by Alex Leopold
Not possessing anywhere close to her abilities, they’d all failed and torn their minds apart in the process. After a while it was thought no one would ever have the future-seeing ability the Oracle had, and that the last prophecy and the Key were lost forever. Then, seventeen years after the Oracle’s death, the Directory captured a predictor called, Racquet.
She changed everything.
“Are you certain she can go that deep into the void? Right to the bottom of the well?” Kamran asked.
“I’d say she has a three-in-ten chance of success.”
“Those aren’t great odds. Why risk losing such a powerful anomaly?”
“Because, for all their power, the Archon and the Watcher worry their grip over this nation could falter at any moment.” Nakano told him as she looked at a massive poster of the Directory leader pasted across almost the entire floor of a nearby building.
He stood in front of a sea of soldiers with one fist punched toward the sky. At the base of the poster was the Directory’s slogan: Conformity & Obedience will help your leader win this war!
“The only way they can guarantee their way of life survives is if the Archon has the Liberty Key.”
“The weapon.” Kamran said quietly.
“My mission.” She agreed. “You sent me into the Directory fifteen years ago for one reason. To place myself in a position of power and if the Directory ever reacquired the last prophecy, to steal it from them. I brought you here tonight to tell you, that time has come.”
Kamran nodded.
“If the girl witnesses the prophecy, we’ll need to know exactly what she sees. Where the weapon is, how it works. Everything.”
“I can get you that.” She told him.
“How?”
“I’ll be her beacon.”
Beacons were tethers that linked their minds to a predictor’s and helped guide them back to the real world once their time in the void was over. No predictor would ever dare go into the void without one.
“It’s been confirmed?” He asked with some skepticism.
“It will be, I’m the best beacon they have.” She said confidently. “Plus, my sister was the Oracle’s beacon, they’ll like the symmetry.”
“What if they suspect you?”
“If they suspected me, I’d be dead.” She told him matter-of-factly.
“Besides, I’ve proved my loyalty to them multiple times over.” Indeed, she’d lost count of the number of resistance fighters who’d been put to death at her hand.
“Okay. What do you need from me?” He asked.
“Once I have the prophecy, I’ll need you to get me to the resistance.”
He made a face. “Getting you out of Sancisco won’t be easy.”
“I’ve already dealt with that. My superiors are desperate to succeed. I’ve convinced them the proximity to the other predictors here will cause interference. I’ve told them the best chance is to have this girl complete her attempt in another city with no anomaly interference.”
It had been an easy argument to make, it was true.
“Which city?”
“Fifteen.” She’d told him, referring to the Directory metropole once known as Denver City. “It’s well regarded that something about the city’s proximity to the mountains helps magnify an anomaly’s abilities.”
“Will snoopers be monitoring you?”
She shook her head.
“No interference, remember. That means no snoopers or predictors monitoring us, nothing. Except for a couple of guards, we’ll pretty much be on our own, and I can take care of them.”
“Okay.” He seemed satisfied. “I’ll make the preparations to get you and the girl to the resistance.”
“It’ll just be me.” She replied and realized how little emotion she’d shown at that moment.
“She’s been normalized.” She added by way of explanation. It was a Directory term that described the process they used to brainwash an anomaly into becoming one of them. It was irreversible.
“If you’re coming alone, the girl cannot be allowed to remain behind alive.” He told her before they parted.
It had not been something he needed to remind her. Nakano had known from the moment she saw in Racquet’s file that she’d been normalized that she had to die. Still, it was a heartbreaking thing to do.
Three months later, Nakano and Racquet were almost finished with their third attempt to locate the Oracle’s last prophecy. They’d been journeying through the void for days looking for the event the Oracle had spoken of seventeen-years before; when a great wave of light crosses the nation and ends all wars forever.
They were so deep within the void Racquet’s mind was almost completely lost when she finally found the visions.
Desperate to return back to reality she’d let Nakano convince her to transfer what she’d seen from her fragile mind to her beacon’s.
Nakano had promised the moment the transfer was complete she’d pull the young girl back to the real world. Instead, she’d cut the tether.
“What are you doing?” The girl’s mind telepathically cried out as she felt the link that bound their minds together disappear.
“What I must.” Nakano tapped back as she watched the void swallow Racquet’s mind whole.
There was no other way, she tried to remind herself as she lay on the cave’s dusty floor. Racquet had to die.
Yet, Nakano’s crime hadn’t gone unpunished.
In the confusion what she’d downloaded from the predictor was a chaotic mess.
She should've been able to see the lost prophecy in its entirety, how the future needed to play out in order for them to find the Liberty Key and use it to win the wars. She should've been able to see it all as easily as reading a map. What she’d gotten though was a swirling tornado of images that passed in front of her mind’s eye in a disjointed mess that she could barely see let alone understand. It was so badly corrupted it was slowly tearing her mind apart.
Eventually, it would kill her, she’d come to realize. Before it did – before the last prophecy was once again lost to the void – she needed to piece it all back together.
She did this by focusing on one image at a time. It was a painful process but she did it as often as she could, recording what she saw in a journal:
|| An army of mechanical men, stand stacked in rows far into the distance ||
|| Three important names are discussed. Lincoln, the blackhat. Washington, the bluecoat. Eisenhower, the five star ||
Every page had notes as jumbled and disconnected as what she'd just written.
Only one thing connected them all together; a man she’d known as Quill, the Great Inventor.
He was the Pathfinder. The one chosen by fate to find the Liberty Key. The one who’d use it to make himself the most powerful anomaly in the nation, and bring an end to the Directory’s tyranny.
She’d thought him dead, but he was alive and the visions had shown her where he was.
He was waiting for her in the Borderlands. Had been there for the last seventeen years, living in isolation with his daughters, waiting for someone to bring him the last prophecy so he could fulfill his destiny.
She would be with him soon and knew he’d want to get started immediately.
Through the visions, she thought she’d already seen where the first of part of the Key was hidden and closed her eyes so she could recapture the image once again in her mind.
|| A vault-sized metal door is guarded by an eagle the size of a colossal, and a god-like man with angel’s wings. Behind the door something important is hidden. Through a nearby window, a lost civilization city is spread out far below ||
This was what she’d written in her journal two nights before. Unfortunately, the name or location of the city hadn’t revealed itself to her in the following days.
Nakano knew Quill would need this information to begin his journey, so she gritted her teeth and forced her mind to focus harder on the image.
The answer felt like it wa
s just at her fingertips, but when she tried to reach for it, she fell into a different image.
She saw a striking felisian woman, dressed in ornate robes and wearing a falcon-shaped crown. She was being dragged down a hallway by a gang of Myrmidons. Then something tore in Nakano’s mind and thick droplets of blood fell from her nose and stained the page of her book.
Her brain was hemorrhaging.
She wiped the blood away with her sleeve and tried not to think too much about what was going on in her head. Tried not to think of how time was against her.
8
The Borderland souks were a chain of black-markets that existed on the very fringes of civilization for those traders who wanted to do business outside of Directory interference. Most operated out of the ruins of one of the many no-named lost civilization towns still standing amongst the forests.
They picked up the trail for theirs around midday. The way was not hard to find. Lines of old automobiles, their corroded shells jutting out of the earth like fossilized bones, guided them to their destination.
Along the outskirts of the town, many of the old buildings were no more than piles of rubble, with perhaps one single broken brick wall still standing to serve as its own headstone. It was only in the town’s center, where builders had used stone and concrete that some buildings remained. This was where their father directed their wagon.
“Look!” An excited Cooper pointed to a large wooden sign by the market’s entrance. Someone had painted what appeared to be the market’s rules.
KILLING IS PROHIBITED. CULPRITS WILL BE SHOT-ON-SIGHT.
THIEVES WILL BE SHOT-ON-SIGHT.
DIRECTORY MEN WILL BE SHOT-ON-SIGHT.
CRINKS WILL BE SHOT-ON-SIGHT.
“And I thought father was strict.” She said and snickered at how funny she thought she was.
“Can you try and act like an adult for once in your life.” Riley sighed.
Yet, even she couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the spectacle before her. Up until that very morning, her and Cooper’s world had only ever consisted of six people; themselves and the four elders that lived on the ranch with them. And of the strangers they’d met over the last seventeen years, well, those could be counted on one hand.
Now, they were surrounded by hundreds of people who were a rich mosaic of all that their species could offer, blends and basics alike. It was like nothing they'd ever seen before.
“This place is amazing!” Cooper exclaimed as she watched a Crocodile-human blend – an Ococ – cross the path in front of her. Bare chested, his skin was a tough green leather, and when he opened his mouth to speak, Riley saw a row of sharp white teeth.
“I know.” Riley agreed and she found herself unconsciously gravitating toward the first stall. But, when she saw a man step from the crowd and begin to walk purposefully toward them, she hesitated.
“Someone’s coming.” She called over to her father.
“I know him. He’s not a threat.” He said quietly as he applied the wagon’s brake.
“I see you brought your family this time.” The man said in place of a hello and turned his attention to the twins.
“People around here call me, Pickwick.” His voice was dry and he gave the twins a crooked smile that was more menacing than friendly.
Riley returned his salutation with a blank stare. Cooper leaned over and spat. Most of it caught on her chin, and she was forced to wipe it off with a sleeve while a blossoming of crimson erupted on her cheeks.
Pickwick tried to ignore this. “If you can spare your father, I have information I’d like to share with him.”
“How does father know that man?” Cooper asked Acadia as they watched the two men walk off toward a nearby tent that served hot drinks.
“Pickwick has been supplying your father with information about Harvardtown and the Directory for the last decade or so.”
“Does he know who father is?” Riley asked quietly. “Who he really is?”
Her question caused the grizzly to snort a laugh.
“What do you think?”
“When were you last in Harvardtown?” Quill asked Pickwick when they were seated. The lost civilization town was roughly two hundred miles east of the black-market. And it had been under the Directory’s occupation for the passed four years.
“I was there two weeks ago to the day.” Pickwick replied, his mouth blowing fiercely over the hot drink in his hand. Then he tapped his forefinger on the table, expressing his desire to see his payment.
Quill placed a bag filled with souk credits between them. When Pickwick made to reach for it, his hand closed around the bag.
“The information first.”
Pickwick began and did not move his eyes from the money bag as he spoke.
“Life in Havardtown is hard. People are still starving. Directory rule is mean. There’s hushed talk the resistance plans to return soon with an army and take back the city, but that’s starting to sound more like wishful thinking.”
“Are men still being sent into the rubble of the old city?” Quill asked.
Pickwick nodded. “Work parties enter the caverns everyday and everyday they return empty-handed. The Directory hasn’t said what it is they’re looking for, all the workers know is that they must bring back anything that looks interesting for the Squeaks to review.”
The Directory hasn’t said anything because they don’t know themselves, Quill thought. All they know is what they're looking for is somewhere in one of the dead cities.
“What else?”
“The Skymen from the City in the Clouds joined forces with the Directory sometime in the spring.”
He saw the look of skepticism on Quill’s face and held up his hands in surrender.
“I didn’t believe it either, then I saw a dragon and his rider with my own eyes. He was transporting a Squeak from Charlottetown.”
The news surprised Quill, but maybe it shouldn’t have. The Directory had swallowed up nearly every free city in the nation, why would the City in the Clouds be an exception?
“But this is news you could get from anyone in the souk.” Pickwick continued with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’m here because you once told me to come to you if I ever heard talk about a machine. A machine called: the gateway.”
Pickwick took his eyes off the money for a second to note Quill’s expression.
“Where is it?” He asked, making sure to keep his voice even.
“There's a big building in the center of the city that's a very grand old thing. Could've been a palace for a king at some point but I'm told the lost civilization built it to be a library. You know, to house all their books.”
That made Pickwick snort. “Have you ever heard of something so ridiculous! No wonder their kind are long dead. Only fools would spend money protecting something of such little value.”
Quill gave him a look to get on with it.
“That’s where they’ve got your machine.” Pickwick leaned in for effect. “Last time I saw the building it was so heavily guarded you'd think the Archon himself had taken up residence.”
“How long? How long has it been there?”
Pickwick shrugged. “Two months, maybe more. Do you mind?”
He pointed to the bag that was still in Quill’s hand. The second he released his grip, Pickwick had it lifted off the table and hidden in a secret pocket in his coat.
“Remember”, Quill stood to leave. “I pay you for the information as well as your silence.”
“And you pay well for both.” Pickwick said lifting up his cup in a toast.
Quill didn’t follow the trail back to his wagon, instead he went further into the market. He needed information and quickly before knowing how to proceed.
The crowd was thick and unruly in the market’s center. He needed a place to work where he couldn’t be seen. Thankfully, the moment he arrived someone knocked over a nearby cart. It set a pack of dogs to barking and Quill used the distraction to slip out of sight between two tall te
nts.
After quickly kneeling and pressing his splayed fingers against his temples, he paused for a moment, almost unable to bring himself to start. Telepathically interrogating the people in the market was reckless. If snoopers were listening in they might detect him. That would be bad.
If he did nothing though, he’d have no idea how close the Directory was. In the end, he realized he was damned either way
"Tell me everything you know about Harvardtown?" He finally tapped to the subconscious minds of the people around him, and let their minds talk.
It took less than a minute for Quill to get what he needed. The moment he was finished he checked to make sure no one had seen him before slipping away.
He didn't know a minute later Pickwick was standing in the very spot where he’d knelt.
9
Riley could feel her shirt clinging to the sweat running down her back. She longed for fresh air but everywhere she turned she was pressed in by crowds of hot bodies. The reality of searching through the stalls of the black-market for the supplies they’d need to make it through winter was very different from what she’d imagined.
She’d thought it would be something of an adventure. Where hidden treasures would be discovered at every stall she visited.
Unfortunately, the black-market was a maelstrom of utter chaos that stunk of human sweat and animal filth. Forced to trudge through ankle deep mud, Riley arrived at every stall to find it attacked with the temperament of a frenzied mob which she’d then have to fight her way through in order to get what she needed.
“I’m done.” She said to herself after receiving an elbow to the ribs while trying to procure the last of the salt.
Marching out of the market to catch her breath, she was surprised to find her sister already there. Cooper hadn’t noticed her though, she was too focused on the young man in front of her. The man, though her father would describe him more as a boy, had propped himself lazily against a tree and idly shuffled a desk of cards as he chatted to her.
