Kingdom Keepers(73)

Maybeck went first. He descended the stairs, suddenly consumed by shadow. Again, the sound of the door opening and falling shut.

That door swallowed his friends. He hoped he’d see them again.

Philby went next.

Finn then worked his way down and, hand on the door, reminded himself to stay calm. He tugged on the door and opened it to a strange, unfamiliar world. They found themselves in a tunnel that ran a great distance in both directions. People in Disney costumes walked in groups while battery-operated vehicles plied the corridors.

The Utilidor was physically much wider, much bigger—enormous, really!—than Finn had imagined it would be: an underground road of sorts with doors leading from it.

Actors dressed as nonhuman animated Disney characters, like Mickey and Minnie and Donald Duck, paraded past, each wearing or carrying a mask large enough to cover their whole head. There were others dressed as human characters, wearing makeup but without masks—Belle and Snow White, Peter Pan, and Mulan. The walkarounds, they were called.

A small electric truck zoomed past, stacked high with cans of soda and bottled water. Finn looked to see Charlene and Willa headed in the same direction the truck was going.

He followed a short distance behind Philby, who in turn followed Maybeck. The boys were now moving in the opposite direction from the girls.

Overhead, along the tunnel’s ceiling, thick cables and pipes hung. No Disney music played down here. Instead the boys heard only the whine of the vehicles, the steady whoosh of piped-in air, and the gentle murmur of voices.

Finn passed a girl with Cinderella’s hair and face. But she wore blue jeans and a tank top, not yet in costume.

The boys walked briskly for well over five minutes before finally coming to another tunnel. Maybeck followed the signs as Wayne had told him. This new tunnel gradually sloped downward, leveled out, and ran another fifty yards before climbing again, then it dead-ended at yet another busy tunnel. Finn followed to the right, Philby and Maybeck just ahead.

Offices and unidentified rooms lined the route. It was extremely busy down here, with people coming and going like worker bees. Finn caught a glimpse of a cafeteria. He passed signs for the PROPERTY ROOM, a barber shop, and a women’s hair salon. A city! The tunnel veered left.

Philby and Maybeck slowed and pretended to read from a bulletin board.

“It’s just up ahead,” Maybeck said in a low voice. “The timing is critical because there’s a coffee break coming up. Wayne thinks our best shot at getting in there is during the coffee break.”

Finn took a sip from a water fountain, stealing a look down the hall. They waited. A few minutes later three workers—two men and a woman—left the door marked CONTROL ROOM.

The boys approached the door and entered.

Inside they faced row after row of steel shelving, like bookshelves in a library, floor to ceiling. Instead of books, the shelves were filled with thousands of tiny blinking lights, red, yellow and orange: rack-mounted computers.

It was chilly in here.

Maybeck hurried down the second-to-last row, saying softly, “Wayne’s point is that no one will notice Maleficent’s cold aura in a cold place like this. He said the servers are in a back room.”

Sure enough, they soon stood facing several steel doors, all unmarked.

Finn stepped forward and touched the back of his hand to each door in succession. The middle door was noticeably colder.

Finn wondered for how many years—how many decades—Maleficent had been confined to the various tunnels and lairs beneath the Magic Kingdom. It seemed no wonder she’d turned to the dark side of her powers.

“How do we do this?” Maybeck asked, now that he’d led them here.

“I don’t think we knock,” Philby said.

“Actually…maybe we do,” Finn said, surprising the other two. He thought for a minute and said, “Have either of you ever run track?”

Maybeck nodded.

“How about the relay?” Finn asked.

Maybeck nodded again.

“Drivers, start your engines,” Finn said. He pulled the boys into a three-way huddle and told them his plan.

“Knock, knock!” Finn said loudly. “It’s your favorite Disney Host Interactive,” he announced. He kept one eye on the wall clock. The coffee break was scheduled to last fifteen minutes. Six of those minutes were behind them.

No answer. Seven minutes gone; eight minutes remaining.

“I’ve come to offer you a deal.”

Spines of ice crept up the edges of the closed door. Finn could picture the witch standing just on the other side. His knees felt weak, but he had to go through with this.

He raised his voice. “We’re through. We’re done. Wayne—he’s an old guy who sent us here to steal something from you—but we’ve had a change of heart. We want to destroy the server. The computer that generates our DHIs. We don’t want to do this anymore.” Still nothing, though the ice on the door thickened. “We don’t know which server it is. We don’t know what to do. You help us—without hurting us—and we’ll give you the pens.”