“An air-conditioned car,” Amanda said.
“You don’t know that was her,” Philby said.
“Sure I do. Sure as I’m sitting here.”
“I would err on the side of precaution,” Wanda said, “if I were you.”
“What’s the Engineer Base?” Philby said.
“Where you’ll get your answers. Data from the Studios, Epcot, and the Animal Kingdom are fed into a central office that’s housed in the back lot of the Studios. The Imagineers refer to it simply as the Base.”
“What about the Magic Kingdom?”
“No. Their equipment is older, and with the Utilidor, that park is basically self-contained and self-sufficient when it comes to engineering. But Epcot, yes. If you get into the Base you’ll have all the temperature data you want.”
“It’s too risky,” Finn said. “We just barely got out of there the last time.”
“Yes, but the last time you were you,” Wanda said, “and the Studios still had people inside.”
“Yeah? So?”
“What if this time you went back as your DHIs, at night, after it closed?”
“Same answer: too risky. And complicated. Philby programmed us to cross over into Epcot.”
Finn looked at Philby, whose face was all in a knot.
“Didn’t you?” Finn asked.
“Not exactly. I opened a backdoor on the software so I can control it.”
“Control it how?” Amanda asked.
“The projectors,” he answered. “I can control the DHI projectors from any laptop, any computer. I can decide which park a DHI lands in after crossing over.”
“Wait a second! I didn’t hear about this!” Finn said.
“It wasn’t like we had a lot of time to talk,” Philby said, reminding him. “I’m pretty sure I can control who crosses over into what park. I turn the projectors off in the parks we don’t want to go, and leave them on in the one where we do. It’s pretty basic.”
“We can cross over into the Studios?” Finn said curiously.
“We should be able to cross over into anywhere there are projectors: the two kingdoms, the Studios, and Epcot. And it gets better than that,” Philby said.
“Meaning?” Amanda asked.
“I think I should be able to toggle our DHIs on and off.”
“Same question,” Amanda said.
“It means I can decide who crosses over and who doesn’t.”
“Cannot,” said Finn.
“Didn’t know I could until I was in there debugging, but yeah, I think I can. And there’s only one way to find out.”
“Why do I not like the sound of that?” said Finn.
“We just have to make sure that whoever’s on the list to go—one of them has to be able to get to the remote, or there’s no return. And I realize that Jess crossed back over from Epcot when we hit the return in the Studios, but I don’t think we should count on that always working. It would be better to all return together, like we usually do. We don’t want to get someone stuck—as in the Syndrome.”
“That doesn’t exactly sound reassuring,” Amanda said.
“And Wanda…we’re going to have to trust Wanda to move the remote for us,” Finn said. “It’s currently in MK. It’ll have to be in the Studios if Philby and I are going to get out without having to go all the way over to MK.”
“I can do that for you,” Wanda said. She pulled up a chair to the table, grabbed a napkin and a pen, and started to draw. “Let me show you where to go once you’re inside,” she said.
Finn looked over at her, wondering if he could trust this woman with the fob. There was only the one fob, as far as he knew. If they ever lost it, there would be no crossing back—their DHIs would be stuck, their human selves would be caught in the Syndrome. It required an enormous leap of faith—just the kind of thing Wayne would use to test Finn. “The Base,” Wanda said, “is going to have everything you want.”
19
FINN OPENED HIS EYES to find himself lying beneath what looked like a giant mouth. He flinched, flailing his arms, still half asleep.
“You’re all right,” he heard Philby say.
It wasn’t a mouth about to eat him, Finn realized, but the bottom of Mickey’s giant sorcerer’s hat in the Hollywood Studios plaza.
Philby sat off to the side, cross-legged.
“You’re late,” he said.
“You ever have it where all you want to do is sleep, but it just isn’t happening?” Finn sat up.
“All the time.”
“That was me tonight.”
“We should get out of here,” Philby said. “You’re glowing like a night-light.”