Kingdom Keepers Boxed Set

by Ridley Pearson

  “Because the same guys that work the computers know the wires. They could spot wires that didn’t belong.”

  “In this mess? I don’t think so.” Willa stepped forward and dragged her fingernail along one wire, then another.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Every girl knows that makeup can hide anything,” she said. “The way you fool the nerds is you paint the blue wires black. Then they don’t notice—” She cut herself off as her thumbnail flaked away some black paint, revealing the blue wire below. “Voilà!”

  “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,” Maybeck said.

  Footsteps…coming fast down the hall.

  “The door!” Maybeck whispered.

  Willa raced to the door and quietly spun the lock.

  The people in the hall ran past. She looked at Maybeck and rolled her eyes: that had been too close.

  As she rejoined Maybeck, he followed the painted network line to where it had been run along the underside of the bottom shelf. Together they traced it and three others to the interior wall, and along this wall and another set of shelves to where a small hole had been drilled through some plasterboard. A door stood immediately to Maybeck’s right where a wall jutted out. He tried the doorknob.

  Locked.

  Willa pointed to a small sign that identified the door: JANITOR.

  “That’s perfect!” Maybeck said. “It’s certain to have a drain—which is how Philby says they run the wires around the Park.”

  “I need something the size of a credit card,” Willa said.

  Maybeck looked at her curiously.

  “I have brothers who are constantly trying to lock me out of the bathroom. They think it’s funny.”

  She found a metal plate on a workbench. She slid it into the crack next to the doorjamb, and the dark room popped open.

  “Sometimes I hate being an only child,” Maybeck quipped.

  The room was a pile of junk—a neglected storeroom. It took him a minute, but Maybeck located the server mounted beneath a photo-developing bench—a blue-and-silver Dell that looked a lot like a piece of a home stereo.

  If they were right, this small box controlled all the holograms of the animals they’d battled, and it possessed the power to erase them all.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “We don’t just pull the plug. I know that much.”

  “A magnet,” she said. “We need a magnet!”

  Together, the two returned to the workshop and began searching for anything magnetic. Willa found a couple of small magnets, but they both agreed they wouldn’t be powerful enough to do any real damage. They needed to rearrange all the magnetic information on the hard disk. It was going to take something…

  “There!” Maybeck said too loudly.

  At that very moment, another line of footfalls had been coming down the hallway. The noise stopped just outside the door. A fist banged on the door.

  “Block it!” he hissed, instructing Willa.

  For what he’d spotted was currently up near the ceiling. It was a very large device with two metal plates connected by wires; it hung from the end of a hydraulic arm and was clearly meant to raise and lower heavy pieces of the dinosaurs that were under construction or repair.

  Willa rolled a tool chest in front of the door and then locked the wheels.

  Maybeck threw a switch and worked the hydraulic arm, attaching the magnet to the end of it. He found the power switch and tried it: a wrench and three screwdrivers jumped off a workbench and stuck to the magnet. He’d gotten it too close to the workbench, but he’d proven his point.

  He flipped off the switch, and the tools dropped to the floor in a cacophony of banging metal.

  Now the people on the other side of the door tried all the harder.

  Maybeck wrestled with a giant cotter pin that held the magnet to the arm. He got the magnet free, extended the wire connecting it, and was able to stretch it to all the way inside the dark room. The thing was massive. He knew it had to be right on top of the server to corrupt the hard drive. It took most of his strength to lift the magnet and all his strength to hold it under the counter and against the hidden server.

  “Throw the switch!” he called out.

  “I’m a little busy here,” Willa said, having dragged a leg of a tyrannosaurus to block the door.

  “I…can’t…hold…it,” Maybeck gasped. “Throw the freaking switch.” Only he didn’t say “freaking.”

  Willa abandoned the door and ran to the controls. She threw the switch.

  The magnet leaped out of Maybeck’s hands and glued itself to the server. A small, green LED on the front—meant to indicate hard-drive activity—turned to amber, then flashed red. Next, all the lights on the server failed completely, and there was an electrical smell in the air.

  The second server was dead.

  Maybeck and Willa hugged, only to realize what they were doing. Then Willa pushed him away and said, “Don’t disgust me!”

  Maybeck brushed off his clothes and quickly changed the subject. “I probably should have checked with Philby before doing that. I hope it doesn’t mess things up.”

  The workroom door banged open an inch, the tool carrier sliding on the concrete floor.

  Two inches.

  Then five.

  “What now?” she asked, her voice tight.

  Maybeck glanced overhead: it was a drop ceiling, maybe a foot or two lower than the one out in the hallway.

  “How are you with small spaces?” he asked.

  THE TWO TIGERS VANISHED IN MIDAIR. As did four of the six monkeys and two of the orangutans.

  The big tigress from the shadows remained and so did the massive tiger that had come through the hatch. Finn counted two monkeys and two orangutans.

  DHIs, Finn realized. Two of the tigers and several of the monkeys and apes had been holograms. No wonder his blows with the stick hadn’t done much.

  Amanda’s climb had distracted the charging animals just long enough for Finn and Jez to get past them. Meanwhile, Philby’s team was about to defeat the second server.

  Now it was time to get out of there.

  Finn took off running. A caged-in jungle Jeep appeared from over the rise, a flashing light atop its roof.

  The orangutans moved to intercept Finn. Jez ran toward Charlene and the wall.

  Incredibly fast, and easily as big as he was, the apes came at Finn with wild eyes and drooling snorts of intention. The first of the two bounded toward Finn, made one gigantic leap, and would have torn his head off with its outstretched hand had the tigress not sprung. The cat scared the orangutan. The ape rolled into a ball, came to standing, and saw the cat bearing down on it once again. Forced to choose between pursuing Finn or confronting the cat, the orange ape turned to escape. Now, faced with a Jeep coming at it headlong, the orangutan sprang for the bamboo grove and disappeared, the huge cat following hotly on its tail.

  The second ape saw its partner flee and beat a hasty retreat. Thankfully for Finn, that retreat took it into the path of the Jeep, which veered sharply to avoid a collision. The Jeep skidded to a stop near the open hatch, away from Charlene, who remained poised, her stilts pressed at an angle against the wall. Jez was nowhere to be seen. She’d made it over the wall.

  “How about a lift?” Finn shouted.

  Charlene bent low and offered her cupped hands as a boost.

  Finn climbed up, lay flat, and offered Charlene his hand. She took it, stood, and, as rangers hurried from the Jeep, shook her legs violently, managing to kick loose first one, and then both of the stilts. Some of the ivy that connected her costume with the stilts tore loose. She left the rangers with a pair of stilts in their hands as she and Finn both lowered themselves down off the wall.

  Dozens of guests had gathered to observe the excitement. Some applauded as the Kingdom Keepers dropped to the path, but they didn’t stick around to take a bow.

  Charlene said, “This way!” and led the others directly across the formal g
ardens and into the jungle on a route she now knew well.

  But just before they entered the dense jungle, Jez pulled to a stop, transfixed by something to her right.

  All the kids stopped and looked in that direction. They saw a snowcapped peak of a towering mountain.

  “That mountain was in my dream,” she told Finn. “The dream I told you about.”

  “King of the Mountain,” Finn said. “Where you and Amanda were under attack.”

  “Yes.” Jez reached out and took Amanda by the hand. She said nothing, but the look that was exchanged between the two “sisters” would have quieted even the most cynical person.

  “That’s Expedition Everest,” Charlene said.

  “Then, like it or not, that’s where we’re headed,” Jez said. “Never once, not once, has one of my dreams lied to me.”

  HAVING RECONNECTED ON THE DS’S, all the Kingdom Keepers, along with Jez and Amanda, reunited in a small patch of jungle. Behind them towered Expedition Everest, and screams were heard periodically as the roller coaster thrilled its riders. After a quick celebration of Jez’s return, Finn brought up the daydream she had had while trapped in the tunnel.

  “But so what?” Maybeck asked. “We had two things we had to do: get Jez back and kill the second server. We’ve done both. I’m so tired I can barely stand. Let’s get out of here while we still can.”

  “You all can go. It’s all right,” Amanda said matter-of-factly. “We will never be able to repay you for all you’ve done.”

  “But your dream,” Charlene said. “The giant attacking you. Finn in his hands.”

  “All the more reason,” Maybeck said, “we should just boogie and forget about all that.”

  He looked to the others for agreement but saw only vacant faces.

  “Come on, people!” Maybeck chastised. “Quit while you’re ahead. Ever heard of that?”

  “Leave no stone unturned,” Finn said, “might be more appropriate. Wayne has gone missing.”

  “Philby cut the data lines. Who knows how that affected the data flow in the Park? Besides, it wasn’t Wayne. It was his VMK avatar! Are you kidding me? We’re going to stay and try to find a missing avatar? Are you serious? Half the Park is out looking for us.”

  “Maleficent serves Chernabog. We know that Chernabog defeated Mickey at the Fantasmics. Wayne told us that a long time ago. That means he has major powers. He’s the one Disney demon that we know virtually nothing about—”

  “And let’s leave it that way!”

  “But Jez dreamed something awful. And Maleficent could have hidden in any of the Parks. Why here? Why now? What’s being planned? With Wayne missing, it’s up to us to find out.”

  “You’re hallucinating,” Maybeck said.

  Philby stepped forward. “Without Wayne we’d have failed. I promise you that. Maleficent’s got him. Don’t ask me to explain that, but I just know it. And if that’s true, it’s my fault—it’s all of our faults. Can you honestly just go home and go to bed knowing that?”

  Maybeck hung his head and shook it back and forth. “No.” He sounded so despondent.

  “No,” Philby agreed. “I didn’t think so.”

  Charlene unfolded the photocopied page of Jez’s diary. She pointed to the sketch of what looked like a gorilla. “What if this isn’t a gorilla at all? What if it’s the yeti?”

  Jez spoke up. “You just told us that Chernabog was missing from his float, remember? Maybe Maleficent thought that that was the real Chernabog, only to discover it a fake. The bat…the monkeys…something could have told her the real Chernabog was locked up here in AK.”

  “Or maybe this whole thing,” Finn said, “was cooked up by Maleficent to use us to lead her to Wayne. Has anyone considered that possibility?”

  He drew stunned expressions.

  “What if we did exactly what she wanted us to do?” Finn asked in a softer voice. “We couldn’t have gotten Jez without Wayne’s help. He knew they were looking for him. So Maleficent cooks up this plan to basically use Jez as bait. We think she’s after Jez to keep Jez’s dreams from forecasting what Maleficent is up to—and that could be right. But it doesn’t mean there wasn’t a bigger plan.”

  A light breeze broke the silence between them as, once again, it carried the cries from Expedition Everest.

  “One thing we know,” Willa said, “is that Everest is cold. At least, it represents the cold.” She indicated the gorilla on Jez’s diary page. “What if this is the yeti, like Charlene said?” The other kids stared at her with puzzled expressions. “What if, like Maleficent, the yeti can’t handle the heat? So Maleficent’s job is not only to get him out of the Park, but keep him cold. Keep them both cold.”

  “The ice truck!” Charlene said.

  “Exactly!” agreed Willa.

  “But to what purpose?” complained Maybeck.

  “How do we know? A refrigerated truck can take him anywhere he wants to go.”

  “But where?” asked Finn.

  “So Expedition Everest was a way for Wayne and the others to control Chernabog?” Charlene asked. “The Imagineers basically locked him up in a deep freeze?”

  “It could be,” agreed Willa. “They locked up Maleficent in the dungeons, let’s not forget.”

  Philby spoke confidently. “I say we get inside Expedition Everest and check out the yeti. That could be where the answers lie. Jez drew it in her diary. It has to mean something!”

  “It means that’s where the danger lies,” muttered Jez.

  Finn said quietly, “Chernabog is using Maleficent—maybe to get him off of Everest or even out of the Park. Maleficent used us to reveal and capture Wayne. If they eliminate Wayne, then they take away years of knowledge about all the Parks, all the history of this place. If they’re trying to gain control of the Parks, Wayne has to go. He’s proved that.”

  “He has the knowledge and leadership,” said Willa, “to stop them.”

  Leadership, Finn thought. Wayne had given him a lecture on how to be a good leader. Had Wayne known what was coming?

  “Wayne is not the only one they need to get rid of,” Maybeck reminded them. “I’d say we’ve become a pretty big pain in the—”

  “But!” Finn said, interrupting, “there’s obviously stuff we haven’t figured out. Maybe a lot of stuff. It’s pretty obvious we don’t have it all. We can’t make any conclusions without going in there, without knowing more. I’m going in there. And I have a hunch Amanda and Jez are, too, because Jez dreamed about it.”

  The two sisters nodded.

  “This is stupid,” Maybeck whined. “It could be a trap.”

  “Which is why you and Willa and Charlene will remain outside of Everest,” Finn directed. “If we get nailed, you’ll have to come save us.” He knew if there was one thing Maybeck loved, it was being the hero.

  Maybeck snorted. “Okay,” he said, relenting.

  “Philby will come with me because he’s so good with tech stuff, and if there’s one thing we know about Expedition Everest, it’s that it’s high-tech.”

  “I haven’t studied it much,” Philby cautioned.

  “We’ll take our chances,” Finn said.

  “The Park closes in, like, five minutes,” said Charlene.

  “That may work even better for us,” Finn declared.

  “What about the fact that Jez’s daydream has Ape Man swinging you around like a drumstick?” Maybeck crossed his arms, believing he’d finally found a hole in Finn’s plan.

  “But what he doesn’t know,” Philby said, “is that we already know that, and that’s gotta be to our advantage.”

  “Not if you’re the one being swung around,” said Maybeck, clearly challenging Finn.

  “I’ll take my chances,” said Finn, staring back at Maybeck’s twitching smile and wondering why he’d volunteered.

  THE LINE FOR EXPEDITION EVEREST had been shut down fifteen minutes prior to the Park closing to make sure the roller coaster was free of passengers by the appointed time
. The line twisted through a startling reproduction of a Nepalese village, complete with prayer flags and Asian memorabilia.

  Finn, Philby Amanda, and Jez stuck together. They passed into the backstage area through a “Park Rangers Only” gate and simply walked into the enormous structure that housed the exotic roller coaster.

  Finn had expected to need his ID and perhaps some quick talking to get them all inside, but with the closing of the ride to the public, someone had left the backstage door open, and the kids simply walked in.

  “It’s three structures in one,” Philby explained in a hush. “The massive superstructure that supports the exterior building, the roller coaster, and the yeti.”

  “I thought you hadn’t studied it,” whispered Jez.

  “I haven’t studied it thoroughly,” Philby replied, “but that doesn’t mean I haven’t read up on it a little.”

  “We may need the roller coaster for our escape,” Finn said to Philby. “Why don’t you stay and try to handle that?”

  “Done,” said Philby. He could be a handful when he showed off.

  “See you up there,” Finn said.

  The metal stairs reminded him of a fire escape. The three of them climbed and climbed. Then they climbed some more. Far below they suddenly heard men’s voices. The lights went out. Then a reverberating thunk as a door was slammed shut with a finality that Finn felt up his spine.

  With the lights out, the building’s vast interior was held in an unnatural haze caused by the few emergency lights strategically placed throughout.

  No one said anything at first, but a tremor of fear passed between them.

  Finn couldn’t lose the image of his being swung around by his feet. Step by step he felt himself drawn to that fate.

  Amanda started talking, possibly to break the mood established by the lights going out. “What is it that something—someone—like Chernabog wants?”

  “Power,” Jez answered.

  “Exactly,” Amanda agreed. “He’s been locked up in here ever since they built the ride, and now he wants freedom and power, probably in that order.”

  “And you’re saying he’d have gotten both if I hadn’t dreamed what I dreamed,” Jez said.