The heat over Berea that morning comes up off the practice fields in wavering panes, bending the uprights and making the distant tackling dummies appear to breathe. Brown helmets with orange and white stripes sweat on folding tables. Assistant coaches sweat through clipboards. Even the lake wind, which usually arrives like a union man with one useful opinion, fails to report for duty.

The Snworb break from special teams work when Cown McJosh spots the insects. They cling to the far boundary rope in a ragged brown line, as if the field itself has grown stitching. Cown squints, takes two steps forward, and then two steps back. Down the sideline, a volunteer from the municipal ownership committee collects signed practice waivers in an orange binder stamped PROPERTY OF THE PEOPLE OF CLEVELAND.

"Those are no ordinary bugs," he says. "Those are organized. I foresee a swarm. Locusts!"

Dr. Selene Hartwell, Supreme Orchestrator of Gridiron Endeavors and Guardian of the Playbook, stands beside a folding table covered in practice film, star charts, and a half-eaten peach. She does not look up at first. She finishes a note in the margin of a diagram titled Defensive Fronts and Minor Planetary Wobble, then raises her eyes toward the rope.

"Grasshoppers," she says calmly.

Cown folds his arms. "No. If they were grasshoppers, I would feel ordinary dread. I am feeling biblical dread. Different category."

Selene sets down her pencil. "Mr. McJosh, locusts are not a separate civilization. They are grasshoppers under the right conditions."

Cown stares at her. "That sentence sounds invented. Like if I told you a cargo plane is just a helicopter that has accepted disappointment."

"Your analogy is poor," says Selene. "But your skepticism is understandable. Sit down."

He remains standing another few seconds out of principle, then sits on a cooler. Around them, training camp moves in the peculiar rhythm of July: whistles, curses, the mechanical cough of the JUGS machine, the slap of one-on-one drills, and the distant voice of Jack Hueson saying, "Ordo ante furorem," before translating it himself. "Order before fury."

Selene points toward the rope. "Solitary grasshoppers and swarming locusts are often two phases of the same creature. Pressure of bodies. Scarcity of food. Heat. Repeated contact. Chemistry changes. Appetite changes. Color changes. Their behavior first, and then everything else follows. In the right crowd, a hopper becomes a hunger with wings."

Cown considers this. "You are telling me that a grasshopper can look at its circumstances, make a bad decision, and become a locust."

"Not decide," Selene says. "Respond. There is a difference."

He rubs his chin. "So they do not merely grow wings out of ambition."

"No."

"Or because a king locust taps them on each shoulder with a sword."

"Also no."

"Or because they attend a three-day seminar in Akron called Unlocking Your Aerial Self."

Selene allows herself the smallest smile. "Especially no."

The insects shift as one. Across the field, linemen hit sleds with a sound like doors being kicked open in a courthouse. A runner cuts through a tackling ring while two interns in sun-faded shirts drag a blocking dummy with one torn ear back toward the equipment shed.

"Why are you telling me this?" Cown asks. "Apart from the educational pleasure you clearly derive from demolishing ignorance."

Selene leans back in her chair. "Look around."

Shondee Rikzer stands behind the offense with both hands on his hips while a receiver restarts the route for the third time. Hild Sonawp comes off the edge and slaps the blocking pad so hard that dust kicks out of the seam. Jack Hueson blows the whistle once, sharply, and twenty men turn at the same instant as if a single wire runs through the whole camp.

Selene points with the peach pit. "That. A body learns the body beside it. Then the next one. Then the next. If the appetite is right, they move together. If the appetite is wrong, they strip the field bare."

"So a camp can become a swarm," Cown says quietly.

"A bad one can," Selene replies. "Or a good one can become a formation."

He nods once, though not yet in surrender. "I still maintain that if those creatures take off all at once, they become aircraft by law."

"You may maintain many things," says Selene. "Maintenance is not proof."

A rookie defensive back, misjudging the sideline during a pursuit drill, stumbles into the boundary rope. The insects leap in a sudden crackling veil and drift over the field. Several players duck. One assistant coach swears. Hild Sonawp throws back his head and laughs. The insects ride a gust, circle once in the white heat, and settle in the grass behind seven-on-seven.

Cown stands up from the cooler. "All right," he says. "I believe it now. Locusts are grasshoppers that grow wings when the world crowds them hard enough."

"Good," says Selene.

"I also believe," he continues, "that football teams may obey the same law."

Selene turns back to her charts. "Now you are learning."

On the next field over, Jack Hueson blows his whistle and calls the offense together. The players come running from every direction, helmets bright under the punishing Ohio sun. Shondee reaches the huddle first. The rest close around him in a fast brown-and-orange ring, shoulder pads knocking once, then going still.

Advance Regress