Free Marrow by Preston Norton Page A

brain.
    “Of course I haven’t seen him,” I said. “He a sadistic psychopath. Why would I have seen him?”
    Oracle did not respond right away. She continued to stare at me for several long seconds before leaning back in her armchair. Whatever was going on inside her head, she clearly wasn’t satisfied. I was swallowed in a realization that singed my nerves.
    “Is that the reason I’m here?” I asked. “So you could look inside my brain and see if I was in cahoots with my old man?”
    “I never assumed you were in cahoots with anyone,” said Oracle. “But I couldn’t leave any possibility unchecked. If Spine really has returned, there was a possibility that he might have shown himself to you. I had to make sure.”
    Suddenly, I felt violated, knowing that Oracle had probed my brain. Sure she had done it once before but that was to determine the nature of my power. I didn’t like being interrogated, even if I was oblivious to it.
    “So that’s it,” I said. “That was my mission. Come over here so you could poke around inside my head.” I could barely contain my irritation. Even when I was trying to make the most of my crappy situation, I was being manipulated.
    “I know how you feel, Marrow,” said Oracle. “But that’s not the only reason you’re here. I need your help with something else.”
    I bit my lip, fighting back a surge of cynicism. “Oh yeah?” I grumbled. “What’s that?”
    “I need you to bring Flex here. I need to speak with him.”
    Great. The most menial task in the world which also happened to be the most impossible. Something snapped inside of me. I wanted to throw my hands in the air in exasperation. I wanted to pull my hair out. I wanted to scream. I had worked so hard to be the best at FIST, only to get shafted by that cheating scumbag, Nero. Yeah, I was cocky, but I deserved to train with Fantom! I earned it! And now here I was, nothing but a messenger boy and apparently the untrustworthy son of a Supervillain who needed to have his thoughts examined by a brain-hacking Telepath.
    But instead of saying any of those things out loud, I laughed.
    This wasn’t a normal laugh. There was nothing funny about it. In fact, a part of me wanted to break down and cry like a big fat baby. The result was the sort of maniacal laugh you’d expect from some sort of whack job in a straitjacket.
    “Is something funny?” Oracle asked. Her expression was neither shocked nor irritated by my bizarre reaction. I was reminded again that she could still see directly inside my head. I could only imagine what a mess it looked like inside there.
    “Oh, no, no, no, no, no,” I said, shaking my head overzealously. “Why would something be funny? You’re only asking me to fetch the one lazy bum who doesn’t listen to a single freaking thing I say!”
    My voice amplified with every word until I was practically shouting.
    Again, Oracle seemed unfazed. In fact, her tight-pressed mouth loosened with the slightest hint of sympathy.
    “Marrow, can I show you something?”
    Breathing in through my nose, I attempted to calm myself. My wild-eyed hysterics lowered a notch. “Show me what?”
    “I’m not just a Telepath,” said Oracle. “Sometimes I see things. Dreams. Prophetic images. Glimpses of the future.”
    Standing upright—as far as her back would allow—Oracle stepped around the coffee table and approached me. She then sat down beside me on the couch.
    “Would you like to see my most recent premonition?”
    I didn’t know what to say. I’d never heard of Oracle showing anyone anything of the sort. In theory, this sounded like the opportunity of a lifetime. But how exactly did she intend to show it to me? Better yet, did I even want to see what she had to show me? I was starting to feel genuinely weirded out.
    So naturally, I said, “Okay.”
    Oracle reached forward and placed a clammy, withered hand on my forehead. “Now don’t wig out,” she said. “This is going to feel a