Kingdom Keepers V (9781423153429) (12 page)

Maybeck had always felt like an outcast, partly because of his minority status, partly because he lived with his aunt, not his parents. He felt more like himself with the four original Keepers than with anyone other than his aunt. He found Jess mysterious and therefore hard to read; Amanda was absurdly smart and different in a way Finn clearly found interesting, but Maybeck couldn't get comfortable with. He'd discovered he could run an operation as long as he dropped the attitude. The Keepers didn't tolerate attitude. Now, sneaking along through shadow down the long row of workshops on the back side of the building, the volunteers—the VKKs—fell in behind him like a squad of Marines, and Maybeck took to his leadership role effortlessly. He raised his hand to slow the three, waved it forward to move them. Eyes and ears alert, he darted across the pavement to the first of the containers, his team following closely. As they reached the third container, he indicated an area at his feet by drawing a box. The first of the VKKs nodded, accepting the glue tube from him. The two others backed up ten feet, as Maybeck had instructed earlier. He gave them all a thumbs-up. They returned the gesture, signaling their readiness.

Maybeck slipped around the corner of the container—the same container that the Army Men had their backs to at the other end. He counted down from sixty, recalling the application instructions. When he reached thirty, he moved toward the Army Men, making himself obvious while trying to appear otherwise.

The nearest green man caught sight of him and slapped the arms of the others. The Army Men could not speak; they took orders, they did not give them. Their current orders were, no doubt, to take the Base, to capture any kid or any hologram they spotted. The squad took off in lockstep toward Maybeck.

Maybeck was a
Toy Story
fan. He knew the Green Army Men well, knew that a peculiar feature of the characters in the films were the plastic bases attached to their boots that allowed them to stand. Cast Members dressed as Army Men at Pixar Place in the Studios lacked the plastic bases but wore oversized boots in their place—a costume feature he was counting on.

He knew the chase would be no contest. For one thing, Maybeck was fast—very fast. For another, an army squad that double-timed in formation was no match for an individual in a footrace.

Having made sure he'd been spotted and was being pursued, Maybeck ran back from where he'd come. He turned the corner, took five strides, and jumped, tucking his knees. He landed hard, lost his balance, and rolled. At that exact moment, the Army Men appeared and charged.

Maybeck came to his feet facing the squad, his own team of volunteers perfectly in place behind him.

He counted the strides of the squad. One…two…three…four…

“Now!” he said to the VKKs.

As a group they raised their hands above their heads.

“We surrender!” Maybeck called. The pronouncement caused the squad leader to raise his hand, and he stopped the squad cold. He indicated for them to lower their weapons, as Maybeck and the others were defenseless.

Maybeck counted in his head as he said anything that came to mind. “We request to be treated as captive prisoners of war.” Nine, ten. “You will therefore allow us to notify our superiors of our situation in…”—thirteen, fourteen—“an attempt to…”—seventeen, eighteen—“negotiate an exchange of prisoners.” Twenty!

“On second thought,” Maybeck said, “maybe we'll be going now.”

He turned around, as did the VKKs, following his cue. The four holograms took off. Maybeck knew that DHI 2.0 allowed him to easily maintain his hologram state—that bullets couldn't hurt him. But he wasn't nearly as confident the VKKs could master their fear in order to maintain the quality of the projection. He was counting on a series of events to protect them all, and, glancing over his shoulder, he saw them occur as if he'd scripted them.

First, the squad leader pointed at the four kids, raising his own rifle. His five squad members followed, also lifting their guns. Next, the squad leader took a step forward—or attempted to. But his boots were glued to the asphalt, courtesy of the glue tube and the efforts of the VKKs to saturate the area Maybeck had jumped over.

As the squad leader tried to step, he lost his balance and fell forward. He planted face-first into the glued surface, sticking to it like a fly to flypaper. His squad did exactly as their leader did: raised their weapons, tried to move, and fell to the blacktop, sticking to it instantly. Their weapons adhered as well. Maybeck and the others fled back to the paint workshop to join Jess when she and her team returned from an identical mission. With any luck that would be soon, and, according to Jess's map, half the enemy would be flat on their faces, easy prisoners for park security to collect.

The ranks of the Overtakers battling for the Base had just gotten smaller.

* * *

Finn and Amanda stumbled across the parking lot, wet, weary, and wary. The summons by Ursula might have been the end of it, and it might have just been the beginning.

Finn's mother's car was the only vehicle in a lot that could hold a thousand. Finn and Amanda reached a pair of palm trees and paused. Why couldn't his mother have parked a little closer or moved the car once the party had gotten out?

“Clear?” he said.

But Amanda didn't answer. Holding back Ursula's wave had sapped all her strength, drained her to where the tube surfing and running had left her in a stupor of diminished capacities. He took one look at her and knew it was up to him to get her back safely. She was in a zone, and it wasn't a good one.

“I've got you,” he said, taking her gently by the upper arm. “Hang in there.” She'd saved his life. The least he could do was get her to Mrs. Nash's foster home safely. She tugged away from the contact—was it wrong to grab a girl by the upper arm?—but he squeezed more tightly, not letting her go. Briefly, she leaned her head against his shoulder, just to where it touched. Then she straightened back up and allowed herself to be guided across the vast expanse of open blacktop as Finn raced for the car.

He spotted his mom through the windshield. He rolled his free hand vigorously, signaling for her to start the car and get going. And yet she just sat there. The car remained silent. He opened the back door for Amanda and closed it behind her. He climbed into the front seat.

“Go! Go!” he said. “Mom! Come on!”

Mrs. Whitman reached for the ignition key and started the car.

“How did it go?” she asked.

Finn motioned out at the half-flooded parking lot. “It could have gone better,” he said. “We've got to get out of here.”

She started the car and the headlights came on automatically. Finn's mom moved the gearshift and they took off. She drove confidently, though hardly in a hurry.

“Pedal to the metal, Mom. Come on!”

“You're not in any danger from her now,” she said.

Finn missed it at first, but not Amanda. That was who Amanda was. That was partly what made her so special. Her secretive, intuitive nature, a quality of always being a step ahead and yet right behind you.

“From who?” Amanda said.

Or maybe it was the result of her sitting in the backseat, of her having a good view of the car's rearview mirror. Of spotting something about his mother's face that Finn had not spotted.

“From Ur—” Finn said, turning to look back at Amanda, wondering how she could be so tired as to have forgotten the last twenty minutes. But Amanda wore a worried, severe expression. Finn caught himself mid-syllable.

Her…
His mother had said “her.”

Mrs. Whitman glanced over at her son, adopting a forced smile that Finn interpreted as meaning one of two things: either she was furious and trying to contain herself because Amanda was in the car, or she was trying to slip something past him. These were the only two alternatives. Between mother and son sometimes words weren't necessary at all.

They reached the end of the access road into Typhoon Lagoon, where it met Lake Buena Vista Drive. Cars were streaming out of Downtown Disney, the Cirque du Soleil show having just concluded. Headlights shone into Finn's car so brightly that he looked away from them, averting his eyes and looking directly at his mom. She too recoiled from the glare, holding her hand up to screen her face.

Amanda reached forward and took Finn's arm the same way he had taken hers minutes earlier. She squeezed hard. For she'd seen what Finn had seen.

This woman's eyes were green.

His mother had blue eyes.

There are times a laptop computer or smart phone will pause for no reason—just hang as if taking a little longer than usual to think through a mundane instruction. Finn's brain did just that. It did not jump to conclusions. It did not instruct him to open the car door. It did not suggest an exchange of expressions with Amanda. It froze, stunned.

It must be a trick of the light, his brain said. It must be those new halogen headlights, or the vapor lights in the parking lot, or possibly something to do with the angle of—he had to reach back to science class—infraction?
refraction
? of light distorting under the effects of a lens. It wasn't that his mother's eyes were suddenly green; it was a trick, a special effect.

But then his logic was challenged by his physical senses. However it might be explained, his mother's eyes were currently green. It didn't matter how many cars passed—that wasn't going to change.

The traffic light turned green.

“Now!” Finn said, yanking on the door handle while releasing his seat belt.

To his great relief Amanda was, as usual, a step ahead of him and already out of the car.

Neither bothered to shut the doors. Instead, they took off at a full sprint down the sidewalk, Amanda suddenly possessed with strength again, though her adrenaline faded fast, and Finn took her and pulled her along with him.

“How did that happen?” Amanda choked out.

Finn couldn't answer. He didn't want to reveal the tears choking in his throat. His ally at home. The one person he felt he could trust above all others, even Wayne. His own personal rocket scientist who happened to cook him meals and tuck him in at night. Sure, she could be a pain in the butt—she was his mother.

He couldn't go home. His own mother was an OTK, but not a kid, an adult, so more like an OTA. Maleficent had stolen his mother from him.

“It's not possible,” he said.

“Maybe we got it wrong,” Amanda said, trying to cheer him up as they darted across the wide boulevard and onto the grounds of Downtown Disney. They could catch a bus to the Transportation and Ticket Center. They could make a plan. They could figure something out.

They both knew the truth. No matter how Amanda tried to comfort him, such a thing wasn't possible.

He was alone. Willingly or not, his own family had joined the other side.

F
inn spent the night with Dillard Cole, his closest friend outside the Keepers.

Before he finally fell asleep, he tried to make sense of his mother's green eyes. He cried at the thought of what his mother must be going through while under some spell. Seeing his mom as his enemy took some getting used to. He seethed with anger—hatred—for the Overtakers and everything they represented. How dare they drag his mother into this (even if Finn had done so in the first place)? How dare they compromise her? He wondered where she was. Still sitting in the car? Parked outside their home? In bed sleeping? One thing was for sure: it would take Finn's father about a month to realize the color of his wife's eyes had changed––he seemed oblivious to those things.

As he drifted off to sleep, he saw a vision of his mother waiting outside Dillard's house like a predator awaiting its prey. A mother, her son.

He awoke with a start at five a.m. from a bad dream. He snuck back out Dillard's window. His mother wasn't there. He crept up the street. A dog barked loudly from within one house, causing Finn to jump. He took off running. His once peaceful neighborhood felt like a dangerous place now. Even the smallest of sounds sent ripples of terror through him. Finally arriving at the McVeys' house, across the street from his own, he kneeled in the dim shadow of a bush and studied his home. He waited a full five minutes for any kind of movement inside. The horizon was dull with dawn, the overhead clouds beginning to warm with color. The air chilly. The grass wet.

He found the hidden key, let himself into the garage, and a moment later he led his BMX quietly up the drive, climbed on, and pedaled off.

* * *

Amanda was drawn to the window. She would later tell Jess it had just been blind luck that she'd spotted Finn across the street from Mrs. Nash's, but that wasn't entirely true. Something had compelled her to peer behind the blind that always hung over the bedroom window. She couldn't describe exactly what it was, but it was undeniable. A force of some kind. Like gravity pulling her. To him.

There had been a time when she'd thought he was cute. Then came interesting. Then, intriguing. Beguiling. Now it was something compelling. Forceful. Chemical. The evolution of her feelings might have told her something except that she'd never experienced them before. The caterpillar doesn't know it's going to be a butterfly; it just happens.

She couldn't forget about the kiss. The power it had instilled in her to hold back the wave. How could such a thing happen? She'd been totally out of energy at that point; on the verge of giving up. And then his kiss, and all her power returned. And more. Maybe it had been the shadow of the kiss that had drawn her to the window.

Jess joined her.

“That's strange,” Jess said.

“Yes.”

“Has he ever done that? Waited there like that?”

“No,” Amanda answered.

“You think something's wrong?”

She told her about Mrs. Whitman's eyes and Finn's inability to return home.

“What's he going to do if he can't go home?”

“The cruise,” Amanda answered. “The inaugural. They leave today. The five of them.”

“So he's here to say good-bye?” Jess said.

“How should I know?”

“I thought they go with their parents?”

“Yes. Supposedly. Knowing Finn, he'll find a way around that.”

“Can he do that?”

“Wayne can.”

Jess nodded.

“Are you going out there?” Jess asked. “You could tell him about…you know.”

“I'm not going to tell him. That's the point of a guardian angel. And I'm not going out there until we all leave for school. Are you kidding me? Mrs. Nash would kill me.”

“But he looks so…I don't know…empty.”

“He does, doesn't he?” Amanda said, sounding sad.

“We should smuggle him some food.”

“We need to get on the ship with them,” Amanda said.

“That's ridiculous! As if! Mrs. Nash would—”

“Never know.”

“It's a two-week cruise! How are we supposed to disappear for two weeks and…” But Jess caught herself. “Seriously?” she said.

“Why not?”

“We'll be super tired,” Jess said. “Besides…we already took care of this.”

“But they don't know her. She doesn't know them.”

“So the OTs can't possibly make a connection. It's perfect.”

Amanda shook her head. “Think about it! We can sleep during the day.”

Jess nodded thoughtfully. “You've thought this through, haven't you?” She hesitated and looked back out the window. “It's not just saving the parks anymore, is it? For you, I mean.”

“Maybe not.”

“When did you know?” Jess asked.

“I'm not sure about anything.”

“I think it's very cool, the two of you.”

“There is no ‘the two of us.'”

“You sure?” Jess said.

Amanda blushed. “I told you! I'm not sure of anything.”

She couldn't leave Mrs. Nash's early without raising suspicion. Getting showered and eating breakfast (two Nash requirements) seemed to take forever. Finally it came time for the girls to head to their school buses. Amanda met Finn on the sidewalk.

“Hey,” she said. “Rough night at your friend's?”

“Did you get in trouble?” he asked.

“No. Jess covered for me.”

“We leave today.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Two weeks.”

“Fifteen days. But who's counting?”

“Wayne warned us—”

“I was there, remember?”

“I thought we could Skype, maybe. There's Internet on the ship.”

“Sure.” Mrs. Nash's house had two computers on the first floor shared by eleven girls. They were dinosaurs, but one had been rigged with a camera and worked with Skype. You had to sign up on a clipboard to get fifteen minutes on the machine. Girls traded chores for extra Skype time, turning the minutes into a commodity. Amanda knew it was highly unlikely her minutes would ever link up with Finn's cruise schedule, but she wasn't about to be negative.

“And maybe…I mean if Jess dreams anything out of the ordinary…”

“I'll email you.”

“Perfect.”

“You okay? About your mom, I mean.” She wanted to give him a hug. He looked frail. She didn't have a mother, had never known her parents, but she could nonetheless imagine how seeing his mother with green eyes must have shaken him up.

“I guess.” Finn looked back at her like a lost puppy. “Don't miss the bus.”

“I'm fine. It's you I'm worried about.”

“Don't be,” he said. “It's a spell of some kind. The kids in school with the green eyes? Also a spell.”

“It explains a ton of stuff.” She counted on her fingers as she elaborated. “That maybe joining the OTs wasn't voluntary like we thought; that the stuff they do isn't really them doing it all; that there's somebody running around doing this to people, including to your mother.”

“Maleficent,” Finn hissed. “I hate her. I'm going to kill her for this.”

“Be careful she doesn't use that as a weapon against you.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, clearly angry.

“How do we know what she had planned for your mother? What if it's nothing more than to scare you, to freak you out, to tick you off?”

“Then she succeeded.”

“That's my point.” She could hear him breathing hard. “Finn?” She'd never seen him quite like this.

“How do we change her back? What if—?”

“I know where you're going with this, but you can't think like that. We've done things that seemed impossible before.”

“We haven't cast spells! Not that I remember!”

“Don't be mad at me! I didn't do this.”

“You led them there!”

“What are you talking about?”

“How do you know you didn't lead the OTs to the park?” he asked accusingly.

“Because I didn't.”

“And you know that how?”

“I can't believe you'd even think that! I was not followed. I was insanely careful about that. If anything, it was you and your mother. It's your family car, Finn. You think the OTs don't know what car your mother drives?”

“I think everything was all right until I heard you back there following me. Why'd you do that, anyway? Why didn't you tell me you were in the park?”

“Because of the rescue dummies.”

“You saw them, I suppose?”

“Yes. I saw them. I stayed back.”

“So…if you saw them, why didn't you warn me?”

“How was I supposed to do that? Shout at you? Fire a flare? Scream?”

Finn leaned into the handlebars. “I don't know.”

“I can't believe you'd think that,” she mumbled. “I was trying to help you.”

“And how'd that work out?”

She stood up straight, her eyes stinging. “I think you're tired.”

“Tired of being tricked. Tired of being lied to.”

“You can't possibly mean that.”

“Can't I?”

“We were nearly killed!” she reminded.

“I was there,” he said.

“I saved you! Us!”

He rocked against the handlebars. “I…know,” he said. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

“You think that I faked all that?” She had trouble speaking between her heavy breaths. “Seriously?”

“I don't know what to think.”

She marched off, the tears starting to fall, her belly feeling like he'd punched her. Please don't follow me! she willed.

But there he was, pedaling idly at her side.

“Go away!” Her choked voice betrayed her. She wanted to run.

“Amanda.”

“Don't!”

“I'm leaving,” he reminded. “Today.”

“Then leave. Go.
Go!
”

He applied the brakes and stopped. She continued forward. The most difficult steps of her life.

“Amanda?” he called out.

She wanted so badly to turn around and throw herself into him, to put the past few minutes behind and start all over, but her feet wouldn't stop walking. She thought that this was where real life diverged from the way it happened in movies. Real life didn't always work out. The sad truth was—and she knew this—that she didn't know enough about boys and the way she felt about Finn to know what to do.

No matter how much her life felt like fiction at times, it was anything but. She'd been abandoned. She'd been found. She'd run away and been found again. Up and down. In and out. The last two years with the Keepers had been so totally unreal—so wonderfully welcome—that they couldn't have been made up. Now she and Finn were breaking up when they hadn't officially been going together in the first place. How was she supposed to make sense of any of this?

She tried to turn to look back at him. Her brain wouldn't allow it. Foolish stubbornness on her part, or did he deserve it? They'd been through a rough night together. That's all it was, she told herself.

“That's all it is,” she repeated aloud, drawing curious looks as she approached the bus stop.