Kingdom Keepers VII

by Pearson, Ridley

  “Tell me,” Finn says. “We would say, ‘If you would tell me.’”

  “If you instruct me to ‘return,’ my projection will cease. You can verbally program me to project as you would set a calendar event, and you can preprogram me for an action at the time of projection if you wish. For example: upon projection I will wake you, defend you, advise you. And so on.” Dillard’s hologram looks forward, away from Finn. “Should you fail to program me to project at a later time, you must contact the appropriate Cast Member and request projection.”

  Finn sits for a long time, studying Dillard in profile. A part of him wants to instruct the hologram to return and never appear again. Another part considers Dillard his own private genie. He doesn’t know what to do, how to feel. He tells himself this is not Dillard, that nothing will ever be or replace Dillard in his heart. The hologram is a toy, a tool.

  Wayne would tell him to use whatever resources were available.

  Learn how to use this to your advantage. Wayne’s voice apparently resides at the back of Finn’s brain, whispering to him like Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. Finn doesn’t know what immortality is, but once again he thinks this has something to do with it.

  “Talk to me,” Finn says. “What are the possible relationships between what we’ve observed of the Osiris images and the Disney villains…or Mickey Mouse?”

  “I can tell you about: the Osiris myth; the comparison of the Disney character, Maleficent, to Osiris; Osiris in fantasy literature; Osiris shoes; Osiris, the near-infrared integral field spectrograph.”

  The hologram’s clinical delivery of topics reminds Finn that this isn’t his neighborhood friend. He actually appreciates that distinction. This is not Dillard, it’s the Dillard.

  “Osiris myth,” Finn says, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.

  “In Plutarch’s version, or ancient Greek, Typhon arranges a banquet and issues a challenge, tricking Osiris into climbing into a chest. In Egyptian mythology, the god Set is responsible for the ruse. Osiris is locked in the chest and dies. The chest is set afloat and arrives at the shore of Byblos, where a tree grows around it. The goddess Isis, Osiris’s wife, eventually removes the chest from the tree. The tree becomes a center of worship. This explanation is unknown in Egyptian sources dating to the New Kingdom.”

  “The what?” Finn says. “Let’s start at the word kingdom.”

  “The most prosperous phase in Egyptian history is known as the New Kingdom. The five hundred years between 1600 and 1100 B.C. marked the peak of Egyptian power and influence.”

  “The New Kingdom,” Finn repeats reverentially, reaching for a pencil to make notes. “That is not a coincidence. It can’t be.”

  “Is that a question?”

  Finn laughs. “No, Dillard. Hang on.”

  The hologram grips the edge of the bed.

  “Let go of the bed. The expression hang on means ‘wait a moment.’”

  “I’ve added that. Thank you. The command is ‘Pause.’”

  “Pause,” Finn says. He writes down everything the Dillard has told him. “What about the Egyptian version?” He waits. There’s a prolonged pause. “Resume! Please inform me about the Egyptian version of the Osiris myth. Make it abridged and include facts relevant to our current situation.”

  “One moment…editing. The story is much the same as the one I just relayed. In the Egyptian version, Isis discovers Osiris’s corpse in the box embedded in a tree. The tree supports the roof of the palace of Byblos on the Phoenician coast. In several versions, Isis then casts a spell that allows her to conceive a child with her dead husband.”

  “Gross!”

  The Dillard continues without comment.

  “In this version, Set comes across the body and cuts it into fourteen pieces.”

  “This is more and more disgusting!”

  “But Isis recovers the parts and bandages them back together. The gods are so impressed that they resurrect Osiris and appoint him god of the underworld, lord of rebirth and resurrection.”

  “Pause,” Finn says, his mind whirring. He scribbles down what he’s heard. “Resume. Are you aware of my conversation with Wayne at Club 33?”

  “Yes.”

  “The topics?”

  “Yes.”

  Finn debates how to ask the Dillard his next question. “Is there a relationship between my conversation with Wayne and the Osiris myth?” Finn feels like he’s on a television game show. Everything hinges on asking the right questions.

  “Wayne Kresky’s reference to the destruction of the Mickey Mouse illustration could be taken as an analogy to the pieces of Osiris. Isis, the personification of whom is yet to be defined, would accept the assignment—”

  “To gather the pieces!”

  “—to collect and reassemble the various—”

  “Pause!” Finn shouts. There’s no visual reaction to Finn’s raising his voice. “Resume. You need to blink more often! Pause.”

  The hologram blinks, but then the Dillard is caught with his lids closed; he looks like he’s fallen asleep sitting up.

  Finn writes quickly:

  Walt understood how to resurrect Mickey.

  Osiris code given to Wayne, given to me.

  Collect and reassemble the parts.

  Are the Imagineers the “gods” who can restore Mickey’s power? Or the Keepers?

  Must find the parts!

  “Resume. If the Mickey Mouse illustration was destroyed by the Disney villains, is there still a chance of finding the pieces?”

  “Of the fourteen missing pieces in the Osiris myth, thirteen were collected. Some believe this gave this gave rise to the superstition that thirteen causes bad luck. The number represented incompletion, a state of being not whole. Since 1956, Cast Members employed by WED Enterprises have scoured Disneyland for the missing pieces of the Mickey artwork, which they believed were dispersed by an unknown entity.”

  “The Overtakers!”

  “During the reconstruction that turned Canal Boats of the World into the Storybook Land Canal Boats, work halted for two full days while WED Enterprise employees cordoned off the work area. They were seen to be sifting earth.”

  “This is from?”

  “The Imagineers Almanac, 1950 to 1957. Five volumes.”

  “Can you get me that almanac?”

  “I have no way to print from my memory.”

  “Of course you don’t. Sorry about that. How tricky!” Finn says. “They give me access to information I can’t substantiate one way or the other.”

  “Is that a question?”

  “No. Where are the pieces of Mickey that’ve been recovered?”

  “In the vault in the Disney Gallery.”

  “Of course! If you want to hide something, hide it in the open.”

  The Dillard does not respond. Finn is getting used to him, is even coming to like him; he’s not sure if the feeling is real, or part of the rush he gets from seeing all the clues come together.

  “Would you like to hear an interesting fact?” the Dillard says.

  “Sure.”

  “Disney Gallery is in the Opera House, one of the first buildings erected in Disneyland.”

  “If you weren’t a hologram, I’d hug you!” Finn says.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Yeah. You should. So, do you know which Imagineers are aware of the Mickey pieces?”

  The Dillard hesitates, and Finn can imagine some hard drive spinning in an underground room as the hologram searches his vast supplies of data. “No e-mails…no mention in annual reports…Ah! Here is something: a remodeling of the vault in 1998 follows by four months the recovery of the twelfth piece of Mickey.”

  Finn makes a note. At times, his mind starts to work so fast, it’s like a locomotive about to jump the rails. He loses the ability to hold his thoughts together; they act like sparks shooting away from the white heat of a welder’s torch. He wants to snag them in their flight, but trying to catch the fla
shes of thought will only burn him badly, so he watches them go.

  “Why is there a vault? Is it for show or for real?”

  “Prior to the Disney Gallery, that space housed a bank from 1955 to 1998.”

  “This is making a lot of sense!” Finn practically shouts.

  Again, no reaction to his raised voice. This is one of the oddities Finn has to get used to: the Dillard lacks emotional responses to what he hears; but when speaking certain words, he has been programmed to make the appropriate facial expressions. The dichotomy confuses Finn, keeps bringing him up short. The Dillard is real—until he’s not.

  “More comparisons between Disneyland and Osiris?” Finn says.

  “Egypt is one of the world’s oldest agricultural civilizations. The Egyptians lived mainly on grain,” the Dillard says. “Their staple food was bread, which is made from grain. When you ‘bury’ seeds, they sprout, confirming rebirth and life after death. The Egyptians associated Osiris and death with burial and rebirth. There were celebrations and festivals when it came time to ‘bury the seeds,’ in celebration of the resurrection of Osiris.”

  “Festivals—parades, fireworks,” Finn says.

  “Yes. The similarities are unmistakable. Disney parks, including Disneyland, celebrate every day with parades and fireworks. Grains of many forms, especially wheat, are sold and eaten in the parks: breads, pastries, pretzels, desserts, ice cream cones, snacks, sandwiches, et cetera.”

  “The festival of Osiris.”

  “Daily,” the Dillard says without emotion.

  “But the Disney Osiris is missing.”

  “Incomplete would be a better word. Only twelve pieces of the original Mickey illustration have been recovered. The most powerful of the ‘Disney gods’ remains powerless.”

  “Allowing others to rise to power.”

  “History provides ample testament to the filling of power vacuums.”

  “You sound like a textbook.”

  “Apologies. My use of vernacular will modify with my exposure to common spoken terms.”

  “And again!” Finn says. The Dillard does not respond. “The Imagineers sent you to help me put this together,” Finn mumbles, thinking aloud.

  “I am projected, not delivered.”

  “Pause.” Now Finn reaches for his mental sparks, corralling as many as possible. He’s immune to any pain from their heat; this is too important. He must not lose any of it; he must retain the ability to explain all the things he’s coming to understand to the other Keepers. On the pad, he scribbles random thoughts; he’ll organize them later. They burst like the fireworks he just mentioned. “Wait!” Finn says to himself.

  The Dillard’s head swivels, but he doesn’t speak. He looks like a dog eagerly awaiting a command.

  “Resume,” Finn says. He will instruct the Dillard later to “learn” from Finn’s pauses, to evolve into a more conversational companion. For now, there’s a more pressing question. “Search every available database and tell me: Did Walt Disney or Wayne Kresky leave any clues other than the hieroglyphs we discovered in the invisible ink, on the back of Wayne’s wristwatch, and carved into the table at Club 33?”

  The Dillard sits motionless for ninety seconds. Finn times the hologram’s blinking, realizing they may signify how the search is progressing. At first, when the Dillard blinks, his lids stay down for a full second. Near the ninety-second mark, he blinks so quickly Finn, can barely spot the action.

  “Walt Disney is believed to have created six private documents referenced in his last will and testament as ‘The Manto Manuscripts.’ As you may know, Manto, a daughter of the seer Tiresias, was a prophetess of extraordinary abilities.”

  The Dillard is doing his textbook thing again, but this time Finn doesn’t complain. Between Philby and the Dillard, he is surrounded by know-it-alls. After all these years, he is kind of getting used to it.

  “The Manto Manuscripts,” the Dillard continues, “include the Stonecutter’s Quill. There is no information available on the remaining five.”

  Finn wants to ask who has access to the Manto Manuscripts, where this information comes from, but there’s a more pressing need.

  “The Stonecutter’s Quill required 3-D glasses for the recovery of much of its information,” Finn says. “Is there anything like that with the Osiris hieroglyphs, beyond that invisible ink?”

  “Information on the Manto Manuscripts is limited. That said, only basic concealment technologies were available at the time. It is logical to assume that use of such technologies would have been applied to the Manto documents.”

  “I think I understood that.” Again, Finn finds it hard to keep his thoughts under control. He wills his pen to move faster on the page. The Dillard made his last comment on his own. He wasn’t quoting an information source. The Imagineers have apparently given him such massive bandwidth that he can process data, calculate, and reason at lightning speeds. Finn tests his thesis. “How likely is it that a technology like 3-D glasses would be required to recover all the information in more than one of the Manto Manuscripts?”

  The Dillard’s eyelids lower and remain that way, seemingly confirming Finn’s belief that this indicates processing. “There is a forty percent probability of this technology use recurring in another of the documents.”

  “Your movements are too mechanical,” Finn says. “You need to be more natural, more fluid.”

  “So noted. Whose motions should I emulate?”

  “Not any of the girls. Only boys.”

  “So noted.”

  “Maybeck has good moves, but I think you’d look stupid trying them. No offense.”

  “So noted. None taken.”

  “Philby’s a little stiff.”

  “So noted.”

  “You were probably programmed based on family videos. Do you have access to those?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish you could project them.”

  Nothing.

  “Use those,” Finn says, clearing his throat. “Access and study them.”

  “So noted.”

  The Dillard can become tiresome. “Don’t repeat phrases so much.”

  “Copy that.”

  Finn laughs aloud. It feels better than his earlier tears. Maybe the Dillard’s parents knew what they were talking about.

  * * *

  Stage 3 in the Studios back lot is the size of several airplane hangars. Currently, a large section of flooring at its center has been removed, exposing a rectangular tank of black water bigger than a basketball court. A giant sheet of green-screen fabric hangs behind it.

  All five Keepers, Amanda, and Jess wear green bodysuits covered with dozens of small metal disks. The Dillard stands beside Finn, looking the way he always looks.

  Willa is not thrilled with the way the suit fits. It’s like a second skin. The others look great. She thinks she looks more like a Shar-Pei.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jess says confidentially.

  “Easy for you to say. I had no idea you were so fit. You always hide your body.”

  “It’s no big deal to me. I mean, I guess I’m more cerebral, always trying to listen in on my own brain.”

  “You should have my body.”

  Jess nudges Willa’s shoulder with her own and smiles gently. “I’m sure this won’t take long.”

  Brad calls out, his voice echoing in the cavernous space. “We need to update your water abilities in order to ensure your safety as DHIs.”

  “The fact is,” Joe chimes in, “we don’t know what the OTs may throw at you. It’s important that your DHIs be compatible and upgraded to the highest level of projection we can manage, short of version 2.0.”

  “It may be possible, through wire work, to give your 1.6.3 DHIs the ability to leap or jump great distances, run faster, and swim farther,” Brad says, motioning toward the tank, “all while limiting some of the human-body aspects of 2.0 that could compromise the general population or the military, were the technology to fall into the wrong
hands.”

  “Basically,” Joe says, “we’d like to make you superhuman, but we have to stop short of super. Starting today, though, we’ll be adding enhancements.”

  “Now that I look like a piece of asparagus,” Finn says, winning laughter from the other Keepers, “I need to tell you what the Dillard told me.”

  “The Dillard?” Maybeck says.

  “I’ll explain later,” Finn says.

  Joe nods. Finn doesn’t have his notes handy, but he easily explains what he and the Dillard reviewed. The others listen spellbound as Finn recounts the Osiris myth and the way it fits perfectly with the Mickey illustration and its one missing piece. Finn doesn’t want to give away the Dillard’s widespread access to the Imagineers’ files, so he puts it out there as a theory—something cobbled together from his talk with Wayne in Club 33.

  “All the pieces of Mickey might be out there in the park,” Finn finishes breathlessly. His words resonate, and then fade in the vast soundstage.

  Joe’s obvious reluctance to share such secrets hangs awkwardly in the air.

  “You’re close,” he says finally. “We believe the Overtakers did in fact steal the original artwork. And that they tore it up and distributed it so as to make reassembly nearly impossible.”

  “Why not just burn it?” Maybeck asks.

  “Turns out, it can’t be destroyed. Of course, not even Walt knew this at the time. But it couldn’t be burned or shredded or eaten by acid—and yes, we put a tiny piece through all these tests. There are a dozen theories as to what it all means, but our best guess is that it was indeed torn or cut into thirteen pieces. This may have been possible because of the illustration’s relation to storytelling—Mickey is mythic, after all! In the past several decades, we’ve recovered twelve. They’re currently stored at a secure location.”

  Finn says nothing about his knowledge of the Disney Gallery’s vault.

  “But now you’ve been able to tie the engraving on Wayne’s watch to the Osiris myth. That’s new. We—generations of Imagineers—have known about the hidden Mickey, have tried to use our guests to help us in our search. We’ve planted hidden Mickeys all over the parks, hoping someone might see something out of the ordinary and report it. Four of the pieces were recovered this way, but that last one has eluded us.”