Rough hands pushed the man into the chair. Immediately his handcuffed wrists were fastened awkwardly over the low back of his char to the wall, and manacles on his feet were hooked to the floor in front of him. Then the interrogator, who had been moving with the frantic energy and speed of five men, stepped back out of the single ray of light in the room.
The man in the char groaned, peering into the lamp. His eyes flicked through the darkness, searching, trying to see his foe. Then the man closed his eyes and took in a deep breath and chanted, as if he had done so countless times before. But before he finished he faltered, and went silent. Then he drooped.
The man illuminated by the light had a face that could once have been handsome, but now was marred in its beauty by years of pain and torment. Two jagged scars traced their way down the right side of his face like cruel lightning during a storm, lightly running over pallid skin. His dark hair was still neatly combed on one side of his head, but the other was disarrayed wildly and matted with dark red.
A click.
“On this day, November 17, 2170, the criminal and mass murderer who calls himself Oracle was apprehended in Terre Field, approximately ten miles from the Peacekeeper Headquarters.” A guttural, echoing voice, masked by a scrambler, spoke out for the recorder.
Oracle looked up from his chair, eyes glazed. He said nothing.
The inhuman voice continued from the darkness. But this time it was directed to the man in the chair, to Oracle. “You will now tell us everything- either of your free will, or by force. I advise you to speak clearly and to start from the beginning.”
A dazed laughing sound. Oracle was laughing. Laughing, with his face twisted up in a resentful, but at the same time tired and miserable sneer. He lifted his head once again to search the darkness for the source of the voice, and made no attempt to get out of the chair.
“No need for threats, officer,” Oracle said softly. “You and the rest of your Faceless friends in the masks will find out my story, soon enough. Don’t worry. I will tell all.”
His eyes landed on the slowly blinking light of the recording device. It was to this which he spoke.
“So from where it all began? Fine. I will start. It all started when the Peacekeepers took my parents, dragged them away and killed them in the street, in front of my eyes.”
There was a muted clanking noise, as if somebody in full metal body armor had rose from behind a table, but Oracle had already paused, eyes thoughtful and cold.
“No,” he said slowly. “I misspoke. That was not the very beginning. No, I suppose it went back farther. Yes. Back to… when I first got my gift. The day before. The gift that made me who I am now, today. The reason why I killed, killed, killed. Yes…
“My gift.” Oracle shifted around slightly in his chair. “I was given a gift when I was a young boy. Nobody knows how people get these gifts, but they always are gifts of power. Mine granted me foresight- limited foresight, somewhat into the future. Being able to see possibilities of what could happen. Sometimes it helped me. I could evade trouble, see what things to avoid, what not to do, what would bring about the best outcome. I knew that twenty steps to the right could have me hit by an oncoming speeding truck without having to hear or see it coming. I knew that stealing that pencil that belonged to Harold Matthews could end up with me being suspended from school. In a fight, I not only knew that I could win. I could see my opponent’s punches before they came, eons before they came. I could step through his attacks as easily as walking down a street.”
His face grew dark. “Maybe word of that went out. Maybe that was why they came for my parents.”
Oracle went silent, brooding and dark for about a minute and a half. During that uncomfortable silence neither predator nor prey moved. The only sounds heard in the room was the tinkling of some faint, far-off glass shattering and the steady whirr of the recorder.
