Chapter 14
Will tapped his phone, sending Hamza to voice mail.
He lifted his head to let the sunlight wash over his face, enjoying the complete lack of winter. The air held a pungent, thicksmell. Sea salt for sure, and something else. Life. Will took a few deep breaths and leaned back against the side of his rentalcar.
The Gulf of Mexico wasn’t crystal clear, but compared to any of the waters around New York City, it was like something outof a surfing movie. Will had pulled over when he was about halfway along the causeway from Fort Myers to the outlying islandsoff the Florida coast. The mile-long series of bridges dipped down periodically to tiny islands, just sandy scraps of land,really, and Will had chosen one when the view became too overwhelming not to stop. He had no idea how people could live ina place like this, with jobs, obligations. He’d just stare out at the ocean all day long.
As if to prove his point, a school of dolphins curled up through the surface a few hundred yards offshore, and Will gave silentthanks that he hadn’t seen that while he’d been driving—chances are he’d have gone right through a guardrail and into theGulf.
He stretched, folding to touch his toes, then knelt on the sand and bent at the waist, touching his forehead to the groundand reaching as far as he could with his hands. He felt his spine elongate and sighed with pleasure, the exhalation makinga little crater in the sand. The move was a holdover from a yoga flirtation. He wished he had kept up with it—yoga hadn’tstayed in his life much longer than the girl he had taken it up for.
Will stood up. Better. His muscles still felt tight, and there was an ache between his shoulder blades, but there was onlyso much a minute or two of stretching could do. He’d been sitting in a car for five hours as he cruised through central Florida,across the state from Orlando. Direct flights to Fort Myers did exist, but he’d wanted the drive.
Will walked back to his car, leaned in, and reached across to the passenger seat, fishing around inside his shoulder bag.He came back out of the car holding the creased black notebook that had rarely been more than a few feet from him since theOracle dream.
Some of the small islands along the causeway were equipped with public picnic tables and barbecues—this was one. A few small,ash-filled grills set on dark, corroded metal poles sat nestled in the sand not far away. Will walked to the nearest one,pulling a Zippo lighter from his pocket.
Will placed the notebook on the grate. He centered it, looking at it for a moment, watching as the breeze from the sea rifledthrough the pages, as if it were just as interested as the rest of the world in what was inside.
The Zippo produced a slight rasping noise, a spark, and ultimately, a little bit of fire. Will held out the lighter to thenotebook and lit it at each corner, holding the flame steady until the paper caught.
It burned well, the flames flickering about six inches above the cover of the notebook, black smoke curling lazily up intothe air. In just a few minutes, the predictions were reduced to a blackened strip of spiral wire and a layered pile of ashin the bottom of the grill. Will found a stick nearby and poked through the remains, looking for anything readable. Dark flakesdrifted up and were caught on the breeze, floating toward the sea. Nothing. Not a single word left—except in his head, wherethe predictions blazed as strongly as ever.
Will inhaled deeply—smoke and sea. He realized that it was the first free, easy, lung-filling breath he’d had since the Oracledream.
He returned to his car, pulled back onto the causeway, and continued west along the bridge toward its end point, a place calledSanibel Island. He paid a surprisingly pricey toll—he supposed maintaining bridges across the ocean didn’t come cheap—androlled on to real land.
Sanibel was a tourist preserve. A few signs of year-round inhabitants popped up from time to time as Will drove along theroad through the island—a school, what looked like a little suburban neighborhood—but they were the exceptions. Most of thereal estate was covered by low-rise hotels, seafood restaurants, and tennis courts, with the balance covered by overdesignedstrip malls filled with interchangeable tchotchke shops selling T-shirts and seashell-based art.
And on top of all that: Christmas decorations. Palm trees wrapped with blinking lights, the big plateglass windows at thegrocery store still painted with evergreens and snowflakes.
How many lives did I save? he thought. I’ll probably never know. Not an exact number. But it’s a lot.
He’d already seen a few articles online talking through this exact question—How many people would avoid death or injury becausethe Oracle put warnings up of future disasters on the Site? He shook his head, a smile coming to his face.
Thousands? Maybe. Probably.
The GPS on Will’s phone ordered him to turn right—he saw a sign with an arrow pointing in that direction marked captiva—his ultimate destination, still several miles down the road.
His mistake, he was beginning to realize, had been waiting for the predictions to tell him what they meant. They were nevergoing to do that. They meant what he decided they meant. Superman didn’t wait to be told what to do with his powers. He justused them.
Will caught his eyes in the rearview mirror. Yes. Superman. And that was just fine.
The tone of the road under the car’s tires changed briefly as it crossed another bridge, much shorter than the causeway fromthe mainland, leading to a second island—Captiva. The way narrowed. To Will’s left, across an expanse of white beach, wasthe sea, shining blue and bright. On the other side of the road was a mangrove swamp, lush and impenetrable.
He thought about his plan, and about the predictions he hadn’t released yet in one way or another. Between the ones he’d usedat the start to
