by Alex Leopold
The Oracle’s Prophecy
Alex Leopold
Part I
1
“The city has fallen!” A scratchy recording of a female’s voice crackled through large speakers hanging on the walls of the Great Hall. “Citizens must evacuate, immediately! I repeat, the city …”
Suddenly, it went dead and in its absence the sound of the battle raging outside felt that much closer.
“What happened to the recording?” Asked Yin, her voice close to breaking.
“The enemy must have gained access to the radio tower and cut the transmission.” Kitt guessed and gave her husband a concerned look.
The radio tower was in the heart of the city. To have taken it meant the battle was as good as over. The enemy had won.
“They'll be breaking down the doors of the Great Hall soon.” The houndsman Elder, Bobrown, added nervously.
“We still have time. I have a gateway ready to transport us the hell out of here.” He told them, quickening his pace and hurrying the others to do the same.
His name was Quill, but most knew him as the Great Inventor. He also had another name, a more secret name. The Pathfinder, the one destined to fulfill the Oracle’s last prophecy.
Yet, tonight all he thought of himself was husband and father.
“How can I go, Quill?” Kitt asked him. “We haven’t evacuated everyone yet.”
“It’s not them the Directory wants.” He reminded his wife. She was an Elder of the Torchbearers, one of Sancisco’s elected officials. If the Directory caught her, they’d hang her from the highest building in the city.
“Think of your children.” Yin added softly and her words drew their eyes down to Kitt’s swollen belly and the two unborn children inside.
“Yin’s right, you’re no good to us in a fight today.” Bobrown agreed. “Save yourself for the battles to come.”
She agreed and let her husband lead her out of the Great Hall.
“How did the Directory get into my city, Quill?” She demanded when they were outside.
“I’m not sure. They seemed to come from everywhere.”
“Maybe they have a powerful anomaly helping them?” Bobrown guessed.
“The invisible wall won’t let anyone enter the city using their teleportation abilities, remember?” He pointed out.
“Maybe it failed.”
“Or maybe someone turned it off.” Yin voiced the unthinkable.
“Someone betrayed us.” She added. “Someone important.”
A side street connected the Great Hall to an old lost civilization court house where the city’s gateways were housed. As they crossed the street they didn’t immediately notice the five Directory soldiers guarding the entrance, their grey uniforms concealing them against the stone facade. They caught Quill’s eye though when they raised their long-rifles, and the moon glinted off the metal barrels.
He grew the spark in the palms of both hands and whipped the blue lightning bolts at two men. Then he stepped through the switch and teleported his body across the twenty yards that separated him from the final three soldiers. He had his sword gripped in his fist when he exited the blue capsule and quickly sliced it through the remaining men before they had time to react.
Then he all but sank to his knees, gripping his chest as he fought to get air back into his burning lungs.
“My god, Quill, look at you!” Kitt rushed to his side and made him face her. His eyes were bloodshot, and when she turned his hands over, she could see the burnt tips of his fingers from throwing the spark too much.
“It looks worse than it actually is.” He lied.
The reality was he’d stayed too long in the fight and had overused his abilities to the point where he’d almost broken his mind and body in the process.
“We need to keep moving.” He grunted as he forced himself back onto his feet and led the four of them inside.
The old court house had been converted into a massive workshop, and it was normal to find it filled with dozens of engineers arguing over whatever half-completed machinery sat in front of them. It was never deserted, never quiet, until now.
“Where is everyone?” Asked Bobrown, and the dog-human mutant sniffed at the air suspiciously.
“If they’re smart, they went through the gateway already.” And in a blink of an eye thousands of miles away from this madness, he thought. Soon they’d be with them, and as Quill led them single file between the workstations and rows of machinery toward the stairs that led to the basement, he could almost picture the four of them on the other side of the portal.
Then their escape was halted.
In a flash of light, thirty of the Directory’s henchmen teleported into the room using the switch and surrounded them.
Wearing their trademark reflective silver masks hidden under black-hooded cloaks they were instantly recognizable – Myrmidons.
Kitt tried to switch them through but the Myrmidons must've used their abilities to create some kind of disruption field to stop her from teleporting. They were stuck.
More pulses of light, each so bright you had to cover your eyes. Now there were more than sixty. All wore silver masks, all but one.
“Hello, Great Inventor.” The Archon tapped, telepathically speaking in their heads as he looked at them through his gold reflective mask.
“I’ve come for the last prophecy.” He added. “I want you tell me what you know, especially as it relates to the Liberty Key?”
Eight Myrmidons stepped forward to reveal orbs of blue light – the spark – growing in the palms of their hands.
"Why don’t you go to hell?" Quill's wife snarled even as she clutched a hand to her pregnant belly. She might’ve been in a compromised state but she wasn't going to act like it.
The Myrmidons didn’t wait. They threw their sparks at Bobrown, and as the searing hot lightning bolts tore into his body, Yin screamed in shock. By the time they were finished, he was no more than a burnt husk.
“How could you?” Kitt gasped as hot tears ran down her face.
“You need to stop worrying about him, Elder, and start thinking about you and your growing family.” The Archon replied through the tap. “You’re alive because you have something I want, but I'm not a patient man. So I'll ask again. The Oracle’s last prophecy spoke of a weapon, the Liberty Key. I want to know what it is, where it is?”
“Your thugs killed her before she could tell us, you know that.” Kitt gestured to the Myrmidons.
“My agents saw her talking to someone the night she died." The Archon turned to Quill. ”We know she spoke to you, Great Inventor. We want to know what she said.”
“I believe my wife advised you to go to hell.”
The Archon’s voice chuckled in their heads. “It'd be a shame to reward your stubbornness by killing the woman you love.”
Angry blue orbs began to grow in the Myrmidons' palms again.
Telepathically, Quill ordered his wife to use the switch and teleport away. Her abilities were more powerful than his and if anyone could tunnel through the disruption field it was her. But she was governed by her stubbornness and refused to leave his side.
“The weapon?” The Archon snapped aloud losing his patience.
The Myrmidons were all focused on Quill, waiting for him to react, knowing he would eventually. That was a mistake.
Telekinetically snatching the pistol from her husband's holster, Kitt fired it at a Myrmidon who’d been momentarily distracted by an explosion from outside the court house. The bullet struck him square in the chest and for a second the field fell away.
It was all the opportunity she needed and Quill suddenly found his body surrounded by a capsule of brilliant blue light.
“I can’t believ
e you managed to jump us so far.” He told her after the three of them exited the switch and he realized she’d teleported them down the three flights of stairs to the gateway chamber. Perhaps, the furthest switch she’d ever performed.
“I’m impressed!”
“Well, you know how much I crave your admiration.” She responded flippantly and something about how she could still deploy her acid tongue even in all this craziness made his heart swell.
Damn, she was beautiful, he thought.
“I love you.” He told her even as they could hear the frantic foot-falls of the Myrmidons racing down the staircase to them. He didn’t care, he had to say it.
“Not the right time, Quill.” She told him and the incredulous look on her face spoke volumes.
“Don’t worry.” He told them both as he closed and bolted the thick steel door that protected the gateway chamber. “They’ll never get through these doors, and the gateway’s magnetic field disrupts any anomaly ability. We’re …”
He wasn’t able to finish. The butt of a long-rifle was cracked against the back of his head and his legs fell from under him.
Struggling to stay conscious, he watched as the two women were forced onto their knees at gun point and the steel doors thrown back open.
“Leave her alone!” He shouted as his wife’s hands were bound with rope, and darts dripping with crink-sting were jabbed into her neck.
His words were drowned out by a blast of steam erupting out of one of the gateway’s vents; a portal had just been created. As the machine came apart, Quill hoped to see the blue uniformed men of the Torchbearer army march out.
To his horror, he saw nothing but Directory guards.
“Now you know how I got my mob into the city.” The Archon said as he entered the gateway chamber.
“Not possible.” Quill said not believing his eyes. The gateways were complex machines. Few knew how to operate them, and he knew them all. Trusted them all.
“I’m afraid it’s worse than you think, Great Inventor.”
Reaching into the back of the hood of his cloak, the Archon removed his mask, prompting the others to do the same.
Quill was shocked to see how many of the faces he recognized, but not as shocked as when he saw the man behind the gold mask.
“Hello, Quill.” His oldest, closest friend said. “I warned you something like this might happen.”
That was when Quill realized who had betrayed them that night.
Him.
2
Seventeen years later.
“I'm late!” Nakano said nervously as she quickly stepped through the doorway. “There were patrols.”
Closing and bolting the door behind her, Kamran – her resistance contact – brushed away her fears with a wave of his hand.
“There are always patrols.” He said attempting a relaxed smile. “Thankfully, we still have time.”
Nakano nodded and followed him into a darkened storeroom at the back of a small café. With only a single oil lamp to see by, he saw her note with little surprise that the storeroom’s shelves were bare except for the usual thin black grime that pervaded every surface in the city. Food shortage was a way of life in the Directory.
The grime was from a nearby coal-fired power station that provided electricity to the Directory’s factories in Metropolitan Fifteen – once know as, Denver City. Day-and-night it belched dirty-black columns of smoke into the air from its tall chimney stacks. When it came down it stuck to everything.
At the far end of the room, two women lay asleep in cots. Nakano went to them immediately and knelt to perform a quick examination of the one that looked most like her.
"The best I could do." Kamran apologized after reading her expression.
"It’s close enough. Who is she?"
“I'd like to say she's a sympathizer to our cause but the reality is she needed food for her family, and she'll keep her mouth shut if the Squeaks come to question her.”
There was a stack of civilian clothes at the foot of the woman’s cot. After finishing her examination, Nakano removed her uniform and began to dress.
When she took off her gloves he almost gasped when he spied the coiled wire tattooed around her wrists. It was a Directory branding for their officers, the Irenics. Or, as they were more commonly referred to because of the sound their new leather boots made as they walked, the ‘Squeaks’.
“Why did you bother with the girl?” She asked referring to the eighteen year old black woman in the other cot, though never once looking at her.
“Just in case you found a way to bring the future-seer with you.”
She stopped dressing to glare at him.
“I told you, the girl had been normalized!” She snapped. “There was nothing I could do. She had to be eliminated.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “I know, I’m sorry. Can you forgive an old fool for hoping?”
It took longer than he thought, but eventually the rage in her eyes burnt down.
“There’s nothing to forgive.” She finally said and went back to dressing. “What’s important now is that we’ve recovered the lost prophecy.”
“Is it intact?” He asked, the excitement creeping into his voice.
“I have it all up here.” She responded tapping a finger against her head. “Including the moment when the Pathfinder creates a wave of light so powerful it consumes the Directory’s army and wins us the war.”
Kamran wanted to punch the air.
“Then maybe there is still hope.” He whispered with quiet anticipation.
“Not maybe.” She corrected him.
He nodded. Then a commotion from outside interrupted them. Kamran snuffed out the lamp and rushed to the window. As he peered through a crack in the curtains his breath caught.
“Soldiers?” She asked barely able to get the words passed her lips.
Struggling to swallow, he looked at her and nodded. She joined him at the window and watched as a dozen armed Directory men marched their way.
“Just a patrol.” He attempted to say confidently, smiling even as his lips trembled.
Without another word, Nakano walked back to where she’d left her uniform. She removed her pistol from the holster on her belt and turned it on herself, pressing the muzzle against her temple.
“What are you doing?” He asked stunned.
“They mustn’t get the prophecy.” She replied and calmly cocked the weapon.
He tried reaching for her. “Were you followed?”
She took a step away from him. "No, but there are other ways of monitoring my movements.”
“You told me, the Watcher’s psychic army was forbidden from looking into this city while your predictor was inside the void, remember?”
“I remember, but I’m not taking any chances.”
When the guards came to within a few feet of his door, Kamran squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to see Nakano pull the trigger. Then the patrol’s footfalls grew fainter and he heard her holster her weapon.
“I'm sorry you had to see that.” She told him, then she resumed tying her boots as if nothing had happened.
“These are dark days.” He stammered having to sit and hug himself for a moment.
Not for the first time did he think they’d been wrong when they’d pushed Nakano to become a spy and infiltrate the Directory’s ranks. She’d been only fifteen when they’d recruited her. Still a child, and one who was mourning the death of her sister, Yin. They’d taken advantage of her and it was something he’d come to regret.
“I often wonder if the Oracle saw all this in her prophecies?” Nakano mused, cutting through the silence. “That we’d live in times like these.”
“She saw everything.” He replied.
“Then why didn’t she warn us?”
“Would you?”
She thought about that for a moment and shook her head.
“What news of the resistance?” She asked changing the subject.
“From wh
at little gets back to me, they’re still winning some battles, but they suffer heavy casualties for their successes. I’m afraid they’ll soon be overwhelmed and then all will be lost.”
“We still have time.” Nakano said standing determinedly. “And now we have the means to stop them.”
Kamran nodded and stood as well. “The gateway to Charlottetown is scheduled to open in just over an hour. I have a contact near Hellanta who can get you to the resistance.”
“No.” She said interrupting him as if she were remembering something anew at that very instant. “I have to go into the Borderlands. When does the Harvardtown gate open?”
“In thirty minutes.” He replied checking his pocket watch. “But I don’t know of any resistance cell operating in the north.”
“I’m not going to the resistance.”
When she caught his expression, she clarified herself. “That’s where the prophecy wants me to go.”
It was a terrible risk but he nodded his agreement. The future was already in motion and he did not want to get in its way.
“Then let’s hurry.” He directed her to sit at the head of the cot above the sleeping woman.
“Do you have my bag?” She asked.
Kamran grabbed a small satchel from an empty shelf. “Everything you’ll need: identification papers, false travel documents that will clear you through the gateway. Bribing money if you need it. Some food.”
He also gave her a card.
“My contact in Hellanta.” He explained, referring to the city once known as Atlanta. “In case you find yourself needing the resistance.”
She memorized the name, location and code words before tearing the card to shreds. Then from her satchel, she fished out an old black-and-white photo. It was of an attractive couple on their wedding day. Standing on either side of them was a ten year old Nakano and her sister, Yin. It was the only possession Nakano had kept from before her time before the Directory.
“This will all be insignificant if I can’t get passed the gateway’s skin-reader.” She said pocketing the photo and looking down at the sleeping woman whose head now rested on her lap. “Does she have her story straight?”
