FILTERS 25

MOIRAI

Can you hear that?

Concrete and metal blast apart, thunderclap-chased, explosion. Flicker of Phaethon, wind rushing from the meteor that cracks the sky, tearing the grand vault’s stars to bloody shattering stone. Chorus screams. Tires over asphalt and sirens. Then–cheers.

You see him, you do not hear him. Faster than sound would describe but should not provide comparison where the concept of parity could be wrongly impressed. Rather as light departs and arrives in one moment from swiftness beyond time, he is beyond. He does not hear, feel or move air. Movement would impress need, it would compare. He is beyond.

His withdraws are performative, he knows his place. He does not shy for sensing inadequacy in himself, his confrontations show his character. He shies as he should, as he would be unfit if he did not understand the wrongness of his place. His fellows also. (The hermit is a lesson.) He withdraws at each ascension. Oh, to worry over small things. He ignored what he could afford to ignore. His unease will be brief. He is beyond. Air, sound. Sight, inevitably.

They lie beside one another on the living room floor, each staring at the ceiling.

Emilia asks “How do you have this?”

Whence Clotho?

“I wish I knew. I always had this feeling, and when I was twelve it became being able to move things. Little things, like a baseball.”

“When did your family find out?”

“It’s funny, the first time I ever used this, my dad saw me. I guess it couldn’t have been any other way. We were playing catch and I just missed his throw, and that’s when the feeling changed and I pulled the ball into my hand. He told me to show my mom,”–He sees his mother’s face, hears her crying in the hall; feels her different fear, strange to him, unlike Michael falling from a tree. Did she always know?–”I used this every day but it never really changed, not until I understood it better. I was sixteen, that’s when I grew, it grew, together all at once. Mike found out after I graduated.”

“What did you understand?”

“I thought this came from me, so I wondered why it wasn’t improving like I had in sports. I was getting stronger and faster but this never did. What I realized, what I really truly knew, was I only connect with this. This is everywhere, so I could put a baseball anywhere, or a desk, or a car.”

She says “Or yourself.”

“Or myself, eventually.”

“Did you know there were others?”

“No. We always thought there were, but we didn’t know until Redhat.”

She says “I guess you don’t know how it exists.”

“I don’t. I’ve sometimes had thoughts that feel like this is telling me something, but those are about what I can do with this, never how or why this exists.”

He watches her look at her left hand. He listens to her breathing.

He asks “What are you thinking?”

She says “About how I’m a little happy Mike was left in the dark too, but I don’t like that, it’s petty. And how you haven’t slept for three years and for some reason I feel more hung up on that than you being able to fly.”

“Harder to imagine?” he wonders.

“Maybe,” she says, “but everyone has nights where they just can’t sleep. It would be funny to say I’ve had nights where I just can’t fly.” He smiles, she says “You said eventually. Is that why you wondered if Dinesh didn’t know how to fly, you couldn’t always?”

“It is, I couldn’t. I figured it out the night we first kissed.”

She laughs a little and puts her hand on his chest and pushes as she sits up. She says “I’ve imagined so many times what it’s like, but you can actually do it.”

He sits up. “I did too, I fantasized every day and tried every night, then I actually could. I know nothing sets me apart more, but being up there is when this makes the most sense. Seeing world trees outside the city. Seeing different houses, buildings, even cars. If I didn’t have a reason to be on the ground I might just drift. Go everywhere, see everything.”

She says “Like Mexico.”

“Yeah.”

“Why did you go?”

“I could say it was for misdirection, but I went because I wanted to see it. The city, and the ring.”

“What did you think?”

“I thought about how massive it is, I still think about that, New York didn’t feel like that. And I thought about the pictures you’ve shown me, I liked seeing those neighborhoods built with the foothills, all the houses and streets climbing up the mountains. It was hectic and beautiful and I wished I could go down there and see it like anybody else. I want to go back.”

She’s glowing. “Yeah, we should go. We could see the capital, and if we were there we’d have to fly to Guadalajara so you could meet my cousins. Then we could fly or even drive to Puerto Vallarta and stay there, or wander up to Bucerías and get a cabin on the beach.”

“I’d love that.”

Her happiness fades as she says “And then you went to the ring.”

He nods.

She asks “What was that like?”

He hears his footsteps on the sand. Too great, too terrible. . .

He says “It felt wrong. I felt disrespectful just by being there, but I knew it would be more disrespectful to not go.”

“Did you really speak with a priest?”

Or he was dressed as a priest, he thinks. “I did. He was at the memorial in the ring.”

Her eyes drift from his, pushed to the corners with her thoughts. He watches her right hand run through her hair and rest on her neck. She asks “What did you say to him?”

And Lakhesis?

“He recognized me, he said he saw what happened in Tampa. I explained how I didn’t know what I could do before that day, and I apologized. I would have stopped that sphere if I had known.”

Her eyes return to his. “You didn’t know? Did you go to Tampa with a guess? Did you think you might—” She falters.

“I thought I might be able to stop it, but really, it’s not that I was certain I wouldn’t die, it’s that I didn’t care if I did, as long as I had tried.”

She hugs him.

She asks “What did the priest say?”

Words that echo. “What I deserved, an admonishment. He saw my doubts.”

“You don’t want this?”

“I do. I don’t want this to exist. Since it does I’m glad it’s me. Who could say no? Would you?”

“I’m glad you have it too.” She sighs, “This is something I’m supposed to say no to, but who could see what you can do and still say no? I’ve imagined what it’s like to be, well, to be you, but isn’t that how this unravels? I’m imagining a choice, just like I’ve imagined having it. But you just have it, and I just don’t. No matter what I think I’ll know I don’t have it.”

He hears melancholy. “You’re disappointed.”

She laughs and grabs his hand and says “Of course I am! Who doesn’t want to fly? I’d miss sleeping but you can fly, Andrew. You can fly. You can fly!” She laughs again.

He laughs. “What?”

She says “I imagined my mother asking me ‘Why do you treat that boy like he walks on air?’ Because he can, mamá, because. . . you really can.” Her hand grips his tightly and her breaths are suddenly quick, she seems to fight with herself, her eyes flitting back and away. She whispers “Why me?”

Andrew frowns. “What do you mean?”

Her hand is still tight but she pulls her knees close and turns her face into them and her voice is muffled as she again asks “Why me?”

Andrew smiles, he could have laughed. He knew she would be afraid, never jealous. With his other hand he reaches for her waist and pulls her across the carpet back into a hug and says “After I stopped sleeping, every time a girl tried to give me attention all I heard was white noise. I knew what she wanted and in that moment all I could think of was the empty silence being awake beside her. I didn’t think that was going to change, I didn’t think it could change. Then you and I started talking and I could really hear you, and in those long nights alone in my dorm I realized I would be more than okay awake beside you, I wanted that. That’s why.”

When she lifts her head to look at him he pushes her hair back and kisses her.

She reheats the pasta and they eat. They say nothing, only looking at each other.

They sit on his couch, television off.

Emilia asks “Do you–does it feel like one long day? Do you remember everything like it’s just happened?”

“I don’t know about my memory, what can I compare this with? But the days, sometimes. I do have a little feeling at sunrise, I think it’s the closest I get to waking up. But sometimes I’ve been so stuck in my head everything blurs together and I only know where I need to be because of my calendar. Never when I’m with you.”

She rubs his thigh. “Is that why you run so much?”

“Yeah, and it’s why I started reading again, and part of why I’m taking the classes I am. With the time I have, no excuse to not have perfect grades.”

She says “You can use that again, you don’t have to lie beside me all night.”

Andrew shakes his head. “Running and reading and studying, that’s what I resorted to. Being beside you is the closest I get to sleeping. You give me peace.” He sees her crossed legs and bare feet and thinks of her standing in her slippers in the rain. And I have given you pain, he thinks. “I’m sorry,” he bows his head and leans into her. “I’m sorry for keeping this from you for so long. I’m sorry for how I’ve lied to you and how I’ve hurt you. I hope with time I can make this up to you.”

He feels her arms slide around him and her head rest on his, her lips and breath on one ear as she says “You know I’ve forgiven you. I understand why you felt you needed to hide this. It’s why I’ll have to with my parents.”

He turns over, the back of his head on her lap. “No, Em, I didn’t tell you this thinking you would be forced to lie to your parents. If you want to tell them, or if you want me to tell them, then we will.”

She smiles but he sees her conflict. “I don’t know, when could possibly be the right time?” Her fingertips press on his ears and she asks “If you want this, then what do you doubt?”

“My purpose. Broken are a responsibility but even after Tampa I felt spheres weren’t the point of my having this. I’ve struggled with that. It would make no difference to the lost if my interventions somehow stopped me from doing something arguably more important. Redhat has been a complicated relief, I admire him, but what he’s done has raised what I need to contribute. I’ve doubted my reasoning. I knew my feelings, I didn’t want to walk out on my life, I didn’t want to leave you. I worried those feelings were affecting my judgment, that I was rationalizing my selfishness, twisting logic so I could keep doing what I wanted instead of what was right. But that changed today.”

She asks “How do you mean? Are you going to intervene every time now?”

“I will where necessary, but no, not that. Let me sit up.”

When they’re facing he says “I wasn’t the only controller today in New York. I stopped the sphere but he helped far more people than I did. He’s the actual first but nobody knows he exists, not in that way. He’s John Canton.”

Emilia gasps. “No. What happened?”

“He knows who I am. He called me by name just before taking off his mask.” Andrew laughs, “He wants me to work with him.”

Her hands are on her cheeks, he sees a flash of her mother doing the same. She says “This day. . . how did he know?”

“You know how people have guessed we have a kind of clairvoyance—?”

She quickly says “You really do? What’s that like?”

“I know where everything is around me. I know what’s behind doors and through walls, I know what’s in containers and drawers. I know what people have in their pockets, but I can’t see people, not exactly.”

“What do you see?”

“In my other sight I see you and others as dark figures. I’ve always assumed that’s because other people can’t be directly affected by this. That seems to be the common rule between us and broken.”

Emilia shakes off a thought and asks “So how did he know?”

“He know what he was looking for, so my athletics stood out particularly to him, but he knew specifically because at some point he came here and using his second sight saw I don’t sleep.”

She frowns. “Does that make you uncomfortable?”

“Who am I to judge? Does it make you uncomfortable I can do that?”

She’s quiet.

She says “No. Not when it’s you. I know you, I know you would never use it to spy on a specific person, not unless you had a reason I would agree with. I don’t like that the others can, but I guess I don’t really like any of the things they can do.” She shakes her head again. “Of course he’s so wealthy. Are you going to work with him?”

“I am, after I finish school.”

Emilia still frowns. He looks down her sweater, pale olive with a sheen, subtle in the low light. He can find the seams of the shallow V-neck, at her shoulders, the hem at her waist, pulled back enough to just show her navel. He closes his eyes, closing everything to her, until she speaks.

“I know this is what you’ve wanted, but does knowing this about him change that? Now he’s more than just one of the wealthiest men in the world. Whatever you thought about him before today, whatever you think about him now, there are so many things people with that kind of wealth hide. We know how self-serving they are, how ruthless. Just think of his connections and the influence he has. The sorts of people he knows and the deals going on behind what we ever see. And he has this power? I know he might seem good, but can you trust him?”

He sees the Earth. He feels his doubt fall.

“Yes, I am. I knew before every reason I should doubt him, everything you’ve said is true and that’s what I was thinking as he spoke, but that fell away. For as long as he has had this, he could have already made himself a tyrant king. Instead he’s using everything he has to move humanity forward. His conviction, his certainty of self and purpose, his knowledge he is doing right is so profound I could feel it. I didn’t feel like I was talking to a man, I felt like I was talking to a force of nature, and I know beyond doubt he’s good. Like. . . it was bleeding into the air.”

Emilia laughs softly. “That’s how you make me feel.”

He’s content looking in her eyes.

She asks “How long has he had it?”

“I think close to twenty years.”

“Twenty years without sleeping,” her side slips to rest against the back of the couch. “You’re really okay with that?”

He mirrors her. “I’m used to it. Whatever this is must make it work. I’m never tired, my head never feels foggy, I never have muscle aches. Some days I only stopped running because I needed to be somewhere, some nights only because it had gotten too late. I do want to sleep, it’s why I still try sometimes when we’re in bed. It just never comes.”

She kisses him, her fingernails pressing lightly on his neck. She says “I don’t think I could sleep now if I tried. I want to see what happened. I want to see you.”

The television turns on, muted commercials.

“I never looked up videos from Tampa. I’m sure I’ve seen it all with how often clips are shown, but I always avoided it when I could.”

“Why?”

“I would feel vain.”

The news returns, the banner reads WAS THERE A SECOND CONTROLLER AT MANHATTAN?

Cyclic coverage. He watches himself above the park; drifting toward the waterfront; his departure. It restarts. Arrival, video and stills of him with his hands on the man, his descent into the tower and recovery of the trapped. Fog covering the city, his work within as he carried casualties while parts of buildings descended to the streets. Phone video at a station of a shorn subway car, one part sliced perfectly, the other mangled. Above the park again, and finally his ascent.

He feels her rising heartbeat. She knew him as other; now that other sits beside her.

She says “‘It matters what everybody else thinks.’”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think the government knows who you are?”

“I think if they didn’t know before today, they do now.”

Through the fog, above the park, rising.

She asks “Do you think they’ll want something from you? What happens when they come?”

“We think, and hope, it’s if they come: that they want things to stay as they are now. For us to only show at disasters, and only in our masks.”

She asks “Because they’re afraid of you?”

A different perspective of him and the broken man, then a cut to him and empty air.

“Indirectly. Or effectually.”

Phone video of sections of a building moving slowly through the air.

She says “Indirectly, effectually?–Oh.”

Emergency workers carrying injured.

She says “Ryan is always talking about how proud and grateful he is of help from you and Redhat, but it’s always accompanied by ‘marching on,’ always ‘emphasizing normalcy.’ They’re acting like you don’t exist, at least as well as they can, because they don’t want to deal with you.”

“That’s what we’ve thought, and that’s exactly what Canton said. He wants it to stay that way. He believes the quieter he is–the quieter we are–the better for our work. I agree.”

“What is that work? What will you be doing?”

“Contribute to everything he does at Epitaxial. Manufacturing, research, and spaceflight.”

She says “Space. You can stop spheres yourself, is that what you meant when you said psychic break was part of why you wanted to work with him? It’s space, isn’t it? Space is what you think is most important.”

“Yes. It is.”

She asks “Why?”

He knows she doesn’t ask from doubt.

I could tell you, I wish I could show you. Your faith would feel like doubt and the strongest skepticism would fall. Not as dust, less than dust, less than a mote suspended in a sunbeam. I wish I could show you infinite majesty so you too could be struck with most terrifying cosmic frailty. To be so small. I would understand if you collapsed and withdrew, your ego crushed by weight of impotence. But it is a gift, this weight uplifts. It is the burden that makes robust. Nowhere to go but up.

Or would it be you couldn’t follow? Would you look at me and only see abyss? Would this make us strange, would this be our final difference? Yours as human, mine as greatest other.

He asks “If you had this, what would you do?”

She doesn’t smile.

She says “I’m supposed to say what anybody would. ‘I would do good. I would stop spheres, and help in natural disasters. I would fight crime and intervene in wars.’ I’m supposed to say I would work with the government and other groups. None of you have done that. Almost all of you have chosen good, but all of you have done that on your own. I know why, and it’s not because of something I subconsciously understood from you. I think everybody knows, but they know they’re supposed to say certain things, even when they’re lies. You can stand in the sky, how could you bow to anyone? When you can go anywhere and see anything, when soldiers would ask you to hunt, how could a person’s perspective not seem small?”

“I do care.”

“If you advocated for something, would it happen?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

She smiles, “You ignored mine first! If you advocated for something, would it happen?”

"I think it would."

She asks “What’s stopping you? With you loudly standing for something, wouldn’t the world follow?”

“I would have to be perfect, and I’m not.”

She says “Our leaders aren’t perfect. They have to compromise, or they get to use that as an excuse. You wouldn’t need to compromise.”

“That’s why I would need to be perfect. How many things would change only because my jacket was behind it? One might be too many, and stepping in like that. If I spoke to crowds, wouldn’t I just be scaring them into compliance? I would be forcing myself over the blood and will that built everything. I can’t do that only hoping I could do better.”

She says “None of us can pass through spheres unharmed. None of us can fly. What if you could do better, even if it meant putting yourself ahead of all of that?”

“It would be wrong.”

“Even with the good you can do?”

“The assumption it would be good is exactly why I can’t.”

“What about something unquestionably right? Could you stop conflict?”

“I could take their rifles, would I need to take their knives? Their hammers? They might just use their fists. I could force sides to negotiate, but what if none of them wanted me there, shouldn’t I abstain? If both or every side wanted me, what then? I could choose the winner, but what if I chose wrong? What reaches us passes through so many filters. All the ignorance, the assumptions and biases from voices whose standard for goodness is common feeling. They might drive me on, cheer as I brought harm to good people, people who only ‘deserved’ it in a perverted sense of turnabout. Because good is absolute, I need to be. There is no rebalancing, there is no compromise. Absolute or nothing at all. But a goal that seems good, when I have to leverage myself for its achievement, could become a disaster of its own later. I would need to go and learn for myself–as if it’s so simple–and that would take time. All for a problem in a small part of a world of billions. I do care, and that’s exactly why I know this requires temperance. This requires that use which benefits the most, and I know that does not mean making myself king.”

Emilia says nothing.

She quietly says “If it’s good, it’s good.”

She stands and walks to the sunroom doors.

She turns. “If it’s good, it’s good, isn’t that what you just said? Wouldn’t what matters be making the right choice even and especially if bad follows? How often have bad decisions been made knowing bad would follow? Or even supposedly good decisions knowing bad would follow? You could choose good and see to it that good results.”

Andrew says nothing.

She says “I know you’re saying exactly what you should be saying, and not out of expectation, but because it really is the right take. I know this is that thing again, where I’m imagining what I could do, but I don’t have it, so no matter what I think and how I feel, I will never take these questions as seriously as you. Because you do have it, so with everything you have to ask and then what?”

Andrew is smiling but he says nothing.

She says “But so often it’s clear they don’t ask that, unless they’re asking and then do I keep power? You wouldn’t have to. Until you power was always numbers. Money and words, but really how many other powerful people were in agreement. There are so many more of us, but it’s not like we matter. They listen just enough to keep power, if they even have to anymore when they can just manufacture consent. We’re lead along and exploited because we actually care about each other. We want what’s best for each other. It’s not that following is our nature, altruism is, but there is nothing easier to corrupt than the drive to be a good person. So we chase power’s tail, or chase its shadow, but we never chase power itself. You are power itself. You worry about ignoring people, that’s all they do. It’s the foundation for so much of what I read now, eloquent bickering over which prestige group will do a better job babysitting the serfs. ‘When the serfs decide, they always choose wrong. They can’t be trusted, they’ll only demand ever-more for themselves, consequences be damned, they’ll raid the coffers while the empire falls. We know what’s best, we must guide their lives so we can raise civilization as it ought to be. With us at the top, of course, we’re meant for it. Everything we do speaks our superiority. Our habits, our families, our culture, our tastes. We appreciate existence in a way they are forever incapable of. So if they suffer while we luxuriate, oh, well good I suppose. Their lot is suffering. Besides, we don’t really exclude, we’re actually shepherds, and we welcome the bright ones to join us’–yeah, the soulless ones–‘they should rest easy knowing a descendant or two of theirs will join us. Ah, but of course we’ll take any of their women who are to our liking, so nice we can carelessly indulge, eat them up and toss them out! They’re nothing after all, who cares if they’re ruined?’”

Her cheeks are flushed. She rubs her eyes.

“We are common but we aren’t less, we have been made less because that is how they want us. I find myself so apathetic over some things, over some ideas, because all I can see is how the person is ignored. I believe in people. What a tired thing to say, I know. The cop-out for politicians dodging questions. But I do. When our leaders fail all I see is corruption and incompetence. They want to shape us because they know success or failure comes entirely from us while they only ride our coattails. When we unite, things happen, good and bad. But the bad? Every single time, every single time the bad has demagoguery behind it. What would I do with this? I would teach. They couldn’t silence me, I could speak to everyone and help lift them up. And I would be okay with that, because it’s okay if people listen because they feel they must. They’ll know the enemy of unaccountable power and take it from the undeserving. They couldn’t stop us, they couldn’t poison us with ideas they use to subvert and dominate because I could silence them, and I would every time.”

She pauses. He’s still smiling.

"I know unaccountable power is what you are, but I know you don’t want to be, and that's what makes you different. You would choose this only to stop them, you would choose this because you hate this in a way you can’t put into words. Well the best never want it, right? Because they know true evil is wanting control over people. They can’t be shaken of their fundamental recognition and appreciation, their love for their fellows, even their enemies! Where in worst necessity they might do things that are wrong, but they never excuse themselves and they never celebrate others’ misery. They never deceive themselves into thinking their misdeeds were good. They live with their regret and accept it over losing themselves and if their souls are still judged lacking they accept it, they say so be it. Love defines them. Love defines you. And hate defines those who want power, because that’s the only way they can exist. Hate to the degree it sometimes feels like they view us as a lesser species, only meant to be their slaves, and all justified by noblesse oblige bullshit. You aren’t that, you don’t want that, but Andrew, you do know better. You wouldn’t ignore the people, you would ignore the wails of every aspiring tyrant. You could right their misdeeds, you could force them to account, and there is nothing they could do to stop you. What could be more important than that? You. . . You, Dinesh, Redhat, Canton. I know now, I know this is exactly what the others would say, because what else is this power but your collective mandate?”

He wants to carry her outside and show her the sky.

Thus, Atropos.

Andrew says “There have been two moments my father has almost shown awe at what I can do. The night I flew to Atlanta and the night I came back from Tampa, but both were so brief. It’s made me wonder sometimes if he’s changed at all, even seeing what I can do. It doesn’t seem like he has, he’s always been so cynical. It’s made me sad, not at myself, I know he’s proud of me, but sad because I thought he was trapped in his own pessimism. So when he saw what I could do that meant he had to think about the next bad thing that could happen, because that’s all he ever thinks about, like there’s a voice in his head always whispering This will not end well. He never said outright how afraid he was of me getting caught, but I could tell. I thought he let that fear control him. He thought I would be disappeared into some government facility, that wouldn’t have happened. I’m sure I would have been studied, but occasional trips to the lab would have been the worst of it, not the comically unrealistic of me being blackbagged and unpersoned. Still, I’ve found myself thinking the same line, all the time. This will not end well. I didn’t want that to be true, so I would question what he said, sometimes to his face. Then today a man in the clouds said so many of the things my father has. I felt like such a child.”

“I know where my father has been wrong. I know specifically the things he has been wrong about, but he was right to raise me to hear that whisper, because it is exactly what I needed. For the powerless, it makes a sad sense to assume the worst. It’s made my father successful, it’s stopped him from building up hope and being crushed, or caught exposed when it fails. But it also makes sense for me, because with this power, all I ask, all I ever ask, is if something I do will end well. It means I’ll never give in to whim. It means temperance. You asked why space is most important.”

Emilia nods slowly.

“Space is our destiny. Our history is calamity, disasters and self-destruction. Yes, we are trapped and mislead on false inequities because terrors beyond comprehension are already coming for us. There is nothing I could ever do that is more important than helping free us from this lonely, fragile world, because if we are not prepared when something comes, humanity will be the cost. If all of us joined together and personally delivered Earthly paradise, what good would come if we were destroyed in the hundred-and-first year? Those evils covered in the haze of power need to see justice, but not before this. Space unites us, it is the unquestionable common good, it is that something most great everyone can work toward, knowing what we’ve done is for the good of all to come. So in a thousand years when we’re on a thousand planets, free forever from a single stone flung through space being our end, that all began here. When people see what we will achieve, I think they’ll stand collectively, I don’t think I’ll need to advocate anything. But if not, if they’re silenced, if they’re mislead, I will intervene. You’re right, there is nothing that can stop me, and I will not tolerate opposition if they try. This will end well, because my purpose is to ensure it does.”

She falls against him.

They lie in bed, her arm across his chest.

She asks “What happened when you touched that woman, and that man?”

“I saw them in a different place. I actually saw them, it wasn’t my other sight. We were standing in water that spread to the horizon. I wish I knew what that means, I only understand it as I’m waking them up, but by then they’ve already lost control, so they lose themselves.”

“You didn’t know there were others, does that mean you can’t tell if someone has this?”

“I couldn’t always, I can now. There’s a third kind, different from me and from broken, they’re much weaker. Before, if they touched me, in my other sight their figure turned gray. Today, when Canton and I were finished talking, we were about to shake hands when I mentioned the gray. He hadn’t experienced that, we think because he hasn’t touched a broken. So we shook hands, and his figure turned white, as mine did for him, and now I can see gray figures who I haven’t met. There are three here.”

“So my sisters. . .”

“They don’t have this.”

She pulls tighter.

She’s close to sleep. “What’s the point—”

“Hm?”

Murmuring, “What’s the point of being immune to this when you can do so much to us anyway?”

“I don’t know.”

She’s asleep. He closes his eyes.

He sees Robert standing at his computer. He sees the second at the university hospital, seated at a floor station. He sees the third, a sleeping child. He sees his brother pacing. He lifts Emilia’s arm from his chest and gets out of bed and calls Michael from the sunroom. “I’m home.”

Michael says “On my way.”