Unlocking the Kingdom

by Jeff Dixon

  He stepped back out into the street and looked around. Wordlessly, he began to backtrack toward the corner where they had first started. Arriving in moments back at the contractor’s stamp in the cement, he stood on the corner and gazed around the Studios.

  “Are we out of 1928s?” Kate asked quietly.

  “Kate, I’m sure there are more. I’m just trying to remember.” He scratched his head. “Mickey Mouse was born that year, and so there are references to that date scattered through the park. But none of the ones we’ve found so far seem to fit the clue.”

  As he finished speaking, he turned his head at an angle and scanned the street to his right. He pointed toward the dining area he saw, and they stepped off the sidewalk.

  “The Brown Derby?” she asked, referring to the restaurant they were now walking toward.

  “Yes, do you know when it was opened?”

  “I have no idea. Was it 1928?”

  “Maybe. Let’s see if we can find out.”

  Together they walked down the sidewalk along the restaurant and then took a right toward the front doors. There was a crew of people inside, cleaning the floors of the eating establishment. Beside the door, a golden plate with raised letters read, “This building is inspired by the Vine Street Brown Derby, originally built in Hollywood, California in 1928.”

  Hawk waited while Kate read and reread the words.

  She turned to face him with a strange look. “How do you know this stuff?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re wandering around looking for the year 1928, and you find numbers on the sidewalk, numbers on buildings, you remember the year the Brown Derby was opened . . . how do you know these details?”

  “I’m not sure. I guess I just love details.” Hawk smiled. “And if you’re a detail person, then there’s no better place to be looking than Walt Disney World, because they are everywhere. There are trivia, tributes, hidden Mickeys, and secrets hidden in plain sight and not-so-plain sight . . . all waiting to be discovered if you just look. Sometimes they aren’t that important, but every once in a while, paying attention to details can unlock a brand-new discovery or piece of information.”

  “So you’re unlocking what never was, to protect what is yet to be?”

  “Pretty much.” He stepped back from the doorway to the Brown Derby. “People don’t notice details anymore. We’re in too much of a hurry to get to the next thing, the next moment, the next stop . . . and sometimes we forget that the details matter. It’s the little things about places and people that matter. If you don’t take the time to slow down and look . . . well, you just don’t care that much about them.”

  Kate stepped back away from him half a step and then looked him over from head to toe. “I have never met anyone who says things like that. I know as a reporter I look for details to collect information, but you notice the details because you want to know something or someone better . . . because you really care.”

  “I guess.” He shrugged, never having thought about it like that.

  “So, what details have you noticed about me?”

  “Well . . .” Hawk stopped himself. “Uh . . . I’ve . . .” His face got hot.

  “No, you goofball.” Kate grabbed him by the chin and held his head straight. Spreading her index and middle fingers, she placed them under her eyes and then pointed them toward his and then back again. “Not about how I might look . . . but the details you have come up with about who I am.”

  A face suddenly appeared, glaring at them through the glass of the doors of the Brown Derby. Hawk flinched. Kate jumped back and darted behind him. The face peering back at them was covered by a presidential mask. It was the face of Jimmy Carter.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  * * *

  THE MAN IN THE RUBBER MASK PUSHED the door of the Brown Derby outward and lunged toward Hawk and Kate. Hawk reared back and kicked the door just above the handle as hard as he could. The door slammed back, trapping the masked figure between it and the door frame, and the man grunted as the door caught him in the chest. Glass shattered at the impact. As hard as Hawk had kicked it, he knew he had knocked the wind out of the man or had perhaps even cracked a rib. As the man slumped toward the ground, Hawk did not hesitate. He whirled and grabbed a stunned Kate Young by the hand and pulled her with him away from the incapacitated attacker and the door.

  They ran from the restaurant and circled behind the iconic Sorcerer’s Hat. Hawk was headed toward the Great Movie Ride inside the Chinese Theatre. They hustled toward the attraction, and as they raced through the gateway, Hawk glanced back to see if they were being pursued. It did not surprise him to see another man wearing a ski-style mask was now giving pursuit, along with the man wearing the Carter mask, who needed some assistance and was slowing down his partner. Hawk looked side to side for help, and it dawned on him that he saw no other people in the area. No workmen on the night crew, no other activity at all, except for the floor cleaners they had seen inside the restaurant. Those floor cleaners, he surmised, were the people chasing them now.

  As they ran, he gripped Kate’s hand tightly, pulling her along. Her shoes were making it difficult for her to run as fast as he would have hoped. With his other hand, he readied the key to the kingdom he had picked up a short time before. He knew he would need it now, as the doors to the attraction should be locked. They were. Hawk quickly unlocked the door, and they raced inside. As he closed and locked the door behind them, Hawk could see that their pursuers were picking up the pace.

  Hustling through the lobby where the attraction queue line often began, Hawk unclipped the barriers, letting them fall to the ground behind them. They burst through the doors of the large theater, where guests would weave back and forth in line, waiting to climb aboard the massive vehicles that would carry them through the ride. Bypassing that waiting area, Hawk and Kate now ran into the loading area, and Hawk raced to the control panel. He powered up the panel, and the light started flashing green on the massive button.

  “Get in the vehicle.” Hawk pointed toward the car.

  Kate climbed over the side and into the front seat. He leaped over the side into the driver’s position, activated the drive, and the vehicle began to move slowly forward. They moved into the beginning portion of the ride, which, in the early hours of the morning, was dark and silent because the attraction was closed. Hawk kept looking behind them as the vehicle snaked away.

  “We were running faster than this, Hawk,” Kate said, as she looked behind them for their pursuers as well.

  “I know.” Hawk smiled at her. “Look, there’s Gene Kelly.” He pointed at the motionless audio-animatronic figure hanging on a lamppost from Singing in the Rain.

  “You picked now to give me a private tour?” She looked up at him, confused.

  “Why don’t you just stay low in the seat. There are Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke.” He moved his head toward the two figures they were passing under. “Now we move into the underworld, where the gangsters rule.” Hawk focused on moving toward the doors ahead of them.

  Kate leaned to see what he was doing to the driving mechanism of the vehicle. He blocked her view as he crouched in front of it, and the doors opened in front of them as they glided into the old western set.

  “OK, Kate, let’s hop out.” Hawk brushed past her and bounded out of the still-moving vehicle. She stood to follow, and he lifted her over the side as the vehicle kept going. They stood facing the audio-animatronic John Wayne, then Hawk grabbed her by the arm and hustled her toward the doorway, where Clint Eastwood stood lighting a cigarette when the figure was operating. Hawk led her past Clint, through the swinging doors, and they ducked behind the wall of the set, under the window, next to the Eastwood figure.

  “What are we doing?” Kate whispered in Hawk’s ear.

  “Waiting.”

  Hawk had hoped that by activating the attraction and moving the car, he would entice their pursuers to follow them into the ride itself. He figured they wouldn�
��t get into a ride car because they are slow, but he was hoping to make it appear that he and Kate had. That would force the two chasing them to follow. They had to, because they couldn’t risk that Hawk and Kate were riding a car through the attraction. They also could wait for the car to come out, but that would take too long, and Hawk and Kate might have done exactly what they did, get off on the ride. The pursuers would have to be sure; they would have to follow. Hawk peered over the window and saw the men bust through the doors into the western set.

  Putting a finger to his lips signaling Kate they were here, he waited, listening.

  “They are already past here,” one of the men said. “Let’s catch the ride vehicle, then if they aren’t in it, we backtrack.”

  Perfect. They were doing all they could to find them, as Hawk had hoped. When the men giving chase had moved into the scene from Alien, Hawk peered again out the window. Making sure they were gone, he grabbed Kate and headed across the vehicles’ pathway to the western set on the other side of the street. Kate followed closely as they went up the wooden steps and onto the front porch of the western building. He led them through a door into the backstage area.

  “This is where our live actors move in and out, switching drivers for the ride vehicles. You ever been on it?” Hawk asked.

  Kate shook her head no.

  “You need to do that during your stay.”

  “What are we doing?” Kate spoke over his shoulder.

  “Getting away. There is no way they can navigate backstage as quickly as we can, and where they committed to go in the ride does not give them any shortcuts out. When they find we aren’t in the car, they have to backtrack and look at every place we might be hiding. By the time they get out, we’ll be long gone.”

  Kate smiled as she followed. “You are resourceful.”

  “I pay attention to details.” He smirked softly. “There’s too much track for them to cover to be able to figure out where we’re hiding or whether we got—” He stopped abruptly.

  “What is it?” Kate turned to look behind them. “Did you hear something?”

  “No, I didn’t hear a thing.” Hawk now changed direction and led her down a narrow corridor. “But I did figure out the clue.”

  They pushed their way out the side door to the attraction then snaked their way back toward the front of the theater. Rushing to the massive archway, Hawk hurriedly looked from side to side. Seeing what he was searching for, he raced toward a massive pillar and pointed Kate toward a bronze-colored plaque near the bottom.

  “What does it say?” he asked as he continued to search.

  “This facade is a re-creation of the Chinese Theatre originally built in Hollywood, California in 1928.” Kate saw the year and smiled. “Another 1928. . . . Is this our 1928?”

  Hawk came around the edge of the pillar. “I think so. It’s how a foot becomes a year.”

  “I don’t follow you . . . so help me out here.” Kate stepped next to him and looked back to see if they were being chased again yet.

  “The famous Chinese Theatre we see all the time in Hollywood films didn’t open in 1928, it opened in 1927. You’ve seen enough around here to know that our Imagineers do not make that kind of mistake. So you have to ask yourself why they put the wrong date on the marker.”

  “Because it’s a clue?”

  “Sort of . . . it means something. When we were inside, I remembered that when the attraction was built, they discovered that the track was 1928 feet long. So when it came time to put the marker up, with all the references to 1928 everywhere else, they decided to tweak the facts just a bit . . . on purpose. It’s an inside joke.”

  “Yes.” Kate furrowed her forehead.

  “So the extra foot of track became the year they put on the marker. In essence, a foot of track became a year they added to the actual date.” He motioned toward the marker.

  “A foot became a year! So this is it.”

  “It is.” Hawk crooked his finger toward her to follow. “Come here.”

  Stepping past the poster advertising the Great Movie Ride attraction, they came to a massive display case. Inside, there was a vase that looked like a Chinese artifact. At the base of the display cabinet, in the back corner, was a figurine of a sleeping cowboy. It looked similar to the figurine Hawk had found in the cemetery. Kate pressed her hands against the glass and peered inside. She reached up to open the cabinet, but it was locked.

  Hawk stepped to the lock and used his kingdom key to release the locking mechanism. The door opened quietly, and Kate reached in and grabbed the figurine. The detail on this one, like the first, was amazing. The cowboy was asleep or passed out and snoring. She held it up for Hawk to see closer. He checked around the corner first.

  “There is the ride exit. This is the main entrance.” He pointed at both access points. “The guys following us are going to come out of one of those two doors. My guess is they’ll split up, so they’ll probably hit both doors.” Hawk carefully closed the glass door of the cabinet. “We need to get out of sight, and I know a pretty good place to hide for a few minutes. It’s close.”

  Hawk noticed Kate was listening but distracted. She turned the figure of the cowboy back toward him and was fiddling with something attached to it.

  Surprisingly, it let loose from the adhesive holding it in place. She gently held it up between her fingers.

  It was a pin. A collectible pin in the shape of Mickey Mouse. Smiling, with a hand on one hip, the other extended, he was inviting someone to join him . . . somewhere. The pin was about two inches tall, made of metal, designed like the pins that were collected and traded by people all over the world. As Kate flipped this pin over, they both saw it at the same time. A QR code on the back of the pin. They looked at each other, and Hawk instantly knew they had found what they were looking for and more.

  “Let’s go.” Hawk motioned her to follow him as they moved off toward the right-hand side of the attraction, through an ornate arch decorated to match the exterior of the classic theater, and down a set of stairs.

  As they descended the steps, Hawk heard voices emerge from the theater. He knew it had to be the people chasing them; they seemed to be arguing. About what, he couldn’t tell, and he couldn’t risk stopping to attempt to listen. He sensed Kate slowing down behind him as she heard the voices too. Turning back toward her, he again motioned for her to follow as they reached the bottom of the steps and turned down their destination. Although he was moving silently, his mind was filled with a cacophony of messages blaring through his head.

  The people trying to take the kingdom from him were better than he had judged them to be. They had tracked him here, and he hadn’t told anyone where he was going. That meant they were watching him more closely than he’d thought.

  He felt Kate’s hand rest on his shoulder as if pushing him forward. He worried about whether it was a good idea to have her with him. Her presence gave him one more thing to be concerned about as he tried to protect the kingdom . . . by unlocking what never was . . . whatever that might mean.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  * * *

  ONE MAN’S DREAM WAS THE ATTRACTION Hawk had a special soft place for. This was the place where Walt Disney’s life and career were put on display for guests to enjoy. In the months since he had been in charge of the company, he had returned here many times. He always told the cast working here it was because he was looking for inspiration, which was partially true. But he returned often because this was the place where his life had been forever changed.

  When Farren Rales had given him the key to the kingdom, he had no idea what it was for. Eventually, he figured out that it was leading him here, to this attraction that kept many details about Walt Disney’s past. It also contained the original desk Walt used in his office when Snow White was produced and released. It was where Walt thought and worked, and in it had been the first clue Hawk needed to begin his incredible journey to become the chief creative architect of the company.

 
He also visited the attraction after hours, usually after the maintenance cast members had finished their jobs for the evening. He liked to walk, look, and think uninterrupted. In those moments, he wondered what Walt would do in a certain situation or how Walt would handle a decision that Hawk was trying to make.

  They’d entered through the front doors of the attraction using the kingdom key, and he now used it again to open a security door that would take them behind the public viewing area of the attraction. Squeezing through the narrow hallway, they moved along the back side of the exhibits until they came to a corner where the space opened up into a wider area and the passageways intersected. Turning to face Kate, Hawk held out his palm to look closer at the pin. She placed it in his hand, and he flipped it over and studied it. As a collectible piece, it was magnificent. Pin collecting was a huge hobby worldwide, and there were pin collectors who spent their days at Disney showing their pins, trading their pins, and purchasing new ones to add to their collections. It was affordable; cast members participated, which gave them an additional way to interact with guests; and Hawk had implemented a plan that allowed all cast members to build initial pin collections so they would have pins to trade.

  This gift, a cast member lanyard that contained ten pins, changed each month depending when the member was hired. The parks were now full of cast members sporting lanyards with pins, just waiting to trade. This pin was not one that you could just pick up anywhere. The detail and craftsmanship was different, the style was different, and it was slightly larger than other pins.

  The QR code on the back was stuck to it in a similar fashion as the QR code had been attached to the boot of the cowboy he’d found in the cemetery.

  “So it looks like we have a matching set,” Kate said, examining the sleeping cowboy. “Who were those guys chasing us?”

  “Probably the same people who busted up my apartment and tried to steal the package in the cemetery.”