The Oracle Paradox

by Stephen L. Antczak

  Vincent Waldrup sat in his home office, leaning back in his chair. He’d decided to work from there, not feeling like putting up with the commute into Manhattan from Connecticut.

  He knew Senator Watts, of course. The Senator chaired the Senate Select Commission on Artificial Intelligence, initially created to deal with the implementation of Oracle at the U.N. He was also Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which made him Waldrup’s primary contact in the Federal government. In addition, Watts was on the Armed Services Committee and the Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee.

  His hatred for the United Nations as an organization was legendary. Sometimes it seemed Watts’ entire existence centered around one goal, which was the United States quitting the U.N.

  Watts had also railed against the implementation of Oracle. It wasn’t that he feared a new Frankenstein’s monster. He saw the danger to U.S. foreign policy inherent in Oracle’s existence were it to remain outside of the sphere of U.S. influence. That would not do. He pushed hard for measures that would make Oracle beholden to the five permanent members of the Security Council. In that, he found a willing ally in Vincent Waldrup. The only other member of the Security Council with real teeth was China, but China was so anxious for trade with the U.S. that generally the United States got its way. As for the other three; Russia was desperate for aid from the U.S, and both England and France were generally considered to sidekicks to the U.S. In effect, the U.S. exercised a considerable amount of influence over the Security Council. If the five permanent members of the Security Council had veto power where certain programs were concerned, that made Oracle beholden to the United States.

  With the help of Dex, Vincent had contacted Watts’ personal assistant via the Internet, and had won her over. Somehow, Dex had known exactly the right things to say to Alison in chat rooms and e-mails. Also, Dex had somehow been able to tap into a source of funds to pay Ms. Haley for her services, which made the whole deal more palatable to Vincent.

  Alison Haley became his eyes and ears to the secret, inner circle of anti-U.N. zealots who belonged to Senator Watts’ inner circle of shadowy network. Alison had names that were connected to names that were connected to names. Eventually, somewhere down in the chain was a name that was connected to an event, such as an abortion clinic shooting in Kentucky, or a cross-burning in front of an NAACP office in Alabama, or a bombing of a U.N. office in New York City.

  Waldrup wondered if Oracle knew as much about Senator Watts as he did. Probably more. All the secret dealings, the murders and terror campaigns, the total disregard for the rule of law in the pursuit of his far right agenda. Oracle couldn’t do anything about Watts, though, due to the provision that an elected official in a U.N-sanctioned government could not be recommended for removal from office by Oracle, nor directly removed from office by Oracle. Waldrup was certain that this was all that saved Senator Watts from assassination.

  Chapter 23

  Christie Seifert had a momentary lapse. The story was too big, way too big for a twenty-five-year-old reporter who got her break with CNN only two years ago. What the hell was she doing? Who the hell did she think she was?

  "Come on, keep it together," she said to herself.

  "What?" Cardinal Roscoe asked.

  She ignored him. She was trying to think of who to call. The police would be a good start. She had her cell phone with her, it would be easy. She and Cardinal Roscoe had gone to the back room. Nine-one-one, she thought. I’d like to report a murder. Report a murder. She was a reporter. That was funny.

  Christie Seifert laughed. The whole idea of calling the police suddenly seemed absurd. She also realized that there was no one better than her to write this story. She’d been with it for months now, had spent them devoting herself to finding the truth. Now, she’d found it, or part of it, and here she was on the verge of finding it all.

  "What made you laugh?" Cardinal Roscoe asked. He looked pale. He looked like nothing in world could ever make him laugh again.

  "Nothing," she said. She felt relieved. Just a brief panic attack. She wasn’t going to call the police. Not yet. There was more to this story, and she wanted it all. They’d take it away from her if they found out. The Network would send someone with more investigative reporting experience. But this was her story, and she was determined to get the whole story. No matter what it took, and yes, she did understand what that meant. She could die. She was all too aware of that possibility.

  "I understand," she whispered so no one could hear her. Or so she thought.

  "Understand what?" Cardinal Roscoe asked.

  "Whatever it takes," she said.

  Cardinal Roscoe nodded. He looked absolutely miserable. "It had to be done," he said. "Someone had to be picked, and someone had to pick them. It was a good plan, to try and bring the girl to Vatican City. We didn’t know what we were up against, that’s all."

  Apparently the Cardinal had been going through his own silent turmoil.

  "I don’t know," Christie told him. "Do you think even Augustine underestimated what we were up against?"

  Cardinal Roscoe looked even more glum. "Perhaps."

  "What do you mean? Perhaps? It was Augustine’s plan, wasn’t it?"

  Cardinal Roscoe nodded. "It was one plan put forth by Augustine…the Vatican chose another plan. I thought this one would work. I did it on my own, using my personal connections at the Vatican. I was foolish and vain."

  Christie remembered that about Cardinal Roscoe from when their first meeting in Mexico. He tended to constantly question his own morality. Even in Mexico, after the assassination of Sanchez, after being so infuriated about the injustice of it, he couldn’t make up his mind about what to do. He’d been sent there by the Vatican after Augustine predicted the assassination. When it happened, Christie remembered how the Cardinal wrestled with the morality of his actions, although he was just following orders that had come directly from the Pope, and therefore, one assumed, from God. They had done nothing to warn Sanchez of his impending doom.

  Was that wrong? Would Sanchez have listened? Would anyone? Would it have made a difference? Probably not. They would not have been able to save Sanchez, Christie Seifert firmly believed that. If what she’d learned about Oracle was true, and she was believing more and more that it was, then the odds were against them even with the Vatican’s computer, Augustine, on their side.

  If there was a way to beat Oracle there was probably only one person alive on the planet who knew how to do it. Yatin Kumar. And he was in New York. She wanted desperately to meet and interview him, of course.

  Christie did not believe that the story would be complete without meeting, and interviewing, the man responsible for Oracle’s very existence.

  Sam didn’t feel like crying anymore, though. Maybe that was why she wasn’t afraid. When she was scared, she cried. Crying only made things feel worse.

  She wished she could talk to Ribbett. Ribbett always knew what to say to make her feel better, no matter what. Maybe Ribbett could talk to her Mom and Dad. Ribbett could talk to Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and God. She could ask Ribbett to ask God if she could talk to her parents. She really wanted them to come back, but she knew that wasn’t allowed. She just wanted to talk to them.

  "Hey, girlie," said the bald man. "You ain’t scared, are ya?"

  Sam shook her head.

  "No reason to be scared of ol’ Angus Becker now. Not me."

  Sam glanced at Tina, who smiled kindly at her. She could tell Tina was scared, though, even if she was smiling. Adults always smiled when they were scared. Sam really wasn’t scared, though, not anymore. She just wanted to go home, and she wanted to be around people who were nice. Tina was the only one there who was nice.

  Angus wasn’t very nice. For one thing, she didn’t like being called girlie. For another thing, he looked at her like he wanted something bad to happen to her. It reminded her of a boy from summer camp, who liked to pull hair and hit the other kids. Sam wasn’t afra
id of him, but she didn’t like him. She didn’t like being at summer camp, anyway. She liked being home.

  She wanted to go home, to be in her room with her computer turned on, and talk to Ribbett. She wanted Ribbett to sing her all her favorite songs, and tell her all her favorite stories, and to let her play all her favorite computer games. She could talk to Ribbett on any old computer, she knew, but she wanted to be in her own room with her stuffed animals around her. That made her happy, to have her stuffed animals all around her.

  She knew that probably wasn’t going to happen ever again, though, which almost made her want to cry. Almost.

  Henry watched Angus and Sam. He stayed alert, ready in case Angus should try something foolish. But he knew Angus Becker wanted to live, and Angus Becker knew that to kill Sam Rohde would be to end his own life. Henry would kill him without a doubt.

  There was a time, Henry remembered, when he could not have imagined what it would be like to kill someone. A time when he felt happiness, a time when his world revolved his wife and his daughter. He could never go back to that, he realized. They were gone forever. He had not been allowed to say goodbye to Catherine, and had not been allowed to comfort Constance in her final moments. He would never get the chance to do so.

  So what could he do now? Nothing for them. Helping Sam Rohde would not make things easier for his wife and daughter. It was too late for them. Henry was a realist, he understood this. However, he also understood that Catherine and Constance would have wanted him to protect Samantha Rohde.

  But their ghosts were still there, unquieted. Constance screaming, his wife staring blankly at him. Constance dying.

  He watched Sam, then saw Tina move closer to her, touch her hair. He could not let it happen again. All he could see was a bubble of space around them, and all he could focus on was keeping death outside of that bubble.

  Chapter 24

  Angus Becker looked at Tina with his predatory blue eyes. She could see that Becker would not think twice about killing her in cold blood. Had they met under different circumstances, she’d be dead. Whatever stopped him, it wasn’t his humanity. He could have killed them all instead of revealing himself. Henry, Tina, Sam, Christie Seifert, Cardinal Roscoe…why weren’t they all dead?

  Apparently it was all up to Oracle, which blew Tina’s mind.

  "I won’t kill li’l Miss Girlie," Angus Becker said as he found a chair, plopped himself down in it. "As long as my old mate Henry does his job, she’s got nothing to worry about." Then he winked at Tina.

  Tina turned away, but when she happened to look at him again Angus’ head was tilted forward, his chin on his chest, as if sleeping. She didn’t believe he was really asleep, though. She felt as if was as aware of her, of all of them, as before. Maybe even more so.

  She was tired, too, but it was more from the emotional roller coaster ride than anything else. She could imagine what it was like to live at that level of intensity all the time. Surely both Henry and Angus Becker went through it constantly. She could not believe that killing people for a living provided constant peace of mind. Did assassins wrestle internally with their own moral quandaries? How could they not?

  Angus looked neither peaceful nor conflicted. He looked coiled, ready to spring at any moment.

  She looked at Henry. He stared ahead, apparently watching Sam, but upon closer inspection his eyes were unfocused, like someone looking into the middle distance. He looked like a man wrestling with inner demons, demons that haunted his dreams and made them nightmares.

  Tina had experienced her share of nightmares after having been stalked by a guy in college. Nothing bad happened, just some barely comprehensible notes telling her he loved her and that he wanted to kill her. He was expelled from the university, ultimately, and went back home to wherever home was for him. It had led to a month of nightmares, though, of him coming into her dorm room late at night, holding her down, raping her. She’d wake up in the middle of the night sweating, always on the verge of screaming.

  She couldn’t begin to imagine what Henry’s nightmares were like. What had happened to her was nothing compared to what he’d gone through in Cairo. Would it always be that way for him? Would he never know peace?

  "Henry," she said.

  He looked at her, frowned as he seemed not to recognize her for a second, then his expression changed as he did.

  "Are you all right?" Henry asked.

  She almost said yes, out of habit. But she stopped herself and thought about it. "I don’t know," she said.

  Henry looked past Tina and saw Angus, who was still sitting motionless.

  "I think he’s asleep," Tina said, although she did not really think that at all. Had Henry been watching Angus the whole time? Or not?

  "He’s not," Henry told her. "I never saw him sleep, before. He’s aware, but somehow he still gets the benefit of sleeping."

  "If he’s aware, he can’t dream," Tina said. "He’s not getting the benefits of dreaming."

  Henry sniffed. "I wouldn’t necessarily say dreaming gives you any benefits."

  "It does," Tina said. "It lets your subconscious sort the things out that your conscious mind can’t."

  She could tell Henry didn’t buy that.

  "Where’s the Cardinal? And the news girl?" he asked. He seemed more alert all of a sudden. Back to his old self. As his gaze swept around it met hers, and it was back. The distance. For a moment there she had felt, however tenuous, a connection with Henry. Now it was gone. Tina’s feeling of disappointment surprised her.

  "Back room," Tina said.

  "What are they doing back there?" Henry got up from the sofa. Tina also stood, taking a step back. His intensity had returned, too. It scared her, a little. Not in the way that Angus’ scared her. Angus Becker was an explosion waiting to happen. Henry was…something else. Something with fire deep, deep inside. "They have an agenda," Henry said. "I wonder what it is." Henry rubbed his hands all over his face now.

  "Are you sure you’re okay?" Tina asked.

  "Yeah…just a little…numb." What did he mean by that? Emotionally?

  "You don’t think they can be trusted, do you."

  He shook his head. "The media and the Catholic Church? No way."

  "So what do we do?" she asked.

  "Your guess is as good as mine," Henry told her. He sighed. "For now, I think we can work with them. For now. As long as they can help us."

  Us. Tina was inwardly pleased to hear that. She was involved, there was no denying that. She was scared to death, too, but it felt good in a way. She was doing the right thing.

  "I could use something to drink," he said. "Some water."

  "I’ll get it." Tina went into the kitchen, glad to have something to do, even for a moment. In the kitchen her actions felt tremendously important as she opened the cupboards and looked for a glass, then opened the refrigerator to see if Mr. Alonso had any water already in there. She found a six pack of plastic bottles of spring water. The refrigerator was well-stocked, too, with milk, eggs, cheese, smoked salmon, Coca-Cola, orange juice, apples, pears, grapes, lunch meats, condiments, lemons and limes. The thought entered her mind that a man with a full refrigerator was a good man, someone who could be trusted. It was a strange thought, but somehow it made sense.

  She brought Henry a bottled water and felt surprisingly satisfied when he opened it up and drank more than half in a single series of long gulps. Henry paused, took a breath, then drank the rest of the bottled water down. He handed the empty to Tina.

  "I’ll go see what the Cardinal and the news woman are up to," he said. "You stay here with the kid."

  "Do you think…?" she glanced at Angus.

  "I don’t think he’ll try anything," Henry said. "But if you want…" He held out the gun he had taken away from Angus. Tina looked at it. She almost reached out for it, then shook her head. Henry replaced it in coat. "Don’t worry. Whatever he’s got planned, it won’t happen just yet."

  "How do you know?" she asked.


  Henry shrugged. "I just feel it."

  "Okay."

  Henry left her there, alone, and headed towards the back room. Sam was asleep. Angus looked like he was still pretending to sleep, or pretending to meditate, or just pretending to exist. Juan had taken his drink into the next room, through a pair of sliding oak doors. It looked like a library. He looked more stressed out than anyone else. God, at least Henry wasn’t drinking. Tina hated that, when a man needed a drink as if to somehow steel his nerves or give him some backbone. Juan was a majestically handsome man, but realizing that he’d probably had four or five drinks knocked him down a few pegs in Tina’s estimation. More than a few pegs.

  The phone rang. Tina didn’t move. It rang a second time. Then a third. Was Alonso going to answer it. Then she heard him answer it in the library, before it rang again.

  "Hello," she heard him say with a strong, deep voice. Then, "Yes, he is here. Hold, please." He came out and walked past Tina without even acknowledging her presence.

  "Who is it?" she asked.

  Alsonso stopped, but did not look at her. "It is for the Cardinal." He paused a little bit longer, maybe half a second, then kept going.

  Tina immediately looked over towards the dining room phone. Angus was still sitting there in his sleep-like state. Sam was sleeping. Tina felt the temptation to pick up the phone in the dining room. It was a sudden, overpowering urge. Who could it be, on the other end of the line? She went over to the dining room phone and felt as if someone else had taken over her body. She had no control. She watched her hand grab the receiver and lift it to her hear. She listened, not saying a word.

  "Cardinal Roscoe, I believe you know who this is," a man’s voice said, with a crisp, British accent. "Listen to me and listen carefully. Winston has given us new information, confirming what Augustine’s initial assumptions were. The child is definitely an innocent, however…there is a complication. Whatever Oracle’s plan, it’s fate is inexorably bound up with the fate of the child. Until we know more, however, we must proceed as planned. Do not let the child out of your sight until we know if the Vatican’s original design for her should be followed through…or otherwise. Is this clear, Sir?" Tina remained silent. "Cardinal Roscoe, are you there?"