Nexus

Thibault stared at her. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you five don’t have anything new! Well, except maybe that kid in the bank video. His mind control, or whatever it is, is amazing.’

  ‘Um. You think Ethan’s amazing?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I bet Piper wants him bad.’

  ‘OUCH.’

  Ethan poked at the bruise on his head. It hurt. He totally blamed Flicker for this. Who the hell crashed a truck on purpose?

  To be fair, Ethan had done the actual crashing. But he’d just been following orders!

  And really, it all came back to Nate and his stupid idea to rescue Verity. Like the Cambria Five didn’t have enough problems without getting mixed up in the apocalypse?

  He went into the bathroom and flipped on the lights, giving himself instant retina burn. Who needed a bathroom this bright? It made his eyes ache.

  Or maybe that was a symptom of his brain swelling up, pushing against the insides of his skull.

  Searching ‘brain injury’ had been a bad idea.

  He started rummaging around in the bathroom cabinet. There had to be something for his head. He found a small white bottle and squinted at it. The letters danced in front of his eyes.

  Yeah, that seemed to say aspirin.

  He wrestled with the childproof lid for what felt like forever. Squeezed and pushed until the bottle spun out of his hands. A rain of white pills scattered across the floor.

  ‘Crap!’

  He bent to retrieve a couple, washed them down with tap water from his hand. It wasn’t only his head that was throbbing. He ached everywhere, and his clothes smelled like flop sweat, but he didn’t have the energy to shower.

  He lay down on the floor and rested his forehead on the cool tiles. Maybe he really did need a hospital. Or some of his mom’s chicken soup. Which was a weird thought, because his mom didn’t make soup.

  Maybe he just needed his mom.

  His phone went off, echoing in his skull. No doubt Flicker with orders for him to crash some new vehicle into a wall.

  ‘What?’ Ethan croaked.

  ‘Put me through to Mr. Barrow, please,’ a woman said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘This is Mrs. Lavoir,’ the woman said. ‘I live next door to the Barrows. I have something important to tell him.’

  Too late, Ethan remembered the Barrows lived here, in the house the Zeroes had squatted. Crap, she must’ve seen them all staggering home in the dark. Probably thought they’d been drinking, especially the guy in the middle they’d practically had to carry.

  But how did she have this number?

  Right. Every time they all got new burners, Anon went over and wrote Ethan’s number by Mrs. Lavoir’s phone. That guy had way too much time on his hands.

  But it had paid off. Maybe if he said the right thing, he could delay her until tomorrow, when the world was going to end anyway.

  Too bad the voice didn’t work on the phone.

  Ethan gathered himself, trying to sound official. ‘Yes, you have reached the correct establishment. Unfortunately, Mr. Barrow isn’t here at this time. May I take a message for him?’

  As he spoke, he got up gingerly and crawled out of the bathroom. Aspirins crunched under his knees.

  ‘Tell him there’s been some suspicious activity at his home,’ Mrs. Lavoir said. ‘I’m going to call the police.’

  Ethan’s heart flipped inside out. ‘Yes, I see. But I’m sure the police are only interested if there’s been damage to the property.’

  ‘They’ve stepped on the flower beds!’ Mrs. Lavoir exclaimed.

  ‘No we didn’t!’ Ethan started – not his smoothest move. But luckily Mrs. Lavoir was still talking.

  ‘There’s five of them. Sneaking through the kitchen door right now, like they’re about to play some prank! I can see them through the windows.’

  Ethan sat up straight. ‘What?’

  ‘They’re wearing masks,’ Mrs. Lavoir said. ‘They’re clearly—’

  Ethan spun. A creaking sound came from the staircase.

  ‘I’m sure it’s okay!’ he squeaked. ‘But I’ll have Mr. Barrow call you back!’

  He stabbed at the phone to cut off Mrs. Lavoir and darted toward the nearest open bedroom door. A shadow detached itself from the staircase and hurtled toward him.

  Ethan slammed the door shut and locked it, backed away from the thump. He looked down at the phone. Flicker’s number was one of the five programmed into it, but he hadn’t bothered to label them.

  Click.

  He looked up in horror. The door was unlocking, right in front of his eyes, just like when…

  ‘Chizara?’ he asked hopefully.

  No answer. The door was easing open now.

  Come on, voice, get me out of this! Anything that will scare them away!

  But the voice was silent.

  Whoever it was, the voice knew that nothing would scare them away.

  CHIZARA STARED AT THE MESH-COVERED WALLS OF HER CELL.

  It didn’t make sense.

  She was full of Crash power, full of fixing juice, her mind still spinning from everything the black box had hit her with, her body singing, dancing, laughing with it.

  And yet everything was quiet. No sound, heartbeats, brain pulses, not even the roar of the city around her.

  Total silence.

  Her fingertips brushed the wall, feeling the ripple of the hexagonal metal lattice beneath the paint.

  Here it was at last: power shielding.

  It was like a Faraday cage on steroids. She threw her power at the wall just to feel how it dropped out, how the pattern deadened it. It was like shouting at a soundproof wall.

  How strange. This silence was the thing she’d always craved in the middle of a blaring city. To lose her power. To live in a world empty of electronics. But this was getting weird.

  She snapped her fingers, just to hear something.

  The euphoria from the black-box blast was fading, her mind putting itself back together. And with it came a slow and anxious realization…

  Normal people lived in this dead world all day, every day. Was this really what it was like for Mom and Dad, for Ik and Bin? What a freak she must have seemed to them, distracted by every phone, every laptop.

  But she didn’t feel normal in here. She felt neutralized, reduced, ordinary. Unable to sense the world, unable to find anything to grasp, to control. She barely felt alive.

  The only tickles she could sense were the bare lightbulb overhead and the hums of her own body. The whir of her nervous system, the spark of her brain, her muscles as loud as revving motorcycles against the backdrop of this deathly silence.

  She wondered if she could slow her own heart, quiet her own mind, become one with the silence. If they left her in here long enough, it might become a temptation. To crash her own heart, maybe.

  Chizara sat up. Get your head on straight.

  Door, walls, ceiling, floor – every surface was textured with the power-shielding mesh. There had to be a chink in this armor. Some tiny gap her power could worm its way through.

  What had her old boss in the fix-it shop, Bob, always said?

  Everything has a favorite way to get broken.

  Just the thought of all those busted radios, TVs, laptops, and toasters made her feel better. Like she had a chance. She could break this cage, find its weakness – or at least distract herself from approaching panic.

  Bob had always been so calm, so methodical, always making her check her work. The Makers who’d built this cage were geniuses – they had flair, ingenuity, their own glorious leader. But did they have anyone like Bob in their lives?

  Maybe one of them, at some crucial juncture, hadn’t checked their work.

  Was there any leakage in the cell? She strained to hear past her pulse. It might be tiny. The smallest of oversights. Hope could come in a minuscule package.

  Look at the seams; check every corner. Get in close and listen hard.

  Ten minutes later she hadn?
??t found a single flaw, when a thump came from outside.

  Chizara could sense nothing of the lock’s workings, but she heard it click. She stepped back, ready to fight.

  The door swung open.

  Outside was – no one. Just the distant roar of signals from the city.

  ‘Hello?’ she said softly.

  Two people took shape out of nothingness. A boy and a girl, vague forms that tugged at her memories…

  The girl’s name played on her lips. ‘Verity?’

  Chizara looked past them. Was Nate here? Had all the Zeroes arrived to rescue her?

  But the two pushed their way in and shut the door behind them.

  ‘Quiet!’ Verity hissed, leaning back against the wall, breathless. ‘We sent your guard away, but she might come back.’

  ‘She won’t,’ the boy said. ‘Being in the Nowhere scares them too much.’

  Chizara stared at him, and suddenly she could remember everything: Thibault Durant – the sixth member of the Cambria Five. The Zen Boy who’d killed Quinton Wallace. He needed to be tracked, because the redwoods still called to him. He belonged with Flicker forever, but he didn’t quite know it yet.

  Shutting the power-shielded cell had snapped away all of his anonymity. She finally knew him.

  ‘Thanks for coming for me,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t thank us yet,’ he said. ‘We’ve still got to find Nate. But at least we’ve got you to bust him out. The locks around here are seriously high-tech.’

  ‘You’re telling me?’ she said.

  Thibault smiled and opened the door again.

  Signals piled in on Chizara like a litter of puppies, a noisy but welcome assault. After hours in silence, she felt ready to take this whole building apart.

  But as she led the others out the door, the hallway shifted, slanted. The right angles of walls and floor and doors all went wrong – even the roar of the distant city shrieked, discordant.

  Chizara dropped to one knee, both hands on the floor for support.

  Laughter. She looked up.

  About twenty people were coming at her, led by a girl in leather. A girl she should know. A girl she should be afraid of.

  ‘Talk about bad timing!’ Glitch said, laughing. ‘Get them back inside.’

  Chizara felt herself dragged back into the awful cell, her brain glitched, her hope shattered. But she tried to hold on, to keep thinking and understanding.

  She heard Glitch’s voice again.

  ‘We don’t have time to set up more cells. Throw them all in there. Ethan Cooper, too!’

  ‘IT’S NEARLY DAYLIGHT,’ FLICKER SAID. ‘WE DON’T HAVE MUCH TIME.’

  ‘Zoe said he’d be here.’ Kelsie looked up and down the path, shivering in the predawn cool. Flicker slumped on a wrought iron bench under a palm tree, but Kelsie was too nervous to sit still.

  Her mother had left them at the entrance of an aquarium, right on the Mississippi River. As far as Kelsie could tell, there was no one around. She couldn’t stop looking at the sign above the aquarium entry – a shark caught mid-twist, ready to snap up some defenseless fish.

  As they waited, the sky grew lighter, but a chill clung to the air.

  A small group of joggers moved through the dawn, along the edge of the water. She could feel their steady, determined energy.

  But there was also a disquiet in them. Like soldiers approaching a battle.

  ‘The guy in front,’ Flicker said. ‘He’s checking us out.’

  Kelsie squinted in the rosy light. ‘It’s him.’

  Oliver peeled off, waving the other joggers onward. He headed toward Kelsie and Flicker on his own.

  When he got close, he flipped back the hood of his sweatshirt.

  Kelsie moved to greet him. ‘Thanks for meeting us.’

  He wiped his face with the towel around his neck. Without the crowd around him, Oliver’s glow was gone. He suddenly looked young for a Zero.

  ‘You told Zoe the city’s in danger?’ he began.

  ‘Yes. There’s someone with a power. She’s planning to take over Mardi Gras.’

  He considered this. ‘That sounds like my old friend Piper.’

  ‘You know her?’ Flicker got to her feet. ‘Do you know what she’s up to?’

  ‘No, but…Piper is complicated,’ Oliver said. ‘And her bark is worse than her bite.’

  ‘Her bark?’ Kelsie shook her head. ‘She’s stockpiling food and guns.’

  Oliver put his hands in the air. ‘Hold up. You ever met a Charismatic? They invent crazy projects to keep everyone’s attention on them. They don’t always follow through.’

  ‘This isn’t some plea for attention,’ Flicker said. ‘She kidnapped a federal agent. Took our friends!’

  Oliver hesitated. ‘That’s a little extreme, even for her.’

  He stared. Trying to assess them.

  ‘If you don’t believe us, we’ll take you to her headquarters,’ Kelsie pleaded. ‘Take a look at what she’s up to. With your power you can make her see how dangerous it is.’

  Oliver shifted his weight awkwardly. ‘Is that how you think this works? You think I force clarity on people?’

  Kelsie shook her head. She hadn’t thought of it as using force – his power was recognition, not intimidation.

  Flicker spoke up. ‘All we want is to help Piper see the error of her ways.’

  ‘She knows how to find me,’ Oliver said. ‘If she wants my counsel, she can come and get it. We don’t always agree, but there’s one thing we all believe – me, Piper, Verity, Beau, and…’

  He frowned. Kelsie knew that look. He was trying to place someone who’d gone missing from his mind.

  ‘You had a Stalker,’ Flicker prompted. ‘One of us met her.’

  Oliver’s expression cleared. ‘Right – my girl Rien. There were five of us in those days. We made a pact, to use our powers only for good.’

  ‘But Verity joined the feds,’ Flicker said. ‘She hunts us now. And Piper’s got some plan that involves a private army and a stack of guns! So maybe you guys have different ideas about what good means.’

  He shrugged. ‘That’s the way the world’s always worked. All my power does is let people see what they already know – what they already feel in their bones, right or wrong. Clarity won’t change the fact that Piper is a Charismatic.’

  ‘Not all Charismatics are the same,’ Flicker said. ‘We have one too. He made us rehearse rescue missions in malls. That’s a little different from blowing up Mardi Gras, don’t you think?’

  ‘And you must know that your power changes people,’ Kelsie said. ‘Otherwise, why would you bother with the Clarity Circle?’

  He looked straight at her. ‘Did it change the way you feel about Zoe?’

  Kelsie felt her heart wrench. For that one moment in the crowded church, forgiveness had been easy. But earlier, facing Zoe without Oliver there, all the pain had welled up again.

  ‘So your power’s just a con?’

  ‘No, it’s not a con. But it’s also not an instant cure. People come back to the Clarity Circle for months. Years.’

  ‘We don’t have that long,’ Flicker said.

  ‘But it did change me,’ Kelsie said quietly. Before yesterday she would never have asked for her mother’s help. That moment of forgiveness had started some process inside her. ‘Maybe Piper just needs a push?’

  Oliver didn’t answer. He looked across the park to where his friends were making their slow loop around the track.

  Maybe he was dependent on his own power to make decisions. Helpless without the Curve.

  So why had he sent them away?

  Then Kelsie realized: ‘You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?’

  He looked at her for a moment. ‘It’s obvious you’re a predator. And you show up at my meeting full of fragile people seeking help? You could have lost control.’

  Kelsie took a step back. ‘At Clarity? I never would—’

  ‘And now you want to use me to get close to Piper? W
hat if you lose it on her? What if you turn into a Swarm?’

  ‘That’s not who I am!’ Kelsie shouted.

  Flicker put a hand on her arm. ‘That’s not helping, Kelsie.’

  Kelsie took a slow breath, trying to rein in her anger. Oliver was staring at her, his suspicions confirmed. She’d lost her temper.

  ‘I’d never hurt anyone,’ she said evenly. ‘I’ve been in this crazy town for four days, and I haven’t even gotten close to turning into a Swarm.’

  ‘Impressive,’ he said. ‘But do you think you can face clarity on that subject, right now?’

  She stared at him, then at the joggers.

  This had all been a setup. A test.

  ‘Okay, I’ll play your game,’ she said. ‘But if I prove to you there’s hope for a baby Swarm like me, then will you agree that Piper could change her mind too?’

  Oliver nodded. He turned and waved at the joggers. They changed course instantly.

  Kelsie felt the Curve build at their approach.

  Oliver looked her in the eye. ‘When you were at the Clarity Circle, you were thinking about your mother. But now I want you to think about yourself. About what might send you down the path that Quinton Wallace took. There’s a hunger inside you. I want you to really think about being a Swarm.’

  Kelsie’s gaze dropped to the path. It felt shameful even entertaining these thoughts. But she had to make him understand. If she could choose not to be a Swarm, then Piper could make a different decision too.

  So could Oliver – he could choose to intervene. To take a stand.

  ‘I’m a good person,’ she said. ‘Not a killer.’

  ‘Being good or bad,’ Oliver answered, ‘that’s not a one-time decision. Just like forgiving someone.’

  She started to answer, but then she felt it – the onset of clarity. That wave of recognition fell on her again, and this time it was awful.

  She saw the hunger inside her, where it had always been. Her anger at having been abandoned.

  She saw her power reaching out for Oliver’s crew, yearning to make them hers. To make them something hungry and dangerous.

  And worst of all, she saw her own repressed memories of the AA meeting – being part of the Swarm, at the righteous center of all that fury, tearing Officer Delgado apart. For those moments she had felt the purest expression of her power, the paragon of her very being.