Will felt like he was on the edge of a long, fast, bone-breaking tumble—into booze, maybe, or women, or just ugliness. Heknew what was going to happen, and he was coming to understand that no one should know what’s going to happen.
And yet the Site was still up.
More than two hundred people in the Oracle riots. Twelve at the Lucky Corner.
Will had spent almost every waking minute since sprinting out of Union Square with Hamza trying to decide what the hell hewas going to do. He’d considered going public. Had considered going to the cops, or the New York Times. He’d thought about sending money to the families of everyone who had died at the Lucky Corner, and in the riots. But itwas hard to see how he could do those things without putting Hamza at risk, and that wasn’t fair.
The safest, best idea he’d come up with was just to pull down the Site, but when the moment came, he couldn’t bring himselfto do it, and he knew exactly why, if he could just be honest about it with himself.
He liked being the Oracle.
Beyond that, there had to be something more to this than just two guys making a fuckload of money. He still had so many predictionsleft that he hadn’t used. There had to be a reason for all of it, something he was supposed to do.
But the next step wasn’t clear. He was paralyzed. He was a prophet with absolutely no idea what came next, and maybe a fewmore people would die because he was too dumb to figure it out.
A kebab cart caught Will’s eye, steam billowing out from its grill into the frigid air, and he realized he was hungry. Eatinghad been sort of hit or miss, recently. It happened when he reminded himself that he needed to do it, not on any sort of regularschedule.
Will walked up to the cart and asked for a chicken pita; the cart’s proprietor, a swarthy man in a thick, grease-stained coatand a plaid hunter’s cap pulled tight over his head, earflaps and all, tossed some raw chicken on the grill to sizzle.
The cart owner looked up at the news ticker, still running in the distance, and squinted.
“Heh,” he said. “Look at that.”
Will followed his gaze, and read:
REVEREND HOSIAH BRANSON ANNOUNCES PUBLIC CHALLENGE TO ORACLE PREDICTION: “NO ONE TELLS ME HOW TO EAT MY DINNER!”
Will thought that over, then shrugged. Branson could say whatever he wanted. The prediction would still come true. They allcame true.
“What do you think about all that?” Will asked, gesturing at the ticker.
“What do I think, sir?” the vendor said. “I think it’s just more BS. Everything BS. This Oracle, so powerful, he can see thefuture, and he just gives us predictions about lottery tickets or chocolate milk? Why never anything useful? Why never anythingthat helps?”
He pointed at Will with his tongs.
“Everyone I know—everyone; me, too—writes the Oracle with questions about important things. Things that, if I knew, wouldmaybe change my life. Everyone does this. But how many get answers? I ask you. How many people you know get an answer from this Oracle?”
“None,” Will said.
“None!” the vendor said, snapping his tongs together with a loud metallic clack.
He turned angrily back to his grill and pulled the spiced chicken together onto a spatula, which he dumped onto a waitingpita. He added a little tahini sauce, some lettuce, tomatoes, and onion, then wrapped it up in a sheaf of wax paper and aluminumfoil.
“Everyone thought maybe this time something would be true, that it would matter, that things could change. But you know . . .”
He pointed at the news ticker with Will’s pita. The scroll now read:
NIGER CAPITAL CITY NIAMEY BESIEGED BY SOJO GABA FORCES.
“. . . just because the Oracle says things that are true, it does not mean that they matter. The world is as ugly as ever. I just don’t understand why he bothers at all. What is the point?”
Will stood there for a moment, staring at the man holding out the foil-wrapped sandwich toward him.
“Hello?” the vendor said, one eyebrow raised. “Hello?”
Will reached for his wallet. He looked, extracted a bill, and handed it to the man, taking his pita sandwich at the same time.The vendor looked down, frowning.
“Hey, you crazy. I can’t break this. Give me something smaller,” he said and held the hundred-dollar bill back out towardWill.
Will turned and walked away, heading back the way he’d come, back toward the Internet café. He took a bite of the sandwich,ignoring the sound of the vendor calling after him.
That’s good, he thought. That’s really good.
Chapter 12
“You feel like this is the right way to go?” the president asked.
“I do, Daniel,” replied Hosiah Branson, relishing, as always, calling the man by his first name. It just never got old.
“Read me the bit about Niger again,” Branson said.
A pause, and then the president’s voice over the phone, low and rich—say what you would about Daniel Green’s talent for governance,but he was a hell of a public speaker.
“Our commitment to freedom cannot stop at our shores. The human rights abuses perpetrated by Sojo Gaba and its leader, IdrissYusuf, must end. He is taking the children of Niger and turning them into his army—forcing them to murder their countrymenin an effort to take control. Niger is one of the poorest lands on the planet. It has suffered under oppressive regimes forgenerations, and its people have been unable to develop on pace with other nations in the region, despite their abundant naturalresources and vibrant culture. Even more, the lack of a stable government has made it difficult for them to police their ownstate, allowing for the growth of aggressive terrorist organizations such as Sojo Gaba. Niger may seem far away, but eventsthere can absolutely affect the safety and security of the American people. Evil seeds may flower from its hidden training—”
“Root,” Branson said.
“What was that?” Green said.
“Seeds take root. They don’t flower. It’s a better metaphor, in any case. Roots burrow
