Swarm

by Scott Westerfeld

  The words connected then, and pleasure washed over Thibault.

  “It’s Emile. My little brother!”

  “Whoa.” Flicker’s listening tendrils brightened. “How did he remember you?”

  “I snuck in and left a present under the tree for him.” It actually hurt Thibault’s face to smile, he hadn’t smiled in so long. “Something for his rock collection, just like on his birthdays.”

  “He remembers!” Flicker said. “That’s amazing.”

  “We’ve always had a good connection. Sometimes on his birthday he even—”

  The phone beeped again.

  Um, RU real?

  Thibault stared at the message. Another appeared.

  Mom saw the present too. She keeps asking me.

  “Something wrong?” Flicker asked.

  “Not sure,” Thibault said, then texted: Asking about ME?

  Ellipses pulsed for a long moment before the answer appeared. She keeps looking @ old photos and talking about you. And crying. Dad doesn’t know what to do.

  He read out the text, and they both sat silent for a moment.

  “You should answer,” Flicker finally said.

  “How? Should I explain that Mom’s not crazy? It’s just my superpower?”

  “Tell him you’ll be there tonight,” said Flicker. “He needs you. They need you.”

  Thibault shook his head. “It’s Christmas Eve. It’ll suck. They always have people over, and they can barely see me in the crowd. They’ll just forget tomorrow anyway.”

  “But they must remember something. This proves it!”

  “Emile remembers the presents I leave,” he said. “The rest of them remember the pictures on the wall. But not me. Just a bunch of confusing clues.”

  “You should try,” she said. “Would you rather be sitting alone in my attic all night? I have my parents’ party, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah. I was planning on lurking in the corner.”

  “Lurking is right,” Flicker sighed. “It’ll be too crowded to meet my parents again. But they’ll be asking about you, as usual. My dad has this joke that you must not be real. Hearing that one’s going to suck tonight.”

  “Damn. Sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.” She took his hand again. “It’s just that Mom and Dad really want to meet you. They don’t know they already have. I feel like I have to throw them a bone somehow.”

  She turned to face to the window, but her senses stayed in a cloud around him. In a way this slim cut of hope was thanks to her. He never would have thought to put his number in his mother’s phone if Flicker hadn’t shown him it was possible. Possible that he would be seen one day—recognized—by the people he loved.

  By the family that had lost him.

  Zen Buddhism said that attachments were the source of trouble, of pain. And for most of Thibault’s life that had proven heartbreakingly true. But look at this bond with Flicker—and now with Emile. Being unattached was for chumps.

  He turned back to his phone.

  See you tonight, kid.

  CHAPTER 36

  SCAM

  ETHAN HAD NEVER BEEN SO glad to be home.

  He was sunburned, he was tired, and there was sand everywhere. He felt like he’d been flattened by a cement truck. Repeatedly.

  Just inside the front door he listened carefully for Mom and Jess.

  No sound.

  Good. Nobody home. There was just the slightest chance Jess hadn’t checked his room this morning. Maybe she thought he was sulking in there, playing video games. That was his usual response to fights with her, after all.

  He started upstairs toward his room, leaning heavily on the bannister. His hopes rose a little with each step.

  If Jess had any clue he’d snuck out for this many hours, she’d be on him like stink on a skunk already, right?

  Which he did not need. He was so exhausted he felt like he might throw up. He just needed sleep.

  He reached his door and opened it just enough to slip through. Then he closed the door silently and rested his head against it. He’d made it. Thank crap. He was safe. He was ninja stealthy. He was—

  “Where the hell have you been, Ethan?”

  —busted.

  He spun around. There was Jess, glaring at him from the end of his bed.

  “Aw, crap.” Ethan slumped. “Listen, I’m beat—”

  “Not my problem,” Jess replied. “We have to talk.”

  Ethan almost laughed. “Seriously? You’ve been avoiding me for nearly two days and now you want to talk?”

  “I’ve finally figured out what I need to say,” she said. “So yeah, this conversation happens now.”

  The adrenaline of watching Davey get killed had worn off, and Ethan felt like his entire body was in meltdown. He was pretty sure he’d lost an entire layer of skin to the sand in his clothes. There was no way in hell he could talk to Jess now.

  Come on, voice. Get Jess off my back so I can get some shut-eye.

  Ethan opened his mouth, but the voice said nothing.

  Defeated, he sat on his bed, as far from Jess as he could get. Since the night she’d followed him to the Dish, he’d been walking on eggshells, hoping she wouldn’t tell Mom about the crooked cops and the payoff and the illegal nightclub and, hell, maybe even his superpowered friends.

  And now, on the very day when he just wanted to crawl into a hole and hibernate for the rest of winter, now she needed to talk?

  “You snuck out,” Jess began. “Middle of the damn night, the day before Christmas Eve. Was it to meet your superfriends?”

  “We’re not that super. We got our asses kicked.” He sighed. “We all should have stayed in bed.”

  “You should have stayed home,” Jess said, sounding hurt. “I only get a few weeks with you guys.”

  “You weren’t even talking to me!”

  “And then you come back, looking hungover and covered in . . .” She ruffled his hair. “Sand? Did you go to the beach?”

  “The desert.” Ethan smoothed down his hair and scratched at the sunburn on his neck. “Thought you’d be an expert in desert by now.”

  “What the hell? How far did you go?”

  Ethan leaned against the wall. He was dizzy from dehydration, and his whole body was still trembling from the aftereffects of panic. At any moment the exhaustion could make him tip sideways and somersault out his bedroom window. But even that probably wouldn’t get Jess off his back.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” he said.

  “Don’t pull that teenage crap with me.”

  “Sure, Jess. As soon as you drop the grown-up act,” Ethan snapped back. “You were a teenager two years ago.”

  She leaned into his face, like he always hated. “Spill it, kiddo.”

  “I had to meet my friends, all right? Sometimes there’s important stuff we have to do. As a team. We look out for each other and have each other’s backs. You know, like in your unit.”

  Jess snorted. “We drop ordnance on bad guys. What were you doing? Bribing cops?”

  “The bribing is not a regular thing.”

  Except the voice had promised Ang and Murillo fifteen hundred a month. But with Swarm out there killing Zeroes, there was a pretty good chance the Dish was dead anyhow.

  “Oh, really,” Jess said. “And yet Mom said you knew about some secret Internal Affairs investigation. You mentioned it to those detectives at a hockey game. Since when do you like hockey?”

  Ethan tried to come up with something truthful to say. Some way to explain that Internal Affairs was the least of his problems. That crowds of creepy mind-controlled human slave-bots were ripping people to pieces in fountains.

  Then it came to him, almost like the voice had said it.

  “This is way bigger than that nightclub,” he began. “Sort of like when you get back to Afghanistan, and you have to make hard decisions. Like, someone’s driving straight at you, and maybe it’s a car bomb or maybe it’s an innocent family.”


  She nodded, still suspicious. Probably because he was quoting one of her stories exactly, which was the kind of thing his Zero voice would do. Except that he wasn’t using the voice. He was going it alone on this.

  “Well, today we had to make exactly that kind of decision. We had to drop everything and drive all night to stop people getting hurt, and we probably saved a bunch of lives. People will go home to their families today because we were there.”

  Jess narrowed her eyes, but Ethan was on a roll.

  “And maybe when those people get home, they’ll have to ride out all the bullshit judgments their families are waiting to heap on their heads too. But whatever. Me and my team finally did something good!”

  “I thought you said you got your asses kicked.”

  Ethan’s rant gave out on him.

  “Uh, that too,” he admitted. “One guy died.”

  Jess stared at him. “Crap, Ethan! One of your friends died ?”

  “Not quite.” The exhaustion and fear hammered on Ethan, twice as heavy as before. “I mean, he was kind of evil. But he was a guy like us, with powers. He was torn apart by this way more evil guy. It’s complicated.”

  Hell, he hadn’t even met Coin—Davey, he reminded himself—and Ethan had been up in the control room when Swarm had done most of his work. But he’d glimpsed that fountain afterward. And he’d seen the damage it’d done to the others—Kelsie especially. Like she hadn’t been through enough.

  Jess said, “And this doesn’t have anything to do with those cops?”

  Ethan almost laughed. “Totally different ball game.”

  “Jesus, little bro, what’ve you gotten yourself into?” Her voice was gentle.

  Ethan shook his head. Even if he could explain it, Jess would never understand. A superpowered guy who killed other superpeople was probably one too many supers for her.

  The Zeroes themselves had no idea what to do next, not even Nate. They didn’t know whether to run and hide, or create diversions, whatever that meant. Or stay put, keep separate, and hope Swarm went in another direction. After Ren, hopefully.

  He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t even want to think about it.

  “With power comes responsibility, or something,” he mumbled. “Anyhow, go ahead, tell Mom everything. I don’t care anymore. So long as I get some pillow time.”

  He tried to lean back on his bed, but Jess lunged forward and hugged the breath out of him. “Ethan, if you get into any more trouble, I’ll kill you.”

  “Get off me!” he gasped.

  “Unless Mom beats me to it.” She reached up and ruffled his hair, keeping him trapped in her arms. “And if she calls me one more time about anything you’re doing wrong, I’ll tell her everything. The cops, the payoff, the nightclub, the superposse. I’ll make sure she puts you in solitary confinement for the rest of your life.”

  “Got it.” The words came out as a strained whisper.

  “And if you ever need anything, I don’t care what, you come to me ! Not your crazy-ass friends.”

  “You bet. Now please. Let me breathe.”

  Jess eased up, but only slightly. “I love you. Idiot.”

  “Your love is painful,” he gasped.

  Jess kissed him quickly on the cheek. “I got one more thing I have to say to you, and I don’t want you to freak out.”

  “Perfect intro, Jess.”

  “That girl you’re into? Kelsie, right? You should know something.” Jess leaned forward. “She’s totally into that Chizara chick.”

  “Wait. What?”

  Jess gave him a final squeeze. “Old-school gaydar like mine doesn’t lie, kid bro. Those girls are into each other. Be cool with it.”

  Ethan felt a stab of pain right through his sternum. “She’s into girls?”

  Jess gave him a lopsided shrug. “One girl, anyway. Sorry to break it to you.”

  “It’s cool, I’m just . . .” For a moment he wasn’t sure what he was.

  Dead in the water before he even began.

  He’d never felt so stupid and so freaking bereft.

  “Romance sucks,” he said.

  “Be bigger than that, little brother,” Jess said softly.

  “Sure.” Ethan nodded, trying to reassure Jess as much as himself. “No, of course. I mean, I guess I’m just . . .”

  “Surprised? Disappointed? Heartbroken?” Jess supplied, ever helpful.

  “Tired,” Ethan said. “Seriously tired.”

  But when he was less exhausted and less traumatized by the mallpocalypse, he was going to be really upset over Kelsie.

  Until then, he didn’t want to be awake anymore. He grabbed a pillow and pushed it between his shoulder and the wall, leaning into it.

  “Just when I thought my life couldn’t get any worse.”

  “Ethan, are you going to be okay?”

  “I’ll be great,” he said, with more conviction than he felt. “There’s always room in my life for extra suckiness.”

  Jess put an arm around him. “Life is complicated.”

  “Check,” Ethan muttered. “I got complications coming out the wazoo.”

  Jess still looked worried, so he tried to grin like it was all a big joke, but he wasn’t feeling it. The grin died on his face.

  Kelsie was not into him. Kelsie would never be into him.

  “But hey, don’t worry about me.” He leaned back on his mattress at last, pulling the pillow over his face. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Roger that,” Jess replied. She grabbed his ankles and dragged his feet up onto the bed. Then she left quietly.

  Ethan rolled until he was facedown with his eyes clamped shut.

  Kelsie and Chizara. Chizara and Kelsie.

  Sure, Crash was hot, he had to give her that. But she was also a Goody Two-shoes, the most straitlaced person Ethan knew.

  Kelsie might be sweet and caring, and she always wanted everything to turn out okay. But she was also an awesome pickpocket, card shark, and car thief. How were the two of them ever going to fit together?

  Not my business, he reminded himself.

  He was not going to dwell on his misfortune. He was going to be happy for Kelsie, because love was pure and selfless. Love was being happy when someone you loved was happy, and—aw, hell.

  “Could be worse,” he muttered into his mattress.

  He racked his brain for a way it could possibly be any worse. Then he rolled to his back and stared at the first stars peeping in through his open curtains.

  “At least she’s not into Nate,” he told himself.

  His phone chirped—a text. He groaned and reached out to grab it. Probably more bad news.

  The message was from Flicker.

  Will you be my boyfriend tonight?

  Ethan slowly sat upright. “What the actual fuck?”

  CHAPTER 37

  FLICKER

  “IS HE HERE YET?”

  “No, Mom,” Flicker said. “But for the tenth time, I’ll tell you when he is.”

  She lifted the tray of cheese from the kitchen table. The smell of gouda and a sharp cheddar rose up, and the little rye biscuits that Lily liked.

  “Riley, let me get that.”

  “Gotten!” Flicker hoisted the platter onto her shoulder. “I’ve done this before. Like, at many previous parties.”

  Her mother sighed. “Sorry. It made me nervous then, too. Go forth and be empowered!”

  Flicker smiled at the timeworn joke and felt a sudden rush of affection for her mother. Just knowing a Zero killer was out there had turned her family’s annoying habits precious.

  But as she reached the kitchen door, her mother added, “He’s not one of those boyfriends who’s always late, is he?”

  “Never. Except when he gets arrested.”

  There was no one else in the kitchen to see her mother’s expression, so when no laugh came, Flicker assumed the worst.

  “Kidding, Mom! He’ll be here any minute.”

  Another sigh. “Well, good. It’s just th
at you and Lily have been talking about him for ages. Your father and I should have met him before now.”

  Four times, Mom. Four times.

  A thought came crashing in—if Swarm came to Cambria, they might never get to know him at all. If Flicker had learned anything from watching someone die, it was that death didn’t leave room to fix things in the future.

  “Are you okay?” her mother asked.

  “Yeah.” Flicker’s voice came out broken. She turned so Mom couldn’t see her face, and pushed out through the swinging kitchen doors, back into the hubbub of the party.

  She kept her vision off, steering herself through the chatter by sound. Like every Christmas Eve, there were about thirty people here—mostly relatives, comfortingly familiar. Aunt Melissa was telling her safari stories again, and the usual arguments about politics were keeping her uncles busy.

  This was exactly what Flicker needed after the chaos of the last few days. As a bonus, the gathering sounded much too happy to turn into a Zero-eating swarm.

  She was about halfway across the living room when one of the cousins popped up beside her.

  “Oh, let me get that, Riley!” The tray was lifted from her shoulder.

  A flash of anger went through Flicker—God, she was fragile tonight. But she managed not to lash out at Samantha, who never remembered to use Flicker instead of Riley.

  Flicker only smiled sweetly and drifted away. Where was he? What if he’d gotten lost on the way?

  Now that would be typical.

  Lily’s high heels came clicking over. “What did Mom want?”

  “To bug me. Because the boyfriend isn’t here yet.”

  “Ha. If she only knew.”

  “Hush.” Flicker gave her sister a punch. “You know this is a last resort, Lily. They keep asking!”

  “Yeah, well, if you had a normal boyfriend, we wouldn’t have to lie to them all the time.”

  Flicker sighed. It wasn’t like she was lying to hide anything horrible. It was just that Mom and Dad only remembered their conversations about Thibault, not the boy himself.

  It all felt suddenly so trivial, when there was a Zero killer to worry about.

  “I don’t want a normal boyfriend,” she said simply. “I want Thibault.”

  The name came easily. The thought of losing him had kept him stuck fast in her mind all day.