Free The Burning City by Megan Morgan Page A

kind as to offer me his services,” Sam said. “He doesn’t do that very often.”
    June eyed Anthony. “And what are those?”
    “Anthony is a precognitive. Institute research claims he doesn’t exist, by the way.”
    June blinked a few times. “A pre….what?”
    “Precognitive,” Anthony said. “In the very simplest colloquial phraseology, I can see the future.”
    The back of her neck prickled. Why did he sound so familiar?
    “The Institute didn’t believe such an ability could exist,” Sam said. “But Anthony, I’m sure, can tell you otherwise. He’s going to help us find the monsters we’re looking for.”
    June perked. “Oh, so like—you know where they’re gonna be at a certain time?”
    Anthony shook his head. “It’s not quite like that.”
    “Let’s get something to drink,” Sam said. “We can all sit down, and you can fill June in. Come inside.”
    They all went in and to the kitchen. Something else about Anthony made her wary, something about his overall demeanor and the way he carried himself. Alarm bells rang in her head.
    Sam made himself and Anthony coffee, and June had water. They all sat down in the dining room at the table, which was freshly cleaned. The scent of oil soap hung in the air.
    June sat across from Anthony, Sam at the head of the table between them.
    Anthony smiled faintly. “Are you ready to have your mind blown, June Coffin?”
    “What’s left of it.” June stared at him.
    “Do you know the cosmological theory of parallel universes?”
    She propped her elbow on the table and rubbed her forehead. “Is it vital that I do?”
    “What cosmic theorists speculate, I know as fact, but in such a way they can’t imagine, and it would be impossible for me to clearly describe it to them. All you need to know is that every possible outcome of every second—everything you think, do, and say—is played out in an infinite number of universes. Everything that can happen does happen. I shift among the universes, so to speak, so I see all possible outcomes.”
    June dropped her hand away from her face. “You shift among universes?”
    “Well, my mind does. And that’s a very crude way to describe it. It’s much more complex.”
    June narrowed her eyes. “Saying, ‘if you make a decision, anything can happen’ isn’t exactly telling the future.”
    Sam spoke up. “You’ll have to excuse June, Anthony. She’s a skeptic.” He was nearly bouncing in his chair, seeming excited about whatever this power was that Anthony had.
    Anthony smiled wider. “‘Parallel’ is a misnomer. What I experience is more like a gel flowing in all directions. Everyone shifts. I’m just cognitive of it. The reason I can know a certain future is because people are sort of like”—he looked upward thoughtfully—“pin balls.” He looked back at her. “You get a swat with the paddles when you’re born, and there’s all sorts of chutes and holes and things for you to bump into. And every time you make a decision—when you drop back down to the paddles—you get thwacked in a certain direction. That’s when I see where you’re going in this universe, after that smack. People’s wills keep them going in the direction they’re sent. It would take a pretty hard shake of the machine to change it. But I can—usually—only see one smack at a time. A series of decisions becomes astoundingly convoluted.”
    Sam rubbed his chin. “And you have to be face-to-face with a person to know their future, right?”
    “Yes, technically. I can also see a bit of the future of people that person has recently come in contact with. It’s like a residue that gets caught in their head.”
    “You can do it at will?” June was barely following this.
    “For me, it’s as perennial as breathing. Just like I don’t have to think about breathing, I don’t have to think about my power.” He paused. “I can hold my breath or focus on my breathing, though. So in the same sense, yes, I can control my