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.
Despite the hanger in hand, fear was his biggest weapon. If he could dominate these two early and establish himself as superior, if he could sow the seeds of doubt into both of them, he would weaken their DHIs and gain the superiority he pretended to possess.
He stepped forward to where the hallway became the bedroom. Another step and he’d be free of his confines.
The girl lunged forward. Philby jumped back instinctively. He would have to fight such instincts. He had to hold his ground.
She seized the ship’s-wheel clock from the semi-circular counter top at the end of the closets. She held it out as a shield.
Philby swung the hanger. She deftly deflected the blow.
The boy leaped forward—a fast one, this kid—and swiped the broken glass across Philby’s left arm, getting nothing but air. The shards of glass swept through Philby’s hologram. The next attempt was met by Philby with the life preserver. A sliver of the bulb’s glass broke and rained to the floor.
Distracted as he was, Philby left himself open to a charge from the girl. She swung the clock for Philby’s head. He leaned back and felt the wind from the miss.
The boy’s blue outline dimmed following Philby’s block. Philby took advantage of the weakness of the hologram and stabbed with the end of the hanger. He hit the boy in the shoulder—the boy, not his hologram—and sent the kid back onto the bed. He quickly recovered, leaping to his feet. His blue outline regained color.
Philby swung to his right and caught the girl on the forearm. She dropped the clock. He swung again, hitting her on the side of the knee, and she collapsed.
His hand stung. He’d let go of the life vest. The boy had wisely attacked his hand, knowing it had to be material enough to hold on to the vest. Philby was bleeding, a shard of glass lodged in his wrist. Philby screamed—out of anger and strategy, not pain—and charged the boy, swinging the hanger like a sword fighter and pushing the boy back into a corner formed by the bed and end table. Pinned. He whipped him with the hanger, watching the blue outline drain of color as welts formed on the boy’s forearm.
The girl would not be intimidated. With Philby’s attention on her partner and his body angled away from her, she also screamed out as she charged, hands outstretched. She passed through his hologram, but managed to take hold of his more solid hand and pulled him with her. She dragged him through the wall and into the next stateroom—or almost.
His hand holding the hanger caught against the interior wall. He stopped suddenly, half in, half out, as he had at the stateroom door. It was like someone had stepped on the brakes. He stopped so quickly, she lost her grip and let go. She fell into the adjacent stateroom, landing on the floor by the bed, while Philby remained stuck in the wall. He lunged back into the original stateroom, where the boy had now recovered and picked up the hanger.
The boy swung and stabbed at Philby’s 2.0 hologram, swiping through his hologram’s projection until focusing just on Philby’s hands. Three repeated blows connected with the knuckles on his right hand.
Philby cried out in pain. With the pain, fear. With fear, a somewhat weakened hologram, 2.0 or not. The boy was winning.
Spinning and kicking, Philby managed to slip past the battery of blows and reach the closet. He grabbed a hanger and the two boys launched into a sword fight, the object of which was to strike the other’s hand and make him drop the hanger, then step in and beat the other’s failing hologram senseless.
The girl reappeared through the wall. Angry. Defiant.
“The bulb on the floor,” her partner said.
She bent and picked it up.
“We’ve got him now,” the boy said.
Philby wanted to object. He felt wounded. Decidedly at a disadvantage. But he did not feel defeated. Far from it. In fact, as his hologram went through the motions of defending himself, and while admittedly losing some ground, Professor Philby was again thinking about his getting stuck in the wall—stuck for a second time in a matter of minutes.
The hanger had been knocked from his hand by contact with the interior wall. Had he not let go, it too would have prevented him from making it through the wall. But he had let go. It wasn’t a limitation of projection that prevented him from making it through the wall and door—the girl’s first-generation DHI had managed just fine. It was something material, like the hanger. Something holding him from getting through as a projection.
And then it occurred to him: the strand of black hair.
He’d put it into his pocket. It was a material item he had not crossed over with, but had picked up from within the stateroom. A single human hair, but matter, not projected light. Matter that could not pass through a door or a wall. The strand of hair was stranding him.
He turned his pocket inside out as he fended off the dual attack. Picked at the fabric, lacking any possibility of taking the time to look down for the strand of hair. The boy swung at him. Philby dodged the blow, moving right. The girl swiped his hand—his material hand—and the bulb’s glass sliced into him. The pain caused him to look down. With
that glance, he saw the black hair against the white cotton of his pants pocket. He snagged it and dropped it to the carpet. It floated, nearly motionless.
The next few attempts with the broken bulb failed, passing through Philby’s hologram. Of all the Keepers, Philby was by far the most cerebral. His brain never rested. For months he’d been occupied with mastering DHI 2.0, and now his work paid off.
He charged the girl—the bloody broken bulb aimed into his face passed through him; he knocked her back, continuing past her through the wall and into the adjoining stateroom.
The boy jumped through the wall after him, but without the hanger. A thump on the wall suggested the girl had tried but failed at all clear. The boy swept the contents of a nightstand into the air, demonstrating a facile and impressive ability to control DHI 1.6. A Bible and a water glass flew at Philby, but passed through his projection.
“Come and get me,” he felt like saying, feeling fully in control of his hologram, having no worry he might cross back to the slightest degree.
He jumped in two strides and passed through the glass door and out onto the balcony. The boy followed, the two of them only a few feet apart.
“You want to test your control?” Philby said. He gestured over the banister. “Feel like a swim? I hear the water’s great.”
“You’ll have to tell me how it is,” the boy said. He upended a low table. It flew at Philby, but went through him.
“Nice try,” Philby said.
“I’ve got better,” the boy said.
“You’re on the wrong side. You understand that, right?”
“What’s more likely? That everything’s going to work out fine, like a fairy tale, or that stuff happens, bad stuff, and that’s just the way it is? The universe is not all sweet and pretty. Grow up. It’s total chaos.”
They moved in a slow circle like a pair of boxers. The boy had his back to the rail now. Philby needed to make sure his opponent slipped out of all clear.
“So you want a world with no imagination, no dreams? You want to take orders from a green-skinned, pointy-chinned fairy forever? Be my guest. Did you decide to come here on your own, or were you told to come here? Because let me tell you something: no one told me to go into that stateroom. That was my choice.”
Philby saw a flicker of light in the boy’s eyes. Maybe it was a trick of light playing off the glass, but maybe it was consideration and doubt, the kindling for the fire of fear. That was how he was going to play it.
The boy’s hologram filled with static interference likely caused by the balcony’s railing.
The girl suddenly appeared through the metal barrier that separated the small balconies. She seethed with anger—as destructive to a DHI as fear. Philby edged to his right, hoping to move the boy away from the projection interference. But the boy stood there, his image sparkling and spitting like bad television reception.
Unable to control her anger, the girl charged. Philby never flinched. She passed through him and smacked into the plate glass window behind him with a thud. He spun, found her wrist substantial enough to grasp, and whipped her toward her sparkling partner. The boy jumped out of the way—and out of the projection interference. The girl hit the rail, and Philby dumped her over the side. She fell a long distance and splashed into the turquoise water. The boy lunged, but Philby was ready for him. Philby ducked, using 2.0 to transform himself more solid, and stood just as the boy collided with him. Philby had the boy on his back like a fireman’s carry. He stood, turned, and leaned heavily back against the rail. The jolt sent the boy over the side, screaming on his way down. Philby watched as the boy bobbed to the surface. He and the girl were treading water.
A Dream life preserver flew through the air from a higher deck. An alarm sounded.
Philby’s hologram hurried through the plate glass and out into the hallway where Storey Ming waited, looking panicked.
“Ran into some friends,” Philby said, tucking in his shirt.
She took him by the hand and led him calmly down the hallway toward the bow.
“You feel cold,” she said, glancing down at his hand.
He’d never thought of it before. Couldn’t remember anyone touching his hologram but Overtakers.
Don’t let go, he wanted to say, enjoying the contact.
She caught him staring at her profile as they walked.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said, embarrassed.
A seagull flew lazily above the beach as preparations for the Beach Blanket Barbecue got under way. A pink sun sank quickly beyond the horizon. The beach chairs were being wiped down; barbecue grills huffed gray smoke; the volleyball court was being raked; a hundred tiki torches were flickering with yellow flame. A stream of ship passengers was currently disembarking, the people having returned to shower and change for the festivities. The empty beaches would soon swell with guests; the steel-drum music would start. It was party time.
The gull continued its uncharted path, riding the air currents, watching the waves lap to shore. The same every night; it never tired of the sight. It would land soon and hunker down for the night, head tucked into its wings, awaiting the stir of a morning breeze.
It headed lower and lower, passing over some brush that ruffled in the breeze. It circled this once, having memorized nearly every speck of terrain in its domain. Out of curiosity it dove and landed on the pile. Its feet hit something cold and hard beneath the brush. Metal. It worked to move the brush out of the way, exposing more white metal and a label.
DANGER:
PROPANE GAS—UNDER PRESSURE
The gull did not have what humans think of as memory. But there were images floating around in its pea-size brain. One of those images was of a person carrying a tank with an identical label as this one earlier in the day. The human had placed it on the back of a golf cart. This tank was identical to the one that had been removed. It also connected to the same black tubing as had the other. A second tank, identical to the first. A tank undiscovered by the humans.
* * *
Propped on Charlene’s shoulders, Willa could see water in the distance. But this was an island, a small island, so spotting water hardly won her any points. This was their fourth attempt to see over the jungle top and the first offering any success, limited as it was.
“I’m sorry,” Willa said, back on the ground again.
“It’s not your fault. Stupid jungle is too high.” Charlene thought for a moment and said, “No ship?”
“No.”
Charlene then drew an arrow into the sand of the narrow path.
“So…no ship this direction. And what about the water? Where did you see it?” She handed Willa the stick she’d drawn with.
Willa engraved the path’s sand with wavy lines in the direction of the arrow and to the right. The two girls studied their map.
“So there was shore along here?” Charlene asked.
“There was.”
“Last night…when we rode the lifeboats and snuck ashore…the sun set behind the ship to port, remember?”
“Ah…if you say so.”
“Trust me. It did. So…look at the shadows.” Charlene pointed into the thick undergrowth. The plants were crosshatched with sharp, angular shadows.
“So the shadows are pointing east because the afternoon sun moves west.”
“Correct.”
“And if the sun set to the left of the ship…”
“The ship is docked basically aiming north.”
“So the beach is on the south side of the island!” Charlene said. “If we head south, by the time we reach water…”
“We should be able to see the Dream. It’s not a very big island, and it’s a very big ship.” She exhaled loudly. “Only one problem,” Willa said. “The paths are totally random. And there are a zillion of them.”
“We can do this,” Charlene said.
“And if we can’t?”
“What’s the first thing the Professor will do when they can�
��t find us?” Charlene said in a know-it-all voice.
“Philby? I suppose…I don’t know…maybe check the server to try to see if we’re in SBS. Can he even do that?”
“The server, yes,” Charlene said. “He’ll do a manual return in case we’re somehow DHIs.”
“Note to Charlene: we’re not DHIs. We won’t return.”
“No…but there’s no one smarter than Philby. First, he’ll try to return us, and then—?”
“Oh my gosh! You think?”
“I know.”
* * *
Shutters, the cruise ship photo display area, was really high-tech compared to similar shops on older Disney ships. The same expansive gallery was there—walls and partitions covered in hundreds of professional photos of passengers on arrival day, at dinners, with characters, and with the captain. The gallery spread out to Deck 4’s balcony overlook of the atrium. Here were rows of handsome wooden “post office” boxes from which guests could collect their ordered shots. A marvel of organization and efficiency.
Finn decided to check it out, to follow up on the missing-kid photo. He located the most recent shots—guests on Castaway Cay with the Dream behind them—and searched for the picture. It took him several minutes, but he finally spied a shot of two kids in which the ship behind them was cut off. The photo had been cropped. A tall kid about Finn’s age had quite possibly been cut out.
He approached the desk.
“Excuse me,” he said, passing the photo to the Cast Member, a young woman. “I think there was a third boy in this photo. Do you mind checking?”
She took a moment to reference the corresponding computer file.
“You’re right,” she said, “but I see the problem…” She spun the terminal around so Finn could see also. “This kind of stuff happens from time to time.”
The kind of stuff she was referring to was a pixelated image in the frame.
“They cropped it,” she explained, “for obvious reasons.”
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