Kingdom Keepers III(45)

As they were heading down the stairs their conversation faded.

“You didn’t tell the boss about Tigger,” the man said, his concern obvious.

“We agreed not to say nothing to no one about what goes on here. I, for one, would like to keep my job.”

“Keeping the job is a good thing,” the man said.

Then the front door shut and Finn couldn’t hear anything more of them.

“Okay,” Finn said.

“You saved my butt,” Philby said.

“Keep your head down and do not move,” Finn said, his eye on a small wedge-shaped device way up high in one corner of the room. “They activated the motion sensors.”

“Dang!”

“You know what this means? It means you’ve got to go all-clear. Tonight. Right now.”

“I’ve never been able to. You know that,” Philby complained. “You’re the only one—”

“I’m not the only one. I can’t be the only one.”

“You’re it, dude. None of the rest of us can completely get ourselves out of our DHIs or cross over in the middle of the day. And don’t think we haven’t tried.”

“That’s not true: Maybeck pulled it off that time he was trapped in Space Mountain. You’ve got to try harder.”

“No point. It’s not going to happen.”

Finn had never been comfortable having more abilities than his friends. Nor had he appreciated Wayne telling him that he was, and would be, the team’s leader.

“So what do we do now?” Philby asked, his head hanging down. “The moment I move, that alarm is going to trip, and that’s going to bring those two back, and fast.”

“Not if we can get you to the staircase. You can do this,” Finn repeated. “I talked Maybeck through it. I can do the same thing for you.”

“I don’t think so.”

“That’s because you’re afraid you can’t do it. But you can. What I want you do—without moving!—is picture a blank wall. There’s nothing on it. There are no images in your head, no thought. Are you with me?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“No thought. No fear. Now there’s a light coming toward you—like the light on the front of The Polar Express, you know? One bulb, really bright, out of the darkness. That’s all there is—the darkness and that one light. The closer the light comes, the less darkness. The light takes over everything. There’s no room for fear, or thought, for anything. Can you see that happening?”

“I can! My arms are…tingling.”

“No, they aren’t,” Finn said, trying to coach him, “because you don’t have arms. You don’t have legs. The light gets close enough and you become the light. You become the hologram. That’s all we are right now—light. Projected light. You don’t have to think about that, you just have to…I don’t know…know it.”

Finn stood from his chair, his eye on the sensor in the corner. It didn’t flash; it didn’t sense him.

There was no easy test to know if Philby had succeeded. Finn couldn’t drop a book through him without the movement of the book setting off the motion alarm.

Then he remembered back to one of the first times he’d been able to all-clear his DHI, and his surprising discovery.

“You know,” he said, “when we’re all-clear, when we fully cross over, then even though we can shape ourselves to fit onto a chair, the chair doesn’t actually hold you up.”

Instantly, Philby fell through the chair and onto the floor, so that the seat of the chair was mostly inside his chest.

“No way!” he said, realizing what had happened.

“Don’t do that!” Finn cautioned. “Don’t question it, or challenge it, or even think about it. Just stand up and keep thinking about the train and that light. You’ve got to focus on that light. And get yourself over to the stairs—halfway down the stairs where the sensor can’t see you. I’ll handle the temperature log.”

Philby stood up. The motion sensor didn’t respond.

“I’ll memorize what I can,” Finn said. “I can’t use a pen to write anything down without tripping the sensor. I’ll call some numbers out to you. Then we’ll get out of here.”

Philby made it partway down the stairs. “What if my hands are tingling?”

“Picture the train.”

“Okay, but they’re still tingling.”

Finn stood at the computer monitor; he called out some of the data and memorized what he could. Then he got down the stairs. Philby looked worried, and Finn knew he’d lost his all-clear.