entrance.
For some reason, the brooms hadn’t fol owed him inside.
28
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 tel ing what he might find. Big or smal , 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 careful y 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 physical y 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 al 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 fil ed quickly. The brooms appeared at the end of the line. They spread out and
moved along the wal 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 fal , 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 stil appeared focused on the show, not the audience. To play it safe, he lowered his head and pul ed the brim of his cap down farther. How long until they spotted him? And then
what?
The crowd laughed, but not Finn.
A cel phone rang in the audience. Several heads turned in his direction. His father’s BlackBerry was ringing in his pocket. He’d forgotten al 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 al fours and began crawling to his left toward the exit doors. Guests moved
their legs to al ow 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 ful run, unwil ing to look back to see if a crow was fol owing, 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 fol owing him? Why had the brooms
seemed more interested in the stage show than in finding him? Maleficent’s powers clearly extended throughout al 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. Al but
Wil a.
Finn tried several times to reach her, final y giving up and hoping her DS was somehow off-
line.
But it didn’t make sense. There was free Wi-Fi al over the Parks.
So why wasn’t she answering?
29
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—al 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.
…
Wil a 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 smal er kids were also waiting out the line by sitting on the floor.
Jez had brought a part of her world into our world, as wel , Wil a 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.
Wil a 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 fel asleep.
The rest was a dream. She saw herself being helped to her feet by—of al things—two bears
from the Country Bear Jamboree. The kids around her, bored with waiting, were thril ed 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 fal s asleep—the same kind of tingle she’d experienced on the nights when, fal ing asleep, she’d crossed over as a DHI.
Where the bears were taking her she couldn’t tel , 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. Beautiful y quiet. Wonderful y quiet.
Far, far in the distance she heard the cal s of exotic animals—as if someone had Animal Planet playing on their television.
Wherever she was, it felt like she could sleep there forever.
30
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
unusual y 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 wait’s pen. finn sent me.
[ ]: follow me
As Finn had done before him, Philby fol owed 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 hal , 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?
philitup: does that include the music system?
[ ]: i would imagine, follow me. and don’t write anything until I tell you to do so. it is not beyond consideration that the overtakers are monitoring vmk. they should never be underestimated, they are devious and powerful, and it’s apparent they will stop at nothing to control the kingdoms, we must be vigilant.
Philby didn’t type anything. He guided his avatar toward the door and waited as instructed.
Wayne approached. Asterisks appeared in his speech bubble. The door swung open.
Philby’s avatar fol owed the white-headed figure out into the hal way. Wayne knew his way around VMK, taking Philby to places he’d rarely visited. They entered a private room that didn’t
look particularly interesting. Philby realized this was a trick: the less interesting it looked, the less interested anyone would be in spending time in there. Wayne coded the door shut and then approached the far wal . Again, asterisks fil ed his speech bubble. A door swung open, and the
landscape changed considerably. The wal s and floors were silver and black. Dark blue signs with
white lettering acted as trail guides:
They turned left, fol owing the signs to the Animal Kingdom.
Access through the door marked AK CONTROL required yet another code from Wayne. The
door opened, revealing a room with a flow chart projected on a large wal . It reminded Philby of a war room, like he’d seen in movies. The flow chart showed: MECHANICALS, SECURITY, STRUCTURES,
ATTRACTIONS, GATES/ACCESS, BACKSTAGE . Under some of these were smal er tides like ASIA, AFRICA, CAMP MM, DINO L. It looked like a giant outline or family tree, with branches connecting a main tide to its smal er subtitles.
Wayne’s avatar climbed into a cage on the end of a long mechanical arm. It reminded Philby
of the cherry pickers road crews used to trim trees or repair phone poles. Wayne pul ed the door
to the cage shut, and Philby watched as he pushed levers and the cage rose to pass in front of the titles on the flow chart.
He maneuvered them to stop at MECHANICALS. Wayne reached out and pushed against the
screen. Immediately, the projection on the wal changed. Now MECHANICALS was listed at the top,
and there were dozens of subcategories, including—Philby noticed—PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEM.
Wayne reached out and tapped the title.
The lettering folded back, opening an entrance like a window in the wal . Wayne opened the
cage door and led them through this new opening in the wal and into a massively complex room.
Philby gasped. He heard his own voice and only then was reminded of where he was: standing in
a smal hut, in Camp Minnie-Mickey. For the past few minutes he had almost become his avatar.
He’d been transported. He hadn’t remembered where he was. Now, glancing behind him, he looked out through the open doorway into Camp Minnie-Mickey and reminded himself to remain
alert; the Overtakers were not to be underestimated.
He then looked to the screen; Wayne was waiting for him.
[ ]: we’re safe now.
Philby moved his avatar forward. He faced a large sound-mixer projected on the floor in front
of him. He studied it, realizing this was a photographic image, probably of the actual soundboard
somewhere in the Animal Kingdom’s control room. And, like the real thing, the virtual soundboard
would not only al ow him to change volume or inputs throughout the Park, it also displayed cables
to switching stations and the hundreds of speakers placed throughout the Animal Kingdom. With a
click of a button, he could then overlay either a satel ite image or a map of the Park, making it
easy to identify the exact location of the various sound-system elements. Wayne was right: it offered an easy method for troubleshooting problems or identifying problem spots without being in
the Park.
Slowly, he got the hang of the technology.
philitup: whoa…
[ ]: no one ever accused the imagineers of being stupid.
philitup: this is incredible, i can follow any wire anywhere.
[ ]: and perform tests on it i should think that was the purpose after all: long-distance testing and repair.
philitup: how much time do i have?
[ ]: no one will bother us here, take as long as you like, since i’ve gone into hiding, i have nothing but time.
Philby’s main interest was the separation of the Park’s background music, divided into the
five sound areas. Each area had its own output, volume, and tone controls. He located the output
wires on the back of the mixer—virtual speaker wires leading out into the Park.
philitup: what are the chances the Overtakers have jez locked up in the s
ound control room? she could input her iPod into this mixer pretty easily.
[ ]: i would doubt that but i can go check if you like.
philitup: check, how?
[ ]: all the security cameras are on the screen out there, where we just were: the main screen, i can go into the security control room and view any camera in the park.
Philby had an idea. He wondered…
philitup: some of those cameras connect to the Conservation Station, the TVs that visitors can control.
[ ]: the AnimalCams. yes.
philitup: could i reroute all the security cameras to one of the AnimalCams?
[ ]: if you know what you’re doing, i suspect you could.
philitup: I do all the cable TV stuff at our house, i can probably figure it out.
[ ]: let’s finish up here, and i’ll take you over there.
Philby spent several minutes fol owing the speaker cables, quickly determining that from where he and the others had heard “Under the Sea” playing over the system, they’d actual y been
part of the Asia speaker system. He rechecked the soundboard, looking to see if he could explain
Jez’s iPod having played over the system. There were so many knobs and dials he didn’t know
exactly what he was looking at. He’d used GarageBand on his own computer, but this was far more complex.
philitup: she’s either being kept in the control room or somewhere in asia.
Kingdom Keepers II: Disney at Dawn Page 13