Seneca Rebel (The Seneca Society Book 1) (15 page)

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

M
Y
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 pompous 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.

"We don't want that to happen to you, too, Doro."

"I don't want that." I couldn't let that happen. Even though I was experiencing the dark, oppressive side to this society, I still felt in my heart that all of us in Seneca had been given an opportunity to make a difference in the world. If I were removed from Seneca, I would never be able to be a part of that. And I’d never get my mom here. I would be put back into the same old dull school curriculum with the same old herd of sheep. I wouldn't remember Dom. It hit me hard to think that right now, Dom didn't know me. He didn't remember our first time in the closet at S.E.R.C., our day at Difficult Run or our epiphany together in the lab. He was alone out there. Seneca was dead to him. I was dead to him. And I was alone in here.

"Good." Gregory turned his wrist up and pulled his cuff back to reveal a flexer. He tapped at the screen and it lit up blue. FigureFlexing activated and Dr. Ashvind Kulkarni appeared in hologram. "Dr. Kulkarni, please administer the Vigilogstimine on Miss Campbell here."

Dr. Kulkarni's six-inch hologram approached me. He seemed like a kind man who wouldn’t harm me. There was a depth inside his eyes and his walk was smooth, not intimidating at all. He maintained eye contact and a warm smile. A needle emerged from the back of my chair, on a robotic arm. At that point I was willing to try anything to regain body movement.

Gregory patted my shoulder. "Let's get your motion back up and running, what do you say?"

"Please... and thank you."

"Thank
you
, Dorothy."

Dr. Kulkarni nodded to me, as if to say, "Here I go." Then he engaged with the robotic arm and gave me the shot. I didn't feel it at all. Either FigureFlexing was the ultimate way to get vaccinated, or I was becoming an old pro.

"Thank you, Doctor." Gregory pulled his shirt back down over his wrist and the doctor was zapped out of the office.

The tips of my fingers and toes fired sparks into the rest of my body. I wiggled in my chair and felt my legs and arms loosen up. In seconds, I was completely back to normal. Not an ache in any inch of me.

"How's that?"

"Much better," I said, with the greatest sense of relief. I felt as though I’d just made it to the bathroom after holding a full bladder for hours on a highway with no exit. "Much, much better."

"Now, let me be very blunt. I want to like you, Doro. We all believe you can be a major asset to this society, but we can't tolerate any breech in security– at all. I know that sometimes you teenagers feel curious and become compelled to explore areas that are out of your depth. But I want to make sure you are totally clear on what will happen if you do it again."

I was absolutely not going to question Gregory. Swimming upstream against the rapids would be a foolish decision, and I, Doro Campbell, was no fool.

"I would like to think that you don't want to go the way of Mr. Ambrosia, or the dozens before him that have met the same fate."

"Of course not." I was heartbroken for Dom, but I had to deliver a persona that Gregory would start to trust again, no matter what.

"I know some of these actions taken against you might feel scary or over-the-top, but it is important that you realize, they are designed for the safety of our society as a whole. Understood?"

"Completely."

Lieutenant Otis stood up and spoke for the first time. "Miss Campbell. I hope we don't have to acquaint ourselves with one another again, unless of course it is on much different terms."

"Yes, sir."

Gregory bowed lightly. "Lieutenant." Lieutenant Otis turned and left, not interrupting his confident stride to allow for the door to appear, he made his way through it just as it opened. And then it closed.

"Don't make me look bad, Dorothy. I put myself on the line for you."

"I get it, Gregory. I'm sorry I made a problem for you. It won't happen again."

"That's what we like to hear. Your future here is bright. Don't go and turn out the lights now, you hear?"

"Loud and clear."

"The next few days might be filled with surprises for you. As a beholder of confidential Seneca intel, your lips must remain sealed. What you hear is the word of truth. I'll leave you with that, kiddo."

27

M
Y
PILLOW
WAS
soaked from balling my eyes out all night long. I hugged it tight. My face was swollen and warm, lips salty from the canal of tears that had streamed down my cheeks for hours. I blew my nose and breathed a deep long sigh that comes at the finale of one seriously marathon cry.
 

My life as a normal teenager was over. I didn't have parents around to protect me. Of the only friends I had here, one had been banished to the Aboves, and the other had some weirdo psychic thing going on that I hadn't figured out yet. I didn't know who he really was. I didn't really know who anyone was. I felt ill with worry about Ellen Malone. Did she know what I had just been through? Did she see what happened with Gregory? I had no idea how much she knew. How could I trust her, and would she ever trust me again after I had manipulated her interest in me to pull this last stunt?

It was around 4 a.m. on Monday. I contemplated how I was going to go to session and not look like I'd spent the night flipping out. Even looking like I'd been crying would be so embarrassing. I had to remain cool, calm and collected– Ellen Malone style. That would be easier said than done.