by Rayya Deeb
"So, what's the catch?"
"Catch?"
"Yeah, why me? Why this? Why now?"
Ellen looked out the window. The amber light filled her face with a glow and illuminated her pride for Seneca. She didn't have to search for an answer to my question. It came naturally to her.
"That’s something you need to answer for yourself."
Wow, she was good. I pondered her statement for the remainder of the ride.
We suddenly emerged from the greenery into the city. The sky behind us was fading from the moody gray-blue I was so taken by, into a gradient of plum and orange. I could see that we were descending on the nation's capital.
The flighter crossed over a much more serene part of the Potomac than the raging river I had glimpsed that morning. White buildings reflected like glassy replicas in the stillness of the water. The Kennedy Center, the White House, the Washington Monument... one after the other. In a matter of three minutes I took them all in. We landed on the roof of a building. I could see the top of the Capitol. I was literally inside my last U.S. history class. Experience was replacing being lectured about stuff and it was fine with me.
"Ellen!"
A man in a mustard-colored tweed suit with a chocolate shirt and plaid tie greeted us with open arms as we emerged from the flighter. He gave Ellen Malone a huge hug and then turned to me, like I was his long-lost favorite niece. "There she is!"
He gave me a firm handshake.
"Gregory, sorry we're late, I wanted to bring Doro via the scenic route. It's her first time in D.C."
"And hopefully not her last!"
"Hopefully."
Ellen Malone and Gregory had similar smiles.
I flashed one right back, "Definitely not."
"Well, come on in, there are some people who’ve been looking forward to meeting you." And, with that, Gregory ushered us in through the door, past a security guard that looked like he might be Secret Service.
Gregory Zaffron had a great gait. I've always been super into people's walking styles. A walk says a lot about a person. My walk has always been smooth like butter. I try to blend into my environment, not bring too much attention to myself when I move. Gregory was the opposite. His steps were long and wide. His mustard jacket moved like a cape.
"Great day, ain't it?"
Ellen Malone and I looked at one another and smiled. Gregory hadn't said anything funny– he just was funny by being himself. There were an awful lot of characters here in this world of Seneca. I liked everyone I had met so far except for Jennifer Wallingsford's friend, McKayla. To top it all off, I already had heart palpitations over some guy I’d seen from a distance, and that's not even my style.
We approached a gargantuan, medieval-looking door. Gregory gave the guards in front of it a nod and they stepped aside as we walked in.
"Dorothy Campbell. You're finally here."
Holy crap. It was Congressman Wallingsford. And Jennifer was here, too.
"Congressman Wallingsford, sir, it's an honor to meet you."
"The honor is all mine."
Congressman Wallingsford, Jennifer and a power-packed, exquisitely groomed group of six men and one woman sat around a grand mahogany table in a windowless room. I tried to take in the tufted leather seats, intricate Persian rug, elaborate crown molding and the lemony scent of wood polish that I love. All eyes were on me. Me.
"Please, have a seat." Congressman Wallingsford pulled out a giant black leather chair for me right next to his daughter. Ellen Malone took a seat next to me.
"We hope you've enjoyed yourself so far."
"This is all so incredible, and everyone is so nice. I don't even know how to thank you for having me here."
Congressman Wallingsford had a certain look of determination– the aura of a man who knows what he wants and will stop at nothing to get it, a man whose path you wouldn’t want to be stupid enough to cross. He took a casual seat at the end of the mahogany tabletop across from everyone else.
"Oh, you don't have to thank us. We should be thanking you for coming out to visit us here at Seneca." The people in the room all nodded in agreement. "So, thank you, Dorothy."
"You're welcome?" I didn't feel like I should be the one saying that.
Ellen put her hand on my shoulder. "I've got feedback that Doro here is perfect for the program. She fit in so well today. All of the session leaders had nothing but good things to say about her."
"So I hear."
I smiled. Congressman Wallingsford hadn’t stopped smiling since I’d entered the room. His teeth were whiter than freshly cut coconut, with one solid gold cap peeking out from a bottom tooth. Seneca must be Land of the Smiles, I thought. Not a large man physically, at just about five foot eight and maybe a buck sixty in weight, Congressman Wallingsford still had a presence so vast it filled the whole room. You couldn’t avoid his powerful gaze. A five o'clock shadow of peppery hair was just beginning to show through his once clean shave.
As cool as this was, things felt bizarre. Why were they all being so extraordinarily nice to me?
Congressman Wallingsford got up from his perch at the end of the table. "We'd love for you to stay."
I knew everyone kept saying things like that, but coming from one of the most powerful men in our government, I was awestruck. "Really? That would be... I mean, that's beyond amazing."
The vibe in the room was not normal, just like the rest of this abnormal Seneca situation. It was so many things all at once– exciting, scary, fun, confusing, exhilarating... addictive... I was swirling in a whirlwind.
Ellen turned and looked at me in earnest. "There is one caveat, Doro. In order for you to stay with us, you will never be able to turn back."
That took a moment to register. What did never mean? "Turn back," like I'd be out of the school system for good, or "turn back" meaning to LA? I didn't want to go back to my old school. I most definitely wanted to stay here and have this experience, but did she mean that I could never go home?
Jennifer spoke up. "Dorothy, this place is incredible. We all know it. This is an opportunity for you to be a part something huge that pretty much every other person our age will never even know exists."
"I hear you."
Congressman Wallingsford motioned for everyone to leave the room except for Ellen, Jennifer and me. I didn’t even know who they were and now they were all gone. The focus on me was getting even tighter. I started to feel like I was being cornered and had to let them know where I stood before things got stickier.
"I have to be able to go home and see my mom, my friends, my dog, my apartment."
Congressman Wallingsford lost his smile. Uh oh. Things were going to get intense. I wished that we could just rewind to the cool stuff, like being in the golden hallway with Blue Combat Boots. I closed my eyes tight, and hoped this part would be over when I opened them, but it wasn't.
"The truth is, Dorothy, this is the one and only opportunity you will ever truly have in your life to change things. To make the world a better place for your mom, and everyone else."
"I don't understand."
"Billions of people– over half of the world's population– live in poverty. They don't have access to education, medicine, food, you name it. The things most of us take for granted. The climate has been undergoing a drastic change since before our time, and in the Aboves we no longer have the means to stop that momentum. You don't want to imagine the planet your children and their children will see if things continue in this direction."
"I get that."
"I hope you do. You see, things haven't changed because people haven't taken responsibility for altering this path. Until now. You've had a chance to experience the Senecan lifestyle. You’re beginning to understand how forward-thinking it is. Trust me, you’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg. Imagine the possibilities if what we are capable of here in Seneca were to extend to everyone in the world."
I couldn't imagine it. It seemed too good to be true. But it also seemed that if
anyone had the power to make that happen it would be someone like Congressman Wallingsford and his powerful government pals.
"That’s the goal, Dorothy. But there is a plan and there is a price."
It was just too much to comprehend that the only way I could participate in this revolutionary plan for humanity was by walking away from everything I've ever known and loved. I had a feeling that what he was saying was one hundred percent authentic, but I still didn't understand why he was discussing this with me.
"So you're telling me I just have to accept the end of my life?"
"No, just the the end of life as you know it." Congressman Wallingsford finally sat down in the biggest chair in the room. "But for us, it’s the beginning of a new life. A better life for all of humanity. But great change requires hard work, compromise and tremendous dedication. It doesn't happen overnight."
Ellen put her hand on my shoulder again. "Congressman Wallingsford is right, Doro. You have to think of it as a new beginning. You’re someone whom we want and need to have as a part of the Seneca Society."
"Ellen was sent to bring you here because your unique talents would contribute greatly to the creation of this international society we’re building. That's what Seneca is, Dorothy. A better tomorrow— for everyone on earth, not just Senecans."
This whole pitch was beginning to sound like a corny commercial, but at the same time I couldn’t help being compelled by his argument.
"I don't get it. How is it possible to change the whole world?"
"Over the past ten years, we have developed a circuit of metropolitan hubs beneath the surface of the Earth in which human life can thrive. Each hub is equipped with its own contingency of the world's most gifted, intelligent, and healthy, citizens on the planet. The recruiting process started three years ago. We‘re dedicated to forming a society capable of overcoming the damage of the past before it’s too late."
I looked away. How could I change things? I couldn’t face the picture of urgency he was painting.
“Because of your qualifications, you, Dorothy, are one of the chosen to help do that."
I felt I had to respond in some way but I still couldn’t commit to something that seemed like an insanely irrevocable decision.
"Of course I don't want to just sit back and ride the decline of civilization, but I can't just leave my mom."
"We understand the weight of the decision you need to make. It's never easy."
My senses warped. The room got smaller. All I could hear was the sound of my own breath. "But I just don't understand. What about my mom, why can't she come with me?"
Congressman Wallingsford turned to Ellen Malone. She was looking at me with compassion, as though she wanted to protect me, but still had to give me a crucial piece of information. “Unfortunately, there is extremely limited space in Seneca, and only the chosen can join us on this journey."
"So you're telling me you want me to leave my mom behind? Like we can't be a part of each others' lives anymore, at all?" Panic was setting in. I couldn't leave my mom. As much as I alienated her, and she me, she was all I had. I loved her to death. She was my mom.
"Doro, you will be a part of her life in a different way. In shaping the life she can live in the future. Just think about it. This is going to take some time to accept. It did for all of us. But in our mission to ensure the preservation and quality of life on this planet, we are dealing with infinitely valuable information. You must understand that Seneca is beyond top secret in nature and must be protected as such."
I sat forward and dropped my head into my hands. I rarely ever broke down, but this was it for me. My breaking point. Leave, and be with my mom in a place where I’d never truly be able to make a difference, or stay, leaving behind the only person who loves me, who has done everything for me, but putting my gifts to good use for the betterment my mom's life and the world.
Jennifer looked to her dad for approval to speak. This was clearly something the three of them had been through before. "I lost my mom when I was twelve. At first it was horrible. I couldn't get through one second of the day without missing her. I cried more often than not. And this is no different. It's not easy to imagine life without your mom in it, Dorothy, but it is the only way to make a better life for you and her... I will be there for you, to support you in any way I can."
I felt trapped. "No way. I'm not leaving her."
"If you turn back, you will never be given this opportunity again," Ellen said.
"Oh well." Even though I said that, I felt deep inside that I couldn't walk away from this. I couldn't. But I couldn't leave my mom either! This had been in the cards all along and Ellen had built me up to give me this information and let me crash.
Congressman Wallingsford fingered his flexer sitting on the table in front of him. "We're ready for you, Gregory."
Gregory came in with another dude, probably about seventy years old, Indian, kind old eyes. He smiled. Go figure.
Congressman Wallingsford leaned over the table towards me. "It's time for you to choose, Dorothy Campbell. Will you join the society of the future? Now that you know what can be, can you really go back to the life you were living? Of indefinitely riding that stale status quo?"
"I– I have to talk to my mom," I stuttered.
"I'm sorry, you can't."
"This can't be okay, I'm a minor, I..."
Ellen took my shoulder again, this time more firmly. "Doro, I know this is extremely difficult, but it's the way things have to..."
"Difficult?! It's beyond messed up. I want to talk to my mom. You have to let me call her."
Gregory chimed in. "Once you make your decision, you’ll have the chance to speak with her, but it will be monitored and you will be given a specific set of guidelines for what you can and cannot say."
"Don’t you have freedom of speech in Seneca?"
“Of course we do!" Ellen said, "But you understand that we must be extraordinarily careful about how and when we bring this information to the Aboves.”
Ellen was trying to comfort me with reason, but this time it wasn't going to work. Pleasantries and charisma couldn't calm me now. "And what if I say no?"
Gregory stepped forward and put his arm around the Indian man. "Dorothy, this is Dr. Ashvind Kulkarni. He's one of Seneca's top M.D.s. If you choose to leave this room without committing to join Seneca, he will administer a Cogniz-X dosage that will erase all memory of what you’ve seen and heard here in the past forty-eight hours. The drug will take effect in less than an hour, in which time we will transport you via PFV to Washington Dulles Airport, and from there you’ll fly back to Los Angeles. You’ll be back home with your mother by sunrise tomorrow, completely unaffected by what’s happened here. You’ll go on with your normal life, without knowing anything at all about the Seneca Society."
7
MY EYES WERE closed to help me think. When they were open, the sensory extravaganza around me swallowed my thoughts. How was I going to tell her? I thought of my dad. Would he understand why I made this choice? That this was ultimately the best choice for everyone in my life? I thought of my mom, alone and wondering why I’d never come home after my stint at a government-backed reform school. I thought of Killer, Julie, my visits to Café Firenze before I went to school. Joining my mom on house-calls to her patients that had become like family to me.
My mom, Layla Campbell, is a no-nonsense, hardworking woman. Her paternal grandparents emigrated from Lebanon to Glendale, California. My grandfather hadn't gone to college. He’d gotten into the food import business just like his father before him, and had become fairly successful off of selling yogurt drinks. He had married a Greek-American woman from the Greek Orthodox Church and my mom was their only child. She was an overachiever from the get-go. Spent summers hiding out, reading and listening to vintage LPs in the dark while other kids played video games and caused a ruckus all over the city. She was only nineteen when she met the love of her life– my dad– Johnny Campbell.
My dad wa
s a small-town Wisconsin boy who’d come to Los Angeles to attend UCLA on a full-ride mathematics scholarship. My mom was in the nursing program and worked part-time in the student union, where my dad would come to see her every second of every day he wasn't in class. Like me, the guy didn't need to study and he didn't need to sleep. All he knew was math and my mom.
I hadn't chosen this path for my life; it was just the way things unfolded. And I desperately needed to rescue my mom from the terrible mess I had put her in. To her, this whole "reform school" plan could be the thing to get me away from the memories at home she thought were causing me to act out. She didn’t have a clue about the big picture or the work being done below ground in Seneca. But if she did, I was sure she’d understand that they were legitimately trying to save the world. And she’d be proud that I could be a part of that.
I knew my job was to figure out a way to bring my mom to Seneca too. I just knew it. I would have to. My staying in Seneca or not wasn’t really even a decision. It was the gamble I had to make. Ultimately, while the pain that rippled through my heart was beyond anything I'd ever felt, I was compelled from deep within to make the hardest choice I'd ever had to make.
I was numb. My fingers could barely move across my flexer screen. It felt like my hands were frostbitten while my body was actually burning up. Even though they had debriefed me on what I could and couldn't say to my mom regarding my new 'school' and my decision to stay here, how I was going to keep the real information from her? If I strayed from the script, I would be putting my mom in danger.
The only thing to do was jump in and call. It was go time.
"Doro!" Her voice warmed my soul but singed it with agony, too. Would I ever see her face again, I wondered.
At hearing her voice I squeezed my eyes tight and fought a sob with everything I had. My chest seemed filled with sandbags, my palms sweaty.
I was alone in a dignified guest room, but I felt like I was being monitored. I didn't trust that it was safe to stray from the parameters they had provided for this conversation. A newbie in their world, I wasn't ready to test their boundaries yet.