FILTERS 16

GIANTS!

"WHAT WILL YOU DO?"

"FINISH SCHOOL AND FIND SOMEONE I CAN HELP RESEARCH THIS."

"I DIDN'T KNOW THE SCALE OF YOUR ABILITY UNTIL TAMPA."

"I DIDN'T KNOW MYSELF."

Andrews bangs on the door as he opens it. "Good morning graduate, get up!"

Michael startles awake in the bed that Andrew realizes must be new for lack of feet sticking over the end. "Shit, Drew, what's up."

"You're up! I'll go to school with you and then we'll get lunch."

Michael doesn't move. The bedframe raises and drops.

"Bro, I just got this bed, don't break it."

"And you can't get used to it, you're about to move!"

The comforter is tossed as if by wind and Michael rolls his head up with a scowl. "You're real fucking cool."

Michael drives Andrew's route, who does not follow the warmth in the engines and the tires and the little radiation into the clothing of the figures in the cars. They park in Andrew's spot, students still call out to him on the path and in the outer commons and inside Michael shakes his head and walks off with "Later, bro." Andrew ignores more calls of his name and steps around the little huddles and pushes through the door to the offices where the receptionists greet him by name and a commotion builds for pictures that goes through the ringing of the bell. Into the windowed halls under blue sky morning light, into the small gym, a bright yellow sticker on his shirt. His old coach blows a whistle and spots him. "Hey, Andrew!"

They talk and follow the noticeably lessened class outside around the track. With another whistle the group gathers and the coach passes a basketball and says "Alright, go do whatever, just keep active." The football players linger.

"What's college ball like?" one asks.

"Busy. I could give you the gist." They nod.

"So last summer I started with summer conditioning, all the freshmen have to, but everybody's there working out. I'm in the gym before sunrise, go to breakfast and then summer class which we have because the fall is so busy they don't want the players too distracted. Then August camp begins and everything kind of blurs as you're headed into games, but then you're on the field at Lucas Oil or Mercedes-Benz and it's all worth it."

More pictures, with the coach and the players. Andrew stays until the end of the period and follows the students back through the small gym and to the head coach's office who greets him with "I heard the Heisman was in the house!"

"Hey, coach."

"Great damn season, Andrew. No surprises here."

Andrew doesn't think his laugh conveys his annoyance as he looks over the now-small-to-his-sensibilities trophy case in the office. "When Walker wins the Super Bowl in a few years maybe people will finally listen when I tell them he's the best. He was turning miracles at Florida and it's like me and Jerry Jones were the only ones who noticed."

"I should have known better. How's it been? How's it looking?"

"Good. We got that Smith Kid from Harvard-Westlake. He should be able to manage."

Andrew watches the end of the mock procession in the large gym, his brother the tallest of the group where some wear red hats with US flags and others wear white Adidas rain jackets. Michael drives them to a sports bar where day baseball has started and they watch and eat and leave and listen to play-by-play in the car and finish the game at home, then it's time to leave again. James avoids the freeways, taking the shaded roads with few intersections and traffic as sparse as spotlights until they near the stadium. Someone recognizes Andrew at the giant steel bird and he politely waves and then they're past the long wall of doors where Michael is guided off by a chaperone he's a head above. Andrew watches in the field, his brother down the concrete ramps and through the caverns to the gathered mass of students. Above they find their seats. When they've settled a hand touches his shoulder and a voice says "Pardon me young man."

Andrew's smile is automatic but it fills as he turns to a man whose wrinkles fit the faded Braves hat snug behind his ears, a fray on the edges and worn marks where the man's thumb and forefinger must have pulled to adjust a thousand times. A woman beside him has wrinkles too and a ring and a jacket hanging over the armrest onto the man's thigh but her soft sideways glance is what speaks familiarity of every time this man has invited himself to converse with strangers. "Would you happen to be Andrew Black?"

"Yep, that's me."

"I thought so. You're quite the football player."

"Oh, thanks."

"Why aren't you playing for the Bulldogs?"

"They didn't try that hard, probably because their offense is so good already. And I wanted to play with Devaris Walker, so."

"But he's graduated." The man looks off. "He's going to the uh, Cowboys, right?"

"Yeah, but the kid we've got coming in looks good."

"Compared to Walker?"

"He just has to get me the ball."

"I suppose that's true, isn't it."

Andrew looks below again, to the students walking through the tunnels. He easily finds his brother, taller than the rest who walk in–well, all his shadows. Shadows. . . Andrew wonders if his brother will become the more famous Black in-name, the one who strangers recognize and ask for pictures and friendly seniors wonder why he isn't pitching for a local school and once his skill is proved which team might tank in hopes their draft pick is close enough to the top to grab the next 6'7 Uncle Charlie from Georgia. It would be cool to have you on campus. It will be cool to have Michael on campus, someone he can finally talk the truth to without a dark flight or unfulfilling cryptic texts, someone who will understand when he asks him what the fuck he's doing running all the time and treating Emilia like that and hold him to something better. Andrew shakes his head and takes a deep breath and in his greater sight he suddenly sees someone different. Standing behind railing in a section that might be for wheelchairs, a man whose chest and shoulders are above everyone around him, massive arms with massive hands resting on the railing. He finds their position relative to himself and looks across the stands and can just see the giant.

After pictures with his family Andrew gladly stands for another with the elderly man but his annoyance grows as Michael's friends and lowerclassmen Andrew doesn't recognize group around him for more. In the field he sees the giant trod through the concourse until he's in sight and unexpectedly talking to Michael. The giant makes Michael look short and small for no lack of muscle anywhere on his body but now Andrew can see his face and finds a curious youth. He walks to them.

"Hey."

"Aw shit, Drew Black." says the giant.

Michael says "This is Marcus, Jerome's little brother."

"'Little!' How old are you?"

"I'm fifteen." says the giant.

"Damn. You playing football?"

Even this slow nod from the giant looks like it could concuss. "I just started at the end of last year."

Michael says "Milton's got two freshmen like this."

"Two? Just like this?"

"Yeah." says Michael.

"Jesus."

The giant holds a phone comically disproportionate in his hand. "Could I get a pic with you, Drew?"

"Yeah, man." and Michael is handed the phone and takes the picture and this invites a last pair of students to ask after and Andrew apathetically agrees. "That doesn't happen as much at school. They don't give a shit."

Michael says "I don't give a shit either."

Their mother sees them laughing and elbowing each other.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

After dinner Michael is in and out of the house quickly. Andrew reads until the pages drag and stands and stretches and goes to his father's office, who glances at him and then back to the little television. "Have you seen this?"

"Seen what?"

James turns the television.

The title chyron reads CONNECTION FOUND BETWEEN UQ-MARKER & THE HAZE

"–once we learned that UQM passes every time from parentage it was a simple matter of tracing the lineage to its oldest occurrence. Uniformly, the oldest individuals who bear the UQ-Marker were conceived in March of 1954 which was of course during The Haze."

"What does that mean?"

"We couldn't begin to speculate. As we know, when The Haze disappeared on April 1 all samples taken disappeared as well and the rudimentary techniques used to study the substance at the time fruited nothing. Nothing is known about The Haze. There has always been speculation that the emergence of megaflora and megafauna was connected with that event but the research produced no chronological link like we see in this. This is the closest we have come to something concrete."

"A fascinating conversation, thank you again for your time, Dr. Cuevas. Coming up at the top of the next hour is John Canton, who will be speaking with us on this discovered link between UQM and The Haze and the fresh controversy this has brought in the work of his clinics. Stay tuned."

James mutes the television. "The next obvious assumption is that controllers have UQM parents. That's a filter, Andrew. Your name is going to be on a list if it is not already of potential controllers."

"I'll be careful, but I assume it's a matter of time now."

They watch muted advertisements until the show returns.

"We continue our discussion on the the Harvard-Johns Hopkins researchers who have found a possible link between the UQ-Marker and The Haze. Earlier this week the German anti-UQM fertility interventions movement DEB issued a statement freshly condemning the work of John Canton while lawmakers in the states of California, Oregon, and Washington are set to discuss such interventions in the coming weeks. Speaking on this now, John Canton himself joins us live from his office in St. Louis. 'King Canton' is of course the retired-undefeated world heavyweight champion in boxing and the founder of Canton Holdings, you know him of course for Epitaxial Foundries and the Canton Centers for Reproductive Health, the first and largest fertility clinics exclusively working with UQ-Marker donors. Thank you for joining me, John, what do you make of this discovery and the response to it?"

"Sure–my first inclination is dismissal. UQM research has been aware of a possible link with The Haze since the Owens study. The conclusive data is great but this shouldn't change the world's approach. If UQM had been found to predate The Haze movements like DEB would find a different reason to pointlessly oppose our work just as they've slanderously called it eugenics."

"Why do you describe their opposition as pointless?"

"Because UQM is inevitable. The trait passes every time from UQM parents to their children. Even if my centers disappeared overnight or never existed, women who are not UQ-Marker who wished that for their children could simply find a UQM father and naturally reproduce with them. UQM fecundity is well-established, they are highly potent and after conception birth is guaranteed. We saw that in the Owens study and we have seen that in six years of Canton Center-involved births. With successful conception there have been zero miscarriages and stillbirths–zero!–that were not induced by acute injury. In a few hundred years every single human alive will be UQM. My clinics are simply accelerating the process."

"And of the American lawmakers discussing your operations?"

"I welcome their discussions and I know that when they're finished my centers will be that much more secure against future opposition."

"I see. You mentioned as well that DEB has described your work as eugenics. You call this 'slanderous'–why doesn't it apply? Are you not essentially focusing on the creation of a 'better race?'"

"It doesn't apply because we know for a fact UQM exists. This isn't a disastrous ideology from a century ago, our work is the logical conclusion of the Owens study. UQM individuals are objectively and profoundly healthier and more physically capable than those without. On a demographic level, I happily point to the numerous American minority advocacy organizations who have endorsed our work in the United States. We ignore arbitrary superficial differences, what matters is UQM. That's it. And on that note, look no further than the data of the study continuation where there is a natural mortality rate of zero. The only UQM individuals who have died have died from external injury. This is a population with a quantifiably zero rate of physiological and neurological illness, disease, and cancer. The oldest UQM individuals are in their sixties. What's DEB's worst case scenario? They die on the spot at seventy? Well you know what? A lot of people would take seventy years of perfect health."

"My mother died in her sixties, I'm sure she would have taken that trade. Earlier in the spring you opened in your forty-eighth state with New Hampshire. You also have international clinics and I'd specifically like to talk to you about your work in Singapore."

"Of course. We have partnerships with foreign health systems, yes. Canada was our first international partnership, quickly followed by Japan and Mexico, then South Korea, Taiwan, Sweden, and Switzerland. The site in Singapore is still under construction and thankfully it was beyond the boundary of the sphere so it wasn't at risk even prior to Redhat's intervention, but that crew is currently assisting in some of the recovery efforts, so the project has been delayed, but it will be back on track soon enough."

"Yes, the sphere is why I brought it up. While there was already speculation of a relationship between The Haze and controllers, this discovery has caused a surge in social media posts on the connection. What do you think of this, and more broadly, of controllers?"

"It’s a reasonable conclusion. Just as people have speculated on a connection between The Haze and the changes in plants and animals, we now see this possible connection with UQM. Control could absolutely be a part of that. In the world, I see, to say it as a tremendous understatement, intriguing possibilities. Epitaxial Foundries is one of the contractors researching methods to approach Psychic Break, but with Redhat's promise to intervene in all future spheres he appears to have bought us time. Between his work and the work of the First I am highly optimistic, just as I saw that you were. There are endless possibilities to these violations of fundamental physical principles. The amount of work that can be done, the possibilities of energy generation and megastructures, the possibility of advancements in spaceflight and solar colonization—"

"You believe that control could be used to get to space?"

"These individuals can fly and can lift hundreds of thousands of tons of material. They might not be able to go to orbit, but however high they can go, if they can take rockets that high, it's that much less fuel that has to be spent. If they can go to orbit, if these individuals can fly to space, then we could escape the tyranny of the rocket equation. These controllers, yes, absolutely. If they can hang craft in orbit themselves we could be colonizing the moon and Mars in a timeframe we never thought possible. I cannot understate how excited I am for the future."

"These are indeed extremely intriguing possibilities. Great comments, John. If you'll stick around, we're going to break."

James turns the television off. Andrew says "That reminds me, did you see Michael and me talking to that giant at the stadium? He's fifteen and he's got to be a foot taller than Michael, and Michael says Milton has two guys that tall."

His father nods. "You know about this?" asks Andrew.

"Yes." and his father taps on the tablet and spins it around, showing a group of soldiers, a giant behind them. Shirtless and twice the height of the shortest man and more broad than two of the men combined. "This popped up a couple weeks ago. I would have thought it was a fake if I hadn't read so many stories lately of unusually tall young people. The popular guess is the gigantism observed in plants and animals has finally made its way to humans."

"So it's a matter of time before we regularly see people walking around who are twelve feet tall?"

"Could be. They're going to be quite the athletes."

Andrew shakes his head. "They're going to have to make a new league for them."