The Oracle's Prophecy

12

"He's innocent!" A fuming Cooper raged to her father, her eyes brimming with tears. "What those men are doing is wrong!"

Under the cover of darkness, they'd returned to the wagon which had been moved away from the souk to give them more privacy. There, illuminated by the campfire, they'd recounted the events of Ellis' capture.

Cooper had expected the moment her father heard what happened, he'd grab his weapons and rush to Ellis' aid. It was a shock when he remained all but motionless.

"You're right." He agreed while appearing almost casually indifferent. "But what would you have me do?"

"Rescue him!" She said stunned he even had to ask.

He refused with a simple shake of his head.

"I can't fight them and protect you at the same time."

"I don't need your protection." She shot back fiercely, her hand wrapping itself round the hilt of her sword jutting out of its holster on her back. "And don't try to use me as an excuse to justify handing over one of your own to the Directory. I know you're only trying to save your own skin."

"Cooper!" Riley gasped.

Cooper knew she'd gone too far that time but didn't apologize. Her father had made her blood boil and she was going to speak her mind freely, no matter.

Reaching into the back pocket of her trousers she removed the leaflet.

"Want to know how much you're worth to them?" She asked him as she ran her eye down the different types of crinks listed in the leaflet. It was laid out like a damn shopping list.

"You're a rounder, right? Let's see what they have to say about you, hmm?"

She read aloud. "'Rounders are the most common crink. They possess all abilities, and because of this have no one specialized power'."

She flipped to the other side of the leaflet which showed how much each anomaly was worth.

"Reward for rounders ranges from five-thousand to twenty-thousand Directory credits, depending on how powerful they are."

She pointed to the leaflet. "That's a good deal, though not as much as I'd get if you were a portaller or predictor. For them, the reward is forty-thousand credits or higher."

Cooper gave a thoughtful shrug. "Perhaps we could negotiate your price up if we tell them, you're the Great Inventor. What do you think?"

"That's enough, Coop!" Acadia grunted.

"What's your plan?" Her father asked from his chair, his voice as cool as the night air.

"My plan?"

"To rescue the boy, what's your plan?" He asked and as he spoke she saw his features harden.

"Not... I don't have one just yet." Her voice stammered and she felt herself shrinking under his gaze.

"Of course not." He scoffed.

"Moloch has twenty men at his disposal, and plenty more he can call upon." He informed her. "Far too many for the five of us to be able to release your new friend without being spotted. And when that happens things will get loud and bloody, and we'll be lucky if we can get out alive."

"Maybe that's a risk we'll have to take." She shot back with tears of anger. "And if you don't help me, I'll go by myself."

He gave a thoughtful shrug to that. "In that case, you should know that Moloch's men are a savage bunch and the only way you can beat such men is to kill them before they kill you.

"Are you ready for that, Cooper?" He pressed when she said nothing. "Are you ready to kill tonight?"

She didn't answer.

"What about your sister? If she goes with you, there's a good chance she might die. So tell me, are you willing to sacrifice her for someone you don't even know?"

Cooper looked over at Riley. She was sitting next to the massive ursinian at that moment and it had the unfortunate effect of making her look very small.

"We can't just do nothing." She pleaded.

"We're not doing nothing." He told her sternly. "We're staying alive. And that means making hard choices. So I'll ask again, are you willing to sacrifice your sister for someone you don't even know?"

She gave him a bitter look, and more than anything in her life she didn't want to answer him. Yet, it was clear he wasn't going to let her go until she did.

"No." She mumbled and the words felt like acid in her mouth.

"Then why would you expect me to do the same?"

His scorn. His lack of emotion. It felt like he was poisoning her with every word he uttered. She didn't want to be in his presence a second longer and spun around to run off into the night.

Acadia stepped into her path."I can't let you go out there by yourself, Coop. It's too dangerous."

She made a face imploring him to let her leave, but he shook his head. She was going to have to make do with where she was. So she slumped down against one of the wagon wheels out of her father's line of sight, and tearfully looked off into the distance.

"I don't understand, why teach us how to fight and then expect us to do nothing when someone's in harm's way?" Riley asked, speaking more calmly.

"I'm teaching you how to defend yourselves, there's a difference."

Not to me, Cooper wanted to say, but the fight had gone from her.

"You always told us how much basics hate anomalies." Riley said with a tinge of regret. "I never believed you, until today."

"You can't blame them, Lee." Acadia responded. "These people don't want to live out here, but because the Directory has used their army of snoopers, skin-readers and predictors to help them take possession of nearly every other part of the nation, they have to."

"I thought you said all those anomalies in the Directory are basically prisoners, practically slaves?"

"They are."

"So why blame them?" She demanded. "Why not the Archon?"

"They blame both."

"And yet they'll still hand over any crink they get their hands on to the Directory. Just for money." She said with disgust. "Even though they're handing over the very people who might be able to stop the Directory. Why do that?"

"They're desperate, and in their desperation they've allowed themselves to believe if they kill or hand over all the anomalies, they'll be left alone."

"That's never going to happen, is it?"

"No." Her father answered. "Based on the information I received this morning, it looks like the Directory will be moving into the Borderlands after winter."

That surprised everyone.

"How do you know?" Riley asked. "How can you be sure?"

He kept his eyes on the ground when he spoke. "The Directory has a gateway in Harvardtown now."

Cooper saw how his face sagged with this revelation and she could imagine why. With the ability to create portals across thousands of miles in the blink of an eye, the Directory had used the gateways over the last seventeen years to take control of the nation. Without them they'd never have become so powerful.

And they were her father's invention.

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