Oracle

by David Wood

  Ignoring the pain in her hands and the deadly threat of the gun, Jade leaped at him, thrusting finger-claws at his face. Hodges, still unsteady on his feet from her initial attack, tried to draw back but was too slow. Jade felt her fingers sink into something wet, and all of a sudden, Hodges was screaming like a wounded animal.

  He flung the gun away, and reached up with both hands to protect his already ruined eyes. Blinded and vulnerable, overcome by primal panic, he stumbled back, tripped, fell on his back with a splash. Jade, in the grip of a similar animal instinct, pounced after him, beating her fists at him, raining wild blows down on his face. She had taken a self-defense course during her college years, and Maddock had tried to teach her a few martial arts moves, but what she did now was nothing like that. This was pure fury. Revenge for Paul Dorion’s murder, and Acosta and Sanchez, too. Payback for shooting Professor and for trying to kill her over and over again.

  “Jade!”

  She could hear someone shouting her name, but it was the sound of tearing metal, the tilting of the deck and the rush of water all around that finally broke through the fog of war. Hodges lay beneath her, still making a weak effort to fend off her attack and keep his head above water.

  “Jade!” It was Professor. “We have to go! Now!”

  She stared at him. It seemed impossible that he was standing, that he was even conscious. His face was ghostly pale, except where blood streamed from the ragged gash on his cheek. The flesh around the wound was swollen, distorting his features and giving him a dazed, zombie-like expression. He wobbled unsteadily, trying to keep the weight off his injured leg.

  “We have to swim for it,” he said, but she knew there was no way he would be swimming anywhere. What he meant was: You have to swim for it.

  She looked over at the partially deflated launch, wondering if it was buoyant enough to act as a life preserver, then she had an idea. “The submersible!”

  He blinked at her, and then his face revealed comprehension. “Okay. It’s worth a shot.”

  She rushed to his side and draped his arm over her shoulder, then began hobbling up the canted deck toward the tarpaulin-covered QED. Despite having been used as an impromptu wrecking ball in the failed attempt to kill them, there was little visible evidence of damage. The miniature submarine was designed to withstand more than three thousand pounds per square inch of pressure, so she doubted very much that getting banged against the side of the ship, an impact about equivalent to getting in a fender bender in a supermarket parking lot, could have compromised its structural integrity. Besides, they weren’t going to be using it to dive.

  She used her knife to cut away the bungee cords that held the tarps in place, revealing the yellow tank-like submarine. A series of welded rungs led up to the top and a cylindrical protuberance that ended in an entry hatch with a big flywheel. Jade gave Professor a boost then clambered up to help him get the hatch open.

  From this slightly elevated perspective, they witnessed the beginning of the end for the Quest Explorer. Inundated by tons of seawater, its support beams bent and hull plates overstressed, the ship could remain afloat no longer.

  Jade wrestled the hatch open. “In you go,” she said. “None of this ‘ladies first’ crap this time.”

  Professor did not argue, but allowed her to help him maneuver into the opening. He stopped just before his head and shoulders could disappear from view and said one word. “Ophelia.”

  “Crap,”

  Let her die, Jade thought, but what she said was, “I’ll be right back.”

  Hodges hovered on the edge of consciousness. The first hit—Jade’s sneak attack—had nearly done him in. Everything after that had been like the death of a thousand cuts, no one blow severe enough to do any real harm, but cumulatively and when added to that initial skull-fracturing impact, enough to put him down.

  He wanted nothing more to simply give in, surrender himself to oblivion, but the release of unconsciousness was like a fog all around him, evaporating when he tried to embrace it.

  His mouth filled with warm seawater. He involuntarily inhaled, and the subsequent choking fit brought him fully alert. He sat up and saw through one blurry eye—the other was swollen shut from Jade’s attack—that the water was rising fast all around him. In another second, he was fully immersed, half-floating as the ship sank away beneath him.

  His first thought, I’m not going to die, was almost immediately supplanted by, I’m not going to live.

  He could swim for it. There was land on the horizon, how far away? Twenty or thirty miles? He was a good swimmer; he might be able to make it.

  You saw your family.

  Chapman’s words haunted him. How had he known that?

  You saw yourself with them, the way it would have been.

  He had just assumed the weird episode was some kind of hallucination. He had dreamed the same thing so often, then awakened expecting to roll over and find his wife curled up next to him in bed. Brian dreamed it so many times that for several weeks after the attack, he had refused to sleep. Only after joining the Norfolk Group, focusing his grief into something meaningful, had the dreams finally stopped. He hadn’t really understood that this was different until Chapman had said it.

  His glimpse of another world, of sitting down to dinner with his wife and his daughter, had not been a dream, not a replay of the life he had lost. It was the life that he could have had…that he should have had. The black orb—the Moon stone—had shown it to him.

  What I don’t understand is how you could have come back?

  Come back? Did that mean he had a choice in the matter?

  He understood now what had become of the crew. Each one of them had seen something, another life, a better life, and had made the decision to stay.

  His angry response to Chapman’s taunt had been a lie to cover a new upwelling of grief. I could have stayed with them?

  Maybe it was still possible.

  He oriented himself toward the center of the ship and started swimming, diving deeper to reach the place where he had last seen the Moon stone. He knew the ship was sinking fast, that he was now caught in the boundary layer, pulled along like a leaf caught in a slipstream, but he didn’t care. The Moon stone would save him; it would transport him away from this terrible world to a much better place.

  It wasn’t there. Through the murk, he could see that the deck had collapsed under the prodigious weight of the sphere. He felt a moment of panic. Had it continued right through the hull?

  No, there it was, hanging from a tangle of slings and cables just a few feet below. Ignoring the pressure building in his ear, he gripped one of the straps and pulled himself to it.

  How do I make it work? Before, it had simply come over him like a fainting spell, no rhyme or reason. Maybe if he could touch it….

  He tore at the slings, trying to find the stone orb nestled within. His fingers grazed something hard and smooth to the touch. He pressed harder against it.

  “Take me there,” he screamed. His words, his last breath rushed out in a cloud of bubbles. “Take me back, damn you.”

  Darkness swelled around him, and he sensed that he was almost there.

  Jade dropped from the top of the submersible and into thigh deep water that was rising fast. Part of her couldn’t believe she was doing this, risking her life to save the woman who would….

  I can’t judge her for what she might do, Jade told herself. Yet if she saved Ophelia now, and every dire part of that future came to pass, it would be her fault.

  What good was knowing the future if you couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it?

  But she couldn’t just let Ophelia die. That wasn’t in her nature.

  She spied the RIB, swamped by inrushing water, but still afloat at least for a few more seconds. The davits were already under water and in a moment, they would pull the inflatable boat down, too. Ophelia was a motionless heap sloshing in the bilge space. There wasn’t time to rouse her and Jade didn’t think she could swim back
to the QED dragging the woman along, so instead she drew her knife and cut the boat free of the davit with two quick slashes. With one hand gripping the RIB, she started swimming back toward the submersible.

  The water was lapping at the open hatch cover by the time she reached it, which made dragging Ophelia from the RIB and dropping her in a lot easier. Unfortunately, water was already beginning to pour down into the craft.

  She could see Professor below, waving to her urgently. “Come on!”

  “I have to cut us loose,” she shouted back.

  He started to say something but then just nodded. He knew.

  She wrestled with the hatch cover until it fell into place, shutting off the cascade of seawater into the submersible’s interior. The water rose to cover the flywheel even as she was spinning it to seal Professor and Ophelia safely inside.

  And herself out.

  She rolled off the submersible and swam down to where a couple of heavy-duty ratchets secured it to the deck. She sawed through one. The submersible shifted, like a dog straining against its leash, but like that dog, remained fixed in place. She kicked to the other strap, started cutting.

  The pressure in her ears was tremendous. She worked her jaw trying to equalize it so she could keep working, and tried not think about how fast the ship was sinking or how long that last breath she had taken would last.

  Or whether she would be able to swim to the surface.

  The strap parted with an audible snap and the QED shot up like a bottle-rocket. The sudden displacement of water created a cavitation wave that tumbled Jade over, disorienting her for several seconds, and when she finally stopped spinning, the submersible was gone and the surface seemed so very, very far away.

  EPILOGUE

  CHANGE

  Key West, Florida USA

  Professor gazed up at the banner stretched across the front of the awning, directly beneath the bright orange neon letters that spelled out the name of the iconic Duval Street establishment: SLOPPY JOE’S BAR. The banner, which looked brand new, proudly declared “Grand Re-Opening!”

  He knew all about Sloppy Joe’s, the famous bar where Ernest Hemingway and Habana Joe had hung out in the 1930s, though few tourists were aware that the establishment had moved from that original location, long after Papa shuffled off the mortal coil. This was Professor’s first visit to the notorious Key West bar. Although he had spent several weeks in Key West prior to leaving for Mexico, Sloppy Joe’s, like most of the rest of the tourist friendly island, had been closed for repairs. In the short time he’d been away, Key West had claimed back some of what the Dominion had taken when it had unleashed a tsunami against the island. Sloppy Joe’s was open for business, and the grand re-opening party was in full swing.

  As he shuffled inside, still leaning on his cane a little, though he didn’t actually need it anymore, he couldn’t help but notice people quickly looking away as if his gaze might turn them to stone.

  Whatever.

  He headed for the bar where Tam Broderick was waiting with a piña colada in one hand, and an ice-cold Bud Light long neck in the other. Tam caught his eye in the reflection of the mirror behind the bar and slid the beer his way.

  “You remembered.” He had to shout to be heard over the music. On the main stage, someone was singing a Jimmy Buffett song, and Professor was pretty sure that it was actually Jimmy Buffett.

  “Remembered that you’re a cheap date? Honey, how could I forget that?”

  He eased onto the stool next to her, smiling to hide the twinge of pain that shot through his leg. Tam wasn’t fooled. “It’s good to have you back,” she said, her tone more sober. “I’m sorry about…everything.”

  Her vagueness was understandable. He had not told her very much, and for good reason. When Tam had begun recruiting agents to fill the ranks of the Myrmidons, she had relied on a simple litmus test of hatred for the Dominion, a test that Brian Hodges had passed with flying colors. Now they knew that there was another player in the game, and despite their shared enemy, the Norfolk Group was not looking to align itself with the Myrmidons. Hodges had just been one man in the right place at the right time to take action; there was no telling how many other Norfolk Group agents might have been seeded into the Myrmidons.

  That was why he had chosen this very public, very noisy spot to make his report, and to tell Tam why he wouldn’t be coming back.

  “I don’t want to lose you,” she said when he finished, a concerned expression clouding her brow. “If we’re going to root these bastards out…” She stopped, frowned, and Professor knew she was mentally writing an IOU to her personal swear jar. “I’m going to need agents that I actually can trust beyond any doubt.”

  “I know,” he replied. “But that’s exactly why I can’t be a part of the investigation. They’ll know that I’m gunning for them, and that will make them go turtle whenever I’m around. You’ve got a much better chance of smoking them out with me out of the picture.”

  She mulled that over for a few minutes. “And what about you?”

  He told her.

  She mulled this over even longer. “Any way I can talk you out of this?”

  “No. But if you think about it, this is a win-win. I’ll still be doing the same thing as before, and I think you’ll agree, it’s a job that somebody needs to do.”

  Tam inclined her head. “I can’t disagree with that. What’s in it for you? Aside from a nice government paycheck?”

  “I’m surprised you have to ask.” He drained the contents of his bottle in a gulp and set it down on the bar. “If you need some time to think about it—”

  “I don’t. Like you said, it’s a win-win.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way. Listen, there’s one other thing.”

  Tam raised her empty glass to the bartender to signal for a refill, then returned her attention to Professor. “Can’t wait to hear it.”

  “You need to back-channel a request, or a warning or whatever you want to call it, to restrict travel in the area south of Greater Abaco Island. I hope that thing is so deep that it won’t be a problem to anyone, but just to be on the safe side, you should make sure that planes and ships give it a wide berth.”

  “Without being able to tell them why, that might be a tall order.”

  “Do what you can. Maybe enlist the help of Laertes Doerner. He’s got the influence, and something tells me he won’t ask too many questions.” He stood. “Now, as much as I’d love to stay and chat, I have a plane to catch.”

  Tam nodded in understanding. “Good luck.”

  Haleiwa, Hawaii USA

  “In five hundred feet, turn right.”

  Despite the stilted cadence, the voice of the GPS navigator in Professor’s rental car was a welcome sound, or to be more precise, was delivering a welcome message. His long journey was nearly at an end.

  He glanced over at the passenger seat, occupied only by a paper shopping bag that, only now did he realize, was far too ordinary for what it contained. Ah well, can’t be helped.

  Eighteen hours spent either in the air or waiting for a connecting flight, another hour driving up the Veteran’s Memorial Highway—spectacular scenery, no time to stop and look—and then onto the Kamehameha Highway to the North Shore town of Haleiwa. He couldn’t recall ever feeling so acutely the need to just stop moving.

  “Turn right, now. Your destination is one hundred and fifty feet ahead on the right.”

  He pulled the car onto the grass at the side of the street—there were no curbs or sidewalks—and got out to finish the journey on foot. Too many hours in a sitting position had left his leg throbbing, so he grabbed the cane—nothing fancy, just polished wood with a derby handle—and the shopping bag, and started walking.

  The house was modest in both size and appearance. It sat one block too far to the east for an ocean view, and was in need of a little maintenance but was not as run down as some of the homes he had passed during the drive. Although he was pretty sure this was the right house, his s
earch for a number or a name plaque proved futile, leaving him no choice but to approach the front porch and hope for the best.

  He tapped his cane handle against the door. A few seconds later a curtain drew back to reveal an attractive Polynesian woman. But for a streak of gray in her long black hair and some deeply creased laugh lines, Professor would have guessed her to be in her mid-thirties. Aside from that minor discrepancy, her features were too familiar for her to be anyone but the owner of the house he was looking for. Her eyes met his for a moment, her face inscrutable, then she opened the door.

  Professor swallowed down the nervous lump that had risen in his throat. “Hello,” he said, haltingly. “Are you Mrs. Ihara?”

  The woman regarded him a moment longer, sizing him up. Her eyes lingered on the sutures that bristled from the gash that ran from his cheek up the side of his head, but she did not react with guilty horror as some of the people he had encountered. She dropped her gaze to the shopping bag, and then met his eyes again and nodded.

  She looked over her shoulder, and in a voice that set Professor’s teeth on edge, shouted, “Jade, your man is here!”

  Jade felt a flush of embarrassment. She was glad there was no one around to see it. “Mama, he’s not my ‘man,’” she shouted back, as she ran through the house.

  Of course he isn’t, she told herself. We’re just good friends. That’s all.

  She stopped, darted back and grabbed the gift box with the big blue bow off the table, and then continued to the door where her mother was ushering Professor inside.

  He looked good. He looked a lot better than the last time she had seen him. He probably felt the same way about her.

  Jade’s memory of what happened immediately after the Quest Explorer sank was murky, but Professor had filled in the gaps. She had nearly drowned—actually, there was no nearly about it—but Professor had followed her down in the QED and retrieved her with the submersible’s manipulator arm. He had then shot back to the surface, and somehow gotten her out of the water. A few minutes of chest compressions and rescue breathing had brought Jade back and nearly killed Professor. She had regained consciousness just as Professor, bleeding badly and overcome by shock, had collapsed.