FILTERS 18

SHAJANGALI, SURAJ, MONDAI

Andrew looks up at the speckled patterns of his ceiling. Emilia is beside him but turned away, her arm hanging over her side of the bed, marionette-esque. Michael texts him.

I'm up early.

You got time for a run before camp starts?

Yeah omw

He sits up and reaches for his shoes, pulling them on and double checking the laces. His movements haven't woken Emilia, and he glances at the clock and decides to let her sleep, grabbing his bag in the living room as he jogs out the door. Michael is outside at the dorms and runs up to join his brother's pace.

Andrew asks "Dad send you that stuff last night?"

"Yeah. Twitter's blowing up."

"That why you wanted to run?"

"Kinda. What do you think about 'Dinesh?'"

Andrew laughs a little. "A lot. More than anything I keep coming back to numbers. He's the third known, but if there are two Americans couldn't there be eight in India? Eight in China, eight in Africa? At least four in Europe? There are those rumors in Japan about the Yakuza–"

"The ones Japanese people are calling a larp."

"Yeah, but shouldn't they have at least one? I know there's no specific reason to assume an equal distribution, but with broken in so many countries isn't that some kind of evidence of a genetic component? And if so, shouldn't there be more than forty? Where the hell are they?"

"Unless the rest are hiding. . ." Michael starts, "If you think there should be more and they aren't around, maybe you're wrong. There are those people who've cut up every second of Redhat's interview and say there are moments where it sounds like he's faking his accent. What if he's from Europe?"

"Unless he can fly a hundred miles a second he had to be in the US when Denver happened. It's still possible, but why would he go to that length? Why even give the interview?"

Michael shrugs in his stride. A little movement that would have gone unnoticed by anyone who hadn’t spent a lifetime next to him. "Maybe he's just that paranoid. Maybe he's got one of those super unique accents that would give away the exact town he's from. So he fakes it and wears a USA cap and gives an interview and now they're looking for him here and he's not even from here. It'd be a good bluff."

"He'd have to be more paranoid than dad."

"You're the one who said he took so long going into the sphere that it seemed like he was still worried he wasn't protected. Maybe he's been assuming someone is going to try to kill him, which is probably true."

Andrew shakes his head. "It was true, but he knows better now, and with Dinesh being public people are going to start learning a lot of things about controllers."

"Oh. Fuck. Nobody's noticed that with you, right?"

"Em's made comments but never asked me directly. I was lying down beside her all night before this. I guess hoping she'd finally ask directly."

"You gotta tell her, but I know it's gonna be shitty."

"Yeah."

They run in silence, still in darkness.

"I'm going to tell her. But. . ."

He goes quiet and they fall into the shared silence of siblings.

"Look at Dinesh–'Shajangali'–people saying he's spent months just walking. Helping people. I don’t know if it’s true but someone on Twitter said whole villages were following him. People are giving him offerings, bringing their sick grammas to him…”

"Yeah, yeah,” Michael scoffs, “I saw that too. Fuck that."

Andrew laughs, "What?"

"Fuck that. He can do it for free, same with Redhat. You get paid. That's why I'm glad if you're not going pro you're at least going to work for Canton. Shit, he might pay you more than football, and that's what you should be doing. Spheres are one thing, but otherwise? What, you gotta be a slave just because you'd be good at it? Fuck. That. You want villages following you around begging you to save them? You know I don't agree with dad about everything but he's right about this. You didn't ask for this, you just have it. Might as well get paid. And you're assuming those guys think exactly like you. For all we know they're really fuckin' vain and Redhat does it just because he can and Shajangali does it because he loves the attention. Why else doesn't he wear a mask? After today how many people in the world are going to know his actual name? Meanwhile you get paid and you can do a hundred times as much as he does."

"It feels selfish."

"That's just the overactive conscience mom instilled in us."

They run without talking until Andrew's phone shakes with his alarm.

Michael asks "Camp or Em?"

"Camp, gotta peel off. This was fun, you should run with me more."

"Way easier for you bro, but yeah whenever I'm up at asscrack dawn I'll text you."

"You can come watch, I'll let them know."

Michael nods. "Yeah, that'll be cool. I'm going to grab breakfast first though."

Andrew stands on the turf inside the warehouse, orange helmet hanging from one hand, watching the other quarterbacks in their token trials. Robert needs no test, every movement showing the subtle differences that mean he has it. Every little glance and gesture down to the exact way his hands move to get on top of the ball before curving around it, perfect spiral every single time.

A whistle, "Black, receivers, you're up."

He buckles his helmet and gets to the line and runs, practice juke left, right, turning in a continuous movement back to catch a throw from a different QB and forward to run and he's in sunlight on the field at Ben Griffin, skirting the defense in red stripes, in a blink they're in checkered blue and in another the last of them is in green, all left behind as he stands at the end, dropping the ball as a gray figure pumps an arm forty yards back and the slot and tight end run up to clap his back and helmet and the Swamp's eighty thousand roar.

Andrew reclines, cool towel on his face, eyes closed.

"Three fuckin' down!" says Robert.

Andrew says "Three weak teams. Brag when we beat Georgia."

Andrew showers and changes and turns on his phone. In the locker room he can hear Robert leading a “fuck them dawgs!” chant as dozens of texts come in, full of the usual “gg” or “it don’t mean shit unless you beat Georgia.” He scrolls through until he sees one from Dad:

There's a second Indian controller. Also isn't hiding his face.

"Suraj, the Lord Shiva."

He's arrived at city called Varanasi. Claimed a temple there.

Great play today.

This isn't photomanipulation. How is he doing it?

A picture, so different than Dinesh. A man in red robes with no adornments. Long hair that flows back and down to his shoulders, three long white lines painted on his dark forehead, a red mark at their center. Thin eyes and round cheeks, a long and large nose above a long and slightly upturned mustache and great pointed beard, and all of these glowing at the edges from the halo that hangs behind his head as he hangs in the air.

Andrew wonders what preceded this picture. No news before this, did he only now reveal himself? Varanasi on Ganges, Andrew imagines a river pilgrimage, a long and narrow boat moving under the power of the figure standing aft with townspeople watching unrealizing until he reaches land. Or did this red-robe instead journey over land, walking between villages, until at last he saw the city and rose into the air for his glorious arrival. He hears Emilia say Or they were an angel and he hears his father say Divine power must be considered—So if that individual comes forward and says they were blessed by God, whoever their God is, I imagine many will listen. Optimistic in hindsight, almost naive. This individual has said they are God, and many will listen. Rejecting the grasp of Earth, anointed in light. Divinity, apt.

Andrew starts to reply and stops. He starts again and stops again and shakes his head and pockets his phone before taking it back out to text Emilia, who he knows is waiting in player dining with other girlfriends and families. Andrew finds her talking to Michael and they sit at a table as they wait for the fans to disperse.

"Dad probably sent you the same stuff right?" Michael asks quietly.

"Yeah."

Michael shakes his head, "I don’t know why we don’t just have a group chat. It drives me crazy thinking about him copy-pasting the same thing twice. He would have been a shit coder.”

Andrew smiles and starts to say something, then realizes the thought is wandering away from him. “Yeah, it’s a wild picture" he says at last, still a ways away, thinking of his dad watching him torch the safety.

"What is?" asks Emilia.

Andrew turns to her, blinks, refocuses "There's a second controller in India, dad sent me and Mike a pic.”

He begins to take his phone out to show her but she cuts him off "Oh, yeah, Sofia sent me a link but I hadn’t looked at it yet."

Andrew hands her his phone. She quietly says "Újule."

"How's a psychic making light appear like that?" asks Michael

Emilia is still looking at the picture, Andrew holds his hands up in a clear sign of No fucking clue.

Andrew has learned if he squints his eyes just right the speckles above him begin to look like swirls. After long enough it’s almost like an all-beige Starry Night. It is the last Tuesday of classes before fall break, but days are just days, or every day is any day the way it is when there is no real demarcation between days, no delineation, no true dawn. He thinks about the word break like how when people say they need a break what they really mean is I need some fucking sleep.

They beat Georgia, and everyone else. Fuck them dawgs.

Michael texts him.

Run?

He lifts Emilia's little puppet arm lightly. "Michael and I are going running."

She mumbles back "Have fun."

They're passing the row of fraternities a second time when Andrew feels the pulse. He stops and says "There's a sphere."

Michael says "Shit."

Twitter. #PsychicSphere

Just now. Kyoto, JP.

"It's in Japan."

Michael has his phone up. "Redhat stopped Singapore, he's on his way, right? Or maybe even Shajangali?"

"Redhat should be."

"Do you wish it were you?"

"Even if I sprinted back and changed he'd beat me there, and unless I stayed until it was night again here I'd be moving across so much of the country some kind of camera would be bound to catch me. . . but I don’t know if I even care about them catching me anymore. I don’t know man. Let's just run."

They haven't passed Lake Alice when Andrew feels the pressure cease. He stops again.

"What?" asks Michael.

"It stopped. The sphere's been stopped."

"Already? It's been like five minutes!"

Andrew refreshes Twitter, the latest is in Japanese and it translates with a tap.

#KYOTO #PSYCHICSPHERE Sounds like finished?!

He refreshes again and reads the translation of the next, same message worded differently. He tries #Control

Sphere in Kyoto appears to be over, no reports of a controller #PSYCHICSPHERE #KYOTO #CONTROL #CONTROLLER

"'No reports of a controller,’ says this rando, for whatever that's worth. But it's night there, harder to spot a controller flying in."

Michael says "Those rumors in India were true, looks like they're true for Japan."

Andrew swipes into the training center at Heavener, Michael behind. The desk clerk looks up at the two and nods as Andrew points his thumb back. The gym televisions all show a split feed of George Stephanopoulos and a helicopter view of Kyoto, a swath of the city in darkness with pockets of light from emergency vehicles and building backups and the spotlights of other helicopters, one fixed on the epicenter. A single building is in ruins, the thoroughfare beside it looks largely spared while the buildings around it show hits to their facades but nothing that gives immediate impression of serious structural damage. The scrolling banner reads BANK OF KYOTO HQ DESTROYED; NO REPORTS OF CONTROLLER. Andrew sees the distinct lack of rubble covering everything. There's your report.

Robert is already in the gym, he sees the brothers enter and walks up beside Michael. The height difference between the two though not significant gives Andrew a flash of seeing his brother talking with the giant. Robert says "This shit is so crazy."

"Right?" says Michael, "Japan's joined the party."

Andrew starts his workout, trading off spotting with his brother who copies his sets. Robert's near them, working with his trainer, and he says "Excited for that Cowboys game, Drew?"

Andrew's memory flashes again to the giant and then he sees a line of them, wearing Dallas white-and-blue, a ten-foot tall quarterback's booming READY-HUT! and now two lines of titans crash into each other with such strength the nosebleeds know to cringe. "Yeah, definitely. The field passes came in the mail yesterday. It'll be great to see Devaris."

Robert's own odd excitement is apparent, "Devaris fuckin' Walker! What do you think he'd say about me? Damn, Robert, wish I could make it spin like that!"

The trainer snorts and says "Probably 'good job managing to pass to Drew every other down.'"

Michael laughs, Robert says "How about you throw the ball, then. . ."

At the first hour his chemistry professor calls a break. "Go and stretch your legs, we'll resume in ten."

Andrew takes his phone from his bag and searches Japan controller. Top story.

CONTROL-RELATED THEFT AT TOKYO NATIONAL MUSEUM

TOKYO, 3 HOURS AGO[2100 UTC+09:00] (REUTERS)—Ten minutes after the still-unexplained dissolution of the psychic sphere in Kyoto, the Tokyo National Museum, some 400 kilometers away, had a masked individual force their way onto the premises. Building security and Tokyo police reported being unable to subdue the individual who they described as using control[telekinesis] to hinder their movement and access locked areas and displays. The museum has reported the theft of two pieces, a blue Nō-men mask, worn in the traditional Japanese dramatic form of Noh, and a white sagemono, a small container traditionally worn on the person. Tokyo Police are—

Michael has sent a link to the same story on a different site.

You see this?

"Hinder their movement"

What, were they grabbing the cop's clothes?

Andrew messages back.

Could be

Immediate reply.

Controllers can move that fast right?

So they stopped the sphere and booked it to the museum?

There are timestamps on all this stuff

It definitely happened after the sphere was stopped

So there's one at a minimum obv

They could steal anything

Why a mask and a box thing?

Maybe they want to wear them

Lunch with Michael, labs in the afternoon. A jog before dinner back to Heavener to run the track and clear his head, a decided failure when every television in the gym changes to the same thing: CONTROLLER IN KYOTO

A figure sits cross-legged in the morning sky. The first camera is distance and shows little detail; when it changes to a second view it is far closer and shows everything.

"I was right." Andrew says to himself.

Blue indeed, like the sky behind it, with perhaps once white but now yellowed fibrous tufts stuck to the wooden mask as a long wisp of a beard and thick eyebrows. The expression is comedic, a smile hinted, with fat cheeks and nose and delighted eyes, feeling cantankerous yet good-natured, the same that might sit on an old man were he as aged as the carving. The man otherwise looks far more youthful; the skin he shows is smooth, unblemished, his arms resting on his knees, out of large elbow-length sleeves of a hip-length open jacket that's white with large blue-and-gold koi. He has bands around each wrist that Andrew suspects are watch and compass. A gold chain around his neck that hangs to the close-fitted plain white shirt underneath the thin jacket, and black pants that stop below his knees, white high-tops, white shoelaces, blue soles.

The man looks at one wrist and stands, a visually peculiar movement that Andrew thinks at first is a perfect act of miming until he walks and Andrew realizes he stands on a barrier. He makes a show of his strides, turning in step, almost a dance, his arms and hands following, accentuated by the flow of his jacket. In standing he has revealed a belt that's more of a sash and a small white box that hangs from it onto his pants, occasionally hidden by his movements. In his descent treetops and the magnificent roof of an obvious historic building come into sight. The camera and banner change, a view now directly in front of the building, and the banner quickly changes a second time.

CONTROLLER AT SHISHINDEN HALL, KYOTO IMPERIAL PALACE, JAPAN

The man appears to stand at the top of the roof, though Andrew wonders if this is another optical trick. The station adds a second view from a helicopter. Much of the palace can be seen, which Andrew admires only a little as he instead looks at the crowds. An inner courtyard sits ahead of the hall, and but for a line of police it is full of people. There are outer courtyards that go to the palace walls and these too are full, and the wide paths outside the walls have yet still more. The man's exaggerated movements have ceased, his mask turns upon the crowd.

He leaps from the roof and lands, just ahead of the police, just ahead of the camera, and then he bows. No comedy in this movement, no double-meaning. It is low and it is held and it is of unmistakable good-faith. When he raises he points to the sky and the camera moves at his direction to first show nothing, then a growing speck that resolves as a sphere, but a small one, that stops directly above his head before falling to the space he has just stepped back from. Andrew recognizes it, he made the same in Tampa; compressed remnants of the destroyed building, but this one looks more perfect, its gray more consistent and somehow glossy, bearing kanji.

お時宜

The man again bows, Andrew smiles when the police bow back in turn. Then the man looks one last time across the crowd and rises, first slowly, to the height of the helicopter, then swiftly, above, beyond, and out of sight.