like a bullet, feeling high from the halibut. Everything about this felt like a holy privilege. How could this be allowed? I pushed through the swinging doors into Ty's kitchen, where the magic happened. It appeared to be just like a kitchen in any sushi restaurant in America, but like everything else in Seneca, there was more to it than met the eye. Ty made a little link with his elbow and motioned for me to lock arms with him. Wherever we were going was cool with me.
We made our way through the main part of the kitchen where sous chefs arranged plates of robust vegetables, and fileted unfathomably gorgeous cuts of fresh fish. We passed enormous steam ovens where rice and fish were cooked. We turned sideways and squeezed ourselves through a small, suffocating path between the shelves of cans, jars, bags of fresh limes... at the end we came to a door. On it, a sign: "Employees Restroom Only." Ty winked, and motioned for me to be his guest and use the restroom. I coyly opened the "Employees Restroom Only" door. Ty gave me a light shove inside and pushed the door closed behind me.
I was not in a restroom. The guy inside was not an employee. Dom stood up from behind a microscope. Across a kitchen counter just like the one the sous chefs worked on in the front of the kitchen, medical lab supplies were neatly spread out where you’d expect to see knives, chopping blocks and mixing bowls.
"Did you miss me?"
Dom looked surprised but pleased to see me.
"Actually, I just came to get some sushi, and then Ty mentioned that you might be here so I thought maybe I should say, "hi."
"I bet. I'd give you a hug, but I literally haven't showered since I saw you last. All I've been doing since Sunday is working, eating sushi, and going to sessions in between."
Dom wanted to hug me! He said some other words too, but that is all I heard. I played it cool.
"No worries. What are you working on?"
"Food science."
Hmm. Not what I expected him to say.
"For Ty. That's what we do here."
He pulled out a stone tablet and a pen. Wrote on it: Give me your flexer.
I did.
Dom took it and left the room.
I sat there and looked around, beyond curious. I still didn't know exactly what Dom did with that brain of his and was prepared for him to deflect the subject if I pried.
He came back in without my flexer and sat in his chair.
"Plug your nose. Come." He scooted over and patted on the other half of his chair.
Inside I was all lit up, but I strolled over nonchalantly and planted my butt next to his. Nose plugging was unnecessary. It was the first time in my life that I fully realized the alluring qualities of muskiness— Dom was definitely a little musky, but that was fine. Mighty fine. I felt my thigh tingle when our legs pressed together, shivers shooting up my ribcage in waves. On the outside I kept it cool, but on the inside my heart and soul were warm like a freshly baked buttermilk biscuit.
"They recruited me two years ago for molecular nano-biotechnology and genomics. Before I came to Seneca, I was imprisoned as a minor in Japan for injecting whales and dolphins with a synthetic cellular rejuvenator that rendered all the catches of the Japanese fishermen inedible."
"Whoa."
"Yeah, I know. Let me back up. I was just a science dork in New York with super liberal parents who became involved in the anti-whaling and dolphin hunting movement when they were in college. As I grew up I got passionate about it, too. I became a foreign exchange student in Wakayama, Japan, under the guise that I wanted to experience culture. It ended up having a huge impact on my life. I loved Japanese culture, learned Japanese... I met Ty. He's the nephew of the family I was staying with and he hired me to become a sous chef in his sushi franchise before he launched it. He was just as fascinated with American culture as I was with Japanese. We became great friends. It w
as a wild ride for both of us. His sushi franchise became the hottest thing in the eastern hemisphere, and, while I wasn't working or going to school, I was investigating a way to stop the whalers. What started as an experiment became a full-force mission. It was working. I was reckless, though, and the Japanese National Police Agency went after me. I wasn't as invisible as I felt. I got busted. They threw the 'no mercy, you silly American' book at me. It was... I can't even... Doro, I was treated like a caged animal. They wouldn't even let me talk to my parents. It changed me. I'm no longer the guy I was before that. After a month in lock-up, Ellen Malone came along and offered me a life ring. Seneca. Coincidentally, or not, Ty and I were both recruited at the same time."
"Ummm, well, that's just... let's just say that your story is a lot cooler than mine."
"I don't know about cool. Cool is swimming in crazy whitewater rapids. This is real."
"I'm really glad you're sharing your reality with me."
"You're the only person who knows other than Ty, the Seneca Senate, and S.O.I.L."
"Thank you for trusting me."
"Yeah, well that's just the backstory. Are you ready for the real real deal?"
"I've been ready."
"Take a look here into this microscope."
I was bent over Dom's workspace and peering through that eyepiece in less than a millisecond. Had no idea what I was looking at, but it appeared to be cells with little robotic tails.
"What you're looking at is a slide of my blood."
I hated blood, but I loved computers, and this appeared to be a fusion of the two. My bottom lip dropped. I'd never seen anything like this.
"A few months ago, when they started administering the Necrolla Carne vaccine, I didn't feel right. Something felt seriously off, at a molecular level. I wanted to see the breakdown of the virus they had injected me with, with my very own eyes. There had to be a reason it was making me feel so horribly sick."
"Right..." He couldn't talk fast enough. A whole new level of whoa was unraveling right before my eyes.
"What you're looking at, the thing that appears to be a microscopic swarm of bees, is actually a cluster of hollowed out viruses. Inside each one are nanobots with tails that are attaching to red blood cells, propelling through my blood."
"This is crazy."
"What's crazy is what it implies. The only reason a nanobot would be put in our blood to begin with is to communicate with the receptors in the brain. I think they've hacked our minds, monitoring our conscious thought and recording our thought patterns directly through the neocortex."
"So they're listening to us right now? They know we're in here doing this?"
"No, that's why I took your flexer. That's the only way they can really listen to our dialogue. But this blood thing is much more complex. It's access to our minds, not the words we speak. I don't know the specifics of the data they collect. And who the bots are communicating with, I haven't figured out. I haven't figured any of it out, but I'm trying. I have to."
"My god."
"You're telling me."
I sat back in the chair, trying to wrap my head around the implications. It was beyond comprehension. Dom rubbed his head and squished his lips together as I attempted to take it all in.
"Watch this." Dom picked up a small device that looked like a needle with a syringe inside it. He looked through the microscope and extracted some of the sample, then carefully shifted over to another small box-shaped device that fit in the palm of his hand. It was dark gray metal with a very fine beam of light inside it.
"It’s kind of primitive but I built this hyper-spectral nano scanner to determine what the contents of this virus are."
He carefully injected the sample into the device, then held his flexer to it and punched in a few keys. A ray of blue light linked the flexer to his nano scanner, which triggered the beam to cross the blood sample, and sent an instant reading back to the flexer screen.
"See? Nothing. I can tell that these are fully functioning nanobots and not, in fact, an actual virus, as they want us to believe. Problem is, it looks like there’s some heavy-duty quantum encryption. And there is just no way for me to get past that."
I felt a rush like I was back atop that cliff at Difficult Run, about to launch myself into the rapids. "I bet I can get in."
Dom squinted, looking me straight in the eye to gauge if I was kidding around. "Don't mess with me."
"I'm serious. Give me a little time with it and I may be able to tell what it's computing and what it's communicating with... if anything."
Dom's eyes lit up, he threw his arms around me, squeezing me tight, then jumped up out of the chair we’d been sharing. His weight suddenly gone from the other side of the chair, the imbalance toppled me off to the ground.
"Doro!"
I just laughed. I was fine. Dom reached down to help me up, "I am so sorry!"
Instead of accepting his help, I yanked him down onto the floor. We laughed our faces off. It was a breather we both welcomed after such an intense mind trip. This next level of cooperation between us was bound to be exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. The pit of my stomach turned like a dryer with a load full of clothes. I so badly wanted to get into this now and could stay up all night deciphering the entire thing. But I couldn't just yet.
"I'm meeting a friend in an hour, so why don't I come by and we can work on it this weekend?"
"Tomorrow morning?"
"Tomorrow morning."
Dom was so happy. I wished I didn't have to leave, but I couldn't possibly stand up Reba and G.W. Wallingsford.
22
I DIDN'T REALLY even want to go to this party, but it was important to Reba. It was also a good idea to show my face and stay in G.W. Wallingsford’s good graces. He was a strong ally to have. I didn't tell Dom about the party because GW had asked me not to talk about it, and I’d always prided myself on my ability to keep my word. So I couldn't invite him even though I really, really wanted to. To be honest, all I wanted to do was start thinking about all the work I’d have to do the next morning to get into those microprocessors flowing through Dom's blood. If he was right, then most likely, they were in all of our blood.
But, first the party. Not long after I got back to the residences, there was a knock at my door. It was Reba, dressed to the nines. He’d even taken a brush to his normally unruly hair. "My Senorita Campbella bonita. You look great."
I really hoped he didn't think this was a date. "Thanks. You too, buddy." I was bound and determined to make it clear that it was indeed not a date. We were just two friends, hanging out. "G.W. has a flighter escort waiting for us with S.O.I.L. officers at the Ascension Point," I told him. I had received the flex about an hour before.
Reba's face lit and his posture powered up. "We have our own S.O.I.L. escorts?" That kind of attention made him feel important. I got it, but I had so much more on my mind that being treated like a celebrity really didn't do it for me like it would have a couple of weeks ago. Everything was different now. Regardless, I smiled and went with the flow. "Yep."
We traveled parallel to the Potomac along Georgetown Pike, headed east into Washington, D.C. I couldn't help but think about my mission for the next day. I just wanted to get this party out of the way. Reba could tell something was up.
"This isn't as fun for you as it is for me, and I can't quite understand why. Don't you realize how cool this is?"
"I just have a lot on my mind."
"I get it, Campbella, but loosen up, chica. Enjoy yourself. Other teenagers where we come from don't get to do this. Seriously, nobody in Texas would believe this is happening to me. All I ever got called was 'freak.' Nobody in my town called me by my name except my family. I heard 'freak' so many times that I responded to it like it was my name. And now, 'freak' is going to a party that he was personally invited to by none other than G.W. Wallingsford."
Despite the tension and chaos raging inside, I made a conscious effort to absorb some of Reba's enthusiasm.
<
br /> The navy blue night swallowed us. A full moon cast a glow on the river, serene and hypnotic beneath our cruising flighter. I should have been on Cloud Nine like Reba, but my nerves kept getting the better of me. The smooth ride transitioned us from the natural Virginia landscape into the distinguished Georgetown cityscape. Across the river, the edge of the Capitol glimmered in a welcoming amber light. Even though it was well past rush hour, the Key Bridge was smothered in bumper-to-bumper traffic. One thing I didn't miss at all was sitting in traffic. Who would? We breezed right over it, brushed with sympathy for the poor people below.
When I had first arrived in Washington D.C., Ellen Malone had told me that the Key Bridge was named after Francis Scott Key, the man who wrote our National Anthem, The Star Spangled Banner. A few weeks ago I wouldn't have been able to imagine a world in which America was no longer the land of the free, the home of the brave– a world leader in all ways. But now I knew that a time was coming when the U.S. government would be overtaken by Seneca. I reminded myself that, by agreeing to remain in the Seneca’s Society, technically I was no longer American... but in my heart that wasn't going to fly.
Our ride took us up M Street, through the heart of Georgetown, a polished and inviting historic district of D.C. A spectrum of high-end, cutting edge and old faithful restaurants speckled along both sides of cobblestone streets, where conservative glamor could mix seamlessly with youthful trendiness. Our flighter made a wide left turn and we ascended slightly, parallel with the gentle, hilly street below. The further away from M Street we got, there were fewer lights and cars on the streets, and the houses became bigger and bigger. It went from apartments, to townhouses, to well-kept homes, to majestic city estates. Its Federalist architecture was completely different than the weathered stucco and modern metals I was used to in LA. Georgetown had a charm and elegance to it that I appreciated. It was no wonder that the legendary Bill and Hillary Clinton once had called it home.
The flighter landed in front of an imposing mansion with four colossal white pillars framing the doorway, and above it, a black wrought iron balcony. The home was perfectly symmetrical, with ornate white moldings framing large, gleaming windows dressed in grand draperies that must have been worth more than the entire building I lived in back in LA. It was exactly the type of residence I imagined senators and congressmen would live in. Definitely not the type of place I expected to go for a raging high school party, that was for sure.
