He caught sight of Philby, in roughly the same position, about twenty feet in front of him.
It sounded like an explosion. The trailing car crashed into their stopped vehicle, sending car parts overhead in a shower of metal and plastic. Some pieces went forty feet up or higher, falling onto the plaza below in great thunderous crashes. An electric motor sailed fifty yards out into a parking lot behind the pavilion. Smoke curled above them, while Finn pictured himself somewhere in the midst of all that destruction, knowing what it would have meant for him, understanding what had just happened. Philby had saved his life.
They moved hand over hand along the perimeter of the track until they were over an awning.
“On three,” Philby said. And they let go, falling in unison. They bounced off and slid down the awning and landed on their feet with only a few scratches to show for their adventure. Finn’s face was sunburned from the infrared lights and his hair was singed above both ears into tangled curls.
They found the sword point-end down in a flower bed, which reminded Finn of The Sword in the Stone. He retrieved it and found he could slip it between his belt and pants and that it would hold.
“Don’t know where our shoes ended up,” Philby said. “Sorry about that.”
Finn faced his friend, thinking about all that had happened in the past few minutes.
“Sorry?” he said. Their shoes were the furthest thing from Finn’s mind. Then he smiled at Philby. “Yeah, you’d better be sorry.”
He threw an arm over Philby’s shoulder, and Philby did the same. The two headed off to the rendezvous in stocking feet, the point of the sword clanking against the concrete plaza with each determined step.
34
AFTER SOME TEXTING, the group met at the rendezvous. It was a few minutes past 3 AM, but no one looked tired. Maybeck was missing a shoe; Willa, a sock. Finn and Philby were shoeless.
Finn pointed out that they couldn’t just stand around talking—they were far too visible, far too vulnerable. Surprisingly, it wasn’t Philby or Willa who came up with the idea of secreting themselves into a corporate lounge, but Charlene.
“Remember that charity event we did at The Seas with Nemo and Friends? The one with the hospital kids? How ’bout there?”
“Brilliant!” said Philby. “It used to be the United Technologies lounge. The company left the park in 1998 and—”
“Spare us the history lesson,” Maybeck quipped. “Let’s just get out of here.”
The Living Seas pavilion was across the plaza and toward the entry gate, a location Finn liked because they needed a place to hide until the Lost and Found opened—and it would be close by to the lounge.
They divided into two groups in case they were spotted or attacked. Maybeck’s group went first. Finn followed with Willa, Amanda, and Philby a few minutes later.
The lounge’s dark wood paneling, retro furniture, wall decorations, and acrylic piano were a throwback to 1980s decor. A large metal sculpture of a fish stared out from one wall. But the prize of the room was the one entire wall consisting of a window into Nemo’s five-million-gallon aquarium, offering dazzling views and endless visual thrills as fish and sea animals swam past.
Finn asked Amanda to speak first. He couldn’t take his eyes off her as she recounted what she’d witnessed from the control room atop the Mayan Temple.
“I never had to warn any of you,” she said, “but what I saw surprised me. Twice the drawbridge over the lake raised and lowered—”
“That would be the bridge opposite where we crossed,” Charlene interrupted, speaking to Willa.
Amanda continued. “And anyway, the globe left the lake the first time, but the second time I couldn’t see what it was about. Nothing much happened. It just went up, and a few minutes later, back down. Also, the robot guys on the Segways—the dummies—are constantly patrolling. Around and around the lake. It seemed to me the Overtakers basically have full control of the place.”
Willa told them about her and Jess’s trials at Soarin’ and her discovery of the maintenance journal and the single frame of film with the image of a seat belt on it.
Charlene told about Wayne’s video, holding everyone in rapt attention. She read from her notes his exact words, looking up between each comment: “‘a deception of the worst kind…beware your friends and know your enemies…remember: we stand under it to get out of the rain but it lives above our brain…the solution is in Norway. Trust it…later, you all will need more…’ He talked about Wanda and said he didn’t name her by chance, that ‘it is mightier than the sword.’”