The Oracle Trilogy Book One Ohm's Node

Not a Bedtime Story

She had enough to size up the situation and bundle together the coolest stuff to construct a funny yet hopeful message to her sisters waiting nearby.

'Well!"

'Well, in two days, we'll have rations for a month, a few sit-down meals with meat and while we wait during the next few nights, we can either watch a movie or read any book that's been ever written. There's a new sci-fi trilogy out whatever language that's already gone viral, and we'll be able to take pictures now and send them!'

Ana watched as they all laughed their wonderful laughs, their dirt grimed faces, strands of dry bleached hair escaping from beneath bandannas, pounds of fat and muscle having disappeared during the trudge. They were all beautiful girls, so beautiful that they were told that they made young boys eyes melt making hormones go crazy. They were all still young, Yanna had told Angel to tell them that they would recover. 'But inside you'll have the memory of this everywhere. You'll be wise before you should be, like old souls. Laugh whenever you can and as hard as you can until it hurts and is out of you. Understand?'

And they did. While Ana produced for them the first vocal instructions each removed their lozenge from around their neck with muted anticipation. Too good to be true, validation of the rumors, power and a spark of self-esteem. With proof, they laughed even harder, all finally agreeing while holding their sides, that they would listen to the new novel for a couple of hours every night.

I hugged my little daughter hard enough to make her make the weird, scrunched face and whispered something that made Ana laugh.

That night a warm wind blew through the sacred foothills of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, picking up baked dried earth, scouring the sacred terrain, erasing the footprints of the small caravan of humans as they once again pushed past tired and hungry but now with a renewed sense of hope. Not far behind, a man bivouacked in a shallow culvert, packed up his eating utensils and bed roll, strapped on his pack, took a long slug of tepid water and began following for another night. He now understood that an obstacle had suddenly presented itself, changing his timeline. Was what he did, sport or wish fulfillment? Whatever, after tossing it around, he had decided that who the fuck cared anymore. End times were all about closure, finding peace in satisfying deep desires.

The word circulated from the front that an unseen drone was following them, offering both guidance and security. Maya conveyed messages to her younger sibs in her characteristic upbeat manner that they had come to rely on.

'The lozenges are to be used only when we stop to rest. Messages by the UN will interrupt if it's important like bad weather ahead and will give us instructions to the best place to weather it out. Or stop, danger ahead, wait for all's clear.'

'It's a miracle, really, yeah?'

Genesis or Gen didn't speak much but when she did, everyone always stopped and considered it as though it was the voice from a higher entity. She never appeared to be mad or sad or even happy. She never frowned or smiled or stuck her tongue out at something one of the others said, like they did. She just uttered things like pronouncements and walked away. Her mother said it was because she was dropped on the steps to the doctor's office for a routine post birth checkup. Things would just bubble up like a volcano and eventually come out. But the sisters all thought she was blessed with inner sight because she had received the biblical name. 'It came with the name', she told her sisters. 'It's like pre-ordained. We are fortunate to have such a sister so never make fun.'

'Something has changed', she kept talking, unusual that, drawing them closer so they could hear despite the wind.

'Something, like a force out there, has begun to see things differently. I feel it, stronger at night. I don't know what it is but people in charge of things have changed direction. There is anticipation in the air and less clutter of heavy emotions. This is a little part of it'