Swarm

  Ethan froze. “Oh, crap. But it’s not bribery if you just hand over blank paper, right?”

  Nate shrugged. “Questions like that are generally left to a judge and jury.”

  Ethan gawked at him.

  “Just keep your eyes open, Ethan. I’ll look for Glitch and Coin, and you look for those two cops. We need to find out if you’re already screwed.”

  CHAPTER 16

  MOB

  KELSIE USUALLY LIKED HORROR MOVIES.

  She liked the roller coaster of emotions. The queasy anticipation during the credits, the thrill of those first fake scares. Then the building dread as things got serious. Connecting with a good, focused crowd of movie fans was like living inside a story.

  Which was great, depending on the story.

  “It’s not a slasher film, is it?” she asked Chizara. “I hate those.”

  She didn’t need any more challenges to her central nervous system. She was twitchy enough as it was.

  “You’re scared of blood?” Chizara looked over her shoulder at the audience. “Then why are we in the front row?”

  “Because this is where real movie fans sit! People in the back always have other stuff on their mind, like making out and snarking.” Kelsie gave a shudder. “But slasher fans . . . not my favorite crowd.”

  Chizara looked at her with something like pity. Kelsie didn’t like pity. It made her feel small. She’d fought against everyone’s pity when Dad died. Losing him was bad enough.

  “I think it’s more like a thriller,” Chizara said. “And given that it was shot in Cambria, and about half this audience were extras in the movie, we’ll probably all be laughing most of the time.”

  “I’m okay with that.”

  Kelsie could feel a thrum of expectation in the theater. No red carpet outside, only a couple of local reporters, and this “premiere” was in the afternoon, with regular movies showing tonight. It was a very low-budget film, as if any other kind of film would ever be shot in Cambria.

  Still, it was sold out. She’d had to call on her friend Mikey to score the tickets.

  “You think Glitch and her boy toy will really be here?” Chizara asked, twisting in her seat to survey the crowd behind them.

  “Hopefully they’re sleeping off last night’s carnage.” Kelsie wasn’t in the mood for a superpowered throwdown today.

  Alone in her room at the Dish last night, she’d kept reminding herself that there was someone else in the building, even if she couldn’t always remember his name. Plus, a bunch of friends were just a phone call away. She wasn’t on her own, not really.

  Still, she hadn’t slept much.

  The lights dimmed, and Kelsie let herself be buoyed up by the rising anticipation.

  This was the first time she’d been alone with Chizara. Of the other Zeroes, Chizara always seemed to be the most withdrawn, even a little wary of the rest of them. Like she wasn’t sure superpowers were such a good idea.

  Which was the opposite of what Kelsie had thought. Until last night.

  The thing was, she trusted Chizara the most of all of them. Maybe it was because she was so careful with her power. At every step of creating the Dish, she’d worried about safety, and about whether Nate’s “experiments” were going to hurt anyone.

  There was also the connection Kelsie felt when she and Chizara ran the Dish’s music and lights together. The rush of guiding the crowd through its ups and downs, of riding that beast, was shared between them, wordless and intense.

  Kelsie never related to people very well one-on-one. But with Chizara it all happened through the crowd itself.

  It was almost like three kids daring each other into bigger and braver dares—two of the kids were Kelsie and Chizara, and the other was something huge, the sum of all the people on the dance floor. Between them they could turn a room into an oasis of pure dancing bliss.

  “Emergency exit’s right over there,” Chizara said, pointing. “You know, in case Glitch does show, and I have to shut down the lights.”

  “I’ll make sure to stay close to you,” Kelsie said. “But I hope they’ve got better things to do today.”

  Chizara turned around again, searching the faces of the crowd. “I don’t know. Last night looked pretty much like they thought messing with dolls was the best thing ever.”

  Kelsie thought back to the summer, to clambering with Ethan through that building full of drug-fueled highs and lows, her dad wretched in the middle of it. “It’s like addiction. It eats away at people until all the good stuff is gone.”

  Dad had always worried that Kelsie would fall into drugs, but he shouldn’t have. She’d felt how lonely and isolating a life like that could be.

  Besides, if she was feeling low or scared, she only had to find a happy crowd to take her away. That’s why she loved dancing, malls on holidays, school bus trips, and baseball games.

  “Maybe.” Chizara sounded uncertain. “When I crash things with my power . . . sometimes I don’t want to come back from that.”

  “Me too. With dancing.”

  Chizara hesitated. “So, you know how Nate says we should text everyone if we see Glitch and Coin?”

  “Yeah?”

  “We do that,” Chizara said. “Right after we beat them to death.”

  Kelsie almost laughed.

  “Kidding.” Chizara shrugged. “Sort of.”

  “So you don’t think Glitch and Coin are good people who just haven’t seen the light?” Kelsie said, mockingly.

  “Nate’s light? Doubt it.” Chizara grinned. “I think they’re jerks who don’t give a damn about anyone, dolls or otherwise.”

  Kelsie nodded. None of the others had felt how good the crowd had been last night, how ready to pop. But then those two had turned it all into a nightmare.

  For a moment Kelsie let their anger spread out into the expectant crowd. And somewhere a few rows back, someone called out, “Hey, jerk! That’s my seat!”

  Kelsie dragged her rage back in, quashing it as the opening credits started to roll. She took deep breaths until she was back in control.

  Chizara looked at her.

  “Just letting off steam,” Kelsie said.

  “That must be nice,” Chizara said. “When you’re angry, you can make the world angry.”

  “I don’t always let out what I feel.” Not since her dad had died. “I have to be careful.”

  “As long as you don’t let Nate push you around.” Chizara’s voice sank to a whisper as the film began.

  “But pushing people around is his superpower.” Kelsie stifled her laugh.

  Nate could be intimidating. It was good to have Chizara in the group. Someone strong enough to stand up to him.

  Of course, Chizara’s power had forced her to be strong. While they were building the Dish’s Faraday cage, she’d talked about how technology was pins and needles to her. Like having a thousand itches and she couldn’t scratch any of them.

  The movie was a little slow to begin, following some girl on what looked like a normal day—walking her dog, getting money out, shopping. The only scary part was that the camera was stalking the girl, watching from behind bushes, or pulling back out of sight when she turned around.

  “Great. Shaky cam,” Kelsie whispered.

  Chizara’s grin shone in the light from the screen. “Thought you said the front row was awesome!”

  Kelsie didn’t answer. She didn’t mind shaky cam herself, but there were always people in a crowd who got nauseated. Plus, it was jarring seeing the familiar streets of Cambria through the stalker-cam lens.

  “Distract me?” she pleaded in a whisper.

  Chizara leaned closer, her words a breath against Kelsie’s ear. “Okay. What’s up between you and Scam?”

  Kelsie shrugged. “He’s a good guy.”

  “Yeah, sure. If you like pathological liars.”

  Kelsie sighed. She knew most of the Zeroes disliked Ethan. Watching his voice work could be downright unnerving. But she could tell it and the rea
l Ethan apart. They all could. So why freak out about it?

  “I wouldn’t have met any of you guys if it wasn’t for Ethan.”

  “I guess we owe him for that, at least,” Chizara said begrudgingly.

  “He’s not my type, if that’s what you’re asking,” Kelsie said.

  Chizara looked kind of relieved, even as she said, “It’s okay if he is. I mean, I’m not judging. Seriously.”

  Kelsie was about to insist that he wasn’t, but a surge came from the crowd as the movie shifted gear. The stalking camera had gotten closer, moving up behind the girl.

  She felt the crowd’s excitement roll over her. In turn she opened up the feedback loop and gave back some of her own desire to be distracted and entertained. Maybe she and Chizara were supposed to be keeping watch for Glitch and Coin, but Kelsie couldn’t help joining in with the audience. Becoming part of the excitement.

  Then a jolt went through her—it hadn’t come from the crowd, but from deep inside her.

  “Hey,” Chizara said, “isn’t that the Parker-Hamilton in the background?”

  Kelsie stayed silent, hoping it wasn’t.

  “I guess they shot this last summer, before it was demolished.”

  Kelsie couldn’t answer. She remembered her dad tied up, the countdown to the hotel’s demolition ringing in their ears. She’d thought she was going to die there too.

  Chizara was looking at her. “Kelsie?”

  Kelsie gripped the armrests. She felt sick.

  She shut her eyes against the sight of the doomed hotel. But it was too late. The flashbacks had started. Tied up in a car trunk, a bag over her head. Then strapped to a concrete pole on an abandoned floor of the hotel. Her dad nearby, beaten nearly to death. Too far away for her to reach out to him.

  Her dad in the hospital. Her dad dying. Dead. Gone.

  She started to sweat. This sequence played out in her dreams sometimes, but never when she was awake.

  The world began to spin around her. And with it, the theater crowd spun too. Her fear flooded out into the room. The movie soundtrack grew ominous, dragging them all along with it.

  Kelsie opened her eyes, taking deep breaths. Trying to put herself back in the story. The fictional story. The one on the screen, not the one playing over and over in her head.

  This movie was about someone else. A nameless girl on-screen. It wasn’t about Kelsie.

  But then the stalking camera made its move, closing swiftly in a parking lot. A bright, shiny needle went into the girl’s neck. She swooned, and was shoved into the waiting trunk of a car. . . .

  “Oh my God.”

  Panic flooded Kelsie. Her hand shot out and gripped Chizara’s arm.

  She tried to stand, but the shaky darkness of the trunk had swallowed her will. By now the whole crowd was swept up with Kelsie, her fear roaring and rebounding off the movie theater’s walls.

  The nightmares she’d been swallowing for six months came tumbling out.

  CHAPTER 17

  CRASH

  CHIZARA FOUGHT FOR CONTROL.

  Kelsie’s fear spilled over from the next seat, ricocheting around the theater. It was much stronger than the images on the screen—tightening ropes, the villain’s cold-lit face—and the stings of foreboding music.

  The fear made it harder to bear the hundreds of needling phones in the audience behind her, and the knot of itchy pain in the back of her head from the multichannel speaker system. With Mob’s power drenching her, Chizara had to consciously fend off every spike of tech.

  She held Kelsie’s hand tight. On-screen the trunk lid slammed shut, and Chizara felt the thump of Kelsie’s fear in her gut.

  “It’s all right,” she muttered.

  “No.” Kelsie shook her head. “It’s not.”

  In brief scraps of screen light Chizara made out Kelsie’s staring eyes. With each jangle and scrape of the soundtrack more fear was welling out of her.

  But it’s her fear, not mine, Chizara thought, ferociously trying to keep the two separate. Kelsie’s fear of . . .

  Of course. Last summer. Sack over the head, trunk, tied wrists—this was the worst day of Kelsie’s life all over again. This crappy movie had let those bad memories loose. Chizara felt them reaching deep inside her, blotting out her rational mind.

  With a massive effort she twisted from the screen to the audience. People clutched each other, blank-faced and cowering in their seats. A few called out curses, prayers, each other’s names, from mouths square with terror. And the fear kept ratcheting up.

  “You’ve got to control this, Kelsie!” Chizara called out over the noise.

  “How?” Kelsie gasped.

  At least she wasn’t screaming, I can’t! Nate’s training had brought her that far.

  “Look at me, Kelsie!”

  But Kelsie’s eyes were locked in horrible communion with the screen. Above them people were howling now, scrambling along the seat rows. Chizara wanted to howl and scramble too. But if she lost control, she’d crash everything, plunge the theater into absolute blackness, brick every phone, panic everyone so much worse.

  “You’re okay.” She forced the words through gritted teeth, made her terrified self listen. “You can deal with this.”

  Someone tumbled between her and Kelsie, making straight for the exit. Other people followed, jumping the rows, their phones zapping Chizara in the head as they passed.

  Okay, time to deal with this herself.

  She looked up at the beam of light flashing the terror-soaked images on the screen. Her mind followed it back into the projection booth. A tiny bright complex of electronics unspooled those jittery images, syncing them to a dozen rumbling speakers. . . .

  It would be so easy to blot out the whole system in a single swipe.

  Stay calm. Only what’s necessary.

  She didn’t even crash the projector, just doused the bulb. She didn’t blow the whole audio setup, just knocked the optical track sensors offline. Done.

  But it made the theater darker, and the crowd still roared and fought to get away. Chizara found the circuit for the house lighting and sent a surge at it. The lights flickered on for a moment, then popped all at once. Wisps of smoke and tiny showers of glass shards disappeared into darkness.

  Damn. Not enough control. The only light came from the exit signs and people’s phone screens.

  Kelsie’s hand had gone limp. Closed eyes. No expression. Her fear had hunched her down so hard that she’d slid half off her seat, maybe passed out. But the feedback loop was still coursing through her and the crowd.

  She must be caught in a nightmare. Chizara had to get her out of here.

  She slid her arms under Kelsie’s shoulders and knees. The girl was slim, like she burned up everything she ate with dancing.

  Chizara had to force herself toward the front emergency exit. She still saw shadows of images on the screen, a primal aversion lingering behind her eyelids.

  At the exit door she turned and pushed backward against the bar. The heavy door swung out.

  Into daylight.

  A grubby-looking alleyway—but anything was better than the boomeranging fear in the movie theater. Chizara carried Kelsie away, the panic fading into the soft burn of wireless transmissions, normal for downtown Cambria on a Sunday afternoon.

  She looked for a place to put Kelsie down before her knees gave out. As well as wobbling with fear, they ached from the optical and power cables funneling stuff back and forth under the asphalt.

  At the alley’s end was a sidewalk lunch place, closed for the weekend—although an LED sign by its door spelled out O-P-E-N, letter by letter, over and over, with an irritating tickle in Chizara’s brain. Outside the café stood curly iron seats and tables chained to the ground.

  As Chizara carried her in among the chairs, Kelsie began to stir. “What the . . .”

  “Shh, everything’s okay.”

  The seat farthest from the tickling sign could hold two people. Chizara sank onto it and settled Kelsie b
eside her.

  Kelsie swayed, blinking at the curly chairs like she’d landed in a parallel universe.

  “Where are we?”

  “Outside the movie, remember? You passed out.”

  As if to remind her, the distant emergency exit swung open and a few girls sprayed out, mascara streaked down their faces.

  Kelsie watched them intently. “Oh, yeah. The car trunk.”

  Through the whine of receding phones Chizara felt a scatter of fear-drops hit her psyche. Kelsie was shedding panic like a dog shaking off water.

  Chizara put an arm around her. They were both trembling with relief and leftover fear.

  “I never realized,” Chizara finally said, “what you and Scam went through back in July, the Bagrovs kidnapping you. Trying to murder you. I guess I was too busy reveling in my big crash . . .”

  She looked away, feeling again that epic moment when she’d brought the Parker-Hamilton down. It had been pretty amazing. But Kelsie hadn’t even seen it. She’d been in the ambulance, taking her dying dad to the hospital.

  Kelsie fixed her with her big green eyes and sealed Chizara’s hand between both of hers. “You saved me.”

  Chizara smiled. “I don’t think you were in serious danger. You weren’t in the crush.”

  “No,” Kelsie said, her breath going ragged. “Last summer, I mean. In that hotel. You saved all of us, me and Ethan and Nate and—even my dad, for a little while . . .”

  Tears sprang to her eyes and her pale face crumpled. Two tears fell hot onto Chizara’s wrist.

  Kelsie covered her face. Words and tears wormed out between her fingers: “And I never even said thank you!” She was crying too hard to go on.

  Chizara put her arms around Kelsie and pulled her in, resting her chin on Kelsie’s blond curls as the girl sobbed and shook. Sounded like these tears had been a long time coming.

  Chizara held on tight, rocking her. She hadn’t embraced a friend like this since grade school. And it had been a year or so since Ikem had gone from accepting her hugs to acting like they gave him an electric shock. But she was doing the right thing now, holding this girl, she knew it. She’d wait out these tears, her head getting jabbed from that damn sign and her butt aching with the city’s workings.