Eventually, though, he’d found an operation run by an individual using the handle GrandDame, who spoke (typed) excellent Englishand seemed willing to meet him halfway.
Negotiations had ensued, with Will in the role of John Bianco, one of several supposed employees working under the Oracle,a mysterious man who could see the future. Even saying that much had almost ended things right there—GrandDame’s skepticismhad almost palpably radiated from the computer screen, like standing in front of an oven with the door open—but getting theLadies to believe in the Oracle had worked the same way it originally had with Hamza. Will gave them a prediction due to happenin the next few days and simply let it come true.
Disbelief, mental trauma, denial, eventual acceptance, and then much wheeling and dealing, until finally an arrangement—Cathyand her partner, Becky Shubman, the other Florida Lady, would devise a set of protocols that would allow the Oracle to accomplishfour specific objectives. They were: release predictions to the world; add new predictions from time to time; receive e-mails;and make it all vanish without a trace at some point down the road, all with complete, impenetrable security that wouldn’trequire day-to-day maintenance or upkeep by the Florida Ladies, the Oracle, or anyone else.
Three weeks later, they’d presented their results. The system they’d devised didn’t rely on hiding a server in some sort ofdata vault behind multiple layers of heavy-bit encryption, or setting up the Site in a privacy-friendly jurisdiction somewherein the world, or any of the other standard methods of protecting information. All those could be hacked with enough time andeffort—no good.
Instead, they had sent Will to an Internet café and told him to download a Tor browser. Through that, he had opened a onetime-usedummy account on a freemail service, which he had used to open a corresponding dummy Twitter account. That was used to postthe first set of predictions to a pastebin-esque clone the Ladies had coded themselves—like an anonymous bulletin board thatcould be seen by anyone with an Internet connection, but only updated if you had the encryption key.
The key for this particular bin changed every ten seconds and could only be retrieved through the use of an algorithm builtupon a key phrase Will had chosen himself—he’d picked the first line of the second verse of Hendrix’s “Little Wing.” Thosesixteen words were used as the building block for the encryption key, which was about a hundred characters long and morphedand changed constantly, now so far removed from the original code phrase that it couldn’t be reverse engineered.
Ultimately, it had all worked as promised. The Oracle’s name remained the best-kept secret in the world.
In exchange for accomplishing all this, the Ladies were paid large sums of money, but more importantly, the Oracle had promisedto give them a prediction once all was said and done, a prediction that would save both their lives.
Will still felt bad about that last bit. There was no prediction. He didn’t know anything specific about the Florida Ladies’futures. He simply needed to offer them something that would inspire complete loyalty from them, something that could comefrom no one else. Other people could bribe them with billions to give up the Site, but only the Oracle could give them thefuture.
When everything was over, once he knew he wouldn’t need them again, Will was planning to tell the Florida Ladies to avoidAlbuquerque on such and such a date, without elaboration. They would stay out of New Mexico, they would stay alive, and theOracle would maintain his perfect record.
The front door opened. Becky Shubman shouldered her way in, accompanied by a blast of hot, humid air. She shoved the doorclosed and marched across the living room to stand directly in front of Will. Becky always walked like she was moving againsta gale-force wind.
“Johnny B!” she said, sticking out her hand. “You keeping the city safe for me up there?”
Will took Becky’s hand and was immediately hauled up out of his chair into a bear hug. Becky released him after a few seconds,then plopped herself down on the couch next to Cathy, eyeing the half-consumed cocktail in her hand.
“I see you didn’t waste any time this morning.”
“Would you like a drink?” Cathy asked.
“Sure, make me a smoothie,” Becky said.
Cathy stood, taking her vodka with her, and vanished into the kitchen.
“How long are you staying, Johnny?” Becky asked.
“Probably just the one night. I have to get back.”
“That’s too bad. I’ve got a daughter you’d absolutely adore.”
“So you’ve mentioned,” Will said. “Many times.”
Becky snorted. The sound of a blender could be heard coming from the direction of the kitchen.
She crossed her legs at the ankles and settled deeper into the couch cushions.
“Gotta say,” she said, “I liked that last set of predictions your boy put up on the Site. Those warnings. They’ll help a lotof people. Save some lives, I’m sure. Made me proud to be part of the organization.”
“Me too,” Will said. “Me too.”
Will didn’t know much about the Florida Ladies’ origin story. They’d apparently bonded when both their husbands died withina few months of each other. They met at a volunteer group at a Fort Myers museum and somehow, not much later they were partnersin a freelance computer security business. What Becky actually did in that arrangement was unclear to Will—Cathy was clearlythe technical genius. She’d been one of the only female engineers at the Xerox PARC lab in the ’80s, working to set up thebackbone of the world’s networking infrastructure—much of which had formed the foundation of the current Internet. Becky,on the other hand, was your classic Long Island widow. She’d been a wife and mother for the majority of her adult life andhad moved to Florida once her kids graduated from college.
Cathy returned from the kitchen holding a pink concoction in a tall glass. She handed it to Becky and sat down next to her.Will looked from one woman to the other. Becky Shubman looked like a white Shirley Hemphill, and Cathy Jenkins always remindedhim of Jackie O.
The women didn’t match. They were like a beat-up old Chevy
