“I’ve got it!” he announced.
But behind the panel he saw a metal gate. And the gate was padlocked. This helped explain why, if Jez had found this entrance, she’d been unable to get out.
He didn’t hesitate for a moment. Understanding the risk he took, Finn flushed all thought from his mind. He was neither anxious nor excited. Neither angry nor tired nor hungry. He felt the now familiar tingling in his arms and legs and witnessed a slight glow on the back of the stone panel that hung open: he had crossed over. He stepped through the wrought-iron gate, his glow illuminating a dank, stone stairway that spiraled down to his left. He turned around, his DHI already fading as fear crept into him. Fear of the dark. Fear of the unknown. He was himself again. He reached through the gate and grabbed a heavy iron handle on the inside of the panel. He pulled with all his strength, and the massive stone door clicked shut.
He’d acted a little too hastily: it was pitch dark.
He couldn’t see a thing.
52
FINN FELT HIS WAY DOWN the damp stones as the stairs beneath him fell away in a spiral to his left. It smelled at once of dust and mold, like his grandparents’ basement. He counted the stairs as he went: ten, eleven, twelve… before they leveled off. He walked on the flat now, straight ahead, his left hand skimming a rock wall, the occasional cobweb tangling in his fingers and making him jump. Finn didn’t like spiders.
The sound of his running shoes scraping the concrete changed; he could feel he was in a more open area. His vision, which had shown him nothing but sparkles and curlicues, improved to where he could make out a haze both to his left and right. It hung in the air like a gray mist. And now, slowly forming, a lump, an interruption in the mist. An imperfection in the horseshoe-shaped glow that continued to define itself.
“Jez?” he called out softly.
The lump moved. He thought it might have turned in his direction.
He called her name again, this time a little more loudly.
“If you’re a dream, go away!” Jez’s voice!
“It’s Finn,” he said, taking steps toward her, his hand still guiding him along the wall.
“Why can’t I wake up?” she muttered.
Finn felt good. His heart swelled in his chest. It was not simply the pride of success, of beating the odds and finally finding her. It went beyond that, to something more. He felt an importance in being here. A significance. He was saving Jez. He was doing something that really mattered, not just studying or wasting time on his computer. It gave meaning to all the effort they had gone to, all the risks they had taken.
And then the tunnel filled with a colorful glow, like a light warming up. And it was a light warming up. His light. His DHI. It filled his end of the tunnel, and what had been a lump of darkness transformed into Jezebel. She stood up from her slumped position looking almost angelic and came toward him slowly, as if she were floating. He couldn’t sustain his DHI, and it vanished. He pulled out the BlackBerry, using its glowing screen as a flashlight.
He thought of her as having jet black hair and bone white, almost translucent, skin. Intriguing eyes. That had been how she’d looked when he’d first met her on the Sports Complex soccer field, what seemed like years earlier. In fact, it had only been a matter of months. But Jez had made a radical transformation when Maleficent’s spell had been lifted. Her hair was now a shocking blond—almost white. Her thin lips shined luminously red.
She came into his arms, like a young child hugging a parent, and then let go.
In the BlackBerry’s weird light, they both looked vaguely blue.
“I didn’t think…” she stammered. “I hoped and even prayed, though I’m not very good at praying…I wired up the iPod but couldn’t be sure…”
“Amanda found a page in your diary,” he explained. “We followed your sketches.”
“I don’t even remember what I drew.”
“Dreams,” Finn said. “Amanda said it was what you dreamed.”
“Nightmares is more like it. I’ve had them here as well—down here in the dark.”
She explained the ordeal she’d been through. It was much as the Kingdom Keepers had come to suspect: her detention on the savannah; her escape, which turned on a mistake made by one of the monkeys; her flight across the savannah and over a wall that turned out to be the tiger yard. The early morning release of the big cats and her finding herself following one down a wooden hatch and into the tunnel while being stalked by another left behind in the upper yard.
“The hatches both closed at the same time, and I was trapped. At first I realized how lucky I was, because the Overtakers would never think to look in such a place, but then as time went on, it occurred to me that no one would look down here. That I was not just hidden, I was trapped. And that’s when I realized that a dream I’d had—of a landscape, but from above, like from a plane—made all the more sense. I was in the tunnel, under the C in the photo.”
“It was a satellite photo,” Finn said, explaining. “One of your sketches led us to it.”
“And that’s when I realized the song on my iPod might help you find me. I used my earbud wire to connect to a box.” She turned the glowing iPod, revealing a series of three junction boxes mounted to the stone wall and a number of wires leading from them. “I couldn’t be sure it would work, but I thought it probably should. And maybe you’d hear it. If you were even here in the Park. And so I decided to save the battery and only play the song every few hours.” She pointed at the glowing face of the device. “It still has some power, though not much, I’m afraid.”
“We need to get out of here. Amanda and Charlene are up there waiting for us. Philby is on VMK with Wayne—”
“But VMK is closed!”
“Wayne fixed that. The two of them are monitoring network traffic and also trying to see if they can control the hatches in the tiger yards.” Finn had nearly forgotten about the DS. He checked that it was turned on.
No signal. He tried the BlackBerry: no bars, no signal.
“To get down here,” Finn said, “I had to cross over to get through a maintenance gate. You can’t turn yourself into a DHI the way I can. You can’t cross over to get back out.” He paused, trying to think clearly. “We’re kind of stuck down here.”
“You can still get out.”
“That’s not going to happen. I’m not leaving without you.”
“You don’t happen to have a hamburger and fries in your back pocket, do you?”
“I’m going to try the DS again, closer to the hatches.”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
She disconnected the iPod and carried it in front of her as a very dim flashlight. Finn did the same with the BlackBerry. The tunnel’s floor was concrete, its walls, stone. The tunnel was longer than Finn expected. Nearing the far end—the end leading into the upper tiger yard—the tunnel floor began to rise, forming a ramp. The space became lower and tighter, ending in a box of concrete three feet square, a space Finn could just tuck himself into.
“It’s exactly the same on the other end,” Jez said.
Finn already knew their situation had improved: the static in his ear had lessened. “Have you tried opening it?”
“Yes. Of course. It doesn’t open.”
“What if two of us pushed?”
“It’s not that it’s heavy. It’s latched shut. Tigers are much stronger than either of us. I’m sure it’s constructed to stop a curious tiger from opening it.” She paused a moment. “Why do you keep checking your watch? It’s only a few minutes later than when you first looked.”
Finn said nothing. But he checked his watch again. She was right, it was 5:18. He’d last checked at 5:15.
“What is it?” she asked.
“The Park closes at six.”
“So Amanda and the others will have to leave. That’s not the most awful thing.”
“It isn’t just that,” he said. “They move the animals—all the animals—out of the Park at closing.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“And if we’re down here when they move them Her voice trailed off.
Finn caught himself nodding.
The DS beeped, indicating a connection.
philitup: Finn? Finn?
Finn: i’ve got jez!!! she’s ok!
Messages started to compete, but Philby cut everyone off with an announcement.
philitup: found the virtual switch, i think i can open the hatches, want me 2 try?
Finn looked up at Jez. “What do you think?”
“Do we have a choice? I’d rather get eaten running for my life than trapped in a tunnel.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
angelface13: ten apes just entered the tiger yards, looks like someone knows what we know.
Finn explained to Jez, “A guy saw us take the satellite photo. It’s possible that the Overtakers heard about it and figured out you were down here the same way we did.”
“There are monkeys out there?” Jez asked, unable to keep the tension out of her voice.
“Mean monkeys,” Finn confirmed. “Though the orangutans are the worst.”
“Well, that’s certainly reassuring. And we’re going out there?”
“I’m not sure we have any choice.”
53
MAYBECK AND WILLA stood guard at the Dream Vacation kiosk in Camp Minnie-Mickey. With their backs to Philby, who occupied the computer terminal, they kept their eyes on the crowd as well as on the jungle, acutely aware that the last attack had come quickly and without warning.
Philby had his hands full. While he was negotiating an intricate set of networking cables, represented on-screen by a rainbow of wires that spidered out from various network hubs to the myriad attractions, security cameras, and cash registers throughout Animal Kingdom, Wayne had worked his way through the virtual schematics to find a switch he believed responsible for the tiger-yard hatches. Philby had double-checked Wayne’s work and, agreeing with him, had called Finn over the DS.
philitup: changed a timer, in 5 minutes the tunnel hatches will open.
“Five minutes,” Finn said, sounding anxious.
philitup: will try to knockout any dhis. not sure if possible.
With Charlene’s announcement that the monkeys had arrived in the tiger yards, Philby noticed that the volume of network traffic increased exponentially. Data flowed along the colorful cables, not in data streams, but in data rivers. Philby worked the cursor to move his avatar along the virtual catwalks that carried the network cables like colorful hoses. Screen by screen he followed the increase in color that signaled a rise in data flow. Blue indicated outbound data—from various servers placed throughout the Park—while red signified data returning, check sums used to tell the server the data had reached its intended destination. Like data over the Internet, it moved in pulses, or parcels, which when combined added up to a whole message or image. With the jump in data traffic, the blue lines pulsed sky blue, and the red lines turned fire-engine red. The pulses got faster and the bursts brighter, until all at once a good number of lines turned into a shimmering purple—a combination of the red and blue, the data moving in such quantity and at such speeds that the two colors became a third.
These were the lines that interested Philby, for as life-size graphic images, holograms consisted of phenomenal amounts of data. His avatar hurried, staying with the same purple data line through a half dozen screens, making sure he never confused one purple line for another. (By simply rolling the cursor over the purple line a corresponding number appeared—like an ID tag. He followed number 518912.) The data was passed from one network hub to another, the largest and most complicated being a hub marked Discovery Island Hub.
From here, the purple lines traveled southeast across a bridge. Just before the bridge, a network line led to a structure marked Flame Tree Barbecue. Philby’s avatar reached the far side of the bridge and turned to follow the purple cables as Wayne’s white-haired avatar popped up from below the bridge. Wayne’s avatar held two silver swords cradled in his arms.
[ ]: here, one is for you. i fear we may meet resistance, and remember: although only a virtual world, if your avatar is killed or captured, it’s Game Over, i won’t be able to reconstruct you and reinsert you into VMK for at least an hour or two, and I fear by then it will be too late, if you’re to accomplish your mission you must stay in the game.
philitup: a sword?
[ ]: it’s all i could find on short notice.
philitup: how many of them?
[ ]: no idea, maybe none, but the closer we get to destroying them, the bigger the fight they will put up. they know you were in vmk earlier. I assume they’ve adjusted their defenses accordingly.
Philby took hold of the small sword—it looked like a silver toothpick—and swung it back and forth. It took him a moment to get the hang of it. Then Wayne stepped in front of him and the two sparred, Wayne handling the weapon with surprising aplomb. In fact, the more aggressive Philby got with the sword, the more effortless Wayne’s motions. They continued to duel, Wayne’s avatar dancing circles around Philby. Then Philby held his sword to his chest and typed a message.
philitup: you’ve done this before.
[ ]: a little, perhaps.
philitup: more than a little.
[ ]: there was a time…a long time ago…when the overtakers challenged the kingdom, this is why uncle walt left the stonecutter’s quill in the first place. I was a member of the team sent to repel the overtakers.
The Stonecutter’s Quill had been central to the Kingdom Keepers’ first attempt to defeat the Over-takers. Philby found it interesting, important even, to hear the history. He told himself to remember everything so he could tell the others.
philitup: sent?
[ ]: disney world was just being built at the time, the real power of the kingdom lay in disneyland, as it does to this day.
philitup: what kind of power?
[ ]: it needn’t concern you now.
philitup: but it does.
[ ]: patience, my young friend, if the battle ever returns home, believe me, the kingdom keepers will be part of it.
philitup: you were a swordsman?
[ ]: we learned many defenses, the sword but one of them, surprising how easily it comes back, you’re doing well enough, just remember: it is double-edged, it cuts just as easily on the backswing. conserve your energy and always swing in both directions.
philitup: I’ll try.
[ ]: it’s all that can be asked, now let’s be off…
Together they continued along the catwalks, up and down staircases, always following the pulsing purple cables. A group of cables ran to the right. Philby stopped to examine them: none was purple. Others continued straight ahead.
[ ]: we’re in dinoland. those are restaurants to our right the rides are to our left: fossil fun games, primeval whirl, and triceratop spin.
Six cables continued straight ahead—four of them pulsing a rich purple. What had left the Discovery Island hub as hundreds of data cables had been reduced to just a few, the majority of which were purple, indicating a large amount of data transfer. The cables were nearing the source of that data—the second server.
Philby was scared. For Finn, the key was to defeat the second server, to eliminate the DHIs Maleficent was using to increase her army. Who knew how many of the monkeys, birds, or tigers were real? The only way to absolutely know was to shut down the second server—for good—and that task now fell to him and an old man with toothpick swords. If they were going to encounter resistance, it was going to be soon.
He didn’t need to ask Wayne where those cables led. There was only a single attraction at the bottom of DinoLand USA.
Philby, the boy, not the avatar, briefly released the VMK controls. He turned around, found Maybeck’s face in the crowd, and called out, “The Dino Institute. You and Willa…as fast as you can!”
Then he t
urned back to the screen to see that he was too late: Wayne was under attack.
54
TWO MINUTES…
Finn counted down the seconds on his watch. He heard his mouth speak before he meant to say anything.
“The first time I saw you I was scared of you,” he told Jez. The two were huddled close together just below the hatch in the upper tiger yard.
“Me?”
“Your long hair. The way you looked at me.”
“I was under Maleficent’s spell,” she reminded him.
And I was under yours, he thought. “Yeah,” he said. “The thing is, as it turned out, there was nothing to be afraid of.”
“Are you trying to tell me something?” she asked. Their faces were about a foot apart. Only a tiny bit of light seeped in from around the edges of the hatch, emitting a dull glow. He saw the shape of her head, nothing more.
“Fear is a weird thing. It can totally take over, or you can push it away and suddenly it’s gone. That’s how I’m able to be a DHI—I remove all thought, all fear, and suddenly I cross over.”
“It’s going to be scary out there,” Jez said, suddenly understanding what it was Finn was trying to say.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Why can’t boys ever say what they actually want to say? If you were Amanda, you’d have just said, ‘Heads up, girl! It’s going to be freaky out there.'”
“Heads up, girl,” Finn said.
“Ha-ha,” she mocked him.
“I will try to leave the hatch as my DHI. If Charlene’s inside the tiger yard, she will be near a wall. Have you ever been to a rodeo?”
“Are you serious?”
“In a rodeo, the clown’s job is to distract the bull. To draw the bull’s attention away from the bull rider to give the rider enough time to get over the fence, out of danger. Think of Charlene and me as the clowns. You’re the rider.”
“They’re coming after me,” Jez said.
“They’ll come after all of us,” Finn said, “but they can only hurt you. They don’t know that, so that’s to our advantage.”
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