Kingdom Keepers IV (9781423152521) Read online

  Philby then turned his attention to Mr. Chambers, knowing Hugo would open a drawing program when he was supposed to be creating a PowerPoint. As Mr. Chambers reached for his computer mouse, suggesting he’d spotted Hugo’s divergence from the assignment and would therefore briefly only be monitoring Hugo’s activities, Philby made his move.

  Already wearing a headset for the sake of his own PowerPoint assignment, Philby accepted the invitation to the online video chat.

  The pop-up window grew in size and a fuzzy video image appeared.

  Philby brought his fist to his mouth to muffle his own gasp. Although difficult to see clearly, the white hair and cool blue eyes revealed the identity of the caller: Wayne.

  The Keepers had neither seen nor heard from Wayne in several months—not since his hospitalization following the Fantasmic! adventure. He was believed to be in hiding, keeping himself out of the hands of the Overtakers, who would use any means necessary—including torture—to obtain the top-secret location of their captured leaders, Maleficent and Chernabog, or possibly to obtain other secret information that the creator of the Kingdom Keepers possessed.

  “Are you secure?” The old man’s voice was steady but troubled, even as heard over the static-ridden poor connection.

  “Not exactly, but I’m okay for a couple minutes,” Philby whispered.

  Wayne knew more about the behind-the-scenes operations at the Parks than any other Disney Imagineer. He had helped to create a new hologram technology, had recruited Finn, Philby, and the others to model for what would become hologram guides in the Parks—Daylight Hologram Imaging, or DHI. The new holograms were an instant success. Families could be toured through the Parks by a talking teenage guide who was nothing but light, yet looked and sounded absolutely real. Park attendance jumped. Tourists traveled from around the world to see the new Disney phenomenon.

  But Wayne and his Imagineering colleagues had advanced the DHI technology so the five students who’d modeled for them could also “cross over” into the Parks as holograms when they went to sleep at night. Once in the Parks, the DHIs could spy for the Imagineers or battle the Overtakers for control of the Parks.

  A call from Wayne could not be taken lightly.

  Philby had so many questions he wanted to ask: How had Wayne managed to breach the school’s computer security? Why would he risk contacting Philby in this manner? When had Wayne gotten out of the hospital? Where was he now? Did his call have anything to do with Maleficent or Chernabog? But time was precious; he kept his mouth shut and listened.

  “As you know, these are dangerous times,” Wayne said. “Dangerous times require risk taking. My daughter, Wanda, whom you’ve met, has been my eyes and ears of late. She has been extremely busy carrying on my work—our work. But something has happened. She has been jailed by the police.”

  Philby wanted to cry out, but he held his tongue.

  Wanda arrested?

  “I need Finn to offer bail for her release. This will require an adult, and we know Mrs. Whitman to be…supportive…of our cause. Wanda knows things that you five must know. Must act upon. Quickly.”

  The Evil Queen, Philby was thinking. Cruella De Vil. It’s happening again.

  “Tonight the five of you must be in Norway’s Stave Church at eight pm. Not your DHIs, but your real selves. A picture is worth a thousand words.”

  “I have so many questions.”

  “Prepare for remote access to the server. You may need it,” Wayne said. Philby knew this was a call to battle.

  Since Maleficent and Chernabog were imprisoned by Disney, Wayne’s concern suggested that the Over-takers had reorganized. But if Wayne was risking breaching the school’s computer security, it implied something else as well.

  “You believe they’re monitoring our home computers,” Philby said, guessing.

  “You see why I contacted you? You understand the bigger picture. Finn is the natural leader, but you, Philby, are the navigator. Steer Finn in the right direction and he will lead you well.”

  The Overtakers were spying on them. It gave him the chills. He’d been IMing with Willa on a regular basis, writing stuff he didn’t necessarily want anyone else seeing.

  “Never underestimate their capabilities,” Wayne said. “We all have learned that lesson too many times.”

  “Where are you?” Philby blurted out. “Are you all right?” Wayne looked old and tired. He must be worried sick about Wanda, Philby thought.

  “Unimportant. Do as I say. Do what I ask. Good luck. We’re all counting on you.”

  The window went black, the connection lost.

  “Mr. Philby?” It was Mr. Chambers from the front of the class. He was not in a charitable mood.

  Philby slipped off the headset expecting suspension and possible detention.

  “No videos. You know the assignment. Voice is okay. No video.”

  Philby realized that Mr. Chambers so trusted the school’s firewall that he couldn’t for a moment believe that anyone had managed to breach it. He must have assumed that the video on Philby’s screen was something Philby had created.

  “Sorry, Mr. Chambers.”

  Philby and Hugo met eyes, and Philby thanked him with a quick nod of his head. Hugo smiled and went back to work. He could see the curiosity on Hugo’s face—he wanted to know what had required the diversion. Philby would have to invent a pretty convincing story: Hugo was not easily fooled.

  Philby’s heart raced. Wayne. Wanda. The Stave Church. The Overtakers were reorganized, still out there.

  For the past several months he and his friends had not worried about such things. They’d actually had lives again.

  But now, in a few short minutes, all of that had changed.

  Again.

  * * *

  Philby compartmentalized his ideas. His mind worked like a filing cabinet. He held ideas in drawers, opening one or two while closing others. He didn’t think about it; it just happened. Once he had hung up from the chat with Wayne, he put all those ideas into a drawer and slid it shut, marking it as urgent. He’d been able to go about his classwork. But now, while other kids occupied the time between classes with hallway chitchat, Philby concentrated on the contents of that mental filing drawer. He made a list of what had to be done and in what order, with an emphasis on efficiency.

  First, he would text Finn about Wanda. Next he would send a group text to all the Keepers about meeting at the Stave Church at eight pm. Then, once home, he would take his laptop over to Hugo’s house to get off his home network, where the Overtakers might be monitoring him. He would access the DHI server remotely and lock it down, making sure there was no chance that the Keepers might cross over unexpectedly after going to sleep. Crossing over was not the danger; it was getting stuck as a DHI, failing to come back, what the Keepers called the Return.

  Philby spotted Willa up the hallway. In that instant, he became just another ninth grader with a crush. She was standing at her locker, one hand on its metal door, the other at her side while staring into space. He suddenly tensed. His legs felt like lead.

  He recalled the exact day this change in his attitude toward her had occurred. They’d been sitting at a table at the Marble Slab with the other Keepers when he’d been overcome with a feeling of curiosity. It was something he still didn’t understand. But what it amounted to was: he wanted to be around her, to know more about her, to spend time with her. She was smart, funny, and thoughtful. Maybe not drop-dead pretty like Charlene, or the brooding kind of beauty like Amanda, but interesting-looking. Intriguing. More important to him was that they thought the same way. Often came to the same conclusions without any kind of communication. Like they were connected.

  “Hi, there,” he said, reaching her locker.

  “You ever know you’re looking right at something but can’t see it?” At the moment, Willa was looking right at him.

  “Yeah, I suppose.”

  “My sheet music is in here somewhere.”

  One thing on which t
hey differed: she kept her locker a mess; his was neatly ordered. He studied her locker carefully, reached in and withdrew the sheet music. Her eyes filled with appreciation.

  “You’re awesome!” she said.

  He wanted to hear her say it again.

  “Wayne just video-chatted me in the lab,” he told her.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I’m not kidding.”

  The locker door slammed into place and she locked it. Philby could sense both Willa’s apprehension as well as her misgivings. He could see her think. She had an intensity that he totally got.

  “But that’s not possible,” she said.

  “I know. Isn’t it cool?”

  “It had to be some kind of trick. The school’s firewall—”

  “—was breached. Wayne breached it.”

  Spencer Randolph was staring at them from across the hall. A gifted athlete and popular tenth grader, Spencer always seemed to be hanging around Willa.

  “Don’t look now,” Philby said, trying to make it sound like he didn’t care, “but Spence can’t take his eyes off you.”

  “He always does that.” Willa blushed. Philby didn’t like seeing her blush over Spencer Randolph. She looked back at Philby. “Why would he do that?”

  Philby felt confused: Because you’re smart? Because you’re a Willa kind of pretty? “He probably wants to go out with you,” he said.

  “Wayne, stupid!” she said. “Not Spence. I know all about Spence.”

  “You do?” How had he let that slip?

  “Why would Wayne go to all that trouble just to get a message to you?”

  “That’s the thing,” he whispered. “He said it had to be here at the school, that it couldn’t be at my home, or Finn’s, or any of ours because he thinks the OTs are monitoring our home computers.”

  “What!? But we…I mean, you and me…” Willa stammered.

  “Yeah, I know. We have to stay off our computers. And no crossing over. Who knows what they’re planning?”

  “Just when I was starting to feel normal again.”

  “Yeah, I was thinking the exact same thing.” He added, “Normal, if you overlook that when we go to sleep we wake up in the Parks as our holograms.”

  “We’ve all been overlooking that for a couple of years now. I don’t even think about it, you know? It’s just…a part of me.” Willa added, “We need to tell Amanda and Jess as well.” The Keepers had applied the hologram technology to Amanda and Jess months earlier. Philby could remotely cross them over as DHIs as well. But this meant they were now at risk along with the other Keepers. It didn’t seem exactly fair.

  “Yeah. They’ll need to know.” Philby told her about the Stave Church at eight pm. He left out the part about Wanda for now. He wanted Finn to deal with that, as Wayne had asked. “I’m going to text the others, not IM. We have to assume that whatever we do online from home could be monitored.”

  “That’s way creepy,” Willa said.

  “Yeah.”

  “But what about texting?”

  “Probably safer than anything on the Internet. I don’t see the OTs hacking Verizon.”

  “No. That’s true.”

  The hallway bell rang, signaling another class for both of them.

  Spencer had not gone away. The longer he stared, the more Philby felt like kissing Willa right there in the hall for everyone to see. Not that he would ever do it.

  He shook his head and coughed out disgust at himself.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  Philby wounded her by saying that. Hadn’t meant to. He longed for a rewind button, another chance to say something different. But Willa was already on her way down the hall, her back to him. Spencer peeled himself off the wall and came up alongside of her, and Willa’s step seemed a little lighter.

  Philby stood there watching, sick to his stomach.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” Finn blurted out as he climbed atop his BMX bike. It wasn’t just any bike, but a trick bike capable of doing stunts and jumps. Being on the bike gave him a height advantage over Charlene, which he appreciated.

  “You don’t have to sound so pleased,” she said sarcastically.

  “I didn’t mean…It’s just that Evans High—”

  “Happens to be playing your school in soccer today,” said Charlene.

  “I didn’t think soccer had cheerleaders.”

  “Am I dressed like a cheerleader?” In fact she wore tight jean shorts and an equally tight T-shirt. “Where are you headed?” Charlene asked.

  “I’m going to see Wanda.”

  “I kind of figured that. Mind if I hitch a ride?”

  The bike was small. Finn had ridden with Amanda before—on the seat behind him, while he stayed up on the pedals—but it felt a little weird to offer the same thing to Charlene.

  “I don’t bite,” she said when he hesitated.

  “No problem,” Finn said, glancing around in the mass of kids, hoping Amanda wasn’t among them.

  Finn climbed off, helped Charlene on, and then straddled the bar. He rode away quickly. The message from Philby had injected a sense of panic in him. Wayne. Wanda. The police. He pedaled hard.

  “We’re meeting my mom. Only adults can bail someone out of jail,” Finn said.

  “And your mom agreed?”

  “We’ll see.”

  “You haven’t asked her?”

  “Not exactly.” He changed subjects. “You got Philby’s text about tonight?”

  “Yes,” Charlene said. “Do you know what it’s about?”

  “Only that Wayne told us we had to be there at eight.”

  “Why?”

  “No idea.”

  “What do you think he wants?”

  “It’s got to be important,” Finn answered.

  “Do you know what he told Philby, exactly?”

  “Why all the questions?” Finn asked. Charlene never asked so many questions; she was more of a “tell me what to do and I’ll do it” person.

  “I don’t know. Curious, I guess. Am I asking a lot of questions?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe I’m nervous,” she said. “I talk a lot when I’m nervous.” She put her hands on Finn’s hips to steady herself on the seat.

  Now he was nervous, too. He kept glancing back, worried that Amanda would see them despite the fact he was now several blocks from school.

  “We’re not supposed to use our computers at home,” he said.

  “Yeah, I got that,” she said. “Hey, how come Wayne contacted Philby instead of you?”

  Another question.

  “I don’t know. I don’t have computer lab the way he does. I suppose that could be it.” But it bothered him much more than he let on. Wayne referred to him as the leader; Wayne usually contacted him, not Philby. Was his leadership role of the Keepers in jeopardy? Had he done something wrong?

  “What do you think it all means?” she asked. “Wayne contacting Philby. Wanda getting arrested. I thought with Maleficent and Chernabog locked up this stuff wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “It wasn’t,” he said.

  “So?”

  “So I guess things never go as planned.”

  * * *

  Finn’s mother was an actual rocket scientist. She’d eventually left NASA to raise Finn and his sister, the dual commitment proving to be too much, but she remained the smartest woman he’d ever met. And the fairest. Whereas his father got angry and upset about Finn’s escapades as a Kingdom Keeper, his mother, a huge fan of everything Disney, supported Wayne’s effort to keep the magic alive in the Parks. What was to Finn’s father a silly ambition fraught with physical danger and risk was to his mother on the level of national importance. Because of this, he had recently opened up to her more, sharing the challenges the Keepers faced, sometimes even asking for her help. This was one of those times.

  Mrs. Whitman, currently a brunette, was thin, happy-faced, and athletic. She hardly w
ore any makeup. Her shoes were what she called “practical” and her earrings “artistic.”

  “Bailing someone out requires money,” she said from the other side of the kitchen counter. Finn and Charlene were both eating bowls of breakfast cereal.

  “I know that. I’m sure Wayne will pay you back.”

  “And a bail bondsman. You put up a small amount and the bail bondsman promises the rest. It’s complicated. If the person misses her appearance in court, then the bail bondsman loses his money, and in this case, we would have to repay him.”

  “She won’t miss anything,” Finn said. “Please, Mom.”

  “It would mean taking money out of our savings. Your father would never approve of such a thing.”

  “But if Wayne repays you, it’s only gone for a day or two. Right?”

  “If he repays me, yes. But you’ve no way to reach him. Correct?”

  Finn hung his head shamefully. “Yeah.”

  “In two weeks the bank statements will arrive. By that time we have to have the money back in the account.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to do it?” Finn didn’t even try to contain his excitement.

  “Not a word to your father,” she said.

  * * *

  The sign out front read: city of orlando, police headquarters. It was a normal-looking office high-rise. Finn, Charlene, and Mrs. Whitman checked in at a lobby reception desk and rode the elevator.

  It was not the dismal, smelly, dimly lit space that Finn anticipated from television, but instead, more a combination of post office and doctor’s office. There were some decent chairs to sit in, copies of newspapers and magazines. The overhead lighting was bright, the smell not nearly as bad as he’d expected.

  A man in uniform sat behind a window of thick glass. He looked pleasant enough.