Kingdom Keepers V (9781423153429) (24 page)

Finn tried to connect the schedule change to Tia Dalma. The sailor crew had come to fetch her; she had refused, telling them to bring “them” to her. But whom did she mean? And why? And what, if anything, might it have to do with the stolen journal? As much as Wayne wanted him focused on getting back the journal and destroying the OT server—if it even existed—Finn knew from previous encounters with the Overtakers that he had to see the whole picture. Maleficent was crafty, wicked, and brilliant. There was no underestimating her.

“Thank you,” Finn said.

“You and your friends are in danger,” Storey Ming said bluntly.

“We have something we need to do. There are those opposed to the idea. I'm sure it will work out.”

“There must be more that I can do for you. More than just listening for rumors.”

Finn considered the boy his age that had gone missing from the photograph. To be a hologram you had to be asleep.

“Can you do me a favor?” he asked.

“Of course! I will if I can,” she answered.

“There's going to be a stateroom with a Do Not Disturb sign out and its telephone blocked from calls. I suppose there could be a lot of them. But I need to know which of them has a boy registered in the room. A boy my age, or maybe a little older. Might have the initials G. L. Might not.”

“Staterooms with kids. Do not disturb.”

“Correct,” he said.

“I've got a friend in Reservations. I can do that.”

Finn thanked her.

“What about here on the island?” she asked. “I can help here, too.”

“Okay. Listen, I promise I won't ask you out on a date, but could I get your Wave Phone number?”

She gave him the number and said, “And who says I'd turn down the date if it was offered?”

Finn blushed. She was way too pretty. Four or five years older than him.

Maybe the island
was
enchanted.

* * *

Philby found the phones where Finn had said he would. He studied the massage bungalows from a short distance, wondering what was up with Tia Dalma and the account of the previous night. All around him, thousands of cruise line guests were running, sailing, laughing, watersliding, and eating. Always eating. Oblivious to the challenges facing five teenagers, the guests took advantage of their time on their own private island, able to pack a week's worth of regular beach vacation into a single day.

Mixed in with them were dozens of Cast Members who provided all that fun. Somewhere—likely back on the ship—were an uncounted number of rebellious Overtakers who disapproved of the Disney lifestyle and wanted to instill their own wicked values on the parks and guests. There were times, like now, that Philby felt outnumbered and overwhelmed. It was far easier to hatch a devious plan than to uncover one. Just looking out at all the guests emphasized the futility of the Keepers' mission. They were looking for a needle in a haystack.

Then, over the heads of the beachgoers, the suntanners, the swimmers, the Frisbee throwers, the snorkelers, the day sailors, the Jet Skiers, and the barbecue dwellers rose the nearly unbelievable vastness of the
Dream
. Sparkling in the sunshine. Majestic. Almost as if it had been Photoshopped in.

At that same moment a honeybee floated by on the breeze. It too seemed incredibly out of place. Maybe the company set up hives to help pollinate gardens and flowers. He didn't really care. What interested Philby all of a sudden was that in biology class he'd learned about clearing the hive of the worker bees. He'd learned that when a hive was threatened, a group of bees rushed to surround the queen and protect her. How this very act of communal defense could be used by the beekeeper to locate and identify the queen, to pluck her from the hive, which was sometimes necessary to move the worker bees or establish a new hive.

From the bee to the ship and back to the bee. Something so small. Something so large. All the people swarming the beach. Great ideas didn't materialize out of thin air. The really great ideas were inspired by something or someone. Even a bee.

Philby wondered if, with all this insanity ashore, he might have just come up with a way to find the hidden queen.

* * *

Finn sat at a table at Cookie's, getting hungry as everyone walked past with trays of food. Philby had met up with him right at the scheduled time to drop off the various Wave Phones left behind the night before. Finn told him about Storey Ming returning to the ship to look for staterooms where kids might be sleeping—where an OTK might be crossed over.

Philby took note of the information, then said he had something to do and headed for the
Dream
.

“You think you're so cool,” Finn said, Philby now well out of earshot. Once to the ship, Philby could report back to Wayne ahead of Finn. He felt tempted to race back himself and beat him to it.

A girl sat down on the far end of the same picnic table bench. Finn glanced over and jumped.

It was Sally Ringwald. It took him only seconds to spot the faint blue line shimmering at her edges.

“No way…” he gasped. His mother's spy. A DHI for the Overtakers.

She looked straight ahead and spoke softly. “There's something happening tonight.”

“The party,” Finn said.

“I don't know about any party.”

“Are you on the ship? How many of you?”

“Yes,” she answered. “And I don't know. Listen, I promised your mother, and I'm keeping that promise.”

“What's happening tonight?” he asked.

“All I know is there have been messages. A bunch of us are going to be on the island.”

“Overtakers,” Finn said softly.

“Whatever,” she said.

“To do what?”

“It's unclear. There's a truck involved.”

“A truck.”

“But I don't know what for.”

“Okay,” he said.

“I thought you should know. It's something I thought you should know.”

“How many of you?” he repeated.

Sally stood from the bench and left, her hologram disappearing into the thick lunch crowd. Then she was gone.

Finn considered following her, but he had the phones to give back. He checked the time. So unlike the girls to be late. Maybeck, sure; Maybeck liked to be the last to arrive to anything; he liked to keep people waiting just long enough that they took notice of him. But Willa and Charlene were punctual.

Fifteen minutes. Twenty…

He stopped counting. No one was coming.

“W
e're lost,” Charlene said, “aren't we?”

“And then some,” said Willa.

They'd been wandering the narrow trails for more than two hours, the mangrove and swamp marsh grasses like walls on either side, leaving them in open-air tunnels. The spongy sand underfoot revealed nothing; if you closed your eyes and spun around, the trail gave no indication of which direction you'd just been headed.

“You remember the maze in
Harry Potter and the
Goblet of Fire
?”

“Shut up.”

“You know that was Robert Pattinson…the boy who died?”

“Charlie, everyone knows it was Robert Pattinson.”

“I'm just trying to change the subject, get our minds off of never finding our way out of here and being eaten by snakes, or starving to death, or missing the boat. It's going to leave at five o'clock.”

“Ship. And it's not even noon yet.”

“I'm just saying…”

“You're saying too much. We need to think more, talk less,” Willa said.

“Way to establish a sense of teamwork. Thanks for the confidence boost. I happen to talk a lot when I'm nervous.” Charlene had been told she talked a lot—as in too much—nervous or not. But only by all of her teachers, her coach, and her parents. Needless to say, they were all crazy.

“Wish I had my iPhone,” Charlene said. “I could map our position and—”

“No you couldn't. There's no cell service here. No GPS. Your phone would just stare back at you.”

“You're such a dark cloud today. Lighten up!”

“You're starting to sound like a Disney character,” Willa said. “I wouldn't take the role so much to heart.”

Charlene made a sudden move at Willa, invading her space. Willa jumped back out of the way, clearly frightened. The two girls stood facing each other, breathing pent-up violence.

“Look at us,” Willa said.

“Oh, I'm looking…believe me, I'm looking.” Charlene had yet to flinch, dialed in to Willa and working to stare her down into submission. “And I don't like what I see.”

“Truce?” Willa proposed.

“What is with you?” Charlene asked. However small, Willa's capitulation gave her a sense of victory.

“Boy stuff.”

“Philby?”

Willa hesitated. “I know…how stupid can I get, right?”

“You're not stupid. No one would accuse you of that.”

“You weren't really going to hit me. Right?”

Charlene answered with another stare-down.

“You freak me out sometimes.”

“Good.” That made Charlene feel even better. “Now…how do we find our way out of here?”

“Well, for starters, you see the way all the plants are leaning?”

“Yeah.”

“Wind,” Willa said. “All we have to figure out is if it's an onshore breeze or an offshore breeze.”

“I have no idea what you just said.”

“The wind blows so constantly from a single direction that plants growing up in the wind bend away from it. Permanently. But is it coming off the
water or blowing out to the water—onshore or offshore?”

Willa kneeled, took up a stick, and drew the island, a long, narrow finger. Then, to the left, the ship at the pier perpendicular to the shore. She drew a line down the center of the island to represent the road the shuttle followed and three lines pointing at the island to represent the steady breeze. She drew two Xs to represent her and Charlene.

She leaned back, squatting over her work.

“It's both,” she said. “Of course it is! I'm not used to islands. On the mainland it has to be one or the other. Here, it's different.”

“I have no idea what you just said.”

“On the ship side of the island, the breeze comes off the water. On this side, it continues on and blows offshore back out to sea. So we want to head into the wind, away from the direction the plants lean. And when we hit other paths, we want to take the ones that head the same way: away from the lean.”

“You're sure?”

“Am I positive? No. But yeah, I'm sure.”

“That doesn't make any sense.”

“Stay with me.”

“As if there's a choice.”

“There's only one small problem,” Willa said.

“Which is?”

“Sometimes the afternoon winds are stronger than the morning winds. No matter what, the wind almost always turns around on itself later in the day.”

“In which case,” Charlene proposed, “everything you just said is backward.”

“Correct.”

“So we're still lost.”

“Yes. But we're lost with a theory.”

“You drive me crazy,” Charlene said. “But in a good way.”

“I'm glad.”

“There is an alternative,” Charlene said suddenly.

“Which is?”

“Get on my shoulders and see where we are.” Charlene kneeled. “What are you waiting for? Climb on.”

“You can't possibly hold me.”

“We won't know until we try.”

* * *

Surrounded by marsh and a hundred yards from a narrow inlet of ocean water an impossible color of blue, with nothing around them but scrub brush, sand, and darting lizards the size of gummy bears, two men toiled.

“And if the system isn't working?” Maybeck asked.

“Then the mosquito population will run wild.”

“Does it bother you,” said Maybeck, “that you spent all those years studying the lives of insects, and now you've devoted yourself to killing them?”

“That's not a very nice thing to say.”

“I'm just saying.”

“What bothers me,” Tim said, “is that my sensors are reporting error codes and the valves all look normal.”

“Have you considered sabotage?”

“Come again?”

“That someone is disconnecting the tubes at night and reconnecting them before sunrise.”

“Who would do that?”

“I'm just asking: would that explain your pressure readings?”

Tim looked at Maybeck warily. “It might. But why would anyone do it in the first place?”

“To keep the mosquito population growing while no one knew any better.”

“That's ridiculous. Preposterous.”

“But it would explain it,” Maybeck tested.

Tim flashed Maybeck a disapproving look and moved on, following the porous black tubing that ran along the ground. He inspected a valve at an intersection of black rubber tubing. “That's interesting.”

“What?”

“This line was recently disconnected. You can tell by the lack of corrosion.”

“Meaning?”

“We're going to find out.”

Maybeck followed along as Tim traced the black tubing through the thick scrub. They headed west toward the beaches.

“This is what we call the airstrip line,” Tim said. “Hang on!” He kneeled and pulled back some loose shrubbery. The vegetation had been cut and heaped over a small metal tank.

“What's up?”

“That's a propane tank. One of our grill tanks.”

“And another valve,” Maybeck said.

“This is nuts,” Tim said. “This is not part of my system. Propane is highly combustible.”

“Part of a fireworks display or something?” Maybeck didn't want to say so, but he was thinking something much worse.

Tim looked over at him. “I suppose. They use propane in IllumiNations at Epcot. There's a special fireworks show tonight for the guests. But I would have been told about it.” He cranked the valve on the tank shut. “I'm shutting it down until I hear differently.”

“What's that over there?” Maybeck asked.

“The lookout.”

“For?”

“So guests can get a look at a bunch of the island from up there.”

“Including here where we are.”

“Do you work for Uncle Bob?”

“My uncle's a lawyer in St. Louis,” Maybeck said. “His name's not Bob.”

“Head of security on the
Dream
,” Tim said.

“You think I'm working undercover or something?” Maybeck had to bite his lip to keep from grinning.

“The thought occurred to me.”

“I wish!” Maybeck said, maintaining his cover. “I'm on trash detail, remember?”

“Yeah, right. That's why you look so familiar.”

“I get that a lot.”

“Why do you know so much about sabotage?”

“I watch too much TV.”

“A funny guy, huh?”

“Not as often as I'd like,” Maybeck said. “I'm hoping to move off trash duty and onto the Walt Disney Theatre stage. I'd like to do stand-up.”

“Why do I get the sense that you haven't given me a straight answer since we met?”

“I'm a man of mystery,” said Maybeck.

“I have to get back and report this.”

“If it's not part of the fireworks, what then?”

Tim considered the possibility long and hard. He finally spoke. “Then we've got trouble.”

* * *

The ship's corridors and public spaces were ghostly with so few passengers aboard. The stewards were about the only people in the long corridors that accessed the hundreds of staterooms on each level. They moved along with bundles of fresh linens in their arms and smiles on their faces. Philby said hello to several on his way to the central stairs. He reached the Radio Studio and used his key card to enter. It took him only a matter of minutes to send a signal to the DHI server, the timer set.

It was something of a risk to take: crossing over with no backup to help him return. But Finn's contact, Storey Ming, had explained her discovery. He knew his earlier instincts were correct: now was the time to act.

She had uncovered two staterooms that currently had Do Not Disturb signs on their doors and had teenage boys registered among the occupants. Philby felt sidetracked by this pursuit of Finn's—he wanted to check out the ship's refrigerators while the kitchen staff was lighter because of the cooking being done on the island.

But the Keepers were all for one and one for all; he wasn't going to break that vow. Not now.

Finn wanted to identify the “football type” who had failed to appear in the photograph taken outside. Philby could not deny his own curiosity: it reeked of a possible hologram. And if a hologram, an OTK.

He met up again with Storey outside the gated entry to the Deck 11 staterooms.

“All set?” she asked.

“Yes. I think so. I'm going to lie down now,” he explained. “Wait for me outside the break room. I'll need you to stand guard.”

“No problem,” she said.

Thirty minutes later, a boy appeared in the empty break room. Philby reached out and touched the leg of a table. He loved 2.0.

As he opened the door into the companionway, there was Storey. She hurried over to him.

“You look totally real.”

“I am real,” he said. “I just happen to be a hologram.”

“Can I touch you?”

“I don't do tricks,” he said. “But you can try once we're alone in the elevator.”

Soon after, the elevator doors closed behind them. She reached for Philby, her hand passing through his.

“I still can't…How exactly do you…”

“Pretty cool, isn't it?” he said.

“My hand passed through you, and yet you pushed the button for six.”

“Correct. That's life as a DHI.”

The doors opened.

Storey led the way down the port side companionway that ran nearly the entire length of the ship. More than eight hundred feet of hallway—almost three football fields long. They passed several grinning stewards hard at work and reached the first of the two staterooms she'd identified.

“If someone's coming, knock,” he said.

“Then what?”

“Move one stateroom forward. Stand where you can screen me coming through. I'll join you.”

“Shouldn't we at least knock or something before you go in there?”

“Do Not Disturb,” he reminded.

“You want the element of surprise.”

“Don't ditch me,” he said, stepping up to and through the door like some kind of ghost.

Inside the room, the drapes were pulled, limiting the light. Philby stepped forward cautiously. Door to the toilet. A second door to the sink and shower. Sliding doors of the closet to his right. He didn't need to wait for his eyes to adjust. As a digital projection, all such adjustments came at the speed of light. The 2.0 update increased optical and audio sensitivity up to eightfold. He was no German shepherd, but he could see and hear more clearly and at a greater distance than any human being.

He sensed and saw a boy asleep on the fold-down bunk bed across from the couch a fraction of a second before he picked up on the woman dozed off on the stateroom's queen bed. Leaning back, she'd dropped an e-book into her lap.

The scenario that presented itself had nothing to do with Overtakers. A sick boy, his mother keeping a close eye on him. Furthermore, from what Philby could see, the boy hardly looked the football type. He was more like twelve than fifteen—far more likely a figure skater than a fullback.