by Rayya Deeb
The way Ellen looked at me so caringly jabbed me with little needles all over. I felt like such a deceitful person. I second-guessed myself, wondering if I should have concocted another plan.
"Why don't I just walk you back, and then I can take my food home with me?"
"Please, Ellen, I really want you to have the full experience here. I'll be fine." I stood up and hunched over, rubbing my belly.
"I don't know–"
"I'll flex you later to check in."
I could tell Ellen just felt bad for me. I had to drive this home. She was insisting, but I had to insist more.
"I'd hug you, but I don't want to get you sick."
"Okay, I want to hear from you before you go to sleep, understood?"
"Yes, I'll flex you."
Ellen watched me go. Emotions of every variety rushed through me as I walked out into the bustling restaurant district of Seneca City. People in blue streaming through the halls, coming and going on the acoustic carrier. But I didn't have time for anything but the mission at hand. I was in a race against the clock.
25
TY WAS HUSTLING behind the sushi bar at the peak of dinnertime as I darted in through the entrance. He locked eyes on me while continuing to work his culinary magician's hands. He didn't need eyes on what he was doing, he was that good. I knew that, when he saw me, he hoped I knew something more about Dom.
I wiped my sweaty brow with my shoulder and kept going straight behind the bar. Ty and I had an unspoken understanding. He knew that I was here to help Dom. I went directly through the double doors, through the kitchen, past the claustrophobic aisle of supplies, and straight to the door marked, "Employees Only Restroom."
Before the S.E.R.C. residences, I had programmed my flexer with a hardcore multi-level quantum encryption so that any activity I engaged it in could not be read anywhere else. Still, I knew that the potential for tracing my whereabouts was there, since I had yet to tap into the microprocessors in my bloodstream. I assumed that physical location was one of the bits of information that was definitely being traced. I didn't know how much time I had. I had a massive feat to accomplish before I was caught, or Dom would forever be just a memory to me... if even that.
I took a seat in the chair I’d shared with Dom only the day before. Then, the vibe between us had been full of exuberance, optimism, teamwork and what I thought was mutual attraction. But now it was all urgency, a crazy fast learning curve on things I knew nothing about, lying to one of the only people I trusted and a whole lot of nerve. I had no partner this time— whatever happened seemed to be down to me alone. This wasn't easy. It wasn't easy at all.
Dom's lab was foreign to me. First I had to attempt to do what I had seen him do. His equipment was all in the same place I’d seen it last. I powered on his makeshift hyper-spectral nano scanner. I looked across the table, in drawers, all over the place trying to find his blood sample. Not a trace of it anywhere. I spotted a needle and syringe. I felt weak, then shook it off. This wasn't the time or place to feel freaked out over needles. I was much bigger than that needle. My dad had always said that to me about me and spiders.
Without Dom’s blood sample I was going to have to draw my own blood and get down to business. I had seen my mom do this so many times when I’d gone with her on house calls to her private geriatric patients. Still, everything about it made me squeamish. I told myself this wasn't about me. I had to move out of body now and make things happen. Easier said than done. I felt the blood leave my face, my palms become clammy, my feet scorching hot and, although the room was silent, I could hear every single sound. My hearing became wolf-like. The buzz of electricity, water flowing through pipes, forced air and the slight hum of the scanner all played together in perfectly organized chaos. I focused in on the noise like it was an orchestra, playing to calm my rapidly swelling nerves.
I pushed the sleeve up on my left arm to look down at the crease on the inside of my elbow. Doctors always made the comment that my veins are good. The thought of forcing a needle through my flesh into my good blue vein was dizzying. When had my mouth gotten so dry? I had forgotten to drink water, with everything else going on. You can’t draw blood if you’re dehydrated, my mom had repeatedly told her patients. There was a half-full glass of stale water on the table. What the heck... I gulped it down and grabbed a rubber band on the desk. Snapped in half, I could cinch it tightly around my arm just above the crease. I took a few deep breaths as I opened and closed my fist and watched my vein bulge. It was a really, really good vein. I made a mental note to myself that the next time someone asks me that strange question: "What quality of yourself are you most proud of?" I should say, "My veins."
I wasn't afraid of heights. I imagined that the way I felt when I looked at that needle was exactly how someone with acrophobia felt when they inched towards the edge of the Grand Canyon. Just as they had to get over the fear just long enough to see that gorgeous expanse below them, I needed to overcome my own fear, just long enough to accomplish something that was desperately important to me. This needle wasn't going to kill me, I hoped. Did I know that? Could I guarantee myself that? I wasn’t sure. No, wait, I was sure. This little needle was not going to kill me! I clutched the thing, and stuck myself in my flawless blue vein. I let out a sound that was as much a moan as an exhalation, while blood filled the small glass tube. When it was full I pulled the needle out, grabbed a tissue and pressed it down over the tiny incision. I finally caught my breath. Smiled. Blew out a "whew." That was intense. There was no time for patting myself on the back. I'd have to remind myself to do that later.
I turned to the centrifuge that Dom had lifted from one of his sessions. It had an S.E.R.C. emblem on it. I placed the tube filled with my blood into it, closed the lid and peered at the dials. I would have bet my life that Dom had the numbers set to where they needed to be, so I pressed "start" and waited for it to finish spinning. This was definitely working. I was starting to feel a lot less like a teenage girl, and a lot more like a professional scientist. If only I had a white lab coat. Maybe next time.
The spinning stopped. I opened the lid, carefully removed the vial, and used a syringe to take a sampling of the same heavy particle part of the blood that I had seen Dom extract yesterday.
Next, I turned to his hyper-spectral nano scanner, to pull out the glass plate that rested beneath the beam of light. I slowly pushed down on the syringe, watching my blood sample drip soundlessly onto the glass.
I took my trusty flexer from my pocket, held it up to the device and issued the communicate command. A beam of blue light linked my flexer to the scanner device. The beam of light spread across the blood sample and sent an instant reading back to my flexer screen. Here we go. My flexer picked up on signals being emitted from the nanobots Dom had detected. There was no question. I tried to access the communications. I was blocked.
Bring it on!
My hands danced across the flexer screen like an accomplished pianist on a baby grand. I was in the zone. I had passed the challenging part and was in my element now. Nothing could stop my ferocity towards these nanobots that were squatting in my blood.
I was on the verge of something huge. I felt it as the equations and formulas surged through my head like the rapids of Difficult Run. This gush of numbers, symbols, solutions, resonated deeper within me than any equation I'd ever pursued... and BANG! The nanobot I cracked revealed its quantum state– I could instantly tell that it was part of an entangled quantum system. I sprung from my chair, my body electric with delight, but I kept my victory dance muted. I dropped back down to the seat even though my heartbeat flew through the roof. I had to keep my eyes on the ball. On the screen: charts, graphs, neurological statistics and biometrics. I couldn't decipher what it all meant specifically, but I knew it was a biological spying mechanism. The implications were almost both too vast to wrap my head around and horrifyingly clear: A literal, duplicate copy of the inner workings of my brain was tied directly to a mainframe elsewhere and being
manipulated... affecting my mind right here and now. Not if I could help it, and I knew I could.
As the reality of this set in I became furious. I felt so violated it was as if my skin crawled with armies of fire ants. Someone was literally inside my head without my permission. I didn't know the extent to which my thoughts had been tweaked or traced so far, but I wasn't going to let it happen any longer.
My dad had always said we were here for a reason. Now I understood. I was brought to Seneca for a reason, I met Dominic Ambrosia for a reason, I was sitting here faced with this problem for a reason... and problems are meant to be solved.
My fingers moved maniacally. They were possessed. I was possessed. I couldn't stop until I found the opening at the end of the maze. I moved through every twist and turn, holding my breath, not blinking, until finally– "Ha!" I leaped from my seat in victory. I’d broken the quantum entanglement. Whoever, wherever was not inside my head, anymore. I was uncoupled from their manipulation, but they would still think they had me, because when I’d run the break I had simultaneously synched my mainframe ID to a random Senecan's nanobot data.
Oh, but there was so much more to figure out! I quickly returned to my seat and wiggled my fingers around the flexer frame, stretching in preparation for round two.
Now I had to figure out who was controlling the mainframe to which we were all tied. Was this an official Senecan plan or were some outsiders infiltrating the Senecan population? If Dom hadn't trusted me, I might never have known about any of this. And what about everyone else? This was bigger than Big Brother. Just like he’d said.
I began to run equations to help tap into the system I was tied to. Who else controlled it and what was it doing? Cranking away I realized that this part was much more difficult, with thick layers of encryption. Encryption I had never faced before. I rubbed my chin, closed my eyes. Maybe scrunching my lips like Dom did would bring me some new ideas.
The familiar white noise that had formed the symphony of background sounds while I’d worked suddenly changed. My eyes flew open when loud footsteps trampled in my direction, stopping just outside the door.
Boom! The door splintered off its frame. As I jumped out of my chair, two men in slick blue guard uniforms stormed towards me.
"Don't move!"
I didn't budge a centimeter. Didn't make a single sound, not even a breath.
One of the guards scanned the lab while the other released a silver liquid cuff around my wrists that hardened in two seconds flat, just like a soft-serve ice cream cone dipped in chocolate. I hadn't seen handcuffs like this before, didn't even know they existed.
A female S.O.I.L. officer entered the room next, along with a man who held a suspicious-looking case. He placed it on the table and opened it, revealing a variety of vials filled with viscous fluids.
"Please don't, please! What is that? What are you doing?!"
The man was unruffled and methodical. Void of expression, he operated like a robot and didn't even make eye contact with me. The S.O.I.L. officer came within inches of my face, staring me in the eye. "Relax, and this will be easy. Resist, and you will be in pain. Make a choice, make it fast."
"Please don't–"
"Just do as you're told and you will be fine."
I didn't resist. I was petrified. I whimpered and shifted my eyes to the man who must have been a doctor. He moved towards me with a syringe. My god, not this again. He squirted a liquid through the needle in typical preparation for an injection, then lifted it to my shoulder. I squeezed my eyes shut, felt a pinch, and opened my eyes. Everything was distorted for a few seconds and then black.
26
MY NECK CRACKED as I awoke and jerked myself up to sitting position. My head was foggy, my body stiff and achy. I tried to move, but that wasn't happening. I realized I was in a chair, paralyzed from the neck down. I was alone, in a pure white room wrapped in mirrored blue windows. Two empty chairs were positioned six feet across from me. A flat glass monitor took up the entire wall I was facing. It powered on, as if triggered by my gaze.
A striking woman with light, almost albino blond hair gelled back into a bun and wearing a blue suit, sat in front of a gold wall displaying the Seneca Society emblem. The emblem itself was a little creepy: Two gold eyeballs inside a black oval, one with an infinity symbol in the pupil and the other with "Dm" inside. I wondered what "Dm" was. Department of Military? Demobilization? That was probably it considering S.O.I.L. had definitely demobilized me.
"Hello, Dorothy Campbell."
I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn't because of the paralysis. My tongue felt like Velcro as it separated from my upper palate.
"Your motion and speech will be restored momentarily. For now, I just want you to listen closely."
I was pissed, but even more frightened. First my mind had been invaded and now my body.
"Would you like some water?"
I nodded my head.
A doorway opened in the wall and a Seneca blue uniformed guard brought in a glass and put it up to my mouth. I gulped it down unceremoniously.
"You can speak now."
"Thank you." The words crackled from my throat as the guard left the room.
"You're welcome, Dorothy."
This woman wasn't the typical, smiley type of my initial Seneca experience. Her face had no lines to betray expression. Her eyes were the crystalline green I'd seen in pictures of the Caribbean Ocean. Her teeth were perfectly white like Congressman Wallingsford's. Oddly, though, with all this perfection, one tooth in front was very crooked.
"We have a few things to go over with you. Are you prepared?"
"I think so."
"What were you doing in Dominic Ambrosia's food science laboratory?"
I didn't know what they knew. Signals from my brain were registering elsewhere up until the moment I broke the entanglement, but just how detailed was their analysis of the data? Did they have access to everything I knew? I didn't want to answer a thing.
"Can I speak with Ellen Malone?"
"Dorothy Campbell, it is my duty to inform you that this is an official Seneca Observation and Intelligence screening. You are required to provide truthful answers for all of the questions you are asked. You may not divert or deflect questions. You may not ask questions. Is this understood?"
This woman meant business. I nodded my head, figuring it was in my best interest to play by the rules here, or find myself in the kind of trouble I couldn’t even imagine.
"Very good. Again, what were you doing in Dominic Ambrosia's food science laboratory?"
"Nothing really, I... was just messing around. I didn't know what happened to Dominic after the party and when I went by and he wasn't there, I just started playing with things."
The silence that followed was filled with the tension of a fully stretched rubber band, aimed directly at me. Whether it was released or eased up entirely depended on the believability of my explanation.
"You will now be joined by two members of Seneca's Observation and Intelligence League."
My heart skipped a beat. There was no way that this sixteen year old Southern California girl was going to fool the likes of the most powerful intelligence league on the planet. I couldn't comprehend what they were capable of. I had seen portrayals of the C.I.A. in movies, and, if S.O.I.L. was more powerful than that, this definitely wasn't the time or place for me to try and pull one over.
A doorway opened on the golden wall, and in walked Gregory Zaffron and another man, maybe 60 years old– dark brown skin, distinguished, shiny bald head and a goatee so impeccably shaved it looked like it had been drawn on with black magic marker. The man took a seat but Gregory remained standing. They both wore crisp, tailored blue suits with Seneca Society emblems shining from small gold medallions on their lapels. Gregory definitely did not look as easy-going and casual as he had the other times I’d seen him.
"Dorothy."
"Gregory– this is all some huge misunderstanding."
He flashed a p
ompous smile. "Ah, well now, we don't meddle with the behavior of Seneca’s citizens over a simple matter of misunderstanding. I think everyone here is very capable of complete understanding."
Gulp.
"Don't worry, sweetheart. We're going to sit down and work it all out now. That's what we all want, right?"
I nodded in agreement. I did want it worked out. I never wanted to experience paralysis again. And I didn’t want to be on Gregory’s bad side either.
"This is Lieutenant Marcus Otis. My boss."
Lieutenant Otis sat back in his chair, studying me. I needed to change any negative first impression he might have of me as soon as humanly possible.
"Hello, sir. I'm really sorry to be taking your time with silly little issues. I promise I won't be causing any more disturbances."
Lieutenant Otis was a man of few words. And by few, I mean none.
"Lieutenant Otis just wants everything cleared up, Dorothy. We can handle that, right? You and me?"
"Yes."
"We know that you've interfered with official Seneca security. We don't want to believe you meant it maliciously, but we have to handle this the same as we would with anyone– in the interest of security for the entire Seneca Society. You understand?
"Yes."
"We've been watching Dominic Ambrosia for some time now. He was tampering with Seneca security operations and he was warned not to. Mr. Ambrosia continued to disobey this one, simple official S.O.I.L. request and, because of that, he has been dealt with accordingly."
"Where is he?"
"As anyone guilty of the same actions would be, he has been removed from society."
"He's dead?!"
I felt the oxygen vacuumed from my lungs.
"Mr. Ambrosia was put through standard Senecan reversal procedures and was re-established in the Aboves."
My Velcro tongue inflated like a pufferfish in my throat. I could barely breathe. Heat swelled behind my brow bone. My eyes stung. I fought to keep my cool as tears began to well up.
