Nexus

by Scott Westerfeld

  Unbelievable. How could she have sat here philosophizing about beauty and blindness while the boy she loved was missing?

  She ignored Beau calling after her. She had to get back to where she’d lost Thibault, before he slipped too far into the Nowhere and was gone forever.

  ‘DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO SAY?’ CHIZARA WHISPERED BENEATH THE MURMUR OF THE GATHERING. ‘If your mom’s even here?’

  Kelsie tensed. ‘Don’t call her that, okay?’

  Zoe Moseley had broken three-year-old Kelsie’s wrist, scared her dad so much he’d run halfway across the country. She didn’t deserve the title of mother.

  ‘She never looked for me, you know?’ Kelsie said. ‘Even now, when my name’s in the news.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Chizara said gently. ‘We’ve been on the run. If the feds couldn’t find us, how could she?’

  ‘I guess.’ Kelsie adjusted her mask. It felt weird to be wearing it here, but other people were dressed up. Mardi Gras seemed inescapable, even out in this quiet part of town. ‘Dad told her never to contact us, but still…’

  It hurt, having to be the one to show up searching, begging for recognition from her own mother.

  Kelsie had been waiting for this moment since they’d arrived in New Orleans. But now that she was here, she wanted nothing more than to be out looking for Verity again. She had a mission. She had the other Zeroes.

  She didn’t need a mother.

  The Clarity Circle meeting was being held in an old converted church, which seemed to be someone’s house – someone who liked to cook. The kitchen wall was covered with fancy pans, each fitting snugly in its own outlined spot, but the rest of the ground level was wide open. There wasn’t much furniture, but streaks of discolored wood showed where pews had once lined the floor. Most people sat on cushions.

  There were about thirty of them gathered, all ages, lots of different types. A solid crowd with a friendly, expectant vibe. Too good-natured for Kelsie’s anxiety to build a feedback loop. But somehow their warmth didn’t settle back into her, either.

  Kelsie used to love the feel of a group like this. But since Swarm had hijacked that AA meeting, Kelsie knew how quickly an earnest gathering could turn bad. What she could turn them into if she really tried.

  She hoped the meeting started soon. It was already ten minutes late.

  ‘Any whiff of Verity’s tracker?’ she asked.

  Chizara shook her head. ‘Nothing. Nate’s gonna be pissed.’

  Kelsie sighed. Between their side trips to the graveyard and the Crashes’ warehouse – and now this – she and Zara were way behind schedule. ‘We should go. Zoe Moseley doesn’t care if I’m alive or dead.’

  Chizara laid an arm across Kelsie’s shoulders. ‘We don’t know her side of the story yet.’

  Kelsie started to speak, but was silenced by a sudden ripple of energy in the room. As a murmur passed through the crowd, all eyes went to an old woman in the doorway.

  The woman gestured for quiet, and the noise stopped at once.

  A young guy in a purple shirt got up from the floor. He led the woman to a leather armchair at the front of the room.

  ‘I’m Madame Laurentine,’ she said, her voice lightly accented with a Cajun lilt. ‘I know it’s Mardi Gras, but we are here for clarity – to show ourselves. So please reveal your faces.’

  People started taking off their masks, looking around at each other, smiling and blinking, like it was the end of a masquerade party.

  Kelsie’s stomach clenched. Every instinct she’d developed over the last month screamed against revealing her face among strangers. But being the only people in masks would only attract more attention.

  She dipped into the group’s positive energy and held it level, hoping to short-circuit any alarm of recognition. Then she reached for her mask.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Chizara whispered.

  Kelsie wasn’t sure about anything. But this might be her last chance to find Zoe Moseley and ask what had really happened fourteen years ago.

  The world might change tomorrow, after all.

  She pulled off her mask. Chizara did the same.

  No one was looking at them. The crowd continued to smile up at Madame Laurentine, caught up in a heady gratitude for her presence.

  She gazed intently back at her audience, like she was getting to know each and every person. There was a new energy in the room.

  Recognition. Acceptance. It was calm and steadying.

  Kelsie felt herself smile.

  ‘That’s funny,’ Chizara breathed.

  ‘You feel it too?’

  Chizara’s gaze met hers. ‘Are you thinking what I am?’

  Kelsie shook her head – Madame Laurentine was way too old to have a power. They had to stop seeing Zeroes everywhere. They had to remember that there were people in the world who were simply good.

  ‘Thank you all for being here,’ the woman said. ‘For taking time out of your Mardi Gras festivities. And for coming all the way out to the boondocks. You know how clarity doesn’t do well in rowdy environments.’

  A murmur of laughter went through the room. That feeling of an old joke they all shared, reminding everyone that they belonged here.

  Madame Laurentine let the sound subside, then said, ‘And special thanks for sharing your home with us, Zoe.’

  Kelsie froze.

  Madame Laurentine was nodding to someone in the front row. Someone she couldn’t quite see.

  Her mother.

  Kelsie tried to breathe, to keep herself steady. But the floor had dropped out from under her. She caught a glimpse of long ash-blond hair tied up in a bun. A glimmer of eyeglasses as the woman nodded back at Madame Laurentine.

  Her mother wore glasses. She had blond hair, like Kelsie.

  Kelsie looked at the kitchen again. All those pots so cozy in their spots, hung by someone who cared about everything she owned. Was this really the home of someone who would hurt her own daughter?

  And then a man in front of her leaned to one side, and she saw something else…

  Sitting next to Zoe were two small boys. Also fair-haired. They sat quietly, content and happy, full of the certainty that they were valued and loved.

  And everything became clear.

  She’d been replaced. That was why there’d been no search, no tearful letter out of the blue. No appeal on TV, her mother standing next to FBI agents, asking for Kelsie to give herself up.

  Nothing in fourteen years.

  Her mother had moved on.

  Kelsie knew that she should be upset, angry, humiliated. But another wave of understanding struck – it didn’t matter, because Kelsie was still whole.

  She knew who she was. Who her friends were. Who she loved and why. Her life had its own melody.

  When Fig had taught her about music, his first lesson was repetition and alteration. The same number of beats in each measure, but different notes occupying them.

  Life was change.

  When her father had died, she’d bonded to the Zeroes. Her mother had simply done the same thing – the Kelsie-size hole in her life was filled twice over.

  No one was irreplaceable. Kelsie was like a note shimmering in the air – perfect but transitory.

  Everything was so clear, so easy to understand. The only thing she didn’t understand was why everyone in whole room felt the same way…

  They were all having their own moments of clarity.

  The boy who had led Madame Laurentine to her chair was standing now, gazing at the crowd. He was as dark-skinned as Chizara, with a square face and a wisp of beard on his lower jaw. Exactly the right age for a Zero.

  Damn. This was a power.

  And in her moment of sublime recognition, Kelsie knew exactly which power it was…

  She’d seen it just yesterday in the cemetery. But flipped around. The opposite of recognition, the reverse of knowledge and self-understanding.

  ‘Zara,’ she whispered. ‘He’s a Glitch. But inside out
.’

  She turned. Chizara stared back at her, tears in her eyes.

  ‘It hurts all the time,’ Chizara said. ‘Every day, I’m in pain.’

  Kelsie swallowed. ‘I know this city’s hard for you, Zara.’

  ‘No – my family. I miss them so much.’

  Another wave of understanding, far more terrible, passed through Kelsie. She had always been a wanderer, alone in a crowd. Ready to head off to the next party with anyone who was game.

  And the Zeroes, even on the run, were the most solid thing she’d ever had. A family of people like her. But in leaving Cambria, Chizara had lost something deeper – her real family. Her beautiful brothers. Her perfect mom and dad.

  Kelsie saw it now, with awful clarity: she needed Zara more than Zara needed her.

  ‘I’m lost without them,’ Chizara said. ‘And all I want is for the feds to put an end to this so I can see my family again. Before I kill someone.’

  Kelsie shook her head. ‘Zara. You’d never.’

  Chizara’s eyes closed. ‘I could, just by thinking them dead. Hearts are just machines ready to crash.’

  Kelsie caught a clear, steady glimpse of what Chizara’s words meant, and a gasp rose up from deep in her chest. This new power was just another thing that Chizara had to fight every day.

  Kelsie’s anguish finally pierced the feedback loop of goodwill that lay across the group. A murmur of surprise and anguish shot through the room.

  The guy in the purple shirt was staring straight at her.

  ‘Oliver?’ Madame Laurentine stood, laying a hand on the guy’s shoulder. ‘What is this? Another power?’

  He nodded.

  A jolt of real fear went through Kelsie then – and it too spilled across the room. If Oliver knew how to reverse his power, he could switch it around and glitch them on the spot.

  ‘Not just any power,’ the boy said gently. ‘One of the famous Cambria Five.’

  Chizara was scrambling up now, trying to pull Kelsie to her feet. But Kelsie could only watch, frozen, as Zoe Moseley turned and stared, drawing her little boys close. Her eyes widened, and she mouthed something that could’ve been Kelsie’s name. Again with perfect clarity, Kelsie saw every emotion on Zoe’s face – guilt and sadness, longing and confusion, and a dread underlying it all.

  Her daughter was a wanted terrorist, after all.

  Chizara’s strong arms lifted Kelsie to her feet, and the spell was broken. The two of them darted through a crowd of people who cowered as they passed, their fear almost sending Kelsie sprawling to the ground.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, everyone,’ Oliver called out. ‘You can’t always believe the news.’

  But his friendly tone didn’t break the feedback loop, and didn’t stop Kelsie from running, from needing to escape the turmoil of emotions in her mother’s eyes.

  No one chased them out the door.

  PING, PING, PING…

  Nate turned off the rebuilt phone.

  He looked up at the decaying factory building – more likely it had been a power station, with that nest of transformers off to one side. Two giant smokestacks rose up against the blue sky, their crumbling brick spires braced by metal splints. Half the panes in the big industrial windows had been shattered by flung stones. Graffiti the size of billboards covered the lower stories, and the metal doors looked rusted shut.

  Like an empty ruin. But according to Chizara’s improvised tracker, Verity was in there somewhere. Which meant that Piper and her crew were too.

  It was a pretty awesome lair, Nate had to admit. Decrepit and magnificent. Powerful-looking, but no one driving past would give it a second glance. New Orleans had plenty of abandoned buildings here along the river, away from the French Quarter and the surging crowds.

  He had to get closer and scope out a plan of attack for tonight. There was no time to come back later with Anon or Flicker. Tomorrow was Fat Tuesday, when the streets would be choked by the largest, climactic Mardi Gras parades. When Piper’s plans would unfold.

  It was time to become Anonymous.

  Nate breathed in slowly, letting his mind fill with the antiseptic reek of his prison cell, and his power withered. All his tendrils of dominance, hungry for obedience, wilted on the breeze. He let the building awe him, allowed its majesty to make him feel small. Staring across this vacant lot at the edifice that Piper had seized for herself, Nate realized how tiny his schemes had always been.

  An amateur nightclub, a sleepy hometown, five other Zeroes – nothing compared to Piper’s lair, her boisterous city, her army of powers. Whatever her plans turned out to be, he knew they were not small.

  As his own insignificance settled over him, Nate’s power turned gently inside out, until he was nothing. Beneath notice.

  He walked across the vacant lot under a veil of in-consequence.

  Nearer the factory, he felt a crowd inside. Enough people to make his smothered ego thirsty…

  But prison had taught him how to lie low. How to stay small enough to disappear. If Dungeness hadn’t been full of cameras and automatic doors, he could’ve walked out unnoticed after that first awful week.

  It was scary, how good he was at anonymity now.

  He breathed the thought away, focusing on the factory’s windows at ground level. They were secured by metal grates, but he spotted one that looked rusted and worn. Nothing a crowbar couldn’t peel back. He reached for his phone to take a picture – stopped himself in time.

  Chizara had texted that the Makers’ warehouse was empty now. They were probably here, preparing for the final part of Piper’s plan. They would spot a switched-on phone in a second.

  Brushing the brickwork with his fingertips, Nate counted the steps from the corner to the rusted grate, until he was certain he could find it in the dark.

  A truck rumbled past, pulled in at one of the warehouses across the street. They seemed to be still in business, their loading docks freshly painted, with boxes stacked outside. Whatever Piper was up to in her lair, it wasn’t so obvious that her neighbors had called the cops.

  Of course, Nate could call the FBI himself. Explain to Agent Phan that a gang of terrorists was assembled on the edge of town. Let the feds handle this.

  But what if Piper’s plan was something wonderful? Something that would help Zeroes everywhere against a world that feared them?

  Wrapped up in this insignificance, Nate wanted to join something, anything, even if it meant serving under another Bellwether. The way Piper had guided that parade two nights ago had been so elegant. This seething, musical city had taught her how to play a crowd like an instrument. He could learn so much from her.

  But he had to make his own decision, and rescuing Verity was the key. With her truth power, all the Zeroes had to do was grab one of Piper’s confidants at the same time and they’d learn what she was planning.

  As Nate walked away back across the lot, his body shuddered, and his power flipped again, like a cat’s bent ear flicking back to its normal shape. He smiled as the last threads of anonymity fell away.

  He was ready to fight for recognition. For his rightful part in deciding whether Piper’s plan would go forward or not.

  Nataniel Saldana was a Bellwether, not some pawn.

  But he was still cautious, walking for half a mile before he powered up the phone and sent a text to the others.

  Found her. Get ready. We’re breaking in tonight.

  ETHAN’S PHONE BUZZED.

  He pulled it out of his pocket. It was from Nate.

  ‘Crap,’ he said to Sonia. ‘They found Verity. I gotta go.’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ Sonia said. ‘We’re finishing this!’

  Ethan just stared at her. They’d tried three fortune-tellers already and found out nothing. New Orleans had a lot more psychics than that, of course, but Sonia had narrowed the search down to the ones who looked Zeroes-aged on their website pictures.

  She was pretty damn smart.

  But it had been a bust so far. Every so-called p
sychic had had a different answer to Sonia’s brilliant question, but no one had given the right answer. As far as Ethan could tell, psychics weren’t real and other Scams didn’t exist.

  ‘Maybe we can pick up again tomorrow?’ he said. ‘If I’m still alive.’

  ‘Hush.’ Sonia looked down at her phone. ‘The last one on my list is just up the street.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Ethan agreed.

  Sonia led him beneath iron second-floor balconies with potted plants hanging from them, to the entry of a shadowy alley. Even in daylight it looked kind of creepy.

  At the far end was a single red door. Ethan was pretty sure he’d seen the exact same door in a horror movie.

  Ethan hesitated. ‘You sure about this one?’

  ‘Totally. She gets great reviews. I figured that’s a good sign, right? And they all mention how young she is.’ Sonia pushed her mask to the top of her head. ‘Sucks that Zeroes have to be born in two thousand. I was two years early.’

  ‘Superpowers are overrated,’ Ethan assured her. ‘What kind of town has teenage psychics, anyhow?’

  ‘Same kind that has twenty-three voodoo stores,’ Sonia replied.

  When they reached the end of the alley, Sonia tapped out a complex rhythm on the door.

  ‘It’s a code from her website,’ she said. ‘She’s really into secrecy. Another good sign that she’s hiding something, yeah?’

  Ethan blinked. Maybe this one really was a Zero.

  Someone like him…

  Sonia pressed her ear to the door. Ethan stood back, half hoping the door would never open. This alley was scary, and part of him was starting to get nervous about all this.

  What if this girl was another Scam, and her life sucked too? What if the voice’s life-suck power was inescapable?

  The door swung open. Sonia stepped back, colliding with Ethan.

  A girl their age stood in the doorway. She wore a long paisley skirt and a headband of twinkling gold coins. A veil covered her face up to her dark eyes.

  ‘Aha! Young lovers,’ the girl said confidently. ‘You want to know your future.’

  ‘Uh, not exactly,’ Ethan said. His future scared the crap out of him. So did romance. On the other hand, he did like Sonia. A lot. ‘We’re looking for, um, psychic advice.’