Kingdom Keepers VI

by Ridley Pearson

  “It was at a place like this that we were attacked,” Willa said flatly.

  “Yeah, thanks. Good to know,” Philby whispered back. His eyes zeroed in on all the knives, cleavers, and other weaponized kitchen gear.

  They both stopped at once, frozen by the sound of…ruffling.

  Philby pointed to their right: an area filled with five-foot-tall square carts, used for keeping salads fresh. Salad leaves did not make the sound they had just heard.

  Willa waved her arms like a bird and mouthed, Diablo?

  Philby’s mind worked like a precision instrument. His head was like the cockpit of an F-16. He was the Top Gun of brainiacs. The sound of the ruffling wings had barely stopped by the time he was moving at a run for a hanging rack of strainers. He climbed atop a prep table to reach them, grabbed two, and started back for Willa.

  The raven took flight out of the cart area, appearing just to Willa’s left, a piece of lettuce clamped in its beak.

  Philby launched one of the two giant strainers at Willa, who caught it one-handed and swiped the air like a lacrosse player, narrowly missing Diablo.

  “He’ll tell Maleficent we’re here!” Philby said, leaping over the pickup counter and landing out in the line ahead of Willa. “Can’t…let…him.”

  Diablo reversed directions at the sound of Philby’s voice and flew at him. He nicked Philby’s forehead with his beak before Philby could raise the strainer like a butterfly net. Blood trickled down into Philby’s eyebrow.

  The raven’s feet latched onto Willa’s hair and pulled a clump loose, knocking Willa over backward; she cried out with pain. As she fell, she threw her strainer at the bird and, surprise of surprises, hit Diablo in the tail feathers. The bird’s flight faltered. It careened into a stainless steel post, fluttered, and fell to the floor.

  Willa crawled quickly to her fallen strainer. Philby vaulted over her and slapped his strainer down to trap the crow. But one of Diablo’s black eyes caught a reflection of a polished spatula; the bird threw out its talons, clawed onto the pole, and flapped its way straight up, avoiding Philby’s trap.

  Diablo screeched, and pecked at Philby’s face, tearing a gash in the boy’s nose.

  Philby reacted instinctively, defending himself by raising his right forearm to protect his face and eyes while attacking with his left hand. He took hold of Diablo’s wing and yanked hard. The crow was hurled across to the preparation counter, crashing there like a plane in a failed landing.

  Willa jumped up and slapped her strainer over the bird, trapping it. She used both hands to hold the strainer down atop the table.

  Diablo bounced and fluttered and fought to be free, but it was no use.

  “You okay?” she asked, not taking her eyes off her captive.

  “Yeah, I suppose,” Philby answered, touching his wound.

  She stole a glance in his direction. “OMG! You look…you’re bleeding.”

  “Head wounds,” said the professor. “They bleed a lot. Looks worse than it is, I’m sure.”

  Philby found a kitchen towel and mopped up his wounds.

  “What do we do with this…thing?” Willa asked.

  An angry Philby looked around. “You ever heard the term: eat crow?” His eyes were fixed on the rows of ovens.

  “We can’t do that!”

  “Says who?”

  “Me,” said Willa. “No matter how much I hate the Overtakers, I’m never going to be reduced to their level.”

  “They’d kill us in a heartbeat.”

  “That’s what I’m saying: we have to rise above that.”

  “Because?”

  “I shouldn’t have to answer that.”

  “We put him in one of the ovens,” Philby proposed, “but we don’t turn it on. If someone else happens to turn it on to preheat it…so be it.”

  “That’s the same thing as us killing him.”

  “He’s Maleficent’s spy. He has to be dealt with.”

  “Listen to you! Do you hear what you’re saying? There!” she said, pointing.

  “A microwave?”

  “You don’t start a microwave without opening it.”

  Philby nodded. “And a microwave is vented, so he won’t suffocate.”

  “Maybe they won’t use it for a day or two.”

  “Maybe they’ll use it tonight.”

  “Either way, it won’t matter.” She added for the sake of Philby’s obvious hunger for vengeance, “She’s going to freak when she can’t find him. Have you ever lost your dog or cat?”

  “I lost Elvis, my cat, one time,” Philby said.

  “Find a cookie sheet. We need to move him.”

  “We run the microwave for two minutes and he cooks from the inside out.”

  “You need your head examined.”

  “True story.”

  * * *

  “From the moment we use our Cast Member cards to enter,” Finn told Charlene, poised in front of the CAST MEMBERS ONLY door on Deck 1 that accessed the I-95 corridor, “both Security, and possibly the OTs, will know we’re in. And if they know we’re in—”

  “—the OTs will know we’re headed to the hospital.”

  “And any advantage of surprise we might have is blown.”

  “The OTs could be waiting for us.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. Yes.” It did not escape him that Maybeck could be the bait and Charlene the ultimate prize. The sacrifice. He felt responsible for her; he had to protect her.

  “It’s not like we have a choice,” she said.

  “Actually,” Finn said, “I think we do. That is, I think we have to consider that this could be a trap. That while one of us goes in, the other could hide here, alongside the stairs.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t!”

  Far more agile and quick than he knew himself to be, Finn shoved Charlene and unbuckled her ID lanyard at the same time. As she fell off balance, her lanyard came loose from around her neck. No ID card, no access.

  Charlene grabbed the lanyard, but couldn’t hold on as she fell.

  With her ID already in hand, Finn unlocked the door, slipped through, and pulled it shut, locking her out.

  Charlene raised her fist, about to pound on the door, but stopped herself. To bring attention to Finn was stupid.

  “I hate you!” she hissed at the closed door. Then she stepped back and stomped her foot. “Not really,” she said.

  * * *

  This is so cool! It’s boiling out here. I forgot my suntan lotion. I’m so bored.

  The thoughts in Mattie Weaver’s head were not hers. Instead, she heard a loud tangle of expletives, happiness, frustration, malcontent, desire, joy, elation, hunger, apprehensiveness, and angst. They came to her in whispers and shouts, complaint and celebration. Like something from a nightmare. It made her so dizzy that she had to stop amid the press of human flesh on Vibe’s deck and collect herself.

  A large brass band was performing in front of a five-story hotel with a vast terrace restaurant on ground level and a balcony restaurant on the roof. People, both on shore and on the ship, were clapping in time. Banners read:

  WELCOME, DISNEY DREAM!

  and

  DREAMS DO COME TRUE!

  and

  PANAMANIACS ♥ DISNEY

  By her watch, they were still forty-five minutes from the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the second lock. The morning’s Navigator had implied that the second ceremony might be considered the most important of the four.

  While Mattie considered the best deck from which to view the festivities, she took her eyes off the crowded deck outside Vibe. When she looked again, there he was: wide shoulders, pink skin raw from the sun, a stubble of hair atop an enormous head, ears like a cartoon character’s puffy cheeks, piggish eyes. Greg Luowski, as they’d described him.

  It was a risk worth taking, but a risk nonetheless. Some people could feel it. The experience went back as far as the New Testament. If he had that kind of sensitivity, she would be in big trouble. Big, as in six
-feet-one, one hundred and eighty or ninety pounds. Seriously big. The kind of big capable of picking her up like an oversized pillow and launching her over-board.

  No sound whatsoever now; everything in slow motion, driving her right shoulder between kids as she worked her way toward him. Heads, hair, and shoulders bouncing in unison—something beyond the rail had excited the gathering all at once. Mattie never took her eyes off the man-boy’s freckled neck. His height made him an easy target.

  Closer now. Only a yard to go. The crowd jostled, crushing her. She fought against the invasive voices, resisting them, holding them back as best she could. But it was like trying to fight off a fire hose with a napkin. The voices rose from the depths of the silence.

  “Stop shoving!”

  “That hurts!”

  “My foot!”

  She willed them out of her head, out of her thoughts. She had to focus. To concentrate. She was interested only in him. It would take more than brushing up against him. Full contact. What she thought of as a lock. Only a lock would do. Ten to fifteen seconds at a minimum. More, if she could manage.

  The moment was upon her. She squeezed past one more girl. The man-boy towered in front of her. Much scarier up close.

  Mattie rose to her toes, trying to appear as though she were stretching to see over the rail. Her hands hovered briefly alongside the boy’s upper arms, and then she took hold, as if losing balance.

  It was a good, strong lock.

  The boy’s head turned. He feels it! she thought.

  “Sorry!” she said, not letting go. She closed her eyes to prevent him from seeing them roll into the back of her head. Images flashed through her brain like a high-speed slide show. The boy’s voice filled her ears, foreign at first, then owning her. The same every time.

  Mattie’s having a seizure! Mattie’s speaking in tongues! For so much of her childhood even her own mother had seen her gift as an illness. Doctors always giving it names. Labels. Her parents mumbling behind her back. Packing up. Sneaking out. Running away.

  The rush of impressions from the boy pushed the memories away.

  The closest thing Mattie could compare a successful lock to was a computer download. Data flow. Other people couldn’t understand, except maybe the few who felt it happen.

  One of the images caused her knees to sag. It happened too quickly for her to know exactly which image—was it one of the boy’s thoughts?—but Mattie lost the lock on the way down to her knees, sliding between the crush of bodies.

  Her eyes fluttered open; the boy glared down at her. He knows!

  * * *

  On hands and knees to avoid being seen by a pair of waiters, Philby and Willa crept through the Royal Palace restaurant in search of Maybeck’s DHI. Circular low-wing walls divided the large dining area into sections. White columns lent it the feel of a castle. Philby, in the lead, used the low walls as screens, moving to the center of the room where a hub held six or eight dining tables. They paused, their backs to the wall, studying the room’s perimeter.

  Where would he hide?

  Willa cupped her hand and whispered softly into Philby’s ear. “A waiter station.”

  Yes, Philby thought. Strategically placed throughout the Royal Palace were high cabinets where the food could arrive on trays and be sorted, where drinks like tea and coffee were prepared, and tableware and extra dishes stored. The cabinets had shelves, but if Maybeck had control over the 2.0 software, he could fit in there, shelves or not.

  “Or the columns,” Philby whispered back. “If he stepped into one of those pillars, he’d be in DHI shadow. You can’t see what isn’t there.”

  “There must be twenty pillars in here. Eight or ten waiter stations.”

  “If we had waiter uniforms, this sure would be easier,” Philby said.

  “Think about it,” Willa said. “The waiters don’t get involved in the ship activities. It’s possible that they might recognize us—”

  “But doubtful.”

  “Yes. So instead of trying to hide from them, we should confront them. Put them on the defensive.”

  “Take charge.”

  Their eyes met. A recently unfamiliar energy exchanged between them. “Exactly!” Willa said, trying to dismiss the excitement she felt.

  “You first,” Philby said.

  “Right.” She nodded. Back to business. “Here goes.”

  Willa crept around the arc of the low wall and stood, approaching the two waiters with confidence. Philby trailed behind by a few steps.

  “Hello?” she called out, her voice steady. “Excuse me?”

  The two looked up.

  “I’m Willa. This is Philby. We’re Cast Member guides who’ve just joined the Dream.” She paused. “Do you know about us?”

  The man’s name tag read Omar from Somalia. The woman’s said Giuliana from Peru. He looked puzzled. She looked vaguely aware of what Willa was talking about.

  “I am afraid not,” said Omar.

  “The picture people,” said Giuliana.

  Willa had never heard the term before. Both she and Philby suppressed grins.

  “That would be us,” she said. “We are…” She froze. We are…what?

  “Designing a game.” Philby stepped forward. “You know: hide-and-seek? It’s like that. One of us hides and the kids—the passengers—have to find him—”

  “On their way into dinner,” Willa added. They had a flow going now.

  “Something to make the Royal Palace as much fun for the younger passengers as Animator’s Palate is.”

  Both waiters nodded at once. Waiters moved from dining experience to dining experience with the guests they served. They didn’t need any reminders about how popular the Animator’s Palate was.

  “So one of our friends is hiding in here now,” Willa said.

  “And we’re going to look around to find him,” Philby added.

  “You’re welcome to join us if you like,” Willa said, inviting them.

  “You are kind to make this offer,” Omar said. “We have jobs we must complete.”

  They made no effort to stop the two kids from searching the room.

  “Shouldn’t take long,” Willa said.

  They turned and separated, dramatizing their searching. Willa reached a waiter station and opened a cabinet without looking back for approval. Philby picked up on her lead. They were making good progress, having covered a full quarter of the vast dining room. Now a third. Half.

  By this time, the two service staff no longer knew they existed. They finished setting up a table; the next time Willa looked back, they were gone. This should have made her feel victorious; instead, the size and emptiness of the Royal Palace sunk in. What if Maybeck wasn’t the only one in hiding?

  She struggled to rid herself of the memory of the doughboys swinging meat cleavers, but to no avail. Then her spine tingled as she passed a row of painted portraits along the far wall. Each portrait depicted a particular princess: Aurora, Belle, Cinderella, Snow White. Aurora’s eyes had just moved.

  It’s a painting, Willa reminded herself. The eyes of paintings don’t move.

  “And the dolls in It’s a Small World don’t come alive,” she muttered to herself cynically.

  Aurora was the princess in Sleeping Beauty. The villain in Sleeping Beauty was the dark fairy, Maleficent.

  Willa worked her way over to Philby, who was currently knocking on the columns and then cupping his hands and speaking to them; if anyone saw him they would lock him up in a straitjacket.

  “Over my shoulder,” she whispered, “very carefully. The eyes in the Aurora portrait.”

  “Got it,” he said, waiting several long seconds before changing columns and stealing a look in the direction of the far wall.

  He passed Willa a minute later. “Those peepers are creepers.”

  “Moving.”

  “Yup.”

  “It’s the OTs.”

  “Not necessarily, but I’m not sure that it matters exactly who it is. That pain
ting is watching us.”

  “What do we do?”

  The professor glanced about. “We’ve got it covered,” he said, softly. “First, we locate him—if he’s even here. Then, we’ll take care of Miss Crazy Eyes.”

  “I’ll start over there,” she said, “and work to the front.”

  “We’re almost done.”

  Willa headed to the farthest corner of the dining room, an area removed from the rest of the dining area and one where an especially large waiters’ station had been built into the wall, wisely placed so as to be invisible to virtually all of the dining passengers.

  Twice the length of any of the others, it also contained twice the number of cabinets.

  Willa opened up the second of these. It appeared filled with an oddly formed stack of table linens. But something made her reach inside and feel around behind them, pulling them out onto the floor.

  “Terry?” she hissed, leaning fully into the cabinet.

  “Willa?” Maybeck’s voice whispered weakly.

  Philby heard her talking to herself and abandoned the pillar that he was speaking to. He worked his way toward her, keenly aware that the Aurora painting could be watching him. Thankfully, unless it could see around corners, they were safe. Squatting, he helped Willa up and studied the empty cabinet.

  “He spoke,” Willa gasped.

  “Can you hear me?” Philby said.

  After a moment, a groan issued from the cabinet.

  Philby searched the ceiling and walls for possible security cameras—the devices most commonly used to project their DHIs.

  “He’s in DHI shadow,” Philby said to Willa. “Nice place to hide, man,” he told the empty cabinet.

  “Maybeck, you were struck by lightning,” Willa said. “Your body is in a coma in the ship’s hospital.”

  “Tired,” the DHI said. “Hurting.”

  “You have to wake up,” Willa said. “You have to work really hard to wake up.”

  Maybeck said nothing.

  “Maybeck!” Philby said more loudly.

  Maybeck groaned again.

  “When I return you, you’ll be back in the ship’s hospital. You know that jolt you feel when you’re returned?” he asked rhetorically. “You need to harness that jolt. Use it. Let it wake you all the way awake.”