Kingdom Keepers V

by Ridley Pearson

  “You want to see something strange?” one crew photographer said to another, who’d been shooting pictures of the DHIs with guests.

  “Sure,” she answered.

  The other Keepers had already left. Only Finn lingered behind.

  “Never seen anything exactly like it,” he said. With his huge Nikon camera strapped around his neck, he aimed its LCD display so the woman could view it.

  “So?” the woman photographer said. “What’s the big deal, Victor? You’re always messing up the focus and exposure!” She bumped her shoulder to his.

  “But that’s the thing. The two of them there are in focus. It’s that third one looks like a ghost.”

  Finn’s ears perked.

  “Victor, you need help. Just because you can’t take a decent photograph, don’t go blaming it on the guests.”

  “There were three kids in the shot. Centered. Focused. This third kid’s gone all digital on me.”

  Finn found it hard to breathe. He was familiar with this particular photographic problem. He desperately wanted a look at the camera’s display.

  The woman studied the display. “Could be glare off the water, I suppose. You should have shot toward the island.”

  “Glare? I guess. But if it was glare it would have burned out that side of the frame. It wouldn’t make a kid all pixelated.”

  These were the words Finn heard so clearly: a kid pixelated.

  “That’s a digital camera, right?” Finn asked.

  They looked over at him as if he’d snuck up on them.

  “Ahh, yeah,” said the man in a pleasant voice. “What else?”

  It was an anomaly common to the parks: taking a photo—a digital camera photo—of a DHI and a guest presented risks. In certain light, the digital cameras did not capture the digitally projected holograms. The DHIs pixelated.

  “A kid?” Finn asked, his voice breaking with concern. “A girl?” He imagined Amanda or Jess in the photo. They were capable of crossing over as DHIs, though he’d heard of no such plans from Wayne. His heart beat frantically at the thought of seeing Amanda—even as a hologram.

  “No, a boy. Big kid. Football big. You know?” the man said. “Your age. Maybe a little older.”

  People always judged Finn younger than he was.

  “You remember what color eyes he had?” Finn asked.

  “Oh yeah, kid. I remember the eyes of every guest I shoot.”

  “No need to get testy, Victor,” the woman chided.

  Wayne had said he was going to project some of the recently recruited DHI volunteers on the ship—Kenny Carlson, Eddy Moriarty, Patty Standard, and others—but that would be at night when they were naturally asleep. Even at that, they were to fall under Keeper supervision. It wasn’t possible they’d be projected in the daytime onto the island without Finn or Philby knowing about it.

  Was Philby keeping it from him?

  Was Wayne up to something?

  “A boy,” Finn said, repeating what he’d just heard. “My age. A big kid.”

  He knew someone who fit that description.

  * * *

  Willa and Charlene followed the two Asian girl Cast Members who’d left the Dream together. With the release of the guests, the island was a bevy of activity, two thousand people having come ashore to pursue their tropical beach vacation. There were more shore adventures offered on Castaway Cay than any other single port on the cruise, from Jet Skis to snorkeling, waterslides to sailing. It was like two thousand kids in the sandbox, all in swimsuits, their pale skin shining under a layer of sunscreen.

  The island was a mile long and narrow, with a white sand beach stretching the distance facing west; on the opposite side were hundreds of acres of mangroves and jungle scrub, inhospitable terrain out of bounds for guests that had only a few narrow sandy lanes cut into it.

  A motorized shuttle ferried those who didn’t want to walk from one area to the next using a paved road that, in Disney park fashion, led to several organized stops, whether restrooms, restaurants, or shopping. The various thatched-roof structures carried names like Cookie’s BBQ, and the beaches were designated by age: Scuttle’s Cove, Hide Out, Serenity Bay. Hundreds of guests rode the shuttle despite the short walk required. Near the back of the crowd were Willa and Charlene, having never lost sight of their marks.

  The shuttle dropped most of its passengers at the first stop—the family beach. A few dozen stayed on, mostly adults seeking refuge at the far end of the island or those wishing to wait for a second shuttle offering short motorized tours. The two Asian girls, and Charlene and Willa with them, disembarked at this last stop and awaited the tour shuttle. It arrived, carrying ten seniors and several families. Another half dozen boarded, including the four girls, and it headed down an old runway that, according to the driver’s narration, had once served the family that had previously owned the island and could still be used in emergencies.

  It was a strange sight on an island so small: a wide and long piece of asphalt cut into sand and palm trees. The shuttle paused at an abandoned plane at an intersection of the runway and one of the scenic tour roads. The Asian Cast Members climbed off here, but no other guests chose to disembark.

  Willa and Charlene exchanged a glance. Would they give themselves away if they, too, climbed off now?

  “What do you think?” Charlene asked.

  “I think they’ve tricked us,” Willa answered.

  “We’ll have to get off at the next stop and come back.”

  “What if I got off and you stayed on?”

  “Excellent! Brilliant! But don’t follow them, okay? Wait for me.”

  “Done.” Charlene climbed off the opposite side of the shuttle car from the Asian girls and headed over to the abandoned airplane, studying it.

  The shuttle continued on. Willa turned her head and tracked her friend, seeing that the two Asian girls immediately took off on foot up the runway. She waited impatiently for the shuttle’s next stop. When it showed no sign of slowing, she called out, “Could I get off here, please?”

  The driver slowed and Willa jumped off, thanking her. The shuttle pulled away. Willa waited for it to make the next curve, disappearing from view, and then took off at a run back toward where she’d left Charlene.

  “They went up that way,” Charlene said, pointing up the runway, “and disappeared to the left.”

  “That’s out of bounds for us,” Willa said, knowing the layout of the island. “Not for them because they’re Cast Members.”

  “I can play a dimwit real well,” said Charlene.

  “Lost and without a clue?” Willa said.

  “Leave it to me.”

  They hurried up the runway, following a sand path cut into the mangrove and prickly shrubbery. The surface of the sand was pockmarked with tiny dots, the result of an afternoon rain shower the day before. Interrupting this pattern were two sets of shoe prints.

  “Easy-squeezy,” said Willa, pointing them out to Charlene.

  Thirty yards later the trail divided, but someone had been on a morning run and the surface was disturbed, making it more difficult to determine the direction of the girls they were following.

  “I think it’s that way,” Willa said, pointing to the right.

  “Terrific! I was going to say to the left.”

  They studied the impressions more carefully and agreed to try the path to the right. Twenty yards later, another fork; and still another after that. They were deep into the island wilderness now, the vegetation too high to see over, the terrain too flat to offer landmarks.

  “Stay clear of those trees,” Willa said, pointing one out. “Poisonwood. It’ll burn something fierce.”

  “Maybe we should turn back,” Charlene said. “Two lefts and a right, right?”

  “Three lefts and a right,” Willa said, “wasn’t it?”

  “I thought it was two.”

  “Oh, brother. We should have left markers or something.”

  They looked behind at the path, hopin
g to make out their own tracks. It wasn’t going to be easy.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Charlene said.

  “I think we should whisper,” Willa whispered. “I hear something.”

  They were quiet then, and, sure enough, the sound of voices carried through the jungle. But not from the direction where the path led. Instead, the voices came from their left, from inside the thicket of plants.

  Charlene waved Willa ahead to a patch of sand free of the main path that showed the same distinctive tracks they’d been following. She pointed into a dark spot where the sunshine did not penetrate. They made some faces at each other; their silent sign language said, Do we dare? What do you think? I don’t know. Let’s go for it. Okay.

  They crept through twisted, dark branches where the ground grew spongy and the smells were of decay and salt and marsh. After several minutes, Charlene turned back to look at Willa. The voices were clear now. They picked up the conversation in the middle.

  “…bound to attract attention.” A boy’s voice, possibly a man’s.

  “No kidding.” One of the girls.

  “My manager, for instance.”

  “How? How will he get here?”

  “Golf cart.”

  “So maybe someone forgets to plug it in tonight.” A different girl’s voice. “Maybe it has no charge. Maybe it’s dead.”

  “He can use any Pargo he chooses, and a bunch of them have gas motors.”

  “So maybe a fallen palm tree is blocking the way. Maybe he has to backtrack and it takes time.”

  “I suppose that could be arranged,” the boy said. Definitely not a man now that they listened more closely.

  “It shouldn’t take long to off-load,” said the other.

  “Like how long?”

  “It’s just a box. A heavy box. That’s why you need to supply the Pargo. The pilot is going to claim engine trouble. Forced emergency landing. The box is being taken off to lighten the load. It all fits.”

  “Yeah, I got it. Don’t sweat it.”

  “Do we look like we’re sweating?” one of the girls asked caustically. “If we’re sweating, it’s only because it’s so incredibly hot on this island.”

  “It’s nicer on the beach,” the boy said.

  “Shut up, would you? Do we look like we’re on the beach? I mean, seriously? It’s got to be a hundred degrees out here. It’s the jungle!”

  “There are bugs,” the other girl said.

  “Look, shut up. All we care about is that you do your job and get the box aboard the ship.”

  “Tonight. Forward gang.”

  “Correct,” said one of the girls.

  “Whatever you have to do to make that happen, we don’t care. Just so long as it happens.”

  “It’s going to happen,” the boy said.

  “Okay, then.”

  “Let’s get out of this miserable place.”

  The bushes up ahead rustled. There was no time for Willa and Charlene to leave the way they’d entered; they’d be seen. Instead, Charlene gave Willa a look that said, Follow me! and led her off to the side, deep within the dark mangrove.

  They got a look at the two girls in profile, but the heavy shadows prevented a good solid view at their facial features.

  The boy was a different story. He followed the two girls and stopped right where Charlene and Willa had stopped.

  “One of you wearing perfume?” he called ahead, the girls absorbed by the undergrowth.

  “We’re Cast Members, idiot! What do you think?”

  Willa could smell the lilac on Charlene from two feet away. She could have killed her for it. She shot her friend a look that said, Are you kidding me?

  The boy walked into some dappled sunlight. He was easily six feet tall. College age. Lifeguard-handsome with a tinge of boy next door. Square shoulders. Hair cut too short to guess its color.

  He looked around like a hound sniffing the air. Looked right at Willa and Charlene, but did not see them—they hoped.

  He continued on. “Wait up.”

  But the Asian girls didn’t answer. They’d left him well behind.

  * * *

  People rarely questioned Maybeck. Even adults. Either he was invisible or people feared him—he wasn’t sure which. He didn’t always think of himself as African American; he was “me” in his head. But how other people saw him was different. Sometimes it didn’t work out all that well, and sometimes, like this, it worked out just fine. Because as he passed a sign reading CAST MEMBERS ONLY PLEASE and walked down a rutted sand road, no one tried to stop him from entering the staff area. No one spoke to him at all. He wore the cape of independence. No one was going to say boo to him.

  More important, no one was going to stop him from doing what had to be done. His job was reconnaissance. He was a Keeper spy, sent to penetrate the enemy camp. Mission accomplished, he thought. At least phase one. He’d made it inside.

  Now he had to start up a conversation—never a real sticking point for him.

  The area was littered with all sorts of equipment, including a miniature tractor, bicycles, a dozen Pargos, tanks of propane gas, stacks of wooden poles, barbecue cookers, and fish netting. There was a galvanized metal Quonset hut, a white concrete building with only one window, clearly built to withstand hurricane-force winds. This unmarked building was the staff headquarters. Maybeck followed the sound of an air conditioner and knew this was where he’d find the action. He arrived at a small multipurpose room, off of which were a pair of offices. In the corner, a guy in his mid-twenties was reading a book while nursing a cup of coffee. Maybeck nodded hello. Judging by the guy’s reaction, his island Cast Member costume worked—his khaki shorts and white polo were his passport to open access.

  He reviewed the material posted on two bulletin boards, ignoring the printed pamphlets and focusing on the handwritten material.

  Remember to shut off all propane valves every night!

  Fresh water is a luxury! Conservation first!

  Personal hygiene is the best ambassador—remember to shower!

  Remember: there’s a waiting list

  to work on Castaway.

  Earn your place here.

  But it was another note that caught his eye:

  To whoever is messing with

  the marine radio: stop it!

  It must be left set to receive

  distress signals.

  By resetting the frequency

  you are endangering lives!

  Maybeck reread this several times and wished Philby had already retrieved his phone so that he could take a photo of it so he wouldn’t have to memorize it. Philby would know more about marine radios, but Maybeck recognized a possible Overtaker clue when he saw one: something out of the ordinary being done in secrecy. In this case, the use of a radio suggested off-island contact, possibly with a ship or even shore. And by using a radio, there would be no phone bill to trace, no evidence of such contact if anyone came looking. It reeked of the Overtakers.

  “You’re new,” the guy in the corner said. It wasn’t a question.

  Maybeck worried he’d lingered too long at the bulletin boards. Worse, he realized that the island staff was so small they all knew each other.

  “Training,” Maybeck said. “I don’t get to stay. I’m on loan from the Dream because so many of our guests signed up for the island.”

  “Never heard of that,” the guy said. “I mean, the ship Cast Members always help out. But wearing our costume…”

  “You wear what Laundry gives you. Am I right?” Maybeck said, his delivery cocky. One thing Maybeck never lacked was attitude. Times like this it came in handy.

  “I wouldn’t know. We wear the same thing every day.”

  “You should see the laundry on the Dream,” Maybeck said, having seen it himself. “It’s all computerized. A freak show. You show up, they read the stuff you’re turning in, and it automatically tells them what to give you next. They gave me this,” Maybeck said, indicating his ga
rb.

  “Yeah? Well, welcome to the insanity. What’s your assignment today?”

  “Trash,” Maybeck said without hesitation. He had to figure anyone joining an established staff would start at the bottom.

  “Figures.”

  “No kidding.”

  “My advice,” the guy said, “rebag it the second you take it out of the can. The crabs get in there somehow—don’t ask me how—and chew holes in the bag.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  “Be glad you got trash duty. I have to walk the CO2 lines looking for breaks.”

  “The what?” Maybeck said.

  “Mosquito control. They’re attracted to carbon dioxide.”

  “I didn’t know that. I always thought it was heat.”

  “Carbon dioxide coming through your skin. Anyway, the way they control them here is this network of tubes all over the island that emit the gas. The mosquitoes go for the tubes, which are poisonous, and they’re snuffed. Pretty slick.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “But we’re having problems with the tubes, so yours truly has to walk the lines checking valves. And by ‘walking the lines,’ I’m talking about every swamp and bog on the island.”

  “You do something to deserve that?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Got my degree in entomology. I’m the guy in charge of the system.”

  “You’re a what?”

  “A bug guy. I majored in bugs.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Don’t get me started. Six years of college serious.”

  “Carbon dioxide?”

  “Saves spraying the island with toxins. The company is way greener than people know. This island is heading to full solar and wind.”

  “What would cause the problems with the tubes?” Keepers were trained to be alert to unusual changes in the parks, or problems; that extended to Castaway Cay. “Something chewed through it?”

  “No, that’s the thing. We have pressure sensors all along the system because of its miles of tubing. The computers log the sensor reports. We had incidents of pressure loss followed by normality. Two o’clock in the morning, the thing stops working for an hour. Right when we need it. We go out and check it the next morning and it’s fine. Makes no sense.”