Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

by Cory Doctorow

theutilidors and then put it on a freight tram that ran to the Imagineeringcompound, and thence to a heavy, exposed Faraday cage. Of course: usingthe HERF on me would kill any electronics in the neighborhood. They hadto shield me before they pulled the trigger.

  The doc placed the gun on my chest and loosened my restraints. He sealedthe cage and retreated to the lab's door. He pulled a heavy apron andhelmet with faceguard from a hook beside the door.

  "Once I am outside the door, point it at your head and pull the trigger.I'll come back in five minutes. Once I am in the room, place the gun onthe floor and do not touch it. It is only good for a single usage, but Ihave no desire to find out I'm wrong."

  He closed the door. I took the pistol in my hand. It was heavy, densewith its stored energy, the tip a parabolic hollow to better focus itscone.

  I lifted the gun to my temple and let it rest there. My thumb found thetrigger-stud.

  I paused. This wouldn't kill me, but it might lock the interfaceforever, paralyzing me, turning me into a thrashing maniac. I knew thatI would never be able to pull the trigger. The doc must've known, too --this was his way of convincing me to let him do that restore.

  I opened my mouth to call the doc, and what came out was "Waaagh!"

  The seizure started. My arm jerked and my thumb nailed the stud, andthere was an ozone tang. The seizure stopped.

  I had no more interface.

  #

  The doc looked sour and pinched when he saw me sitting up on the gurney,rubbing at my biceps. He produced a handheld diagnostic tool and pointedit at my melon, then pronounced every bit of digital microcircuitry init dead. For the first time since my twenties, I was no more advancedthan nature had made me.

  The restraints left purple bruises at my wrists and ankles, where I'dthrashed against them. I hobbled out of the Faraday cage and the labunder my own power, but just barely, my muscles groaning from theinadvertent isometric exercises of my seizure.

  Dan was waiting in the utilidor, crouched and dozing against the wall.The doc shook him awake and his head snapped up, his hand catching thedoc's in a lightning-quick reflex. It was easy to forget Dan's old lineof work here in the Magic Kingdom, but when he smoothly snagged thedoc's arm and sprang to his feet, eyes hard and alert, I remembered. Myold pal, the action hero.

  Quickly, Dan released the doc and apologized. He assessed my physicalstate and wordlessly wedged his shoulder in my armpit, supporting me. Ididn't have the strength to stop him. I needed sleep.

  "I'm taking you home," he said. "We'll fight Debra off tomorrow."

  "Sure," I said, and boarded the waiting tram.

  But we didn't go home. Dan took me back to my hotel, the Contemporary,and brought me up to my door. He keycarded the lock and stood awkwardlyas I hobbled into the empty room that was my new home, as I collapsedinto the bed that was mine now.

  With an apologetic look, he slunk away, back to Lil and the house we'dshared.

  I slapped on a sedative transdermal that the doc had given me, and addeda mood-equalizer that he'd recommended to control my "personalityswings." In seconds, I was asleep.

  ========= CHAPTER 7 =========

  The meds helped me cope with the next couple of days, starting the rehabon the Mansion. We worked all night erecting a scaffolding around thefacade, though no real work would be done on it -- we wanted theappearance of rapid progress, and besides, I had an idea.

  I worked alongside Dan, using him as a personal secretary, handling mycalls, looking up plans, monitoring the Net for the first grumblings asthe Disney-going public realized that the Mansion was being taken downfor a full-blown rehab. We didn't exchange any unnecessary words,standing side by side without ever looking into one another's eyes. Icouldn't really feel awkward around Dan, anyway. He never let me, andbesides we had our hands full directing disappointed guests away fromthe Mansion. A depressing number of them headed straight for the Hall ofPresidents.

  We didn't have to wait long for the first panicked screed about theMansion to appear. Dan read it aloud off his HUD: "Hey! Anyone hearanything about scheduled maintenance at the HM? I just buzzed by on theway to the new H of P's and it looks like some big stuff's afoot --scaffolding, castmembers swarming in and out, see the pic. I hopethey're not screwing up a good thing. BTW, don't miss the new H of P's-- very Bitchun."

  "Right," I said. "Who's the author, and is he on the list?"

  Dan cogitated a moment. "_She_ is Kim Wright, and she's on the list.Good Whuffie, lots of Mansion fanac, big readership."

  "Call her," I said.

  This was the plan: recruit rabid fans right away, get 'em in costume,and put 'em up on the scaffolds. Give them outsized, bat-adorned toolsand get them to play at construction activity in thumpy, undeadpantomime. In time, Suneep and his gang would have a batch oftelepresence robots up and running, and we'd move to them, get themwandering the queue area, interacting with curious guests. The newMansion would be open for business in 48 hours, albeit in stripped-downfashion. The scaffolding made for a nice weenie, a visual draw thatwould pull the hordes that thronged Debra's Hall of Presidents over fora curious peek or two. Buzz city.

  I'm a pretty smart guy.

  #

  Dan paged this Kim person and spoke to her as she was debarking thePirates of the Caribbean. I wondered if she was the right person for thejob: she seemed awfully enamored of the rehabs that Debra and her crewhad performed. If I'd had more time, I would've run a deep backgroundcheck on every one of the names on my list, but that would've takenmonths.

  Dan made some small talk with Kim, speaking aloud in deference to myhandicap, before coming to the point. "We read your post about theMansion's rehab. You're the first one to notice it, and we wondered ifyou'd be interested in coming by to find out a little more about ourplans."

  Dan winced. "She's a screamer," he whispered.

  Reflexively, I tried to pull up a HUD with my files on the Mansion fanswe hoped to recruit. Of course, nothing happened. I'd done that a dozentimes that morning, and there was no end in sight. I couldn't seem toget lathered up about it, though, nor about anything else, not even thehickey just visible under Dan's collar. The transdermal mood-balancer onmy bicep was seeing to that -- doctor's orders.

  "Fine, fine. We're standing by the Pet Cemetery, two cast members, male,in Mansion costumes. About five-ten, apparent 30. You can't miss us."

  She didn't. She arrived out of breath and excited, jogging. She wasapparent 20, and dressed like a real 20 year old, in a hipster climate-control cowl that clung to and released her limbs, which were long anddouble-kneed. All the rage among the younger set, including the girlwho'd shot me.

  But the resemblance to my killer ended with her dress and body. Shewasn't wearing a designer face, rather one that had enough imperfectionsto be the one she was born with, eyes set close and nose wide andslightly squashed.

  I admired the way she moved through the crowd, fast and low but withoutjostling anyone. "Kim," I called as she drew near. "Over here."

  She gave a happy shriek and made a beeline for us. Even charging full-bore, she was good enough at navigating the crowd that she didn't brushagainst a single soul. When she reached us, she came up short andbounced a little. "Hi, I'm Kim!" she said, pumping my arm with thepeculiar violence of the extra-jointed. "Julius," I said, then waitedwhile she repeated the process with Dan.

  "So," she said, "what's the deal?"

  I took her hand. "Kim, we've got a job for you, if you're interested."

  She squeezed my hand hard and her eyes shone. "I'll take it!" she said.

  I laughed, and so did Dan. It was a polite, castmembery sort of laugh,but underneath it was relief. "I think I'd better explain it to youfirst," I said.

  "Explain away!" she said, and gave my hand another squeeze.

  I let go of her hand and ran down an abbreviated version of the rehabplans, leaving out anything about Debra and her ad-hocs. Kim drank itall in greedily. She cocked her head at me as I ran it down, eyes wide.It was disconcerting, and I fina
lly asked, "Are you recording this?"

  Kim blushed. "I hope that's okay! I'm starting a new Mansion scrapbook.I have one for every ride in the Park, but this one's gonna be a world-beater!"

  Here was something I hadn't thought about. Publishing ad-hoc businesswas tabu inside Park, so much so that it hadn't occurred to me that thenew castmembers we brought in would want to record every little detailand push it out over the Net as a big old Whuffie collector.

  "I can switch it off," Kim said. She looked worried, and I reallystarted to grasp how important the Mansion was to the people we wererecruiting, how much of a privilege we were offering them.

  "Leave it rolling," I said. "Let's show the world how it's done."

  We led Kim into a utilidor and down to costuming. She was half-naked bythe time we got there, literally tearing off her clothes in anticipationof getting into character. Sonya, a Liberty Square ad-hoc that we'dstashed at costuming, already had clothes waiting for her, a rottingmaid's uniform with an oversized toolbelt.

  We left Kim on the scaffolding, energetically troweling a water-basedcement substitute onto the wall, scraping it off and moving to a newspot. It looked boring to me, but I could believe that we'd have to tearher away when the time came.

  We went back to trawling the Net for the next candidate.

  #

  By lunchtime, there were ten drilling, hammering, troweling newcastmembers around the scaffolding, pushing black wheelbarrows, singing"Grim Grinning Ghosts" and generally having a high old time.

  "This'll do," I said to Dan. I was exhausted and soaked with sweat, andthe transdermal under my costume itched. Despite the happy-juice in mybloodstream, a streak of uncastmemberly crankiness was shot through mymood. I needed to get offstage.

  Dan helped me hobble away, and as we hit the utilidor, he whispered inmy ear, "This was a great idea, Julius. Really."

  We jumped a tram over to Imagineering, my chest swollen with pride.Suneep had three of his assistants working on the first generation ofmobile telepresence robots for the exterior, and had promised aprototype for that afternoon. The robots were easy enough -- just off-the-shelf stuff, really -- but the costumes and kinematics routines weresomething else. Thinking about what he and Suneep's gang ofhypercreative super-geniuses would come up with cheered me up a little,as did being out of the public eye.

  Suneep's lab looked like it had been hit by a tornado. Imagineer packsrolled in and out with arcane gizmos, or formed tight argumentativeknots in the corners as they shouted over whatever their HUDs weredisplaying. In the middle of it all was Suneep, who looked like he wasbarely restraining an urge to shout Yippee! He was clearly in hiselement.

  He threw his arms open when he caught sight of Dan and me, threw themwide enough to embrace the whole mad, gibbering chaos. "What wonderfulflumgubbery!" he shouted, over the noise.

  "Sure is," I agreed. "How's the prototype coming?"

  Suneep waved absently, his short fingers describing trivialities in theair. "In due time, in due time. I've put that team onto something else,a kinematics routine for a class of flying spooks that use gasbags tostay aloft -- silent and scary. It's old spy-tech, and the retrofit'scoming tremendously. Take a look!" He pointed a finger at me and,presumably, squirted some data my way.

  "I'm offline," I reminded him gently.

  He slapped his forehead, took a moment to push his hair off his face,and gave me an apologetic wave. "Of course, of course. Here." Heunrolled an LCD and handed it to me. A flock of spooks danced on thescreen, rendered against the ballroom scene. They were thematicallyconsistent with the existing Mansion ghosts, more funny than scary, andtheir faces were familiar. I looked around the lab and realized thatthey'd caricatured various Imagineers.

  "Ah! You noticed," Suneep said, rubbing his hands together. "A very goodjoke, yes?"

  "This is terrific," I said, carefully. "But I really need some robots upand running by tomorrow night, Suneep. We discussed this, remember?"Without telepresence robots, my recruiting would be limited to fans likeKim, who lived in the area. I had broader designs than that.

  Suneep looked disappointed. "Of course. We discussed it. I don't like tostop my people when they have good ideas, but there's a time and aplace. I'll put them on it right away. Leave it to me."

  Dan turned to greet someone, and I looked to see who it was. Lil. Ofcourse. She was raccoon-eyed with fatigue, and she reached out for Dan'shand, saw me, and changed her mind.

  "Hi, guys," she said, with studied casualness.

  "Oh, hello!" said Suneep. He fired his finger at her -- the flyingghosts, I imagined. Lil's eyes rolled up for a moment, then she noddedexhaustedly at him.

  "Very good," she said. "I just heard from Lisa. She says the indoorcrews are on-schedule. They've got most of the animatronics dismantled,and they're taking down the glass in the Ballroom now." The Ballroomghost effects were accomplished by means of a giant pane of polishedglass that laterally bisected the room. The Mansion had been builtaround it -- it was too big to take out in one piece. "They say it'll bea couple days before they've got it cut up and ready to remove."

  A pocket of uncomfortable silence descended on us, the roar of theImagineers rushing in to fill it.

  "You must be exhausted," Dan said, at length.

  "Goddamn right," I said, at the same moment that Lil said, "I guess Iam."

  We both smiled wanly. Suneep put his arms around Lil's and my shouldersand squeezed. He smelled of an exotic cocktail of industrial lubricant,ozone, and fatigue poisons.

  "You two should go home and give each other a massage," he said. "You'veearned some rest."

  Dan met my eye and shook his head apologetically. I squirmed out fromunder Suneep's arm and thanked him quietly, then slunk off to theContemporary for a hot tub and a couple hours of sleep.

  #

  I came back to the Mansion at sundown. It was cool enough that I took asurface route, costume rolled in a shoulderbag, instead of ridingthrough the clattering, air-conditioned comfort of the utilidors.

  As a freshening breeze blew across me, I suddenly had a craving for_real_ weather, the kind of climate I'd grown up with in Toronto. It wasOctober, for chrissakes, and a lifetime of conditioning told me that itwas May. I stopped and leaned on a bench for a moment and closed myeyes. Unbidden, and with the clarity of a HUD, I saw High Park inToronto, clothed in its autumn colors, fiery reds and oranges, shades ofevergreen and earthy brown. God, I needed a vacation.

  I opened my eyes and realized that I was standing in front of the Hallof Presidents, and that there was a queue ahead of me for it, one thatstretched back and back. I did a quick sum in my head and sucked airbetween my teeth: they had enough people for five or six full houseswaiting here -- easily an hour's wait. The Hall _never_ drew crowds likethis. Debra was working the turnstiles in Betsy Ross gingham, and shecaught my eye and snapped a nod at me.

  I stalked off to the Mansion. A choir of zombie-shambling new recruitshad formed up in front of the gate, and were groaning their way through"Grim Grinning Ghosts," with a new call-and-response structure. A smallaudience participated, urged on by the recruits on the scaffolding.

  "Well, at least that's going right," I muttered to myself. And it was,except that I could see members of the ad-hoc looking on from thesidelines, and the looks weren't kindly. Totally obsessive fans are agood measure of a ride's popularity, but they're kind of a pain in theass, too. They lipsynch the soundtrack, cadge souvenirs and pester youwith smarmy, show-off questions. After a while, even the cheeriestcastmember starts to lose patience, develop an automatic distaste forthem.

  The Liberty Square ad-hocs who were working on the Mansion had beenrailroaded into approving a rehab, press-ganged into working on it, andwere now forced to endure the company of these grandstanding megafans.If I'd been there when it all started -- instead of sleeping! -- Imay've been able to massage their bruised egos, but now I wondered if itwas too late.

  Nothing for it but to do it. I ducked into a utilidor, changed into mycostume and
went back onstage. I joined the call-and-responseenthusiastically, walking around to the ad-hocs and getting them to joinin, reluctantly or otherwise.

  By the time the choir retired, sweaty and exhausted, a group of ad-hocswere ready to take their place, and I escorted my recruits to anoffstage break-room.

  #

  Suneep didn't deliver the robot prototypes for a week, and told me thatit would be another week before I could have even five production units.Though he didn't say it, I got the sense that his guys were out ofcontrol, so excited by the freedom from ad-hoc oversight that they wererunning wild. Suneep himself was nearly a wreck, nervous and jumpy. Ididn't press it.

  Besides, I had problems of my own. The new recruits were multiplying. Iwas staying on top of the fan response to the rehab from a terminal I'dhad installed in my hotel room. Kim and her local colleagues werefielding millions of hits every day, their Whuffie accumulating asenvious fans around the world logged in to watch their progress on thescaffolding.

  That was all according to plan. What wasn't according to plan was thatthe new recruits were doing their own recruiting, extending invitationsto their net-pals to come on down to Florida, bunk on their sofas andguest-beds, and present themselves to me for active duty.

  The tenth time it happened, I approached Kim in the break-room. Hergorge