Kingdom Keepers V(113)
He exited to find himself in an area beyond Luowski and his gang. He headed outside through a set of automatic doors.
Warm wind whipped his face. The smell of the sea slapped him. The moon, already above the horizon, was working its way into the stars, and for a moment the whole world seemed to both stop and come alive. Moments like this, he thought, were what cruising was all about. Note to self: come back sometime when you’re not trying to save the Kingdom and your own skin.
There was a game of deck volleyball under way. Some girls and boys were crowded into the hot tub and, over against the ship rail to his left, there was a line of four craft tables, including a girl demonstrating pottery. He offered Storey a small wave and then moved away and along the rail, looking into the dark water breaking off the powerful force of the ship’s bow, five stories below. The sight was mesmerizing. Just for a second, he felt like jumping.
A porpoise broke the surface. Then another in the white foam cresting off the bow. The moonlight turned the foam into pearls.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Storey Ming.
“Oh, hello,” he said. “It is.”
She looked dazzling in the moonlight. He saw that she’d put on some makeup for her presentation, her hair held up and off her face by a decorative comb.
“I don’t have anything new for you,” Storey said. “No one I spoke to knew of any unusual cargo being brought on. No surprises planned for any of the stage shows. Or none that anyone knows about.”
“No animals.”
“Nothing. But it’s not like I have that many connections.”
“Talk about false modesty. You know the crew. You can view manifests. You know there are stowaways. What and who don’t you know?”
“I don’t know what or why any of this is happening. I think you do,” she said.
“You overestimate. I’m a foot soldier. Not much more.”
“You’re the one to protect,” Storey blurted out.
He paused, the sound of the water below hypnotic.
“Am I?”
“That came out wrong.”
“Is that why you’re being so nice to me?”
“I said it wrong. I apologize.”
“Who assigned you?” He swallowed dryly. “Wayne? One of the Imagineers? Are you really a potter?” He wondered: an Overtaker?
“I’m throwing pots, aren’t I?” She sounded so defensive.
“How many others with you?”
“Listen, it’s a group effort, that’s all. You and the others…your being holograms and all…everything you’ve done so far. No one wants to see that go to waste.”
“I see. So it’s a matter of efficiency,” he said sarcastically. “No one can afford the time to train a new set of Keepers.”
“Or maybe the Imagineers feel it’s about time they did just that,” she said. Then she covered her mouth.
Finn studied her face in the moonlight. “What…do…you…know?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You said they’re going to replace us. This…” he said, pointing a finger back and forth between them, “could be you and others gaining experience from us.”
“That is so not true.”
“Except that you’re too old,” he said.
“Seriously? You want to go there?” Storey leaned away from him.
“As if they’re going to install college kids as guides.”
“You are so out of line.”
He looked out at the imagined horizon, that place where the darkness of the sky and the stars blended into a void of sea. What was he missing?
“Is that what the beta testing of 2.0 is about?” he asked. “We test it. A new generation of student models puts it operational?”
“You’ve got this so totally wrong. Seriously. I was just…I don’t know what I was doing. Trying to sound more important than I am. Trying to make you like me.”
“You’re lying!”
“I am not! I made it up. I thought…I don’t know what I thought!”
They’d raised their voices and drawn attention to themselves. Finn had bumped the brim of the cap up when challenging her so that now he stood there with his face exposed. How long he’d been like that, he couldn’t say. A minute? Maybe.
“Hey, Witless…”
Finn didn’t need to look to know who it was. Two-legged trouble in the form of two hundred pounds of seventeen-year-old flesh and bones. (Greg Luowski had been held back in third grade, and again in sixth.) So when Finn actually did bother to look over at the boy, the surprise that stole over his face wasn’t the result of whom he saw standing there, but instead that Luowski was surrounded by a thin, but evident, blue line.