Zeroes

  But everything that could hurt her had been annihilated. A nanotornado had ripped through these intricate, delicate machines, leaving every connection broken. She was ashamed of herself—she’d lost control in a big way.

  But whoa, it had been sweet.

  Chizara’s mental fingers extended to cover the multiple failures she’d caused, every single bee she’d killed. It shouldn’t be too hard to fix, right? It was just a matter of opening her mind to all those tiny, thwarted connections, feeling around the shadowy map of the dead network for its arteries, its nerves, the filaments that poured the power through. If she could just reset that pulse, and push it smoothly back into the tangled microthreads of metal—

  There. With a lurch inside her, the UPS came to life.

  The people at the door jerked back all at once, like a field of grain socked by a gust of wind.

  “What the hell—”

  “Did you do that, Roger?” The boss woman had to speak up to be heard over the winding-up buzz of the UPS.

  “Didn’t touch a thing!”

  A stumpy pain tree lit up inside Chizara, pulsing as it sucked up power from the unharmed backup batteries to push it through the sleeping servers. She could see everything better now, could feel how the tornado had thundered through the room, tearing out so many tiny pieces as it went. As she followed the spreading network of paths, each busted connection she passed unmelted and retethered itself, lighting up another fine channel of pain in her.

  Her skin began to burn and twitch, her temples to throb.

  But Chizara stood still, accepting the punishment, blindly staring down at the clipboard in her unsteady hands. Her teeth sang and her bones shuddered, and a grunt of discomfort sat in her throat. She reached for the next dead server, and the next, and there was another over there. . . .

  “Hell no!” Roger shouted. “Shut it down! Shut it down! Chris! Arnie!”

  Chizara leaned against the wall, her mind flitting through the workings in the servers, lighting tiny torches all the way. No one looked at her; they were all transfixed by the scrambling emergency inside the room.

  “Is it working again?” said one of the suits.

  “Yes! But it’s gotta be done in sequence! We need the network up first, and then the SAN, and only then do you bring up the—shit! How is this happening? ”

  The clipboard fell from Chizara’s trembling hands. She bent to grab for it, and it felt so much better down here near the floor that she stayed crouched, reaching out, feeling the connections divide and multiply, the pain tree extend, a finer, denser net riddling her skin. The guys in the server room crashed around like trapped rats, diving to shut off each new piece of tech as it tried to revive.

  “Thank you,” she breathed to them. It was like they were working with her, helping her manage the clamor, manually controlling her pain.

  And then she reached the end. Not the end of the tree, not the full rebuild. But the place past which she couldn’t push any further. She could see where she needed to go—the next layer of crash points arrayed there all tinily twisted and gummed up. But she didn’t have it in her.

  She tried once more—gritted her teeth as hard as she could and pushed.

  And . . . nothing.

  Chizara stood up again, hugging her clipboard to her. The little crowd was abuzz, shaking heads, shrugging shoulders. But the buzz inside Chizara had died back to the single fat beehive of the UPS. The energy that had flooded into her with the big crash, that had stored itself inside her—was it all gone?

  “Damn it!” she whispered, and turned away from the server room. She walked toward the stairs, trying to look confident, like she belonged. But her spine felt like a wilted stalk of celery, and a trickle of sweat crept down her back.

  She trudged the stairs back up to the first floor. What had happened?

  She’d reached out just like in all her practice runs, and she’d seen what she had to do. But the fixing power had deserted her. She could feel the space where it should be, dry and empty.

  All she had left was the nagging of the other revived systems—crash us, crash us!—like always.

  It was so tempting to recharge herself. She had to get out of the building.

  Crossing the reception lobby, Chizara kept her head high and her posture professional. An officer coming in held the door open for her with a smile, and she smiled back, stepped out, and took a deep breath of the fresh summer air.

  Okay, at least she’d fixed something before her juice ran out. Demons never fixed things, did they?

  She took long strides on the sidewalk, her heels clicking. Her new power might have abandoned her, but working it had left a nice buzz behind.

  Then her phone rattled in her jacket pocket, sending a charge of hard, itchy pain into her side. She smothered a gasp, snatched it out, and glared at it.

  Glorious Leader. “What is it, Nate?”

  “You hungry?”

  “Why do you care?”

  He laughed, and she winced at the noisy buzz of it. “I just thought you might need a bite after your morning’s work. You’re at the police station, right?”

  She made herself keep walking. Nate was always trying to psych her out with his guesses.

  “I’m busy,” she said. Maybe after a long, rejuvenating walk, the fixing power would come back.

  “But you gotta eat, right? Getting a whole police station up and running, that has to take it out of you. I’m over in the park. Scored a bench in the Sundial Garden. It’s a beautiful day and I got you a sandwich at the Kosher Deli.”

  Chizara narrowed her eyes at the people lolling on the grass across the street, all smiling, laughing, clapping each other’s shoulders. She examined the lift in her own heart, and saw it for the fake it was. This was all Nate-generated euphoria—he was sitting in the park, spreading out a cloud of goodwill to pull her in.

  But she was hungry. Ravenous, in fact. Fixing that server room had hollowed her out like a gourd.

  “Okay,” she said weakly. “I’m on my way.”

  She switched Glorious Leader off and put him in her pocket. Hadn’t she already told him to leave her alone?

  Sure, it was impressive how he’d read her so right, worked out where she was and what she was doing—all that attention focused on her. But it was also kind of creepy. With anyone other than Nate it’d be downright stalkerish.

  But Nate wasn’t a creep, just a guy with an Ultimate Goal that he wanted everyone to fall in line with. Which you’re not going to do, Chizara, she reminded herself as she crossed the street toward the park—at the same time as some childish, easily charmed part of her was thinking, He bought me a sandwich!

  CHAPTER 59

  CRASH

  THE SUNDIAL GARDEN WAS BRIGHT and busy with Nate-cheered people. He was at the center, arms spread along the back of the bench, grinning his champagne grin. Two soda cans sat in the shade of a Kosher Deli sack next to him.

  Chizara felt her heart try to lift, her mouth try to smile. But she looked straight into Nate’s eyes, poker-faced.

  He beamed back at her. “Did it work?”

  “Did what work?” She sat down on the edge of the bench, trying to tear her gaze from the sack.

  Nate opened it and passed her a wrapped sandwich. “Your new power. Did you fix everything you broke?”

  Chizara pulled open the paper and took a big, beefy bite, too big to talk around. She covered her mouth, watching him as she chewed and swallowed. He was hoping she’d fixed it all, as if that meant everything was okay and she could come back to the group. As if she didn’t have Officer Bright on her conscience, whom no amount of uncrashing would fix.

  “Maybe ten percent of what I destroyed,” she finally said. “But then it ran out and I couldn’t fix any more. I guess I’m back to breaking things now.”

  “Ran out?” Nate looked more intrigued than sympathetic. “You had a new power and then you lost it?”

  She lowered the sandwich half to her knees. Her first swallow
was going down slowly—she hadn’t chewed it well enough. Too hungry.

  “I think I need to crash something else before I’ll get it back. Like it was an afterglow of wrecking the police station. But it faded.”

  She was glad she wasn’t saying this to Ethan. His voice would find her use of “afterglow” hilarious. But Nate would get it. He understood how much she wanted her power to be different. Better.

  “You don’t have to guess,” he said, his eyes locked steady on hers. “We can help you figure it out.”

  Around them the picnicking people grew silent, almost serious.

  “I can see what you’re doing, Nate,” she said. “I can tell the difference between my own feelings and the ones you want me to feel.”

  He shrugged and laughed, and the pressure eased.

  “A guy can try, can’t he?”

  “Not if the guy wants me to trust him. You want me back in the Zeroes? It’ll take more than a sandwich and a few Bellwether tricks.”

  Nate waved her accusation away, unwrapped his own sandwich. “I have some good news for you—I found another Zero.”

  “Are you serious?” Chizara kept her voice neutral, waiting to see what she really felt about this, in her deepest, most Nate-proof heart. And she took a second bite. She could forgive Nate a lot if he would just let her eat.

  What if all it took to get her fixing power back was a few hundred calories?

  “Last night,” he said, “during the mission I called you about. Something weird happened.”

  Chizara stared at him, remembering that panicked call. Someone wants to beat up Ethan! Like that was news.

  “So those goons didn’t catch Scam? Otherwise you would have started with that.”

  “Yeah, he just called me.” Another wave of his hand. “But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. It all went down on Ivy Street last night. Ethan was running from the guys he stole that duffel bag from, and there was this girl helping him. The bad guys were closing in, and this girl did something with the crowd. She pushed it into a frenzy to help Ethan get away.” Nate’s eyes were wide, his sandwich forgotten. “You should’ve seen it.”

  A pulse of horror went through Chizara. “You mean she’s like you?”

  Two Glorious Leaders? Just. No.

  But Nate was shaking his head. “It was different. She didn’t focus them on herself. She didn’t lead them; she brought them together and made some kind of organism. Something that had its own agenda.”

  Chizara didn’t know what to make of this. Creating a crowd organism and setting it loose didn’t sound responsible, exactly. “And what did this thing want to do?”

  “Just pick up money, at first. And then it pretty much decided . . . to dance.” Nate smiled, like he wanted to jump up and show his own moves on the grass right now.

  Chizara glowered at him, fighting the mood that flooded into her like the sunshine, amplified by the picnicking Sunday crowds.

  “Well, it’s good you found someone,” she said carefully. “You’ve got a replacement for me already.”

  “No, don’t you see? There are six of us now!”

  “Uh, five. Oh right, but there’s that other guy.” She snapped her fingers, trying to remember his name.

  “Anonymous. And with six of us, we’re a crowd all on our own. A self-contained Curve! We won’t need anyone else around to get stuff done.”

  Slowly she raised her eyes. Nate was aglow with excitement and certainty. Beyond him a dozen people’s faces floated out of focus, smiling too, each a sunflower following the sun. She felt the pressure of his warmth, his pleasure; it would be so easy to cave in. Great! So what’ll we do, now that we’re a complete team?

  Except that was the problem. Once they were a crowd on their own, the Zeroes would fall in line behind Glorious Leader. Nate’s spell would be just that crucial little bit stronger—who’d be able to resist him?

  Chizara worked a strand of beef free of her teeth with her tongue. Part of her wanted to do the wise thing and run away right now. But she also wondered, who was this new girl?

  Was she another Nate, all big dreams and personal magnetism? Would she lock horns with him over who should be the most glorious Glorious Leader?

  Or would this girl fall for his charm as the others all had, and follow him on crazy missions, no matter who wound up getting hurt?

  Now that her hunger was less acute, exhaustion was crashing down on Chizara. Using her power had sucked everything from her body, not just the crash buzz left over from two days ago. She folded the wax paper over the bitten end of her sandwich, placed it neatly in the sack between them.

  “You can meet her tonight,” Nate said. “When Ethan called, he said she wants to meet us. Zeroes meeting at six o’clock, then dinner.”

  Chizara wanted to turn away, but she managed to summon the strength to meet Nate’s gaze again, resisting the full force of his charm on her psyche.

  “Just come and meet her,” he said.

  “There are five of you, Nate,” Chizara said softly. “With this new person, there are five. If you want to be a six-pack, you still have to find one more.”

  She had time to see his face fall before she stood up and walked away. For a few seconds it was like wading through oncoming water, all the attention, all the woeful looks on everyone’s faces.

  But then Nate relaxed his hold on the crowd, and they became themselves again, their separate groups, their own unhindered, unexaggerated personalities. They didn’t care who she was anymore as she stalked across the Sundial Garden to the gate.

  Nate had let her go without a fight. He knew, as she knew, that she’d be too curious about this new power to sit at home while the rest of them got together.

  And more important than mere curiosity, Chizara needed to warn this new girl that no power came without a cost.

  CHAPTER 60

  ANONYMOUS

  WHEN THIBAULT AND FLICKER ROUNDED the corner, the Hotel Magnifique towered ahead. For the first time ever, the sight made Thibault’s heart sink. He’d been an idiot for risking his home to help that little weasel Scam.

  Best friends, right. The guy had probably forgotten all about him by now.

  He was glad for Flicker’s arm hooked through his, her sight lines pinging from strangers on the street to keep him in view. Otherwise he couldn’t face this.

  At the main doors of the hotel Tom Creasy greeted them with a professional smile. Thibault might be in yesterday’s crumpled shirt, but at least he had shoes on, lifted from Sack’s Shoe Barn next door.

  Inside, staff were coming and going behind the reservation desk. Thibault had timed this perfectly for the shift change. He slipped in, taking a blank key card from the drawer and waking up a computer.

  “You know how all this works?” Flicker asked, leaning against the desk in front of him like a guest.

  “Three years of practice,” Thibault said glumly. He typed in Katie Chirico’s ID and password, hit enter, and gave a little grunt of surprise.

  “What’s up?” Flicker asked.

  “Changed her password. I’ll try someone else’s.”

  Flicker looked thoughtful, then drifted away down the long desk, the tendrils of her listening settling over the assembled staff.

  Thibault decided to go straight to the top, trying the hotel manager’s login.

  This account has been suspended. Please consult the Personnel Manager.

  Suspended? Charlie Penka’s account? That made no sense. He retyped the crazy Czech password.

  This account has been suspended.

  “What the hell?”

  “Are you hearing this?” Flicker was back, nodding at a gathering of staff at the other end of the desk. “Everyone’s supposed to change their passwords.”

  Thibault looked. The staff were tautly wired together with bright connections; something big was up. The news about changing passwords had just reached the afternoon shift.

  But maybe the graveyard shift didn’t know yet? If he used one of th
eir logins . . .

  There, he was in. He rattled in the details and dipped the card.

  “Also,” Flicker said quietly, “does ‘penthouse two’ ring any bells?”

  Thibault groaned. “Yep.”

  “Some guys are working up there,” she said. “From Vaneddi’s?”

  “Fanetti’s. They’re industrial cleaners. Not a good sign.” Thibault logged off and walked out from behind the desk.

  He led Flicker across the lobby so fast that a few barbs of notice stuck to them, which Thibault swiped away. The elevator took forever to come, then stopped for no apparent reason at the seventh-floor café while he quietly seethed.

  Finally they reached the penthouse level. A cleaning cart was parked outside his old suite, full of mops and steam vacuums and bottles of bleach. The door was propped open, and Thibault leaned forward and looked in.

  The coffee table was in splinters, the TV cracked. Shards of glass littered the floor.

  After three years of chopping the wood and carrying the water, of his trying so hard to keep this room looking vacant, the dismal sight was a punch in the gut. It was almost impressive, how much damage Craig’s thugs had done in the minutes before they’d followed him and Scam and Kelsie out into the night.

  And he had to admit, Kelsie had really saved them from a serious beatdown. If he ever saw her again, he’d apologize for doubting her.

  One of the guys in coveralls looked up from scrubbing the carpet. His gaze slipped from Thibault to Flicker.

  “Did something happen last night?” she asked. “We’re in the other penthouse, and we heard some noise.”

  He took in her dark glasses and cane, decided she was harmless. “Bunch of kids got in. Been living here awhile, by the look of it. Clothes and video games and stuff.”

  Thibault walked in past her, chopping away any interest from the Fanetti’s guys. His clothes were in a pile, torn and glittering with broken glass. His books ripped in half, with the tattered copy of Zen for Beginners in a dozen pieces, as if the goons had given it special attention.