Kingdom Keepers VI

by Ridley Pearson

  Mattie looked at the two competing girls. “Let’s not forget I spent two years living with Mandy and Jess.”

  The darkness of the trail quieted them. It was difficult to see, and using a flashlight was out of the question for fear of being spotted. The jungle was filled with unfamiliar sounds—hoots and howls, buzzing and flapping—that terrified all three girls; but no one was going to be the first to admit it.

  Soon, Amanda and Charlene passed into DHI shadow, their images first sparkling, then vanishing all together. Their voices changed quality, but they could communicate with Mattie, reassuring her that they were right there with her. Over the hour-long climb, they took two breaks for Mattie’s sake. One of the benefits of being a DHI, Amanda explained, was that projections didn’t get muscle tired, need water, or get hungry. Sleep fatigue overtook them if their human selves got exceptionally tired—the result of slowed brain functions—but otherwise they were made for marathons.

  Nearing the top, Mattie squealed as she walked through a thick spiderweb that stuck to her face and hair. She caught herself mid-cry and stopped, fighting off the sticky thread and feeling it like a net over her skin. She swatted at every itch, fearing there was some giant spider crawling on her.

  “Wait here,” Charlene’s voice said. “I’m going to scout ahead.”

  “That was loud, wasn’t it?” Mattie asked in a whisper.

  “It wasn’t quiet,” Amanda said, “but there’s so much weird stuff out here, I doubt it would be noticed.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I hate spiders. I’m right there with you.”

  “It was so much. Oh my gosh, it’s disgusting.” Mattie continued to pick at the sticky web glued to her.

  “I don’t even want to think about what’s out here, animal-wise. Did you hear that thing grunting?”

  “The snorting thing?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I about screamed,” Mattie said. “What was that?”

  “I don’t know, but it sounded big, and wild, and way too close.”

  “It can’t hurt you, right? None of it can hurt you.”

  “No. But sometimes in shadow, you can still touch stuff. Do things. Even Philby hasn’t figured that one out yet. Everything changed when they did this upgrade last year. Technically, we’re still in beta. The Imagineers, the people who invented it all, are constantly chang- ing the software. We call it 2.0, but it’s more like 2.6 or something by now. They’re getting the bugs out.”

  “I hope that includes spiders.”

  The girls laughed together.

  “I’ve never thanked you for coming,” Amanda said.

  “No big.”

  “It will be if you’re caught.”

  “Not really. Everyone’s terrified of me. All the docs and those soldier types. They make me wear the same gloves I wore when you were there.”

  “The ones that lock.”

  “Yeah. And they cover my face. All my skin. They have too many secrets, right? They know any contact with me, and I’ll know it all. It freaks them out. That’s the thing we should have figured out back when you and Jess were there. How much they fear us. We had all sorts of power over them that we never used. It’s like you guys, the Keepers. By yourselves, maybe not so much—but together? Forget about it. I know that now. If the Fairlies could come together, if we could get past all the stupid jealousies about each other’s powers and work together, there’s no way those idiots could keep us locked up. We are way too powerful.”

  “Well, you won’t have to worry about that.”

  “Won’t I?”

  “Mrs. Nash will take you in. She’s a control freak, but mostly she’s okay.”

  “You’re not getting it, Mandy. I want to be caught. I’m good with it.”

  Silence.

  “That freaks you out,” Mattie said.

  “Well, yeah.”

  “If I’m caught…when I’m caught, I’ll be returned to Baltimore. To the facility. I can save those guys. I see that now. Until you, Jess, the Keepers, I didn’t understand what we have.”

  “You’re saying Jess and I should come, too. That we should all allow ourselves to be caught.”

  “I’m not. Just because it’s right for me doesn’t make it right for you.”

  “I never want to go back.”

  “It’s good you know that.”

  “But it never occurred to me that we could break everyone out. They’d catch us. They always catch us.”

  “They haven’t caught you.”

  “I’m pretty sure they know where we are. Mrs. Nash threatens to send us back all the time.”

  “Just because she knows about the facility doesn’t mean the facility knows about you. You and Jess proved it’s possible, to get out, to be free. And if you think about it, you know why.”

  “Because we stuck together.” Amanda understood Mattie’s dream then. Her fantasy. But Charlene’s arrival silenced any further speech.

  “It’s a ways up,” Charlene’s voice said from the darkness. “And I passed a sign that marks the park’s border.”

  “It’s not part of the park?”

  “No. It’s just a big house. Stone and wood. Some screened-in porches and screens on the windows. It’s huge. And it’s, I don’t know, kind of fancy in a run-down way. Like it was fancy a long time ago. There were men’s voices. Four? Five? More?”

  “Were you visible?”

  “Oh, yeah. Philby’s got us powered up and projected. Security cameras, I think. We start showing up maybe a hundred yards away. Really clear pretty soon after. I didn’t press it. All for one, and all of that.”

  Her comment drove home what Mattie had been talking about—that the Keepers worked as a team. Amanda thought of the five teens as individuals, hadn’t given the team concept a lot of consideration, but there was no denying it. The Keepers did everything, big or small, as a group. Typically, the real problems arose when they were off on their own.

  The invisible Charlene led the way for Mattie, with Amanda on guard, bringing up the rear. At the top, they passed the platform looming out over the ravine—the start of the first and longest zip line. It felt haunted, due to the loud jungle sounds. The constancy of the buzzing and humming of night insects made all the girls jumpy.

  When Charlene’s hologram began sparking and reappearing, Mattie fell back several yards, slightly afraid. The same phenomenon overtook Amanda’s DHI. Pieces of the two girls appeared, disappeared, and reformed. An arm. A leg from the knee down. A torso floating in space. Then an arm attached to the torso and legs grew out of it, and there was the complete girl, walking, but shimmering in distorted squares of color like a television in a thunderstorm.

  “That is so…awesome!”

  “I thought you were freaking.”

  “No way! Wickedly cool.”

  “Quiet!” Amanda said. “We’re too close!”

  They huddled on their knees, still fifty yards from the building.

  “Amanda and I will go first. You’ll stay here and wait for my signal. I’m going to try to get a look at them so I can maybe see if either of the two who were in the woods are in there. If they are, we signal and you join us. Remember, they can’t hurt Amanda or me. They can’t catch us. But you? Different story. So the first thing is to keep you safe. If everything goes as we hope, then we’ll go in. Or maybe we can lure one of the guys out so you can touch him. The thing is, you’ve got to be very smart about this, Mattie. You’ve got to know when to take off. Head for the first platform and get going. Don’t wait. Call the taxi right away.”

  “But what if you need your phone? I’ll have it. Besides, what if there’s no time to tell you what I’ve found out?”

  “Okay. Good point. So we’ll have a code. Once you’ve read this guy, you will use one of two words: Here, or Gone. That’s all Mandy and I need. You can fill us in on the deets later.” Charlene held up a finger and listened. Jungle sounds. She whispered. “Maybe we’ll have Dillard. Maybe not. About a
mile down the road there’s a sign advertising this place. Bring the taxi by there every half hour, but stay way away the rest of the time. Don’t stop. Just drive by. You’ll see us if we’re there.”

  “Are you okay?” Amanda asked.

  “I’m talking to a pair of holograms in the Costa Rican jungle. Do I have to answer that?”

  “We’ve got this,” Charlene said.

  “The Keepers have faced way worse, believe me,” Amanda said. “Like Charlie said, you’ve got to be very smart about getting out of there.”

  “If there’s a reason for you to go in in the first place,” Charlene said. “If not, no matter how bad it gets, don’t play hero. Amanda and I can trick them. Don’t fall for that.”

  Mattie nodded. Charlene turned toward the house, about to head that direction.

  “Can I just say something?” Mattie’s voice was no louder than a breeze in the branches.

  “Go ahead.”

  “If I had friends like all of you…” She didn’t finish.

  Amanda placed her hand on Mattie’s shoulder. Mattie twitched because she could feel herself being touched.

  “You do,” Amanda said.

  * * *

  The house was a one-story hacienda with terra-cotta Spanish roof tile and pale stucco walls. The open-air windows were wood-trimmed and screened. A large propane tank was concealed by a thicket of bushes. Solar panels reflected from the roof in the intermittent moonlight.

  Charlene crawled on hands and knees, followed closely by Amanda. Being projections, their DHIs shone clearly, making them easy to spot. But without the telltale blue outline that had accompanied the 1.6 software, the two girls looked perfectly real. The only way to tell they were holograms would be for someone to try to touch them, something they had no intention of allowing.

  Placing her back against the stucco wall, Charlene rose slowly until her head was alongside the window’s opening. It amazed her that in this condition, she still felt everything as she normally would: sweat trickling down her rib cage, heart racing, breathing rapid and shallow. She moved just enough to peer inside, then dropped quickly, shaking her head. The two girls moved to the next window. Charlene tried again. She held up two fingers—two men. The next window showed the kitchen; empty. They dropped to their bellies and crawled past a back patio with two sets of sliding doors—a living room and a bedroom.

  Through the bedroom window, Charlene recognized the Costa Rican woman from the woods, though she wasn’t wearing her camouflage. Charlene dropped down alongside Amanda and closed her eyes to try to regain her composure. She put her lips to Amanda’s holographic ear.

  “Watching TV. It’s her.”

  Amanda whispered back. “Door closed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just her in the room?”

  “All I saw. Who knows?”

  “Dillard could be in one of these rooms.”

  “I know. How easy would that be?”

  “Too easy,” said Amanda.

  Charlene nodded. Nothing was ever easy. She tried to think up a viable plan to get Mattie in physical contact with the woman. The problem was that if Mattie made physical contact, then the alarm would be sounded, making it more difficult, if not impossible, to rescue Dillard. But without Mattie making contact with someone who knew Dillard’s whereabouts, it was a wild-goose chase.

  “First,” she said, “we’ll circle the house checking all the rooms. If no Dillard, then back here with Mattie.”

  “There is another way.”

  Charlene gestured for her to get on with it.

  “I could push this woman,” Amanda said, “and hold her while Mattie reads her and finds out where Dillard is.”

  “You’d waste your energy because she’d scream, and we’d be outnumbered.”

  “Not if we got her gagged, she wouldn’t. You could do that, because the push won’t affect your hologram.”

  “It’ll drain you.” Charlene had witnessed the effects of Amanda unleashing her supernatural force. “Who knows how long it could take us to find Dillard? And besides, we might need you to rescue him in the first place.”

  “It’s an option,” Amanda said.

  “Okay. An option.”

  They circumnavigated the house, window by window. It took them ten minutes. They returned to Mattie in the woods.

  “Nothing,” Charlene told her. “No sign of him.” She laid out the plan. Mattie would stay back in the woods, awaiting Charlene’s signal. Amanda and Charlene returned to outside the patio bedroom, where, once again, the woman outlaw was seen watching TV from the bed.

  Charlene waved for Mattie to join them. Mattie belly-crawled and reached them without incident. Amanda took Mattie by the hand and the two of them moved to the sliding glass door, the curtain pulled on the inside. Charlene slipped up the wall and gained a view of the woman.

  Charlene nodded.

  Amanda meowed. Extremely convincingly. She paused, and tried again, slightly louder.

  Charlene watched the woman—five-feet six inches, incredibly fit, dark skin and short jet-black hair—slip off the bed and approach the patio door. The click of the lock. The door sliding open.

  Mattie reached inside, grabbing the woman’s wrist, and held on tightly.

  “The boy,” Charlene said in crude Spanish.

  Amanda raised her right hand, palm out, while lowering her head. She stared with a crazed expression. Amanda’s push drove the woman’s chin up and clenched her teeth so that her cry for help came out like someone choking on a fish bone. Mattie reacted physically, as if electrically shocked. She let go of the woman’s wrist.

  That proved to be the game changer. Amanda’s pushing used enough force to keep the woman’s jaw set; but once Mattie released the woman, that same force was enough to throw the woman off her feet and onto the tile. In that instant, Amanda’s energy was no longer aimed at the woman, who managed to call out.

  “Dillard’s in her thoughts,” Mattie panted, “but I didn’t see where.”

  A man burst through the bedroom door. Amanda threw her push at him, pinning him. But a second man followed. The woman guard dove and tripped up Mattie, who tumbled back onto the patio.

  Amanda’s energy had to be tapped, Charlene thought. If she pushed again…

  Charlene attacked the woman guard, pulling her off Mattie. The guard swung at Charlene, and froze as her hand swiped through the hologram. Charlene had witnessed this reaction before: the stunned incredulity that made no sense in a physical world—a fist did not swing through a person. It was impossible. The brain cannot process such information. It requires a second attempt before settling on a hypothesis.

  As the woman wound up to throw a second punch, Charlene took her by the throat and pinned her to the tile.

  “Where’s my friend?”

  The guard fought against a girl made of light. It was too much. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she passed out, unconscious from fright.

  Amanda threw the second man against the wall, but lost the first man in the process.

  “To the left!” Charlene cried.

  Amanda released the two inside, and—with a strength Charlene could hardly believe—pushed to her left, into the darkness of the patio. A man only Charlene had seen lifted to his feet and flew away from them. Amanda returned the force to inside the room, just catching a guard running at her. She staggered, nearly spent.

  “That’s him!” Charlene shouted to Mattie. “That’s the guy!”

  Mattie displayed nerves of steel. She stood and marched through the door. Amanda redirected her force, knocking the man down. Mattie grabbed hold of the man’s ankle; her body shook.

  Amanda couldn’t do everything at once. Charlene ran across the patio and shoved the guard as he attempted to stand. He kicked at her, but his feet did nothing but flop in the air. She shoved him again. He struck his head on a stone in the path and was dazed, blinking furiously to maintain consciousness. Returning to her friends, she arrived in time to see M
attie release the man’s ankle; then Mattie fell back onto her bottom.

  “Oh…no…” Mattie said. “We gotta get out of here.”

  “Run!” Amanda shouted, as she gave one final push. Both men and all the furniture in the room lifted off the floor and flew, slamming against the far wall. Amanda turned and followed Charlene and Mattie into the woods.

  Charlene led the way, hoping her sense of direction was good. The guards would know the area far better than they. It was a footrace now, and all they had was the lingering hope that the guards would not think to bring harnesses with them.

  “Dillard?” Charlene cried out, tormented at having failed in their mission.

  “He’s on the bus,” answered Mattie. “The man was thinking about a zipper on a duffel bag getting stuck. A boy was in the duffel bag. The woman…she was thinking about the duffel getting to the ship.”

  “What?”

  “I think Dillard’s back on the ship.”

  “But why?”

  “Don’t know. Stones. A tunnel. Like the drawing. A monster. Different, but similar.” She ran fast and easy. They helped Amanda, who was dragging. The kidnappers were closing fast.

  “Similar how?” Amanda asked.

  “Blood and death. The monster. The someone who’s going to die? It’s going to be…Finn.”

  Both Amanda and Charlene skidded to a stop at the same instant. They stared at Mattie. The sound of the guards grew louder and closer. Mattie ran past them.

  “Come on!”

  The other two girls started running again. The platform for the first line came into view as an angular shape. Then details could be seen: stairs, the two platforms. The girls hurried up. Charlene fumbled as she attempted to clip Mattie’s harness in. It took too much time.

  “Go!” She pushed Mattie off the platform. The girl flew out across the deep ravine, her flailing limbs like spider legs in the dull glow of the moon. Finally, she collected herself and moved even faster on the pulleys. The line whirred.

  Charlene clipped Amanda to the line. Looking behind them, Amanda declared, “No time. Hold on.” She reached around Charlene’s waist, and her arm passed through the hologram. “I need you solid!”