Power Play (5 page)

“Maybe I’m nervous,” she said. “I talk a lot when I’m nervous.” She put her hands on Finn’s hips to steady herself on the seat.

Now he was nervous, too. He kept glancing back, worried that Amanda would see them despite the fact he was now several blocks from school.

“We’re not supposed to use our computers at home,” he said.

“Yeah, I got that,” she said. “Hey, how come Wayne contacted Philby instead of you?”

Another question.

“I don’t know. I don’t have computer lab the way he does. I suppose that could be it.” But it bothered him much more than he let on. Wayne referred to him as the leader; Wayne usually contacted him, not Philby. Was his leadership role of the Keepers in jeopardy? Had he done something wrong?

“What do you think it all means?” she asked. “Wayne contacting Philby. Wanda getting arrested. I thought with Maleficent and Chernabog locked up this stuff wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“It wasn’t,” he said.

“So?”

“So I guess things never go as planned.”

* * *

Finn’s mother was an actual rocket scientist. She’d eventually left NASA to raise Finn and his sister, the dual commitment proving to be too much, but she remained the smartest woman he’d ever met. And the fairest. Whereas his father got angry and upset about Finn’s escapades as a Kingdom Keeper, his mother, a huge fan of everything Disney, supported Wayne’s effort to keep the magic alive in the Parks. What was to Finn’s father a silly ambition fraught with physical danger and risk was to his mother on the level of national importance. Because of this, he had recently opened up to her more, sharing the challenges the Keepers faced, sometimes even asking for her help. This was one of those times.

Mrs. Whitman, currently a brunette, was thin, happy-faced, and athletic. She hardly wore any makeup. Her shoes were what she called “practical” and her earrings “artistic.”

“Bailing someone out requires money,” she said from the other side of the kitchen counter. Finn and Charlene were both eating bowls of breakfast cereal.

“I know that. I’m sure Wayne will pay you back.”

“And a bail bondsman. You put up a small amount and the bail bondsman promises the rest. It’s complicated. If the person misses her appearance in court, then the bail bondsman loses his money, and in this case,
we
would have to repay him.”

“She won’t miss anything,” Finn said. “Please, Mom.”

“It would mean taking money out of our savings. Your father would never approve of such a thing.”

“But if Wayne repays you, it’s only gone for a day or two. Right?”

“
If
he repays me, yes. But you’ve no way to reach him. Correct?”

Finn hung his head shamefully. “Yeah.”

“In two weeks the bank statements will arrive. By that time we have to have the money back in the account.”

“Does that mean you’re going to do it?” Finn didn’t even try to contain his excitement.

“Not a word to your father,” she said.

* * *

The sign out front read: city of orlando, police headquarters. It was a normal-looking office high-rise. Finn, Charlene, and Mrs. Whitman checked in at a lobby reception desk and rode the elevator.

It was not the dismal, smelly, dimly lit space that Finn anticipated from television, but instead, more a combination of post office and doctor’s office. There were some decent chairs to sit in, copies of newspapers and magazines. The overhead lighting was bright, the smell not nearly as bad as he’d expected.

A man in uniform sat behind a window of thick glass. He looked pleasant enough.

Finn’s mother spoke to him for several minutes. She handed him stuff from the bail bondsman, filled out something on a clipboard. Showed her driver’s license. It reminded Finn of her returning shoes at Nordstrom, or paying for an oil change.

“We can’t get her out tonight,” Mrs. Whitman reported to Charlene and her son. “Some problem with the courts. I can return tomorrow morning. Tuesday at the latest.”

“She has to stay here?” Finn said. “That’s terrible.”

“She’s going to make bail,” his mother said. “It’s just delayed a little. But we’re allowed to see her.”

Finn felt a huge weight lift. “YES!” he said, fist-pumping. “You are totally awesome!”

If Mrs. Whitman could have floated off the floor, she might have. “Come on. What are you waiting for?”

The three had gone through security to enter the building, but they were put through it again before entering the jail. The room they were shown to was plain. It looked like a very small version of their school lunchroom with six green plastic picnic tables bolted to the floor, overhead tube lighting, and lots of acoustic tile.

Wanda looked older than Finn remembered. She wore an orange jumpsuit with orlando city jail written across the front. Her hair was stringy. She’d been crying.

Finn, his mother, and Charlene sat on the bench facing her. A guard stood just outside the door.

“So, how are you?” Finn asked.

Wanda smirked, her twisted smile telling him more than he wanted to know. “Been better,” she said.

“We’ve posted bail,” Mrs. Whitman said. “Tomorrow sometime, I’m told.”

“Thank you so much, but I wouldn’t count on it. I’ve been told by the attorney they appointed that they may try for Homeland Security charges. That’s probably why the delay.”

“What did you
do
?” Charlene asked.

Wanda lowered her voice. “My father has me monitor bandwidth usage on the DHI server, the same way Philby sometimes does.”

Finn nodded. If bandwidth usage surged, it meant extremely large data packs were moving in and out of the DHI servers. That, in turn, meant someone was crossing over or Returning. Wayne watched for unusual or unexpected bandwidth usage as a warning sign of possible Overtaker interference.

Wanda said, “There has been some unusual activity: data surges late, late at night. A spike at one point from the Animal Kingdom server. Others as well. We knew something was going on, we just didn’t know what. So I hacked one of Disney’s multi protocol routers. If the Internet is the information superhighway, I hacked a major intersection, a truck stop. That’s probably why the Homeland Security charges. It’s kind of like hacking Google or Microsoft.”

“But you
work
for Disney,” Finn said.

“That just makes matters worse. I look like a disgruntled employee.”

“Oh, my,” said Mrs. Whitman.

“I came away with more questions than answers. What seemed to be happening couldn’t possibly be happening. I needed more data, more time to drill deeper. That was when I was arrested, in the middle of all that. It was only then I realized that I’d probably been set up. That I’d walked into a trap.”

She looked each of them in the eye, making sure they understood the earnestness of what she was about to tell them. “Our friends,” she said, meaning the Overtakers, who weren’t their friends at all, “knew that if they made enough noise on the DHI servers it would attract our interest. Mine. Philby’s. Someone’s. They could then alert the authorities, who would follow the data mining back to its source and arrest whoever was messing around—in this case, me. That would then mean that I’d need to be bailed out, and who would bail me out?”

“Wayne,” Finn answered. “Wait a second! Are you saying it was all a way to make Wayne show himself?”

“To draw him out,” Wanda said, nodding. “That’s my guess. A father’s first instinct is to save his children. My dad nearly came here. If he had, he’d never have made it through the doors. They’d have had him out front. I’m sure of it.”

“So he contacted Philby in order to not come here in person,” Finn said. “I made him promise not to come,” Wanda said. “Was the Internet stuff you turned up for real?”

Charlene asked. “We won’t know without more tests,” she answered, “more investigation.”

“Do you know where your father is?” Charlene asked.

More questions, Finn thought. He said, “That’s none of our business!”

“It is, if the police are going to torture her or something,” Charlene said.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Charlene,” Mrs. Whitman said. “That kind of thing only happens in movies.”

Wanda and Finn exchanged a questioning look.

“We’ve got to get you out of here,” Mrs. Whitman said.

* * *

As the bus from the Transportation Center rolled into Epcot, Finn spotted a pair of crash-test dummies—CTDs—on Segways patrolling the parking lot and pointed them out to Jess. Moving her dark hair off her face to get a better view, Jess’s features reflected off the bus window. She had a teardrop chin with full lips and wide-set eyes. She changed her hair color—which had turned horse-tail white after an encounter with Maleficent—several times a year. She pointed out the Segways to Amanda.

The overhead monorail line divided the enormous parking lots; the lane beneath it was used for the parking lot shuttles and as a pedestrian walkway leading to the Park’s front gates.

A fun distraction for Park visitors, the CTDs-on-Segways were known to the Keepers as possible soldiers for the Overtakers. Some were nothing more than Cast Members in CTD suits, acting out a part. But others were robotic drones armed with high-tech detection and surveillance equipment outfitted with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Originally, these had been introduced to Epcot by Security—an effective and inexpensive way to patrol the Parks during regular hours and after closing. Their popularity had led to the Cast Member variety—CTDs that would talk and interact with the visitors. But somewhere along the line, the Overtakers had managed to electronically hijack control of at least a half dozen of the robotic variety. Seeing them now so close put Finn on guard.

“Well, if they’re looking for you, they’ll never spot you,” Amanda said.

“Not with you looking like that, they won’t,” said Jess.

Finn wore an Orlando Magic jersey with a heavy chain around his neck, a Yankee cap sideways on his head, and mirrored sunglasses. His shorts went below his knees and he wore basketball shoes with Nike socks. There were probably a few hundred boys just like him in the Park at this very minute.

“You look sooooo stupid,” Amanda said, prompting a laugh from her and Jess.

“Good,” Finn said. It was true, he looked like an idiot, but that was the point. If he happened to be recognized in the Park as a Kingdom Keeper he’d be hounded for autographs; if he was hounded for autographs he’d win the attention of Security; if Security caught him or any of the Keepers in the Park without approval, his family could lose their Golden Mickey Pass—or worse—Operations Management could bring the hammer down. It was one thing to attend a school function in Downtown Disney, but something else entirely to be in Epcot without asking permission.

Operations Management did not want Park visitors seeing both the DHI hologram guides and the real-life models for the DHIs in the same Park at the same time. Finn and the four others were under contract not to visit any of the Parks without prior approval—approval they currently lacked.

“Plus, you’re hanging out with two gorgeous girls,” said Jess, striking a pose. “So we know who everyone will be looking at.”

Jess was typically more modest than this. The comment from her drew a shrill laugh from Amanda. They seemed to be having more fun than he was.

“We need to keep our eyes on them,” Finn warned. “Seriously.”

“Okay. We get it,” Amanda said.

He’d ruined the moment. He wanted to kick himself.

Entering Epcot, they passed beneath Spaceship Earth—which looked like an elevated giant golf ball—reaching the fountain plaza where a computer-controlled water show ran. It could mesmerize visitors for hours at a time. Pavilions rose on both sides: The Land, The Seas with Nemo & Friends, Test Track. Beyond the plaza was the fifteen-acre lake surrounded by the World Showcase pavilions, each representing a different country and duplicating its most famous architecture: the Eiffel Tower in France; a Mayan temple in Mexico.

The autumn Food and Wine Festival was under way. Special booths offered food and drink. The mood was even more festive than usual. The place was packed. At a few minutes before eight pm, the sun set. The IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth show would take over the lake—and the entire Park—before long. There was a buzz in the air.

For Finn, the buzz felt more like fear. Seeing Wanda locked up had upset him. The idea that the Overtakers had tried to trick Wayne out into the open worried him. They were planning again. They were up to something. With Wayne in hiding and Wanda in jail, it fell onto him and the Keepers to figure out what was going on, and to stop whatever was planned. The only timetable was
right now
.

Finn, Amanda, and Jess arrived at Norway’s Stave Church just behind Philby and Willa. The steeple on the dark brown wooden church rose forty feet in the air, while the interior space was quite small, a closeted, museumlike space.

The walls were dark wood, the ceiling, vaulted. The five displays depicted various scenes or famous people from Norway’s colorful history. There were descriptive plaques alongside each.

The three girls drew together in the far corner and immediately began talking the way girls do. Finn and Philby were left alone.

Philby reviewed everything he could recall about the video from Wayne; Finn detailed the visit with Wanda.

“A trick?” Philby asked.

“That’s what she thinks.”

“Makes sense.”

“Yes, it does,” Finn agreed.

“I wish she’d told you more about the data bursts.”

“I knew you were going to say that,” Finn said. “You are so predictable.”

“It’s what I do,” Philby said, unapologetically.

“What could it mean?”

Philby shrugged. “All sorts of things. But it’s kind of random that she’d hack a bank of Disney routers. That’s like hacking the streetlights at an intersection. No wonder she’s in trouble.” He mulled it over. “What’s interesting, I suppose, is why she’d bother in the first place. Those big routers…I suppose if you wanted to determine where the packets were headed…the firewall logs might be all you’d need.”

Finn lost him for a minute while Philby was doing the math in his head.