by Rayya Deeb
"Ma'am, we're going to need you to sign here, acknowledging your daughter's arrival, and then we’ll be on our way."
My mom didn’t want to let go of me, but she did, reluctantly, when they handed her a tablet. She glanced at it, signed with her finger, and with that, S.O.I.L. was gone.
I was back in the Aboves with my mother. When you live in Seneca's idyllic halls it’s easy to think of the Aboves as a disease-ridden, dismal place. In that moment, though, it was everything I wanted and more, and it won the applause of my heart.
Sadly, that bliss didn’t last long. The pressures of reality tiptoed back in. Dom was in a different world, my mom and I were destined to a life on a planet devoid of hope, while a wicked bunch known as S.O.I.L. destroyed the great hope of the Seneca Society and would alter human history with the ultimate manipulation of all time. I was seeing things more clear than ever as I slowed to the end of this roller coaster ride. One minute I felt trapped and manipulated in Seneca, the next I was fueled by the opportunity there. I realized that it was S.O.I.L. that kept me on that wicked ride. But the truth is that what Seneca has to offer is mine for the taking and not S.O.I.L.'s to take away from me. The pressure for me to turn things around loomed as ominously as an offshore hurricane.
37
MY MOM HAD take-out waiting from my favorite neighborhood taqueria. Carne asada tacos, a cheese quesadilla and the best salsa verde in America. I vacuumed it. Barely chewed. It was too good. She updated me on her regular patients that I’d grown close to and all the people from Café Firenze, but mostly we just enjoyed the heavenly food and each other's company. She loved watching me. She knew how much it meant to me. Even though I was in the dire Aboves, I felt safe again. There was nothing quite like being with my mom, who loved me unconditionally and did things for me out of the goodness of her heart. I’d really missed that. And then I wondered... "Aren't you going to ask me about my trip?"
"There will be time for that. I know all of this took a lot out of you, and I just want you to have a breather. Relax on your first night back and don't think about any of that."
There was something slightly off. My mom was being so vague— with no mentions of reform school, Seneca, Ellen Malone, or anything about where I supposedly was... at all.
"Okay." I wanted to tell her everything, but I also knew that they could be listening. Let's not be naive, they were definitely listening. My mom's flexer wasn't safe. She was right. There would be time for that, but right now I had some important stuff to do. First things first, I had to find Dom.
"Crazy long day, Mom. I'm beat."
"Of course you are. Why don't you get some sleep, and when you wake up, come by Firenze for a mocha?"
Even thinking about that brought the comfort of a long, warm hug. For a split second I could smell that Café Firenze mocha. Then I thought about Ellen Malone. I wondered how much she knew about what had happened to me. If only she had the chance to reunite with her little boy, Connor, just like my mom and I were doing now. It didn't make sense to keep people who loved each other apart. There had to be a way to make space for that, even in a place like Seneca. Especially in a place like Seneca.
"I love you, Mom."
"I love you, Doro. You have no idea how happy I am that you're home."
"Me, too." I wanted to tell her my plan to take us to Seneca. That this wouldn't be our home much longer. But for now, I stayed mum on logistics. All we needed was love.
"Sweet dreams and I'll see you in the morning... or afternoon."
Man, was my room a sight for sore eyes. My mom hadn't touched a thing. Everything was exactly how I had left it. Killer was on my feet like socks. He wasn't going to let me out of his sight. My eyes lit up when I saw the seat at my desk. My seat. I'd spent many a late night planted right there. I ran my finger along the smooth plastic arm, and shoved it just enough for it’s wheels to roll a few inches. This had been my dad's office chair when I was a little girl. I used to go bug him in his office, beg him to push me around in it. Nostalgia always took me away to another place, no matter what was going on.
It was already nine o'clock, midnight on the east coast. I took a seat. I hadn’t lied to my mom— I was beat. But sleep is for the weak, and my night was just getting started. I had to stay strong. S.O.I.L. had confiscated my flexer. Even if they had tracked my Veil and tried to take the whole freaking thing down, they would have had their hands full. I had location scramblers out the wazoo on that thing. Good luck to whomever would have been given that challenge.
I powered up my computer, while simultaneously counting my blessings that the F.B.I. hadn’t confiscated it. The sound of electronics coming to life set off a familiar excitement in me and pumped energy into my veins. Like a fan in the stands at a packed stadium, the rush of what was to come surged through me. The darkness of my room soon shifted to my favorite brilliant blue glow. I was in my element and ready to rock out. One thing was missing. I scooted across the room in my seat and flipped through some vinyl. I was in the mood for something that screamed victory with beats. Heart pounding, deep bass beats. Slipping my headphones over my head, I hit spin and lightly dropped the needle on the Endless Horizon record.
A few minutes short of a couple hours later, I’d done what I’d set out to do. I’d located Dom in a neighborhood in Manhattan, set up a nice little virus on the Seneca mainframe that would trigger on my command, and checked on my Cayman Islands accounts.
I was tickled green. While I was away, I had become a billionaire– a 2.3 billionaire, to be exact. It didn't fully register. How could it? It wasn't like I could use this money in Seneca. They were on a completely different system that wasn't exactly monetary like America per se. They’d described the economic structure of Seneca in my Seneca Civics and Ethics session. The opportunity to live safely in the lap of luxury with everything your heart could desire was not granted free of charge. Scientists, doctors, business people, inventors, you name it, signed over patents, licenses... entire companies to Seneca's corporate wing, Senecanomics, in order to be granted citizenship. For example, B3's Julian Hollenbeck had provided libraries of media content dating back well into the last millennium, and signed over all of his licensing revenues from the Aboves. This cash flow made it possible to do everything in Seneca from maintaining agricultural productivity to providing citizens with toiletries.
Even with this unique economic structure in place, something else was the source of power in Seneca. Something bigger. I knew it wasn't a system of pure equality, no matter how much certain people wanted us to believe that. It was true that we all had access to the best of everything. The best food, the best entertainment, the best health care, you name it... but at what expense? There had to be a trail back to a motivation beyond living the good life.
I wanted to hit the sheets before I hit the streets, but my mind was too far out of frame. No time for R.E.M. For a moment I wondered if the trinity of my mind, body and soul would ever be in sync, or if I was destined to a lifetime of serving one at a time, but never together. If I looked at my dad as an example of what was to come, my path would be the latter.
38
I HEARD MY mom tiptoeing around to leave for work at five in the morning. I waited patiently, and when the door shut behind her, that was my cue. I loaded my backpack with the essentials: toothbrush, a few pairs of underwear, some Mexican cacao and alkaline water. I paused to make sure I had everything. Oh, yeah, I needed a Vitamin E melt for the flight. No more split lower lip for this girl. Killer watched me like a hawk. I avoided eye contact because I didn't want to feel or feed his anxiety. I knew what I had to do so that we could be together again soon.
Some people had already been allowed to bring their animals into Seneca, but I’d never seen them because they weren't in the S.E.R.C., restaurant or youth residential sectors. It was said they allowed pets because of the great happiness they brought people, and that happiness, along with safety, health and peace were the ultimate goals of The Seneca Society. I bought in
to all of that but also believed it was only possible to have all those things in Seneca, if I was with the people I loved (and Killer, too, of course!)
To me, the one exception to Seneca’s controlled population and DNA differentiation quotas was keeping people who loved each other together. Sure, they told us that, after a generation or two, the compromises initially made by the first Senecans would no longer be necessary. But this, in particular, was just not a compromise I was willing to make.
I was flexerless, so I scraped my secret cash stashes together to have just enough to cab it to my favorite little flexer store in Century City. I was there when the store turned its lights on. The bottom of the line version of my old flexer would be all I needed to enable retrieval of my Veil data and pull as much money out of the bank as possible.
Next stop— the bank. The bank teller was caught completely off guard when he saw how much money I had in my account. It wasn’t every day they saw a teenage girl walk into a bank in a Nirvana t-shirt, backpack and headphones with over a million in her name. I had only wired that much in from my Cayman Islands account. Imagine the look on his face had he seen the whole two plus billion.
"Um, this needs my branch manager’s clearance. I can’t authorize a withdrawal of this size."
I had to get that cash, stat. I felt the beginnings of hot feet.
"No worries."
He walked over to a young woman who looked up at me and smiled as she came toward me.
"Hi there, Miss Campbell. We just want to make sure we take appropriate care of your account, since you're such an important client. I’m sure you understand."
"Oh for sure, I get it. Thank you..." I eyed her name tag... "Sandra."
Her brows lifted as she scanned the numbers on the screen in front of her. "You must have quite the career going for you."
"I can't complain."
"My daughter wants to get into acting. Anything you would recommend so that she can find the kind of success you have?"
Okay. Time to play the child actor card without being a complete liar. Obviously that’s the only way she could explain someone my age amassing that kind of money.
"Hard work and determination."
"Amen." She looked over my withdrawal information I had input via flexer. "You want to withdraw twenty thousand dollars, I see."
"Mmm hmm."
I downplayed it and crossed my fingers that she would just do it and stop asking questions.
"I can give you nineteen thousand and ninety-nine dollars right now, but if you want twenty thousand you’ll have to wait until tomorrow since that’s over the limit for a same day withdrawal."
"Nineteen thousand and ninety-nine dollars is good." My voice went a few notches higher than normal.
"Come over to the side and I'll buzz you in. We'll count this out for you and send you on your way."
I nodded, smiled, "Great, thank you."
Once she’d counted out my bills, she added, "If I could give you my daughter's e-mail address..."
I happily obliged and left with a backpack full of cash and the e-mail address of a twelve-year-old girl who wanted to be a famous actress. Next stop, LAX.
39
WITH ALL THAT money handy I could buy a BoomJet ticket to New York City, an expense my parents probably wouldn’t have approved of. Still, I needed to use the short travel time for a catnap, and the economy cabin just wasn’t the place for that, all claustrophobic and full of crying babies. Plus, this was no vacation— I was on a mission. My justifications for spending all that money played over and over like a broken record in my head as I waited to buy my ticket. Yet, somehow, I still felt guilty for being a spendthrift when there were billions of people in need out there.
I was over the guilt thing by the time I arrived in the Big Apple. It was late afternoon. I took a flighter taxi in, and landed on the Lower East Side. I had traced Dom to a small shop called Berserk Boots, at what was probably an after school job. The store appeared to be one of the last original spots still standing in a hood that had been thoroughly gentrified before I’d even been born. Chic, environmentally efficient construction was juxtaposed with classic pre-war architecture, giving off a polished noir feel. Manhattan was a ghetto for the rich; everyone with less than a million in the bank had been pushed off the island and into the outlying boroughs. Retail chain domination had finally laid claim to one of the last cool hoods in Manhattan. It was a miracle that a place like Georgetown had managed to preserve its classic beauty and charm.
People were packed into these streets like sardines. I wondered how, even if the progress developed in Seneca were to extend to the rest of the world, how the over-population situation would be handled. While everything I did in Seneca was about looking toward the future, standing there on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, my attention was on the now. Dom probably had acclimated nicely into an after school work routine, and I was about to flood that world like a tsunami.
I popped a piece of cacao and stopped into a corner café before going into Berserk Boots. I knew I was stalling. I was scared that Dom wouldn't recognize me, but realized it was something we both had to go through. It wouldn't have worked to shock him with a memory block removal while he was in the middle of a school day, at work with a customer, or enjoying a family dinner. My approach had to be responsible, clean.
I walked out of the café with my mocha, mesmerized by cinematic views of the Brooklyn Bridge nearby– such a stark contrast to the flat, beige cement bridges of Los Angeles. I stood there a while, across the street from Berserk Boots, slurping the last traces of what I’d begun to think of as my “security” beverage. It was November, and freezing cold in New York. After being in a controlled climate for the past several months and southern California my entire life, my thin blood wasn’t prepared for the shock. Most of the people who walked by were too wrapped up in their own thoughts to notice me, but the few that did gave me the most hilarious range of looks for being out in nothing but a t-shirt.
"Hey." A woman approached me. Are you okay? Do you need some help?"
My teeth chattered. "I'm good, thanks."
"You sure? You look like you could use a hand."
"I just got here from Cali and I've never been here before so I didn't think it would be so flippin' cold."
She smiled, and then took off her jacket and a sweater from underneath. "You look like a nice kid. Take this. No point in getting sick on your first trip to New York."
"Oh no, you don't have to."
"Please." She pushed the sweater into my hands. Being cold sucked, so I took it.
"You just remember that the people of New York aren't the rude jerks we're always painted to be."
"I will."
She smiled, threw her jacket back on, and skipped across the street with three seconds left on the crosswalk sign.
"Thank you!" I called after her. She turned back, waved, then disappeared into the crowd.
It was always nice to be reminded by a random act of kindness that people were inherently good. I bit down on the lid to hold my coffee cup between my teeth while I put the sweater on. It was gray, long to my knees, soft like a teddy bear and warm from being worn. It smelled like the incense Julie's mom was always burning to cover up the smell of her weed so she wouldn't be a bad influence on us ‘under-agers’. Little did she know that in our world of Mojo Sticks, the archaic Reefer Madness should've been the least of her concerns.
I was all warmed up now – the invisible force I needed to push me across the street. Through the store window, I saw the outlines of two figures. One of them was tall and built from dreamboat material. I literally sensed the handsomeness emanating from that simple silhouette. I'd found my guy.
I tossed my cup in the trash, pulled the door open without hesitation and stepped inside. A little electronic bell sounded. Dom glanced over his shoulder and spotted me, but didn't stop stocking boxes on a shelf near the back of the store. A short and stout man, about thirty, with a chunky, poorly groome
d beard and matching meaty glasses, greeted me. "Welcome. Looking for a pair of boots or just some warm air?"
"Just looking."
"Name's Eric if you want to see something in your size."
"Thanks."
I pretended to look at some boots as I inched along the wall towards the back of the store. Of course I wasn't paying attention, walked right into a footstool and stumbled, nearly hitting the ground. Dom quickly dropped the box he was holding and rushed to help me. "You okay?" He bent down and offered his hand. For a moment, I froze.
Snapping out of it, I stammered, "Yes, sorry, I'm such a klutz," and accepted his hand.
"Don't be sorry. Someone falls over this particular footstool at least once a day."
We were eye to eye as he helped me up. Electricity gushed between my soul and his. I didn't want to let go of his hand. I was speechless, like the first time we had met.
"You looking for some winter boots?"
"Boots! Yes. Exactly."
Dominic Ambrosia may have ignited my heart, but ours wasn’t a fairytale story– not yet, anyway. We were stuck in a no man's land, somewhere between blossoming young love and Shakespearean tragedy. My heart raced, knowing at the same time that his had flatlined. He'd been altered to forget everything we’d had. Everything he'd had in the past two years as a Senecan. That avalanche of bliss dissipated as anger stormed in and occupied the void. How could they do this to him? To us?
"Let me show you a pair I think would be perfect for you."
"Thanks."
Dom sidestepped down a few rows to a pair of saddle brown leather boots with intricate stitching. "A bit steep on the price tag, but you look like you're worth it."
Was Dom flirting with me?
"Hey, you poaching my client over there, Ambrosia?"
Dammit, here came the dumpy guy ready to crush my boot-buying moment with Dom.
"Me, poach? Never."
I rushed to Dom's defense, "No, no, I just asked him to show me these boots."
