Job Hunting

The Oracle navigated the doors as easily as if they were labeled. Usually a mind was less organized, a rough tunnel with colors and light. It said good things about this little psychic if he had so organized his mind that it reflected on his future.

Alister searched for some very exact things. For starters, how this child came to be a psychic. A cream door with mirrored trim panels opened on two images, both blurred because of their perfect overlap. Each was as likely as the next and that could only mean one thing. This had not happened yet.

In one moving clip, a curvaceous blonde's face disappeared behind the back of Jude's head indicating a kiss that lasted longer than it should have between a woman who looked like that and a boy of Jude's age. In the other watery image, Jude sat stoically in a chair. A different blonde, this one more athletic in build, planted a kiss at Jude's temple and slipped her hand into the small boy's hand as a white coat prepared a needle.

It seemed that the French truly did dominate in love.

That door lead to a rough mine, a peculiar phenomenon that drew the Oracle away from the main hallway and into a labyrinth of forking tunnels more like what the fortune teller was used to: A horn sprouted from Jude's head a tail from his… an older Jude cut himself shaving, Jude assessed the state of his round derrière in a black dress, a semi-transparent Jude held a white haired woman's hand, Jude juggling fire, Jude kissing a red head, Jude cradling a new born… They should have been sequential, but Jude's age, mutation and even gender seemed to jump around sporadically.

The tunnel spanned a very long way with seemingly infinite branches. This was a much more controlled exercise than the unicorn man's reading had been. As long and as winding as each path was, Alistair could feel that there was a definite end to each of them. He wasn't interested in that just now.

The Oracle flipped through the images casually, though they didn't always come one at a time or behave as he expected. Sometimes the images overlapped in the watery way that they had seen the blondes' kisses and sometimes they assaulted the senses individually like flashes of a strobe light. Jude touching a fallen power line, stretching his arms to obscene lengths, picking up a car, wielding a sword, making it snow…

Before things got too out of hand, Alister steered them back toward the doored hallway. He had lost control of his ability before and that had been dangerous. He did not want to repeat that mistake.

The main hallway was more familiar territory.

This time the Oracle went looking specifically for the man that had reveled himself to be the Enemy. A birthday celebration with three white-haired young people, Elias and Jude with mirrored wicked smiles, an uncle Jude never knew he had coming for Thanksgiving, Jude and a familiar blonde teen with their heads together pouring over a map of the city. Alister saw and knew.

This boy was no psychic. He was a power mimic. Even better, Jude was a power mimic that would be on their side.

Alister let go of Jude's face and casually slid his sunglasses up on his nose. "You're hired."

Six pair of surprised eyes watched the boy as he adjusted and readjusted his sunglasses. The Oracle was blunt as always.

"Not as a psychic. We need you to help stop the apocalypse."