Seneca Rebel (The Seneca Society Book 1) (18 page)

"I don't blame you. I am so sorry for ever calling you... the "f" word, Reba, I had no idea. I knew you had the nose of a bloodhound, but I never would've really thought you were a full-on psychic."

"I'm no psychic, Campbella. I'm an Intuerian. I don't speak with dead people. I can't tell you if you're going to come into a windfall of money. I am driven by my intuition. I have premonitions and visions that tie in to the life force around me. None of it is controlled. It's all based on where I am at any given moment. People don't understand us in the Aboves. We are seen as either psycho or satanic. But here in Seneca I am appreciated for what I am. They have accepted me and applauded my value to this society. I never imagined that could happen. The past two years have been my first chance to really live. Seneca is a dream come true. I never, ever want to leave. Even if it means never seeing Lindsay again."

33

I
N
THE
OLDEN
days, people came to America to give their kids the chance for a good life they couldn’t have in other parts of the world. Seneca was oozing with the same romanticism, only much more so. I left my lunch with Reba feeling a fire burning inside– a fire for my life at Seneca. I couldn't let S.O.I.L. extinguish it. I couldn't let them get away with expelling Dom and silencing me. No way. My new friends and I were on to something beyond major. I wanted to make it here so I could help clean up the planet, bring optimal health and wellness to those in need, extend a greater level of efficiency to the world at large, and open up a whole new approach to education. This was all way overdue, and now we were on track. Reba was absolutely right. These were undeniably terrific goals, and if I had anything to do with it, I was not going to let the manipulations of a few ruin the potential of my future here… or Dom’s future. I had to fight to right the wrong that had been done to him.

It was no wonder they wanted to keep Seneca exclusive. After all, exclusivity is nothing new. But just like the American dream, the Senecan dream could only truly be declared by those who lived it most graciously and with liberty and justice.

Of course, there were minor bumps in the concept. For example, as far as I was concerned, my mom deserved to be here just as much as, if not more than, people like Gregory Zaffron or G.W. Wallingsford. There was no reason that she couldn't accompany me, if G.W. could be here with his sister and his father, Congressman Wallingsford, and seemed to be able to go back and forth between Seneca and the Aboves whenever he felt like it. I’d never liked the dismissive saying, "Life isn't fair." I believed in Seneca, but wasn't about to accept all of their arbitrary barriers so easily. This society was being developed, not just by the powerful, but equally by great minds of all classes and circumstances. Forward thinking was what really created the true potential of Seneca, not fear and power. No, fear and power just created unjust imaginary boundaries. Boundaries I had every intention of breaking.

That evening, after session, I decided to take a ride to the restaurant sector and pay Ty a visit. It was no different than any evening– his place was packed to the brim with elated patrons. There was just one empty seat at the sushi bar. I bee-lined for it, knowing it would be filled in a matter of seconds.

"Well, well, well. Look who's returned to the scene of the crime."

I knew that voice. Ellen Malone. Uh-oh. It was time to face up to the betrayal. "Ellen."

Ty leaned forward onto the sushi bar. "Hi Doro! You two know each other, yes?"

Ellen nodded as she gracefully nibbled at a piece of salmon wrapped around a melon spear.

"Very nice. Let me make your favorite."

"Thanks, Ty."

I didn't know what to say, but I needed to start somewhere. "You hate me."

"
Hate
is a strong word, Doro. I could think of a more apropos term to describe how I feel about what happened."

"I'm sorry, Ellen, I had to find a way. There are things going on that I had to try and get to the bottom of."

Ellen calmly sipped some tea. She wasn't someone I’d ever wanted to hurt and I hoped she would accept my apologies. I just hadn't been able to think of any other way to get out of S.E.R.C. while it was under lockdown.

"You know what, Doro? Friends don't take advantage of each other, no matter what the circumstances."

That stung. She was right. "I'm sorry for the way I went about things. From now on, I won't drag you into my shenanigans."

"You shouldn't even be into shenanigans here."

"I know. You're right. I really am sorry. I have so much respect for you and I just want to go back to how things were. Can we do that? How can I make it up to you?"

"Backwards is never an option for me, but going forward, of course I hope we can have a new understanding."

"We can." I don't know if I was more excited about the direction of this conversation or the plate of halibut that had just entered my line of sight. I pulled it from Ty's magic hands to the counter in front of me. He looked back and forth between Ellen and me, and then proceeded to say exactly what had been on my mind ever since that bogus B3 News report.

"What happened to Dom? I don't believe he would steal a flighter. Something’s not right. One of you has to know something."

Ellen and I looked at one another. Who would be the one to speak? Ellen put her tea down and took a deep breath–

"Look, I know you two must be wondering what happened to your friend. I get it. This whole thing is a complete mess. But, as far as I know, Dominic was meddling where he shouldn't have been, and he defied multiple warnings. I only have a certain level of clearance so I don't know exactly what he was doing, but I do know it was big enough that S.O.I.L. saw it as an immense security hazard to the society at large."

Ellen couldn't have known the truth about why Dom was messing around in the lab, but I couldn’t let this moment go without defending him. "I think S.O.I.L. is the one that creates a flaw in the Seneca Society security, not Dom."

"Well, unfortunately, Doro, you aren't the one running things around here."

"Maybe she should be."

"Thanks, Ty." I smiled.

"Maybe. But she's not."

Ty and I both hung our heads. Ellen was coming from a place of logic, and wasn’t trying to convince either of us of anything other than the facts.

"
Maybe
doesn't run societies.
Maybe
doesn't make things happen.
 

Ty and I got it. Someone we both respected had given us a reality check.

"Look, I really like both of you. You are two of my favorite recruits of the thousands I’ve been responsible for. I hope you’ll see Dominic as an example and not take the path he did. Seneca is a great chance for anyone to whom it’s granted. Don't throw it away trying to prove something or uncover some conspiracy. It's not worth it, you guys. Once they deem you to be a greater threat than an asset, it’s too late to reverse it."

I pondered that deeply.
 

Ty swallowed his dismay and slid on down the sushi bar to tend to others, as Ellen and I ate our sushi. As I took those last few bites, I was trampled by revelations— but not the ones that Ellen would have been happy about. I
needed
to get to the Aboves. I needed to get to my mom and Dominic. There was no more time for
maybe
. It was time for me to drop the maybe and take on the must.

It was time to make myself become the threat. The one they would never see coming.

34

L
AST
SESSION
BEFORE
lunch would be my launching pad. Seneca Civics and Ethics. It was life as usual for everyone else in the ethereal golden hallway at S.E.R.C. on this early mid-week afternoon, but not for me. I marched through the arched doorway and as the wall closed up behind me, I knew that it would be a long time before I experienced those amazing disappearing doors again, if ever.

My session leader was Richmond Shields. He, like our other session leaders, went by his last name. Shields had received his PhD in political science from Berkeley, and was later recruited to work in various think tanks on Washington, D.C.’s Capitol Hill before coming to Seneca to serve, not only as the civics and ethics session leader, but also on the advisory committee to the Seneca Senate. Shields told us he was originally from Utah, that he'd left behind the life he'd been born into, which (although he doesn't refer to it much) I surmise had been a strict Mormon upbringing. By the time I met him at Seneca he had catapulted himself to the other end of the political and spiritual spectrum. The Shields we knew was a 34-year-old atheist bachelor who never referenced his life outside of S.E.R.C., no matter how much we hassled him. He had that crushable, boy-next-door quality and was super intelligent and nice, to boot. And, like everyone else at Seneca, he was flying with that element of the unknown.

I couldn't let my nerves get the best of me. It was all on the line. I sat down in my usual seat, next to Jennifer Wallingsford. It was the only session we had together. Her other sessions were ones that would send her on a leadership path. She and her brother were both being groomed to be Seneca Senators one day. I’d once thought it would be a miracle if G.W. lived to see the light of day, let alone the day he would sit on the Senate of the most powerful society on Earth. But given the series of events over the last couple of weeks, I realized that here in Seneca the phrase, "anything is possible," was, in fact, nothing short of literal.

Session filled up. Far different from the normal high school atmosphere back in LA, my peers here were a copacetic student body by anyone's standards. No normal teasing, jokey chaos and incessant rumbling of gossip. People simply took their seats, prepared for session, or whatever was in front of them. Part of the cooperation I saw within session walls stemmed from the fact that this wasn’t just "school"– this was S.E.R.C. Being in Seneca was a privilege and that held a persuasive power which was applied to every facet of life here.
 

I was about to do something that would shake up all that calm and compliance. The only thing I could hear was my thumping heartbeat, resonating against my chest cavity. I felt like everyone else was in the pool, mindlessly playing Marco Polo while I was underwater. This was almost it. The moment when I would abandon "maybe." Drown it. Plunge to the surface with a fistful of "must."

 
Two dozen flexer notifications went off in sync. I sucked in a boundless breath. My lungs swelled with air like a helium balloon. I rose. My heartbeat dropped. Time stopped.

"You are all being controlled. There are forces at work here in Seneca that not all of us know about. They want us to believe certain things and they are manipulating our minds to think them. Untrue things, things that didn't happen. Dominic Ambrosia is not dead. He was not the one driving that flighter–"

Shields calmly inched towards me, "Dorothy, please take a seat. This isn't the time–"

"I'm sorry, sir, it is."

Shields was genuinely confused by my sudden eruption. I scanned the faces in the room. Everyone was. My gaze fell upon Jennifer Wallingsford. I liked her. I didn't want to hurt her. But, after Ellen Malone, she would be my next case of collateral damage.

Two S.O.I.L. guards entered the session room.

"G.W. Wallingsford was piloting that flighter!"

Jennifer's lips parted and her jaw fell. Her brow tightened. Her eyes shrunk. But with all that, she didn’t look shocked. Her face splashed with fascination, like she sensed something was up but needed to hear more.
 

The two S.O.I.L. guards stormed in my direction. I put my hands up. That was all I needed to do.

35

I
WOKE
UP
freezing cold in a white room wrapped in blue mirrored windows. Thousands of one inch white tiles made up the floor, and flat white paint covered the ceiling. No blemishes. It was just like the last time, only this time I wasn't alone. From my horizontal perspective, I spotted several figures. Everyone was blurry. Slowly, I craned my neck. While I was fully expecting to be paralyzed, I was pleasantly relieved to find my body fully functioning. They had only knocked me out this time. Thank goodness. I emerged from the brain haze and recognized that there were five... or six people present. I was on a hospital bed, in a hospital gown. Gregory, a couple of S.O.I.L. officers, two women I never had seen before in doctors' coats and... Reba?

Reba's eyes were pinned to the ground in front of him. I didn't allow my gaze to linger on him for too long because I knew what they had done. I had to go with the flow because they had tried to wipe out my memory. I couldn't let on that I knew who Reba was and it appeared that he was helping me do that. Normally I would have been shocked to see him here, but these days I was shockproof.

Gregory stood up. "Hi, Dorothy. I'm Dr. Wes Stanton. You have experienced a bad fall but don't you worry. You're going to be fine. You can go ahead and sit up whenever you feel ready. Everything looks good, so we're going to send you on your way, we just need to ask you a few questions to confirm there hasn't been any memory impairment. Okay, sweetie?"

I wanted to jump out of my seat and get right up in his smiling, lying face.

"Okay." Wow. They really had gone through with it. They were purging me from society. At least, they were trying.

I sat up. Looked at Reba. He was watching me intently, but quickly shifted his eyes away to avoid eye contact.

"Dorothy Campbell?" One of the two women I had never seen before wore eyeglasses that she focused with a tiny nob on the side as she looked up from a tablet in her hands. Her lenses reflected a charged silvery glare from her screen so I couldn't see her eyes.

"Yes."

"Do you know where you are?"

I swallowed. I swallowed my pride. I swallowed my fear. I swallowed my sense of rebellion. "No."

She smiled sympathetically, "You were on a trip to the Capitol with your second cousins from Ireland. You slipped on a candy wrapper and hit your head pretty badly. You are in the infirmary at the Smithsonian."