Kingdom Keepers VI(46)

Having briefed the captain, having put them off to random chance—bad luck, something no captain wanted to hear—Uncle Bob now doubted his own explanations. It was one thing to say that blue-sky lightning had struck the Disney Dream; but combined with the bird attack, the boys’ explanation made more sense than he wanted to admit.

The DHIs had an underground reputation for trouble—company-wide, the various security heads were regularly updated about their activities. Bob knew that there had been skirmishes of some sort outside the Engineering Base in the Studios; he had been told these involved the DHIs.

Accepting the reports as factual was another matter.

And yet, coincidence was no longer a viable explanation. It seemed quite possible, even probable, that the Kingdom Keepers were under attack.

Bob couldn’t explain it; he didn’t want to think about it. He felt foolish for even considering it. But he had no choice. Maleficent’s video warning on the first day of the cruise seemed to be coming true. Who would have thought?

The sighting of two Mickeys at once—impossible! The likelihood of a stowaway? It was all fitting together. The duplicate Mickey had been mean to several kids—an attempt to discredit the character.

As far as Bob was concerned, his ship was not getting taken over by anyone. If he had to give credence to what the boys had told him, then so be it.

Find the stowaway, interrogate him or her, and maybe, just maybe, he would get his ship in order.

To this end he dispatched every available member of this team. Bob had far-reaching powers aboard the ship. With the captain’s blessing—and he had it—he could deploy a veritable army.

Members of his security team were sent to once again search areas of the ship for Chernabog or “anything else of a suspicious nature.” All Cast Members and crew were reminded to keep watch for unusual activities or individuals. No one was beyond reproach. Uncle Bob wanted this trouble over with.

“What about working with laundry?” Clayton Freeman had come up quickly through the ranks of security. At twenty-four, he was the youngest deputy director in the cruise line’s history. Bob had come to trust the young man’s “out of the box” ideas.

“I’m listening,” Bob said.

“Two suggestions. First, we ask laundry for a full inventory. It’s all computerized anyway. What’s missing? What sizes? What gender? We know that’s probably a big list on any given day, but with the new incentives to turn in your dirty laundry—”

“I like it,” Bob said. “They can also tell us who hoards their laundry. If we take those people off the list, maybe we get a missing costume or two, and at least that would tell us the kind of outfit the stowaway could be wearing. What’s the second idea?”

“All our costumes and uniforms carry RFTs.” Radio frequency tags were tiny computer chips used on the Dream to track everything from small children to laundry. “If we add the RFT identification numbers for all missing laundry to the Cadet Monitoring System…”

Bob gasped. He got up, walked over and shut the door to his office.

“What you’re suggesting… It’s a violation of privacy.”

“Actually, it’s not. The Oceaneer cadets already wear wristbands that contain RFTs.”

“I know. But we do not employ the Oceaneers.”

“So? An RFT is an RFT,” Clayton Freeman said. “We reprogram the computer with the laundry codes.”

“We would end up with thousands of data points of our crew and Cast Members moving around the ship. So what? It’ll just be a pile of useless data. Besides which, the CMS sensors are only on a couple of decks where the cadets spend time. Mainly, Deck Five.”

“Yes, but there are others as well: Six, Eleven, Twelve. And don’t forget, the monitoring points record the time. Each Cast Member, each crew member can be tied to a particular costume. Those costumes are only supposed to be on a given deck when those people are on duty.”

Bob looked as if his eyes might pop out of his head. “Someone who’s wearing a stolen costume or uniform would have no way of knowing what hours that laundry belongs in service.”

“Bingo,” Freeman said. “And the system would catch them. At which point, we could track them, and we’d have our stowaways.”

“Can we do this, Clayton?”

Freeman looked back at his boss as if to say, Would I have brought it up if I didn’t think we could do it?

“I want this on the QT,” Bob said. “The crew gets wind that we’re tracking their movements around the ship, and the union   will have my head.”

“Understood.”