Kingdom Keepers VII

by Pearson, Ridley

  “Look. If doesn’t work, none of this is going to be here anyway,” Philby says, indicating the park. “Jess, don’t think anyone’s going to hold it against us at that point.”

  “It isn’t just you doing it,” Charlene says.

  “We’re all in,” Maybeck adds.

  The ground rumbles more violently.

  “Look!” Willa points to a giant crane rolling down Main Street.

  “We’ve got to do this now,” Maybeck says.

  Jess sits up taller.

  “Form a windscreen!” Philby cries.

  The Keepers wrap themselves together, arm in arm, creating a circle around the torn pieces of Mickey. Jess’s fingernail finds the small ink lever on the pen and pulls it gently. A single drop of ink forms on the nib. It hangs, refusing to fall.

  “A little more,” Maybeck encourages.

  “I can’t…”

  “More, Jess,” says Finn.

  The lever moves infinitesimally. Jess’s throat catches as the blob of ink falls in what looks to all the Keepers like slow motion.

  It splashes onto the sheet.

  The Keepers hold their breath. Wind tousles their hair, but the Mickey illustration remains flat and unmoving.

  “I knew it,” Jess moans. The fallen ink splatters outward from the central blot, grossly altering the original sketch.

  “Oh, crud,” Maybeck says, seeing the results. “That’s a bummer.”

  Willa sees a tiny flash of silvery white light spark from one of the torn edges. “Did anybody see that?”

  “See what?” says Maybeck.

  “There! I saw it!” Charlene is pointing to an opposite corner.

  “Oh—my—word!” cries Jess as the illustration begins to glow. With each flash, one of the torn edges between two fragments mends. Then the transformation picks up speed as three fragments become one and attach to four others. By its very nature, the magical process is otherworldly, but to Philby’s and Willa’s keen analytical eyes, there is more involved than the drawing’s power to glue itself back together.

  “Watch it closely!” Philby says. “It’s working from the inside out…”

  “In order to be perfectly smooth, no bumps,” Willa adds.

  The flashes of light form concentric glowing rings that spread like ripples from a stone tossed into a pond. As the rings roll toward the edges, the spilled splash of black ink vanishes, leaving the rips healed, the integrity of the work restored. As the last of the rings pulses to the edge and the glimmer fades from the surprised faces circled around it, a lustrous platinum smoke spews forth on the stage above them. Spotlights switch on—though there are no operators to run them. A dazzling spectacle that now includes a backdrop of pyrotechnics unseen in the Fantasmic! show plays out. There is majestic music; perhaps they all imagine the exact same melody and arrangement simultaneously.

  From the midst of it steps, not Mickey, as the Keepers expect, but Mortimer Mouse, Mickey’s first incarnation, the black-and-white character depicted in the illustration. He bows formally, an odd creature, who looks different from the one the Keepers know and love.

  With a wave of his arm, the special effects disappear. There’s only a small white cloud rising into the night sky as evidence that any of it took place.

  “Look!” Willa says, gesturing off island.

  But none of the other Keepers can pull their eyes away from Mortimer, who evolves with each footfall as he descends the stairs step by step. First, he becomes a black-and-white Mickey with a Steamboat Willie look, then a colorful Mickey with red shorts and gold shoes. Finally, the Mickey who approaches wears fire-engine-red shorts that ride high on his waist, yellow shoes, and oversize white gloves. He walks with a jovial, casual stride—not a care in the world.

  “Hello, sir,” says Finn.

  Mickey takes a look over his shoulder, as if wondering who Finn is addressing. He gestures to himself as if to say, “You mean me?”

  “She’s there, Mr. Mickey,” says Willa, ever the romantic. She points across the river. The opposite shore is crowded shoulder-to-shoulder with hundreds of Disney characters and well-wishers. Still more are arriving in droves from New Orleans Square, the Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Trail, and all of Frontierland. It’s as if they’ve lined up for a fireworks show, as if the earthquake never happened.

  Behind them, the crane’s looming steel finger moves slowly toward Big Thunder Mountain. Feverish dark work continues on and around the Matterhorn. Two worlds, diametrically opposed.

  Front and center in the viewing area, directly across the water, stands Minnie Mouse, waving enthusiastically. As Mickey waves back and blows a kiss to his sweetheart, the enormous crowd issues a collective sigh. Applause starts quietly, and then builds to a fever pitch. Mickey waves both arms, bows, and then starts again.

  Philby carefully returns the repaired illustration to its protective envelope and slides it up the back of his shirt to protect it from folding.

  The cheering is thunderous, with high screams and whistling louder than at any parade.

  “He puts the king in kingdom,” Willa says, as the five Keepers trail behind the icon, raising their hands to join in the applause.

  “Doesn’t he see what’s happened?” Charlene asks. “All the destruction, I mean. How can he not see it?”

  “Because he sees only good,” Finn answers. “He sees the characters, not the concrete. It’s them he’s missed the most. And one character in particular, I’m guessing.”

  Even from afar, it’s clear that Minnie Mouse is crying tears of joy. Pluto and Goofy stand at either side, supporting her.

  Abruptly, Mickey drops to his knees, and the crowd goes silent. He leans forward and kisses the shaking ground. The resulting roar sets the Keeper’s hologram ears to ringing.

  “He’s b-a-a-a-ack!” shouts Philby over the tumult.

  Mickey clearly hears Philby despite the noise, and gives a flicker of a look back at the teens—a mere glance, yet it bestows upon the Keepers a message of appreciation, determination, conviction.

  Then Mickey kneels, the Children of Light standing behind him, the crowd going wild. The Keepers in the center, Philby, Willa, and Finn, lock arms on shoulders as Maybeck and Charlene wave to the crowd from the ends of their line.

  Mickey places one hand on his heart. With the other, he points to the Matterhorn, where Chernabog clings to ice and snow, climbing his way to the top.

  “WE WON’T GET ANOTHER chance like this,” Philby says confidentially to Finn as they wave from behind Mickey.

  “Agreed. I had no idea there were this many good characters in the park.”

  “I doubt they’ve ever assembled all in one place. Forget that we’ve probably made history. If we don’t jump on this, everyone will go back to wherever they go to, and that’ll be that.”

  The crowd continues cheering; they’re waiting for Minnie to be ferried over to the island, to Mickey. The ferry is none other than the maintenance barge piloted by Violet, with the Dillard acting as crew.

  Minnie’s transport buys the Keepers critical minutes. They wave and move away from the legend.

  “What now?” Charlene asks, voicing what’s on all their minds.

  “The OTs are not setting up for a party,” Maybeck says. “They mean business.”

  “Mickey’s the key,” Finn says. “Wayne, and Walt before him, went to all this trouble to lead people like us to bring him back.”

  Maybeck says, “I think Wayne knew this battle was coming. From the minute the OTs rebooted Chernabog, he must have known. He got the pen to Jess, took himself out to save us, and left it up to the Keepers to figure it out and bring Mickey back.”

  “So Mickey can use the pen to fix things?” Willa asks. “There’s no history of Mickey and any kind of pen.”

  “Look where he returned,” Charlene says. “On the Fantasmic! stage. As in, Fantasia, which is one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen, by the way. Mickey and all that fire? Ugh. Don’t forget, Chernabog was i
n it too.”

  “How about this: Fantasia was Walt’s version of a Jess sketch,” Finn says. Even as he speaks, he’s astonished at his own reasoning. “He has this nightmare about where his dream kingdom is headed and decides to make a movie of it. It makes sense! Otherwise, why make a movie like that in the first place? No talking. No soft little mouse bopping around. No princes or princesses. After Snow White, he was making money for the first time. Why do something as weird as Fantasia?”

  “So that people like us would know what’s coming,” Charlene says under her breath.

  “But who beats them down?” Maybeck says. “It ain’t a bunch of holograms. It’s Mr. Mouse himself.”

  “We’re facilitators,” Willa says. “Like in school, when the principal calls a school meeting and someone has to lead it. That’s us. We make it happen.”

  “So are we done here?” Charlene asks. “Why doesn’t it feel like that?”

  “We’re not done here,” Philby says firmly.

  “But how can you be so sure?”

  “You want a nightmare, Charlie?” Philby sweeps his arm in a wide gesture that encompasses smoke and fires all around the park, the OTs’ ongoing work on Big Thunder and the Matterhorn. “Mickey just stepped out of the past into this. Chances are he has no idea what’s going on. Not only that, but he’ll be thinking like a character from forty years ago. A lot has changed!” He punches Maybeck, his arm passing through the boy’s DHI chest. “This place is nothing like it was in the 1960’s, the last time he saw it. Willa’s right, we are facilitators. We’re like the rangers in Animal Kingdom and Mickey’s the first guest through the gates.”

  “Without us,” Maybeck says, nodding, “he’s just a dude in red shorts, waving to a crowd, waiting for a script.”

  “So what now?” Amanda asks calmly.

  The ferry arrives. Minnie crosses to join Mickey as the Dillard and Violet hurry toward the Keepers. Violet is wide-eyed. “I didn’t see that coming,” she says.

  “Can you hear him the way you heard her?” Finn asks, recalling their first encounter with Violet and Minnie in Walt’s apartment. The memory of the antique music box returns as well: the reason for the Osiris code’s presence on it has not been explained. Everything Wayne does is for a reason, Finn thinks.

  “I don’t know. I suppose so. I’m a character, he’s a character. Why not?”

  “We need you to translate,” Philby says. “Like for Minnie.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Jess, what’s left on your drawing that we haven’t seen?” Finn asks.

  Jess is thrown off by the question. She concentrates for a moment. “We’ve seen the gondola and the drilling rig. The tea tray inscription was on the outside of the Skyway Station.”

  “I saw that!” Charlene says, supporting her.

  “Wayne’s Mickey watch,” Jess says, working through the picture in her mind. “The eyes in the middle were probably the missing Mickey piece. The octopus was on it too.”

  “Storey Ming,” Finn supplies, bringing up a story he’s already told the others. “Ursula.”

  Violet shudders. “That was not pretty.”

  “I know!” Jess says. “The sorcerer’s cap!” Her announcement wins everyone’s keen attention. “There are flames,” Jess continues, “but that’s pretty obvious by now. And weird-looking flowers, and some arrows—but none of those images look like much of anything. The one actual thing left in the sketch is the Sorcerer Mickey cap.”

  “I don’t mean to state the obvious,” Maybeck says. “But who here remembers talking about Fantasia a couple minutes ago? As in Sorcerer Mickey?”

  “That’s stating the obvious,” Charlene says, shaking her head.

  Mickey glances in their direction.

  “We’ve got to wrap this up. We’ve got to do something!” Willa says.

  “Dillard!” Finn tries to take the boy’s hologram by the shoulders, but of course he can’t. He does, however, win the Dillard’s full attention. “Joe, Brad, whoever, if you can hear me, listen up. Dillard, record everything you hear, starting now.”

  Finn addresses the other Keepers. “Everyone tell the Dillard anything and everything you’ve seen or done since we left the tunnel.”

  No one speaks.

  “He can hear us all at once. There’s no being polite here. Just talk!”

  They start, Willa first. Then each Keeper chimes in until everyone, including Finn, is talking at the Dillard as fast as they can. The Mandy Blaster is mentioned, the Disney Gallery and the vault, the riverboat, Ursula. It comes at the Dillard in a tidal wave of raised voices, all calling to be heard. The Dillard stares straight ahead, showing no emotion.

  The rush of tales trickles to a stop as Violet concludes, “…so we picked up Minnie and drove her across.”

  “Dillard?” Finn says.

  The Dillard nods.

  “Did you get all that?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Okay then. If you…If one works off all current data available, visual and audio, anything online or in Disney databases—anything you’ve heard or been told—then what is the most likely…the most likely…”

  “Scenario,” Philby supplies, knowing where Finn is headed.

  “…scenario for the Overtakers? If they want to end the park as we know it, what’s their next step? And is it a next step or the final step?”

  “We need to hurry,” Willa says, noting Mickey’s second glance in their direction.

  The Dillard’s eyes are closed; he looks as if he didn’t hear the question in the first place. Then his lids snap open, and he makes eye contact with each of the Keepers, the two Fairlies, and Violet. It’s as if he’s assigning the dialogue he recorded to specific voices, sorting, evaluating.

  Philby whispers into Finn’s ear. “Oh, yeah!” Finn adds. “Prioritize by probability of efficiency, keeping in mind that the Overtakers have…” Finn consults the Wayne watch. “Five hours to accomplish their goal of ending the Kingdom.”

  “The Kingdom or the park?” the Dillard inquires. “Previously you said, ‘to end the park as we know it.’ Do you wish to edit that query?”

  Finn checks with Philby, who shakes his head, whispering, “The park and the Kingdom are the same thing to us, but not to him. Keep the question as is.”

  “The original query stands,” Finn says. “And we’d like to hear supporting evidence, if possible.” He adds this because, while he’s grown somewhat used to the Dillard’s absolute statements, he’s worried they may offend the Keepers and make them distrust his results.

  “The following scenario has a probability of seventy-eight-point-seven percent.”

  “That’s very high!” Philby comments.

  The Dillard ignores him because it isn’t a question. “Charlene observed two birds dying on the sidewalk in front of the gallery. She was unable to resuscitate one. Finn and Terry observed pirates attempting to extinguish fires in the pathway. They are correct in assuming the action of the pirates is counterintuitive to the stated aim of the Overtakers—that is, burning the park to the ground.

  “Furthermore, the earthquake resulted in the buckling and destruction of much of the pavement and concrete in the park. I observed when Amanda pushed and destroyed the Small World dolls that the catalytic properties of what you have termed green ‘goo’ were not as reported. True, it functions as a corrosive, but the action was slower than previously reported and inconsistent. Much organic matter, including pieces of doll costume, remained behind.”

  “Where’s this going?” Maybeck asks. Finn shushes him.

  The Dillard continues. “Current observations in the park include an approaching storm and the advance of a tall crane down Main Street.”

  “Oh my gosh!” Philby blurts, straightening up.

  “I believe,” the Dillard says, “that Dell has arrived at a hypothetical given the current data. Do you wish to share, Dell, or shall I continue?”

  Philby repeats himself, drawing the words o
ut like taffy: “O-o-oh m-y-y-y g-o-o-osh.”

  “Continue,” Finn instructs the Dillard. But Philby interrupts.

  “The dying birds—they were canaries!”

  “They were not!” Charlene objects. “One was a pigeon and—”

  “Not literally, Charlie. Canaries in the coal mine! In the old days, canaries were used to detect gas leaks. If gas leaked into the mines, the canaries died first, alerting the miners to get out. Natural gas is C-O-T: colorless, odorless, tasteless. That stuff you smell when your stove freaks out is a perfume added by the gas company so you know it’s leaking.”

  “I hate that smell!” Charlene says.

  “Disgusting!” Maybeck adds.

  Philby ignores them. “The earthquake was because of the fracking. Fracking is done to release natural gas. The birds died from the gas. The green goo lacked oxygen because of the gas. We’re holograms! It isn’t affecting us. These guys are all characters! Who knows what makes them tick? The pirates were putting out the fires because they don’t want the gas burning off. They want it—”

  “Collecting,” Willa says. “Oh my gosh is right. Will it build up?”

  The Dillard answers as though the question was directed at him. “So-called natural gas is ninety-five percent methane. It includes butane. Both have molecular weights heavier than air. When colder than the air it combines with, as when it emerges from the ground, natural gas will initially sink and therefore collect.”

  “I get it. They’re putting out the fires,” Maybeck says, eyes widening in horror, “so that gas doesn’t burn off. The OTs want it to hang around until they can use it to torch the place.”

  “Lightning,” Philby says. “The crane. The storm that’s coming.”

  “Big Thunder Mountain!” Finn cries. “Thunder, as in lightning. They’re going to use the mountain as a lightning rod—”

  “To set off the gas,” Philby says, nodding. “That we can’t smell and didn’t know about until Charlene tried to save a bird.”

  “They’re going to blow up the park,” Jess says. “‘It starts and ends in lightning.’” She quotes herself, the vision she had inside the park.