Swarm (4 page)

Who was right up close, bouncing in front of Kelsie. Getting out her phone again, taking photos. She held it up and started a panorama of Kelsie on the decks, Chizara in the lighting box, documenting all the Dish's operations.

Chizara sent her Crash brain into the phone. The minuscule maze of electronics lit up, so pretty and fine compared to the brute gears and tungsten flares of spotlights. Where was the action happening? Where were the sounds and images flowing into the memory?

Ah, there. Like babies in a nursery, all in a row. Waiting to upload to the cloud as soon as the phone escaped the confines of the Faraday cage.

Crash applied the burning needle tip of her power, turning the phone into a sparkly brick.

But as her mind slipped back into the good-times vibe Kelsie was sending out, Chizara felt a little jolt, a hiccup . . . something she didn't like.

She looked down at her hands. They hovered over a board full of switches and sliders. The labels—
RB1, VNSP SET
—suddenly made no sense whatever, even if they were in her own neat handwriting.

She was supposed to be in control of all this. But—

She sent her mind through the circuitry, but it was like a map of an alien city, meaningless, lit with random pulses. She should know her way around this stuff. Hadn't she
built
it? But now it meant nothing. She knew nothing.

She froze in panic. The alien city stretched out in front of her, surging, quaking. Nothing connected. What was it all for? What was
she
for? Her heart raced faster than the music's pounding. Lights zigzagged in automatic patterns, gleaming
on the mesh and the scarred-plaster walls of the Dish. She was supposed to rule those lights, not let them wander—she was supposed to take hold and move them.

But she didn't—

But they weren't—

Then the familiar logic of the systems drifted back into place, and they were suddenly what they should be, what they'd always been—the cables streaming power, the thousands of feet of wire fanning in and out of the two glowing hubs of music and light that she and Kelsie commanded. Whatever glitch of her brain had taken them away from her had gently handed them back.

Sweat broke out cold all over her, and a breath shuddered into her throat.

What the
hell
had just happened?

THE SPOTLIGHTS STILLED A MOMENT
, and Thibault looked up.

Chizara stood stiffly, her hands like snatched-back claws, as if she'd just gotten a shock from the lighting board. Her attention was snapped ropes of light, flailing around her head.

Thibault dropped from his bar stool, ready to run and help her.

But then she lowered her hands to the sliders again. Her attention reattached to Kelsie, to the crowd, to her job. The spots restarted their jagged dance across raised arms and faces.

Thibault sat back, still watching her.

As Kelsie smashed through to a new track, Chizara followed flawlessly, her lights a roving counterpoint to the beat. Everything back in its place.

It was a pleasure to watch those two rocking the crowd, to see the connections divide endlessly across the dance floor, a stable cloud of diffuse light over everyone, no single strands lasering between individuals. They were one big multibodied animal, one mind, one heart, everyone lost in the music and the movement, no one resisting, or making a move on anyone, or breaking out and making trouble.

At times like this, Thibault's power almost felt like a gift. Maybe he could never join that web of connections, but he could
see
them like nobody else in the world—except Nate, of course.

And being on the sidelines wasn't all bad. Crowds were like clouds of smoke—it was easier to understand their shape from the outside. He could see things as they truly were here, not be swept up in Kelsie's dance euphoria.

Someone had to stay free of her grip, to intervene if needed. Thibault was the club's secret bouncer. If Craig was the battleship, he was the stealth fighter.

Flicker was behind the bar, moving confidently in the familiar space. Tonight she wore a zebra-striped dress, easy to spot through anyone's eyes she happened to borrow.

She was busy stacking cans under the counter. The Dish had only one ancient refrigerator, and by design the cold beer always ran out early. As Nate said, a sober crowd was better for practicing their powers on.

This crowd was younger than usual, everyone out of school
on the last Saturday before Christmas. Thibault recognized a lot of faces, though. He'd made an effort to memorize the regulars. He wanted to know this place as well as he'd known his last home, the Hotel Magnifique.

A girl caught his eye, swaying through the crowd, her hair dramatic white and magenta. Seriously? Sonia Sonic? Why had Nate let her in, when she was practically stalking the Zeroes?

Ethan was trailing after her. Okay, Nate must have told him to keep an eye on her.

“You thirsty?”

Flicker handed a bottle of water across the bar, fully aware of him even with all these people around. Amazing.

It was icy in his hand. The last cold one, no doubt.

“Thanks.”

She dipped her head at him. “Let's see if I can hold on to you when people start lining up.”

“No big deal if you can't.”

“Oh, but I will.” She ran a finger down the inside of her left arm. Earlier, upstairs in his room, he'd moved his lips slowly along that same line, making her shiver. Breathing her in. And she hadn't forgotten it.

Damn it, why did the Dish have to be open tonight?

Even after half a year, it astounded Thibault that he had a girlfriend, someone who remembered his name and what kind of coffee he drank. Someone he'd happily wear this ridiculous red leather jacket for, just so she could spot him
more easily in a crowd. She even quoted Zen koans at him sometimes.

Like whispering,
Attachment leads to suffering,
with her lips next to his ear, her hands on his skin. Right now Thibault was fine with being attached, to this girl and this place and these people. He had a home, upstairs in the old theater office. No more ripping off hotels. He even had a roommate, Kelsie, who wasn't completely surprised when she ran into him making breakfast in the mornings.

For the first time, he was part of something—this group experiment where the Zeroes could hone their skills without breaking police stations and hurting people.

“This is a pretty tight set,” Flicker said.

Thibault nodded. “Mob gets better every time.”

Beyond the haze of crowd connections, Kelsie was a tiny figure with giant headphones clamped around her blond curls. She danced in her skintight silver dress, lining up the next track. She'd wound up the crowd pretty high—shiny faces and open mouths. Maybe she should ease up some?

Right on cue she switched to a gentler track. Thibault grinned. The first time the Dish had opened, she'd exhausted everyone in the first hour. But she was learning.

Released from her thrall, the crowd's awareness flickered about like bugs' antennae, brightening as people greeted friends or eyed alluring strangers. Some drifted toward the bar, eager for the cold beer while it lasted.

Flicker's awareness of him faded, but it would come back.

Thibault slid off the bar stool, watching the dance floor empty. Sonia Sonic was standing in the center, looking around at the unused stage of the old theater, the box seats full of Chizara's lights, the rickety stairway. Checking
everything
out.

Was Nate really okay with this?

Sonia took out her phone, held it up, then frowned.

A flickering beam of attention arced toward her. Chizara, half smiling in the lighting box. No, not Chizara—Crash.

Thibault joined in the smile.

“What do you mean, only beer?” someone bellowed nearby. “My girl wants champagne!”

Thibault turned. A tall, skinny guy leaned at Flicker across the bar. The nearer half of his head was shaved, and the girl beside him was all makeup, boots, and frilly skirt, her hands on her hips. Their attention was like two shining pickaxes sunk into Flicker's face.

How had Thibault not noticed these two before? They had trouble written all over them.

“Sorry,” Flicker said cheerfully, sight lines multiplying as the guy's voice drew everyone's attention. “It's five-dollar beer or a buck for water. And we're not even legal for beer, really.”

The girl looked super bored. The guy shrugged and reached into his jacket and pulled out cash—a
wad
of it, like something out of a comic book. Thibault hadn't seen that many bills since
the summer, when Scam had stumbled into Nate's place with Craig's duffel bag of drug takings.

The guy dumped the cash on the bar and strolled the length of it, drawing the bills out in a line like a card dealer spreading a deck. Then he grabbed his girlfriend's hand and pulled her back through the crowd. “Come drink your five-dollar beer, bitches!” he called out. “We're gonna dance!”

The bar crowd changed in a microsecond. Attention flashed thick on the bills; hands grabbed and people surged forward. Flicker stepped back, looking dazed.

The crowd had been one big magical beast on the dance floor, built with all Mob's care and skill. Now it fragmented into a hot mess of individuals, needy and clamoring. A koan tolled in Thibault's head:
Even a shower of money is no satisfaction.

See? The money was already gone. People started calling for beers and water and snacks, the bright lines of their attention stabbing at Flicker. A guy pushed past Thibault, straightening a little stack of bills and aiming for the door.

“Okay, that is not cool,” Thibault said, going after him. The cashed-up guy might have been an asshole, but this was an out-and-out thief.

He reached the guy just as he was shoving the cash into his jacket pocket. Chizara was playing the UV light across the room, and the security strips flashed at Thibault like the bills were signaling for rescue.

He rescued them, right out of the guy's hand.

The thief swung around. Thibault chopped away his attention before it had time to land on him. The guy's outraged look turned to bewilderment.

“Who the—?” He checked his empty pocket, scanned the crowd.

Stashing the money in his own pocket, Thibault cut away through the dancers to find a jostle-free place to stand against the wall.

The rich guy and his girlfriend were in the middle of the dance floor. They stood face-to-face, holding hands, gazing into each other's eyes.

Thibault's breath caught—the bright bar of attention in the air between them was so raw and intense. They were the center of each other's universe. But it wasn't what he had with Flicker—this was something stronger, darker. He felt a quiver of fear.

Kelsie cross-faded into a new, stronger beat, like she was responding to the sudden passion on the dance floor. People cheered, and connections started to melt together as they fell in with the rhythm, the crowd beast reforming.

Good. Maybe these two could repair the damage they'd done by throwing their money around. People were already spilling back onto the floor, whirling to the irresistible music. Thibault found himself bobbing his head in time.

Chizara took the lights down, following Kelsie's lead. Now
it was almost black inside the Dish, except for teeth and white T-shirts throwing back the UV light, and a few spotlights slithering over the crowd—

Then one more shaft of light as the couple began to slowly spin, and their ultrabright connection scythed out, slicing through the room, a fiery blade.

This wasn't just love.

These two were Zeroes.

The beam of their connection struck Thibault, and he stumbled, all meaning draining from the world.

THIS WAS THE PART KELSIE
liked the best—when the crowd
really
started dancing.