She ripped open the car’s rear door and tossed the grocery bags into the backseat, then slammed it shut. She took a deep breath,held it, released it, then opened the driver’s-side door and slid inside.
“Everything all right?” the Oracle asked.
She was wrong—it wasn’t his phone. He had the notebook on his lap, the Notebook in which the Oracle attempted to figure outthe plan of the Site. The green pencil was in his hand, and an entire page was covered with lime-colored text. She knew whatthat meant—he had explained his color-coding system to her during a particularly dull stretch of road in Indiana. And so,she knew it was unusual, unprecedented, probably represented some significant breakthrough—and she couldn’t manage to giveeven a single shit.
“Fuck you, Will,” Leigh said. She pulled the door closed and sat with her hands on the wheel, almost shaking with tension.
The Oracle considered this, then closed the Notebook, marking his place with the green pencil.
“You heard,” Will said.
“Yeah,” Leigh said. “I heard. Of all the things you could have done, all the predictions you could put up on the Site, yougave up the one thing that’s keeping the president of the United States from coming after us—not to mention poor Hamza andMiko—and, at best, throwing us into prison for the rest of our lives. I heard.”
Will sighed heavily.
“Well?” Leigh asked.
“I figured it out,” he said. “I know what the Site’s doing. I know what the numbers mean.”
Through the windshield, she could see a helicopter making its way through the sky. Will had told her that Feldspar Creek wasa wealthy town, a little mountain paradise for rich Californians who flew to Denver or Grand Junction and choppered in. TheOracle’s cabin was probably just one of many secluded, helipad-equipped getaways currently being used to ride out the endof the world. She wondered who was in it. A studio head, a movie star, a politician . . . did it matter? No. Not at all. Verylittle did, at this point.
“You figured something out. So what?” Leigh said. “Too little too late, you know?”
“But it’s not,” Will said, his voice calm. “That’s the whole thing. That’s why I put up the prediction about the president.Can I just explain this?”
Leigh looked out the window, breathing hard. She could call her dad, could call Reimer, and get some money wired to her. Shecould get back to the city, could write all this up, could . . .
Leigh turned the key in the car’s ignition, and the engine came to life.
She pulled up to the exit from the lot, the front of the car nosing onto the main drag through Feldspar Creek. A turn to theright would head out of town, back east and eventually, home. The Oracle could get out, or not. His choice.
To the left, she saw a waterfall, a silver ribbon winding its way down the face of the mountain that waited at the end ofthe road. The cascade split into two streams as it hit some ledge or promontory, dividing into two paths.
Left or right. She thought about good decisions, and bad decisions, and how hard it could be to tell them apart.
Leigh chose the mountain. She turned left.
Will exhaled.
“I thought about Hamza and Miko,” he said. “They’re safe. They’re out of the country, and we know from the radio and stuffthat he’s hired guards—twenty-four-hour protection. Plus, really, this isn’t about them. It’s about me. I had to do something, Leigh. I just couldn’t sit here and let the Site . . . end everything.”
“But why did you have to do this?” Leigh said. “How could giving up the cancer prediction possibly affect things in Qandustan?”
“You’ve read the same op-eds I have. The U.S. is staying out of Qandustan because Green doesn’t want another military actionin an election year on top of Niger and the others.
“But if he knows he’s going to lose the election, and stops worrying about how he’ll be perceived by the voters, he’s freedup to do something beyond just sending that idiot Leuchten.”
Leigh opened her mouth to respond, but Will cut her off.
“And you know what? It sucked that he was going to win again. He put the Coach on to us, he’s the reason for those blackouts,he’s the reason Branson outed me. Fuck him.”
Will glared out through the windshield. Leigh saw the sign for Laird Lane, the long dirt road that led up the final stretchof road to the cabin, and turned. She hadn’t seen another house for at least a few miles—it seemed that the safe house wasas isolated as promised. Small consolation.
“Why couldn’t you just let us be here, together?” Leigh said, her voice rising in pitch. “Even if there is a war, we couldhave ridden it out here. We would have been safe. Doesn’t that matter to you? Do I even factor into this decision?”
She realized she was yelling. She realized she had said “together” and “we.” She realized how frightened she was, for herself,for everyone.
“Don’t you think it’s a little fucking selfish to do something like this without discussing it with me?”
“Selfish? Leigh, that’s the whole point. This is something I’m doing for everyone but myself.”
“While ignoring the one person who’s been standing by you through all this bullshit.”
“Leigh, listen, of course I thought about us. I told you, I know what the numbers mean. I have a plan, and . . .”
“Come on, man! Getting the predictions doesn’t make you Batman or whatever. The Oracle is a fiction, Will. You’re just a guy.”
Laird Lane ended in a large clearing, and there, at last, was the cabin. Small but perfect, wood and shingles, a front porchcomplete with rocking chairs, everything Will had claimed it would be.
And next to it, perched on the dirt, was a black, insectile helicopter—the same aircraft Leigh had noticed back at Panner’sMarket.
“What the hell?” Will said, and then noise, incredibly loud.
Four distinct reports, echoed a moment later by the sound of all four of the car’s tires blowing out. Leigh fought the wheel.
Black-clad men holding rifles rushed out of the tree line on all
