Kingdom Keepers VI

by Ridley Pearson

  Charlene was too distracted by the approaching guard. She pushed Amanda off the platform, only to realize Amanda was right: no time.

  Charlene dove off the platform, out into open space. The dark ravine yawned beneath her. She flew, light as a feather. As she stretched for Amanda, her friend sparked, spit photons, and disappeared. DHI shadow. Charlene witnessed her own arm dissolving before her. But she hit something soft and clung fast to it. Amanda’s thigh.

  An unseen arm scooped down and held to her.

  Behind them, the first guard drew a pulley into place, and without a harness jumped off the platform, clinging to the pulley. He raced toward them.

  Charlene realized that she and Amanda were slowing down.

  “Our holograms don’t weigh anything!” Charlene cried out. “We’re not heavy enough to carry along the line!”

  In fact, as the pulley and harness reached the halfway point on the thousand-foot stretch of cable, it glided to a stop. Behind them the cable pointed slightly up toward the platform they’d left; in front of them, it pointed up toward the platform that was their intended destination. They were stuck.

  The guard flew toward them at breakneck speed. He was going to crash into the girls.

  Amanda squeezed Charlene tighter. “Hold on!”

  The guard never saw them. Even if he had, there was nothing he could have done about it. The collision hit him in a way it did not hit the girls because he’d had no warning. The pulleys clashed. The guard lost his grip on the pulley’s chain.

  He fell.

  All the pulleys started moving now, driven by his added weight.

  Charlene reached, practically dove, and grabbed hold of the guard with two hands. Amanda held Charlene, both invisible, both upside down.

  The man rattled off something in Spanish that must have been cursing. Seen from a distance, he was suspended in midair, about three feet below the zip line. That’s what his fellow guards saw from the platform. They began screaming. More than one crossed himself. The woman fell to her knees and clasped her hands in prayer.

  Charlene tightened her grip as the man’s wrist began to sweat. He was slipping from her grasp.

  “I can’t hold him,” she said, her voice cellular and electronic sounding.

  The man looked terrified. First, he was being held from his death by an angel. Then the angel spoke. English! He’d always thought angels spoke Spanish.

  The two girls rearranged themselves invisibly. Charlene slipped her legs around Amanda’s middle and locked her ankles. “I’ve got it,” she said.

  “You sure?”

  “You can let go.”

  Carefully, Amanda released her hold on Charlene, feeling the girl’s legs tighten around her. With her hands now free, Charlene reached down and took the man’s other arm. Together the girls grunted and pulled him higher. Charlene transferred her grip to his torso and waist. At last, he lunged and grasped the zip line. He hooked an elbow in the dangling chain, and released a lungful of air. Saved.

  His eyes shut, his lips ran through a litany of prayer.

  The girls began pulling themselves uphill on the zip line. Without any physical weight, the pulley moved easily.

  After a moment, the guards on the platform began hollering at their companion. He came out of his prayers, saw the pulley moving of its own accord, shut his eyes, and began praying again.

  The girls climbed steadily toward the waiting platform on the other side of the ravine. They unclipped and hit the down-sloping trail at a full run. Arriving at the second station, they saw the zip line bouncing. Mattie had crossed within the past few minutes. They clipped on and sailed across, still in DHI shadow. But again, without any weight, the pulley stopped in the middle, requiring them to pull themselves hand over hand to the exit platform. It took a long time.

  The guards had gotten over their prayers. They were back on the hunt. As Charlene unclipped her harness, one of the guards was already flying toward them.

  “I see you!” Amanda exclaimed.

  Charlene looked down. Then at Amanda. They were fully projected again.

  “RUN!”

  They sparked in and out of DHI shadow on their way to the third station. More in than out, giving the man behind them a hard target. A rock the size of a fist flew past Charlene’s face.

  Flew far too fast to have been thrown by a mortal.

  Overtakers? she wondered.

  She stole a look behind her. A slingshot. Not the kind boys played with—surgical rubber strung between an aluminum Y—but the cloth-and-string variety that reminded her of Hercules and Bible stories and the Roman Colosseum. The man slung another. It came at them as fast as a rocket and passed through Amanda’s head. Had she not been a DHI, she’d have been dead.

  They talked as they ran at a full sprint, bounding over clumps of roots, skidding at turns in the trail.

  “He’s trying to kill us.” Charlene was an Olympic runner.

  “I noticed,” Amanda said.

  “You need to push him!”

  “I’m not sure I can.”

  “You’ve got to try.”

  “When?” Amanda asked.

  “When I say! Once you do, head down through the woods. The way we came up.”

  “But the—”

  “I’ll take care of the zip line,” Charlene said.

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “Mattie needs you. I’ll be right behind you. I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m not leaving you!” Amanda shouted.

  “Listen to me, Amanda. Push the slingshot dude and go down on this side of the trail. No more zip lines. We need to reach Mattie. She’s ahead of us.” They took two turns, like an S. “If they get her… She’s the only one who knows what’s going on with Dillard. I’m a hologram. What’s the worst that can happen?”

  “They want you,” Amanda said, reminding her of Jess’s drawing.

  “You and I…they can’t touch us! I’m fine!”

  They reached the platform sooner than expected. Charlene slowed. She glanced back at Amanda, trying to say with her eyes: Now or never.

  Amanda turned, waited, and then threw out both palms. The approaching guard lifted like a kite and flew away, crashing deep into the jungle.

  “Now, go!” Charlene scaled the platform. Amanda staggered off into the dark forest. Charlene slipped the harness off, clipped it to the pulley, and rocked the pulley back and forth, releasing it with all her strength. The pulley and dangling harness sailed out across the bottomless ravine.

  A crunching behind her told her the pushed guard was returning. No time to get off the platform by the stairs; she’d be seen.

  She looked off the edge of the platform that faced the ravine. It was straight down. About thirty feet below was a rocky outcropping. If she missed that…

  Charlene took a deep breath.

  She jumped.

  The last thought before her feet left the platform, a thought that should have come a beat earlier, was: One of you will die.

  * * *

  Amanda’s hologram was fully resolved by the time she caught up to Mattie near the bottom of the trail. She looked perfectly human; her voice was clear and capable of expression.

  “Stop!” she called. Pulling Mattie off the trail she whispered, “They will have told the guard down here about us. He’ll be waiting.”

  “But the gate. It’s right there.” Indeed, the way out was only twenty yards away.

  “He’s hiding. He’s waiting.”

  “You don’t know that! He could be in there watching TV.”

  “He’s not.”

  Mattie was pale and trembling. In a state of shock. “What am I going to do?”

  The ship had sailed. The reality of her situation registered: Dillard had been smuggled back aboard the Dream. Once Amanda and Charlene were returned by Philby, Mattie would be on her own.

  “We’re going to work this out.”

  “You are, sure! But what about me?”

  “I need
you to calm down, Mattie. These things… One step at a time. You get ahead of yourself and you get in trouble.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’re going back to the ship.”

  “Right now, I’m getting out of this place. That’s all that matters. That’s the next step.”

  “What about Charlene?”

  Amanda looked back up the trail. “No one followed us, so she pulled off, tricking them. She’s a DHI. She’s safe.” Amanda didn’t sound convinced. “By now they’re working their way down the zip lines. It’ll take them a while. A lot longer than it took us to get down, that’s for sure.”

  “But where is she?”

  “She’ll be here any minute.”

  “And if she isn’t?”

  “She can’t be more than two or three minutes behind. We’ve already spent most of that talking. We go, whether she catches up or not.”

  “You’d leave her behind?”

  “Do I want to? No, of course not. But as long as she gets herself out of DHI shadow, she’ll return with me. She’ll be fine.”

  “But we won’t know if she’s out or in. Right? Not without seeing her.”

  “Mattie, I really need you to calm down. Take a deep breath. Chill out. We all make more mistakes when we’re wound up.”

  “You’re not my mother, Mandy.”

  “No, I’m your friend. And I’m Charlene’s friend.”

  Mattie nodded. She drew a deep breath, held it and let it out slowly.

  “Better?”

  Mattie repeated the exercise. “Sorry.”

  “It happens.” Amanda glanced back up the trail. “Come on!” she whispered aloud, not meaning to.

  “You’re worried.”

  “I’d rather we leave together. Of course I would. But we can’t wait any longer. We’re going now.” She said this for her own benefit as much as Mattie’s. She knew it made sense, but it felt wrong; and with things between her and Charlene and Finn being the way they were, it could look wrong, too. Mattie was right: Keepers didn’t leave Keepers behind.

  “You’re worried about her.”

  “Charlie’s strong. And clever. She’ll be fine.” Amanda took one last look up the trail. “Yes. I’m worried. Okay? But we’re leaving anyway.” Amanda led Mattie back onto the trail. “We’re going to circle around to the right.”

  “But that’s the opposite direction from where we came through.”

  “And it’s not a direct route to the main gate,” Amanda said. “We can’t have two plans, Mattie.”

  “Okay. To the right.”

  “I’ll be focused on what’s in front of us. You will stay close. You will check behind us. But don’t get distracted. If you see someone, you do not talk. You tap me on the back and then duck.”

  Amanda’s hologram made no sound on the trail floor. Mattie snapped a stick, but from then on walked perfectly silently, gauging her every step. They came around the far side of the two storage sheds. Amanda peered around the corner, facing the pavilion nearly straight ahead. The main gate was to her right; the chicken-wire door they’d used to enter in front of her. It was thirty yards over to the door, all of it across wide-open space, with only a few clumps of flowering bushes in between.

  She turned, tapped Mattie on the chest, and pointed to the ground, signaling, You stay here.

  Mattie acknowledged with a brief nod.

  Amanda slipped out of her zip-line harness and quietly eased it to the ground. She raised her finger to her lips to silence Mattie and stepped through the wall of the shed, disappearing.

  Mattie nearly choked trying to keep quiet.

  Amanda moved through the inside of the well-organized shed and paused at the corrugated metal wall. She eased her face forward a half inch at a time. If you’d been standing in the pavilion’s courtyard picnic area and had happened to look over at the shed, you would have seen a nose suddenly appear through the wall. It was followed by a girl’s forehead and eyes and chin. The face stopped. It looked as if it belonged to a ghost. Her eyes tracked right to left. The face disappeared.

  Amanda saw him. He was sitting at the end of a picnic-table bench with what looked like a strange-looking cane on his lap, just out of view of where the path entered the courtyard. Had Amanda and Mattie not gone the long way around, they would have walked into this guard’s trap. No, too short for a cane. With a thick rubber handle. Why rubber? Insulation! It was a cattle prod. He was set to zap whoever crossed his path.

  That made things tricky for Mattie—even for Amanda. If she happened to be reaching for him with a solid hand and the shock hit her, it would disrupt her hologram. Maybe even fry her.

  Amanda stepped through the wall and rejoined Mattie. Her voice was quieter than a breeze. “Wait for me. I’ll call for you. Come when you hear me.”

  Mattie nodded again. Her face was white.

  Amanda reentered the shed. She picked up a pair of spare pulleys, moved close to the shed door, and rattled them loudly. Paused. Rattled them again. She heard the door’s metal hasp click. The moment the door cracked open, Amanda stepped through the wall and into the courtyard, now behind the guard. She shoved him from behind, throwing him into the shed, threw the hasp into place, and clicked it shut, trapping him.

  “Now!” she called.

  Mattie came running around the corner and into the open. The trapped guard was going nuts, trying to shake the door open. The girls reached the gate and ran out into the driveway as fast as they could.

  “You called the taxi?”

  “Yes!”

  “Where is he?”

  “Late?”

  “That’s bad. That’s very bad.”

  They continued running as fast as Mattie’s feet would carry her.

  The sound of an explosion caused Amanda to look back. Not exactly an explosion: the guard had kicked down the shed’s door. He spun in a full circle, spotted the girls, and hurried for the gate.

  “We’ve got company,” Amanda said.

  “I didn’t need to hear that.”

  What Amanda didn’t confess was how much the multiple pushes had drained her. She was running low on energy. As if to mirror her feelings, her hologram flickered.

  “Don’t leave me!” Mattie pleaded.

  “I don’t have a lot of choice about it.” Her left arm vanished. Her head disappeared and reappeared.

  The man chasing them skidded to a stop, stunned by Amanda’s vanishing. In that moment, Amanda felt a kind of power swell inside her. She possessed a quality that could intimidate an adult she found terrifying. She tried to see herself: no arms or legs. DHI shadow. Again.

  “I’m right here,” she said, her voice cellular quality again.

  The guard ran straight for her, eyes wide with fear and rage.

  “Keep running,” Amanda called to Mattie. She lifted her invisible arms and pushed.

  Nothing. She’d missed. She was about try again when he closed the distance.

  “Boo!” she shouted, just as he was going to run her over.

  The man flew off the ground, screaming. He turned an ankle as he went down and slammed onto the hard road, its dirt surface compacted to cement by endless tour buses.

  Mattie was now a small dot in the dark distance. The man rolled around, gripping his ankle and moaning.

  Amanda didn’t know much Spanish, but she knew a few key words. She sneaked up on the writhing man and whispered harshly, “Vive el Diablo!” The Devil lives!

  He hollered again. Rolled away from her and off the roadbed, now tucked into a fetal position. He was going to need therapy.

  Far away on the mountain, a girl screamed.

  Charlene!

  They should have never left her behind.

  * * *

  During the six o’clock hour, half the passengers attended the musical in the Walt Disney Theatre while the other half ate in one of the ship’s three dining rooms.

  Among the Keepers’ cruise responsibilities was rotating each night to dine with a different family. Ton
ight, Finn had been assigned a table with a mom, a dad, and ten-year-old twin boys. At the next table, Philby was with two sets of parents and two good looking girls about his age. Some guys got all the luck, Finn thought bitterly. Was this Wayne’s doing as well?

  During the appetizer course—soup for Finn—a Cast Member, a young woman, arrived at his table.

  “Finn Whitman?” She passed him an envelope.

  “What’s this?” Finn asked, accepting it. Typically, any note was left in a holder outside the door of your stateroom. A hand delivery had to be special.

  She was college age, a little heavy, with sad, listless eyes. Not your typical Cast Member, Finn thought, though it had been a long day for everyone. She shrugged and headed off.

  Finn opened the envelope. Inside was a typed or computer-printed card.

  THE DIRECTOR OF SECURITY

  REQUESTS YOUR PRESENCE AT 6:30 PM,

  PER YOUR RECENT ACTIVITY IN ANIMATOR’S PALATE.

  Finn gulped. Per your recent activity… As in: throwing a table across the room and destroying a wall?

  The exchange had caught Philby’s attention. Finn leaned out of his chair and passed him the note.

  “Mind if I come along?” Philby said.

  “I was just about to ask.”

  * * *

  With passengers divided between eating and enjoying the show, the ship was like a ghost town. As Finn and Philby descended the stairway to Deck 1, the staircase lights sputtered, flickered, and died.

  When the lights came back up a moment later, they were at half their original brightness, a gloomy amber.

  “Do you always travel in pairs?”

  They recognized her voice immediately, the knowledge followed by a wave of dread and terror. Maleficent rarely showed herself, and when she did… Finn and Philby had too many bad memories of those moments.

  Exchanging a look, refusing to glance back and see the evil fairy, the boys continued down the stairway. They were careful not to run, not to instigate some action from Maleficent. She was powerful, but they’d beaten her before; she didn’t scare Finn the way she once might have. They wanted to reach the landing where there would be more room and more choices for escape or even—did he dare think it?—victory.

  Below them, on the Deck 1 forward landing, a second figure appeared: the Evil Queen.