Ready or Not, Here I Come

December 24, 2036...

The scent of gasoline overwhelms my nose and a sweltering humidity starts sticking to my skin. I rise from my chair, hearing an explosion from what I think is a mile away. A running woman carrying a child bumps into me, knocking the wind out of my lungs and my body onto the rubble beneath. Her head is shaking with tears tumbling down her reddish cheeks, moaning at me in a language I can barely hear through the cacophony of screams, gunfire, sirens. Grit lightly dusts her caramel skin and the boy in her arms is limp. I struggle to get up, and even when I do, the swarms of people dodging against me almost knock me down once more. Peering towards the sky, a plane whizzes by.

A deafening pitch morphs into incessantly ringing bells. I am looking down from a conference room window to men at what I assume is the main level — in their collared Tom Ford shirts — packing papers, throwing things in boxes, and vacating their office desks. They’re shouting into their cellphones, calling taxis and ride-shares. Logos, green numbers, and red letters are scrolling across screens.

I close the black book and gasp for a breath.

“Monsieur, que désirez-vous?” (Sir, what would you like?) an alarmed but calm voice asks.

I stare at the man leaning inches away from my face, one hand on my shoulder, and the other holding a water bottle. I then look at my own body, my right hand pressed against the book cover, and my left somehow still holding my cigarette without crushing it. Sweat is dripping onto the smooth cover, creating a darkened spot, though I thought the leather couldn’t get any blacker.

“Rien, merci. Je suis en train d’attendre un ami,” (Nothing, thank you. I’m waiting for a friend) I reassure the waiter.

It’d just happened again, the fifth episode this week, each trance more intense than the last. But as I reorient myself to this all-too-calm café terrace, I wonder, “Why now?”

I stroke the soft but sturdy cream pages with lightly inked grids in the black blotter before me. It was already mine before I’d ever laid eyes on it. It was addressed to Mikhael, my birth name, but one so few knew. It was nestled between the red hymnal and blue prayer book in the slot facing me during Sunday mass. Looking around me, I wanted to see a familiar face but only saw vacant seats. It’s been a while since I’ve held one of these leather-bound calendars because now everything is digital. Someone from the Terra Cognita Society must still stand by them if their information is always susceptible to digital security breaches.

I read: March 3, 2038: Landovla is covered in water. Thousands of homes will be flooded.

April 16, 2039: TiXia, begins having pests take down their pear trees.

The prophecies are correct, but incomplete. As I stare off into the Parisian plaza, I scribble in a few notes. I recognize the God-awful cursive — must be from a kid who hasn’t a bit of penmanship. I pull a napkin off the table, fold it into a two centimeter stack, and with a wadded piece of gum, stick it under the too-short leg of my wobbling bistro chair. How is it that humankind has found the cure for Ebola, but cannot make chairs with uniform legs? They don’t make anything like they used to — every damn thing breaks after ten uses. After popping a cigarette between my teeth, I puff a sigh of relief. I could’ve probably afforded two more meals if I hadn’t purchased a pack of smokes, but I couldn’t resist.

A slender ginger slips onto the rattan chair at the other side of the table.

“D’ya have a fag?” the unperturbed man asks.

I glance at my watch — 15:22, 30/10/2036 — then rummage through my right pocket to fetch a smoke, lighting it for the young friend who I haven’t seen since I left Terra Cognita.

“It only took you a decade,” I whistle out through my cigarette. We were colleagues at Terra, both scribes and librarians keeping track of every book placed in concealed international locations. These books contained prophecies and their outcomes — some completed, some avoided, and many that have not come to pass yet.

When I entered the secret society, a collective of prophets, I believed I was preventing some of the biggest global atrocities, or else preparing nations for imminent, inevitable, cataclysmic dangers. We had warned nations of famines, advising them to have food storages prepared; aided negotiations between opposing tribes, coming to a compromise before a war broke out. For almost 20 years I contributed, believing we were truly doing good.

All changed when I began suspecting my colleagues leaking prohibited predictions to unvetted leaders and institutions. I’d seen the rise of a new phone released by the burgeoning company Excelsior in 2025, one with an indigo-light sieve, gamer high grades, and a state-of-the-art mic for live streams. But only one other man believed this — Jacob, the man now sitting before me. He too predicted that Excelsior would expand in the following five years, planting more factories in Asia.

It wasn’t until after I’d made the prediction in 2021 that I progressively found out Terra Cognita had been compromised. To my face, the leadership denied my prediction’s plausibility. But behind my back, few of Terra’s leaders had been selling classified information, my economic prophecy being one of them, to a relatively unknown entity called Tibbet — launching them into overnight success while subverting Excelsior. Tibbet released their model two years earlier, instantly making them the world leader in hands-free technology. That’s when I knew underground trades had been happening, garnering wealth for the parties involved. By the time the eldership was ridded of traitors and installed with new leaders, I had already resigned.

“So how’s the lil’ guy? I wonder ‘bout this datin business you’re in. The Grand Prophetic Holy Joe ended up helpin’ lads find their soulmates?” Jacob joked.

“It's easy and it pays,” I grunt. The cooled-down café au lait tastes a bit bland (they don’t make anything like they used to). “It’s not so bad helping common people. Lower stakes.”

I knew Jacob was keeping tabs on me a year ago. I was living in Mexico City at the time and even from a distance with a hat and sunglasses, his pale skin and fiery hair couldn’t be concealed. I paid dearly to have my digital footprint wiped from every corner of the internet. I can’t say it was easy, seeing that the world’s livelihood now depended on the worldwide web. But I’ve managed, even as paper cash is growing obsolete.

I cough, “Terra’s still struggling aren’t they? That’s why you’re here. They were quite wrong about the election and upcoming attacks.” But my eyes say, “There’s one wolf left, and you know don’t you?”

I continue, “The Divine tells them nothing. Their hearts are dark, so they only hear from what is dark.”

He dodges my remarks and asks “So what does it feel like when one a yeh clients finally meets ‘the One’?”

I laugh, “They don’t have ‘the One.’ They have choices.”

“Helpin’ ‘em weed out the floozies then?” At first, I wonder if he is really talking about soulmates, but then I see it’s dawning on the young chap that directing romantic choices is weighty.

I can see Jacob’s memory: he is following the steam from the bathroom, hastily taking off his clothes, then opening the door. Ella’s eyes widen with terror at the sight of him, his head turns to see another man nude, tickling her ivory body. The boy is still angry that he is able to predict when Hurricane Catalina will hit the US coast, but cannot foresee that his girlfriend will cheat on him.

I interject his thoughts, “They don’t get a pass, if that’s what you’re thinking. I don’t choose for them, I just help them become the kind of men who will make good choices.”

“Butyeh still know their options right? Their endings.” He finally averts my gaze altogether.

“I’ve never seen a man able to escape himself,” I caution, because I tried escaping the inevitable — leaving my alcoholic father alone to cope with my mother’s passing because I was too angry to watch. Falling for the most-beautiful-thing-to-grace-this-earth, who moved back in with her rich father — the one that believed I was a useless impoverished professor living on already broken dreams.

Jacob is uncomfortable, perhaps because he sees that I can read his mind and that I can also see simultaneous realities — like five screens always playing out possibilities. Jacob can maybe only see the effects of a singular act, the three contingencies that ripple thereafter, changing according to the agents’ manner and receptors’ responses. He dabs his finger on the remaining crumbs of his croissant, his eyes finally landing on the black book. He snatches it from my side of the table, hand brushing over it.

“How’d yeh know it was me?”

“I don’t need to be prophetic to figure that one out.”

“So are yeh comin’ back?”

In my mind, I ask if Terra is still buying data libraries. The amount of data they have can predict anyone’s behaviors and therefore, can manipulate them, down to the detail of the brand of Icelandic yogurt one eats every morning. But I’ve been watching since the global pandemic in 2020. That was the year “outside forces” should’ve shown them that even with storehouses of information, they cannot control everything. No, I suddenly know they haven’t let go, in fact, they are still collecting all the data they can and sharing with stakeholders — their pockets getting fatter .

“They did not send you,” I say. “They must feel the wrath. That’s what happens when men play god.”

“Yeh need the money...”

“Terra Cognita is a lost cause,” I gather my suitcase and hat.

“The world needs You,” he says more frantically but formally.

I look straight into his yearning eyes once more. “I’ve checked all the notes you wrote to me. I’ve added a few myself.” I leave him with the little black book and embark down the adjacent road.

Dear Jacob,

March 23, 2038: Landovla is covered in water. Thousands of homes will be flooded. ----- The sea level is rising. I see an ark. There will be two cruise ships taking in people prior to the typhoon, saving 10,000 Landovlan people. Landovlan authorities will reject advice, but a few cruise-line captains may listen to the precautions.

April 16, 2039: TiXia, begins having pests take down their pear trees. ----- The growth of insecticide resistant pests is due to an overuse of commercial farming pesticides. Farmers must begin biodynamic methods, crop rotation, negating pesticides, drawing predators back to the land who will naturally feed off of these insects. This will be a lengthier process, but will be better long term.

October 30, 2036: Jacob, I will have seen you today at a café terrace next to la Fontaine de St. Michel. You will suggest that I return to TC because you think there is still hope to save it. I will refuse. As long as Darius is Leo’s right-hand man, there is nothing to be done. However, I await your alternative offer...

Also, while you will miss Ella and she will finally apologize for her wrongs, I caution you not to go back to her. Wait, there is someone else.

That night, I will peruse through my briefcase and find a folded envelope of $20,000 cash with a sloppily handwritten note saying, “Thanks. I think it might be time for me to take the leap and leave. Here is the money to start a new consortium. I’m your first investor and disciple. Find me again. - J.”