The Oracle Year, page 18
“I borrowed a concept from SETI—you know, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence?”
“I’m familiar with it. They aim antennas at the sky, listen for messages from little green men.”
“Well, radio telescopes, but that’s essentially correct. Their search produces immense amounts of information—space noise, if you will. All that needs to be processed, to look for a potential signal, but it’s not simple. It requires a great deal of computer power—more processing than SETI’s budget can afford, by a long shot.
“So they appealed to the public. They offered a little piece of software for free to volunteers across the world. Once someone installed the software, SETI could use their computer as a node on their distributed network. Whenever the person wasn’t using their machine’s processing power, SETI did. It worked very well—SETI ended up with one enormous processor, in effect, able to solve problems just as fast as one of the supercomputers they couldn’t afford.”
The Coach nodded, blue eyes twinkling behind her glasses.
“I think I see where you’re headed with this, Doctor. You’re using the SETI network to crunch the numbers on the Oracle’s security that much faster.”
Staffman shook his head. He was getting excited. He licked his lips.
“No, no, I did better than that,” Staffman said. “The SETI network isn’t strong enough to get through the Oracle’s security. I had to use something else. I sent out a virus, something I designed a few years ago. I refined it a little bit to make use of flaws in Microsoft and Linux OSes—I decided not to hit Macs, although I could have, believe me. Maybe I should have. They’re about due to get knocked off their high horse.”
The Coach cleared her throat.
“Right,” Staffman said. “Sorry. Anyway, my virus lets me access every system it infects and utilize some of its unused processing power. Most computers don’t run at one hundred percent of their operating capacity. Oh, they might, for short periods of heavy activity, but most of the time it’s down at twenty percent or less. That leaves me an enormous amount of computing power to access. The whole thing, tied together, is called a botnet. As of right now, the virus has gotten to about three-quarters of the world’s systems in just under seventy-two hours. That’s a record, in case you’re wondering.”
“I wasn’t,” the Coach said, her voice turning a bit frosty. “What do you say you cut to the chase here, Professor? I’d appreciate it.”
“A botnet lets me crack the Oracle’s systems much more quickly. This bar”—he indicated the third monitor—“shows how we’re doing. We’ve only been at it for about twenty-four hours, and we’re nearly at a hundredth of a percent. That’s remarkable progress for the level of encryption we’re trying to break. It should have taken months.”
“Dr. Staffman, if I understand you right, it means we won’t get this done for more than a year.”
The twinkle had vanished from the Coach’s eyes. Staffman swallowed. She had done some very quick math to come up with that figure, that absolutely correct figure.
“Coach, you have to understand how incredible it is that we can do this at all. We’re accelerating the procedure by a thousand times! I know it’s slow, but it’s the only way.”
“I need it faster. I need it now, Staffman.”
“It can’t be done. I’m already using a quarter of the world’s computing power as it is. What do you expect me to do?”
The Coach raised one dark eyebrow. Staffman wondered if she dyed them—her hair was a uniform silver gray.
“Why are you only using a quarter?”
“Let me explain the situation, Coach. Look at this map,” Staffman said, gesturing to the central monitor on his desk. “I’m having my team monitor the processing power my botnet is sucking up, to make sure that it doesn’t get too heavy in any one area. If we’re going to be in this for the long haul, we have to stay below the radar.”
“But you could use the rest, if you wanted to,” the Coach said, her tone thoughtful.
“Yes, I suppose, but . . . look. I might not be explaining myself very well. If I turn up the usage, then the virus would be noticed. People would take action. We’d have to stop.”
“But if you used it all, then you could get past the Oracle’s security that much faster. It wouldn’t matter if someone found us—we’d already be in,” the Coach said.
Staffman was beginning to get frustrated. He’d paid his dues in grad school as a teaching assistant—explaining concepts to laymen was never pleasant, and the worst were those with a little knowledge, enough to think they could second-guess him. The only problem was that he couldn’t exactly give the Coach a D-minus.
“The thing is, though,” he said, trying valiantly to keep any trace of sarcasm out of his voice, “the computer processing power we’d be stealing is being used for things right now. Air traffic, the Internet, military—and not just here, but all over the world. The entire globe would go haywire, Coach.”
“But you could do it.”
Staffman ran a hand through his hair. He adjusted his glasses. He looked across the room, to the window at the back. He let his gaze rest there for a moment, then shifted his eyes back to the Coach.
“Yes, I could do it,” he said.
“How much would it speed things up?”
“Exponentially. I could have your answer in a matter of hours.”
“So do it.”
“Coach, I can’t. People would die.”
The Coach perched on the edge of Staffman’s desk. The scientist unconsciously leaned back in his desk chair, as far away from the woman as he could.
“Dr. Staffman, listen to me. You aren’t a good person. You know it and I know it. You’re selfish and you’re cowardly. That’s all right. It’s not like you’re unique. Most people I’ve met are just like you.
“And so,” she continued, “I think we also both know there’s no way you’ll give up your life to save the lives of a bunch of people who may die when you fulfill your duty as a member of my team. You don’t know any of those people. The truth is, the only person you give two shits about is yourself. So save your life, save me the bullshit, and do it. Now.”
Staffman stared at the Coach. He thought about the money he had been promised as payment for successfully breaking through the Site’s security. Almost a decade ago, he had done another job for her, and the money from that effort had funded his own research for years. Years without groveling before university tenure boards, and worse, teaching cow-eyed, dull-minded, disinterested undergraduates. That money was almost gone.
“Okay, Coach,” he said.
“Good,” she said, her voice cold. “Get on with it.”
Staffman cleared his throat.
“Stop monitoring the nodes,” he called to the rest of the technical team. “Shut down your workstations and leave. I’ll contact you if I need anything else.”
A chorus of questions and complaints arose in the room. People wanted to know if they were getting paid what they were promised, why the project had stopped. Staffman’s mouth tightened.
“Just get out!” he shouted. “You’ll get your money. Just go.”
No one moved.
“Now, Doctor, that’s not the way you handle a situation like this,” the Coach said. She slid off Staffman’s desk, getting carefully to her feet.
“People, you’ll all be taken care of. You have my word. Now get on out of here and enjoy yourselves. Hell, you’ve just been given the rest of this beautiful spring day off. What are you still doing inside? Go throw a Frisbee, or ask someone on a date! You’ll like it, I promise.”
She chuckled. The technicians looked at one another uncertainly.
“Go on, now,” the Coach repeated, more firmly.
A tech near the door shrugged. She hit the switch on her computer and powered it down. The rest of the team followed suit. Within a few minutes, the room was empty.
“You need to learn to handle people, Dr. Staffman,” the Coach said. “You catch more bees with honey, as the saying goes.”
“Right, Coach,” Staffman said absently. His hands fluttered across his keyboard, preparing to increase the draw from the botnet. It didn’t take long.
“It’s ready,” he said. “Just hit the enter key and it will start.”
“No, Professor, you start it up. You made the decision to do this. You need to take responsibility.”
Staffman gritted his teeth. He extended his index finger and tapped his keyboard. On the map of the globe, red plague spots began to appear in the midst of the green, expanding quickly, like bloody welts on the surface of the world. Immediately, the progress bar on the third monitor began to speed up, clicking through the 1 percent mark in just under a minute.
Staffman watched, awed.
“How long will it take?”
“I didn’t think it would be so fast. The virus must have infected more computers than I realized. It’s . . . amazing.”
He watched, mesmerized, while his creation did its work. The botnet chewed its way through the world, behaving exactly as designed. Pride filled his chest.
The Coach stood next to Staffman’s chair, hands on her hips, peering through her glasses at the monitors.
“Say,” she said thoughtfully.
“Yes, Coach?”
“Something occurs to me. The way you explained it, your virus will take over damn near every computer system in the world, so they can’t do what they’re supposed to do. They’ll be working on our little Oracle problem instead.”
Yes, Coach, Staffman thought, the sky is blue. Yes, Coach, two plus two equals four.
“Well,” she continued, turning to look directly at Staffman, “doesn’t that include the power grid?”
Staffman stared at the Coach for a moment. He lunged back to his keyboard and began to type furiously.
“Your face just went like a slaughterhouse cow after it gets hit with the air hammer, so I guess that answers my question,” the Coach said. “How will all those machines keep working on our project when the lights go out?”
Staffman didn’t look at her, just continued to type.
“Come on,” he muttered.
“Boy, you’ve got an answer for me?”
Staffman bit back the withering response that leapt to the front of his mind.
“I built some degree of control into the botnet, Coach,” he said, not taking his eyes from his screens, his fingers flying. “I can give it commands—explain that it needs to keep the power on, but it’s not easy. It’s just a piece of code—it’s smart, but it’s stupid. It doesn’t remember what I’ve told it to do, so I have to keep pulling it back from power nodes over and over again. It’s like . . . it’s like putting out a forest fire by dumping glasses of water on it one by one.”
The room fell silent, except for the rattling of the keys.
“Will that work?” the Coach asked.
“Does it sound like it will work?” Staffman snapped. “I’ll keep it going for as long as I can. We’ll lose parts of the grid for sure, but hopefully I can maintain enough processing power to crack the Oracle’s security before we lose too many machines.”
The Coach rested a hand on Staffman’s shoulder, its psychological weight all out of proportion to its physical weight.
“Listen, son, if there’s anyone who can do this, it’s you. I wouldn’t have put you on my team if you couldn’t do ten impossible, sorry, ten improbable things before breakfast, as Lewis Carroll put it. I’ll let you work, but just know I’ve got all the faith in the world in you.”
Despite his personal distaste for the woman, despite knowing that the Coach had threatened his life not ten minutes ago, Staffman felt a blush of motivation flow through him. The lady had a gift, that’s all there was to it.
“Wait and see, Coach,” he said. “We’ll have him.”
Chapter 23
“It’s a bad idea, Will,” Hamza said. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“It’s all you’ve been saying for three days,” Will answered. “How about you just let it go?”
The light changed, and they crossed Lafayette. Hamza watched, frustrated, as Will stopped and peered along the street.
“Was it on Great Jones?” Will asked.
“I don’t know,” Hamza said. “Look it up.”
“I’ve been to this place before. I know it’s around here. Let’s go this way, and if we don’t see it in a block or two I’ll check it on my phone.”
“Or you could just look it up now.”
Will shot him a glance.
“What’s your problem tonight, Hamza?” he said.
“My problem is not tonight. My problem is long-standing and eternal. My problem is this: it makes no sense to give our whole goddamn game away to some stupid website. I mean, Christ, Will, if we had to do this, at least we could have gotten it on TV. Or the New York Times or something.”
Will rounded on Hamza.
“TV? Every stupid talking head on every news show takes potshots at me. And all those televangelists preaching that I’m the devil—that fucker Branson and all his cronies, with their Detectives for Christ bullshit.”
“Easy,” Hamza said.
“Branson’s almost mellow compared to some of the stuff coming from people overseas,” Will went on, his eyes tight. “They’re talking about declaring a . . . shit, what the hell is it? The Salman Rushdie thing.”
“A fatwa,” Hamza said. “I did notice that, actually. You’ve got both Sunni and Shiite leaders united on that point. That’s impressive. Get a rabbi on board and the Oracle might just get peace going in the Middle East.”
“Hilarious,” Will said, a sharp edge to his tone.
Hamza held up a hand, palm out.
“Peace. Listen, I’m just saying—you don’t have to do an interview,” he said. “You could post something about the Oracle’s intentions up on the Site.”
“The Site’s the problem!” Will answered. “The only real contact anyone has with the Oracle is a bunch of words on a computer screen. When I was down in Florida, talking to the Ladies about the Oracle, they were terrified. And they work for us!
“We kept the Site up once we figured out that the predictions were connecting so we could speak to the world if we needed to, use its influence in a positive direction. But if everyone’s just getting more and more frightened, how’s that going to work? We need to turn that around. I want a chance for people to see that I’m nothing to be scared of, that I’m a person, not some freak.
“That’s not even the main part, either. We need to tell people about what the Site’s doing. Having more brains on it just makes sense. I almost think we have to do that. This is bigger than us. It always was.”
“Will, if you tell the world about all the terrible things that are happening because of the Site, hell, even if you do it anonymously . . . they’ll blame the guy who put it up. You and I know you didn’t create the predictions—they aren’t yours—but the world won’t make that distinction. They’ll blame the Oracle. They’ll blame you.”
“Maybe that doesn’t matter,” Will said. “Maybe telling people about all this is more important.”
Hamza shoved his hands in his pockets and gave Will a direct look. They stared at each other, standing on the cold, East Village sidewalk.
“What?” Will shouted, finally.
“I’m just trying to protect you,” Hamza said. “And I’m trying to protect myself, and Miko, and our kid. Just . . .”
He trailed off, watching Will’s face, hoping to see some sign of agreement. Understanding, even. He’d take what he could get.
“Okay,” Will said, finally. “I’m sorry. I mean it. You’re right. I wasn’t thinking straight. All of this . . . it’s just so heavy. The idea of setting it down, letting someone else handle it . . . it sounded really good, for a while.”
Hamza took a deep breath, then released it slowly.
“Okay. I’m not trying to be a dick, Will. I’m just . . . trying to figure all of this out. I just think that should be the priority. We can put this together, I know it.”
“Yeah,” Will answered, turning and walking up the street toward the corner. “That’s why we’re down here tonight, isn’t it? And tell you what. If we learn something tonight that cracks the case, then I’ll cancel the interview.”
“Wait, what?” Hamza said. “You’re still going to do it? But you just said—”
“I’ll do it. I just won’t talk about what the Site’s doing. I think I need to get out there. Change some minds about the Oracle. Let them know I’m not a monster. I need this, Hamza. I know we can do it safely. You’ll make sure.”
Hamza kicked at a piece of trash on the sidewalk, trying to decide if it was worth pushing back, visualizing Will in front of a reporter and feeling panic rising along his spine.
No. Let it go for now. Take the half victory and see what tomorrow might bring. Or tonight, even. After all, there was a chance this whole Aberdeen thing could actually pan out. Maybe they’d break it wide open, figure out what the Site was doing—if they could just find the damn bar.
Will pointed up the block.
“Look. There it is. MacAvoy’s.”
Halfway up the block, several clusters of people in identical dark coats stood smoking outside a bar with two huge bay windows that projected slightly over the sidewalk. A sign hanging above the door swung in the wind, a wood panel carved with an overflowing pint glass and the name of the bar.
The smokers all wore small, round white caps. As Will and Hamza drew closer, they could make out a dark stripe around the crown of the hats and could see that their jackets were classic navy peacoats.
“See?” Will said. “Those sure look like sailors to me.”
“Hey, I would never doubt the Oracle,” Hamza said. “I just questioned your intimate familiarity with the location of the sailor bar.”
They stopped across the street from MacAvoy’s. The sailors were now producing a chorus of low, raucous laughter.
“You’re sure they’re the ones we want?” Hamza said.
“Only one way to find out,” Will answered.
Hamza watched as Will crossed the street and approached the group. He said something—Hamza couldn’t quite make it out—and as one, the sailors’ heads swiveled to look at him.
“I’m familiar with it. They aim antennas at the sky, listen for messages from little green men.”
“Well, radio telescopes, but that’s essentially correct. Their search produces immense amounts of information—space noise, if you will. All that needs to be processed, to look for a potential signal, but it’s not simple. It requires a great deal of computer power—more processing than SETI’s budget can afford, by a long shot.
“So they appealed to the public. They offered a little piece of software for free to volunteers across the world. Once someone installed the software, SETI could use their computer as a node on their distributed network. Whenever the person wasn’t using their machine’s processing power, SETI did. It worked very well—SETI ended up with one enormous processor, in effect, able to solve problems just as fast as one of the supercomputers they couldn’t afford.”
The Coach nodded, blue eyes twinkling behind her glasses.
“I think I see where you’re headed with this, Doctor. You’re using the SETI network to crunch the numbers on the Oracle’s security that much faster.”
Staffman shook his head. He was getting excited. He licked his lips.
“No, no, I did better than that,” Staffman said. “The SETI network isn’t strong enough to get through the Oracle’s security. I had to use something else. I sent out a virus, something I designed a few years ago. I refined it a little bit to make use of flaws in Microsoft and Linux OSes—I decided not to hit Macs, although I could have, believe me. Maybe I should have. They’re about due to get knocked off their high horse.”
The Coach cleared her throat.
“Right,” Staffman said. “Sorry. Anyway, my virus lets me access every system it infects and utilize some of its unused processing power. Most computers don’t run at one hundred percent of their operating capacity. Oh, they might, for short periods of heavy activity, but most of the time it’s down at twenty percent or less. That leaves me an enormous amount of computing power to access. The whole thing, tied together, is called a botnet. As of right now, the virus has gotten to about three-quarters of the world’s systems in just under seventy-two hours. That’s a record, in case you’re wondering.”
“I wasn’t,” the Coach said, her voice turning a bit frosty. “What do you say you cut to the chase here, Professor? I’d appreciate it.”
“A botnet lets me crack the Oracle’s systems much more quickly. This bar”—he indicated the third monitor—“shows how we’re doing. We’ve only been at it for about twenty-four hours, and we’re nearly at a hundredth of a percent. That’s remarkable progress for the level of encryption we’re trying to break. It should have taken months.”
“Dr. Staffman, if I understand you right, it means we won’t get this done for more than a year.”
The twinkle had vanished from the Coach’s eyes. Staffman swallowed. She had done some very quick math to come up with that figure, that absolutely correct figure.
“Coach, you have to understand how incredible it is that we can do this at all. We’re accelerating the procedure by a thousand times! I know it’s slow, but it’s the only way.”
“I need it faster. I need it now, Staffman.”
“It can’t be done. I’m already using a quarter of the world’s computing power as it is. What do you expect me to do?”
The Coach raised one dark eyebrow. Staffman wondered if she dyed them—her hair was a uniform silver gray.
“Why are you only using a quarter?”
“Let me explain the situation, Coach. Look at this map,” Staffman said, gesturing to the central monitor on his desk. “I’m having my team monitor the processing power my botnet is sucking up, to make sure that it doesn’t get too heavy in any one area. If we’re going to be in this for the long haul, we have to stay below the radar.”
“But you could use the rest, if you wanted to,” the Coach said, her tone thoughtful.
“Yes, I suppose, but . . . look. I might not be explaining myself very well. If I turn up the usage, then the virus would be noticed. People would take action. We’d have to stop.”
“But if you used it all, then you could get past the Oracle’s security that much faster. It wouldn’t matter if someone found us—we’d already be in,” the Coach said.
Staffman was beginning to get frustrated. He’d paid his dues in grad school as a teaching assistant—explaining concepts to laymen was never pleasant, and the worst were those with a little knowledge, enough to think they could second-guess him. The only problem was that he couldn’t exactly give the Coach a D-minus.
“The thing is, though,” he said, trying valiantly to keep any trace of sarcasm out of his voice, “the computer processing power we’d be stealing is being used for things right now. Air traffic, the Internet, military—and not just here, but all over the world. The entire globe would go haywire, Coach.”
“But you could do it.”
Staffman ran a hand through his hair. He adjusted his glasses. He looked across the room, to the window at the back. He let his gaze rest there for a moment, then shifted his eyes back to the Coach.
“Yes, I could do it,” he said.
“How much would it speed things up?”
“Exponentially. I could have your answer in a matter of hours.”
“So do it.”
“Coach, I can’t. People would die.”
The Coach perched on the edge of Staffman’s desk. The scientist unconsciously leaned back in his desk chair, as far away from the woman as he could.
“Dr. Staffman, listen to me. You aren’t a good person. You know it and I know it. You’re selfish and you’re cowardly. That’s all right. It’s not like you’re unique. Most people I’ve met are just like you.
“And so,” she continued, “I think we also both know there’s no way you’ll give up your life to save the lives of a bunch of people who may die when you fulfill your duty as a member of my team. You don’t know any of those people. The truth is, the only person you give two shits about is yourself. So save your life, save me the bullshit, and do it. Now.”
Staffman stared at the Coach. He thought about the money he had been promised as payment for successfully breaking through the Site’s security. Almost a decade ago, he had done another job for her, and the money from that effort had funded his own research for years. Years without groveling before university tenure boards, and worse, teaching cow-eyed, dull-minded, disinterested undergraduates. That money was almost gone.
“Okay, Coach,” he said.
“Good,” she said, her voice cold. “Get on with it.”
Staffman cleared his throat.
“Stop monitoring the nodes,” he called to the rest of the technical team. “Shut down your workstations and leave. I’ll contact you if I need anything else.”
A chorus of questions and complaints arose in the room. People wanted to know if they were getting paid what they were promised, why the project had stopped. Staffman’s mouth tightened.
“Just get out!” he shouted. “You’ll get your money. Just go.”
No one moved.
“Now, Doctor, that’s not the way you handle a situation like this,” the Coach said. She slid off Staffman’s desk, getting carefully to her feet.
“People, you’ll all be taken care of. You have my word. Now get on out of here and enjoy yourselves. Hell, you’ve just been given the rest of this beautiful spring day off. What are you still doing inside? Go throw a Frisbee, or ask someone on a date! You’ll like it, I promise.”
She chuckled. The technicians looked at one another uncertainly.
“Go on, now,” the Coach repeated, more firmly.
A tech near the door shrugged. She hit the switch on her computer and powered it down. The rest of the team followed suit. Within a few minutes, the room was empty.
“You need to learn to handle people, Dr. Staffman,” the Coach said. “You catch more bees with honey, as the saying goes.”
“Right, Coach,” Staffman said absently. His hands fluttered across his keyboard, preparing to increase the draw from the botnet. It didn’t take long.
“It’s ready,” he said. “Just hit the enter key and it will start.”
“No, Professor, you start it up. You made the decision to do this. You need to take responsibility.”
Staffman gritted his teeth. He extended his index finger and tapped his keyboard. On the map of the globe, red plague spots began to appear in the midst of the green, expanding quickly, like bloody welts on the surface of the world. Immediately, the progress bar on the third monitor began to speed up, clicking through the 1 percent mark in just under a minute.
Staffman watched, awed.
“How long will it take?”
“I didn’t think it would be so fast. The virus must have infected more computers than I realized. It’s . . . amazing.”
He watched, mesmerized, while his creation did its work. The botnet chewed its way through the world, behaving exactly as designed. Pride filled his chest.
The Coach stood next to Staffman’s chair, hands on her hips, peering through her glasses at the monitors.
“Say,” she said thoughtfully.
“Yes, Coach?”
“Something occurs to me. The way you explained it, your virus will take over damn near every computer system in the world, so they can’t do what they’re supposed to do. They’ll be working on our little Oracle problem instead.”
Yes, Coach, Staffman thought, the sky is blue. Yes, Coach, two plus two equals four.
“Well,” she continued, turning to look directly at Staffman, “doesn’t that include the power grid?”
Staffman stared at the Coach for a moment. He lunged back to his keyboard and began to type furiously.
“Your face just went like a slaughterhouse cow after it gets hit with the air hammer, so I guess that answers my question,” the Coach said. “How will all those machines keep working on our project when the lights go out?”
Staffman didn’t look at her, just continued to type.
“Come on,” he muttered.
“Boy, you’ve got an answer for me?”
Staffman bit back the withering response that leapt to the front of his mind.
“I built some degree of control into the botnet, Coach,” he said, not taking his eyes from his screens, his fingers flying. “I can give it commands—explain that it needs to keep the power on, but it’s not easy. It’s just a piece of code—it’s smart, but it’s stupid. It doesn’t remember what I’ve told it to do, so I have to keep pulling it back from power nodes over and over again. It’s like . . . it’s like putting out a forest fire by dumping glasses of water on it one by one.”
The room fell silent, except for the rattling of the keys.
“Will that work?” the Coach asked.
“Does it sound like it will work?” Staffman snapped. “I’ll keep it going for as long as I can. We’ll lose parts of the grid for sure, but hopefully I can maintain enough processing power to crack the Oracle’s security before we lose too many machines.”
The Coach rested a hand on Staffman’s shoulder, its psychological weight all out of proportion to its physical weight.
“Listen, son, if there’s anyone who can do this, it’s you. I wouldn’t have put you on my team if you couldn’t do ten impossible, sorry, ten improbable things before breakfast, as Lewis Carroll put it. I’ll let you work, but just know I’ve got all the faith in the world in you.”
Despite his personal distaste for the woman, despite knowing that the Coach had threatened his life not ten minutes ago, Staffman felt a blush of motivation flow through him. The lady had a gift, that’s all there was to it.
“Wait and see, Coach,” he said. “We’ll have him.”
Chapter 23
“It’s a bad idea, Will,” Hamza said. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“It’s all you’ve been saying for three days,” Will answered. “How about you just let it go?”
The light changed, and they crossed Lafayette. Hamza watched, frustrated, as Will stopped and peered along the street.
“Was it on Great Jones?” Will asked.
“I don’t know,” Hamza said. “Look it up.”
“I’ve been to this place before. I know it’s around here. Let’s go this way, and if we don’t see it in a block or two I’ll check it on my phone.”
“Or you could just look it up now.”
Will shot him a glance.
“What’s your problem tonight, Hamza?” he said.
“My problem is not tonight. My problem is long-standing and eternal. My problem is this: it makes no sense to give our whole goddamn game away to some stupid website. I mean, Christ, Will, if we had to do this, at least we could have gotten it on TV. Or the New York Times or something.”
Will rounded on Hamza.
“TV? Every stupid talking head on every news show takes potshots at me. And all those televangelists preaching that I’m the devil—that fucker Branson and all his cronies, with their Detectives for Christ bullshit.”
“Easy,” Hamza said.
“Branson’s almost mellow compared to some of the stuff coming from people overseas,” Will went on, his eyes tight. “They’re talking about declaring a . . . shit, what the hell is it? The Salman Rushdie thing.”
“A fatwa,” Hamza said. “I did notice that, actually. You’ve got both Sunni and Shiite leaders united on that point. That’s impressive. Get a rabbi on board and the Oracle might just get peace going in the Middle East.”
“Hilarious,” Will said, a sharp edge to his tone.
Hamza held up a hand, palm out.
“Peace. Listen, I’m just saying—you don’t have to do an interview,” he said. “You could post something about the Oracle’s intentions up on the Site.”
“The Site’s the problem!” Will answered. “The only real contact anyone has with the Oracle is a bunch of words on a computer screen. When I was down in Florida, talking to the Ladies about the Oracle, they were terrified. And they work for us!
“We kept the Site up once we figured out that the predictions were connecting so we could speak to the world if we needed to, use its influence in a positive direction. But if everyone’s just getting more and more frightened, how’s that going to work? We need to turn that around. I want a chance for people to see that I’m nothing to be scared of, that I’m a person, not some freak.
“That’s not even the main part, either. We need to tell people about what the Site’s doing. Having more brains on it just makes sense. I almost think we have to do that. This is bigger than us. It always was.”
“Will, if you tell the world about all the terrible things that are happening because of the Site, hell, even if you do it anonymously . . . they’ll blame the guy who put it up. You and I know you didn’t create the predictions—they aren’t yours—but the world won’t make that distinction. They’ll blame the Oracle. They’ll blame you.”
“Maybe that doesn’t matter,” Will said. “Maybe telling people about all this is more important.”
Hamza shoved his hands in his pockets and gave Will a direct look. They stared at each other, standing on the cold, East Village sidewalk.
“What?” Will shouted, finally.
“I’m just trying to protect you,” Hamza said. “And I’m trying to protect myself, and Miko, and our kid. Just . . .”
He trailed off, watching Will’s face, hoping to see some sign of agreement. Understanding, even. He’d take what he could get.
“Okay,” Will said, finally. “I’m sorry. I mean it. You’re right. I wasn’t thinking straight. All of this . . . it’s just so heavy. The idea of setting it down, letting someone else handle it . . . it sounded really good, for a while.”
Hamza took a deep breath, then released it slowly.
“Okay. I’m not trying to be a dick, Will. I’m just . . . trying to figure all of this out. I just think that should be the priority. We can put this together, I know it.”
“Yeah,” Will answered, turning and walking up the street toward the corner. “That’s why we’re down here tonight, isn’t it? And tell you what. If we learn something tonight that cracks the case, then I’ll cancel the interview.”
“Wait, what?” Hamza said. “You’re still going to do it? But you just said—”
“I’ll do it. I just won’t talk about what the Site’s doing. I think I need to get out there. Change some minds about the Oracle. Let them know I’m not a monster. I need this, Hamza. I know we can do it safely. You’ll make sure.”
Hamza kicked at a piece of trash on the sidewalk, trying to decide if it was worth pushing back, visualizing Will in front of a reporter and feeling panic rising along his spine.
No. Let it go for now. Take the half victory and see what tomorrow might bring. Or tonight, even. After all, there was a chance this whole Aberdeen thing could actually pan out. Maybe they’d break it wide open, figure out what the Site was doing—if they could just find the damn bar.
Will pointed up the block.
“Look. There it is. MacAvoy’s.”
Halfway up the block, several clusters of people in identical dark coats stood smoking outside a bar with two huge bay windows that projected slightly over the sidewalk. A sign hanging above the door swung in the wind, a wood panel carved with an overflowing pint glass and the name of the bar.
The smokers all wore small, round white caps. As Will and Hamza drew closer, they could make out a dark stripe around the crown of the hats and could see that their jackets were classic navy peacoats.
“See?” Will said. “Those sure look like sailors to me.”
“Hey, I would never doubt the Oracle,” Hamza said. “I just questioned your intimate familiarity with the location of the sailor bar.”
They stopped across the street from MacAvoy’s. The sailors were now producing a chorus of low, raucous laughter.
“You’re sure they’re the ones we want?” Hamza said.
“Only one way to find out,” Will answered.
Hamza watched as Will crossed the street and approached the group. He said something—Hamza couldn’t quite make it out—and as one, the sailors’ heads swiveled to look at him.
