Kingdom Keepers III : Disney in Shadow (9781423151104)

by Pearson, Ridley

  “I’m clarinet,” Philby said. It sounded like a confession. “And I sing in our church’s youth choir, but if you tell anyone I’ll have to kill you.”

  “If the crash-test dummies don’t do it for you.”

  “Don’t kid around like that.”

  “Like what?” Finn asked. “You think I’m kidding? If those things get hold of us.…It’s not like they have brains or something…. They’re obviously being controlled by someone or something else, and we both know who that is.”

  “Programmed is more like it,” Professor Philby said, correcting him. “My guess is that at some point the Imagineers toyed with the idea of Audio-Animatronic crash-test dummies. There were probably a couple of those things lying around in a room somewhere, and the Overtakers got hold of them and ‘enlisted’ them by updating their software. That’s the thing about this place: the Imagineers are like human wizards. They think up all this stuff, half of which none of us ever sees. But someone knows it exists. Right? And in the wrong hands…well, the thing is, there’s probably a lot more stuff like the dummies, stuff we’ve never even thought of before that can be used against us.”

  “Are you trying to give me a pep talk?” Finn asked. “Because it isn’t working.”

  “I’m just saying, we—all of us—should keep our eyes open. And we shouldn’t trust anything we see. And we should be looking for stuff we don’t see. We know Maleficent can transfigure herself into various animals. Who knows what Chernabog can do? Who knows what the two of them can do together? All I’m saying is: if crash-test dummies are out patrolling on Segways, and trolls are coming alive in Maelstrom, and jesters are attacking the girls in France, then this place is lit up by Overtakers. You know what I mean? They are like: volume on ten. They are working it. And we need to be ready for them because we’re who they’re after. In their world, we’re the bad guys. And we know what happens to the bad guys.”

  “You are really depressing me here.”

  “Reality check. That’s all.”

  “Can we go inside now? You’ve got me totally paranoid.”

  “If something happens, you go all-clear and get gone,” Philby said. “Don’t worry about me. If one of us gets out of this, it’s way better than if we’re both caught. Right? I know you’ll come back for me. So no heroics. Just get out and figure something out and come back. I’m good with that.”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “No heroics,” Philby repeated.

  “I’ve got your back,” Finn said, holding his ground. “Now let’s take a ride.”

  * * *

  Mission: Space was basically a bunch of pods on a giant turntable. Maybeck held an arm out to keep Charlene from going any farther into the room. She was a little too cheerleader for him, a little too gung ho. It worried him that she might be more athletic than he was, might show him up in some way. He didn’t want her making him look bad.

  “I hate this ride,” he said. “I went on it once and I felt sick the rest of the day.”

  “I thought we ended up together on this because we could both take it.”

  “Who said I couldn’t take it?”

  “I thought you just did.”

  “Did not. I said it made me feel funky, not that I couldn’t take it. But you’re the one does all the flips and gymnastic stuff, not me.”

  “That’s the point. I love this ride,” she said. “It goes so fast it peels your face back.”

  “Yeah. Terrific,” he said.

  “If you want to be lookout, I can do this alone,” she said. “It’s not like anyone has to know.”

  “Are you calling me chicken, girl?”

  “That would be no,” she said. “It was only an offer.”

  “Well, keep it—” Maybeck cut himself off, reaching for his pocket where his phone was vibrating. He checked the caller ID and answered. “Not the best timing,” he whispered into the phone. He plugged his open ear with a finger. “Say again?…You’re serious?…” He gave Charlene a weird look. “Can she describe it?…No…not now. Three minutes. Call me back in three minutes.” He ended the call and returned the phone to his pants pocket.

  “Madame Houdini has been having visions about this ride.”

  “FYI,” Charlene said. “Houdini was an escape artist, not a clairvoyant.”

  “Yeah? Well Ms. Claire Voyant’s been zooming on Mission: Space, according to the Willow Tree. Something to do with buttons and TV screens.”

  “And?”

  “And she’s going to describe it to us once we’re inside one of those pods.”

  “So we should get going,” Charlene said.

  “Yeah. We should get going.”

  “So why are we standing here with your arm blocking me?” she asked.

  He lowered his arm. “Because it looks too easy,” Maybeck said, still speaking very softly. “How can it be this easy? It’s almost like they’re inviting us to get into one of those pods.”

  “That may be right. But there’s only one way to find out.”

  “I told you that I hate this ride. Yeah?”

  “You might have mentioned it,” she said. “But you’re tougher than the other guys, right?”

  “You’re going to head-trip me?”

  “I’m building your confidence.”

  “My phone’s going to ring. We gotta get in there.”

  “I’ll go first,” she said.

  “The heck you will.” He crossed the curved crack in the floor—it had appeared when the ride began allowing the floor-size turntable to spin—and approached the nearest pod. To the left of the closed door was a pale blue panel containing four green buttons. The bottom left button was marked DOOR OPEN, written vertically. The two on top were marked DOOR CLOSED and SEAT RESTRAINT. The bottom button wasn’t labeled.

  “Give me your phone,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “Don’t you get it? One of us has to be out here to push the door-closed and seat-restraint buttons for the other person.”

  Maybeck studied the panel for a second time. “You think?”

  “I know. That’s the only way it’s going to start.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t need to start. Maybe we just go in the pod and look around?”

  “And there are how many pods? And a whole ’nother room of pods next door. You think we picked the right one?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Give me your phone,” she repeated. “I trust Jess. This has something to do with Jess and her dreams. I accept that, even if you can’t.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You called her Houdini.”

  He looked guilty as charged.

  She held her hand out.

  Maybeck passed her his phone.

  * * *

  On-screen, the hang glider flight dove over Yankee Stadium on its way back toward Manhattan. A crowd of fifty thousand cheered for a Derek Jeter home run as the smell of popcorn filled the air. Jess and Willa used the cacophony as cover, fleeing up the staircase toward the exit sign. Willa made the mistake of looking back at the screen and lost her balance as the route dipped left and low over the East River. Jess reached out and caught her just as Willa was about to fall down the stairs.

  “Don’t look,” Jess whispered.

  Both girls averted their eyes, looking up the stairs instead of down—toward the back of the theater, instead of the screen.

  Jess caught sight of something Willa did not. As they approached the exit door, Jess nudged her and pointed.

  “‘Projection Room,’” she said, quoting the title on the door.

  “Yeah?”

  “I think we need to check it out,” Jess said.

  “Because?”

  “It’s an IMAX projector,” Jess said.

  “So?”

  “They’re supercooled. As in very low-temperature. And majorly climate controlled.”

  “You’re channeling Philby all of a sudden?”

  “I wrote a report
for science class. I happen to love IMAX theaters. And anything three-D. I know all about that booth, and believe me, it would be Maleficent heaven, or a perfect place to hide Wayne. Think about it: no one goes in there—it’s all automated. It’s kept cool. It’s climate controlled. And it’s tucked up at the back of this theater, way out of the way.”

  “I suppose it could have been the reason Soarin’ showed up on the maintenance list,” Willa said.

  “So we’re going in there,” Jess said, making it a statement.

  “I think we are,” Willa agreed. “But you need to call Maybeck first and tell him what you saw. It’s been three minutes.”

  Holding on to the rail, Jess looked back at the screen. The hang glider was flying down Broadway toward Times Square at night. It was a magnificent sight.

  “Right about now,” she said, “I wish I had Finn’s sword.”

  “We’ll make the call from inside the booth. It’ll be quieter,” Willa said, ever practical.

  “But shouldn’t we tell someone what we’re doing, where we’re going? What if they don’t hear from us again, and can’t find us.”

  Willa took back the phone and started typing in a text.

  Jess couldn’t tell for certain, given the flickering light from the film, but she thought Willa’s face had gone suddenly pale.

  32

  TEST TRACK’S WAITING LINE turned back on itself, weaving through a General Motors assembly line of car parts, partly constructed vehicles, and testing areas where car doors were moved remotely to test the durability of their hinges. Empty, it was a confusing tangle of steel railings, a labyrinth of tools and heavy machinery.

  Finn and Philby moved through the line slowly, on high alert, both feeling uneasy. No matter how many times they had entered attractions or taken rides after a park’s closing, the events always had a haunted quality about them, as if removing the people removed the life of the place as well, leaving only ghosts behind.

  They had encountered Overtakers or succumbed to traps so many times that they now expected them. The characters took over the parks after closing, and the Overtakers did their best to take over the characters. The DHI kids could not enter into this conflict without a strong sense of personal risk.

  Finn and Philby kept their heads up, their eyes moving and their ears alert. An attack could come from anywhere at any time.

  “Do you smell it?” Philby asked. A metallic, dusty aroma filled the area, like the air during a lightning storm.

  “Could be just the machinery. There’s a lot of stuff in here.”

  “Or it could be her,” Philby said.

  When Maleficent entered a room that same electronic smell preceded her. She could throw fireballs—St. Elmo’s fire—off the tips of her fingers, could draw laserlike electronic fences in the air to contain and capture the Kingdom Keepers. She was clearly capable of generating her own electricity, like an electric eel. This smell in the air set both Finn and Philby back on their heels.

  Contained within the rails of the waiting line, they turned to see an Audio-Animatronic mechanic, an old man, maybe 40 or 50, with fat hands and red cheeks sitting by a flashing computer monitor. They both stopped short at the same moment, reminded of the crash-test dummies. They stood perfectly still. The dummy did not move. They advanced cautiously, inches at a time, their eyes never leaving the dummy for long.

  A moment later, they looked back at the mechanic as they passed a half dozen traffic signs. The line moved over against the wall here. They were getting closer to the loading zone and the start of the ride. They passed through the empty turnstiles and on through the darkened room where usually a nerdy guy who looked like a young Dan Patrick from ESPN talked you through what you’d experience on the ride.

  “It isn’t what we’d normally go through that worries me,” Finn said. “It’s what we don’t expect to happen.”

  “With you there,” Philby agreed.

  They entered the loading area and moved to the far end where a car awaited.

  “Ready?” Philby asked.

  “Are you sure this is even possible?” Finn asked.

  “I don’t mean to sound too much like Maybeck, but this is me we’re talking about. I know every attraction, every ride, inside and out. That’s my job, right? And I take it seriously.”

  Philby’s plan was for him to go up into the control booth and start the ride while Finn took a seat in the lead car.

  “There has to be at least one seat belt fastened for a car to move,” Philby explained. “Since the second car won’t have any seat belts fastened, it won’t start up. The others can’t go either, but even if they could, the computer will hold them back. It’ll mean ours is the only car out there, and I trust that a lot more than some car coming up from behind us and hitting us, or forcing us to go faster or something.”

  “But that also means I’ll be strapped in,” Finn said, “and you won’t.”

  “That’s correct. If I hurry, I can jump into the car in time. The seat belt may not work at that point—I don’t know.”

  These were three words one never heard from Philby’s mouth. Finn savored hearing them and almost made a point of it, but decided to keep his celebration to himself.

  “If we see something…” Philby continued, “if for any reason it’s needed…if I’m not strapped in I can get out of the car and meet you back at the start of the ride.”

  “We shouldn’t separate. That’s one of the rules.”

  “Rules are made to be broken, Finn. You know that. This is one of those times.”

  “Couldn’t we just skip the cars and walk the test track?”

  “The cars trigger the scene events. If Wayne left us a clue, if he wants us to see something, it’ll be somewhere along the ride. We want—no, it’s more than that—we need the scene events and the effects engaged.”

  “I still don’t love the idea of me being strapped in and you not being.”

  “I’ll hold on tight, believe me, Mother. But it’s the only way to start the ride. It’s this, or we bail right now.”

  “Okay.” Finn didn’t feel right about doing it this way—they’d instituted the buddy rule after losing Maybeck, and so far the rule had kept them safe. But Philby had convinced him there was no other way; and Philby knew this stuff.

  The loading area was gloomy with most of the lights turned off. Thankfully, there were no crash-test dummies in sight. Finn climbed down into the lead car and fastened his seat belt. He laid the sword on the bench next to him. The click of the belt issued a sense of finality that he found disturbing. He drew in a deep breath and turned to find Philby looking down through the control booth’s window.

  Finn gave him a thumbs-up. Philby returned the gesture. There was a loud popping sound. The car hummed and vibrated slightly. It rolled forward.

  Finn looked back over his shoulder to see Philby hurrying down a ladder and dodging obstacles and vaulting line railings in an effort to reach the moving car. Lights blinked on overhead with the car’s movement: the ride was coming online; Philby had done it.

  Philby was now only a few yards from the end of the loading dock and running fast. He had a good chance of reaching the car in time.

  Finn spotted someone in the shadows—the same mechanic they’d been afraid of in the waiting line, the mechanic they’d seen at the same time that they’d smelled the electricity in the air.

  He carried a heavy wrench in his right hand.

  “Look out!” Finn shouted.

  Philby skidded to a stop, and ducked just in time as the wrench ripped through the air where Philby’s head would have been.

  “Catch!” Finn shouted. He tossed the sword—pommel first—to Philby, who caught the grip perfectly.

  As the car paused at DISPATCH, for what was announced as a seat belt check—not that there was anyone checking his—he looked back.

  The mechanic took another swipe at Philby with the wrench.

  Philby caught the wrench with the sword blade and a clanki
ng of metal rang out.

  Finn twisted in the seat to watch. His test car faced the HILL CLIMB. He saw two more contacts between the wrench and the blade, sparks shooting off at the second. Philby went down on one knee with the second blow, and the last thing Finn saw as the car climbed out of sight of the loading area was the mechanic lowering the wrench toward Philby’s head with a vicious deliberateness.

  * * *

  Charlene got the call seconds after Maybeck hit the seat-restraint button.

  Jess spoke softly into the phone and so it was difficult for Charlene to hear. “I see a screen,” she said, “like a TV screen. There are two squares beneath it to either side and switches to the side. Three labels. Willa thinks the labels mean it’s your ride, Mission: Space.”

  “Yes! She’s right. I’m looking at a bunch of screens right now, and there’re a gazillion square buttons and switches all over the place.”

  “‘Valves’…‘Hypersleep’…‘First Stage,’” Jess said. “Those are the labels. I don’t know what they mean, or even if they mean something, but Willa thinks it’s important.”

  Charlene repeated the three labels, her eyes searching the console. The Hypersleep button was directly below the Engineer screen. Next, she spotted the 1st Stage Sep button below the Commander’s screen.

  “That’s all I’ve got,” Jess said.

  Charlene thanked her and was about to ask her to describe the location of the Valves button, when the doors hissed. Maybeck hit the button. The door was about to close.

  “I need you in here!” she shouted to Maybeck, realizing that with her seat belt locked around her waist, she couldn’t reach the 1st Stage button, only the Hypersleep. “Now!”

  For once, Maybeck listened to someone else. He dove through the opening as the door slid shut, landing across her knees, extended the full length of the capsule. He caught a foot, and just wrenched it free—his running shoe coming off—as the door sealed shut.

  Charlene had reached out to pull on his leg to free his stuck foot. It was in that confusion that her eye lit upon a set of switches stacked vertically: Electrics, Hydraulics, Valves.

  Valves! she realized. They were in such an out-of-the way location, she might have missed them entirely had she not reached for Maybeck’s leg.