Zeroes

by Scott Westerfeld

  But far worse, his laptop was gone from its place on the desk. No shards of plastic anywhere, so either the hotel or Craig’s gang had taken it intact.

  “Don’t envy you guys your job today,” Flicker said. Her sight lines were hopping around the room, taking it all in. It filled Thibault with shame for her to see his home looking like a disaster zone.

  “Sorry, ma’am.” The work-crew boss was approaching the door, ready to close it and enforce Fanetti’s famous discretion. “We’ve got work to do.”

  Thibault slipped past just in time. The door closed with a firm click, shutting him out of his home. And he had no idea where to go next.

  “You okay?” Flicker asked, a hand on his shoulder.

  “I’m fine.” His voice was hoarse again. “Those were just things.”

  “Yeah, but they were your things.” Flicker moved closer, leaned against him. “It seemed like a really nice room.”

  He nodded. “It was.”

  “I mean, that view,” she said. “Those workmen couldn’t keep their eyes off it.”

  He should have taken a last look, instead of mourning his broken junk. But yes, the view was gone as well.

  “No one owns the sunset,” he said, and walked toward the elevator.

  * * *

  As they rode down, Thibault asked without much hope, “Did you see a laptop anywhere?”

  “No.” Flicker still stood close. “You can’t go back later? And live there, I mean, after they clean it all up?”

  He shook his head. “Not if Charlie Penka’s account is suspended. The hotel knows someone was hacking the system. They’ll redo their security. Start over from scratch.”

  Just like he was going to have to do.

  Flicker’s attention filled the elevator like a cloud of scent. “Did you say Charlie Penka? Down at the desk, someone was saying he got fired.”

  Thibault closed his eyes. “Oh, man. I used his account for room service—food for that weasel Scam—and for maintenance supplies. Years of stealing, all of it on Charlie, along with what those thugs did last night.”

  Flicker’s hand on his was soft, careful. “But it was just gossip, Anon. Downstairs, nobody could believe it. They all said no way was he fired.”

  “I know, I know,” groaned Thibault. “Because he’s the greatest boss in the world, and his kids are so cute in that picture on his desk. Everyone loves him.”

  The elevator came to a halt, and the doors slid open. But Thibault didn’t even open his eyes. He should just stay in here, a guilty ghost riding up and down forever. No one would notice.

  All his years of chop the wood, carry the water had been nonsense, hadn’t they? The whole idea that he could take what he wanted without affecting anyone was bullshit. Like Chizara had said a million times, there were always costs.

  The door closed them in again, the elevator waiting on the ground floor.

  “You think the hotel has your laptop?” Flicker asked. “We could try to get it back.”

  “Doesn’t matter. My data’s all backed up and encrypted. But the moment they opened it, they would’ve seen the reservations screen and Charlie’s login.”

  “Yeah, but won’t you need it at whatever hotel you go to next?”

  He barely had strength to shake his head. “And get some other manager fired? I can’t risk that.”

  Flicker leaned closer, and Thibault finally opened his eyes. The smoky tendrils of her attention were all around him. She was working so hard not to lose him, when all he wanted was to disappear. If only she’d tracked him down a week ago, when he’d lived in that magnificent suite, instead of now with all his strategies revealed as vanity and bullshit.

  “I was fooling myself,” he said. “Thinking I could take what I wanted and not hurt anybody. I’m about as Zen as Scam and his voice. Someone else always pays the price.”

  “Maybe you’re being a little hard on yourself.”

  “Hard? Hell, it’s easy for me. I can walk away. But Charlie Penka must be wondering what just hit him.” He shook his head in disgust. “Your sister was right to call me Nothing.”

  “I told you about that?”

  “This morning.” He swallowed his disappointment that Flicker had forgotten. She could hold on to a lot, but not everything. “It’s okay. I call myself the same thing.”

  “But you aren’t nothing.” Flicker’s hand pressed against his chest, like she was trying to make herself believe in him. “I mean, you’re right here.”

  Thibault shrugged. “It’s from a Zen saying: ‘Wisdom tells me I am nothing.’ It reminds me that it’s better not to fight what I am. Fighting it only makes it hurt worse.”

  Like now, the way he was starting to like Flicker. Really like her. Apart from the mind-blowing fact that she was mostly remembering him, she was just so Zen about everything. Without him asking, she’d understood last night that he needed a place to stay, and she’d been totally cool about finding him in her attic this morning.

  And the way she’d tracked his hotel down with those old wabi-sabi photos, that must have taken monklike patience.

  Maybe Flicker’s power made her think differently than most people. She saw the world from so many perspectives, and seeing was half of enlightenment.

  But standing here with her was making him ache for something he couldn’t have. Something that didn’t even make sense, given what he was. He would always disappear in the end, forgotten, no matter how hard she tried.

  As if to mock him, a jaunty tune filled the elevator.

  He turned to Flicker, who’d pulled out her phone.

  “Your ringtone is ‘Hail to the Chief’?”

  “Only for Nate,” she said with a smile.

  The conversation only lasted a moment. Then she pressed the open-door button and pulled Thibault out into the lobby.

  “He’s called a meeting. The sparkly girl is coming in.”

  CHAPTER 61

  CRASH

  “SO YOU GUYS REALLY HAVE powers?” the new girl asked. She was a skinny little thing with blond curls, short shorts, and a shiny top. Despite her party clothes she looked tired, thoughtful, and a little suspicious.

  Suspicious was good, Chizara decided.

  The question was, could this girl withstand Nate’s charisma for more than five minutes? Chizara herself was in the back row of the home theater, arms folded, legs crossed, trying to keep the Curve at bay. Another person in the group did make a difference.

  Maybe six really was a crowd.

  Wait, six? Ethan, Nate, Riley, the new girl, and Chizara herself were five . . .

  Right. That guy sitting next to Riley. Forgettable Handsome Guy. He and Riley were hand in hand, sharing glowing smiles.

  Chizara smiled a little herself. Well, hooking up with the guy was one way to remember him.

  “Yes, all of us have powers,” Nate said. “And they’re all different. But you probably want proof.” He smiled, like he had a presentation all prepared.

  “What I want is help,” said the new girl—Kelsie was her name. “I need to get my dad away from these bad guys.”

  “Really bad guys,” Ethan added. “Russian mobsters.”

  Chizara raised an eyebrow. According to the bank video, Kelsie’s father was the robber who’d held a gun in Ethan’s face. And now Ethan wanted to rescue him?

  That was like very un-Scam-like behavior.

  “What they mostly want is money,” Kelsie said. “A lot.”

  “Money isn’t a problem,” Nate said, and Kelsie’s curious green eyes widened, like she’d never even dreamed those words before.

  When Nate had passed out new phones to replace the ones Chizara had crashed, and given one to Kelsie, too, just to bring her up to the Zeroes’ minimum standards, she’d made the same face. Girl wasn’t used to presents like that.

  But presents were never free. The daughter of a criminal had to know that, right?

  “Of course, paying off kidnappers can be dangerous,” Nate said. “That’s where ou
r powers come in handy.”

  Kelsie sized them all up and still didn’t look impressed. “Any of you have a power that can stop a bullet?”

  Chizara smiled again. She was starting to like this girl.

  “Not quite,” Riley spoke up. “But we can stop it from coming to that. Take a picture of me.”

  Kelsie shook her head. “Do what?”

  “Pull out your new phone and take a picture.” Riley looked smug behind her dark glasses.

  Kelsie’s hand went to her pocket, and she frowned.

  “Looking for this?” came a voice from behind the girl. It was him, Anonymous, the phone in his hand.

  Okay. Six people in the room made him a lot harder to notice.

  “Now type something on it,” Riley said.

  Kelsie took the phone from Anon’s hand, looked at it a little suspiciously, then started texting.

  “ ‘Full house,’ ” Riley said a few seconds later. “ ‘Aces over jacks,’ whatever that means.”

  “Whoa,” the new girl breathed. She let her hand fall. “You read my mind?”

  “Nope. I saw through your eyes.”

  Chizara wondered why Riley was running the meeting, and glanced at Nate, who was scribbling furiously on his notepad.

  Which Flicker could read, of course. Was he telling her what to say?

  Did he always do that?

  Nate looked up at her, as if sensing her attention. “Would you like to go next, Chizara?”

  “What do you want me to crash, Nate? Your fancy theater? Everyone’s new phones?”

  “Maybe this.” He produced a mushroom-shaped object covered with LEDs. It was off, silent, but Chizara hated it on sight.

  “I don’t even know what that—”

  Nate flipped a switch on the mushroom’s side.

  Its howling slapped Chizara back in her seat. It shredded the air and sawed against her skull, pushing to get through and boil the brain inside.

  She fought back in a spasm of self-preservation. Her mind made a big clumsy swipe at the screaming thing.

  All the house’s systems sputtered around her, the smart thermostats and motion-sensitive lights under attack. The theater downlights flickered, and the air ducts moaned like a smoker’s lungs.

  But Chizara scraped together the last fibers of her own will and sent all those plates back into the air, got them spinning again. The lights brightened, the faltering air-con returned to a steady hum.

  Only the hateful mushroom thing stayed dead, its internals blasted. Smoke puffed out its top, and its LEDs gave one last hopeful twinkle and died.

  “Oh my God.” The new girl turned to look at Chizara, her eyes wide.

  Ethan was goggling at her too. “Are you okay?”

  “Nate, that was not cool,” said Riley.

  Panting, Chizara sat forward. “Nate, do you want me to crash your whole house?”

  He winked at her, the jerk. “I knew you’d keep control. It’s a cell-phone jammer.” Nate sniffed at the last wisps of smoke. “Theaters use them to keep phones from ringing in the middle of a play.”

  Chizara shivered, the awful air-shredding screech still ringing in her ears. “Guess I’m not going to a play anytime soon.”

  “So that’s your power?” Kelsie asked. “You zap electronic things?”

  Looking into those wide green eyes, Chizara felt a trickle of sweat slide down her forehead. Good. Let the girl see how it hurt, how hard it was to control. “Noisy ones, yeah. Networked ones.”

  “And she’s starting to be able to fix them too.” Nate’s pride radiated out into the room, a warm soothing wrap around Chizara’s raw nerves.

  She tried to ignore how good it felt. That was just human experimentation, what Nate had done.

  “Cool,” said Kelsie in an awed voice.

  Nate set down the toasted jammer. “So when we pay your dad’s ransom, Flicker can see what’s going on from every angle. Anon can step in if he needs to, out of nowhere, and Crash shuts it all down if things go wrong. We’ll keep those mobsters honest, I promise you.”

  Kelsie nodded, like she believed for the first time that the Zeroes were up to this. “So you guys are a team—like real superheroes. How did you all meet up?”

  “Flicker and I go back a long ways,” Nate said. “I can see people’s awareness in the air. Hers looks . . . different.”

  Riley shone her best little-sister smile straight at him, and Chizara wondered whose eyes she was using.

  “But Thibault brought the rest of us together.” Nate looked a little pained to admit it. “His power makes him a keen observer. He can tell when people don’t fit in.”

  “Sure,” Anon said. “Because leading a hundred bicyclists across town is totally subtle. Right, Nate?”

  “It worked out exactly as I hoped.” Nate focused his smile back on the new girl. “Of course, as Thibault’s power also makes him the wrong choice as a leader, I stepped in.”

  Kelsie’s eyes managed to hold on to Anon for a moment, then slid back to Nate. “I guess you guys weren’t looking on my side of town.”

  “I don’t like nightclubs,” Anon said. “People tend to step on my feet in crowds.”

  “But at least we finally found you,” Nate cut in. “Most of us were there on Ivy Street last night and saw what you did. But I have questions.”

  “Okay.” Kelsie shrugged. “But it’s not like I know how I got this way. I mean, it just happens.”

  “We’re all just guessing, learning,” Nate said, his smile leaking into Chizara’s bones. “So let’s say we’re paying your dad’s ransom and a bad guy pulls out his gun. How would you stop him?”

  Kelsie shook her head. “One guy? I can’t do anything. But I can keep a whole group from getting jumpy. If there’s a crowd that’s bound together somehow, with music or a sense of purpose, then I can give its emotions a nudge. But it can nudge me back, too. Crowds have a sort of personality. I get inside that, and it gets inside me.”

  Nate gave her a thousand-watt smile, maybe because he was learning so much, or maybe just to remind everyone that no crowd had ever nudged him for a second.

  “So you’re like the DJ at the party,” he said. “Changing the mood. Maybe that should be your code name.”

  “DJ?” Chizara had to snort. “That’s pretty bad, even by our standards.”

  “A code name?” Kelsie said.

  “We use them on missions,” Nate said. “To keep our identities hidden.”

  “On missions?”

  Chizara liked Kelsie’s incredulous tone. Yes, we call them missions.

  “How about Emoticon?” Riley said.

  “Sucks,” Ethan said. “Magnify would be better.”

  “Crowd Control?” Nate said.

  “That’s your job, Nate,” said Anonymous, back next to Riley. “Plus, it’s two words. That goes against the rules.”

  Riley stared at him. “We have rules?”

  “Frenzy!” Ethan cried.

  Kelsie just looked at them like they were all crazy. “You guys can call me anything you want, as long as you get my dad away from the Russian mob!”

  “Mob,” Nate said softly. “A crowd that has a personality. That wants something. We’ll call you Mob.”

  Kelsie groaned, like she was losing hope fast. Chizara felt sorry for her.

  “Kelsie,” she said in her best Mom voice. “Maybe instead of relying on a bunch of teenagers, you should call the police.”

  “But they’ll put him in jail.”

  “He’s a bank robber,” Chizara reasoned. “Someone died in that robbery. Am I the only one here who remembers that?”

  Tears began to well up in Kelsie’s eyes, and Chizara felt something fill the room. A sadness that ached down in her muscles, worse than all the fancy tech in Nate’s house.

  For a moment she thought they all might see sense. Might give up this crazy ransom plan and let adults handle it.

  But then Nate stood, spreading his hands out. “If that’s what you w
ant, Kelsie, we can always call the police. But first, let me show you my power.”

  And something else filled the room, pushing out the despair—a focus, a seriousness that Chizara had never felt among them all before. And a hopeful feeling, like they could get through anything together. Of course, Nate had five—six, with Anonymous—Zeroes to work with. He was really Glorious Leader now.

  And Kelsie must have wanted what he was giving her, because as her face brightened, the sense of purpose in the room redoubled. Nate pulled them all in tight, until Chizara was practically leaning forward in her chair, ready to work, to concentrate, to give every scrap of her attention to the Ultimate Goal.

  But she knew it was a lie. She had to fight this.

  Nate stood happily at the center of it all. “Before you decide, Kelsie, let’s just see if we can come up with a plan. Okay?”

  “Not me,” Chizara said, and it took every ounce of her willpower to stand up and walk to the door.

  “Crash,” Nate called softly. “Where are you going?”

  She ignored him, but turned just outside the door and said, “Be careful, Kelsie. People get hurt when we use our powers. In the middle of a police station, people get hurt bad! Imagine how it’ll go in a room full of gangsters.”

  They all looked at her, and for a brief moment she had them. But then Nate drew his hands through the air toward himself, like a puppeteer gathering all his strings. And their heads turned back to face him, eager to hear more good news.

  Chizara turned and walked down the hallway, her legs wobbly from the struggle. She might have lost, but at least she could rob Glorious Leader of one last measure of the Curve.

  CHAPTER 62

  SCAM

  THREE DAYS.

  Three long days of drug dealers, bank robbers, angry cops, and creepy mobsters. And yet this gym was still scary.

  Ethan figured this was the kind of gym where people worked out for the purposes of secret and highly illegal fight clubs. The woman at the front desk looked like she could pummel Ethan with her little toe. Even the voice was intimidated, lurking deep in his larynx like a mouse.

  It didn’t help that the sweat stink was so bad, like it was pumped into the place. Ethan dipped his nose into the collar of his shirt, which also hid his face from anyone who might recognize him as the bank-video guy.