The past is frozen. The future in motion. But that motion can be controlled and shaped.
The present is invisible, and she can only view it through the lens of the past and the future.
But now, the future changes. Her projections become unreliable. It is not the Warrior. It is not the Progenitor. Nor is it any other shard-wielder.
The Plan has gone awry. The Travelers vanished into another world, a world unknown to her. And from that world, entities, who cause her projections of the future to become… unsure.
Sometimes, they are invisible. Sometimes they are visible, but flicker in her vision.
One in particular once loomed large in her projections of the future, but now? Now probabilities shift and change. Visible still in the past, but no longer predictable in the future—or the present. Once set destinies change and warp. And the future for all things becomes frustratingly vague in less than six months.
She pauses, unfolds her wings. A dozen observatories send alerts. A thousand clenched fists signify fear of what may happen.
Information of the future, predictable. One man's stress will trigger a heart attack that sends him careening over a cliff. His son will become an alcoholic and later trigger, rather than becoming an important politician and peacemaker. Just another datum.
But the anomaly is centered on Brockton Bay. Perhaps her eldest brother should visit it?
No. Not until the anomaly is understood.
But if she cannot see into the future, then measures must be taken so that the past will allow her to see.
Connections. A group that worships her and her siblings. Unimportant save that it makes them useful. A dozen threads are plucked, their attention focused and soon they make plans. Greater plans than they have made before. More arrogant plans.
That is as it should be. Whether or not those plans are successful is unimportant. She can model them, see their actions and by using the models of everyone else in the region, she can form an image of what the anomaly is, even if it is a negative image. And then, in the past, she will create a model that will allow her to project what they will do in the future.
She pauses in her calculations. Notes another figure rocketing across the earth, leaving a blazing yellow trail in the upper atmosphere.
The Warrior.
For an instant, the Warrior pauses, almost as if he senses something. He starts to move towards the Bay, and then a collapsing building in Africa catches his attention, and he is gone.
She observes all of that in the past of course. His future is difficult to see, and she sees nothing in the present. But the past is good enough. The Warrior is nothing if not predictable.
But her focus is now again, on the Bay. The anomaly will be understood, incorporated, dealt with. And by doing so, the endless threads she has woven will no longer be disrupted.
Her plan finished, her wings once again cover her, and across the earth she senses a thousand sighs of relief.
They are unimportant.
Simply part of the web.
And the Simurgh once again goes still, floating high over the earth.