Chapter 2 - chapter 2: The silent future

Agreed didn't move. She couldn't. Usually, when she looked at someone, their life played out behind their eyes like a fast-forwarded film. She saw their marriages, their deaths, their small betrayals. It made the human world boring, predictable, and easy to manipulate.But as she stared at Gabby, there was nothing.It was as if he were a ghost, or a hole in the universe. Her gift, the one that had cost her everything in Laross, was hitting a wall of static."You're staring, Agreed," Gabby said softly. He walked toward the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out at the skyline with an air of ownership. "Is there something on my face, or are you just trying to figure out how a startup like Silver-Line managed to intercept your satellite launch window?"Agreed stood up, smoothing her skirt. She needed to regain control. "I'm wondering why a man with your credentials is wasting his time with pest control. Metal cockroaches, Gabby? It seems a bit beneath a man who graduated top of his class in Zurich."Gabby turned, a shadow crossing his face. "It's not just pest control. It's about precision. Reaching places no one else can reach. Infiltrating systems that think they are impenetrable."Agreed felt a cold shiver. Infiltration. That was exactly what her childhood vision had warned her about. The "Blue Light" wasn't an explosion from the outside; it was a rot from within."My satellite codes are not for sale," she said, her voice hardening. "And they certainly aren't for rent to a company that won't show me their full schematics. You're hiding something in that device, Gabby. A secondary frequency."Gabby's eyes flashed—a momentary spark that looked almost like recognition. He stepped closer, entering her personal space again. The scent of the Laross forest intensified, thick and suffocating."We all have secondary frequencies, Agreed," he whispered. "We all have things we don't put in the brochures. For instance, your biography says you were an orphan from a remote village. But you don't have the eyes of a village girl. You have the eyes of someone who has seen the world end."Agreed's heart skipped. He was digging. He was looking for the same things she was."If you want the codes, I want a full demonstration of the prototype," she countered, shifting the subject. "In my private lab. No assistants. No engineers. Just you and the device.""A private showing?" Gabby smiled, and for a second, he looked hauntingly like the King she remembered from her nightmares. "I didn't realize the Oracle was so… hands-on.""I like to see exactly what I'm destroying," she replied.Gabby laughed, a dry, melodic sound. "Then we have more in common than you think. Tomorrow night, then. At your private facility. I'll bring the cockroach. You bring the codes."He turned to leave, but paused at the door. He didn't look back as he spoke. "By the way, Agreed… jasmine suits you. But I think you'd smell better in the rain."He disappeared through the mahogany doors, leaving the scent of Laross lingering in the air like a threat.Agreed collapsed back into her chair, her hands trembling. She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a small, jagged shard of glass—the only thing she had brought with her through the Mirror twenty years ago.She closed her eyes and tried to force a vision. She tried to see Gabby's face in the flames. She tried to see if he was the one who would hold the knife.But the future remained silent. For the first time in twenty-six years, the Oracle was blind. And that terrified her more than the "Blue Light" ever had.