Seneca Rebel

LAST 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.

Seneca Rebel

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.