by Rayya Deeb
My screen popped up in front of me.
The sound was unbearable. I could barely see straight.
“Doro?”
“It’s this excruciating sound. I have to make it stop!”
“I don’t understand; I don’t hear anything.”
“Ahhh!” I squeezed at my head.
“We should get out of here. It could be the depth you can not handle.”
“No, no…”
I didn’t want to say it but we were in this together right now and I needed him to keep moving forward with me. We weren’t turning around now.
“It must be coming from my… flexer implant.”
I peered at Jadel through squinted eyes, ready to receive his reaction. He didn’t even seem surprised, which surprised me.
“You must deactivate it.”
“I’m trying—”
I closed my eyes and concentrated hard above the crushing noise assaulting my eardrums. I sent an internal activation command to my flexer for my FlexOculi to activate. The FlexOculi powered up and the screen hovered before my eyes, but the pain was almost too unbearable for me to keep my eyes open. I tried with all my might to fend off my body’s reaction to the awful, penetrating sound. But the more I struggled against it, the louder it seemed to get. Something was happening, and then boom— “Doro.”
It was a woman’s voice. Super faint. I couldn’t make it out.
“Yes, it’s Doro! Who is this?!”
I stood up, waited for it to come again.
Jadel looked around confused, “Nobody said anything.”
“It’s in my head. Someone is trying to make contact.”
I heard her voice again, “Doro, it’s Mom.”
“Mom!”
I squeezed my eyes shut. The awful sound was gone. I waited anxiously to hear her voice again. All sorts of memories of my mom raced through my consciousness, blocking out everything else.
***
My mom’s face was drenched in a mixture of tears and mascara. It was exactly the way she looked that day she picked me up at the station after I had been busted in the “borrowed” flighter. It was also the same distraught look she had the day my dad’s wallet was found but there were no signs of him. I knew my mom was crushed, having lost both me and my dad. Her happiness meant the world to me, so it ripped me apart as I acknowledged she might have to pay a price in order for the world to realize these hidden truths. It was something I tried to avoid thinking about, but it came to a point that I had no choice. The thoughts invaded my psyche like an army.
My mom’s voice echoed through my tortured mind again. “Doro, I love you. Please come back.”
I found myself in S.E.R.C. reliving that morning I first saw her when she arrived in Seneca. Over the sterile hum of air conditioning and the murmur of a few conversations in the hall, I heard the pitter patter of little Pomeranian feet. My entire body lit up. I looked past a few scholars headed back to their rooms, and there she was— my mom. We both stopped and absorbed that moment with giant smiles on our faces and joy in our hearts. I looked down to see Killer tugging ahead on his light blue woven leash.
"Killer!"
My mom let go of the leash. He charged towards me and leapt into my arms. I hugged him tight as he slathered me with his cyclone of licks and frantic squeals of delight. Tears of happiness streamed down my cheek. I looked back up to my mom, and realized that she was accompanied by Ellen. Ellen stood back with a warm smile on her face as my mom and I just soaked up the love with each other’s entire beings. We were together again, in Seneca— a place where hopes and dreams become reality. At least for some, and if I have my way, one day it will be for everyone. I went to take a step forward but I couldn’t move. What was happening?!
****
I was slung over a shoulder. Someone walked quickly along a gray stone path. I screamed as I flailed my body, “Mommmm, Mom! Mom!!!”
“Please, calm down.”
A set of arms constricted around my abdomen. I kicked and punched but couldn’t break free. “Let go of me!”
“Stop!”
All I could do to fight my way free was bite, so I chomped down on the back of the shoulder that I was draped over.
“Mierda!”
I instantly realized I knew that shoulder. It was Jadel’s.
He placed me on the ground.
I was right.
“What are you doing?!” I screamed up at him. I looked around and glimpsed beside me a gigantic body of water. Crystal clear.
“Ay dios mio,” Jadel grabbed his shoulder and winced in pain.
“I’m sorry! But you gotta tell me what’s going on.”
“You fainted. One hour ago.”
He sat down next to me on the ground, “You have the bite of a cobra!”
“Well, what do you expect? I had no idea what was happening.”
“I also do not know what is happening to you with your flex implant, but I think it is best to keep moving forward.”
“I know, I’m sorry, Jadel. My mind is being attacked, whether or not I am on the grid. Something is happening with my implant, I can feel it. My mom was trying to connect to me. Or someone posing as my mom. I was warned that this could happen.”
“Yes, the good of the flex implant— you are always connected, and the bad of the flex implant— you are always connected.”
“I didn’t realize that it could make me so helpless.”
“I understand. I will do everything I can to protect you when these things happen, but please don’t bite me again.”
“Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you here.”
In fact, I didn’t know why he had agreed to go to this great length for me. He looked worried and it made me worry that he would quit on me and I would be left here with no idea which way to go. He eyed me and asked, “Are you sure you would like to continue? We still have a ways to go before we reach the secret city.”
I nodded emphatically. “I have to get there.”
“Then we shall continue.”
I smiled back. “Jadel, thank you. I have to know though, why are you doing this for me?”
“I never got to know my own father. It’s the one thing in my life I wish was different. So if your father is somewhere down here in the secret city, it is my honor to help you find him. Maybe I will find some happiness in this way.”
He smiled and pointed over my shoulder as if he had a gift for me. I turned to see something incredible— an enormous underground river. Glistening, clear turquoise waters flowing slowly to mysterious places beyond the scope of my sight. My mouth parted as once again the earth rendered me speechless with its raw, untouched beauty. I had only seen landscapes like these on screen and in photographs, and now they were in clear view. So intensely gorgeous, beyond my wildest dreams. How had I, and millions upon millions of others, been so lost in the concrete and metallic jungles that bastardized the Aboves that we hadn’t ever truly experienced life inside the most precious parts of our planet? The levels of damage we’d inflicted had never been so apparent to me until now. I felt pissed at the people that came right before me for not taking responsibility to protect this unparalleled beauty. This had to be the atmosphere that was intended for us. Not the blaring horns of the 405, toxic landfills, radiation, pesticides and all the filth that we had created. This was it.
“Jadel, I don’t even know what to say.”
“I know. It’s not often in life that we are presented with this level of beauty. It does something to us.”
“I want you to know that what you’re doing is extremely honorable. You ended your camping trip to help some random teenage girl find someone she loves. But I have to be honest with you, it is so much bigger than that.”
“I have that impression,” he replied, “And I know there is a reason that I met you.”
Jadel offered me his hand and then motioned for me to step down onto a small wooden raft. There were about a dozen of them there. I wondered who, what and why
, but I didn’t hesitate. I carefully stepped down on the raft and he followed. There were two oars secured to either side of the raft. Jadel removed them and handed one to me. He unhooked us from the anchor we were secured to, and we pushed the raft out into the river. Either I was completely hallucinating or I was on a raft on a river several miles below the surface of the earth. Either way, it stole my breath away.
11
THE SERENITY I experienced in a time of such excruciating unknowns was magical. It was quiet, and the slow-float motion was relaxing. I wished this peace would stay with me and that I could move forward in life with this feeling until the end of time. I was surprised by the high humidity down here, because in the youth residences, where all the S.E.R.C. scholars like myself lived back in Hub 144, the climate was controlled to what I consider perfection. After several hours of floating downstream on the water, Jadel and I approached a small mouth in the river. There was a docking station that sat at the base of a stone pyramidal entryway. My heart started to beat fast at the prospect of what might unfold when we stepped off the boat.
We paddled up to the docking station and Jadel secured our raft. He stepped off onto a solid stone walkway and extended his hand out to me. As I got off the raft I scanned every inch of the monolithic structure I was inside, contemplating just how far this ancient cave and tunnel system extended. My mind was turned on by its potential marriage to our current science and technology, and more importantly, that of tomorrow. My dad believed in using every ounce of today to improve tomorrow— not for himself, but for everyone. That gutsy place inside of me that guided me along with logic was shouting at me to follow in my dad’s footsteps.
“I still can’t imagine how you knew to find this.”
“Imagine a boy that chased information instead of girls. That deciphered ancient texts instead of man-made puzzles from the toy store. That explored the mountains and rivers instead of running around in circles in school yard playgrounds. Imagine an unquenchable desire for truth. This is what drives me forward. It is why I wake up with passion every single day.”
I realized that this no-holds-barred pursuit of knowledge was Jadel’s life calling, and it was meant to be that his life path and mine had intersected at this fork in the road. It gave me a great confidence in the choices I’d made thus far, even to get the flexer implant which had been giving me a run for my money recently.
I heard a sort of loud hollow thud through the archway and I cowered. “What was that?” Although I wanted to stay strong, fear could not be fended off that easily, considering the fact that ominous sounds off in the distance hadn’t proved too sweet for me recently. But I had to remain brave because otherwise I’d just as soon admit defeat.
The sounds didn’t phase Jadel. It honestly seemed that nothing did, other than when I bit him on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Below us is the motorizada zona of the secret city, where they do digging, research and application on Doromium and other elements.”
“Doromium?” Wow. “How do you know about that?”
Jadel smiled, “Active listening, attention to detail.”
“What is Doromium?”
“It is something powerful enough that an entire secret city exists because of it. Exactly what, I can not say, but—”
“We’re getting close to my dad,” popped out of my mouth. I almost didn’t believe it myself, but if what Jadel just said was true, my dad was most definitely here. Doromium was my dad’s discovery, and if it played an integral part in Seneca, then so did my dad. This was crazy.
“How long have you been searching for him?” Jadel asked.
“He’s been missing since I was thirteen.”
“I am sorry to hear this.”
“Thank you. Listen, Jadel, can you tell me everything you know that is going on here?”
Jadel smiled. “I will show you. But we must get inside, and be very careful.”
“I seriously owe you big time.”
“You owe me nothing.”
“I think it’s time for me to tell you that I’m going to need you to watch my back. See, I have reason to believe my conscious mind is under attack from outside forces. They don’t want me to find my dad.”
“Who?”
“I don’t exactly know. That is why I came here alone.”
“But you are not alone.”
Jadel extended his arm and motioned his head towards the pyramidal entryway. An adrenaline boost forced my first step. My fingers ran along the stone, tracing the serpents and ancient scriptures carved into the rocks. In my second step I felt relief. I was astronomically closer to the truth now than several months back when I was ousted to the Aboves. In my third step I felt anticipation. What would my dad do when he laid eyes on me? He would be so proud that I found him. I longed for his approval. The absence of his pride in my life had caused a deficiency in my soul. In my fourth step the air was suctioned out of me with my first glimpse inside the belly of Hub 48.
Light shone through tubes filled with prisms that dropped down from the sky, showering me with warmth on the crown of my head. My cheeks pulled the corners of my mouth up and the rays of light calmed my anxiety. I knew it was the morning by the way the plant life all around me basked in the light that covered several hundred terraces extending up to the sky. Technologically-advanced, automated, no-soil systems embedded into ancient structures: This was just the beginning of my introduction to Hub 48, a place that was quite potentially my dad’s home.
Jadel walked up to the base terrace and rubbed his fingers on a leaf, as if taken by its beauty. “Three hundred kilometers of plants.”
“This is like a greenhouse on steroids!” I whispered loudly with excitement. It was stunning, but I had to keep my cool. This place got wilder and wilder. With each and every new understanding of The Seneca Society, I was falling more in love with it, and more scared of it, too.
I craned my neck to the sky and watched projected 3-D clouds roll in, releasing a light mist onto the horticulture. Then I shot my eyes to Jadel, who also reveled in the glow of it all, and I asked him, “What if someone sees us? It doesn’t look like we have much of an option for taking cover here.”
“I have bootlegged security clearances from my friends on the inside, so as long as we avoid the intelligence of the secret city, we will be fine.”
I knew he was referring to S.O.I.L., and in my experience, avoidance of S.O.I.L. was no easy feat. I told myself, though, that without Jadel there was no way I would have found this place, let alone lived to see this day. I had to lay low deep inside the earth, and rely on this esoteric guy I’d only met a few days ago.
We made our way along to an acoustic carrier stop and hopped on for a quick ride directly into the heart of the hub.
12
AS THE DOORS opened to the central Seneca Hub 48 stop I was immediately taken by a familiar scent. Sterile, yet pure— exactly the way I recall S.E.R.C. and the youth residence sector back in Hub 144 smelling. It was totally unlike that awful ammonia they used back at my school in Culver City that probably took a fraction of a second off of my life for each breath I took of it. Although this scent took me back to my, dare I say, home, the people here seemed more focused. The median age must have been mid 40s, and they all seemed completely engaged in their work. Scientist and mathematician rockstars jamming out— these were my kind of people.
Jadel leaned in to whisper, “Let’s get to a quiet space where you can wait in safety as I go find a source for a contact registry.”
Completely unfamiliar with this territory, I didn’t think it was a good idea for us to split up. “Don’t you think we should stick together?” I asked.
“I think it is best that you stay in one secure place. If I get caught, you know your way out.”
It made sense. We had totally snuck into this secret city and as far as I knew, nobody got away with that for too long. But how could I stay put when I was this close to finding my dad and understanding what Doromiu
m meant to Seneca? Jadel didn’t want this as bad as I did. He wasn’t willing to risk everything to find my dad. Regardless, I followed him to one of the available private pods that I could lock myself in until he returned. Or, at least I would give Jadel the comfort of believing I would lock myself inside until he returned.
These little pods were just polar white isolation bubbles with a booth where people could step outside of the bustle for private FigureFlexes and what have you.
I slid into a seat and looked up to Jadel to feign awaiting instruction. I had to let him think he was the one driving this ship so that he would carry on and possibly return with a solution. But the mere fact that he said, and I get caught, raised red flags. How in the world was he going to figure this out anyway? He wasn’t the math expert or a Senecan, so what was his plan now? He couldn’t find the virtual back door entrances or entanglements between computer and brain. Nature was his thing and he had done us darn well with that, but I, Doro Campbell, was inside Hub 48 now, and it was time for me to do my thing.
He looked at me dead serious, “If I am not back by 19:00—”
“Don’t say that.”
We looked each other square in the eye, with him so resolute that he’d be back, and me knowing it could be the last time we ever saw each other. I couldn’t put all my eggs in one basket of hope. Jadel turned to go. The clear door to the pod opened with a pleasing swoosh. As Jadel made it just deep enough into the crowd that he could no longer see me, I commanded the swooshy door to open.
I trailed him. He kept up a normal pace so as to not stand out in the crowd. I kept my eyes on his dreadlocks. It wasn’t hard because he was so tall. It was so easy for me to stay in the shadows because I was only 5’4”. I kept my head down, eyes up. The hallway was not unlike the city center in my hub. Actually, it was identical— down to the locations of the doorways and turns. Entrances to the acoustic carrier stops were the same, too, and that is where Jadel went. He hopped onto the carrier that was waiting there. I hopped on the car behind him and off it went.