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One week. Finals, spring practices. He runs and flies and runs again.
Two weeks. Spring practices, he runs, he flies. He feels the pulse.
Fuck.
He lands and runs again. Up the stairs, to his dorm, phone and remote flying to his hands. 30 Minutes. Singapore.
The sphere churns on. Just as clouds insinuate rain a speck of red appears in the sky and the sphere freezes. Andrew, heart pounding, moves an arm’s length from the screen, eyes straining for detail. The red speck connects with a tan speck and the latter vanishes.
He sits down, then lies down, eyes wandering the ceiling. The moment of excitement and relief has passed, there’s something different now. A growing feeling pressing on his mind and emerging as a challenge. Only ten figures and only five figures in deaths, praise and thanks be to you, savior. Our refuge and our fortress, or shepherd who delivers us, for only ten thousand perished. Yea, you heard their cries, you raise the dead to the heavens, greater in the glory they bring to you, LORD.
Andrew sits up and wipes his eyes and chokes and coughs and breathes deeply and is back out the door, running.
Three weeks. Year-end meetings, the last of the spring practices, the last team gathering and conversation with his coach. The championships are cheered, expectations are laid. Many look at Andrew.
There’s a watch party in Heavener, the theater roars as Twelfth Overall Pick—Dallas Cowboys—Devaris Walker flashes on the screen and cameras show casinos through windows in the Nevada hall where Devaris, swaggering and sparkling blue-suited, makes his way to the stage in front of another raucous crowd, to dap with the commissioner and wink and grin as he holds the white-and-blue 1 jersey, a single finger pointed up.
Andrew looks at the clock and falls to sudden thrall. He sees the summer ahead, of the trips to Texas and hugs and handshakes with black-haired golden-eyed faceless figures, Emilia beside him. He sees the fall, a ball spinning through the air as his hands take hold and he runs, easy jaunts left and right to beat pathetic defenders well called statuesque and he drops the ball in a great white rectangle, slate gallery forty yards behind. The winter that will not find him here. Spring and Fall, again, again. Standing suited in the antechamber at some venue in some city, waiting for his name to be called and a procession made, to put on a hat and to dap with the commissioner and grin at a faceless audience.
Do you know what I am? Will you hate me? I may hate myself now. I signed my name to a piece of paper when broken souls weren’t taken by terror to swallow cities. I owed this to a school and now that I’m promised fortune I could rend from the very Earth my God-damned self I’ll sign my name again and redshirt disaster. I slide the ring up the finger of a faceless figure and build my faceless family. At least I didn’t get caught.
At least I didn’t get caught.
He runs, and runs.
Four weeks. Graduation, no spheres. Andrew stands for pictures with Devaris and Marques.
Devaris slaps his back and says “You made this happen.”
Andrew brushes him off. “You did all the work, I just had to run.”
Devaris says “Yeah, I did all the work. That’s why you got a trophy in Heavener.”
Warm wind follows them off-campus, to the house Devaris and Marques will soon no longer share, where jackets and ties are left and Andrew swaps Oxfords for Ultraboosts and an Uber is called the three barely fit inside, his knees forced closed by the extended position of a brown leather seatback. The driver recognizes them and talks energetically, Andrew ignores this, reading his phone.
They’re dropped in another neighborhood and walk to a tall but not particularly wide three-story house, white with a large porch in front. Devaris is mobbed at the steps, Andrew stays outside, walking around the house to the back where he’s thankful to receive casual greetings by a group around a pointless fire. He reads a text from Emilia, she’s at another house, a gathering with the girlfriends of other players.
Devaris walks out, Marques following, and the group cheers at them, and he gestures a Let’s go and leads them back to the university, to the row of fraternities, endless figures at every one. Andrew again stays outside, there’s a lit basketball court and a lonely ball and as he takes shots others join. He considers going inside just in time for Devaris to find him and say “Food” and now they’re at the restaurant Emilia recommended so many months back, busy not-rush, Andrew with his back to the door, Devaris every-so-often looking up to wink and grin as he talks about pre-season camp. Another Uber, another house. The one with Emilia.
He’s beside her on a couch in the basement, baseball on the television.
Emilia says “So . . . I know your parents bought a condo, and I was thinking—”
Andrew feels the pulse. Just now. Bern, CH.
Andrew falls into his head, hearing nothing, eyes processing little.
“There’s a sphere in Switzerland.”
Emilia says something and squeezes his arm. He fixates on the score bug, runs, base positions, outs represented as two transparent baseballs. None opaque, no outs. Bases transparent, no runners. Ball. Strike. Grounder through the hole at second. First base turns yellow. Next up, ball, strike. Looped into left, the runner was going, first and third are yellow. Andrew says something. He doesn’t remember what. He feels her nails press lightly into the back of his neck, it could feel pleasant. She says something else. First-pitch swinging, base hit, a run crosses the plate, corners still lit yellow. Her hand is on his thigh, she says something else. His phone is back in his pocket, one arm around her waist. Base hit, runners on the corners. She says something pointed, runners can’t advance. One out.
Andrew says “I’m not ignoring you.”
“Maybe Redhat’s on his way.”
He feels her warmth. He sees the line where he cannot reach, where her skin begins, where heat flows and falls away. Strikeout. Two outs.
She says “Andrew?”
He looks at her and falls into her eyes and she leans forward and he begins to accept this before he stops her in a start, waking in a plummet, sudden panic, his mind finally breaking through to say THIS WILL NOT END WELL.
He pushes her and stands and says “I can’t be here.”
Emilia stands and asks “Why?”
He turns to the stairs, “I’m going home.”
She misses in a grab for his hand and pleads. “Llévame contigo.”
He says “I can’t.”
He’s up the stairs and out of the house, running.
A block over when he hears “Hey Drew!”
He doesn’t stop.
“ANDREW FUCKING BLACK!”
Devaris is behind him and gaining. Andrew considers sprinting, but he slows and stops. Devaris reaches him and without pausing begins to shout. “What the fuck was that? I see you tearing up the stairs and I look down them and I see Emilia crying.”
Andrew paces, he can’t speak.
Devaris says “What is going on with you?”
Andrew shakes his head.
Devaris curses. “Seriously, what is this? You hate parties, you hate chilling with us. You just made your girlfriend cry! I hear you’ve been running like fifteen miles a day. Man I was so pumped when you announced last year but, what, who are you? All this, and what—”
Andrew is suddenly angry. “‘And what?’ And we won every game. You’re about to start for the Cowboys, and fucking what.”
Devaris looks at the ground. “Yeah man, I know. You got that trophy. But the season’s been over for months. I figure we’d, I don’t know. Be friends in the meantime.”
Andrew says “Dev, you’re a good guy and a great football player, but football is the only reason I’m here.”
Devaris looks at Andrew, his own anger evident. “Wow, thanks. Football’s it? Really? Why do you want to play so bad? What’s the point of being who you are if this is what you’re going to do with it? You might as well be a robot, only getting switched on for games.”
“That’s not it.”
“What is?” asks Devaris.
“Didn’t you feel your phone go off? The sphere in Switzerland? How long can this keep going? Hopefully Redhat’s blasting through the sky to get there, but is that what we have to do now? Wait and pray a single guy shows up while everyone stands around completely fucking helpless?
Devaris says nothing.
“Don’t you get it?”
Devaris shakes his head, but it isn’t disagreement.
“This isn’t the government and you know that. Maybe, maybe it was at first, but not anymore. Even if other Controllers shop up, so fucking what? How many people have to die?”
Devaris asks “Why is this your problem?”
“It’s everyone’s problem. We have to find a solution, that’s what I have to do. Play football and make money and fund a solution. Or something, anything else.”
Devaris had an incredulous look, then he’s bent over, laughing. “You want to save the world! I been calling you a robot all year and it’s because you fucking are! Sent from the future to play football so good you bring peace to all mankind. Jesus. You’re making me feel bad because I like to fuck.”
He keeps laughing as he walks up and slaps Andrew’s chest. “I don’t get you, but when we finally play each other for real and I kick your ass, I’ll write a check to your foundation. No joke.”
They go back to the fraternity, there’s a mob around a television. Yankees at Rays, packed house. Five in the top of the eighth, bottom eighth and two answered so far, bases loaded. Crushed to the far catwalk. Both houses erupt.
Marques catches up with them at a diner. They stay until the bar crowd shows.
Outside, Devaris says “Answer my damn texts,” and sticks out a hand, “Thanksgiving?”
They shake, Andrew says “Yeah, Thanksgiving. Good luck at big boy camp, guys.”
Andrew stands outside Emilia’s apartment building. He sees her, lying in bed, her knees pulled to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. He could stand here and open the balcony of his dorm and bring everything here and show her. He could simply walk into her apartment, opening every lock and actually show her. Or he could look at the message already typed and hit send and never see her again.
He runs, he flies, he runs again. Up the steps, through the mudroom, into the kitchen. The house is quiet, his family sleeps. He leaves his bag on the counter and skips the stairs on the way to his bedroom. He lies down and stares at the ceiling.
His mother’s alarm rings. As she gets up and makes her way to the kitchen and examines his bag, he joins her.
“Hey mom.”
She hugs him. “Good morning. When did you get here?”
“Last night.”
She makes coffee and sits beside him at the table. He enjoys the quiet.
Eventually she asks “What’s it like up there, when you’re in the sky?”
“I could stay up there forever.”
His mother holds his cheek. “I love you so much, Andrew.”
“I love you too, mom.”
He talks about Devaris and Marques, about tickets for the Thanksgiving game—“He’ll be able to get you tickets?”—“Yeah, he’s starting for them”—and about his exams, spring practices and the end-of-year plans and plans for the condo.
He doesn’t talk about Emilia.
“Dad’s up.”
James comes down the stairs. His parents kiss, his mother returns to their bedroom. The conversation mostly repeats with his father.
They eat, his father watches video of Redhat stopping the sphere in Bern.
“We knew you weren’t the only one.”
“Yeah,” says Andrew. “I just didn’t think it would break like that.”
“What do you think of him?”
“He’s doing everything I should be doing.” says Andrew.
“Now that he’s out there, your burden has lessened—”
Andrew cuts his father off. “No, dad, he’s raised it.”