The Oracle Year(93)
Every story not about the Oracle described a planet in revolt. Economic turmoil; significant military actions on four continents: cleanup of U.S. operations in Niger, saber rattling by a warlord in a tiny nation in Central Asia who had gathered an army and besieged a city, unrest in France, many other battles large and small; coups, plunging markets, fear.
Behind it all, the Site.
Will’s mouth twisted in frustration. He folded the paper and tossed it behind him, where a small but growing pile of other publications covered the backseat and spilled onto the floor.
He opened a notebook on his lap and reached for a set of colored pencils in the passenger door’s storage bay—purchased the night before, along with the papers and magazines now avalanching across the backseat, at a travel plaza off the New Jersey Turnpike. He flipped through the book and started to jot down notes from the morning’s reading. Page after page was already covered by scribbled notations in various colors—Will’s attempt to analyze the Site’s plan, to understand what it had done, and what it was attempting to do.
The original Oracle predictions, all one hundred and eight, were written on the first several pages in black, and the fact that he had done this twice, in two separate notebooks, did not escape his notice. He’d burned the predictions. They still came true.
Events listed in green represented confirmed aftereffects of an Oracle prediction being put into the world, either by selling it or putting it on the Site. Ripples.
Anything in blue was unconfirmed, but likely—a maybe. Red events were dead ends—things that had originally looked connected but had ceased interacting with the rest of the Site’s web. Will included them because it was always possible that he just hadn’t seen the full set of connections yet, or that the Site would loop back and reconnect with them down the road.
Finally, purple for the big stuff. When green events meshed together to do something else, to move toward a larger purpose. As far as Will could tell, that larger purpose was represented largely by the litany of woes he had just read in the paper.
They’d only been on the road for two days, but dear God, Will missed the Internet. Staying updated on the Site’s activities using only hard copy was maddening. He had a few prepaid phones he could use to get online if he had to, but he was saving them for emergencies, and checking cnn.com didn’t count.
Will had tried listening to radio news as he and Leigh drove west, to stay updated in something closer to real time, but even a few hours of that had been too much. Too many breathless DJs and talk shows and morning zoos enjoying their deep dive into the life of Will Dando.
Will finished making notes on the morning’s reading and closed the notebook, setting it and the pencils on the dashboard.
He looked at Leigh, sitting behind the steering wheel with her hands sensibly at ten and two. He wanted to talk through his theories, explain what the Site was doing, but the truth was that he didn’t know this woman at all. They’d managed some small talk in the early hours of the drive, but eventually it became clear that Leigh wanted answers Will wasn’t willing to give, and a stilted silence had descended.
The whole situation was almost breathtaking. He’d known Leigh Shore for something like three days, and now he was relying on her completely. Everyone in the world knew the Oracle’s face, which meant he couldn’t pump his own gas, couldn’t eat in public, couldn’t do anything at all without risking . . . what?
The sound of Miko’s head knocking against the concrete.
Leigh was a risk, but he needed to get west, soon—because things were accelerating—and she could get him there. As long as the illusion of the Oracle held up, with all the leverage it brought him, all the things she thought he knew, they should be fine.
That was partly why he had kept the radio off, and why he’d kept conversation to a minimum. If Leigh learned too much about Will Dando, the man sitting next to her might stop being the all-powerful Oracle and become just a kid on his bike, rushing down a hill, wondering how he was going to die.
All that, and underneath and above and around it all, sick worry for Hamza and Miko. He didn’t know their condition and couldn’t call—didn’t even know where they were. For all he knew, they were back at Quantico, being questioned by that asshole Leuchten.
Will eyed the radio, that saucy temptress, holding out its promise of world news that wasn’t a day out of date.
“Just for a few minutes,” he said out loud, earning him a raised eyebrow from Leigh.
He pressed the power button.
“—don’t know the Oracle,” Hamza said, his voice tainted with a slight overlay of static, “but if I did, I’d tell him to just keep doing what he’s doing. My wife and I were hurt in the attack by Hosiah Branson’s people, but that’s not his fault. He’s saved a lot of lives, helped a lot of people. I don’t want what happened to us to stop him from what he’s doing. I think he’s a hero.”
“Holy shit,” Leigh said, “is that Hamza?”
“Yes,” Will said, listening, understanding the gift that Hamza was giving him.
A second voice—a woman, assured and confident.
“You claim not to know the Oracle, but as we know, he’s been revealed to be a man named Will Dando, whom you definitely do know. You went to high school with him, and we’ve spoken to people who say you two are extremely close friends. And yet—”