Swarm

by Guy Garcia

  Marlow glanced at the shadows elongating on the rocks. “The ceremony of elders will be starting soon. We should go.”

  The old Oraibi village was a cluster of crumbling brick houses and newer shacks perched on the edge of the first three mesas that overlooked the Hopilands, a twenty-five-hundred-square-mile tribal homeland with its own government and time zone. Off in the distance, a dome of thunderheads dragged a dark veil of rain behind it. A delegation of children and dogs greeted the SUV and followed it to a compound of one-story structures on the ridge. A few minutes later, one of the villagers approached the driver’s window and spoke to Marlow in a language that Tom didn’t recognize. The man had a weathered face and was wearing jeans and a battered brown leather jacket.

  The man left, and Marlow shifted in his seat to face them. “They want us to wait.”

  “Wait for what?” Xander asked.

  Marlow reached under his seat and extracted a bottle of tequila. “I’m not sure,” he said, taking a swig and passing it along. “But we could be here for a while, so we might as well make ourselves comfortable.” From time to time, a villager would pass near the SUV and shoot a furtive glance in their direction. The bottle was half gone when the man came back and spoke to Marlow again. After a few minutes of conversation, they solemnly shook hands, and Marlow started the engine.

  “So what’s happening?” Xander asked.

  “Nothing, not anymore,” Marlow replied. “The tribal council has canceled the public ceremony.”

  “Why?”

  “We’ve still got some tequila, don’t we?”

  “Sure do.” Xander handed him the bottle, and they watched as he drank and drove with one hand on the wheel. It was getting dark when Marlow finally broke the silence.

  “The tribal elders are spooked,” he said. “One of them saw the Blue Star Kachina dance in his dreams last night. They didn’t let us stay because they thought we were part of the elder’s dream.”

  “We were in the elder’s dream?” Xander repeated. “How cool is that?”

  Marlow shook his head. “It’s not cool,” he said. “In the elder’s dream, the Blue Kachina removed his mask during the tribal dance and the dancing stopped; the children cried because it was the sign of the reckoning, the end of the Fourth Sun and the beginning of the great purification.”

  Marlow took another swig of tequila before continuing. “The elders decided to mark the vision with prayers and stories so the people would understand what has happened and to explain the visit of the brothers.”

  “What brothers?”

  “The Blue Kachina signals that the world we know is dying. It’s a sign that a war is coming. Columns of smoke will rise from the cities; mind will fight matter. The prophecy also says that in the final days, the Hopi will witness the return of two brothers, one from the East and one from the West. The brothers’ arrival will herald the return of the blue star. One brother will live, and one will die. That’s when the Fifth World will emerge.”

  Marlow waved the bottle in their direction. “I think they were talking about the two of you. The elders think you are the two brothers from the prophesy.”

  Xander craned his neck to look at Tom in the backseat. “That’s crazy shit, man. They don’t know anything about us. Besides, we’re not even brothers.”

  “Not brothers of the womb, maybe,” Marlow countered, “but what about brothers of the mind and spirit, the drum and song? Which one of you is from the East?”

  “We’re both from the West,” Tom replied.

  Xander seemed rattled. “I was born in Maryland,” he confessed abruptly. “My folks moved to Austin when I was two. Tom, I never told you because there was no point. I mean, I’m ninety-nine percent Texan.”

  Tom turned his attention back to Marlow. “Which one dies?”

  Marlow chuckled and rocked in his seat, though he didn’t seem the least bit drunk. “Even if I knew,” Marlow said, his face a featureless black mask in the car, “why would I tell you?”

  Nobody spoke during the rest of the ride home.

  They were almost at the house when Marlow’s mood suddenly brightened. “Guys, I’m sorry if I freaked you out with those Indian fables,” he said. “The Hopi can get a little intense sometimes. The elders are storytellers. They speak to their people in metaphors. I wouldn’t take it personally.”

  “So you don’t think the world’s actually going to end?” Xander asked.

  “Hell if I know!”

  “But that stuff about the two brothers and the elders knowing I wasn’t from Texas. How do you explain that?”

  “I can’t,” Marlow said flatly, “because I’m not Hopi.”

  “But you subscribe to their philosophy.”

  Marlow waited for the red gate to open and drove through it before picking up the thread. “Some would say that the only real difference between guys and the opposite sex is dicks and broad shoulders, but I’m among those of us who harbor a suspicion that there’s a reason men exist beyond fucking and lifting heavy objects,” he said. “Maybe, just maybe, part of our job is to carry the burden of discerning cycles of destruction and rebirth and accepting responsibility for them. If that’s what you mean by philosophy, then I guess you can count me in.”

  Marlow kept the engine running as they got out. “Look, believe whatever you want,” he said. “I personally am going to go home and spend some time with my wife and kids. Cuidense.”

  Marlow’s last words kept Tom from sleeping that night. At the first inkling of dawn, he grabbed a flashlight and his jacket and hiked up the trail behind the house until he reached the rim of the canyon. He watched the sun rise through a cataract of milky periwinkle and magenta. Then he descended back to the house and searched for paper and something to write with. The light on the rocks was already fierce when Xander found him hunched over the dining table, working intently on a series of drawings and diagrams.

  Xander grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and was halfway through it before curiosity got the best of him. “Okay, I give up.”

  “It’s a polyhedron, in this case a three-sided pyramid made from four equilateral triangles that all meet at their vertices. The tetrahedron is one of the five Platonic solids, which are believed to have mystical healing powers and the ability to resonate and interact with other Platonic shapes across the universe. As it turns out, these shapes are repeated at the molecular level, and some believe that they can channel and amplify human brain waves.”

  “Okay, thanks for the science lesson, Mr. Wizard, but is there any particular reason why you got up at dawn to draw three-sided pyramids?”

  “What Marlow talked about last night, taking responsibility for our actions, I think I know a way for us to do that. Look, if you stack the pyramids at their vertices and revolve them at their central axes, they form an X.”

  “So?”

  “The X is a point of conversion, a crossroads, an hourglass of transformation that can be seen from three perspectives at the same time, especially if we light it up from the inside.”

  “Why would we light it up? And what’s that thing that looks like a spaceship in the middle of the Xs?”

  “That’s the DJ booth.”

  Xander turned away and dumped the beer can into the recycling bin. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No.”

  “Tom, I already told you, I’m done with live gigs!”

  “Hang on, Xan. Just hear me out.”

  “I’m not listening.”

  “You were in the car last night. You heard about the Hopi belief that one world is ending and a new one is being born, about the two brothers who help create a new consciousness.”

  “C’mon, Tommy, get a grip. It’s a religious fable.”

  “How did the Hopi elder know you were from the East, something that not even I knew?”

  “It doesn’t m
atter how,” Xander said, reaching into the fridge for another beer.

  “You’re quitting what you love because you’re afraid of being blamed,” Tom said. “That just makes it look like you ran off to your desert bunker to escape your own guilt.”

  “So what do you want me to do, Tom? Spin my greatest hits and save the world?”

  Xander stalked out to the terrace, and Tom followed him. “Let’s do a concert, Xan, one last show, a free concert, a benefit for the victims of Governor’s Island, a demonstration against division and hate. Do it for them, do it for yourself, do it for us.”

  “A free concert and a benefit,” Xander said mockingly. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “We’ll use crowd funding,” Tom persisted. “If we don’t raise a million dollars for charity and at least two million more for the concert itself, then everybody walks away, no harm done. But if the money comes, then everybody who’s there is a co-owner. It won’t be a commercial venture. We won’t make a penny of profit, if that makes you feel better.”

  “Tom, this is all very noble, but raves have been outlawed in twenty-five states. You’ll never Get a permit for a gig that size.”

  “Then we’ll do it in one of the other states, like New York or Pennsylvania. There are some pastures outside of Philadelphia where we could fit thirty thousand, maybe more. We’ll donate another million to the state so they’ll let us do it. We’ll even hire our own security to make sure nothing bad happens.”

  Xander looked dubious, but his resistance was waning. “You crazy motherfucker—you’re actually serious, aren’t you?”

  “The X will be illuminated from the inside, with the speakers embedded in the extremities,” Tom said. “We’ll drop virtual walls of water, a giant replica of your hydro-architecture, from the edges of the stage and shoot bolts of electricity and fireworks from the top. It’ll be cutting-edge sound and lighting effects. We’ll get the guys from Berlin to help us build the X.”

  “X, as in X-pensive,” Xander deadpanned.

  “X, as in X-istence,” Tom countered. “Dancing in the moment—forever.”

  “X-isting together”—Xander hoisted his beer—“one last time!”

  “Xan, that’s what we’ll call it: X-ist—and DJX marks the spot!”

  “Hang on, Tommy. I need you to hear me.” Xander laid his hands on Tom’s shoulders and stared into his eyes. “I’m willing to give it a shot, but if we don’t raise four million dollars within twenty-eight days, then X-ist is off and we never talk about it again. Agreed?”

  “You have my word, brother.”

  Xander ran his hand over the drawings, and Tom knew he was imagining the real thing, a mighty translucent totem of communal celebration, the greatest EDM sight-and-sound system ever built, surrounded by thousands of cavorting collaborators. Xander’s finger loitered on the fifty-foot X with its revolving DJ control module.

  “We should make it bigger,” he said.

  23

  Dear citizens of the emergent nation,

  I am here to tell you what you already know, what you feel in your bones and fear in your heart. You see it coming yet are blind to what it means. You don’t want to hear it, but still you listen. You know what I’m about to say, don’t you?

  The answer is already there: on the tip of your tongue, on the edge of your seat, in the pit of your stomach, in the stagnant air around you. Don’t worry; we will get to the question.

  Our country, our world, is ailing. We take our pulse in the daily news, but the symptoms are clear and our temperature keeps rising. Hope dangles from a thread, unraveling over a spreading pool of dread. During commercial breaks from Dancing with the Stars, we watch the smoke rising from our cities, we hear the distant thunder creeping closer, and we open another cold one. We worship the rich and famous, our gleaming media gods. We grope for money and sex, but the fun has gone out of both. There are no blessings that can cover the cost. Even Dionysius has failed us.

  Across this frayed and fractured republic, we hear the same watered-down wisdom: We should have seen it coming. We have only ourselves to blame. It’s true that we have merrily planted the seeds of our own destruction, but self-laceration and rock-hard abs will not bring physical or spiritual redemption.

  The revolution will not be YouTubed. The revolution will not be Googled. The revolution with not be Facebooked. The revolution will happen in mind space and real space, a militia of morphing minions seeing with a billion eyes. Thinking with a billion brains. Moving on a billion feet. Stepping together into the new now. Our now. Right now.

  This is not the first time the axis mundi has reshuffled the deck, my friends. Four worlds have already come and gone, their footprints buried in shifting dunes of dust. The plague we fear has been raging in our souls for decades, but the purification has other plans for us. This time, the children will not cry when the Blue Star Kachina removes his mask in the plaza. This time, we will save ourselves by saving each other. This time, we will lift the ark before the rains come. This time, we are the flood.

  24

  Cara was thrashing and moaning, her arms lifted as if fending off an invisible demon.

  Duggan shook her gently. “Baby, wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”

  “What?”

  “You were having a nightmare,” Duggan whispered. “It’s okay. I’m here. Go back to sleep.”

  The clock on the nightstand read 4:47 a.m., barely more than an hour until his video conference call with NCSD. He stayed in bed until Cara’s breathing became deep and steady, wondering if it was merely selfish or an act of treason to be grateful for the crisis that had brought them together. He got up and closed the bedroom door, showered, dressed, and brewed a pot of coffee. Then he took a seat in the kitchen, fired up his laptop, and entered the key code for the secure communication link.

  While he waited for his colleagues to come online, he sipped bitter breakfast blend and reread Swarm’s latest communiqué, captured in fragments and pieced back together by the NSA computers as it rippled and caromed across the planet. The message had only confirmed what Duggan already suspected: Swarm was preparing to strike, and the window to stop him was closing fast. Swarm’s incendiary manifesto was resonating far beyond its natural EDM and computer geek constituency, attracting the attention of bloggers, pundits, and talk show personalities from across the political spectrum. The gist of Swarm’s appeal seemed to be in his zeal not to replace or repair the status quo but rather to transcend it altogether. His manifesto was equal parts revolution and evolution, an inflammatory bio-determinism that spoke to anyone with a hankering for seismic change.

  Swarm’s cathartic call to arms was spreading and metastasizing, online and in real space, faster than the authorities could track or understand it. In churches and statehouses, Swarm was denounced as a cyber-Satan who posed an existential threat to everything good and a scourge that had to be stamped out before it went too far. Isolated scuffles between pro-Swarm citizens and local law enforcement were becoming routine in the South and the mid-West, but Duggan knew the looming danger was much more insidious. The agency’s language filters had detected an uptick in Internet traffic linked to Swarm’s missives from every county in the nation, evidence that his incendiary cryptolect was seeping into the mainstream, becoming routinely cited, paraphrased, and excerpted in hundreds of thousands of blogs and websites.

  The pop version of Swarm’s dystopian doctrine was seductively simple: people would come together or they would perish in underground bunkers and luxury yachts, in skyscrapers and mountain cabins, in mansions and trailer parks, gated communities and sweltering slums. Homo sapiens would either ensure each other’s survival or they would drag each other into the widening crevasse between “us” and “them” and be swallowed. And since human history showed that our species had a stubborn tendency fall back on bad habits, evolution was the only solution. And Swarm, with his as
cendant celebrity and gospel of hyper-communal redemption, was the movement’s medium and messenger, catalyst-in-chief, and interactive messiah.

  Duggan nervously drummed his fingers on the table. Could a camera-shy hacktivist with a knack for apocalyptic sermonizing actually instigate a morphogenetic uprising? Concern over the nature and dimension of the threat had elevated Duggan’s investigation to a national security priority. Thanks to Koepp’s persistence and JT’s administrative aplomb, they were now the joint heads of a special interagency task force created with the specific goal of containing and eliminating the Swarm-Meta Militia threat. The president himself was following the team’s progress via daily updates from his chief counterterrorism adviser, with copies going to the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and the Department of Defense Cyber Command.

  Duggan looked at the clock: 5:59 a.m. His laptop chimed and blinked into a conference room at NCSD.

  “Good morning, Jake.”

  Koepp, JT, and the faces of about a dozen men arrayed around a large oval table stared back at him. He recognized Jordan Sharpe and the director of Homeland Security, but the rest were unfamiliar. “Gentlemen, I won’t waste time on introductions,” Koepp began. “You know what this group represents and why we’re all here.”

  Since the presidential endorsement of the NCSD’s mandate to locate and neutralize Swarm, Koepp’s disposition had taken on a terse efficiency that underscored the gravity of the situation. She turned to the men at the table. “I’d like Agent Duggan to begin by giving us an update and his interpretation of the latest Swarm communication, and then we can fill him in on the latest developments on our end. Jake, maybe you could start with the woman who claims to be his lover.”

  “Well, for starters, I wouldn’t describe her as his lover, exactly,” Duggan said. “They had a relationship online with an erotic dimension. They’ve never met physically, and he never revealed his face to her, but she claims that she would be able to identify him if she saw him.”