Swarm (18 page)

“Wish
I
was snoring,” Ethan said from next to Flicker.

Nate dared a glance at the GPS—twenty minutes away. It was four forty-five a.m., and the mall opened at five. Even Nate's tired brain could do that math.

“We're not going to make it,” he said, nudging the car a little faster.

“We'd be on time if you hadn't forgotten Anon,” Flicker muttered.

Nate frowned at her in the rearview. “You should've noticed he wasn't in the car earlier!”

“I'm not my invisible boyfriend's keeper.”

“If we're going to be late anyway, maybe you could slow down?” Chizara was squashed into the front passenger seat with Kelsie, clutching her arm nervously. Kelsie looked like she loved cruising at a hundred miles an hour.

“Every second counts,” Nate said.

“You're going to get us killed,” Chizara said. “And we don't even know if this is the right place!”

“
I
do.” Nate pushed the speedometer needle a little higher.

“Jess is going to kill me anyway when she realizes I snuck out,” Ethan said. “Or worse, tell my mom! If you dragged me all this way for nothing, I'm going to . . . sleep all the way home. But
angrily
.”

“Listen,” Nate said. “We know they were headed east, and this place has the biggest crowds within a day's drive of Cambria. Thousands of people, twenty times the size of K-Mo's wedding!”

“Big sale crowds are pretty horrible,” Kelsie said. “I steer clear of malls between Thanksgiving and New Year's.”

“
At least all our practice missions are actually going to pay off,” Flicker said tiredly.

“What if
all
mall tramplings are caused by Zeroes?” Kelsie said.

Nate didn't answer that. The thought of a horde of Glitches and Coins out there—walking disaster zones—was too much to handle on no sleep.

Flicker stepped in. “I'm pretty sure people getting trampled was a thing before any Zeroes were born.”

“Right,” Nate said. “We're here to
save
people, not trample them.
Who the hell is snoring?
”

Flicker groaned. “It's Anon! Should I just remind you after every snore?”

“Wake him up already! This mission starts in . . .” He checked the GPS again. The increase in speed had shaved some time off. “Eleven minutes.”

“Unless you roll the car,” Chizara said.

“There's no traffic,” Nate said, but he eased off on the speed a little. She was right—they were going to be late anyway. He hoped Glitch and Coin weren't planning to attack while everyone was cramming into the mall's entrances. They were assholes, but hopefully they weren't
trying
to create a bloodbath.

“Where am I?” came a tired voice from the backseat.

“Big Christmas sale,” Flicker told Anon. “Glitch and Coin evil. Us saving people.”

“Oh, right.”

Nate smiled. He wished he had his folder of notes.

December 24—Addled by sleep, Anonymous briefly forgot a thing that everyone else remembered.

The road was climbing ahead, a soft swell in the desert. Three minutes to five a.m. and they were six minutes away. The dark sky ahead showed hints of red, but it couldn't be the dawn yet.

“Um, guys?” Kelsie suddenly said. “There's a serious crowd up there.”

Nate slowed the Mercedes as they crested the hill. The road ahead was crammed with taillights. The traffic jam led straight to the giant glowing ramparts of the brand-new mall, its floodlit parking lot solid with vehicles, its entrances choked with thousands of shoppers. Their combined focus shone like a flaming battering ram.

“They're so hungry,” Kelsie murmured softly.

The nearest taillights were drawing close. Nate put the Mercedes into four-wheel drive and steered it off the asphalt onto the rough surface of the desert. Scrubby plants started to thwack the front bumper, and Chizara's hand smothered a cry of alarm.

A firework streaked high into the air above the mall, then flowered out red, white, and blue. Even from here, with pebbles pinging off the bottom of the car, Nate could hear the crackle of it, and crowd's cheering. It was five a.m. exactly, and the Desert Springs Mall was open for business.

“YOU SEE THEM ANYWHERE, FLICK?”
Nate said.

Holding tight to Thibault's arm, Flicker cast her vision to the front of the throng.

Way ahead, sprinting for bargains, were the people who'd slept all night at the entrance. They carried sleeping bags and pillows, and one girl clutched a ragged teddy bear under one arm. Their wide-eyed gazes darted among the giant banners hanging from every storefront.

XMAS EVE SALE

80% OFF EVERYTHING

GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!

That last one seemed a little far-fetched, given that the Desert Springs Mall had been open for all of a month. But this crowd seemed ready to believe anything, to
do
anything, to give
themselves a shot at a bargain. Nate's Mercedes was one of a dozen cars parked illegally by the doors.

So far it all looked normal enough, if a crazed Christmas Eve sale could ever be normal. No sign of Glitch and Coin.

“Nothing yet,” Flicker said.

“I've found the central junction box.” Crash's voice came from ahead of the rest of them. She sounded less nervous here than she had in the car. “What do you need, Nate?”

“Close the roller doors. Keep anyone else from getting in.”

It took a moment for Crash to answer, and Flicker's ears filled with the squeak of a thousand sneakers on freshly waxed tile, the bouncy Christmas music piping through the store, the aahs of appreciation as the mall's atrium skylights came into view.

“Can't do it,” Crash said. “The roller doors have some kind of safety mechanism—you need a physical key. What about turning off the escalators?”

“No! We
want
people upstairs, as spread out as possible.” More sneaker squeaks, more Muzak. When Nate spoke again, he was facing a different way. “How do they feel?”

“Excited, exhausted,” Mob answered. “But the main thing is . . .
greedy
. I'm trying to calm them down, but the music's too damn peppy.”

Flicker agreed with that. Christmas disco was bouncing off the walls like sound waves of made of tinsel and glitter.

“Where's the music controlled from?” Scam asked.

“Second floor, at the rear,” said Crash. “I could crash the sound system.”

“Don't. I'll talk them into changing the tunes.” Scam's voice faded as he peeled off.

“Try for classical,” Mob called after him. “Something soothing!”

“You got it!” he called back.

As Anon guided Flicker around a group of chattering kids, she realized that the six of them were working together as a team.

She brought her vision back to the group. Mob's face was alight with the crowd's shopping madness—frazzled, tense, spoiling for a fight at a bargain rack. Crash and Bellwether wore determined expressions, on the same side at last. As a passerby's vision slid past Anon leading her, Flicker smiled.

“Spotted the targets yet?” Nate asked her.

“Yeah, really,” Anon said beside her. “Because if they aren't here, I'd rather be anywhere else.”

“Hang on.” Flicker cast her vision out again, letting the questing viewpoints of the surging crowd spill into her head.

She saw hands rifling clothes racks, fingers tying sneaker laces, smoothies spinning in blenders, credit cards sliding through readers, a thousand price tags being checked. Darting from eye to eye, she began to understand the vast but simple layout of the mall—an entrance at each compass point, four wide passages surging with the crowd, all leading to the center, where a shining glass-and-metal fountain soared above a broad square plaza.

The huge structure drew every eye, filling Flicker's vision. It looked like a gigantic metal octopus with too many tentacles, each studded with shards of mirror and flashing colored lights. A hundred spouts sprayed and misted and tumbled water down into elaborate tiers of receptacles. Yet you could walk under the whole contraption without getting wet.

The fountain was possibly the tackiest thing Flicker had ever seen, but viewed from a thousand different vantage points, she had to admit it was impressive.

And there at its center, underneath its spreading arms, two familiar faces smiled at the oncoming crowds.

“I see them! Right in the middle, under the fountain!”

“Let's move it,” Nate said, and Anon pulled Flicker along faster.

She kept her vision on Glitch and Coin. “He's got a backpack. Stuffed full of paper, I bet.”

“A rain of cash will turn this crowd bad,” Mob said. “They all feel so
entitled
. They waited all night, or got up crazy early. They want their bargains—they want free stuff!”

“How many people close to Coin?” Nate panted. “Enough for his power to work?”

Flicker sent her vision skittering around the fountain, taking in every angle.

“Not yet, but they're headed in from all directions. All he has to do is yell
Free money!
and he'll be good.”

“Sorry, Flick,” Nate said. “But we have to run!”

“Fine with me!”

She tightened her grip on Anon's elbow and slipped into Crash's eyes. Chizara was scanning the ground ahead of their feet, in seeing-eye-human mode, just like during their old training missions.

After seven hours in the car, it was good to run, darting around benches and mall directories and pop-up stores selling sunglasses and cheap watches.

A few breathless minutes later, the others slowed.

Crash gasped as she looked up from the tiled floor to gaze at the fountain. “I could crash the
heck
out of that.”

“Not yet,” Nate said. “And whatever you do, keep the lights on in here!”

“Duh.”

The couple beneath the fountain were dressed up as usual, but today's finery was brighter. Glitch wore a purple satin dress, and Coin's suit was shiny black. Perfect outfits for attracting attention in the middle of the flashing, bubbling fountain.

A crowd was gathered now, and Coin swung his backpack off his shoulder and pulled out a wad of paper.

Flicker jumped into his eyes. In his hands the rectangles of white crawled with fine lines of dull green ink. The familiar shapes of presidents and seals began to appear.

“He's about to do it,” she said.

“At least let me kill the fountain lights,” Crash begged. “They're gnawing my skin off.”

“Sure,” Nate said. “But we need a way to push people back. Anything that keeps the Curve from kicking in.”

“I'll try,” Crash said.

“Anon, get in there and separate those two.” Nate's voice was full of Glorious Leader confidence. “If we can stop them from locking eyes, maybe Glitch won't do her thing.”

“You got it.” Thibault squeezed Flicker's hand, then slipped away. She felt his absence with a momentary pang, then shook off the feeling and threw herself into Coin's eyes.

He was climbing now, hoisting himself up onto the lowest arm of the fountain. The money in his free hand was fully formed. No presidents after all, just a solid stack of Benjamin Franklins staring up at Flicker.

“He's going with hundreds.” As Flicker spoke, Coin flung a plume of money high into the air.

She pulled back, putting her vision into the galaxy of eyes already watching—and moving in.

“Oh, shit.”

“Relax,” Crash said from beside her. “I got this.”

FOR CHIZARA, A SHOPPING MALL
decked out in full Christmas bling was torture.

It was like carrying a vast, intricate, burning-hot jungle gym on her shoulders, with added angry-bee clouds of Christmas lights. It was hard to think straight, to home in and find the right pain among millions.