Legacy of Secrets Read online

  “I think…” Finn said, watching the same two boys explode out of the recessed doorway of a bookstore to the right of the arcade and sprint across Main Street, “…we gotta get out of here! Come on!”

  Finn ran smack into the door as he tried to pass through it. “Fear,” he said, twisting the doorknob, his stomach in knots. As early DHIs, the Keepers had had to deal with fear limiting their projections. Now it was happening again. Maybeck passed through. Charlene waited for Finn to get the door open, and they both slipped out into the hall.

  “They’re coming,” Maybeck whispered from the top of the stairs.

  “Tool room,” Finn said.

  Maybeck—able to keep his cool—passed through the door, unlocked it, and admitted Finn and Charlene. He got the door closed just as the two boys bounded up the stairs, panting.

  Finn held his hands apart, then, focusing, swept them through each other in wraithlike fashion. Maybeck and Charlene nodded in agreement. Charlene indicated the tools at their feet, making a motion of clubbing something. Finn shook his head. They would not be striking Cast Members with hammers. Not today.

  Door by door, the Cast Members searched the rooms, saying things like, “Nothing,” “Empty!” and “No one!”

  Finn tried to concentrate and make his hands lose their all clear. When he tried to clap, his palms passed through one another.

  “We back away the moment it opens,” Maybeck said. The others nodded.

  Finn heard the door to Roy’s office bump shut. Theirs would be next. Timing was everything. He had no desire for the Cast Members to see three ghosts step through walls—that would start too many rumors. Nor did he want them to have a chance to see and possibly remember their faces. Finn concentrated and picked up the sound of the boys’ shoes on the hallway’s plywood floor.

  As those same footsteps slowed, Finn held out his hand, so that Maybeck and Charlene could see him count down with his fingers: three, two, one. They stepped back and through the wall in unison just as the door swung open.

  All would have been fine had the Cast Members not left a sentry in the hallway. But one boy entered the tool room, and one remained behind.

  He turned. “Got ’em!”

  He likely hadn’t seen them step through the wall, but he might wonder later how they’d miraculously shown up only a few feet away. The three Keepers ran for the stairs.

  “No sides!” Maybeck called to his friends. He didn’t want the Cast Members to see the side view of their two-dimensional projections: a thin blue line. He took the stairs two at a time. Finn, Charlene, and the Cast Members followed a yard or two behind. At the bottom, Maybeck didn’t hesitate for a second: he headed straight through the wall instead of taking the door leading backstage. Finn and Charlene followed suit, finding themselves in a darkened theater where Disney cartoons played on multiple screens.

  “Look, Mommy! They came out of the picture!” said a young boy in shorts with suspenders.

  “Don’t point, Jimmy! It’s impolite.” Thankfully, the mother had missed their entrance. Still, she stared, perhaps wondering why the three kids had glowing blue outlines. The Keepers sidestepped out of the theater-in-the-round trying not to reveal their lack of depth.

  Getting across Main Street proved trickier. They waited for a horse-drawn trolley to use as a screen, Finn thinking all the while that somewhere behind them were two very confused Cast Members who had to be wondering how three people their own ages had managed to vanish into thin air.

  IN THE SECOND-FLOOR CONFERENCE room in Disney Studios’ Frank G. Wells building, eight grown-ups and a young woman sat around a blond-wood oval table. Refreshments and drinks awaited on a side table. A projector screen displayed art images of the current project under discussion: a virtual maze to be installed in Disneyland, which would match the one discovered in Cinderella’s Castle in Walt Disney World.

  Jess, who considered herself as close to being Amanda’s sister as a nonrelative could get, thought back to Escher’s Keep, a confounding assortment of Hogwarts-like misleading stairways, virtual floors, and trapdoors that, if climbed correctly, led the climber to what had been planned as Walt Disney’s private apartment atop the Castle. Still, as a newcomer to the Imagineers’ “Tink Tank,” an elite think tank comprising the company’s most brilliant creative minds, Jess, one of only two teens in attendance, kept her mouth shut. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to have seen Escher’s Keep in person, much less climbed it with Wayne.

  A knock on the locked conference room door stopped the conversation. When the chairman accessed a small security device, Jess gasped at the face on its video screen: Tim Walters. This had to be some kind of joke! She knew Tim from the dorm at the Disney School of Imagineering, where she and Amanda were in residence. He couldn’t possibly be a member of the Tink Tank without her knowing. But obviously he was. So more to the point: How long had he been in the Tink Tank, and had he had anything to do with her invitation to join?

  Tim was admitted and the door secured behind him. As he took a seat across and down the table, he looked straight at Jess from his six-foot-five towering height.

  For Jess, this changed everything, though she wasn’t sure exactly how. She had been searching for a way to find out more about a new version of DHI that would likely put her friends, the Kingdom Keepers, into the history books and out of service. She’d heard about the version 2.8 DHIs at an earlier Tink Tank meeting and had been terrified ever since. If the Keepers were retired from service, who would protect the parks?

  “I wonder if,” Jess said to those at the table, “when the virtual maze is installed, DHIs wouldn’t make the perfect guides? A hologram can step on but not trigger a trapdoor, for instance, or walk through a mirrored hallway, causing all sorts of illusions.”

  “I like that,” the man she took to be a film director said. Exact identities of Tink Tank members were not part of introductions. Members simply went by their first names. Jess thought there was at least one Disney animator, an architect or engineer, and a college professor in addition to the film director in the room. But she had many others to figure out. “When we roll out the new line, it wouldn’t be a horrible idea to add a couple DHIs dedicated to just the maze. Thoughts?”

  Several attendees nodded. Tim glared at Jess, as if trying to tell her something. His countenance bothered and distracted her. She wanted to ignore him, but found it nearly impossible.

  “When would that be?” Jess asked, trying to sound innocent. “Would the timing work?”

  “We can leave that kind of detail to the Imagineers,” said today’s chairperson, a woman who was likely an Imagineer herself. “Let’s make a note of it. Good thinking, Jessica.”

  Tim’s eyes were like lasers, trying to melt her face like a candle held up to wax. Jess managed to look away. Now she understood: he was jealous!

  After fifteen minutes of discussion about partnering with a British aviation company to create a working replica of the Millennium Falcon, which would offer flights out of John Wayne Airport in Anaheim, the board members took a ten-minute refreshment break. The Tink Tankers paired off and clustered in small groups to socialize or discuss proposals “off-line.” Jess headed straight for Tim, who seemed to want to avoid her.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” Jess said.

  “Let me give you the four-one-one: I’ve been a Tinker—that’s what we call ourselves—for six months. Yes, I was asked to keep an eye on you and Amanda, but not like spying, not in a bad way. More like an evaluation, a tryout, you could say. Yes, I recommended you and not Amanda to the Tinkers, and if you ever tell her that, I’ll never speak to you again. Sadly, I had no influence whatsoever. By the time I made my suggestion, they’d already decided to invite you. No, that had nothing do with our friendship.” He shook his head, deep in thought. “Joe knows some of what we’ve done, I suppose….I haven’t told anyone personally.”

  Jess, unable to speak, toed the carpet.

  “Look,” he said, “I’m goi
ng to pull rank on you. I’m older. I’ve been in DSI longer, and I’ve been a Tinker longer. In here, you learn things you can’t tell anyone about, and it drives you a little nuts. You learn to get good at saying nothing when you hear a rumor you know all about, but after a while you become pretty isolated and introverted. You want to watch that with Amanda. Don’t let it mess up you two. I’ve lost some friends I wish I could get back.” He smiled suddenly. “Now, praise the Disney gods! I have someone I can talk to!”

  In that moment, Jess saw Tim in a whole new light. He was a Tinker, helping to shape Disney for years to come. He’d had to work through having a chip on his shoulder. What she’d taken to be arrogance was likely a defense mechanism, a way to protect himself and keep from spouting out details about top-secret programs. His intelligence was for real—unless he had some gift like hers that he had yet to mention. She measured him differently; appreciated him more.

  “You broke the rules,” she said softly. “You and Amanda. I’m not like that.”

  “I think I figured that out.”

  “There’s more we need from the basement,” she said. Amanda and Tim had previously snuck into the dormitory’s restricted area in search of the DSI’s secret archives. “It’s not like you two can go down there again.”

  “No.” They had nearly been caught by a pair of robots under the direction of an old maintenance man, had been questioned by Imagineering School authorities, and had come so close to being expelled that only quick thinking and luck had saved them. Tim had apparently learned his lesson.

  He turned her, so she was speaking toward the wall. Jess got the message, and lowered her voice. “I need your support on this,” was all she’d tell him. He tried to provoke more from her, but Jess was whisperingly stubborn.

  “We’re friends, right?” she asked.

  “Well, yeah,” he said begrudgingly. Tim was not a boy easily led down the road of sentimentality.

  “Then let me be blunt.” As if another option was on the table. “Being so tall has some advantages, I’m sure. It’s kind of hard not to pay attention from down here, not to be intimidated by you, not to place more trust in you as a leader.”

  Tim’s face contorted, expressing concern, but Jess kept talking.

  “But being tall and a boy does not make you right more often than me. Being smarter does. And if you’re smart, you’ll help me out on this, because then I’ll help you out on stuff you want to propose.”

  “I never considered doing otherwise.”

  “Oh.” She looked almost hurt.

  “But not because of any of your psychobabble. Because you’re a friend, Jess. That’s all: I like you. I won’t support stupid stuff you propose, and you shouldn’t do that for me either. But I have yet to hear anything stupid come out of your mouth. That’s why. Not for any other reason.”

  “Seriously?” Was her face as red as it felt?

  “Would you like me to pretend I’m in awe of your and Amanda’s…talents?” he said, finding the word after a moment of thought. “I’m not. Well, maybe a little, but I’m not gaga or anything. I’ve worked with the people in this room for almost a year. Maybe they can’t move a chair without touching it the way Amanda can, or freakishly draw stuff that hasn’t happened yet, but that doesn’t make their talents any less awesome.”

  Jess didn’t like being called freakish. She was about to object when she realized that Tim had probably suffered through the same descriptions, but for even longer. She had a hunch that being six feet tall in sixth grade had seemed cool to everyone but the person who was six feet tall.

  “It’s about what that kid Nick told us,” she said.

  He nodded. “I figured.”

  “Seriously?”

  “You ask that a lot,” he said. “You can assume I’m serious unless I make you laugh.”

  She laughed.

  “There.” He wasn’t only six foot five; his smile was big as well, his teeth blindingly white and perfect. It was the fact that all this came in a kind of goofy package that made Jess feel things for Tim she’d have rather not. “Break’s over,” he said, indicating the conference table.

  “Do you trust all these people?” she asked.

  Tim looked around carefully. “Well, I did until you asked me that. Now I’m going to have to think about it.”

  Back at the table, business chugged along. Tinkers raised issues or projects or problems. When a lull occurred, Jess spoke up. “I’ve got a question.”

  “Yes, Jessica?”

  “I’ve heard at least one file was confiscated from that storage area,” she said. “Can that be confirmed?”

  Shock registered in the eyes of the other Tinkers. “I can confirm that,” said the chairwoman.

  “Since I’m basically at the level of an intern on this board, I thought I could volunteer to inventory the collection, to reveal what else might have been taken.”

  “That’s a big job,” the chairwoman said. Her voice indicated at least passing interest. “But that’s quite an idea.”

  “When will you possibly find time for such a project?” asked a middle-aged woman with dark hair whose identity had stumped Jess so far. The woman’s apparent knowledge of DSI caused Jess to wonder if she wasn’t connected to the program.

  “There are nights,” Tim said. “I could help her. Since we’re both board members, I’m assuming the information wouldn’t be considered off-limits and,” he added, continuing before anyone could correct him, “it might be good to get the archiving up-to-date and into a database of some kind. Unless, of course, that’s already been handled.”

  “No, I don’t believe it has,” said a man with wispy gray hair, a thin, straight mustache, and drooping eyes. He reminded Jess of an old dog. “I like this idea,” he declared, nodding to the chairwoman.

  “If it hasn’t been done, Arthur, it would be of value….” the chairwoman said.

  Jess nearly shrieked! Arthur Chancefeldt was a Disney Legend. He’d written several best-selling histories of the company and had been a force behind forming the Disney Archives.

  “Of course it would!” the old dog proclaimed.

  “We could bring in others,” Jess suggested. “To help lighten the load, so long as Tim and I oversaw the work.”

  “I don’t recommend that,” the man said sternly. “Few outside this group know of the vault’s existence, much less its content. That material was tucked away for a reason.”

  “It was too sensitive for Cast Members, too important to destroy,” Jess said, theorizing, freezing the air and everyone in the room along with it. The effect was so profound and immediate that it startled her. She drew the scorn of Tim. But she had their attention now, and she felt the urge to push forward. “A schism. A challenge to authority—to the company itself. Damaging information, or at least potentially damaging. I can see I must be close! If we’re all sworn to secrecy, then why not tell me?”

  “And me!” Tim said. “Accidents in the park? Lawsuits against the company? What can be that damaging?”

  “Suffice it to say,” said the chairwoman, “that this is a committee that deals with the present and the future, not the past. There are others who handle such things, not us.”

  “But the completeness of the archive,” said Chancefeldt, nodding his support of the chairwoman, “is very much our concern. The absolute secrecy and security of the documents therein must be ensured.”

  The chairwoman’s disapproving face implied he’d gone too far. “Never mind all that,” she said. “Those in favor of Jess’s proposal?” A number of hands went up. “Opposed?” Two hands: one, from the movie director, who struck Jess as the type who enjoyed voting against the others; the second from a bone-thin woman with an artist’s flair to her appearance. Her lack of mass made it difficult to determine her age; she might have been in her late twenties or early sixties. Her dark eyes conveyed a deep-seated warning to Jess, less threat than caution. It was almost as if she were trying to say, I’ve been there and you do not
want to go.

  What it all meant, Jess wasn’t sure. But it colored her moment of triumph—she and Tim were approved to inventory the secret archives!—and left her feeling like a child on her own for the first time, watching her parents turn the lock behind them and wondering about being in the house at night, all alone.

  “I’VE HAD AN IDEA. Follow me.”

  So much as a projection could startle, Finn did. The voice belonged to Wayne, who even as a teenager could be as cryptic as the man he’d turn out to be later in life. And just like that much-vaunted Imagineer, this younger version of Wayne took off before allowing Finn, Maybeck, or Charlene any chance to respond—a “my way or the highway” man, not disposed to democracy.

  The three followed him, Maybeck checking behind for the boys they’d encountered at Roy’s Main Street office.

  “Although, it’s good to be cautious,” Wayne said, leading them through a mercantile shop. It was stocked with toys and items the teens viewed as antiques. The Mickey Mouse stuffed animals looked nothing like the Mickey they knew; the postcards and trinkets they’d seen only on eBay, selling for hundreds of dollars. A few of the T-shirts and sweatshirts were the same as in present time; Disney had come out with a line of “retro” clothing that attempted to duplicate these same relics.

  “Mr. Disney knows me, you see,” Wayne said. He spoke over his shoulder, as if expecting the Keepers to be hanging on his every word—which they were. “I know for a fact he and Mrs. Disney plan to ride the various attractions today, just as they did yesterday. I happen to know their schedule as well,” he added proudly. “They are riding the Mad Tea Party in a few minutes with their children. Mrs. Disney does not like taking her purse on the more active rides.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Maybeck asked, dodging a rack of black-and-white postcards.

  “It means,” said Finn, “that Wayne intends to hold Mrs. Disney’s purse for her.”

  “Because,” said Charlene, “women carry what’s important to them in their purses.”