Kingdom Keepers Boxed Set

by Ridley Pearson

The man was screaming now for help.

  “Spies!” he cried out, believing them to be Disney fans no doubt—fans interested in Soarin’ changing from California to New York.

  If only he knew….

  Jess ran for the exit sign. She felt the vibration of the catwalk beneath her feet and knew that Willa was on it as well.

  The man’s feet appeared ahead of her—he was coming down another ladder.

  She ran harder and faster.

  “Right behind you!” she heard Willa call out.

  A wave of relief surged through her: Willa was okay. Willa was with her.

  She banged into the exit door’s panic bar and threw the door open. An alarm sounded.

  The man cried out for them to stop.

  She charged down the fire escape as fast as her feet would carry her, the warm night air splashing onto her face never more welcome.

  * * *

  As the test car gained speed, Finn turned to Philby and said, “No brakes.”

  “I remember,” Philby shouted above the clatter. The outside track formed a circle around the Test Track pavilion where cars could accelerate to speeds in excess of sixty-five miles per hour. Philby and Finn were quickly approaching ninety miles per hour.

  “The system is not designed for this speed!” Philby said, his red hair flying, both hands gripping the melted dashboard. “It’s going to jump the track!”

  It occurred to Finn that Philby knew such things, though this was one time he wished he didn’t.

  “As in?”

  “We’re going to wreck!”

  The acceleration pinned them back in their seats. Finn knew by the intense pressure how far from all-clear he was, and how he wasn’t going to get back: he was scared. There was no changing that now. No easy fix.

  The boys fought against the g-force, heaving forward.

  “Give me your shoes,” Philby said.

  Finn looked at him with bewilderment. It seemed an odd time to be locked in fashion envy.

  “Your shoes!” Philby shouted. “Now!”

  Finn tore them off his feet and Philby hurriedly untied the laces. He kicked off his own and worked the laces loose on those as well.

  “Tie ’em together!” he shouted. “Keep the laces as long as possible.”

  Finn did as he was told. The car was moving dangerously faster now, beginning to jump off the track. The boys felt an eerie sensation combining both gravitational pull and weightlessness that suggested the car was about to go airborne. The intense centrifugal force caused both boys to lean over toward the track’s outside rail. No matter how they fought against it, they could not sit up. If it went much faster they would be lying flat on the seat, a position from which it would be impossible to do anything. Without seat belts, each little bump lifted them and drove them against each other on the far right of the car where Finn sat squished.

  Philby, furiously checking his knots, happened to look back.

  “Bad news!” he said.

  Finn battled the forces and managed to turn his head around to see an empty car gaining on them. If the excess speed didn’t throw their car off the track, then a collision would take care of them. It was the perfect Overtaker move: the wreck would be blamed on two “vandals” who had broken into the park, switched on the ride, and then been hit and killed by an empty car. No one to blame but the boys themselves. He could almost hear Maleficent laughing. None of them had ever talked about it, but they all believed that should their DHIs ever be killed outright, their sleeping selves would be locked in the Syndrome forever. They would never awaken.

  “We’ve got major problems!” Finn hollered to be heard over the roar of the ride.

  “You think?” Philby roared back at him.

  Philby had his string of shoes ready. Strung together, the four running shoes looked like an awkward kite tail or string of dead fish. They looked like something invented just to pass the time, with one lace tied to the next in a daisy chain.

  Finn felt like challenging Philby, like holding his feet to the fire and asking why now, of all times, the guy was stringing shoes together. But he knew better. Philby was a man of purpose. Everything he did seemed calculated, a means to an end; if anything, the guy didn’t loosen up enough. So if Philby wanted to tie a bunch of shoes together while going in excess of ninety miles per hour, riding in a car about to jump the track and kill Finn along with him, then so be it: tie away.

  “Here’s…the…deal,” Philby said, each word an effort to produce because of the surprising amount of pressure imposed upon his chest by the g-force. “When I say now we’re going to jump. We’re going off your side, over the rail, and then hold on tight. We’re too high up—and probably over concrete—to let ourselves fall. So we’re going to hang from the outside of the retaining wall. The safety wall. Okay? But listen, we have to get over the wall. It’s going to be messy.”

  “Messy? You think I can time a jump going a hundred miles per hour?” Finn gasped.

  “We won’t be going a hundred,” Philby said. “Hang on tight…”

  Finn made the mistake of looking back: the empty test car was bearing down on them. It was either going to collide and throw them from the car, or bump their car off the track. What was Philby thinking?

  Philby flung the string of shoes over the windshield toward the vehicle’s right front panel.

  “What the—?” Finn said.

  “The emergency stop,” Philby said. “That’s why we’ve got to hold on tight.”

  Finn understood then: leave it to Philby to figure this out. He hunkered down and braced himself, knees thrust forward into the melted dash. He recalled all the times his parents had chided him about wearing seat belts, but that wasn’t an option now, the seat belts were no longer functioning thanks to the excessive heat.

  Philby launched his kite tail a second time. The lead shoe slapped the side of the car, just missing the large red plastic emergency stop button.

  “Close!” he shouted. He had meant Philby’s attempt, but he noticed that the word applied to the trailing car as well: they were about to be rear-ended.

  Philby wound up the chain of shoes and launched it again. Finn’s running shoe slapped the side of the car, but missed the button again.

  Wham! The empty car smashed into the back bumper. The boys whipped forward and Finn nearly left the moving car. He pulled himself back inside.

  Philby tried a different technique. He swung hard and got the string of shoes going over his head in a circle, like a cowboy’s lasso, like a helicopter blade. The car bumped them from behind again, and then backed off as if it had a mind of its own.

  Finn saw what was happening: the trailing car’s rear tires smoked as it took aim to knock them from the track.

  Philby propped himself up with just his left hand holding the dash, dropping his right and lowering the circle of shoes with the deftness of a golf pro. Finn’s running shoe smashed into the red button and the car’s brakes screeched. Finn reached out and grabbed Philby by the belt as Philby lifted off his feet, both hands over his head, ready to fly to his death. Finn held on with all his strength. The test car screamed, shuddered, and slowed.

  Behind them, the empty car, its tires smoking, barreled toward them, a collision imminent.

  “Now!” Philby shouted.

  Finn jumped from the moving car. His chest hit the sheet-metal retaining wall, and he turned, his fingers seeking purchase. He caught hold, stopped himself, and then let go, dropping another three feet. He snagged hold of the lip of the ride at track level, his feet dangling twenty feet above the plaza below.

  He caught sight of Philby, in roughly the same position, about twenty feet in front of him.

  It sounded like an explosion. The trailing car crashed into their stopped vehicle, sending car parts overhead in a shower of metal and plastic. Some pieces went forty feet up or higher, falling onto the plaza below in great thunderous crashes. An electric motor sailed fifty yards out into a parking lot behind the pavilion. Smoke
curled above them, while Finn pictured himself somewhere in the midst of all that destruction, knowing what it would have meant for him, understanding what had just happened. Philby had saved his life.

  They moved hand over hand along the perimeter of the track until they were over an awning.

  “On three,” Philby said. And they let go, falling in unison. They bounced off and slid down the awning and landed on their feet with only a few scratches to show for their adventure. Finn’s face was sunburned from the infrared lights and his hair was singed above both ears into tangled curls.

  They found the sword point-end down in a flower bed, which reminded Finn of The Sword in the Stone. He retrieved it and found he could slip it between his belt and pants and that it would hold.

  “Don’t know where our shoes ended up,” Philby said. “Sorry about that.”

  Finn faced his friend, thinking about all that had happened in the past few minutes.

  “Sorry?” he said. Their shoes were the furthest thing from Finn’s mind. Then he smiled at Philby. “Yeah, you’d better be sorry.”

  He threw an arm over Philby’s shoulder, and Philby did the same. The two headed off to the rendezvous in stocking feet, the point of the sword clanking against the concrete plaza with each determined step.

  AFTER SOME TEXTING, the group met at the rendezvous. It was a few minutes past 3 AM, but no one looked tired. Maybeck was missing a shoe; Willa, a sock. Finn and Philby were shoeless.

  Finn pointed out that they couldn’t just stand around talking—they were far too visible, far too vulnerable. Surprisingly, it wasn’t Philby or Willa who came up with the idea of secreting themselves into a corporate lounge, but Charlene.

  “Remember that charity event we did at The Seas with Nemo and Friends? The one with the hospital kids? How ’bout there?”

  “Brilliant!” said Philby. “It used to be the United Technologies lounge. The company left the park in 1998 and—”

  “Spare us the history lesson,” Maybeck quipped. “Let’s just get out of here.”

  The Living Seas pavilion was across the plaza and toward the entry gate, a location Finn liked because they needed a place to hide until the Lost and Found opened—and it would be close by to the lounge. They divided into two groups in case they were spotted or attacked. Maybeck’s group went first. Finn followed with Willa, Amanda, and Philby a few minutes later.

  The lounge’s dark wood paneling, retro furniture, wall decorations, and acrylic piano were a throwback to 1980s decor. A large metal sculpture of a fish stared out from one wall. But the prize of the room was the one entire wall consisting of a window into Nemo’s five-million-gallon aquarium, offering dazzling views and endless visual thrills as fish and sea animals swam past.

  Finn asked Amanda to speak first. He couldn’t take his eyes off her as she recounted what she’d witnessed from the control room atop the Mayan Temple.

  “I never had to warn any of you,” she said, “but what I saw surprised me. Twice the drawbridge over the lake raised and lowered—”

  “That would be the bridge opposite where we crossed,” Charlene interrupted, speaking to Willa.

  Amanda continued. “And anyway, the globe left the lake the first time, but the second time I couldn’t see what it was about. Nothing much happened. It just went up, and a few minutes later, back down. Also, the robot guys on the Segways—the dummies—are constantly patrolling. Around and around the lake. It seemed to me the Overtakers basically have full control of the place.”

  Willa told them about her and Jess’s trials at Soarin’ and her discovery of the maintenance journal and the single frame of film with the image of a seat belt on it.

  Charlene told about Wayne’s video, holding everyone in rapt attention. She read from her notes his exact words, looking up between each comment: “‘a deception of the worst kind…beware your friends and know your enemies…remember: we stand under it to get out of the rain but it lives above our brain…the solution is in Norway. Trust it…later, you all will need more…’ He talked about Wanda and said he didn’t name her by chance, that ‘it is mightier than the sword.’”

  The group was silent for a long time after that as they mulled over what it all meant.

  Then, before getting into what Charlene had said, Philby joined Finn in talking about their confrontation with Maleficent, Finn’s new sunburn, and the wreck of the car on Test Track.

  “You can bet the Overtakers will have it all cleaned up by morning,” Philby said. “They’re clever that way.”

  “I can confirm that after the wreck,” Amanda said, gazing at Finn, her face a knot of both concern and relief, “all sorts of characters headed in that direction. I heard and saw them.”

  “Which is good for us,” Finn said. “That should keep them busy the rest of the night.”

  “As if we’re going anywhere,” Willa said. “I’m so glad we found a place to hang out.”

  She found herself the brunt of everyone’s staring.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Wayne left us a half dozen clues,” Philby said.

  “He expects action,” Finn said.

  “You have got to be kidding me! You two nearly got killed. Maybeck and Charlene had to be let out of that pod by Amanda or they’d still be locked in there. And Jess and I were nearly captured. You want to go back out there? Be my guest. I’m happy right here.”

  “What’s any of it mean?” Jess asked. “What was Wayne trying to tell us?”

  “‘A deception of the worst kind,’” Charlene read from her list.

  “Betrayal,” Philby said, “is the worst deception.”

  “Betray—” Willa spit out, unable to completely say the word. “No way!”

  “A traitor?” Charlene choked out.

  “One of us is going to betray the others?” Maybeck asked.

  “That’s not possible,” Willa said. “Is it?”

  “Anything’s possible,” Finn said.

  Maybeck grew sober, suddenly more serious than any of the others had seen him before. “Are you going to tell me that after all we’ve been through…?” But he, too, could not complete his thought.

  He didn’t need to: everyone understood him.

  “Okay. Well, I, for one, do not believe it,” Willa said.

  “Neither do I,” Charlene said.

  “No matter what,” Finn added, “it’s bad for us to doubt each other, to question our friendship—”

  “Or loyalty,” Philby said.

  “But apparently,” Maybeck said, “that’s what Wayne had in mind.”

  “I can’t see him doing that,” Charlene said. “Why would he turn us against each other?”

  “To save the rest of us,” Maybeck said. “To keep us alert.”

  The group sat in a deadly silence for a long time. Looks were exchanged, some of them suspicious.

  “I think we should move on,” Willa proposed. “What’s next?”

  Philby said, quoting Wayne, “‘We stand under it to get out of the rain, and it lives above our brain.’ That’s a hat.” He won nods from all. “And ‘The solution is in Norway.’ That’s the sword.”

  “That has to be right,” Charlene agreed.

  “But what about a hat and a sword?” asked Jess. “Do they mean something?”

  “They must,” said Willa. “That’s the way Wayne is. It all means something.”

  “And a pen is mightier than the sword,” Philby said. “Everyone knows that expression. But maybe not the Overtakers, which is why he left part of it out. It’s got to be Walt’s pen, right?”

  “No doubt. But we have to figure the rest of this stuff out,” Maybeck complained. “I mean, I’m glad to know what he was trying to tell us—but what was he trying to tell us?”

  Everyone turned to Philby. He collected himself and said, “As to the first part: he wants us on guard for a traitor. None of us likes the thought of that, but I think what’s done is done. We’re not going to look at each other the same way
for a while, and we’re just going to have to live with that.”

  Most everyone nodded.

  “Wayne shot that video himself. That means he chose what order to tell us stuff in. So after the possible betrayal comes the hat. Right? We need to focus on the hat. Maybe the rest of the stuff will make more sense when we figure out the hat.”

  “There are so many hats they sell,” Charlene said. “Princess hats, baseball caps—”

  “Pirate hats.”

  “Witches’ hats?” said Amanda.

  “I suppose we should go look at them all,” Philby said. “In one of the stores, I mean. I’m not sure we can do this on our own.”

  “Do not tell me you want to leave here!” Willa said. When everyone looked at her, she sat upright. “Hey…now wait a minute…enough with those looks. We’ve got to get something straight: just because you may disagree doesn’t mean you’re the traitor! You should see how you’re all looking at me! What if I’m the one voice of reason in all this? Huh? What if I’m right and Philby’s the one leading us out for the Overtakers to catch us?”

  They all looked at Philby, whose expression didn’t change one bit. “Nice try,” he said to Willa.

  “I’m not trying anything!” she protested.

  “Except to make me out to be a bad guy.”

  “I’m just asking, are we safer in here or out there? And I think the answer’s pretty obvious.”

  “Willa has a point,” Maybeck said, his attention fixed on her. She smiled at him for backing her up and Maybeck looked away. “A couple things are pretty obvious. First of all: we need to stay paired up at all times. If there is a traitor, we can’t allow him or her the chance to signal anyone. Secondly: there are too many of us. We’re too big a group to go sneaking around. I’m thinking we send a search party for the hats. I nominate Finn, Philby, and Charlene.”

  “I hate to point this out,” Charlene said, “but whoever the traitor is, he or she would love nothing more than to see the three of us captured. Philby is our brains, Finn our leader—”

  “And you’re our jock,” Willa said. “Yeah. I see what you mean.”

  Everyone turned his or her attention—and suspicions—onto Maybeck. Finn knew that of all of them Maybeck had been a captive of the Overtakers the longest. He could have been compromised and no one would know it.