Disney in Shadow (16 page)

“It’s a cross,” said Amanda. Maybeck turned the box around in his palm to make it a proper cross. The
V
now pointed down, toward his wrist.

“That’s not a
V
,” said Finn. “It’s a point.”

Philby said, “It’s a tip of a—”

“Sword,” said Maybeck.

“Only boys would see that as a sword,” said Charlene cynically. “It is so obviously a cross.”

“It’s a sword,” Philby said, agreeing with Maybeck. “This is Wayne, don’t forget.”

“It’s a cross. And in Epcot, that means France.”

“And it was outside of France,” Amanda said to Jess, “that you felt…you know…felt something the first time you crossed over.”

Jess nodded timidly.

Willa said, “And France also means Notre Dame. The Hunchback—that’s Disney.”

“It’s a sword,” Maybeck repeated.

“And in Epcot,” Philby said, mimicking her, “that’s…” He squinted his eyes. “Norway. The Maelstrom ride—”

“I love that ride!” said Finn, immediately wishing he hadn’t.

“—has a sword in it,” Philby said, finishing his thought.

“
Impressions de France
,” Willa said, “is a film in Epcot’s France. It shows the cathedral, as does an exhibit while you’re waiting to get into the film. He’s left us another clue or the answer there. Maybe he’s being held in France.”

“Maybe he’s being held in Norway,” Philby fired back.

“Maybe we split up and figure this out,” said Finn.

“Divide and conquer,” said Amanda. “Girls to France, boys to Norway.”

“Tonight,” said Maybeck.

“Nine o’clock,” said Philby. “I can cross over and program the projectors.…I have to cross over to program them; there’s no way past the firewalls from out here. I can’t promise the system won’t go down at midnight. I tried to reprogram that, but things got weird, and I’m not sure I did any good.”

“That will give us about three hours,” said Charlene. “Isn’t that enough?”

Philby answered for the boys. “It depends on what we find.”

B
Y NINE-FORTY THEY HAD ALL
crossed over into Epcot. They arrived into the same location as before—near the public restrooms on the way to Test Track. This time Philby wore dark clothes, while Charlene arrived in the same cotton nightgown she wore so often, a victim of her single mother’s lying down on Charlene’s bed with her and both of them subsequently falling asleep.

Finn’s DHI appeared, on his side with his legs tucked up against his chest, his hands flat under his head, in the same position in which he slept in his bed at home. He sat up and headed for the concrete block planter before even saying hello to anyone.

His hands dug around in the planter.

“Okay! Who’s got it?” he said, trying to keep his voice calm.

The others looked at him blankly.

Jess said, “Got what?”

“The Return,” Philby answered, understanding immediately. “The fob.”

“Our way home,” said Maybeck. “Without the fob, we’re stuck here.”

“The Syndrome,” Charlene choked out.

“Seriously,” Finn said. “This is no time for games. Who’s got it?” He searched their faces in the dim light and knew immediately that it was not a practical joke.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said, desperately.

“Listen,” Philby said. “It may not be stolen. It could have easily been found by a gardener who thought it had fallen out of someone’s pocket when they were sitting on the wall.”

“Lost and found,” Charlene said.

“Exactly,” said Philby.

“Oh, perfect,” said Willa. “How are we supposed to find lost and found?”

“By looking for it,” Finn answered. “We can’t freak out. Stuff happens.”

“Yeah, but it happens to us
all the time
,” Willa said.

“That’s part of it, I think,” Finn said. “Part of being whatever it is we are.”

“Kingdom Keepers,” said Amanda. “Don’t you guys get it? You think it’s coincidence that we’ve all met? That Jess and I just happened to meet you? I don’t think so. Wayne put you together for a reason. Each of you has a purpose, and together we have some bigger reason for being here.”

“We get it,” said Maybeck. “We just don’t talk about it a lot.”

“It’s kind of freaky,” said Charlene.

“Finn is right,” Amanda said. “You—we—can get through this. We
have
to get through this. I have the ability to move things around. Finn can walk through doors. He and I will look for the fob. Once we get it back I’ll go to France and Finn will go to Norway—how ridiculous does that sound?—and catch up with you.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Maybeck said. He rarely agreed with a plan, so Finn took this as a major endorsement. “Philby and I will head to Norway and look for the sword.”

“Jess, Willa, and Charlie,” Finn said, using Charlene’s nickname, “will make for Paris and the possible connection between the box and a cross. You’ll also make sure no one attacks Jess from her left.”

“I think that threat is over,” Jess said.

“No matter what,” Finn injected, fiddling with his mobile phone, “we meet here before midnight. No matter where any of us are at eleven-forty-five, we head back here to return.”

“We apparently can use our phones,” Philby declared. “In case you’re interested,” he said to Finn, reading the screen, “lost and found is in a gift shop to the right of the entrance.” He held up his phone. “I Googled it.”

“I’m interested,” said Finn. He reached out and grabbed Amanda’s arm above the elbow. “You okay with this?”

“I’m following you,” she said.

* * *

Willa voiced what Charlene and Jess were both thinking. “They didn’t try to stick a boy with us.”

“I was sure they would,” Charlene said.

“It’s the sword,” Jess said. “Boys and swords. I’ll bet if you asked Finn, he’d have rather gone after the sword than the lost and found.”

“Stay down,” Willa said. “No matter what, we can’t be caught or get in trouble. The boys would fry us if that happened!”

The most dangerous moment lay ahead: crossing the fountain plaza. Their DHIs shimmered in the dark, like the face of a wristwatch losing its glow; they didn’t throw light—they wouldn’t be easily seen from any kind of distance, but within ten to twenty yards they were visible.

“We’ll go one at a time,” Willa instructed. “Charlene, you’re the fastest, so you’ll go first. If you’re chased, don’t lead whoever’s following to France, so you’d better have a plan now for where you’ll go.”

“There are trees behind The Land,” Charlene said. “And on the other side of The Living Seas is a small forest. I can lose anybody in there.”

“We’ll meet at the Eiffel Tower in twenty minutes if we get separated,” Willa announced.

“Later,” Charlene said.

Crouching low, she raced out across the open expanse and into the trees across the way. She waved at them and then stepped deeper into the vegetation, disappearing.

Jess went next. She, too, was a fast runner and reached the trees apparently without causing any alarm. Her DHI sparkled in the shadows.

Willa waited, a tingle tickling her at the base of her neck. Something wasn’t right. She waited, looking both directions. It was a hum. Not an engine—not exactly—but a bike maybe, that sticky sound of rubber on concrete. To her left she saw them: a pair of Segway scooters, those two-wheeled motorized scooters that maintain perfect balance and are ridden standing up. Police used them in airports and malls. But it wasn’t policemen riding the two Segways; the riders were…crash-test dummies.

She squinted and blinked, believing she’d seen wrong. Despite everything she’d learned about the parks after dark she still couldn’t always accept what she saw.

The dummies were talking to each other, riding the Segways side-by-side, their voices too faint to be heard at a distance, but voices nonetheless; there was no mistaking that sound.

The Segways followed the path curving around the World Showcase Lagoon and, a moment later, were gone.

Willa sprinted across the plaza and into the trees, making a mental note to ask Philby about the Segways. If crash-test dummies could get hold of a pair of the things, why couldn’t the Kingdom Keepers manage to as well?

“Did you see that?” she asked the other two as she reached them, deep into the trees.

“What?” Charlene asked.

“No,” said Jess.

“Ah…well…you probably wouldn’t believe it anyway. Let’s just say there are patrols out, and I’m not talking Disney Security.”

“Overtakers?” whispered Charlene.

“That would be yes,” Willa said. “On Segways, and moving fast.”

“That’s random,” Willa said.

“Is it safe?” Jess said, clearly frightened.

“It’s never safe for us,” Willa informed her. “The thing to remember is we’re nothing but projected light. I mean, that is, that’s what we are when we’re pure DHI, which is basically never.”

“Unless you’re Finn,” Charlene said. “And Maybeck once. And I’ve been practicing.”

“If we could make ourselves pure projection—what Finn calls ‘all-clear’—then there would be nothing to catch—like waving your finger through a flame, or one of those laser pointers.” Willa sounded like Philby but with a high voice. “But the minute you let fear into it, which is basically all the time, then you’re catchable.”

“So let’s get this over with,” Jess declared.

They worked their way through the planting around and behind Canada and past some bathrooms to a spot where Willa motioned for them to stop and squat down behind a merchandise kiosk. The Eiffel Tower, shimmering with lights, rose to their right. The night air made it look so impossibly close.

“This is the worst,” Willa whispered. “The only way over to France is across that bridge. Unless you feel like swimming?”

“No thanks,” gushed Jess.

“We’ll be totally exposed,” Charlene said. “Totally out in the open.”

“That’s right.”

“It turns at the island,” Willa said. The bridge was supported by what amounted to a large rock at the middle. “We might be able to hide there, but I doubt it. The trouble is, you can see that bridge from just about anywhere in the World Showcase. Even from across the lagoon.” She pointed to the two Segways moving past Japan: small, swift, silent shapes.

“Their backs are to us,” Charlene said. “We could go for it.”

“There are more,” said Jess in a chilling voice. She rubbed her forehead as if fighting a headache.

“You feeling okay?” Charlene asked, with evident concern.

“Pictures in my head,” Jess whispered. “It hasn’t been like this before. Same thing last time. It must be this place.”

“Or,” Willa said, “maybe becoming a DHI did something to you. Maybe we should have thought about that.”

“I think it has to do with getting older,” Jess said. “Every week it’s different now. Stronger.”

“We don’t want to lose you to some surprise attack.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Jess said. “How do we get over the bridge?”

Charlene answered. “We don’t.”

The two looked at her intently.

“We go
under
it,” she said.

* * *

At Spaceship Earth Finn and Amanda crossed to the west side of the plaza and then into a jungle planting, heading toward the entrance and the gift shop. They were both jumpy, alert for Overtakers.

“It’s so weird when it’s empty like this,” Amanda said softly.

“Yes, it is. Same with the other parks. I thought I’d get used to it, but I don’t. It freaks me out.”

“Totally.”

“There are Overtakers here. We saw them. Let’s not forget Gigabyte.”

“Oh, thanks. I really needed that image.” Amanda crossed her arms and looked afraid.

“If we have to run, head for the parking lots. The projectors only work in the park itself. We’ll turn invisible out there. Once we do, once we lose them, make your way back around and into these trees. On hands and knees if we have to. We’ll meet in the middle, so circle toward the center. Circle again if you don’t see me.”

“The really creepy part,” she said, “is that you say that all so calmly. Like I should expect to be chased. Like wandering around on my hands and knees in some Disney jungle, glowing and sparking like some kind of defective light, is normal.”

“You kind of get used to it,” he said.

“Which makes it all the weirder, believe me.”

They’d traveled twenty yards or more. Finn held his fingers to his lips and signaled her that they were looking at the back side of the gift shop.

He moved close to her and spoke incredibly softly. “I’m going to try to get through that back wall. If anyone shows up, or if I come running out of there, I may need you to do that wind thing of yours: to stop someone chasing me.”

“No problem.”

“You can do it just like that?”

“Same as with Greg,” she said.

“And is there anything else you can do? Any other powers you’re keeping from me that might be helpful?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” she said.

“What kind of answer is that?”

“The only one you’re going to get.”

* * *

Philby and Maybeck had sneaked along the west side of Epcot, past Test Track and Mexico to a place where they had a clean view of Norway’s central building with its many sharply pointed roofs and barnlike wood construction.

“Inside,” Philby said, “there’s a Norwegian village—”

“And Maelstrom,” Maybeck reminded him.

“Exactly.”

“So what are we waiting for?” Maybeck asked.

“The Segways.”

“What Segways?”

“The trouble with you is you don’t pay attention. Two Segways passed in front of Germany about five minutes ago, heading counterclockwise.”

“Toward us.”

“Correct,” Philby said.

“Those scooter things.”

“Correct.”

“So we hang.”

“Until they pass. Yes. Then we’ll stay close to the edge there, make our way into Norway and head straight for Maelstrom. That is, unless you have a better idea?”

“No need to be like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like the way you’re being.”

“There’s every need,” Philby said. “You challenge everything I say, Maybeck.”

“You’re a nerd. That’s what I’m supposed to do.”

“Says who? Like there’s a handbook or something?”

“Listen: you’re the nerd and I’m the dude. What can I say?”

“I thought you’re the one who doesn’t like stereotyping.”

“That’s true.”

“So?”

“So I could cut you some slack some of the time.”

“Like now, for instance.”

“Okay, I get it. What you don’t understand, is how annoying it is to hang with a know-it-all.”

“Then don’t hang with me.”

“I don’t mean it that way: you’re okay. It’s just…annoying that you know so much.”

“Pardon me for living.”

“You wouldn’t understand because you don’t have to be around it.”

“I happen to like to know stuff.”

“I’m not knocking that.”

“Of course you are.”

“You make the rest of us look dumb…feel dumb.”

“No way.”

“I’m telling you,” Maybeck said.

“I don’t mean to do that,” Philby said. “I get excited about knowing stuff. Maybe I take it too far.”

“Maybe?” Maybeck snapped sarcastically.

“Message received,” Philby said. “But you’re no prince, either.”

“Don’t tell the ladies that.”

“Ssh!”
Philby spotted a pair of slender shadows on the path and at the same time heard a whining hum of an electric motor.
The Segways!
He stretched out an arm, driving Maybeck into shadow with him. Both boys wore black—all that showed of their DHIs was a thin glow along their shoulders and legs. It looked like nothing more than the light that wavers from a lighted swimming pool at night; you would have to stare long and hard to make any sense of what you were seeing.

Maybeck gasped aloud as the Segways passed and he saw not people but crash-test dummies riding the scooters.

Philby went rigid and stayed absolutely still as the nearest Segway came to a gradual stop. The Segway spun in their direction and the dummy was looking right at them. He spoke in an eerily electronic, monotone, computer-generated voice like from a bad science fiction movie.

“Rover Two reporting audible anomaly, detected four degrees south by south-southwest from current position.”