Kingdom Keepers VI(2)

When a hologram’s projection failed, it fell into what the Keepers called DHI shadow. The result was invisibility, which in certain instances could be a good thing. Not so much when you were nearly drowning, and the only hope for survival was steaming away at eighteen knots.

“Your hand!” Finn called, reaching for Willa. “Before we’re gone!” Then, when she didn’t react instantly: “Come on!”

Again, he amazed himself by how strongly he swam. A Florida boy, Finn was no stranger to water—but since when could he swim like a lifeguard?

Willa’s hologram had lost its density and was porous, like sand spread loosely over a floor. It had lost its third dimension as well; she looked like a pixelated, digitally enlarged photograph. The final stage before invisibility.

“Reach!” Finn shouted. His voice sounded like a bad radio signal, scratchy and popping with static. Desperate, he plunged his face into the sea and called out, “Starfish wise, starfish cries!” a phrase he’d been given to summon King Triton, who’d saved Finn once before.

Striking out blindly in the water, Finn felt his hands catch Willa’s. Finn squeezed hard, then walked his fingers up to Willa’s forearms so that they held each other’s wrists—a stronger “fireman’s” grip.

“You okay?” he said, but it came out, “oo…ay?”

Finn turned his back to Willa and pulled her hands around his neck so that she rode on his back like a cape. She held tight; he felt her soft cheek pressed against his neck. He swam. Swam hard. Kicking and pulling through the sea, more like a machine than a man. Finn supposed this crazy strength had something to do with his exposure to a massive jolt of electricity just before he’d jumped. He’d been in the ship’s engine room. A world away from here.

But he didn’t much care about the source of his power, only its efficacy.

Finn’s progress was admirable, his churned wake joining the wide white strip of aerated seawater thrown out by the ship’s propeller. The water sparkled and fizzed like a freshly poured soda. Viewed from overhead, Finn and his passenger were invisible, not even a speck in a strip of sea paved flat by the passing of a hundred and thirty thousand tons of steel.

“…invis…” Willa said. Or tried to. “D…sh… dow.”

Finn didn’t bother trying to answer, saving his energy for his breaststroke. If he could get close enough to the Dream for his hands to start flashing, however faintly, his voice would likely return.

But that was the problem—as hard as he was swimming, they weren’t catching up. Not even close. Granted, Finn had slowed the rate with which the Dream pulled away, nearly matching the ship’s forward progress. But he wasn’t gaining on it. Not an inch. And if he eased back at all, the ship visibly pulled farther away.

He knew what had to be done. Knew the one chance they had. The likelihood of drowning was slim, given the state-of-the-art software upgrade running their projections—DHI 2.0. But it hardly mattered. If they remained invisible, lost at sea, their human bodies would stay asleep on board, unable to awaken. They would be locked in what the Keepers called “Sleeping Beauty Syndrome,” or SBS—a hologram no-man’s land where their sleeping bodies never woke, and their hologram projections could not be reached.

King Triton’s code offered the promise of rescue, but Triton’s agents could not rescue what they could not see. He and Willa had to move closer to the Dream. But how?

“F…thhh,” Willa said. Choking Finn with her left forearm, she tapped him on the shoulder with her right hand, forcing him to look back. He saw something no thicker than a tree branch sticking out of the water, moving quickly toward them, cutting a fine wake to either side.

A fin? A shark? The object sparkled as it caught starlight from a dazzling sky. A pipe. A periscope—an old, rusted periscope moving very fast and coming right for them.

Captain Nemo? Finn wondered.

Finn uttered a series of wet burps and patted Willa’s arms, indicating: Hold tight. Then he swam hard—straight for the periscope, now eight to ten yards to his right. He had to time it perfectly; he could ill afford to undershoot or overshoot his target.

The approach of the periscope—its sudden appearance out of nowhere—seemed to suggest it was part of a rescue attempt. Arranged by Wayne? How could he know of their predicament? They’d only been in the water a matter of minutes. Had the sub been following the Dream all this time?

Or was this a result of his calling for King Triton’s help, as he’d been instructed?

Finn calculated his position, adjusted with a swift backward flutter kick, stretched forward, and grabbed the briskly moving periscope with both hands. His arms felt like they would tear from his shoulder sockets. The submarine was moving much faster than he’d imagined.