Kingdom Keepers V(20)

“These are difficult times, no question. But if I heard right, for you to act against those you refer to as OTKs would be a mistake. This will only incite and inflame and allow your enemies to raise even more volunteers. That is something to avoid at all costs.”

“But my aunt!” Maybeck said. “That’s not happening again.”

“Tasers!” Finn said.

“Yes. Problematic, and worthy of redress. But we must be wise. The smarter the army, the fewer the battles.”

“So we just wait for the next attack?” Willa said.

“No. Not hardly,” Wayne answered. “We must not be moved off our primary objective: undoing the Overtakers. Reducing their power base. Eliminating them as a viable threat to the Kingdom. I won’t, for a moment, pretend we don’t all have our individual grudges and causes. But for the moment, we must put these aside in favor of a higher calling.”

“And that is?” someone said.

“First, defending the Base. You realize any effort, any energy you put into these OTK attacks is energy drained from the more critical battle.”

“That’s the point of them, isn’t it?” Willa said.

“Of course,” he answered. “Distraction is critical to any success in battle. That is why we must meet them head-on. We mount an offensive. It is unexpected. The timing is perfect.”

“Tonight?” Finn asked.

“Haste…” Wayne said. “Need I remind you? We will act just as soon as we can organize an effective strategy. These things are not to be entered into lightly. There is much at stake.”

“How ’bout our survival?” Maybeck asked. “I’m telling you, I am not putting my aunt through that again. I’d rather break some heads than sit around waiting for some dumb plan. No offense.”

“The question we must ask ourselves is not how we defeat a particular enemy, but evil itself. Yes? For that’s the real battle at hand. Don’t be blinded by the powers of someone like Maleficent. Believe me, she is but a puppet. There are far higher powers at work here. Chernabog, for one.”

That silenced Wayne’s small audience. As far as the Keepers were concerned, things didn’t get much scarier and dangerous than Maleficent. The idea she was someone’s puppet did not bode well. Wayne had warned about the powers of Chernabog before, but they’d witnessed none of the beast’s powers. Like the Yeti he’d once inhabited, he seemed more the puppet—a big, furry nothing. Only once, in a performance of Fantasmic! when Chernabog had transfigured into a dragon, had he presented a real threat. And that had seemed like Maleficent’s doing, not his own.

Finn spoke first. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying we need to present a unified strategy and realize the worst is yet to come.”

“Worse than having your aunt Tasered?” Maybeck said.

“Worse,” Wayne answered. “I believe an attempt will be made to kill one or more of you.”

“You mean the Syndrome, don’t you?” Willa said. “To put us in the Syndrome?”

“No. I mean what I said.” Wayne settled in, sitting next to Finn on the windowsill. He looked ridiculous in the costume. “For months our technicians have been attempting to pin down the location of the Overtakers’ DHI server. This is nothing terribly new, unfortunately. We’ve been through this before.”

Philby nodded. He and Wayne had once entered the parks’ Virtual Maintenance Network as gaming avatars in an attempt to defeat the Overtakers. He liked the man and Wayne liked him. He cradled his phone in the pocket of his shorts, happy to have gotten it back after Mr. E.’s imposed study hall; he hated being without it.

“We possess highly sophisticated equipment for such efforts,” Wayne continued, “and yet the Overtakers continue to elude us. The Internet protocol address continues to move from place to place. We send in a strike team: no server. We’ve repeated this pattern, well…repeatedly. The only consistency in the pattern is that the IP address holds to coastal cities like Boca and Miami. That brings us to the more urgent topic at hand.” He surveyed the faces gazing up at him. So young, he thought, recalling his own youth and the heady days leading up to his career with Disney. “The upcoming cruise has been well publicized, as has your participation in it.”

The Keepers had connected a comment Maleficent had recently made to one of Jess’s drawings of a uniformed officer. At the time, it had seemed as if Maleficent intended to steal the Magic––a Disney cruise ship. Now, the reminder of the upcoming cruise made Finn wonder if they’d gotten the ship wrong. Was it the Dream? Was it the cruise they were all about to take?