Unforeseen Dives – 28b – Oracles

<< 28a – Oracles

First thing Monday morning, Becky and I headed for the Oracles’ department. Maeve’s reaction to our proposition made quite a show. The round eyes of the usually composed woman bulged in a cartoonish way. If the situation was any less serious, I might have laughed.
“You want to piggyback my vision?” She asked with a voice pitched an octave higher than usual. “Do you have a death wish?”
“I can take it.” I answered through clenched teeth.
“Seers don’t have the detachment oracles have. The vision was overwhelming for me.” Maeve grabbed my hand and looked at me intently. “Please don’t attempt this.”
“Maeve, I understand your concern but I’m not a seer.”
“Does it make a difference?”
“Doesn’t it?”
Maeve released my hands and took a step back. She was going to do it.
“Trust me, I don’t like it either.” Rebecca seemed almost relaxed as she leaned against the cubicle. I knew better. “We’re running low on options.”
“And I guess it’s an ‘anything to stop the omen’ situation.” Maeve sighed and rose from her desk. “I still don’t want to do it.”
“I can do it alone,” I said, “but it’ll be more dangerous and less precise.” Maeve sighed.
“Your office?”
I nodded and we all headed back to my office. Daniel and Becky brought one of the couches closer to my chair in prevision of today. The oracle and the telepath sat in it as I took my place.
“How do you plan to do this exactly?” Maeve jittered a bit though she mostly maintained her composure. It felt like she expected us to rape her brain or something.
“You’ll concentrate on your omen and relive it as vividly as you can. The rest is up to us. No weird fringe science. I promise.” Maeve somewhat relaxed at my words but not as much as I expected. Maybe I mistook her expression and her fear was actually for my safety.
I don’t think anybody ever attempted what we were about to do. The role of the different categories of psychics was well-defined – some might say over-defined – and we didn’t play on each other’s flower beds. My crazy idea might become the new top of the line procedure to explore an Oracle’s omen or it might turn me into a mad woman. Since I already faced that threat, I was pretty confident about this.
Once we were all set, Rebecca grabbed my hand and Maeve’s. She would act as a conduit between us. Hopefully, by experiencing the starting point of our investigation, I would be able to find a current that held answers not sucked into a whirlpool.
Maeve’s presence in my mind threw me off a bit. First, entering the Ocean this way never happened to an Oracle. They always got pulled by the Ocean itself when a vision targeted them. She mentally winced at the new experience.
Moreover, her perception of the Ocean didn’t align with mine at all. She experienced it more like a gas cloud than water; it didn’t pressure her as much. I felt I was hugged by a smoothly flowing current where she barely noticed a breeze. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea at all.
“I’ll keep that thought between us,” Rebecca smirked in my mind. She was slowly returning to her normal self, enliven by hope. That was enough to keep me from backing up.
When the abyss between Maeve and me closed, she broadcasted the premise to her omen. I experienced the shiver that over took an Oracle’s body to warn them a vision was coming and the pain when the omen hit home. The power of the headache dissuaded me to ever wish to become an Oracle.
Maeve’s first feelings related to the content of the vision itself slowly streamed from her consciousness to mine. My perception of the Ocean magnified each dread and worry but I had a taste of it now. Guided by the desperation and the weigh of Maeve’s transmission, I sank to the point she had seen to experience it at the source.
I silently thanked the Ocean for putting me through the New York bombing trial; I don’t think I would have been able to take the wave of deaths without what now seemed like a dry run. My mind threatened to scatter but I held it together. Maeve’s prediction came from the heart of the war, a moment in the probable future when most readers would be dead along with a smaller portion of the non-reader community.
The waves of suffering hit me hard but the backwash didn’t take me with them. I held my ground until I acclimated. In the back of my head, Maeve’s presence cried. She saw it before but not this close and not for this long.
“Please refocus on the emotions you felt on the day you saw this omen.” I mentally asked Maeve. I wanted to show sympathy for her broken heart. I hoped my regret for the lack of time to do so would suffice. I couldn’t swim these waters for too long or I was in for therapy or another vomiting session.
I sensed a point in the past. I kept myself from swimming in that direction. The presence of Maeve’s first encounter with the omen built up within me. It acted as a compass, indicating where the past Maeve lied.
Maintaining concentration on two radically different points in time tired me pretty quickly. I forced myself to remain in place until the past cleared up.
I had a port that had yet to happen and a port that had already happened. If I could cast a line between them, I would have trail to follow to my objective. Somewhere between the two floated the details of the war and, if we were lucky, my newly created path would lead me to useful, whirlpool-free information.
I took a deep breath and established the contact between the two points in time.
It felt like I was splitting in two.  

29a – Mistakes >>