Oracle--Mutant Wood Read online

  Ret could think of only one person who seemed to have the same kind of vision that he had: the wondrous Mr. Coy, he himself crazy and proud of it. Although Ret couldn’t cure the world alone, he might be able to with Mr. Coy. But how? Ret knew the battle for the hearts of mankind had to be won individually—one-on-one, one by one. However, given the current state of things, that was likely going to be a real challenge. Sure, he had plenty of vision, but he also had plenty of enemies. How was he going to make friends out of foes?

  Most days, this was all too overwhelming to think about. It never failed to make Ret feel lonely and depressed. It didn’t help that he was a marked man. His works, as misunderstood as they were, followed him everywhere, especially at school. As he walked the halls of Tybee High, he often felt like an American revolutionary among British lobsterbacks. Students avoided him. Teachers overlooked him. Yet everyone noticed him—this he knew because he could hear in the airwaves everything they said about him, no matter how softly they thought they were whispering. Such was the glamorous life of one with the scars. Sometimes Ret would spend an entire day without saying a word.

  The first day of November would have been another such day if it weren’t for something that happened during gym class. As part of their unit on track and field events, the teacher had her students running relays. She split the group into six teams, handed out as many batons, and then asked them to take their desired positions along the track.

  Standing at his mark, Ret watched the relay as it got underway. In the lead were Justin and Lauren, followed by Briana and Hector, with Alan bringing up the rear.

  Wait. That only made five runners when there should have been six. Ret counted again. Something was missing. Where was the sixth runner?

  Ret looked back at the starting line. There, not far from it, was Kristina. She was having a hard time because she was overweight. Although she was obviously giving it all she had, her sprint was more of a shuffle, and the other runners left her in their dust.

  The sight warmed Ret’s heart. He admired Kristina’s determination. She could have sat out, given up, or simply walked the whole way. But instead she was trying her best, and even though she was dead last, in Ret’s eyes she was in first place.

  Unfortunately, not everyone saw it in quite the same light. By the time the relay entered its third leg, Kristina was just wrapping up its first one. Ret could see her teammate still waiting at his mark, standing with some of the runners from the first leg who had long since finished. They were all watching Kristina, which was hard not to do, and yet it looked like they were cheering her on. Ret bent the sound waves to his ear and tuned in from across the track, eager to hear their encouraging remarks. He was shocked by what he heard:

  “Come on, tubby!”

  “Move those cottage cheese thighs!”

  “Sometime this year please!”

  “Gotta work off those honey buns!”

  “Jiggle, jiggle!”

  Ret swelled with anger. He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. The dirt at his feet began to dance. His fingertips started to spark. In his rage, he unintentionally bent the metal goal post that was closest to him on the football field.

  Just as the wind was beginning to pick up, Kristina shakily stuck out her baton. With a final jeer, her teammate took it and took off. Laughing, the other scoffers left, and Kristina collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily.

  Ret’s fury melted into sadness. His heart sank, and tears filled his eyes.

  Just then he felt a jab at his side. He turned to find his teammate holding out his baton, anxious for Ret to take it and commence the final leg. Their team was in the lead, and Ret was their last runner.

  Ret grabbed the metal baton, crushed it with his bare hand, and threw it into the next ZIP code. Then he entered a full sprint, but, much to his team’s disappointment, it was not toward the finish line. No, the game was not his goal.

  While the rest of the class crowned the winners, Ret went over to comfort the loser. He knelt down and gently lifted Kristina to her feet, her hair disheveled and clothes dusty.

  “I’m sorry they were mean to you,” Ret said sincerely. She was too exhausted to be startled by who was helping her.

  Amid sniffles and tears, she rasped back, “Me, too.”

  “I thought you did a great job,” he told her as they walked toward the locker room.

  “Thanks,” she replied, unconvinced.

  More than once, Kristina looked at Ret with a curious expression on her face. She wondered how public enemy number-one could be treating her so kindly. Maybe the things she had heard about him weren’t entirely true.

  Arriving at the building, Ret said pleasantly, “See you around,” and they parted ways.

  While changing out of his gym clothes, Ret reflected on what had transpired. Whatever it was that he had done, it left him with a warmth in his chest, proof that his heart liked it. It also left him with a numbness in his hand, which meant a scar must have liked it, too. Ret smiled, for the feeling was coming from the scar on the far left side of his right palm, which was the only scar left that had yet to be revealed.

  CHAPTER 2

  POWER SERGE

  “Welcome to Russia, Dr. Zarbock,” said the man standing on the airstrip as Lionel stepped out of the helicopter.

  “Thank you, President Topramenov,” Lionel greeted him with a firm handshake. “It is an honor to meet the newest leader of this fine Federation.”

  “Yes, well, if it weren’t for my election campaign, I would have attended the United Nations meeting last April and heard your stirring address in person.”

  “I understand,” Lionel told him. “After all, you are quite the celebrity these days.”

  “Second only to you!” the president rejoined. “I hear you practically run the UN now.”

  “It is a responsibility that I take most seriously,” Lionel affirmed, “hence my meeting with you today. As you know, the Security Council has asked everyone to aid in the obstruction of Ret Cooper, and they have assigned me to personally investigate how each nation is complying with that request. And, I might add, we are expecting great things from the Russian Federation.”

  “You will not be disappointed,” the dignitary promised.

  The pair left the helipad and headed for a nearby car, its driver standing ready to receive them. Although it was midday, a thick blanket of gray clouds veiled the sky, and the temperature was well below freezing. The guest followed his host into the backseat, and the company departed.

  President Sergey Topramenov was your typical middle-aged Russian elite. With dark hair and a square face, he was thick in body but not in brain. He wore a black suit under his trench coat, and he smelled of fermented barley. His shifty eyes (and the bags under them) seemed to say he was up to something, and Lionel wondered if the man had ever smiled.

  Their route was a dirt road, the kind that is created for a single and temporary purpose. They were deep in the heart of the country, at least a thousand miles from any coast. Rural woodlands dominated the landscape. Every now and then, they would come to a small clearing, but never once did they pass by any kind of town.

  The forests gradually became less dense the further they went. Fewer and fewer trees were alive and upright while more and more were dead and fallen. These were not freshly felled trees but decaying ones, some that looked as though they had been laying there for over a hundred years. Lionel noticed how they were all resting in the same general direction, opposite the way the car was traveling. He was greatly intrigued.

  “President Topramenov,” Lionel began, “if I may ask—”

  “Please, call me Serge,” the politician interrupted.

  “Very well,” Lionel grinned. “If I may ask, why are there so many fallen trees all around? Lax logging laws, perhaps?”

  “Not quite,” Serge chuckled. “Are you familiar with the famous Tunguska Explosion?”

  “I believe I’ve heard of it, yes,” Lionel replied. “What was it
exactly?”

  “It was an enormous explosion that occurred over a century ago—still the largest impact event on or near earth in recorded history,” said Serge, with a hint of pride. “It leveled some 80 million trees over an area of 2,000 square kilometers.” Lionel took out his phone and converted the number to about 800 square miles, a unit which was easier for him to visualize. “Although no one knows for certain what caused the explosion, some believe it was an asteroid or comet.”

  “That could easily be determined by a simple test of the crater’s soil,” thought the physicist.

  “Yes, except there was no crater,” Serge returned, earning him a quizzical look from Lionel. “Others claim the explosion was caused by the air burst of some weapon that detonated before it hit the ground. The most generous estimates put the energy of the blast at a thousand times that of an atomic bomb.”

  “Impressive,” Lionel observed, “but it would still be several years before nuclear energy was weaponized.”

  “And so it remains a mystery,” Serge said with a satisfied shrug of his shoulders. “But hopefully not for much longer.”

  “Oh?” Lionel wondered. “Why is that?”

  “At the time of your UN address,” Serge began, “the Cooper criminal had already found three of the so-called elements. As we all know, he has since found a fourth. Correct me if I’m wrong, doctor, but if each of the earth’s six landmasses is hiding one of these elements, which has been the case thus far, then that leaves only Australia and Eurasia.”

  “I would agree,” said Lionel.

  “I have been in frequent contact with leaders from several other Eurasian countries, all of whom agree we need to work together to beat Ret at his own game before we become the next Antarctica. We have identified several locations throughout our lands where Ret might strike next: ancient ruins, natural wonders, tourist attractions—every nation has some. And, for the nation of Russia, one of those is the Tunguska Explosion.”

  “Keep talking,” Lionel beamed.

  “A few months ago, I commissioned a team to go to the site of the explosion to see if they could learn anything that we didn’t already know. In addition to the usual geologists, I included botanists, chemists, and experts from other professions that had never been included in a Tunguska expedition before. Given the staggering size of the site, this team decided to start their investigation at the epicenter and work their way out rather than start out and work in. They all agreed that if the explosion was not a random act of nature but actually had some special meaning, then there might be a reason why it occurred in the spot where it did.”

  “Smart team,” Lionel remarked.

  “They began at the epicenter,” Serge said, “where they found a tree.”

  “Shocker,” Lionel muttered to himself.

  “But not just any tree,” the president carried on. “No, this one was larger and older than all the others. When they attempted to take samples of it, however, they couldn’t. Its bark was so tough that it broke their instruments—its roots so deep that no shovel could reach them. What’s more, its limbs were barren of any leaves, and they couldn’t find a single seed. The thing was indestructible, and it clearly did not want to be researched.”

  “Interesting,” said Lionel.

  “After hearing their report, I sent the team back but this time with much more substantial equipment. They tried all kinds of knives and saws, but each failed against the impenetrable wood, which simply bent the teeth of every blade without so much as leaving a scratch on the tree. Even chemicals were futile. Our only other option was to start digging.”

  “Your intention was to dig it out?” Lionel asked.

  “Under it, around it—I don’t know, what would you do?”

  “To be honest,” Lionel sighed, “it sounds like a job for one with the scars.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Serge confessed. “We’re almost to the site now. We’ll be able to see how things are coming along.”

  “I can’t wait,” said Lionel, his gaze returning to the window.

  The landscape had changed. The ground was no longer littered with rotting tree trunks. The forest was alive and standing tall, which meant they were nearing the epicenter.

  And then the car stopped. Through the trees, Lionel could see why. A few yards ahead, the dirt road took a nosedive. It seemed they were parked near the edge of some kind of cliff.

  Serge got out of the car and began to walk toward the edge. Lionel followed. When he reached the end of the forest, he was amazed at what he saw.

  They were standing on the ledge of a massive excavation site. A giant hole in the ground, it was an open-pit mine, similar to the kind used for unearthing things like copper or diamonds. Like giant stairs, the sides of the pit had been terraced, each level acting as either an access road or a pit bench. The many workers resembled tiny ants, and the beeping and honking of backhoes and dump trucks echoed against the tiered walls. Load after load of waste rock was being hauled away. It was like peering into the Roman Colosseum.

  And there, in the center of it all, stood the tree. In a word, it was striking—a marvelous mixture of beauty, majesty, and terror. Unlike most trees with their straight trunks and smooth stems, this one was gnarled and twisted, like many strands of taffy spun together. Its few but fibrous limbs snaked outward like great tentacles, bent and contorted in the most unpredictable manner. With branches so sharp and pointed that they appeared to have been whittled, this tree’s bark was its bite. The wood was light in color, a combination of soft yellows and slight browns, with occasional dark streaks, the bark so riveted and sinuous so as to have been shaped with a thick-bristled paintbrush. There were loops in its boughs, corners in its curves, yet not a single leaf or needle was to be found.

  Already large in stature, the tree appeared even grander now that some of its roots had been exposed. Like the legs of a great bridge, these thick and sturdy roots fanned out in all directions, not one of whose ends had been reached. With the arch and awe of brontosaurus necks, the underground system served as a sort of ribcage that protected the tree’s main taproot, which shot straight down from the trunk into the farthest reaches of the earth.

  Against such a solitary backdrop, the great tree commanded attention and silenced discussion. Its shape told of slow growth, and its structure bespoke of ripe age. Built to last, it seemed the living thing could withstand anything, from the driest drought to the greediest lumberjack. No matter who you were, whether you loved it or hated it, there was no denying you had to respect it.

  “So what do you think, doctor?” Serge asked, brimming with pride.

  “I think it’s very good,” Lionel answered, “for a preventative measure, that is.”

  “What do you mean?” Serge questioned, sounding a bit deflated.

  “Your determination is commendable, president. Your idea to outsmart Ret and beat him to the punch is creative. And there’s no question you are not afraid to throw your resources behind that which you strongly believe in. But,” Lionel leaned toward him, “how does any of this stop Mr. Cooper?”

  “Well…uh,” Serge groped to defend his efforts, “if, in fact, this tree is—”

  “And what if it’s not?” Lionel butted in. “This is not a time for ifs, my friend. When it comes to the elements, the Oracle gets straight to the point. It doesn’t mess around, and neither does Ret. In fact, he could excavate this entire pit with a mere wave of his hand.” Serge’s eyes widened at the thought.

  “Then what do you suggest we do?” he put forth, feeling a bit put out. “You don’t expect us to just abandon this entire operation, do you?”

  “Of course not,” Lionel advised. “Keep on digging, full steam ahead. You’ve already come this far, it’d be a shame to stop now. Besides, whether or not that tree has anything to do with Ret and the elements, it is still a mystery worth figuring out.”

  Relieved, Serge asked, “Then what of Ret?”

  Lionel took a deep breath before pr
oceeding with his recommendation. “The United Nations is looking for something more direct in the fight against Ret. We’re asking world leaders to aggressively pursue him, not passively wait for him. If we don’t make the first move, then he surely will, and we will all suffer for it. We need to hit him where it hurts, cut off his strongholds, paralyze his plans.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Cooper’s unofficial headquarters—his base of operations, if you will—is a state-of-the-art facility in the southeastern United States,” Lionel explained. “He and his associates call it Coy Manor, named after Ret’s right-hand man Benjamin Coy. This is where they devise all their plots and store all their supplies—boats and planes, computers and electronics, even miraculous inventions called subsuits and black mirrors. Its loss would all but ensure our victory.” Then, as if confirming what Serge was already assuming, Lionel declared, “The Manor must be destroyed.”

  “What role would Russia be expected to play in this endeavor?” Serge inquired.

  “The United Nations has neither the manpower nor the firepower to successfully carry out such an attack,” Lionel said. “We need troops, arms, planes, ships—whatever you feel you can offer in the quest to save the world from Ret.”

  “What would be the nature of this attack? Air? Land? Sea?”

  “Sea,” came the quick reply. “The Manor is on an island, right off the mainland but also right on the ocean. Thus, we believe it would be in our best interest to launch a naval attack.”

  “Do you expect the Manor will fight back?” Serge interrogated. “Are they capable of retaliation?” To be honest, he was wary of the whole idea and was searching for an excuse to stay out of it.

  “Doubtful. The only problem I foresee is if Ret resorts to using his powers. Even then, he does not have power over water yet, which is another reason why a naval attack is so advantageous as opposed to land or air, both of which Ret can control. But if I know Ret, he’s not a fighter. He never uses his abilities to harm people.”