Miko ran her hand across the increasingly pronounced curve of her stomach, thinking about the future. She glanced down beneathher desk, at her long, battered teacher’s purse, suitable in dimension for carrying stacks of folders filled with essays andmath work home to be graded. A slim manila envelope projected from the top of the purse, where it had been sitting since shepicked it up a few days earlier—and would sit until she figured out what the hell to do with its contents.
She watched as Tyler turned pages in his book much too quickly to be reading them, making furtive glances over at the groupof friends he had been harassing moments before, with a particular focus on Linden, a long-haired blond specimen.
Miko considered singling him out again, but too much could make things worse—Tyler could decide, whether consciously or not,that the attention he was getting from the teacher was making him cooler in the eyes of his fellow students (or more particularly,Linden), and a feedback loop of misbehavior would begin. She flicked her eyes up at the wall clock—the day was almost over.She could let this one go.
Miko touched her stomach again, feeling a little flutter that might have been the baby, might have been her. She glanced downat the envelope in her purse again, then back up to the wall clock. Just a few more minutes.
She reached out with her teacherly senses again to take the temperature of her class—they were anxious, beyond just the end-of-dayreadiness to get the hell out of school—and it was no surprise. The state-run standardized tests were just a few months away,and they were required by the DoE to spend a certain amount of every day preparing for them. These kids were nine and ten,and they were already losing sleep over a test that supposedly would have a significant impact on their futures.
She wished she could tell them how little it would really matter, and how lucky they were that by and large, they don’t havea damn thing to worry about. Give it ten, twenty years, and life would settle into a steady drone of obligation, punctuatedwith the occasional peak of joy and pit of worry—things that wouldn’t disappear after spending a few days penciling littledots on an answer sheet.
But even if she tried, they absolutely would not—no, could not believe her. Kids were so focused on the moment they were currently living that they barely understood that the futureexisted, beyond regularly scheduled events like Christmas, birthdays, and Halloween.
Maybe they’d believe the Oracle, but they sure as hell wouldn’t believe her.
A chime sounded, ringing out from the school’s PA system, and the kids all looked at her, in one synchronized motion, likea bunch of prairie dogs popping their heads from their burrows.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Thank you for a lovely day, everyone.”
The children began the process of assembling their things to head home.
Fifteen minutes later, everyone was properly handed off—no late buses or caregivers today, thank God—and Miko was on the subway,the weight of the envelope in her bag disproportionate to its weight on her mind.
I have to tell Hamza, she thought, gratefully accepting the seat offered to her by an older woman, who gave her a sisterly glance as she stoodup. But then . . . maybe I don’t.
Her husband was winding tighter and tighter the longer Will remained out of contact, but it wasn’t just that. He’d found somethingto occupy himself—some puzzle or question he was trying to work out, and it was making him crazy. He was intently focusedon the news, watching and reading. Pieces of scratch paper covered with notes and numbers and circles and arrows were accumulatingon every flat surface in their home.
It all had to be Oracle related—everything he did these days was Oracle related—but so far he hadn’t seen fit to explain.He just got more and more stressed out with every article he read.
Miko ran a fingertip over the edge of the envelope in her purse. Its contents might make things better, but they could alsomake things worse, and she wasn’t sure which way to go with it.
Hamza was brilliant, but because he was brilliant, he assumed that no one else could see the things he saw. And maybe thatwas true—no one saw everything he saw—but people could see some of it. For instance, she was very aware of how bad it could be for her, him, and their unborn child if the Oracle was outed.The disaster in Uruguay after the murder of José Pittaluga made that point crystal clear. When it came to the Oracle, andanyone connected to him, emotions ran high.
That was why she’d held on to the envelope for a few days. Maybe it was better if the Oracle was out of their lives. But thenagain, maybe it was better if he wasn’t, so they could at least exert some influence on his choices.
Hamza was sitting at the kitchen table when she walked into their apartment, one hand buried in his dark hair, the other holdinga pencil with its tip poised above a yellow legal pad covered with the familiar circles, arrows, and angry scratch-outs. Atablet lay next to the notepad, showing some sort of article. Miko walked over to him, kissing the top of his head. She sawwhat looked like an offshore oil platform on the screen, surrounded by dense columns of text.
“Hi there,” Miko said.
Hamza set his pencil down and looked up at her.
“Hi,” he said. “Can you sit down? I want to tell you something.”
Miko, instantly wary, took off her coat and slung it over the back of a chair, dropping her purse beside it as she sat.
“Did you figure it out?” she said, gesturing to the notepad. “Whatever it is you’ve been working on?”
Hamza glanced down, frowning. He took a few long, deep breaths, then looked at different parts of the kitchen, then down athis notes, then finally back
