Kingdom Keepers III(114)
“Okay,” Philby heard the director from the house say over an intercom, “we’re through the opening without a glitch, let’s keep it running.” The technician clicked a button on the console in front of him, keeping his eyes on the screen.
Philby quickly saw that the variously colored segments of each row on the master display related directly to events happening onstage below. The tech director stopped the show to adjust one of the lighting cues, and the technician, following his instructions, tapped a few keys on his console, extending one blue bulge on the lighting display. When they ran the cue again, a corresponding blue light on stage remained lit a fraction of a second longer than before. Satisfied, the man let the show continue.
To the right of the console were several other computer screens, and while this might have overwhelmed any of the other Kingdom Keepers, Philby found himself right at home. The top screen was a list of pyrotechnic effects and, as Philby studied it, he realized that the other screens pertained to the other categories on the larger flat panel. The screens on the right expanded and explained the events on the main screen. The discovery intrigued Philby: if he could get into that chair, he would have full control over every light, sound, trapdoor, and explosion that happened on stage.
Including those that were never supposed to happen.
* * *
Charlene, Amanda, and Finn were tucked into a thicket that looked out onto the backstage entrance to the Fantasmic! stage. From here the structure looked like an oil-rig platform, a series of open concrete platforms rising higher and higher, enclosed in steel-pipe railings painted a sky blue. For safety’s sake, there was only a single entrance to the backstage area. And though that entrance was presently unguarded, something warned Finn not to try it. Don’t go there, a voice said in his head, and he took this to be not only his own unconscious thought, but somehow—and he didn’t pretend to know how it might be possible—a message from Wayne. He felt something guiding him, like the kind of power a song could have over him, or the way he felt sometimes late at night when nothing in the world made any sense, and then he’d picture his mother or father and for no explainable reason he would feel okay again. Like that. Weird, strange emotions that carried through and penetrated his core, so deep that he knew to obey them.
“We need another way in,” he said, bracing himself for the challenges he felt certain to come. But on this night he was to be surprised.
“Okay,” Charlene said. She’d never taken her eyes off the stage’s superstructure. She seemed to be breaking it down level by level, bolt by bolt. “I have a theory. Just a theory. I need like thirty seconds to check it out.”
“Involving?”
“If I’m right,” she said, “I can get you in there.”
“Go for it,” he said.
“It’s a little risky,” she added. “So if anything happens…well, don’t forget about me. I’m not saying that. But do what needs to be done first and figure me out after. You got it?”
Was this the same girl who had once tried to make everything all about her? Could one person change like that? So quickly? So completely? Charlene herself attributed the change to her participation in the adventure at Animal Kingdom. And where Maybeck might have questioned her, or accused her of being the traitor they all expected, Finn decided to do otherwise.
“Should I talk you out of it?” he asked.
“No. I hope not. Stay tuned. BRB.”
As she took off, running out into the open, Finn reached for her arm to stop her, but missed. As far as he could tell she had not yet taken her eyes off the superstructure. Whatever her idea was, it seemed to consume all her attention. Even now, as she sprinted across the paved area, as Finn feared she was going to go against what he’d said and use the backstage entrance anyway, as he rose and felt his jaw drop to allow him to yell out to stop her, she never flinched, never looked away from the superstructure above and ahead of her.
As he was about to call out, Amanda took his arm and pulled him back down. He shook her off and broke her grip, furious that she’d stopped him. What did she know? If something happened to Charlene, it wasn’t Amanda who’d get blamed. No, the blame would fall squarely on him. Being the leader also meant being the loser if there was loss.
Charlene jumped and spun around and was suddenly running backward nearly as fast as she had been going forward. She’d broken her staring contest with the stage, and was now looking back at the trees, at her friends. Her eyes were defiant, as if she possessed a secret none of the rest of them knew. Finn felt as if she were looking him straight in the eye. For a moment an icy panic stole through him: she was the traitor about to betray them.