Kingdom Keepers III Dinsey in Shadow

by Ridley Pearson

  “Who’s there?” the man cal ed out.

  Looking down Wil a saw at least four levels of catwalk, each connected to the next by ladders.

  The catwalks provided access to various levels of machinery, for repair and maintenance, creating a three-dimensional bridge system, a maze of narrow walkways that branched out or terminated in dead ends. Level 3, where the girls now stood, accessed the upper reaches of Soarin’s swings, the bench seating that lifted forty feet off the floor to provide the sensation of hang gliding.

  Behind them, the New York flight was replaying, causing the light in the room to shift and change color, now a bril iant blue, now nearly pitch-black. The effect created a strobelike flicker so that one moment Jess couldn’t see Wil a, and then a second later she got a clear look. It was a confusing and difficult environment to move around in without losing your balance or going over the rail.

  Jess heard the clanking of the man above them running to the end of the Level 4 catwalk, and knew that once there, if he looked down he would see them.

  Jess stumbled and lunged to the right.

  Her arm disappeared.

  She stopped and thrust her left arm forward: it vanished.

  Now she hurried forward and tapped Wil a on the back, not wanting to speak. Jess showed her how both hands disappeared when she put them beneath the two-foot-thick pipe that was the top hinge of the Soarin’ swings. Thick black rubber hydraulic tubing hung beneath the hinge arm, held there by wire strapping.

  Jess motioned up.

  They glanced back as they heard a rustling of fabric: the man was coming down the ladder!

  Jess jumped up on the railing, grabbed hold of the hydraulic tube, and hung there, her back to the floor, her toes gripping the tube.

  She went invisible. Beneath the pipe was a DHI shadow.

  Wil a jumped up and joined her, farther down the pipe, just as the man banged down onto the catwalk they had been standing on.

  Jess slowed her breathing, since she was able to hear it herself and knew it might give her away.

  The man walked toward them, peering into the dark. He switched on a flashlight and waved it from side to side.

  Jess didn’t know how any of this worked, and perhaps Philby could have explained it, but to her surprise, as the flashlight struck her she wasn’t il uminated. But she realized a fraction of a second later that she cast a shadow anyway. It was actual y Wil a’s shadow she saw, cast onto the swing to their right. As long as they both remained absolutely stil , the shadows didn’t look like much. It seemed doubtful he’d even notice.

  Then the scene in the film changed and the machinery reacted to lower the benches far below.

  The pipe holding them moved, dipping lower toward the screen. Jess fought to hold on to the black tubing, but it was no use. Gravity claimed the aspect of her that was not ful y DHI and she began to slide, as did Wil a in front of her.

  The man must have heard them, even over the music of the ride, for he looked right at Jess—

  right into her eyes—though he didn’t know it.

  Down, down, down, she and Wil a slid, away from the man who remained up at Level 3. And there, to Jess’s right, she spotted the Level 2 catwalk.

  She felt her fingers letting go of the rubber hose. She had no choice. She swung left and then right, building momentum. With each effort, as she cleared the projection shadow created by the pipe above her, part of her DHI showed.

  “Hey!” cried the man.

  She was too focused on her dismount to look up, but she understood that he’d spotted her DHI as it appeared.

  “You!” he cal ed out.

  She let go and sailed over the railing, throwing herself forward and landing briefly on her feet before fal ing to her knees.

  She heard a clanking ahead of her—Wil a, she hoped—but had no time to figure any of this out. There was a red-and-white exit sign thirty feet behind her.

  “Go for it!” she heard Wil a hiss.

  The man was screaming now for help.

  “Spies!” he cried out, believing them to be Disney fans no doubt—fans interested in Soarin’

  changing from California to New York.

  If only he knew….

  Jess ran for the exit sign. She felt the vibration of the catwalk beneath her feet and knew that Wil a was on it as wel .

  The man’s feet appeared ahead of her—he was coming down another ladder.

  She ran harder and faster.

  “Right behind you!” she heard Wil a cal out.

  A wave of relief surged through her: Wil a was okay. Wil a was with her.

  She banged into the exit door’s panic bar and threw the door open. An alarm sounded.

  The man cried out for them to stop.

  She charged down the fire escape as fast as her feet would carry her, the warm night air splashing onto her face never more welcome.

  * * *

  As the test car gained speed, Finn turned to Philby and said, “No brakes.”

  “I remember,” Philby shouted above the clatter. The outside track formed a circle around the Test Track pavilion where cars could accelerate to speeds in excess of sixty-five miles per hour.

  Philby and Finn were quickly approaching ninety miles per hour.

  “The system is not designed for this speed!” Philby said, his red hair flying, both hands gripping the melted dashboard. “It’s going to jump the track!”

  It occurred to Finn that Philby knew such things, though this was one time he wished he didn’t.

  “As in?”

  “We’re going to wreck!”

  The acceleration pinned them back in their seats. Finn knew by the intense pressure how far from al -clear he was, and how he wasn’t going to get back: he was scared. There was no changing that now. No easy fix.

  The boys fought against the g-force, heaving forward.

  “Give me your shoes,” Philby said.

  Finn looked at him with bewilderment. It seemed an odd time to be locked in fashion envy.

  “Your shoes!” Philby shouted. “Now!”

  Finn tore them off his feet and Philby hurriedly untied the laces. He kicked off his own and worked the laces loose on those as wel .

  “Tie ’em together!” he shouted. “Keep the laces as long as possible.”

  Finn did as he was told. The car was moving dangerously faster now, beginning to jump off the track. The boys felt an eerie sensation combining both gravitational pul and weightlessness that suggested the car was about to go airborne. The intense centrifugal force caused both boys to lean over toward the track’s outside rail. No matter how they fought against it, they could not sit up. If it went much faster they would be lying flat on the seat, a position from which it would be impossible to do anything. Without seat belts, each little bump lifted them and drove them against each other on the far right of the car where Finn sat squished.

  Philby, furiously checking his knots, happened to look back.

  “Bad news!” he said.

  Finn battled the forces and managed to turn his head around to see an empty car gaining on them. If the excess speed didn’t throw their car off the track, then a col ision would take care of them. It was the perfect Overtaker move: the wreck would be blamed on two “vandals” who had broken into the park, switched on the ride, and then been hit and kil ed by an empty car. No one to blame but the boys themselves. He could almost hear Maleficent laughing. None of them had ever talked about it, but they al believed that should their DHIs ever be kil ed outright, their sleeping selves would be locked in the Syndrome forever. They would never awaken.

  “We’ve got major problems!” Finn hol ered to be heard over the roar of the ride.

  “You think?” Philby roared back at him.

  Philby had his string of shoes ready. Strung together, the four running shoes looked like an awkward kite tail or string of dead fish. They looked like something invented just to pass the time, with one lace tied to the next in a daisy chain.

  F
inn felt like chal enging Philby, like holding his feet to the fire and asking why now, of al times, the guy was stringing shoes together. But he knew better. Philby was a man of purpose.

  Everything he did seemed calculated, a means to an end; if anything, the guy didn’t loosen up enough. So if Philby wanted to tie a bunch of shoes together while going in excess of ninety miles per hour, riding in a car about to jump the track and kil Finn along with him, then so be it: tie away.

  “Here’s…the…deal,” Philby said, each word an effort to produce because of the surprising amount of pressure imposed upon his chest by the g-force. “When I say now we’re going to jump.

  We’re going off your side, over the rail, and then hold on tight. We’re too high up—and probably over concrete—to let ourselves fal . So we’re going to hang from the outside of the retaining wal .

  The safety wal . Okay? But listen, we have to get over the wal . It’s going to be messy.”

  “Messy? You think I can time a jump going a hundred miles per hour?” Finn gasped.

  “We won’t be going a hundred,” Philby said. “Hang on tight…”

  Finn made the mistake of looking back: the empty test car was bearing down on them. It was either going to col ide and throw them from the car, or bump their car off the track. What was Philby thinking?

  Philby flung the string of shoes over the windshield toward the vehicle’s right front panel.

  “What the—?” Finn said.

  “The emergency stop,” Philby said. “That’s why we’ve got to hold on tight.”

  Finn understood then: leave it to Philby to figure this out. He hunkered down and braced himself, knees thrust forward into the melted dash. He recal ed al the times his parents had chided him about wearing seat belts, but that wasn’t an option now, the seat belts were no longer functioning thanks to the excessive heat.

  Philby launched his kite tail a second time. The lead shoe slapped the side of the car, just missing the large red plastic emergency stop button.

  “Close!” he shouted. He had meant Philby’s attempt, but he noticed that the word applied to the trailing car as wel : they were about to be rear-ended.

  Philby wound up the chain of shoes and launched it again. Finn’s running shoe slapped the side of the car, but missed the button again.

  Wham! The empty car smashed into the back bumper. The boys whipped forward and Finn nearly left the moving car. He pul ed himself back inside.

  Philby tried a different technique. He swung hard and got the string of shoes going over his head in a circle, like a cowboy’s lasso, like a helicopter blade. The car bumped them from behind again, and then backed off as if it had a mind of its own.

  Finn saw what was happening: the trailing car’s rear tires smoked as it took aim to knock them from the track.

  Philby propped himself up with just his left hand holding the dash, dropping his right and lowering the circle of shoes with the deftness of a golf pro. Finn’s running shoe smashed into the red button and the car’s brakes screeched. Finn reached out and grabbed Philby by the belt as Philby lifted off his feet, both hands over his head, ready to fly to his death. Finn held on with al his strength. The test car screamed, shuddered, and slowed.

  Behind them, the empty car, its tires smoking, barreled toward them, a col ision imminent.

  “Now!” Philby shouted.

  Finn jumped from the moving car. His chest hit the sheet-metal retaining wal , and he turned, his fingers seeking purchase. He caught hold, stopped himself, and then let go, dropping another three feet. He snagged hold of the lip of the ride at track level, his feet dangling twenty feet above the plaza below.

  He caught sight of Philby, in roughly the same position, about twenty feet in front of him.

  It sounded like an explosion. The trailing car crashed into their stopped vehicle, sending car parts overhead in a shower of metal and plastic. Some pieces went forty feet up or higher, fal ing onto the plaza below in great thunderous crashes. An electric motor sailed fifty yards out into a parking lot behind the pavilion. Smoke curled above them, while Finn pictured himself somewhere in the midst of al that destruction, knowing what it would have meant for him, understanding what had just happened. Philby had saved his life.

  They moved hand over hand along the perimeter of the track until they were over an awning.

  “On three,” Philby said. And they let go, fal ing in unison. They bounced off and slid down the awning and landed on their feet with only a few scratches to show for their adventure. Finn’s face was sunburned from the infrared lights and his hair was singed above both ears into tangled curls.

  They found the sword point-end down in a flower bed, which reminded Finn of The Sword in the Stone. He retrieved it and found he could slip it between his belt and pants and that it would hold.

  “Don’t know where our shoes ended up,” Philby said. “Sorry about that.”

  Finn faced his friend, thinking about al that had happened in the past few minutes.

  “Sorry?” he said. Their shoes were the furthest thing from Finn’s mind. Then he smiled at Philby. “Yeah, you’d better be sorry.”

  He threw an arm over Philby’s shoulder, and Philby did the same. The two headed off to the rendezvous in stocking feet, the point of the sword clanking against the concrete plaza with each determined step.

  34

  AFTER SOME TEXTING, the group met at the rendezvous. It was a few minutes past 3 AM, but no one looked tired. Maybeck was missing a shoe; Wil a, a sock. Finn and Philby were shoeless.

  Finn pointed out that they couldn’t just stand around talking—they were far too visible, far too vulnerable. Surprisingly, it wasn’t Philby or Wil a who came up with the idea of secreting themselves into a corporate lounge, but Charlene.

  “Remember that charity event we did at The Seas with Nemo and Friends? The one with the hospital kids? How ’bout there?”

  “Bril iant!” said Philby. “It used to be the United Technologies lounge. The company left the park in 1998 and—”

  “Spare us the history lesson,” Maybeck quipped. “Let’s just get out of here.”

  The Living Seas pavilion was across the plaza and toward the entry gate, a location Finn liked because they needed a place to hide until the Lost and Found opened—and it would be close by to the lounge.

  They divided into two groups in case they were spotted or attacked. Maybeck’s group went first. Finn fol owed with Wil a, Amanda, and Philby a few minutes later.

  The lounge’s dark wood paneling, retro furniture, wal decorations, and acrylic piano were a throwback to 1980s decor. A large metal sculpture of a fish stared out from one wal . But the prize of the room was the one entire wal consisting of a window into Nemo’s five-mil ion-gal on aquarium, offering dazzling views and endless visual thril s as fish and sea animals swam past.

  Finn asked Amanda to speak first. He couldn’t take his eyes off her as she recounted what she’d witnessed from the control room atop the Mayan Temple.

  “I never had to warn any of you,” she said, “but what I saw surprised me. Twice the drawbridge over the lake raised and lowered—”

  “That would be the bridge opposite where we crossed,” Charlene interrupted, speaking to Wil a.

  Amanda continued. “And anyway, the globe left the lake the first time, but the second time I couldn’t see what it was about. Nothing much happened. It just went up, and a few minutes later, back down. Also, the robot guys on the Segways—the dummies—are constantly patrol ing.

  Around and around the lake. It seemed to me the Overtakers basical y have ful control of the place.”

  Wil a told them about her and Jess’s trials at Soarin’ and her discovery of the maintenance journal and the single frame of film with the image of a seat belt on it.

  Charlene told about Wayne’s video, holding everyone in rapt attention. She read from her notes his exact words, looking up between each comment: “‘a deception of the worst kind…

  beware your
friends and know your enemies…remember: we stand under it to get out of the rain but it lives above our brain…the solution is in Norway. Trust it…later, you al wil need more…’ He talked about Wanda and said he didn’t name her by chance, that ‘it is mightier than the sword.’”

  The group was silent for a long time after that as they mul ed over what it al meant.

  Then, before getting into what Charlene had said, Philby joined Finn in talking about their confrontation with Maleficent, Finn’s new sunburn, and the wreck of the car on Test Track.

  “You can bet the Overtakers wil have it al cleaned up by morning,” Philby said. “They’re clever that way.”

  “I can confirm that after the wreck,” Amanda said, gazing at Finn, her face a knot of both concern and relief, “al sorts of characters headed in that direction. I heard and saw them.”

  “Which is good for us,” Finn said. “That should keep them busy the rest of the night.”

  “As if we’re going anywhere,” Wil a said. “I’m so glad we found a place to hang out.”

  She found herself the brunt of everyone’s staring.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Wayne left us a half dozen clues,” Philby said.

  “He expects action,” Finn said.

  “You have got to be kidding me! You two nearly got kil ed. Maybeck and Charlene had to be let out of that pod by Amanda or they’d stil be locked in there. And Jess and I were nearly captured. You want to go back out there? Be my guest. I’m happy right here.”

  “What’s any of it mean?” Jess asked. “What was Wayne trying to tel us?”

  “‘A deception of the worst kind,’” Charlene read from her list.

  “Betrayal,” Philby said, “is the worst deception.”

  “Betray—” Wil a spit out, unable to completely say the word. “No way!”

  “A traitor?” Charlene choked out.

  “One of us is going to betray the others?” Maybeck asked.

  “That’s not possible,” Wil a said. “Is it?”