The Oracle's Prophecy

7

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Nakano found a cave in time to watch the sunrise from its entrance. As it broke over the horizon, she led her horse inside and made sure to feed it before collapsing on the dusty floor. Until it was dark again, it would be too perilous for her to continue her journey.

While the night presented its own dangers, it was less treacherous than traveling by day. The Borderlands was blackhat country after all, and if she was caught by a gang of outlaws, the Irenic markings on her wrists would be more than enough to get her throat cut.

At least she'd made it this far. It had been three days since she'd used the gateway to portal from Metropolitan Fifteen in the center of the nation to Harvardtown on the east coast; thousands of miles in only a heartbeat. That she'd made it past the Directory check-point was a miracle in itself and she was grateful for having little memory of it. Kamran's cognitive transference procedure had suppressed her consciousness and replaced it with a duplicate of the sleeping woman's to stop the skin-readers from identifying her.

She only was aware she'd made it through the portal when she was in Harvardtown and the effects of the transference began to wear off. That had been three days ago.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, she stifled a yawn. She needed to sleep. Yet, every time she closed her eyes all she saw was the haunting image of the predictor, Racquet, falling to her death.

The way the young girl's expression had turned to one of pure horror as she'd slipped from Nakano's grasp and fallen back down into the void kept replaying itself in her head.

It was a horrible way to die.

Nakano had done that. Had known she was going to have to do it for months. All in the service of retrieving the lost prophecy for the resistance.

"We picked up a predictor recently. A girl named, Racquet." She remembered telling Kamran three months earlier, after signaling for her resistance contact to meet her urgently in Sancisco.

"Every test we've run has shown her ability to travel through the void is impressive." She added, talking in a hurried whisper as they stood hidden in the rubble of a long-ago collapsed lost civilization building.

"How impressive?" He asked as he opened the file she passed to him. Inside was a picture of a pretty dark-skinned eighteen year-old girl with freckles on her nose. Just a child, she could see him think.

"Last time she was tested she was able to see ahead by over two months."

That caught his attention. The void was where the physical limitations of time and space fell away and it was possible for some anomalies – predictors – to view moments from the past, present or future. Entering it was not for the faint-of-heart though, it could kill you, and seeing ahead by no more than an hour was enough to tear most predictor's minds apart. Anything beyond that was almost unheard of.

"Remarkable." He said almost to himself as he reviewed each of Racquet's recent void attempts.

"Where is the Watcher going to put her?" He asked, referring to the head of the Archon's army of psychics. A woman who was in command of all the snoopers, skin-readers and predictors in the Directory. Nakano's superior.

"I'm sure the boys in War are just itching to take possession of her." He added.

The War Council oversaw all of the Directory's military operations across the nation. During any battle they'd send their army of predictors into the void to see if their plans were succeeding, and would make adjustments in the present if they weren't.