The Oracle's Prophecy

13

Twenty-Eight – formally Harvardtown – was based on the outskirts of the ruins the lost civilization once called, Boston. Today, the city was no more than rubble and dirt – a wasteland festered with sinkholes and crevices that had swollen many a man never to be seen again. Like most of the dead cities that littered this nation, there were rumors of secret tunnels below the earth that led to rooms filled with lost civilization treasures and weapons. Since arriving, the Directory had dedicated much of their forces to exhaustively searching for these rooms but had so far uncovered nothing.

The town across the river from Boston, the one now known as Harvardtown, had lived a varied life. Originally a university, it became a quarantine zone during the plague years, a military base when the wars started, then nothing more than a ghost town.

Centuries would pass before a group of settlers made it their own and turned it into a trading outpost, which was how it had lasted until four years ago when the Directory attacked. They'd overrun the town in a week.

In a chamber within the old Memorial Church, Irenic Axanthic, a scaley with light green, shell-like skin sat lazily in the town's broadcasting room. Fat and idle, he sat in clothes lined with brown sweat stains and spotted with the blood of the citizens he'd tortured. Like many Squeaks, he'd spent the day picking dirt from his nails, having his boots shined and condemning citizens to life sentences of servitude. For a thug like Axanthic, it was a good life.

As his fat lips nibbled on an apple – a rare luxury – he scanned the day's messages.

Most of the chatter concerned a missing runaway Squeak called, Nakano. The order to capture her had come from the Archon himself and whenever Axanthic's mind dwelt on his leader, he always turned to the large portrait hanging on the wall at his back.

Powerfully built, the Archon sat straight as a board in a dark leather chair looking intently outward through eyes that were the color of fire.

At the bottom of the painting was the Directory's slogan. CONFORMITY & OBEDIENCE WILL HELP YOUR LEADER WIN THIS WAR!

On the other walls hung similar pieces of propaganda.

PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN FROM FLESH EATING GRIZZLIES. A poster stated below an image of a savage looking ursinian, more bear than man, trying to tear a mother's young baby from her hands.

Another, SURVIVE TOGETHER, DIE ALONE, was written above a sketch of a man dying from starvation, set in stark opposition to a line of Directory citizens, beaming with health.

Last, NORMALIZED CRINKS ARE WORKING FOR YOU! This one was a photograph of a grinning anomaly surrounded by a crowd of relaxed Directory workers. They watched on as the crink used his telekinetic ability to lift a heavy metal beam into place in a factory. The only color in the black-and-white poster was the painted red-hand stamped on the crink's shoulder, symbolizing that he'd been normalized.

The rest of the chamber was bare, furnished minimally with nothing more than five unevenly sized wooden tables, their numbers burnt into the top. At each table, an Irenic with a stack of papers faced a broadcaster; telepaths who could connect with other anomalies over thousands of miles away.

It was like tapping, but an average rounder anomaly could tap across a room. A broadcaster, with their focused ability, could tap from one side of the nation to the other.

At desk one, the Irenic's chair was empty as this broadcaster's role was to receive emergency transmissions from the capital. Axanthic couldn't remember the last time this metropole had received any such messages, which was why he almost fell out of his chair when the anomaly picked up her pencil and began to write.

The second she was finished he grabbed the scrap of paper and began reading, his face now sweating with nervous energy.

"What is it?" One of the Irenics asked, watching him intently.

"The gateway needs to be made ready, immediately!" Axanthic said passing him the message and telling him to go directly to the old library where the portal machine was housed. "Tell them they have ten minutes! No more!"

Grabbing his own coat, Axanthic left the old church and raced across the yard toward the sheriff's mansion.

In another lifetime the yard had been a freshly cut lawn where trees and rose bushes grew. Now it was nothing more than a muddy swamp where deep pools of water collected in the network of trenches dug by the town's residents during the last days of the Directory's attack. Much of the stonework in the surrounding buildings still bore the shell pockmarks from that final battle.

Banging his fist on the door of the sheriff's mansion till someone opened it, Axanthic found himself face-to-face with a man wearing a red hood and visor.

It was a drone.

"Eight-Two-Five." Axanthic said, reading the three numbers on the drone's hood. "Tell the Sheriff, Irenic Axanthic needs to speak with him."

"He's having his dinner." The drone's lifeless voice replied.

Axanthic shoved the message into the drone's hand. "Tell him in eight minutes the Archon's finest ten Myrmidons will be coming through the portal. Tell him Control is coming."

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