Kingdom Keepers V (9781423153429) (25 page)

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.

He jumped to the only logical conclusion: an Overtaker recruit—an OTK—was stowed away on the ship, hiding from authorities and serving Maleficent and the Overtakers. She had long black hair dyed red in places. She was the enemy.

Two taps on the stateroom door—Storey Ming's signal to join her in the hallway. Three taps was their signal for him to find some other way out of the stateroom.

Philby stepped through the door, but stuck, half in, half out. His left shoulder, left leg, and left side of his face were through the door, but the rest of him would not pull through.

“Hurry!” Storey said. “A steward knocking on every room!”

Philby didn't understand what was happening to him. How could his hologram get stuck? The part of him that was Professor Philby wanted to stand there and figure out the science behind his dilemma. Philby the Keeper wanted the heck out of there—now! He stepped back into the stateroom and tried for the door once more. Stuck. Half in, half out. He was being held inside the room by some unknown force.

Again, half his face showed through the door. It was almost more than Storey Ming could stomach.

“Hurry!” she implored.

“Hm-mrgle-ovr-neggg.”

Philby rocked his head so that his lips were free of the door and tried again. “Something's holding me.”

“Get back,” she hissed, before turning and walking away.

Philby ducked back into the stateroom, still marveling at the physics of what had just happened. Was it possible that it involved the strength of the projection of his hologram? With the original DHI program, a simple security camera or USB cam could be reverse-engineered to project the hologram. Did 2.0 require higher definition that the ship lacked on some decks? Had anyone tested the projection quality before inviting the Keepers onto the
Dream
?

He turned toward the water. Two kids stood facing him: a teenage boy and a girl. Not the boy Finn had described—smaller, darker, meaner. The girl looked familiar; he knew her from somewhere. Their postures—knees bent in a partial crouch, hips and shoulders square, one foot forward—a combat pose. They were here to fight him.

He spotted the telltale blue outline shimmering around their bodies. They were first-generation DHI holograms, and that meant they were OTKs, because Wayne's volunteers were all being projected as 2.0s.

The boy, standing by the bed, calmly knocked the lampshade off a wall-mounted light and unscrewed the bulb. He broke the bulb against the wall and outstretched his arm with the sharp glass held like a weapon before him. His blue outline dimmed—he was the older version 1.6—and in order to possess the broken bulb he had had to sacrifice a percentage of his
all clear
. This made the boy vulnerable. The girl, at the foot of the bed, inched forward empty-handed.

Professor Philby understood well that battles were won and lost by control of space. At present he was confined to the narrow hall between the two washrooms on one side and the closet to his right. If they kept him boxed in he was at a decided disadvantage. He quickly slid open the closet and grabbed a wooden hanger, extending it as a sword. He pulled down a bright orange cube of life vest and held on to a strap, holding it as a shield in his left hand.