He looked off to one side, smiling a little, as if sharing a private joke with himself. He sighed, then looked back to Leigh.
“I don’t know,” the Oracle answered. “I dreamed all of this.”
Leigh looked up from the laptop.
“You . . . dreamed it?” she said, very focused.
“Yes. About eight months ago. Voices spoke to me in my head while I was asleep. A little later, I noticed that the thingsI dreamed were starting to come true.” His mouth twitched. “And here we are.”
Leigh almost felt drunk. These were the answers. What everyone—everyone—wanted to know. But . . . a dream? A dream?
For the first time, she wondered whether the answers she would get might not be the answers she—or anyone else—would want.
“Have there been any other dreams since then?”
“No, just that one set of predictions, but they go out for a long while from now—hundreds of them.”
“Why not release all of them at once? Why parcel them out like you have?”
“The predictions came to me. I’m using my best judgment about what to do with them.”
“So you came up with the Site on your own?”
“I have had some help from some people close to me. I couldn’t do what I’m doing without them.”
“I don’t suppose you want to tell me who any of them are?”
The Oracle nodded.
“Sure, want their cell numbers? Hold on, I’ll read them off slowly.”
A pause. Leigh looked up from her keys.
“Nah,” he said, his tone light.
“Right,” Leigh said. She smiled as she said it, but she could hear a snappish tone in her voice. She flexed her fingers.
“Do you want to stop for a little while?” The Oracle asked.
“No, that’s all right. Just a bunch of quick typing. I’m fine, Jim,” she said.
Leigh leaned forward.
“Three things,” Leigh said.
The Oracle nodded.
“First, why do you think you were sent this information? Second, do you know who sent it, and if so, who is it?” Leigh said.“And finally, what are you actually doing with the predictions? You mentioned a moment ago that you’re relying on your judgment—whatexactly does that mean? For months, rumors have persisted that you’re selling information about the future to wealthy individuals.That doesn’t seem particularly altruistic.”
The Oracle crossed his legs, resting his ankle on his knee. He looked out the window, and Leigh followed his gaze, out acrossthe roofs of the west side of Midtown.
The Oracle looked back at Leigh. His face was solemn, and he contorted it into what looked a little bit like a smile.
“I’ll answer your second question first,” he said. “I have no idea who sent me the predictions. Maybe there’s some code orpattern in them that would give me the answer, but if there is, I’m too stupid to see it.
“There are only a few possibilities,” he continued. “Number one, someone out there in the future sent all this informationback to me. Or maybe someone in the present sent me a list of things they were planning to do, and they’re making all thepredictions come true, one after the other. Or no one’s behind it at all, and it’s all just some accident of physics.”
“Surely you have some guess, though?” Leigh said. “You’ve been living with these predictions for more than half a year. Ifyou had to gamble on one of your three theories, which would it be?”
He smiled.
“I’m the Oracle. There’s no such thing as gambling when you know the future. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. How I got the information,and even why I got it, isn’t important. It’s about what I do with it.
“Let’s say I read a book that, oh, teaches me how to weave a rug. Does it matter if I bought that book, or checked it outfrom the library, or, hell, stole it? No. What makes a difference is whether I go out and weave a rug, or if I just let theinformation sit in my brain. Taken to the next level, it’s how I use the rug once I’ve woven it. Do I sell it, do I keep it,do I give it away?”
Leigh took that down and read over her last few paragraphs.
“Okay. So what are you actually doing with the predictions? Why did you create the Site?”
Again, the Oracle paused before responding.
It felt to Leigh like he was going off script, moving away from whatever answer he’d originally planned to give. Which raisedthe question: Had he shifted toward the truth, or lies?
“The Site was part of a bigger plan to attract buyers for the predictions. It was a way to ease the world into the idea thatsomeone out there could see the future.”
“Did that work?” she said, typing.
“Yes,” he answered. “The Oracle has made over fourteen billion dollars.”
Leigh’s hands froze.
“So that’s really all this is about? Just . . . money?” she said, not looking up from her screen.
She could hear disappointment in her voice—no, something more profound. Disillusionment.
“That’s where it started.”
“And now?”
“It’s more than that,” the Oracle said. “I’ve used the money to do things that haven’t been made public. I’ve given away overa third of that cash. To charities, anonymous donations, things like that.”
Leigh raised an eyebrow.
“That has to make you the largest charitable donor in history. Why?”
The Oracle smiled.
“What the fuck am I going to do with fourteen billion dollars that I can’t do with nine? It didn’t seem right to take allthat good fortune and not do something for other people.”
The Oracle reached up under his sunglasses, careful not to knock them off, and rubbed at his eyes.
“Also,” he said, “I’m trying to make up for killing twelve people when this whole thing started.”
Leigh’s reporter’s instincts lit up, even as her disappointment in what the Oracle was turning out to be deepened.
“. . . what?” she managed.
“You remember the Lucky Corner Massacre?”
“Of course,” Leigh said cautiously. “It was huge news. Last year. Like eight months ago.”
“I did that.”
Leigh thought for a moment, trying to remember the details.
“But wasn’t it just a bodega robbery that went bad over on Ninth? A couple of patrol cops walked into the store while it washappening. I
