The Oracle Year(53)

Will opened his hand, letting the remaining water fall back into the basin, then stood up, wiping his hand on his shirt.

“I think the Site might be hoping we do,” Will replied. “I think that’s why we got so many predictions we could sell. It’s like the prize it’s offering me so that I’ll just disappear and let it get on with whatever it’s doing. But I can’t. I have to clean up my own mess.”

He straightened, looking at them.

“But not you two. I can’t let you get any more involved than you already are. I mean it.”

Miko shook her head.

“You want to do all this alone? Will, for God’s sake, you were about two days from storing your pee in jars up there!”

“I’m fine,” he said, a little annoyed. “You don’t have to worry about me. Nothing bad can happen to me. Not right now. Not to the Oracle.”

“Will, that’s ridiculous,” Hamza said, his tone alarmed. “There is no Oracle. There’s just you.”

“Sure,” Will said. “Listen. I can beat this. I know I can. I’ve been experimenting. Here—let me show you.”

He turned and walked away from them, striding rapidly toward the busy street between the hotel and the beach.

“Where are you going?” Miko called after him.

Will didn’t respond. Without slowing, he walked up to the side of the road, just a step away from the speeding flow of cars, motorcycles, and multiton trucks.

And then he took another step.

“No!” Miko shouted.

Hamza sprinted toward the street, seeing in the corner of his eye that the soldiers at the nearest checkpoint had perked up at the disturbance. Any alarm he felt at that fact was swept away by the certainty that he was about to hear a squeal of brakes and a deep, meaty thud as his best friend was embedded deep into a semi’s grille.

He skidded to a stop at the edge of the street, catching a glimpse of Will striding across the Rambla Républica de México toward the beach, keeping his eyes straight ahead, as if he were walking across a lawn in Central Park instead of a four-lane road packed with traffic speeding along at what looked to be an average of about forty miles per hour.

Horns blared, cars swerved. The soldiers in the checkpoint closest to the street unslung their rifles from their shoulders, trying to see what was happening.

The light changed, the crosswalk cleared, and Hamza and Miko ran across to the beach. Hamza looked left and saw Will about fifty yards away, sitting on a bench, looking out at the sea.

“What the fuck was that, you idiot?” Hamza said, shouting as he approached.

Will looked up and smiled. It was an odd smile, empty and full at the same time.

“I told you. Nothing’s going to happen to the Oracle. I’m completely safe,” he said.

“That’s crazy, Will,” Hamza said. “That’s . . . just stupid.”

“No, it’s not,” Will answered. “I still have predictions I haven’t put out in the world. The Site must want me to do something with them, and it won’t let me die until I’ve done it. Those predictions are my insurance policy. I’m invulnerable.”

Will’s smile grew wider. Too wide.

“I’m Superman,” he said.

He looked back out at the sea.

“I’m going to beat it,” he said. “I’m not just a tool for some . . . spider-thing, burrowing behind the walls of the world, making everything weak. I’m the Oracle. I can make things better.”

“Stand up, Will,” Miko said.

Will stood, the smile gone, his face suddenly unsure. Miko stepped forward, her arms outstretched.

“Don’t say I,” she said.

Will looked at her, confused. Miko enfolded Will in her arms, wrapping him in a tight embrace. Will awkwardly patted her between the shoulder blades.

“Dammit, Will, just hug me back,” Miko said, the words somewhat muffled by Will’s chest.

Will surrendered to the small woman’s gesture and circled his arms around her. They stood like that for thirty seconds, while Hamza watched.

Finally, Miko released Will and stepped back, sniffling a little.

“You need people,” Miko said. “You might think you don’t, you might wish you didn’t, but no one can deal with all this alone. And since Hamza and I already know, and we love you, we’re going to help you whether you want us to or not.”

Will gazed at her.

“Let’s go home,” Miko said.





Part III

Spring





Chapter 21




Will felt the pattern under his fingers, deep in the pocket, quarter notes locked in sync with the bass drum. Nothing he needed to think about, just a line to play under the solos, holding down his end of the song’s foundation. He glanced at Jorge Cabrera, whose eyes were closed, his arms extended toward his keys as he entered minute five of his solo over the verse changes to the Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer.”

He shifted his gaze to the audience, just indistinct silhouettes against the stage lights shining in his face, although he could see Hamza and Miko sitting at a little table to the left. He sent them an entirely sincere smile.

In the weeks since Uruguay, they’d both been pushing him—shoving, really—toward some kind of distraction from the endless effort to try to understand what the Site was doing to the world. All three of them were working on it, studying news reports, making spreadsheets . . . but it just felt futile.