The Precognition Protocol

# The Thirty-Second Prophet The ground beneath Tremor Academy never stayed still. Most people learned to ignore it—the subtle shifts, the occasional tremor that sent coffee rippling in mugs. Dakota Chance had learned to read it like others read faces. Every vibration told a story. Every rumble was a warning. They stood at the edge of the training pit, watching a squad of rescue workers navigate a collapsed warehouse simulation. The concrete walls were real. The falling debris was carefully weighted but real. The adrenaline pumping through the trainees' veins was absolutely, dangerously real. Dakota felt their heartbeat quicken. Not from fear—they'd moved past that years ago. The adrenaline was intentional, controlled, summoned like a tool. They closed their eyes and waited for the rush to crest. Thirty seconds bloomed in their mind like a flower opening to the sun. They saw Marcus Chen, the young firefighter in the blue helmet, reach for a support beam that would collapse three-point-two seconds after he touched it. They saw the beam's trajectory. Saw the two-inch gap between where it would fall and where it needed to miss him by. Saw the split-second decision that would mean the difference between a commendation and a funeral. Dakota's eyes snapped open. "Chen!" they shouted across the pit. "Shift three feet east. Now!" Chen, mid-reach, hesitated only a fraction of a second before obeying. The beam fell exactly where he'd been standing. The other trainees froze, watching the metal rod clatter against stone with a sound like a gunshot. The simulation supervisor shut down the exercise, calling out the timeline. The near-miss was logged. Another incident prevented. Another secret kept. Dakota turned away from the pit and headed toward the observation tower. They were already pulling off their gloves, their hands trembling slightly—the aftershock of the vision always left them jangled, their nerves bright and electric. That was the cost of seeing thirty seconds into the future. The present never quite felt real anymore. They didn't notice the camera until they were nearly to the stairs. It was small, mounted on a tripod, positioned at the perfect angle to capture the training pit. More importantly, it captured Dakota. Standing at the edge of the designated safe zone, eyes closed, then suddenly, inexplicably, shouting a warning that saved a man's life. "Hey." Dakota's voice came out sharp. "What is this?" The woman behind the camera lowered it slowly. She was young—maybe twenty-three—with dark hair pulled back in a practical bun and the kind of intense, intelligent eyes that made Dakota's already racing heart accelerate further. "I'm Iris Okafor. I'm a trainee. I was also offered the documentary opportunity." Documentary. The word hit Dakota like a punch. "No," Dakota said flatly. "Absolutely not." "You haven't even heard the pitch," Iris said calmly, setting down the camera. "And technically, I have authorization to film training exercises. It's in the Academy's public relations agreement with the network." "That camera wasn't pointing at the training exercise. It was pointing at me." "Yes." Iris didn't even blink. "It was. Because I've been watching you for six weeks, and I've documented forty-seven separate incidents where you've predicted injuries with impossible accuracy. Injuries that would have occurred if you hadn't intervened. I've been building a timeline. Running the numbers. And Dakota, the probability of that being coincidence is approximately one in two million." The ground trembled beneath them—a genuine tremor, small enough that most people wouldn't notice. Dakota felt it in their bones, in the plates shifting beneath the academy's foundation. But that wasn't what made them feel unsteady. It was Iris Okafor with her camera and her numbers and her absolutely correct analysis. "You don't know what you're asking," Dakota said quietly. "I'm asking you to help me tell the truth," Iris replied. "You've rebuilt your entire career on 'instinct.' On being the person who knows what's coming next. But this isn't instinct, is it? This is something else. Something unprecedented. And you've been using it to save lives, keeping it secret because you're terrified of what would happen if people found out." "You're right to be afraid," Iris continued, stepping closer. "Because there are people who would want to weaponize this. Governments. Military contractors. People who would use your gift for things you never intended. I understand why you've kept it quiet. But Dakota—there are other ways to tell this story. Ways that center on the heroism, not the exploitation." Dakota sank onto the stairs. The Academy sprawled below them, deceptively stable, deceptively safe. They'd rebuilt their reputation here, brick by brick, save by save. They'd gone from being the stunt performer who'd caused three crew members to be seriously injured—the one the industry had decided was too reckless, too damaged, too much of a liability—to being the most trusted safety expert at the most prestigious emergency response training facility in the country. And it was all built on a foundation of lies. "If you release that footage," Dakota said slowly, "my career ends. Not the comeback. The whole thing. People won't trust me anymore. They'll think every success was just me using my precognition. That I'm not actually skilled—I'm just a cheat with an unfair advantage." "Or they'll think you're a hero," Iris said softly. "And isn't that what you're actually trying to be?" Dakota laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I was trying to be normal. I was trying to prove that I could rebuild myself through hard work and discipline and legitimate skill. That the person everyone thought I was—reckless, dangerous, out of control—wasn't actually who I am. This ability? It proves them right. It makes me a freak. It makes everything I've accomplished seem impossible." "It makes everything you've accomplished seem miraculous," Iris corrected. "You've saved dozens of lives, Dakota. Hundreds, maybe. And you've done it while also rebuilding your reputation as an instructor. You've done both simultaneously. That's not freakish. That's extraordinary." The ground trembled again, stronger this time. A genuine earthquake, maybe a three on the scale. The Academy's clever engineering made it impossible to tell the difference between simulation and reality, which was exactly the point. Dakota had chosen to work in this liminal space deliberately—where danger was both controlled and real, where the stakes were always high enough to keep them sharp. "Why do you care?" Dakota asked. "Why does this matter to you?" Iris sat down on the stairs beside them. "Because I was in the crowd when your accident happened. Eight years ago. I was sixteen, and I was there with my uncle, who worked in Hollywood production. He was the one who started the rumors about you being unstable, careless, a danger to crews. I believed him. I thought you were the villain in that story." She paused. "Then I came here. And I started watching you. And I realized I'd been wrong about the entire narrative. You're not the villain. You never were. You were just someone who made a terrible mistake and got labeled for it permanently. And now you've found a way to make sure nobody else has to make that same mistake on your watch." Dakota felt something shift inside their chest—not the precognitive rush, something slower and deeper. Recognition, maybe. Or the beginning of acceptance. "If I agree to this," they said carefully, "I get final approval on how everything is framed. And I need to tell the Academy's director first. She deserves to know what's happening before the rest of the world does." Iris smiled. It was a brilliant smile, the kind that made Dakota's heart rate spike in a completely different way than adrenaline ever could. "Deal." --- Director Paulette Chen—Marcus's mother, coincidentally—took the news better than Dakota expected. She sat behind her desk for a long moment, hands steepled, processing. "How long have you known?" she asked finally. "About my ability? Since my second week here, when I nearly failed to catch a trainee during a rappel exercise and then... just knew exactly where to be when the rope snapped. About Iris documenting it? Less than an hour." "And you came to me immediately." "It was the right thing to do." Paulette nodded slowly. "You know what's going to happen, don't you? Once this is public, every agency in the world is going to want access to you. Every research institution. Every military branch. The requests will be relentless." "I know," Dakota said quietly. "But hiding it hasn't made it go away. And maybe... maybe the right people knowing about it could actually do some good. I can choose where I work. I can refuse unethical applications. I can be transparent about what I am and what I'm not." "You're brave," Paulette said, and she sounded like she meant it. "Braver than most people could be." --- The documentary premiered three months later at the international emergency response conference in San Francisco. Dakota stood backstage, hands trembling, feeling very much like the precarious, unstable person they'd been trying so hard to move beyond. Iris found them in the darkness. She took Dakota's hand without asking, and Dakota let her. "You're going to be okay," Iris said. "You can't promise that." "No," Iris agreed. "But I can promise that whatever happens next, you won't be facing it alone. And more importantly—you're going to see exactly thirty seconds into your own future before you make any decisions. You'll know what to do." Dakota smiled despite their fear. The ground beneath them was solid here, inland from any major faults. But it didn't matter anymore. They'd learned to stand steady in unstable places. They'd learned that being seen, truly seen, was scarier than any fall. When the documentary ended and the lights came up, the applause was deafening. Dakota stepped out onto the stage, Iris beside them, and the cameras flashed like their own private lightning storm. They closed their eyes for just a moment, let their adrenaline spike, and saw exactly thirty seconds into the future. They saw themselves choosing purpose over safety, truth over secrecy, connection over isolation. They saw themselves finally, truly, beginning to come home.