Kingdom Keepers V (9781423153429) (2 page)

F
inn sat upright in bed, sweating, his arm at his side, clutching a pillow. It took a minute for him to collect himself, as it often did. Being transported as a DHI was like traveling in a deep dream. Even when waking from such a dream it was difficult to separate fantasy from reality, the dream state from the living state. The first time Finn remembered having been transported into his hologram state he'd met an old man, a retired Disney Imagineer by the name of Wayne. They'd met on the Goofy bench outside of Tony's Town Square Restaurant. Finn suspected it hadn't been the first time he'd been transported, only the first time he'd realized what was happening to him. The experiences of dreaming and DHI were too closely correlated; learning the difference between them had taken practice. Even now, Finn couldn't be sure what he'd just been through.

He reached for his phone—he wasn't supposed to keep it by his bed, but he did—and texted Willa.

u there
?

He waited. The screen timed out, returning to wallpaper and the time: 2:33 a.m. He hoped she was all right. Hoped she'd ended up in her bed. But, he reminded himself, they'd been holding hands when he'd punched the Return. There was little to no chance she could have been left behind, trapped in the Sleeping Beauty Syndrome of no return in which her mortal body would remain asleep like an unkissed princess.

Finn wasn't about to get back to sleep. He tiptoed into the kitchen and made himself a strong cup of tea to help him stay awake. Tiptoed because he didn't want to wake his supportive mother or his doubting father; didn't want to hear them bicker about how to deal with their oddball son who claimed to travel into other worlds at night. His mother knew the truth. A scientist by training, she'd put together enough empirical evidence to convince herself. Finn's father was the exact opposite. He believed his son hormonally imbalanced, “poisoned by puberty,” he called it. He wanted Finn to see a counselor—a shrink—to exorcise whatever demons possessed his son into convincing himself he could wake as a hologram in another world where evil witches vied for control of an amusement park. Finn and his dad barely spoke anymore. They avoided each other, living with the dismissive silence that hung between them, where things left unsaid were louder than any argument. There were times Finn wished they'd just take the gloves off and get into it. To fight it out until they could talk again; to get his father back. But not his father, he of the soft voice and button-down shirts—the guy who rarely showed much emotion beyond the occasional simmering anger.

Finn checked his phone a second time. Nothing.

He was halfway through the cup of tea in his room when he reconsidered his situation. The theft of the library volume—the notebook—had to be significant if Maleficent, the Evil Queen, and Cruella had teamed up to find it. What if the timing of the theft made a difference? At this point, he wasn't going to sleep anyway, so he got to work.

He texted Philby, knowing that despite the hour the message would be received. Philby was a cyber-freak, a tech genius, and computer nerd. For nearly two years now he had possessed the ability to control the DHI server remotely, to direct Finn, or any of the DHIs, into one park or another. Finn had left the Return behind on the warehouse roof—or wherever he and Willa had just jumped from—but such limitations could be overcome; Philby could return a DHI manually if need be. Finn included this request in his text.

snd me to MK plez


wll cll for RTRN


confirm


He grimaced as a text returned almost immediately.

just spoke to Wyn. he's waiting in MK 4 u.


Why was Philby talking to Wayne at this time of night? He checked his phone, assuming Wayne tried to call him first.

Nothing.

A troubled Finn climbed back into bed and closed his eyes. He pictured a train tunnel, pitch-black, and then, faintly, way at the end, a pinprick of light piercing the dark. Ever so slowly the size of the tiny speck of light increased, first to a dot, then a dime-size circle, and finally a dish of white light speeding toward him. Weighed down by a long day and a short night, he fell back to sleep.

W
hen he opened his eyes, Finn found himself sitting on the pavers of the Hub—the central square—in front of Cinderella Castle. He looked up at the statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse holding hands and heard the incredibly faint hum, like the sound of an irritated insect, that confirmed he wasn't dreaming. He'd crossed over as a hologram.

He studied his hands and looked down at his legs, admiring the radical improvements of DHI 2.0. It was like going from standard television to high-def. In its first iteration, the hologram-projecting software had created a blue outline around the edges. Now his full hologram barely even glowed in the dark, and there was no blue line whatsoever. Despite a few bugs that had yet to be worked out, he could see all the advantages the upgrade gave him and the others when battling the Overtakers.

He pulled himself to his feet, feeling the effect of his fatigue, wondering how he would make it through the day of school that would start in a matter of hours. With the ongoing battle at the Base, sleep had been an afterthought the past few weeks.

He kept in a crouch, wary of prying eyes, like a spy sneaking behind enemy lines. While many of the park characters sided with the Keepers, a significant number had joined the Overtakers in wanting to seize control of the parks and install black magic. Inconveniently, those characters aligning with the OTs typically possessed powers bestowed upon them by their creator, Walt Disney: magic, the ability to cast spells or to transfigure themselves. Some possessed a raw physical power that far exceeded that of humans—especially humans in the form of holograms. Disney had created not just memorable villains, but dangerous ones. It wasn't only Finn's hologram at risk, but his sleeping self back in his bed. He remained alert.

He had no desire to enter into what he and the Keepers called the Siege. It wasn't his night for defending the Engineering Base at Disney's Hollywood Studios—the ongoing siege by the OTs that had been in place for two weeks. More important, no arrangements had been made for backup. He'd notified none of the other Keepers—except for Philby, whom he needed to return—that he was coming here.

He had no idea where any characters that supported the Keepers might be: Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, or Ariel, among others. There was no time to seek them out. If they found him, they found him. The parks at night were a kind of no-man's-land, filled with risk. At any location, at any attraction, at any time, an Overtaker could appear. He moved ahead cautiously, well aware that as a leader of the Keepers he would be a big prize if captured.

He didn't love the idea of walking down Main Street, U.S.A., but it was the only way to reach the Engine Co. 71 firehouse. He started out at a cautious walk, but once onto the sidewalk, took off at a run. He hated to admit it, but sometimes not seeing or hearing anyone at all in a park at night was worse than being chased.

At the corner by the Emporium, he crouched and carefully studied every view in every direction, not wanting to lead any OTs to the apartment over the firehouse. Never mind that the old man who lived there, and had done so for decades without Finn's help, had not been seen there in well over a year. Finn did not want to be the one who accidentally sabotaged him. Finn had no idea how the man would contact him, only that he would—the way he'd secretly contacted him several times in the past few months.

The man had taught Finn everything there was to know about being a Kingdom Keeper, about being a leader. Finn wasn't about to question him now. He had faith that the man somehow knew Finn had crossed over, that the man would find him when it was safe to do so.

A few minutes later, when he heard the hiss from the Walt Disney World Railroad locomotive, he knew. The train had no business running in the wee hours of the night. Or if it did, it was Finn's business. Keepers' business. He took off at a run.

As Finn reached the top of the stairs at the station platform, the train was already moving. Finn jumped aboard and looked forward and back: empty. The only person was the engineer, seen from the back on the front side of the coal-car—the tender that carried wood or coal for the steam engine. After traveling a hundred yards or so, the train was up to speed, moving at a good pace. When Finn looked next, the engineer was gone, the locomotive driverless. Then a head popped up out of the coal-car, and the engineer struggled to throw a leg over the wall and climb down into the passenger cars. He moved through the first two cars and was wearing a smile by the time he faced Finn.

Wayne Kresky had reached that age where he no longer seemed to grow older. He looked perfect in the train engineer's garb: the overalls suited him, as did the dungaree cap that held down his wispy white hair. His translucent blue eyes twinkled with mischief. Finn and the other Keepers had recently discussed the man's invincibility (he was at the top of the Overtakers' most-wanted list), his longevity (he had to be ancient), how without him the Keepers would not exist in the first place, and how, if they ever lost him, maybe they would be lost, too.

Wayne was not one for small talk. He could be difficult to understand at times, but that was because he talked in circles or made Finn work to understand a point he was trying to make. It seemed he was always testing Finn, always pushing him and all the Keepers as if time were running out—not just to defeat the Overtakers, but because of something bigger. What that was, or could be, the Keepers had yet to figure out.

“You're not on duty tonight,” Wayne said, referencing the Keepers' service in defending the Engineering Base from the Siege.

“Maybeck and Charlene. Why, have you heard something?” Finn asked anxiously.

“No. It's the same. They attack at random, seemingly trying to draw us out in order to isolate us and pick us off. To reduce our numbers.”

The Engineering Base was the electronic nerve center for all the parks. To control the Base was to control the parks: the electricity, pavilion temperatures, security video. The Overtakers were smart to go after it. Wayne had enlisted Cast Members, had called upon characters, and had recruited volunteers to act in its defense. He served as the general in charge.

The battles had been raging. The Keepers served in pairs, from midnight to four, when a dark blue seeped into the black horizon, signaling the impending sunrise and the Overtakers' retreat. The skirmishes could be exhausting and, occasionally, life-threatening. School had become a roller coaster of exhaustion and alertness, depending on the day. If the Siege kept up much longer it was going to affect all the Keepers' grades.

Finn raised his voice to be heard over the din of the train. “You might want to tell your friends about a possible bug in 2.0. I did a location jump.”

“Explain that, please.”

“I moved from the library to…I don't know, a factory rooftop. But it was a time shift. A bug. The two places weren't connected. It was a jump of some kind.”

Wayne had a pen out and was taking notes. “A jump.”

“I don't know how else to explain it.”

“I'll tell them.”

Finn waited a moment, enjoying the
clackety-clack
of the train, and then said apologetically, “They got whatever they were after at the library. Willa and I tried…bad luck is all.”

“We know a little bit about what they got,” Wayne said. It was weird: he didn't seem to be speaking any louder than usual, yet Finn had no trouble hearing him. He attributed this to 2.0 and the software's enhanced visual, audio, and tactile functions. “It was an Imagineering journal from 1940.”

Disney Imagineers—who combined skills of imagination and engineering—were something like magicians: they took Walt's dreams and turned them into attractions and rides, parks and experiences. They had invented Disneyland. Disney World.

“I thought the Imagineers weren't formed until the 1950s.”

“You've been studying.”

Finn shrugged.

“Correct. Officially formed in 1952. But ahead of that, in the early, early planning stages to make Walt's dream a reality, he had his trusted advisers. They all kept notebooks and journals. Sometimes documenting meetings, sometimes Walt's visions, or just to sketch out ideas and concepts. The journals are among the most treasured documents, most important documents, in the Disney archives.”

“Why would Maleficent go after that particular journal?” Finn asked.

“We don't know. We're checking how much we have. All the journals are in the process of being scanned and stored in case of damage. We're not sure about the one they got. Maybe we'll figure it out, maybe we won't. Each journal can be specific to a project or cover dozens of ideas, some that came to fruition, some that did not. We may never know exactly what's in that particular journal.”

“Until it's too late, you mean,” Finn said. The Overtakers were led by Maleficent, a highly intelligent and well-organized fairy. If they'd stolen a particular Disney journal from seventy years earlier, there was a good reason for it, and Finn and Wayne both knew it.

“We believe the journal contained preliminary story ideas for both
Pinocchio
and
Fantasia
.”

“Meaning?”

“As you know, the film
Pinocchio
tells a story about a boy who must prove himself brave, truthful, and unselfish.”

“And his nose.”

“The book is a little more complicated than that. Like the movie, it has the Blue Fairy, but Pinocchio's journey is more difficult and his fate far darker. It could be said of you—the Keepers—that you are not unlike the wooden boy. You, too, are proving yourselves brave, truthful, and unselfish. You also exist in two worlds—Pinocchio's wooden world is like your electronic world.”

“But why would Pinocchio's story matter to the OTs?” Finn asked.

“If they are searching for a way to be rid of you, the early stories could be of great value.”

“You mean like research?”

“Exactly.”

The train continued on its track, circling the Magic Kingdom. Wayne paid the train no attention whatsoever, though Finn continually looked in the direction of the locomotive, feeling ill at ease with no one at the controls.

“When you said Pinocchio had a darker fate, what did you mean?” Finn asked.

“You're capable of reading, last time I checked,” Wayne said. “So read the story. You'll see. We don't need to waste our time with that.”

Finn hated it when Wayne treated him like a kid. He stifled his rising anger. Why should he go to the bother to read an entire book when Wayne could answer a couple of key questions? “Give me the 411,” he felt like saying.

Why's he lost interest in me? Finn wondered. Because Philby is picking up the enhancements in 2.0 faster than me? Give me a chance!

“So what about
Fantasia
?”

“As to that—” Wayne said. But he was immediately cut off as two animals leaped onto the moving train. They were just blurs, but Finn reacted instantly by jumping to his feet and putting himself between Wayne and whatever now occupied the car behind them.

“You saw that, yeah?”

“Yes,” Wayne said, also standing. He reached out to stabilize himself against the train's movements.

A fox poked its head up over a bench. The thing was so cute it was hard to take it as any kind of threat. But Finn had learned to trust nothing.

Next, a cat appeared, bounding from one seat to the next, its fur tousled by the wind as it moved toward them.

The fox's eyes flashed golden.

“I must warn you,” Wayne said, “as adorable as these creatures may be—”

“I know,” Finn said.

“The fox could do some real harm.”

“To you,” Finn said. “Not to me. With me, he only gets a bite of light.”

“Unless he challenges your fear level.”

“Version 2.0 changes all that,” Finn said confidently.

The fox bared its teeth and hopped up over the bench seat, now a bench closer to the two.

The cat continued toward them along the far edge of the train car.

“How do you want to handle this?” Finn asked.

“You're the leader.”

“Not with you around.”

“Yes you are, Finn. Now and always.”

“What about Philby?” he blurted out. He caught sight of the older man's troubled eyes, as if Finn knew something he shouldn't.
That
'
s what I thought.
The moment passed.

“Do you know these animals?” Finn asked.

“Well, no. Not by name. But seeing as how we were discussing Pinocchio…”

“Yeah?”

“It is a fox and a cat that lead the wooden boy astray.”

“Seriously? Oh, perfect. So they're after me?”

“I would doubt they'll discriminate.”

“Okay, you take the cat,” Finn said, finally having a plan. He liked cats; he couldn't see trying to hurt one.

“And the fox?”

“Is all mine,” Finn said.