Then she saw the two cages. Big, as Amanda had described. They sat on the pavement, pushed up next to the steel barn. Both were wrapped in canvas tarps, but the canvas was not secured well along the bottom, allowing Charlene to see a slice of forest green fabric inside the cage: a ranger’s uniform.
Willa!
She couldn’t see anything inside the second cage, but she didn’t need to: Philby. She had no doubts.
“Faster,” Maleficent ordered. “We need more room. Bigger! If he’s to fit, it must be bigger!”
Were they taking Philby somewhere? Smuggling him out of the Park in an ice truck? Or was she talking about some other hostage?
She tried to make sense of it all: the monkeys clearly obeying Maleficent’s orders as if they understood her, the cages containing her friends, the melting pile of ice bags, the urgency in Maleficent’s voice.
She knew what had to be done: she had to untie the worker and set him free. But did she dare climb down and attempt that? Wasn’t it wrong not to? And if she messed up, if she got caught, would she end up like Willa and Philby? Where would that leave Maybeck and Finn, except further isolated?
Backing up slowly now, she decided this needed a team effort. She was no match for the power of Maleficent, who had once, with nothing but a wave of her hands and a mumbled incantation, created an electronic fence to surround Charlene’s friends.
The climb back down the wall proved more difficult than her ascent. She had just strapped her feet back into the stilts when she heard: “Look, Mommy! What’s that?”
The “that” was her, of course—the boy was pointing at her.
She stood absolutely still.
It felt like five minutes passed; it was more like thirty seconds.
“What? Where? The big one hanging from the rope?” the mother asked.
“Not the bats! The thingy. The creature. The vine thingy.”
But no one saw her. Charlene had blended into the foliage around her. A few minutes later the unwilling boy was led away, still protesting that he could see the vine lady, and why couldn’t anyone else see her?
It took Charlene fifteen minutes to work her way around the rock wall, and a second distraction—this time executed by Maybeck—to leave the enclosure.
A moment later, Finn and Maybeck joined her.
“So?” Finn asked. “Did you see anything?”
“We’ve got problems,” Charlene answered. “Big…big problems.”
39
FINN IMMEDIATELY UNDERSTOOD what Charlene and Maybeck did not: it wasn’t Philby and Willa in the cages. Not exactly.
He took off down the jungle path, forcing Maybeck to hurry to keep up with him. Charlene had been asked to blend into the jungle and keep a strict eye on the bat enclosure. He used the DS to tell Amanda the same thing. Now that Charlene had repaired the sabotaged camera, Amanda had more opportunity to monitor events backstage.
Though winded, Maybeck kept up. “What’s going on, Whitman?”
“You, of all people, should know,” Finn said.
“Me? Why?”
“Space Mountain.”
Maybeck said, “What about it?”
Finn stopped and pulled Maybeck to the side of the path, out of earshot of the other guests who passed in a steady stream. He spoke in a hush. “When they trapped you in perma-sleep, they put your DHI in—?”
“A maintenance cage!” Maybeck answered. “It wasn’t Willa and Philby Charlene saw. It was their DHIs.”
“Exactly,” Finn agreed. “Even someone as warped as Maleficent wouldn’t put a kid in a cage that small. But a DHI is another story.”
“But if the DHIs are in those cages,” Maybeck said, “then why don’t they just walk out?”
“Why didn’t you just walk out of the maintenance cage in Space Mountain?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It was like I was half asleep or something. Until you showed up, it hadn’t occurred to me.”
“Because we had crossed over, and you had not. With your body in perma-sleep I have a feeling your DHI is kind of in this suspended state. It doesn’t know what’s up. Remember, Wayne programmed the server that controlled our DHIs. Maleficent is running the second server. Who knows how their DHIs are programmed?”
“So we need to cross them back over,” Maybeck said. “That’s the only way to get them out of the control of the second server.”
“Exactly!”
“But why would the Overtakers do this?” Maybeck wondered aloud. “Why trap them in perma-sleep in the first place?”
“There’s only one guy I know who can answer that. And he’s also the guy who holds the button. The remote control that can cross them back over.”
“Wayne!”
“If I can get that remote from him, and we can get close to those cages, we can release the sleeping Willa and Philby—wherever they are. And I happen to think I know where they are.”
Maybeck didn’t dignify that with a question, but he also couldn’t wipe the curiosity off his face.
“Animal Kingdom Lodge,” Finn answered. “Those are the closest beds to the Park. You can reach the lodge from the savannah, and we know the Overtakers are on the savannah.”
“I’ve got to admit: it does make sense,” Maybeck said. “When exactly did you figure all this out?”
“Back there,” Finn said. “When Charlene described the cages, it all fit.”
“And now we’re headed to find Wayne.”
“Yeah. There’s the terminal in Camp Minnie-Mickey. I can access VMK there,” Finn said.
“I thought Philby never came back from that terminal.”
“Which is why we’re doing this together,” Finn said. “Charlene will stay and keep an eye on the enclosure. I’ll use the terminal to try to get to Wayne, and you’ll stand guard. We’ll use the DSs. You see anything weird, you can text me.”
They started walking again.
“But what if we’re wrong about the cages?” Maybeck asked.
“We’re not,” answered Finn.
* * *
Finn’s avatar stood by the bench in the VMK’s central plaza, while Finn himself occupied the small booth near the Lion King pavilion in Camp Minnie-Mickey. The air was burning hot, and he picked up the smell of popcorn, which made him realize how hungry he was. He knew that soon his parents would start to worry. They would expect him home from the water park. But he had things to do.
Knowing it would not print, he typed WAYNE into his dialogue box. Sure enough, it turned red in the text frame and wouldn’t print.
Players’ avatars entered the plaza, pausing below the billboards or circulating while waiting to meet each other. Finn’s patience was wearing thin when a white-haired avatar finally appeared from his right. Wayne’s avatar never stopped moving as Follow me appeared in the dialogue box.
He led Finn to the same room where he had taken Philby. Wayne locked the door with a special code.
[ ]: we’re safe here.
Finn: philby and willa have gone missing, we think their DHIs are being kept in cages behind the bat enclosure, i need the button.
[ ]: I spoke to philby not long ago. right here.
Finn: he never showed up. i think Maleficent is holding them to protect the second server, we can’t crash the server with willa and philby stuck in Sleeping Beauty Syndrome.
[ ]: this is most disturbing.
Finn: can you get me the button—the remote control?
[ ]: yes. of course, though i’ll have to use a messenger…. may i suggest the talking recycling bin. a few minutes from now, near the ticket gates, the remote will be taped inside the recycling bin. reach in and feel along the top.
Finn: i’ll be there.
[ ]: if she’s trying to protect the second server, then I fear the worst: she will either turn herself into a DHI to fool us or do harm, or she will compromise the animal DHIs created for Animal Kingdom and use them to her advantage, this is a grave situation, in the magic kingdom she recruited Overtake
rs from within the attractions, most notably the pirates and the small-world dolls, in animal kingdom there are few, if any, such characters she can recruit for her army, it is our fear she has corrupted the animals themselves, five more orangutans have escaped, along with a half dozen gibbons, several snakes cannot be found, a wildebeest rammed one of the electrical fences attempting to break out. she is clearly gaining strength.
Finn: we want our friends back. Jez drew some things in her diary that have already come true, we think the diary may be—
He stopped typing as Maybeck shouted: “Mayday, dude! Mayday! Mayday!”
40
MAYBECK KEPT WATCH from the side of a popcorn cart, where a multicolored umbrella was angled to throw shade onto the Cast Member behind the cart. The tilted umbrella offered Maybeck a screen from behind which he peered, spying on Finn and the Park guests milling about Camp Minnie-Mickey, as well as the surrounding jungle. Nearby, a gardener was watering some plants and hosing down the base of two tall trees, allowing the water to pool.
Because of his personal experiences, Maybeck also kept an eye on the sky, alert for any birds. But it was a lizard, not a bird, that caught and held his attention.
Small lizards inhabited most of Florida. He’d grown so accustomed to seeing them zip up trees, across sidewalks, and down the walls of buildings that he almost didn’t notice them at all. His aunt Jelly, who was as close to a mother as Maybeck would ever get, called them “little dragons” and considered them close relatives to the cockroach and mouse. She wasn’t beyond trying to beat them with a broom as she shooed them from the house. He’d been catching them since he was five; if you grabbed one by the tail, the tail came off. For a while he’d kept the tails—he’d had about twenty—but Jelly had found them and thrown them out, never saying a thing about it, then lying to him when he asked.
But the lizard he saw wasn’t like other lizards. For one thing it was fairly big—five or six inches, instead of the typical three or four. It was also some kind of chameleon, quickly changing from the brown of the wood chips in the jungle to the grayish black of the paved path as the reptile emerged into sunlight. But more than anything, it was the way the lizard headed straight into trouble that won Maybeck’s interest. Despite dozens of running shoes and sandals slapping down around it like mallets, the creature never wavered from its mission, dodging this way and that as it risked getting crushed. The lizards that Maybeck lived with spooked easily and skittered away as fast as lightning when approached. He’d never seen a lizard as bold as this one. It headed straight for…
…the Disney Vacation Web terminal.
Maybeck looked back toward the jungle from where the lizard had emerged. From there, in the shaded darkness held in place by tangled vines and leaves the size of tennis rackets, two sets of green glowing eyes stared out. He fixed his attention on them, trying to strip away the camouflage of plants and undergrowth in order to see to what those eyes belonged.
Monkeys…he thought at first. But the eyes were too widely set for a gibbon, and too far off the ground. Orangutans!
It was then that he saw the chameleon stitch its way back through the slalom course of legs and slither into the jungle, heading directly for the green flash of eyes.
As much as he resisted the idea that any of this was actually happening, he sorted it out quickly: the lizard was some kind of messenger; the monkeys were on a mission; Finn was their target.
A moment passed, and he realized he’d almost had it right.
Almost, but not quite. That’s when he saw a lion slink out of the jungle. He fumbled with the DS, but it was going to take too long.
“Mayday, dude! Mayday!” he shouted.
The Park visitors saw the lion as well. A man screamed as a woman grabbed her children by the hands and started to run. The crowd scattered.
Finn turned around and froze.
Maybeck again glanced to his left—the gardener. He knew what to do.
41
FINN SPUN AROUND to see a lion strolling toward him. A big lion. A lion with a thick collar of fur, a huge head, beady eyes, and glistening white teeth. He instantly knew this was not a case of bad luck: the lion was coming for him just as the bats had come for Maybeck.
The lion lumbered toward him, now only a few yards away. The guests had scattered but now encircled an area about twenty yards across, with the beast at its center.
Heat flashed through him, and all the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck rose with his fright.
He knew what he had to do: he had to cross over. The lion couldn’t hurt a DHI. But as the enormous cat began to flex, as if preparing to strike, Finn’s fear was not to be conquered. The lion opened its mouth and let out a tremendous roar that seemed to come from all around. It surrounded Finn and shook the ground. It didn’t sound natural. Finn threw his hands out, fending off the attack. He swooned, feeling dizzy.
And then, at once, several hands grabbed him and began to drag him away.
He heard applause and laughter.
He blinked his eyes open but was immediately blinded by the sun in the sky.
He averted his eyes and happened to catch a glimpse of one of the hands wrapped around his arm: black and calloused, with long, thin fingers. The hand was connected to a hairy arm.
Finn wrenched his head around.
He was being dragged off by a pair of orangutans. He tried to break the grip of the one on his left, and the thing bared its teeth and lunged toward his face as if to bite him. Finn jerked away, narrowly missing those teeth.
They were dragging him toward the jungle. They were kidnapping him.
And the audience thought it was all part of the show.
42
MAYBECK HEARD THAT ROAR and ran for the gardener who was watering the trees. He stole the hose out of the man’s hands. Not really a man—more like a college kid. The guy didn’t appreciate someone stealing his hose.
Maybeck’s aunt Jelly had a mutt named Porky who considered their small backyard his domain. About once a month some stupid neighborhood dog would decide to visit their backyard without an invitation from Porky, typically resulting in a dogfight of epic proportions.
The first time Maybeck had tried to break up one of the fights, he’d nearly gotten his hand bitten off. He’d been saved by Jelly, who had broken up the fight with the garden hose. Ever since, Maybeck had used a strong burst of hose water to separate Porky and his prey.
He took the hose and sprinted toward the large apes who were dragging his friend across the pavement. He fought his way through the thick crowd, which was actually laughing and cheering.
Maybeck gave the hose one last tug, but he’d reached its limit. It would extend no farther.
He squeezed the handle and shot a burst of water at the lion. The water pressed right through the animal.
A DHI!
Next, Maybeck aimed the hose at the nearest orangutan, hitting him squarely in the head. The ape was real. It let go of Finn to block the water streaming toward its face.
Again, the audience let out a cry of approval, clapping and hollering.
The ape shot a glance at Maybeck as if to challenge him, then quickly seemed to reconsider, and turned back toward Finn.
Maybeck blasted the other ape.
Finn broke loose just as the gardener jumped onto Maybeck from behind, wresting the hose from his grip.
Finn scrambled to his feet, slipped on the wet blacktop, and went down hard. Both orangutans rushed him, and Finn rolled out of the way, causing the two apes to collide. He got to his feet and took off toward Maybeck, who knocked the gardener aside, opening a small hole in the crowd, which Finn charged through.
The two took off at a full sprint, the orangutans following, their backs hunched, their teeth bared.
Finn glanced over his shoulder, but it slowed him.
“Don’t look back!” Amanda said into his ear. “I’ve got you. The Lion King show is running! You can lose them in there!”
“This
way!” Finn shouted at Maybeck, who had heard Amanda as well.
They angled slightly toward the large, open pavilion, where a flash of bright color and loud African music confirmed the show was underway.
“They’re gaining on you,” Amanda warned. “Zigzag!”
Finn and Maybeck immediately cut left and right, right and left, in random patterns. Rather than run straight and intercept them, the orangutans followed their paths exactly, and the boys, having the longer strides, increased their leads.
“It’s working!” Amanda cheered them on.
Together the boys burst into the show already in progress. Four sets of wooden bleachers rose from a theater-in-the-round, at the center of which were colorfully dressed acrobats performing on a giant trampoline, with trapeze artists spinning overhead.
As Finn slowed, Maybeck didn’t hesitate for a second. Perhaps it was the result of forward momentum, perhaps because the Lion King stage set blocked their way; but Maybeck ran right up a ramp, hit the trampoline, and vaulted his way through the air and across to the other side. He tucked into a somersault, rolled to standing, and went running down the opposing ramp—right out of the pavilion.
Trying to avoid a collision with the ramp, Finn skidded and tucked his legs under him as if sliding into home plate. He braced himself to be crushed into the side of the stage, only to fly through the fabric skirt that surrounded it and find himself under the movable stage platform and the giant trampoline at its center. He crawled toward the other side, looking back to see two orangutans right behind him.
He glanced overhead. The trampoline’s fabric stretched toward the concrete floor as the acrobatic show continued above him. Whenever anyone hit the trampoline, the fabric stretched so low that Finn had to lie flat; he couldn’t squat without the risk of being crushed. Watching the orangutans approach, he suddenly saw his situation not as a threat but an opportunity: he could use the trampoline to his advantage.
Doubting that he and Maybeck could outrun the two apes, Finn turned and took a stand. The apes were faster and stronger than he, but Finn had the edge in intelligence. He remained directly under the pulsating trampoline, now turning to face the two apes, who immediately slowed with this challenge.
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