Zeroes

by Scott Westerfeld

  CHAPTER 39

  FLICKER

  “THE HERO OF OUR TALE seems to have a thing for cracks in walls,” Lily said, a smirk in her voice.

  Flicker ignored the words, focusing on the photographs in Lily’s hands. They were close-ups of faded graffiti, cracks in asphalt, and brick walls textured with age. All of which supported Nate’s theory that Anon lived in a hotel here in downtown Cambria.

  According to Nate’s notes, the style was something called wabi-sabi, which was about appreciating imperfect and transient things. An interesting choice for someone who slipped out of memory so easily.

  Flicker wondered if Nate had stolen the camera, or if Anon had given him the images. Did the boy called Nothing want to be found?

  “Quit shuffling them,” Flicker said. “Just focus on one.”

  They had to be systematic. Everybody in town had seen that stupid video of Ethan by now. The two would need help soon, whether Anon wanted it or not. And these photos were the only way to find him.

  Lily grumbled, but chose a photo and settled herself against the cool stone of the Cambria Library main branch. The sounds of traffic were all around, and a soft breeze made the printout shiver in her hands.

  The photo showed a chipped cement wall with a jagged crack running through it. Clinging to the wall was a tiny green plant that had taken root in the gap. More cracks stretched away from the leaves, as if the plant were pushing outward, a small force, persistent and irresistible.

  Flicker placed a steadying hand on Lily’s shoulder. “Story, please.”

  “Okay,” her sister began, eyes locked on the photo. “The boy called Nothing stared at the walls of his secret castle. They were thick and strong, built to last a thousand years. But no wall is without cracks and fissures, and he knew that one day he would walk free, past the castle walls and out into the sunlight.”

  As Lily spoke, Flicker left her sister’s vision behind and flung herself outward into the crowd. She moved fast, fluttering from head to head, needing little more than glimpses.

  Nobody was staring at the walls, of course. Or at cracks in the pavement or the places where old paint had chipped away from brick walls. People stared at their phones, or watched traffic lights or the heels of the people in front of them. They glanced at newspaper headlines, ads, and signs in shopwindows.

  But in the periphery of those glances were the things that a boy called Nothing took photos of—fractures and crevices, broken pavement, bleached stone. In those edges of vision Flicker was looking for a match.

  She hopped farther, across the streets and down alleyways, to the farthest reaches of her range, which was a long way here in the downtown crowds. But she found nothing that resembled the tiny green plant clinging to a gray cement wall.

  Then it struck her, and she sighed. “Of course. It’s a plant.”

  Her sister’s rambling story came to a halt. “What?”

  “It’s probably dead by now. Or flowered or whatever. That picture could be from a year ago.”

  Lily made another grumbly noise. She wasn’t fully on board with the whole finding-the-fictional-boyfriend project. When presented with the plan that morning at breakfast, she’d said, “Sounds really mature, Riley. Like being one of those fans who forget that TV actors aren’t really the characters they play.”

  But a few minutes of cajoling in their private accent had convinced Lily to come along. She liked being included when superpowers were involved.

  “Can you find one without a plant?” Flicker asked.

  “Whatever.” Lily shuffled through the printouts until she reached a photo of a wall painted a brilliant sky blue. The paint was gone in two big patches, leaving exposed stone bearing flecks of half a dozen other colors.

  Flicker squeezed her sister’s shoulder. “Perfect. That blue should be easy to spot.”

  “If you say so.” Lily stared at the picture for a moment, as if collecting threads of narrative from the fissures and flecks, and began her story again.

  * * *

  By the time late afternoon had covered the streets of downtown in shadow, they’d found three matches: the blue wall, a rusted red door in an alleyway, a bus-stop bench with splintered wooden slats. All three photographs had been taken in the same one-block area.

  “What’s around here?” Flicker asked. She had retreated into blindness, dizzy from scattering her vision like leaves in a storm. Darkness felt steadying and solid.

  “A couple of bars,” Lily said. “Not like the clubs on Ivy. Scuzzier.”

  “Anywhere he could live?”

  “No apartment buildings, just offices. And the Magnifique, I guess.”

  “Of course,” Flicker murmured. Her borrowed eyes had been glancing up to admire it all day—towering, terraced, wrapped in glass. The tallest and most expensive hotel in Cambria. The boy called Nothing really did live in a castle.

  She’d found him.

  “Seriously?” Lily asked. “That place is like a thousand a night. How rich is this guy?”

  “Not rich. Magic. Haven’t you been listening to your story?”

  “Yeah, but it’s a story. And what you guys have isn’t really magic. It’s just a mutation or something, right?”

  “Or something,” Flicker said with a shrug. Glorious Leader had a lot of theories. Mutations, radiation, eating genetically engineered foods or expired Twinkies. The fact that they’d all been born in 2000, a year with a lot of zeroes in it. So to speak.

  “You know these are just stories, right?” Lily sounded worn out. “I’m just making stuff up.”

  “But that’s what everyone does. Before we really know someone, we’re looking at the surface and guessing, embroidering.”

  “Um, Riley, this is more like stalking than embroidering.”

  “This is me helping a friend.”

  “Well, I’m done here,” Lily said. “You coming home?”

  Flicker shook her head. She was going to sit in the lobby of the Magnifique until she found Anonymous.

  He’d been alone long enough.

  CHAPTER 40

  BELLWETHER

  THIS SIDE OF TOWN WAS full of eyes.

  The Heights was a poor part of Cambria, watchful and tight-knit, wary of newcomers. As Nate drove onto the street where Chizara worked, he felt the weight of all that vision.

  Not that he was worried about the attention his mother’s Audi attracted. Nate knew exactly what to do with attention.

  There were plenty of shady spots available, but he parked in the sun, where the car’s chrome would sparkle. As he stepped onto the curb, he felt the focus of the street settle over him. The girls playing handball against the convenience-store wall, little kids swapping stories on a stoop, old men playing dominoes—all of them paused a moment, and Nate smiled.

  He didn’t try to deflect their admiration of the car, his dress shirt and hundred-dollar sunglasses, or the gold rings shining on his finger. Instead he gathered every twitch of envy and smoothed it into respect. Nate felt it register with the crowd that he belonged here. Otherwise how could he look so serene?

  He moved gently away from the parking spot, careful not to draw the web of attention with him. It settled where he had first smiled at them, the whole street suddenly wary and protective of that glittering car.

  Don’t touch that. Someone important owns it.

  * * *

  “Took you long enough,” Chizara said.

  She was hunched over what appeared to be the guts of an electric toaster. Heating elements, springs, a dozen screws lined up neatly on the wooden table. Only the deco chrome shell with its two bread slots revealed what those parts had been.

  What a waste, using her talents this way. Like a brain surgeon clubbing seals for a living.

  “I had unexpected visitors,” Nate said, putting a little tightness in his voice.

  Chizara’s eyes widened, her annoyance derailed by a pulse of fear. Her mind had gone straight to the police. Nate nodded gravely.

  She
carefully set down her screwdriver. “My ride’s here, Bob. Gotta go.”

  An older man, hunched at his own desk over another scattering of parts, glimmered with interest. Nate settled him with a smile.

  As Chizara straightened her tools, Nate scanned the shelves lining the walls of the workroom. They were full of junky appliances and rusty parts. What would it be like to be too poor to buy a new toaster when yours broke?

  Nate liked money. It was a sleek and clever invention, beautiful in the way it lubricated power and focused people’s attention. But it had a clumsy, brutal side too. Money bludgeoned people without it into silence, shut them away in neighborhoods like this.

  Nate knew that anyone who rose to power had to take one side or another in that contest of meanings. But he hadn’t decided which one suited him yet.

  “You ready?” Chizara said, brushing past him. “I split my lunch with Bob. I’m hungry.”

  Nate gave her his most radiant smile. “I’m buying.”

  * * *

  “There were two detectives. And Ethan’s mother.”

  Chizara let out a slow breath between pursed lips. “She’s a detective, right?”

  “A district attorney.” Nate looked for the waitress, needing more water, but she’d disappeared again. The place was almost empty. He’d planned to take Chizara to a crowded restaurant downtown, somewhere with a crowd, an audience. But she’d insisted on this tiny Korean place near her home. Even full, it would barely contain enough people to get the Curve going.

  Chizara wasn’t giving him an inch.

  “Did they say anything about Officer Bright?” she asked.

  Nate took a moment to look somber. “Of course not. Their visit had nothing to do with those criminals escaping. They just wanted to ask why Ethan called me.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “The truth. That we used to be friends. And now we’re not.”

  Chizara settled back into the squeaky plastic of the booth, looking thoughtful. “Not friends anymore? You seemed happy to have him back yesterday.”

  “Whether he’s my friend or not, Scam needs us,” Nate said. “We all need each other.”

  “Yeah, we do such great things together.”

  Nate sighed to himself. He’d come up with that line in the car, and it had been a good one. But he’d used it without laying any groundwork, and the restaurant was too empty for his power to help.

  On top of that, his throat was dry, which made his voice sound weak and desperate. Where was the waitress?

  Chizara wore a grim smile. She knew he hated bad service.

  Nate gazed at the menu, which was coated in plastic and frayed at the corners. “This is quaint. What do you recommend?”

  “I recommend that you delete my number from your phone,” Chizara said. “And that you and your friends stop playing with these powers.”

  “We’re not playing. We’re learning how they work.”

  “And what did you learn yesterday? How to get someone killed?”

  “Officer Bright isn’t . . . ,” Nate began, but arguing the definition of “dead” was exactly the wrong way to win her trust. “It’s terrible what happened. And it’s my fault for pushing you too hard. But if you ignore what you are, and let that itch build up, what do you think will happen?”

  Chizara drew back in her seat, but she was still listening.

  Suddenly he saw how to convince her. Not loyalty to the group, not self-improvement. An appeal to her morality.

  “Let’s say you keep yourself under control, Chizara. Maybe for a year, maybe ten. But Crash is still inside you, growing stronger. In the end, what happens? You take out a hospital? An airplane overhead? A whole city?”

  She held his gaze, but a nervous swallow moved her throat.

  “We found out yesterday how powerful you are. You might be the strongest of us.” The words gave him a shiver—of jealousy? No, the irritation of seeing power wasted on the unwilling.

  “So how do I stop myself?” she asked softly.

  “Not by repressing what you are—by mastering it. You have to practice like an athlete, every day.”

  “Like Scam does?” Chizara shook her head. “Every time he lets that thing inside him talk, he winds up with less control, not more.”

  “Ethan’s different. Another species.” Nate shuddered a little as he spoke. The last time he’d put it that harshly was last summer, about ten seconds before Scam tore the group to pieces. But keeping Chizara was worth playing every card. “He doesn’t get stronger in a crowd like the rest of us. His power’s connected to his own ego, not to the people around him. He’s the opposite of us.”

  She was silent, staring out the window, and the waitress finally appeared.

  “You order for us both, Chizara.” Let her be in control.

  She ordered everything extra hot, another way to keep him off balance. But nothing in this place would match his mother’s love of habaneros.

  When they were alone again, he took a drink of water and said, “It’s not only the difference in your power, Chizara. It’s who you are. You have discipline. You have ethics.”

  “Maybe for now,” she said. “But yesterday felt so good. What if I love crashing things too much to stop?”

  Nate nodded, hiding his surprise. Anyone could see that Chizara enjoyed being Crash, but he’d never heard her admit it aloud.

  “Yesterday changed me.” Her eyes glazed over, like they had after the crash yesterday. Her focus left him, drifting into memories and doubt.

  “Changed you how? What happened?”

  “A man’s in the hospital because of us.”

  “What changed, Chizara?”

  She looked frightened, ready to draw herself back and tell him nothing. He had to act now, with no crowd to help him.

  All he had left was the twist in his power, the one he’d discovered two years ago when he’d been in love with Flicker. When he’d needed to show how much he trusted her, to reveal how vulnerable he was behind his charm.

  It hadn’t worked out the way he’d hoped—they were still just friends. But showing himself to Flick had been worth it even so.

  The problem was, he didn’t trust Chizara that way. But the Zeroes couldn’t lose her. They were all in danger if they didn’t stick together.

  Nataniel closed his eyes, weighing the full measure of the power inside him. And then he let it drop. His guts rose up in him, like he was in an elevator with a snapped cable. The channels of dominance that extended in all directions, hungry for attention and obedience, fluttered powerless.

  Now he sat exposed before Chizara, unprotected, feeling a wretched and unfamiliar sense of neediness.

  “Please,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”

  She stared at him a moment. She’d felt the absence right away.

  “You four are what matters to me,” he said. “I can’t lose any of you, not even Ethan, or I’m nothing. Zilch. Nada.”

  His throat was dry again, and his voice sounded pathetic. He felt an awful certainty that if she rejected him now, his heart would break.

  “I’m pointless without you, so if you’re changing—”

  “I can fix things now,” Chizara said.

  Nate sputtered to a halt, trying to understand. He was so thankful for any answer that it was hard to breathe.

  “Fix things?” he managed.

  “My phone. And my brother’s video game. I reached inside and fixed them.” Her voice sank to a whisper. “Since what I did to the police station, I can uncrash things.”

  It took a long time for the words to sink in, but when they did, they kicked Nate’s power to spinning again. All his tendrils of dominance and attention twisted to life, hungrier now than ever.

  A moment later the waitress was at his side, obediently filling his water. Nate drank it all in a gulp, then pointed at the glass again. She poured, lingering at the task, drawn by his greedy power. In the awkward silence he searched for words to make Chizara understand.
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  She was the only one of them whose power went beyond other human beings, reaching into the guts of objects and changing reality.

  If she could learn to transform as well as destroy, anything was possible.

  But telling her that wouldn’t be enough. Chizara needed to see that she was not only powerful, but worthy. She had to atone for the life that yesterday’s mission had destroyed. To know that her power was worth embracing, Chizara had to save someone.

  It was up to Nate to make that happen.

  CHAPTER 41

  MOB

  IN A BACK ROOM OF Fuse, Kelsie watched Fig count out three grand.

  It was all ones and fives, beer-stained bills from the tip jar and register. It was taking a long, long time. Fig smoothed each note with the side of his hand and built clumsy piles of cash.

  When he was done, she stuffed the bundle into her bag. The scent of beer rose up from it.

  “You couldn’t take this to a bank and swap it for twenties?” she asked. “Would’ve been lighter. Smelled better, too.”

  “Nah,” Fig said. “Too many bank robbers.”

  Kelsie glanced up at him. Fig was managing not to break into a smile.

  “We are so not laughing about this yet,” she said. “My dad’s in deep.”

  Fig’s expression grew sober. “I know.”

  Her dad’s trouble was way bigger than anything Kelsie knew how to fix. Whenever she tried to come up with a way to help him, her thoughts circled along the same path. If only he hadn’t taken that job with the Bagrovs, or tried to rob a bank. Or if that creepy kid hadn’t spooked him.

  Who was that guy, anyhow?

  Craig said his name was Axel, and that he knew stuff he shouldn’t. Seemed like Axel knew a lot of stuff. If that bank video was anything to go by, he knew more about her own dad than Kelsie did.

  She’d watched it twenty times by now. He’d really said Kelsie’s name, and mentioned her mom, too. Which totally creeped her out. Maybe the Bagrovs had sent him to mess up the robbery. Maybe Axel had been following her dad, spying on him, waiting for an opportunity to screw him over.

  Well, it’d worked. And sent Kelsie’s whole life into free fall, too.