Kingdom Keepers II: Disney at Dawn

by Ridley Pearson

  Struggling to free his hooked belt, he turned and glanced over his shoulder. The dinosaur broke loose from his scene— the thing was definitely alive!—and charged.

  With the stopping of the vehicle, an alarm now sounded throughout the building.

  Wil a’s seat belt released, freeing her.

  She leaped from the backseat. “The black door!” Maybeck cal ed out calmly. Again he

  wrestled with his belt. Now he fiddled to unstrap it: he was stuck.

  The dinosaur snorted and charged down the track at him. Only at the last second did Maybeck spot a smal pool of oil along the track—one of the vehicles ahead of him was leaking

  oil. As he noticed it, he elected to stay perfectly stil .

  “MAYBECK!” Wil a cried out.

  His belt stil caught, Maybeck turned around and faced the charging animal.

  His belt buckle came loose and slipped out of the loops on his pants.

  He dropped to the floor.

  The dinosaur slipped in the oil and crashed into the front of the vehicle, demolishing the rover

  into a twisted V of bent metal.

  Maybeck was lying directly between the dinosaur’s legs.

  He scrambled to his feet.

  Wil a held the black door open.

  Maybeck ran like he’d never run. The dinosaur turned and fol owed, not slowed by the crushing impact with the vehicle.

  Maybeck literal y dove through the black door. Wil a swung it shut. The wal shook as the dinosaur impacted the metal door and concrete fire wal . Wil a took Maybeck by the hand and pul ed him to his feet.

  “You could have been kil ed.”

  “I saw that his legs were like stumps. As long as I stayed between them…”

  “That was too big a risk to take.”

  “It’s not like I had forever to think about it,” he replied.

  He looked around. They were in a long, curving hal way. There were no markings on the gray

  wal s. Overhead, hundreds of wires were carried in a kind of metal ladder that hung from the ceiling; it ran in both directions and out of sight. Among the wires were dozens of blue ones.

  “We fol ow the wires,” Maybeck said.

  “But in which direction?”

  “This way,” Maybeck said.

  “But how do you know?” Wil a asked.

  “I don’t,” he said. “Some things we’ve just got to take on faith.”

  “Faith? This is you speaking? What have you done with the real Maybeck?”

  “Give it a rest.”

  They were hurrying now, the alarm stil sounding. Perhaps employees al rushed to assigned

  stations in emergencies—or to unload guests. Whatever the case, the hal way was empty.

  Maybeck moved not with his eye down the hal , but in the tangle of wires overhead. Wil a did

  much the same.

  “There!” she said, pointing out a massive group of blue wires running from the wire carrier

  through a hole above a door to their right.

  Maybeck swung open the door.

  Workbenches ran along the far wal , covered with spare parts, soldering guns, tools, and hydraulics. In the middle of the space to their left was a metal rack, floor-to-ceiling shelving holding dozens of computer servers, network hubs, and surge suppressors.

  “We’ve got it!” Wil a proclaimed.

  “No!” Maybeck countered. “It can’t be this easy. Philby said we should look for a closet or a

  bathroom.”

  “But these are computer servers. It could easily be—”

  “No, it couldn’t be here. This ride uses al these computers. The nerds that work on them would notice a server that didn’t belong. Philby’s got to be right.”

  “Then where?”

  “The wires,” Maybeck said, hurrying around the back side of the rack of computers. There had to be several hundred wires—both blue and black—the blue wires interconnecting the servers

  and the hubs. The black wires ran to power supplies. Some of the groups of wires were wel -

  organized and held together by plastic ties; others had been added hastily and were in a tangled

  clump of spaghetti.

  Maybeck looked this al over and said, “We’re not going to find it here.”

  “How can you tel that?” Wil a asked.

  “Because the same guys that work the computers know the wires. They could spot wires that

  didn’t belong.”

  “In this mess? I don’t think so.” Wil a stepped forward and dragged her fingernail along one

  wire, then another.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Every girl knows that makeup can hide anything,” she said. “The way you fool the nerds is

  you paint the blue wires black. Then they don’t notice—” She cut herself off as her thumbnail flaked away some black paint, revealing the blue wire below. “Voilà!”

  “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,” Maybeck said.

  Footsteps… coming fast down the hal .

  “The door!” Maybeck whispered.

  Wil a raced to the door and quietly spun the lock.

  The people in the hal ran past. She looked at Maybeck and rol ed her eyes: that had been

  too close.

  As she rejoined Maybeck, he fol owed the painted network line to where it had been run along

  the underside of the bottom shelf. Together they traced it and three others to the interior wal , and along this wal and another set of shelves to where a smal hole had been dril ed through some

  plasterboard. A door stood immediately to Maybeck’s right where a wal jutted out. He tried the

  doorknob.

  Locked.

  Wil a pointed to a smal sign that identified the door: JANITOR.

  “That’s perfect!” Maybeck said. “It’s certain to have a drain—which is how Philby says they

  run the wires around the Park.”

  “I need something the size of a credit card,” Wil a said.

  Maybeck looked at her curiously.

  “I have brothers who are constantly trying to lock me out of the bathroom. They think it’s funny.”

  She found a metal plate on a workbench. She slid it into the crack next to the doorjamb, and

  the dark room popped open.

  “Sometimes I hate being an only child,” Maybeck quipped.

  The room was a pile of junk—a neglected storeroom. It took him a minute, but Maybeck located the server mounted beneath a photo-developing bench—a blue-and-silver Del that looked

  a lot like a piece of a home stereo.

  If they were right, this smal box control ed al the holograms of the animals they’d battled, and it possessed the power to erase them al .

  “What now?” she asked.

  “We don’t just pul the plug. I know that much.”

  “A magnet,” she said. “We need a magnet!”

  Together, the two returned to the workshop and began searching for anything magnetic. Wil a

  found a couple of smal magnets, but they both agreed they wouldn’t be powerful enough to do any

  real damage. They needed to rearrange al the magnetic information on the hard disk. It was going

  to take something…

  “There!” Maybeck said too loudly.

  At that very moment, another line of footfal s had been coming down the hal way. The noise

  stopped just outside the door. A fist banged on the door.

  “Block it!” he hissed, instructing Wil a.

  For what he’d spotted was currently up near the ceiling. It was a very large device with two

  metal plates connected by wires; it hung from the end of a hydraulic arm and was clearly meant to

  raise and lower heavy pieces of the dinosaurs that were under construction or repair.

  Wil a rol ed a tool chest in front of the door and then locked the wheels.

  Maybeck threw a switch and worked the hydraulic arm, atta
ching the magnet to the end of it.

  He found the power switch and tried it: a wrench and three screwdrivers jumped off a workbench

  and stuck to the magnet. He’d gotten it too close to the workbench, but he’d proven his point.

  He flipped off the switch, and the tools dropped to the floor in a cacophony of banging metal.

  Now the people on the other side of the door tried al the harder.

  Maybeck wrestled with a giant cotter pin that held the magnet to the arm. He got the magnet

  free, extended the wire connecting it, and was able to stretch it to al the way inside the dark room.

  The thing was massive. He knew it had to be right on top of the server to corrupt the hard drive. It took most of his strength to lift the magnet and al his strength to hold it under the counter and against the hidden server.

  “Throw the switch!” he cal ed out.

  “I’m a little busy here,” Wil a said, having dragged a leg of a tyrannosaurus to block the door.

  “I…can’t…hold…it,” Maybeck gasped. “Throw the freaking switch.” Only he didn’t say

  “freaking.”

  Wil a abandoned the door and ran to the controls. She threw the switch.

  The magnet leaped out of Maybeck’s hands and glued itself to the server. A smal , green LED

  on the front—meant to indicate hard-drive activity—turned to amber, then flashed red. Next, al the lights on the server failed completely, and there was an electrical smel in the air.

  The second server was dead.

  Maybeck and Wil a hugged, only to realize what they were doing. Then Wil a pushed him away and said, “Don’t disgust me!”

  Maybeck brushed off his clothes and quickly changed the subject. “I probably should have checked with Philby before doing that. I hope it doesn’t mess things up.”

  The workroom door banged open an inch, the tool carrier sliding on the concrete floor.

  Two inches.

  Then five.

  “What now?” she asked, her voice tight.

  Maybeck glanced overhead: it was a drop ceiling, maybe a foot or two lower than the one out

  in the hal way.

  “How are you with smal spaces?” he asked.

  61

  THE TWO TIGERS VANISHED IN MIDAIR. As did four of the six monkeys and two of the orangutans.

  The big tigress from the shadows remained and so did the massive tiger that had come through the hatch. Finn counted two monkeys and two orangutans.

  DHIs, Finn realized. Two of the tigers and several of the monkeys and apes had been holograms. No wonder his blows with the stick hadn’t done much.

  Amanda’s climb had distracted the charging animals just long enough for Finn and Jez to get

  past them. Meanwhile, Philby’s team was about to defeat the second server.

  Now it was time to get out of there.

  Finn took off running. A caged-in jungle Jeep appeared from over the rise, a flashing light atop its roof.

  The orangutans moved to intercept Finn. Jez ran toward Charlene and the wal .

  Incredibly fast, and easily as big as he was, the apes came at Finn with wild eyes and drooling snorts of intention. The first of the two bounded toward Finn, made one gigantic leap, and would have torn his head off with its outstretched hand had the tigress not sprung. The cat scared the orangutan. The ape rol ed into a bal , came to standing, and saw the cat bearing down on it

  once again. Forced to choose between pursuing Finn or confronting the cat, the orange ape turned to escape. Now, faced with a Jeep coming at it headlong, the orangutan sprang for the bamboo grove and disappeared, the huge cat fol owing hotly on its tail.

  The second ape saw its partner flee and beat a hasty retreat. Thankful y for Finn, that retreat

  took it into the path of the Jeep, which veered sharply to avoid a col ision. The Jeep skidded to a stop near the open hatch, away from Charlene, who remained poised, her stilts pressed at an angle against the wal . Jez was nowhere to be seen. She’d made it over the wal .

  “How about a lift?” Finn shouted.

  Charlene bent low and offered her cupped hands as a boost.

  Finn climbed up, lay flat, and offered Charlene his hand. She took it, stood, and, as rangers

  hurried from the Jeep, shook her legs violently, managing to kick loose first one, and then both of the stilts. Some of the ivy that connected her costume with the stilts tore loose. She left the rangers with a pair of stilts in their hands as she and Finn both lowered themselves down off the wal .

  Dozens of guests had gathered to observe the excitement. Some applauded as the Kingdom

  Keepers dropped to the path, but they didn’t stick around to take a bow.

  Charlene said, “This way!” and led the others directly across the formal gardens and into the

  jungle on a route she now knew wel .

  But just before they entered the dense jungle, Jez pul ed to a stop, transfixed by something to

  her right.

  Al the kids stopped and looked in that direction. They saw a snowcapped peak of a towering

  mountain.

  “That mountain was in my dream,” she told Finn. “The dream I told you about.”

  “King of the Mountain” Finn said. “Where you and Amanda were under attack.”

  “Yes.” Jez reached out and took Amanda by the hand. She said nothing, but the look that was

  exchanged between the two “sisters” would have quieted even the most cynical person.

  “That’s Expedition Everest,” Charlene said.

  “Then, like it or not, that’s where we’re headed,” Jez said. “Never once, not once, has one of

  my dreams lied to me.”

  62

  HAVING RECONNECTED ON THE DS’S, al the Kingdom Keepers, along with Jez and Amanda,

  reunited in a smal patch of jungle. Behind them towered Expedition Everest, and screams were

  heard periodical y as the rol er coaster thril ed its riders. After a quick celebration of Jez’s return, Finn brought up the daydream she had had while trapped in the tunnel.

  “But so what?” Maybeck asked. “We had two things we had to do: get Jez back and kil the

  second server. We’ve done both. I’m so tired I can barely stand. Let’s get out of here while we stil can.”

  “You al can go. It’s al right,” Amanda said matter-of-factly. “We wil never be able to repay

  you for al you’ve done.”

  “But your dream,” Charlene said. “The giant attacking you. Finn in his hands.”

  “Al the more reason,” Maybeck said, “we should just boogie and forget about al that.”

  He looked to the others for agreement but saw only vacant faces.

  “Come on, people!” Maybeck chastised. “Quit while you’re ahead. Ever heard of that?”

  “Leave no stone unturned,” Finn said, “might be more appropriate. Wayne has gone

  missing.”

  “Philby cut the data lines. Who knows how that affected the data flow in the Park? Besides, it

  wasn’t Wayne. It was his VMK avatar! Are you kidding me? We’re going to stay and try to find a

  missing avatar? Are you serious? Half the Park is out looking for us.”

  “Maleficent serves Chernabog. We know that Chernabog defeated Mickey at the

  Fantasmics. Wayne told us that a long time ago. That means he has major powers. He’s the one

  Disney demon that we know virtual y nothing about—”

  “And let’s leave it that way!”

  “But Jez dreamed something awful. And Maleficent could have hidden in any of the Parks.

  Why here? Why now? What’s being planned? With Wayne missing, it’s up to us to find out.”

  “You’re hal ucinating,” Maybeck said.

  Philby stepped forward. “Without Wayne we’d have failed. I promise you that. Maleficent’s got

  him. Don’t ask me to explain that, but I just know it. An
d if that’s true, it’s my fault—it’s al of our faults. Can you honestly just go home and go to bed knowing that?”

  Maybeck hung his head and shook it back and forth. “No.” He sounded so despondent.

  “No,” Philby agreed. “I didn’t think so.”

  Charlene unfolded the photocopied page of Jez’s diary. She pointed to the sketch of what

  looked like a goril a. “What if this isn’t a goril a at al ? What if it’s the yeti?”

  Jez spoke up. “You just told us that Chernabog was missing from his float, remember?

  Maybe Maleficent thought that that was the real Chernabog, only to discover it a fake. The bat…

  the monkeys…something could have told her the real Chernabog was locked up here in AK.”

  “Or maybe this whole thing,” Finn said, “was cooked up by Maleficent to use us to lead her to

  Wayne. Has anyone considered that possibility?”

  He drew stunned expressions.

  “What if we did exactly what she wanted us to do?” Finn asked in a softer voice. “We couldn’t have gotten Jez without Wayne’s help. He knew they were looking for him. So Maleficent cooks up

  this plan to basical y use Jez as bait. We think she’s after Jez to keep Jez’s dreams from forecasting what Maleficent is up to—and that could be right. But it doesn’t mean there wasn’t a

  bigger plan.”

  A light breeze broke the silence between them as, once again, it carried the cries from Expedition Everest.

  “One thing we know,” Wil a said, “is that Everest is cold. At least, it represents the cold.” She

  indicated the goril a on Jez’s diary page. “What if this is the yeti, like Charlene said?” The other kids stared at her with puzzled expressions. “What if, like Maleficent, the yeti can’t handle the heat? So Maleficent’s job is not only to get him out of the Park, but keep him cold. Keep them both cold.”

  “The ice truck!” Charlene said.

  “Exactly!” agreed Wil a.

  “But to what purpose?” complained Maybeck.

  “How do we know? A refrigerated truck can take him anywhere he wants to go.”

  “But where?” asked Finn.

  “So Expedition Everest was a way for Wayne and the others to control Chernabog?”

  Charlene asked. “The Imagineers basical y locked him up in a deep freeze?”