He then looked to the screen; Wayne was waiting for him.
[ ]: we’re safe now.
Philby moved his avatar forward. He faced a large sound-mixer projected on the floor in front of him. He studied it, realizing this was a photographic image, probably of the actual soundboard somewhere in the Animal Kingdom’s control room. And, like the real thing, the virtual soundboard would not only allow him to change volume or inputs throughout the Park, it also displayed cables to switching stations and the hundreds of speakers placed throughout the Animal Kingdom. With a click of a button, he could then overlay either a satellite image or a map of the Park, making it easy to identify the exact location of the various sound-system elements. Wayne was right: it offered an easy method for troubleshooting problems or identifying problem spots without being in the Park.
Slowly, he got the hang of the technology.
philitup: whoa…
[ ]: no one ever accused the imagineers of being stupid.
philitup: this is incredible, i can follow any wire anywhere.
[ ]: and perform tests on it i should think that was the purpose after alclass="underline" long-distance testing and repair.
philitup: how much time do i have?
[ ]: no one will bother us here, take as long as you like, since i’ve gone into hiding, i have nothing but time.
Philby’s main interest was the separation of the Park’s background music, divided into the five sound areas. Each area had its own output, volume, and tone controls. He located the output wires on the back of the mixer—virtual speaker wires leading out into the Park.
philitup: what are the chances the Overtakers have jez locked up in the sound control room? she could input her iPod into this mixer pretty easily.
[ ]: i would doubt that but i can go check if you like.
philitup: check, how?
[ ]: all the security cameras are on the screen out there, where we just were: the main screen, i can go into the security control room and view any camera in the park.
Philby had an idea. He wondered…
philitup: some of those cameras connect to the Conservation Station, the TVs that visitors can control.
[ ]: the AnimalCams. yes.
philitup: could i reroute all the security cameras to one of the AnimalCams?
[ ]: if you know what you’re doing, i suspect you could.
philitup: I do all the cable TV stuff at our house, i can probably figure it out.
[ ]: let’s finish up here, and i’ll take you over there.
Philby spent several minutes following the speaker cables, quickly determining that from where he and the others had heard “Under the Sea” playing over the system, they’d actually been part of the Asia speaker system. He rechecked the soundboard, looking to see if he could explain Jez’s iPod having played over the system. There were so many knobs and dials he didn’t know exactly what he was looking at. He’d used GarageBand on his own computer, but this was far more complex.
philitup: she’s either being kept in the control room or somewhere in asia.
[ ]: asia is big.
philitup: tell me about it. I’m done here, can you show me the security room?
He felt excited as Wayne led him back out to the caged lift. Wayne directed the cage to the SECURITY title, selected the menu, and then navigated to the camera control room. Soon Philby’s avatar had again passed through a window in the wall and was standing in front of an enormous second wall of TV screens. There had to be hundreds of them. There was a control board here as well. It only took him a few minutes to connect a master cable from the video control board to one of the AnimalCam console inputs. This fed all the security cameras into a single AnimalCam console in the Conservation Station.
Philby wrote to Amanda on D-Gamer, double-checking his work. Amanda located the console and took it over. Thrilled, she wrote back how she now had control of hundreds of cameras. She could view most of the Park now: inside all the attractions, outside walkways, parking lots.
panda: this is incredible, philby. thank u.
She waited for Philby to write back. But no message was returned.
Philby never had a chance to answer her. Once again he’d lost track of himself—so engrossed in the virtual worlds of VMK and D-Gamer that he’d forgotten to keep an eye on his surroundings.
But near the end of their discussion, he had finally looked around.
And found himself face-to-face with a very angry tiger.
31
OF COURSE, AT FIRST PHILBY couldn’t believe it.
A tiger.
He’d never realized how big they were: the tiger stood as high as Philby’s shoulder. Orange, black, and white stripes, like war paint. Its eyes were hypnotic; he couldn’t pry his own away from them. They stared at him like he was…lunch.
The tiger blocked the door to the small hut. There was no getting past it, even if Philby’s legs had worked, and at that moment he had no sensation in his legs whatsoever. He felt nothing but tremendous fear charging his system. It took him over completely. Owned him.
A tiger loose in the Animal Kingdom! Where were the sirens? Where were the animal police?
He opened his mouth to scream, but his throat proved too dry, and he croaked out a pathetic noise that didn’t even sound close to the “Help!” he’d intended.
The tiger cocked his head, looking at him from an angle. Sizing him up. Preparing to attack, it crouched slowly and silently. As gracefully as a dancer, it squatted onto its haunches, its leg muscles flexing as if there were steel cables beneath the colorful hide.
Philby couldn’t take it anymore. He squinted his eyes shut and braced himself for the attack.
When nothing happened, he slowly edged his left eye open slightly, stealing a look.
At that exact moment, the tiger jumped.
Philby’s world went dark.
He felt nothing.
32
FINN ARRIVED TO THE RENDEZVOUS at the specified time. There was a tall guy in a Disney cap and green coveralls hanging out by the gate to backstage, and it took Finn a moment to realize it was Maybeck. With his face in the shadow of the cap, he looked about twenty years old. The two boys met up and stood to the side, near the jungle, amazed at the numbers of visitors that now jammed the Park.
Speaking under his breath, Finn explained his encounter with the brooms.
“Maybe the brooms mean the Overtakers are trying to clean things up,” Maybeck said, amused by his own joke. Finn didn’t dignify that with a response. “The DeVine Charlene is over by the bat enclosure,” Maybeck continued. “I walked around trying to find stuff from the diary. Ended up back at the Gibbons Temple, and I gotta tell you, Whitman”—Maybeck always called Finn by his last name—“there was some serious action over there. Bunch of the rangers all making a stink. From what I overhead, some orangutans pulled a fast one. One of the apes supposedly stole a key, hid it in his upper lip, and then pulled off a jail break. Some kind of smarts, these apes. Six of them are missing. There’s some serious stuff going down, no doubt about it. And far as I can tell, we’re the only ones who have a clue, and not much of a clue at that.”