Kingdom Keepers VI (9781423179214) (26 page)

The woman from the bedroom—fit as a ninja—stood there, blocking the stairway. She said something in Spanish that didn't sound particularly nice.

Charlene's DHI passed through her. The woman fainted, collapsing onto the platform.

Charlene took off running, her DHI dissolving and reforming, the darkness of the jungle engulfing her and driving her down, down, down the trail even faster. With any luck, she could reach Amanda, Mattie, and the taxi in time.

T
HE BOYS SPOKE AT ONCE
. Uncle Bob tilted back in his chair. The monitors running behind him showed views of a quiet ship.

“First,” Bob said loudly, shutting them up, “I did not send you this note.” He rubbed the back of the card and tossed it onto his desk. “It was typed on a typewriter, not a computer. There are a total of two typewriters on this ship—they're only here in case the computers go down. Whoever sent this to you…well, it can't be many people. I can look into it. But, bottom line, you were tricked. So now we know who was in Animator's Palate. This is your second vandalism in three days. The company is going to take a dim view of this.”

Philby held up a hand to stop Maybeck and Finn. “You must have it on camera.”

“We have three kids on camera—Finn and two girls,
one who plays lion tamer. We have a knife-throwing contest. You all are living on the edge.”

“It's not a game!” Finn cried. “They were trying to kill us! You saw who was
throwing
the knives, I hope!”

“Off camera.”

“Of course!” Finn shouted.

“Quiet down, son.”

Finn glared. He was about to use the “dad” line Philby had used, but Philby cut him off. Again.

“You have cameras on your stairways. I'm sure you do,” Philby said. “In case of lawsuits over people hurting themselves.”

Bob's face revealed nothing.

“So, check out Deck 1 forward, maybe thirty minutes ago.”

Bob pursed his lips. Barely looking at his keyboard, he called up a different four images on his screen. The upper right was black.

“That your doing, too?” he said, pointing to the blank quadrant.

“Oh, perfect,” Finn said. “Do they make
any
mistakes?”

“And the jogging track, fifteen minutes ago? The same thing?”

“Same thing,” Bob confirmed.

“And you think it's us?” Philby said.

“I'm told by the most reliable authorities that you, Mr. Philby, can hack just about anything. Some unsecured video feeds? Child's play, I would imagine.”

The room went quiet.

Maybeck sat forward in his chair. “Okay, so check it out: I get fried by a bolt of lightning. My boys get in a jam with Maleficent—the real Maleficent, not the pretty one. We're not asking you to buy this, because we're not selling, we're
telling
. There is stuff going down. Some of your own crew have been hypnotized. They're zombies. Bad zombies.”

Uncle Bob nodded ever so slightly. Maybeck couldn't tell if his speech was having any effect, but continued determinedly.

“They're sending us fake notes. They're threatening our lives. Now, supposedly the five of us, as Disney Hosts, represent some serious financials for the company. Why else would they install us on your ship? Give us a free cruise? We make them money: as guides, with merchandise, video games, books.”

“We're waiting for the movie,” Finn added.

“And you're not going to do anything about these threats?” Maybeck said, sitting back and crossing his legs. “Seriously?”

A vein in Bob's neck was doing the Macarena.

“This is all going in an e-mail tonight,” Maybeck said. “Maybe five e-mails.”

“Are you expecting to turn your acts of vandalism into something I just excuse? Forgive?”

“We know you found the balloon, because you told us,” Philby said. “It wasn't us.”

“Animator's Palate was us, but in self-defense. I swear!” Finn said.

“Just now…maybe ten minutes ago…the Overtakers stole something that belongs to the company—”

“That was in our care,” Finn said, interrupting Maybeck.

“And we need it back,” added Philby.

Bob raised his hand. “Settle down, boys.” He studied their faces one by one. “What do you know about a stowaway? And I want the
truth
.”

“No idea where he's hiding,” Philby said.

“But he's the one who gutted the hyena,” Maybeck said.

“The what?”

“The…never mind.”

“You stole the protein-spill cart,” Bob said to Maybeck.

“Borrowed. Yes, sir.”

Bob nodded. “Takes nerve to be honest with me, boys. I respect that.”

“Thank you, sir,” Finn said.

“
Not
what you've done. Not the damage you've done.”

Finn started to object, but Philby stopped him, allowing Bob to talk.

“As for your safety, young man,” Bob said to Finn. “It is and shall remain my top priority, just as the safety of every soul aboard this ship is my priority. As for
your…escapades, yes, I'm in contact with Wayne periodically. Am I a ‘believer'? No, I am not. But I'm willing to give you and him a certain amount of leeway, because when you work for this company as long as I have, well, you see things, hear things, that most people would think impossible. Also, because I do happen to believe in your cause: protecting Disney, keeping the experience ‘magical, not tragical,' as Wayne once put it.” He grinned. “Wayne's clearance is above mine. I'm not one to argue up the ladder.”

The man's expression told them he'd revealed too much. He spoke quickly to cover himself.

“I'm going to give you a pass. We'll scratch the slate clean. I'm also going to endeavor to keep a closer eye on you all and make sure you remain safe, since you're of
such importance
to the company.”

Philby glared at Maybeck.

“But for this, I'm expecting a little quid pro quo. A little tit-for-tat. Meaning I want to hear from you
before
you go destroying my ship again. Do we understand each other?”

Finn spoke for the three of them. “Understood. But—”

“Do not tell me you have to have the last word, because that is not going to happen in my office, young man.”

Finn shut his mouth.

“Do you have something to say?”

“No, sir.”

“That'll do.” Bob motioned to the door.

“W
HAT DID YOU SEE
when you touched? What, exactly?”

The girls were riding in the back of a different taxi, the Aventura park now safely behind them. Or so they hoped. Apparently the driver of the original taxi had been too freaked by what he'd seen to return. Their current driver was a Costa Rican woman about the same age as Charlene's high school librarian.

“I told you guys, it's more a feeling. Quick little pictures sometimes.” Mattie's face twisted in disgust. “You would not believe what people are thinking most of the time. Some of it is disgusting. What I picked up from that guy was his being all uptight about a zipper on a duffel bag not closing. There was a boy inside.”

“Dillard,” Charlene said. For all the excitement she'd felt, the burden of failure owned her. Leading a mission wasn't everything she'd thought it would be. They were going home empty-handed. No matter what they would say, Philby and Finn and Maybeck would view her as a failure. “Dillard was in the duffel bag.”

“Being put on a bus. I'm pretty sure it was our bus. The girl was all worried about the ship. And the guy, more jungle and rocks. He was desperate. Afraid. It was
daytime
. People spend a lot of time imagining what's coming. Don't ask me why, since they can't change it. But they do.”

“Was Dillard there?”

“It's not a movie. I read their feelings, Charlene. There's a lot of love. Way too much hate. Hunger. Worry. Fear. Anger. People waste a lot of time.”

The taxi snaked along the two-lane road; the girls sat in silence. Pretty soon, Charlene's and Amanda's DHIs hit interference, sputtered, and vanished. Mattie closed her eyes and tried to nap.

It was impossible.

With cell coverage restored, an invisible Amanda spoke.

“Why hide Dillard on the ship?” Frustration punctuated Amanda's digitally manipulated voice. “If they wanted Finn dead, they would have just killed him.”

“Well, that's a cheery thought,” said Charlene's.

Mattie's head tracked left to right to left like she was watching a tennis match.

“Maybe not,” said Amanda. “They brought him back to the ship. If they haven't already, at some point they're going to realize it's not Finn. That can't be good for Dillard.”

“I don't get it,” Charlene said. “Why bother with all this? Why not just capture Finn on the ship?”

Mattie said, “Because if it happens
off
the ship, it's someone else's responsibility. No one's going to search the ship for someone who disappeared off the ship.”

“They wanted the cruise to continue,” Amanda said.

“We don't know if they still think it's Finn.” Charlene sounded excited. “If we're lucky––if Dillard's lucky––the disguise is still working. And that means Finn can't be seen on the ship. If they discover they've been tricked, that won't be good for Dillard.”

“Mattie,” Amanda said. “We need to send Philby a text using Charlene's phone and have him tell Finn to stay in the stateroom, out of sight. He can't be seen by anyone. We'll have to smuggle him food and stuff.”

“The boy in the duffel bag…he was alive,” Mattie said. “Dillard was alive.”

Charlene said, “Let's hope we can keep him that way.”

Mattie took out the phone and began to type out a text.

* * *

The parting was not easy. Mattie repeatedly told them she'd be okay, but she didn't believe it. A teenage girl in a foreign country, headed for the boat to take her up the coast to Puerto Vallarta. Willa's passport. Charlene's iPhone. A fair amount of cash, and a credit card Philby had “borrowed” from his mother's purse. His mother wouldn't look for the card until she needed more cash from an ATM. She didn't use her plastic in foreign countries.

But it was still risky. Mattie and Willa didn't look perfectly alike, but in an odd way the red streak in Mattie's dark hair helped. If you took Willa and made her Goth, there was enough of a similarity between her and Mattie to believe a four-year-old photo.

Amanda discovered that her DHI could not cry tears. But still, feeling herself crying while a DHI was just another on a long list of things that surprised her about the hologram experience—like not feeling humidity and temperature change in the same way, and rarely if ever feeling hungry. But her heart could ache, as it did now, as she stood on a street corner beneath a tropical tree, the sound of car horns in the distance like coyotes crying beneath the stars.

“Do you think the passport will work?” Charlene asked.

“I think that's the least of her problems. You know how far it is?”

“But she'll beat us there?”

“Supposedly. But who knows?”

“Have a little faith!”

Amanda found Charlene's gung-ho energy annoying. She was all for optimism and courage in the face of danger, but a long boat ride up the coast for a sixteen-year-old girl carrying someone else's passport? Was it better than even odds that they'd ever see Mattie again? And how would they feel if she failed to make the rendezvous in Puerto Vallarta? What then?

“It was supposed to be her and Dillard traveling together. That made a lot more sense than her going it alone,” Amanda said.

“Everything happens for a reason.”

“But not always a good reason!” Amanda had had about enough.

“Since when are you a glass-half-empty type?”

Amanda reached out her hand. The Return would be an easier transmission if their holograms connected into a single graphics file.

“She should be requesting the return from Philby any—” Amanda failed to get the last words out.

She awoke in her upper bunk in Mrs. Nash's house
.
Before she fully opened her eyes, she ached to be back aboard the
Disney
Dream…
with Finn.