Kingdom Keepers VI

by Ridley Pearson

  “They’re going to take you off the ship otherwise,” she said. “No one wants that.”

  “We want to get you out of here,” Philby said. “But we need your help. Are you hearing us?”

  “I hear you.”

  “The Return,” Philby said. “Use it.”

  “Repeat it,” Willa said.

  “Wake…up,” Maybeck said.

  “Or get left behind.” Willa knew Maybeck well; he would not want to be miss anything.

  “Got it.” Maybeck already sounded slightly less traumatized.

  “It’s going to happen soon. Willa’s going to stay here with you as long as possible.”

  “Don’t go back to sleep,” Willa said. “Fight to stay awake.”

  “Easy for you to say.” That sounded more like the Maybeck she knew.

  With the two waiters gone, Philby threw a tablecloth over the Aurora portrait on his way out. He texted the others that they’d found Maybeck and that the OTs may have been watching. That he, Philby, would return Maybeck within a matter of minutes.

  The rest was up to Maybeck.

  * * *

  The I-95 corridor stood empty, the result of the Canal celebration up on deck. Finn held his head high and his shoulders square, attempting to express a confidence he didn’t feel. The ship’s hospital was up ahead on his left.

  Not long ago, Finn had headed into the dark tunnels of Fort Langhorn to literally catch the Overtakers napping. It seemed only likely that they would attempt to repay the favor—to try to capture the comatose Maybeck when he was defenseless.

  When will any of this end? Finn thought. How do we break their hold for good? Does Wayne know? Does anyone? How do you stop a fifty-year war?

  Finn wondered if they were just pawns, foot soldiers in some tiny battle in a war now older than their parents. Had they escalated things by bringing in technology? Hadn’t everyone been better off when there was little more going on than after-hour pranks between the villains and heroes?

  These seeds of doubt grew roots as Finn drew closer to the hospital. He questioned the point of it all, including his leading a bunch of friends into life-threatening situations time and time again. He knew what he’d face when he passed through the door ahead—no better time to try to capture Maybeck than now. Determined to reduce their numbers and spread the concern Finn was now experiencing, Maleficent would take advantage of the Canal celebration; she had proved herself an experienced tactician.

  Normally, Finn would approach such confrontations as a DHI, able to use his transparency to his benefit. Perhaps this was part of her plan as well: force him into the open, exposed him as mortal flesh, a physically vulnerable young man, not a projection of light and mirrors.

  Looking back at the still-empty corridor, Finn wished he hadn’t tricked Charlene; he could use the company and support. If you wanted anyone in a confrontation, it was Charlene: levelheaded, nimble, and fast. What kind of stupid jerk would stop such a teammate from joining a potential battle?

  His Wave Phone vibrated in his pocket. Charlene, no doubt trying to talk him out of going this alone. And while he’d just been thinking the same thing, he had no desire to argue the matter. He left the phone in his pocket.

  The iridescent glimmer of unnatural light beat down uniformly from the ceiling fixtures overhead, causing a dreamlike shimmer on the walls and floor. It looked strangely like a ship’s version of the gates of heaven, or wherever people went when they were no longer people. Was this to be the end of it all?

  It was only a single vibration: a text message, not a call. That might be anyone. He slipped his hand into his pocket. Chicken! his conscience called loudly. He was stalling, using any excuse not to open the door and confront whatever evil lay on the other side. He released the phone and let it fall back to the bottom of his pocket.

  He pushed down on the lever and leaned his shoulder into the metal door.

  * * *

  Mattie Weaver huddled on a toilet seat in Vibe’s restroom—the only place she could think of to be truly alone. Maybe he hadn’t recognized the Caller ID on his Wave Phone. Couldn’t he assume it was from a friend if the number came from stateroom 816? She typed the message a second time, struggling with the antiquated system for text entry the phones used.

  Her thumb hovered above the SEND key below the phone’s tiny green screen. She was about to reveal herself in a way she had hoped to avoid. She was about to enter someone else’s fight. A favor for a friend was about to turn into volunteering for a team she knew little about.

  Her thumb pressed the key.

  one of you is going to die

  * * *

  “Oh, hello.” Finn was met by a ship’s crew member, Maybeck’s nurse. “I’m—”

  “I know who you are.” She was twenty-five and quite beautiful. He thought he’d seen her around the ship.

  “A friend…of Terry’s.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I…Well, how’s he doing?”

  “Same, I’m afraid. No metabolic changes, no motion or activity.”

  He’s suspended in SBS, Finn wanted to say. He’ll be returned in a matter of minutes, and I need to protect him until then. Instead he made the proverbial offer that could not be refused.

  “I plan to be here for a while. If you wanted to go up on deck for a few minutes and catch the festivities, I’d be happy to text you if there’re any changes.”

  She studied Maybeck’s still form, then Finn.

  “You sure you don’t mind?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Someone has to be here at all times.”

  “I understand.”

  “Don’t mess with that,” she said pointing to a syringe on a stainless steel tray. “That’s to sedate him if he wakes up too violently. It happens.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I’ll be five minutes, tops.”

  “No problem.”

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “It’s incredible up there. Awesome.”

  “This is really nice of you.”

  “Not at all.”

  “You know, on second thought…you mind turning around?”

  “I…ah… Of course not.”

  “I shouldn’t leave any meds out.”

  But as Finn turned, he found himself facing the polished frame on the back of the interior door— the mirrored frame. The nurse carefully put the tray bearing the syringe into a cabinet, which she then locked. The card key was returned to the drawer on the right of the cabinet.

  “Five minutes,” she said, pinching his shoulder in a friendly gesture.

  “Sure.”

  She pulled the door shut behind her.

  Finn searched the room for what he needed. Was it all here? Would it be enough? He started collecting items necessary to his plan. While he was at it, wanting to let Philby know that Maybeck could be returned now, he withdrew his Wave Phone. His chest tightened at the text message waiting there for him.

  one of you is going to die

  He spun around, facing the unconscious Maybeck.

  “Not you!” he said. “Not going to happen!”

  * * *

  Clayton Freeman stood by the door of Vibe, his iPAQ mobile device in hand. By his estimation there were about a hundred kids out on the club’s small deck; he had little hope of finding the one he was after. The way he saw it, he had a choice to make: he could stay where he was and monitor the iPAQ to tell him when the radio frequency tag inside the stolen laundry tripped the sensor on its way out, or he could go looking for the kid. Both choices had benefits and risks.

  The relay to the iPAQ would lag—the wireless system could be delayed anywhere from ten to forty seconds…or longer. But there couldn’t be many kids wearing Cast Member laundry—specifically, a white polo T-shirt, size extra-large. Even so, he didn’t want to mix it up with the kids and risk the stowaway slipping past him.

  The better solution, he decided, was to wait outside the club entrance for the tagged
shirt to pass him.

  The spider weaves the web and waits.

  “So close,” Clayton told himself.

  Catching this stowaway was certain to make him a star in the eyes of Uncle Bob and the company. Clayton Freeman was hungry for advancement. This stowaway was his ticket to be director of security on a ship of his own.

  He bit back his impatience and waited for the electronic web to signal a catch.

  * * *

  It took Finn a minute to realize his mistake: by trying to protect the comatose Maybeck, he had also set him up for trouble; by giving the nurse a moment off, he had invited an attack. The Overtakers had been watching the ship’s hospital, waiting for just this moment. And now Finn had put himself and Maybeck in harm’s way.

  The door from the companionway to the Health Center waiting room groaned open. Maybeck’s room was to the left, and the person entering eased open the door, slowly, silently. This intruder saw the back of a person sitting in a chair facing Maybeck: a narrow-shouldered white medical coat, a man’s bald head.

  A robed figure stepped into the examination room. She wore a golden crown. A starched white collar rose up from her shoulders behind her head, hiding her face.

  “Haame-lo-lo,” spoke the woman.

  The head and lab coat shrank to less than half their original size, the head bouncing on the floor and splitting into brains, ears, and nasal passages.

  A plastic head. A physician’s demonstration human skull Finn had found on the counter and mounted to look like Maybeck’s guardian.

  Finn stepped out from behind the partially open door, the twin fabric patches from a HeartGo defibrillator raised like a weapon. He pushed them against the Evil Queen’s left arm and fired an electric shock. She literally flew across the small room and rammed into the counter. The device hummed, regaining its charge. Finn came forward; remarkably, the Evil Queen wasn’t down, only stunned.

  What is this creature? he thought. The beeping defibrillator’s main box dragged on the floor behind him. He willed it to reach full power—one more shock, and the Evil Queen was going down. They could lock her up; it would be a big setback for the OTs!

  Struggling to hold herself up, she hooked her elbow on the countertop and turned to face Finn. Her eyes were either bloodshot or glowing. She looked like she was in pain.

  Finn took in her beauty, and his breath caught. He tried to look away, but couldn’t. His hold on the patches loosened. He wanted to touch her face, to kiss her ruby lips. He felt himself drawn into her eyes; iron shavings to a magnet. Who could harm a woman so lovely? So…perfect?

  He pulled closer to her, easing the wired patches lower. The battery box continued its low-toned beeping, not yet charged.

  The Queen’s lips moved.

  Finn thought himself privileged that one so precious would bother to speak to him at all. It never occurred to him that she was attempting to cast a spell.

  The box emitted a single piercing beep. Fully charged.

  The Evil Queen knocked the patches to the floor.

  Finn suddenly saw her for what she was. A witch, drunk, or sick, half asleep.

  She reached with long fingers for Finn’s throat and locked her hands around his neck. He wrestled to break free, throwing her against the near wall as he managed to turn his back to her.

  She pushed him into the cabinets, smashing his face into the safety glass. It cracked into a spiderweb but did not break.

  Through the glass, Finn spotted the syringe on the metal tray.

  Finn pushed her back, stunned as she threw him forward, his head smacking the glass for a second time. He managed to pull open the drawer, fingers groping for the key card to the cabinet. Only then did he realize he’d watched the nurse in a reflection, a mirrored image. Wrong drawer. He knew what it meant: he had to endure yet another blow to the head.

  He heaved back.

  The Queen shoved forward.

  Finn cracked the cabinet’s safety glass for a third time. He pulled open the drawer to the left, and there was the key card! Seizing hold of the key card, still wrestling with the Queen as she managed to get his neck fully in her grip again, he swiped the card next to the cabinet. It unlocked.

  After the three collisions with the glass, Finn’s head was beginning to go spongy. Colors floated before his eyes, blinding him. He felt his knees give out. He sank lower as his left hand found its way into the cabinet.

  “I came for the other, but you are the prize! You will do nicely for our little sacrifice, my friend!”

  “I don’t like to be overlooked.” Maybeck’s voice. A hand appeared on the Queen’s shoulder and spun her around.

  The sound of Maybeck’s voice gave Finn strength, a strength so unfamiliar, he was still learning how to use it. He stood, broke her grip, and looked Maybeck in the eye. He’d come out of the coma; Philby had returned him!

  The Evil Queen looked as if she’d seen a ghost. She tried to speak, but her eyes rolled back in her head, flickering open just long enough to see the syringe still inserted in her arm. She spoke, but her words came out at half speed.

  Maybeck sagged, losing strength.

  The Evil Queen fell to the floor, weakened but still conscious. He would not be able to capture her.

  What is this creature? Finn thought for a second time. The dose was meant for Maybeck, who weighed a good deal more than this slight woman, and yet she remained partially awake. She’d said, I came for the other. Had she meant Maybeck, or had Finn, by using Charlene’s ID tag, led the Queen here?

  His plan to kidnap her foiled, Finn took Maybeck’s arm around his shoulder and helped him out of the exam room and into the companionway, leaving the Evil Queen groaning and cursing in some strange language while a plastic doctor’s model of a human head, its brains missing, stared back at her.

  CLAYTON FREEMAN’S IPAQ signaled that the radio frequency tag in the unaccounted-for laundry had left the lounge. He was back on the trail.

  A minute later he was following a wide-shouldered boy with buzz-cut red hair.

  The level of sophistication of the boy’s violations suggested more organization than a high school kid was capable of. More sinister as well. It would be pretty stupid to step on a single ant only to realize too late he’d missed the colony. Freeman intended to stay with him.

  Freeman was the wizard of Disney Dream’s security office. When Uncle Bob had given the Imagineers a wish list of security upgrades for the new class of ship, all the technical ideas had come from Clayton. These included the use of radio frequency tags for passenger identification, stateroom entry, the Oceaneer Club, tracking laundry inventory, and the inventory of security-sensitive equipment, including closed-circuit video surveillance—CCTV. The ship possessed four highly-encrypted private WiFi systems. Night-vision imaging on certain decks.

  In the end, Clayton Freeman wanted a safer ship, but not a ship that invaded anyone’s privacy—all of which required a great deal of forethought, compromise, and planning. With the upgraded wireless networks came the ability to transmit security video to the handheld devices, a functionality he finally got the chance to test now, as he dropped back from the subject yet remained able to follow.

  When the suspect entered the forward tunnel, which enclosed the jogging track, Foreman hurried. He’d lost the boy here once before.

  No sign of the two. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. Zero.

  Vanished. Same as last time.

  Freeman could envision three explanations: 1) He’d used the CREW MEMBERS ONLY door immediately to Freeman’s right; 2) Their hideaway was right here under Freeman’s nose; 3) He was a hologram and had walked through the wall.

  This last possibility came under the heading Top Secret. He and Uncle Bob had, for several days now, realized something extraordinary was happening on their ship. One thing seemed clear: if he went to Uncle Bob with only theories he’d be laughed at. The older man was starting to question, but he wasn’t sure. Clayton Freeman would need proof. Hard evidence.

  Fr
eeman opened the CREW MEMBERS ONLY door. Nothing.

  He pulled it shut and paced the jogging deck.

  He was in the exact location at which the cameras had lost the double Mickey the first time. All he saw was a line of stains where some passenger had spilled soda.

  There was a hiding place here.

  Something he was missing.

  * * *

  There was barely time to celebrate Maybeck’s coming out of the coma. Standing in a crowded area by the gangway on Deck 1, Charlene attempted to hide her relief at having him back.

  Finn and the others felt a sense of hope. They had not exactly defeated the Overtakers, but they had caused them to fail, and that was almost the same thing.

  Just before noon, a security officer quieted the thirty people gathered.

  “Passage ceremony personnel are now cleared for disembarkation. Please have your identity cards out to expedite the process.”

  Led by Captain Cederberg, who was followed in succession by officers of rank, a parade of VIPs crossed the temporary gangway. The Kingdom Keepers brought up the rear behind Captains Mickey and Minnie.

  Maybeck was in decent shape. They’d teased him about being well-rested.

  But once on Panamanian soil, Philby and Finn stood on either side of Maybeck, ready to help prop him up if he needed it.

  The Keepers understood the honor of being part of the inaugural festivities, of being in the presence of the cruise line executives. The event had been carefully scripted, so it surprised everyone—most of all the Keepers—when the biggest cheer, bigger even than for Mickey, arose as they crossed the plank.

  Mickey came back and patted each Keeper on the head, winning ever louder applause from the crowd.

  The president of Panama spoke briefly, followed by Captain Cederberg. There seemed to be more journalists and photographers than Panamanians. Cameras flashed. Photographers signaled the ship’s representatives to look one way, then the other.

  Jodi directed Captain Cederberg with hand signals. Andy and his crew were among those filming.