snd me to MK plez
wll cll for RTRN
confirm
He grimaced as a text returned almost immediately.
just spoke to Wyn. he’s waiting in MK 4 u.
Why was Philby talking to Wayne at this time of night? He checked his phone, assuming Wayne tried to call him first.
Nothing.
A troubled Finn climbed back into bed and closed his eyes. He pictured a train tunnel, pitch-black, and then, faintly, way at the end, a pinprick of light piercing the dark. Ever so slowly the size of the tiny speck of light increased, first to a dot, then a dime-size circle, and finally a dish of white light speeding toward him. Weighed down by a long day and a short night, he fell back to sleep.
When he opened his eyes, Finn found himself sitting on the pavers of the Hub—the central square—in front of Cinderella Castle. He looked up at the statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse holding hands and heard the incredibly faint hum, like the sound of an irritated insect, that confirmed he wasn’t dreaming. He’d crossed over as a hologram.
He studied his hands and looked down at his legs, admiring the radical improvements of DHI 2.0. It was like going from standard television to high-def. In its first iteration, the hologram-projecting software had created a blue outline around the edges. Now his full hologram barely even glowed in the dark, and there was no blue line whatsoever. Despite a few bugs that had yet to be worked out, he could see all the advantages the upgrade gave him and the others when battling the Overtakers.
He pulled himself to his feet, feeling the effect of his fatigue, wondering how he would make it through the day of school that would start in a matter of hours. With the ongoing battle at the Base, sleep had been an afterthought the past few weeks.
He kept in a crouch, wary of prying eyes, like a spy sneaking behind enemy lines. While many of the park characters sided with the Keepers, a significant number had joined the Overtakers in wanting to seize control of the parks and install black magic. Inconveniently, those characters aligning with the OTs typically possessed powers bestowed upon them by their creator, Walt Disney: magic, the ability to cast spells or to transfigure themselves. Some possessed a raw physical power that far exceeded that of humans—especially humans in the form of holograms. Disney had created not just memorable villains, but dangerous ones. It wasn’t only Finn’s hologram at risk, but his sleeping self back in his bed. He remained alert.
He had no desire to enter into what he and the Keepers called the Siege. It wasn’t his night for defending the Engineering Base at Disney’s Hollywood Studios—the ongoing siege by the OTs that had been in place for two weeks. More important, no arrangements had been made for backup. He’d notified none of the other Keepers—except for Philby, whom he needed to return—that he was coming here.
He had no idea where any characters that supported the Keepers might be: Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, or Ariel, among others. There was no time to seek them out. If they found him, they found him. The parks at night were a kind of no-man’s-land, filled with risk. At any location, at any attraction, at any time, an Overtaker could appear. He moved ahead cautiously, well aware that as a leader of the Keepers he would be a big prize if captured.
He didn’t love the idea of walking down Main Street, U.S.A., but it was the only way to reach the Engine Co. 71 firehouse. He started out at a cautious walk, but once onto the sidewalk, took off at a run. He hated to admit it, but sometimes not seeing or hearing anyone at all in a park at night was worse than being chased.
At the corner by the Emporium, he crouched and carefully studied every view in every direction, not wanting to lead any OTs to the apartment over the firehouse. Never mind that the old man who lived there, and had done so for decades without Finn’s help, had not been seen there in well over a year. Finn did not want to be the one who accidentally sabotaged him. Finn had no idea how the man would contact him, only that he would—the way he’d secretly contacted him several times in the past few months.
The man had taught Finn everything there was to know about being a Kingdom Keeper, about being a leader. Finn wasn’t about to question him now. He had faith that the man somehow knew Finn had crossed over, that the man would find him when it was safe to do so.
A few minutes later, when he heard the hiss from the Walt Disney World Railroad locomotive, he knew. The train had no business running in the wee hours of the night. Or if it did, it was Finn’s business. Keepers’ business. He took off at a run.
As Finn reached the top of the stairs at the station platform, the train was already moving. Finn jumped aboard and looked forward and back: empty. The only person was the engineer, seen from the back on the front side of the coal-car—the tender that carried wood or coal for the steam engine. After traveling a hundred yards or so, the train was up to speed, moving at a good pace. When Finn looked next, the engineer was gone, the locomotive driverless. Then a head popped up out of the coal-car, and the engineer struggled to throw a leg over the wall and climb down into the passenger cars. He moved through the first two cars and was wearing a smile by the time he faced Finn.