Swarm

by Scott Westerfeld

  “You are so straight-edge sometimes,” Kelsie murmured, probing delicately in the lock. “And you need a bed.”

  With a click the door swung open. Even with the lights off, the small dark room looked tidy and ordered. The futon was neatly made, and the books on their crowded shelves were organized by height and color.

  “Wow,” Kelsie said, switching on the light. “What a neat freak.”

  “You think?” Anon’s room was no neater than Chizara’s own. His airspace was a mess, though. A wifi router and a bunch of other gadgets all pinged at her.

  She rubbed her arms. “Think he’d mind if we moved his futon downstairs?”

  “Like, you want to sleep in the actual Dish?”

  “Yeah, down in the Faraday cage. It’s much quieter.”

  “Sure, awesome.” Kelsie tossed Anon’s pillow and quilt into the middle of his futon and grabbed hold of one corner. “Would it be weird if we took my mattress down there too?”

  “Like a slumber party? Hey, it’s your last night here. Maybe my last time too.” Her throat grew tight as she said the words. “Might as well have fun.”

  They hauled the futon, thumping down the stairs, then went and got Kelsie’s mattress. They arranged it all in the center of the dance floor, surrounded by glorious Faraday cage silence.

  “Now go outside and call your mom,” Kelsie said, plumping one of her pillows. “She’s a nice lady. Don’t make her worry! I’ll get dinner together.”

  * * *

  The streetlights were just coming on as Chizara stepped outside. The street was Christmas-night empty, but Cambria’s networks filled the cold air, a storm of insects nipping at her face and arms. She longed to get back inside to the warmth and silence.

  Mom was okay with the late notice—of course, she had a fresh houseful of dinner guests to tend to.

  “But what about pajamas? Toothbrush?”

  “Kelsie’s got everything I need,” Chizara said. Maybe Anon-a.k.a.-Teebo had an unopened toothbrush in some alphabetized drawer of spare toiletries.

  “All right. Call us in the morning if you need a ride home.”

  “Love you, Mom!” she said as brightly as she could manage.

  She powered the phone down and went back inside, shutting the insect storm out of the Dish, locking the door, and pulling the blinds down over glass and mesh.

  A few colored spots were wandering around the dance floor.

  “Hey!” she called. “Lights are my job!”

  Kelsie was emptying corn chips into a bowl on the bar. “I was going to put on music, but I want to be able to hear.”

  “Couldn’t you feel Swarm coming?”

  “Of course. What I meant was, hear you talk.” She’d turned off her phone too, leaving the Dish in a state of perfect calm. “It’s hardly ever just you and me.”

  They sat at the bar and crunched into the corn chips, opening jars of salsa and guacamole, washing it all down with beer. Dinner Kelsie-style was just fine with Chizara right now.

  “So back at your house,” Kelsie said into the silence, “you said something about the mall? About all those people, after Swarm let them go.”

  Chizara shivered. “I couldn’t stop reading about them yesterday—I gave myself such a headache. They remember everything they did. And not only are they traumatized, but they’ll remember it every Christmas from now on, you know?”

  Kelsie took a drink of her beer. “Yeah. I’m not exactly looking forward to July fourth next year.”

  “At least none of them will get charged with murder. Everyone’s saying it was terrorism, like some kind of gas that makes you violent.”

  Kelsie’s hand was cool on Chizara’s sunburned arm. “We’re not in that world anymore.”

  Chizara blinked at her.

  “The world where cops and courts decide things,” Kelsie said. “With Swarm around, you have to get justice in other ways.”

  She let go, and crunched another corn chip. The room was big and quiet around them, the spots of light swinging slowly around the walls.

  “Thanks for staying,” Kelsie said. “I wouldn’t have been brave enough to be here on my own.”

  Chizara attempted a smile, glad to move on from the mall talk. “As if I’d leave you here alone.”

  “Yeah, but it’s nice of you to trust me. After what Ren said . . .”

  “About you being a baby Swarm?” Chizara laughed, shaking her head. “She doesn’t know anything about you!”

  Kelsie scooped up guacamole on a chip, not smiling.

  “She just likes making people feel bad,” Chizara said. “I mean, her whole superpower is messing with people’s heads. She wants you confused about who you are. And a baby Swarm? That’s not even a thing!”

  “But I could feel it.” Kelsie looked away. “When they were killing that guy. I could feel how . . . how great it was for him, how satisfying, you know?”

  Chizara swayed back on the bar stool.

  Kelsie’s gaze was far away. “I remember at school, when the mean girls or the jocks would pile on someone. I never felt sorry for the kid in the middle. My power always put me inside the gang. I got off on the group vibe. The part of them that wanted blood.”

  The word hung in the air between them, sprayed and smeared with memories of Davey’s death.

  “But you like happy crowds,” Chizara insisted. “That’s our specialty here at the Dish.”

  Reaching toward the dance floor, she sent a pulse of her power through the lighting desk. The rainbow lights spun faster, and the mirror ball began to revolve, covering the walls with sliding white specks of light.

  Kelsie glumly watched them.

  “That’s why people come here,” Chizara said. “For you. You pick them up, sweep them into the dance.”

  Kelsie shook her head. “So what happens when my power turns inside out? Yours did. You went from breaking things to fixing them. What if I go the other way?”

  Chizara picked up Kelsie’s hand from on top of the bar, gazing at her light-stroked face. “When I turned my power around, it was my will. I wanted to make up for crashing stuff and hurting people. I wanted to be good, Kelsie.”

  “Sure, but all I wanted yesterday was to go with that crowd, not to care what was right or wrong. I wanted to take that life, and—”

  “Stop!” Chizara covered Kelsie’s mouth with her hand. “No you didn’t. Don’t psych yourself out. The killer, he made you think you wanted that.”

  Kelsie pulled away, her eyes welling up with tears.

  “He swarmed you, is all.” Chizara slid off her bar stool and put her arms around Kelsie. “It’ll be okay. You’re a good person.”

  “You think?” Kelsie’s voice was muffled in her hands. “Because my father wasn’t. My mom wasn’t. I don’t know what I am.”

  “None of us knows who we are.” Chizara held Kelsie close, her face in the blond curls. “That’s how these powers work—they make your life a mess. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to turn into a monster.”

  Chizara gently rocked her, fighting off flashbacks: Davey’s last bellow of fear, red spilling from the fountain, the bloodied faces at the center of the crowd.

  “But it felt so good. So right,” Kelsie said softly into Chizara’s shoulder. “Maybe that’s what every mob secretly wants to be—something cruel. Something deadly.”

  “Listen to me!” Chizara lifted Kelsie’s head, her hands slipping among the curls. “Maybe crowds don’t choose what they are, but people do. I trust you, enough to stay here with you even when you’re talking scary shit!”

  Finally Kelsie was looking at her. “Really?”

  “Really. You have my trust.”

  “I think you’re crazy, but thanks.” Kelsie’s hand rose to the back of Chizara’s hair. Her tear-blurred eyes glanced down at Chizara’s mouth before she pressed her own lips, warm and salty, to it.

  Every muscle in Chizara’s body stiffened—electrified, all of it. But her lips stayed soft, surprised, curious.
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  Is this allowed? the rest of her body exclaimed, and her throat wanted to cry it out.

  But Kelsie seemed so certain, like she’d done this before. Her eyes were confidently closed, her free hand reaching up to stroke the back of Chizara’s neck.

  Those fingertips sent goose bumps all over Chizara’s scalp, then down her spine and washing all over her body. And Kelsie felt so perfect, right here, her slim body pressing close, her strong, thin legs wrapping around Chizara’s, her soft tongue calling up Chizara’s to join in its swirling game.

  It didn’t feel wrong. It felt exactly right for this moment, after these awful days they’d been through. The room was full of shadows, from the past and from the future. But somehow they’d found their way to this safe place, this Faraday cage, and within it to this bright and beautiful moment, tinged with tears, heightened by terror.

  Kelsie pulled away a moment, touched Chizara’s cheek.

  “Zara,” she whispered. And kissed her again.

  Chizara let her eyes sink closed and gave herself over to the spinning light show that was being kissed by Kelsie, and then was kissing Kelsie back.

  CHAPTER 42

  MOB

  KELSIE WOKE UP IN THE dark.

  She was wrapped in Chizara’s arms, their legs entwined. Her head was nestled against Chizara’s neck, breathing in the scent of her skin.

  She’d never felt so protected, so safe. Not without the insulation of a crowd. Every time Kelsie had been in this spot before, waking up in bed with another person, there had been that ache to flee, to get back to the party, the dance, the throng. But this felt like a whole world.

  Maybe it was because she and Chizara had worked crowds together, here on this very dance floor. That was what it had felt like last night—lights and music.

  Chizara was still asleep, so Kelsie dozed, dreaming of summer. Beach parties and barbecues, sunlight and warmth. Around them the Dish was restless, the building too old to stay quiet. The roof timbers creaked, and somewhere a crack in a window frame let in a low whistle of breeze. Like the nightclub was breathing.

  But then Kelsie felt something else stirring in the distance, outside in the darkness. It felt like the rumble of a crowd that hadn’t pulled together yet. All shuffling and unfocused noise, like an orchestra tuning up. Then it gathered into one voice, and her sleep-fogged brain recognized it at once.

  Swarm.

  She startled awake. For a blissful moment she thought it was just a nightmare. But even after she’d blinked away sleep, the crowd was still there.

  Swarm hadn’t kept going after Ren, like they’d hoped. He’d read Sonia Sonic’s post and rounded on Cambria like it was a five-course meal.

  And now he was waiting for her.

  She slid carefully from Chizara’s embrace, off the mattress and onto the chilly floor. She hesitated, watching Chizara settle with a sigh into the mattress, but there was no way she could take another Zero anywhere near Swarm. He wasn’t as ravenous as he’d been in the mall, but hungry curiosity remained. As if every unfamiliar power was a new flavor for him to try.

  In the dark Kelsie groped for her clothes. She carried them to the door, alert to the sound of her own soft footfalls, dressed silently, and left without going upstairs for a jacket. Outside in the icy December air, she followed the twanging, discordant trail of Swarm’s dark, strange thoughts.

  She shivered as she walked. It wasn’t just the cold—the Heights felt abandoned. Everyone was fast asleep, hibernating in their beds after a long Christmas Day. Chizara’s warmth already felt a thousand miles behind her.

  She passed the used-car lot and empty warehouses. Then downhill, along a mix of tiny restaurants and coffee shops, all closed. Somewhere beyond the quiet of the streets, traffic pulsed from the distant highway.

  She’d known he’d come for her. Ever since that dark awakening in the mall, where her power had found and fitted into his.

  Kelsie came upon him standing in the pool of light from a convenience store’s security floods. The store was closed and the metal gate was padlocked. Swarm was alone.

  It didn’t make sense. The whole way here, she’d felt him as a crowd. Even now there was something big about him, something legion. Like there was a brawl inside him, a bunch of people struggling to escape.

  From the outside he wasn’t anything impressive. Striped blazer, white socks, a carry-on suitcase tilted behind him. Close up she could see that his hair was jagged and unkempt, like he’d cut it himself in a rest-stop bathroom. In one hand he held an oversized phone. The blue of its screen lit his face unevenly. Even as she approached, he kept glancing at it every few seconds.

  “You’re the first one I’ve met with a power like mine,” he said.

  His words were hesitant, like he wasn’t used to making conversation.

  “I’m not like you at all.” Kelsie crossed her arms against the cold. “You’re Swarm, right? That’s what Davey and Ren called you.”

  He shrugged. “Just an old screen name. I’m Quinton, actually. And you?”

  Kelsie ignored the question. No way would she tell this guy anything about her.

  But she felt his power reaching out, like a crowd trying to draw her in. She could sense the strange hum of his emotions. Even with only two of them on an empty street, the Curve seemed to take hold. As if his personality had splintered into a dozen identities, all wrapped up in one worn striped blazer.

  She shrank back, reeling in her power until it was safe inside her.

  “How could you do that to Davey?” she asked.

  He grinned. “It was a team effort. It wasn’t just me.”

  Kelsie felt a tremor go through the air on the word me. She could feel the shape of his personal crowd around her. She could hear it in the muffled cries his power sent out as it sought to connect with hers.

  “Did you kill Ren, too?” she asked.

  “She’s not a priority anymore,” he said. “What I hated was their lovey-dovey bullshit. Their whiny, clinging love. Always parading it around like it was something special.”

  “Wait,” Kelsie held up a hand. “You hated them because they loved each other?”

  “Love is vanity,” Swarm said. He held his phone high and addressed it, like he was videoing himself. “A selfish parade that people can only join in pairs. Love is showing off the fact you’re screwing. And they were doing it to piss me off!”

  “It wasn’t about you.” Kelsie thought about Chizara, asleep in the Dish, and her anger redoubled. “How somebody loves, it has nothing to do with you!”

  “Then why be so public about it? You know why they crashed that stupid celebrity wedding, right? A giant fuck you, aimed right at me!”

  “You’re mad because they weren’t afraid of you,” Kelsie said.

  “They were afraid,” he said, and raised his phone to speak into it again. “But fear is healthy, good and right. It’s one of the most powerful engines for moving a crowd. But it’s only a means to an end. Love is a blockage in that system.”

  “What does that even mean?” Kelsie shouted.

  “Have you ever tried to work with a crowd that’s all about love and peace?” Swarm still addressed his phone. “It’s like hammering a nail with wet cardboard. And two people in love? Nothing divides a group faster than couples.”

  Kelsie didn’t answer at first. In a weird way she knew what he meant. She’d watched dance parties splinter as people paired off, group friendships fracture because of a wayward crush. Her friend Fig’s thrashcore band had been messily cut in half by an affair between drummer and singer.

  “That’s part of life,” she said uncertainly. “It’s not anyone’s fault.”

  “You’ve swallowed too much of the Kool-Aid,” Quinton said with a sneer. “You probably think you’re going to find true love. But you know what? It’s not for the likes of you and me.”

  A hard knot rose in Kelsie’s throat. Yesterday she might have believed him. Being part of a group had always been more important t
o her. Having a crowd around her was enough human contact. More than enough. It was everything.

  But now . . . it looked like she could be happy with just one person. Couldn’t she?

  “People like us, we get something bigger than love.” Swarm smiled lopsidedly. “We get to be a crowd.”

  A shudder passed through him and he lowered the phone. His power, the mass of people inside him, rumbled and moaned.

  Kelsie swallowed. “Why are you like this? What the hell happened to you?”

  “You want my origin story?” He sighed, like the question was beneath him, then lifted the phone again. “School didn’t brainwash me, for one thing. My parents kept me home till I could see through the bullshit.”

  Kelsie almost laughed. “Oh, man. You’re saying this is because you’re homeschooled?”

  “Self-schooled.” He drew himself up. “By the time I was eight, I was teaching my parents algebra. Math wasn’t their thing. Self-reliance was. No electricity. No internet. No dependence on strangers or authorities.”

  “No people,” she said softly. No crowds.

  Swarm shrugged, and the air rippled, like an avalanche threatening. “There were people. We went to town every Saturday. It was only forty miles.”

  Kelsie felt an old wound inside her swell. Her dad had taken her to the country once, a half-assed picnic in an old beater he’d won in a poker game. It had been beautiful at first, the national park full of campers and hikers.

  But then a wall of rain had moved in, and the two of them had taken shelter while the weekend crowds scattered. For a long hour it had seemed that she and Dad were the only ones on the mountain. Like the rest of the world had emptied out around them.

  She’d never been so scared in her life. She hadn’t left the city since.

  “Do you know what school is like,” Quinton asked his phone screen, “when you’re twelve and you’ve never even seen one before?”

  “I bet that was hard,” Kelsie said, though her first day of school had been a relief. Finally she could spend all day wrapped in a crowd, without having to hunt one out. She’d learned to enjoy the quiet attentiveness of a history class, the random spikes of victory from the gym, the wash of relief when the bell rang for the end of the day. It was like being part of something alive.