Kingdom Keepers III Dinsey in Shadow

by Ridley Pearson

  * * *

  Locating a pickup truck with a bobblehead Mickey Mouse on the dash in such short order required them to split up. They kept their direct-connect phones at the ready as they snuck backstage. The

  “backstage” side of Epcot, as at the other parks, looked entirely different from the side the public saw: flat-roofed, steel-framed buildings housed the rides and attractions, the food storage, the costume and prop storage, the maintenance and administration facilities. There were large parking areas and a network of roads connecting it al . The kids fanned out to search for the pickup truck.

  Word soon came over the phone intercoms that Wil a had found the pickup near some cream-colored containers behind China. Finn and Amanda caught up to her quickly, fol owed a few minutes later by Philby, who brought a tarp with him that he’d borrowed from another vehicle.

  Charlene arrived out of breath, saying she’d seen Maybeck and Jess heading in the opposite direction, toward America.

  “I think Maybeck might have gotten turned around,” Charlene said. “I don’t think he knew where he was going.”

  It didn’t surprise Finn. It was not only dark but the back of the park was total y unfamiliar. Al the buildings looked the same, and there were very few signs.

  Finn was about to check on Maybeck when a man appeared from a trailer who Finn recognized as the driver. The man moved toward them and the pickup truck.

  “Turn your radios off,” Finn whispered, fearing they might be overheard if Maybeck suddenly cal ed.

  “What do we do?” Wil a asked.

  “We’re too late,” Finn whispered. “We needed to be in the back of that—”

  The man patted his coat and turned around, returning to the trailer.

  “This is our shot,” Philby said.

  The moment the man entered the trailer, the kids took off running. They climbed up into the truck bed and pul ed the tarp over them. It was dark enough out, and early enough, that Finn hoped the guy wouldn’t notice the tarp. Less than a minute later, he felt the truck rock as the driver climbed in and started the engine. Again Amanda found his hand and held on.

  There was stil the chance that Maybeck and Jess would find their way to the Studios. Finn considered cal ing Wanda and asking her for help, and the more he considered this, the more he thought it a good idea. Wayne had mentioned his daughter on the video Charlene and Maybeck had seen. Maybe she would know something about Fantasmic! or be able to help them in some way.

  Finn couldn’t see much in the darkness under the tarp. He texted the others, warning them that once out of Epcot they would be in DHI shadow and would remain so until near or inside Disney Hol ywood Studios.

  As the pickup arrived at the Hol ywood Studios Security checkpoint Finn’s warning proved critical: the guard pul ed back the tarp to have a look. The Kingdom Keepers held their breath and remained perfectly stil .

  “Funny,” a guard said, presumably to another guard, “the way it was bunched up like that I could have sworn there was something underneath.”

  “You think too much,” a lower voice said. “I’ve told you that before: don’t think so much.”

  “We’re supposed to think, you jerk,” the first guard said. “How are we supposed to keep this place safe if we’re not thinking?”

  “You’re trying to trick me. Just by asking me that, you’re making me think. I know your type.”

  The guard left the tarp in a heap at the back of the truck, exposing Finn and the others. Finn understood the risk that presented: at any time they could come within range of the DHI projectors; when they did they would reappear, and if the driver happened to look back…

  The truck rumbled and rol ed slowly out of the gate.

  “Jump,” Finn said.

  “What?”

  “No time to argue. Jump!” He stood and leaped over the side. As he was in midair, his DHI sparkled, first in black and white and then in ful color. He landed feet first on the pavement, but was thrown off balance by his forward momentum and went down hard. Like salmon leaping from a mountain stream, the other DHIs jumped: first Amanda, who had not questioned Finn for a second. Then Charlene and Wil a and final y Philby.

  The brake lights on the pickup truck lit up bright red—the driver had felt something and was stopping.

  “The ditch!” Finn cal ed out, as he rol ed off the asphalt into the grass and down into a dry ditch meant to carry off rainwater. The others quickly did the same. He didn’t dare lift his head to see if the driver was coming over toward them. Al he could do was stay perfectly stil and hope.

  And hope.

  Through the chirping of cicadas and the hum of electric power, Finn thought he heard the sound of the tarp being moved around. The driver knew he hadn’t put the tarp in the truck in the first place. Maybe he hadn’t felt them jump from the truck; maybe it had just final y registered that Studio Security had looked under a tarp in the back of his truck. If he’d seen them and now pursued them over to the ditch they would have no choice but to run. It would create big problems for them—park Security would be alerted, and with the testing at Fantasmic! being the only event that was probably taking place at this early hour, their ability to infiltrate the attraction would likely be compromised.

  They had no choice but to lie there and await their fate.

  At last they heard the door shut and the truck rumble off. Finn directed the group behind an outbuilding. Amanda had gotten Wanda’s phone number from the visit she had paid to Mrs.

  Nash’s house, but she didn’t have it in her phone’s contact list. It turned out not to matter, because Philby had Wanda’s number memorized, though no one knew how he’d gotten it in the first place.

  That was the thing about Philby: you learned not to ask.

  Finn apologized for waking Wanda up and then attempted to explain their situation. She stopped him several times, whenever he mentioned her father—first in the Mission: Space video, then in person at Wonders. She agreed to pick up Maybeck and Jess, saying she could meet them at Epcot. She offered to get Maybeck a Studio Cast Member Security uniform if possible, and said she’d have Jess come dressed as one of the cast of Fantasmic!

  With everyone now accounted for, Finn felt better. He led the four others deeper into the backstage area of the Studios. The Fantasmic! technical rehearsal was scheduled to start in less than five minutes. As they walked, Philby caught up to Finn and Amanda.

  “Why do you suppose they’d be conducting technical rehearsals on a show that’s been playing for so many years?” Philby asked. “Have you thought about that?”

  “I just assumed…” Finn said. But he didn’t finish his thought. “You’re saying it has something to do with the Overtakers?”

  “What else? Something is disrupting the show. Tech rehearsals are al about the effects—the timing, the lighting, the music, entrance cues. It could have been what got Wayne going. Right? He hears a rumor about Fantasmic! having problems. The problems came on recently and aren’t going away. The first few attempts to fix them don’t work, so they schedule a whole week of tech rehearsals to strip the show down and build it back up, scene by scene, minute by minute.”

  It made sense to Finn. “Okay. But he went missing way before now, way before these rehearsals.”

  “But the first time Jess gets one of her telepathic visions was this week. Right now. Because he knew something no one else did: if we were going to stop them with the least risk to the audience, we had to do it now, when the rehearsals are going on. The genius of Maleficent and Chernabog hiding at Fantasmic!—if that’s even what they’re doing—is that the only time anyone’s around that place, there are like five thousand guests hanging out. Who’s going to put them at risk?”

  “The genius of them hiding there,” Finn corrected him, “is that they belong there. Al they have to do is stash an Auto-Animatronic figure or a Cast Member or two and then take their place.

  Who’s to know? Who looks that closely at Maleficent? It’s probably dark backst
age. From out front she’s pretty far away and not very big. Green skin. Weird chin. Who’s going to pul her aside and ask for a Disney ID anyway?”

  “So what you’re saying, Philby,” said Amanda, “is that they aren’t tech rehearsals at al .

  They’re more like exorcisms. The Disney people are actual y searching for Overtakers in hopes of finding them and locking them up, or whatever they do with them?”

  “If they know what they’re up against,” Philby said, “then that’s exactly what they’re doing. But

  —”

  “If they don’t know what they’re up against…” Finn said.

  “—then everybody involved in those rehearsals is in danger,” Amanda said. “Including us.”

  “Most definitely including us,” Philby said.

  Finn said, “The Imagineers wil want to lock them up and study them. If anyone’s going to take them on, if anyone’s going to try to stop them permanently it’s going to be…us.”

  The word died on the tip of his tongue. Amanda could have corrected him; Philby could have corrected him. Finn reached down and touched the grip of the sword.

  Why had Wayne put him in charge, anyway? Why couldn’t it be Maybeck with the sword, or Philby with his encyclopedic knowledge of famous Disney sword battles? Why him? The answer came to him indirectly, as it so often did. He had been the first one to cross over; the first one to meet Wayne; he was stil the only one who could al -clear nearly at wil . He was the one because Wayne had chosen him. There it was, as simple as he could break it down. Asking why Wayne had chosen him would only send him running in circles right back to the fact that Wayne had chosen him. He needed to stop questioning it and start doing something about it. His hand gripped the sword so tightly that, just for a moment, his fingers appeared bloodless, his knuckles white, the sword’s grip welded to his hand. At one with it.

  “I can do this,” he heard slip past his own lips. As faint as a whisper, not something anyone heard—or so he hoped. But Amanda shot him a fearful and sympathetic look that said otherwise.

  At the very least she had heard; at the very least one other person knew his deepest fear.

  Wil a and Charlene caught up to them.

  “Assignments?” Philby asked. That was another thing: when they’d first come together as a group, everyone was constantly jockeying for control, trying to come up with a better idea, a better plan. Now only Maybeck voiced that kind of discontent, and even so, less and less. Philby wasn’t tel ing, he was asking; and no one but Finn would be expected to answer.

  “Give us the layout,” Finn said. Maybe that was why Wayne had chosen him: because he understood the value of each Kingdom Keeper, knew when to seek advice.

  “A control room. Seating for several thousand. Two acres of water with a channel down the middle and a natural-gas pipe running just under the surface. A flotil a of a dozen barges. A multitiered performance stage complete with various trapdoors, zip lines, stunt pil ows, al over five stories high, including another three stories below stage level with multiple staircases, dressing rooms and enough pyrotechnics on hand to be monitored by the federal government.”

  “Sounds…dangerous,” Amanda said.

  “Sounds big,” said Wil a.

  Philby, hearing their comments, snapped his head toward Amanda, then shot Finn an intense look.

  Finn said, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I can’t believe we missed it.”

  “Missed what, you guys?” Amanda said.

  “You nailed it,” Philby said. “Fantasmic! has everything, including isolation, to make it—”

  “A base of operations for the Overtakers,” Finn said.

  “If they ever got their hands on al the ordnance—”

  “That’s fireworks,” Wil a explained to Amanda, in case she hadn’t heard the term, but Amanda nodded as if she already knew that.

  “—together with the boats,” Philby continued, “and the way Fantasmic! is laid out, it would give them a base of operations. A fort. A defensible position from which to launch strikes on the various parks.”

  “Wil a,” Finn said, “you’l hang back. We need one person keeping watch on the whole place while the rest of us focus on specific tasks.”

  “I can do that,” Wil a said.

  “You’re our go-to person. Anyone needs help,” he told the others, “Wil a’s it. She’s our wild card.”

  “I’ve been cal ed worse,” she said.

  “I don’t know if I should say this or not,” Amanda said. “But couldn’t the Overtakers hang out in place like this for a long time before anyone ever figured it out? I mean it’s so far removed from everything else.”

  “I think that’s the point,” Finn said. “That’s the point exactly.”

  “But what if that’s what Wayne discovered?” she asked. “What if they already control Fantasmic!—then aren’t we walking into a trap?”

  Philby glanced at Finn, who looked back at Philby. Their DHIs shimmered, revealing they were on an edge of the projection range. Their DHIs spit static and glowed off-color.

  Finn said, “No, we’d be running into a trap.” With that, he and Philby picked up the pace and the girls fol owed. Five glowing figures stealing through the dark up a path toward flashes of light reflecting off the low-lying clouds as booming explosions combined with a narrator’s excited voice rippling through the air.

  The show had begun.

  39

  “YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE to duck down on the floor,” Wanda said.

  “On the floor?” Maybeck complained, “But it’s a subcompact!”

  “Besides, we’re invisible!” Jess said, finding the state disconcerting and upsetting. Invisibility wasn’t the thril she’d imagined. It left her feeling half dead, as if she didn’t exist and never would again.

  “Keep low,” Wanda said. “There’s no choice. You’re going to reappear at some point, and though I doubt they’l search the car, they might glance in through the windows or something and it would be bad luck if that’s when you showed back up. I put a blanket back there, and some clothes. Just make it look messy.”

  “Messy,” Maybeck said, “I can do.”

  He told Jess he’d take the bottom so he wouldn’t crush her and instructed her to pul the blanket completely over them. She nodded, feeling nervous about lying on top of Maybeck, nervous about the Security guards at Hol ywood Studios, nervous about her invisibility and the thought she might suddenly reappear at the wrong moment. In short, nervous about everything.

  “Hurry. We’re coming up to the booth.”

  The two scrambled to get down onto the car’s floor. Maybeck lay down face-first and Jess piled onto his back and tugged and kicked at the blanket until she was completely covered.

  Hopeful y the blanket would keep them in the projection shadow and al ow them to retain their invisibility.

  “And for heaven’s sake stay absolutely stil ,” Wanda said.

  The car arrived at the backstage checkpoint. She rol ed down her window and showed her ID.

  “You’re not on the list,” the guard informed her bluntly a minute or so later.

  One of the longest minutes in Jess’s life. She and Maybeck were as close as ham and cheese; she wanted out of there.

  “Listen, friend, there’s a tech rehearsal at Fantasmic! That should be on your list somewhere.

  If you check with Alex Wright you’l find that not only am I expected, but I’m late. Or try Rich. Any one of them wil tel you not only to let me in, but that you should chew me out for being late.”

  The guard snickered. “Stand by,” he said.

  Wanda put her window up.

  Jess saw a flicker of light beneath the blanket. She realized it was her right elbow—sticking out slightly from the blanket—their DHIs were active. She drew her arm beneath the blanket, hoping she’d ful y covered their feet.

  She whispered into Maybeck’s ear. “We’re in range.” He nodded and the back of his head hi
t her chin.

  The hum of Wanda’s window coming down sent a jolt of panic through Jess. She fought against the anxiety, knowing she could il afford it. She tried picturing the ocean. Al of a sudden she felt her hands and feet tingling, then her arms and legs. She was pressed up against the backseat—and watched her left hand disappear through the seat itself. She understood immediately what was happening to her.

  She found Maybeck’s ear under al that hair and whispered something to him.

  “You trying to get me fired?” the guard said. “I woke up Mr. Wright and he was none too happy about it.”

  “But he backed up everything I said,” Wanda stated boldly.

  “Wel , yes, ma’am, he did. Al that’s left is for me to search the car. Won’t be but a second.”

  The guard cupped his hands and peered through the rear side window. He tried the door.

  “Would you unlock the door please, ma’am?”

  “Whatever for?” Wanda said, sounding threatened.

  “I just need to take a look.”

  “You’ve had your look. I told you: I’m late.”

  “Then the sooner you unlock the doors, the sooner you’l be on your way.”

  Wanda heaved a long sigh and threw the master switch. Al the doors popped. The guard opened the rear door.

  “Listen, officer,” Wanda said, turning to see into the backseat, “there’s no need to—”

  “Just doing my job, ma’am.” He took hold of a corner of the blanket.

  “Listen. I can explain everything if you’l just—”

  The guard pul ed the blanket away. The backseat was empty.

  “Explain what, ma’am? What was that?”

  “Ah…the messiness. I’m not usual y…this messy.”

  “No crime in that. If you’d just pop the trunk, I’l have you on your way.”

  As she popped the trunk, Wanda reached between the seats to pul the blanket back into place over the kids. She whispered softly, “Thank goodness you stayed invis—” But she caught herself as the blanket fel flat to the floor. The kids weren’t there.

  Then, as the guard pul ed open the trunk, a bulge appeared and the blanket rose up from the floor on its own, first about a foot high, then rippling and rising another foot. Wanda lifted the edge and saw Jess lying on Maybeck’s back. Jess grabbed the blanket from Wanda and pul ed it back into place, hiding them.