Chapter Index — Previous Chapter — Next Chapter
It begins to rain.
Two cameras snap from their brackets and land softly in shrubs. He runs out of his dorm, leaping landing to landing, through the back door of the building in few strides and to the quiet corner of the lot. The thicket is empty, a pair of figures move quickly on the other side, fleeing the weather.
He runs into the trees, opening his bag and stripping. Black jumpsuit first, then black boots. Black gloves, black mask, black goggles, white rain jacket. Watch-altimeter, compass. Inhale. The trees fall away in a blink, the city shrouded in rain rushing to fill the space. He sees lightning and hears thunder.
He looks at his hands, at the gloves that cover them. He watches the downpour fall on open palms. The water doesn’t stick or streak, it bounces off, some back into the air, some rebounding to his arms or chest before bouncing again into the air. He looks at the city, the sight beautiful and strange, for his map was made in darkness and this territory is in daylight, though rain and cloud obscured. He looks to the stadium, to the streets around the campus. To the points of headlights of cars.
His memory adjusts, implicit recognition returning. He looks at the clouds in all directions, he thinks about that surrounds him yet cannot touch him. He feels an odd gratitude, then like another bolt his purpose claps at him and he moves.
West to the coast, the rain continues, he’s stricken by the vast blue of the ocean. South along the coast, the rain continues. Sea starboard, port hazy and green. He can just see the little foaming wakes of boats as they move, some toward land to dock. He knows the barrier islands ahead of the sound and when he can finally see them he sweeps into the gulf. He knows the geography enough to reach Tampa by sight but the sense of pressure gives him perfect bearing and it grows as he approaches.
Soon he hears the second storm, the tempest and the tides. The rain continues.
He reaches the bay, positioned now as though his origin could be Cuba. He faces the pressure and begins his descent. He looks past the waters and the rain, past forested neighborhoods, between towers, to the sphere. To the root. He finds a figure, black and untouchable.
First question answered. He passes above the Skyway. Boats move beneath him and he’s low enough he could see individual occupants were they not sheltering under covered decks or within the craft. The rain continues.
Where Germany and Mexico cut through closely set buildings and narrow streets, this ring cuts through suburbs. The worst he sees are fallen roofs, one on a large supermarket. He sees people reaching the barrier and disrobing, passing through. He feels amazement as he sees some passing through from the other side, toward the sphere.
He looks at where the barrier must stand and focuses on its presence in the field. He feels a shimmer in his vision and as he blinks quickly he can suddenly see the barrier, as if intuitively apprehending the space it occupies.
He thinks. Can he project such a barrier? He can and he does, conjuring a disc ahead of himself that like the barrier is invisible yet perceptible. He has destroyed things with his gift, and the sphere does the same, while the barriers seem indestructible. Can he give objects this unyielding quality? He can and he does, taking part of the split roof and drawing it to himself, halving it and giving one half the quality, and as he pushes the pieces together, only the one without buckles.
He pushes both into the barrier, both pass without issue. Considering this meaningful, he takes the section of the roof within the sphere, drawing it through and to him. Then he crushes them all into a ball he sets in the parking lot.
He looks again at the center. The sphere has touched ground, it drags chunks of concrete and earth into the air. He takes them, one by one, forcing them into a ball. No change in the sphere, no shift in the figure; no resistance.
Second question answered. He passes through the barrier, the rain stops. He hears something else, now, the churning of the sphere, still far from him. He moves, over neighborhoods and businesses, over the campus of another university, across a river and between towers. He finds figures in stairwells and in garages, running to their cars. Some stand without moving in the high floors, watching the sphere.
Some are watching him.
It is great and it is terrible. The surface like rapids, large pieces of metal and concrete and rock slowing the current in places but still moving with the whole. His skin is protected, he was able to pass the barrier without issue. Is what envelopes him like the barrier? Will it protect him? He looks across the surface and finds a rock and frees it. He carves a slab from it and sends it back, imbuing it with the quality and facing it to the debris, then he draws it back. The surface is still clean, free of any marks. He moves close enough to the sphere to touch it, his open hand, palm down, inching toward it. His hand is angled and his ring finger just touches the surface. There it remains, small pieces sometimes catching on it before being pushed forward. He pushes his hand farther and feels nothing. He pushes his arms in, then both, then enters the sphere.
He sees her. In the air, mouth open, arms loose at her sides. No clothing, no hair.
He frowns. No fingernails.
Third question answered. Something was wrong from the start. She never had what he has, and that inadequacy brought her here. It wasn’t that she went too far, it wasn’t that she needed more time. She could have lived her entire life without issue, if it weren’t for whatever it was that broke her. He has this power, his is greater.
“Caught in a wave,” he says softly.
His mind spreads to the barrier and he dismisses it, then he dismisses her grasp. The barrier disappears and the sphere halts and he takes it, crushing it together. He flies to the woman.
“Hello?”
She doesn’t respond. He touches her shoulder and then he hears nothing but the crashing tides and thunder and he sees nothing but her. She has her hair, and her fingernails, and her smile. She lifts one hand, offering it, and he takes it. She seems to want to speak, but her mouth doesn’t move, and she produces no sound. With sudden understanding he places his hand on her head and his eyes open and he returns to the world. Tears fall from her closed eyes and stream down her cheeks and in an instant she falls as dust to nothing.
This too, he understands.
He doesn’t need to move debris when he can turn it to dust, dust he captures in a sphere of his own. Plaster and metal and concrete are wiped away and he carries bodies to a park as they emerge. He finds another woman, injured but conscious. Her face is bloodied and her knees and calves are twisted. She mumbles and he holds out a hand and says “It’s okay, I’m here to help,” and he takes her gently in his arms. He carries her to the park, he feels her heartbeat, and as she trembles, her fear. She looks at him, arms in torn sleeves held tight to her chest.
She asks “What are you?” and falls unconscious.
He does not realize how swiftly he has worked.
When he is finished, he compresses his sphere until he feels a change within and it becomes solid, and he leaves it in the park. A crowd has gathered there, and as he sees them, his self finally returns.
They’re waving. Some are cheering. He raises his own hand in greeting, then he sees and hears the aircraft. One near him, a helicopter, two passengers and a camera mounted to the front. One far above him, empty metal, a drone.
Mexico after.
He’s gone, over the ocean.
He passes over the keys and what he knows as Havana. He passes the narrow part of Cuba and the Isla de La Juventud, on toward the Yucatan. He follows the coastline around and into the gulf until it shifts north and he breaks off for the interior. He passes over sprawling farmlands and vast forests and mountains and when he reaches the valleys he knows if he continues northwest he will reach Mexico City.
When the sun is directly overhead he arrives. He looks into the field, his mind spreading over the largest city he has ever seen, figures endless in every direction but one.
He sees the ring. He sees the sand. He feels self-disgust.
There are roads in the ring, some beaten by traffic, some paved. He sees a facility he imagines must be for research, with elevated trailers, Mexican flags, and drilling towers. He sees a quarry, with cranes and massive trucks, and he sees the beginnings of reconstruction. All are empty. He sees a platform beneath a cross, close to the edge of the ring. A lone figure sits there.
He lands near the platform, where a road meets sand. He looks at the buildings around him, most have been repaired, with new walls and rooms. He sees places that remain untouched, still bearing their scars from the sphere.
He reaches the platform. Simple wooden folding chairs split by an aisle. He sees a single car that looks old but well-maintained, the tires covered in dust. He sees tables full of candles and pictures, and he sees the man whose back is to him, who reads a book, who wears all black but for white collar. The man has heard him.
He stands and closes his book and says “Hola,” and as he sees Andrew he then says “Ah. Hello.”
“Hablo un poco de español, padre.”
“But would you be more comfortable in English?” asks the father.
“I didn’t want to impose.”
The man shakes his head. “You do not impose. I have seen you today, what you did. Forgive my forwardness: why have you come here?”
He looks at the cross, “I don’t know.” He walks up the aisle, past the man, to the tables full of pictures. So many.
The father asks “Are you looking for something?” Andrew looks back to him, to the book he carries. It is bound in dark leather that shows wear but something about the pages makes Andrew think it may not be a Bible. The father takes his silence as his answer. “You know why.”
Andrew shrugs weakly, turning back to the table. His eyes fall on a picture of a girl who reminds him of Emilia. “Regret. I didn’t stop this.”
“Regret,” says the father. “Are you Catholic? Did you come here to request absolution? Do you feel this burden is yours?”
Andrew still thinks of Emilia. “Why wouldn’t this be?”
“Are there others like you?” he asks.
“I don’t know. I’ve always believed there are.”
“Yet you are the only one to have intervened,” says the father.
Andrew looks at the man, “Why did you assume I speak English?”
“Because the first of these to be stopped was in America, and when you spoke Spanish your accent sounded American.” He pauses, then, “It is a quite American belief that the weight of souls who here departed should fall on your shoulders.”
Andrew looks away. He sees sand catch in the wind and blow from the top of a dune. “I could have stopped this, but I didn’t. Who else can say that?”
The man’s gaze follows his. “Who is to say that you should? Who is to say that these events are not justice for the wickedness of man?”
Andrew could have gasped. “How could you believe that?”
The man says “Why do you assume that I do? And why do you esteem yourself as the necessary savior?”
“I don’t! But if I’m the only who can stop these, shouldn’t I?”
“Then why didn’t you?” asks the father.
“I didn’t know I could!”
The father points at him. “So now that you do, will you bind yourself? Will you make an oath to stop these forevermore?”
“Shouldn’t I?”
The father turns, a finger on his ear, “I can hear your doubt.”
“I don’t know if I could reach all of them in time.”
The father nods. “And you feel guilt because you worry how even if you could, you might not want to.”
“I have a life beyond this. People would notice if I disappeared every time a sphere happened.”
“What, then? You intervene when you feel like it, and reassure yourself with your guilt when you don’t?” and now he speaks slowly. “No se revuelque en su culpa, es orgullo disfrazado de autodesprecio.” Your guilt is disguised pride.
Andrew is far above the ring. He looks to the platform, but he finds no figure there.
It’s late.
Up the stairs, through the mudroom, past the kitchen. His father is at his desk, his mother is sleeping. His brother is in his bedroom, phone in his hand, television warm. He sees his father getting up and walking to the door and he’s about to reach for the handle when it opens ahead of him. “Dad—!” interrupted as his father embraces him.