Kingdom Keepers : Disney After Dark (9781423141129)

by Pearson, Ridley

  Finn glanced back at Amanda.

  He didn’t feel good about this. She revealed nothing of what she might be thinking.

  Finn felt there was an unusually strong bond between Wayne and Amanda. Were they related somehow? Without question, Finn thought, Amanda was no ordinary girl.

  Wayne threw the bus door open, and the kids hurried out.

  32

  Inside the Magic Kingdom, the sun shone brightly. Finn’s costume warmed up. He thought the air smelled like Thanksgiving. It took him a minute to spot the turkey leg being gnawed on by a big man wearing a Hard Rock Cafe shirt.

  The six kids and Wayne passed into the park through a high wooden fence, with Thunder Mountain to their right. Past the ride and through another door marked for cast members, they entered a room with dull green walls. They saw an elevator door, scratched and in need of paint, with a single arrow pointing down. A large sign bolted to the cinderblock wall above the adjacent set of descending stairs cautioned: CAST MEMBERS ONLY PLEASE.

  “I’ll go first,” Wayne announced. “Girls, you’ll follow me to food service. Terrence, you know what you’re looking for. Good luck, everyone.”

  Finn felt his throat catch. There was only one reason Wayne could be doing this so soon on the heels of the previous night.

  It isn’t safe.

  They had to accomplish this before Maleficent regained all her powers. Though Finn wondered what would become of them if she already had.

  Wayne’s white head bobbed down the stairs, followed closely by Charlene and then Willa. The boys heard a heavy door open and close. Then silence. Finn’s throat was bone-dry. His palms were sweating.

  Maybeck went first. He descended the stairs, suddenly consumed by shadow. Again, the sound of the door opening and falling shut.

  That door swallowed his friends. He hoped he’d see them again.

  Philby went next.

  Finn then worked his way down and, hand on the door, reminded himself to stay calm. He tugged on the door and opened it to a strange, unfamiliar world. They found themselves in a tunnel that ran a great distance in both directions. People in Disney costumes walked in groups while battery-operated vehicles plied the corridors.

  The Utilidor was physically much wider, much bigger—enormous, really!—than Finn had imagined it would be: an underground road of sorts with doors leading from it.

  Actors dressed as nonhuman animated Disney characters, like Mickey and Minnie and Donald Duck, paraded past, each wearing or carrying a mask large enough to cover their whole head. There were others dressed as human characters, wearing makeup but without masks—Belle and Snow White, Peter Pan, and Mulan. The walkarounds, they were called.

  A small electric truck zoomed past, stacked high with cans of soda and bottled water. Finn looked to see Charlene and Willa headed in the same direction the truck was going.

  He followed a short distance behind Philby, who in turn followed Maybeck. The boys were now moving in the opposite direction from the girls.

  Overhead, along the tunnel’s ceiling, thick cables and pipes hung. No Disney music played down here. Instead the boys heard only the whine of the vehicles, the steady whoosh of piped-in air, and the gentle murmur of voices.

  Finn passed a girl with Cinderella’s hair and face. But she wore blue jeans and a tank top, not yet in costume.

  The boys walked briskly for well over five minutes before finally coming to another tunnel. Maybeck followed the signs as Wayne had told him. This new tunnel gradually sloped downward, leveled out, and ran another fifty yards before climbing again, then it dead-ended at yet another busy tunnel. Finn followed to the right, Philby and Maybeck just ahead.

  Offices and unidentified rooms lined the route. It was extremely busy down here, with people coming and going like worker bees. Finn caught a glimpse of a cafeteria. He passed signs for the PROPERTY ROOM, a barber shop, and a women’s hair salon. A city! The tunnel veered left.

  Philby and Maybeck slowed and pretended to read from a bulletin board.

  “It’s just up ahead,” Maybeck said in a low voice. “The timing is critical because there’s a coffee break coming up. Wayne thinks our best shot at getting in there is during the coffee break.”

  Finn took a sip from a water fountain, stealing a look down the hall. They waited. A few minutes later three workers—two men and a woman—left the door marked CONTROL ROOM.

  The boys approached the door and entered.

  Inside they faced row after row of steel shelving, like bookshelves in a library, floor to ceiling. Instead of books, the shelves were filled with thousands of tiny blinking lights, red, yellow and orange: rack-mounted computers.

  It was chilly in here.

  Maybeck hurried down the second-to-last row, saying softly, “Wayne’s point is that no one will notice Maleficent’s cold aura in a cold place like this. He said the servers are in a back room.”

  Sure enough, they soon stood facing several steel doors, all unmarked.

  Finn stepped forward and touched the back of his hand to each door in succession. The middle door was noticeably colder.

  Finn wondered for how many years—how many decades—Maleficent had been confined to the various tunnels and lairs beneath the Magic Kingdom. It seemed no wonder she’d turned to the dark side of her powers.

  “How do we do this?” Maybeck asked, now that he’d led them here.

  “I don’t think we knock,” Philby said.

  “Actually…maybe we do,” Finn said, surprising the other two. He thought for a minute and said, “Have either of you ever run track?”

  Maybeck nodded.

  “How about the relay?” Finn asked.

  Maybeck nodded again.

  “Drivers, start your engines,” Finn said. He pulled the boys into a three-way huddle and told them his plan.

  “Knock, knock!” Finn said loudly. “It’s your favorite Disney Host Interactive,” he announced. He kept one eye on the wall clock. The coffee break was scheduled to last fifteen minutes. Six of those minutes were behind them.

  No answer. Seven minutes gone; eight minutes remaining.

  “I’ve come to offer you a deal.”

  Spines of ice crept up the edges of the closed door. Finn could picture the witch standing just on the other side. His knees felt weak, but he had to go through with this.

  He raised his voice. “We’re through. We’re done. Wayne—he’s an old guy who sent us here to steal something from you—but we’ve had a change of heart. We want to destroy the server. The computer that generates our DHIs. We don’t want to do this anymore.” Still nothing, though the ice on the door thickened. “We don’t know which server it is. We don’t know what to do. You help us—without hurting us—and we’ll give you the pens.”

  The doorknob went white with frost. She was holding it from the other side.

  “You’re thinking this is a trap,” Finn said. “And you’re right to think that. But it isn’t. We just want to go home. We want to sleep at night. Please…help us, and you’ll have what you want.”

  The doorknob turned.

  Maleficent stood in the doorway. She had not fully recovered from Finn’s zapping her the night before. She looked older, slightly yellow in the cheeks. Behind her, on a stack of more computers, Finn saw the scroll of plans she had stolen from him at One Man’s Dream.

  Finn and Maybeck backed up a step. Philby was nowhere to be seen.

  “Which server?” Finn asked.

  “And we need whatever back-up server they have, as well,” Maybeck said. “Once we’re gone, we don’t want them able to bring us back.”

  Maleficent glared at them with her eyelids lowered menacingly. She was either half dead or ready to kill.

  “I’m sorry for what I did,” Finn said. “I didn’t know.” Finn realized he’d zapped a good deal of the power from her. He’d drained her. She was like a battery running out of juice.

  She said nothing, just stood there blinking, looking devilish. She gathered
her strength and said, “Jez likes you, or I would have hurt you last night when I had the chance.”

  “That’s comforting to know,” Finn said. “I’ll put down the pens. You can have it. But first you’ll show us the right server.”

  “First the pens,” she said. “You think I’d trust you like that?”

  “And why should I trust you?”

  “This is your idea, not mine. Besides, once I have the pen, what threat are you?”

  Finn concealed his smirk as he shrugged. “Have it your way,” he said.

  He withdrew the group of pens and pencils from his pocket and placed them on the ground.

  Maleficent approached them like a kid nearing a Christmas tree. She seemed to have more energy. Her eyes flared open in expectation.

  Finn took several more steps backward, Maybeck right next to him.

  But behind Maleficent, the door to the back room swung slowly away from the wall, and there stood Philby. In his right hand Philby clutched a fistful of pens and pencils tightly.

  Maleficent bent toward the pens on the floor, clearly cautious. But as she drew closer she saw modern brand names on the pens. She looked up through fiery eyes.

  “Now!” Finn shouted.

  Philby charged from behind and did just as Finn had told him: holding the pens extended, he drove his fist into the witch.

  At that same moment, she turned around.

  A blinding flash erupted as the pens made contact. Maleficent rose from the floor and was thrown violently past Finn and Maybeck and into the heavy black shelves.

  Maybeck sprinted forward into the back room, grabbed the roll of plans, and headed for the main door. Philby, stunned by what he’d done, passed the pens to Finn, leaving behind on the floor the pens the boys had collected from a desk at the front of the control room.

  Philby was next out the door.

  “What’s going on here?” A big man blocked Finn’s exit.

  Just then a shower of sparks and spurts of flame rose from where Maleficent lay pinned to the computer shelves, impaled onto a stack of electrical oudets and surge suppressors. As the electricity flowed through her body, beneath the smoke and spitting sparks, Finn saw her skin color return to a rich green. The electricity fed her.

  “What—is—that—?” asked the office manager.

  Maleficent’s bloodshot eyes flashed open and locked onto Finn. He’d never seen eyes so angry, so mean and vicious. So powerful. And they were aimed at him. Only at him.

  The office manager staggered toward a fire extinguisher hanging from the wall.

  Finn made for the door.

  Maleficent pulled herself loose from the metal shelving as a shower of sparks cascaded overhead and cried, “Aaaah! I needed that!”

  She flew out the door. Literally.

  The office manager fainted.

  33

  Finn hit the tunnel running. Behind him raced a blur of green and black as Maleficent sped through the air, her arm pointing in front of her and leading the way.

  Closing the distance.

  The boys ran side by side now, Maleficent behind them, and closing fast. Like a shell game, the boys passed the plans back and forth between them, then switched positions as they ran and passed the plans again. For someone behind them, where Maleficent now followed, it grew impossible to determine which boy had the plans.

  Then, just as Maleficent was nearly upon them, the boys split up, running in three different directions.

  Maybeck mumbled, perhaps a little too loudly for his own good, “I’ve got them! Don’t worry. Just run!”

  Finn took an exit door to his left. He raced up the stairs at a furious speed, glancing behind. No Maleficent. She’d followed Maybeck.

  Finn broke into blinding daylight. He checked the tube of papers tucked into his waist, thrilled the plan had worked. Fresh air. Park music. For a moment Finn couldn’t figure out where he was. A cast member door led out into Tomorrowland. That was wrong! He was out of position. Finn fled through the door and out onto a busy concourse.

  At midday, the area bustled with activity, a steady stream of guests in a chaotic mass of T-shirts, shorts, and the sweet smell of suntan lotion.

  How long would it take for Maleficent to discover their trickery?

  The plan had been to rendezvous with Amanda on the bridge between Tomorrowland and the Central Plaza. But which way? Finn had left the Utilidor via the wrong exit.

  He heard the crowd scream to his right. He was familiar with all sorts of sounds in the Magic Kingdom, but this particular roar sounded out of place.

  A second later, Maybeck came out of the same CAST MEMBERS ONLY door. He was out of breath and sweating.

  “She’s after Philby,” he told Finn.

  Another scream broke from the distance.

  Some little kids shouted, “Aladdin! Aladdin!” and cut through the thick crowds to reach Maybeck, who they mistook for the character. Maybeck tried to get away from them. Parents called after their kids to be polite. A line formed behind Maybeck as he and Finn set out walking.

  Maybeck said under his breath, “We should have lost the wardrobe.”

  “I don’t know,” Finn said, “maybe we can use this.”

  He handed Maybeck one of the pens.

  “You’re kidding me!”

  The children caught up and surrounded them both, their autograph notebooks out and ready.

  “Sign some autographs, Aladdin,” Finn said encouragingly.

  With clenched teeth, Maybeck asked in a whisper, “How do you spell Aladdin?”

  Finn spelled it for him as yet another excited scream pealed from the crowd—this time much closer. A sea of park guests parted to his right. A green witch. Maleficent. She walked quickly and deliberately and was just scary enough looking to hold her admirers at bay.

  “Head down!” Finn called out.

  Maybeck ducked, continuing to scribble out autographs furiously.

  The green-faced witch and her following sea of fans passed them by.

  Finn backed away from the clot of eager children.

  “That’s all!” Finn said, though to little effect.

  Maybeck was suddenly hooked on this autograph writing. He made no attempt to stop.

  “Aladdin!” Philby called out. “You’re going to be late!”

  Maybeck finally gave it up. He made his apologies, and he and Finn moved on.

  The crowd up ahead, the group following Maleficent, stopped, colliding into one another. This, because the witch had stopped and turned. But why?

  Finn moved in the other direction. He came face-to-face with Jez.

  “Give us the pen and the plans, and we won’t hurt you,” she said.

  Several things happened at once. First, Finn spotted a group of four or five seagulls clustered atop a high white fence. Then he saw Amanda. She stood inside the same white fence, the gulls perched overhead. She signaled Finn to join her. Third, Jez reached for the plans—and stole them from him.

  “Go!” Finn ordered Maybeck. And there was Philby standing next to Amanda, also beckoning them over to the fence.

  Finn dove at Jez, knocked her down, and took the plans back. She sat up on the pavement, mumbled something, and cast a spell at Finn.

  He felt a sharp pain flood through him. His knees went weak. That dreaded sense of cold overcame him.

  Jez smiled at her success, got to her feet, and stepped toward him. Finn fought against the spell by thinking of himself as pure light—as a DHI—even though he was just Finn Whitman, the boy. He allowed her no power over him, refused to give into her. As he did, something strange happened. His fingers tingled.

  A woman in the crowd gasped, “Oh, my gosh! Look who it is!”

  Finn was crossing over—becoming his DHI.

  He mentally pushed against Jez. The harder he pushed, the more of his body turned to light—a hologram.

  The next spell she tried to cast passed right through him and turned a small tree just behind him to solid ice.
/>   The crowd applauded and cheered, children shouting, “More! More!”

  Jez lunged at Finn but she, too, passed right through him.

  Again, the crowd cheered.

  She dared to try again. This time, Finn stepped into her and stopped. He moved with her in perfect lock-step, able somehow to know her every thought.

  She spun in circles, trying to rid herself of him. They were a single entity now: spinning and glowing. Two kids in one. The crowd went wild.

  Finn resisted the cold. He felt warmth replace it. He heard her calling out, “Your Grace!” She sounded desperate and afraid.

  The crowd roared their approval; a spinning vortex of light, and the girl’s wild cries for help.

  Finn stepped away from her, and Jez spun to a stop, dazed. She raised her head slowly while studying her hands, her arms, touching her forearms as if they didn’t belong to her.

  “I can’t believe it.” As her eyes met Finn’s, she cried out, “I’m…free!”

  Free from what? Finn wondered.

  “You did it!” Jez said to Finn, her eyes bright, her voice excited. “No more cold. No more Maleficent. You freed me!”

  With that, the most startling thing happened. Jez changed, she transformed, before Finn’s eyes. The crowd applauded as her hair changed color, from jet-black to a sandy blond. Her eyebrows and eyelashes became lighter as well, and a few freckles appeared on her cheeks. She was, without question, a different girl, a beautiful girl, and yet…familiar. Finn couldn’t get over the feeling that he’d met her before, that he knew her, this new girl. And then, as he glanced back to his friends and saw Amanda there calling for him, a spike of astonishment filled him, and he felt the DHI dissolve and the real Finn return. Amanda’s face filled with light, with an expression of joy Finn had never seen. Tears filled her eyes.

  Finn looked back and forth between the two girls, Jez and Amanda, and—

  It couldn’t be….

  But it was.

  They were sisters, twins perhaps, not identical, but close to it.