“Well, then.” Ariel extended her hand for Willa to shake. “Nice to meet you.” She lowered her voice, “Your secret’s safe with me.”
“I have a favor to ask,” Willa said.
“I’m really just here for handshakes and photographs.”
“The treasure chest,” Willa said, pointing to the wooden trunk. “What’s inside?”
“No idea.” Realizing others were listening, she addressed everyone. “I’ve never opened it.”
“Could you please?”
“I’ve never been asked.”
“If you don’t mind?” Willa said.
Ariel clearly didn’t know what to do. She kept her composure, but her eyes wandered as if a handler might step forward to help her. In fact, that was exactly what happened.
“May I help?” a young woman asked.
“This young lady would like me to open the treasure chest,” Ariel explained.
“It’s important,” Willa said in a whisper.
Though the company had never publicly acknowledged the work the Kingdom Keepers had done to save the Magic Kingdom, word had spread through the community. There were few that didn’t know the story by now, both inside and outside the network of Park employees. A book had been written and published as fiction, but many knew the truth.
“How important?” Ariel asked.
Willa raised the baseball cap, revealing herself. A shock of recognition overcame the girl. Willa hoped this was the right thing to do. She lowered her voice. “Did you hear about Tinker Bell last night, during the fireworks?”
Ariel’s eyes widened, and she nodded.
“What is going on here?” the handler whispered hotly into Willa’s ear.
“What? I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t give me that! First Captain Hook comes through our line nosing around where he doesn’t belong, and now you? And not fifteen minutes apart? What is it with you people?” She leaned in even closer. “Are you inspecting us or something?”
“Captain Hook?”
“Don’t give me that.”
“What did he want?”
“Captain Hook’s a walkaround. He doesn’t talk, in case you’ve forgotten. How would I know what he wanted?”
“He was just here?”
“They never used to pull surprise inspections,” the handler complained. “And I don’t like it.”
Willa tried to process all that she was being told. The Overtakers? Here before her? Also interested in Ariel? Why?
“You want your picture taken with me?” Ariel asked. “It would be an honor.” She’d opened the treasure chest for Willa: empty.
Willa felt her head spin. She had to beat Captain Hook—or whoever he was—to Mickey’s PhilharMagic.
“I’m fine!” she shouted over her shoulder, already hurrying away.
FINN ARRIVED AT HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS bone-tired, well aware that if he or any of the other Kingdom Keepers fell asleep, they might not be seen again. Ever. Worse, Jez’s disappearance pressured all involved to find her quickly. He was going to be in trouble if this went on much longer. He didn’t put it past his parents to go looking for him at Blizzard Beach. When they failed to find him there…
He hurried down Hollywood Boulevard toward Mickey’s giant sorcerer hat, which towered one-hundred-and-twenty feet over the central plaza. He had his his own cap brim pulled down low over his sunglasses as he kept an eye out for any kids recognizing him—he didn’t need that. He would take evasive action if necessary. He identified possible escape routes in each direction.
While checking out a Kodak shop to his left, he spotted a large black crow on the building’s roof. The bird was certainly big enough to draw attention to itself, but Finn’s curiosity ran deeper: it seemed to be staring at him. The bird had its head cocked so that its large black eye was trained down, not just on the street but on Finn. As Finn moved, so did the bird’s head. As Finn hurried up the street, the bird flew and followed, building by building.
Finn might not have taken any notice or interest in a stupid crow, but he couldn’t ignore Maybeck’s tale about being attacked outside the bat enclosure by a flock of birds. He’d been bitten badly by a parrot once and could remember it as if it were yesterday.
Now, hurrying to the Voyage of the Little Mermaid, it seemed pretty obvious that the crow was following him. This, in turn, made him search the area to see if there were any other animals nearby. He spotted a group of chickadees in a tree outside the Brown Derby—but they didn’t seem particularly threatening. A solo jay stood watch from a roof overlooking an icecream vendor. Finn’s distraction with the animals caused his attention to falter.
He heard the voice too late. “Aren’t you…him?” A boy of ten or eleven. His parents stood a few feet back, his mother’s face bright with expectancy. Finn glanced around. How had the boy possibly recognized him? He didn’t want this to get out of hand; sometimes signing a single autograph could start a big line.
“Do you like the Magic Kingdom?” Finn asked the boy, who then nodded vigorously.
“The Kingdom Keepers,” the boy said. “You’re Finn. You beat up Maleficent.”
Finn bit back a smirk. “Not hardly. Those are just stories,” he said, accepting an autograph book from the boy. “I’ll sign this, but only if you promise not to tell anyone.” He lowered his voice and said conspiratorially, “I’m here on a mission.”
The boy’s eye went wide. He shook his head, too awed to speak.
“Good.” Finn led the boy over to the sidewalk, where he could sign the autograph book with his back turned to the street. In the Disney Parks, anyone signing anything attracted attention.
The boy followed. As Finn put pencil to paper, he briefly glanced up and into the reflection in the store window. Three brooms, one holding a bucket of water. He spun quickly around, dropping the autograph book. The boy bent to retrieve it.
The brooms stood facing him.
“Thank you!” the boy said, cherishing his autograph.
Finn had nearly forgotten about him. “No problem.”
Then something occurred to him. “You see those brooms over there? They look real familiar, but I can’t remember why.…”
“Fantasia,” the boy said.
“Fantasia,” Finn said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that one.”
“It’s a pretty weird movie,” the boy said. “The brooms show up in ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,’I think. Mickey, the apprentice, can’t control the magic—you know? It gets all out of hand. The brooms are part of that.”
Uncontrollable magic, Finn thought. Yes, he knew exactly what that was about, just like uncontrollable holograms. The brooms were there for him. He felt certain of it all of a sudden.
Finn thanked the boy, who ran back to his mother’s side.
Were the brooms part of Park Security? Were they going to bust him for being in the Park? Or were they something more sinister: uncontrollable magic?
The brooms swept their way across the street and drew closer.
He walked quickly away. He looked back: the brooms were definitely following.
Up ahead, he heard music from High School Musical. A huge crowd of onlookers formed a half moon around a street show of cheerleaders and basketball players dancing and singing.
Finn worked his way into the dense crowd, glad to see the brooms stop at the back. But then the three split up. The one with the bucket went around the crowd in one direction; one stayed put; the other swept off in the opposite direction. He was surrounded. If they weren’t Security, then they were something much worse.
The leader of the High School Musical street show called for volunteers to dance with them. A number of kids raised their hands. Finn followed one of the kids as the music started. He kept his back to the crowd and headed toward the movable stage.
The brooms all were trapped with the crowd.
Finn dodged his way through the cheerleaders and ducked behind the stage. He hurried through the plaza beneath
the sorcerer’s hat, running hard now. He arrived at The Great Movie Ride.
The brooms regrouped and moved through the crowd—but they didn’t seem to be in any hurry.
Finn entered the ride. He was directed into one of the cars, joining a family of three on a long bench. He lowered his head to keep from being seen. But he looked up to steal a peek toward the entrance.
For some reason, the brooms hadn’t followed him inside.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, with no sign of the brooms, Finn joined the line for Voyage of the Little Mermaid. The ceiling was painted to look like water. His heart beat excitedly: he was “under the sea.”
There was no telling what he might find. Big or small, ordinary or out of the ordinary, it could be anything.
He heard a commotion behind him—the people waiting for the doors to open were oohing and ahhing. Finn turned carefully around and spotted the three brooms. They danced and bowed and entertained as they progressively moved closer.
Finn nudged past several people. “Excuse me…I got cut off from my family…pardon me…I’ve lost my family and I think…” He never quite completed a sentence, thinking this made each excuse less of a lie.
People complained, but no one physically stopped him. He pushed to the very front of the line, putting a good distance between himself and the brooms. What did they want? he wondered. Would they possibly try to hurt him with all these people as witnesses?
The doors swung open. Finn hurried across a row in the middle of the large auditorium. If he kept going he’d have reached the seats closest to the exit doors, but he was afraid he might be more easily spotted there. So he took a seat near the middle.
The theater filled quickly. The brooms appeared at the end of the line. They spread out and moved along the wall to the back of the auditorium.
Before he had time to think, the lights dimmed and the theater went dark. Very dark. As an artificial rain began to fall, Finn took a chance and peeked over his shoulder. The brooms seemed to be watching the show along with the crowd. A wet mist blew from the stage, surprising the audience. A child cried out. Then there were laughs as the audience settled in for the show. The theme music rang out: “Under the Sea.”
The song was the connection to Jez, and Finn searched the stage for possible clues as dozens of brightly colored sea creatures, glowing in the pitch black, began swimming across the stage to the music. Ariel arrived onstage, and the audience applauded.
Flashes of color drenched the auditorium. He stole a look to the back: only one broom.
He fought off a sense of panic. There! Midway down the auditorium, a broom on each side. To his relief, they still appeared focused on the show, not the audience. To play it safe, he lowered his head and pulled the brim of his cap down farther. How long until they spotted him? And then what?
The crowd laughed, but not Finn.
A cell phone rang in the audience. Several heads turned in his direction. His father’s BlackBerry was ringing in his pocket. He’d forgotten all about it. He fumbled with it and shut it off, but by the time he had, it seemed as if half the theater were looking at him.
Including the two brooms on either side.
The music grew louder. The auditorium darkened once again.
Finn dropped to all fours and began crawling to his left toward the exit doors. Guests moved their legs to allow him past, creating a commotion. A storm erupted onstage. Finn reached the end of the aisle and hesitated. Light flooded the theater. People applauded.
Finn jumped up and made for the exit.
He ran straight for the broom and pushed it over.
Hitting the blinding sunlight, he took off at a full run, unwilling to look back to see if a crow was following, or a broom chasing him. It seemed to him he’d picked up nothing of value. A waste of time.
Or maybe not, he thought. Had the Overtakers been following him? Why had the brooms seemed more interested in the stage show than in finding him? Maleficent’s powers clearly extended throughout all of the Disney Parks—the existence of the brooms confirmed that much.
On his way back to Animal Kingdom, he sent a text warning to the others.
Four members checked in on D-Gamer: Philby, Maybeck, Charlene, and Amanada. All but Willa.
Finn tried several times to reach her, finally giving up and hoping her DS was somehow off-line.
But it didn’t make sense. There was free Wi-Fi all over the Parks.
So why wasn’t she answering?
WILLA TRIED TO USE HER ID to jump the line for Mickey’s PhilharMagic, but to no use. So she joined a long line that moved in waves, as a group of three hundred guests was admitted into the auditorium.
With each surge in the line, she passed more posters—all with a funny play on words. The line moved ahead, and it wasn’t long before she faced the one Maybeck had mentioned. It showed Ariel and Triton, as Maybeck had remembered. It was titled, “A Must Sea!”
A plaque on the bottom of the frame read: ARIEL BROUGHT PART OF HER WORLD INTO OUR WORLD.…
Willa knew this was somehow significant. She sat down to make a note of it, to copy it out exactly as it was written.
Some of the smaller kids were also waiting out the line by sitting on the floor.
Jez had brought a part of her world into our world, as well, Willa thought. She’d brought her dreams about the future. She had foreseen things happening in the world that had now taken place: the lightning striking the castle, for one. Finn was right. If they were to find Jez, her drawings were the answer! The poster seemed to confirm it.
Willa wrote the note and put it in her pocket. Then she leaned her head back—just for a minute, she told herself—and tried to think of what else the message might mean. The more she concentrated, the heavier her head became. Her eyes began to blink away the stinging fatigue.
She fell asleep.
The rest was a dream. She saw herself being helped to her feet by—of all things—two bears from the Country Bear Jamboree. The kids around her, bored with waiting, were thrilled to see the bears. As she was taken out of the line and through a Cast Member door, she felt her entire body tingle. Not a nice tingle, but like when a foot falls asleep—the same kind of tingle she’d experienced on the nights when, falling asleep, she’d crossed over as a DHI.
Where the bears were taking her she couldn’t tell, but there were voices and the sound of an engine. A few minutes later came the sounds of car doors and more voices. A friendly voice welcoming people. She heard the Animal Kingdom mentioned. It wasn’t long until she felt incredibly comfortable, and it was quiet again. Beautifully quiet. Wonderfully quiet.
Far, far in the distance she heard the calls of exotic animals—as if someone had Animal Planet playing on their television.
Wherever she was, it felt like she could sleep there forever.
PHILBY APPROACHED THE Disney Vacation kiosk in Camp Minnie-Mickey, a stone’s throw from the Lion King pavilion. He clicked on Dream Vacations and typed in yensidtlaw. Presented with a Web page, he typed in the address: www.dgamer.com/vmk, as Finn had instructed. He next clicked on the logo and was asked for his username and password. A moment later, to his surprise, he arrived at VMK’s Central Plaza, in control of an avatar. He navigated the avatar toward a bench at the center of the screen.
Wayne? he typed. But as Finn had warned, nothing appeared, only the question mark. He typed the name again. His speech bubble showed only his ID—philitup—and a question mark. Growing impatient, Philby walked his avatar around the plaza. A minute passed, feeling more like five. For a third time, he tried typing the name. Nothing.
As he circled back around to the benches, a speech bubble appeared above an avatar with unusually white hair. Philby couldn’t remember having seen hair that color inside VMK before.
[ ]: were you looking for someone? appeared above the white head.
philitup: uncle walt’s pen. finn sent me.
[ ]: follow me
As Finn had done before him, Philby followed Wayne on
a long trip through the Web site to a private room Philby had never seen before. Wayne’s avatar shut a door behind them.
[ ]: we can talk here, anything typed is encrypted.
philitup: okay.
[ ]: do you have a message from finn?
philitup: we need engineering blueprints for the AK, it looks like Jez may have messed with the sound system, if i can study the way it all works, maybe we can find her.
[ ]: messed with?
philitup: a song—Under the Sea—was played over the PA. not only does that song not belong in AK, but it played three times in a row, and amanda says it’s the same singer jez has on her iPod, not the singer disney uses.
[ ]: i see.
philitup: finn thought you could help me get the plans, i thought about that maintenance place you showed us, but how can i get past the workers?
[ ]: you won’t need to. besides, this time of day it’s too risky, there’s a better way. once we leave this room, we’re no longer encrypted, i won’t answer any questions out there, so i’ll explain everything now. once we leave here, you’re on your own, although i’ll show you the way. i’ll get you inside.
philitup: inside where?
[ ]: patience, my boy.
Wayne’s avatar moved back to the door. He typed in a code that showed only as asterisks in his speech bubble. The door opened. The avatar stepped out into the hall, looked in both directions, and returned to the room, again shutting and code-locking the door.
[ ]: can never be too careful, it would appear we’re all alone, which is good. VMK was not always a game, originally, the imagineers wanted to create a virtual control room for the various parks, essentially, they were lazy, they wanted a way to fix small mechanical problems, or study the schematics from remote locations—their homes, or while they were traveling, the more employees, the more sets of plans were needed, and the paper plans were constantly changing and needing updating as systems were improved or modified, a guy named alex wright came up with the idea of putting it all online, they would encrypt access for security reasons, and each Imagineer or employee would have his or her own avatar—a mock human being with hands and feet that could not only study the schematics online but could carry out some minimal maintenance or switching procedures: open boxes, pull switches, the area they created was termed the virtual magic kingdom—vmk—and in their spare time they began to create games with each other, they built rooms and attractions in their virtual world, it was only much later it occurred to someone to allow the public inside, at that time, they sealed off what they call the mechanicals, hiding them behind encrypted firewalls, last year it became apparent the Overtakers were trying to compromise VMK. the site was closed to the public, i can get you access to the mechanicals if that’s what you want?
Kingdom Keepers Boxed Set Page 32