“That’s not a very nice thing to say.”
“I’m just saying.”
“What bothers me,” Tim said, “is that my sensors are reporting error codes and the valves all look normal.”
“Have you considered sabotage?”
“Come again?”
“That someone is disconnecting the tubes at night and reconnecting them before sunrise.”
“Who would do that?”
“I’m just asking: would that explain your pressure readings?”
Tim looked at Maybeck warily. “It might. But why would anyone do it in the first place?”
“To keep the mosquito population growing while no one knew any better.”
“That’s ridiculous. Preposterous.”
“But it would explain it,” Maybeck tested.
Tim flashed Maybeck a disapproving look and moved on, following the porous black tubing that ran along the ground. He inspected a valve at an intersection of black rubber tubing. “That’s interesting.”
“What?”
“This line was recently disconnected. You can tell by the lack of corrosion.”
“Meaning?”
“We’re going to find out.”
Maybeck followed along as Tim traced the black tubing through the thick scrub. They headed west toward the beaches.
“This is what we call the airstrip line,” Tim said. “Hang on!” He kneeled and pulled back some loose shrubbery. The vegetation had been cut and heaped over a small metal tank.
“What’s up?”
“That’s a propane tank. One of our grill tanks.”
“And another valve,” Maybeck said.
“This is nuts,” Tim said. “This is not part of my system. Propane is highly combustible.”
“Part of a fireworks display or something?” Maybeck didn’t want to say so, but he was thinking something much worse.
Tim looked over at him. “I suppose. They use propane in IllumiNations at Epcot. There’s a special fireworks show tonight for the guests. But I would have been told about it.” He cranked the valve on the tank shut. “I’m shutting it down until I hear differently.”
“What’s that over there?” Maybeck asked.
“The lookout.”
“For?”
“So guests can get a look at a bunch of the island from up there.”
“Including here where we are.”
“Do you work for Uncle Bob?”
“My uncle’s a lawyer in St. Louis,” Maybeck said. “His name’s not Bob.”
“Head of security on the Dream,” Tim said.
“You think I’m working undercover or something?” Maybeck had to bite his lip to keep from grinning.
“The thought occurred to me.”
“I wish!” Maybeck said, maintaining his cover. “I’m on trash detail, remember?”
“Yeah, right. That’s why you look so familiar.”
“I get that a lot.”
“Why do you know so much about sabotage?”
“I watch too much TV.”
“A funny guy, huh?”
“Not as often as I’d like,” Maybeck said. “I’m hoping to move off trash duty and onto the Walt Disney Theatre stage. I’d like to do stand-up.”
“Why do I get the sense that you haven’t given me a straight answer since we met?”
“I’m a man of mystery,” said Maybeck.
“I have to get back and report this.”
“If it’s not part of the fireworks, what then?”
Tim considered the possibility long and hard. He finally spoke. “Then we’ve got trouble.”
* * *
The ship’s corridors and public spaces were ghostly with so few passengers aboard. The stewards were about the only people in the long corridors that accessed the hundreds of staterooms on each level. They moved along with bundles of fresh linens in their arms and smiles on their faces. Philby said hello to several on his way to the central stairs. He reached the Radio Studio and used his key card to enter. It took him only a matter of minutes to send a signal to the DHI server, the timer set.
It was something of a risk to take: crossing over with no backup to help him return. But Finn’s contact, Storey Ming, had explained her discovery. He knew his earlier instincts were correct: now was the time to act.
She had uncovered two staterooms that currently had Do Not Disturb signs on their doors and had teenage boys registered among the occupants. Philby felt sidetracked by this pursuit of Finn’s—he wanted to check out the ship’s refrigerators while the kitchen staff was lighter because of the cooking being done on the island.
But the Keepers were all for one and one for all; he wasn’t going to break that vow. Not now.
Finn wanted to identify the “football type” who had failed to appear in the photograph taken outside. Philby could not deny his own curiosity: it reeked of a possible hologram. And if a hologram, an OTK.
He met up again with Storey outside the gated entry to the Deck 11 staterooms.
“All set?” she asked.
“Yes. I think so. I’m going to lie down now,” he explained. “Wait for me outside the break room. I’ll need you to stand guard.”
“No problem,” she said.
Thirty minutes later, a boy appeared in the empty break room. Philby reached out and touched the leg of a table. He loved 2.0.
As he opened the door into the companionway, there was Storey. She hurried over to him.
“You look totally real.”
“I am real,” he said. “I just happen to be a hologram.”
“Can I touch you?”
“I don’t do tricks,” he said. “But you can try once we’re alone in the elevator.”
Soon after, the elevator doors closed behind them. She reached for Philby, her hand passing through his.
“I still can’t…How exactly do you…”
“Pretty cool, isn’t it?” he said.
“My hand passed through you, and yet you pushed the button for six.”
“Correct. That’s life as a DHI.”
The doors opened.
Storey led the way down the port side companionway that ran nearly the entire length of the ship. More than eight hundred feet of hallway—almost three football fields long. They passed several grinning stewards hard at work and reached the first of the two staterooms she’d identified.
“If someone’s coming, knock,” he said.
“Then what?”
“Move one stateroom forward. Stand where you can screen me coming through. I’ll join you.”
“Shouldn’t we at least knock or something before you go in there?”
“Do Not Disturb,” he reminded.
“You want the element of surprise.”
“Don’t ditch me,” he said, stepping up to and through the door like some kind of ghost.
Inside the room, the drapes were pulled, limiting the light. Philby stepped forward cautiously. Door to the toilet. A second door to the sink and shower. Sliding doors of the closet to his right. He didn’t need to wait for his eyes to adjust. As a digital projection, all such adjustments came at the speed of light. The 2.0 update increased optical and audio sensitivity up to eightfold. He was no German shepherd, but he could see and hear more clearly and at a greater distance than any human being.
He sensed and saw a boy asleep on the fold-down bunk bed across from the couch a fraction of a second before he picked up on the woman dozed off on the stateroom’s queen bed. Leaning back, she’d dropped an e-book into her lap.
The scenario that presented itself had nothing to do with Overtakers. A sick boy, his mother keeping a close eye on him. Furthermore, from what Philby could see, the boy hardly looked the football type. He was more like twelve than fifteen—far more likely a figure skater than a fullback.
A light knock on the door behind him.
Storey Ming, Philby thought.
The mother snorted awake. “Coming!”
Philby, his back pressed
to the wall, could hear her climbing off the bed.
A moment later, a much louder knock.
“Room service!” A woman’s voice.
This, Philby realized, was who Storey had seen coming.
Philby slipped into the sink/shower room just before the mother might have seen him, turned around, and walked through the wall.
He arrived in the closet of the adjacent stateroom. A dress hung on a hanger, dividing him in two. The closet’s sliding doors were slatted for ventilation, allowing him to peer through and into the room. Empty.
His hologram continued through the closet door. He moved quickly to the stateroom door and gently eased his head forward until only his nose, forehead, and eyes peered out into the corridor. He pushed a little farther forward, the stateroom door now cutting his head in half.
“Psst!”
Storey turned and jumped back so quickly at the sight of a boy’s partial face sticking through a metal door that she rebounded off the corridor’s opposing wall and fell to the carpet.
“Sheesh!” she gasped. “You scared me!”
“Is it clear?”
She looked left and right, nodded.
Philby stepped into the corridor, turned to his right, and never broke stride. Storey Ming caught up from behind him.
“Anything?”
“Just a sick kid, poor guy. Missing all the fun.”
“At least it wasn’t bad.”
“Sometimes bad is good,” he said. “It gets it over with. It keeps you from guessing. Lets you focus on stopping whatever’s going on.”
“And we don’t know what’s going on,” she said.
“We are way too far behind. Believe me, the things we’re dealing with…the powers we’re dealing with…you don’t want to get behind.”
“You guys all talk really weird. You know that?”
“The other stateroom?”
“Deck Eight,” she said. “I’ll show you.”
* * *
The Do Not Disturb stateroom on Deck 8 may have had a teenage boy as part of the occupancy, but Philby found no one inside. His guess, judging by what a horrible mess the room was in, was that whoever occupied the room put up the sign out of embarrassment. Not even a steward should see such a disaster. The family had fled to the beach, deciding to clean up later. Much later, Philby thought. If ever. What pigs!
Philby’s hologram and Storey Ming were talking on the port side of the Dream, Deck 4, overlooking the beach activities in the distance.
“Frustrated?” she said.
“And then some,” said Philby. “There’s something else I have to do now. I’ll see you later.”
“I can come. I’m a Cast Member and entertainer. I have all kinds of access even you don’t have.”
“This is—” He’d been about to say “dangerous.” Instead he said, “for holograms only.” He thanked her and walked away.
“I-95,” she called out.
Philby’s DHI stopped and turned.
“I live with the crew. If you’re with me, you have every reason to be on I-95. Otherwise, you’re going to be asked questions.”
He tested 2.0 by patting his pants pocket. “I’m carrying a Cast Member ID,” he said. “I’ll be all right.” He turned.
“Cancellations!” she said, stopping him for the second time. “We forgot about cancellations.”
“What about them?”
“This cruise was sold out, but there are always cancellations. Last-minute stuff. Five, sometimes ten or more staterooms go empty. There’s a waiting list. Some of those people actually fly down and take a hotel room the night before hoping to get on. Most do. But there are always empty rooms. Always, as in always.”
“And?”
“What if this guy you’re looking for is in one of the empty staterooms?”
Philby was intrigued. A perfect hiding place for an OTK. “You have my attention.”
“I could get the list. The friend of mine in Reservations.”
“And what do you tell her?”
“The truth: one of the DHIs on board is looking for Overtakers.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Listen, Philby—can I call you Philby?—there is so much weird stuff that happens on these ships that the guests never hear about. You don’t have to work very hard to convince the crew and Cast Members there’s such a thing as Disney magic. They are believers. It wouldn’t freak out anyone to learn there are Overtakers on board.”
Philby considered everything she’d said. “Empty rooms?” he asked.
“At least five or six, maybe twice that.”
“Call your friend,” he said.
* * *
“We shouldn’t have let them go together,” Finn said. He was enjoying a pulled pork barbecue sandwich drenched in smoky-sweet sauce. He wiped some sauce off his chin and buried his face into the sandwich for another bite.
“A little late for that,” said Maybeck, wolfing down a buttery piece of corn bread in three bites. He chased it with a glass of ice-cold milk. He made a deep-throated groan of appreciation that attracted the attention of three girls at a nearby table. Maybeck smiled at them, and all three giggled.
Finn hated him.
“They’re probably out sunning on the beach,” Maybeck said. “Pass the SPF.”
“They wouldn’t do that.”
“A beach can do funny things to people. Especially girls. They like showing off their swimsuits. They never admit it, but if they didn’t, why would they wear bikinis and string bikinis instead of one-piece Speedos?”
“You really do have a one-track mind.”
“You want to talk about the propane?” Maybeck asked. “Has to be the OTs.”
“The guy shut it off, right? Game over.”
“Since when? This is the OTs. The game is never over.”
“You said he’s going to report it.”
“Yes, and they’ll remove the tank. I’m sure of it,” Maybeck said.
“So? What’s the problem?”
“What if it’s a diversion? Or what if it’s only one small part of their plan?”
“Which is?”
“How should I know? You’re the one telling me there’s an unscheduled Beach Blanket Barbecue planned for tonight. You think that’s coincidence? No? Well, neither do I. And I don’t happen to believe that by taking one propane tank out of the mangroves, that’s the end of it. Since when?”
“So they were planning to start a fire. What’s that tell us?”
“A distraction, a diversion, maybe. Maybe the girls stumbled onto someone messing with the tubes out there. Maybe they were led into a trap.”
“How does Tia Dalma fit in?”
“We’ve got to watch her,” Maybeck said. “She’s got to be the key. Maybe she’s the one running things, not Maleficent. Maybe the Green Machine’s not even on the ship.”
“Then why the video?”
“To throw us off. To have us chasing her when we should be chasing Tia Dalma. She’s a major player. Voodoo mama extraordinaire. She eats black magic for breakfast.”
Finn felt the chills. He put down the sandwich. “Nice move, Terrance. You just ruined my appetite.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Yeah. I get it.” He pushed his tray away. “The girls.”
“The party gives us more time to find them. How weird is that?” Maybeck said. “Since when do the OTs help us out?”
Finn sat forward. “Brilliant,” he said.
“Consider the source,” Maybeck said. Then he asked shyly, “What’s brilliant?”
“The OTs don’t have them. If they did, if that had been part of the plan, they wouldn’t give us extra time to find them.”
“Okay…”
“Meaning they’re either spying on those two girls, hunkered down somewhere and hoping to learn more, or—”
“Or?”
“Not or. And. And they’re waiting for us to show up and be a distraction and free them.”
“You’re dreaming,” Maybeck said.
“Then you explain it,” Finn said.
“I don’t have to explain it. We don’t know what’s going on, so we don’t have to explain. If I had to explain it, I’d say walk the beach looking for a pair of Cast Members stretched out on beach towels. I’m telling you: they’re girls, man. It’s a beach. A nice beach at that.”
“You give them no credit. They’re out there somewhere and they need us.”
“Have you been to the doctor lately? I think you have a hero complex that needs removing.” Maybeck paused. “Maleficent or Tia Dalma is allowing mosquitoes to breed. Fire plays into it somehow—maybe the fire was supposed to push the mosquitoes toward the beach when the time comes. I’ve got to follow up with my new BFF Tim, because he’s a bug guy. He doesn’t have a clue about the OTs.”
“We both have to be super careful,” Finn said. “No one else goes missing.”
* * *
When Philby entered the third of the seven unoccupied staterooms vacated by cancellation, he saw much of the same he’d seen in the first two: an empty room, a made bed, clean windows looking out into the dazzling sunshine of late afternoon on Castaway Cay. As he’d done previously, he stood stock-still before leaving the room and moving on with Storey Ming to the next vacancy. He used the heightened senses made possible by 2.0 for one last scan of the premises.
The pillow!
Operating like a digital zoom, his 2.0-upgraded eyesight amplified and enlarged its target. The pillow grew larger, occupying the full frame of his vision.
A strand of hair. It ran diagonally across the pillow, corner to corner. As small and insignificant as it might have appeared, it was anything but. The Dream’s stewards were the best in the cruise business, selected from around the world. Although possible, it was highly unlikely a steward would make a bed and leave a long strand of hair on a pillow. An arriving guest would find the hair offensive. A single strand of hair might ruin a guest’s entire cruise.
Standing close now, Philby pinched and extracted the hair from the static electric charge that held it to the pillowcase. Black. Ten inches long. The last few inches were a different color, dyed a faded red.
Discovery of the hair drove him to conduct a more thorough search of the stateroom. He found a smudge on the plate-glass door leading out to the small balcony. The bathroom was sparkling clean; it appeared fresh and unused until he touched one of the carefully folded towels and found it damp. The occupant had showered, dried herself, and then had refolded the towel exactly as the others. He marveled that without the enhancements of 2.0 he might not have sensed the dampness, might not have been able to pick up and pocket the stray strand of hair.
Kingdom Keepers V Page 22
