“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 wore 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.
Finn’s mother spoke to him for several minutes. She handed him stuff from the bail bondsman, filled out something on a clipboard. Showed her driver’s license. It reminded Finn of her returning shoes at Nordstrom, or paying for an oil change.
“We can’t get her out tonight,” Mrs. Whitman reported to Charlene and her son. “Some problem with the courts. I can return tomorrow morning. Tuesday at the latest.”
“She has to stay here?” Finn said. “That’s terrible.”
“She’s going to make bail,” his mother said. “It’s just delayed a little. But we’re allowed to see her.”
Finn felt a huge weight lift. “YES!” he said, fist-pumping. “You are totally awesome!”
If Mrs. Whitman could have floated off the floor, she might have. “Come on. What are you waiting for?”
The three had gone through security to enter the building, but they were put through it again before entering the jail. The room they were shown to was plain. It looked like a very small version of their school lunchroom with six green plastic picnic tables bolted to the floor, overhead tube lighting, and lots of acoustic tile.
Wanda looked older than Finn remembered. She wore an orange jumpsuit with orlando city jail written across the front. Her hair was stringy. She’d been crying.
Finn, his mother, and Charlene sat on the bench facing her. A guard stood just outside the door.
“So, how are you?” Finn asked.
Wanda smirked, her twisted smile telling him more than he wanted to know. “Been better,” she said.
“We’ve posted bail,” Mrs. Whitman said. “Tomorrow sometime, I’m told.”
“Thank you so much, but I wouldn’t count on it. I’ve been told by the attorney they appointed that they may try for Homeland Security charges. That’s probably why the delay.”
“What did you do?” Charlene asked.
Wanda lowered her voice. “My father has me monitor bandwidth usage on the DHI server, the same way Philby sometimes does.”
Finn nodded. If bandwidth usage surged, it meant extremely large data packs were moving in and out of the DHI servers. That, in turn, meant someone was crossing over or Returning. Wayne watched for unusual or unexpected bandwidth usage as a warning sign of possible Overtaker interference.
Wanda said, “There has been some unusual activity: data surges late, late at night. A spike at one point from the Animal Kingdom server. Others as well. We knew something was going on, we just didn’t know what. So I hacked one of Disney’s multi protocol routers. If the Internet is the information superhighway, I hacked a major intersection, a truck stop. That’s probably why the Homeland Security charges. It’s kind of like hacking Google or Microsoft.”
“But you work for Disney,” Finn said.
“That just makes matters worse. I look like a disgruntled employee.”
“Oh, my,” said Mrs. Whitman.
“I came away with more questions than answers. What seemed to be happening couldn’t possibly be happening. I needed more data, more time to drill deeper. That was when I was arrested, in the middle of all that. It was only then I realized that I’d probably been set up. That I’d walked into a trap.”
She looked each of them in the eye, making sure they understood the earnestness of what she was about to tell them. “Our friends,” she said, meaning the Overtakers, who weren’t their friends at all, “knew that if they made enough noise on the DHI servers it would attract our interest. Mine. Philby’s. Someone’s. They could then alert the authorities, who would follow the data mining back to its source and arrest whoever was messing around-in this case, me. That would then mean that I’d need to be bailed out, and who would bail me out?”
“Wayne,” Finn answered. “Wait a second! Are you saying it was all a way to make Wayne show himself?”
“To draw him out,” Wanda said, nodding. “That’s my guess. A father’s first instinct is to save his children. My dad nearly came here. If he had, he’d never have made it through the doors. They’d have had him out front. I’m sure of it.”
“So he contacted Philby in order to not come here in person,” Finn said. “I made him promise not to come,” Wanda said. “Was the Internet stuff you turned up for real?”
Charlene asked. “We won’t know without more tests,” she answered, “more investigation.”
“Do you know where your father is?” Charlene asked.
More questions, Finn thought. He said, “That’s none of our business!”
“It is, if the police are going to torture her or something,” Charlene said.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Charlene,” Mrs. Whitman said. “That kind of thing only happens in movies.”
Wanda and Finn exchanged a questioning look.
“We’ve got to get you out of here,” Mrs. Whitman said.
As the bus from the Transportation Center rolled into Epcot, Finn spotted a pair of crash-test dummies-CTDs-on Segways patrolling the parking lot and pointed them out to Jess. Moving her dark hair off her face to get a better view, Jess’s features reflected off the bus window. She had a teardrop chin with full lips and wide-set eyes. She changed her hair color-which had turned horse-tail white after an encounter with Maleficent-several times a year. She pointed out the Segways to Amanda.
The overhead monorail line divided the enormous parking lots; the lane beneath it was used for the parking lot shuttles and as a pedestrian walkway leading to the Park’s front gates.
A fun distraction for Park visitors, the CTDs-on-Segways were known to the Keepers as possible soldiers for the Overtakers. Some were nothing more than Cast Members in CTD suits, acting out a part. But others were robotic drones armed with high-tech detection and surveillance equipment outfitted with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Originally, these had been introduced to Epcot by Security-an effective and inexpensive way to patrol the Parks during regular hours and after closing. Their popularity had led to the Cast Member variety-CTDs that would talk and interact with the visitors. But somewhere along the line, the Overtakers had managed to electronically hijack control of at least a half dozen of the robotic variety. Seeing them now so close put Finn on guard.
“Well, if they’re looking for you, they’ll never spot you,” Amanda said.
“Not with you looking like that, they won’t,” said Jess.
Finn wore an Orlando Magic jersey with a heavy chain around his neck, a Yankee cap sideways on his head, and mirrored sunglasses. His shorts went below his knees and he wore basketball shoes with Nike socks. There were probably a few hundred boys just like him in the Park at this very minute.
“You look sooooo stupid,” Amanda said, prompting a laugh from her and Jess.
“Good,” Finn said. It was true, he looked like an idiot, but that was the point. If he happened to be recognized in the Park as a Kingdom Keeper he’d be hounded for autographs; if he was hounded for autographs he’d win the attention of Security; if Security caught him or any of the Keepers in the Park without approval, his family could lose their Golden Mickey Pass-or worse-Operations Management could bring the hammer down. It was one thing to attend a school function in Downtown Disney, but something else entirely to be in Epcot without asking permission.
Operations Management did not want Park visitors seeing both the DHI hologram guides and the real-life models for the DHIs in the same Park at the same time. Finn and the four others were under contract not to visit any of the Parks without prior approval-approval they currently lacked.
“Plus, you’re hanging out with two gorgeous girls,” said Jess, striking a pose. “So we know who everyone will be looking at.”
Jess was typically more modest than this. The comment from her drew a shrill laugh from Amanda. They seemed to be having more fun than he was.
“We need to keep our eyes on them,” Finn warned. “Seriously.”
“Okay. We get it,” Amanda said.
He’d ruined the moment. He wanted to kick himself.
Entering Epcot, they passed beneath Spaceship Earth-which looked like an elevated giant golf ball-reaching the fountain plaza where a computer-controlled water show ran. It could mesmerize visitors for hours at a time. Pavilions rose on both sides: The Land, The Seas with Nemo & Friends, Test Track. Beyond the plaza was the fifteen-acre lake surrounded by the World Showcase pavilions, each representing a different country and duplicating its most famous architecture: the Eiffel Tower in France; a Mayan temple in Mexico.
The autumn Food and Wine Festival was under way. Special booths offered food and drink. The mood was even more festive than usual. The place was packed. At a few minutes before eight pm, the sun set. The IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth show would take over the lake-and the entire Park-before long. There was a buzz in the air.
For Finn, the buzz felt more like fear. Seeing Wanda locked up had upset him. The idea that the Overtakers had tried to trick Wayne out into the open worried him. They were planning again. They were up to something. With Wayne in hiding and Wanda in jail, it fell onto him and the Keepers to figure out what was going on, and to stop whatever was planned. The only timetable was right now.
Finn, Amanda, and Jess arrived at Norway’s Stave Church just behind Philby and Willa. The steeple on the dark brown wooden church rose forty feet in the air, while the interior space was quite small, a closeted, museumlike space.
The walls were dark wood, the ceiling, vaulted. The five displays depicted various scenes or famous people from Norway’s colorful history. There were descriptive plaques alongside each.
The three girls drew together in the far corner and immediately began talking the way girls do. Finn and Philby were left alone.
Philby reviewed everything he could recall about the video from Wayne; Finn detailed the visit with Wanda.
“A trick?” Philby asked.
“That’s what she thinks.”
“Makes sense.”
“Yes, it does,” Finn agreed.
“I wish she’d told you more about the data bursts.”
“I knew you were going to say that,” Finn said. “You are so predictable.”
“It’s what I do,” Philby said, unapologetically.
“What could it mean?”
Philby shrugged. “All sorts of things. But it’s kind of random that she’d hack a bank of Disney routers. That’s like hacking the streetlights at an intersection. No wonder she’s in trouble.” He mulled it over. “What’s interesting, I suppose, is why she’d bother in the first place. Those big routers…I suppose if you wanted to determine where the packets were headed…the firewall logs might be all you’d need.”
Finn lost him for a minute while Philby was doing the math in his head.
“Listen, there’s one other thing before she gets here,” Finn said.
“Charlene,” Philby said, naming the only girl not there yet.
“Yeah. I know this doesn’t make any sense, but she designed our ride. She gave us the card.”
“Do you know what you’re saying?”
“Yes. Of course I do. And look, was it her alone? No. But that’s even more disturbing. And today, she just materialized at school. Said she’d ridden over with the Evans soccer team. She’s been asking all these crazy questions.”
“This is Charlene we’re talking about!”
“I know!” Finn said. “That’s what got me! Since when does she ask a dozen questions in a row?”
“Since never.”
“But she did today. She was like Sherlock Holmes or something.”
“You can’t accuse her. Not without evidence. It isn’t fair. We just don’t do that.”
“I know,” Finn said. “I get that. But I wanted you to know. Only you.”
“So I should keep an eye on Charlene.”
“That’s all I’m saying, yeah.” Finn added reluctantly, “Not that I like it.”
“No. It’s ugly.”
“Speaking of ugly…” He told Philby about his seeing Cruella De Vil on the phone outside Disney Quest and how out of place it seemed.
“This is beginning to feel like a parallel universe,” Philby said.
“Right?” Finn said.
Philby reached out and touched Finn’s shoulder. “Just making sure we’re not holograms,” he said. Both boys laughed.
A father and son entered. The son was carrying a Kim Possible cell phone. The Kim Possible quest was an interactive mystery hunt where the participant joined a popular cartoon character’s pursuit of bad guys. The phones gave clues and could lead you all over the Park.
The boy searched the church and apparently found the answer in a display description that his father helped him to read. The boy squealed and pushed a button on the device. The phone gave him his next location. The two left without having paid any attention to the five kids.
Maybeck arrived out of breath. He looked around the small area, making sure they were alone. He said hello, and then, “Did any of you see the CTDs out there? There was a pair trying to follow me. I lost them, but they were zoned in on me.”
Appraising Maybeck, Finn said, “Not the best disguise I’ve seen.” Maybeck liked the fan attention-loved it, was more accurate-and rarely changed his appearance. He wanted to be recognized. He wanted to be mobbed.
“I’m kind of hard to miss,” he said.
“You reap what you sow,” Willa told him.
“Where’s Charlene?” Amanda asked, looking past him.
Philby and Finn exchanged a curious look.
Maybeck said, “She stopped to get us some food. I’m starving.”
“It’s eight o’clock,” Philby said.
“So what? I can’t be hungry at eight o’clock? I’m hungry all the time! I have a big appetite.”
“I wouldn’t mind something,” Jess said. “That dinner tonight…” she said to Amanda.
“Mrs. Nash’s tamale pie is basically microwaved dog food with boxed gravy and Doritos on top,” agreed Amanda.
“Gross!” Willa said.
“You should be in the same room with it,” said Amanda.
Maybeck said, “I don’t think we should hang here too long. Not only are there cameras all over this Park-right, Philby?-but I wouldn’t be surprised if those CTDs circle back and come looking for me. We’d actually be safer out there with the mob lining up for the fireworks.”
“I love the fireworks,” Amanda said.
Willa said, “So, why are we here, anyway? What’s going on? Do we even know why Wayne wanted us here?”
“Not yet, we don’t,” Finn answered. “What we know is that the OTs are active again.” He told them about the jail visit with Wanda.
Philby tried to explain what Wanda might have been doing hacking the servers. “Disney has an elaborate set of firewalls in place. Think of it as one of those European fort walls around all of Disney World’s data lines. One you can’t climb. One with gates too strong to bust through-”
On cue, the door banged open. Charlene entered, struggling to balance a stack of small plastic plates, all holding food. Everyone hurried over to help her. Shortly thereafter, lips were smacking loudly.
“So,” Finn said to Philby, “you were saying?”
“The point is, the firewalls log any ‘events’-that is, attempts to breach them. There are subnet masks, ISP numbers, all sorts of data that can be traced and used to track down where the attack came from and who was behind it. If I’m Wanda, that’s what I’m looking for: the person behind the data bursts.”
“And if you’re the OTs?” Charlene asked.
“If I’m the OTs and I’m attacking firewalls,” Philby said, “then I’m either looking for a way in or a way out. A way in would give me access to other Disney data-”
“Like the location of where Disney might lock up certain other Overtakers,” Maybeck proposed.
“Like that, yes. Or, you remember how we used the changes in temperature inside pavilions to try to track Maleficent? That kind of record would tell them everything they want to know.”
“Energy use,” Willa said.
Philby smiled. He loved the way her mind worked. “Absolutely. Disney has to keep Maleficent cold. They’re not going to mistreat her, and she needs cold to survive. That would require more energy. That’s a number, something easy enough to uncover. Those kind of records could be hacked.”
“They’re going to bust Maleficent and Chernabog out,” Maybeck said, speculating. “It’s a jailbreak.”
Silence.
Philby began nodding. “Nicely done, Terry.”
“Could it be?” Charlene asked.
“It makes total sense,” Willa said. “They’re trying to gather enough data to locate where Maleficent and Chernabog are being held. At the same time, they know that’s going to attract our attention-Wayne, Philby, Wanda…someone. When that happens, they have a backup plan to lure Wayne out into the open and kidnap him. Maybe they want information from him, maybe they want to trade him for Maleficent and Chernabog, but it’s all directed at the same goal.”
“Freeing the boss,” Maybeck said.
“And with Wayne in hiding and Wanda out of the way-” Willa said.
“It’s up to us,” said Finn, prompting another heavy silence.
The church door pushed open. A girl and her parents entered. They were also on the Kim Possible quest. The Keepers scattered, pretending to be interested in the various displays.
The mother and father looked on as the girl read a plaque, looking for the same clue the boy had earlier. Her father complimented her as she identified the king in question.
“Check the A box,” he said.
“I know, Dad,” the girl complained, a little snotty. “Are you going to let me do it, or not?”
He stepped back and the girl worked the phone. Then she stopped and looked across the room, her curious eyes finally settling on Finn.
She tentatively crossed toward him, her father keeping an eye on her.
“I’ve played this game, like, six times,” she said, addressing Finn shyly, her parents now nearby. “But this is the coolest yet.” She handed Finn the Kim Possible phone. He accepted it reluctantly. She hung her head slightly, embarrassed. “I recognized all but those two,” she said, pointing to Amanda and Jess, “when we came in.” Her parents looked around, not having a clue who the kids were. “I didn’t want to bug you.”
“I…we…all of us appreciate that,” Finn said.
“Is this a friend of yours, dear?” the mother asked skeptically.
“Oh, Mom…come on! These are the Kingdom Keepers. You know…? This is, like, the most awesome Kim Possible ever!”
Philby said, “We’re not actually part of-OWW!” Finn had elbowed him.
The girl pointed to the phone in Finn’s hand. “Read it!”
Finn read the message on the phone’s small screen:
Hand your phone to the nearest Kingdom Keeper! Press “OK” to continue.
Finn reread the message twice. Wayne’s reach inside the Parks never failed to amaze him.
Maybeck came over and read the screen. “What if when you push OK it sends our location to our other friends?”
“I kinda need my phone back,” the girl said.
Finn pushed OK. The screen changed.
Go to the KP cart in Norway. Tell them you’re my friend.-W
Press “OK” to continue.
Finn pressed OK.
Hand the phone back to the guest.
Press “OK” to continue.
Finn pushed OK and returned the girl’s phone to her. Before leaving she asked everyone to sign her Epcot map. Bounding with excitement, she left with her parents.
When they were alone again, Finn said, “We have to trust it. This is why we’re here.”
“It could just as easily be a trap,” Maybeck warned. “Wayne gave us all phones,” he reminded. “If he wanted to contact us, wouldn’t he just call us or text us? Am I missing something? Why bother with the Kim Possible thing?”
Charlene said, “We won’t know until we try.”
Willa said, “He is always paranoid about the OTs eavesdropping. When he puts us on a quest, it’s to tell us something that no one else could figure out.”
“I volunteer,” Charlene said, raising her hand. “I’ll do it.”
“Amanda and I could do it,” Jess said. “We aren’t Kingdom Keepers. We wouldn’t raise any suspicions.”
“She’s right,” Philby said.
“And if it’s a trap,” Finn said, “then they catch the wrong people and who knows what that means?”
Charlene said, “I thought you were the one trusting it?”
Busted.
“I said, ‘I volunteer,’ ” Charlene reminded.
“I’ll go with you,” Finn said.
“But if they catch you…We can’t let them catch you,” Amanda said.
Some suppressed smirks. It was the Amanda-and-Finn show. For all to see. Including Charlene, who looked away.
“Finn’s the only one of us that can all-clear with any consistency,” said Charlene.
“I know,” Amanda said. “I’ve seen him do it.”
With Greg Luowski, Finn recalled. He’d suckered Luowski into taking a swing at him, while Finn was briefly transformed into his hologram. No one had explained the science behind how Finn was able to briefly transform himself into pure light-what he and the others called all clear; he supposed it made him part Fairlie like Jess and Amanda.
He supposed that all clear was a state where mystical, metaphysical elements met the physical sciences. It worked two ways: Finn, as a mortal boy, could on occasion concentrate to where he suddenly turned into a hologram. It only lasted a short amount of time-his record was eighteen seconds-but in that state he could walk through walls or take a punch, because technically he didn’t exist as anything but light. The second way was more difficult for parents and even Wayne to understand: a hologram was nothing but light. When projected or crossed over into the Parks as DHIs, the kids were technically nothing but light. But fear removed their state of purity. If, as a DHI, one of them became afraid, that hologram lost a percentage of data, depending on the level of fear. That resulted in a DHI that was part mortal, part teenager, part hologram, and therefore vulnerable to being wounded or captured. Finn had perfected a kind of visualization-a train coming at him from down a dark tunnel-that helped him achieve all clear, pushed him into that state of invulnerable light. It was a useful, even necessary tool, and one he’d been coaching the others to learn how to do.
“And while you two are out playing games, what are we supposed to do?” Maybeck asked, clearly complaining. “I’m not hanging here. I’m not big on churches.”
“You’ll divide into groups-split up between Norway and Mexico on either side of us,” said Finn. “You watch for crash-test dummies. Text me if you see any. Charlene and I will do the Kim Possible quest and let you know what we find out. Amanda and Jess, stay with us to make us a bigger group. That way it’s less likely we get spotted as Keepers.”
Maybeck said, “You look so stupid, Whitman.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“At least he tried for some kind of disguise,” Willa said.
Philby said, “It’s a good plan. Let’s get going.”
Philby and Willa headed for China. After more discussion, Maybeck went by himself into Mexico.
An announcement filled the loud speakers: the fireworks were set to begin.
A wooden cart sat tucked into a dark corner of the terraced path between Norway and Mexico, pushed against an island of trees and bushes. The Cast Member attending the unmarked cart wore a Kim Possible Adventure T-shirt. Finn, Charlene, and the sisters approached the overweight man, waiting for a small boy and his father to return their Kim Possible phone.
“W sent us,” Finn told the Cast Member.
“Okay.” The man had a gruff voice, unexpected of a Cast Member.
“We’re here to do the adventure,” Charlene said.
“I was told you would have two initials for me,” he said to Finn. This had Wayne’s DNA all over it.
“K.K.”
“Can’t be too careful,” the guy said.
He rifled through some phones in the cart’s drawer and handed one to Finn.
He launched into a memorized explanation of the game. Finn and the other three listened intently. Didn’t miss a thing.
“Any questions?”
“I think we’ve got it,” Finn said, checking with his friends.
“Off you go. Return it here, please. I’d tell you to enjoy yourselves, but I’m not sure that’s appropriate.”
The phone’s screen told Finn to step away from the cart and to press OK.
The crowds for the fireworks clogged the pathway encircling the lake, forty people deep. The Park music charged the air with excitement.
Finn pressed OK.
The cartoon image on the screen of Kim Possible changed to a photograph of a tree. A written message read:
Go to this tree by the bakery café and press “OK.”
“Where is it?” Finn said, spinning around.
“There!” Amanda and Charlene said at the exact same moment, both pointing.
“Okay. But let’s not advertise,” Finn said.
The girls lowered their arms.
Once at the tree behind the café, Finn pushed OK.
The tree began speaking. Or at least it seemed so real that Charlene jumped back. Finn felt shivers run up his arms as an old man’s voice-a voice he knew to be Wayne’s-spoke to them from a speaker in the shrubs designed to look like a rock.
“We all need a waiter now and then,” said the voice. “Some can get a waiter’s attention faster than others. This can have disappointing results.”
As Finn slapped his pockets hoping to find a pen, he noticed Jess already scribbling on a piece of paper. Jess carried a pencil and paper whenever she was inside the Parks. She had previously had daytime “dreams” or visions of the future here while awake. She came prepared. Her uncanny ability to dream about future events had earned her a place as a Fairlie alongside “sister” Amanda. That power was corrupted and nearly harnessed by Maleficent, who’d put Jess under the effects of a horrible spell, which brought her together with Finn and the Keepers when Amanda had sought their help to free Jess of the spell. Now, the Keepers benefited from her unique ability; on more than one occasion the Keepers had used a Jess diary page to “see” an event before it happened. They’d learned to pay strict attention to anything she sketched.
The phone’s screen said to press BACK to hear the message a second time. Finn pressed the button. Jess continued writing.
“Got it,” she said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Charlene asked.
“We keep going. You know what he’s like,” Finn said.
The screen on the phone changed. An animated Kim Possible said, “Find a friend around front. Push OK and watch what he does.”
Again, a photo appeared. It showed two garden gnomes and some shrubs. They located the identical setting just inside the Norway plaza, past the Stave Church.
Finn pressed OK.
The gnome spun around, his backside facing them. Finn pressed OK and the garden sculpture pivoted to face them again. He triggered the phone to repeat the effect.
“Whoa!” Charlene exclaimed. “Way cool.”
“Please write it down,” Finn said to Jess.
Charlene leaned against him from one side; Amanda the other. A Finn sandwich.
A cartoon of a dorky kid appeared on-screen. He said that Kim Possible had identified a signal post and that she needed their help in locating it. If the enemy saw that signal, they were told, bad things might happen.
“Is that supposed to be some kind of code?” Charlene asked.
“Don’t know,” Finn said. But he was thinking, So many questions from her.
The camera offered another photograph. The four of them returned to behind the bakery. Jess, with her keen artistic eye, found the scenery that matched. She positioned them all with their backs to the bakery patio and pointed to their right where the building ended at a knot of rocks and foliage.
“Go ahead,” Charlene said. “Try it.”
Finn pressed OK.
Nothing happened.
“Try again,” she said.
“Up high,” Amanda said. She knew better than to point and attract attention. One by one the other kids saw it: a red, triangular flag popping up from behind a wrought iron lamppost each time Finn pushed BACK. The flag reappeared and sank.
“Better write it down,” he said, but Jess was already on it.
The Kim Possible character reappeared on the phone and told them how well they were doing and that they had one last clue to find.
Another picture.
Charlene spotted the location immediately: it was a rock face on the way back to the Kim Possible cart where they’d started.
The screen read: Push “OK” to have your picture taken.
“I don’t know about having your picture taken,” Amanda said.
“It’s telling us to do it,” Charlene pointed out. “We’ve done everything so far.”
Finn said softly, “Maybe it’s a way for Wayne to see that it’s really us. That we’re the ones on the adventure.”
“That makes sense,” Jess said. “It should probably be just you and Charlene in the picture.”
“Agreed,” Finn said. “You and Amanda keep an eye out, while Charlene and I do this.” His personal phone vibrated in his pocket. He read the text. It was from Maybeck.
CTDs on Segways headed this way.
“Crash-test dummies,” Finn said. “We need to hurry.” Finn texted back:
Diversion needed.
His phone buzzed back.
No prob
He and Charlene hurried out in front of the rocks and Finn pressed OK.
The cartoon character’s thin voice told him to face the lake and press OK again when he was ready to have his picture taken.
He had no idea what might happen. A trap door? A net falling from the trees? With everyone’s attention now focused on the lake, anything could happen to them and it would go unnoticed. If it was a trap, it had been cleverly planned. He and the others had walked right into it, eyes open.
His thumb hovered over the phone’s OK button.
He pushed OK.
A bright light flashed quickly from within the bushes.
Finn believed this to be part of the trick-to blind them while someone attempted to capture them. He bumped his shoulder against Charlene and reached down and grabbed her hand.
But no one came charging toward them. Finn spotted Amanda looking back at them, and immediately released Charlene’s hand.
Return the phone to get your photos.
Press “OK”
Finn pressed OK and was told what a great job he’d done for the Kim Possible team. How they couldn’t have done it without him.
Jess and Amanda joined them.
Amanda said, “Did you see Maybeck? He was running through the crowd, a pair of crash-test dummies after him.”
“Did they catch him?” Finn asked, anxiously.
She pointed. The CTDs stood well above the crowd on their Segways. But they were barely moving because of all the people. Maybeck had led them past Norway and had to be way ahead of them by now-a good job of creating a diversion.
Finn and the girls reached the Kim Possible cart.
The Cast Member greeted them. “Have a good quest?”
“I guess,” said Finn, returning the phone.
“Here’s your picture,” the man said, pointing out the snapshot pinned to a corkboard.
As all three girls stepped up to see it, the Cast Member blocked Finn from joining them and slipped something into Finn’s right hand. Slippery paper. Photos-Finn could tell by the texture. He stole a glance at the first of the photos but slid them into the only pocket in his absurd gym pants as the Cast Member shook his head, suggesting Finn wasn’t to share these.
The image on the photo hit him hard: the Evil Queen somewhere in DisneyQuest. She was standing in front of four students: two girls, Greg Luowski, and a boy wearing a striped T-shirt, whose face couldn’t be seen because of the Queen.
He’d only seen it for an instant, but there was no question in his mind of what he’d seen. The Queen was talking to the four kids and, more importantly, they were listening.
It hit him like a slap in the face. He had to show it to the others. He simply had to. But the Cast Member had warned him not to. Worse, he still didn’t know what was on the second photo. He needed a minute by himself.
“I gotta go to the bathroom,” he told the girls, as they turned from the posted photo.
“I don’t get it,” Charlene said. “So what if our picture was taken? What’s it mean?”
“This is yours,” the Cast Member said. “I hope you enjoyed your mission and will join us another time.”
Charlene accepted the photo, though unhappily. “Can’t you wait?” she asked Finn. “I don’t think we should split up just now.”
Sticking together was his rule. “Yeah, okay. I’ll text the others. We’ll meet at the ice cream place by the fountain. There are rest rooms near there.”
“Why meet? Why not just go home?” Charlene asked.
“The mission is over, so we’ve been given all the pieces,” Finn said. “We need to figure out what it means while it’s still fresh in our heads.”
“But those guys are out there buzzing around looking for us,” she said.
Finn already had his phone out and was sending a group text.
“Ice cream,” he said.
Maybeck was the last to reach the ice cream parlor. The other kids stood at the counter. The fireworks show continued, so they owned the place. Even so, they kept their voices low between greedy bites of mint chip, cookie dough, and royal fudge. If there was one thing the Keepers could agree on, it was eating vast amounts of ice cream.
Finn wasn’t sure the others noticed Jess sketching on a napkin as the discussion began with Maybeck’s heroic description of eluding the crash-test dummies.
“We need to figure out the Kim Possible mission,” Charlene said, still edgy.
Finn looked at her differently now. He’d been to the bathroom, and he’d dragged Philby with him. There he’d taken out the two photos and, for the first time, taken a good look at both.
“That’s Sally Ringwald,” Finn said, naming a girl who went to Winter Park. “And that’s-”
“Luowski,” said Philby, who knew about the bully.
“Talking to the Evil Queen.”
“I don’t recognize the second girl-maybe Maybeck or Charlene knows her. What’s the other photo?” Philby asked, for Finn had kept it tucked below the first.
“Who knows if we can trust these pictures?” Finn said.
“Are you going to show it to me or not?”
“I just think we have to keep open minds.”
“Come on! You know me.”
Finn peeled away the first photo revealing the second.
The photo was actually two images divided by a black line. Both black-and-white, they appeared to be freeze-frame photographs taken from a Security video. On the left, it showed Charlene entering a rest room-time and date stamped as the night before while they’d been in DisneyQuest; to the right, was the Evil Queen entering the same doorway.
“Twenty seconds later,” Philby said. “Charlene was still in there.”
“We don’t know that,” Finn said.
“Of course she was! Who can pee and wash her hands in less than twenty seconds? She obviously met with the Evil Queen, just like these other kids.” Philby looked back and forth between the various shots. “The question is not whether she saw the Queen; the question is why haven’t we been told about it?”
“We can’t jump to conclusions.”
“Who’s jumping?” Philby said. “Number one: she’s been acting weird. Do you deny that?”
“No,” Finn said, unhappily.
“Number two: she’s been asking a ton of questions, just like a spy would.”
“I know.”
“Number three. She volunteered to do the Kim Possible thing with you. Now, I’m not saying she doesn’t volunteer to do stuff with us, but when she does it’s always-I mean always-something physical. Something gymnastic or athletic. That’s her talent. It’s not to solve a mystery. That’s Willa’s turf.”
“Yeah,” Finn said.
“She was in the bathroom with the Evil Queen.”
“Yeah,” Finn agreed, reluctantly.
“Why?” Philby said.
“It was after that that she got weird.”
“Yes, it was,” Philby said. “You’re right. So another way to look at this is that the Queen met with her, not the other way around.”
“Meaning?”
“She cast a spell on Charlene.”
“To spy on us.”
“Maybe on the other four, too. Luowski and everyone.”
“Maybe.” Finn wasn’t easily convinced that Greg Luowski could be a victim.
“So Charlene starts asking all these questions and acting weird.”
“It makes sense,” Finn said.
“So we’ve got to break the spell,” Philby said. “Ten times out of ten, when it comes to breaking a spell put onto a girl, you break it by kissing her.”
“Not me!” Finn said. “If I kiss Charlene…I am not doing that!”
“Amanda.”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, well I don’t exactly want Willa to see me do it.”
“You and Willa?”
“This is news to you?” said Philby.
Finn shrugged.
“That just confirms what Willa says: that boys don’t get any of this stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“You see?” Philby said. His eyes shifted left and right.
“Maybeck!” they both said at once.
Back in the ice cream parlor, Finn saw Philby pull Maybeck aside and whisper to him. Maybeck’s face crunched like a crushed paper bag.
“First,” Finn said to the girls, in part to keep them from noticing Philby’s whispering, “was the waiter.”
Jess read from her notes: “‘We all need a waiter now and then. Some can get a waiter’s attention faster than others. This can have disappointing results.’”
“Then the garden gnome,” Finn said.
“The gnome turned around,” Jess said, “then turned around again to face us.”
At this point, Maybeck and Philby joined the group again. Maybeck flashed Finn a look impossible to interpret. Was he going to kiss Charlene or not? Finn couldn’t tell.
“Then the flag,” Amanda said.
“A red, triangular flag,” Jess added.
“And then the photograph,” Charlene said. “But what’s any of it mean?”
The girls all looked to Philby.
“As to the first,” Philby said. “There aren’t any waiters at the Norway bakery. It’s a cafeteria with outside seating.”
“We didn’t look inside,” Charlene admitted. “Maybe we should have.”
“Waiters deliver menus, food, and drinks,” Professor Philby said, breaking the clue into smaller pieces. Philby was more like a college student than a freshman in high school. “What else? They take stuff away after we’re through.”
“The bakery sells all sorts of stuff,” Maybeck said. “Meals, desserts, drinks.”
“Just deserts,” Willa said. A brainiac like Philby, Willa understood language the way he understood anything technical. “What if it’s a play on words? Wayne does that kind of thing. ‘Just deserts’ is with one s. It means ‘giving people what they deserve.’ Maybe the clue has something to do with giving the Overtakers what they deserve.”
“That’s way too random, even for Wayne,” said Maybeck.
Heads nodded in agreement.
“But a play on words isn’t,” Philby said, sticking up for Willa. “When I was washing my hands just now-you know those signs telling employees to wash their hands?-well, some wise guy had crossed out ‘Cast Members,’ and had written, ‘Servers.’ It’s not ‘waiter,’ but ‘server,’ ” Philby said. “We all need a server now and then. It’s server, not waiter. ‘We all need a server now and then. Some can get a server’s attention faster than others.’ It’s a computer server.”
“That works!” said Willa.
“Wayne knows I’ve messed with the DHI server before,” Philby said.
Amanda said, “So the full translation would be: we all need a DHI server now and then.”
“Yes,” said Philby.
“You guys and who else?” Amanda asked.
“The OTs,” Maybeck said. He looked cruelly at Charlene. Finn thought he was the only one to pick up on it.
Willa said, “And the gnome turning around like that?”
Jess read from her notes. “The exact mission was to ‘find a friend around front.’”
“A friend spinning around?” Charlene asked.
“Not spinning,” Philby said, “A friend…turning his back on you.”
“Or hers,” Willa said innocently. “A friend betraying you.”
“Us,” said Maybeck, still fixated on Charlene.
“A red flag,” Amanda said. “The flag was red.”
“A red flag means something you need to notice,” Willa said. “Something you shouldn’t miss.”
“That everyone needs a server,” Philby said, “and that a friend has turned his or her back on us.”
“We’ve been betrayed?” Willa gasped.
Charlene said to Maybeck, “Quit staring at me. Why are you doing that?”
Finn caught himself holding his breath. Maybeck and his big mouth could ruin it all now. Finn caught a look from Philby-he was thinking the same thing: It’s now or never.
Maybeck said, “I’ve just never seen you prettier.”
Willa giggled. Amanda and Jess watched intently as Charlene blushed and said, “Seriously? Terry? What’s with you?”
Maybeck took another step toward her while maintaining constant eye contact. This was Maybeck-the-mouth in action. The self-proclaimed chick magnet trying to prove himself.
“I don’t know if it’s the lighting,” he said, “but you look like an…angel. Like a movie star. Like one of those girls on the front of a magazine-the ‘it’ girl, the girl everyone wants to be. The prettiest, smartest girl in the room…”
“Terry?” Charlene said again, her voice quavering.
He was a single step away from her now as he stopped.
“One memory,” he said, “is all I ask.” He reached up and cupped her head in his hand, his thumb stroking her ear. She tilted her head slightly toward his hand. Her eyes looked sad and happy at the same time.
Charlene, her voice strong once again, said, “I mean, come on!” She pushed Maybeck back with both hands. “You really think that stuff will work on me?”
The other girls erupted in nervous laughter. For a moment they’d seemed so close to a kiss. Amanda was blushing. Jess returned to her sketching, her head down, giggling.
Finn could see it was a face she was drawing-an upside down face-of a boy or a man. She hadn’t put on the finishing touches yet. He couldn’t be sure. But in the back of his mind a small voice asked: Who?
It was the Keepers’ policy to leave their phones on at night. Parents rarely approved of that policy, and so each of the kids had come up with his or her way to get around the objections. Finn put his into vibrate mode and left it on his side table on a piece of aluminum foil, so that if it vibrated, the aluminum foil would rattle enough to wake him. He was a heavy sleeper. He didn’t know what tricks the other Keepers had come up with, only that if called at night they answered.
He answered his on the fourth metallic buzz as the vibrations lifted the phone and carried it close to the end table’s edge and a possible tumble to the floor.
“What?” He whispered into the phone, having already seen Philby’s photo and name on its screen.
“Problems.” Only Philby could sound like a male librarian at one AM.
Finn rubbed his eyes with his free hand, scrunched his pillow behind him, and sat up in bed. “This had better be good.”
“I know you hate technical explanations, so I’m not sure where to start.”
“Maybe start with the problems.”
“I monitor bandwidth usage, as you know. The same thing Wanda did, but I don’t go hacking Internet hubs. The DHI server. Our DHI server. All it takes is the ISP and-”
“You’re right: forget as much of the technical stuff as possible.”
Philby cleared his throat. “Let’s put it this way: because I have the port address to the DHI server now, I’m able to direct what Park we land in when we go to sleep. You and I can go to the Magic Kingdom, while Willa and Maybeck go to Animal Kingdom. The only catch is the Return. We have to be together for the Return.”
“You woke me for a history lesson? I know all this.”
“Finn, I woke you because we had a spike in traffic volume about ten minutes ago. My laptop wakes on network usage. I have it alarmed. I got woken up by that traffic surge. It was a major hit. A DHI for sure.”
“I thought you controlled that,” Finn said. “I thought we only crossed over when you wanted us to. I don’t get it.”
“Exactly! I do! But if Wayne or another Imagineer wanted us over there, then that’s what would happen.”
“Wayne? You think it’s Wayne?”
“I didn’t know what to think. So I called you. It’s Charlene, Finn. The graphic tag-the hologram’s ID-is Charlene’s.”
For Finn it was almost as if her name was echoing over the telephone line. In fact, it was nothing but a little bit of static. “It would have to be her, right?” he said sarcastically. “The Evil Queen?”
“Wayne’s Kim Possible thing warned us about the server. What if the OTs have control of our server?”
Finn didn’t answer, his heart racing. Only Philby would understand if that was possible.
“I wanted to follow her in there. She’s in Epcot. But I didn’t want to pull a Maybeck and go alone and wander into a trap.” Maybeck’s DHI had once followed a girl around inside the Magic Kingdom only to go missing. He had never showed up for the Return, and the others had crossed back without him. This had left his hologram “stuck” in the Park, and a sleeping Terry Maybeck in a kind of coma in his bedroom. Until his hologram was Returned, the boy had not awakened. The kids now referred to this comatose state in several ways: the Sleeping Beauty Syndrome; SBS; or the Syndrome. Following Maybeck’s mishap, they had instituted the buddy rule. Philby was simply playing by the rules.
“Can you help us get there?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll need to send the others a text in case something goes wrong. You and I cross over, find her, and Return.”
“And if we don’t Return, they’ll need Wanda’s or Wayne’s help to come looking for us. Put that in the text.”
“Okay,” Finn said. “So I hang up and get back to sleep and I’ll see you in Epcot?”
“True story.”
Finn ended the call, sent the group text, and slipped quietly out of bed. He had secretly oiled the hinges on both his closet and bathroom doors so they could be worked in the middle of the night without screeching. The dresser drawers were a little more tricky, so he took his time with them. Fresh socks. Fresh underwear. He dressed quietly and quickly-black jeans, black T-shirt with a pirate skull on the back. A brown hoodie. An old pair of running shoes he’d painted black. He pocketed his phone and wallet, which held a few dollars. Sometimes the phone worked when he crossed over, sometimes not. He crawled back into bed and did his best to settle down, knowing that Philby would have already programmed the DHI server to cross them over into Epcot.
He blamed Charlene’s crossing over on the Evil Queen. It seemed more and more likely that she had put a spell on Charlene. Maybeck’s failing to kiss her loomed large.
The more he thought about everything, the harder it was to get to sleep. He cleared his mind, picturing a dark tunnel with a faint pinprick of light far, far at the end-the same technique he used to go all clear. He watched the pinprick widen ever so slowly. Focused on that tiny speck of light in the sea of black as it grew larger. The train approaching.
And then, there was nothing.
Finn awoke near the fountain in Epcot’s central plaza. The fountains were shut off. In fact, the entire Park was lit by maybe half the available streetlamps. The landing, or arrival zone, for their DHIs was one of the biggest problems with the program. Philby could now control which Park each of the kids landed in, who among them would cross over, and, in a pinch, he could manually Return them from his home computer. But the program transmitted the DHI into a Park’s central feature. In the Magic Kingdom, it was the central hub in front of Cinderella Castle. In Animal Kingdom, the island and the Tree of Life. In Disney’s Hollywood Studios, it was the elevated area beneath Mickey’s Sorcerer’s Hat. Here in Epcot, it was the fountain plaza just beyond Spaceship Earth. In all cases, in all places, it meant their holograms landed in open space. Finn’s limbs tingled as he scrambled across the plaza, reminding him that he was in his DHI state.
Epcot after closing was not the remarkable and enchanting Park it was during its opening hours. It was known to the Keepers as a haven for Overtakers. Crash-test dummies on Segways. Gigabyte, a ginormous snake that was part of Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, slithered in search of unwanted visitors. There were court jesters in France capable of every kind of martial art. There had been a time when Finn had been certain the Magic Kingdom was the Overtakers’ headquarters. But he was no longer so convinced.
“Over here,” came a harsh whisper. Philby. Fifteen feet toward the lake from Finn. Sitting on the walkway with his back against the information booth that housed a pin exchange. “A pair of CTDs passed by here maybe five minutes ago.”
Finn lay down flat and kept very still. The robotic crash-test dummies were nothing to mess with. “How do you want to do this?” he asked Philby.
“It’s too big to just start searching around. It would take us days, not hours, to look everywhere.”
“Then…?”
“You know me: technology.”
“Meaning?”
“The IllumiNations control booth on the roof of Mexico. I know for a fact that setup includes feeds for all of the Park’s Security cameras. We climb to the top of the temple. As DHIs, we should be able to walk through the door. If I get freaked out and lose all clear, then you go through and unlock it for me. We use the Security monitors to find Charlene.”
Fifteen minutes later, Philby was sitting in a chair working switches. The television monitor displayed four camera views at a time.
“Heck of a view,” Finn said. Outside the window, Finn had a clear view of the lake and the surrounding pavilions. He grabbed a pair of binoculars and began sweeping the area.
“True story.” Philby allowed enough time to study the view from each Security camera, then he pushed a button and another four appeared. There were thirty-two camera views available.
Twice Philby spotted CTDs on the move, but no Charlene. Finn confirmed the CTDs through the binoculars. They began working out a system.
With the binoculars held to his eyes, Finn said, “What do you suppose they want with her?”
“A download,” Philby answered. “Let’s say she was put under a spell to spy on us, as we talked about. She asks questions; she looks over our shoulders. Then the Evil Queen and Cruella need a chance to download whatever she’s found out.”
“But she’s not a zombie.”
“Exactly. So who knows what state she was in when she crossed over? The CTDs could be looking for her. The Queen may need a stronger spell to get Charlene to talk. I’m just guessing at all this.”
“It makes sense.”
“Thank you.”
“Movement!” Finn said loudly. “In front of Morocco. A pair of CTDs running…”
Through the binoculars he watched the dummies in full sprint. They were tall, powerful, and surprisingly light on their feet. A trash can rolled toward them. The first vaulted it. The second bent and knocked it out of the way like it was made of cardboard. Each dummy had the strength and speed of three men.
“Someone threw a trash can in their way!” Finn announced.
Philby worked the camera views. “It’s her! It’s Charlene!”
Finn had trouble finding her in the binoculars. He turned and watched on-screen as Charlene ran past Norway. Philby pointed out another camera view. Charlene, wearing a white nightgown, ducked behind Norway, then cut back through the bakery patio to-another camera view-the Norway courtyard. She hid as the CTDs ran past like something out of The Terminator. Then she turned to her left, scrambled up some rock, and disappeared into a dark cave.
“Maelstrom,” Philby said.
Finn had failed to recognize the cave because there was no water coming from the ride’s waterfall. “Smart! That’s a great place to hide!”
“Let’s go!” Philby said.
“I’ll go,” Finn said, volunteering. “You stay and watch for the CTDs.”
“No,” Philby said. “We stick together.”
Finn wasn’t going to waste time arguing.
A few minutes later, the boys were climbing Maelstrom’s dry waterfall toward the ominous black cave entrance. The lip of the cave was moss-covered and slimy. There was water in the trough just beyond, so they kept to the left where a narrow ledge followed the water course. The deeper they penetrated into the ride, the darker it became. The boys used hand signals to communicate. Philby indicated for Finn to keep his eyes open.
Finn had no problem with that: his heart was about to burst in his chest.
As their eyes adjusted to the limited light, the Maelstrom world enveloped them: lush green bushes and trees, rocks, and stones. Strange things happened inside the rides and attractions in the Parks at night. The only rule was that there were no rules. Trust nothing, Finn reminded himself.
On Philby’s signal, both boys stopped and crouched.
They saw a pair of yellow, glowing eyes, tightly set. Trolls?
Finn pushed past Philby and continued along the ledge. Philby followed him as they pressed deeper into the darkness, the only light coming from the faint glow of their DHIs. Not trolls, he realized, but polar bears.
Two giant white bears, one standing, one down on all fours.
“If those things come alive…” Finn said, his voice shaking.
“We’re hamburger,” Philby said, finishing the thought for him.
“Thanks for that image,” Finn said.
“No charge.”
Morbid humor had a way of sneaking into their conversations at the strangest times.
They moved past the polar bears. There was something large and squarish up ahead to their left. Finn knew where they were.
“The cottage,” he said. “The start of the ride.”
Finn’s eyes had adjusted to where he could now see a life-size Norwegian standing in front of a cottage. Finn hurried over to a rock that was familiar to him from his last visit here as a DHI. He reached down and felt for the three handles he knew to be there.
“There’s an ax missing!” Finn whispered.
Philby stepped forward. Leaning against the rock was an old-fashioned ax and a sword. There should have been two axes.
“It’s her,” Philby said. “That’s why she came in here.”
Finn took up the sword, knowing it well from a previous visit. He handed the remaining ax to Philby.
“What would you have done?” said Charlene’s voice.
They both looked up as she stepped out of the cottage, the ax gripped in her hand.
They hurried over to her. “It is you!” Finn said. They hugged.
“You’re okay!” crowed Philby, also hugging her.
“Not really. Terrified’s more like it.” She addressed Philby. “Why did you send me here without telling me?”
“It wasn’t me,” Philby said. “It wasn’t like that. We can explain-”
“We think,” said Finn.
“But first we’ve got to Return. We’ve got to get you out of here.”
“There are CTDs out there…” she warned.
“We saw,” Finn said.
“We’ll have to be careful,” Philby said. “And if that fails…” He raised his ax.
A whizzing sound sizzled past Finn’s ear. A chopstick lodged in the painted Styrofoam scenery behind them. The next one flew through his shoulder, his pure DHI state preventing it from wounding him.
“Incoming!” he said. He felt his own terror beginning to take hold-his fingers tingling-and understood the mortal danger it presented. “No fear!” he reminded.
“Easier said than done,” Charlene cried out.
Yellow eyes glowed from across the stream. More arrows whizzed past.
“I can feel my hands,” Philby said.
“Me, too!” Charlene said. “And my feet.”
They weren’t in a state of pure DHI, which made them vulnerable to attack.
Philby and Charlene ducked behind the small rocks.
Eight trolls-knee-high old men with beards, whiskers, and huge eyes-appeared across the water. They carried kitchen pot lids as shields, steak knives as swords, carpentry hammers, and the homemade bows and arrows. They jumped across the water and charged.
The kids stayed behind the rocks. The trolls split up.
Philby took an arrow in the arm and screamed as he pulled it out. “That thing hurts!” he cried.
A troll came at Finn, his steak knife glinting. Finn swung the sword and knocked the knife out of the troll’s hand. Philby stood and pressed his back to Finn’s so they could defend in two directions. Charlene, on her knees, battled ax against hammer.
One of the old men surprised Finn from the right, stabbing him, but his sword passed right through Finn’s hologram. The guy fell, off-balance. Philby kicked him across the water into the scenery.
“Soccer!” Philby shouted to Charlene.
She stood and kicked out at the trolls, sending them flying.
“Goal!” Philby cried, as one of the trolls flew though the door of the cottage.
“That’s it!” Finn said. “We get them all into the cottage and trap them!”
Philby kicked one of the trolls, passing him to Charlene like a soccer ball. She expertly sent him through the cottage door. Finn battled with his sword. He heard Philby counting them down.
“Four…Five!”
Finn’s blade clanked against the steak knife of a competent swordsman. Philby came to his aid, toe-kicking the troll toward the cottage, where Charlene finished him off by sending him inside.
“Six!”
“I sent one across the water,” Finn said. “So that’s seven.”
The final troll dropped his hammer and threw up his arms in surrender. Philby grabbed his hands, threw him into the cottage, and Charlene shut the door. She used her ax handle to prop it shut.
The kids, out of breath, looked around for more trouble, but saw none.
“That was…weird,” Philby said.
“You okay?” Charlene asked.
Philby approached her and kissed her on the lips before she knew what he was doing. The kiss went on longer than Finn would have expected.
Charlene and Philby pulled themselves apart breathlessly.
“What…was…that?” Charlene asked, not a twinge of complaint in her voice.
“How do you feel?” Finn asked.
“That’s a stupid question,” she said. “Besides, that’s for Philby to ask, not you.”
Philby looked tranquilized. “I…that was…it was…”
“He had to do it,” Finn said.
“Excuse me?” Charlene said.
How would they know if she’d been put under a spell? Worse, how would they know if she’d come out of it?
“Do you remember going into the girls’ room at DisneyQuest?” Finn asked.
“What kind of a question is that?”
“One that needs answering.” He wished Philby would say something, but he remained stunned and unable to speak. He was staring at Charlene like he’d gotten religion.
“It’s none of your business. Eww.”
Philby finally managed to speak. “It is our business. Do you remember who followed you inside the girls’ room?”
She looked frightened. Her hologram’s blue outline faded. “What are you two talking about?” She blinked furiously, as if about to cry.
“Do you remember going into the bathroom at DisneyQuest?” Philby asked, repeating Finn’s question.
“Yeah, I suppose.”
“Do you remember anyone else in there with you?”
“Like who? Amanda? Willa? Who do you mean? We were all there that night.”
“Anyone else?” Philby asked.
The trolls were pounding on the door to the cottage to get out. Finn could barely hear himself think.
“How could you possibly know about this?” Charlene asked.
“Know about what?” Finn said.
“About…When I was in there, I kind of lost track of time.”
“What do you mean?” Philby asked.
“I mean I lost track of time. I spaced out or something. This girl was standing behind me asking if I was all right.”
“Because?”
“Because, according to her, I was just standing there staring into the mirror. Not moving or anything. She said it was…‘awkward,’ was her exact word. But how could you possibly know that?”
“And the girl,” Philby said, “the one in the bathroom. Had you thought about her before just now? Before we started asking questions?”
Charlene shook her head. “What’s going on?”
“We can explain later,” Finn said.
“You’ll explain now,” she demanded.
“Later,” Finn repeated.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.” She crossed her arms tightly.
Philby was not pleased. He said, “We think the Evil Queen may have enchanted you…”
“To spy on us-the Keepers,” Finn said.
“That she crossed you over tonight-because I definitely did not,” Philby added.
“That the CTDs are out there looking for you,” Finn said.
“That we’ve got to get to the Return and get you out of here.”
Stunned, Charlene took a moment to process everything. “You’ll explain it all later.”
“Yes,” Finn said.
“I kissed you to break the spell,” Philby explained. “It apparently worked. You remember stuff you didn’t remember before.”
“Why?” Charlene gasped. “Why me? What does she want?”
“If we’re right about them trying to break Maleficent out of jail, then who knows what they want? Who knows what they think we have? But we can’t get caught. We’re not going to let her get you again.”
“I want to go home,” Charlene said.
“Makes three of us,” said Finn.
“We can’t take the axes with us,” Philby said. “They won’t Return with us. And to leave them lying around the plaza would just tell somebody that we’d been here. We don’t need to leave clues like that.”
“How about leaving seven trolls locked up in the cottage?”
“That’s their problem,” Philby said.
They leaned Philby’s ax and Finn’s sword against the rock as they’d found them. Then they hurried to the cave entrance and climbed down the dry waterfall. They stayed in shadow, using trash cans, kiosks, trees, and anything else available to hide behind. They passed Mexico and followed a perimeter route that took them near Test Track. A hundred yards from the plaza fountain, Philby stopped.
“Slower now,” Philby said, taking a moment to catch his breath. “Extra careful.”
They circled around the fountain, finally reaching the pin-trading station. A small, circular, one-story building, it held a large display screen that, when operating, informed guests of wait times for the various attractions. There was only one Return, one black fob capable of wirelessly connecting to the server and canceling the DHI projection. Finn had once asked Wayne for more of the devices-one for each Park-but Wayne had steadfastly refused, explaining that the act of Returning was the most dangerous part of the program. If two Returns were engaged within a few seconds of each other, they would theoretically cancel each other out, and the Imagineers had no idea where that would leave the DHIs-nor the kids who lay asleep in bed. If trapped between the two “worlds,” the results could be devastating. The system would tolerate only one fob, one Return.
The Keepers were currently hiding the all-important fob in Epcot, in an intersection of purple pipes that supported the roof of the pin-trading post on the plaza. The pipes came together about head height, connecting with a single support column that rose up from the plaza. Where the pipes joined was a hidden space just big enough for the Return.
Finn reached up, his fingers searching blindly, and came down with it-a black rubber remote like a car door opener.
“Ready?” he asked.
Charlene nodded and reached for Finn’s hand. Philby took her other hand, connecting them all. For the Return to work effectively, they had to stand near each other. Physical contact-like holding hands-worked even better.
“We’ll text in the morning,” Philby said, “and figure all this stuff out. Like what to do next. Like if there’s some way to stop them from crossing us over.”
“Like, why they chose me,” Charlene said.
Finn stretched on his tiptoes holding the Return over the junction of pipes. As they crossed back, the Return would fall from his fingers, lodging in its hiding place. They would need to know where to find it the next time they crossed over.
With the three of them all holding hands, Finn counted down, “Three…two…”
He pushed the button.