The Return: Disney Lands (16 page)

T
IM SOUNDED LIKE
a game show host.
“Amanda, I’d like you to meet—”

“Emily,” Amanda said, interrupting Tim. “We met earlier, you idiot! In the library.”

Tim rolled his eyes at her name-calling. Ignoring him, Amanda spun around in the center of Emily’s bedroom, taking in the fantastic space. “It’s so pretty!” she
cried.

“Thanks.”

Decorated in colorful fabrics, Emily’s dorm room created the effect of being inside
a sultan’s tent. Parachute silk draped a dome light. Scarves and pieces of clothing were hung as
art on the parachute walls. The only paper art was a
Catching Fire
poster on the wall beside Emily’s roommate’s bed.

“It’s called wearable art. And that’s my deal,” Emily said.

“Including new fabric technologies,” Tim said, nudging her.

“For Tim,” Emily said, rolling her eyes, “everything’s
technology.”

“Let’s say,” Tim eased the door shut and spoke cautiously, “that a person or persons had good reason to want to get past some video cams. Could a certain other person,
who just happened to have chosen enrollment in DSI over a Defense Department job, be able to help?”

Emily looked suddenly serious. “I think the certain other person would want to know what the person or persons
had in mind. For instance, what kind of trouble would she be in if they get
caught? Robbing a bank for instance, is just plain wrong.”

“No banks,” Tim said.

“It’s a file, a very important file, that a friend of mine, a good friend, was told is in the school archives,” Amanda explained. “His name is Dell Philby. He’s one
of the Kingdom—”

“Keepers? No way! You know those guys?”

“I do. Which is why it’s super important.”

Tim stayed silent, but he looked impressed as well. In spite of herself, Amanda felt pride tickling the base of her spine, pushing her to smile. At the DSI, no heroes were more lauded and
admired than the Kingdom Keepers.

Fighting back a smile, Amanda explained. “Jess and I have met them a couple times.” She downplayed the depth of their
relationships for now. “Philby knows I’m here at
DSI. He spoke with Becky—”

“Cline. Studio Archives. Are you some kind of VIP or something?” Emily sounded overly impressed. This was what Jess had wanted to avoid—the star treatment phenomenon.

“Not me. Them. The Keepers. Becky told Philby the information we need is almost certainly stored here in the dorm basement, but that it’s part
of a classified file she can’t
get.”

“So we’re going to steal classified files?” Emily asked.

“I like that ‘we’ part!” Tim said.

“I’m going to
borrow
them,” Amanda said. “I’ll either take photos or copy them, and then put them right back.”

“And you’re going to take this risk because…?”

“What are friends for?” Amanda forced a smile. “Actually, the Keepers pretty much saved
the life of a friend of mine. I kind of owe them big time.”

“Jess,” Tim stated, though in a private, caring way.

Amanda didn’t answer.

Emily didn’t look convinced. Crossing her arms across her chest, her face shadowed by pink light shining through the fabric dome, she addressed Tim. “Why me?”

“The Chameleon project.”

“No way.”

“Em, we have to. Have you ever heard of a three-ninety?”

“The robots?” Emily asked. “Of course. We studied those. They were decommissioned.”

“Yeah, well, apparently, not all of them. Amanda and I met a few earlier. Highly modified.” Tim showed her the red mark on his arm where he’d been shocked. “Highly
dangerous
.”

“You’ve been down there?” Emily stiffened, suddenly seeming more interested. “The three-nineties have video, right?”

“Yeah,
but lo-res. They do have lateral servos but they can’t see much below two feet off the floor.”

Keenly interested in the information Tim was supplying, Emily moved to her desk and started punching keys on her open laptop. “Okay. The lighting down there?”

Tim said, “Fluorescent and compact fluorescent.”

Emily typed. “No LED or incandescent?”

“Nope.”

Emily clicked through several
links. “The specs conform.”

“What’s going on?” Amanda asked.

“A little something Em calls ‘Chameleon.’” Tim looked impossibly self-satisfied.

“I could explain it,” Emily said, “if you’d completed the Applied Physics and Electrical Dynamics course.”

“Last semester, first year,” Tim explained, and then added mock condescendingly, “You’ll get there.”

“Chameleon,” Amanda repeated.

Emily pursed her lips. “The current rage is smart textiles: weaving electronic and optic fibers into wearables.”

“Em’s specialty,” Tim said. “Her term paper was
Weaving the Past Into the Future
.”

“I didn’t know you’d read my paper.”

“It was used for our final exam in Expressions of Light. Robertson called it ‘brilliant.’” Tim smiled, showing his teeth. “But don’t let it go to your
head.”

“I’m still not getting it,” Amanda said.

“The concept’s easy.” Emily spun her laptop so Amanda could see the screen and computer art of a full bodysuit made of hundreds of small gray disks. It looked like something a
scuba diver would wear. “Cameras, good cameras, have shrunk to the size of pinheads. Think about the backup cameras on your parents’ car.”

“I don’t have parents.”
Amanda blurted it out. It had become habit, though she immediately regretted it as it sounded like she was playing the pity card.

Emily looked as if she might say something in response, then returned her attention to her laptop. Amanda appreciated that. “The going theory is, you integrate a few cameras with imaging
technology. Thanks to fiber optics, it all happens at close to the speed
of light. What a camera sees on one side of the suit”—she tapped the trackpad, setting the animation in
motion—“is instantly projected to the other.” With a click of the mouse, the suit all but disappeared, taking on the pattern of the wallpaper behind it. A gray smudge remained on
the side, from the armpit to below the hips. “Now, it would be pretty simple technology if human beings were two
dimensional, but seeing as we’re not, it takes pretty sophisticated
algorithms to ensure that whichever side the object is seen from”—the suit rotated to a side view and the gray smudge became more solid, like a gray line drawn down the wallpaper
pattern—“the background is projected correctly. It is less than perfect at the moment.”

“But operational,” Tim added.

“Like Harry Potter’s
cloak,” Amanda said.

“But for real,” added Tim.

“Invisibility?” Amanda gasped, bringing her hand to her mouth. She could move objects with her mind, but this seemed beyond even her admittedly big suspension of disbelief.
“Too cool.”

“I have a sample,” Emily said. She dug around in her closet and retrieved a gray piece of fabric the size of a dinner napkin. A pair of extremely thin
wires ran from the fabric to a
black box the size of a deck of cards. Emily plugged in the box and said, “Tim? Hold it, please?”

Tim took the sample, holding it parallel to Emily’s bed and the fabric art behind it—a sunset made completely of colored pieces of cloth. The napkin blocked Amanda’s view of
the wall. Emily threw a switch on the box, and…

The wall art reappeared. Only when
Tim pinched the napkin did any clue to the invisibility fabric’s existence show.

“That’s crazy!” Amanda breathed.

“Em’s been working on wearable prototypes for Chameleon, haven’t you, Em?”

“I have two finished. Both women’s, both my size.
Our
size,” she said, looking carefully at Amanda. They were roughly the same height, with similar builds. “We
girls have to reduce our curves as
much as possible. So I’ve built Spanx into the bottoms, and we can wrap our tops tight. Curves make things extremely complex. Because of that, in a
must-not-be-seen situation, it’s better to face the person or animal viewing you, front or back, not to the side.”

“Person, animal…or video camera,” Tim added. Emily smiled at him, taking the napkin back and turning off the battery pack.

“But how do you power it?” Amanda said.

“You wear two packs, here.” Emily indicated a point high up the inside of her thighs. “One is power, the other’s circuitry. Battery’s good for just over ten minutes
right now. No longer than twelve. That’s one of the big limitations.”

Amanda considered what she was hearing. They couldn’t know that she’d seen so many impossible things happen that
this actually made sense. She wondered why Tim was so willing to help
her. She didn’t like the idea of being in debt to anyone.

“You want me to wear this thing to avoid the three-nineties?” Amanda asked. “What’s in it for you?”

“I’m just such a nice guy.”

“You want me to get something for you while I’m there.”

“Of course! If possible. I realize it’s dangerous. I’m not expecting
miracles.”

“It is dangerous,” Amanda said, shifting her eyes pointedly to Emily. “Tell her.”

Tim recounted their earlier exploits, holding back nothing, including Dirk’s final malevolent pursuit and their near escape in the dumbwaiter.

“If you’re caught,” Tim told Emily, “you’ll both be suspended or expelled.”

“Yeah,” Emily said, enthusiasm evident on her face, “but if we’re
not
caught, then my prototypes will have passed a legit field test, and I move to the top of my
class.”

“You don’t want to do this,” Amanda said softly. She had a feeling it would be impossible to convince Emily, but she wanted to try. “You can coach me and I can do this by
myself.”

“Of course you can.” Emily’s voice oozed sarcasm. “But there’s no way that’s going to happen. Now, let’s
get you fitted.”

“H
OW DOES IT FEEL
?” Emily asked Amanda.

“You’re littler than I am, but if I don’t breathe, I’m okay,” Amanda said. She and Emily laughed.

“You both look like Spider-Man,” Tim said. “Only you’re girls and your costumes are, like, scales. Or tiny gray sequins. So maybe not so much.”

“Miniature LEDs,” Emily said, correcting him. “Like the world globe in Epcot’s Reflections of Earth.”

The three were crammed into the small
third floor maintenance room that housed the pair of dumbwaiters.

“It may be lunchtime up here, but it’ll feel like midnight down there,” Tim said. “You need to be back on the afternoon shuttle for classes at DSI. That gives you less
than an hour.”

“Tim, what makes you think the dumbwaiters will work? I’m ninety-nine-percent sure Dirk knows we used them.”

“As far as he knows, he
disabled them,” Tim said, a little too proudly, “which is completely excellent for us, since in all my brilliance, I overrode his effort. In his mind,
there’s no way these can operate, which means you should be safe upon landing, as well as for takeoff.”

Emily emitted a soft laugh. “They do not make a hat big enough for your head.” Turning awkwardly in the cramped space, she addressed Amanda,
their faces very close together.
“Remember, the Chameleons have a two-foot minimum focal range, so try to keep everything more than an arm’s distance away from you. Oh, and my suit has a few extra effects. Don’t
be startled if I use them.”

“Okay,” Amanda said, feeling a new burst of nerves creep through her.

“Obviously we’ll only use the suits when needed,” Emily cautioned. “Ten minutes
goes by incredibly fast. Don’t throw the switch unless you have to. Even turned off,
the suits are hard to see in low light.”

“Got it.”

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

They climbed together into one dumbwaiter, packing in as tightly as they could. Tim pulled down the grate, threw them a mini-salute, and wished them good luck.

Minutes later, the two girls crossed the laundry room. Amanda
pointed out the short-circuited 390 lying in the doorway. But the other doorway stood empty.

Emily kept her voice down. “Seeing the mess down here, I guess I should mention something else. The suits have to stay clean. Dirt or mud on the diodes shows up as a black spot or lines. I
call them dead spots. Not good.”