Kingdom Keepers V

by Ridley Pearson

  Finn reached down and worked the heavy iron clamp that joined the two train cars together. With one look he understood how the mechanism worked. He pulled a piece of the clamp with all his strength. The tilting train shrieked.

  The wide-eyed fox was a single car back. He could taste Finn’s blood.

  The car connector released. Finn unhooked a safety chain and the cars separated. One foot…three…eight…

  The fox arrived at the end of the car and never hesitated. He sprang…but fell short, missing the coal-car and falling onto the railroad ties. He bounced, tumbled, and then rolled into a ditch. He came to his feet and tried to chase down the train, but he was too slow, no match for a runaway train.

  Finn vaulted over the back of the coal-car, lost his balance, fell, and crawled toward Wayne.

  * * *

  With the release of the passenger cars, the locomotive and coal-car fell back onto the tracks. Finn, still crawling, reached Wayne. “You okay?”

  Wayne nodded vigorously. “The throttle!” he hollered. “We’re going to crash.”

  The train no longer felt anchored to the tracks. It rocked back and forth, first on the wheels to the left, then the right. It sounded like girls screaming at a rock concert.

  Finn struggled to reach the front of the coal-car, where it connected to the locomotive. The cat was nowhere to be seen. The engineer’s seat was vacant, a number of levers and hand grips to either side.

  The throttle, Finn thought, seeing one lever pushed well forward. The train’s unpredictable movements made it impossible to judge his vault into the locomotive. He threw a knee up onto the wall of the coal-car. The train’s movement dumped him. After two more failed tries, he took a running start and vaulted atop the coal-car’s pile of stacked wood and then into the locomotive. He lunged for the throttle to slow the train, but unintentionally shoved the throttle forward.

  “Too fast!” Wayne hollered, reduced to playing spectator.

  The locomotive was a stone skipping on lake water, a few tons of iron rising and falling, floating off of and then crashing back down onto the rails.

  Finn grabbed for the throttle and pulled it back. In doing so, he discovered what he thought must be another feature of 2.0—enhanced strength when under pressure. He pulled so hard the lever broke off in his hand.

  The locomotive screamed and gained more speed.

  Finn stood there with a useless piece of metal in his hand.

  “The brake!” Wayne hollered.

  Finn climbed into the empty seat and tugged hard on the only other lever. The wheels cried as sparks flew. The train slowed slightly—enough that it settled onto the track. He spotted a massive red button marked EMERGENCY ONLY. He stretched to reach it. If this didn’t qualify as an emergency, nothing did. Holding the brake required both hands and the strength of both arms. If he eased up even slightly, the train charged ahead, threatening to derail. He tried to reach the red button with his shoulder, but it was no use—too far away. The smell of melting metal and sparks filled the air. He repositioned himself—hands between his legs, his feet aimed above his head.

  He kicked the red button with his heel. Instantly the groaning ceased—the motor had been disconnected or shut off. The sparks continued to fly, but now the locomotive actually slowed. A hundred yards later it ground to a complete stop. Finn spun around to see Wayne, his face in a total sweat, sitting on the floor of the coal-car.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Wayne said.

  * * *

  “No more rides,” Finn said as Wayne led him into Tomorrowland.

  “Agreed,” Wayne said.

  He brought them backstage at the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor, under the faint glare of an exit sign. They leaned against the cool wall and rested a moment.

  “So they know I’m here,” Finn said.

  “Apparently. Yes.”

  “You know what bothers me about that?”

  “What?” Wayne asked, though his tone of voice said he didn’t want to hear.

  “With the battle going at Base, how can the Overtakers possibly focus over here at the same time?”

  Wayne said, “Because they’ve increased their numbers dramatically. The Green Eyes, for instance.”

  Finn and the Keepers had discovered that some of their schoolmates had joined forces with the Overtakers. They wore green contact lenses in order to tell each other apart from the other students. It was one of many recent developments that suggested the ranks of the Overtakers had grown. Meanwhile, the Keepers remained at seven—the five original DHI models and two sisters, Jess and Amanda, both with intriguing powers. There was talk of six volunteer DHIs having been added, the result of an educational quest inside the Magic Kingdom. Finn had yet to meet them.

  “Still outnumbered, and overtired,” Finn said. “Great!”

  Wayne glared at him.

  “Before we get into the whole Fantasia thing,” he said, “what about the maiden voyage?”

  “That can wait,” Wayne said. “We have more pressing matters.”

  “It’s a week away.”

  “If we—you five—don’t defeat the Overtakers at the Base, a week might as well be a year. DHI 2.0 lives on a server inside the Base. You think it’s a coincidence the Overtakers want in there? Not to mention the Base offers every kind of physical control of the parks.”

  “Not to mention,” a frustrated Finn said. “A siege is a siege. It’s not like they’re accomplishing anything.”

  “They’re building toward a major offensive,” Wayne said. “It’s standard field warfare. They make incursions to test our readiness, our defenses. They test our strategy. Then, determining our weaknesses, they strike with everything they have.”

  “Way to cheer me up. It’s not like we can defeat what we can’t see. But if we just wait…that can’t be good either.” He wondered what had happened to Wayne the optimist.

  “No,” Wayne said. “We need to be proactive—to take the offensive. Especially in light of the upcoming cruise. Once you’re gone…” He didn’t need to finish that. If the Keepers abandoned the battle for the Base it would fall to the Overtakers. If the Base fell, the entire Kingdom—all the parks—might fall with it.

  “Fantasia,” Finn reminded him yet again.

  “The film has an interesting history that goes way back. It was the only film that Chernabog appeared in. Walt Disney referred to Chernabog as Satan himself. He’s been described as part Minotaur, part Mayan bat god. He can summon fire and control ghosts and harpies. He’s a creature of confusion and chaos. He is considered the most powerful villain Walt Disney ever created.”

  “Then why haven’t we seen any of that?” Finn wondered aloud. When Maleficent had animated the Yeti, he’d transfigured into Chernabog. And why do you sound so scared? Finn thought to himself.

  “That falls under ‘Be careful what you wish for.’ Do you know what torpor is?”

  “No.”

  “A hummingbird’s resting state. Typically adopted during overnight hibernation.”

  Philby would have known that, Finn thought.

  “Our assumption is that Chernabog has been, and is still, in torpor. We’ve expected more trouble from him than we’ve had. So where’s he been? In point of fact, the only times we can confirm Chernabog’s involvement is when Maleficent moves him. Maybe his transfiguration into and back from the Yeti rendered him powerless. Maybe they don’t want us to know. Or maybe the missing journal has something in it that will help him regain his power.”

  “Now you’re freaking me out.”

  “The Minotaur part of him is itself a combination of man and bull. It has no natural source of sustenance. In mythology, the Minotaur devoured humans. He lived in a labyrinth, a maze only he understood.

  “Camazotz,” Wayne continued, “is a Mayan bat god—the other half of Chernabog. Camazotz was also nourished by human sacrifice. At one time he bit the head off a young boy and offered it as a ball for a game.”

  “And you’re saying C
hernabog is a combination of the two?”

  “Yes. Walt’s darkest creation ever.”

  “And the journal is like an owner’s manual?”

  “Could be. We won’t know until you get it back.”

  “We…?”

  “If you don’t like Maleficent, think of Chernabog as ten times worse. Maleficent plots and schemes. She teases her prey. Chernabog bites your head off and makes a game out of it. He’s fearsome.”

  “So we don’t want them giving him a reboot.”

  “If that’s what they’re trying to do, then no. Definitely not.”

  “Does the battle at the Base have anything to do with the contents of the journal?” Finn asked.

  “We won’t know until—”

  “We get it back for you.”

  “Now you’re catching on.”

  Finn’s throat tasted strange. Even more upsetting was that he couldn’t recall having the sensation of taste before as a DHI. Version 2.0 was dealing him all sorts of surprises. Next, his chest tightened, like a clamp on his heart. He began shaking. He was going into seizure.

  His body buckled as he fell first to his knees and then to the tile. He began twitching uncontrollably.

  “A bug,” he choked out. A failure of 2.0—it was all he could come up with. Wayne reached to help, but his hands passed through Finn’s hologram.

  “Finn?”

  Finn fought as his eyes rolled back in his head. “Re…turn,” he gasped. “Phil…by…” His body was out of control, like he was being electrocuted. “Call…Phil—” His throat gurgled, like he was gargling.

  “No need!” Wayne pulled a small black fob from his pocket, smaller and more compact than the v1.6 Return.

  “Godspeed!” Wayne said. He hit the button.

  * * *

  Finn opened his eyes.

  His bedroom was dark. A shape loomed to his right—someone holding him down. A paramedic? His parents?

  Another person moved to his left. In the steady glare of his computer screen Finn caught sight of Greg Luowski, the resident bully of Finn’s middle school and now his high school freshman class. A round-faced, wet-lipped, mean-spirited boy, Luowski took pleasure in dishing out pain.

  The bedroom window was open, the curtains waving. In recent months, his parents had gotten lazy about activating the home security system that included sensors on his window; he’d been glad they had since it was easier to sneak out. But now someone had sneaked in!

  Unless Luowski had four arms, he wasn’t holding Finn down. That job belonged to someone else, the person to Finn’s right. Finn couldn’t see well enough to identify who it was.

  Luowski was instead busy trying to keep a hose in Finn’s mouth and down his throat. The hose connected to the end of a rubber funnel. Awake now, Finn bucked and threw his legs up. Luowski climbed onto the bed, using his considerable weight—he was a chunk of muscle and bone—to pin Finn’s legs as well. The whole time the boy worked to push the tube into Finn’s mouth.

  “Hold him still!” Luowski whispered to whoever was holding Finn. He got a plastic jug—it looked like apple juice from Costco—up to the funnel and began to pour.

  Finn never tasted booze, but he’d smelled it on his parents’ breath plenty of times—and this was booze. Bitter and sharper tasting than he’d imagined. Nasty stuff. He spit as much out as possible, but gagged down some of it as Luowski drowned him in it. He quickly understood the plan: they’d wanted him drunk and unconscious while he’d been crossed over in his DHI state. If they’d managed it, he wouldn’t have been able to return. He’d have been stuck in Sleeping Beauty Syndrome. SBS. The Syndrome.

  The light pulsed again: there were half-dissolved pills dancing at the bottom of the jug. Finn guessed that Luowski had spiked the booze with drugs.

  He coughed and spit. Luowski managed to get his sweating, disgusting mitt pressed onto Finn’s forehead and held him down. He worked the mouth of the open jug to the funnel and poured. The disgusting concoction flooded through the hose and into Finn’s mouth as he sucked for air.

  If Finn didn’t get out of this, his parents at the very least would find him drunk and drugged and would ground him for the rest of his life. He would lose the last family connection he had left—his mother’s support of his being a Keeper.

  Finn had an idea. He wrapped his lips around the tube and blew, like into a snorkel. The booze concoction blasted out of the funnel and into Luowski’s face. Luowski jerked back, giving Finn an opening to fight back.

  Finn sat up, breaking the grip on his shoulders. He smashed his bedside lamp into Luowski’s face and threw an elbow into the other person.

  Here was the thing: his parents were constantly violating his privacy, coming into his room without knocking despite peace treaties to the contrary. Interrupting him, telling him to do things, bossing him around. So why was it that now, the one time he needed them, they were sleeping soundly down the hall while a pair of lunatics were trying to dispatch him? Didn’t they have any kind of parental intuition that something was wrong? Wasn’t his mom supposed to pop wide awake terrified something bad was happening? Weren’t parents supposed to rescue you when someone was trying to poison you?

  Finn drove his heel between Luowski’s legs, causing the boy’s face to pucker and his eyes to bulge in the strobe light. Finn then did a back somersault, knowing this was the last move the other kid would see coming. Indeed, the other kid’s head ended up between Finn’s knees. Finn clamped his knees tightly, balled his fist, and was about to punch the kid’s lights out when he saw it was a girl. Sally Ringwald! Their faces were nearly touching. He knew he should, but he couldn’t bring himself to punch a girl.

  Instead, he stuck his fingers up her nose, released her from the headlock, and drove her back with only a small amount of pressure to her nostrils. Spinning, he came off the bed and caught her again, then grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back like he’d seen done in the movies. It worked surprisingly well.

  He drove her forward and bent her over the bed from behind. That was when his mother opened the door.

  “Lawrence Finnegan Whitman!” she said, seeing him alone with a girl in the dark. (Luowski was still rolling on the floor on the far side of the bed.)

  She switched on the light.

  Luowski stood and dove out the window. The coward didn’t stay to help his partner.

  “Oh!” his mother said. “Is that alcohol I smell? What are the three of you up to?”

  “Overtakers, Mom. OTKs, we call them: Overtaker Kids. That was Greg Luowski. This is Sally Ringwald. Sally,” he said, shoving her arm up higher, “say hello to my mother.”

  “Hell…o…Mrs.…Whitman,” the girl choked out behind the pain Finn inflicted.

  “They were trying to poison me,” Finn said. “Trying to trap me in SBS using a new tactic.”

  Finn and his mother often strategized together. Given that his mother was a legitimate rocket scientist (retired), he valued her input. She was the smartest person he knew, and that included Philby.

  His mother stepped inside the bedroom and eased the door shut gently so as not to wake Finn’s father. If he became aware of all that went on under his roof he’d likely have both his wife and Finn committed to an institution.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Mrs. Whitman asked harshly. She was well aware of the “meaning of this,” but obviously couldn’t think of what exactly to say given that Finn was leaning against a girl who was splayed across his bed.

  “Should I call the police?” she whispered.

  “No!” Sally and Finn said in chorus.

  “Sally is going to behave,” Finn said. “She’s going to explain the meaning of this. Aren’t you, Sally?” He wrenched her arm again, enjoying it just a little too much. “Lock the door, Mom. Then lock the window. If she tries to get out, I’ll tackle her.”

  His mother followed his instructions, which was not a common practice. Finn released Sally’s arm and spun her around so that she sat on the
bed facing him and his mother.

  “Who sent you?” Finn asked.

  Sally wanted a way out, but realized her options were limited. She said nothing.

  “My mother will call the police,” Finn warned.

  “You wouldn’t dare. That would mean the news-papers and stuff, and the Disney Hosts Interactive would be canceled.”

  So she’d thought it through that far, Finn realized. He tried to pretend she was wrong.

  “You think every arrest gets written about? Not by a long shot.”

  He won a few points. Sally looked deeply troubled.

  “Greg,” she said.

  “He didn’t dream this up on his own,” Finn said.

  “Maybe not. I wouldn’t know.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Believe what you want.”

  “Whose pills were those?” Finn asked. His mother looked ready to scream.

  Sally turned a pasty white. “My mother’s. She has trouble sleeping.”

  That explained why he felt thickheaded: he’d swallowed some of what Luowski had been trying to force-feed him. But thankfully, not much.

  “How does Luowski get his orders?” Finn asked.

  “Text? Email? How should I know?” She looked at them both and said, “He texts me. Seriously! That’s all I’ve got!”

  “And how did you join up? The green contacts and all that?”

  “This YouTube video. Greg sent me the link. I had to Friend him in order to watch it.”

  “Show me!” Finn said, pointing to his computer.

  Sally hesitated.

  “Now!” Finn’s mother ordered.

  Both Sally and Finn jumped. Sally crossed the room, logged in to YouTube on Finn’s laptop, and played the video.

  Images of all four Disney World parks played as a slideshow. A pair of teenage voices, sometimes female, sometimes male, spoke passionately.

  “Are you tired of the Disney Hosts? Had enough of all the sweet smiles and plastic expressions inside the Kingdom? It’s about time the Kingdom moved into the twenty-first century. Wouldn’t you say? Darkened up a bit. Became more interesting. Think about it: the same people have been in charge for over fifty years. What’s with that? Did you know that some of your favorite characters are rebelling? If you’d like to see things differently, you and your friends can join us. You won’t be sorry. Enrollment is free and the benefits instantaneous. You will be trained. Assigned missions, inside and outside the Kingdom. See things you’ve only dreamed of—if your dreams are anything like mine. Click the link below to submit your application.”