by Rayya Deeb
S.I.C.E. was like a college campus and research center set in the future. An electric energy surged between conversing groups of scholars and scientists whose endeavors were supported by resources of the highest caliber. The bustle of brilliant minds working together like this was sublime. Being in their midst, I could feel the extraordinary level of information flowing through the veins of this place.
We all donned new blue gear that Giancarlo got for us. Although I knew there was no such thing as being perfectly invisible in Seneca, this kept us camouflaged in the pack. I also kept a knit hat pulled down just over my eyebrows and my hair tucked up inside of it. While Dom and Giancarlo stayed in the lead, Reba and Anika were on either side of me as though they were carrying me inside a human shield.
My FlexOculi was fired up. As we moved through the space, I ran a little program I wrote that grabbed everyone’s Senecan ID and showed me who they were the moment I looked at them. It was a diverse bunch down here in Hub 48 and that was cool to see, but not one of the thirty I scanned so far was my dad. My one in eighty thousand chance of finding him doing it this way was super lame. It was time to fix the odds.
Giancarlo had come back with the current work location for the Senecan ID that contained my father’s DNA and so it was in that direction that we headed. Giancarlo knew exactly where we were going. We took one of the countless hallways I had peeped into on my way in. The only obstacle on the horizon was getting into the highly secured “Dm sector” in the heart of S.I.C.E. I prepared to hijack recognition data for five individuals that came out of the Dm sector in order for us to get in under their information. I was aware this was an intrusion of their privacy, for me to use my flex implant to hack into their Veils and copy their data, but it was the most foolproof way I knew of in the moment. She who hesitates finishes last, and I wasn’t about to let that happen.
As I took my position against the wall near the laser entrance, Dom, Anika, Reba and Giancarlo stayed on patrol for any suspicious looking characters. In just a few moments I assigned us the flex recognition data from five unique individuals. I wouldn’t be surprised if those individuals were some of the top scientists alive, but as smart as they were, they were totally oblivious to my hack. As my friends and I walked around, we would emit signals as if we were those scientists, and that gave us clout as far as sensors-to-let-us-pass-through-doors goes.
“Psst.” I signaled my friends. They hustled over and we walked in as if we were supposed to. This time I took the lead. Something pushed me to. That something was that reassuring Intuerian vibe from Reba and Giancarlo. It spoke volumes to see that they had no worry on their faces, but rather excitement. Everyone did. We were a team that would have made Amerigo Vespucci proud.
17
THE VARIOUS SENECA hubs did bear striking architectural and functional similarities to one another, but the differentiation between sectors and the many zones inside each one continued to astonish me. We made our way through a light blue, illuminated stone-dome walkway that opened into a whole new world.
A massive plexiglass cylinder filled with electric blue liquid that flowed upward was at the center of this expansive area. The cylinder plunged deeper down into the earth, and soared higher up than we could see. The surrounding extensions of hundreds, if not thousands, of tubes, tunnels and rooms coming off of the cylinder demonstrated an unbelievable amount of thought and innovation. So much effort and progress had to happen to get us to this point in our existence. I think it blew me away more than usual because this wasn’t just some vast underground farming set-up, or a poo-renew system, or even the best sushi of all time, this was a testament to the immeasurable ingenuity of the human mind. The experiment before us was beyond the likeness or scope of anything I’d ever seen or read about. They’re still spewing the fallacy of Christopher Colombus in schools in the Aboves when what kids really should be learning about is this. What was going on here? It had to be huge.
Dom took my hand. “I am so grateful that we are here seeing this, together.”
“I know,” I said. “We are so close, Dom. I can feel it.”
We spoke to each other but, for once, without looking at one other. We held hands and marveled at the beautiful liquid in front of us. I felt my face soaking it in, glowing. The blue was so transfixing. Blue signified hope, trust and purity. It usually calmed me, but right now there was too much electricity in my blood.
I looked at the others and they, too, were moved by this place. Wordlessly, we wound our way in past huge open doors of skyscraper-sized projects. I brought up the rear as I was enraptured by what I saw through one plexiglass wall: a piece of machinery that must have weighed thousands of tons and was so intricately built it had to have taken decades to make. With each step I took, and each display of science and technological glory I passed, I was becoming acquainted with my dad’s wonderland.
I suddenly and unexpectedly got choked up. I stopped walking to pull it all in and absorb the possibilities. That this may be a life my dad had chosen over the one with me and my mom. He could have been given the same choice as me, and I could imagine him not being able to say no to this.
My neck was suddenly grabbed and my mouth cupped shut by a hand. I couldn’t move and I couldn’t scream in this suffocating hold. Ripples of adrenaline shot through me. My eyes popped wide and my nostrils flared for air. I was used to outsmarting people with my mind but I had yet to become accustomed to physical attacks. This had to be S.O.I.L. The unknown possibilities of what they would do to me this time around was terrifying. The attacker moved his face right next to mine and each time his breath hit my cheekbone, the tension inside me flared. My hands were cold but my feet burned. I should have been more careful. I was too confident, and now this.
My friends had walked ahead of me. They didn’t hear this silent abduction. The perpetrator dragged me back into a dark doorway. I couldn’t fight it. I felt the space between my brows tighten and I couldn’t catch a rhythm in my breath. My chest was tight. He turned me around and let go of my mouth. He growled into my ear, “I’m going to remove my hand from your mouth. You’re a smart girl. You won’t make a sound.”
It was Jadel! I nodded.
He was wrapped inside a hooded black uniform like a ninja. It didn’t make me feel any better that it was him because his motivation was so obviously twisted. Those mesmerizing eyes were something else to me now. They were being used for the highest form of trickery and this time I was far from enticed.
“You should have listened to me,” he snarled.
My eyes shot off daggers at him— was he insane?! He says he knows I’m smart but then he suggests I should have made a stupid choice. “Listen to you!?”
“Look what’s happening!” His whisper was on fire.
“Jadel, you did this! You’re S.O.I.L.?!”
“There is no time to talk the politics of our backgrounds. You accept I am with you or you convince yourself I am against you. But despite how you define me, you must know that intelligence is hot onto you. I will protect you—”
“S.O.I.L. has never protected me!”
“Yes, I am clandestino for the society. I have deber civico, but my allegiance is to your father.”
“You know my dad?!”
“I told you you were mi amiga. I never lied to you.”
I saw truth in his eyes, but I couldn’t help but doubt him, too. Was he being honest with me or still blowing smoke to lure me into his web? My devil’s advocate was coming on strong and rightfully so.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth this time?”
“You don’t. When it comes to people there is no absolute truth. Trusting people is always an act of faith. You take information, you follow your instincts. Do what you must and I will do the same. I have an obligation here. Right now that is to contain you, alive and well.”
“They can’t ever contain me.”
“Oh but they can. The reason you are here and still alive is because that is what they want.”
“But why?!”
“There is one person on earth that can influence your father. Do you know who that is?”
It had to be me. But I was perplexed. I had no idea what they expected I would achieve for them, and they were terribly mistaken if they believed I would just be some sheep in their herd.
“I am going to find my dad, and they can’t stop me.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears. But you need to be aware of the impact it will have if you’re caught.”
“I think I know what they’re capable of.”
“I see. You think it’s been bad so far? Wrong. I’ve seen what they can do, and they’ve gone easy on you.”
I gulped. It felt like I was on the verge of being zapped into a gas but also incredibly close to reconnecting with my father who would never let anyone harm me. “I’ll take my chances.”
“I know you will, and I will do my best to protect you, but you’ve made it extremely difficult.”
I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Jadel’s head snapped to look quicker than I could, but within a second we both had eyes on Dom, who froze in his tracks, assessing the situation.
Jadel whispered to me, “You cannot tell a soul we had this conversation or it puts everything with your father in great danger.”
Dom suddenly sprinted in our direction. Jadel pushed me out towards Dom and I stumbled to the ground, taking my fall with the palms of my hands.
“Doro!” Dom screamed as he reached me. “You alright?”
We both looked up. Jadel was gone.
“We can’t be out here like this!” I exclaimed as I pushed myself up.
“I got you—”
Dom helped me up and put my arm around his shoulder.
18
MY FRIENDS AND I agreed that the most cautious way to proceed was for Dom and I to stay back in a hiding spot while they went out to determine the exact whereabouts of my dad. They had a whole lot working in their favor: safety in numbers, Intuerian instincts, Giancarlo’s knowledge of the language and geography of this hub, and Anika’s wisdom. I had confidence in them.
This nook Dom and I were in was one of those rare places in Seneca that did not pick up any signal. I did a good job of quickly selecting the people inside this secret society that knew where these types of places were, like Giancarlo. Dom and I sat in a stairwell between two connected levels where experiments being conducted with the blue liquid were taking place. It was dark in the nook, but we had the indirect blue glow giving us just enough cool illumination to see each other.
The second that Anika, Reba and Giancarlo cleared the area, Dom got right to it. “What was that all about?”
“You saw. I almost got caught by S.O.I.L. It was such a relief you showed up when you did.”
Dom took a beat, and in that silence I died just a little. My gaze on him broke. My eyes hit the ground, my feet— of course they started to overheat. I’m sure this behavior was telling. I just didn’t know what to say. Dom did—
“I was watching you for longer than you saw me standing there.”
Oh no.
“Okay,” I meekly replied.
“Want to tell me anything?”
I did. I so did. This was the worst. “There is so much I want to tell you.”
He was at the edge of his patience and the trust between us was on the line once again, but I was stuck. Jadel warned me that telling anyone could put everything with my dad in danger, but I needed to share everything with Dom from now on. Even so, I hesitated.
“So tell me, Doro.” There was urgency in his voice. I knew this conversation could make or break us.
I reached for his hand. He pulled it away. This was the body language of a guy protecting himself from me. I hated this position. I was close to him and alone with him but completely disconnected from him. As the silence grew so did the distance between us. I opened my mouth but couldn’t make words come out. If I didn’t tell him, he would hate me. We had just started the rekindling process. Honesty was essential to our survival. But if I did tell him, I could compromise the security for each of us and create a terrible domino effect that I could not reverse.
“I figured this is how it would be,” he said. His piercing stare killed me.
“Dom.”
“Doro, something is going on. I could tell you knew that guy.”
He looked to me for anything. I nodded slightly. Baby steps.
“I just don’t get why it’s so hard for you to be forthcoming.”
“It’s not—”
“Then who is he?”
I searched Dom’s face for any trace of mercy for me on this one, but all I saw was rising angst. All this time I’d been so hung up on how destroyed I had been in missing him, but it was clear here that I was the destroyer, and I couldn’t stop it.
“Why are you protecting that guy?” He couldn’t make sense of it and I couldn’t explain it.
“I’m not protecting him, I’m protecting you and our friends. If I say anything about that situation, I could be jeopardizing everything. Is that what you want?”
“I just want the truth.”
“Sometimes it’s not that easy.”
“Your M.O. It’s just too hard to be honest.”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with honesty.”
“It does. I wish you could just tell me who he is and what that was about. I don’t care if it is dangerous information. What’s dangerous is being in love with a girl who feels like she can’t tell me anything.”
I imploded. While my body was inside out, I begged my heart for the answer to this one. What I came out with was—
“His name is Jadel. He found me on the verge of death, he helped me regain my energy and he brought me into Hub 48 through a secret passageway.”
Dom sat back. The truth wasn’t comfortable. We’d already established that.
“Dom?”
“What else?”
“Not much, other than the fact that, once we were in, I realized he was S.O.I.L., and everything changed.”
“Jeez, Doro. What changed? Did you have feelings for him?”
“Feelings like?”
Dom raised his shaking voice, “Feelings, Doro.”
“Dom stop. Look, I’m being honest with you, you can’t freak out.”
Dom bit the inside of his lip. I could tell he was trying to cool it and just listen, but he had to know everything. “What happened to you out in the woods? What happened in those twenty seven days. Were you with him? Is that why you cut me off on FigureFlex?”
“What? No. Dom, you know I was hacked and he was a helping hand.”
“He was manipulating you!”
“Maybe, but he kept me alive. And I was using him too.”
“Oh my god, Doro.”
“Dom. Don’t start taking this off in every direction. There is only one objective here.”
“I know that.”
“You wanted the truth and this is it.”
“You’re right, but you gotta know we can’t trust him.”
“We won’t.” I could tell that made Dom feel a little better as he unscrunched his lips and relaxed his shoulders.
“I wish I could say something to make everything right, but I am fending off delirium here.”
Dom gently reached for my head and pulled it to his chest.
“You don’t have to say anything else.”
We lay back against the wall. The tensions we had subsided as we allowed ourselves the moment to just be.
19
THE INTEL THAT Reba, Anika and Giancarlo uncovered indicated that my dad was probably in the main vessel where the highest level of classified Doromium applications took place. So, along with those three and Dom, I took a clear ascension dome down through layers upon layers of earth. We passed millions of years of rock formations and sedimentary deposits as we descended through the Crust of the Earth into the Upper Mantle. As we glided down this cool, gray, grainy chute, it was wild to envision
the digging that took place to penetrate this amount of granite. This was the deepest I’d been inside Seneca, in more ways than one.
Inside the Dm sector there were various elevators to different vessels, each containing Doromium experiments of their own, but our ascension dome didn’t stop. The findings of my dad’s mind were literally the driving force behind all of these incredible studies, which was nuts, considering he discovered it from scratch. Even though I didn’t know exactly what Doromium was and what it could do, I wasn’t surprised that it was something pretty darn phenomenal. I couldn’t wait to find out.
Our ride down came to a stop and the door opened to a one-hundred-percent dark gray stone room the size of a few closets. We didn’t waste a second before we stepped off and flex-entered through a stone doorway into an enormous underground system. On the other side of a clear glass wall, a river of blue flowed up a giant glass tube into an orb the size of a mansion where gasses were bubbling and brewing. Monitors conducting data encircled the tube with scientists analyzing and comparing notes. This operation dwarfed Operation Crystal by any measure. I took in its grandiosity. We all did. Something incredibly life changing was going on here.
I lowered my eyes from the gaseous ball to land on the profile of a man standing behind a screen that was like the one Anika had in her secret medical chamber, only it was ten times the size. The man was orchestrating equations on the screen, before a panel of scientists. I felt my bones tingle before it registered in my mind: The man was my dad.
My dad stopped orchestrating. He was twenty yards away from me, tops. He paused and then he turned his head. His big sky blue eyes landed right on me and it was as if he’d seen a ghost. I swear the color in his already pale face vanished and his eyes glazed over. He placed his hand up to the top of his chest near his neck. He tilted his head ever so slightly to the right like he always did when analyzing something that wasn’t mathematical. It was a shot of nostalgia straight to my heart.