“What do you want?” he repeated.
“It’s not about what I want, Finn,” she answered. “It’s about what Wayne wants.”
He wondered if somehow this was Maleficent in disguise—if he’d walked into a trap, if she’d figured out how to transform herself into things other than animals. He thought he should have listened to Charlene; he should have taken off with her. He wondered if it was too late.
“What do you know about Wayne?”
“That he’s missing,” she said. “That you and your friends are the key to finding him.”
“You think?”
“I’m his daughter. I’m Wanda. Wanda Alcott.”
“Wayne’s daughter?”
“You don’t have to sound so skeptical. Don’t I look at all familiar? Even vaguely familiar?”
“I saw you outside the school, if that’s what you mean.”
“No, it’s not. I meant, don’t I look even a little like my father? People say we do.”
“No. Not to me.”
“He said you were the natural leader, the smartest one of the group.”
Finn swallowed dryly. He remembered Wayne saying that about him—not that he believed it.
“Not the smartest. Not by a long shot,” Finn said. “That would be Phil—That would be one of my friends.”
“Philby,” she said. “He’s kind of your wired guy, isn’t he?”
He felt a chill. How did she know so much?
Charlene was gone. Out of sight. He’d bought her the time she’d needed to get away.
“Don’t do it,” Wanda Alcott said, reading his thoughts. “I can help you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’re concerned I’m…her. Maleficent? No. Hardly. I’m as afraid of her as you are.” She answered his stunned expression. “Oh, yes. I know all about her. All about you. My father told me everything.”
“How am I supposed to believe you’re Wayne’s daughter?”
She smiled a small smile. “You’re going to have to decide if you trust me or not.”
“Not.”
“I thought the resemblance might help.”
“Nope, don’t see it.”
“The first time…the very first time, you ended up on a bench next to Goofy. My dad was there. He drove you around in a golf cart.”
Finn felt as if somehow all the oxygen had been sucked from the air. He thought he might faint.
“I can help you, Finn. You can help me, find him. Please.” She reached into her purse. “I showed this to Jessica earlier tonight. We agreed that you and Philby should see it.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said, but it was a lie. He did believe her—he just didn’t want to.
Her hand came out of the purse and opened.
Resting in her palm was a small white paper box.
WANDA ALCOTT PRODUCED a sizable set of keys from her purse and unlocked the door to the soundstage.
If she was Wayne’s daughter, it wasn’t immediately noticeable. She had auburn hair, a pleasant face, and vivid green eyes. She was wearing loose brown pants, a scoop-neck top, and a black sweater. Her earrings were silver cursive letter Ds, the first letter of the trademark Disney logo. Finn had never seen a pair like them. Though her physical presence was anything but that of an eighty-year-old man, she had the same self-assurance as her father. This, among other things, convinced Finn she might be telling the truth about being Wayne’s daughter.
It was the keys that actually sold him: who else but a friend or relative of Wayne’s could possess a ring of so many keys, one of which opened the door to Soundstage B?
And even though his brain processed these qualities about her, making every effort to convince him of her legitimacy, he wasn’t about to go through the door. He advised the other Kingdom Keepers to stay put.
“One of us will go first,” he said. “We don’t all go at once.”
“But this is why we came here,” Philby protested. “Besides, it’s far safer inside. Security could come along at any time.”
“Speaking of time,” Willa added, “we’ve lost a bunch. The Transportation Center shuts down in just over an hour. Whatever we’re supposed to be doing here, we’d better get to it.”
“It could be a trap,” Finn reminded her.
“She does look like him,” said Maybeck, the artist. “Her chin and eyes are the same.”
Wanda’s face warmed. “I’ll tell you what,” she said, working the door’s key off the ring and then returning the ring to her purse. “Finn, if you’ll give the paper box to Philby, my work is done here.” She offered him the key to the soundstage. “Jessica isn’t the only one who has vivid dreams. My father has had some powerful and unusual dreams for decades. Dreams that lead him to unusual discoveries. He constructed this box the day before he went missing. He drew the images. He’d told me about Jessica’s ability to see the future on the same day he gave me the box. Because of this, I know it means something. I showed it to her earlier this evening, and she said to show it to Philby. If I’ve accomplished that, then you can have the key and I can go if you like.”
“No,” said Charlene. “I think you should stay.”
“I agree,” said Willa.
Finn groaned.
“What if it was your father?” said Willa. “If we can help her then we should.”
“We’re already trying to help,” Finn pointed out. “That’s why we’re here.”
“Wayne is counting on you, on all of you—” Wanda said. “On all of us to save the parks. His concern is always for the parks first, and his own safety second. The Overtakers want the parks to themselves. He has taken so many risks over the years.”
“We need to get inside,” Philby said anxiously. “It’s not safe out here. There are no security cameras inside. What they shoot inside is classified, like the DHI work. It would be a lot safer.”
“He’s right,” Wanda Alcott said. “Security doesn’t have keys to Soundstage B, the work done here being classified. Once inside, you’ll be safe.”
Finn tensed. He and the other DHIs were the product of the “classified” work she referred to.
“Give me five minutes,” he said. “If I don’t come back out, take off.”
“I’m coming with you,” said Maybeck.
When Maybeck made up his mind, there was no use arguing.
“Okay,” Finn said. “Let’s go.”
Finn opened the door and the two went inside. There was a second door, meant to block light and sound when cameras were rolling. Maybeck pushed this second door shut behind them and together they entered the windowless, cavernous building. Maybeck found some light switches. It was an area the size of a big airplane hangar. The ceiling had to be fifty feet high. Hundreds of theatrical lights hung suspended from a steel superstructure. A massive green screen lined the entire length of one wall. In front of that green screen was where Finn and the others, wearing motion sensors, had elaborately acted out all kinds of movements in order for the computers to program the holograms. Seeing the space took him back to the auditions and the weeks of work here that had led up to his becoming a Disney Host Interactive. He’d never known then—none of them had—that Wayne had been secretly planning to cross them over and solicit their help in defeating the Overtakers. It seemed like he was a different Finn now than the kid who had first auditioned here.
“Not so different than when we were here,” Maybeck said.
“Kind of…weird, you know?” Finn said. “Like we never left.”
“Yeah.”
They searched the interior, including the two bathrooms, a small office, changing rooms, and a control room filled with electronics.
Maybeck climbed a ladder well up into the catwalks and rigging above the soundstage. His voice echoed as he called out. “There’s no one here. We’re good.”
They admitted the others.
“We can make this work,” said Philby, exiting from the control room. “The cameras, video, sound editing�
��it’s all here. All we need is—”
“Don’t say it,” Finn said, interrupting.
An awkward silence hung in the air.
“It’s about the girls, isn’t it?” Wanda said. “They’ve been grounded, so there’s no way to get them out to help you here. But if they were like the five of you…well, that would change things.”
Finn didn’t like it at all that she could know this.
Charlene shot Finn a look that cautioned him not to try to stop her from talking. “It’s that, yes,” said Charlene, “and also that they’ve been put onto park Security’s watch list. There’s no way to get them out of the foster home or into the parks.”
“But if they were DHIs…” said Willa. “If they could cross over along with us…”
Finn bit back his tongue, furious that they were sharing so much with a complete stranger.
“I understand,” Wanda Alcott said. “But please, whatever you do, don’t forget the box.” She addressed this to Philby. “It must be important.”
“I promise to take a look at it,” Philby said.
“How did you get into the park?” Finn asked suspiciously. “How did you get past Security? Tonight? Just now? Why didn’t they stop you?”
“Finn!” Charlene chided. “She’s offering to help us.”
“It’s all right,” Wanda Alcott said. “I’d expect no less after everything my father has told me about all of you. You haven’t exactly had it easy. If you weren’t careful you wouldn’t have made it this far.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything,” Finn corrected. “You’ve misunderstood me. I’m just curious for my own reasons.”
“Because you need a way to get Amanda and Jessica into the soundstage undetected,” she said.
Finn withheld comment, but the surprise on his face gave him away.
“But when can you possibly do this?” Wanda Alcott asked. “The girls are grounded.”
“The woman who runs the foster home—” Willa began.
“Mrs. Nash. Yes, I met her,” Wanda Alcott said.
“—attends Mass every Friday night and every Sunday morning for two hours—nearly three including driving back and forth.”
“But the other girls…all they’d do is have to report them and—”
“They won’t report them,” Maybeck said, “because the other girls won’t be there. They’ve received complimentary sessions at my aunt’s pottery shop—to ‘a program on Friday evenings and Sunday mornings provided to deserving institutions in the Orlando area.’ I’ll be at the shop, keeping them busy and monitoring them.”
“I’m impressed,” Wanda Alcott said.
“We’ve learned to work as a team,” Finn said. “Maybeck talked his aunt into doing this. She doesn’t know the full story, only that she’s helping homeless girls.”
“She has a big heart,” Maybeck said.
“But none of it means anything,” Finn said, “if we can’t get onto the property without being seen. Same goes for Jess and Amanda.”
“If I remember right, my father gave you all employee ID cards.”
“Yeah,” Philby said. “But it’s a long way from either employee entrance to this soundstage. We can wear hats and glasses, but it’s still a pretty big risk.”
“You won’t need the hats and glasses,” Wanda Alcott said. “I can get you onto the property. The girls, too.”
“But how?” Finn asked.
“You’ll need to use your employee passes to get backstage. Name a time, and I’ll meet you at the costume shop,” she said.
Finn hoped for more of an explanation. He didn’t get much.
“Make sure one of you has Maybeck’s employee pass with you. If he’s going to be at Crazy Glaze, he doesn’t need it.”
“We can do that,” Finn said, but his voice revealed his skepticism.
“My father had more than a few tricks up his sleeve,” she said. “It all comes down to trust, Finn. Leave it to me.”
FINN FELT THE PRESSURE of time running low as, on Friday evening, he, Jess, Amanda, Willa, Charlene, and Philby entered through an employee gate on the back side of Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Amanda used Maybeck’s employee card to enter; Jess used Wayne’s, provided to her by Wanda Alcott.
The time pressure arose from Mrs. Nash’s schedule. She spent two hours at Mass. It took her a half hour to reach the church in Friday traffic, and she remained at least thirty minutes after the service, praying for the welfare of her girls. That totaled a minimum of three hours she would be away from Nash House—the same three hours the girls of Nash House would be at Crazy Glaze.
But it had taken Jess and Amanda thirty minutes to reach the Studios. With another thirty set aside for their return, that left the Kingdom Keepers only two hours to accomplish what they’d come to do.
Wanda Alcott’s plan to get them inside the Studios required some humiliation. The kids were shown into costume storage and made to dress up in High School Musical outfits, either as basketball players or cheerleaders.
“Do we really have to?” Finn said, adjusting a headband.
“Cast members are used to seeing High School Musical kids here because of the street show. They won’t think anything of it. The only thing we have to be careful of is—”
“Being in the same place at the same time as our DHIs,” said Philby, interrupting, “because our faces are the same, and we might be recognized.”
“Exactly.”
They divided into the two groups: the DHI/film characters and the HSM gang, and entered onto the streets of the Studios. Wanda Alcott went ahead of them, both as a scout looking for the real DHIs, and to unlock the door to Soundstage B ahead of the kids’ arrival.
Nearing Soundstage B, only fifty yards away, Finn was approached by a round, red-faced kid who had a bully’s mischievousness in his beady eyes. This was something Wanda Alcott had not considered: DHI fans. Finn had encountered enough of these kinds of kids at school to know what was coming.
He whispered under his breath so that Jess and Charlene could hear. “Don’t let him try to touch me! He’ll either try to push me or punch me. He’s expecting his hand to go right through.”
“How do we stop him?” Charlene asked. She looked several years younger with her hair in braids and wearing a blue-and-white gingham jumper and red slippers.
“I don’t know,” Finn answered. “Step between us.”
As expected, the boy delighted in seeing what he believed to be a hologram that would serve as a punching bag. He stepped up to Finn, raised his fists and said, “Whatcha got, pal?” He took a swipe, his bunched knuckles coming straight for Finn’s chin.
Finn leaned back, the blow just missing.
The boy staggered, off-balance.
“That wasn’t a very nice thing to do,” Jess said, moving between them.
The boy’s brow furrowed and he stopped, stone still, utterly taken aback.
“Who are you?” the boy asked. He stepped toward Jess. She stepped back, still blocking Finn.
The boy took a step toward her. She stood her ground.
“This DHI is our guide,” she said. “You’ll have to get your own.”
“Jimmy?” called an adult from down the street.
The boy’s mother, Finn guessed.
“I’ll just borrow him for a minute,” the boy said in a mean voice.
Finn stepped back. But the boy was athletic. He’d anticipated Finn’s move and actually moved closer to him. He swatted out, grabbing for him. He’d expected Finn to be nothing but light. His face twisted into surprise as he caught Finn’s basketball shorts.
“What the…?” he mumbled.
Finn broke the contact and pushed the boy to the asphalt.
The boy just sat there, dumbfounded. “You’re no DHI,” he said.
“Go!” Finn told the girls. They obeyed, heading away.
“Jimmy?” his mother called out, concern now filling her voice.
Finn, worried the boy might tell on him, s
aid, “I’m a generation-three DHI, Jimmy.” He reached out his hand. “More human than ever.”
Finn helped the boy up. Jimmy stood slowly, awestruck at touching Finn.
“But how…” the boy said meekly. “I thought…” He couldn’t finish a sentence. “This is…way cool!” He reached out while wearing a mask of incredulity, once again trying to touch Finn.
But Finn moved away from the effort.
“James Francis McConnor!” the boy’s mother shouted. “You come here this minute!”
“I must catch up to my guests,” Finn said. He turned and hurried off.
Reaching Soundstage B out of breath, Finn glanced around trying to make sure no one was watching. There were too many people milling about for him to know. At last it came down to a decision.
He turned the doorknob and opened the door.
Inside, he found everyone waiting.
PHILBY RAN THE CONTROLS. Jess and Amanda changed into skintight green leotards and tights that included booties, gloves, and full hoods that covered their heads and faces like ski masks. Patches of green plastic mesh had been sewn into the hoods to provide a way to see out, and to breathe.
Charlene attached the thirty-five wired sensors to each of the girls. The sensors would measure every kind of joint and muscle movement. Then the girls took turns on the green stage in front of the green background as Philby directed them to squat, stand, walk, lie down, run, crawl, dance, and jump. He thought up dozens of combinations of movements as Finn and Willa ran video cameras that captured and recorded, from multiple angles, every move the girls made. The girls made some mistakes and had to repeat their movements, many of them several times.
Philby worked a pair of computers, one recording the video, the other recording the digital output from each of the thirty-five sensors. The computers measured and recorded the similarities and differences between the way each of the girls moved compared to a database of how dozens of other people moved, including all the Kingdom Keepers, each of whom had been part of the database nearly from its inception.
Philby completed the recording with just fifteen minutes to go until Jess and Amanda absolutely had to be headed back to the Nash House. He had a good deal of work yet to accomplish, work that had to be done in Soundstage B, with its phenomenally powerful computers.
Kingdom Keepers Boxed Set Page 51