Swarm (37 page)

And after what had happened yesterday with his family, Thibault found any connection reassuring.

“Let's get those windows covered.”

“You got it, Tee.” The Craig led the way onto the dance floor, where the scrap was piled.

Tee,
huh? Half a name was pretty good for the Craig. Working together was giving his memory extra grip.

When they had the next sheet in place, Thibault fished in his pocket for another screw, positioned it, and drilled.

It was a relief to be in motion, to have something to do besides think about his family, even if it meant turning the Dish into a fortress. He and the Craig were narrowing the wide, welcoming entrance so a crowd couldn't swarm in all at once. The other Zeroes were setting up escape plans A, B, and C.

Well, not all of them—Glorious Leader was still holed up in his room at home, sending cryptic texts to Flicker. The ones she'd shown Thibault hardly made sense:

Burner phones in supply closet.

Fuel leak off the coast.

Take singles if you need to run.

Working on my old trick.

Thibault wondered what kind of
trick
that was. A new strategy for beating Swarm?

The last thing they needed was Glorious Leader undercutting Flicker at the last minute. She had stepped up, at least. Fortress Dish was her plan—her gamble.

The whole thing relied on the Dish crowd being too happy, too inherently
good,
to change into a deadly swarm. Even if Swarm brought his own angry minions, they could only trickle
in through the narrowed entrance. And as they came, Kelsie would Mob them into the happy dance, with help from Crash's light show.

To be fair, it seemed like a pretty risky plan to stake all their lives on, especially with Kelsie as upset as Thibault had ever seen her. But he'd also seen the right music cue or splash of spinning colors shift a crowd's mood in an instant. The Dish experiments had given them the tools; they just had to make it work.

If all that failed, Ethan and Kelsie were busy narrowing the stairs so a killer swarm couldn't rampage up to the second floor faster than the Zeroes could reach the back-alley fire escape.

Running away was sometimes just as solid as the Middle Way.

“Can I borrow you, Craig?” Chizara called from the second-floor balcony. “We need to rig some more lights up here.”

“You got it.” The Craig dropped his end of the steel plate, which clanged to the floor.

“Hey!” Thibault said, but the guy was already trotting away like a puppy.

Damn. Disappeared again. And he couldn't lift all this metal by himself.

“Ethan? Kelsie?” he called. “Give me a hand here?”

No answer. Too much Curve.

Story of his life.

Thibault lowered the steel, fighting off despair. He made himself go back to the dance floor. Ethan and Kelsie were
working halfway up the stairs, a bright connection crackling between them.

“I shouldn't have said any of that stuff,” Ethan was saying.

Kelsie jammed a crate into the barricade. She didn't look at him, but her attention flared.

Thibault cleared his throat. Neither of them noticed.

“Seriously,” Ethan said, “I feel really bad about it.”

Kelsie straightened up. “Don't apologize. For once your voice was telling the truth.”

“There's times to tell the truth, my mom says, and times to shut the fuck up.”

Thibault stepped closer. “Um, guys?”

“Your mom says that?” Kelsie said.

“Yeah, except without swearing.”

Not a spark of their attention came his way. Too much focus between them.

Thibault balled his fists. He'd spent his whole life eavesdropping, but always with people who would never see him, never know him. Ethan and Kelsie had worked hard to be his friends—he didn't want to spy on them.

But he'd spent all week fighting to be seen. He was done shoving himself into other people's awareness.

He turned back to the pile of scrap. Maybe he could move one of the smaller pieces. . . .

“It was my fault.” Ethan's words carried from the stairs. “I can't really control the voice, but it listens to me.”

“What do you mean?” Kelsie asked.

“I let jealousy into my head,” Ethan said, busily stacking stuff. “Being jealous of you and Chizara, that's what got the voice started.”

Thibault looked up at the balcony—maybe he could help Chizara? But she and Craig had disappeared from sight. And to get to them, he'd have to pass Ethan and Kelsie.

He took a few steps toward the stairs, but the brightness of their connection made him pause.

What if they didn't even notice him?

“I don't think there's anything to be jealous of anymore,” Kelsie said.

This only deflated Ethan more. “That's rough.”

“You're lucky we didn't hook up, Ethan. It's a bad idea getting a crush on me. I'm no good with one-on-one stuff. I only wind up disappointing people. I thought with Chizara it could work, but it turns out I'm still terrible.”

“You aren't.” Ethan straightened, arms limp by his sides. “But you don't exactly sound surprised I had a thing for you.”

“Ethan,” Thibault murmured. “She'd have had to be
unconscious
not to know that.”

Kelsie didn't even register him. Her awareness had curled up inside her, and her voice sounded tiny. “You were pretty obvious about it.”

Ethan kicked at a box embedded in the barricade. “I just wish I'd said something. I was
meaning
to, but the whole frickin'
universe kept interrupting me—first Glitch and Coin, then those cops, then Swarm. I mean, whatever you want is cool.
Obviously
 . . .”

Kelsie's attention crept out and took hold of him again. “Maybe the universe was trying to tell you something.”

“That it hates me?”

“That there's someone
else
out there for you. Someone right in front of you, who's hot for you right back.”

Ethan just stared at her.

“Sonia,” Kelsie persisted. “With the crazy hair.”

“Sonia Sonic?”
Ethan squeaked.

Thibault rolled his eyes.
She fixes on you like a spotlight.

“She did teach me how to skate, kind of,” Ethan said.

“Skating's like dancing. It's a courtship ritual.” Kelsie picked up another wooden crate and jammed it into the barricade.

Ethan slumped again. “Not that it matters much, seeing as we're all gonna
die
and stuff.”

“No, Ethan, don't you get it? This gives you more reason to live!”

It was the first time Thibault had heard a note of hope in her voice since Davey had been killed. It made him feel ashamed at his own despair.

He'd had to walk away from his family, but at least they were all still alive. Kelsie couldn't say the same, and twice this week she'd had Swarm in her head when he'd torn people to pieces.

If she could still muster a smile about Ethan and Sonia, maybe the Zeroes did have a chance tomorrow night. Maybe love really
would
save the Dish. . . .

The Craig appeared at the top of the stairs. “How's it going, guys?”

“Good.” Kelsie patted the crate she'd just wedged into place. “No evil horde's getting past this.”

The Craig walked down the stairs, inspected the barricade for a moment, then reached out and took hold of the crate. With a single movement he yanked it out, the wooden slats splintering as it came away in his hand.

“Hey!” she cried.

The Craig shrugged. “If I can pull it apart, so can a buncha bad guys.”

“Can't argue with that,” Chizara called from the second-floor balcony. She and Flicker stood among a nest of new light poles. A tangle of fresh wiring snaked down to the junction box.

“You oughta just block the stairs off completely.” The Craig socked his palm with his fist. “Just stay up there and leave me down here to do the dirty work.”

“Yeah, except if things go wrong, he'll make you his minion too,” Flicker said. “This bad guy
controls
people.”

“Maybe other people. Not the Craig.”

“Don't worry, you'll get your shot at him,” Flicker said. “Hey, you guys, come out where we can see you for a second?”

Ethan, Kelsie, and Craig looked at each other, but stepped out to join Thibault on the dance floor.

Up on the balcony next to Chizara, Flicker held her cane across one shoulder, like a swashbuckler's sword. Thibault felt an actual smile creeping onto his face. She was a glorious leader in her own right.

Now that he'd lost his family, he felt luckier than ever to have her as a girlfriend.

“Craig has a point,” she said. “Keeping the crowd happy is only step one. We also have to take out Swarm.”

“I'm telling you, no problem.” Craig mimed a bear hug, his biceps popping. “Gimme ten seconds and he's out like a light.”

“
Ten
seconds?” Flicker laughed. “Five, tops. Trouble is, the moment you start thinking about violence, you'll let Swarm into your head.”

“I will?”

“That's the way he works. Your rage is his key to your mind.”

“Then how's this gonna happen?” Ethan asked. “What's the point of neutralizing his minions if we can't
do
anything to the guy?”

“We have to switch off his power,” Flicker said. “Just for a few seconds.”

“I don't see how,” Kelsie said. “He has a feedback loop between himself and the crowd, just like I do.” She looked around, found Thibault beside her. “Can you cut that kind of connection, Anon?”

He answered slowly, grateful for this moment of the group's attention. “I can't chop away links among hundreds of people, no.”

“So we can't get rid of the feedback loop,” Flicker said. “But we can
use
it.”

She nodded to Chizara, who snapped her fingers. All the new spotlights flashed on, whiting out everything.

“Yeow!” Ethan cried. The Craig grunted, and Thibault shut his eyes, but the pattern of spotlights was already burned into his vision.

Crash laughed her mad-scientist laugh and cut the blazing lights.

“Ow” came Kelsie's voice, tiny and full of pain. Through the spotlight burns, Thibault saw that she'd doubled over and covered her face. “A little warning next time, Zara?”

“Sorry,” Chizara said. “We needed to surprise you.”

“Mission accomplished.”

Flicker was coming slowly down the stairs, her cane tapping now that everyone's vision was fritzed. “We had to test what kind of feedback a surprised crowd would produce. So how was it, Kelsie?”

“Like a grenade went off in my head.” Kelsie straightened up, blinking. “I'm still dizzy.”

“Me too,” Flicker said. “So imagine that times a couple of hundred people.”

“And maybe even more light,” Chizara said. “I've got power left over from my little . . . accident up the coast. I can pump
more watts in and burn out all the lights in a blaze of glory!”

“You think all that would knock you out for ten seconds?” Flicker asked.

Kelsie rubbed her eyes, nodding. “At least.”

“I'll be wearing these, then.” The Craig pulled sunglasses from his breast pocket and put them on. “Swarm comes in, you guys flash the crowd, I grab him, squish him unconscious. Have I got that right?”

“Sounds like a
plan
,” Ethan said.

“But then what?” Thibault stepped into the one remaining circle of spotlight. The others' attention flicked toward him. “What do we do with Swarm once we've got him—besides get him isolated, fast?”

The connections faded as they considered.

“He needs to be away from crowds, like, permanently.” Ethan sent a worried strand toward Flicker. “So, lock him up? Somewhere in the country?”

“In the desert. A bunker.” Craig's attention fanned out among them. “I might know a place.”

“And then, what, spend the rest of our lives taking supplies out there?” Thibault asked, killing the hopeful glow in all their faces. “Hiding the fact that we're kidnappers?”

“Just until we think of something better,” Chizara said. “Some way of canceling out his powers.”

“What, like putting a big
magnet
next to him?” Ethan snorted.

“Maybe we can cure him,” Flicker said. “What if you faced off with him, Kelsie, with the five of us on your side? Could you change his power so he's more like you?”

Kelsie shrank back into herself. “I don't think so. He changes
me
, not the other way around.”

“Can we level him
down
?” Ethan said.

Connections spangled at him.

“And how would we do that, Ethan?” Chizara asked.

He threw up his hands. “I don't know. Why even
get
him here if we don't know what to do with him?”

A silence fell, connections probing all around the room.

“Don't worry about Swarm,” said a voice from the door. “I know exactly how to deal with him.”

Thibault squinted. Nate stood there, framed against the sunlight. He'd snuck in, instead of taking the stage and commanding everyone's attention like usual.

But now he stood resplendent in the sudden fizz of their surprise and hope.

“How?” Flicker asked quietly.

Glorious Leader looked around, deftly connecting with each person—even Thibault. He steadied and brightened each arc of attention, and it felt good. Thibault usually hated Nate's blatant displays of power, but all he could feel was relief at being led with such perfect assurance. At being seen at all.

Damn. He'd really missed the guy.