Kingdom Keepers III(110)

“I can do this,” he heard slip past his own lips. As faint as a whisper, not something anyone heard—or so he hoped. But Amanda shot him a fearful and sympathetic look that said otherwise. At the very least she had heard; at the very least one other person knew his deepest fear.

Willa and Charlene caught up to them.

“Assignments?” Philby asked. That was another thing: when they’d first come together as a group, everyone was constantly jockeying for control, trying to come up with a better idea, a better plan. Now only Maybeck voiced that kind of discontent, and even so, less and less. Philby wasn’t telling, he was asking; and no one but Finn would be expected to answer.

“Give us the layout,” Finn said. Maybe that was why Wayne had chosen him: because he understood the value of each Kingdom Keeper, knew when to seek advice.

“A control room. Seating for several thousand. Two acres of water with a channel down the middle and a natural-gas pipe running just under the surface. A flotilla of a dozen barges. A multitiered performance stage complete with various trapdoors, zip lines, stunt pillows, all over five stories high, including another three stories below stage level with multiple staircases, dressing rooms and enough pyrotechnics on hand to be monitored by the federal government.”

“Sounds…dangerous,” Amanda said.

“Sounds big,” said Willa.

Philby, hearing their comments, snapped his head toward Amanda, then shot Finn an intense look.

Finn said, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I can’t believe we missed it.”

“Missed what, you guys?” Amanda said.

“You nailed it,” Philby said. “Fantasmic! has everything, including isolation, to make it—”

“A base of operations for the Overtakers,” Finn said.

“If they ever got their hands on all the ordnance—”

“That’s fireworks,” Willa explained to Amanda, in case she hadn’t heard the term, but Amanda nodded as if she already knew that.

“—together with the boats,” Philby continued, “and the way Fantasmic! is laid out, it would give them a base of operations. A fort. A defensible position from which to launch strikes on the various parks.”

“Willa,” Finn said, “you’ll hang back. We need one person keeping watch on the whole place while the rest of us focus on specific tasks.”

“I can do that,” Willa said.

“You’re our go-to person. Anyone needs help,” he told the others, “Willa’s it. She’s our wild card.”

“I’ve been called worse,” she said.

“I don’t know if I should say this or not,” Amanda said. “But couldn’t the Overtakers hang out in place like this for a long time before anyone ever figured it out? I mean it’s so far removed from everything else.”

“I think that’s the point,” Finn said. “That’s the point exactly.”

“But what if that’s what Wayne discovered?” she asked. “What if they already control Fantasmic!—then aren’t we walking into a trap?”

Philby glanced at Finn, who looked back at Philby. Their DHIs shimmered, revealing they were on an edge of the projection range. Their DHIs spit static and glowed off-color.

Finn said, “No, we’d be running into a trap.” With that, he and Philby picked up the pace and the girls followed. Five glowing figures stealing through the dark up a path toward flashes of light reflecting off the low-lying clouds as booming explosions combined with a narrator’s excited voice rippling through the air.

The show had begun.





39


“YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE to duck down on the floor,” Wanda said.

“On the floor?” Maybeck complained, “But it’s a subcompact!”

“Besides, we’re invisible!” Jess said, finding the state disconcerting and upsetting. Invisibility wasn’t the thrill she’d imagined. It left her feeling half dead, as if she didn’t exist and never would again.

“Keep low,” Wanda said. “There’s no choice. You’re going to reappear at some point, and though I doubt they’ll search the car, they might glance in through the windows or something and it would be bad luck if that’s when you showed back up. I put a blanket back there, and some clothes. Just make it look messy.”

“Messy,” Maybeck said, “I can do.”

He told Jess he’d take the bottom so he wouldn’t crush her and instructed her to pull the blanket completely over them. She nodded, feeling nervous about lying on top of Maybeck, nervous about the Security guards at Hollywood Studios, nervous about her invisibility and the thought she might suddenly reappear at the wrong moment. In short, nervous about everything.