Kingdom Keepers V (9781423153429) (20 page)

“Are we?” Finn asked. “We're crossed over. We're 2.0 holograms. There's nothing for them to bite.”

“And you're going to test that, are you?”

“Maybe not,” he said.

“Yeah, I thought so.” Charlene shook her head. “So we go with my plan, right?”

“Right.”

They slipped along the wall toward a painted box that covered the lower section of a ladder. The purpose of the box was to discourage passengers from trying to climb the lifeboat access ladders, but the boxes couldn't be locked for safety reasons—there had to be ladder access to the overhead lifeboats at all times.

The larger of the two hyenas headed for them.

“Ready?” Finn asked. “Nothing to fear, remember?”

“Yeah, right. Working on that.”

He broke off a piece of the Snickers bar.

The hyena charged.

Finn tossed the piece of candy bar. The hyena skidded to a stop, turned, and snapped it up. Finn could see the surprise cross its face—Snickers were just about the best thing on earth. Then it swung its ratty head back toward Finn, its eyes flashing yellow as they caught light from the windows.

More, the eyes said.

Finn broke off another chunk and threw it. As the hyena turned, Finn and Charlene inched closer to the ladder, now only a few feet away. The plan backfired: Finn had thrown the piece of candy bar well behind the hyena, trying to draw it away from them. For a fraction of a second, the hyena considered pursuing it. But, as the other hyena got into the act, scrambling for the snack, the bigger beast turned back toward the source: Finn.

“Uh-oh,” Charlene gasped, diving for the ladder. Finn was right on her heels.

He pulled the pin from the hasp and swung the box open. Charlene climbed it like a spider.

Finn fumbled with the Snickers bar, nearly dropping it. He tried to toe the wooden door as he pulled himself up a rung, but the hyena nosed the door open and snapped at Finn's feet. The animal got a bite of a steel ladder bar and yipped. He knocked loose another piece of Snickers, distracting the lead hyena. A battle ensued between the two creatures, both wanting the treat. As they fought, Finn scrambled up the ladder to a small platform that provided access to the two closest lifeboats. An extremely narrow catwalk led between the suspended lifeboat and the ship's wall in either direction. Charlene had already reached the forward lifeboat.

“Fifty-seven's up there!” she said, pointing.

Finn arrived, out of breath. “How…you…possibly…so fast?”

“We can't go down there,” she said in a perfectly normal voice.

Indeed, the hyenas were directly below them, tracking them like radar, wanting more Snickers.

“Not only is it not a good idea to go down there and beta test,” Finn said, “but unless we can get ourselves into the lifeboat, those two are going to end up giving us away.”

“OMG!” Charlene said. “I should have thought of that.”

They were at the end of the catwalk. There was still another lifeboat between them and boat fifty-seven.

“If we're not going to use the next ladder—” he said.

“Follow me.” She pulled her hologram up and stood balanced on the rail. Then she leaned forward, clutching a safety rope that ran along the perimeter. The boat was divided into two pieces like a plastic Easter egg. Inside, the bottom half held all the passengers. But the top was a curving fiberglass shell as well, meaning that in a horrific storm the lifeboat could flip entirely upside down—and stay that way—and still protect its inhabitants. It also meant it was as slippery as a piece of Tupperware. There were several grips as well as the thick safety rope running fully around it. Charlene dangled from the rope, moving hand over hand, her legs bent at the knees to keep from hanging down, for just as she'd jumped, the sound of an automatic door opening rippled up the deck.

Finn climbed, fell forward, and clutched the rope. She'd made it look deceptively easy. It was like ropes course in gym—and he fell off the ropes course more often than he made it to the next level. Like her, he was driven by the thought of who or what had come through the automatic door. He'd heard no comments about seeing two wild hyenas drooling on the deck. It was as if whoever—or whatever—had come out, he, she, or it expected to see the creatures.

So it wasn't a passenger, Cast Member, or crew.

That left only Overtakers.

Keeping his knees tucked, Finn followed Charlene around the curve of the lifeboat's gunwale to the bow. Here, she pulled herself up, hooked a leg on the rope, and managed a gymnastic move Finn was not sure he could execute. Knees bent, she sprang like a cat and reached the safety rope of the next lifeboat—number fifty-seven. The coursing of the ocean waves across the
Dream
's hull drowned out any noises. Again, she began the process of moving hand over hand around lifeboat fifty-seven.

Finn felt like shouting “Are you kidding me?” but kept his mouth shut. He wasn't about to admit defeat to a girl. Three times he tried to hook his leg across the safety rope. Finally, he snagged his knee, extended his leg, caught his ankle, and managed to clumsily pull himself up. A moment later he was crouching, ready to spring for fifty-seven.

“Sit!” he heard. A female voice from somewhere behind him. Not Maleficent, he thought. Her voice was often low, like a man's, gravelly and loathsome. Speaking but a single word, this voice, though familiar, was not identifiable. He searched his memory for the voices of the small number of Overtakers it could be: Cruella was the most likely.

Say something else, he mentally willed.

But there was Charlene, halfway through a small entrance hole in lifeboat fifty-seven, waving him on.

Finn jumped. He caught the safety rope, propelled himself around the lifeboat, and slipped inside behind Charlene. They'd made it.

* * *

Control! Maybeck thought, as the creature opened its jaw to bite him. He was so used to DHI 1.6 that he felt sure he could be bitten. The hyena's teeth clapped loudly together as they passed right through his holographic ankle. The animal squealed loudly. It had bitten its own tongue when the bone and flesh had failed to present itself.

“Dang!” Maybeck said. “That's insane!”

Maybeck snared the hyena's head and neck with the loop of belt. He moved quickly toward the ladder, the surprised hyena held a shuffleboard pole's distance away.

Willa used the bait ruse. Holding the disk at arm's length, as if a snack treat, she lured the one remaining hyena. It cautiously approached her, drool dripping from its black gums as it anticipated food (for one look at it confirmed it was being starved). Before the beast understood what was happening, it found a belt around its neck like a leash. She, too, moved toward the ladder.

“If we give them some slack…” she said to Maybeck.

“Yeah. Ladies first,” he said, indicating the ladder.

“We have to go at the same time. If I release mine, he'll attack you.” She pulled herself up several rungs. “Come on.”

“This is going to get cozy,” Maybeck said.

“Shut up and get over here.”

The hyenas were wild in captivity, pulling and pushing on the poles. Maybeck found it hard to hold on with just one hand. Willa, now three rungs up, hooked her arm through the ladder so she could use two hands. Maybeck caught a foot on the bottom rung. His hyena was stronger and meaner. It took his full strength to keep it at bay.

“Higher,” Willa said, climbing another two rungs.

Maybeck climbed as well, his head against her collarbone, his back to her, the two of them pressed together. If they'd been hugging they couldn't have been closer. Seeing him struggle to maintain his balance, she hooked her heel around him, pinning him to the ladder.

“Ready?” she asked.

“It's not like they can hurt us.”

“They don't know that.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“And neither do I.”

“You don't trust 2.0?”

“Correct.” She reminded him, “We can't leave the poles and belts. They'll give us away.”

“Agreed,” he said.

“Then, both at the same time.”

“Yeah.”

“One…two…”

“Three!” he said.

* * *

It surprised Finn how little members of the crew spoke to each other. He discerned three voices, all male. The hum of electric motors was followed by a jerking movement, then a queasy sensation in his stomach as the lifeboat was lowered over the side. Charlene grabbed his arm in the dark and slid her hand down to hold his. He hated to admit it to himself, but he found that hand of hers comforting and pleasant. Reassuring.

The lifeboat splashed into the water, and only minutes later they were under way.

“Not much talk for a test run,” Charlene said.

They continued to hold hands, Finn noticed.

“Thought the same thing.”

“Two lifeboats.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“We're here to find out,” Finn said.

“But we can't see a thing.”

It was true. They could see each other's holograms now, dimly. But with a canvas hatch in place, they could not see into the cockpit to know what was going on out there.

“I could unzip it and take a look.”

“Too risky,” she said.

He was glad she said that, for he'd been thinking the same thing.

The lifeboat was not zigging or zagging. If it was indeed a test of some kind, it required explanation.

At once their holograms began to sparkle with digital interference, like a TV signal going bad.

He hurried to use the Wave Phone before they were too far out of range of the DHI projectors and the phones' communication antennas. He texted:

do u c us?


and sent the text to Philby.

Only moments later came the reply:

mvng awy frm ship, arnd islnd


Finn showed the screen to Charlene.

Her breath warmed Finn's ear. “I know this island. There's nothing in either direction. If we leave the beach area—”

She fell across and on top of him, pressed against the life preservers as a radical change in course threw them both sideways. They struggled to separate and sit back up.

“Heading toward the beach,” she whispered.

“You sure?”

“Yes. We're inside the reef. We wouldn't risk heading out to sea anyway.”

The lifeboat jerked again as the engine slowed.

“Anchor!” a voice called out.

Simultaneously, Charlene and Finn looked over at the anchor mount in the center of the compartment—directly in front of the canvas hatch. Then, at each other.

They crawled back into the wedge where the curving hull met the gunwale, Finn pulling the life vests from behind them. When not in use, a vest held together as a rectangular block of orange plastic. Finn stacked the vests in front of them as a screen. Charlene helped hold them in place.

The sound of a zipper running was followed by a hairy, dark-skinned arm reaching inside. Then a shoulder and the top of a bald head appeared. A clanging and two choice swear words rang out as the crewman freed the anchor from its bracket. The rattle of a chain. The clap of a line.

But not the sound of the zipper closing.

“He left it open,” Finn whispered, already moving the blocks of life vests out of their way. In a moment they were free of the vests, and Finn moved cautiously toward the hatch, placing his eye to the canvas and peering out.

The lifeboat lunged. Finn's head went entirely out through the open space.

Charlene grabbed him by the knees and hauled him backward. They both froze—stone still. Listening. Waiting…Finn's face was scrunched into a pucker.

During the brief moment his head had been out in the cockpit he'd seen a darkened sky faintly blue at the edges; the back of a man's coveralls; the anchor swinging in the grasp of a hand at the end of a hairy arm; the bow of a second lifeboat.

The engine cut to an idle, then reversed and accelerated. The lifeboat shuddered.

Finn and Charlene were thrown on top of one another again as the bow ground into sand and the boat came to a stop.

“Quickly. We need that Creole freak back aboard before sunrise.”

Creole freak?
Finn wondered. Charlene had heard the same thing, and they exchanged the same quizzical expression. Curiouser and curiouser, he thought.

The sound of the second lifeboat approached. Its motor roared as it swished to shore.

More than one man left the lifeboat.

But was it all three?

Finn looked outside again. An empty cockpit. He saw clouds in the sky he hadn't seen a minute earlier. He dared climb out farther, confirming the empty cockpit. He crawled carefully—silently—to the exit hatch, the door to which had been left open. He stole a look toward the beach.

Six men, all in crew member coveralls. Three in front, three behind.

Charlene squeezed in alongside Finn, her head blocking his view. When she turned to speak, they were so close they nearly kissed.

“The bungalows,” she said.

“Bungalows?”

“Massage bungalows.”

“Massage,” he said.

“If you repeat everything I say, Finn, we're going to be here a long time.”

“So it's not a test,” Finn said.

“Apparently not.”

“More like a pickup and delivery.”

“That's what it sounded like to me,” she said. “Yes.”

“So either these crewmen are knowingly working for the Overtakers, or are being used.”

“I would guess they are just following orders. So maybe one of the officers is with the OTs.”

He tried to see a way around the idea of the Overtakers being involved. But the existence of the hyenas kept bringing him back to reality. Who else would have hyenas guarding the lifeboats?