The Oracle Year, page 30
“I need to get back on the road,” the Oracle said. “Are you coming with me?”
Leigh looked at him, just a man, and not just a man at all, trying to save the world.
“Yes,” she said. “You deserve my help. You deserve everyone’s help, but I want to be clear about something. There’s a . . . mercenary angle to this for me. I’m sorry that you’ve had to endure so much, but that’s not the only reason I want to stay. I want the rest of the story. For me.”
“Obviously,” Will said. “I’m not an idiot.”
Leigh braced herself and sat up, her head pulsing in time with her heartbeat.
“How do you keep going?” she asked. “If it were me, I might just . . . hide, I guess.”
Will closed his hands around his coffee cup, staring down into it.
“I could do that, but then I’d just be surrendering. At least this way I’m still making choices. I’m still trying. I’m still me. The minute I stop, that ends. I’m just a tool for the Site. Maybe it’s an illusion, but it’s what I have.”
He glanced at the small table between the two beds, noticing a cell phone, facedown. He frowned.
“Do you remember me using that last night?” he said. “It’s one of my last phones.”
“Yeah,” Leigh said, “but I don’t remember what for.”
He picked it up, turning it over.
“Me neither. I need to get rid of it, but let me just see what I—”
Will swiped the phone’s screen. He stared at it, his frown deepening.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “That’s right.”
“What?” Leigh said. “What did you do?”
He turned the screen so Leigh could see it.
On it, a prediction, in the same format as all the others on the Site:
ON SEPTEMBER 4, 2022, THE GOVERNMENT OF CHINA WILL BE TOPPLED BY A REVOLUTION THAT STEMS FROM MORE THAN FIFTY YEARS OF PERSISTENT HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS.
“Whoa,” Leigh said. Her voice was hushed. “Is this real?”
“No,” the Oracle answered. “I made it up.”
Chapter 39
ON AUGUST 15, 2024, A BREAKTHROUGH IN STEM-CELL THERAPY WILL ALLOW COMPLETE REPAIR OF SPINAL-CORD-RELATED PARALYSIS.
Will tapped the screen, and the prediction went live to the Site. They were just crossing the border between Nebraska and Colorado, finally off I-80. I-76 would take them to Denver, and then it would be I-70 for all but the very last leg of their journey.
He thumbed the phone off and performed the now-familiar ritual of removing the SIM card and battery, tossing the pieces out the window as the car sped along the interstate.
Will adjusted his headphones slightly and tapped the volume control on the little MP3 player he’d bought at an Iowan travel plaza, a compromise that allowed Leigh to listen to the radio while she drove. He’d stocked it with songs ripped from the small set of CDs also available for purchase, mostly greatest hits collections. Right now, it was Prince, a bunch of the ’80s classics. Will liked the tunes, but the real star for him was always the production. No one built an arrangement like Prince.
The Oracle notebook lay open on his lap, every page covered with his cramped handwriting in various colors.
The pattern had evolved past just the blue, red, yellow, and green he’d started with. He’d added a whole new run of shades to deal with the effects of the false predictions he’d been putting up—purple, orange, turquoise. The prediction about China was just the first. He’d been kicking around the idea ever since meeting Anthony Leuchten and realizing that the government had planned to use the Oracle’s influence to affect world affairs.
Leigh’s reaction to this plan had started skeptical and shifted to hugely alarmed once she’d had a little time to think over the implications. For one thing, she thought that trying to essentially trick China into improving human rights inside its borders could backfire in any number of ways. She’d taken some Asian poli-sci courses in college and knew the country’s history much better than Will did. But it was done.
He’d put up several more false predictions since, although he’d discussed them with Leigh first. The idea was to run interference patterns across the Site’s plan, possibly disrupt it in some way. Barring that, just to help. To improve things.
Will knew he was slowly but surely burning the Oracle’s credibility—but he wasn’t sure that was such a bad thing. The Site was using that same credibility to sow chaos. Maybe it was better to try to do something good with it. If the real predictions were destroying the world, maybe a few false ones could fix it.
The spinal cord thing was designed to spur research in that area—he’d been reading about it in Wired, and it seemed like something that should be getting more money. Likewise, a prediction about large, easily accessible mineral deposits in near-Earth asteroids, and a few others.
So far, it had been a lot of effort, some extra colors for the notebook, and not much else. His new predictions generated their own streams of aftereffects but never really connected with the Site’s existing web; just dead flies on a windowsill.
He only had one untraceable phone left, and he was saving it for one last Site update—a Hail Mary pass he’d only use if he absolutely had to.
Will leaned back, looking out at the mountains through the windshield, letting his mind drift, listening to the radio edit of “Alphabet Street,” which lacked the five-minute instrumental coda. He thought about the Site, free-associating. It was strange. The web wasn’t growing the way it originally had. The nexus points that had combined early on to create what Will thought of as the “big” effects—the problems with the global economy, the Niger invasion, and so on—had stopped interacting.
The first, second, and third rounds of connection had all been relatively quick. Quick, that was, for events happening on a worldwide scale. Like dominoes falling. Now, though, it was as if everything was in slow motion, as if the gears of the Site’s great machine had pulled apart and were no longer churning the world along to some unknown destination. It felt like the Site was holding its breath, waiting.
Will sighed. He closed the notebook and reached down between his legs to the floor, where a small stack of unread newspapers and magazines awaited. The top item was that week’s copy of The Economist, on stands that morning. The cover story was about Qandustan.
He opened the magazine, looked at the article, and frowned. He was exhausted, it looked long, and The Economist used tiny type. Most importantly, he still wasn’t sure the Site had anything to do with Qandustan at all.
Virtually every event he was certain was part of the Site’s web had several Oracle-related triggers—more than one string connecting it to other sections of the web. But Qandustan only had one—the warlord Törökul’s decision to attack the city of Uth because the United States was too busy stepping on the forces of the Prophet in Niger to intervene. And even that was speculation—no one knew for sure if it had played a factor.
Will forced himself to dig into The Economist article. Not much new, really. The elder biys in the council were still sequestered up in the mountains above Uth, as they had been for the past several weeks. Anthony Leuchten was on the ground, talking to both sides, trying to find a diplomatic solution to an increasingly tense situation, which conjured up a nice image of Leuchten sweating in some desert hellhole surrounded by men who might kill him at any moment.
The magazine had sent a reporter to the other side of the world to obtain an interview with Törökul. He had proven elusive, but the reporter had managed to track down one of his subordinates, a Colonel Bishtuk.
He repeated most of the facts Will knew from his own research: his ancestors had built the mosque; his people still had every right to the mosque; their heritage had been stolen; his leader, the great Törökul, would lead them to victory . . . but then there was something else. Something new. Will’s eyes widened.
“Holy shit,” he said.
Will grabbed a green pencil from the passenger-side door. He flipped through the notebook on his lap until he found the pages related to Qandustan. All the entries were written in blue. Will drew big, green, dramatic circles around the edges of the page, designating it as firmly Site related.
“I knew it,” he said to himself.
According to Colonel Bishtuk, Törökul had decided to attack Uth when he saw the city’s lights go out during the worldwide blackouts that spring. He called it a sign from Allah, and at that very moment Törökul had vaulted onto his horse and ridden to gather the tribes.
The invasion in Niger had given Törökul the opportunity, the blackouts had given him the inspiration—and the Site had caused them both.
Will reached up, pulling off his headphones.
“Leigh!” he said. “Check this out. Qandustan’s definitely a big part of the picture.”
He looked up to see Leigh staring straight ahead, her face slack.
“Qandustan,” she said in a dazed voice. “Yeah? Qandustan. How about that?”
“What’s the matter?” Will asked.
“Listen to the radio, Will,” Leigh said.
He hadn’t even realized it was on. He focused his attention on the words, a deep voice speaking in a language Will didn’t understand, emphatic and angular.
“What is this?” Will asked. “I can’t understand it.”
“It’s audio from a clip that a local TV station in Qandustan broadcast last night our time—that’s their morning. The translation will come through in a minute. They’ve already run it a few times,” Leigh answered.
“Can you just summarize?” Will said.
“Yup,” she said. “Törökul’s got a nuke.”
“What?” Will said. Leigh glanced at him. She looked ill.
“The anchor said it’s an old missile from the USSR, an SS-24. They used to mount them on trains and trucks, I guess, and drive them around. They were completely self-contained, and they kept them moving all the time so a U.S. strike couldn’t take them out.”
Leigh reached down and turned off the radio.
“They aren’t even sure if it works, and he’s not saying how he got it, or where it is. But Törökul’s calling it the Sword of God, and he’s saying that the council in the mountains is taking too long to come back with their vote. He thinks they’re screwing with him—stalling until his enemies can regroup.”
Will hunched forward, gripping the notebook in both hands, his mind deep in the Site’s web, trying to understand.
“What does Törökul want?” he asked.
“The elders need to come down from the mountains within forty-eight hours, or he’ll launch the Sword of God against Uth. If his people can’t have the mosque, he doesn’t want anyone to have it.”
Will leaned back.
“Jesus,” he said. “They better get word to the old guys to hurry up their vote.”
“They can’t,” Leigh said. “They’re hidden, in a cave or something. That’s the whole point, remember? No one knows where they are. They’ll come back when they come back.”
“To a big, smoking hole in the ground,” Will said. “I don’t understand why the Site would do this. What the fuck would be gained from some city in Central Asia getting vaporized?”
“Will, you don’t understand. It’s not just Uth. All night long . . . while we were asleep . . . the world . . . it’s all falling apart.”
Leigh’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel.
“Qandustan has a defense treaty with China. So China said that if Uth gets nuked, they’ll send attack bombers into the mountains where they think Törökul is hiding. Half the Muslim countries in the world said they’d fight to stop that, and that includes Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.”
“Pakistan and China both have nukes, too,” Will said.
“And the Saudis,” Leigh said. “Apparently for a while. They thought now would be a good time to announce it. The U.S. has a defense treaty with them, just like China with Qandustan. So if China starts fighting the Saudis . . .”
“So that’d be it. Everyone would jump in. Boom.”
Will closed his eyes, his gut churning, thinking about the Site laughing at him for putting up his idiotic fake predictions, trying to change a world that wouldn’t even exist in a few days.
“In one fucking night?” he said.
He felt Leigh’s hand on his back, a tentative touch.
“What’s going to happen, Will? Tell me you know what’s going to happen.”
Will thought, and wondered, and had nothing to say.
Chapter 40
Leigh pushed her cart down the aisle, looking at the nearly empty shelves, attempting to ignore the news broadcast running on the store’s speaker system, giving an update on the global crisis—nothing she didn’t already know, and nothing she wanted to hear.
Panner’s Market was the only grocery store in Feldspar Creek—a market, really. A small store for a small town, never with all that much in stock.
Still. This was apocalyptic. Gaping holes where the staples should have been. No flour or sugar, no toilet paper, no coffee.
They had almost reached the cabin. According to Will, it was a fifteen-minute drive up the mountain from the town. The place had taken on a talismanic quality in Leigh’s mind—a refuge where they could finally settle in and think, figure out a next step.
Until, of course, the world ended in a huge nuclear fireball.
The feast had been her idea. A celebration of their arrival at the cabin, and a sort of screw-you to the Site—a dance to the graveyard.
Hamza had supposedly stocked the safe house—and “safe” was relative, under the circumstances—with canned goods, bottled water, and other nonperishables. Enough to last for a while, if they needed it, but fresh was fresh, and so Leigh had pulled into Panner’s Market in search of milk, eggs, fruits, and vegetables. A few good steaks, if they could be found. They had talked about grilling that night, maybe splitting a bottle or three of wine.
Apparently, though, she wasn’t the only one in Feldspar Creek thinking that way. The tiny butcher’s case held only a few graying packages of ground chuck. Leigh grabbed them and made her way to the register, where she waited her turn behind a line of still, silent shoppers.
The checkout clerk—a well-padded older woman with brilliant, bottle-red hair and a name tag labeling her as a Claire—worked the line with quiet efficiency.
Claire looked a little off her game. Her makeup was unevenly applied, and her hair was messy.
“Hi there,” she said, as Leigh stepped up.
“Hello,” Leigh said. She began unloading her cart and placing the groceries on the conveyor belt. Claire swiped Leigh’s items across the scanner. She rushed it and hissed with impatience when the laser didn’t ring up the price on the first try.
Leigh opened her purse and pulled out her wallet. She unsnapped it and thumbed through the sheaf of bills inside, literally the last of their cash.
She considered the fact that her trip west with the Oracle had used almost exactly, to the penny, the amount of money Will had brought with him from New York, and let her mind skitter away. She’d only known Will Dando for about a week, and she was already largely postcoincidence.
“You’re lucky you made it,” Claire the clerk told her. “We’re closing early today.”
“I get it,” Leigh said.
“I just want to be home, you know?”
“I do,” Leigh agreed. “I really do.”
Claire stopped scanning Leigh’s items and settled back, holding a thin plastic bag containing the one anemic-looking head of lettuce the market’s cold case had left to offer. She looked bleakly at her empty market.
“You know, I’ve made more money this week than I do in the whole down season up here. I should go spend it, you know? Buy something nice, while I still can.”
She pressed a button on her cash register.
“Forty-eight ninety-seven,” she said.
Leigh nodded, and looked down at her wallet, then dimly realized that words from the news broadcast were penetrating her consciousness despite her best efforts to screen them out.
“President Daniel Green.” “Cancer.” “New prediction.” “The Site.” “The Oracle.” “Three to four months.”
“The Oracle.”
The Oracle.
Leigh’s head swam. Nausea churned in her gut. Hazily, she fumbled a few bills from her wallet and dropped them on the checkout scanner. She grabbed the grocery bags and walked toward the exit, ignoring Claire, dimly aware that the woman was holding up the money and calling after her. She had paid too much or too little. It didn’t matter.
Leigh walked quickly to the Nissan, parked at the edge of the market’s small lot. Will was visible through the windshield, in a cap and wig and glasses—he was always in disguise now, unless he was behind a locked door. His head was down. The pose felt to Leigh like he was looking at his phone. The phone he had just used to fuck them both.
She ripped open the car’s rear door and tossed the grocery bags into the backseat, then slammed it shut. She took a deep breath, held it, released it, then opened the driver’s-side door and slid inside.
“Everything all right?” the Oracle asked.
She was wrong—it wasn’t his phone. He had the notebook on his lap, the Notebook in which the Oracle attempted to figure out the plan of the Site. The green pencil was in his hand, and an entire page was covered with lime-colored text. She knew what that meant—he had explained his color-coding system to her during a particularly dull stretch of road in Indiana. And so, she knew it was unusual, unprecedented, probably represented some significant breakthrough—and she couldn’t manage to give even a single shit.
“Fuck you, Will,” Leigh said. She pulled the door closed and sat with her hands on the wheel, almost shaking with tension.
The Oracle considered this, then closed the Notebook, marking his place with the green pencil.
“You heard,” Will said.
“Yeah,” Leigh said. “I heard. Of all the things you could have done, all the predictions you could put up on the Site, you gave up the one thing that’s keeping the president of the United States from coming after us—not to mention poor Hamza and Miko—and, at best, throwing us into prison for the rest of our lives. I heard.”
