FILTERS 12

DENVER

Concrete and metal fall to nothing. A bolt from a forest, of black and white, in blue, above blue, from blue, to seek ruin and deny it. He has wondered little on reach that laughs at man and scoffs at nature and would question the creator's dominion. Dominion. . . this bolt, set apart, this bolt, unbolted, yet emphatic on his tether! Love tethers, not loves tethers, unfettered. Dominion. . . do not be afraid. He is the same as you in my sight; he too is a piece of clay. No fear of him should take you, his hand shall not be heavy upon you.

≛

Devaris raises a barbell and then drops it to the floor, "Stellar fucking timing to leave your goddamn phone, Drew."

"Sorry I'm not tied to a phone like you are."

Andrew hears more strikes of metal, other weights dropped. The energy in the gym is different from the fall, the passion has been refocused, as football has passed, for some for good. Some here drive dumb machines with anger, hard in every lift and press, as if they can will a spot in the draft, as if this effort now will somehow bring greater luster, to be bright amongst diamond dregs and lifted to the pros. Devaris remains cool, his fate is sealed, and he says "It's a new world."

Andrew thinks about his father's truck. "So I hear."

"Feels shitty that I thought about sports and not about all the people who would have died."

Andrew's doing shrugs, "It's hard to think about disasters that happen somewhere else. You know they're bad, but you don't have any connection. What do you say about a hundred thousand people dying? It's awful, but you didn't know any of them, and you'd never been that country let alone the city, and you couldn't have done anything about it. Imagine if there were some plague in China, what could you say? At least it's not here? There's no context."

"Funny hearing that from you. I bet you haven't thought about football for days. I bet you were really torn up when you heard about Tampa and then you had the biggest relief when that guy showed up."

Andrew shakes his head, "We're different people, we think about things differently, you shouldn't feel bad. A lot of people thought what you thought, a lot of them were probably more happy that their house wasn't destroyed or their dog was saved than that their neighbors survived.

"Yeah, and a lot more probably felt like you."

He feels her weight in his arms. He hears her say "What are you?"

No, they did not.

"I've always been like this. I bet if you could personally stop the spheres, you would. That's what matters."

Devaris says "You're right, I would. Thanks, man. God damn. I keep thinking I should feel even more blown away by that guy, but after months of these fucking psychic spheres I guess it dulled the surprise when someone finally showed up to stop one. I wonder what took him so long."

"Maybe he was flying in from space and that took a while," Andrew says, grinning.

Devaris laughs, "You think he's an alien? Lotta people think that."

"Nah, probably not."

"if he is, aliens must really love Adidas. I guess I just assume this is the government up to something," says Devaris, "but it's such a jump. It would kinda make sense, though, right? A bunch of governments discover this shit after the US has been working on it for a while, so when it goes wrong here we already had a guy ready to fly in and stop it."

"That's not unreasonable."

"Man. If that is just some guy, what couldn't he do? . . . Nah, it's the government. It has to be."

That would be. . . what would it be? He doesn't know, and it doesn't matter, he knows the truth.

He finishes his sets, he showers, he walks to class.

He meets Emilia for lunch.

She says "It was nice yesterday, with your dad."

"Yeah, it was. You know we have a game in November in College Station, maybe I could meet your parents."

She bites her lip but she's smiling, "Or you could visit this summer."

He thinks. "What would she say if she knew? Would she tremble in my arms? Would she look at me in fear and ask 'What are you?' Would she accept me? Could she accept me when she realizes I could have stopped the other spheres? Should she?"

He looks around the room, not exactly feigning thought, and then back into her eyes. He says "I'd like that."

She sleeps in his bed. He sits on his couch, watching cable news. A woman is speaking.

"I want to know what the United States Federal Government is doing to find whatever or whoever that is. This is an entity who is capable of flying faster than jet aircraft and who, seemingly on a whim, just 'turned off' a force field ten miles in circumference and carefully slowed to the ground more than two hundred thousand tons of rubble. And what happened to the woman at the center of the sphere? They touched her and she disintegrated as easily as all the other debris. We have a word for this and it's superweapon, and even that feels inadequate. If that's a superweapon then nuclear weapons must be playthings. What are their limits? How is it possible that they can do any of this? How do we know they aren't going to go city to city destroying everything they come across, or just making people disintegrate? How does democracy survive when something like that exists? The government says it's not ours, whose is it? Russia? China? Who? The Mexican and Chinese governments sent in groups of fighter planes launching salvo after salvo of rockets at the barrier and they did nothing. Air Traffic Controllers in Tampa say they saw nothing on their systems. Nothing. Is it even possible to track this entity without seeing them? And, God, what happens if there are more of them?"

"I have never in my life wished as much as I do now that the government, that President Ryan himself, is lying to the American people and the world, and this actually is ours and they don't want to set off the arms race to end all arms races. So I will ask again: Secretary Petraeus, what is the Department of Defense doing to identify this entity? General Nakasone, what is the National Security Agency doing to identify this entity? Director Morell, what is the Central Intelligence Agency doing to identify this entity? Secretary Pekoske, what is the Department of Homeland Security doing to identify this entity? And Director Pistole, what is the Federal Bureau of Investigation doing to identify this entity? This isn't your job on the line, this isn't your ass on the line, the world is on the line, and we—"

He changes the channel, different cable news. Commercials. Wrap up. Next hour. A man speaks.

"The top and only story of the night, month, and century, is the appearance of the remarkable individual who stopped the seismic sphere in Tampa. Many now call the spheres 'psychic' spheres, just as they refer to that individual as 'The Psychic.' I will talk more on that individual in a moment, but we have a breaking development tonight on the possible identity of the woman who was at the center of the sphere."

"We have received a list of names, however these names are not public, and there has been no official identification made. This is what we know: in Clearwater a deceased man was found in a strangely ruined apartment. The apartment is leased to a woman who worked at the now-destroyed SunTrust Tower in downtown Tampa. Again, she is not officially considered the woman who was at the center of the sphere, but we can say that she is missing. Accompanying this, local social media pages have users claiming that they know the missing woman and saying that they believe she is one and the same as the woman at the center of the sphere. There have also been posts elsewhere online claiming to show physical similarities between the two. We have further learned that the missing woman sought treatment for what may now need to be described as 'Acute Telekinetic Episodes.' Whatever the truth is, we will keep you informed."

"As for the individual referred to as 'The Psychic.' What we know hasn't changed since yesterday. Cameras caught the initial explosion of the sphere at 8:31 Eastern Time on Saturday morning. The first tweet, now shown on screen, was posted at 8:32. Exactly one hour later this tweet was posted, and I'll read it: "Holy [expletive], something just flew over my boat, it looked like a man in a rain jacket." More posts like this followed with blurry pictures of the figure. Moments later this picture we now show captured the individual above a Publix, which is part of a chain of supermarkets in the southeastern United States. The individual spent several minutes lifting two sections of a roof split by the barrier and they passed the roofing back and forth between the wall of the barrier. They then crushed the roof into a ball and set in the parking lot, and the United States government has since obtained that ball for research."

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"After that they proceeded to the sphere, pausing again, this time at the wall of debris, and then entering it, and just after that the sphere fell and the woman was revealed. As we understand it, at the same time the sphere fell the barrier disappeared as well. We have these stunning pictures from Sam Rosen, a professional photographer, including this moment as the individual touched the woman and this frame appearing to show her body turn to dust. There is speculation that the individual did that to the woman, but others, myself included, think that it may have been self-inflicted after the individual broke her out of a 'trance,' as it were. The individual then went to the damaged buildings surrounding the former SunTrust Tower and appeared to disintegrate the debris while collecting the dust in a ball, much like they did with the roof. All throughout this they were carrying victims to a nearby park. When they were done, they set the second ball in the park, and again, that has also been taken by the government for research, and we'll now play this footage provided by ABC Action News in Tampa. As you can see, they set the sphere down and then look at the crowd who is waving at them, and they wave back before flying off."

"We know the individual approached from the south and departed the same way. While reports came in from around the world of people claiming to see the individual, the only credible pictures and reports came from Mexico City, as you can see these pictures show the figure above the Mexican capital. As you'll recall, last November a psychic sphere occurred there, and based on these reports, the individual stopped briefly at the site of the disaster."

"I will be honest. I think it is natural to look at what this individual did and feel fear. They can fly with no visible means of propulsion and they can move massive amounts of rock and metal with no visible indication of how. They can even turn that rock and metal to dust. But consider this: at the barrier and the sphere, they spent time looking at them, like they were evaluating them, like they didn't know what they were dealing with and wanted to make sure it was safe for them to enter. Think about that incredible picture, of their hand on the woman's shoulder. They didn't strike her, they didn't show any aggression at all. Do you know what I see? Compassion. What did they do next? They cleared debris and carried victims to a park. What did they do after that? They waved to a cheering crowd. We don't know what they did at the site of the sphere in Mexico and I'm not confident enough to share my thoughts on that, but I am confident about this: this individual at every opportunity did the right thing, so I'm not afraid of them. I'm thankful they appeared and saved so many lives, and I'm hopeful that if, God forbid, more spheres happen, that individual stops them."

He shuts the television off. He closes his eyes and imagines he can hear Emilia's breaths. He wants to lie down beside her, to pull her tight against him and feel her skin. But he stops himself.

"I don't deserve her."

He jogs to the gym, he works out, he showers, he walks to breakfast.

Devaris still talking up a storm.

He walks to class. Back of the hall, seated on the aisle. Shoes tapping on the rubberized floor. Notebook, recorder, pen. He texts Emilia. His professor goes through slides and writes on the board.

He feels the pulse.

"Fuck," he whispers.

Twitter open. #PsychicSphere

Nothing. Refresh, refresh, refresh.

Just now. Denver, CO.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

Maps open. Gainesville to Denver: 25 hour drive, 4 hour flight from JAX. 20 minutes at Mach 6. Good luck moving a mile a second, try not to hit the mountains.

He needs to stand up. He's in the back, he could just leave. He could email his professor and say he had a family emergency. He's acing the class, he's Andrew Black, he would be given a pass. Okay, just stand up. Stand up, Andrew. Stand up and leave. You're not putting your things away, you're not getting up, why aren't you getting up?

Stand up and fucking GO, Andrew.

He hears phones throughout the room vibrate.

STAND UP AND GO, ANDREW.

A student in a lower row says "Doctor Batton, there's a psychic sphere in Denver. Oh wow. . . someone on Twitter says CNN has a crew inside, they're broadcasting."

His professor says "Oh really? Excellent–erm, well, you know what I mean," and he walks from the board to his desk and changes from lecture slides to a browser, to CNN. Nothing on the front page, the same student says "I emailed you the link."

The broadcast opens. A reporter stands in a busy parking lot beside Coors Field, cars behind her are crowded at the exit to a busy street, racing to be closest to the inevitable jam at the barrier. Some pedestrians are running, a truck stops, a man gets out and shouts and waves at the crowd to fill the bed and cab. In the distance, far above and behind her, a tower is consumed.

–LESS THAN A WEEK. LAST SATURDAY THE FIGURE IN WHITE INTERVENED, AND WE CAN ONLY HOPE THEY APPEAR AGAIN TODAY.

Hands shaking, he begins to put his things away. Notebook, recorder, pen. The camera adjusts, centered on the sphere, its zoom increasing until it fills most of the screen. He looks at it, noticing the little differences. The sphere in Tampa rotated east to west, this one rotates in reverse. The currents as well, in Tampa they were chaotic, these pulse with a rhythm. He's slowly reaching for his phone, slowly getting ready to stand, when he notices a speck pull from the sphere, hang in the air, and return. His eyes widen and strain.

He waits for the reporter to say something. He waits for someone in the class to say something.

Did no one else see that?

Did he imagine that?

The same student from before says "Oh shit! They're saying someone's flying in!"

His phone slides from his hand, hitting his knee and spinning through the air and landing on matte blue rubber with a dull thump.

–WORD THAT SOMETHING HAS BEEN SPOTTED FLYING TOWARD THE SPHERE

Hard spin and pull back on the camera, a blur is caught and lost, the camera tracking, catching, and losing, until it stops at the sphere. Too small to show real detail, only enough to show colors: red, white, black, and blue. The figure moves in a close circle around the sphere.

Every second drags.

He thinks. "Did it take me this long to figure it out? Maybe this is just reasonable apprehension. Would they know they're bulletproof? Sure, reasonable, they don't want to die, they don't want to make multiple assumptions about things they may have had no concept of before Saturday. Saturday. . . how many does this make? Two in the US, two in a few hundred million? What are the odds they were that close and ready to intervene? Did I give this one the confidence to act? Two in three days? Close to fifty, right?"

He watches the screen. His phone makes noises into the floor, loud enough for him to hear, but not important enough for him to care.

Unlike Tampa, this sphere falls with the figure still outside of it, the camera offers just enough to suggest a nude man at the center. The figure flies to the man, and now like Tampa, the man disappears, and again like Tampa, the figure clears the debris that remains, carrying bodies to the ground as they find them. But when they're finished, they don't fly away.

He lands in front of the camera and says "Good morning! What questions do you have?"