Swarm

by Scott Westerfeld

  He tried again, “I just want what I can’t but it’s something I never—”

  This wasn’t the voice going haywire. No. It was his own voice—his Ethan Cooper voice, the one he’d spent his whole life trying to claim—somehow turned alien inside his own mouth.

  Panic roiled his gut.

  “I tried but it’s never wanted to know everything—” This was not him talking! Even his lips and tongue felt wrong, like a dentist had shot him full of novocaine.

  “Brain fart again?” Sonia asked, dragging him away from the Office-O crowd. “Come on. Because I’m still going to your nightclub, even I have to take you to the psycho ward first.”

  Ethan turned to her, his mouth working to explain but no sound coming out.

  Finally he managed to shout, “Mesopotamia!”

  It was his code word, something he’d chosen when he was a kid—a fail-safe, in case he ever had to make sure it was him talking and not his other voice. He hadn’t needed that word since he was ten.

  “You are so random,” Sonia said calmly.

  “Hello? Hello!” Yes, the pall was lifting. The words came out almost normally, and his throat felt like his own again. “Sorry, I didn’t recognize myself for a minute there.”

  Sonia was frowning at her phone again. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Come on, this Dish club of yours isn’t going to investigate itself.”

  Ethan let Sonia propel him away from Ivy Street and toward the Heights. He handed out a few more flyers as they walked, but he couldn’t use the voice with Sonia watching. After what had happened, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to speak at all.

  Right now all he wanted was for Nate to not be on the door when he rolled up with Sonia Sonic in tow.

  CHAPTER 3

  BELLWETHER

  THERE WERE TWENTY-SEVEN PEOPLE IN line. Not enough to open the doors.

  Nate hated clubs that let customers in too soon, forcing them to jangle around in too much space, forming half crowds and feeble connections.

  Not while he was working the door.

  Besides, keeping the crowd waiting gave him time to take notes on who was showing up tonight. Hipsters with chunky glasses—local residents, probably. A group of women in designer jeans, alight with the wary bubbliness of slumming it in the Heights. The usual underage contingent who knew that the Dish never turned anyone away. Well, except people visibly messed up enough to alter Kelsie’s vibe.

  The Petri Dish was a controlled experiment. Every variable mattered.

  For example, the male-to-female ratio of the line was getting a little high. Nate texted Ethan: No more groups of guys.

  For most of the summer and fall, Nate had spent his weekends with Kelsie on Ivy Street—taking notes, asking questions. Determining the best night of the week to open, the right mix of young and old, the minimum number of people required for serious dancing to break out.

  Thirty-one in line now. Still not enough.

  The Curve started at around six people, but everything the Zeroes had accomplished this summer showed that bigger crowds were better. More meaningful. More powerful. So every night he waited for at least forty people before opening the doors.

  Nate had never particularly liked nightclubs. But now that he had his own, he realized that most of their problems were easily corrected.

  Being in charge always made the difference.

  “Hey, dude,” a girl shouted from halfway down the line. She was wearing a purple feather boa. “Don’t tell me it’s full in there already. Let us in!”

  The energy of the crowd centered on her, then shifted back to Nate. He gave them a smile, focusing all those restless shimmers of attention.

  “Five minutes,” he called out. It settled them a little, but it also sharpened their anticipation. People finger-combed their hair, reapplied lipstick. At the front a guy reached over to straighten his boyfriend’s tie.

  Two couples, white teenagers trying to look chill about being on the bad side of town, joined the end of the line. Thirty-five now. Very close. Nate pulled a little tighter on the web of attention from the crowd, drawing it to himself.

  These were his favorite moments, keeping the crowd on edge like this.

  But then his focus frayed a little—a police car was cruising past, the officers inside it taking a long, hard look.

  The Petri Dish was in no way legal. Chizara had brought the electrical system up to code, and the owners of the once-derelict theater were happy to take a cut of profits. But there was no liquor license, no anything license, and no contracts. Just a web of informal arrangements.

  On paper the Dish was a private party, a gathering of friends in a rented space. Presumably Ethan’s voice and Nate’s charm could sell that story, keeping Nate’s police record spotless. But the theory hadn’t been tested yet.

  The police car kept moving, but Nate wondered if he should open the club now. Having a crowd hanging around outside was a little too conspicuous. Especially since the Cambria PD was officially focusing on crowd control, thanks to the strange events of last summer.

  Of course, crowd-madness stories were popping up everywhere. Flash mobs, rampant teenagers, and unexplained riots were all the rage lately. It was pretty clear that there were other people with superpowers out there.

  Which irked Nate just a little, the idea that he and the others weren’t the only Zeroes in the world. But at least his crew was learning to use their powers in a systematic way.

  Maybe those other groups didn’t have Bellwethers to guide them. Maybe he was meant for bigger things.

  Another couple had just joined the end of the line. Thirty-seven now.

  But what was Ethan doing back so soon? The crowd wasn’t big enough to open, and Nate needed another twenty by the end of the hour, to keep the build consistent with last month’s.

  Mierda. It figured Ethan would never understand the controlled part of a controlled experiment. His dereliction of duty probably had to do with the girl beside him. She had silver hair with a magenta streak and was waving her sparkly phone around, snapping pictures. Exactly the sort of trendy cutie that Ethan always widened his eyes for, when he wasn’t busy pining for Kelsie.

  Though this girl looked oddly familiar . . .

  Nate went to the end of the line, ignoring the glimmers of confusion from the crowd. Where’s the door guy going? Isn’t it five minutes yet?

  “Uh, hey,” Ethan mumbled as Nate approached. “This is Sonia.”

  “Nice to meet you. Ethan, is there any reason you’re not . . .”

  Nate’s words faded—Sonia . . . Sonic? The one person in all of Cambria who was committed to exposing the Zeroes. And here she was, taking a picture of Nate.

  “Can I ask you some questions about your nightclub?” Sonia asked, keeping the phone steady as she talked. Not photos—video.

  “It isn’t my . . . ,” he began, but it was too late. Sputtering denials and raising his hand to cover the lens would only make him look guilty. He had to get her inside the Faraday cage of the Dish before the video was backed up to the cloud.

  Which meant she had to keep shooting.

  “It isn’t so much a club as a party.” He smiled for the camera, then turned and beckoned her to follow. “Would you like a tour?”

  Sonia nodded happily. Ethan opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Good. Nate didn’t need the voice butting in.

  “This is only our third event,” he said. “We always open the third Saturday of the month.”

  That would have to change now, of course. But they could always scare up a new crowd. And switching the schedule around would make it harder for the police to crack down on them.

  “I’ve heard it’s the best party in town,” Sonia said. “Can I ask what makes it . . . special?”

  Nate almost lost his smile at that last word. Sonia Sonic knew a little too much about the specialness of the Zeroes.

  Way too many people read her posts since last summer, and she was getting D-list Cambria famous. Nate even heard peo
ple murmuring her name as he walked her back to the front of the line. She was a problem, and would continue to be a problem.

  But first things first—Nate had to deal with her phone. Sonia didn’t like posting without pictures.

  “We’re just about to open,” he said as they reached the doors. “But maybe get a shot of the line first. Big crowds are good PR.”

  “Right. Of course.” She turned back and lifted her phone high. Everyone was stirring to life, attention and anticipation crackling off them like sparks from a hot wire. A couple of people waved for the camera.

  While she was busy shooting, Nate opened the door and signaled for the bouncer waiting just inside. The guy was a mass of muscle, too intimidating to keep in plain sight this early in the evening.

  “Take a message to Chizara,” Nate said softly.

  “Of course, Mr. Saldana,” answered the Craig, his eyes brightening. The Craig had a thing for Chizara—or for Crash, to be accurate. A thing that was not unlike worship.

  “This girl can’t leave with her data intact.” Nate nodded at Sonia. “Phone equals brick.”

  The Craig frowned, but by now he was used to the Zeroes saying strange things. “Got it, boss. That girl—brick her phone.”

  Nate gave him the full wattage of his approval. Incorruptible and unimaginative, the Craig was the perfect employee for an illegal nightclub. He would never betray Crash, not since he’d seen her destroy the Parker-Hamilton Hotel with a wave of her hand.

  Craig was already halfway to the lighting booth, eager to deliver the message.

  Nate checked the door line again. Another three had joined the end.

  Forty on the nose. Perfect.

  “Shall we?” he said to Sonia, then gave Ethan one last baleful look and opened the doors of the Dish.

  CHAPTER 4

  CRASH

  THE CROWD SPILLED ACROSS THE dance floor, already bopping to Kelsie’s background trance music.

  Chizara set two of the rainbow lights spinning, on slow—it was best to start off basic, then build through the evening. In the DJ booth beside her, Kelsie fiddled with the turntables, flipped though stacks of vinyl. Chizara leaned back, waiting for her to make the next move.

  In the crowd a few people stared at their phones, shook them, then shrugged and shoved them into their pockets. Chizara grinned. Was the Faraday cage the best invention ever or what?

  She looked up reverently. Against the stucco ceiling of the old theater, a fine metal mesh sparkled in the rainbow lights. It was amazing how something so full of holes could keep out the awful roar of signals, the painful chatter of repeater towers and wifi spilling from surrounding buildings. Here in the Dish, all of it was silenced.

  Chizara shivered—how easy it would’ve been to gloss over Bob’s words that time at work, instead of asking idly, Faraday cages? What the hell are those?

  Why hadn’t she researched signal blocking before and found out that a metal mesh was the answer to all her problems? She could have built her own personal cube of silence any time.

  Of course, like her mom always said: A man with a good roof never gets used to the rain. If Chizara had grown up with a Faraday cage wrapped around her room, she’d never have built up her resistance. These days she was pretty much fine with phones—the average crowd wasn’t the prickle bush it had been even a few months ago. But the silence inside the Dish felt truly luxurious.

  She stretched her arms in the cramped lighting booth. Being pain-free was a fantastic feeling, and the fact that she’d built this sanctuary herself only made it sweeter.

  The Petri Dish was Chizara’s design. She’d figured out how to build the cage, how to wire the place with analog sound and lighting, avoiding the buzz of networks.

  Sure, the Craig and his musclemen had done the heavy lifting, setting up light towers and trusses, hanging that old mirror ball and the spotlights and strobes that made it magic. Bob, her old boss at the shop around the corner, had given her lots of tips, and Bob’s friend Justin, a disco king back in the eighties, had sold Nate most of the equipment and found them other good cheap retro stuff.

  But the final word on everything had been Chizara’s.

  At the moment the mirror ball and the UV strobe were the high points of the light show. But she wanted to install one of those wild tumbling UFO lights one day—maybe two, at either end of the dance floor.

  The thought made her thirsty for more dazzle. She switched on a couple of white spotlights and set their narrow beams swinging randomly around the space.

  One spot flashed past the Craig. He was shouldering through the thin crowd toward her. With intent, not just for a chat. He liked to talk tech with Chizara—well, he’d talk anything with her, but the tech was his usual excuse to start a conversation. He was always bringing up lighting ideas he’d seen at the clubs on Ivy Street.

  Most of his suggestions called for digital controls, though. She wasn’t going to taint her refuge with that networked dreck. She had to keep telling him: The Dish is pure analog, Craig, remember? His hold on her superpower was shaky. Sometimes he almost believed in it, but mostly he just seemed to think she had a terrific sense of timing around demolition sites.

  “Zup, Craig?” she called out over the music.

  “Message from Mr. Saldana.”

  “Uh-huh?” Chizara suppressed a grin at the massive guy’s respect for Glorious Leader.

  The Craig jerked his head toward the dance floor. “Girl out there, he wants you to make sure to brick her phone before she leaves.”

  Chizara’s eyebrows went up. “Which girl?”

  “See over there, standing next to Ethan? The one shooting video.”

  Chizara reached her mind into the clunky workings of a swinging spotlight, nudged its electricals so that the gears turned the way she wanted for a moment. She squashed down a little spurt of pride. All her practice meant she could go low-tech now, pushing around fat, sizzling electromagnets as easy as microchips.

  She held the white beam steady on the girl for a couple of seconds, isolating her from the rolling-box colors. “Cool hair. Makes her easy to—wait, that’s Sonia Sonic!”

  She felt a stab of sick nerves. Cambria’s self-appointed weird-hunter had been sniffing around since Scam had superpowered his way out of the police station last summer. Sonia was always ready to post about unexplained crowd behavior and system failures. She was onto them.

  So who the hell had gone and told her about the Dish? Who’d brought her here, for goodness’ sakes? What kind of dumb-ass . . .

  Ethan noticed the lingering spotlight and shot a guilty look toward Chizara. Of course.

  “Sonia who?” the Craig asked. He never went online unless he was running short of supplements.

  “An old friend.” Chizara moved the spotlight away before it got obvious. “Tell Mr. Saldana I’ll take care of it.”

  “Need the Craig to bring her closer for you?”

  “Nope. I got it.” She winked at him, deadpan.

  “You got some kind of phone zapper?” He tore his gaze from her and checked around the booth, eyed the cupboardlike switching box with its fat ribbon cable going to the light board.

  “Nope.” She pointed to her temple. “It’s all in my head.”

  Craig gave her his Are you really magic? look—half fear, half awe. “Uh, if you say so. I better get back on the door.”

  As he walked away, Kelsie shouted from the DJ booth next door. “You ready to tear this up, Crash?”

  Chizara gave her the thumbs-up, then blanched the crowd with a couple of flashes from the wide white floodlights. Arms went up all over the dance floor, and Kelsie kicked in with her first track, the driving beat taking and shaking them like streamers on a cheerleader’s pom-poms.

  Chizara spun the other rolling boxes into action and added some flashing spots, lancing mauve-white light among the dancers. That would keep them busy for three minutes. Kelsie’s shakedown track was never a long one.

  She squinted across the bou
ncing crowd. There was no need to hurry with the phone-fritzing—Sonia looked like she was settling in. She stowed her phone in a tiny sequined bag on her hip and stepped out onto the dance floor.

  Chizara tracked her vivid hair through the crowd, nudging a spotlight here and there to keep Sonia in sight. All the dancers’ phones, hunting for signal, jumped and shimmied in pockets and purses. It was like looking over a night-lit city with a constant rippling earthquake going on.

  It would be quite a challenge, homing in on the floating speck of that one phone.

  But that was the point of the Petri Dish, wasn’t it? To be a safe place for the Zeroes to challenge themselves and their powers.

  Chizara kept a firm eye on the silver-and-magenta hair and felt for the dim dot of the phone that matched the girl’s movement.

  Next door, Kelsie cued up another track. One beat faded into another, and Chizara sent a new mix of lights sweeping across the dancers. She and Kelsie had rehearsed their transitions for days before the first Dish party two months ago—now Chizara hardly had to think about them. She could concentrate on Sonia.

  Who was right up close, bouncing in front of Kelsie. Getting out her phone again, taking photos. She held it up and started a panorama of Kelsie on the decks, Chizara in the lighting box, documenting all the Dish’s operations.

  Chizara sent her Crash brain into the phone. The minuscule maze of electronics lit up, so pretty and fine compared to the brute gears and tungsten flares of spotlights. Where was the action happening? Where were the sounds and images flowing into the memory?

  Ah, there. Like babies in a nursery, all in a row. Waiting to upload to the cloud as soon as the phone escaped the confines of the Faraday cage.

  Crash applied the burning needle tip of her power, turning the phone into a sparkly brick.