Kingdom Keepers VI(81)

The other two girls started running again. The platform for the first line came into view as an angular shape. Then details could be seen: stairs, the two platforms. The girls hurried up. Charlene fumbled as she attempted to clip Mattie’s harness in. It took too much time.

“Go!” She pushed Mattie off the platform. The girl flew out across the deep ravine, her flailing limbs like spider legs in the dull glow of the moon. Finally, she collected herself and moved even faster on the pulleys. The line whirred.

Charlene clipped Amanda to the line. Looking behind them, Amanda declared, “No time. Hold on.” She reached around Charlene’s waist, and her arm passed through the hologram. “I need you solid!”

Charlene was too distracted by the approaching guard. She pushed Amanda off the platform, only to realize Amanda was right: no time.

Charlene dove off the platform, out into open space. The dark ravine yawned beneath her. She flew, light as a feather. As she stretched for Amanda, her friend sparked, spit photons, and disappeared. DHI shadow. Charlene witnessed her own arm dissolving before her. But she hit something soft and clung fast to it. Amanda’s thigh.

An unseen arm scooped down and held to her.

Behind them, the first guard drew a pulley into place, and without a harness jumped off the platform, clinging to the pulley. He raced toward them.

Charlene realized that she and Amanda were slowing down.

“Our holograms don’t weigh anything!” Charlene cried out. “We’re not heavy enough to carry along the line!”

In fact, as the pulley and harness reached the halfway point on the thousand-foot stretch of cable, it glided to a stop. Behind them the cable pointed slightly up toward the platform they’d left; in front of them, it pointed up toward the platform that was their intended destination. They were stuck.

The guard flew toward them at breakneck speed. He was going to crash into the girls.

Amanda squeezed Charlene tighter. “Hold on!”

The guard never saw them. Even if he had, there was nothing he could have done about it. The collision hit him in a way it did not hit the girls because he’d had no warning. The pulleys clashed. The guard lost his grip on the pulley’s chain.

He fell.

All the pulleys started moving now, driven by his added weight.

Charlene reached, practically dove, and grabbed hold of the guard with two hands. Amanda held Charlene, both invisible, both upside down.

The man rattled off something in Spanish that must have been cursing. Seen from a distance, he was suspended in midair, about three feet below the zip line. That’s what his fellow guards saw from the platform. They began screaming. More than one crossed himself. The woman fell to her knees and clasped her hands in prayer.

Charlene tightened her grip as the man’s wrist began to sweat. He was slipping from her grasp.

“I can’t hold him,” she said, her voice cellular and electronic sounding.

The man looked terrified. First, he was being held from his death by an angel. Then the angel spoke. English! He’d always thought angels spoke Spanish.

The two girls rearranged themselves invisibly. Charlene slipped her legs around Amanda’s middle and locked her ankles. “I’ve got it,” she said.

“You sure?”

“You can let go.”

Carefully, Amanda released her hold on Charlene, feeling the girl’s legs tighten around her. With her hands now free, Charlene reached down and took the man’s other arm. Together the girls grunted and pulled him higher. Charlene transferred her grip to his torso and waist. At last, he lunged and grasped the zip line. He hooked an elbow in the dangling chain, and released a lungful of air. Saved.

His eyes shut, his lips ran through a litany of prayer.

The girls began pulling themselves uphill on the zip line. Without any physical weight, the pulley moved easily.

After a moment, the guards on the platform began hollering at their companion. He came out of his prayers, saw the pulley moving of its own accord, shut his eyes, and began praying again.

The girls climbed steadily toward the waiting platform on the other side of the ravine. They unclipped and hit the down-sloping trail at a full run. Arriving at the second station, they saw the zip line bouncing. Mattie had crossed within the past few minutes. They clipped on and sailed across, still in DHI shadow. But again, without any weight, the pulley stopped in the middle, requiring them to pull themselves hand over hand to the exit platform. It took a long time.

The guards had gotten over their prayers. They were back on the hunt. As Charlene unclipped her harness, one of the guards was already flying toward them.

“I see you!” Amanda exclaimed.

Charlene looked down. Then at Amanda. They were fully projected again.