The Oscillating Oracle: A Pocket-Sized Time Anomaly
The rain tasted of ozone and forgotten algorithms. It wasn’t the sharp, cleansing ozone of a thunderstorm, but the faint, acrid tang of circuits burning, of timelines fracturing. I hunched deeper into the doorway of the abandoned electronics store, the flickering neon sign above casting long, skeletal shadows.
My fingers tightened around the Oracle. Not a god, not a prophet, just a battered, palm-sized calculator, the kind they churned out by the millions in the late 80s. Except this one… this one whispered secrets. Secrets of futures that hadn’t happened, of pasts that were never quite real.
I’d found it in a dusty pawn shop, tucked away in a box of obsolete tech. The shopkeeper, a man with eyes that looked like they’d seen too much interference, just shrugged when I asked about its history. “Says ‘Property of Chronotech Industries’ on the back. Never heard of ‘em. Probably some fly-by-night operation.”
But I knew. I felt it. The moment I touched the cold, plastic casing, a jolt, a tremor ran through me. Not electricity, something deeper, something… temporal.
The first time, I’d just been messing around, punching in random numbers. 7355608. The display flickered, then settled on a single word: “Retreat.” Retreat? Retreat from what? I dismissed it as a glitch, a quirk of the aging hardware. But then I crossed the street, and a delivery truck, brakes screaming, careened out of control, smashing into the very spot I’d been standing.
Coincidence? Maybe. But I started experimenting. Simple questions, simple calculations. 2+2=? The Oracle spat out “5 – avoid the alley.” I avoided the alley. Later, I heard about a mugging. 100/2=? “49.99 – refuse the deal.” I refused a shady business proposal. Saved myself a fortune.
The Oracle became my lifeline, my guardian angel in a plastic shell. But it was also a burden. The knowledge of what might be, of what could be avoided… it was intoxicating, addictive. I started relying on it for everything, every decision, every breath.
The Glitch in the Matrix
Then came the error. A big one. I asked the Oracle a simple question: “Where should I go tomorrow?” The display went blank, then filled with gibberish, a chaotic jumble of symbols and numbers. I hit the ‘Clear’ button. Nothing. The machine was frozen, locked in a temporal seizure.
Panic tightened its icy grip. I was lost, adrift without my Oracle. I didn’t know what to do, where to go, who to trust.
The next day, I woke up with a splitting headache. The city outside my window seemed… different. Subtly, disturbingly different. The sky was a shade darker, the buildings a little taller, the faces of the people on the street… colder.
I went to the pawn shop. The shopkeeper wasn’t there. A different man, younger, harder, stood behind the counter. I asked about the old man. He gave me a blank stare. “Never seen him before.”
I realized then what the Oracle had been trying to tell me. The gibberish wasn’t an error. It was a warning. I’d become too reliant on the machine, too dependent on its predictions. And in doing so, I’d altered the timeline, created a new reality. A reality where the old pawn shop owner never existed, where Chronotech Industries was a household name, where the sky was always a little darker.
The Oracle was silent now, useless. I tossed it into a nearby trash can. It was time to navigate this new world on my own, without the crutch of precognition. The rain still tasted of ozone, but now, mixed with a metallic tang, the taste of uncertainty, the taste of genuine, unfiltered fear.
Maybe, just maybe, a little fear was a good thing.