She fell asleep.
The rest was a dream. She saw herself being helped to her feet by—of all things—two bears from the Country Bear Jamboree. The kids around her, bored with waiting, were thrilled to see the bears. As she was taken out of the line and through a Cast Member door, she felt her entire body tingle. Not a nice tingle, but like when a foot falls asleep—the same kind of tingle she’d experienced on the nights when, falling asleep, she’d crossed over as a DHI.
Where the bears were taking her she couldn’t tell, but there were voices and the sound of an engine. A few minutes later came the sounds of car doors and more voices. A friendly voice welcoming people. She heard the Animal Kingdom mentioned. It wasn’t long until she felt incredibly comfortable, and it was quiet again. Beautifully quiet. Wonderfully quiet.
Far, far in the distance she heard the calls of exotic animals—as if someone had Animal Planet playing on their television.
Wherever she was, it felt like she could sleep there forever.
30
PHILBY APPROACHED THE Disney Vacation kiosk in Camp Minnie-Mickey, a stone’s throw from the Lion King pavilion. He clicked on Dream Vacations and typed in yensidtlaw. Presented with a Web page, he typed in the address: www.dgamer.com/vmk, as Finn had instructed. He next clicked on the logo and was asked for his username and password. A moment later, to his surprise, he arrived at VMK’s Central Plaza, in control of an avatar. He navigated the avatar toward a bench at the center of the screen.
Wayne? he typed. But as Finn had warned, nothing appeared, only the question mark. He typed the name again. His speech bubble showed only his ID—philitup—and a question mark. Growing impatient, Philby walked his avatar around the plaza. A minute passed, feeling more like five. For a third time, he tried typing the name. Nothing.
As he circled back around to the benches, a speech bubble appeared above an avatar with unusually white hair. Philby couldn’t remember having seen hair that color inside VMK before.
[ ]: were you looking for someone? appeared above the white head.
philitup: uncle wait’s pen. finn sent me.
[ ]: follow me
As Finn had done before him, Philby followed Wayne on a long trip through the Web site to a private room Philby had never seen before. Wayne’s avatar shut a door behind them.
[ ]: we can talk here, anything typed is encrypted.
philitup: okay.
[ ]: do you have a message from finn?
philitup: we need engineering blueprints for the AK, it looks like Jez may have messed with the sound system, if i can study the way it all works, maybe we can find her.
[ ]: messed with?
philitup: a song—Under the Sea—was played over the PA. not only does that song not belong in AK, but it played three times in a row, and amanda says it’s the same singer jez has on her iPod, not the singer disney uses.
[ ]: i see.
philitup: finn thought you could help me get the plans, i thought about that maintenance place you showed us, but how can i get past the workers?
[ ]: you won’t need to. besides, this time of day it’s too risky, there’s a better way. once we leave this room, we’re no longer encrypted, i won’t answer any questions out there, so i’ll explain everything now. once we leave here, you’re on your own, although i’ll show you the way. i’ll get you inside.
philitup: inside where?
[ ]: patience, my boy.
Wayne’s avatar moved back to the door. He typed in a code that showed only as asterisks in his speech bubble. The door opened. The avatar stepped out into the hall, looked in both directions, and returned to the room, again shutting and code-locking the door.
[ ]: can never be too careful, it would appear we’re all alone, which is good. VMK was not always a game, originally, the imagineers wanted to create a virtual control room for the various parks, essentially, they were lazy, they wanted a way to fix small mechanical problems, or study the schematics from remote locations—their homes, or while they were traveling, the more employees, the more sets of plans were needed, and the paper plans were constantly changing and needing updating as systems were improved or modified, a guy named alex wright came up with the idea of putting it all online, they would encrypt access for security reasons, and each Imagineer or employee would have his or her own avatar—a mock human being with hands and feet that could not only study the schematics online but could carry out some minimal maintenance or switching procedures: open boxes, pull switches, the area they created was termed the virtual magic kingdom—vmk—and in their spare time they began to create games with each other, they built rooms and attractions in their virtual world, it was only much later it occurred to someone to allow the public inside, at that time, they sealed off what they call the mechanicals, hiding them behind encrypted firewalls, last year it became apparent the Overtakers were trying to compromise VMK. the site was closed to the public, i can get you access to the mechanicals if that’s what you want?
philitup: does that include the music system?
[ ]: i would imagine, follow me. and don’t write anything until I tell you to do so. it is not beyond consideration that the overtakers are monitoring vmk. they should never be underestimated, they are devious and powerful, and it’s apparent they will stop at nothing to control the kingdoms, we must be vigilant.
Philby didn’t type anything. He guided his avatar toward the door and waited as instructed.
Wayne approached. Asterisks appeared in his speech bubble. The door swung open.
Philby’s avatar followed the white-headed figure out into the hallway. Wayne knew his way around VMK, taking Philby to places he’d rarely visited. They entered a private room that didn’t look particularly interesting. Philby realized this was a trick: the less interesting it looked, the less interested anyone would be in spending time in there. Wayne coded the door shut and then approached the far wall. Again, asterisks filled his speech bubble. A door swung open, and the landscape changed considerably. The walls and floors were silver and black. Dark blue signs with white lettering acted as trail guides:
They turned left, following the signs to the Animal Kingdom.
Access through the door marked AK CONTROL required yet another code from Wayne. The door opened, revealing a room with a flow chart projected on a large wall. It reminded Philby of a war room, like he’d seen in movies. The flow chart showed: MECHANICALS, SECURITY, STRUCTURES, ATTRACTIONS, GATES/ACCESS, BACKSTAGE. Under some of these were smaller tides like ASIA, AFRICA, CAMP MM, DINO L. It looked like a giant outline or family tree, with branches connecting a main tide to its smaller subtitles.
Wayne’s avatar climbed into a cage on the end of a long mechanical arm. It reminded Philby of the cherry pickers road crews used to trim trees or repair phone poles. Wayne pulled the door to the cage shut, and Philby watched as he pushed levers and the cage rose to pass in front of the titles on the flow chart.
He maneuvered them to stop at MECHANICALS. Wayne reached out and pushed against the screen. Immediately, the projection on the wall changed. Now MECHANICALS was listed at the top, and there were dozens of subcategories, including—Philby noticed—PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEM.
Wayne reached out and tapped the title.
The lettering folded back, opening an entrance like a window in the wall. Wayne opened the cage door and led them through this new opening in the wall and into a massively complex room. Philby gasped. He heard his own voice and only then was reminded of where he was: standing in a small hut, in Camp Minnie-Mickey. For the past few minutes he had almost become his avatar. He’d been transported. He hadn’t remembered where he was. Now, glancing behind him, he looked out through the open doorway into Camp Minnie-Mickey and reminded himself to remain alert; the Overtakers were not to be underestimated.