The Oracle Year(88)

“Are you thinking the Republic?” he asked.

“No,” Will repeated. “I’ll go to the safe house, but you two need to take your stuff and go someplace else, someplace I don’t know about. Set up a new life for yourselves, have your baby, forget you ever knew me.”

Hamza and Miko turned to look at each other. They were silent for a moment, then looked back at Will.

“Are you sure?” Hamza said.

“Yes. Go. It’s all right. I’ll figure the rest of this out on my own.”

“Oh, Will,” Miko said.

“It’s all right,” Will repeated. “I’ll be fine.”

Miko reached out and took Will’s hand. After a pause, Hamza did the same. Will held his friends’ hands for a long moment. Leigh watched, quiet.

“Thank you,” Miko said.

“We’ll all be back together before you know it,” Hamza said. “My kid needs a godfather. Once this is all over.”

Will released their hands.

Once this was over. He couldn’t even picture it.

Will’s cell phone rang. He reached for it without thinking and checked the caller ID.

“It’s my mom,” he said.

“You aren’t home,” Hamza said. “No time.”

Miko snatched the phone from Will’s hand. She gave him a disapproving look.

“You’re about to vanish for God knows how long,” she said. “Don’t be a dick.” She answered the phone.

“Mrs. Dando, hello!” she said. “It’s Miko Sheikh. We haven’t spoken in ages. How are you?”

Mom, Will thought. He hadn’t spoken to her in . . . what? He’d called once or twice since the Oracle dream, but the conversations had always been short. Two months ago? he thought. Three?

Miko wasn’t talking. Whatever Will’s mother was saying, she didn’t like it. A deep frown cut across her face. Will raised an eyebrow. What? he mouthed at Miko.

“Yes, he’s right here,” Miko said. She held out the phone.

Will didn’t want to talk to his mother anymore. This felt like a bad-news call—a someone-just-died call. But he took the phone.

Miko turned to Hamza and pointed at the computer.

“Finish. Now,” she said, her voice ice cold.

“Hi, Mom,” Will said, hearing Hamza begin a burst of intense typing.

“Is it true?” his mother asked him. “Are you the Oracle?”

Will’s veins turned to glass.

“It’s on CNN, Will. Is it true?”

Will could hear fear in his mother’s voice.

For me, or of me? he thought.

He held the phone away from his mouth.

“Miko, turn on CNN, quick.”

Miko nodded. She picked up the remote from Will’s coffee table and turned on Will’s fifty-five-inch television, far too big for his apartment, one of the things he’d bought for himself in the early days of the Oracle windfall.

An anchor was speaking, over a news ticker running across the bottom of the screen: “BREAKING NEWS—Presidential spiritual adviser Rev. Hosiah Branson identifies the Oracle . . .” Footage appeared in a window over the anchor’s shoulder, of Hosiah Branson standing in some sort of television studio, in front of an easel that held a blown-up photograph that Will recognized.

The glass in Will’s veins shattered.

He used one picture for everything—Facebook, Twitter, dating sites—always the same image, the one time he thought he’d been photographed decently well, at a gig a few years back. His hair was a bit long, and he was smiling, and it looked like he thought he should look. And there it was, on CNN.

“According to Branson, the Oracle is a New York City resident named Will Dando,” the newscaster was saying. Will’s mother spoke in his ear, but he couldn’t hear her.

“Reverend Branson issued his announcement, which included descriptions of an Indian or Arab man, an Asian woman, and a dark-skinned woman with dark hair and eyes that he claims are associates of the Oracle. Beyond that, we’re waiting for developments. I have one of CNN’s legal advisers here with us this morning, Sarah DeKoort. After the break, we’ll get her opinion on whether Reverend Branson is opening himself up to liability by essentially having outed the Oracle.”

“That MOTHERFUCKER!” Will screamed at the television.

“Will!” his mother said in his ear, shocked.

“Listen, Mom, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. You need to take care of yourself—you and Dad. It won’t take them long to track you down. I’m going to send you money, to you and everyone else in the family. A lot of money. Take it and disappear for a while, and tell Emily to do it, too. Go overseas, if you can.

“I’ll get back in touch soon, I promise.”

“Oh, Will. Oh my God,” his mother said, almost sighing into the phone. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She sounded stunned. Hurt.

“I didn’t want you to worry, and I didn’t want to have to deal with questions that I don’t know the answers to. I’m . . . I’m sorry, Mom.”

“Oh, Will,” she said. Her voice seemed stronger. “I don’t understand how this all happened, but I’m so proud of you. The people you saved with your predictions—you’re doing something good, Will, something amazing.”