Kingdom Keepers V

by Ridley Pearson

  “I suppose it’s all relative,” Charlene said.

  “I suppose.”

  “Don’t look now, but that hottie is checking you out.”

  Finn stole a look toward the door. He had to fight to keep his jaw from dropping. The Asian girl was maybe a year or two older than he was. She wore her soft dark hair like a china doll, her bangs cut level at her eyebrows, her hair falling in twin sheets to her square shoulders. She looked familiar to Finn, and yet not familiar at all. He wondered…

  “Is she on TV or something?” he said, looking away.

  “Not that I know,” Charlene said. “Though she could be. She’s pretty enough.”

  “There are Disney Channel actors on board, right?”

  “That’s what we were told.”

  “So maybe that’s who she is.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Like Lemonade Mouth or something like that?”

  “Hayley? No, I know her. It’s not Hayley. But she’s crushin’ on you.”

  “Give me a break.” Hearing the word “crushin’” reminded him once again of Typhoon Lagoon—in a bad way. And Ursula. Amanda. It seemed like a year ago.

  “Don’t look now, but here she comes,” Charlene said. “Don’t forget about Amanda.”

  Finn tried to make a face at Charlene, but she’d already turned her back on him and was walking away. He stood there not knowing what to do with himself. He was such a klutz when it came to girls.

  “Hey, there,” the girl said. If you put hand cream all over a Nerf ball, that’s how smooth her voice sounded. “You’re Finn, right?”

  She waved her hand and hit him, open-palmed, squarely on the waist.

  “Ah!” she said. “The real item!”

  “You were expecting?”

  “What I expect and what I hope for are two different things. Which do you want to know?”

  He tried to swallow, but his throat was plugged with nerves. His voice cracked as he said, “H-hope for.”

  “Yes. I was hoping you were you and not the hologram you, although I know the hologram you a lot better. I bet I’ve toured with you a dozen times if you add up all the parks.”

  Finn got this more and more: people who, by touring with his hologram, mistook that they’d spent time with him. She apparently knew the difference, but the look in her eyes was still somewhat dreamy.

  “And you are?” he said.

  “Thrilled,” she said. “To meet you.” She blushed. “Storey Ming.”

  Finn offered her his hand and they shook hands. Hers were calloused. Not what he’d been expecting.

  “Clay,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I work with clay,” she said, explaining her hands. “Dries out my hands. Makes them rough.”

  “They’re not rough,” he lied.

  “You think? They’re like reptile skin,” she said. “But I throw good pots!”

  “You’re a passenger? A guest?”

  “A friend. More like you than you think,” she said. “A so-called celebrity—not that you’re so-called, far from it; but I am. I’m giving a couple workshops in the middle of the cruise. It’s a new thing called All Hands On Deck. Me. There’s a painter. Someone doing beadwork. Jewelry. Sea days. You know about sea days?”

  “Only that they were on the itinerary.”

  “Days we never hit land. No port. Just out in the middle of the ocean.”

  “You’ve done this before?”

  “Not as a guest of Disney, but yeah. Other ships. And my parents love the Disney cruises.”

  “What’s Castaway Cay like?”

  “The island? Tomorrow? Awesome! If you like white sand and beautiful water, that is. And food. And bikes. And feeding stingrays.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Totally! And Jet Skis. Snorkeling. Volleyball. It’s incredible. You’re going to love it.” She hesitated. “I could show you around, maybe? I mean, if you want?”

  “Yeah! Sure! Of course.” He heard the reluctance in his own voice and regretted it. He was so used to hanging with the Keepers that he didn’t like making other plans. He needed to get over that.

  “If you’ve got other plans—” she said.

  “No, it’s not that. It’s just my friends…”

  “The other DHIs? That would be way cool!”

  “Yeah, well, maybe we’ll all do something together.”

  That offer appeared to excite her. Finn thought fame a strange bedfellow. Storey Ming didn’t know any of the other Keepers, but she was stoked at the thought of spending a day with any or all of them.

  It didn’t strike him as odd at the time that a girl, older than him and quite pretty, might take an interest in him.

  But it soon would.

  * * *

  At one point, their mission had seemed simple enough. After all, they’d located an OT rogue computer server once before. That had been in Animal Kingdom, and it felt like a long time ago now. They’d learned so much since then. Get on the ship as planned. Attach the GPS. They’d be notified if the ISP location from the OT server matched the ship’s. If so, they would seek out the server and destroy it. The possibility that the ship’s refrigerators were being used as a hiding place by Maleficent made all the more sense when coupled with the existence of a server—computers worked best when operating at cool temperatures.

  But retrieving Walt’s stolen journal presented a much bigger challenge and held far greater importance: first they had to find it; then they had to get it back; then the Imagineers would have to figure out what was so important about it. It obviously presented some kind of threat, or why would it be so important to recover it in the first place?

  The staterooms came equipped with two complimentary wireless Wave Phones that could connect to other Wave Phones aboard the ship. Philby had made sure that all the Keepers had every number saved into favorites so the Wave Phones could be used whenever needed. They were also capable of texting.

  asleep by midnight. crssovr at 12:20. arrival bckstge. wait 4 all.

  Mrs. Philby had allowed Finn and her son to room together in Finn’s stateroom that connected to hers by a shared door. A big mistake on her part.

  “She sleeps like a rock lately,” Philby said. “Give it fifteen minutes, we could drive a tank through there and she wouldn’t wake up.”

  “And where do you handle the crossover from?” Finn asked.

  “That gets a little complicated,” Philby said. “Why don’t you leave that to me?”

  “What’s with you?”

  “What do you mean?” Philby asked.

  “Why so condescending?”

  “I’m not being condescending. I’m compartmentalizing. The tech stuff is my turf.”

  “Lately everything’s your turf.”

  “What? Why would you care about the details?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” Finn asked.

  “You’re jealous. My control of 2.0 is bugging you.”

  “If you’re so in control, why don’t you cross over with us?”

  “Because this is like Epcot, when we overrode the servers in the Utilidor. It’s like that, but more difficult. Who would you suggest handle it?”

  “And the Return?”

  Philby shook his head. “You’re the one who saw Wayne with it. Do you have it? Because I don’t!” Philby said. “For now the return has got to be manual, and as a group. That’s why I’ll be on this side, not crossed over with you. If you’d like to give the job to someone else…”

  Finn found himself breathing hard. “And if something happens to you…”

  “Nothing’s going to happen.”

  “But if it did,” Finn said. “While we were crossed over…” He paused. They both knew the answer: SBS, the Syndrome.

  “I won’t let that happen.”

  “There you go again.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. You’re taking this all wrong!”

  “Maleficent may have other ideas.”

  “I�
��m going to get you guys crossed over and then I’m going to hide where no one can find me. You’ll call my Wave Phone to be returned. It’ll take me a minute or two to pull it off, so you need to be thinking ahead.”

  “I’m always thinking ahead,” Finn said, uncharacteristically brash. He surprised himself; it sounded more like something Maybeck would say.

  “Okay,” Philby said.

  “What about the GPS? Have you gotten an email or anything? Is their server on the ship?”

  “That’s too many questions at once,” Philby said.

  Finn was ready to smack the guy. “Just answer me!”

  “The short answer is no. But the video at the Sail-Away said it all: Maleficent knew this was a DHI cruise, and if she’s not here herself, clearly her minions are.”

  “Minions? Really?”

  “OTs. Whatever.” Philby shot him a look. “What’s with you, Finn?”

  Finn hesitated for a long time. “I’ve got a bad feeling about all this. Dillard. The video. This girl I met in the Vibe. It’s like a surprise party.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “When everyone knows what’s going on but you,” Finn said. “That’s how it feels to me.”

  “Well, I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “They want us scared,” Philby reminded him.

  “I know that.”

  “You don’t have to cross over tonight,” Philby said. “We can wait.”

  “We have a torn piece of her robe. That’s called evidence.”

  “It could be a character’s.”

  “Could be,” Finn said.

  “Yeah. Okay,” Philby said reluctantly. “I see what you mean.”

  “I need to be somewhere,” Finn said. “Then it’s back here to get to sleep in time.”

  “You’re cutting it pretty close if you’re going somewhere now,” Philby said.

  “Then I’m cutting it close.”

  * * *

  Finn descended the forward stairs to Deck 5. He found the stairways and stateroom passageways quieter than during the day, but far from empty. People milled about. Adults. Teens. Lovers. Crew. Midnight snackers. Late-night explorers. Stargazers. John Mayer’s “Half of My Heart” played from unseen speakers. Finn felt a lift to his step, briefly relieved of his burdens by the music.

  Arriving on Deck 5, he headed aft past the elevators, arriving at the double doors to the Buena Vista Theatre balcony. He hesitated. Wayne had arranged the meeting. Was he supposed to trust it?

  He looked both ways and killed a minute studying the movie poster for Oz: The Great and Powerful. A couple passed, both the size of compact cars, Finn allowing them to get out of sight. Then he tested one of the doors, and it opened. His nerves jangled.

  The balcony and the theater below were clouded in emergency lighting—dull white lights at ankle height and a few glowing red exit signs. The acoustic materials draping the walls and covering the ceiling absorbed every sound. Finn didn’t even hear the whisper of his own footsteps, only the throbbing of his heartbeat as blood rushed past his ears. He’d come to distrust large, empty spaces like this. As a Keeper he’d been called upon to enter empty park attractions and pavilions, had nearly always found himself in peril within moments of doing so. Why should this be any different? he wondered.

  Wayne, he answered himself. Wayne had sent him into Typhoon Lagoon, and now Wayne had sent him here.

  As his eyes adjusted, he spotted the back of a head—dark hair—in the very middle of the middle row of the balcony. He approached tentatively, the carpet spongy under his heels.

  “You?” he said, as he caught her in profile.

  Storey turned her head toward him. “Me,” she said.

  “Sorry, I was looking for—”

  “Me,” she said. “Have a seat.” She pulled down the bottom piece of the cushioned seat beside her.

  He inched his way down the row. “I can’t stay long,” he said.

  “Yeah, yeah. Take a load off.”

  Reluctantly, he settled into the chair. Their forearms rubbed and he pulled his hands into his lap.

  “You are seriously uptight,” she said.

  “Nah, it’s just…I mean, it’s late…and it’s good to run into you and everything, but—”

  “What you need to know,” she said, lowering her voice considerably to where he had to lean close to hear her, “is that there’s to be a night test of a pair of the Dream’s lifeboats when we dock at Castaway Cay. Lifeboat numbers fifty-seven and twelve. All I can tell you is that it doesn’t feel right. I’ve never heard of such a test. At dawn, sure. Just before sunset—always possible. But in the dark at Castaway Cay? Why then? The island staff’s asleep and the Marsh Harbour workers don’t arrive by ferry until eight. So it feels more like they want to get away with something.

  “I mean, yes: they have to test the lifeboats. Of course. They do it constantly. But the timing is…testing lifeboats in the dark at Castaway Cay makes no sense. That’s where you and your pals come in. That’s what he wants you to know, and you know who I’m talking about. That’s the kind of thing he told me to listen up for. So now it’s on you. I’m out. If I need you again for these meaningful chats, it’ll come in the form of an invitation card in your stateroom. Dark. Lifeboat. Clear?”

  The charm he’d experienced earlier was all gone, replaced by a business-as-usual tone, dismissive and impatient.

  “I thought you teach pottery?”

  “I thought you modeled for a hologram,” she returned.

  “Him?” Finn said, wondering why his brain chose to lock up any time a female was within spitting distance.

  “Him,” she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Hang on!”

  She leaned over and kissed him on the mouth, her hand finding his and pushing it up her shirt. She slapped it as it reached her ribs, and guided it around to her back.

  Finn tried to speak, but she suffocated him with her lips, that free hand now finger-combing his hair. His head spinning.

  She broke off the kiss. “Hello?” she said loudly over his shoulder.

  Breathless, Finn thought she was talking to him. Was about to answer when her free hand gagged him, then seized his chin and spun him around to see the white uniform standing at the top of the balcony stairs.

  “Sorry,” the ship’s officer said. “The balcony’s closed. You kids’ll have to find somewhere else.”

  “Please,” Storey said. “Can’t you just leave us alone?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “No problem,” Finn said. “Our bad.”

  The officer cleared his throat impatiently.

  Storey made a point of freeing Finn’s hand from her back. “Fifty-seven and twelve,” she repeated warmly in his ear. Her reactions were impressive. With the two of them tangled up, the kiss had the appearance of being all the more authentic. They stood. Storey made a point of taking his hand in hers, and together they walked past the officer. She lowered her head demurely, as if embarrassed. Finn looked the officer in the eyes and smiled. The officer winked.

  The two walked hand in hand toward the stern, passing Port Adventures Desk and the Oceaneer’s Club. As they approached the aft stairs, Storey let go of his hand. His was warm and sweaty.

  “You understand,” she said, “this means something.”

  For a moment he thought she was talking about their kissing and holding hands—he felt a stab of guilt imagining Amanda walking in on the kiss and not understanding it. But Storey’s eyes were cold, lacking any hint of affection. She was referring to the testing of the lifeboats.

  He nodded.

  “Find out what,” she said, giving him a nudge down the stairs. Finn stumbled down a few steps and looked back.

  She was gone.

  * * *

  The freckled Kenny Carlson flicked his red hair out of his eyes, a tic that he lived with constantly when nervous.

  �
��It’s tonight,” he told Bart, his surfer-dude roommate. The two Cast Members had been fast-tracked to reassignment aboard the Dream, Wayne providing documents assuring they’d been through all the necessary training. In fact they had, but the normal six-week course had been reduced to a matter of days. They shared a very snug cabin below the waterline, with just enough room for a narrow bunk bed, an armoire, and a trunk for their clothes. The room was hot and the pipes running through it clanked.

  “We have to be asleep by midnight in order to cross over,” Kenny said.

  “Are you down with this?” Bart asked.

  “If you’re asking if I’m comfortable being a hologram, no, I’m not. I don’t suppose it’s something you can get comfortable doing without a lot of experience, and we’ve done it, what, four times?”

  “It is seriously random,” Bart said. “I’m totally into it.”

  “We’re here as support, don’t forget. Our job is to be there only when we’re needed.”

  “Why so secret, exactly? I mean, we’re legit, right?”

  “The OTs can’t know about us. The Keepers know a couple of us are here, but not our names. That the rest of us are guarding the Base. But the whole idea is that we operate in the background. The OTs will not expect crew members to be DHIs. That gives us a jump on them, but only once.”

  “So we’re like the Navy SEALs. We rescue them if something goes wrong.”

  “We keep an eye on them. Don’t get all full of yourself.”