Kingdom Keepers VI(74)

“They’re not going to find him.”

“Don’t say that, Willa!” Kenny complained.

Charlene jumped up and fought the oncoming traffic to reach the front of the bus. Willa and Kenny watched as she spoke to the crew member leading the excursion. The exchange grew heated, Charlene’s face turning scarlet. Charlene tried to leave the bus, but the crew member stopped her, turned her around, leaned in and spoke to her privately for what felt like a minute. Charlene’s body language changed—her shoulders sagged, her head rocked forward. She trudged back to join them.

“We can’t stay to look for him,” she said. “The park is closing, and we’re not allowed inside. If we miss the bus, we miss the ship. It leaves as soon as we board.”

“So we just give up on Dillard?” Kenny sounded ready to cry.

“I wouldn’t say that.” Willa closed her eyes, trying to make sense of the plan already forming in her head. She smiled wryly. “We’ve been in other parks when they’re closed.”





“YOU’RE BORING ME with all this tech stuff.” Charlene shifted uneasily from the couch of the unused stateroom. “Can we, or can’t we, cross over and try to find Dillard? And no more about DHI shadow and projectors and the difference between 1.6 and 2.0. Please!”

The Disney Dream should have been moving smoothly through the three-foot seas up the Pacific coast. There were still days at sea ahead, with stops in Mexico, and finally, Los Angeles. The Panama passage was nearing its end.

But the Dream was still tied to the dock in Costa Rica. The people in this room knew why: Captain Cederberg didn’t want to leave without Dillard. The time was fast approaching when he would be forced to set sail in order to make the next port on schedule, but for now he awaited word from his shore party about the missing boy.

“It’s complicated,” the real Philby said.

“I still can’t believe you guys went along with the switch,” Willa complained.

“We didn’t go along with anything!” Finn said, too loudly. “They locked us in a conference room! They tricked us.”

“Because Wayne told them to,” Philby said.

“Why would he do that? How could he do that? How could he possibly put Dillard—of all people, Dillard!—in a situation like—”

“Because you’re more valuable,” Philby said.

“Dillard’s a person!” Finn pounded the bed with his fist. “No person is more valuable than another! Wayne would never do that!”

Philby looked smug. “He did it. So we need to get past this. We need to find Dillard.”

Finn spit out a word he never used. A hush hit the room. None of the Keepers had ever heard Finn swear. He blushed, but didn’t apologize.

“We are not leaving Dillard behind,” Finn said.

“Of course we’re not,” Philby said.

“So! Before you get started,” Maybeck said, cutting Philby off, “can you possibly give us the DHI-for-Dummies version? Charlie’s right: the Mission: Impossible thing is boring.”

“It comes down to this,” Philby said, looking disap-pointed and embarrassed. “I can cross us over here on the ship. We will walk off the ship and into DHI shadow.”

“So we’ll be invisible.” Finn’s voice rang with impatience. “That could be good.”

“Correct. But it’s also tricky. The network down here will not support 2.0, so we’d default down to 1.6. We can’t just randomly go wherever we feel like; we have to stay within range of modems and cameras in order to—”

“B…o…r…i…n…g!” Maybeck made them all laugh.

“It’s dangerous, okay?”

“And that’s supposed to be something new?”

“Technically dangerous. Not physically dangerous. There’s a difference. A moving ship. A dicey Internet connection. No decent projection system. I had about twenty minutes to research this. I need a couple of days.”

“We don’t have that,” Finn said. “We need to make the decision. Go, or no-go?”

“I’m going,” Kenny Carlson said. “I let this happen. No way I’m sitting around here.”

“I could be of help as well,” said Storey Ming.

“You’d have to be in the system,” Philby informed her. “You’d have to be programmed into the system and that can take—”

“I am.”

“The DHI server,” he said, “not the ship’s passenger manifest.”

She gave him a look that caught and won the attention of everyone present in the room.