Kingdom Keepers V(127)
“I think that’s what I’m saying. Am I?”
“They run the new software on us because we’re accustomed to being DHIs in the first place,” Willa speculated. “They work the bugs out without putting new projections at risk of looking bad with the park guests. When all the bugs are worked out and the code’s reassembled, they roll it out with new models—a new look. No way! You think?”
“Who knows?”
“It makes so much sense,” she complained.
“That’s what I said.”
“Storey? Did Storey tell you this?”
“It might have come up. A rumor is all.”
“I’m telling you: look out for her. I do not trust her.”
“What if she’s one of the people who’s going to model for the 2.0 hosts? Why would they go with college-age?”
“She told you that?”
“Hello? This is me you’re talking to. If she’d told me, I’d tell you. I’m not like Philby.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means what it means.”
“Philby’s keeping stuff from us?”
“Am I the only one to notice?”
She looked away. “No,” she said, almost unheard.
“Who are we supposed to trust?”
Willa didn’t answer.
* * *
The narrow companionway glistened with white painted walls and a gray painted floor. It was warmer here than in the rest of the ship, the rooms smaller and crowded together, appropriately silent given the late hour—during the day, conflicting music would mix in the companionway.
Storey Ming hurried toward the bow, constantly checking over her shoulder for the “whites”—the ship’s officers. She didn’t want to be paranoid, but from the moment she’d left the Radio Studio, she’d sensed she was being watched. They’d been ahead of her. Waiting for her at several key intersections. She didn’t see how that could be possible, so she chided herself for thinking it. Yet…
She entered the small berth to her left and shook awake the woman on the lower bunk, whispering, “I need your master.”
“What…huh?” The woman cleared her eyes, sitting up.
“Your master key. Please. It’s super important.”
“I can’t.”
“You’ve got to.”
“Security knows when doors are opened, and by what cards. If you use mine—”
“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t wickedly important.”
“What kind of important?”
“I can’t say.”
“Will you shut up, please!” came her roommate’s voice from the top bunk.
Storey made a face imploring her friend to cooperate, though it was so dark she wasn’t sure the woman saw it.
When nothing happened, Storey whispered, “Please!”
Her friend crawled out of the bunk. “I have no idea why I’m doing this.”
“Thank you,” Storey said.
She peered out into the companionway. Empty.
Philby, she thought. Finally!
* * *
By the time Storey Ming typed in the code to cross over Philby, Maybeck’s encounter with Luowski’s hologram was long past. Maybeck would have conveyed this in a series of texts, including what he considered the most important message: that the Base was to come under a final and decisive attack and that Wayne had to be told. But little good a waterlogged phone would do him when it came to texting. The text would have to be a phone call. He had to reach a house phone, and that meant appearing in a very public area. The only other choice was trying to get to his aunt’s stateroom—but wouldn’t Luowski and the others be waiting for him there? So a house phone it was, even knowing that security would likely spot him on camera or that one of the many officers roaming the ship would see him and escort him back to his room.
He was thinking all this when he heard a door shut far behind him. It was the second time such a thing had happened. Once might be explainable as random; twice meant he was being followed.
* * *
“Well, that’s a little late,” Finn said, sitting on the floor of the elevator car, Willa’s full attention on him.
“What?” she asked.
“It says the galleys are a trap,” he said.
“That’s news?”
“The OT server has a special cooler,” he read off his phone.
“This is from?”
“You won’t like it,” he said.
“Her,” Willa said. “Storey.”
“I know what you’re thinking. But you have to admit, we did walk into a trap.”
“That doesn’t prove anything. The server having a cooler? That could be totally bogus, and you know it.”