Kingdom Keepers IV(51)
Behind them, the server room door opened and two men came out. The second one checked to make sure the door was locked, and the two said good-night.
“Can you manage all clear?” Philby asked.
“Maybe for a few seconds.”
“Unlock the door and let me in.”
Finn nodded. They stood in front of the door. Willa needed him, Finn reminded himself. He closed his eyes and pictured the train coming. When he opened them again, the blue line shimmered around his filthy sleeve. He stepped through the box and the closed door into the server room. The lights were off. No one was there. Good.
Ten seconds later, he watched the blue line fade until it was gone. He reached out and unlocked the door for Philby.
A few minutes later, two cardboard boxes were discovered by a cleaning crew outside the server room. The cleaners picked up the boxes and carried them to recycling, while on the other side of the wall two nervous boys waited for them to pass.
“We’re in,” Philby said.
* * *
Jess sat upright in bed. While dozing over homework, she’d had the kissing dream again. The same steps in the background. She shuddered, feeling guilty and somewhat creepy. Finn was a good enough guy, but she didn’t think about him like that. She felt a little sick to her stomach. No matter how this went down, it couldn’t be good for anyone.
Her reaction was automatic and immediate. Once again she reached under her pillow and came out with her diary. She switched on her book light and flipped through the pages to the earlier sketch. There were details about the stairs to add: they stepped down left to right and—here was the weird part—weren’t equal in size. Bad perspective, she thought, or out of scale. She sketched in some planting that looked familiar to her, though she couldn’t place it. She added some texture to Finn’s face; he looked incredibly lifelike. Filled in his shirt with stripes. Modified the tailored shirt she was wearing in the sketch, only to realize it was a shirt she didn’t like very much. She lent it to Amanda more often than she wore it herself.
Well, there’s a solution, she thought. If she avoided wearing that particular shirt, then she wouldn’t be wearing it in the future. If she didn’t wear it in the future, then she wouldn’t kiss Finn.
Relief flooded through her. So simple. It all came down to avoiding that shirt.
* * *
“Here’s something to think about,” Philby said, standing alongside Finn, facing row after row of library-like shelving that held stacked computer servers, Ethernet routers, modems, power supplies, and wireless boxes, all blinking a constellation of colorful lights. “If the OTs are messing with this stuff, this is the time they mess with it: after the Park closes. We may not be alone here for long.”
“Way to cheer me up. Thanks,” said Finn.
Philby reached the DHI server, the electronic brains responsible for both generating their images and communicating those images to an array of Park projectors within the Magic Kingdom. It also tied to other DHI servers through fiber optic lines, in the Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Philby pulled out the tray holding the server’s keyboard and entered his back-door password. The system rejected the password.
“I thought it was a data transmission problem,” he said, half talking to himself. “There’s no attempt limit from the hardwired keyboard, only with remote access. I thought if tried my password from here I’d get in. But that’s not working. What I know for sure is that if I tried remotely and failed three times in a row, remote access would be denied for twenty-four hours. An alarm would be sent up-line. Engineering Base over in the Studios would see the hack attempt and probably notify Security. I’ve got one more remote try, but I know it’s not going to work. It’s the OTs. They were waiting for me.”
“You don’t actually know that.”
“You think it was the Imagineers? Wayne sends me a warning, then locks me out of the server? I don’t think so.”
“So what about Willa?”
Philby just stared at the screen, fuming. “The fob should still work for a Return—it’s sent wirelessly over the cell-phone frequency, a whole different subsystem than a manual Return. But it’s not going to be easy finding her.”
“You gotta get us into this machine.”
“Tell me about it. Okay. Give me a minute.” He laced his fingers over his head and closed his eyes.
“I can help out,” Finn offered.
Philby sat very still for several minutes. Finn grew increasingly impatient but said nothing.
“Okay,” Philby said, standing and moving down the aisle. “Let’s assume the OTs phished for my password, stole it, and then erased it. That would explain resetting the server and my losing the data connection. That would mean they can now access the server remotely, same way as I did. But,” he said pulling, out his phone, “if I try to access it one more time remotely and I fail, any remote access will be blocked for twenty-four hours, including theirs. That’ll leave the only access from here—this keyboard. But the OTs are not the only ones who can access this server.”